Redemption (Dudley Dursley)

XXIV. Explanations.

As much as he wanted to deny it, there was still a little voice in the back of Dudley's head telling him things. It was easy for him to hide it from a few people considering he had met some of these people before or he had known who they were. This was decidedly different and it was causing him to discretely gnaw away on his bottom lip which wasn't even that discrete to be honest but he didn't really care. Felicity was in a worse state than him as she continually grabbed chunks of her hair and braiding them in different ways- a force of habit she had picked up on whenever she was really nervous. If this suspicion was correct, then things were going to get even more complicated between everyone.

He already knew that Harry was discussing with his friends along with other people at the Ministry about protecting them in some way. Dudley wanted to refuse all of that but he knew that there was no other way that he could defend both himself, his wife, and their child. Now he had to face any kind of fear that had never ebbed away before he got back in touch with Harry willingly, because today he was meeting another witch who he had only ever heard of. He didn't know if she was kind, witty, or mean. The only thing that was doing something to calm him down was that Harry and Ginny trusted this woman wholeheartedly and if they trusted her then she obviously knew her stuff. He'd heard from Hermione that almost all pure-blood wizards and witches were in some way related to each other considering there was only twenty families left in the world.

There really was a lot more parallels with his world and the magical world that he had been convincing himself were not true for a while. Every good side also has a bad side, effectively weighing one another out so that there is always a balance of some kind. Racism was a big thing now even though Dudley absolutely hates it, to him everyone is equal and shouldn't be treated any differently. For a long time, this wasn't the case because he was still under Vernon's furious scrutiny. It still shocked him at times just how brainwashed he had been when his dad had still been around, he was pretty much just a thick dark cloud threatening to let out a lot of rain if there was anything there to question it. He tried his best to not think of his dad now but there was always going to be times when things got a little too much and he would be thinking about his childhood.

He blinked a little bit as he felt something warm and metallic fall into his mouth and he realised with a start just how hard he was biting on his lip. It was enough to bring him out of his reverie and he looked around the room in a dazed state. His eyes landed on Felicity who seemed to be muttering numerous incoherent words underneath her breath and her hand was also resting gently against the tiny bump. Dudley stood up from where he was sitting and instead walked over to where she was and pulled her in tight against him. He knew that he was correct in his assumption of Felicity being scared as she let out a very shaky breath against the junction of his shoulder and neck. There wasn't much that he could do to try and calm her down considering his own heart was beating rapidly and goosebumps were etched into his skin.

Waiting wasn't really helping on the matter either. Harry had told them that Hestia lived in a wizarding town that muggles couldn't access without another witch or wizard. They didn't know many people who had magic yet apart from family and their close friends. Dudley doubted if he knew any more than twenty people in total if he was being honest with himself. It was still a drastic improvement to a few years ago as the only person he ever associated with was Harry and even then they were constantly at each other's throats. They couldn't be in the same room as each other for a specific amount of time without at least one of them blowing up, it was when they were both angry at one another that things turned nasty. Luckily that had only ever happened a handful of times but he still remembered things. He knew that when a witch or wizard (especially when they were still in schooling) got too worked up over something then they could perform a piece of magic even if it wasn't intended. It was always enough to stop him from getting too into it as he never wanted to get hurt.