Redemption (Dudley Dursley)

XXXI. Forgiveness.

As the name tumbled from Felicity's lips, disbelief surrounded her. She felt like her heart had stopped beating and every sound inside the room silenced completely. Everything around her blurring in to a black hole and no matter how hard she tried, she could not focus on anything. Her lips opened just enough so she could breathe properly. She tried to speak again but all moisture seemed to have been used to mutter that one word and nothing would come out.

How?

That was the only thing running through her mind. The last she had heard of him was that he had moved to Brighton after Petunia left him. And that had been nearing ten months ago. So much has happened in that time span. She could see that now. It was no secret that Vernon was a very large person, and this struck a warning bell for her. He had lost weight, an awful lot of it. If she had to guess simply from eyeballing, he must've dropped at least two sizes. The Vernon she knew wouldn't do that willingly, and he was far too prideful to let something as messy as a divorce change his eating habits.

As she looked at him more, her suspicions were seemingly confirmed. The ropes tied around him were tight and intricately knotted. His clothing was dirty and hanging off his body. His hair matted on his head. A slight stench coming from him, but this was the least of her worries. All of these signs along with Kyra's confirmation made it obvious. She had tricked him just as he had tricked her.

"What did you do to him?"

Her throat felt scratchy as she spoke. Kyra smiled sadistically once again and eyed the older male tied up. That was when she noticed it. His eyes were wide open, but seemed to be glossed over. He looked possessed.

"Quite simple really. I had someone on the sidelines watching you all for a long time. Just waiting on the perfect time to strike. We started slow with him. About six months ago, said colleague offered to take our dear little Vernon here for food. She slipped a little concoction of my own creation. He never knew she had done it. You see Felicity, I created a potion that causes excruciating pain if the giver is disobeyed. The kind of pain that will have someone begging to be killed right then and there instead of put up with it. By the time a couple of weeks had passed, he was roped in to our plan to get you. All that had to be done was a little cruciatus as well to have him spilling all of your secrets."

The horror of the situation made her sick to her stomach. They'd tortured him. Manipulated him with a potion that had never been created before, had never been used before, to get information. The lengths this woman was willing to go to in order to achieve her goal was astonishing. There was no other way for her to put it. Kyra was brilliant, she couldn't deny that. Nobody could deny that. But it's usually the most brilliant people who are the most insane. She was a specimen of this generalisation.

"Keep the baby from harm, and make sure there are at least two marks on that beautiful face."

-

Over the past five years, Dudley Dursley was proud to be someone who rarely showed weakness. In a tough world with tough people and even tougher business', he didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Nobody could see through his multiple layers except those he trusted most, and even then it was rare he showed his emotions. Well, things had changed. Defeat was something he had never really accepted. In fact, the one time he could definitely admit to being defeated on was when he realised his parents marriage wasn't as pretty as it seemed from the outside.

They were two petals from the same poisonous flower. From the outside, all the colours blended together seamlessly, not a single thorn on the stem, and delicately carved by nature. However, nothing that came from the same background works all the time, and he had found out the hard way. What made it worse was that he realised now that he had always known, and he had simply turned a blind eye towards it. Shut what was really bothering him out of his mind and went on about his leisurely activities.