| Chapter One: The Annoying Visit |
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It wasn't the first difficulty Dudley had in reconciling the magical and Muggle worlds. Less than a week after returning home, Dudley had discovered that his mum owned a broom, so Dudley had naturally attempted to fly it. He was surprised-- nay, astounded-- to learn that a broom could also be used for a mysterious activity called "sweeping." Dudley did not sweep.
Dudley was also hopeful that his cousin Harry, who now attended Smeltings, would be in a state of frightened awe. But when Dudley used his most recently learned spell (Incendio!) to set Harry's clothes on fire, Harry was unimpressed. He quickly patted out the fire as if this had happened a hundred times before-- probably because Dudley had been doing the same thing with matches for the past five years.
But the biggest surprise came a few weeks after Dudley's birthday, when he was sure that the presents had all arrived and nothing else was coming until Christmas. Dudley wandered up to his room one night to find that he had a visitor.
"What are you?" asked Dudley, staring in surprise. "Some kind of homeless goblin?"
"Dudley Dursley!" squealed the creature in a high-pitched voice. "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you!"
"Who's Dobby?" asked Dudley.
"Dobby the house-elf, sir," it replied with a bow.
"Yeah, okay. When can I meet him?"
"But Dudley has just met Dobby, sir."
"Nah, I was just hanging out with Piers," replied Dudley. "Oh, wait a tick-- are you talking about another Dudley?"
"No, no... Dudley Dursley has met Dobby."
"Who's Dobby?" asked Dudley again.
"Me is Dobby!" replied the creature, wringing its hands in frustration.
"Oh, I get it," nodded Dudley. "You talk funny. Okay, then-- um, Dudley wants to know what Dobby is doing here."
"Dobby has come to give Dudley Dursley a warning," whipsered the house-elf. "And a birthday present."
"Okay, so I got-- I mean, Dudley got the warning. Where's the present?"
"Dobby hasn't given the warning yet, sir. The warning is that Dudley must not return to Hogwarts this year. There is a plot against Dudley."
"Nah, they love Dudley Dursley at Hogwarts," declared Dudley. "Unless by Hogwarts Dobby means something other than Hogwarts?"
Dobby didn't answer right away, but started banging his head on the dresser. Although Dudley was curious (and eager for the present), he let the entertainment continue. Nobody would notice the noise, because Dudley'd just had a birthday, meaning that there were lots of fresh toys to be broken.
"Dobby tried...." moaned the visitor, stumbling about the room. "Dobby did his best."
"Can Dobby get to the present now?" pressed Dudley.
"Yes sir, Dobby has the present, sir." Dobby pulled a book from his pillowcase and handed it to Dudley. "Here is Dudley's present, sir."
"A book?"
"It is from an admirer, sir. It is a diary that Dudley should write in. If Dudley writes in the diary, it will give him more magical powers, sir."
Dudley sighed. If anything was more distateful than reading, it was writing. "Great," he said sarcastically. "Dudley already has school books. This is worthless unless it teaches Dudley some kind of Dark Magic that Dudley can't already get."
Dobby seemed to be shaking. "Yes sir," he began, thumping himself on the head with one hand. "It will teach Dudley powerful Dark Magic. Dudley must write in it everyday," he added, patting himself on the back with the other hand.
"Dudley will think about it. Is that it?"
"Yes, sir. Dobby only came to give a warning about the plot against Dudley. And to give Dudley the diary."
"G'bye then."
"So Dudley has the diary from a mysterious admirer," blabbered Dobby, repeating himself. "And Dudley has the warning about a mysterious plot?" He looked at Dudley hopefully.
"Hasn't Dobby left yet?" said Dudley. Dobby disappeared.
| Chapter Two: Diagunilly |
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So Greg came to visit Dudley.
Harry left for Smeltings a full two weeks early, so Greg took Harry's bedroom. Greg and Dudley had a wonderful time watching television. Dudley also introduced Greg to Piers Polkiss, and together they introduced Greg to the Muggle art of vandalism ("That's so weird, how stuff stays broken," remarked Greg.)
A few days before the start of term, they went back to Greg's house so they could travel to Diagon Alley by Floo powder. Mr. Goyle demonstrated the process and Greg followed. Dudley went last and messed it up.
Dudley found himself standing in what looked like a large, dimly lit wizard's shop. He heard a noise from the back room and, with the sudden feeling that he did not belong here, made a desperate attempt to hide. He tried squeezing himself inside a large black cabinet, but panic and size got the better of him. Dudley broke a hinge, scraped the siding, and cracked several shelves. He backed away from the cabinet just as the proprieter came into view.
"Nope, not quite what I was looking for," improvised Dudley in a loud voice, strolling quickly out of the shop. He ignored the shouting shopkeeper and turned up the unfamiliar alley.
"Dursley! What are you doing here?"
Dudley breathed a sigh of relief. "Professor Snape! I was traveling by flew-powder and trying to get to 'Diagon Alley', but I must have accidentally got stuck in 'Diagunilly'."
"You're in Knockturn Alley, Dudley," corrected Snape.
"Nah, that's not even close," argued Dudley. "Mabye 'Digun Illy', or "Die-oh-gone Alley', or--"
"You shouldn't be here, Dudley," repriminded Snape gently. "Knockturn Alley is full of Dark Magic shops."
"Oh. What were you doing here, then?"
"Shopping for Dark Magic items, of course."
"Cool."
Snape led Dudley back to Diagon Alley. They met up with the Goyles again at Flourish and Blotts, where a large crowd was now gathered.
"Dudley! Have a good summer?" It was Dudley's other close friend, Pansy Parkinson. But before Dudley could enlighten her regarding the latest adventures of The Great Humberto, she was speaking again. "Gilderoy Lockhart's in there! Did you see his name all over the book list?"
"Nah, Professor Snape already took it away from me," answered Dudley. Then, amongst the crowd, he spotted another of his good friends. "Ron!"
"Oh, it's you," said Ron, hiding his enthusiasm very well.
"Can we get closer to Lockhart?" pleaded Pansy, standing on her tiptoes.
"Leave it to me," said Dudley. He pushed his way forward, easily parting the crowd with his remarkable weight-to-height ratio.
Dudley saw Gilderoy Lockhart, a well-dressed wizard with white, shiny teeth, signing autographs at a table. But it wasn't until a photographer elbowed his way forward that Dudley understood what was going on.
This Lockhart guy was famous. "Can it really be? Dudley Dursley, here?"
It was Dudley who said this. He walked around the table to pose next to Lockhart. "Together we rate the front page, Gilderoy," declared Dudley.
"Er... what?" said Lockhart, still maintaining his smile. "Oh, yes, Dursley. I heard a bit about you some years ago."
"I've never heard of you," retorted Dudley, also smiling for the camera.
"Really? I'm quite the famous author."
This had to be a joke, because Dudley knew that people didn't get famous for writing books. Lockhart didn't let it go, either. After the photographer was finished, he gave Dudley copies of several books. If they'd at least been on his school list, thought Dudley, he could have saved the money....
"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Dursley?" said a red-haired girl.
"Huh?"
"Famous Dudley Dursley," she continued. "Think your headline news, huh?"
"Yes, I do," said Dudley, glad to share his opinion of himself. Then an idea struck him. "Here, you want these?" he asked, handing her the stack of books.
"Oh," said the girl, her expression softening a bit. "Um, thanks."
| Chapter Three: Car Trouble |
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"Psst! Ron!"
"What now?"
"Do you know that girl?"
"Ginny? Yeah, she's my sister."
"Really?" said Dudley hopefully. "So have you, er, told her anything about me?"
"A bit," said Ron evasively.
"She ever talk about me?"
"Oh, yes," said Ron, looking the other direction.
"Wow," said Dudley.
"C'mon," said Ron, "we'd better hurry, everyone else is through the barrier."
"Barrier?"
"You have to walk through the barrier between platforms nine and ten," said Ron urgently. "You did it last year, remember?"
"No," said Dudley honestly. "I don't."
Ron tried to trick Dudley into going through it together (which was okay, friends could play mean jokes on each other) but Dudley wasn't falling for it. He made Ron go first.
Ron's trolley crashed spectacularly against the barrier. Dudley laughed.
"Now what?" said Ron, scowling and picking himself up from the ground.
Dudley checked his ticket. "Maybe we should try the barrier between eight and nine."
"But it's platform nine and three-quarters," insisted Ron. "That's between nine and ten."
"Is it? I'm not good with fractions," said Dudley honestly.
Ron sighed. Then he suddenly brightened up. "Hey! We could take my dad's flying magical car!"
"Sure," said Dudley quickly. "Er, I was just going to suggest a flying magical car."
Ron led Dudley to the car and tried to take the driver's seat, but Dudley insisted otherwise. He allowed Ron to start the ignition with his wand and turn on the invisibility booster; then, Dudley pressed on the accelerator and soared smoothly into the air.
"Not bad," said Ron, genuinely impressed.
"There's a cheat code in Monte Carlo Rally III that makes the cars fly," explained Dudley. "I use it all the time."
The trip through the air was very pleasant at the beginning. Then Dudley made a horrible realization. "Ron," he said in a panicked voice.
"What?"
"The lunch trolley... on the train...."
"Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten that."
"Really? It would have come by in another fifty-seven minutes," said Dudley.
"Exactly?" asked Ron.
"Fifty-six, now," said Dudley. Alarm bells were going off in his stomach.
The countdown continued until about twenty-three minutes, when Ron offered Dudley a pair of corned beef sandwiches. "Your need is greater," said Ron stoically.
"Thanks," gasped Dudley. He found the corned beef very tasty. That might have been desperation, but Dudley thought it was evidence of his growing skills in wizardry.
A few hours later, hungry, thirsty, and with substantial bite marks on the steering wheel, they descended towards Hogwarts castle.
"Aren't you going to land?" asked Ron.
"I'm looking for a parking lot," countered Dudley. He circled several more times.
"Okay, I think we're running out of gas."
"I thought the car was magic."
"Er... we're running out of magic gas?" tried Ron.
"Hey, I'm the driving expert!" delcared Dudley as the car choked, sputtered, and rapidly descended toward a willow tree.
All in all, the damage wasn't too bad. The car became very battered and drove itself into the forest, but Dudley was finished with it anyway. Ron's wand broke, but Dudley never used that, either. The only disappointing part was that there wasn't a crowd to greet them with applause after the spectacular crash landing.
At least, Snape was there.
"Tut, tut, boys," he said. "Come to my office, please."
They followed Snape into his dungeon office and he closed the door behind them. "First of all," he began, "You were spotted by several Muggles."
"The car was invisible," said Ron.
"Don't interrupt me, Weasley. Muggles have radar. You're lucky the Americans are still fooling around with half-baked stealth planes, otherwise you'd have been shot down. Next, you seriously injured an old and valuable tree."
"There's more trees in the forest, if you need one," said Dudley.
"Good point, Dursley," said Snape. "Well, it's clear where the blame lies in a situation like this. Who was driving the car?" He glared at Ron.
"That was me!" said Dudley.
"Ah. Well, I'll have to give you a detention anyway, Dursley. But... er, according to maritime law... uh, subsection Q paragraph 10, the blame lies squarely with the navigator -- which means you, Weasley. I'm going to recommend you be expelled. Wait here."
Ten minutes later, Snape returned with Dudley's least favorite teacher, Professor McGonagall.
"That's hardly fair," bellowed the old hag. "I'm giving Weasley a detention, same as Dursley."
"Expulsion," countered Snape.
"Det--" began McGonagall, before cutting herself off suddenly. "Tell you what, Professor. How about I expel Weasley, if you expel Dursley?"
"What!?" said Ron.
"Quiet!" snapped McGonagall.
"No go," said Snape. "Two detentions for Dudley and you expel Weasley?"
"Unacceptable. Three detentions each and we kick them off their Quidditch teams."
"Weasley isn't on the Gryffindor team. One detention, and we write to their parents."
"Hmph," said McGonagall. "Two detentions apiece, a good switching... and no dinner for a week!"
This went on for some time, until Professor Dumbledore arrived. Unlike McGonagall, he did not seem angry at all and he sided with Snape on the matter of punishment.
"You will eat here," said Snape, after McGonagall and Dumbledore had left. He pointed his wand at the table and conjured a miniscule plate of sandwiches (barely ten or twelve).
"Corned beef?" said Dudley hopefully.
continue with
Dudley and the Secret Chamber chapters 4-6
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