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Dudley used to have nightmares for years about turning into his parents, of abusing his own child the way the Dursleys did Harry. He had to go to therapy for years before he was comfortable with the idea of potentially adopting a child with his own partner, and, eventually, decided to become a child councilor himself to help others overcome the same challenges he did.
He never imagined that the new abuser in the family wouldn't turn out be him.
The doorbell rang, and it was one of the surrealest moments of his life, opening it to see a young Potter child sobbing.
"What's wrong?" he said, immediately kneeling down to soothe, patting the child as they started to have hiccups.
"My dad - hic- hates me."
Dudley was absolutely bewildered. The Harry he knew wanted a family more than anything, and would never approve of hurting a kid like this. What on earth had happened to change this? Yet, he knew from hard experience better than to say 'you must be mistaken'. Sometimes, it was the people you expected the least who were the most guilty.
"Why do you think that?" he asked instead.
"He said people like me polyjuice as women in order to hurt people."
People like me. Abruptly, Dudley thought he understood. He took in their robes, which of course were rather unisex like most wizarding outfits, and the considerably less unisex (although of course, he felt anyone should be able to dress however they want, one couldn't deny there were certain cultural associations) tiny bow in their hair.
He had seen this too many times before. With a sigh, he said, "You're a girl?" A nod, her expression brightening for the first time. "Alright. You can stay with me. That's why you came, right?"
"I didn't know where else to go," she said, shyly looking down. "I heard... you were nice. And work with LGBT kids." He imagined Harry had gotten an awkward look on his face telling his children that, complete with a 'not that there is anything wrong with the gays' that was less than totally convincing.
"I do. Welcome home."
And he was determined it would be. Or at least, some place like it, if they ended up needing to flee from angry wizards.
He phoned his partner right away, telling them only that he needed them to come in from work. While he knew most wizards paid no attention to phones, he didn't really want to risk it until they had decided on a strategy. But first thing was first:
"Does anyone else know you are here?"
She shook her head.
"Are you hungry? Cold? Come on in."
He got her a plate full of biscuits, and an egg salad sandwich he had been planning to have himself. She scrunched up her nose at the strange food, and he chuckled.
"Do they not have egg salad sandwiches in the wizarding world? I suppose you must be more used to moving chocolate frogs and pumpkin potatoes."
"Pumpkin pastries," she corrected with a short giggle. "Pumpkin potatoes? That sounds disgusting."
Well, for being a witch, she seemed pretty much like any other normal kid.
Then she looked down with her sad green eyes and little black curls, and the room lights started to flicker on and off. "I just don't understand. He's supposed to be a hero. Why would he hurt me like that?"
Dudley sighed. "You could say it's exactly because he's a hero, that he hurt you, because he has a very black and white view, and one of the biggest reasons people hurt others is because they think others are the villains. So people who think they are heroes, in a way, they're often the scariest of all. Psychopaths make up a tiny percentage of the population and alone can't hurt that many people. But a group of people convinced they're right? They can hurt millions. And Harry, I don't think he realizes he's not the under-dog any more."
"How do you know he sees 'black and white'? I thought you weren't speaking to each other much any more."
He needed to phrase this carefully. It occurred to him he still didn't know what name she went by. "He wanted to name a kid Albus Severus. Now, I may not have the whole story, but I heard enough to know that once upon a time, he and Severus Snape didn't get along and that Snape was very abusive to children. Now, one might try to justify that with saying he needed to be a spy for a war, but the fact remains that this was a terrible thing to do, and that, no matter how fondly you might come to feel for such a person later on, maybe, just maybe, one might consider that it's not such a great idea to name your kid after such a person." And that was without getting into the whole 'his headmaster apparently wanted to sacrifice his life' wizard stuff, which Dudley fully admitted he didn't entirely comprehend, but ultimately thought child soldiers were kind of skeevy any way you looked at it. "Basically, Harry has always viewed people in two views: as friends, or as enemies. There's not a whole lot of room in-between for him."
And stating like that, it suddenly became very uncomfortable but entirely reasonable to Dudley that it could end up like all this. Harry, the boy who had never apologized for laughing at Dudley getting a pig's tail, because a grown man bullying a little kid bully made everything right to him. Harry, the boy who was told he was the literal savior of the world, fighting against a man who had chosen to be evil.
Unfortunately, the kid seemed to realize that as well, because they started to sniffle again.
"Sshhh, it's okay, I'm here now." He patted her on the back.
"He said we wanted to sneak into women's bathrooms to hurt them, and that we wanted on women's sports teams to out-compete them..."
"Does Ginny know Harry thinks cis-girls can't play Quidditch as well as XY chromosomal people?" Dudley mused out loud. Last he'd heard, Ginny was a professional quidditch player. This awfully sounded like grounds for a divorce. "Also, I know no person who has sneaked into women's bathrooms more than Harry Potter, so that's incredibly hypocritical of him to assume mixed sex bathrooms are somehow harmful, or that banning XY people who identify as women would stop people who actually identify as men from sneaking into women's bathrooms, even if you ignore trans men exist." Seriously, hypocrisy much?
"I don't think Mom knows, no," the girl shook her head.
"I can't keep just calling you 'the girl' in my head. What's your name?"
"I haven't picked one out yet. To be honest... like you said, I don't really like the people I'm named after, so I'm not sure I really want a feminine version of their name."
"I see," he said. "Well, do you want a name that would give Harry a fit?"
"Oh, please!" she said giddily.
"Petunia. He'd hate that more than anything. My mother wasn't exactly the greatest person either, but, she grew up as a person a bit at the end and finally acknowledged her behavior was abuse." In part because of Dudley teaching her, but also in part from no longer having the forced terror and stress in her life. No one should be forced to raise a child they don't want - it's frankly not fair to the child. That didn't excuse how she behaved, of course. "Hm, if you really wanted to give him a fit, you could also choose a name of one of his enemies, but, I think that'd be taking it a step too far. No need to give him the justification he craves." No matter how hilarious it would be to see his face if his child came into the wizarding world calling herself 'Voldemorta', it probably wasn't worth the risk.
She hummed indecisively.
"Let's look through some history books for accomplished women, how about that? And after that, hm... maybe we could take you to the science center? Or the movie theater? And of course, we have to take you to the mall to get you clothes and toys."
Her eyes went wide. "Muggle places? I've never been! Oh, that sounds so exciting!"
Dudley could imagine. Harry wanted as little reminder of his old ordinary and unpleasant life as possible, so he had probably never even taken his daughter out to the movies. Well, Dudley would be happy to rectify that. He just feared his dull muggle life would be disappointing to her.
It wasn't disappointing.
Imagine your whole life, you are used to things like cauldrons and hags and goblins and flying brooms. These things just aren't fantastical to you.
Now imagine you walk into a whole new world, full of novelties like video games, men walking on the moon, probing the innermost mysteries of the atom and the periodic table, cars and gigantic air planes and helicopters.
These would probably seem at least a little fantastical to you, wouldn't they?
But you wouldn't say magical, because the magical is mundane to you.
No, you'd probably say something like...
"Scientifical!" she shrieked in joy.
"I don't think that's a word," Dudley said, quite amused.
"It should be! This is so much better than magic!" She raced around the museum. "Look at all the fossils! Look at all these gemstones! You really figured out about this 'radiation' stuff and found out the earth is over three billion years old? Wow! I don't know the last time I remember any wizard doing anything so smart."
"Maybe keep your voice down? And better is rather relative."
She went up and hugged him. "I decided. I do want to be named Petunia, because I want to be closer to you."
Aww. That was so much sweeter than he was expecting from a girl that barely knew him before today! Harry, after all, had not exactly gone out of his way to contact him often, nor had he made it easy to contact him in return. In fact, it was just about completely impossible. Dudley did not own an owl, and Harry did not have a muggle address any more. Even if he had wanted to talk to him about his daughter and try to coax him to take her back home, he couldn't have.
"And also, because I want to spite Daddy. He's a git and I don't like him anymore."
Well. That was considerably less sweet, but more what he expected from someone in the thralls of preteen rebellion.
"Alright Petunia," he said softly. "It's been a long day. Are you ready to go home?"
His partner was understanding, but concerned and somewhat confused.
"It isn't just some cult? They really can do magic?"
"Yes. I understand if you want to leave. This could get dangerous. They might even decide to try to wipe our minds if they decide we're too troublesome." He still remembered his shock when in the brief recount Harry Potter had given him about the battle for the fate of the world (an explanation Harry almost didn't give him at all, but it had come up whilst Harry had been explaining the origin of his choice of child's name on one of his very brief visits to tell him about their birth) he had learned Hermione Granger had apparently vanished the memories of her own parents. He had always thought he had been safe because of his relation to a wizard, but after that, Dudley wasn't so naive any more.
His partner, Malcolm, frowned. His childhood friend had become a lawyer and almost certainly thinking about how difficult legal options could be when the opposition could just leave you a drooling mindless husk at any time and the world thought they were just a myth. "Are we going to be able to get custody? You said they don't pay much attention to the muggle world, is it possible we could file and they wouldn't even know?"
"It's extremely possible. Harry doesn't even have a muggle address, so as far as the court is concerned he doesn't have a residence and thus in very poor position to be a legal guardian. After a dark wizard went after him he went to live in some sort of residence that is unfindable even to other wizards." Dudley didn't understand the details beyond the fact their relationship was extremely one-sided: Harry contacted him when he felt like it, generally just when a new child was born to the family, and that was about it. They hadn't even spoken in years. He doubted Harry even knew Dudley was married now. "And he won't have any kind of record of any job, either. I don't know if he even pays taxes."
"I see. Yes, that will certainly make it easier to convince the court to sign custody to us. Provided the man doesn't show up and just take what he wants."
"That is the issue," Dudley agreed. "So I was thinking of another option, which is simply to run. But I know you have a life here, spending years building up a professional reputation, and I couldn't just ask that of you."
"No, if these people are really as dangerous as you say, I want to help," Malcolm said firmly. "I have some connections. It's entirely possible we could very quietly go to the police and say we need new identities."
Dudley pursed his lips. "The police do not exactly have a great record when it comes to helping transgender people, Malcolm. And Harry isn't dangerous in the violent sense."
"I don't know, wiping my mind feels pretty violent to me," Malcolm countered.
"The wizards will almost certainly be watching the police for any strange cases potentially tied to magic. But I think it is less likely they will be watching more mundane things like the custody courts."
"Alright, so no police," Malcolm said, looking worn. "I think I can find a sympathetic judge who will agree to keep this fairly quiet. They'll want to assign someone to assess the child and make sure they aren't being kidnapped by us or something, but that part should be easy. And when they also can't locate him anywhere, they'll definitely agree it's better to have the child with relatives than in child care services."
And so, it was settled. Harry's desire to cut off his life from the Dursleys and everything in muggle life, while understandable, was now about to bite him in the rear.
Dudley forgot about the damn letter.
It nearly gave him a heart attack when it came in. They know, was his first horrified thought.
Then he saw that it was addressed, probably by some magical quill, to Petunia Dursley, and he smiled wide.
"As far as the world is concerned, you're my daughter," he said to her softly. "But they might realize things if they saw your eyes and hair. So which do you want to change?"
Her green eyes and black hair were very, very distinctive. Separately, not so much, but together in the wizarding world, along with those classical Potter looks? It would be the first thing anyone noticed.
"My eyes," she said. "I need contacts anyway. I could just get them colored, and then I would have the perfect excuse."
Dudley patted her on the head. "Smart girl."
Petunia Dursley was going to Hogwarts. Something about that just felt right.
"But, I don't really want to be a witch when I grow up. I want to help people, like you. Or even be an astronaut."
Or maybe not.
"You need to learn to control your powers," he told her. "And find out how to defend yourself. It's a scary world out there. But I agree - most of the wizarding world jobs don't really sound very appealing, do they? They don't help most people, just each other. It's a very isolated world."
"I'm going to miss you," she told him.
"And I you, darling," he patted her on the head. "But, it will be good for you to make some friends."
When Petunia was sorted into Slytherin, there was no horrified questioning, no wondering if something was wrong with her. Dudley didn't judge her, and she trusted him for that. More, she trusted herself.
It was about a year later when she came to him again full of frustrated questions.
"No, I do not think you should take polyjuice until you are actually grown. Despite what the moral witch hunting brigade would tell you, no one performs sex surgery on underage children - except, of course, for some people who try to alter intersex children to look more like one sex without their consent, which is a very terrible thing to do and yet never seems to get the same level of condemnation as an entirely imaginary crime."
She pouted. "I don't think polyjuice can really be likened to surgery. It's not permanent, Daddy."
"And I don't want to risk it. I know it's horrible feeling dysphoric, but you'll just have to wait, okay sweetie?"
She nodded.
"You made a lot of friends at school, right? No one is making you feel bad?" he changed subject.
"I met a girl like me - Scorpia, as I've mentioned in my letters. Her father doesn't really approve of her either. But I think she's amazing." She blushed. "She defended me when everyone else was being an ass, that first day when spelled stairs tried to force me into the boy's dorms." And God, had that been a nightmare. What moron had made a sex segregation spell based on chromosomes? What were intersex people to do? Sleep outside on the floor? Dudley ultimately had to threaten to pull her out of the school before they compromised and let her have her own room. Which was far as Dudley was concerned was how it should have been in the first place: it was a magical school, they didn't need to worry about rooms when they could just magic up more, and every child has their own desire for basic privacy.
"That's lovely to hear."
"That reminds me... Her father used to have house elves. Harry actually freed one. But Harry was never particularly enthusiastic about their rights. He and Ron laughed at Hermione once for starting an organization called SPEW. It's a dumb name, but..." she shrugged. "It's been years and the elves still haven't been given full freedom. And Hermione is Black, and if anything, she's less enthusiastic than before about full freedom, although she still supports ending abuse, she's more powerful than she's ever been but she's campaigning about it less. So I'm honestly pretty confused, why don't they pay more attention to the wrong that's right in front of them? Why are they so content? It's like to them, the epilogue of their life was to be married with children and have jobs, but there's still so much wrong with the world, I can't stand it. That's not a happy ending to me. They should've led, I dunno, a house elf werewolf goblin rebellion, or something. But that never happened."
Dudley mulled this over in his mind, thinking about vaguely similar situations he'd had to deal with as a councilor. A Black student had come, asking about Black police. "The thing is, when someone enters an isolated community for many years and cuts off all contact, it's pretty common for them to see themselves as a member of that community first and foremost. Hermione probably doesn't view herself as 'Black' any more, similar to how many cops view themselves as 'Blue' before any other color. I know it's awful, but it's a simple psychological truth that social bubbles alienate people from the wider world around them."
"I see." She seemed to think for awhile. "Well, if they won't change the world and lead a revolution... maybe I will!"
And Dudley got an eerie feeling, like the world was repeating itself, just all out of tune.
An ambitious Slytherin, estranged from their family, looking to change the world, with a self-chosen name the other side disrespected as fake. A lonely child on a doorstep.
Terrified, he couldn't help but sweep her up into a hug. "Please, stay safe."
"Ambition requires its own kind of courage. And if there's one thing Harry Potter admires, it's that. So he'll have to finally listen to me and respect me."
Dudley felt his heart breaking, because he didn't want to tell her 'no'. But he couldn't possibly tell her 'yes'.
When the day of reckoning finally came, it was, as Dudley always expected, bad.
He had never seen Harry Potter so absolutely furious as that day when the man blew his door down, demanding, "WHERE IS MY SON? How could you do this to me? To him? I thought you had grown into a better person, Dudley!"
"I thought the same of you," Dudley dryly replied.
Harry glared. "Don't try to be cute and act like you're the one offended. I'm the one you wronged. You encouraged my child's delusions. You kept them from me for years without a word-"
"I literately physically could not contact you, you live in some sort of Unspeakable Address House or whatever it is called," Dudley pointed out.
"-and you got them cuddling up to Malfoy's kid, talking about how the wizarding world needs a revolution. I never thought I would agree with Malfoy on anything, as he's still pretty pro pure-bloods even if he doesn't want to murder them," Then shouldn't that have been a red flag you're on the wrong side? "but things have gone horribly wrong. Do you want to know how I finally found my kid? Do you?"
Dudley raised an eyebrow.
"I found him performing dark magic! The school called me because I'm his closest wizarding relative, only they didn't realize how close. I realized when I saw her - I mean, him - and heard the whole story."
Now Dudley was offended. Just because he was a muggle doesn't mean they shouldn't have called him in if his kid was in trouble! These people were awful. But mostly, he was worried for Petunia, "She probably was curious about why exactly it's called dark and so forbidden when even her great heroes in the war committed it left and right." Had Harry forgotten he used Imperio and Crucio on others? Spells that literately were supposed to be Unforgiveable, easy forgiven when done by their savior hero?
Harry flushed. Maybe he wasn't used to being called out on his bullshit. "You... you have no right! YOU FAT PIG!" The lights flickered on and off in the room.
Then Dudley began to choke. His body swelled and lifted into the air. His ears began to change to look considerably more porcine, and his mouth. It's just like Aunt Marge, he thought, horrified. There was nothing he could do. He knew from personal experience that when a wizard wanted to hurt him like this, torment him, taunt him, he was utterly powerless.
"NO! Leave him alone!" a young girlish voice shouted, and with a swift swish of her wand, suddenly Dudley felt relief and could at least speak again.
"There is a bully in this room, Harry Potter, and it's not me, it's you," Dudley called him out. "Look at yourself. Look at what you've become. Hurting young girls. How many people who look up to you as a hero must be contemplating suicide right now because of your hurtful actions? Do you care at all about their deaths on your hands?"
"How dare you," Harry said, standing tall. "I'm not the one hurting young girls, people like you are!"
"Ah, yes, the gays are causing societal corruption terror. That never gets old." That got a confused look to appear on Harry's face. "You still don't know I'm married?"
Abruptly, something large and heavy smacked Harry in the back of the head, and the wizard crumpled. His husband had arrived home and had made the obvious conclusion when he saw his distraught daughter and his husband being held up at wand-point that the intruder was up to no good, and seeing him only from the back, hadn't recognized it was the same Harry from all those years ago, especially now that his body was considerably less scrawny.
"I guess he really didn't know," Dudley mused.
"Shit," Petunia swore. "I think you just killed Harry Potter." A mere muggle doing what Voldemort could not. How was that going to look in the history books?
Malcolm looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, there isn't exactly an easy nonlethal way to knock out a home intruder unconscious for us muggles... It wasn't like I meant to kill him. Although, I did think he was a dark wizard threatening you and didn't exactly care at that moment."
"That's not going to matter to the Wizarding Police."
"Aurors," Petunia corrected. "Yeah, I think we're in trouble."
"So, how behind did you say the Wizarding World was when it came to forensics?" Malcolm half-joked.
"Very." She pondered the problem for a few moments. "I suggest I transfigure him into a button, put him into an expandable trunk on the off-chance my transfiguration isn't up to snuff and he spontaneously transfigures back, and then drop him into the middle of the ocean. No one will ever know."
"That's... fucking terrifying."
"That's the wizarding world for you."
"Did he tell anyone else where he was going or what this was about before going?" Malcolm asked.
"I don't know... but I could perform a few obliviations on the obvious targets," Petunia suggested. "Since Mom isn't here, I'm pretty sure he didn't tell her; that just leaves Ron and Hermione. And I'll want to check if he went on a rant in front of the school nurse or if he kept his fury to himself. Ex-Dad typically wasn't all that talkative."
So, Dudley, Malcolm and Petunia went on a very abrupt vacation.
And Hermione got a taste of what it was like to be obliviated without your consent. Petunia walked in on Hermione abusing Ron with a flock of birds and had caught her with her pants down, literately, and had hastily knocked the two of them out before they could properly react, but not before leaving a pamphlet with Ron about how men can be victims of spousal abuse too. The end result was Petunia kind of wished she could obliviate herself too, but that kind of self performed procedure was far too risky.
"I still can't believe we killed Harry Potter," Malcolm whispered, when they were all finally on a cruise. "Wasn't he like some sort of savior or something?
"Sshh, not so loud! And there was no 'we' about it."
"I mean, he was sort of a savior," Petunia tried to explain. "But he kind of half-assed it. He killed Wizard Ku Klux Hitler but kinda shrugged at anyone less worse who wasn't personally bullying him or a friend. And went on speeches about how our choices define us. At least to his kids, anyway."
"Wow," Malcolm said. "He sounds kind of awful, honestly?"
"The good news is the newer generation isn't that enamored with him. Teddy and Rose, for instance, aren't super thrilled with him but tolerated him because he's family, the way you might tolerate an old racist grandpa. He used to be cool, but now he's not except to some millennials," she gave the harsh truth. "His choices made him obsolescent. The sad thing is, he might still have been really admired if he'd just kept his mouth shut." She scrunched her nose. "He tried to tell me historical 'facts' about wizards about how once Wizards used to just go on the spot and then vanish their poop. And that there's only like one school for the entire continent of Africa."
"...seriously? That sounds more like an urban myth than anything any sane human would do. We've had toilets since the Romans. And one school for all of Africa? Excuse me? That's just not believable."
She sighed. "My Ex-Dad was a real embarrassment. And I didn't understand why and it really hurt, that he could do and say these kinds of things to me. But then I met you guys and you were so kind, and your explanations were so wonderful. And while on an emotional level there's a part of me that will never really understand, at least I've healed. I've moved on."
She threw the button into the ocean.
"I don't need Harry Potter any more."