Dudley felt strange, like something was missing. He felt guilty every time he saw the cupboard under the stairs, or his second bedroom he had insisted he didn't need while his parents bought the new house. Their old one was being rebuilt, but it was going to take a long time. Every time he passed the burnt rubble, then empty space that used to be their house he felt overwhelmed with guilt.

He would have expected feelings of sorrow, after all the building he had spent most of his childhood and many of the items that held memories were now gone forever, but he felt something different, a pain he couldn't quite describe.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, it feels like I've lost something important to me, but I have no idea what it could be." Dudley explained, his head in Luke's lap as they hid in the bushes that lined the park. He wasn't out to his parents yet, he didn't think he ever would.

"You haven't mentioned Harry since the fire, could it be about him?" Luke asked gently, Dudley had definitely been acting differently recently, not very differently, but a little, like he had forgotten all about magic.

"Who?" Dudley asked, the name seemed like he should know it, but whenever he thought about it, it was like static was playing in his mind.

"I know why you feel like that." Luke said with a sigh, looking slightly tired, he knew why it was done, but it was seriously annoying. "Your memories of Harry and the magical world have been erased. Thankfully they didn't check your memories and erase me, too."

"What? How could they erase my memories of someone?" Dudley asked, sitting up indignantly.

"Because they want to keep the wizarding world a secret and they don't consider you a part of it or Harry's life. I can return your memories to you, don't worry." Luke smiled to Dudley.

"Please do, I don't like the idea that I don't remember part of my own life." Dudley said, his eyes wide at the idea.

"I don't know how this will feel, I've never had it done on me before." Luke said anxiously, putting his hand on Dudley's head and letting his magic fix Dudley's memories.

Dudley was just old enough for his mother to allow him to visit other friends' houses, before then he had thought it was normal to treat one of the children the way the treated Harry, but when he went to his friends' houses nobody was treated like that, no matter how many children were there. In fact, most either had no cupboard under the stairs or it was filled with cleaning products.

"Mum, why are we the only people who treat Harry the way we do?" Dudley asked as Petunia tried to leave the room after kissing him goodnight.

"That brat isn't like us, or the other people who live around here. You only know about the differences you can see, but there's more wrong with him than his hair and skin. He needs it beaten out of him. Don't worry." Petunia said, her sweet voice while talking about such horrible things making Dudley feel sick.

She kissed him on the forehead and Dudley could hear Harry's screams and crying late into the night. What little sleep Dudley did get were all nightmares. Would his parents treat him that way if he tried to protect Harry? If he backed Harry up when he next told one of the teachers about what would happen behind closed doors?

Harry never told another soul after the previous year, when he had been beaten worse than normal for admitting to his teacher what was happening at the Dursleys.

-----

Dudley felt a sad relief when Harry went to Hogwarts, his parents wouldn't be able to touch him there. But he also felt guilty, he had no way of contacting Harry, and he had probably only made matters worse with the cake incident.

He didn't know why, but he felt happier when he was eating, so he ate a lot so he wouldn't stop and think about how he treated Harry. He hadn't meant to eat the first birthday cake Harry had ever had, at least since living with them, but he hadn't had any real food to eat in ages.

That being said, he was now thoroughly terrified of magic. Having a pig's tail was incredibly painful, and got in the way of a lot of things, not to mention the embarrassment that came from it.

Once he got to his private school, the nurse ended up helping him with what he soon learnt to understand was an eating disorder, he went on a diet and started exercising. They told his father it was boxing that became his new passion, Vernon would be proud of a son that could beat Harry to a pulp if he wanted, but Dudley had been traumatised by what they had done to Harry, and was too scared to ever hurt anyone like that.

No, the sport Dudley had taken up was gymnastics, not that he was very good yet, but it did make him feel better in himself. At least some of the other boys there were kind to him, though snide comments about his weight weren't uncommon before the nurse found out and told them to stop.

-----

That summer was one of the worst, he was expected to help make Harry's life a ,misery, as though his diet didn't make it that way anyway. Sure enough, the same day he had gone back to the house both he and Harry reluctantly called home he felt the gnawing hunger that seemed to eat through him no matter how much he ate, no matter what he ate. He just wanted to get away from there, but if he wanted to escape so badly, he could only imagine how much torturous it was for Harry.

After a bunch of magic happened Harry insisted wasn't him happened, Vernon put bars on Harry's window. The locked door seemed to make Dudley feel worse inside, like he wanted to eat everything edible in existence in order to fill the painful hole inside.

If he was being honest, he was inclined to believe Harry that the magic wasn't caused by him, how long had he lived here now? Surely he knew to not do magic here? That was probably what Petunia meant all those years ago when she talked about something she had to beat out of him.

The loud crashing in the middle of the night made him jump awake in terror, but when he saw it was some sort of recue party for Harry he felt at least a little relieved. He hoped with all his might that Harry would be somewhere better now.

The insatiable hunger lessened slightly after Harry left, but not by much. It was terrifying watching his parents try to find someone to blame for all of their problems now the small, dark skinned, messy haired boy wasn't there anymore.

It was only last year that he realised that part of the reason Petunia and Vernon hated Harry was because he was mixed race, he hadn't really thought about it before, clearly his privilege, but it made him hate his parents even more.

-----

Sure enough, back at school, he no longer felt the need to fill himself with all the food he set his eyes on, in fact, he felt like he was eating less than some of his classmates, sometimes not even feeling hungry.

He worked with the nurse again to set two different diets for him, one while at school and one while he was at home, as the fact it was the same diet felt like it was messing with his diet to have them both.

That year they had a new student, they were a little odd, but not unpleasant. They tended to keep to themselves, and used phrases Dudley had never heard before. Dudley felt some kind of kinship with the new kid, they were both odd and outsiders in a way.

"Hello, my name's Dudley, what's yours?" Dudley asked, coming up to the new guy when they came to the gymnastics room while he was practicing on his own. Not that Dudley really minded, they didn't seem to be judging him.

"Luke." He introduced himself awkwardly. "Sorry, I was home schooled for most of my life, I'm not good at making friends."

"No worries, I wasn't home schooled, but I don't really have many friends either, why don't we become friends?" Dudley offered with a warm smile, Luke's face lighting up in return. It made Dudley's chest hurt, but a way he almost hoped would happed more often.

"How were you doing that?" Luke asked, looking genuinely impressed, something Dudley wasn't used to when it came to his gymnastics.

"Practice mostly. I'm not great, I'm the worst in the group, but I can try to teach you what I know if you want?" Dudley offered. While most of the others who did gymnastics were nice to him, it always felt either forced or pitying.

"You would?" Luke asked, looking excited. He was cute.

-----

Throughout the year he and Luke became closer and closer until they were practically inseparable. Dudley felt a pain similar to the one he felt when they first spoke when they had to leave each other for the summer holidays, except this one he thought he could go his life without ever feeling it again and feel it too soon.

"Here's my number, call me over the summer if you can, we need to arrange to meet up." Dudley said, giving the boy a scrap of paper with their home number written on it.

Luke was the kind of person who seemed to know a lot, but not know a lot of things that were just common sense. Dudley hoped he knew how to use a phone and that it wouldn't make Harry get in more trouble again. Something about Luke made him remember the friend who had tried to call Harry and screamed down the phone.

"We should definitely do that." Luke said, looking at the paper with slight confusion. Dudley grimaced when he saw Vernon waiting outside the car for him. Hopefully they would be going straight to pick up Harry so he wouldn't get punished in the car or on the way back.

"Sorry, that's my father, I have to go." Dudley waved to Luke, his smile strained as he thought about the discomfort this summer would be.

-----

And the hunger was back as soon as he entered that house. He hoped nothing could go wrong this year.

It seemed Luke didn't know how to use a phone. Vernon was going red with anger as he was yelled at through the phone yet again. Dudley was lucky enough to be near at the time, so Harry didn't get blamed.

"Sorry, dad," That word made Dudley want to be sick, "It's Luke, my friend from school, he hasn't really used the phone before."

Vernon's face, while still an alarming shade of red, paled after hearing it was Dudley's friend, not Harry's.

"Hey Luke, sorry about that." Dudley said, taking the phone away from his father. "You don't need to shout by the way, you can just talk normally."

"Sorry, I haven't had friends before, so I've never called anyone before." Luke said on the other end of the phone, sounding embarrassed.

"No need to apologise, I like talking to you." Dudley said, smiling brightly, oddly while talking to Luke his hunger was manageable.

"Can you meet up today? I want to talk to you about something important." Luke said, sounding worried.

"Yeah, of course. Where do you want to meet?" Dudley asked, feeling concerned about his friend.

"You live at number 4 Privet Drive? I can meet you at the park near there." Luke said, his voice starting to sound distant.

"Yeah, you sure that's alright?" Dudley asked, he didn't know how far away Luke lived, it could be a long way to travel.

"Yeah, I'll see you there in about half an hour?" Luke asked.

"See you then." Dudley nodded, putting the phone down. He felt elated to be able to see Luke again so soon, the hunger reducing again.

-----

"Hey Luke." Dudley said, feeling excited? Anxious? He wasn't sure. "Are you okay?"

"Um, can we go somewhere more private?" Luke asked, looking awkward and fiddling with his fingers.

"Sure, nobody goes to the bushes over there except Harry, and he's gardening at the moment." Dudley said, feeling sad about the amount of work Harry had to do while leading the way.

"Okay, this may sound really strange to you, or like I'm making things up, but I swear that I'm sane and telling you the truth, I'm also not evil, I swear." Luke started, making Dudley feel worried. "I'm a wizard, well, I was born a witch, but I'm a wizard."

"Oh, that's fine. My cousin, Harry Potter, is also a wizard. My parents hate it, but I'm basically okay with it now. When I was 11 a wizard gave me a pig's tail, and that made me afraid of it for a while, but I'm over it now." Dudley said, he didn't realise Luke had frozen when he was talking.

"Your cousin is Harry Potter!?" Luke asked, shocked. "He's the saviour of the wizarding world! He's a massive deal in the wizarding world, and your parents hate his magic that basically saved every muggle?"

"Um, yeah. We didn't know about any of that before we were 11 though. My parents told us his parents were killed in a car crash." Dudley said bitterly. "But I thought witches were women who could do magic, how do you change? Sorry, I really don't know anything about this."

"Um, so when I was born everyone thought, well, decided, that I was a woman. I know I'm not that, but I'm not fully sure I'm a guy either. I haven't found what's perfect for me yet, but for the time being I use male terms, like wizard, boy, man, and use he/him pronouns." Luke explained.

"Oh, I didn't know that was a thing." Dudley said, surprised. "But I fully support you and will continue to even if you settle on something else. I may not know what you settle on is, though."

"Thanks, Dudley." Luke said with his bright smile that caused a nice pain in Dudley's chest.

It didn't take long for Dudley and Luke to get together officially. Dudley learnt about the magical world from Luke and taught Luke about the muggle world. That year was the happiest he had ever been, but the school nurse was still worried about him.

"Dudley, I think we need to talk about your home life, you seem mostly healthy when you're here, but at the start of every year including this one you seem less than well in multiple ways. You're not in any trouble, but I'm worried about you." The nurse said, looking at Dudley with eyes filled with concern.

Dudley finally broke down and told him about everything that was happening in number 4 Privet Drive, about how Harry had tried several times to tell someone about what was happening, only for things to get worse. About how he felt the need to eat whatever he could get his hands on while he was there, even if he knew he shouldn't even touch the food.

"Dudley, nothing that happened is your fault. You were a child and a scared one at that, and you were clearly suffering." The nurse said gently, kneeling on the floor to be on eye level with Dudley.

-----

The day of the fire was horrible, Dudley was already feeling anxious because the person his school was sending to check up on them was coming today. When the fire started he felt his stomach drop, watching Harry run back into the flames while Petunia held him back roughly made him feel sick with worry.

Harry never came out of the flames, and the person who turned a stick that looked like the one Harry had to him after his parents refused to tell him what had happened to Harry. He was terrified, what if Harry had died because he hadn't stopped him?

And then there was nothing.

Dudley broke down into tears, sobbing into Luke's chest. "They wouldn't tell me what happened to him, what if Harry died? What if Harry died and it was my fault? I should have stopped him from going back into the house, Luke."

"I don't think he's dead, Dudley. I may be avoiding the wizarding world now, but I still see the Daily Prophet, and they would definitely have reported it if Harry died." Luke said, stroking Dudley's hair gently, trying to calm him down. "I think I know where to find him, don't worry, we'll find him."