All in the Family

Chapter 96: Dudley Demented

I'm back! This fic has never left the back of my head and its been quite distressing leaving it for so long, but you can thank Tiffany Smithi in particular for kicking this ball back rolling, several of the chapters were even co written.

I have once again reached my favorite book. I am entirely smug about this fact. I shall be posting chapters on Monday, for the duration of at least this book because I'm so excited! I'm not going to lie, I'll probably take another break before doing six again, but I swear it won't be nearly so long again.

To Stitches: Doesn't sound odd to me, Kreacher's a fascinating character and he's worth his own book of commentary honestly on how him and the entire house-elf kind work. In Sirius specifically, I don't think it's intentional control he's trying to enact on Peter or Regulus, that's just what he equates care to. His parents are mega-controlling and he's unintentionally mimicking them by acting that way to show he's not like them, and you'll be surprised who finally calls him out on that.

HPHPHP

Sirius was jolted and bounced around painfully for several moments before the world finally stilled, and then he let out an ooph of pain as something not very small and hard landed right on his gut. He shoved whatever it was off, and heard the unsatisfying clunk of the book hitting the floor and pages being ruffled as he finally sat up, and grimaced with further hate. They were in his room.

This was, unofficially, the worst location they'd yet been in. He'd take the Devil's Snare over here! Okay, maybe not the basilisk...or Azkaban...or certainly those dragons...okay, so it was a hard toss instead.

He sat up properly and held his head high, unintentionally the perfect posture of the Black prince as he surveyed the place from his bed once more.

He'd taken the liberty of putting some dignity in this place, just like James had always brought out the best in him, he'd endeavored to do the same here. The Gryffindor banners hung along the walls did well to hide the silver wallpaper, and he noted with high amusement Evans had landed right under a particularly busty picture of a broad with similar coloring. His eyes sought out his friends though, and he saw them taking it in with the same ill look as he usually did.

The pattern wasn't always exact, this wasn't proof Harry was going to be in this miserable place for any reason, Sirius certainly wasn't going to bring him here voluntarily, but the fact that they were here meant something to do with him was afoot, and none of them were looking forward to that after the last few disastrous mentions of Remus and Peter were left in the air.

Finally his eyes landed on the book he'd personally discarded, and it had once again changed, though the size remained relative to the last one, depressingly. Now though, it was almost solid black. Sirius only just made out the faint, purple five in the flickering candle light of his room. He fought the urge to swat it right out of Evans's hand as she started.

Dudley Demented? Had that useless Muggle cousin already lost his mind? He would have thought that would have happened years ago, but he couldn't really bring himself to care regardless.

He fought back the urge to snap at Alice Smith for the advice she'd given him now, to try considering other sides of a problem other than the immediate solution. It was easy for her to say, the biggest obstacle she ever had in her life was finishing a homework assignment on time. His earliest memories however were of this room, and how much the place gave him the creeps.

Regulus hunched his shoulders, feeling more wrong-footed here in his own home than he had at every other location mixed together. This was insane, he should have been grateful to be back here! Instead, all he felt was a deep-seated worry as he was forced once again to imagine what Mother and Father would say to him during the coming summer holidays, now in more vivid detail than ever here in Sirius's room. He did not want to end up like his brother, the idea of his parents looking at him with such disappointment nearly had him sick on the plush carpet. He still had no idea what to do though, there seemed no solution to exist how to keep his parents in his life and yet not follow along with the path they'd set in motion for him.

He listened to Harry Potter's life at the miserable Muggle household being deprived of news from his friends, the fifteen-year-old now actually older than Regulus himself and knowing exactly what he wanted. He cringed against the floor at the idea of a Muggle attacking him like that Vernon was to his own nephew, he watched his brother and friends, even Evans and her friends light up with pure hatred at this happening to Harry Potter and fought the urge to crawl under Sirius's bed again until the nightmares and shouting faded. He wished Kreacher were here, at least his house-elf was someone who had never shouted in his life.

James flopped down on the too hard bed next to Sirius and threw an uneasy arm around his shoulders, but better to finally act on a motion he could do rather than murdering that awful Muggle. "How is it this trip is actually worse than the last time I was here?" James asked in a too loud, forced conversational tone of voice.

"I'm sorry Kreacher can't be here for you to set him on fire again," Sirius almost managed to answer without clenched teeth.

"Don't pin that on me, it was your fault for wanting to burn the bed sheets instead of just changing their color like I wanted to," James corrected with an unnatural laugh as he kept watching. Evans's face was more red with anger than he'd ever seen, a true feat in itself, and all directed at those awful excuses for extended family. Harry was finally able to make a temporary escape to some local playground and mull it all over, but the fact that Harry wasn't even thinking about nearly being strangled but instead more fixated on his forced isolation really spoke volumes.

Lily couldn't help but start to relax against the wall a bit as she saw how this situation was going to play out when Dudley himself entered the scene, she nearly wanted to laugh at it all, despite the fact nothing was very funny. Harry knew his godfather well, her child did indeed do the exact opposite of what Sirius Black would have done in that situation and walked away from a fight. The idea only reinforced in her the adult Harry needed in his life was Sev, who knew just as well as her but what a pampered idiot like Black could never understand about a miserable home life.

She took the time to look around again at the extravagant bed he was lounging on, the tacky posters and grandiose chandelier with still alight green flames giving them light. It was no wonder he did whatever he wanted. Like Dudley instead of Harry, he was clearly used to getting it outside of school as well.

The following conversation actually went about as well as if James Potter himself had been there, taunting Dudley. Both boys were honestly in the wrong, Dudley had started that fight, but Harry was making it all worse by verbally vexing his cousin. She'd been forced to acknowledge a while ago Harry was not his father, but it was still all too easy to picture him instead of Harry during that mess, until the Dementors arrived.

No one, not a single soul was left untouched by what happened next. Harry saved his miserable excuse for a cousin from those festered soul-eaters, with every reason and chance in the world not to. Would any of them have done the same in that moment, after all those Dursleys had put Harry through?