Reaching Out

Harry sat perfectly still, listening to Dudley do dishes, further proof that his cousin had changed – whether by necessity or choice hardly mattered – and wondered what it would be like to have someone around for breakfast on a regular basis. He couldn't allow anyone live with him, not if he cared for them, and if he didn't care, it would be unlikely he'd ask someone to share his space, much less his life, but it might be nice to have someone to stop by once in a while. Someone who didn't treat him like he was fragile, didn't notice how he held himself perfectly still sometimes, because it was better than reacting to the normal sounds of the world as if they were klaxons of danger, as if a young man's high laugh was not a scream, a woman's calling out to a neighbor not the beginning of a curse that would render him mute and twisted on the floor. No, he could not chance revealing how broken he remained, not even to people who had watched him break. The wonderful thing about Dudley was that he was just self-absorbed enough to not notice.

"You don't have a telly?" Dudley was clearly scandalized.

"Never got used to it." The images moved too fast, even with the sound down; it was too loud, too explosive, or sometimes too dull. He liked the cookery shows, but they were all available on his computer, so he didn't bother with a television. He had almost convinced himself that his aversion to television had nothing at all to do with the time he'd been taken to a Muggle emergency room and subjected to six hours of mindless blather from a screen over which he'd had no control. He'd never left home without his wand after that. Nor, for that matter, had he allowed himself to be taken anywhere against his wishes. Luckily, the worst of the flashbacks had stopped, and he hadn't collapsed in the street in months. He still avoided stores, favoring open-air markets. The florescent light bore too close a resemblance to the sickly glow of malevolent spells.

"So, you've no job, no telly, no friends to speak of, and you've left the hocus-pocus world behind. What do you do with yourself?" Leave it to Dudley to cut straight to it.

"Not much," Harry admitted. "I read a lot." And frequent abandoned areas where I can blow holes in piles of rubbish to make sure my spells still work, which they sometimes do, but sometimes not.

"Does it satisfy, then? Blowing up the rubbish?"

Harry blanched. Since Dudley barely knew his own mind, it was a sure bet he could not read Harry's, which meant he had spoken the last bit aloud.

Strangely, Dudley seemed unbothered by Harry's inadvertent admission.

"Not really, no. Can't think of another way to keep in practice with that particular skill set, though."

"That's reassuring," Dudley said drily. The fact that Dudley could say anything drily was new. "Care to try something a little less destructive then? I mean, if you feel the need to stay in practice, why not put the wand waving to good use?"

Harry stared at his cousin as if he'd grown another head, which, all things considered, was not entirely out of the question, however unlikely.

"You look like someone's hit you in the face with a hammer." Dudley chuckled.

"You don't like magic." That was what he'd said, not an hour before, wasn't it?

"Not what I said at all," Dudley corrected, though Harry was sure he hadn't spoken aloud that time. "I don't like spells pointed at me. I could see it being very useful for other things. A lot of other things, truth to tell, though I 'spect you wouldn't approve of most of them."

"Using magic for criminal activity carries a stiff penalty," Harry intoned with exactly the sort of dullness he imagined he would have developed as a Ministry drone.

"Pfft. I was thinking more along the lines of making a bloke more handsome, so he could pick up a bird or two in a pub."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Having problems with that, are you?"

"Not so much as you, it seems." Ever the tactful one, Dudley.

"So, what is it you want me to do that you don't think I'd want to do for you?"

"Make my house safe."

"Little Whinging isn't exactly the hub of crime," Harry pointed out. "But if you feel unsafe, get a security system installed."

Dudley rolled his eyes. "I'm supposed to be the slow one, yeah? I want you to make it so your lot can't sneak up on me. If I have fair warning, I could either escape or fight back with normal weapons."

"Like what?"

"I've a shotgun now, for sports shooting. I could protect myself, if I had to."

Harry sighed. "The only one of my lot, as you call them, who is likely to wish harm on you is me, and we're over that."

"You're telling me that you have no more enemies, no one who wants to get the best of you? Because if there's even one person out there with a grudge, they might remember where it was you grew up. Maybe they'll think we're close enough that you'd rescue me if they threatened my life."

"We are," Harry said. "I would."

"And there's me, sitting in that house, ripe for the picking. Again."

"You might think about selling the house," Harry offered.

"Think about it? Think about it?" Dudley shrieked. "We've tried for going on five years! Dad's left it to me to deal with, but no one will touch it. There's rumors, right? Things went on in that place, and everyone knows it. The only way to salvage the house is to move back in and be absolutely normal for a few years, until what people remember is that a big bloke lives there and forgets to trim up his yard sometimes. Then, maybe, I can find some young family to buy it, but even then, I'd worry if they didn't have just a little bit of protection – at least until your lot figures out that no one related to you lives there anymore."

Harry blinked several times. Not once in his life had Dudley ever thought a problem all the way through, much less considered the welfare of someone he didn't even know. Or maybe Harry hadn't been around for that particular transition to maturity. Either way, it came as a revelation.

"I'm not that good at charms and wards," Harry confessed. "Life pointed me in the direction of battle skills, you know?"

Dudley nodded. "But you know someone. You must know someone. Maybe call in one of those favors for knocking off that nutter who was trying to take over. People must feel they owe you for that."

"I'm sure there are some who do, but if they offered, I wasn't paying attention." Couldn't pay attention was more like it, but he didn't need to share that.

"Well, start. Call up someone who still likes you and ask around, or whatever it is you do in place of a telephone tree."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Telephone tree? Like what parents do to organize school events?" He left out the word Muggle, since Dudley had always thought it insulting.

"Yeah." Dudley's voice held a note of defensiveness.

"How long has it been since someone did that, what with computers and such?"

"Still happens," Dudley murmured. "We had one when I coached the kids' rugby team a couple years back. Everyone has a mobile now. Not everyone likes computers."

"You coached children?"

"Quit gaping at me like I'm some zoo exhibit. I can do good things if I want to." The petulant statement sounded so much like the younger Dudley that Harry relented.

"Might want to find somewhere else to be for a bit," Harry suggested. "The way I network is more complex than a phone tree. There's glowing involved." He teased to hide his real reason for wanting Dudley gone. He was entirely unsure how well he would be received by anyone he cared to contact.

Dudley picked up his bag and walked up the stairs. A few minutes later, Harry heard the shower start. He took a deep breath before throwing the Floo powder into the fireplace. It had never worked for a fire, and he hadn't tried to use it to Floo since first assuring himself it was, in fact, connected to the network. He didn't step inside, again because he was unsure of his reception, even in a place he'd called home. No one stepped through, because Harry would have killed them, a calmly stated fact that had led the Ministry to make his fireplace a one-way only connection.

"Harry? Is that really you?" Molly Weasley sounded strained. The cry of a child further off provided the reason.

"Yes, it's me. Thank you for answering, Mrs. Weasley."

"Molly, dear, and do get on with what you want. Little Louis has been in a snit since Fleur left him with me an hour ago, and I'm afraid he's going to set something on fire again."

"Sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you knew a way I could contact Tonks – and whether or not that might turn out okay for me."

"She has one of those Muggle devices. Surely you knew that."

"I lost her number." He'd lost the entire mobile in the rubble of his last apartment. He thought it best not to mention that disaster.

"And her Floo address?"

"She's moved since the last time I looked her up. Even if I could connect, I can't help but wonder if perhaps she's had enough of me ruining her life. After Remus..." He didn't know how to phrase the next bit without giving away secrets not entirely his own.

"Goodness! Do you still blame yourself for what happened in the war?"

Her simple question sent a jolt through him. He stumbled back as the images cascaded through his mind like a flip-book of the descent into hell. It took several moments for him to regulate his breathing enough to answer her with a semblance of calm.

"Some of it was my doing." If he hadn't hesitated, hadn't taken so long to figure out what they were supposed to be looking for, hadn't taken a vacation in his head in the middle of battle... then, maybe, there would have been fewer graves.

"Thinking you could have saved everyone is a bit narcissistic." Coming from Molly, that was a statement of fact, not an admonishment. "You really should get over that, dear."

Harry smiled, despite himself. "I'll be sure to work on that."

"Don't worry about Tonks. Like everyone else, she credits you with saving those who lived."

"That was Neville's doing, really," Harry muttered.

"In part," Molly agreed, "but he's a devil at avoiding the spotlight, and so have you become. The fervor has died down now, which is not to say anyone will ever forget, but the world is moving on. You should let it."

Harry had nothing to say to that.

"I'll contact Tonks for you. If she wants to talk, she'll get in touch herself. Give her a day or so. I understand Teddy is being particularly difficult of late, which you would know if you ever visited the boy. But then I suppose you wouldn't need me to act as intermediary." The wailing in the background increased. "I must run, dear. Do stop by for tea soon. It's been too long." And with that she was gone.

Harry stepped back until he was against the wall. He let out a long breath and slid to the floor. Little by little, his muscles uncramped. Several more deep breaths and he was able to move again. The whole process aggravated him. If only he could "get over it" as Molly suggested. He still tensed up when he had to talk to someone for more than a few moments. Dudley did not count, partly because he was family, and partly because he was not a wizard and had only a vague notion of what that last battle had been like. Still, his cousin was right about one thing; the end of the war did not mean peace.

Seeing Tonks would definitely not be peaceful, but he needed her. Again. He wondered what price he would pay for her help.

"So?" Dudley's damp hair stuck out in multiple directions, something it could only do when wet.

Harry looked up. "I put the word out. Someone should respond inside a couple of days."

"That long?"

"People have busy lives." Harry wondered what that would be like.

Then he remembered.

For itchyfoot, who gives a very fine prompt, indeed.