Chapter Text
‘Well,’ they think, traumatised. ‘That was horrifying.’
At first they had no idea what was happening, just that they wanted it to stop and never happen again. Now they know they were just born, all their memories from another life intact—so reborn or reincarnated probably fits better—which is weird, since they don’t remember dying.
They wish they could forget being born too.
They blink up at the blurry figure of who they’re guessing is their new ‘mother’ as she coos down at them, holding them against her chest. They blink again, trying to clear the blur enough to see what she looks like, she has dark hair, that they can tell, and a kinda long neck? They blink a few more times to no avail.
Oh well, they’ll find out later, for now they finally zone in on what she’s actually saying.
“-ike our little Dudders!”
Ex-fucking-scuse me?! Dudders!?!
Please say their name isn’t ‘Dudders’ now, they refuse to answer to that.
“Dudley Dursley. Going to grow up just like his daddy he is,” a large blurry shape says from next to them, voice deeper, new father maybe?
Wait—
Dudley Dursley?! What are they Harry Potter fans or something? Even if they are, Dudley!?! They narrow their eyes into a glare at the blurry figures, trying to show exactly what they think of that name, but the woman just coos louder, apparently finding it adorable and the man just laughs. They give up with a sigh, too tired for this shit, and settle down to sleep.
They’ll figure it out later.
***
Almost two years of boredom and tolerating their new—loving, but irritating—parents, they're still calling him Dudley. He currently can’t string more than a few words together—another great annoyance—and they think ‘no Dud no’ means he doesn’t want something, not that he despises being called anything with the word Dud in it. He’ll just have to live with it until his mouth catches up to his brain and he can tell them to call him Lee or anything else. Anything.
He sighs, sitting in the centre of his bedroom, surrounded by piles of plastic toys he doesn’t like, staring at the wall. At least he doesn’t have to pretend to play with them like he normally does when his ‘mother’ won’t leave his side, which is near constant, any other time he would celebrate being alone for a bit. But his ‘mother’ was far too quiet this morning, eye twitching at every noise and his ‘father’ was mysteriously missing from the table. Speaking of his ‘mother’ she’s back, quiet just like this morning, she gives him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes as she takes him down to lunch where his ‘father’ is sitting, his face red with anger.
‘Fathers’ face quickly goes from red to purple when a baby's cry sounds out from… somewhere in the house? Why is there a baby in the house?
“B’by?” he asks, straining to try to see down the hall where the cry had originated.
“It’s nothing sweety,” ‘mother’ replies with a strained smile.
No it is not nothing, a baby is crying! Why aren’t they doing anything?!
Well, if they won’t—He raises his hands in the air (like he just don’t care), straightening his body as he does and slips out of his high chair, luckily landing upright, and toddles towards the noise as fast as he can to the screeches of chairs behind him.
He reaches the cupboard under the stairs with a sinking heart, hoping he’s hearing it wrong. He throws open the door before his ‘parents’ can stop him and has to hold back furious tears at the sight of the boy, a little younger than him, with wet green eyes and half dried blood smeared across his forehead. His ‘parents’ they—how could anyone—he needs to—baby. The baby is most important right now.
He hurries inside to pull the boy against him and make soothing noises, stroking his hair and rocking back and forth. The boy tucks his head into his shoulder, cries fading into sniffles as he snuggles closer.
“Dudley!” his ‘mother’ cries, reaching the cupboard. “Get away from that!”
That? That?! He's a child! How dare they. He’s not letting them anywhere near him.
“B’by,” he snaps, and since they obviously won’t look after him, “ma b’by.”
He feels a hand grip his arm, trying to pull him away, and he decides to do something he hasn’t done in this life, he was trying to make things easier for his new ‘parents,’ but screw them.
He wails.
Screaming and kicking at them when they got close. There are a few more attempts to separate them until they finally seem to realise he would sooner bite them then let go. They leave to go argue about something in the kitchen and he takes the chance to pull away a little to check on the boy. He hums soothingly at him when he whines at the loss of contact and lifts his sleeve to wipe at the blood on his head, wanting to check for an injury. He finds one almost straight away.
One cutting down from his hairline to his eyebrow like a bolt of lightning.
A boy with messy black hair, emerald green eyes and a lightning bolt scar just arrived at the Dursleys.
Oh shi—