No specific help but most definitely blessed by the lovely Lady Lily Anne. It was her encouragement to get this out of my system so we could actually focus on our other works that caused this to be done so quickly after the initial chapter after all.

Also she gave this story its final name, because every one I chose sucked, by the old gods I really need to send that woman a fruit basket or something...

Regardless please enjoy and review!

"I need parchment," Harry stated with a sigh as he glanced at the cupboard under the stairs doing his best to ignore the monumental headache hammering through his skull. Dudley scratched his head in frustration then began shaking it slowly as he put two and two together while cursing his parents xenophobia for the first, but not last time.

"Dad's got the keys Harry, we're gonna have to break the lock off to get your stuff out..."

Much to Dudley's surprise Harry grinned coyly as he dipped his hand into a pocket of his oversized hand-me-down trousers and plucked out a set of fine wire looking things. Moving over to the cupboard Dudley simply observed Harry as he methodically began inserting the wires into the lock picking it with practiced ease.

Feeling fairly impressed the older boy soon asked, "Holy hell Harry...how long have you known how to do that?"

Harry smirked grimly as the lock popped and he pulled it off the hasp, tossing it aside he turned to Dudley and shrugged once.

"Since I was eight, I didn't want to starve to death, and there were plenty of paperclips to practice with. Useful skill to have really, especially when wizards only put up counters to magic, not the mundane. Magicals, seriously, fools the lot of them..."

As Harry swung the door open and dragged his trunk out Dudley decided to help and lifted the other end, Harry sent him a look of thanks and they soon dropped it in the middle of the living room. Snapping the clasps open Harry drew out a fresh sheet of parchment and a quill, frowning he glanced at the trunk for a moment before sighing in annoyance.

"Dudley you got a Biro about you?" Dudley rolled his eyes as he walked to the kitchen and began riffling through a drawer.

"Yes Harry I happen to carry pens and pencils about while I roam the neighborhood. Alas the ink ran out in my last one so please let me check mum's stock."

Harry paused a moment before letting out a light laugh while slamming his trunk shut, "Well as I live and breath. My cousin is actually making friendly jokes at my expense without being cruel, I'll have to mark my calendar."

Dudley threw his newly found pen at Harry's head but the Quiditch junkie caught it without a glance all while clicking the button at its top to extend the tip.

"Thank's Big D, so how should I address this? I was thinking 'Dear Ministry Assholes' but that seems a bit...crass..."

Dudley glanced out the window to the still spasming dementors before turning back to his cousin, "Ummm...'To The Ministry Cubicle Slave it May Concern?'"

Harry grinned widely at that while writing quickly, "Oh good one, I like it!"

As Harry penned his letter Dudley opened the window and began throwing random objects at the frozen soul vampires, he found some dark amusement in the fact that that for unknown reasons, ruptured eggs stuck to the monsters and nothing else would. Five minutes later the window was closed again and Dudley was grimacing as he watched the Dementors throw up balls of white light and sparks of various colours.

"It's kinda hypnotizing really," Dudley began with a handkerchief held over his nose. "Aside from them smelling like three week old unwashed feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon it's almost like watch'in a lava lamp ya know?"

Glancing up at his cousin and the demons held at bay Harry only snorted while shaking his head before turning back to his letter, a few minutes later he finally spoke up.

"Dudley...why?"

Dudley turned away from the demons to give Harry an incredulous look, "Why what?"

Harry dropped his pen and rubbed his hands up and down his face dislodging his glasses in the process. Eventually managing to place them back on his nose he stared his cousin down for a few moments before sighing out his response.

"Why do you care about me now after all these years?"

Dudley looked contrite, then ashamed, then, oddly enough, exhausted. Eventually he moved away from the window and plopped on the couch next to Harry while throwing an arm around the younger teen's shoulders.

"Harry, yesterday, when you unloaded all that shite on me and my gang? I had to ask myself a question, a question I had no real answer to that kinda changed everything for me..."

Harry shrugged off the arm as he snatched his pen off the table and continued writing his letter, "Oh? And what was that?"

Dudley sighed as he stared at the ceiling while he threw his feet up on the table, thankfully not disrupting any of Harry's writing supplies, "Why?"

Harry glanced to his cousin with a raised brow as he echoed, "Why?"

Dudley nodded slowly as he laced his fingers together and stretched them behind his head as he began observing the speckled ceiling once again, "Yeah, why? Why did I treat you like shite, why did I beat you into the ground despite you never standing down, much less ever earning my ire to begin with? Why was I a complete and utter bastard to my only living relative that wasn't either my parents, or a horrible hag that smelled of dog piss, cabbage, and brandy."

Dudley glanced to a now paused Harry meeting his gaze evenly, "And I didn't have an answer other then, 'Its always been this way.' That ain't good reasoning cousin of mine, that's shite reasoning right there. So I decided to ignore everything mum and dad have told me to do with you over the years and I'm do'in what I want to do; and what I want to do is help my little cousin survive the crazy people he's surrounded by."

Harry placed his pen on the table, turned to Dudley and just stared at him a few moments, it wasn't long enough to disconcert the boy but it was long enough to make him raise a brow, eventually Harry extended a hand and Dudley quickly took it in his own.

Shaking their hands for a moment Harry broke the grasp smiling as he turning back to his letter, "Thank you, Dudley... for proving many wrong... Change is hard cousin, and taking it upon yourself without outside factors forcing it? You're...a good man Big D...well...you're an ok man at least, you do beat up preadolescence's for getting shirty with you. Still, I'm... I'm willing to bury the past and start over if you are?"

Dudley stared at Harry a few moments before shaking his head slowly, "No...I can't bury the past Harry," said boy deflated a bit before his cousin continued, "I can't because frankly, it was all on me. I can't forget what I did to you, or arranged to happen to you but...I'm going to do my best to make sure none of that shite happens to you again..."

Harry stared at his cousin a few moment before turning away, obviously not wiping a tear away as he finished up his letter, "Thanks...Bid D...really, thanks..."

As he folded up his letter Dudley continued to speak, "Though that ten year old really did have it coming mate, called mum a cunt and said I smelled of elderberries...Piers was fairly certain the kid was mixing Monty Python quotes but we didn't get a clear answer before he started throwing dog shite at us."

Harry froze and sent his cousin a questioning glance who for his part only nodded sagely in return, "Completely true."

Harry shook his head in disbelief as he palmed through his trunk and grabbed a random envelope, placing the letter inside he sealed it and wrote out the address for the Ministry for Magic. As soon as he was done writing the letter turned bright red and began smoking.

Dudley eyed it for a moment before stating, "Fancy, is it supposed to do that?"

Harry's mind reeled back as he realized that he'd just made a howler and quickly attempted to tear it in half, but before he could Hedwig swooped into the room and snatched it in her talons flying out the now oddly open front door.

"Err..." Harry began slowly, "I just remembered that my friends Fred and George stole some very special parchment from their mother at the beginning of last year and stashed it in my trunk..."

Dudley raised a brow as he asked, "And this is a bad thing?"

Harry grimaced as he turned to Dudley and after explaining what a howler was, how smart Hedwig was, and what exactly he wrote in the letter, Dudley began cackling like a madman.

Yeah...he should really write a letter to Sirius explaining the shitstorm he had just kicked up...

"Why don't you call that bird of your's, Hermione? She might be able to help with the anthill you just kicked over."

Right, Hermione, his best friend, the girl he apparently loved, and a muggle-born, which meant she had something resembling common sense. Diving at his trunk Harry riffled through broken quills, fragments of parchment, and unread books before he found a folded up piece of notebook paper. Unfolding it Harry grinned as he saw Hermione's perfect handwriting on the slightly aged paper and gazed upon the phone number scrawled underneath a simple message. "I'll always be there, all you have to do is call me and I'll be there."

Bloody hell was he blind, she'd given him this at the end of their second year and...

And...

Well...why not?

Harry turned to the phone and picked the receiver off the cradle as he turned to Dudley meeting his gaze evenly, "Think your parents will care about long distance charges?"

Dudley quirked a brow as he cocked his head with an amused smile crawling up he face, "Do you honestly care?"

Harry snorted in return, "Do you?"

Dudley threw his hands up and cried to the gods above, "NO! Call your woman already Potter seriously!"

And so Harry did.

Emma Granger was enjoying one of her few days off reading a rather saucy bodice ripper novel, occasionally sipping a cup of tea, while listening to Queen in the background. Seriously she worked hard and deserved a bit of privacy and...the phone was ringing.

Sighing Emma stuck a folded Post-It note in her book before slamming it shut while heaving herself to her feet, and considering the fact she was maybe 50 kilos at best, that really wasn't saying anything.

Snatching the cordless off it's cradle she quickly stated, "Grangers, if you are selling something we don't want it." There was a very awkward pause before she got a reply from an obviously nervous boy.

"Err..Hello? My name is Harry Potter and I was hoping to speak with Hermione Ma'am?" Emma froze as her eyes widened in shock, so the letters were true, her little girl really had found someone...

"Eh...Right, wait a moment and I'll go get her." Not waiting for Harry to reply Emma bolted across the house and opened Hermione's door without even knocking, thankfully her daughter was simply reading and glanced up at her grinning mother in confusion.

"Mum, what is it?"

Emma's grin turned into a smirk before she tilted her head towards the doorway, "Harry Potter just called for you, thought you'd like to know." Hermione was on her feet faster than her mother could follow and immediately brushed past her to rush to the phone. Following said daughter Emma was highly amused at the one sided conversation she walked in on, if not slightly confused by it.

"Harry how are you! I...I'm sorry I haven't been writing but Dumbledore told us it wasn't safe to send information... Well...right I could have sent a letter but how was I to know if your relatives wouldn't just burn it? I tried calling but your aunt hung up when I said I was friends with you... Oh...Really? He honestly wants to make things work now after all he did? ...Well...ok I can see your point of view...WHAT!?"

Emma's eyes widened as Hermiones hair stood on end, electricity running down its length in purple arcs as her brown eyes darkened, "What do you mean Dementors are stuck in your front garden Harry!? Why!?" There was a brief silence as the boy explained himself and Hermione relaxed a bit in turn, "Oh good, you wrote to the DMLE...a howler!?" Her voice became panicked and then she relaxed with an exasperated sigh, "Right...the twins...well...at least you know you're going to be heard, right?"

Emma was about to walk away when Hermione squeaked out, "What do you mean you got drunk with your cousin last night!?" She froze and leaned in to hear more but Hermione had completely frozen at the words she heard. Eventually she seemed to reach a sort of calm as she absorbed the information, hitting the speaker button she placed the handset on the table as she fell onto the couch no longer capable of standing on her own.

"Anything else you want to tell me Harry?"

There was silence for a time before the boy eventually sighed, "Well...after Big D and his gang got me going I came to a rather terrifying conclusion."

Hermione sighed at that as she shook her head slowly, "And what conclusion is that Harry?"

Her friend sighed and after a few moments replied, "I'm in love with you. Which is supremely uncomfortable for me since human interaction isn't exactly my cup of tea yeah?"

Hermione froze, Emma froze, and it was as if the world froze in turn, eventually her daughter was able to speak, if only barely.

"You're in love with me?"

"Yup," Harry stated casually as his voice lilted slightly, "It took a bottle of moonshine and being egged on by Dudley and his gang to figure it out but yeah, I'm madly in love with you. As an aside, since Dudley keeps pocking my ribs to ask you this, would you like to go out on a date this weekend? Dinner and a movie and all that?"

Emma swooped into the room and grinned at a now pale faced Hermione as she turned to the still active phone, "She'll go happily Harry, and then she can introduce you to us properly."

Harry remained silent for a few moments, before another boy spoke, "That's her mum, isn't it?"

Harry sighed, "Probably."

The other voice laughed as a light patting noise was heard, "Have fun with that!"

Harry's "I hate you," was cut off by Hermione snatching the cordless off the table and turning off the speaker as she rushed into her room.

All the while Emma couldn't help grinning, her little girl had really grown up...

Amelia Bones slipped through the bustling crowds in the Ministry for Magic's atrium when she rather unfortunately ran into the Minister himself along with his undersecretary Delores Umbridge. Amelia had to do her best not to scrunch up her nose in disgust as Fudge took his lime green bowler hat off his head and began spinning it on his fingers lightly as he began speaking.

"Director Bones, good to see you, a busy day is it?" Amelia did her best not to snort in disgust, every day was busy in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, having next to no funding all but guaranteed that.

"Of course Minister, the job they say never stops even when you do, now-" She was cut off as a snowy white owl flew out of one of the floos and made a bee line for her. Not stopping the owl dropped a red envelope at her feet before swooping up to land on the rather tacky fountain of magical brethren and sat on the witches extended arm to watch the fireworks.

"Hem hem, what exactly is this about Amelia?"

Before she could dryly state, 'A letter, obviously,' to the undersecretary the howler boiled over and exploded in a ball of sparks.

"To the Ministry Cubical Slave it May Concern,

I Harry James Potter wish to commend you for your attempted assassination of my person and to convey that it has failed hilariously. Your pet dementors are currently frying to death...errr...undeath? Well, they're currently suffering as they are stuck on the wards in my front garden at the very least. My cousin Dudley is currently throwing eggs and marshmallows at them, which is honestly rather amusing.

Regardless, moving on.

Honestly if that corrupt, clueless, moronic miscreant Fudge wanted me dead so much he should probably have tried harder. I mean really I've already faced Voldemort three times and kicked his arse repeatedly, not to mention facing these dementors no less than three times as well during my third year at Hogwarts.

Kind of offended if truth were to be told, luckily I didn't even have to use my patronus charm since the wards around my home are so strong, lovely that.

So, now that you know you can't murder me in my sleep, please come retrieve your pet soul vampires before the neighbors notice the azaleas are flash freezing.

Sincerely

Harry James Potter

P.S. My Magically sworn (think on that a moment) Godfather Sirius Orion Black was never charged, tried, or convicted of any crime, and was simply thrown into Azkaban without a by your leave from anyone but Crouch.

Oh and Fudge knows he is innocent he just listened to my Godfather's arch nemesis, the greasy git known as Severus Snape and believed we were confounded so he ordered Sirius to be kissed by a dementor without trial, again.

Just the same as he did to Barty Crouch Junior after he delivered me to Voldemort so he could be resurrected by Peter Pettigrew at the cost of my blood and Cedric Diggory's life at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.

P.P.S Toodles, fuck all of you, I hope Voldemort makes you lot scream before he's done with you.

P.P.P.S FREEBIRD!"

As the howler burnt to ashes Amelia raised a single brow as she glanced towards a now purple faced Fudge, and a very, very pale faced Umbridge.

"Minister, Undersecretary, is there something you would like to tell me?"

Hedwig, who was largely ignored by the foolish humans, clacked her beak in amusement before dropping off the statues and glided towards one of the waiting floos. Her message had been delivered at the perfect moment, and her job was now done, now to receive her due bacon from her Harry.

The life of a post owl was rife with trials and terrors, but Hedwig had, and always would be up to the challenge.