Title: Change
Summary: There is nothing permanent in life except change.
Characters: Dudley Dursley, Cho Chang, Minor OCs
Written For: Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition: Season Six, Round Ten
Prompt: Write about a character winning the lottery and changing their identity because of it.
Beta: magrud (you sit up way too much for me. ily.)
Disclaimer: JKR owns HP&co.
Trigger Warnings: Fat shaming, Mentions of miscarriage.
General Warning: This story features femHarry, but it's mentioned only in the passing. Gender-bending ftw.
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Change
(Or the one where there's light at the end of the tunnel.)
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Judgemental looks followed him wherever he went.
Dudley knew he wasn't exactly an Adonis when it came to his physique, but that didn't warrant the morbid curiosity that he attracted whenever he simply walked into a coffee shop to get a cup of joe.
"One large coffee, black. And two glazed donuts."
"Are you sure, sir?" asked the young woman behind the till, her eyes focused on his rather ample belly. She was looking at him like he was a circus freak.
"Yes, I'm sure," he told her firmly, even though the older man standing behind him in the queue tutted in disgust. As the barista scrambled to put his order together, the man behind commented nonchalantly, "Such a sad thing, how some people have no self control."
Dudley tried not to let that get to him. All the fakely cheery self-help books preached that it wasn't what you were on the outside that mattered, it was who you were on the inside, but obviously, the writers had never met Dudley.
The truth was, Dudley didn't like who he was on the inside either. It had taken him fifteen years to realise that he was nothing more than a schoolyard bully, unimportant to his seniors and unlikeable to his peers.
"Here you go, sir," the female said, eyeing him as she kept a closed styrofoam cup of coffee and a brown bag with donuts on the counter.
Dudley looked at the bill and made a show of taking out the exact number of notes and coins he needed from his wallet. He deliberately glanced at the tip jar and then at her, till she got the message. Her face flushed with colour, she gritted out unpleasantly, "Have a nice day."
Picking up his order leisurely, Dudley stepped back and brought his foot down hard on the other man's. As he began to howl with pain, Dudley hurried out of the coffee shop. Just because he was fat didn't mean he was an imbecile. He wasn't going to stick around and wait for the man to hurl abuse at him.
The crisp autumn air hit his face as he walked down the road sipping coffee. As he paused by a parking meter, he saw a young boy of not more than ten gorging on an ice-cream cone. He had a look of utmost concentration on his face, like that cone was his lifeline. It came as no surprise to Dudley that the boy was plump, rotund in figure.
For a moment, Dudley was transported back to his late teen years. Back then, every time he gave up on the latest diet his mum put him on, he'd binge on Tyrells Crisps and down cans of Cola till he felt the need to throw up. He'd probably had an expression similar to what this boy here wore.
Self control had never been Dudley's forte. The old man in the shop, though a judgemental arse, had been right.
Had there ever been a time when he didn't physically resemble a pig?
Feeling sick, Dudley threw his bag of uneaten donuts into a nearby bin.
x
These days, whispers followed her wherever she went.
In the beginning, it had been a very different kind of whispering. Cho had won the Daily Prophet lottery last month, and people at work had congratulated her, often with smiles on their faces and envy in their eyes. People whom she hadn't spoken to in years had written to her, apologising for falling out of touch. Relatives who were in debt came crawling out of the woodwork. But that was all right.
Cho had been in demand.
And then that horrid article had come out, and everything had changed. Her personal life and the follies of her youth had been laid bare, and now, the whispers were of a different tenor.
Today was no different, Cho realised, as she ducked behind the shelf with canned octopus eyes, desperate to escape all the wagging tongues.
"Remember that Diggory boy who died in the Triwizard thing in '94? I read that she was his girlfriend. Was even pregnant with his kid, it seems."
"The Diggories have a grandchild?"
"Nah, would have been a blessing too. She lost the baby when that boy died. Hasn't been right in her head since, I read. That's why she acted out, going all crazy," said the first voice, her tone faux-sympathetic.
"Poor thing," said the second voice, as the two women talking about her moved to a different aisle.
Cho clenched her fist and unclenched it, breathing in deeply and counting to ten. The pain still assaulted her—phantom stabs in her womb—whenever she thought of the miscarriage. Ever since Skeeter had written an article about her 'troubled teen years', she'd come under constant scrutiny. People either looked at her with pity because she'd lost a baby, or they no longer wanted to be her patient at St Mungo's, because of what Skeeter had dubbed her more 'violent proclivities'.
Somehow, after all these years, that nosy reporter had found out that Cho had been the one to break Potter's nose at Cedric's funeral, 'permanently disfiguring' their saviour's nose. True, Cho should not have resorted to physical violence, but she'd been distraught. She'd lost the love of her life, and at the time, it had seemed Potter's fault.
But it wasn't Cho's fault that the Girl-Who-Lived-To-Conquer had been too proud to get her nose fixed before it started healing at a slightly crooked angle. And it definitely wasn't Cho's fault that in the decade and a half since the incident, Potter hadn't bothered to correct it with magical cosmetic surgery—it wasn't like she didn't have the money. Between her ancestral wealth and her partner's vaults, the Potter-Malfoy family could have bought out the entire Ministry.
She was tired of all the hate-mail that she was receiving from Potter's fans.
Sighing, Cho checked if the coast was clear before making her way to the front of the shop, ready to make her purchase. As she neared the counter, she noticed that the cashier was engrossed in a copy of Witch Weekly.
It was with a sinking feeling that Cho recognised her own face staring out at her from the cover—it was a photo from her Fifth Year; there were O.W.L level books scattered across her lap, as she leaned lazily against a sycamore tree on Hogwarts grounds.
"DOES SHE DESERVE HER NEW FORTUNE?" read the caption under it, and Cho no longer felt comfortable in the shop. She wanted to go home.
She hastily placed her basket of groceries on the floor and cast a Notice-Me-Not spell on her face. With slow and quiet steps, she backed away from the counter and walked out of the stuffy shop, her pace brisk till she merged with the throng on the road.
It was only when she neared Knockturn Alley that she stopped walking. Panting, she leaned against the side of a dilapidated building to catch her breath. As she leaned against the wall and let the cool breeze calm her, a faded poster on the other side, with peeling gold lettering, caught her eye.
'If you don't like the life you have, you can change it. Let us help you.'
There was an address on it in much smaller font, and Cho strained her eyes to read it. She crossed the road to take a better look. The light from the lamp wasn't sufficient, but a quick Lumos fixed that problem.
After five minutes of trying and failing to memorise the address, Cho pulled out a Self-Inking Quill and wrote it down on her left palm.
Tomorrow, she decided, she'd write to these people and find out what they meant.
It was high time she moved away from this toxic community.
x
A year had gone by since Dudley had made the decision to get a gastric bypass done. The surgery had not been covered by his company's insurance policy, but by working two extra jobs and leading a severely austere life for the past few months, he'd managed to save up the required amount.
His parents hadn't been too keen about his idea when he'd told them, and in fact, they still weren't. Ever since he'd gotten them a broadband connection, Mum had taken to Googling every little thing she heard of. She'd been influenced by blogs and other news articles, and had managed to convince Dad that Dudley was killing himself. There wasn't a day when she didn't call up to tell him how this kind of surgery always ended in death.
Piers, his best mate from kindergarten, on the other hand, was convinced that Dudley had lost his mind. "Wouldn't liposuction be cheaper if you just want to lose your weight?" he'd asked, stunned by how expensive the surgery was.
But Dudley didn't want temporary fixes. He wanted a permanent solution that would help him get his life on track.
"Well Mr Dursley, your surgery has been scheduled for the fourth of May. You'll have to pay the remaining 25 percent on the day of your discharge, is that clear?"
Dudley nodded.
The other man continued speaking, as imperiously as before.
"It's been mandated by the health department that those wishing to undergo bariatric surgery must undergo ten sessions of counselling, sessions spaced no more than two weeks apart. Each session needs to be at least one hour long. So that's a minimum of ten hours, in total.
"We extend this policy to gastric bypass patients as well, so I'll have the receptionist call you and fix the dates for the in-house counselling sessions by next Monday. Is that fine?"
Dudley nodded again.
That was how appointments with Dr Sloane went. He'd talk, talk, and talk, and then talk some more. When he spoke, one wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise—something that Dudley had learnt in his first appointment a couple of weeks back. The patient could ask questions only when Dr Sloane asked if the patient had questions.
Personally, Dudley found the man's bedside manner severely lacking.
"I believe you can see yourself out? Stop by the reception desk before leaving," he instructed, and Dudley nodded again—he didn't have to be asked twice.
Had Dr Sloane not been one of the most reputed surgeons in London, Dudley might have sought a different doctor.
As Dudley made his way down the corridor, a black haired woman in a white coat ran into him head first as she turned blindly around a corner, dropping the stack of files she'd been carrying.
"Oh my Mer—God, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, as she bent to retrieve her files. Dudley bent to pick them up too, and she didn't say anything, focussing on arranging the sheets of paper that had come loose.
It was nice, Dudley realised, to not be treated like an invalid. Usually when he dropped things, others would pick them up for him, asking him not to strain himself.
This woman, it seemed, was different. It was as if she hadn't noticed that he was obese.
He straightened up at the same time as her, and when he handed the files to her, she smiled brightly at him. Her markedly Chinese features were attractive, and Dudley swallowed loudly.
"Thank you," she said softly, patting his arm gently before stepping to the side. In a few seconds, she was gone, but not before Dudley had taken a good look at her name tag.
The future didn't seem bleak anymore, Dudley realised, as he resumed walking down the corridor, towards the reception. The earlier tiredness he'd felt was now gone, and his thoughts revolved around how pretty, yet kind, Dr Zhāng was. He felt buzzed.
This was a good omen, Dudley decided, his gait more lively than usual. There was this feeling in his bones that things would only get better from now on.
End Notes:
1. JKR said that Cho ends up marrying a Muggle, and in my HC, it's Dudley.
2. Zhāng is the Pinyin spelling for Chang.
3. I always thought it was Tyrell's Crisps — turns out it's Tyrells, and the leaf on top of the S is not an apostrophe. My life is a lie.
Written For: Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition: Season Six, Round Ten
Word Count: 1991
Prompt: Write about a character who wins the lottery and change some their identity because of it.
Position: Seeker, Puddlemere United