I will never forgive them for cutting out this scene.
Tumblr app doesn’t show this gif set but I already know what it is. No need to hesitate to reblog.
And he did this just before a road trip, stuck in the car with his parents asking what he was thinking.
The look of utter defiance Dudley gives Vernon as he steps over the fence though
And how he does it really slowly as well as if to say “What you gonna do about it huh?”
The phone rings. It was an absurd wedding gift from his father in-law, and one which much to Harry’s surprise, had actually worked when he’d plugged it into the landline. Arthur had taken to phoning him on it, just for the pure novelty of the thing—though how they’d managed to get a BT engineer out to the Burrow without causing an incident, Harry doesn’t know. He’s not sure he wants to.
“Hello?”
“Uhm,, is this…is this the Potter residence?”
There’s a beat of silence as Harry adjusts the receiver against his ear, not quite sure he’s heard who he thinks he has. “…Dudley?”
“Yea…uhm, Harry?”
“Dudley.” Harry repeats numbly, turning to look at Ginny who is looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. “Uh…Christ, Dudley, hi how did…how did you find this number?”
There’s another beat of silence and the crackle of static that might have been a sigh or simply just the line breaking up. “Hi, sorry I know you probably…sorry this was stupid. I uh, I put your name in the computer and this was the only thing that came up.”
“Oh.” Harry breathes, still trying to recover his equilibrium. Ten minutes ago he’d been using his wand to clear away dinner, he’d been getting ready to sit down and read through some reports before putting the kids to bed, and now somehow, he’s talking to his muggle cousin who he hasn’t seen since… “How, how are you?”
“Good, yea” Dudley replies, seeming to rally, “You?”
“Yea, uh, doing well…”
The conversation lasts maybe a half hour, faltering and awkward. But they’re going for a coffee at the end of the week and Harry supposes…that’s…that’s a thing that is happening.
*
“Harry…”
Harry turns and looks up, and looks up some more at the looming figure blocking out the light.
“Dudley,” he says, standing up and hoping the pang of something awful doesn’t show on his face. For a moment he thought he’d been looking at Vernon. “It’s good to see you.”
Dudley gives him a look that says he clearly knows Harry is lying, but is thankful for being humored. “You too, you’re looking good…”
They pass the first few minutes with awkward pleasantries and even more awkward silences. But it’s…nice would be too strong a word, but it’s not bad either. He even manages to get a smile out of him when he calls him Big D, the other man shaking his head with a self depreciating eye roll.
“Dad died,” Dudley says after a while, and Harry feels an icy hot flash go down his spine, curdling in his gut.
“Oh,” he says, not quite sure how he’s supposed to feel about that, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Dudley snorts into his coffee. “Somehow I doubt it.” and it’s not accusing, but Harry still can’t help but feel like he should defend himself. The words they locked me in a cupboard are on the cusp of his tongue but Dudley gets there before him. “There’s a lot of things…looking back…lot of things…” and it’s not an apology, not really. “Took me a long time to realize certain things weren’t right…too long.”
Harry nods at that, because yes, it had also taken him a long time too to understand the full of extent of what had gone on in 4 Privet Drive. He still doesn’t like tight spaces.
“You realize things though, when you have kids,” Dudley carries on, shaking his head, “Like they’re just kids, how can you do that to a kid? They need you for everything.”
And Harry can relate to that too. Lily is three and Ginny is pregnant again and James already has an alarming alacrity for finding trouble and with or without magic Harry doesn’t have enough hands to deal with it all. But he loves it, and he loves them, and the thought of anyone ever treating his children the way he remembers his first eleven years of life is enough to make the electric lights over their head flicker.
“You’ve got kids?”
“Two,” Harry says, “third one on the way. You?”
“Nice. Just the one, so far.” He hands over his phone, the image of a bright young girl with dark skin and tight ringlet curls staring back at him from the grasp of Dudley’s arms. “Effie.” He smiles ruefully at Harry’s obvious surprise. “Dad wasn’t too happy about that either.”
“She’s gorgeous.” Harry says, handing the phone back and pulling out his own wallet to reveal the moving pictures inside.
Dudley flinches a bit at that, but he guffaws broadly when he spies James. “Cor, he don’t half look like you. No glasses though.”
“No,” Harry says, pushing his own glasses back up his nose. “He’s got his mother’s eyes, thankfully.”
“Actually, Harry, there was something I was hoping we could…talk about.”
And ah, there it is. “What about?”
“It’s…it’s about Effie…”
And when he’s done talking Harry just wants to lean back and laugh and laugh and laugh, because of course Vernon Dursley’s granddaughter is a witch, of course she is. But he doesn’t, because Dudley is doing the one thing he can think of to try and help his child, and Harry can’t fault him for that.
*
They keep in touch after that. Christmas cards, postcards—gifts for the kids on birthdays. The year Effie turns eleven—the same as James—Harry drops a casually long thought out text into the familial void.
“Diagon A this weekend, if you’re up for it?”
The text comes back quickly, a little too quickly for the way Dudders pecks at his phone whenever Harry has seen him typing. “Snds gd, 1st pint on u 😉 – Big D 🍺🍺🍺👌👍”
It’ll be painfully awkward, it always is. But it’s something.
Oh hey. This post.
For anyone who wants to keep it without having to find it again on Tumblr:Dial Tone
There’s even a part 2. And a Cursed Child AU tangent cause that’s what happens when tumblr gets me started on Harry Potter. The urge to fix things is relentless.
This is great, but does it imply that Al Potter is younger than Lily?
I didn’t read the fan wikipedia when I wrote this off the cuff. It’s since grown limbs as an idea, and I have subsequently read the wikis. But canon and I only have a passing acquaintance at best.
If you’re European, in a couple of weeks you will be denied any and all access to fandom contents on Tumblr and everywhere else on the internet. Here’s why.
On June, 20th the JURI of European Parliament approved of the articles 11 and 13 of the new Copyright Law. These articles are also known as the “Link Tax” and the “Censorship Machines” articles.
Articles 13 in particular forces every internet platform to filter all the contents we upload online, ending once and for all the fandom culture. Which means you won’t be able to upload any type of fandom works like fan arts, fan fictions, gif sets from your favourite films and series, edits, because it’s all copyrighted material. And you won’t also be able to share, enjoy or download other’s contents, because the use of links will be completely restricted.
But not everything’s lost yet. There’s another round of voting scheduled for the early days of July.
What you can do now to save our internet, is to share these informations with all of your family members and friends, and to ask to your MEP (the members of the European Parliament from your country) to vote NO at the next round, to vote against articles 11 and 13.
Here you can find more news and all the details to contact your MEP:
We have just a couple of weeks to stop this complete madness, don’t let them dictating the way we enjoy our internet.
#SaveYourInternet now!
It’s funny how y’all will reblog any and all US things but when whole Europe might lose access to internet then everything is quiet.
Hey, guys! It’s me, your friendly neighborhood law student!
I am seeing this circling my dashboard (yet again) and I would like to say a few things about it. Once again, as I have stated before when I’ve weighed in on something, I am not a lawyer (yet). But, that being said…
Please stop being sensationalist. There are many legitimate criticisms of this directive, but these are not the criticisms I am seeing being spread around. Instead, what’s being spread around amounts to fearmongering. I don’t blame you for doing so – the vast majority of this is being started by the people this will hit hardest, AKA big corporate giants such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft. They have the kind of press pull that very easily leads to this kind of panic.
So, for any of my followers having anxiety about this, let me soothe your worries and address them point by point.
1. “This will destroy the internet in two weeks”
No, no, it won’t. This is a directive, meaning (unlike, say, the the last thing to bring my work onto my tumblr, the fucking GDPR) that it leaves the goals of the directive open to somewhat free implementation by member states, as long as the basic goals of the directive are met on time. As such, it will be years before we actually see any binding legislation as a result of this directive, and how member states choose to implement it will vary on the state in question.
2. “Article 11 will completely restrict the use of links”
Article 11, AKA what is being referred to as the link tax, essentially implements what we call the ancillary copyright of press publishers. This right gives press publishers the right to demand compensation when snippets of their content are displayed on other web pages. So, essentially, this is an article almost directly designed to bop Google (who currently holds the kind of leading market position that the EU sees as incrediblyproblematic because it kind of goes against everything the EU stands for) on the nose. This would force Google (and, with it, other companies) to compensate the writers of articles that are mirrored to their sites in a truncated form, often leading to less traffic to the actual site in question and thus the mirroring site gaining the revenue that would otherwise be due to the writer of the article.
Now – there are legitimate criticisms of this, which mostly hinge on the fact that forcing people to pay the content creator for content they are using may lead some people to stop using that content. Personally, I think it’s better for people to receive compensation for their work, even if it comes at the cost of less sharing of the work. You are allowed to disagree. The most legitimate form of criticism of this article, in my humble opinion, is that it may lead to a picking and choosing of what content to share and what not to. The thing is – is this not something that is being done already? What does this article add to that other than to make sure that if you do choose to share someone else’s work, that other party gets compensated accordingly?
3. “Article 13 will destroy fandom culture”
No, no, it won’t. The vast majority of fandom culture falls under what US law refers to as fair use and most European national laws (which, in the case of EU countries, are harmonized according to the European Union Copyright Directive) refer to as private use. Article 13 in and of itself does not change the allowances made for private use of media in derivative works already. It merely mandates that companies must take effective measures to stop the users of their services from sharing media that infringes on copyright.
Again, I am in the boring camp of agreeing with the EU – I believe it is better for people to be compensated for their work. If the way we are currently using media in fandom is infringing on copyright, then I think we should stop using it that way. You are entirely welcome to disagree with me on this. Notice how the wording of the article constantly emphasizes how measures taken must be appropriate and proportionate. How the the content recognition technology is mentioned as an example of effective measures that could be taken to stop the uploading and sharing of copyrighted works, not as the only way of doing so. Notice how the entire third paragraph of this article deals with best practices and appropriate and proportionate technology which takes into account the availability and effectiveness of technology – so, essentially, if it sucks and flags too many things as infringing on copyright, it should not be used because it is not appropriate, proportionate or effective. And that’s right there in the directive.
And, yet again, there are legitimate criticisms of this article, including the one mentioned in the OP I am replying to regarding the limitations of sharing copyrighted material on, say, Youtube. That’s true – but you haven’t been allowed to upload full films onto Youtube as is, have you? Videos with copyrighted music in the background have been muted or deleted, as well. The most legitimate criticism I’ve seen is that these automatic copyright infringement flagging algorithms are generally overzealous, and this could lead to over-censoring of content that would actually fall under fair use/personal use/whatever you want to call it. That’s true, very true – but the article doesn’t require countries to enforce algorithms being used if they don’t work as they should. See above paragraph.
So, in conclusion: yes, this directive could stand to be worded better. Yes, it may technically lead to the kinds of doomsday scenarios people are imagining – but I really don’t think it will. In fact, I doubt you’ll notice much difference when (in a few years) these laws actually start getting implemented. Notice how no one has heard about the GDPR for like three weeks now, even though we’re living in that supposedly apocalyptic post-GDPR world? (I say, bitterly, as I wade through piles of GDPR every day at work… :D)
Still don’t like the directive proposal? That’s totally fine. By all means, call up your MEP, take a stand! Now, you’re doing it for the right reasons.
People, please look into stuff and read before You Reblog with captions like “all the fandoms will be gone”
“Fair use” and “copyright material” are two entirely different things and frankly, by laws from almost Every copyright policy in the world, fan fiction/fanart/fandoms in general are considered as fair use
I usually avoid reblogging this kinda stuff because a) it’s always blown out of proportion and b) there’s mis-information and people panicking and i don’t always have the time to look into it myself BUT this keeps getting spread without this addition which is such a good breakdown.
also bear in mind that the EU fought for 3 years to stop things like net neutrality over here and WON (in 2016) so this isn’t a similar situation to what’s going on in the USA.
Please read from top to here FIRST.
It’s not misinformation, I already stated this here
JULIA REDA WAS A MEMBER OF THE PIRATE PARTY GERMANY. HER MEMBERSHIP IN THE EU PARLIAMENT IS AS AN INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE WITHIN THE GREEN ALLIANCE WITH NO NATIONAL PARTY BACKING HER.
This might not be a bad thing – if you vote for the Pirate Party, sure, listen to her!
BUT REMEMBER THAT PIRATE PARTIES INTERNATIONAL ARE MARGIN GROUPS IN EVERY EU COUNTRY, AND THEIR WHOLE AGENDA IS FOUNDED ON LESSENING COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FROM WHAT IT ALREADY IS. IT WORKS “FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH” WHICH IN CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE ALSO OFTEN STANDS FOR “AGAINST RESTRICTION OF HATE SPEECH”. THE PARTY ALREADY STANDS AGAINST ALL EU DATA & MEDIA REGULATIONS.
the screenshots above are posted in total ignorance of what @effelants wrote very clearly.
The vast majority of fandom culture falls under what US law refers to as
fair use and most European national laws (which, in the case of EU
countries, are harmonized according to the European Union Copyright
Directive) refer to as private use. Article 13 in and of itself does not
change the allowances made for private use of media in derivative works
already. It merely mandates that companies must take effective measures
to stop the users of their services from sharing media that infringes
on copyright.
Notice how the wording of the article constantly emphasizes how measures taken must be appropriate and proportionate. How the content recognition technology is mentioned as an example
of effective measures that could be taken to stop the uploading and
sharing of copyrighted works, not as the only way of doing so. Notice
how the entire third paragraph of this article deals with best practices
and appropriate and proportionate technology which takes into account
the availability and effectiveness of technology – so, essentially, if
it sucks and flags too many things as infringing on copyright, it should
not be used because it is not appropriate, proportionate or effective.
And that’s right there in the directive.
Please, people. Contact your MEP if you think it suits yourpolitical interests. Not because someone on tumblr yelled that the internet will disappear if you don’t.
Remember that the goal of this directive is to provide copyright protection for journalists, news outlets and artists.
It is meant to demand compensation from big multinational (American) companies like Google who currently do whatever the fuck they please and pay next to nothing for it despite previous EU regulations and taxation.
Regulating big companies with adequate measures while providing content creators chances to report and ask for restoration DOES NOT MEAN THAT FANDOMS WILL DIE.
Shadow In The Light 