I’m very sorry I haven’t responded before now! I was so enthused to see I had a Dudley/Millicent fic! Moreover, I’m absolutely thrilled at the way you portrayed them--no slimmed-down, prettied-up shadow versions here. I can feel the substance and heft of the characters in this story, and it is a lovely thing! Your descriptions are delicious, and I keep coming back to savour them: **A woman who wouldn't break in half if, say, a man liked it a bit rough. **The kind of brute who carried a lot of muscle around, but who didn't bother to get rid of any subcutaneous fat, creating a bear-like, hulking body. **His hands were big with thick fingers and connected with a massive wrist. She wouldn't be able to reach around it. You’ve pushed several of my buttons right there.
The voices of the characters all ring true--even the Aunt Marge of Dudley’s imagination (I adore that detail!).
If he rang the doorbell he would remove that, whatever Harry was feeling, as soon as Harry saw him. He'd done that a lot through the years: removing and destroying stuff of Harry's. But not today, he wouldn't. Not ever again. He shivered and felt nauseated again, thinking of how he'd behaved. I like this version of Dudley--redeemed in the ways that matter, thinking about his impact on others and regretting the damage he’s done, but still recognizably Dudley--easily lying to his parents and banging doors and leaving a puddle of vomit in Harry’s garden without even an attempt at covering it over. He’s coarse (his narrator-voice description of Millicent’s tits, for example, or his love of dimpled arses, which is a detail that doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough in fics, in my opinion), but we can already see that he’s looking for permanence, not just a one-night stand (and I can’t think of a better pair to own a pub than Millicent and Dudley).
His parents had been wrong about everything. So had his friends, and worst of all: so had he. Just once in his life he wanted to get things right and this might be a good place to start. Because the truth was he wasn’t turned on by thin. He was turned on by big. And he didn't intend to spend his life not being turned on. I love this sequence of thoughts! (And I want to cheer for Dudley to be this self-aware, this willing to accept that he was wrong, and strong-minded enough to stand up against all those around him who had kept him on the wrong track for so long. (And double cheers for not intending to spend one’s life not being turned on! I was about his age when I came to that conclusion, myself, and it’s a big leap to make, but ever so worth it.))