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However, in the eyes of everyone else, that scene carried a very different meaning.
"Dudley, you're amazing."
Mimicking Hermione's tone, a voice full of mockery came from the area where the Gryffindor students were sitting.
The voice was not loud, but it echoed through the entire classroom.
Soon, a wave of quiet, muffled laughter began to spread through the crowd.
The ridicule was obvious.
On the Slytherin side, the room fell silent in an instant.
Almost all the little Slytherins had the exact same thought at the same time:
'Gryffindor, you really are brave.'
And that was definitely not praise for their courage, just sarcasm about how reckless they were.
Everyone stayed quiet, waiting to see what would happen.
After all, it wouldn't do if only they were the ones getting beaten up.
Dudley cast an indifferent glance toward Gryffindor, as if searching for whoever had spoken.
They were still in class.
And besides, it had only been one stupid comment. He couldn't exactly start a fight over that.
Well, from the voice, he could tell it had been one of the boys.
Dudley saw Hermione give him a faint shake of the head, signaling that she could handle it herself.
In her eyes, Dudley saw the stubborn look in her eyes.
She had always been like that, exactly the same as back in primary school in Oxford.
Harry's expression was clearly unhappy. Dudley was his cousin, and Hermione was his friend. Malfoy, meanwhile, was watching the Gryffindors with a dark expression, with no way of telling what he was thinking.
Only Professor Flitwick remained completely unaware, still immersed in his own Charms lesson.
Or rather, not exactly.
Ron was still poking at the feather on the table with his wand. Clearly, he had not noticed what had just happened either. When he realized the room seemed to have calmed down, he looked around in mild confusion.
The strange atmosphere lasted until the end of class.
Without anything happening.
That left the Slytherins a little disappointed.
After Professor Flitwick assigned the day's homework, he hurried out. He still needed to rush off to teach the fifth-years. That day, they were having outdoor Charms practice.
Hermione had just finished putting away her books and was about to stand when, all of a sudden, a figure rushed out from behind her. A strong shoulder slammed into her violently. She only felt a huge force crashing into her. She lost her balance and fell to the floor, while the books she had already organized scattered everywhere.
"Sorry, Miss Know-It-All... are you alright?"
Even though those were words of apology, there was not the slightest sincerity in them. They sounded far more like mockery.
"Well, whose fault is it for being so annoying and standing in my way?"
Three Gryffindor boys stood there with their arms around each other's shoulders, looking at Hermione with open sarcasm. Behind them stood two girls.
"We already warned you, didn't we, Miss Know-It-All?"
"Don't get too close to certain people."
"Next time, it won't just be one missing shoe and one missing book."
"I don't suppose Miss Know-It-All brought that many clothes with her, did she? Inside the castle, it would be perfectly normal for some rat to show up and chew up other people's clothes, wouldn't it?"
Lost shoes could be replaced. Lost books could still be substituted with old books left behind by graduates. But if her clothes were ruined...
One of the girls bent down and whispered that threat in Hermione's ear. Then she tossed her hair back arrogantly while the others made sneering faces and snickered.
"Just look at her hair. It's like a messy bird's nest."
"And those two front teeth? She looks like a beaver."
"That's right, Miss Beaver! Hahaha!"
The two girls mocked Hermione without the slightest restraint, and the three boys joined in as well, throwing out comments and criticism with amused expressions.
They were just about to leave.
But the moment they turned around and took the first step, there was a dull thud, as if they had walked straight into a wall.
"Ow!"
The boy in front was thrown backward and landed hard on the floor. The others behind him toppled one after another like dominoes until all of them ended up sitting on the ground. After all, their attention had been entirely focused on Hermione a moment ago.
'How can there be a wall here?'
In truth, there was no wall there at all.
And it wasn't a wall at all.
It was Dudley's body.
At that moment, he was looking down at them from above.
Just from the words he had heard, Dudley could already piece together more or less what had been going on.
This was bullying too, wasn't it?
Just like what had happened to him when he first arrived in Slytherin.
The only difference was that he had been bullied for offending someone important like Malfoy. Hermione, on the other hand, was being isolated and harassed because of her personality, because she did not fit in with the group, and because she kept hanging around with him, a Slytherin.
But in the end, there was no difference between the two.
It was still bullying.
"What do you think you're doing?"
One of the boys shouted. He was like an enraged chihuahua, trying to act tough in front of Dudley.
But everyone knows what chihuahuas are like.
All they know how to do is bark.
They look like they can take on anything, but in reality, they cannot take on anyone.
"Actually, that's exactly the question I wanted to ask."
Dudley spoke in a calm, unhurried tone, slowly leaning down toward them.
Hermione had changed her shoes, and Dudley had noticed that a long time ago. But since she had never said anything about it, he had not asked either, simply assuming she had wanted to wear a different pair.
"First, you should apologize."
"Second, I think we need to talk about this shoe business."
Dudley spoke word by word.
"And third... I think you should learn how to respect people."
Miss Beaver... even he had never used a nickname like that.
"Dursley, are you really going to stand up for her?"
"D-Don't think we're scared of you. There are five of us!"
The last sentence came out completely lacking conviction.
From a distance, most people only saw Dudley as a boy absurdly strong for a first-year student. But standing right in front of him, at such close range, the five of them felt a chill rising from deep inside their bodies.
That was definitely not just physical strength.
As for what one of the girls had said, Dudley merely gave her a cold look.
One look, just one look.
Only a single look.
But it felt as if she had been stared down by some monstrous beast, with a blood-soaked maw hanging open, ready to swallow her whole.
As if she had been thrown into a frozen hell, with all the blood in her body freezing and rushing backward, to the point that even her breath felt like it was being ripped away.
That kind of presence was hard to explain.
But it really did exist.
It was the same with Snape.
In the eyes of many students, he was just the greasy old bat. He did not even speak that loudly, yet there was something in his voice that forced people to listen to him and obey what he said.
In fact, even the Weasley twins, who caused the most trouble in Gryffindor, did not dare mess around in his classes.
Under Dudley's pressure, the two girls and three boys were visibly trembling. And this was still inside the classroom. If they ran into him alone somewhere else... they might not even have had the courage to stand up.
Brave Gryffindor... huh.
'That's right, this is a classroom. There are students everywhere!'
The eyes of the girl who had spoken earlier darted around quickly, and she raised her voice several times louder than normal, letting out a shrill scream:
"Slytherin, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to bully Gryffindor?"
It was a very clever move.
Most of the time, Gryffindor was just a scattered bunch who mostly kept to themselves.
But there was one situation where they always united and became a single front.
When it came to going against Slytherin.
The moment they heard her shout, the Gryffindor students who had already left, or were in the middle of leaving, stopped one after another and turned their eyes toward Dudley and the others.
In no time, a group of Gryffindors had gathered there.
'See? We've got so many people. Now you know who you're dealing with, don't you?'
When they saw so many people gathered around, the fear inside those five faded a great deal, and the "courage" they had lost began to come back.
The problem was... did having more people really make a difference?
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