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What happened in the Slytherin common room had already proven one thing: sometimes, having more people is completely useless.
But unfortunately, Slytherin would never tell Gryffindor that.
"Hermione, are you alright?"
As if no one else there even existed, Dudley helped Hermione to her feet, lightly brushed the dust off her, and then, without the slightest hurry, began picking up the books scattered across the floor one by one.
He simply did not take that group of Gryffindors seriously.
Relying on the advantage of having people behind them, the group of five, two girls and three boys, gradually became bolder. One of the girls, with short brown hair, pointed at Dudley and mocked him.
"Oh, you really are a first-year? You look more like some kind of half-giant... yeah, that's right, Slytherin's half-giant and Gryffindor's beaver."
"Now I get why you keep defending Miss Beaver. So you two are the same species."
She mocked him without the slightest restraint, and laughter of agreement quickly rose from all around.
Before Dudley could even do anything, Hermione, who had been silent until then, suddenly charged forward. She grabbed the girl's hair hard, yanked it with all her strength, and then drove a punch straight into her nose.
"Apologize to Dudley!"
Like an enraged lioness, Hermione let out a furious roar, with a look in her eyes that made it seem as if she wanted to devour the girl on the spot.
When she was the one being picked on, she could choose to endure it all in silence. But when someone mocked her friends, Hermione would always be the first to stand up.
Do not think that just because Hermione liked reading, she had a quiet personality. As her childhood friend, Dudley knew very well that her real personality was far more explosive than his own, who was usually polite and reasonable.
She was the type to throw hands at the slightest disagreement.
"You hit me?! You really dared to hit me?! My father has never even hit me!"
The little witch covered her nose with her hand. Thin streams of blood began to slip through her fingers. Hermione's punch had been hard enough to make her nose bleed.
Good thing that nose was not artificial, or that punch definitely would have flattened it.
"I'll kill you!"
Like a madwoman, the girl lunged at Hermione, throwing punches wildly. The result was that she drove one straight into Dudley, who was standing in front of her. In that instant, it felt as if she had punched a steel plate.
"My hand is going to break!"
The little witch clutched her hand and cried out in pain. Then she raised her arm and started shouting.
"Look, he hurt me!"
The nearby Gryffindors immediately closed in around Dudley and Hermione, trapping the two of them in the middle.
Even without knowing exactly what had happened, for them, it was enough to know it involved going against a Slytherin. And that alone was reason enough. After all, they were evil.
As for Hermione, the annoying know-it-all had lowered herself to the point of hanging around with him, so obviously she could not be any good either.
The Gryffindors, foolish and reckless, could not be bothered to think too much. Right and wrong did not matter. Justice and injustice did not matter either. The only thing that mattered was going against Slytherin.
They wanted to rush forward and grab Hermione, but Dudley was standing right in front of her, and no one dared to take a single step closer.
"Hermione is right. Someone here needs to apologize. But the apology is to her..."
Dudley's gaze slowly swept across the Gryffindors around him before finally settling on the group of five. He did not know every detail, but he had already understood almost everything that had happened.
Was bullying at Hogwarts really this serious?
First it had been him. Now it was Hermione.
In truth, if that whole thing with Malfoy had never happened, and if Hermione had not been staying so close to him, none of this would have happened.
Because of the rivalry between the Houses, bullying had always existed inside Hogwarts, and it was not any less severe than in schools outside.
For example, Dudley's Uncle James had also been one of the participants in school violence when he was young.
"No. We will never bow our heads to Slytherin."
Even after taking a punch from Hermione, the girl still had at least a little bit of brains.
It was obvious that she wanted to turn the whole thing into a confrontation between Houses.
The moment she said that, Dudley clearly noticed that the students around them began showing the same shared hostility.
Many of them even raised their wands at him at the same time.
Dudley let out a faint sound of contempt, and the expression on his face turned even colder.
What a fine Gryffindor. So brave and united, even when they should not be.
"Without asking why, without distinguishing right from wrong, without knowing black from white."
Calling them brutes was already praise. Even calling them idiots would be a form of recognition. If you added together every brain in that bunch, they still might not match a troll.
The problem was never the House. It was always the people...
"What do you think you're doing?"
Dudley heard Harry's roar coming from outside the crowd.
"Potter, we know he's your cousin, but this has nothing to do with you. If you don't want to get hurt, you'd better leave!"
When Harry was useful for showing off, it was "we got Potter." When he was not, it became "if you don't want to get hurt, leave."
Dudley heard Harry's furious voice growing more and more distant. Setting aside the title of Savior, he was just a first-year boy. Even if he had more talent than normal, that talent had limits. Sometimes he was even lazy. He still had not properly learned Charms. There was nothing he could do.
"I think maybe we should... figure out what happened first..."
Ron's weak voice sounded out next.
He did not have a bad impression of Dudley. In fact, he even admired him a little. Besides, Dudley was Harry's cousin, and Harry was his best friend, so Ron felt like he had to say something.
Unfortunately, he had overestimated the strength of his own words, and also overestimated his position within Gryffindor.
"Rofski, this has nothing to do with you."
Poor Ron received the same treatment Harry had.
He was dragged away.
"My name is Ron! Not Rofski!"
His protesting voice also faded farther and farther away.
By that point, most of the Slytherins had already left. Only a small number were still there, silently giving a mental thumbs-up to Gryffindor's "brave warriors."
They had not only offended Granger and Dursley, they had even managed to offend Harry Potter himself.
It was not that the Slytherins did not want to step forward and help. At its core, Slytherin was still a fairly united House. They could have internal struggles among themselves, but at important moments, they always knew how to turn against a common enemy.
Not to mention that they would not have been afraid of just those Gryffindors. Even if Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff joined in, they still would not have been intimidated.
The only problem was that they were afraid of ruining that person's plans.
'If Potter didn't need to keep up the act, blood probably would already be flowing here.'
'Just look at that expression, gritting his teeth and hating his own helplessness. He's acting that part really well. If I hadn't known the truth beforehand, I almost would've believed it.'
That was what practically all the little Slytherins were thinking.
Carrow's explanation had spread throughout Slytherin a long time ago. Keeping it secret was impossible. In Slytherin, there were no secrets. And Carrow's theory had been accepted by almost everyone.
Why almost?
Because Malfoy did not believe it.
He insisted that Dudley was the truly powerful dark wizard behind Harry, and that only he had realized it.
"Hermione, stay right behind me."
Dudley shielded Hermione behind his own body.
"We're the ones in the right!"
His words seemed to carry a double meaning, as if they held something far deeper.
At that moment, the atmosphere had reached the point where everything seemed frozen. It even felt as though the air around them had solidified. The little Slytherins watching from outside did not even dare breathe too loudly, afraid they might miss a scene they would perhaps never forget. As for the Gryffindors in the middle of it all, despite having the advantage in numbers, the hands gripping their wands were soaked in sweat. But if they were the side with more people, then why was that trembling rising from deep in their souls?
"Apologize."
Dudley's gaze grew colder and colder.
He had never been someone especially good with words.
He had always preferred to persuade people with reason and principle.
Of course, if you refused to talk reason with him, then he would have to talk to you in the language of physics.
Suddenly, golden sparks like electric arcs began flashing all over Dudley's body without stopping. His muscles started swelling at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even his body seemed to grow several sizes larger. The pressure he was giving off was fully released...
At that instant, everything before their eyes seemed to change.
Dudley no longer seemed like Dudley.
To the little wizards, it was as if some unmatched beast had appeared before them.
Exactly the way Malfoy had felt when he had faced Dudley up close for the first time, even breathing started to feel impossible.
"Relashio!"
"Densaugeo!"
"..."
What kind of mental fortitude could those little wizards possibly have?
Unable to endure that pressure, several of them attacked Dudley.
After some time spent studying, the little wizards had already learned more than just the few spells taught in class.
Among the spells launched at Dudley, there were even some simple minor curses.
Countless red and yellow streaks shot toward him.
But while those little wizards had learned those spells, Dudley was no longer the same as before either. Faced with so many spells flying at him, he simply straightened his chest in a steady, effortless motion.
The spells hit him one after another. His massive frame only shuddered faintly a few times, and then the light of the spells vanished in an instant, as if nothing had happened at all.
That was when the absurd strength of his magical resistance was revealed.
He remained completely unharmed.
After all, the ones casting the spells were only a few little wizards, and the spells themselves were not powerful either.
"You were the ones who attacked first."
Dudley revealed both rows of white teeth, reflecting a cold gleam under the classroom light.
"Hermione, close your eyes."
One huge, fan-like hand gently covered Hermione's eyes, while with the other, Dudley drew his wand of his own accord for the very first time.
The first-year Gryffindors could only watch it happen.
Under the influence of Dudley's pressure, they no longer even dared to attack again.
'It's finally going to appear?'
'Dursley's spell!'
'Will it be the Imperius Curse? Cruciatus? Or even... the Killing Curse?'
The Slytherins' faces were full of excitement. They had practically grown up hearing about the three Unforgivable Curses, so at that moment they wanted to see Dudley's true strength with their own eyes.
Yet what came out of his mouth was a spell none of them had expected:
"Lumos!"
Their minds collectively went blank.
But Dudley simply did not give them even a second to think.
With Dudley at the center, a blazing, searing light exploded in every direction. The students could see nothing but blinding white in front of their eyes, as if countless tiny needles were stabbing into them over and over again. Everything around them blurred, and a wave of dizziness washed over them.
That was the sun...
It was as if they were staring straight at the sun itself.
Everyone who had looked directly at Dudley felt a sharp pain in their eyes and was instantly blinded.
Without even realizing it, all of them raised their hands to their eyes.
'I can't see!'
'My eyes, damn it!'
'You call that Lumos?!'
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