The afternoon sun streamed through the classroom windows at St. George's Primary, casting long shadows across the desks. Dudley was sprawled in his usual seat in the second-to-last row, lazily basking in a warm patch of light like a contented lizard. It was lunch break, and Harry, as usual, had gone to fetch him a baguette—the perfect snack, in Dudley's opinion, for grinding his teeth.
From his pocket, Dudley produced a small vial filled with a pale blue liquid. This was the fruit of his latest sleepless nights: a basic version of the 'Minor Magic Enhancing Potion,' which, according to the text, could slightly increase one's magical reserves with long-term use. Despite its "basic" label, the brewing process had been anything but simple.
Without hesitation, he uncorked the vial and downed the contents in one gulp. He smacked his lips, a grimace immediately twisting his features. The taste was foul—bitter and strange, a flavor that seemed to actively resent being swallowed. This was one of the few potions he could currently brew, limited as he was by his inability to access the magical world and its rare ingredients.
While some potions were impossible without magical components, others were surprisingly mundane. The Dazzling Potion, for example, required chopped daisy roots, peeled shrivelfig, sliced caterpillars, a drop of rat spleen, and a bit of leech juice. All things a Muggle could technically acquire. The Minor Magic Enhancing Potion was another such concoction, its primary ingredient being the juice extracted from a plant called Houttuynia cordata.
Suppressing the urge to gag, Dudley grabbed his water bottle and took several long, desperate swallows. He made a silent, fervent vow to one day revolutionize the field of magical brewing. It was baffling how each individual ingredient could be perfectly innocuous, yet when combined, they created something so utterly vile.
Not long after, a familiar drowsiness began to creep over him—a known side effect of the potion, compounded by his recent all-nighters.
"I heard we're getting an exchange student this week."
In his groggy state, Dudley vaguely registered the conversation from a few desks over. The speaker was a boy with a freckled face.
"An exchange student? Here?" a girl with two braids replied, her voice laced with surprise. "In our class?"
Exchange programs were typically the domain of private schools. St. George's was a perfectly average public school, its reputation only recently improving thanks to the shelfloads of trophies brought in by a certain student. No one would choose to come here unless there were special circumstances.
"Which school are they from?" the girl asked.
The freckled boy leaned in, lowering his voice. "Oxford Bridge Primary."
At the mention of the name, the boy instinctively shot a nervous glance towards Dudley's slumped form. Seeing him asleep, he let out a quiet sigh of relief. Little did he know, Dudley had heard every word. He was just too tired to care. He'd been an exchange student at Oxford Dragon before; this new arrival was almost certainly here because of him.
The lunch break ended, and the afternoon bell trilled. The teacher walked in, followed by a girl with a thick mane of bushy brown hair.
"Class, please welcome our exchange student for the week..."
Dudley was drifting, his head heavy on the desk. The potion's effects were dragging him under. He didn't have the energy to eat the baguette Harry had bought him. His last coherent thought was that he desperately needed to brew a refreshing potion. Amidst sparse, polite applause, he slid into a deep sleep. Noticing his star pupil was exhausted, the teacher even lowered her lecture volume. The privilege of being the best was a powerful thing.
He slept right through the rest of the school day, dead to the world.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sharp rap on his desk finally pierced the fog. No one at St. George's dared to wake a sleeping Dudley. He groggily opened his eyes, blinking into the late afternoon light.
What came into view was a head of fluffy, wavy hair and a pair of large, date-brown eyes set in a displeased face. A girl in a light blue Oxford Dragon uniform stood with her hands on her hips, frowning down at him. She looked vaguely familiar.
Who is this? he thought, his brain feeling like a bowl of thick, lumpy porridge. Note to self: no more all-nighters.
"You broke your promise!" the girl said before he could even form a question. Her accent was crisp and clear, and it tugged at a distant memory.
Dudley just stared, a blank question mark on his face.
"You broke your promise!" she repeated, her voice rising in frustration. "You said you would participate in this year's Junior Math Olympiad!"
The words finally cleared the fog from his mind. The Math Olympiad. Oh.
He remembered his time at Oxford Bridge Primary, a period of near-total domination in both academics and sports. He had single-handedly crushed the morale of the school's top students, a dark cloud hanging over their Black Friday-esque despair. When he left, they had declared they would "challenge" him at the next academic competition.
But it was all bluster. The only one who had ever truly challenged him face-to-face was the girl standing before him now. He'd agreed to participate in the Olympiad out of respect for her nerve.
"How are your preparations?" she demanded.
"I've been working on something very important recently," Dudley mumbled. "I haven't had the time." What was a mere Math Olympiad compared to the profound mysteries of potion-making?
"What could be more important than the Olympiad?" she retorted, clearly unconvinced. "There are still three days left. Here, I'll tell you the key revision points from the teacher." Without waiting for an answer, she pulled textbooks and notes from her bag, fully intending to start a tutoring session right then and there.
"It's getting late," Dudley said, yawning as he held up a hand to stop her. "If I remember correctly, your house is at least two bus transfers from here. It's not safe to go home alone this late."
A flicker of a memory surfaced: the two of them in the library, always the last to leave. He'd found her crying once after he'd taken her top spot in the grade. Instead of backing down, she'd come back fighting, challenging him in one subject after another, always ending in failure but never giving up.
"You want to beat me so badly, don't you?" he said softly. "This is your chance."
"I will defeat you fair and square," she declared, puffing out her chest like a proud, little hen. "Now hurry, there's no time." She placed her notebook on his desk and reached out to pull on his sleeve.
Just as she tugged, Dudley was trying to stand. Thrown off balance and still groggy, his left foot tripped over his right. He stumbled forward, bumping into her shoulder. The force sent the much smaller girl falling backward.
Reacting instantly, Dudley shot out his right hand to cushion the back of her head, while his left slammed onto the floor beside her to support his weight and keep from crushing her.
THUMP.
The dull sound echoed through the empty classroom. They remained frozen in the strange, intimate posture, eyes locked. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the frantic drumming of their hearts.
"Dudley, we should—"
Footsteps sounded from the doorway. Harry stood there, took in the scene with a single glance, and with an incredible display of self-awareness, immediately turned and walked away. "Sorry," he called over his shoulder. "I didn't see anything."
Ten seconds after Harry vanished, the girl's face exploded in a bright crimson blush. She let out a small "Ah!" and scrambled to her feet like a startled rabbit, fleeing the classroom.
As she disappeared down the hall, she left a final message hanging in the air. "The revision materials are on the desk! And my dad said to tell you to come to the clinic when you have time. He says your teeth are the best he's ever seen!"
A moment later, the head of fluffy, wavy hair popped back around the corner.
"And I'm not 'Hey'!" she said, her voice still flustered. "Call me Hermione. Hermione Jean Granger."
***
(End of Chapter)
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