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As Head of Slytherin, Snape was the first to arrive after hearing the news. By then, Dudley had already gotten everything under control. Even the poor fifth-year prefect had already been made to swallow a bottle of potion. Fortunately, that guy had reacted quickly and cast a Shield Charm on himself the very first instant. Otherwise, he would not have gotten away with just a few broken bones.
No one knew why, but that day, the young Slytherins were strangely obedient.
Whatever Dudley told them to do, they did.
It seemed they really had been scared witless.
Snape took the troll's corpse away.
Naturally, that was only after all of the creature's bogies had already been collected.
According to what Malfoy managed to find out afterward, that same night, besides Slytherin, both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had also been attacked. Hufflepuff, on the other hand, was so close to the Great Hall that it was barely affected.
In total, they had found four trolls: one dead and three injured.
'So Hogwarts had stirred up a troll nest?'
Dudley did not know whether they had really disturbed a nest or not, but either way, his assessment of Hogwarts' level of safety dropped by another notch.
Because of the troll incident, Hogwarts reinforced the castle's security that very same night. Portraits were stationed throughout every corridor, and if anything unusual happened, they would immediately alert the Heads of House.
And so the night passed without any further incidents.
...
The next morning, the first-year Slytherins gathered under Pansy's call.
"The great Mr. Dursley only exposed his identity as a dark wizard because he wanted to save me."
Pansy pointed at herself, her face full of pride.
"Didn't you all see it? I was the very first person he asked whether I was hurt."
"And he even personally gave me one of his potions."
That "personally gave" meant, in reality, nothing more than Dudley handing her a calming potion.
After all, she had been the closest one to the troll and had also been the one most badly frightened.
"You all know he likes the black tea I make very much."
As she said that, Pansy, her face slightly flushed, touched her hair, trying to show off her charm. Unfortunately, while her facial features were quite pretty, that hairstyle was so awful it looked like a personal betrayal by her hairdresser. Instead of making her look better, it only hurt her appearance.
Although Pansy was quite popular among the first-year Slytherins, that still stirred a bit of dissatisfaction among some of the girls.
"Everyone, listen carefully. This matter cannot be told to any professor."
Pansy's expression suddenly changed, and she gave the warning in a stern voice.
"Not even Professor Snape?"
Pansy answered sharply,
"No. Not even him."
The details of how Dudley had killed the troll that day had been brushed aside. No one knew whether Snape had noticed something or simply chosen not to look deeper, but the fact was that he had not investigated further, and so he did not know that the troll had died because of that terrifying piece of dark magic Dudley had 'disguised' as Bombarda.
"My father already told me that Hogwarts forbids the study of Dark Magic. If they find out, they'll definitely expel Dudley."
As she spoke, Pansy swept a sharp gaze across everyone seated there.
"If anyone dares to tell, if anyone dares to get him expelled from Hogwarts, the Parkinson family will never forgive them!"
"The Malfoy family too!"
"The Greengrass family too!"
"And me too!"
The first-year students all began declaring their positions one after another.
Who would have thought?
That Dudley, who had once been unanimously despised by all of Slytherin, had now become Slytherin's favorite.
And that was something even he himself did not know.
At that very moment, Dudley was sitting quietly in the library with Hermione, reading in peace. While she was reading the second-year Charms textbook, Dudley was reading that old notebook of Snape's he had brought away earlier, and the various techniques for improving potions written inside it were helping him a great deal.
In the seats behind Dudley and Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Neville were each 'devouring' three different books.
Teaching had to be tailored to each person's strengths.
After observing what each of them had the most talent for, or interest in, over the past few days, Dudley had arranged everything.
Harry was reading Defense Against the Dark Arts material.
Neville was reading books on Herbology.
And Ron...
Ron was reading a book on Divination.
Even if the best way to learn magic was through actual combat, you still had to understand at least some of the theory first.
On weekends, the schedule Dudley had set for them was as follows:
Early morning, physical training by the lake.
The rest of the morning, studying in the library.
At noon, Dudley would go learn Potions from Snape, while the others were free to do as they pleased.
And at night, they had practical combat lessons.
That was the plan Dudley had drawn up for everyone.
And so the days continued to pass slowly, but in an extremely productive way.
...
Starting from the day after Halloween, Gryffindor realized that its House point hourglass had plummeted so badly that it had dropped straight from second place to last.
At first, it did not seem like such an important matter.
After all, by Monday, House points usually started to recover little by little. In the past, when someone went sneaking around at night or broke a rule, the same thing often happened.
The only difference was that this time, the drop had been far more brutal.
Even after a full week, the Gryffindors discovered that instead of rising again, their hourglass had fallen even lower.
If it continued like that, it would soon be empty.
Only then did they realize that Miss Know-It-All, who used to raise her hand in every lesson and answer more eagerly than anyone else, had not volunteered to answer a single question ever since.
Their only steady source of points had dried up.
That had been a suggestion Dudley gave Hermione.
"Gryffindor doesn't need that many points."
The so-called honor of the House no longer mattered to Hermione.
What truly mattered was being together with their little group.
And above all, having Dudley by her side.
Even so, the Gryffindors thought that did not matter.
If she did not want to help, fine.
They still had Quidditch.
All they needed to do was win, and then they could return to second place and later challenge Slytherin for first.
...
Under November's bitter, cutting winds, the annual Quidditch tournament finally began.
And the very first match was Gryffindor against Slytherin.
The unexpected part was that Malfoy became the team's Seeker. In exchange, he had simply secured brand-new broomsticks for the entire team. There was no denying it: having money really did let you do whatever you wanted.
With his flashy maneuvering and a physique slightly above average for his age, he managed to catch the Golden Snitch before Gryffindor's Seeker.
Amid Lee Jordan's cursing from the commentator's box, Slytherin stepped onto the winner's podium, and the House's points rose once again because of it.
'First: the match brooms were not standardized, so their performance was unequal, which made the whole thing unfair.'
'Second: the commentator was biased and clearly favoring one side.'
Dudley calmly wrote those two things down in his little notebook.
When someone could study in peace, time passed very quickly. Before long, December had already arrived.
In just a few more days, the first term of first year would come to an end.
But... there was still no word from Dumbledore about the creation of the disciplinary group.
On Saturday afternoon, Snape limped into the Potions classroom.
"Professor, you're injured."
Dudley noticed something was wrong with Snape at a glance. He sniffed the air a few times and said,
"Essence of dittany... licorice... and also the smell of houttuynia."
"If I'm not mistaken, something bit you."
As he spoke, he lifted Snape's trouser leg slightly and looked at the huge bite mark there.
"And on top of that, it was something canine."
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