It was another familiar day at St. George's Primary. Dudley was dozing lazily in his usual spot by the window, in the second-to-last row. Harry, as always, had gone to fetch him a snack, as a good baguette was Dudley's favourite thing to chew on.
Dudley pulled a small bottle of pale blue liquid from his pocket. This was the potion he'd brewed yesterday, a Mild Enhancing Draught. It was a basic version of a more potent potion, and it was said to slightly increase magical power over time. While it was a "basic" potion, it was anything but simple to brew. Dudley hadn't had a good night's sleep in days trying to get it right.
He drank the potion down and grimaced. It tasted strange, bitter, and all-around terrible. This was one of the few potions Dudley could actually make, as many of the ingredients were impossible to get without access to the magical world.
Not all potion ingredients were magical, though. A recipe for a simple potion might call for chopped daisy roots, peeled shrivelled figs, sliced caterpillars, a drop of mouse bile, and a bit of leech juice—all things Muggles could find. They just couldn't make a potion from them without a wand and a proper method. The Mild Enhancing Draught was one of the rare potions that didn't require magical plants or creatures. Its main ingredient was a juice made from a plant called Houttuynia cordata.
Dudley suppressed a gag and chugged a good amount of water from his bottle. He swore to himself right then that he'd find a way to improve the flavour of his potions. Every single ingredient tasted fine on its own, so how could they taste so awful when mixed together?
Shortly after he drank it, Dudley began to feel sleepy. The draught had an extra effect, a side effect, of making you tired.
"I heard we're getting an exchange student in our class this week," Dudley heard someone say in his daze. It was a boy with a freckled face sitting nearby.
"An exchange student? Here? In our class?" A girl with braided hair replied, her voice full of surprise. Exchange students, unless they're from another country, usually only went to private schools. It was an honour reserved for the exceptionally brilliant, like Dudley himself. St. George's was a mediocre state school, neither good nor bad. Its reputation had improved recently thanks to a certain boy who was always winning awards, which had boosted enrollment, but even so, an exchange student was unheard of. Unless there was a special circumstance...
"What school are they from?" the braided girl asked.
"I heard it's Oxford Dragon Primary," the boy whispered, lowering his voice as if someone might hear. He glanced nervously at Dudley's desk, and when he saw he was still dozing, he let out a sigh of relief.
They had no idea that Dudley was perfectly aware of their whispers. He was just too tired to care. If they knew he'd heard them, they'd probably be too scared to come to school tomorrow. Dudley had been an exchange student at Oxford Dragon Primary himself, which meant this new student was probably here for him.
The bell rang for the end of lunch, and a teacher walked into the classroom with a girl who had a bushy head of brown curls.
"This is our exchange student from Oxford Dragon Primary. She'll be with us for the next week..."
Dudley was in a stupor, the potion's effect combined with his lack of sleep from yesterday's brewing. He was so tired he hadn't even had a chance to eat the snack Harry had brought him. He dimly heard the teacher introduce the girl, and then, as scattered applause broke out, he was fast asleep, dreaming of the day he could buy magical ingredients to make a proper Wakefulness Potion.
The teacher even made a point to lower her voice so as not to wake him. The perks of being a star student...
This went on all afternoon until the final bell rang. Dudley was still slumped over his desk.
Tap, tap, tap!
Someone was knocking on his desk. No one in the entire school would dare wake a sleeping Dudley Dursley.
Dudley blinked his eyes open, and saw a cloud of bushy hair. A girl in a light blue Oxford Dragon Primary uniform was standing there, her hands on her hips, frowning at him with big, brown eyes.
She looks familiar, but who is she? Dudley's mind was a complete blur. He really had to stop pulling all-nighters.
"You broke your promise!" the girl said without waiting for him to speak. Her tone was oddly familiar.
"Huh?" Dudley was still confused.
"You broke your promise!" she repeated, her voice several decibels louder. "You said you'd compete in the Junior Maths Olympiad!"
The Junior Maths Olympiad... The name slowly brought Dudley back to his senses.
He'd essentially dominated Oxford Dragon Primary during his exchange, crushing everyone in both academics and sports. For the school's top students, that period had been like an endless Black Friday, with a dark cloud constantly hanging over their heads. It was only on the day he left that they'd dared to challenge him to a 'fight'—not a physical fight, of course, as he could easily take the whole school on his own. No, they were talking about a scholastic fight. They had sworn to defeat him in the upcoming Junior Maths Olympiad.
"How are your preparations going?" the girl asked.
"I've been working on something very important recently," Dudley said, stifling a yawn. He was a champion in the making. What could a simple maths competition mean compared to his potion research?
"What could possibly be more important than the Olympiad?" the girl insisted. "We only have three days left. I'm going to tell you what the teacher said are the main things to focus on." She started to pull books and a notebook from her bag, ready to tutor him right there in the classroom.
"It's getting late," Dudley said, holding up a hand. "If I remember correctly, you have to take two buses to get home. It's too dangerous to be out late by yourself." London's crime rate in the '90s was no joke.
He and the girl had a strange connection. They both loved to read and spent most of their time in the library. They would be the last ones to leave every day, which was how they got to know each other. And then Dudley conquered the whole school, and the girl fell from first place in her class to second.
She had been so upset she'd cried in the library, and Dudley had stumbled upon her. After that, she would constantly challenge him in different subjects, only to fail every time.
"This is your chance to finally beat me, isn't it?" Dudley said.
Of all the so-called brainiacs at Oxford Dragon Primary who only talked behind his back, only this girl had the guts to challenge him to his face. He'd agreed to participate in the competition out of respect for her. He really admired her straightforwardness. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered with the Olympiad. After all, he'd won too many first-place prizes already; he had to leave some for the other kids.
"I'm going to beat you fair and square," the girl said, puffing out her chest like a proud little hen. "Hurry, we don't have much time."
She placed her notebook on the desk and reached for Dudley's sleeve just as he stood up. Already dizzy from a lack of sleep and the potion, Dudley stumbled when she pulled his arm. His left foot tripped over his right, and his enormous body pitched forward, hitting the girl's shoulder. She went down like a sack of potatoes, with Dudley right behind her. Luckily, Dudley reacted quickly, cushioning her head with his right hand to soften the fall. He used his left arm to support himself, making sure he didn't crush her.
Thump.
A muffled sound echoed through the empty classroom. The two of them lay on the floor, staring into each other's eyes in an awkward silence, their hearts beating in unison. He had been "wall-dodged" before, but what was this called? A "floor-smash?"
"Dudley, shouldn't we..."
Footsteps approached the door. Harry had just arrived and took one look at the scene before backing away. "Sorry, I didn't see anything."
Ten seconds after Harry disappeared, the girl's face turned beet red. She let out a small gasp and scrambled to her feet like a startled rabbit, hurrying to the door.
Before she left, she looked at Dudley and said, "The study materials are on the desk. Oh, and my dad wanted me to tell you that you should come to the clinic sometime. He says you have the best teeth he's ever seen." Her father was a dentist, a very profitable profession, which was how she could afford to attend a private school like Oxford Dragon Primary.
Dudley's teeth had to be strong, considering he used rock-hard baguettes as a chew toy.
"Hey!"
The bushy hair appeared again at the end of the hallway. "My name isn't 'Hey.' Call me Hermione."
"Hermione Jean Granger."