NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: Horcruxes
"What subject do we have this afternoon?" Asked Harry as they walked towards the great hall, fiddling with the one decent button he managed to transfigure.
"Defense against the dark arts" said Hermione without hesitation.
"Say Hermione", Ron asked her, looking at her timetable, "why do you have all of Lockharts lessons marked with hearts?"
The timetable was ripped out of his hands by Hermione, who was a deep scarlet red. Ah, young love, thought Dudley, as he ate his food. Harry, Ron and Hermione walked out of the great hall, towards one of the courtyards dotted around Hogwarts. Dudley remained at the table, his eyes lazily drifting across the other students eating. He could feel something, a sinister feeling, not unlike the one he felt from Harry but he couldn't pinpoint where it came from. There were too many students there to make out from whom the magic originated. He shrugged, it was most likely just a remnant left behind by Harry's scar, nothing to worry about, right?
He had to go now, if he wanted to make it to class on time. By the time that he got there, Malfoy was laughing, "hey, dimwit", he called after Dudley, "did you know? Potter is giving out autographs! Want to get one to show your worthless muggle parents? Ha!"
He rolled his eyes and sat down besides the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, at the front of the class, "One could fry eggs on your face", said Ron to the embarrassed Harry, snorting, "Better hope Creevy doesn't start a Harry Potter fanclub"
"Stop it", hissed Harry, punching him slightly in the arm.
Professor Lockhart walked into the room, his robes billowing, a brilliant white smile on his face, "I am Gilderoy Lockhart, order of merlin, third class, honorary member of the dark force defense league and five times winner of Witch Weekly's mos-charming-smile award- but that is not worth the words. I didn't beat the Banshee of Bandon by smiling at her"
He made a dramatic pause before continuing, "I see you all bought the collection of my works, good. I thought we might start our class with a little quiz, an easy one, don't worry. I just want to see how well you have read the textbooks and what you can remember", he handed out the tests, "You have thirty minutes to complete it, stime starts… now!"
Dudley looked at the quiz and was immediately disappointed.
'What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret wish? What do you wager is Gilderoy Lockhart's most impressive feat thus far?...'
He flipped through the pages(all three), hoping to find anything on actual defense against the dark arts but no, it was all 'what would Gilderoy Lockhart say is his favorite fantastic beast?' and 'Who is Gilderoy Lockhart's best friend?'
Dudley didn't fill any of it out, he wouldn't lower himself to feed into the man's ego. After the thirty minutes were up, Lockhart collected the papers, "Tsk tsk tsk, almost none of you remember that my favorite color is purple, I wrote that in year with a yeti and a few of you might do well, rereading Wandering with Werewolves. But Miss Granger had full marks, not a question answered wrong, even what my secret wish was. That was a hard one, seeing as I only mentioned it once in Travels with Trolls. Ten points to Gryffindor. And I am mighty disappointed with Mr Dursley, he didn't write anything down tsk, tsk, tsk, I expect better, five points from Gryffindor but now, we move on to a more… practical portion of the class. In this cage, I have captured some truly vile creatures, I must warn you, don't be intimidated, they can smell fear!"
He ripped the cloth shielding the cage from view, revealing… "Pixies?", Dudley couldn't help but ask. Pixies were harmless, if mischievous creatures. Students were taught about them in Defense against the dark arts only briefly, they weren't dangerous, like Lockhart suggested. His respect for the Professor was even lower now, seriously, pixies? They were blue, humanoid creatures the size of a budgie and chattering just like them.
"Yes, Cornish pixies, tricky creatures but don't worry, I am more than equipped to deal with them", He opened the cage's door and they all fluttered out, "let's see how you handle them"
Dudley knew this was a bad idea. One pixie was harmless, a few were manageable but this many? Chaos was sure to ensue and chaos did come. Lockhart tried casting a spell after Neville was carried up to the dragon skeleton but one of the pixies snatched his wand and threw it out the window. Students ran out of the room, leaving only Lockhart, Dudley and the trio.
Dudley had enough of this nonsense, he directed his wand at the pixies and called, "Immobulus"
The pixies froze in mid-air and Lockhart smiled brightly, "Well done, 5 points to Gryffindor, now, put them back in the cage won't you? I need to get my wand back"
"Really? He is our defense against the dark arts teacher?" Ron huffed, "what an idiot"
"No, he just wanted us to have some practical experience", Hermione defended.
They kept bickering like a married couple as the four put the floating pixies back into the cage.
"I don't like him", Dudley whispered to Harry as they walked out of the classroom.
"Me neither", Harry sighed, "he keeps talking to me like I'm some stupid child"
"We are children… though I get what you mean, that guy, he's- he's something alright"
That night, when everyone was asleep, Dudley crept out of bed and snuck towards Harry's bed. His cousin was sleeping peacefully, his scar still pulsating with ancient magic. He turned in his sleep, clearly dreaming. Dudley slowly raised his wand to the scar and tried tapping into that ancient magic. Then it came, that overwhelming feeling of dread, hatred and… fear? As he pushed deeper, he found a presence, a little shard of something. He pushed deeper and lost himself in the magic, finding himself face to face with a man, in his forties, maybe fifties, with piercing red eyes and skin so pale you could see the veins running under it from far away, "Who are you?", the man whispered in parseltongue. He began connecting the dots, parseltongue, powerful, evil, in the scar made by Voldemort…
"You are a horcrux… that is why you didn't die that night, you anchored yourself to Harry", Dudley spoke, stepping closer, "Well, no more, I will-"
A wave of negative emotions hit him as he moved closer, the horcrux was defending itself. Horcruxes were ancient magic, a ritual to split the soul in half to anchor your soul to the mortal plain, preventing final death. It was first created by an egyptian pharaoh to stay immortal, like the gods they thought they were. It was vile. Dudley had used several unforgivable curses in his time but he would never create a horcrux, it damned your soul to limbo, should your horcrux be destroyed. You couldn't go to the other side, you couldn't even become a ghost.
The negative emotions were strong, stunning him but he could re-adjust himself and pressed onwards. Memories kept flashing in front of his eyes, memories of the worst moments of his life. It was like as if a dementor were nearby. He felt as if he could never be happy again, all that he had was rage and sadness, emptiness. Too bad for the horcrux, he let that anger fuel his steps, he would rip that parasite out of his cousin's head, no matter what. That thing… it infuriated him, he wanted to destroy it. He got closer and closer and as he came, the form of the horcrux deteriorated, from a handsome, if pale, man to a shriveled up baby, with no nose, thin to the point you could see its bones and an ugly shade of grey. He gripped the baby and with all his might, pulled. He was out of that place again, with his wand raised high above his head, a wisp of red and black magic at the tip of it. Dudley smiled wickedly and absorbed the magic, dispersing the soul into nothingness. He could feel the magical power enter his core. As a child he was, he had less power than his adult self but now, now he had regained some of that power. He was now at the same power as a fourth year, not as much as he would've expected from a horcrux but whatever, right? It was gone now. He cast a few diagnostic spells on Harry and was surprised, he no longer was a parselmouth, at least that was what his spells told him. Apparently, he hadn't inherited the parselmouth from his mother or maybe he did and yanking out that shard that hard had somehow damaged this gift. He was sure, Harry wouldn't mind.
He had told him he didn't like his gift, so, he nodded satisfied, walking up to the bed and slumping down to go to sleep. That whole thing had taken a lot of power out of him, so he collapsed into his bedsheets.
The next morning, he quietly observed Harry. He walked and talked just fine. It seemed as though there were no negative side effects on him, except his loss of parseltongue. Let's try it out, whether, he actually lost the ability or that was just a fluke of the spell, "Can you understand me, Harry?"
"Why are you hissing at me?", Harry looked at him confused.
"Well, you felt different somehow this morning, and I thought… well, maybe you don't have the ability to speak parseltongue anymore, it was a hunch and turns out, I was right", Dudley said.
"Why would that be your first idea of what happened?"
"I dunno, it just came to me and turns out, I'm right. I don't know how that could happen but it happened alright", Dudley lied and Harry didn't seem to spot the deception, just shrugging and walking off, a pep in his step. He really didn't like being connected to Salazar Slytherin. Understandable, considering the Slytherins' current standing.
The first class of the day was potions. The dungeons were as cool and dimly lit as ever, with Snape, the potions professor, already standing in the classroom, looking at all the entering students sternly. When everyone was seated, he split them up into pairs of two, "Dursley, you work with Malfoy"
Draco Malfoy scoffed and muttered something under his breath, which sounded suspiciously like 'mudblood', though no one else seemed to hear him.
"Now, we will be brewing a sleeping draught, you will find the instructions of how to brew it on pages 201 to 203 in your books, you have two hours to brew it"
"Just let me do the work, dimwit, you are new, so you don't know how to do anything and-"
Dudley was already processing the ingredients with learned proficiency. He was fast and precise. Malfoy's jaw hit the floor. He locked eyes with him and he used legilimency.
'How does the mudblood do that? He looks just as deft as uncle Snape… was McGonagall's tutoring really that effective? '
He cut the connection and continued, crushing slugs and dropping them into the hot water, stirring once, then twice, before adding the root of poppy into the mixture. A good hour and a half later, they were done. Faster than any others. Professor Snape walked over and inspected the potion, "flawless… good work Malfoy, 10 points to Slytherin and… 1 point to Gryffindor"
Of course it was flawless. Dudley knew how to brew Felix felicis, a simple sleep draught was nothing. Still, he had to hide his dissatisfaction at Snapes obvious favoritism. 10 points for Slytherin but only one for Gryffindor? Asshole. He walked off, berating Neville for his draught was an ugly shade of pink, when it should be crimson red, "honestly, can you do nothing correctly, Longbottom? I am amazed you weren't expelled already. If your work in other classes is as poor as yours here, you must be the bottom scorer in the last exams"
Yeah, he reminded him a lot of Professor Black… assholes, both of them.