New chapter! Thanks for all the support!
x
Peter had not finished chanting the spell when he saw a dazzling white light.
He reflexively closed his eyes. Then something hit him hard in the abdomen, and a churning pain surged through him. Before he could even clutch his stomach, he took a heavy slap to the face.
"Oblivi what?"
Slap!
"What were you trying to say?"
Slap!
"Oblivi what, exactly?"
Slap!
After several slaps, Peter was dizzy and disoriented, and his cheeks swelled high, making his head look swollen and piggish.
Then Peter felt his limbs tighten. Countless vines bound his entire body.
"I hate it when people point wands at me."
Dudley still remained seated, but there was now a wand in his hand.
Ron's wand.
He had never left the stool. The punch and slaps that hit Peter had all been casually summoned through alchemy.
If Dudley had struck personally, there might have been nothing left of Peter but rat skin.
How did that saying go?
'If I punch you, you might die.'
"Do not let someone snatch it away again."
Dudley tossed the wand back to Ron, then looked at Ron with a strange expression.
"Honestly, Ron, your tastes are really strange."
He said with faint disgust, "You actually spent years cuddling an old man in rat form. But it would be best not to let too many people know about this. I am worried it will affect the disciplinary group's authority."
'I didn't. I don't. Don't make things up.'
Ron went bright red, and the freckles on his face became even more obvious.
Spending years cuddling an old, ugly man in rat form.
For several years in a row!
Merlin.
At that moment, Ron felt like he was going to vomit.
Especially after all those sentimental words he had just said.
The more affectionate he had been earlier, the more revolted he felt now.
Fortunately, no one besides Dudley knew about this. Otherwise, he might die of embarrassment on the spot.
"Ron, help me! I am your precious Scabbers, remember? You kept me in your bed."
"You even kissed me just now!"
Peter, lying on the ground, cried out at exactly the right time.
Ron looked so furious he almost went green, and he wished he could go up and kick Peter a few times.
"Big D, please stop talking."
Ron was so agitated he almost knelt before Dudley. If this spread, forget finding a girlfriend in the future. He would not even be able to find a boyfriend.
No, that was not the point.
The point was that this was too humiliating.
"From now on, whatever you say goes. As long as it is your order, I am willing to do anything."
"Then Scabbers..." Dudley asked.
Ron spoke righteously. "What Scabbers? I do not know any Scabbers."
Dudley took out the Niffler cub from before.
"No. From now on, he is your Scabbers."
Ron took the Niffler named Scabbers and hurriedly left the Room of Requirement. Now only Dudley and the bound Peter remained.
"I think we can talk, Mr. Peter Pettigrew... oh, perhaps I should call you Uncle James's dear friend, Mr. Wormtail."
With every sentence Dudley spoke, Peter went paler. By the end, he was white as a sheet.
He had thought that if he did not speak, no one would know. He had not expected Dudley to know everything.
Dudley could even describe the details, as if he had seen everything with his own eyes.
"There are no secrets in the magical world. Not in front of these eyes."
Looking at Dudley's blue eyes, Peter felt as if his whole body had been seen through.
"Relax. I will not send you to Azkaban."
'That would be far too cheap for you. Besides, you could escape in a few years.'
"Nor will I kill you."
'Not for now. Revenge belonged to the person who had suffered.'
Dudley would leave Peter for him. Of course, before that, Dudley would first squeeze out every last bit of Peter's value.
"By the way, dear Mr. Wormtail, as a former Death Eater... you should know the three Unforgivable Curses, right?"
Dudley stood at the top of a Hogwarts tower, looking at the open sky and feeling the breeze brush across his face. In the classroom beside the tower, Divination was currently in session. Because Dudley had chosen only two electives, he happened to have no class at the moment. With nothing to do, he planned to wait here for Hermione to finish class, then go with her to the later Care of Magical Creatures lesson.
Clang.
The door was pushed open hard, and Hermione came out in a fury.
As soon as she stepped out, she saw Dudley and dragged him downstairs.
"I have never attended such a terrible class," Hermione complained as she walked.
Perhaps because she was too agitated, she did not notice that she had grabbed Dudley's hand.
Feeling that soft touch in his palm, Dudley said nothing and simply followed her silently.
Dudley had not seen Hermione like this in a long time, because most of the time, she greatly respected professors.
Something like Divination was too vague. It was so-called inspiration or second sight, and it was bound to be completely incompatible with Hermione.
She was better at things with logic.
"She actually tried to see the future through tea leaves. Absurd. Ridiculous. It has no logic at all. Aside from a pile of soggy bits, there was nothing to see. She even frightened other students. Several Hufflepuffs were fooled by her. I truly do not know why someone like that was allowed to become a professor. She is exactly like Lockhart last year."
"Also, she predicted that Harry would encounter an omen."
Hermione was still very emotional.
"Perhaps because she is a descendant of Cassandra Trelawney," Dudley said.
Cassandra Trelawney was a famous seer in the wizarding world.
"That is exactly why I have never believed in prophecies. They are too superstitious."
"Like the old superstition that a twitching eye means bad luck."
This was the first time Hermione had heard that saying, so she asked, "Does it matter which eye?"
"Only if you want it to."
Dudley said it with a perfectly serious expression.
Hermione: "..."
Dudley's understanding of prophecy was this: if you believed in it, it worked; if you did not, it did not. When you believed a prophecy was true, you were already inside the prophecy.
If prophecy could predict the future with one hundred percent accuracy, then a certain prophetess would not have been "voluntarily" locked away in a tower.
Dudley and Hermione walked down from the tower together and headed outside Hogwarts Castle. That was where Care of Magical Creatures would be held.
At first, everything was fine. It was only when Hermione noticed more and more students looking at them strangely that she realized she had somehow taken Dudley's hand without noticing.
She reflexively tried to pull away, but failed. Dudley held on tightly.
'You were the one who took my hand first. Now you want to leave?'
Hermione's strength was naturally nothing compared with Dudley's. Besides, she did not truly want to pull away either.
She could only lower her head in embarrassment and let Dudley lead her toward the edge of the woods.
They waited there for a while before the other students began arriving.
Most students were curious about what kind of class it would be. A smaller group noticed the little gesture between Dudley and Hermione, then wisely kept silent.
No one wanted to provoke Dudley.
The first Care of Magical Creatures lesson was about understanding Hippogriffs.
This was a XXX-class magical creature.
Hagrid had brought a full twelve of them.
Incidentally, Hippogriffs were also a hybrid magical creature. They were traditionally said to come from griffins and horses.
Dudley had reason to suspect that there was a griffin in the Forbidden Forest, and that these Hippogriffs were its children.
Mm. Hagrid had definitely arranged for them to breed again.
x
x
x
If you're enjoying the story so far, consider supporting me on Patreon ❤️
You'll get weekly early access to chapters, along with some exclusive content:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheDevotedReader