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Lately, something had been bothering Dudley. What he had feared had actually happened. In just a single week, he realized that he had grown another two inches.
If things kept going at that rate, he probably wouldn't stop growing until he was well over six and a half feet tall.
Sometimes, being too tall and too big was not exactly a good thing.
Especially when he stood beside Harry and the others. The sight looked like something straight out of a fairy tale... something like Snow White and several dwarfs, except with a giant in her place.
Letting out a sigh, Dudley shoved aside the huge boulder in front of him, a slab nearly half the size of his own body, and grabbed the gigantic spider sleeping in the cave beneath it.
In winter, Acromantulas were easier to catch. They would seek out relatively warm caves to hibernate and endure the entire cold season.
In that state, until their bodies regained enough heat, they remained deeply asleep, harmless to both humans and animals.
It was the best possible time to capture them.
Because at that moment, they were still alive.
Dudley took out a test tube, forced open the Acromantula's venomous fang, and positioned it over the mouth of the tube. Then he squeezed hard. It was like opening a small floodgate. Before long, the tube was already completely full.
After carefully setting the tube aside, Dudley squeezed the fang again until not a single drop more came out. Then he repeated the same process while searching for another spider.
It did not take long before Dudley had gathered quite a pile of Acromantula venom.
...
After stopping by Hagrid's place and exchanging a few words with him, Dudley headed toward the castle. It was his weekly day for gathering materials.
"That little brat really never listens to anyone."
Hagrid looked at Dudley's back as he walked away and scratched his head, sounding rather helpless.
"Didn't I tell him the Forbidden Forest is dangerous?"
Probably the only person in the world who could still call Dudley, already six foot five, a "little brat" was Hagrid, who stood over nine feet tall himself.
Still muttering to himself, Hagrid went on,
"The centaurs nearby said some huge, strange thing showed up recently. Some creature that especially likes collecting hair, saliva, and that sort of thing from other magical beasts. It's already driven the unicorn family all the way into the deepest part of the forest. Poor things... the last time I saw one of them, most of the hair on its hindquarters had nearly been torn off."
...
On Christmas Eve, Dudley received a letter from Petunia and Vernon.
The letter said that during Christmas break, they would not be coming to pick up either Dudley or Harry.
Because they were going abroad...
'Traveling?'
They were really going to leave him and Harry behind just so they could go off on a trip?
The thought inevitably made Dudley suspicious...
"Are you really their biological son?"
Standing beside him, Hermione voiced the sentence he had not even finished saying yet.
At the same time, Hermione had also received a letter from the Grangers.
And the contents were exactly the same as the one from Petunia and Vernon.
"I think both families arranged to travel together."
It was not think.
They were definitely right.
Otherwise, there was no way a coincidence that absurd could happen.
"Harry, maybe after the holidays, you'll be getting a new little cousin."
Holding the letter in his hand, Dudley suddenly said that to Harry.
Harry's eyes lit up at once, full of excitement.
"Really? Then I want a little girl cousin. Ron said his sister, Ginny, is really cute."
As if that sort of thing depended on what he wanted.
In that case, he would have to ask Vernon.
After all, the chromosomes were on his side.
There were not many students staying at Hogwarts over Christmas. Looking at the whole of Slytherin, only Dudley would remain. The other Houses only had a few scattered students as well. Even adding them all together, there still were not enough to put together a football team.
"Even with Neville and Malfoy not here, your training can't stop."
Dudley began with that brief statement. Then he took out the study plans he had prepared for each of them.
One for each person.
Each one was twenty inches long.
There was no doubt those would make their holiday extremely productive. As for Dudley's own plan, that one had to be measured in feet.
Harry and Hermione took their parchments and immediately started looking them over.
Only Ron looked like he was about to cry.
To be honest, he very much wanted a lighter, more pleasant holiday. But with everyone around him being so hardworking and competitive, he simply could not allow himself to become a complete slacker.
Overwhelmed by grief and indignation, Ron took it all out on the food. He shoved down three huge bowls of potatoes and another ten chicken legs, until his stomach was round as a ball.
...
The next morning, after finishing his daily morning training, Dudley returned to his room. His eyes swept over the corner of the room, where a pile of things had already accumulated.
They were all presents delivered by owls.
The pile was so full it looked like a small mountain.
"Why does it feel like I got more presents than I used to back when I was studying at St. George's?"
He casually started rummaging through them.
At the very bottom, neatly stacked into perfect square piles, were the presents from the Slytherin students.
Every single one of them had sent a present. Not a single one was missing.
Since when had he become so popular?
The only problem was that everything was so green it practically made his eyes hurt.
'The wrapping is actually pretty nice.'
Next time, though, it would be better not to use this style.
Slytherin's colors were clearly green and silver together, so how was it that those little brats only ever seemed to notice the green?
Dudley did not spend too much time on those "overly green" presents and moved on to the rest.
Hermione's present came first.
It was a small bag, clearly sewn by hand.
And what surprised Dudley most was that it was not an ordinary bag.
Inside it, there was an Undetectable Extension Charm.
Unfortunately, perhaps because Hermione's current skill level was still not high enough, the space inside was not very large.
Even so, Dudley liked it so much that he decided to keep it with him.
Harry had given him a set of wizard-made exercise equipment.
Although there were not many wizards who truly cared about strengthening their bodies, they still existed. And the equipment was actually fairly functional.
Neville gave him a complete set of Herbology books.
Every great Potions Master was also strong in Herbology.
Snape gave Dudley a collection of advanced Potions books. A faint black mist lingered over the volumes, making it clear that these were not things one could buy through normal means.
Ron gave him a wizard chess set.
Before, Dudley had mentioned to him that he wanted to study some of the forms of entertainment in the wizarding world.
As for Malfoy, he gave him... an elegant cane?
Dudley stared at the thing, not quite sure what to make of it.
It was thick at the top and thin at the bottom. The large sphere at the tip looked as though it had been made specifically to smash someone's skull in.
If they added spikes to it, it would basically turn into a small mace.
Dudley swung it through the air a few times and found that it fit quite nicely in his hand.
So he decided to keep it too.
The moment he stepped out of the common room, Dudley found Harry standing there with his face full of excitement.
Yes, he was in Slytherin's common room.
Since there was absolutely no one else left in the entire House, and to make group studying easier, Dudley had brought Harry, Hermione, and Ron to study in his common room.
In any case, there were more than enough rooms there.
"Big D, look! It's an invisibility cloak!"
Harry practically shoved a transparent thing into Dudley's hands, like he was showing off a treasure.
An invisibility cloak.
A magical item capable of concealing the body completely.
According to the records in A History of Magic, the very first invisibility cloak appeared among the Deathly Hallows, as the treasure the third brother received from Death itself.
According to the story, it was capable of hiding someone even from Death's own pursuit.
As for whether it truly was that extraordinary... no one could say for sure.
In any case, the invisibility cloaks sold in wizarding shops were all made from the hide of a creature called a Demiguise.
Dudley was certain Harry's cloak was not made from that creature's hide.
The material was far more unusual.
"Harry, do you know who sent this to you?"
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