Requiem
It was not that Dudley didn't fit in with the others; no, it was that he was adamant about staying a loner and to avoid everyone. He would avoid them meticulously, even if 'they' were his own housemates. He was there for one reason and one reason only, to search for a way to revive his long departed cousin. Harry Potter.
Dudley wasn't always a quiet and reserved child to begin with, no, he was quite the opposite. He was loud and brash; arrogant and demanding; obnoxious and demeaning of others. It was not until the trauma of watching his family falling apart that he became reserved, quiet and thoughtful, if not ambitious and malicious towards ill-meaning people. It wasn't that anyone wouldn't approach him; he never talked much if at all, only the necessary greetings. Because of his shying away from the throes of society he was misunderstood; other houses saw him as the outcast of Slytherin and his own house took his silence to be a weakness.
Nobody ever knew what Dudley ever thought about. He was always shutting himself in the library or in a corner of the common room surrounded by books of various sizes and difficulty levels, immersed in reading and taking notes in that thick, black notebook of his. He carried it around with him everywhere, to breakfast, class, lunch, bed and even the bathroom; it was his 'treasure' everyone would say. In class while the professors droned on and on about the day's lesson, he would have a quick quotes quill taking notes for him, while he himself would flip through pages in his 'other' textbooks, scribbling away at whatever took his interest.
When others looked into his notebook they would only ever see what looked liked children's scribbles and random doodles splayed about here and there. There was nothing in there that would indicate that Dudley was looking up dark and dangerous magic, taken from books in the restricted section, and some of even shadier origins.
The first person ever to go up and directly ask him about his notebook was Blaise Zabini; he took the direct approach, walking straight up to Dudley while he was scribbling away and snatched the notebook away. Dudley could only cry out in alarm as his precious was taken away from his sight and dangled in front of his nose like fish bait. He sat stock still, staring first at his notebook then slowly and calmly looked questioningly at one Blaise Zabini. The two just stared at each for minutes before the darker toned boy sighed, sat directly opposite of Dudley and pushed the notebook halfway back to Dudley.
"Tell me." Dudley raised his eyebrow up in question at Zabini's short command. Zabini only pointed down at the notebook in front at exactly where an arithmancy equation was located. "What you plan to do all this Dark Magic."
Dudley met Zabini's solid stare with his own just as solid and smirked. He took his notebook into his arms, stood and walked away, uttering a single word in response to the still sitting boy behind him.
"Necromancy."
