Professor McGonagall was waiting for Dudley in the common room the next day.

"A word, Mr. Dursley," she said, leading the way out. Dudley shugged at the quizzical glance he got from Ron and Dean and followed her. She led her down the corridor a short way to her office.

"Mr. Dursley, are you aware that first years can't have brooms?" she said, sternly, lifting Dudley's Nimbus 2000 off her desk.

Dudley thought furiously. He did know, but he didn't want McGonagall to know that, but he felt she would see through a lie too, so he settled for a half truth. "I thought it would be OK because I'm going to play quidditch."

"First years are not allowed," McGonagall said firmly.

"But .." Dudley began.

"No exceptions."

Dudley balled his hands into first. "Well, that's stupid!" he exploded. "My dad bought that for me! All I want to do is fly on MY broomstick!" He leapt to his feet. "Give it back!"

"Five points from Gryffindor, Mr. Dursley," McGonagall said. "I don't know what things were like in your home, but you will talk to me with respect, understand?"

Dudley didn't reply, he was seething with anger.

"… you will also refrain from raising your voice in my presence and so as you are told. Hogwarts is a place where you won't just learn magic, but you will also learn self-discipline and self-respect."

"Mc. … Professor, that is so unfair," Dudley pleaded. "That's MY broom, you can't take it! You can't!" He considered throwing a tantrum or smashing something. That had always worked back home, but something told him McGonagall wouldn't take too kindly to it.

"Compose yourself, Mr. Dursley," McGonagall said, her voice calm, although he nostrils had flared slightly. "You are a Gryffindor. Gryffindors do not throw temper tantrums and shout and scream when they don't get their own way. During your time at Hogwarts you will meet many different teachers and students, and if you act this way with them, you will get detention, lose points and even face further disciplinary action. I am being lenient because it is your first day here. But I advise you strongly to get your act together. Now, go and get some breakfast. You will get your broom back at the end of the school year."

Dudley ground his teeth. Ten years of growing up spoiled by Vernon and Petunia was urging him to throw a tantrum and shout and scream. He knew, however, that McGonagall's patience was at its limit.

"Yes, Professor," he said flatly, and turned to leave.

He spent breakfast grumbling about McGonagall to a sympathetic Ron and Dean, who were both disappointed that Dudley's broom had been confiscated. Not least because both had been promised a ride on it.

There was a lot more to magic, as Dudley quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Dudley found this very dull. The stars and planets all had long, confusing names, and he found he didn't much care for the class at all. Plus, climbing to the astronomy tower got very tiresome.

Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for. Dudley felt this class might be quite good. He was outdoors and it involved very little writing. Plus, some of the plants looked fascinating—he especially liked one which slinked vines around the classroom to trip passing students.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. Dudley found his attention ebbing away immediately. He spent most of the first class dozing, while Ron doodled idly on his parchment next to him. Dean tried valiantly to pay attention but also soon gave up as Binns droned on and on.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. His classes seemed like they would involve a lot of wand work, and in their very first lesson, he taught them how to shoot different colored stars from the end of their wand. Dudley was pleased that he was the fourth in the class to manage it after Hermione, Ron and Parvati.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Dudley had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle.

By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile. Dudley had gotten bored halfway through the lesson and spent the rest of the class watching the wooden clock on the wall as it ticked away. His matchstick was still entirely a matchstick..

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Friday was an important day for Dudley, Dean and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once. "What have we got today?" Dudley asked Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge. "Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them - we'll be able to see if it's true."

"Wish McGonagall favored us," said Dean. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

The Slytherins must have heard about Dudley's broomstick being confiscated for Malfoy called out, "Lost your broom, Dursley?" as they approached. "Maybe McGonagall will put a strengthening charm on it? So it can support your fat arse."

"Leave it, Dud," Ron whispered, putting a restraining hand on Dudley's shoulder as he made to approach Malfoy. "Fred and George say Snape can be very nasty. If he sees you beating up Malfoy …"

Dudley nodded. He had learned long ago that it was better to beat people up away from teacher. "I'll get him when he's alone," he muttered, and Ron nodded in agreement.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed this little speech. Dudley and Ron exchanged looks

with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead.

"Stopper death," Dudley whispered to Ron, excitedly.

"Dursley!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Dudley looked blankly at Snape and glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione's hand had shot into the air.

"I dunno," said Dudley.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer. "You will address me as Professor."

He ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let's try someone else. Weasley, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Dudley didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. Judging by the expression on Ron's face, he didn't either.

"I don't know, sir," Ron said.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Weasley?"

Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand.

"What is the difference, Longbottom, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon

ceiling.

"I don't know," said Neville quietly.

"Professor," Snape snarled.

"Professor," Neville squeaked.

Across the room, Dudley could see Malfoy laughing with Crabbe and Goyle.

"Sit down," Snape snapped at Hermione. "For your information, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and

wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment.

Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point each will be taken from Gryffindor House for failing to answer my questions."

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like.

He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills beforetaking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Dean who had been working next to Neville.

"You - Thomas - why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

All in all, it was a terrible lesson, and Dudley was in a bad mood as they left. His mood turned worse as he overheard Malfoy talking to Crabbe and Goyle.

"Gryffindor is pathetic this year," he drawled. "Three mudbloods, a worthless blood traitor and Longbottom who is practically a squib. I'm not surprised to see a Weasley palling around with the mudbloods though. My father always said his whole family are worthless losers. His useless father has been stuck in the same deadend job for years."

This time, it was Dudley who restrained Ron. "Later," he said. "When he's alone."

The pair looked at Dean. The tall boy's hands were balled into fists. He seemed to hate Malfoy calling him a mudblood. "What'll we do to him, though?" Dean asked. "We can't get into too much trouble."

"We'll just frighten him a bit," Dudley said, never one to worry about either the details or the consequences. "My dad always said, if someone starts trying to bully you, you need to beat them up quick or they'll keep doing it."

"Mine said stand up for yourself," Ron said in agreement. He grinned. "He left out the 'beat them up' bit. But I reckon it's implied."