Dudley had a free period after lunch. He planned to hang out with Hermione, but she had gone to the library. Dudley flat out refused to go with her. It was the first day of term and they didn't have any homework yet. No way was he going to spend his afternoon studying. Instead, he headed to the common room to see if anybody else was about.

Ginny and Luna were sitting by the fire, playing wizard chess. Dudley went over to join them.

"Do you play?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah, I'm not very good though," Dudley admitted.

"Daddy taught me all the moves and tactics," Luna said. "You need to think ahead of what you are going to do."

She moved her bishop into position. "Check-mate," she said.

Dudley decided to play her next. He went to move the pawn above his bishop forward. Luna surprised him by placing her hand over his to stop him.

"That's the worst move you can make," she said. "Here, try this instead …" she showed him the best moves to start with, but still ended up beating him in less than 10 moves.

"You're good," Dudley admitted.

"Thanks," Luna said. "Daddy says it's a game everyone should play. We used to play a lot when I was younger."

As they played chess, they talked about the upcoming Triwizard Tournament. Ginny, it turned out, knew quite a lot about it.

"They usually have three challenges—testing different things like skill, bravery, intelligence. It could be anything—get past some sort of monster. Find your way through a maze. Find a key to open a chest. Face each other in a duel," she said. "It was very dangerous—the last tournament was in 1792."

"How do you know so much about it?" Dudley asked, in surprise.

"I like history," Ginny said with a shrug. "Not the way Binns teaches it—but interesting history. Bill used to tell me all about the Egyptian wizards and things."

Dudley was surprised at this. He hadn't expected Ginny to have an interest in something he found mainly dull.

"Are you going to enter?" he asked.

"If Fred and George's aging potion works, then maybe. Though I think it'll be someone older who gets picked."

"How about you, Luna?"

"No," she said. "Daddy says the Ministry uses things like this and dueling tournaments to find candidates for the Polaris Program—they brainwash the winners and use them as agents to assassinate the Ministry's enemies."

"Fair enough," Dudley said. He had learnt long ago not to bother arguing some of Luna's farfetched theories.

"Who do you reckon will get picked?" he asked.

"Angelina seems pretty talented—if she's old enough," Ginny said. "I think Cedric Diggory too."

Dudley didn't know much about Diggory, other than he was the Hufflepuff seeker. He had only met him briefly before the Quidditch World Cup. His dad had seemed a bit of a pillock, though.

"Roger Davies gets really good grades," Luna said. "He's the Ravenclaw quidditch captain."

Dudley knew Roger as being one of the students who had bullied Malfoy quite a lot last year.

When Ron, Dean and Neville returned, Ron was complaining bitterly about Trelawney. "Miserable old bat—this is going to take all weekend."

"Shame," Dudley yawned. "I've got no homework because I dropped the stupid class."

"Daddy speaks highly of Professor Trelawney," Luna commented. "She has some very interesting theories about the whereabouts of the Deathly Hallows—they tried using her divination to find them."

What the Deathly Hallows were, Dudley didn't know. Something that didn't even exist, he assumed.