The next morning, Lockhart's familiar long-eared owl appeared with a letter and a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Dudley,

It's a disaster! Rita ran with the interview with Neville Longbottom! It's all over the front page. You get a tiny mention at the back. She says it's because he's "the flavor of the week"—that little matter of being the fourth Hogwarts champion. Nevermind that you are the official one. Not to worry, I will smooth this over—I went through similar early in my career. After going mysteriously missing for three weeks, I was back on the front page! No fear, after winning this little tournament you'll be back where you belong. Keep working at riddles! I'll return to train you once I get this cleared up with Rita!

Gilderoy Lockhart

Dudley felt Lockhart must have written the note hastily. He hadn't even took the time to list all of his accomplishments after his name the way he usually did.

Dudley then opened the copy of the Daily Prophet, sure enough, on the front page was a photo of Neville Longbottom. It was gushing piece, full of memories about Neville's parents and wanting to do them proud and walk in their footsteps. Dudley suspected that Rita Skeeter had spiced it up a bit. In one section, she had written "I still cry at night, thinking about them in Saint Mungo's—unable to recognize their only son." Dudley had never heard Neville crying at night.

A few days later, at breakfast, Dudley heard Hermione swore. It was the first time he had ever heard her swear. He supposed she had picked it up from Ron.

"What's up?" he asked, glancing over.

"Listen to this, of all the …" she said irritably and read. "Neville Longbottom, the fourth School Champion, has found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Neville is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Neville, is one of the top students in the school."

Hermione tossed the Daily Prophet away with a snort of disgust without bothering to read any more. "Really. Where do they get this rubbish?"

"My daddy says the Prophet has been going downhill for years," Luna, who was having breakfast with Ginny said. "They just make things up as they go along."

Ron had chuckled at this. Dudley knew he was thinking about the magazine that Luna's father wrote, the Quibbler, which featured nonsense about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and the healing properties of gnomes.

Neville seemed in even more of an irritable mood after that article's release. He had to endure sneering comments, mainly from Slytherins.

"Him? One of the top students in the school? He's a moron!" Malfoy declared. By the look on Neville's face, it was only the presence of Snape that stopped him from flying at Malfoy. Hermione too had to endure taunts.

"Her—stunningly pretty? She looks like a chipmunk!" Pansy Parkinson had said, gleefully. Ron had received detention from Snape after throwing a dead rat they were meant to be dissecting at her. Dudley and Dean had lost five points each from Gryffindor after laughing when it hit her in the face.

"Ignore them, Neville," Hermione had said, haughtily. "They're just jealous that you're in the tournament and they're not."

"Yeah, we'll see who's laughing after I win," Neville said, through gritted teeth.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had burst out laughing at this.

Dudley expected Neville to be angry, but he just said softly, "You'll see after the first task. You won't be laughing then."

Even worse for Neville was the fact the truth about his parents, which he had kept quiet about, was now widely known thanks to Rita Skeeter's scoop. Dudley didn't know what must be worse-taunts from the Slytherins, or comments of sympathy when he passed people in the corridor.

Dudley saw Neville clenching his fists when people were whispering.

"Stuck in St. Mungoes ..."

"According to Rita, they don't even recognise him..."

"It was Death Eaters who did it..."

"Cries every night-I would too."

Dudley didnt know what to say to Neville to possibly cheer him up. For one thing, Neville didn't seem to like him at the moment. For another, Dudley had never cheered anyone up before. So, he decided to just leave it and let things blow over.

Despite his anger at the article, Neville did seem more confident about his chances at the Triwizard Tournament. Dudley heard him assuring Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones that he was going to handle it by himself.

Dudley couldn't help but wonder if he and Hermione had some sort of plan in place. They spent a lot of time together in the library or practicing in an empty classroom. Dudley's own extra lessons under Lockhart were not going well. Try as he might, Dudley just didn't have the right sort of brain to figure out riddles, so, Lockhart decided on Plan B—fight the Sphinx.

"You won't get full marks, but you'll get good marks if you manage to dispatch it sharpish," Lockhart had said. "There are a few options—now, stunners won't work, sphinxes are very powerful. But you can always use good old obliviate—you've had plenty of practice with that one. Or incarcerous and bind it together. There's also confudus—make your enemy extremely confused. They would get you most points—as a final gambit you can go for the conjunctivitis curse, though that might enrage it."

So, a couple of evenings a week, Dudley practiced his hexes with Lockhart. He had been able to cast incancerous for a while, same as obliviate and conjunctivitis, but he found confundus to be a struggle. It didn't help that Lockhart too seemed to find the spell difficult.

"Come on, Dudley! Draw the word out and give our wand a twirl, make the loops wide. Confundus!" Lockhart's wand slipped out of his fingers.

"Whoops, butter fingers today! I suppose my wand is over excited with all the work! Still-you know the theory—confundus, and give the wand a wide twirl."

Dudley wasted almost an hour practicing this way before Lockhart, after consulting a book, found that the incantation was confundo, not confundus.

"Apologies, Dudley! It's not a spell I ever have to use. It's a bit tame for me—I prefer the more deadly curses and hexes when combating dark foes. Still, they will be a bit out of your league, and I don't think the judges will be wanting you to kill the sphinx. No, we will aim to immobilize, not eliminate!"

Dudley cheered up at their next Care of Magical Creatures Class, just over a week before the tournament. Hagrid was waiting for them outside his hut, accompanied by none other than Charlie Weasley.

"Gather round. Gather round," Hagrid said. "Yeh won' wan' ter miss this. I have special permission from Professor Dumbledore an' Minister Fudge. We're goin' on a little outing ter see a dragon!"