A couple of days later, Dudley came down to the dorm room to see Parvati crying and Lavender and Neville comforting her.

"What's up with her?" Dudley asked joining Ron and Dean.

"Dean dumped her," Ron said, quickly.

"I did not dump her, I just said we shouldn't really go out,"

"Which is pretty much dumping her," said Ron.

"We didn't click," Dean said with a shrug. "Things weren't really working out, so why continue?"

Dudley nodded and glanced over at Parvati. "She looks pretty sad."

Dean looked a little uncomfortable. "Yeah, but what was I meant to do? Things weren't working."

"You weren't hear when he actually dumped her," Ron snickered. "She looked like she was gonna hex him. Then she just burst into tears."

"Things seem to be going well with you and Cho though," Dudley commented. He hadn't seen much of Ron the past few days. He had spent much of his free time with Cho, either on the castle grounds or finding some desserted classroom to kiss in.

"Yeah, well, you know how it is," Ron said, looking a mixture of both smug and shifty.

"What's up with Parvati?" Ginny asked, coming over to join them.

"Dean finished her," Ron said, quickly.

Dean gave an irritated sigh.

"Oh, good, you're back on the market then?"

"I ... what?"

"Only Demelza Bobbins likes you."

"I thought she liked me!" Ron said, indignantly.

"She did," Ginny said, patiently. "Until you started going out with Cho Chang. Then she switched to liking Dean."

"She's pretty," Dean admitted. "But I think I'm gonna take a break from girls for a while."

The final lesson of the day was double potions (Dudley's least favorite class) with the Slytherins (Dudley's least favorite house) which was taught by Professor Snape (Dudley's least favorite teacher). They met up with Neville, Lavender and Parvati and headed to the classroom together. Parvati kept shooting nasty looks at Dean and Dean was looking uncomfortably.

When they arrived, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were stood around with Pansy Parkinson and Milicent Bulstrode. They were giggling, which was never a good sign.

"There they are, there they are!" she giggled, and the knot of Slytherins broke apart. Harry saw that Pansy had a magazine in her hands - Witch Weekly. The moving picture on the front showed a curly-haired witch who was smiling toothily and pointing at a large sponge cake with her wand.

"You might find something to interest you in there, Longbottom!" Pansy said loudly, and she threw the magazine at Neville, who caught it, looking startled. At that moment, the dungeon door opened, and Snape beckoned them all inside.

"What's that about?" Ron asked, as they trooped inside.

Dudley felt certain it couldn't be anything good. He glanced back at Neville who was reading the magazine, a look of anger on his face. Sat beside him, Lavender looked like she wanted to hit or hex something.

"Longbottom, Brown—what are you doing?" Snape said.

Neville jumped. "Nothing!"

"It didn't seem like nothing," Snape sneered. He walked over and picked up the magazine and began leafing through it. "But of course, our Champion has to keep up with his ...publicity."

"'Longbottom's Love Woes'" he read. "Dear, dear, Longbottom—what ails you know?"

"Neville Longbottom is a boy who has suffered a lot of heartache—seeing his parents permanently hospitalised, raised by a domineering grandmother and bullied at Hogwarts by his peers. Longbottom's fourth year at school is when things turned around. He became Hogwarts Champion and is currently in the lead ahead of students such as Bulgaria seeker Viktor Krum, the boy who captured Sirius Black, Dudley Dursley, and Flower Delacour."

Snape paused to give a shake of his head and continued.

"Longbottom had also found love. He was seen often to be in the company of one Lavender Brown—one of the prettiest girls in the year. It seemed that Longbottom, however, had developed a taste for the ladies that even she couldn't satisfy ..."

Snape paused so the Slytherins could laugh.

"...Shortly after entering the tournament, Longbottom was seen in the constant company of a muggle-born witch, Hermione Granger—a plain but ambitious girl. They have been seen at Hogwarts spending a lot of time with each other in desserted classrooms and in the castle grounds. "They're always together," said Milicent Bulstrode, a Slytherin student. "They got a detention once after being caught by Professor Flitwick in an empty classroom."

Dudley looked over at Neville. He was white with fury. Lavender was shooting nasty looks at Hermione. There were tears in her eye.

Suddenly, she got to her feet. "How could you?" she shouted and stormed out of the classroom.

Snape looked amused. "ten points from Gryffindor I think," he said, to chuckles from the Slytherin. "And a detention."

Neville had gotten to his feet too.

"Sit down Longbottom," Snape said, in a low, dangerous voice. "Now, or you will see out the rest of this year in detention."

Neville was trembling with barely concealed anger.

"Ten more points from Gryffindor. I said SIT!" Snape snarled.

Neville took a deep breath. He looked like he wanted to punch Snape but he controlled himself and did as he was told.

They continued the rest of the class in silent while Snape swooped around like an oversized bat, doing his usual thing of criticizing every Gryffindor while praising the Slytherins. Dudley glared at him when he passed by. He really didn't like Snape.

Towards the end of the class, there was a knock on the dungeon door.

"Enter," said Snape in his usual voice.

The class looked around as the door opened. Professor Karkaroff came in. Everyone watched him as he walked up toward Snape's desk. He was twisting his finger around his goatee and looking agitated.

"We need to talk," said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist. Harry kept his eyes on his ginger roots, listening hard.

"I'll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff," Snape muttered, but Karkaroff interrupted him.

"I want to talk now, while you can't slip off, Severus. You've been avoiding me."

"After the lesson," Snape snapped.

Under the pretext of holding up a measuring cup to see if he'd poured out enough armadillo bile, Dudley sneaked a sidelong glance at the pair of them. Karkaroff looked extremely worried, and Snape looked angry.

Karkaroff hovered behind Snape's desk for the rest of the double period. He seemed intent on preventing Snape from slipping away at the end of class.

Dudley half considered hanging back to hear what Karkaroff had to say, but he wanted to see what was wrong with Neville and Lavender and Hermione, so at the end of class, he packed his equipment away and left with the others.

The class went back to the dorm talking about what happened.

"Snape's a right git," Dean said, loudly.

"Shhh! He'll hear you!" Hermione said, fearfully.

But the others were in agreement.

"I don't know why Dumbledore keeps him here," Seamus said, angrily. "He only read that article out loud to embarrass Neville."

As for Neville, he had gone on ahead, hurrying to the common room by himself to console Lavender.

When they arrived, there wasn't much consoling going on. Lavender and Neville were in the midst of a full scale argument, regardless of the fact there were some first and seventh years also in the common room.

"Maybe we should come back later?" Ron suggested, a little awkwardly.

"You!" Lavender screeched, catching sight of Hermione. She marched forward with an expression of utmost anger on her face.

"Lavender, Rita is lying. I have not ..." Hermione said quickly.

Lavender wasn't listening she drew back her hand, throwing a hard slap at Hermione's face.

Dudley was faster. He reached out his hand, catching Lavender's and blocking the blow before it hit Hermione.

"Lavender, leave her!" he snarled and pushed backwards. He only meant to force Lavender to back away from Hermione, but he was strong and she was a small girl. His push was harder than he thought. Lavender fell backwards into a chair, tripping over it and landing with a thud, sprawled on her back on the floor.

"Lav!" Neville darted forward.

Dudley, shocked at what he had done, started forward too. He quickly halted. Neville's wand was pointed at his chest.

"You! Stay away from her!" Neville snarled. Sparks shot out the end of his wand and Dudley backed off quickly.

"Nev ..."

"If you ever lay a hand on my girlfriend again, I swear I will hex you!"

Dudley narrowed his eyes, trying to stay calm. A bit of the old Dudley emerged and he longed to give Neville a good thump on the ear to teach him some manners. He could almost hear a voice in his head telling him to do it.

"It was an accident Nev," Dudley began, forcing his voice to remain calm.

"Shut up, Dursley. You're nothing but a bully. Always have been. I promise, you better not lay a hand on Lavender again ..." he helped Lavender to her feet. She and Parvati were glaring daggers at Dudley.

Once again, Dudley was feeling the urge to give Neville a good thrashing. He clenched his fists so tight his nails dug into his palm.

"Nev, it was an accident," Ron said, trying to break the tension.

Neville, however, ignored him, pushing roughly past them all to lead Lavender out of the portrait hole. Parvati followed.

"Look, I didn't mean to push her," Dudley said quickly. "Honest—I was just stopping her from hitting Hermione."

"I know, mate," said Ron.

"Yeah, we know you wouldn't push Lavender like that."

Dudley looked at Hermione. She looked shaken.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

Hermione gave a half shake of her head. "I can't believe she'd try and hit me."

"Hermione, it was an accident, I didn't ..."

"I know, Dud," Hermione said, abruptly. "Neville will come around but ... urgh! This is all that cow, Rita's fault! Why did she have to go and write such awful lies! Me and Neville spending time together—of course! I'm helping him!"

She walked over to a chair and hurled herself into it. "I swear, I'm going to get Rita Skeeter for this."

Dudley, Ron and Dean glanced at each other. They could all tell it was no use telling Hermione to leave it.

"Neville will explain things," Ron said, sitting next to her. "And Lavender will calm down."

"You need to steer clear of her too, Dudley," Hermione said, looking at him.

"Steer clear of who?" Dudley frowned.

Hermione sighed. "Who do you think? Rita Skeeter."

"Why?"

"Because look what she's wrote about me and Neville! I know she's interviewed you and wrote about you and Lockhart—but she can't be trusted, Dudley. She'll start writing lies about you at some point."

Dudley scratched his chin, thoughtfully. He had never considered this. Rita's true colors were definitely showing now and he felt Hermione had a point about her.

"Yeah but, if Dud just refuses, won't that make her write something horrible about him?" Ron said.

"There is that," Hermione said.

"I suppose the best bet is to just not give her the chance to ask him questions," Dean said.

"She seems more interested in Neville than me," Dudley said. "But yeah, sure, if she starts showing an interest, I'll just make myself scarce."

"Or just shove Lockhart in her direction," Ron said. "He'd do anything for a bit of publicity."

They all, Hermione included, laughed at that.