General Notes

Harry's only cousin, he is described as a large blonde boy. He is completely spoiled, and he gets a horrible delight in bullying smaller kids, and shows a complete lack of sensitivity; he is also a glutton. Dudley has been thoroughly spoiled since birth, getting mountains of birthday and Christmas presents and then throwing a tantrum because he wanted more, being given two bedrooms in the house, never using one, and then screaming when it is given to Harry and generally given his way in almost everything. He shows the symptoms of a brat from his first year itself, when a disgusted Professor McGonagall tells Dumbledore how she saw the toddler Dudley kicking his mother and screaming for sweets. A rude, belligerent and selfish boy, Dudley is quite an unlikable character, although he knows how to be polite when he wants to make an impression (notably when his father's business associate came for dinner one evening). It can be inferred that he and Harry went to a private prep school in Surrey together, where Dudley and his gang of bullies ruled the school, and where the rest of the students shunned Harry as they knew Dudley hated him. With each passing year Dudley was overindulged in every way by his parents, which eventually made his morbidly obese and a careless student (he had reached the height and weight of a young killer whale at the beginning of the fourth book). Throughout their childhood together, Dudley would take any opportunity he could to humiliate and torment his cousin, Harry. Unlike his cousin, however, Dudley has no powers outside of his brutishness.