Smeltings

• Type: Private Muggle school for boys
• Location: An unspecified location in or near Surrey, England
• Owner/Residents: Notable students include Dudley Dursley and Piers Polkiss. It is the alma mater of Vernon Dursley.
• Key Features: Distinctive and old-fashioned uniform, institutional use of Smeltings sticks.

Smeltings is the private secondary school attended by Dudley Dursley and was previously attended by his father, Vernon Dursley. The Dursleys hold the institution in very high regard, viewing it as a fine, traditional establishment that builds character. The school is most notable for its ridiculous uniform, which consists of a maroon tailcoat, bright orange knickerbockers, a flat straw hat known as a 'boater', and a knobbly cane called a Smeltings stick. The stick is not merely ceremonial; students are taught to hit each other with them, a practice that Vernon Dursley enthusiastically endorses as “good training.” Petunia Dursley found the uniform to be “sweet” on her son, while Harry Potter privately thought it made Dudley look like “a pig in a wig.” As a private institution, attendance at Smeltings is a point of pride and a status symbol for the Dursleys, who consider it vastly superior to the local state comprehensive school, Stonewall High.

Smeltings primarily serves as a narrative foil to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It represents the mundane, brutish, and restrictive Muggle world that Harry Potter is desperate to escape. The pride the Dursleys take in Smeltings—with its absurd uniform and sanctioned violence—highlights their values, which are in stark opposition to the wonder, magic, and sense of belonging Harry finds at Hogwarts. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Smeltings uniform is a key plot device. The Dursleys plan to send Harry to Stonewall High and, in a show of their neglect and cruelty, intend to make him wear Dudley's old Smeltings uniform, which they have dyed a sludgy grey. This plan is thwarted by the arrival of Harry's first Hogwarts letter. Later in the series, it is mentioned that Dudley has taken up boxing at Smeltings and eventually becomes the Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion. This background explains his increased physical bulk and confidence, which is relevant during the Dementor attack in Little Whinging in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

No specific areas, classrooms, or grounds of Smeltings school are ever described in the original novels. Its existence is known only through the descriptions of its uniform and the accounts of the Dursleys.

• In a deleted scene from the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dudley Dursley is shown parading around the living room at Number Four, Privet Drive wearing his new Smeltings uniform, much to the delight of his parents. (film)