Zygmunt Budge was a potioneer and author of the Book of Potions. Despite his brilliance, he was widely considered to be eccentric, as well as vindictive and unstable.

Not much is known about his childhood and upbringing, but it can be inferred that he and his mother did not get on, given she gave him the moniker 'Fungus-face'. His love of potions came from his great-grandmother, a witch he described as 'distressingly giggly'. She gave him a recipe for the Laughing Potion, which Budge went on to work on refining.

Budge attended Hogwarts School, and by the age of fourteen he was top of his Potions class and correcting the Professor. He asked the Headmaster at the time if he could enter the Wizarding Schools Potions Championship, but was denied because he was considered too young and the competition too dangerous. Budge dropped out in protest.

After learning that only representative students of wizarding schools could enter the Wizarding Schools Potions Championship, Budge moved to the remote island of Hermetray, where he lived for the rest of his life creating, brewing, and experimenting to create his magnum opus - the Book of Potions.

Budge's personality lived on in his copy of the Book of Potions, and his ambition was to support a student potioneer to become the Wizarding School Potions Champion.