The Slytherin Gem

21

That weekend she made her team train twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. They needed to be ready for the season and do well. They were all tired and grumpy but after a year of not playing they all needed the practice.

After the Sunday session, Jade told Draco about what Ron told her and obviously he was against the idea but he didn't own her, he wasn't going to control her, not like he could anyway, so he only let her know what he thought about it.

At the start of October and during the first trip to Hogsmeade, Jade paced around the common room, she had been invited to go to a meeting and she wanted to go but at the same time she didn't know if she should go.

At the end she told herself she wasn't a coward. She went to Hogsmeade with some of her friends but then she turned left, leaving the people she was with, and went to where the meeting was being held. She was a few minutes late but it was better that way. She walked inside the room as quietly as possible and stayed in the back, with her black hoodie on.

A part of her was okay with being there but another part was thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?'. Most of the people there were Gryffindors, but there were also some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

At the front, Jade could see Ron, Potter and Granger. Jade could also recognize the three other Weasleys, Parvati and Padma Patil, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, Lavender Brown, Cho Chang. And some people from Quidditch like Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson. She also saw this blonde weird girl from Ravenclaw, was it Luna? She was there too.

Granger gave a speech about the way Umbridge was teaching them and called it bullshit, and that she wanted more than that and she did mention Voldemort, everyone's reactions were of fear. Jade just stood in the back, listening.

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" a blonde Hufflepuff boy said in a rather aggressive voice.

"Well, Dumbledore believes it..." Granger began.

"You mean, Dumbledore believes him," he said, nodding at Potter.

"Who are you?" Ron asked rather rudely.

"Zacharias Smith and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back." Jade wanted to intervene but she kept her mouth shut. She wanted to not be seen but it was hard for her to not speak her mind when she wanted.

"I saw him," Potter said to Zacharias. "Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him and you don't believe me, I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

"All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know —"

"Why do you even want the details? That's sick. If you don't want to believe any of this then I think you should just leave. Cedric was murdered, it doesn't matter how!" Jade exclaimed, not being able to keep her mouth shut.

"And how do you know this is true?" Zacharias asked Jade.

"We are not discussing that, are we?" Jade said coldly at him.

Potter intervened and said that if anyone was here for the gossip, they could leave. But no one did. Potter was pretty shocked that Jade had turned up, Ron was too but he was happy to see her. Granger didn't know she was invited, unlike Potter, and she kept glaring at her.

"Is it true that you can produce a Patronus?" someone in the crowd asked. Jade later recognized her as Susan Bones.

"Yeah," Harry said slightly defensively.