3rd April, 1992

One evening at the beginning of April, I was looking through my trunk to see if there was anything important I needed.

There was only a month left of school, after all.

At the bottom of my trunk was a silvery cloak I hadn’t seen since Hallowe’en.

My father’s Invisibility Cloak that he had given to me.

No-one knew about it but my father and me, as far as I knew.

But I was about to change that.

I was bored and didn’t have anything better to do.

So I went down to the Common Room, where Blaise and Anja were arguing about something.

I told them about the Invisibility Cloak.

Blaise looked confused. “So, wait, why are you telling us this?”

“Well, I’m kind of bored at the moment,” I explained, grinning. “So I was thinking –”

“Jade!” Anja exclaimed. “You can’t do that! It’s against the rules! It’s breaking curfew! I’m definitely NOT coming!”

She folded her arms. Shrugging, I turned to Blaise.

“And you?”

“You want us to randomly explore the castle with you, late at night, hiding under an Invisibility Cloak? Great idea! Let’s go!” he exclaimed, getting up and laughing.

We walked to the door and went out. However, when we turned around, Anja was standing there.

“Decided to join us, Anja Pansy?” I asked coldly.

She shook her head in frustration. “No! This is a bad idea! You could lose Slytherin heaps of points and get yourselves hurt! And it’s pronounced Pahn – say, not Pansy!”

I rolled my eyes. “Anja, we’ll be invisible! That means we won’t be seen! Oh, by the way, the door is about to lock. You won’t be able to get back in until four in the morning.”

Anja turned around quickly. “Too late,” I said.

“Alohomora!” she said, waving her wand. Nothing happened. The door stayed locked.

“Oh dear,” I said sarcastically. “Looks like someone will have to come with us.”

Anja scowled. “Fine. But don’t blame me when 300 points get deducted from Slytherin!”

“Humph. Fine,” I accepted, then motioned for the others to come over to me. When we were huddled together, I threw the Cloak over us.

Everything outside the Cloak looked all shimmery.

“Wow, this is so weird!” Blaise commented. “How are we going to find our way?”

“If you get lost, that’s not my fault either,” Anja added smugly.

We began an awkward shuffle down the corridor, until Blaise stopped us to ask a very important question.

“Uh, Jade, how are we supposed to get up the stairs?”

Oh dear.

I hadn’t thought of that, which was a bit stupid, considering we were practically in the dungeons.

“We’ll, uh, work it out when we get there,” I told them briskly.

“Hate to break it to you, Jade, but we are at the stairs!” Blaise pointed out nervously.

He was right; the staircase was directly in front of us.

So we basically ended up doing some kind of awkward Mexican wave shuffling, where I was always 2 steps above Anja with Blaise in between us.

It probably took us between 5 and 10 minutes just to get up that staircase, by which time I was seriously reconsidering my decision to ‘randomly explore the castle’, as Blaise had put it.

We eventually reached the top of the steps.

“Okay, where to now?” I asked.

Anja just glared at me and gave no response.

“Astronomy Tower. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know,” Blaise suggested.

Great job, Blaise. Yes, let’s go as high as we can possibly go! I thought in irritation.

But since no-one had any better ideas, the Astronomy Tower was where we went.

About 20 minutes later, we had reached the top of the staircase leading to the Astronomy Tower.

“Good job, Blaise. Now what?” Anja hissed.

All of a sudden, I could hear voices…voices belonging to people I couldn’t see.

Voices whispering about…a dragon?

I heard the word ‘Harry’ and the word ‘Hermione’ several times as well.

Why in Merlin’s name would Harry Potter and Hermione Granger be up here, this late at night, invisible?

And what did a dragon have to do with anything?

A few seconds later, some people on broomsticks flew through the air and landed.

“Harry? It’s me, Charlie! Where are you?” one of them called softly – so softly, in fact, that I wasn’t sure if Harry had heard him.

But what had Harry gotten himself into?

On the other side of the Astronomy platform, there was a rustling noise and a few moments later, Harry and Hermione – I had no idea where Ron was – were standing there. Harry and Hermione were carrying a large crate between them that was shaking about.

Harry was holding a cloak.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one with an Invisibility Cloak.

He put it down on the ground and the two of them shuffled over to the men.

They handed over the evidently heavy crate with great difficulty.

When the deal was done, the two of them headed back down the stairs and the men with broomsticks flew away again.

For some reason, Harry didn’t get the Cloak again. I figured he had just forgotten.

“Follow them!” I hissed, so only Blaise and Anja could hear me.

Hermione and Harry went down the stairs, oblivious to their visibility.

We awkwardly shuffled down the steps behind them, being careful not to make any noise.

When we got to the bottom, we almost crashed into the two people who’d suddenly stopped in the corridor in front of us.

There was a reason for their stopping so suddenly.

Argus Filch.

“Well, well, we are in trouble.”

He led them to Professor McGonagall. We followed, but waited outside the door.

We could hear her yelling. Apparently Neville was there too, and she’d caught Draco earlier.

Then she took 50 points each from Harry, Hermione and Neville.

I was so happy – 150 points from Gryffindor meant that Slytherin was in the lead by a long way.

And what was even better was that Professor McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor House, was taking points – 150 points – off her own house!

I exchanged overjoyed glances with Anja and Blaise, then put a finger to my lips to remind them to be quiet.

The two of them grinned.

Blaise mouthed the word ‘yay’ over and over again, turning to face us both in turn as he did so.

I almost laughed, the sight was so comical.

Finally, McGonagall gave the three of them, along with Draco, detention with Filch and sent them back to their dormitories.

This meant we could finally go again. “Let’s go by the Great Hall on the way back,” Blaise whispered.

Anja nodded, accepting the suggestion, so we went to the Great Hall.

According to the points hourglasses, Slytherin was winning by quite a bit and Gryffindor had just lost 150 points, putting the in last place.

After that, we went back to the Common Room.

When we reached the Common Room, Anja asked worriedly, “Won’t it still be closed? It’s only 2:15.”

I shook my head. “No. I just wanted you to come with us. The door would have opened if you’d said the password, but you didn’t.”

She nodded and then glared at me again.

“Pure-blood,” Blaise whispered, then we entered. “That was fun, but I’m ready for visibility again.”

Anja and I agreed. We took off the Cloak and went to our dormitories to get some sleep.

In the morning, the waking hour kind of morning, I got up tiredly.

After breakfast and getting everything I needed, Blaise and Anja walked with me to Greenhouse One for Herbology with the Gryffindors.

There we met Dean, Seamus, Pavarti and Lavender, who all looked very angry.

“Why the angry faces?” I asked them.

“Why else? This morning when we went to the Great Hall, Gryffindor had 150 points less than yesterday! We’re losing the House Cup!” Lavender exclaimed, frustrated.

The others nodded.

I remembered last night.

“You know who lost you all those points?” I whispered conspirationally. “It was Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived put Gryffindor in last place and allowed us to win the House Cup again!”

“Harry? Harry lost Gryffindor 150 points all by himself? I’m going to mur –”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Anja interrupted, “but it wasn’t Harry alone. Harry Potter lost 50, Hermione Granger lost 50 and Neville Longbottom lost 50.”

“Yeah, but Harry was probably the leader,” I said, and Anja nodded.

The Herbology lesson began with us being put into pairs.

“Hermione with Neville. Millicent with Pansy. Dean with Seamus. Vincent with Gregory. Draco with Ronald. Oh, who did I miss?” Professor Spout asked.

Harry and I raised our hands at exactly the same time.

Oh no, I thought in horror.

Harry looked as if he was thinking the same thing.

Professor Sprout smiled widely. “Ah, how lovely! You must be best friends now after sitting together at the Christmas dinner! So Harry with Jade!”

I groaned but obeyed.

Then I had a thought: this was the boy who had let us win the House Cup.

Harry glared at me as I walked over to stand next to him.

“Hello, Harry. I just wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for us. We’re all so grateful,” I told him.

His look of confusion did nothing to stop my happiness.

“Wait, what did I do? And who’s ‘us’?” Harry asked.

Ron and Draco walked over. “Hi, Harry,” Ron said, ignoring me completely.

As usual.

“Look who I got stuck with! Although I suppose you’re with one of your enemies, too,” he conceded.

Harry groaned. “Great. Now I’m stuck with Malfoy and Evans. Thanks a lot, Professor Sprout!”

I laughed. “Hey, you make that sound like a bad thing! Oh, and ‘us’ is all the Slytherins, and what you did was smuggle a dragon’s egg out of the school, which lost Gryffindor 150 points. Your secret’s out.”

Draco grinned. “Thanks, Potter!”

Harry glared but looked worried at the same time. “Please don’t tell anyone! I’m the Boy Who Lived and the youngest Seeker in a century! I’m the one who defeated Voldemort and everyone likes me!”

In unison, Draco and I replied, “We don’t like you!”

I added, smirking, “And it’s too late now to tell me not to tell anyone! I already have – whoopsies!” Harry looked horrified.

“Hey, Harry’s my friend! Attack him, and you go through me!” Ron defended Harry, stepping in front of him.

“Who ever said anything about attacking him?” I asked, thinking this was going a bit too far.

“Me,” Draco said firmly, pulling his wand from his pocket and pointing it at Harry. “Petri –”

“What are you all doing? I do hope you’ve finished drying those nettles, they can be very helpful in Potions.” It was Professor Sprout. She smiled dimly at us, clearly not noticing the fact that Draco still had his wand out.

“Um, yeah, I’ll go get them now,” I said, motioning to Blaise and Anja to go outside, before I sped outside myself.

I quickly picked some nettles, then used the Burning, then Freezing, then Burning Charm on them.

They were sufficiently dried.

Blaise and Anja cam inside.

“Ha-ha,” Anja teased. “You get stuck with your enemy and I get put with a friend!”

“It’s not that bad, actually,” I replied. “I can just tease him about all the points he lost for Gryffindor. Have you dried your nettles?”

Blaise grinned in an embarrassed way. “Well, we did put them out to dry. But we were talking, so we kind of got distracted. I think they got a bit too dried.” He held up some shrivelled black stuff. “What about you?”

I held up my reasonably well-dried nettles. “I forgot to put mine out to dry, and so did Harry, so I ended up wand – drying them instead. But, hey, it worked, I’m not complaining!”

Anja stared at me for a moment before asking, “What spell did you use?” She grabbed some nettles, pulling out her wand at the same time.

We were wearing gloves, by the way.

“Okay. I used the Burning Charm – that’s Incendio – then the Freezing Charm – that’s Immobulus – then the Burning Charm again,” I explained slowly.

“Incendio…Immobulus…Incendio – wow! It actually worked!” Anja said excitedly, waving the nettles around.

“Fabulous,” I replied sarcastically. “Well, now I have to go and see Harry again.”

“Bye! Have fun!’ Anja called sweetly, waving.

I glared at her but walked back into the greenhouse where Harry was waiting.

“Got them,” I told him. Professor Sprout was still standing there, smiling dimly, so I thought I had better be nice.

“What do I do with these, Professor?” I asked her.

“Oh, you can use them for your potions! Or, even better, you can give them to Professor Snape! Wouldn’t that be lovely?” she gushed.

I felt like saying, No, Professor, it wouldn’t, but I didn’t.

“But, Professor, doesn’t that mean we’ll have to share the nettles? There are only a few of them.”

She frowned. “Ah, I hadn’t thought of that. But you can sort it out now, it’s the end of the lesson.” She raised her voice. “Dearies, the lesson is over! You can go to your next class now!”

Harry muttered, “You take them.” I felt like arguing, but I didn’t bother.

It was only Harry, after all.

I shrugged and walked off with the nettles. As soon as I got outside, I promptly threw them in the garden.

Right up until the third – to – last day of school, I annoyed Harry about having lost Gryffindor 150 points, but on the inside I was worrying.

Because it was getting closer and closer to the end of school and my father still hadn’t contacted me.

That meant the Stone was still safe.

And that meant Quirrell was going to try to get it soon.