Harry Slytherin 5

Chapter 8: Secret Meeting

(This is the second time i had to re-do this chapter because I had it nearly complete before work and then for some reason my computer went out of sleep mode and the one chapter I had neglected to save was erased because the file closed -.-)

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Draco mumbles as the three look up at the Shrieking Shack. He couldn't shake the foreboding feeling he got when he looked up at the old abandoned place.

"The parchment says to meet up here." he reads it over and then taps it with his wand before folding it up and shoving it in his pocket. "Got to hand it to granger... Hiding the words with a spell is bloody brilliant. She must have thought this through very carefully."

"I wonder what it is that she wants to talk about." Draco replies, still mumbling as if he was scared the house might hear him.

"She already told us that." Jade replies, "I want to know who at all is actually going to be here."

The door opens a crack, and Hermione grumbles. "Hurry up and come in, you'll draw attention if you stand around outside." She quickly ushers them in through the door. "I'm glad you came; have a seat and I will explain everything once the twins arrive." She shows them to the next room inside, where they see a few other students from different houses.

Harry immediately recognizes Ron and Ginny from Gryffindor as well as Neville and a few others. He also recognizes a tall girl with long brown hair standing next to Cho Chang from Ravenclaw and he can't help but smile a little to himself, "Sed."

Sed turns to Harry, at first surprised, then she smiles warmly and excuses herself from talking to Cho. She hurries over to Harry and pushes her hair back behind her ear. "Harry. It's good to see you after so long. I would have talked to you more this year but I got caught up in my new responsibilities as a prefect."

"It's alright Sed." Harry replies, "I understand you're busy. You don't ever seem to have much free time these days."

"Well aside from my own studies, I'm now expected to help other students with their studies, navigate the first years and teach them the rules and such." She frowns and glances at Cho. "Since Umbridge came to school, she's been ruining everything. Now she has taken magic out of the school. I'm afraid of what might follow if we are left this unprotected."

"She has done everything except take the wands from our hands, and I'm sure she has thought of that." Harry mumbles, annoyed.

Just then, somebody across the room recognizes Jade from the lunch room incident on the day everyone was called in for surprise interviews about suspected death eaters. "Hey!? Isn't that girl that one Lestrange chick?!"

"Why is she here?!"A boy next to Neville asks.

Neville is very apprehensive at first while the commotion begins to stir about Lestrange and her crazy family, the same things that had been said during that previous day's lunch hour. He begins to back away from the room but something stops him, a look of sadness in her eyes and he has a thought. 'Maybe these people didn't all start off bad, but were dragged down by how others reacted to them, so they became bad?'

Jade sighs, and then begins towards the door, but before she can open it Neville grabs her arm. She turns to him, confused and holding back her tears.

"Don't go." Neville says. He then turns to the group, "Listen to yourselves. You're acting like this information changes everything, when in fact it matters not." He looks around, stopping when his gaze meets Draco's; he turns away but continues. "jJust because somebody is related to somebody bad doesn't mean they will be bad. She might have a soiled past and a twisted family tree, but that doesn't mean she's any less of a good person." He turns back to her, and smiles awkwardly. "I forgive you for what your parents did to mine. After all, it wasn't you who held the wand."