The Slytherin Champion (The Four Maidens of Hogwarts #1)

Chapter Four

When Jade arrived at the entrance hall, she found herself unable to proceed due to the large crowd of students gathered there. Jade tilted her head higher when she noticed everyone looking at a sign at the foot of the marble staircase.

She was about to read the sign when she heard a loud voice a few feet away to her left. Ron Weasley was standing on his tiptoes to see over the heads in front of them and read aloud to his friends, Hermione Granger and... Harry Potter.

"TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY." Ron started.

"Brilliant!" Jade heard Harry exclaim. "It's Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us all!"

Jade held back a snort. Everybody hated Snape. She couldn't care less what Professor Snape thought of her. She did well in his class each year, and he gave her good marks. That was it.

Ron finished. "STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST."

"Only a week away!" Jade then rested her gaze on another Hufflepuff student, who was also reading the announcement. "I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I'll go and tell him..."

"Cedric?" Ron said blankly as the Hufflepuff student hurried off.

Jade furrowed her eyebrows. Who doesn't know Cedric Diggory?

Harry answered Ron. "Diggory. He must be entering the tournament."

"That idiot, Hogwarts Champion?" Jade finally heard Ron say as they finally walked off.

Jade couldn't help but roll her eyes in annoyance. He must have thought Cedric was just a popular pretty boy. She and Cedric may only just be classmates in the same year, but Jade knew Cedric was more than just a 'pretty boy'. How ignorant that snide comment sounded.

She'd heard from many people that Hermione Granger was the brightest witch of her age. That was good for Hermione, but since they were in different years Jade couldn't bring herself to care about Hermione Granger much. Most of the stuff she would hear about Hermione would be from Draco Malfoy's whining about 'mudblood Granger' anyway, and Jade didn't feel like taking the effort to figure out what rumors were true and what rumors were just rumors.

Ron Weasley was the younger brother of the Weasley twins. The twins tried to prank her once in fourth year. But before they had, she had given one glare at them. They had ended up pranking some other Slytherin student who had been next to her instead. They probably hadn't wanted to deal with Jade punching them both in the faces afterwards. Jade's less than stellar opinion of the twins already just made her not want to even interact with their younger brother.

Harry Potter... what to say about the famous Boy Who Lived? It wasn't that Jade hated him, but she felt everyone worshiped the air he breathed. It was annoying, and everyone gushing and whining about him eventually pushed Jade to be annoyed at Harry for causing everyone to act this way. Sure, it wasn't actually his fault, but it was easier to blame him than to blame everyone else. Though she didn't know first hand what had happened, Harry Potter and his two friends did have some respect from her based off of rumors of how they had saved Hogwarts each year since they had arrived. However, she would never forget the end of her third year, or Harry's first year.

Jade knew most of her Slytherin friends had worked very hard for the House Cup that year. Jade couldn't care less about the House Cup. She had to focus on obtaining high marks for her parents, but everyone still loved it when her triumphs in grades had awarded Slytherin House points. Headmaster Dumbledore had announced that year that Slytherin had the most points. She admitted that seeing her Slytherin classmates light up at the news that they had won the House Cup again for the seventh year in a row made her smile. But then, Dumbledore had to award Gryffindor House 170 points, causing Gryffindor to win the House Cup instead. She believed that Dumbledore had awarded Gryffindor last minute House points for a good reason, but it was still frustrating to see her Housemates' faces fall to dejection.