Jasmine was sitting in Charms on Wednesday morning, the only class she shared with Hufflepuffs, when she noticed that they were giving her a wide berth.
Colin slipped into his seat next to her and gave her a cheery smile, "alright Jasmine?"
They had developed a friendship over the last few weeks. They had agreed that Colin got to ask a maximum of five questions about Harry per day and surprisingly when Colin wasn't gushing about Harry he was really nice and funny.
They even had days where he didn't ask any questions.
"Why is everyone giving me such weird looks?" Jasmine whispered, meeting the eye of one girl in Hufflepuff who flinched violently and looked down quickly.
"I reckon it's cause Harry is your cousin," Colin said and continued at her blank look, "haven't you heard what everyone is saying about Harry?"
"No," she said sharply, "what are they saying?"
Colin looked ecstatic that he was the one telling her the news.
"They think that he's the heir of Slytherin, and that he's opened the Chamber of Secrets," he said breathlessly.
"The Chamber of Secrets?" Jasmine scrunched her nose in thought, she remembered Harry saying that Dumbledore had said that the Chamber had been opened again.
"Yeah, it's a myth really. It's in Hogwarts: a History," Colin told her.
"You know the school founders, don't you?"
Jasmine shook her head.
"Well Hogwarts has four founders: two witches and two wizards, the greatest wizards of their time. Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. Anyway, as time went on Salazar Slytherin didn't want to let Muggleborns into the school anymore but the other three disagreed. They fought about it and Slytherin left. It is said that Slytherin built a hidden chamber which no one else could find. He locked the chamber and only Slytherin's true heir would be able to open the Chamber of Secrets again and unleash the horror within. The horror would purge the school of all those unworthy to study magic."
Jasmine had listened with growing horror, "that's awful. What's the horror within?"
"Nobody knows, according to legend, it's some kind of monster," Colin's eyes were so big that they almost fell out of his head.
"And people think Harry is the heir? That's ridiculous," Jasmine snorted.
"I know, Harry is good. He isn't evil," Colin agreed loyally.
"I have to tell him about this," she added to herself and then Flitwick entered the classroom ending their conversation.
Jasmine was almost finished her dinner by the time Harry appeared with Ron and Hermione.
She waved him over and he came immediately.
"I need to talk to you," they said at the exact same time and they both laughed.
"You first," Harry said but Jasmine shook her head.
"No best not at the table, we can go for a walk after dinner," she said and he nodded.
He scarfed down his dinner while she chatted about her classes, how she was trying to teach Fang to play fetch but he always brought back different things and not the actual stick she was throwing.
After dinner Harry and Jasmine wandered up the stairs.
"Alright, now you can talk."
Jasmine launched into her story of what Colin had told her.
Harry nodded along and told her what Binns had said. Then he told her that he, Ron and Hermione had gone exploring. He was glad that she didn't get angry again. "So the spiders are all leaving the castle?" she wondered aloud, "that's strange."
She laughed when he told her about Percy catching them in the girls bathroom.
"God, Myrtle's awful, isn't she?"
Harry could only nod in agreement.
Jasmine and Neville were sitting in two armchairs by the fire that evening engrossed in a game of wizards chess which Neville had been trying to teach her for the last month. Jasmine got horribly distracted by the figures themselves and would spend ages chatting with them on every go, Neville it turned out had the patience of a saint and was an excellent teacher. That evening, Jasmine was also distracted by the intense conversation Harry, Ron and Hermione were having. They weren't in their normal seats, in fact they were on the other side of the common room. Jasmine suspected it had something to do with Percy who intermittently scowled at them. She hoped they weren't planning anything too risky, she recognised the look on Harry's face and knew it didn't bode well.
"So what creature did you have to reenact today Harry?" George asked at lunch the following day, leaning forward, grinning expectantly.
He wasn't disappointed either.
"Werewolf," Harry scowled and Jasmine giggled.
"Did you have to howl? Go on, give us a demonstration," Fred laughed.
It was widely known that Lockhart liked to invite Harry to the front of the class to demonstrate his heroics. It was a common topic at lunches much to Harry's chagrin as the others howled with laughter at his suffering.
Lockhart did do demonstrations in his other classes, but his victims were picked randomly and usually everyone had to have a go at least once.
Jasmine had had the joy of acting like a ghoul. However after her enthusiastic performance Lockhart had declined to choose her again.
"Come to Myrtle's bathroom after lessons end," Harry muttered to Jasmine as they parted ways after lunch.
Jasmine was couldn't concentrate on her afternoon lessons and Luna just shrugged and pushed her notes across the desk. Jasmine gave her a grateful smile.
"Do you want to go to the library before dinner?" Luna gave her a meaningful look, their research wasn't going as well as they had hoped. While there was enough material on poltergeists they didn't really know themselves what they were looking for. Poltergeists had a natural resistance to most magic so it was proving tricky to find anything they could use against Peeves.
"I can't. I have to meet Harry for a bit but I can definitely go after dinner."
"Ok, I'll go and get started on my homework."
Jasmine hurried to the bathroom and found the trio huddled in a stall with an ancient looking tome.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked and enjoyed watching them startle.
"Merlin, Jasmine, put a bell on," Ron groused and Jasmine laughed.
"Your faces," she giggled and they came out of the stall.
"We're going to find out who the heir of Slytherin is," Harry told her and she raised an eyebrow.
"How?"
"We think it's Malfoy, or at least that Malfoy knows who it is," Hermione said, stroking a hand over the book.
"Right but how are you going to get Malfoy to confess? Oh God, are you going to give him Veritaserum?"
"Veritaserum?" Harry looked at her confused.
"Truth telling potion," Hermione said disapprovingly, as though Harry should have known.
"No, we're going to transform ourselves into 3 Slytherins by using Polyjuice Potion," she explained to Jasmine.
"Oh, can I do it too?" Jasmine asked.
"No, it's too risky," Harry said immediately and Jasmine scowled.
"Why are you doing it then?"
"What I meant is," Harry backtracked quickly, "we already are three people, that's enough to question Malfoy, you don't need to risk getting into trouble as well."
Jasmine still didn't look happy but she didn't argue any further. Harry knew that he would need to keep a very close eye on the both the potion and Jasmine when the time came.
They discussed the potion and how to get the ingredients from Snape's private store cupboard.
Jasmine had also offered to help but Harry was keen to keep her off Snape's radar as much as possible. He had been so relieved that Snape's vendetta against him hadn't extended to his cousin.
Jasmine woke up at dawn the following morning and was wide awake. Sighing she got dressed and made her way down to the common room grabbing some paper and pens. She may as well write her letters home. It was very frustrating writing to Sarah because she had to be so careful what to tell her and she hated lying to her friend. She started writing but scrunched up the sheet of paper after the first paragraph. Harry came into the common room just as she threw out her seventh attempt.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm trying to write to Sarah but it's impossible. Like how am I supposed to be her friend if I can't tell her anything about my life," Jasmine grumbled.
Harry was glad to have his mind off the match and let her rant all the way down to breakfast.
Jasmine quietened once they were surrounded by the others, their sombre mood rubbing off on her too.
She yawned as she buttered her fourth piece of toast and drizzled honey over it.
"Here you need to eat," she shoved it at George who had been gazing at it longingly.
"No I can't," he shook his head and Jasmine gave it a light shake gesturing for him to take it.
"At least have one bite, you don't want to fall off your broom, do you?"
She ducked her head at the outraged gasps from the team and their faces.
"Uhm, yeah, I'm just going to slide on over here," she said and slid slightly further up the bench.
Harry couldn't help but grin a bit, and George in his shock had taken a bite from the toast. Once he had the first taste he quickly shoved the rest of it in his mouth.
"I want one too," Fred said, watching his brother forlornly.
"Fine, take this one," Jasmine sighed and handed hers over.
Fred took it with a jaunty smile and Jasmine started to butter her sixth piece of toast.
She desperately wished she hadn't eaten so much at breakfast when she watched the bludger chasing Harry around the pitch, her stomach lurching.
She was standing on her seat and had grabbed someone's binoculars. She didn't notice the rain anymore as it dripped down into her robes.
The twins were chasing after Harry and the Bludger keeping it from battering him. Jasmine could hardly breathe and looked around the stands to see if there was a teacher who might be able to do something.
To her surprise there were none except Lockhart and she knew she didn't need to bother.
Why on earth wasn't Madam Hooch doing anything about the bludger? Why wasn't there anything she could do herself?
She watched the Gryffindors call a timeout and breathed a sigh of relief, finally.
Paralysation set in when she realised the plan. She didn't watch the match, her eyes glued to Harry as he swerved and dodged and twirled around in the air.
Her stomach lurched when the bludger collided with Harry's arm and even though she knew it was impossible she could have sworn she had heard the crunch of his bone.
She was out of her seat and running down the stands, hearing as the crowd went mad. Gryffindor must have won then, as the school wouldn't be cheering so loudly for Slytherin.
Her heart lifted slightly knowing that the match was over now and Harry was out of danger.
Jasmine ran onto the pitch to where Harry lay in the mud unconscious, surrounded by his teammates.
"Harry!" she screamed and knelt down next to him, shaking him as gently as she could.
More people streamed onto the pitch including Lockhart.
"Out of the way, out of the way, I need to tend to Potter," Lockhart shouted, shoving Jasmine aside.
"No, he needs to go to the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey," she said coming to stand over Harry protectively.
"Don't be silly little girl, I can fix up Harry in no time," Lockhart gave her his most winning smiles and Jasmine wanted to smack a load of mud in his face.
"Oh no, not you," moaned Harry when he woke up and saw Lockhart leaning over him.
Ron and Hermione edged closer, nobody really knowing what they should do as Lockhart was a teacher but everyone knew that he shouldn't be anywhere near Harry's arm.
Jasmine absently noted the sound of clicking but it was Harry who told Colin to stop taking pictures.
Wood also tried to stop Lockhart but then it was already too late. Jasmine's stomach twisted as she looked at Harry's arm, that didn't really look like an arm anymore. Turning away with a hysterical giggle Jasmine saw Colin taking picture after picture while the Weasley twins were still wrestling with the bludger.