"Have you noticed that Slytherins never date?" Ron Weasley asked out loud as he looked at a group of Slythins from the seventh year. All September had gone and passed and the foreign students hadn't arrived yet. Everything was as usual except that there weren't Quidditch practices or tryouts.
"Maybe they just don't show it?" Neville Longbottom said with shrug.
"No, but seriously. From time to time we see people kissing in the corners or we hear rumours of people dating or we see a couple holding hands... those people are never Slytherins..."
"So?" Hermione asked him. "Why does it matter? We all know they are cold so maybe Neville is right and they just don't show affection."
"Nah, it can't be that? Can it? I mean, they are cold but not heartless... at least among each other."
"You know... all of you are a little bit right," a girl with brown hair said out of nowhere, making them all jump. "But still missing something."
"What do you want?" Harry asked annoyed.
"Nothing, Potter," she told him with a grin. "Just found your conversation a little bit interesting and it's funny..."
"What's funny?" Neville asked.
"Nothing," she said grinning. "Nevermind."
The girl was the typical Slytherin. Pureblood and proud of it. Rich. Her last name held importance and honour. She obviously disliked everyone outside Slytherin and didn't like anyone who wasn't a Pureblood. She was proud and most of all, arrogant. And from Harry's experiend, mean and even cruel at times.
Harry even found it weird that they sort of had a nice conversation with her at the moment. She usually mocked them and called them names, specially to Hermione for coming from a muggle family.
"She's just messing around," Hermione said as the girl walked away. "She wanted to play with our heads."
But Ron didn't agree with her and he kept thinking about the topic. It didn't matter to him at all, or at least it shouldn't but he was curious. He had liked girls, Harry too. His sister, Ginny, had even had her first boyfriend already. He was paying more attention to all 'love' related things and realized how Slytherins would never date.
He kept studying the Slytherins and for the following week didn't see a single one holding hands, or flirting or even being close in that way to another Slytherin. It was weird.
Ron saw the brunette sitting in front of the lake one late afternoon, and decided to approach her. His curiosity was killing him and it wasn't like her words or anyone's bother him anymore, so what could he lose?
The girl turned to look at him as she heard his footsteps and immediately rolled her eyes at the redhead.
"What's up, Weasley?" she snapped.
"It's about what we talked last week... about you know... Slytherins not dating."
"Why?" she said looking straight into Ron's blue eyes. "Are you interested in a Slytherin?"
"No," he said quickly. "Just curious."
"Still don't get what's this obsession you have..." she said with a chuckle. "Go find yourself a girlfriend and mind your own business."
"You said all of us were right in a way," Ron said, ignoring her. "So, basically, Slytherins are cold and they don't date but when they do they don't show it? That's basically what we all said."
"You got it," she said with a smirk. "Now leave me alone."
"It can't be it, though. Can it?" Ron said and he heard her sigh.
The brunette bit her bottom lip and looked away. In a way she wanted to talk about it but she didn't know if Ron was the right person to trust with such information. And why was he so curious?
"Can it?" Ron repeated as he sat down next to her, she just looked at him weird.
"Nah," she muttered, looking down at her book. "If I tell you, don't go around telling everyone though. Including your filthy friends... Actually, specially them."
Ron took a deep breath. He wanted to tell her something about the nasty comment she made but he had to bit his tongue to not say anything to her. He slowly nodded his head.
"I won't tell anyone... it's not like they care..."
"Why do you care?"
"Just tell me, okay, Lias?" Ron exclaimed, getting frustrated.
"Alright... Let's say you are destinied to be with someone and you know about it... would you waste your time with someone else?"
"No... but why not be with the person you are destinied to be with?"
"Because you really don't love that person," Jade Lias said casually with a shrug. She was only telling him about it because she could see in his eyes that he was honest about not telling people and if he did, well, she was going to curse him and he knew that.
"Wait..." Ron said, narrowing his eyes, trying to understand. "I'm confused. If you are destinied to be with someone then that means you are like soulmates... so why not love them?"
"You are not getting it, are you, Weasley?" she said in a normal tone. Not sarcastic or rude. "Maybe I should just be clear and go to the chase."
"That would help a lot," Ron said, rolling his eyes.
"Hey, don't take that attitude. You want to know or not?"
"Yeah... sorry." Ron couldn't believe he was apologizing to a Slytherin, especially Lias.
"All that matters is status... pureness. Right?" Ron was about to say something when she gave him a look and spoke again. "Right?"
"Right," he muttered.
"Well, Pureblood families are proud to say they belong to a certain family. A certain status. As soon as they have a kid they start planning and discussing who would be the perfect person to join that family... You see, this can take years and it's not decided easily and you can change your mind if you want but once you make a deal with the other family, there is no turning back."
"I'm sorry, I'm still not getting it."
"Alright," Jade said frustrated. "Let's say you and I are married and have a baby boy and we are very important and our name is respected. We start to sort of investigate what other good families of our same level have had daughters recently. We shorten the list to three names and eventually two and that can take years sometimes, you know? But let's say that we are almost ready to decide on this girl and then this other family, who has a better last name and a better status, has a daughter, well then things change. We want that newborn girl for our son. We go, talk to the family, and if they agree, perfect..." she said the last word in a sarcastic tone, or so Ron thought. "We have found our son a wife and our pureness and status will pass along to the next generation."
"So, that will be an arranged marriage, right?"
"Exactly," Jade said nodding. "That's why everyone consider us cold people. Because our own parents didn't have love, they were forced into marriages, so we weren't raised in a loving way like all of you were... that doesn't make us bad people though."
"So everyone is in an arranged marriage?"
"Not everyone, but at least half is. Only the people who are important enough. And the ones who aren't... well, I don't know. They might like people who will always be unabailable so they don't even try or they like people from other houses so again... they don't even try."
"Can't you do anything about it? Aren't there like exceptions?"
"Too few," she told him as she looked at the lake. "If one of the people dies, or if the girl gets pregnant... with another guy... that would be a scandal, or for some reason one of the families gets disgraced. You can sort of appeal if you really love someone else and they are on your same status but if your parents say no, that's it. You can always rebel but then you'd be nothing... no one. Erased from the family tree, from the pictures, you wouldn't have a family anymore and some other consequences too..."
"Like what?"
"It doesn't matter. The thing is people know they have to marry someone and in almost all the cases, these people don't love their future spouses. And if they love someone else... they can only do it in secret and try to stop loving them. Because, what's the point? You have to marry someone and they have to as well in most cases, so why go through that heart ache of dating them and risking so much when in the end you won't be with that person?"
"Are you in an arranged marriage?" Ron asked and Jade laughed like he had said a very funny joke.
"What did you expect?" she told him, her arrogant tone was back. "I come from a very respected, known family of Pureblood Wizards and Witches. My brother is engaged too. Just like my mother and father were. We are expected to be joined with someone of our same level and keep the purity in our family. So we are also expected to have at least one kid, so he or she can have our last name and then the cycle repeats... If your first born child is a girl, most families have a second baby, expecting a boy... so the last name doesn't end, you know?"
"Who is your fiancé?" Ron asked, finding the word really weird. Ron was fourteen and he didn't expect anyone his age to be engaged but he had just found out lots of his school mates were engaged since they were kids.
"I won't tell you," she told him. "But I'll let you guess. Three chances. If you guess it right, I'll give you a kiss."
"Wait, what? A kiss?"
"Come on! You and I both know that you haven't kissed a girl before and I haven't kissed anyone either so... This doesn't mean I'd be cheating or that you and I will get married because well... I just can't and it's not like we would like each other... ever. But why not? It would be fun."
"So I get a kiss, my first kiss, if I guess right?" Ron asked and Jade nodded. "Why?"
"Because it would be fun like I said. Going against everything... a Slytherin and a Gryffindor. And to be honest I don't want my first kiss to be when I get married to someone I don't love."
"Okay, fair enough," Ron said nodding in an awkward way. And feeling a bit sad about the last part she said. "Is it Malfoy?"
Jade's hazel eyes, that now looked more like green than brown, showed a bit of sadness for only a fraction of a second but soon it was gone. She looked up and stared into Ron's blue eyes. She smirked.
"First, think really hard about your guesses, you only have three... two now," she said. "And if you hadn't been able to tell... no, Draco is not my future husband."
Jade smirked once again at the redhead and stood up, her brown hair, which was in a high ponytail, was softly blown by the wind. Ron stood up too, he was a couple of inches taller than her.
"When you told me, why bother with the heart ache? Why even try? It seemed you were saying it mostly to yourself, like if you were trying to convince yourself." Jade looked down for a split second but soon met Ron's eyes again and this time her eyes showed coldness and they hardened, and it seemed that in just seconds they had gone from a bright green to a mid brown. "You love someone, don't you?"
"I'm fourteen, Weasley," she said coldly. It seemed like her Slytherin self was back and the nice but sarcastic girl never existed. "I don't know what love is."
"Okay... you like someone then," Ron said trying to rephrase it. "But a lot, and you..."
"Stop with the nonsense," she said quickly. "You have two guesses left, remember? I don't like or love anyone. As your mudblood friend said, we, Slytherins are cold and we aren't able to love, are we?"
"I think you are, as human beings" Ron said as she started to walk away. "But are too loyal to something that doesn't matter and eventually you all believe love doesn't exist because you are bitter. Because some of you did love but couldn't be with the person you loved..."
"Oh my God, Weasley," Jade exclaimed, turning back to look at him. "You are going to kill me with all these cheesy things you are saying. No one cares, okay? What you think isn't going to change anything. Things are as they are."
As he promised Ron didn't speak about what he was told about to anyone, not even to Harry but he wanted to. He wanted to find who was Lias' fiancé so he could actually have his first kiss, he was actually a bit shocked that he didn't mind kissing her and he also was angry.
Now he could understand the Slytherins a bit better, he still disliked them but he felt pity for them too. He could catch Lias showing some emotions as she spoke so Ron felt sorry for her. She didn't want it but she grew up with that mentality, how could she go against it?
"Do you know that Lias' eyes are actually hazel?" Ron said outloud by accident.
"Uh, no," Harry replied. "I thought they were greenish... to be honest I don't care."
"They can be green but they turn brown too or a mix of both colours..." Ron muttered. "You can even see some dark blue if you look long enough."
"Okay..." Harry said awkwardly.
"Uh, nevermind. Just that I heard these girls talking about eyes and who had really pretty eyes and they mentioned her name, that's all."
"Right."
Second chapter up!
What do you think about the whole arranged marriage thing? Who do you think could be her fiance?
Should Ron get that kiss? Or not?
I was thinking of naming the story 'The Slytherin Gem'
(Gem because Jade is a gemstone...) Do you like it? Or too lame? hmmm
