The next day, in detention, Jade dipped her rag in the container of
polish again and smeared it across the surface of last years' Gryffindor
Quidditch Cup. Almost everything in the trophy room was swathed in a
thin layer of dust and grime, and delicate cobwebs that gave her shivers
every time she saw them were draped across every surface.

Alana
and West were scattered in other corners of the room, dusting cases and
shining nameplates. Alana had dust and feathers from the Muggle duster
in her hair (the girls were cleaning without magic as a punishment), and
West kept sneezing and coughing as thin molecules of dirt floated
through the air and caught her nose.

The man supervising
them, named Argus Filch, had gone to get something from his office, so
Jade walked over to her friends, giving Tom Riddle's award for service
to the school a half-hearted swipe of polish on her way. Alana flopped
onto the floor, yawning and dropping her feather-duster on the floor.
West lowered herself more gently, fearing a plume of carpet dust that
would trigger another asthma attack.

"This is so lame," she moaned, her short, tangled red hair landing in a curtain across her face.

"I'm
sorry, you guys," Jade said, putting her tin of polish and her rag down
next to her. "This detention is all my fault. If I hadn't gotten mad
and run off, you wouldn't have had to come after me, and we wouldn't be
in this situation."

Alana laughed. "Well, technically, if
Headmaster Thornbeck hadn't made you mad, and if you had never met us,
and if the earth was shaped like a mango, none of this would have
happened. Since none of that is true, I'd say nothing too bad happened.
No one's hurt, or dead, or expelled, and nothing exploded- this time."

"What do you mean, 'this time'?" Jade was suddenly on her guard, staring at her friends in disturbance.

"Well...there
was this one time, when we were back at Eaglesclaw, I...may have messed
with Doctor Filibuster's and blown the tip off a tower?" Alana squeezed
her eyes shut and grinned sheepishly at them.

"Oh my gosh, you didn't!" Jade was laughing, even as she tinged her voice with disapproval. "You could have gotten really hurt."

"It was a Golden Dragon Gawker," Alana explained, her eyes sparkling as she gestured and talked. "I spent three Galleons on it, and it was the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. When I lit it, it shot up into the air and made a dragon in the sky seven feet long. It was amazing, totally worth it. But...when it started shaking and spitting, I ran, and the tip of Merdock Tower went up in gold sparks, and these pinwheels of scarlet and green. It was beautiful, but I got scared that I would be caught."

West clapped softly. "Impressive."

Jade pulled on a strand of hair distractedly and crossed her legs in lotus position, her default. "Guys, can you help me with something?"

West and Alana jumped to attention.

"A boy?"

"A dress?"

"A sandwich?"

"Really, Alana?"

"What? I'm hungry, so sue me."

Jade stifled her laughter. "It's none of them. I'm also hungry, but that's not the problem." She pulled her knees up to her chin and sighed. "What am I going to do about the third task? It's coming up in two weeks, and I have no idea what it's going to be. I can't plan for it if I don't know what to plan for."

Alana scooted closer. "Maybe something with Quidditch! I want to see you score goals and dodge Bludgers on a broomstick and catch a Snitch."

West smiled, shoving Alana. "Quidditch is for weirdos. I bet it'll be hippogryphs or thestrals or something."

"I don't think it will be flying at all. I'm bad at it, besides. It takes all of my effort just to grip onto a broom, and then there's that whole steering factor..." Jade shook her head, curls flying. "I bet there will be something that tests my intelligence. Everything else has been a test of wisdom, but this one will be intelligence, I just know it."

Alana crossed her eyes. "What's the difference?"

"Intelligence tells you, say, 'I know that I should not steal this dragon egg'. Wisdom is whether or not you do it anyway. Your intelligence is what you know, your wisdom is how you use that knowledge." West sat back on her heels, clearly proud of herself.

"How do you know that?" Alana rifled around in her pockets and came up with half a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "Score!"

West and Jade glanced at one another, high-fived, and shouted, "Muggle role-play games!"

"The library in my neighborhood has RPG night every Wednesday, so in summertime, I go and play. I like being a paladin," West explained.

"I have a super-cool aunt who runs games for us. Her name is Alys, and once she brought us a bunch of Muggle games. Quest of Heroes, Dungeon Path, Dragon Finder, things like that. I play as a bard."

Alana smiled. "I'll have to check those out." She tossed a yellow and white bean into her mouth, then gagged and spat- right onto the rug. "GAH! Rotten egg."