Jade's thoughts were interrupted when Molly peaked out from the back door and called her inside for dinner.
She was ready to sit down but Molly stopped her: "ah ah ah, go upstairs and wash your hands."
When Jade came back, everyone was already sitting at the table and Molly was putting out bowl full of meat and baked potatoes and of course salad from fresh veggies from their garden. It was delicious dinner, like always.
"You know mom, we get delicious meals at Hogwarts" started Fred, and Molly suddenly looked a little bit sad. She was trying her best, with they could never afford to prepare feast like they had at school.
And George agreed with his brother "Yes, mom, almost as delicious as yours"
"but they're not quite there yet, you could teach them a thing or two" added Fred and Molly suddenly jumped out of her chair and hugged them both.
"Oh boys, my silly boys" she kissed each of them on the cheek and added them second helpings of everything on their plates.
Jade smiled widely, falling in love with her family more and more every second.
When everything calmed down the questioning begun.
"So Jade, mom says you're 10?" asked George.
"I'll be 11 soon – on first September." Said Jade
What's your favorite color?" Fred wanted to know.
"Teal!" answered Ginny who knew the answer.
Twins asked lots of silly questions – favorite kind of jelly beans, favorite side to sleep on, preferred kind of potatoes, favorite Christmas song, dreams about the future, dreams from the past, did she go to muggle school, first magic performed, favorite kind of pie, favorite school subject, does she step on every stair on the way up, and what about on th way down? Favorite book, jeans or skirt, swim or fly? – that one was tough but she preferred to fly, Jade answered after a little hesitation.
Most of the questions however were answered by Ron or Ginny, and Molly was amazed how much they knew about their new sister, and she carefully listened to every answer, even to the most random questions, because she realized how much she has missed from Jade's first years of life.
After almost an hour of constant interrogation Arthur stopped them.
"Come on guys, you don't want to find out everything tonight, there would be no secrets left! We have all summer to catch up, now let's just eat dinner and then we can talk more." Everyone agreed it would be awful to waste such lovely dinner and although they still talked and teased each other. It wasn't all about Jade and she finally had time to eat more than one forkful of carrot mash.
Night came fast and suddenly it was time to sleep and so parents put all their kids to sleep. There was only Bill missing, but he'll come home soon.
"So, Jade will be 11 in September. Do you think she'll get her first Hogwarts letter this summer?" asked Arthur after he pulled his pajamas over his head and his ginger hair got even messier than it was before.
"Oh, I don't know, I wish I could keep her home for one more year, it would be much better for getting to know each other and also I'd have more time to teach her about magic, she hardly knows anything." Answered Molly, looking a tiny bit worried.
"Let it be for now." Whispered Arthur and buried himself under the covers. "You know what's coming? Remember?" he asked kissing his wife.
"Honey, how could I forget! Do you think we could still go to our date? You know, now when Jade's here and she's settling in and everyone's home from school…"
"Don't worry, I have everything set, you don't have to do anything, just celebrate our anniversary." He kissed her again and not even five seconds after, he was already asleep and Molly fell asleep too, dreaming about their date which was closer than she realized with all the stress over kids and summer vacation.
Everyone slept, except for Jade. She felt at home enough to sleep, don't worry about that, but she was still going on her usual scheme – sleep for one night, then one night awake. This helped her get tired enough to fall asleep and sleep so hard she had absolutely no dreams.
And tonight was her night up.
She couldn't do much, there was no way she would turn on the light, someone could see it. That meant no reading. And what else could you do? So she imagined. Jade loved day-dreaming about her life. She imagined the school where boys went and how cool it would be to go there too.
She imagined living with Weasleys. Nothing exciting, just normal days, filled with random daily activities. She imagined herself flying again.
No one asked to go flying since the day of the accident and it was still a little bit touchy subject, because Molly would throw a deadly stare at Arthur whenever he just mentioned something slightly associated with flying.
Bud Jade missed it. She wanted to feel so free again and be good in something she didn't have to learn. It was like swimming for her, just much more awesome.
It was almost five in the morning, and Jade was snoozing in and out of sleep when she heard someone open her door and soon she "woke up" to someone jumping to the end of her bed and someone other opening the window.
Jade opened her eyes pretending she just woke up after a night of sweet dreams but that didn't fool the boys.
"Oh, come on. Don't you dare pretend something in front of us. We are masters of secrets and illusion…"started Fred. "you can't fool us, you didn't sleep tonight." Finished George.
"We don't care right now.."
"…just wanted to ask if you want to help us with the morning hunt for some ingredients we'll need…"
"…let's just say, for our summer extra-credit project."
They both winked at Jade and even though they looked totally identical when they did things like that and it always confused people when they finished each other's sentences, but Jade could easily tell them apart.
They might be masters of illusion, but she grew up alone, depending on no one else, just her ability to observe and learn quickly.
"Alright. Are we going outside?" she agreed to go. Partly because she wanted to fit in, but mostly because she really wanted to o, and if they were going exploring, she wouldn't want to miss that chance.
"Just put on some jeans and wellies are downstairs – there's still morning dew on the grass." Said George, looking a little bit surprised she agreed so fast.
"And try to be as quiet as possible, wouldn't want to wake mom." Added Fred.
They could never wake Ron up, and Ginny was just too small, she'd be more trouble than help. Percy was completely out of question and Charlie was being far too responsible these last months so Jade was a welcome addition to the family and twins saw her like great partner in crime for their pranks and projects.
She pulled on her overalls and a sweatshirt because the air was still a little bit chilly outside. She slowly closed the window and tip-toed down the stairs to pull on her wellies.
"Come on! Hurry!" boys were already waiting outside, with small backpack and a pair of scissors.
"We're going to collect some herbs and weeds and such…to try for one of our new fireworks we're developing."
"It's going well, we just need to cover the nasty smell it makes when you lit one."
"Disgusting thing, like old socks and Brussels sprouts together."
Jade scratched her nose. She had no idea what she should look for. She was never very good in gardening, but they didn't head for the garden anyways.
Boys lead her to the pond, where they searched the bushes and grabbed few water lilies from the far end. They didn't talk much, it was too quiet to keep long conversation without waking half of their family, and that would lead to unnecessary questions from mom and that was never good.
They filled the backpack with various leaves, handfuls of grass, carefully tied together with straws to keep different samples together. They had a piece of pine branch and dry willow sprout together with some mushrooms Jade found growing on the side of their old oak and a twig of unknown origin.
For an outsider, it was just a bag full of dirt, most of it still wet from the dew, but Fred, George and Jade knew it was full of treasures carefully collected from all over the Burrow in especially early hour.
As the three of them were slowly creeping back through the kitchen door, they found Arthur already wide awake, sitting on his usual spot, wearing his usual work clothes and drinking his coffee just like he did every morning.
He didn't ask any questions, just looked at them and said: "Go! Hurry up, mom's getting dressed in our room. Let's pretend I didn't see you out of your beds this early." And without any further words he turned back to his newspaper, hiding his smile behind the pages.
Arthur would never ruin his children's summer adventures. He really didn't care what they did in their free time as long as it was safe and legal. He never stressed over things like wet cold feet or bags full of dirt found under twins' beds, like Molly did.
This wasn't a hill to die on.
Jade pulled boys into her room just in time to save them from the collision with Molly. They stayed completely still silently praying she won't decide to check on Jade on the way down, but she didn't, so twins carefully slid out from their sister's bedroom and run up the stairs being careful to jump over the squeaky ones.
This was quite successful morning, they had enough samples for days an days of experiments.
And when Molly came to their room an hour later to wake them up and rush them down to the kitchen before the porridge would be cold, no one said a word, they just exchanged knowing looks and Jade smiled happily over her bowl of cereals.