The next weeks were miserable for Oliver and Usagi. The twins were glaring at them constantly, refusing to talk to either one, and the rumors were growing worse. Usagi now had Hermione's friendship, and whatever reached Hermione's ears would be passed on to Usagi.

It was an especially hard time for Usagi, but it grew difficult for Hermione, too.

"Usagi?" Hermione said tentatively one day right before lunch.

"Yes?" Usagi asked, stopping herself from going into the Great Hall (where there was a strong and tempting food aroma).

"We need to talk… do you want to go outside?"

"All right."

The two girls walked out of the school and down to the herb gardens.

"This is really hard to try to say…" Hermione began, biting her lip. "But Harry wanted to ask you to the Halloween dance, but he couldn't work up the nerve, so he asked me to ask you." Hermione looked up hopefully as she finished, but Usagi was frowning and trying to think of what to say.

"I can't… I already told Oliver I'd go with him," she said at last.

"That's what I thought," Hermione said.

The pair stood in silence for a while, and then Hermione said, "Well, we have to get inside… I've got Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"I've got Transfiguration, and you know how McGonagall is with latecomers."

Hermione nodded, and they both raced off to the school, splitting up in the entrance hall to take different passages.

In Transfiguration, they were transfiguring a beetle into a button, but Usagi couldn't concentrate. Luckily for her, though, she was excellent in all subjects, and didn't need to concentrate to get several buttons. The Slytherin she was working next to kept shooting jealous glances at her. The other girl knew that Usagi wasn't even concentrating, and she was still doing much better than herself.

Getting frustrated, the girl said, "Can I borrow some buttons?"

"Sure," Usagi said, holding out about ten. The girl snatched them from Usagi, glaring at her, and then smiled down at the buttons.

"Cute," she sneered. They were all little pink bunny heads.

"Mmm hmm," Usagi agreed in a detached manner.

The girl grew frustrated at her own lack of ability to affect the annoyingly perfect girl seated next to her, so she used something she knew would grab her attention. "So, how's your pathetic little boyfriend," she sneered.

"Oliver isn't pathetic!" she said angrily to the girl, her eyes glinting.

Seeming to ignore her, the girl went on, "Yes, the pathetic little keeper of Gryffindor. What are you doing with a filthy Gryffindor?"

Usagi forgot about words, and magic. She slapped the girl as hard as she could, then punched her in the eye, causing blood to pour from beneath the swollen lid. The girl screamed in pain as Usagi fled the room, but Malfoy appeared in front of her.

"So, now you're turning against your own housemates…" he began, but Usagi didn't let him finish. She used the heel of her palm, and thrust it upward into his nose, breaking it. Then she kneed him where it really hurts. She continued to flee, finding herself once more in front of the Gryffindor entrance. She heard footsteps and quickly drew into the shadows, and was glad she had. It was Filch, the evil caretaker.

"Nobody up here," he muttered, peering down the long hallway. "We'll find her, my pet," he added to Mrs. Noriss, his cat.

The two vanished, and Usagi remained in her position for what seemed like hours. She heard the voices first this time, and then the footsteps.

"Did you hear what she did to that Slytherin first year? She might go blind in that eye!" one of the voices said.

"Yeah, and what about what she did to Malfoy! That's so great…" the other voice said. Both snickered heartily.

"We should go find her and congratulate her," said the first as they rounded the corner. It was two boys, who had identical expressions of glee on. Both had red hair, and many freckles dotted their face.

"You don't need to find me," said Usagi, stepping out of her hiding place. "I'm right here."

The gleeful expressions they wore changed to shock, and they looked at each other uncertainly.

"You know, I've been wanting to talk to you two anyway. Do you want to go to the common room, or somewhere else?" Usagi continued coolly.

"We're not going to tell you the password to get in, so it might as well be somewhere else," said Fred, glaring a bit.

"No need for you to tell me," Usagi said, cheerfully. She turned to the fat lady and said, "Pig Snout." The portrait swung forward, revealing the entrance hole. "Shall we go in?" Usagi asked, gesturing to the hole.

"Has Oliver gone and told you our-" George began, but Usagi interrupted.

"He did NOT tell me the password, and don't you dare let me hear you saying another thing like it!" she exclaimed viciously.

The twins were shocked to silence, for both had never heard Usagi yell like that.

They climbed in, and Usagi sat down. "Why are you being so horrible to Oliver?" she asked, jumping right to what she had wanted to say.

"We're not only being mean to Oliver," Fred pointed out.

"We're being mean to you as well," George completed the thought.

"I don't care that you're being horrible to me, that's only natural," she said, waving an impatient hand. "Why are you being so horrible to Oliver?" she demanded again.

"Because we saw him kissing a Slytherin," George said resentfully, obviously not wanting to answer. He felt he had to, however. He couldn't not answer.

"Well, stop it. It's up to him who he wants to kiss or not. How do you know he wasn't just trying to hurt me?"

"Because Oliver has never kissed anyone before. He wouldn't blow his first on hurting a Slytherin. Oliver isn't like that," Fred said, quietly.

"So why don't you support your friend? Why do you hurt him when he-he likes someone?" Usagi was laying the guilt on as thick as she could. She could see the twins' faces looking shocked at their own actions. They had no answer for her.

After an uncomfortable moment of silence, Fred couldn't restrain himself any longer. "Did you really make that girl's eye bleed?"

"And did you really break Malfoy's nose, and kick him where it counts?" George added eagerly.

"Well… I didn't kick him…" she started, and almost laughed when the twins had identical looks of disappointment on their faces. "I kneed him." With that, all three burst out laughing.

"You know," said Fred, wiping a tear away, "You're too good to be a Slytherin. You should ask Dumbledore if you can transfer."

"Yeah, Hermione said you really hate it, being a Slytherin," George amended, making it seem as if it were for her own good as opposed to theirs. They didn't need to add that she'd be fun to cause mischief with.

"Do you think he'd let me?" Usagi asked, tentatively.

Both looked surprised to see that she seemed serious. "Why not? Let's go find him," the twins said in unison.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

"There he is," Fred said quietly.

"Go talk to him," George said, pushing her towards him.

Nervously, Usagi nodded. 

"Professor Dumbledore?" she said timidly. The man with long, white hair looked up, and Usagi continued, "I'm really sorry about today… but they've been making fun of me ever since… well, since right after the feast on the first day. I'm miserable in that house! I have no friends there, and they're all so mean to me."

"So you want to switch houses," Dumbledore said wisely. "Perhaps we should consult the Sorting Hat. It's very unusual for a student to be so unhappy in a house… Come with me," he said, walking briskly out of the room. Usagi trotted behind him until they came to a halt in front of a stone gargoyle, and Dumbledore said "Fizzing Whizbee." The gargoyle sprang to life and stepped aside, letting Usagi and Dumbledore ascend into the headmaster's office.

"Have a seat, Usagi," Dumbledore said as he went round to the back of his desk. He lifted up the battered, frayed and patched hat, and before he set it on Usagi's head, he said, "Talk to it, but listen to it as well."

"Well well well… I thought you'd be back, Usagi Tsukino. So you want to switch houses?" the hat said in her ear.

"Yes," Usagi thought. "I'm miserable where I am, and everyone else says that I shouldn't be in there… I agree with them. I was thinking that before they began saying it, at any rate."

"I know. I still think Gryffindor would hold you back, but would you be happy there?"

"YES!" Usagi thought, very excitedly.

"Very well then. Tell Professor Dumbledore that I would like to talk to him, and we'll see what we can do."

"All right," Usagi thought before taking off the hat. "Professor Dumbledore? The hat would like a word with you."

Dumbledore put the hat on.

"Yes," Dumbledore said.

"She wants to switch houses, as you know. It might have been a mistake to push her there too soon. I say you let her move to Gryffindor for now… she has already known all their passwords without ever hearing them before, so I suspect that there would be no way of keeping her out. She's already entered the common room three times on her own. Move her things to Gryffindor, and you will have the happy girl you invited to Hogwarts. Keep her in Slytherin, she'll be miserable and violent. She can do much, MUCH more harm than she has done today," the hat said, leaving no opportunity for arguments to sneak in.

"Very well," Dumbledore thought, "Thank you."

After putting away the hat, Dumbledore turned to Usagi in a dejected manner. "I'm sorry, Usagi, but I'll have to make you move to Gryffindor."

"Really?" Usagi shrieked, impulsively hugging the old man before her. He patted her awkwardly on the back, blue eyes twinkling.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Usagi sighed happily as she sat in the window. Even something as simple as sitting in a window made her happy. There had been no windows in the Slytherin's dungeons, and it had been cold and bleak there. Here it was warm, happy, active, and much more like her home. Here, she wouldn't be made fun of because of her love of cute things.

It had been quite a shock for the other first year girls when they walked into their room and saw Usagi sprawled out on her bed, working on some homework, but they instantly welcomed her. They'd never really hated her, only resented the fact that she was Slytherin. Usagi made them promise not to tell anyone that she'd switched. They'd all find out soon enough. She'd stayed up in her room, doing homework, memorizing her new schedule, and simply gazing out the window, happily thinking about how lucky she was to have been put here.

Sighing once more, she uncurled herself, stretched, and climbed into bed, having a dreamless sleep.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The other girls must have kept their word, because when a grinning, slightly tousled Usagi descended the stairs from the girl's dormitory, the few that were in the common room stared in amazement.

"He really switched you?" Fred asked, breaking the silence.

"Yup," Usagi said, grinning, and left the common room. Those still in the room immediately pounced on Fred for what he knew of the story.

Everyone stared as she entered the Great Hall. Few people had seen her come in for breakfast, so that was one shock. The other was the fact that when the Slytherin girls entered their dormitory, and all her things were gone, they said that she'd been expelled for what she had done. So, the whole school knew that she'd broken Malfoy's nose and made a girl's eye bleed, and they all thought that she had been sent home.

Much to the whole hall's amazement, however, she didn't stop and get food at the Slytherin table. She proceeded over to the Gryffindor table and plopped down into a chair next to an oblivious Oliver. He had been talking to George, whose eyes widened slightly as he saw Usagi sitting at the Gryffindor table, beaming. A slight shake of the head and a finger up to her lips made George say nothing, however.

"Ron, can you please pass the butter? I haven't had butter on my toast for a long time," Usagi said, loudly. Oliver went on talking for three seconds after Usagi had spoken, and then it sank in: a Slytherin was sitting at the Gryffindor table, eating, and no one was protesting. And that Slytherin happened to be Usagi.

"What are you doing?" he hissed to her.

"Eating with my house. Is there something wrong with that?" Usagi said sweetly.

"Y-your h…house? B-but you're… you're Slytherin!" he said, gaping at her.

"Not any more. After what happened yesterday-you have heard what happened yesterday? –I was switched to Gryffindor. They figured out that nobody was happy with me being in Slytherin, so Dumbledore and I had a little chat with the hat," she said, grinning. "It was all Fred and George's idea, wasn't it, George?"

When Oliver looked at him, George simply nodded and grinned at him. The moment of shock had ended for Oliver, and he embraced Usagi, laughing.

Representatives were coming over from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw to see what had happened, and the Gryffindors found themselves proudly retelling the tale.

Only Harry had remained silent. He would now have to watch the girl that he had come to like so much with another person almost all the time… it hadn't been so bad when she hadn't been in his house, but now it would be unbearable.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

So what do you all think? I hated having Usagi in Slytherin any more, and I think it's kinda funny how she got out :-)

Review, please! I'll try to get chapter six out as soon as I can ;-)

~**Rini**~