"Are you okay, Mr. Malfoy?" She asked worriedly as his left eye swelled.

"I'll be fine." He said bitterly but smiled kindly at her nonetheless.

That was when Jade realized Lucius had two sides of himself. There was the warm, kind person he showed to only those he cared for... and then there was the version of him others saw, the cold-hearted man who cared nothing for anyone else but himself. She wondered if, one day, she could be like Lucius. A person who was able to keep their emotions in check and remain composed in the face of adversity. She sighed, knowing it was unlikely, but she admired Lucius all the same.

~Time skip~ one month

Jade had been looking forward to returning to Hogwarts, but her summer with the Malfoys had been the happiest of her life. That is why It was so difficult for her not to feel jealous of Draco when she thought of the Greens and her real parents. He'd complained to her a couple of times about not wanting to travel to see his mother. He said she should move back in and remarry his father. Jade just told him he was lucky to have parents who loved him. Unlike her, he hadn't been raised without them or without knowing who they were. She envied the fact that Draco had grown up surrounded by love and understanding. He had two parents who cared for him and loved him unconditionally. He never had to live with the emptiness she felt inside. That morning, Jade woke up early and hurried to get ready for the day. As she walked down the stairs she saw that Lucius was on his way to the breakfast room.

"Morning, Mr. Malfoy." She greeted him with a warm smile.

"Good morning, Jade." He said returning her greeting with a smile of his own.

"Has Draco woken up yet?" She asked.

He shook his head. "No, but I've already sent Dobby to wake him up, so perhaps he'll be down shortly."

"Oh, okay."

"Would you like to join me in the breakfast room while we wait for him?" He asked politely.

"No thank you, I am not hungry." She said politely and honestly. Sure she ate breakfast but rarely craved it.

"Is something bothering you?" He asked concernedly.

She smiled but shook her head. "No, I'm just not a breakfast person." She said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, well here." He said handing her a letter that looked like it would shred if she touched it roughly. "It came for you this early this morning... approximately two in the morning if memory serves me right." He then left for the breakfast room.

"Oh... um, well thank you." She said wondering who would write to her so early in the morning. The letter reads:

Dear Jade,

I can't always explain my feelings the way I want you to understand them. Sometimes when we talk, there are so many beautiful and intense feelings that flow in and out of my heart for you. However, the words I speak never allow those feelings to touch you... I guess what I'm trying to say is... I have fallen in love with you. Please become my girlfriend.

Love,

Ronald Weasley

After reading it she burst out in laughter.

'There's no way he wrote this... he's not one to flatter anyone nor thoughtful enough to write a letter like this. If he wrote this... the words are not his, that much I'm sure of.' She thought to herself while continuing to laugh.

"What's so funny?" asked Draco who walked down the stairs.

She handed the letter to Draco, who quickly laughed right alongside her.

"Wow, I can't believe he'd write to you thinking you might love him back." He said as they both chuckled and entered the breakfast room.

"Who wrote to you?" Lucius asked her.

Still chuckling she replied, "A weasel."

He frowned darkly.

"If I'd known it was their owl I'd have killed it." He said muttering under his breath in anger at knowing Arthur Weasley's owl had entered his home.

"Oh, no don't hurt the owl. It's not his fault who his master is." Jade began. "Besides I have an idea about what I'll do because of this and he won't like it I'm sure." She said with a smirk that told them she had a plan.

"What are you planning to do?" asked Draco with a piece of toast in his mouth.

"One you shouldn't speak with your mouth full... it's gross." She complained. "And two it's a surprise." She chuckled as she looked at the letter again with a look that promised utter disappointment for Ron.

~Small time skip~

Draco and Jade were sitting in Mr. Malfoy's compartment while listening to music on her MP3. After about two hours of this, she looked out the window at the clouds and smiled. It was a lovely sight until she thought she saw a flying muggle car. She showed Draco after seeing it again. He looked surprised but when she asked if he knew who was in it he shook his head.

'Hmm? Who would drive a flying car and follow the train?' She thought to herself as she watched the clouds again.

A few hours later they finally arrived at the school and sat in the great hall at the Slytherin table. After spotting Snape sitting with the teachers and noticing Harry and Ron were missing from the Gryffindor table, Jade put two and two together. She told Draco knowing that if he told Snape about the car he might get them expelled. Which was all the reason he needed to say anything about the car. Just moments after Draco got up and talked with their head-of-house, Snape left the great hall, and first-year sorting began again. Jade was glad she'd never be sorted again because the hat smelled and looked horrible. Shortly after that Dumbledor made the same speech he'd made the year before and the feast began.

~~With Ron and Harry~~

Ron and Harry stared through a window into the great hall after being thrown out of the flying car and barely escaping the tree's wrath.

After Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor, Harry turned to Ron and inquired, "Why did you ask Hermione how to write a love letter?"

"Because I wanted Jade to be my girlfriend," Ron said as if it was an everyday thing.

Harry was surprised and confused by that.

"But don't you hate her?" He asked.

"Of course, I just want to embarrass her and the rest of the Slytherins," Ron said smiling darkly into the window where he saw her laughing with several of her housemates.

Harry frowned slightly. He wasn't exactly fond of Jade by any means but he didn't see a reason to purposely hurt her or the other Slytherins if they'd done nothing to deserve it.

"Hang on..." Harry muttered to Ron, changing the subject. "There's an empty chair at the staff table... Where's Snape?"

Professor Severus Snape was Harry's least favorite teacher. Harry was also Snape's least favorite student. Cruel, sarcastic, and disliked by everyone except his own house, Snape taught Potions.

"Maybe he's ill," replied Ron hopefully.

"Maybe he's left," said Harry, "because he missed out on the Defense Against Dark Arts job again!"

"Or he might have been sacked!" responded Ron enthusiastically. "I mean, everyone hates him..."

"Or perhaps," said a very cool voice behind them, "he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train."

Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze stood Severus Snape. He was a thin man with pale skin, a hooked nose, and greasy shoulder-length black hair. At this moment, he smiled in a way that told Harry he and Ron were in deep trouble.

"Follow me," said Snape.

Not daring to look at each other, Harry and Ron followed Snape up the steps into the vast, echoing entrance hall, which was lit with flaming torches. Food smells wafted from the Great Hall. However, Snape led them away from the warmth and light, down a narrow stone staircase that led into the dungeon.

"In!" he said, opening a door halfway down the cold passageway and pointing.

They entered Snape's office shivering. The shadowy walls were lined with shelves of large glass jars. These jars floated all manner of revolting things Harry didn't really want to know the name of at the moment. The fireplace was dark and empty. Snape closed the door and turned to look at them.

"So," he said softly, "the train isn't good enough for famous Harry Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. They wanted to arrive with a bang, didn't you, boys?"

"No, sir, it was the barrier at King's Cross, it was..."

"Silence!" Snape snapped coldly.

"What have you done with the car?" Ron gulped.

This wasn't the first time Snape gave Harry the impression of reading minds. But a moment later, he understood, as Snape unrolled today's issue of the Evening Prophet.

"You were seen," he hissed, showing them the headline:

FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES.

He read aloud:

"Two Muggles in London, convinced they saw an old car flying over the Post Office tower... at noon in Norfolk, Mrs. Hetty Bayliss while hanging out her clothes... Mr. Angus Fleet, of Peebles, reported to police... Six or seven Muggles in all. I believe your father works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office?" he said, looking up at Ron and smiling even more nastily. "Dear, dear... his own son..."

Harry felt like he'd just been walloped in the stomach by one of the mad tree's large branches. If anyone found out Mr. Weasley had bewitched the car... he hadn't thought of that...

"I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow," Snape added on.

"That tree did more damage to us than we-" Ron began but was interrupted.

"Silence!" snapped Snape again. "Most unfortunately, you are not in Slytherin and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I will find the people with that power. You will wait here."

Harry and Ron stared at each other, white-faced. Harry didn't feel hungry anymore. He now felt extremely sick. He tried not to look at a large, slimy creature suspended in green liquid on a shelf behind Snape's desk. If Snape had brought Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, they wouldn't have been any better off. She might be fairer than Snape, but she was still extremely strict.

~~With Jade and Draco~~

Nearly an hour after Snape left, Draco and Jade joked about how Ron and Harry were probably pissing themselves after being caught.

"Maybe they'll even get expelled this time." Draco chuckled.

Jade smiled. Not long after that, Snape returned to the great hall and whispered something in the Headmaster's ear. After telling the students to continue their meal, he motioned for Gryffindor's head-of-house to follow him. After they left, Jade whispered to Crabbe and Goyle to guard the outside of the great hall till they return with Weasley. They only agreed to do it when she told them about the letter he sent her.

"Is this part of your plan?" Draco asked.

"Yeah, and trust me it's going to be worth it since I know for a fact a certain muggle-born girl likes him," Jade said smirking at the Gryffindors.

"You mean Granger?" Daphne asked overhearing them. Jade nodded.

"Aren't you best friends with her?" Draco asked.

"She is... hmm... I guess you could say that, but I wouldn't go as far as saying I wouldn't use it against her someday..." Jade said carefully while a smirk crept its way onto her face.

"What do you mean?" he asked in a confused tone.

"What I mean is, she's a Gryffindor with a brain on her shoulders... once the information she gives me is no longer useful to me she and I will no longer be friends with any of them."

"Then what are we?" asked Draco, Pansy, and Daphne.

"As far as I'm concerned you're my housemates and my best friends. You accepted me for who I was before I even took off my hood at the sorting hat and you hadn't assumed I was this Bellatrix person as soon as seeing my hair." She said smiling warmly at each of them.

After a while, Crabbe and Goyal returned to the Great Hall with frowns on their faces.

"What happened?" Jade asked them.

"The headmaster and Snape are back,"

"But Ron and Harry won't be joining us here." They told her.

"Hmm? Oh well, I had a backup plan anyways." She chuckled as she wrote a quick letter in magical ink so only Ron could read it, and folded it a few times as she walked up to Hermione. "Hey, I have a favor to ask you..." Jade said with a nervous look on her face hoping she wouldn't see through it to her real intention.

"Sure, what is it?" Hermione asked.

"Well... uh... you're friends with Ron, right?"

Hermione looked at her confusedly. "Yeah, you know that though. Why?" She asked with an arched brow.

"Well, um... he wrote me a letter." At this, Hermione looked surprised and then suddenly pissed off. "So I thought I'd write him back... would you mind giving this to him?" Jade inquired as her cheeks turned red.

The nearby Gryffindors thought she was blushing but it was her trying not to laugh. Hermione nodded and took the letter from her. Jade returned to her table smirking.

"Part one is complete." She told Draco in a whisper.

"What are you planning exactly?" He asked curiously.

She thought for a moment then told him. "I'll let you know because I think I might need your help. I plan to meet him tomorrow around midnight at the black lake. I want to embarrass him in front of his housemates and Slytherin."

Draco smirked.

~Time skip~ with Harry and Ron

The castle was quiet; the feast was over. They walked past muttering portraits and creaking armor suits and climbed narrow stone stairs. Finally, they reached the passage where the secret entrance to Gryffindor Tower was hidden, behind an oil painting of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she asked as they approached.

"Er..." said Harry.

They didn't know the new year's password and hadn't met a Gryffindor prefect yet. However, help came almost immediately; they heard rushing footsteps behind them and turned to see Hermione dashing toward them.

"There you are! Where have you been? The most ridiculous rumors... someone said you'd been expelled for crashing a flying car!"

"Well, we haven't been expelled," Harry assured her.

"You're not telling me you flew here?" asked Hermione, sounding almost as severe as Professor McGonagall.

"Skip the lecture," said Ron impatiently, "and tell us the changed password."

"It's 'wattlebird,'" said Hermione impatiently, "but that's not the point..." Her words were cut short, however, as the portrait of the fat lady swung open and there was a sudden storm of clapping.

It looked like all of Gryffindor House was still awake, packed into the circular common room. As they waited, they sat on the lopsided tables and squashy armchairs. Arms reached through the portrait hole to pull Harry and Ron inside, leaving Hermione scrambling after them.

"Brilliant!" yelled Lee Jordan. "Inspired! What an entrance! Flying a car right into the Whomping Willow, people'll be talking about that one for years..."

"Good for you," said a fifth-year Harry had never spoken to; someone patted him on the back as though he'd just won a marathon; Fred and George pushed their way to the front of the crowd and said together, "Why couldn't we come in the car, eh?"

Ron was scarlet in the face, grinning embarrassedly, but Harry could see one person who didn't look happy at all. Percy was visible over the heads of some excited first years, and he seemed to be trying to get near enough to tell them off. Harry nudged Ron in the ribs and nodded at Percy. Ron understood the point immediately.

"Got to get upstairs, tired," he said.

The two of them pushed their way toward the door on the other side of the room, which led to a spiral staircase and the dormitories.

"Hold on, Ron I have something for you," Hermione said pushing through the crowd.

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" Ron complained.

"No. Oh, and next time I write love letters for you make sure it's not to a Slytherin." She replied, glaring at him as she forcefully handed him Jades' letter.

Whispers erupted about who he wrote to. Some of the students near Hermione in the great hall said Jade was acting weird.

"Night," Harry called back to Hermione, who wore a scowl just like Percy's.

They managed to get to the other side of the common room, still having their backs slapped, and gained peace on the staircase. They hurried up, right to the top, and reached the door of their old dormitory. This door now had a sign on it saying 'SECOND YEARS.' They entered the familiar room, with its five four-poster beds hung in red velvet and high, narrow windows. Their trunks had been brought up for them and stood at the ends of their beds. Ron grinned at Harry after reading Jade's letter.