Three days later, Jade skipped down the corridor to third year Potions class. She was by herself at the moment- Alana and West had Charms and Transfiguration respectively, and their room mates Hannah and Mallory were at Care of Magical Creatures. Maybe she was alone, but she was in a phenomenal mood.

Ever since she had tied with Cedric Diggory for second place in the First Task a few days ago, Jade had been gliding around in a cloud of exhilaration. She twirled around, sparkled, laughed more. Even Jack couldn't bother her.

She hit the wall with a yelp. Someone had shoved her, and she ran through a list in her mind of who it could be. Draco had a very strange way of getting her attention, but he was in Herbology at the moment. Jack? No, he wasn't the type for physical violence, and anyway, he was in History of Magic. Jade looked up to see grey-blue eyes, chestnut hair, and an expression of disgust.

"What do you want, Lise?"

The girl gritted her teeth. "I," she said in perfect English, "want you to know something. I am going to this Christmas Ball with Jack, and this is all. There is nothing for you to do about it. He is mine." A ferocious smile crossed her lips.

"Fine," Jade heard herself saying. Fine? It wasn't fine. About a week after she had broken up with him, Jack had a new girlfriend? TOTALLY NOT FINE. "You can have him. And would you kindly let him know that I think he's a stuck-up git and I'm over it?"

Lise smirked. "You had better not even talk to him."

Jade stuck her chin out. "Why shouldn't I?"

The girl laughed, even her small chuckle sounding malicious. "This is what you should expect." She raised her elegant wand (ash wood and dragon heartstring, by the looks of it) and fired a spell at Jade. Jade yelped as a strange warmth spread over her nose, but ignored it. She'd had worse than a few boils.

When she entered Potions class, however, every student in the class either gasped or snickered. "What's so funny?" she asked, a little hurt.

The harsh professor, named Snape, looked at her through his long hair. "Have you looked in a mirror, Miss Pevensie?" he drawled in his low voice.

Stung by this apparent barb about her appearance, Jade looked into a cauldron full of water. Her nose was swollen to about six times its normal size and turned purple and warty. She clamped a hand over her nose and raced out to the Hospital Wing. That awful Lise girl.

***********

A few hours later, Jade was seated in the Great Hall eating dinner. As the champion for her school, she was head of a smaller table. At that table with her were Alana and West, naturally, plus Hannah and Mallory. There was an empty sixth seat, where Jack would have sat to fill out the group. They all stared at it for about five minutes, as if willing the sixth member of their company into existence, and then turned to their platters of food.

"How was your day?" West asked Jade.

"Terrible-ish," she groaned, taking a forkful of broccoli. "Jack's new girlfriend hexed my nose to the size of an orange, and I got laughed at in Potions class. Then I spilled my books everywhere and my new bag got stepped on. Hand me the cheese, Alana. It was lousy." She emphasized the statement by adding cheese to everything on her plate. "How were your days?"

Alana launched into a story about Herbology class, and West overlapped her with commentary about her own, much more eventful, Charms lesson. Jade was distracted, however, by someone in a Slytherin sweater propelling something with his wand towards her. The note (for that is what it was) landed in her pumpkin juice and nearly drowned before she rescued it.

Pevensie-

Meet me at the Astronomy Tower at midnight tonight. No brooms.

-D

Jade smirked a little, then tore it to shreds and lit it on fire with the tip of her wand. Alana and West looked at the ashes with interest.

"Someone loves Jade!" Alana was gleeful. "Who is it?"

West smacked her shoulder. "We do, you little dork!" Alana shrieked and pinched West, and the two collapsed in giggles.

"Besides us, I mean." Alana went serious. "That necklace, all of those notes and secret conversations and disappearing in the middle of the night...something's up."

"Is it...Harry the chosen one?" Hannah joined the guessing game.

"No, he's kind of odd."

Their commentary went on, but Jade was a million miles away, wondering exactly what Draco wanted.