A/N: So for these first couple of chapters I'm going to be switching between Harry and Ginny point of view, mostly because I want to get Harry's take on Jessi. It will eventually become only Ginny's point of view but not until the big secret is revealed. Hope I did good on this chapter. Hagrid's dialogue was especially hard to get right. Please review and tell me how you think I did.

Special thanks go out to Shadow for giving me an amazing first review.

Over the next couple of weeks, it became obvious that Jessi had joined Harry's group of friends. She sat next to them in all of their classes. She joined them in the common room whenever they were working on homework or studying. She sat with them at all the meals. She even hung out with them during their free time. The odd thing was that none of them minded.

Usually they were wary of anyone new trying to get close to them, since those people generally just wanted to get close to the Boy Who Lived or were trying to find out what trouble they were getting into now. But Jessi just seemed to genuinely want to be friends with them and she seemed to fit right in with their group.

Hermione still seemed suspicious of the girl but was more than glad to have another girl with them when they were studying. She was also relieved to find out that Jessi didn't beg Hermione to let her copy her assignments, instead only asking for help whenever she had a problem that she honestly couldn't solve herself. Jessi was even able to help the boys on occasion when Hermione was too busy.

Ron seemed reluctant at first to let Jessi hang out with them, but his mind quickly changed when he found out that she was a Chudley Cannons fan. Fortunately for the rest of the group, they were saved from hearing Ron go on for endless hours about the team by the fact that Jessi didn't know too much about the recent teams because it was hard for her to keep up to date on them from Australia.

'Or at least, so she says,' thought Harry. To him, it seemed like Jessi only claimed to be a Cannons fan to win Ron over. She didn't know anymore about the team than Harry did from listening to Ron's ramblings. That was fine with him though. He had no problem with the girl and it shut Ron up.

Harry enjoyed Jessi's company because it was nice to have someone else to talk to during Ron and Hermione's constant, heated arguments, rather than being stuck in the middle of them. They didn't say much during these talks and Harry didn't learn much about Jessi from what she did say, but it was still nice to have something else to do other than watch his two best friends ignore their feelings for each other. Harry was starting to worry that it was going them longer to get together than he originally thought. So much for winning the pool he and the other Weaselys had going on.

Ron and Hermione had been having another one of their arguments for the past five minutes and there was no end in sight, so Harry decided to start up another conversation with Jessi. Problem was he was starting to run out of ideas for small talk with the girl. He looked at her and noticed she was wearing a tight-knit cap pulled down as far as it would go, so he decided to ask something that had been bugging him lately.

"What's with all the hats?"

"Excuse me?" Jessi asked, looking startled by the sudden question.

"You're the only person I know who wears a hat every day, all the time. Why is that?" Harry may not pay much, or any, attention to fashion and what the girls would wear, but even he wasn't so blind as to miss something like Jessi and her hats.

"Um, it's a fashion choice, I guess."

Harry was getting frustrated by all the vague, guarded answers her got from the girl and finally decided to confront her about it.

"Why do you do that? I know you're new here and you're still a little shy but you don't need to push people away. I would think by now that you could open up to us at least a little."

"I just… I'm not a very social person, okay?"

"Come on, just start with something little and not too personal. Like, why do you really wear all those hats? And 'it's a fashion choice' is not a real enough reason."

"I… well… it's like you said. I'm a shy person. I find it easier to hide under my hats than face people."

"There, was that so hard?"

"Bloody hell, you got a real answer out of her," Ron said, his voice filled with disbelief. Neither Harry nor Jessi had noticed that Ron and Hermione had finished their argument and had been listening in on their conversation. At this realization, Jessi blushed deeply and seemed to sink down into her seat.

"Ronald! She can hear you! Why do you always have to be so rude?" Hermione practically shouted. It looked like they might be starting another argument, giving Harry another chance to get Jessi to open up. But they were interrupted when Ginny came over.

"H-hi guys. Mind if I join you?" Ginny asked, looking hesitantly at Jessi. As they all expected, Jessi immediately got up and left, mumbling something about an assignment she forgot about.

"What does she have against me?" Ginny fell back into Jessi's vacated spot and gave a great sigh.

Whenever Ginny would show up, Jessi would give a poor excuse and run away before anyone had a chance to say anything. No one knew why, but one could ask her either because anytime anyone so much as mentioned Ginny's name around Jessi, she would become lost in her own thoughts and wouldn't notice anything else for awhile. She had once become so distracted that Snape had yelled at her for a good five minutes before she noticed what was going on.

The worst part of it all was watching how it affected Ginny. She only wanted to get to know the shy, new girl and was deeply hurt by Jessi's refusal to so much as acknowledge her presence.

Seeing Ginny so upset made Harry want to do anything he could to cheer her up. He reached over and grabbed her hand to get her attention. He thought he saw her blush at this, but it could have been the firelight playing tricks on him.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I don't think she has anything against you. She doesn't act like she's mad at you."

"But then why would she run away at the very sight of me?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, but… to me, it seems like you remind her of someone she lost."

"…What makes you say that?"

"I recognize the look of pain in her eyes every time she looks at you." Harry had seen that look far too many times in the mirror not to recognize it. Especially this summer, after what happened to Sirius.

Ginny's only reply was a soft "oh," and then she seemed to become lost in thought. After a minute or two, she glanced down at her hand and this time there was no mistaking the deep blush on her cheeks.

Harry looked down and noticed that he was still holding her hand and quickly pulled it away and muttered an apology, feeling a blush of his own creeping onto his face. He turned to Ron and Hermione, having again forgotten they were still there and hoping that neither of them had been watching the exchange. They both looked to be lost in their essays, but Harry noticed that Hermione was trying to force down a smile.

Harry decided that he should get back to his own essay, but his brain had other ideas. Talking to Ginny about what he saw in Jessi's eyes only reminded him of the nagging feeling that those warm hazel eyes were familiar to him somehow. He first thought that maybe she had a relatives that he knew that could have the same eyes, but he couldn't remember anyone that had ever mentioned having relatives in Australia. He then thought that maybe he had seen a picture of her or a relative somewhere, but to be honest, he had no idea where he should start looking.

His final idea was that he had met her before somewhere. This idea seemed completely impossible to him since he had never been to Australia, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling that he had seen those eyes before. When he thought about it some more, he not only felt like he knew those eyes but that they, or rather who they belonged to, were important to him.

The next Saturday, the group of friends finally had enough free time to visit Hagrid for the first time that year. They brought Jessi along so their new friend could meet the friendly half-giant.

Hagrid greeted them all with bone crushing hugs. He had an especially suffocating hug for Jessi when the two were introduced. The first part of the visit was rather pleasant. Hagrid asked them all about their summers while offering them barely edible treats and buckets of scalding hot… ooze that he claimed was tea. The visit didn't turn unpleasant until he started asking Jessi about herself.

"So Jessi, 'ow you likin' Hogwarts so far?"

"It's pretty great, I suppose."

"Where'd yeh parents go to school at?"

"Oh, uh, Hogwarts as well."

"Really? What're their names? I prob'ly knew 'em."

"I… uh, I really doubt you knew them. They didn't get out of the castle much."

"Oh, nonsense. I've known nearly ev'ry student tha' come through 'ere since I started workin'. Now come, who were they?"

"Um, that is… uh, they… they were both, uh, both in Slytherin. Yeah, S-Slytherin. So I really doubt you knew them"

The cozy little hut became eerily silent at this statement. After a few minutes, Ron was the first to break the silence.

"But then how come you're in Gryffindor?"

"Honestly, Ronald! Just because her parents were Slytherins doesn't mean she has to be one too," Hermione scolded Ron.

"I know that! I was just surprised that anyone from a Slytherin family could make it to Gryffindor of all the houses."

"Sirius was in Gryffindor and he came from a family of Slytherins," Hermione pointed out. She immediately realized her mistake in mentioning Sirius around Harry. The hut was filled with another awkward silence before Hagrid managed to get the conversation back on track.

"So Jessi, 'owed yer parents take the news tha' yeh were sorted in ta Gryffindor?"

"N-not that bad."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They were, um, p-pretty moderate for Slytherins. And they, uh, they changed a lot after school, once they, you know, got out and… and saw the real world."

They seemed to run out of conversation ideas after that and they sat in silence for a few more minutes.

"Well, would yeh look at the time. Yeh lot better be 'eading up to the castle. Come visit me again soon, why don' yeh?" Hagrid said, sounding extremely uncomfortable. They said their goodbyes and headed on their way.

Later that night, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were all gathered in the common room. Since Ginny was with them, Jessi was nowhere to be seen. They had just filled Ginny in on what they had learned at the hut.

"I don't trust her," Ron stated simply.

"Oh please Ron. Just because her parents were Slytherins doesn't mean that she's any less trustworthy. If anything, she's more trustworthy because she was able to break the tradition and make it into Gryffindor," Ginny argued, although it was pointless to try and change Ron's mind. He would distrust his own mother if she had any ties to Slytherin.

"How would you know if she's trustworthy? She hasn't said so much as a word to you since the first day."

"Yes, well, that may be, but… I still don't think she would have made it into this house if she wasn't trustworthy."

"She has a point, Ron," Hermione joined in. Any sensible man would have known to give up rather than try to argue against both of these women. But Ron was determined to stand by his decision.

"Maybe she tricked the Sorting Hat into sorting her here so she could spy on us or something."

"Ron, the Hat can read your mind. How are you supposed to trick it?" Ginny pointed out.

"I-I don't know. But that doesn't mean it can't be done!"

"Ron, there is absolutely no way to trick the Sorting Hat," Hermione said in her tone that left no room for argument. "Personally, I trust her and believe that her parents changed, too."

"No Slytherin could ever change!"

"Ron, do you remember that at the welcoming feast she said that her parents came back to fight against You-Know-Who?"

"Yes, well, maybe she was lying. Aren't you the one who said that you thought she was always faking?"

"I said that I thought that she was only pretending to be shy. I didn't say that she was faking anything else. I am fairly certain that everything she tells us is the truth. That doesn't mean that I trust her completely, but she hasn't given me any reason to think otherwise."

"Alright, alright. I give up. You win," Ron admitted rather reluctantly.

Harry had been silent for this entire conversation, happy to just sit back and watch his best mate fight a losing battle. But Hermione's comment about Jessi's parents coming back to fight got him thinking about how parts of Jessi's story didn't line up. Her parents being Slytherins but fighting Voldemort. Her being a Cannons fan but not knowing much of anything about them. The fact that she only recently moved back to England but already seemed to recognize everyone before they introduced themselves. That last statement also held true for Jessi's reaction to Ginny.

Harry hadn't been completely honest with Ginny before. There was a difference between the look of pain one got when being reminded of someone they lost (like seeing someone who looks like them) and actually seeing that person (like in photos or memories). Jessi didn't look at Ginny like she reminded her of someone she lost. Jessi looked at Ginny like Ginny was the someone special she lost.