Yay! I'm finally moving a lot faster than the last chapter. I hope you all enjoyed that last chapter. Anyways, here's Chapter 16!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters taken from the stories. I only own my own original characters and plot.

Chapter 16: The Doubts of Those Closest To You

Christmas passed, January passed, and soon it was February. Draco and Jesabelle had been very careful about hiding their relationship, only being able to enjoy each other's company in the privacy of the Heads' Dorm.

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

They were all once again in Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid had let them work with the Jarveys again, along with their partners.

People were too busy with their own Jarveys to realize that Draco Malfoy and Jesabelle Potter were working together as a team.

Draco had walked over to Hagrid to discuss the Jarveys' eating habits and patterns. He had begun to give Hagrid a lot more respect, pout of his own will, which pleased Hagrid a lot more than he would let on.

Jesabelle was writing a few notes about their Jarvey in her notebook when she realized that her Jarvey had gotten past the gate somehow and was making its way towards the Forbidden Forest. She sighed loudly and quickly followed after it.

The Jarvey was about seven feet ahead of Jesabelle and was already bringing her within the forest itself. Jesabelle thought of stunning it, but she was afraid she and Draco would have points taken off for attacking their Jarvey. She was seriously starting to think about jinxing the thing when it suddenly stopped at a clearing.

Jesabelle slowly came around and looked up to find her face to face with ten to fifteen thestrals. A shock of electricity much have been shot between the two of them. The thestrals looked her in the eye and suddenly, one of them neighed, and, as if in fear, they all began to charge for her.

Jesabelle let out a scream, grabbed the Jarvey and quickly ran through the forest, the thestrals hot on her trail.

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

Draco had returned tot eh back of the class and was looking around for Jesabelle and the Jarvey. Suddenly, Jesabelle's scream pierced the air and everyone looked around for the origin of the sound.

Draco began to panic. Had his father already found out about their relationship? Was she in trouble? Where is she? Is she even still alive?

While all this was going through his head he didn't notice that, throughout the chaos that had erupted from the class when Jesabelle was discovered to be missing, that Hermione noticed the expression n his face, and, Hermione being Hermione, figured out that he was more worried than his face would give on.

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

Jesabelle kept running through the forest, trying to find a way out of the brush, the thestrals close behind her. She suddenly ran out, and saw Hagrid's hut ten feet away. She threw her Jarvey in the hut's direction and continued to run.

She could hear her classmates' screams as she went on. She had only gone a few steps before she tripped over. She had just enough time to look at the thestrals, their eyes full of anger and fear, before she was pulled out of the way and thrown out of the path, being shielded from the thestrals that had nearly trampled her and began to run faster, taking off into the sky.

She looked up at the person on top of her and instead of seeing Harry, whom she expected was the one who saved her, she saw Draco.

"Draco." She said, surprised.

"You all right?" he asked, still on top of her.

"I'm fine." She whispered.

But before Draco could reply, he was pulled off Jesabelle and the next thing she saw was Harry's face.

"Jesabelle!" he said.

"Harry." She replied.

Harry pulled her up. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking around her robes to see if there were any injuries.

"No Harry." Jesabelle said, "Besides a few small scratches, I'm fine."

"Thank goodness you're all right." Harry said, hugging her tightly. Jesabelle saw Draco standing a bit away from the crowd, an unreadable expression across his face.

"I don't think you should only be thanking goodness Harry." Jesabelle said gently, pulling herself out of Harry's embrace. "I think you should be thanking Draco as well. If it hadn't been for him, I would probably have been, well, road kill, so to speak."

Harry looked into Jesabelle's eyes and then turned around, heading towards Draco, the crowd parting to let him through.

He stopped in front of Draco, a sincere expression across his face. Draco looked back at him pleasantly, not the trademark Malfoy pleasantly in which the expression would always say "I'm going to get what I want", but the type of pleasant expression you would see one a person's face when one was greeting a good friend.

The crowd watched them in silence. No one had ever seen Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy stand so long looking at each other without a word said, or a fist thrown.

A minute later, Harry reached out his hand towards Malfoy. "Thank you Malfoy, very much." He said sincerely.

"You are very welcome Harry." Draco said as the bell rang and Hagrid dismissed them.

Draco smiled nicely at Harry and let go of his hand, making his way up to the castle.

Harry stood there, dumbstruck, as the others picked up their things from Hagrid's hut.

"Harry?" Ginny said, standing in front of him, waving her hand in front of his eyes, for he had been "spacing out".

"Huh? Oh, yes Ginny?" Harry said, shaking his head slightly.

"Here are your things." Ginny said, handing Harry his backpack.

"Thanks Gin." Harry said.

Ginny smiled and Harry and the others made their way up to the castle.

"Can you believe that?" Ron suddenly said after a few moments of silence. "Malfoy just called you by your first name Harry!" he continued, astonished.

"Quite the unbelievable." Luna said thoughtfully.

"Still think he's up to something?" Jesabelle asked Harry.

"Of course I do!" Harry said in reply. "This is just more proof to support my theory!"

"Harry Potter!" Jesabelle screamed. "You are absolutely hopeless!"

Harry's mouth dropped open in surprise as Jesabelle again walked away from them, heading towards the stairs, most likely going up to the Heads' Dorm.

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

That night after dinner, when the common room was almost empty, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny were talking about the sudden events that took place that day.

"Something is definitely up with both Malfoy and Jesabelle." Ron said, sitting in an armchair.

"True." Hermione said.

"She has been acting strangely lately." Ginny said. "You know, being more and more distant, especially since we came back from the Christmas holidays. But she hasn't said anything to me or Hermione about it. And I asked Luna earlier at dinner if Jesabelle said anything to her, but she hadn't said anything to Luna either."

"You think she's hiding something? Neville asked.

"It's a possibility." Hermione said. "I don't doubt it."

"But what could she be hiding?" Ginny said.

"Haven't you noticed that we don't know her that well?" Neville said, receiving confused looks and a long silence. "I mean think about it." He continued. "We only know so little about her parents. She never told us where she was born or where she was living before she came here. She didn't say anything else about her other school. We only know so little about her and the rest is just one big secret that she doesn't want to tell."

"What are you implying?" Harry suddenly asked, startling everyone.

"I'm just saying that we should be careful." Neville said. "Since we only know as much about her as she would let on, we shouldn't give her too much trust or information."

"Are you trying to say that Jesabelle could be fighting on Voldemort's side?" Harry asked, getting up.

"I'm not trying to say that Harry." Neville said calmly, while Ginny gently pushed Harry back down into his chair, "I'm just saying that there is a high possibility that she could be a dark agent working undercover with some polyjuice potion like in our fourth year with Professor Moody."

"But the alert for things like that has been raised Neville." Ron said, "Dumbledore would have sensed something like that."

"But he didn't sense it in our fourth year." Hermione said.

"Oh not you too Hermione." Harry said, frustrated.

"I'm no necessarily siding with Neville, but he has a point. We should be careful around her. You'll never know." Hermione said defensively.

"Besides that though," Ron said, "I've been hearing strange things about her as well."

"What kind of things Ron?" Ginny asked.

"Well I heard from Ernie, you know, the Hufflepuff, that on his prefect midnight shifts, he always runs into Jesabelle."

"What would Jesabelle be doing out so late at night?" Ginny asked.

"Well Ernie tells me that before he could say anything about it, Jesabelle would always give him a piece of parchment from Dumbledore, stating to anyone who sees her out at that time that she was allowed, since she had meetings with him or something for some reason or another." Ron said.

"Meetings with Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, that's what Ernie said, and he's not one to lie." Ron said.

"This is just plain frustrating." Harry said.

"It gets worse." Hermione said. "Well in your opinion, it gets worse."

"What do you mean Hermione?" Harry asked.

"Well remember today, when Malfoy rescued Jesabelle from the thestrals?" Hermione said.

"Yeah, it was the time when he called me by my fist name." Harry replied.

"A time that we shall never forget." Ron said.

"Well I don't know if you have noticed but since the Christmas holidays, Draco and Jesabelle are acting a little comfortable around each other." Hermione said.

"Comfortable!" Harry said, his temper beginning to flare.

"Calm down Harry." Ginny said firmly, "Let Hermione finish."

"What do you mean by comfortable Hermione?" Neville said.

"Well, I guess you could say that whenever they look at each other, and I have caught them doing that a lot, they always have this warm affection in their eyes. I mean it was so strong that even I felt it. And yes, Ron," Hermione said, seeing Ron open his mouth, "I saw Draco returning Jesabelle's gaze with as much emotion. Good emotion I might add."

"He had better not be touching her." Harry said, clenching his fists.

"I don't think se Harry." Ginny said. "I agree with Hermione, I have seen the gazes, rather sweet if you really think about it. But that's beside the point. What Hermione would be suggesting is that they could be in a relationship."

"A relationship!" Harry said, losing control. "A relationship! With Malfoy!"

"It's possible." Hermione said as Ginny tried to keep Harry quiet.

"But then again," Neville said, "she's a lot smarter than that."

"Neville's right, again." Ron said. "Jesabelle knows that there is a lot of enmity between us and Malfoy, she knows it would be suicide to get in between that."

"That's right Harry." Ginny said. "Jesabelle's smarter than that. She could be keeping it secret but don't you think that based on her personality she would feel terribly guilty for keeping something this big from us?"

"I suppose you're right." Harry said.

"Now Harry don't you go talking to her about it either." Hermione said. "We need more proof if we're going to talk to her about this. And we need a strategy, so she doesn't go all ballistic on us." Hermione said.

Harry only just grunted in reply and Ron got up and suggested they go up to bed.

Hermione stayed behind alone in the common room for a while, staring in the fire. Before heading up she took one last look around.

"Oh Jesabelle," Hermione whispered to herself, "please forgive us for doubting you." Then she headed up to her dorm, feeling, if possible, guiltier than she was when they first began their conversation.

Yay! *Does the victory dance* I'm finished!

Anyways again I am terribly sorry that I have been taking so long to post up my chapters lately. But I promise I will try my best to work faster and harder for you.

Again thank you for your reviews!

Stay tuned for Chapter 17, where more things are discovered, and some things are revealed!

Please read and review!

^_^ The White Princess ^_^