UNEQUIVOCALLY | DM

•FIVE•

•FIVE•

THE GROUP LEFT THE LIBRARY, Blaise and Theo walking in a different direction in order to walk to Transfiguration, leaving Jasmine and Draco to themselves. The pair walked in a comfortable silence, although Jasmine couldn't help feel a little put out as to why he was walking her back to her common room.

"you didn't need to walk me back, you know" Jasmine spoke, clutching her potions book tight to her chest, her long dark hair tucked behind her ears.

"I was walking back to my common room anyway, no big deal" Draco simply replied, clearly not phased by what Theo had asked of him. "Right, yes" Jasmine nodded. Part of her, very deep down hoped that he wanted to walk her back, not because her brother had asked him to.

"How's the potions essay going?" Draco asked the girl, both of his hands sliding into his pockets. "Alright I suppose, would've gone better if I didn't have my brother and his friends annoying me for the entire period" Jasmine snickered sarcastically.

"you wound me Nott, you should know you're just as much our friend as Theo" Draco scoffed at the girl. He wondered if she thought that because she was a Hufflepuff that Slytherins weren't her friends. In any other circumstances, that would be true. But Jasmine was different and everyone knew it.

"Well, I am a Hufflepuff. I just thought you all hung around me because of Theo." Jasmine shrugged her shoulders in response.

"We were friends with you before school remember?" Draco asked, clearly not pleased that she would degrade herself like that. She, Theo, Draco, Daphne and Blaise had always been friends when they were younger. Jasmine felt almost like an outcast when she was sorted into Hufflepuff and not Slytherin, although her friends did their best to make that not the case.

"yeah I guess." Jasmine replied as the two got to the Hufflepuff common room entrance.

"see you later, Nott" Draco said, beginning to walk towards the Slytherin common room.

"bye, Malfoy" Jasmine retorted, crawling through the entrance to the common room.

As Jasmine stood up from being on her hands and knees, she spotted Hannah, Megan, Susan, Justin and Ernie doing homework by the fire.

Jasmine grinned at the sight of her best friends.

"hello my wonderful people!"Jasmine smiled, plonking herself down on the sofa next to Hannah.

"Jas!" Hannah grinned, placing her quill down on her piece of parchment.

"How have your lessons been so far, Jas?" Ernie asked, he was sat on the floor, looking like he was pulling his hair out over his essay.

"Good, I think" Jasmine smiled at the boy, reaching into her back to get her books and essay out.

"Good? that's an understatement. Snape basically asked you to take advanced potions next year." Hannah said, rolling her eyes at the girl, Jasmine had always been modest.

"he asked Malfoy too though, and I'm sure plenty of others" Jasmine laughed at her best friend, dipping her quill in some ink.

"How was the library?" Megan asked her, her eyes not looking up from her piece of parchment, on a roll with her paragraph.

"Fine I guess, Theo and some of the others came with me, purely to be annoying I think" Jasmine laughed, writing down another point of her essay.

"Did you guys hear what Potter was saying in Defence against the Dark Arts?" Justin asked, causing everyone to look up and nod. Jasmine couldn't lie, this was an awkward conversation for her.

They all knew of her fathers history, everyone did. Just like the Malfoy family, the Nott family were known to be devoted to You-Know-Who and managed to escape imprisonment by claiming they were under the Imperio curse. Which they may well could've been, however it wasn't something that was spoken of in their home.

"Do you all think he's telling the truth, about Cedrics death?" Ernie asked the group, Jasmine began chewing on her lower lip.

"Well whatever is being said, something bad had to have gone on that night. There's no way Dumbledore would've let something bad happen knowingly" Susan spoke up this time, causing everyone to nod.

Cedric was had a very prominent presence in Hufflepuff, he was kind to everyone he knew. It caused the house and the school a great deal of devastation when he died. They spent the nights following his death in their common room crying together about the loss of their peer.

If Jasmine were being truthful, she would say she had a small crush on the boy during her fourth year.

"I don't think Dumbledore would lie about it" Hannah said this time, also sad about the loss of their peer.

"I trust Dumbledore, he'll make sure Hogwarts is okay." Jasmine added whilst looking at the parchment on her lap.

"Lets just get these stupid essays done so we can go and eat" Jasmine smiled at her friends, trying to make the mood a bit lighter.

Of course she knew her friends were scared of what was to come. She was absolutely terrified. But regardless of what was to happen, her friends knew that if anyone of them were to be safe, it would be Jasmine, because of her blood status and who her family was, whereas Jasmine wanted nothing more than for her friends to be safe and didn't care about herself.

Jasmine felt she was very lucky with her friends, they had welcomed her with open arms, whilst they could've taken one look at her last name and ignored her, but they didn't. They formed their own opinions about their the girl.

The group managed to finish their essays fairly quickly, feeling quite proud of themselves and what they had achieved in a short period of time, sometimes Jasmine questioned if they should've been in Ravenclaw.

The group walked into the great hall after they had finished, taking their usual seats at the Hufflepuff table, Hannah and Susan sat either side of Jasmine and Megan, Ernie and Justin opposite her.

The group ate their meals, laughing and conversing with one another, telling jokes and reminiscing on happy times. Once again, Jasmine didn't notice the grey eyes watching her from across the great hall.

Jasmine may not have noticed, but Hannah certainly had. This wasn't a new thing though however. Hannah never missed the gazes that Draco Malfoy sent Jasmines way.

At first she just thought he was looking out for her, for Theo, but then Hannah had seen the way he acted at family balls that they had attended. The only reason that Hannah got to go a lot of the time was because of her blood status.

Draco Malfoy looked at Jasmine as if she was the only girl in the entire world. Sure everyone noticed that Pansy Parkinson paid him a lot of attention, to which he entertained for a short while, but his eyes always wandered back to Jasmine.

It was quite poetic really. Hannah had just wondered all these years, why Draco hadn't made a move on her best friend.