In third-year halls, their paths first crossed,
A Raven boy, a Blonde girl lost.
"Stay out of my way," she warned with a glare,
But something lingered in the frosty air.
Crimson with his scar and fame,
Emerald with her secrets untamed.
Two worlds ap...
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As the week dragged on, frustration seeped into the very air surrounding Harry and Aria. Every day brought them no closer to their goal of obtaining the true memory from Slughorn, and both felt the weight of the task bearing down on them. Harry, particularly agitated, buried himself in his Potions book more and more, flipping through the pages as though the Half-Blood Prince might have hidden a secret method for persuasion within the cryptic scrawls in the margins.
Late one Sunday evening, after hours of fruitless searching, Harry let out an exasperated sigh and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He had become so absorbed in the Prince's notes that he barely noticed Hermione hovering nearby, her expression growing more and more disapproving.
"You're not going to find anything in there," she said firmly, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the common room. She crossed her arms, glaring at the book as if it personally offended her.
Harry, already on edge, snapped. "Don't start with me, Hermione," he said sharply, not even looking up from the page he was inspecting. "If it weren't for the Prince, Ron wouldn't be sitting here now, would he?"
Hermione's frown deepened. "He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year," she retorted dismissively, as though the matter were trivial.
Aria, sitting nearby, glanced between her friends, her brow furrowed. Their bickering had become a common occurrence lately, but today it grated on her nerves more than usual. Ever since their return from the Department of Mysteries, she had been feeling increasingly torn. The weight of unspoken truths and suppressed emotions had been gnawing at her, making every exchange, every argument, feel like a battle she was fighting alone.
Harry ignored Hermione's words, his attention snapping back to the book when something scrawled in the margins caught his eye. His face lit up with a mixture of excitement and curiosity. "'Sectumsempra,'" he muttered under his breath, tracing the words with his finger. Beneath the incantation, a brief note read: "For enemies." His lips curved into a smirk as he folded the page, clearly marking it for future use.
Aria's eyes narrowed at his eagerness, her unease growing with each passing second. She said nothing, but the tension in her shoulders was palpable. The group had gathered by the fire, their familiar surroundings offering little comfort in the face of their mounting stress. Around them, the only other students still awake were their fellow sixth years, chattering excitedly about the newly posted notice for the upcoming Apparition Test.
Ron, who had been fretting about his lack of preparation for the test all week, was hunched over a messy pile of parchment, furiously scribbling an essay for Snape. His quill scratched loudly against the paper as he tried to focus, while Hermione, ever the overachiever, had already taken the test twice and was calmly reading by the window. She cast Harry a sideways glance, her disapproval evident.
