The Era of Aria Snape

09

Chapter Nine

ARIA FLEW OUT of her room, marching viscously down the stairs and into the common room, searching the area for the blonde-haired rat.

Annabelle ran after her, calling out her name.

"Malfoy!" Aria snapped, realizing that he was not in the common room. Very few people were, it must have been mealtime.

"Aria. Aria, stop!" Anna finally caught up to her, panting from the run. "You can't seriously think that a first-year could know all of that already and even if it was Malfoy, what are you going to do? Use the Cruciatus Curse on him?" She asked, half-amused, but her smile faded upon noticing Aria's very determined, very angry expression. "You can't very serious. Ari, you need to calm down."

Anna made some good points about how she hadn't eaten in weeks and that she'd just gotten out of a coma, it was too early to be thinking about violence, apparently.

"Go get dressed and meet me in the Great Hall."

Aria hesitantly climbed back up the staircase to her dorm and slipped into her robes, happy to be rid of the hospital attire.

While she dressed, a plot formed in her mind. A plot to hit Malfoy where it hurt. He would pay for gossiping about her.

Aria knew that Anna had made a good point by saying he was only a first-year, but regardless, he was the only one who knew about her and Cedric, as far as Aria was concerned anyway.

The Slytherin Weekly was a terrible paper that had repetitively ruined the reputation of several other Slytherin students, the whole house gossiped about them and Aria was determined to not let that happen to her.

Aria tied her shoes and hurried down to the Great Hall, her stomach rumbling.

ϟ

The moment Aria sat down, she began to tuck in. Chicken, peas, mashed potatoes. Everything looked like a meal fit for the gods and tasted as if the finest chefs in the world had prepared it.

Perhaps it was because she was more starving than she had ever been.

While eating, she didn't miss the countless glances that people - Professor's and students alike - sent her and then proceeded to mumble amongst each other. It didn't bother her all that much.

She ignored everyone and continued to eat. Aria would need her strength for when she beat Malfoy up later.

She wasn't going to physically hurt him, she wasn't a complete menace, but she planned to scare him and scare him good. Aria wasn't sure how she was going to pull this off yet, but she knew it would come to her.

Matilda slid in beside her and sent her a smile. "You know, Aria, you never really did deny the article about you and that Hufflepuff boy."

Aria almost choked on a carrot as Matilda spoke. Sure, she didn't expect Matilda to care about her well-being, but she felt hurt that the only part of the article she or her friends remembered was about a boy and not - even if it was completely false - how she battled a troll.

"What's it to you?" Aria snapped, noticing how a small group of Matilda's friends had gathered around her in anticipation.

"We're all very curious."

Of course, you had to be blind not be interested in Cedric, but that didn't mean that Aria felt any pity for the group of girls before her.

She took a sip of her pumpkin juice and turned to Matilda, leaning in to whisper. "Matilda, darling." She flashed a smile. "Keep your bloody nose out of my business!" She screamed and Matilda recoiled.

"Not need to be so damn rude." She scoffed and stood up. "But thanks for the answer." She winked at Aria, followed by a series of giggles from her friends before they disappeared.

"I didn't give her an answer?" Aria wondered aloud, shrugged it off, and turned back to the food.

"Ignore them." Anna scooted closer to Aria. "They're just bored with their own pathetic lives."

Aria nodded, planning to hex them along with Malfoy. She glanced across the table at him and grimaced.

"I'm going to do some Divination homework," Anna said after a moment and began to pack away her things. "I'll let you copy when I'm finished. See you later." She waved and disappeared into the crowd of students.

Aria wondered how far behind she was in Divination. The last thing she remembered doing was reading Unfogging the Future, but that was two whole months ago!

She thought back to how Professor Trelawney had read her palms and remembered that she had yet to address the situation of her father lying to her. She could either confront her father or Trelawney - she preferred the latter as it would involve less yelling.

And so as she finished off her meal, Aria made a mental note to speak to Professor Trelawney right after she scared the daylights out of Malfoy.

Tomorrow, though. She was feeling awfully tired and could not wait to get into bed.