The Era of Aria Snape

23

Dedicated to accioantidepressants :)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Annabelle stroked Aria's hair as she sobbed. "I'll never find her!" She called out, tears streaming down her cheeks and onto Anna's skirt, she didn't seem to mind.

Aria had just burst into tears the moment she walked into her dorm and Anna had been there to comfort her.

"I don't understand why my father won't just tell me who she is."

"Maybe she's a death eater and he thinks you'll be better off without knowing her."

Aria grumbled. Anna wasn't exactly helping her, only adding to the number of thoughts that swam about Aria's head.

She sat up and wiped her eyes. "I need to focus on exams, I don't have time for this." She sniffed.

"Yeah, Divination is going to be hell." Anna stood up and reached for her robes.

"Study date, after class?" Aria suggested.

She nodded. "Sounds good, I'll see you then."

Aria followed Anna out of the dorm and down the stairs into the common room where they hugged goodbye. Malfoy sat on the couch and waved at her. Aria was starting to not hate him, he wasn't that terrible to be around, although she wasn't going to let anyone know that.

"How was detention?" She asked as she took a seat next to the blond. The common room was all but empty, Aria had no intention of attending any other classes for the rest of the day.

His nose turned up. "Ridiculous. I almost died."

"Exaggerating much?" She snorted.

"No." He spat. "That oaf sent me with Potter and his bloody dog into the forest. There were dead unicorns and everything."

"Why were they dead?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, Hagrid took us in there to find out. Someone's killing them or something. All I know is that I'm never listening to you again."

"Me?" Aria turned to glare at him.

"Yes. You're the reason I was out of bed."

"It was your idea!"

"I never thought you'd actually agree to it!"

Aria rolled her eyes. "You're so hard to be around sometimes." She stood up. "I'm going to the library, I have to study."

"I'll come too."

"Brilliant." She muttered sarcastically and followed him out of the room.

Aria hoped nobody caught them walking together. She was spending a noticeable amount of time with him and the last thing she needed was more rumors about her and a first year.

She pulled out her Potions textbook, remembering that near the beginning of the year her father had mentioned how they would be tested on their ability to brew a Confusing Concoction. She sighed, not even knowing what that was.

She scanned the contents page and turned to page seventy-four, reading up on it. The result was confusing the target, obviously and the ingredients were made up of scurvy grass, loved and sneezewort.

It sounded simple enough. She figured that she'd need a practice run, however, and brewing potions in the library was strictly forbidden. Not only that, but she would need a test subject. Aria would be damned before she decided to purposefully confuse herself.

Her eyes landed on Malfoy. He would be perfect. She would only need to appeal to his ego to get him to do her bidding.

"Draco, help me with something."

He sent a suspicious glance her way. "You're not going to turn me into a worm, are you?"

She laughed. "Never, you're far too handsome for that." A smirk made its way onto her face as a light pink color tinged Malfoy's cheeks.

"Yes, I am." He agreed. "What do you need?"

"There's this potion I have to test out. I promise it's nothing bad, and it... only works on excruciatingly handsome people."

He raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a load of rubbish to me."

"Come on, please." She begged. "It'll only make you more handsome."

After a moment's consideration, he finally agreed and followed her out to the Black Lake.

"Okay, just stand over there while I start it." She instructed and began to mix the ingredients.

"Snape, isn't that your loser boyfriend snogging some redhead?"

Aria tensed up at Malfoy's words, hoping for Cedric's sake that the blond boy was wrong. She turned around stiffly, crushing the scurvy grass in her hand.

Indeed it was her loser boyfriend.

Aria reached for her wand, but Malfoy snatched it away before she could grab it.

He looked her up and down. "What are you doing? You can't curse him!"

"Oh, yes I can!" She reached for her wand but he stuffed it up his sleeve. She groaned.

"What curse would you even use?"

"A simple one, the Cruciatus Curse perhaps. Now give me my wand back!"

"You're mad!"

"Fine." She snapped and grabbed his wand. "I'll just use yours!"

"McGonagall said not to-"

Aria ignored his objections and pointed his wand at Cedric. She didn't plan to torture him, but she needed to teach him a lesson. "Anteoculatia!"

The spell left the wand and sped towards Cedric but instead of hitting him, it got the girl. A set of antlers sprouted from her head on impact.

Aria chuckled at the outcome and grabbed Draco's arm. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They hurried back to the school with Aria laughing madly, Draco soon joined in.

"That was brilliant, Snape."

Yes, yes it was.