The Malfoy Diaries (A Draco Malfoy Fanfiction)

e i g h t y - s i x 💛

That afternoon, after abandoning the Great Hall, Aria Honey made her way towards Hagrid's hut. Aria knew that she always felt better after talking to Hagrid, and so she had decided that it was probably the best place for her to be right now.

As soon as Aria reached the big wooden door of Hagrid's hut, she exhaled in partial relief. She was thankful to be away from the Great Hall, though she had the sneaking suspicion that Draco might have followed after her. However, when she turned to see whether Draco was there, she quickly realised that he was not. She was alone with her thoughts and with her feelings.

Aria knocked upon the door of Hagrid's hut a couple of times before he eventually answered.

"Aria? What are you doing here? Not that I'm not pleased to see you, of course," Hagrid said, with warmth in his gravelly voice.

"Hey, Hagrid," Aria said. She stepped inside of Hagrid's hut once he moved out of the way for her to do so. "I just wanted to come and see you," Aria admitted. "It's been a long day, to say the least."

"Well, do you want to talk about it?" Hagrid asked, "You know what they say, a problem shared is a problem halved."

One thing about Hagrid was that he was incredibly easy to talk to, and over the course of the afternoon, Aria found herself telling him a lot about her feelings after the battle of Hogwarts and more importantly, how frustrated she was becoming at Draco's essentially bipolar personality.

"I'm sure it will all work out, Aria. You needn't worry," Hagrid said. It was a breath of fresh air to speak to someone who was so seemingly calm about this entire situation, but Aria's concerns were still deeply rooted inside of her mind.

Aria could understand why Hagrid was one of Hogwarts' most beloved professors. He had always been so charming and approachable. Aria could almost forget about her problems as she chatted away with him, even if it was only for a short while.

"Thank you for listening, Hagrid," Aria said at last because it was getting late and she knew she was going to have to return to the Hufflepuff common room soon.

"It's no trouble, Aria! You know I'm always here," Hagrid said.

Aria smiled in response to that.

"Look after yourself," she said with sincerity, before she turned and made her way out of the hut.

As soon as she was back upon the grassy fields outside Hogwarts, Aria realised she wasn't alone.

Right in front of her stood Hermione.

"There you are! I've been looking all over Hogwarts for you, and you know I'm observant, Aria. Did you really think that you could just sneak off without me realising that something was wrong?" Hermione asked.

Aria just stared blankly back at her friend for a moment before she replied.

"Nothing is wrong, 'Mione. I'm okay," she said.

Hermione's eyebrows creased together in response to that statement. She knew her friend too well to accept that statement as the truth.

"No, you're not. You're hurting because Malfoy is being a prick and I can appreciate that, Aria. I understand. I just... I wish that I had warned you that this was going to happen," Hermione said. "Dating Slytherins is bad news. Dating Draco Malfoy is a separate issue entirely..." Hermione trailed off, then, because she was gaining the sense that Aria wanted to say something.

"You know we're not actually dating though, right?" Aria asked her.

Hermione's eyes widened slightly at that.

"I know... But you didn't deny that you had feelings for him," she said.

"Why would I?" Aria asked.

Hermione's jaw dropped slightly then.

"So you admit it! You do have feelings for him!" she said, as an expression of mischief became present upon her face.

Aria gave a reluctant shake of her head then.

"Hermione, don't..." she started to say, but Hermione swiftly interrupted her.

"No. You like Draco. I need to help you out with this," Hermione said decisively. "You're my best friend and I know that Draco can be an infuriating prick but I need to help you out, Aria. You deserve to be happy."

Sooner than Aria could reply to that, Hermione began to make her way back towards the Hogwarts castle and Aria soon followed suit. She knew that she really didn't want to talk to Draco any time soon but she had a funny feeling that she wasn't going to get much of a say in that. Once Hermione made her mind up about something, it tended to happen.

When they were back inside the Hogwarts castle, Hermione and Aria began to make their ways down one of the halls until they reached the Gryffindor common room.

As the two girls entered the room, Harry looked up from his book toward them.

"Hey. I didn't expect for anyone else to be up this late," he said. "That's not to say that I'm not glad to see you two, of course. Aria, is everything alright? You seemed sort of caught up on something earlier," Harry said. "You should know that no matter what it is, we are more than happy to help you with it, right? You're our friend. We want to do whatever we can to look out for you," he said with warmth in his voice.

It was times like this that Aria realised just why Harry was the 'golden student' of Hogwarts. He was always looking out for his friends and others and that was one of the things that made him so incredibly likeable. Talking to Harry was easy. Talking to Draco was difficult.

Nevertheless, Aria knew that she would deal with that difficulty any day just as long as she got to hear Draco's voice again. She couldn't believe that she was thinking it, but she really did miss him.

"Thank you, Harry," Aria managed to say, as she pulled herself out of her thoughts fleetingly.

"You're welcome," Harry replied with a kind glint in his gaze.