Chapter 3

Time Does Fly By

Ariana's lips were stressed upwards as she dangled the pendant in front of her. It was so beautiful like it was holding the night sky within the dark purple gem. She couldn't believe a simple little thing like that would cause such a commotion with the Slytherin girls. Several times they would try to steal it from her. Several times they failed. The gem's magic would only allow for her to wear it and no one else. Therefore, the girls would end up screaming in pain whenever they dared to take it from her as it burned their hands.

She softly hummed in thought as she continued to sit staring at it on a bench in the corridor. Ever since she had received the gift from Ripley, most of Slytherin did not pester her as much. Actually, they would simply avoid her as if she never even existed.

"Hey. Ariana, right?"

Her head turned up to see a boy before her with a warm, welcoming smile. He was a handsome boy but she had to wonder why a Hufflepuff boy was speaking to her.

"Yes, that's right," she answered him, letting the pendant fall back to its natural position on her chest.

The boy proceeded to sit beside her and offered her his hand, "I'm Cedric Diggory. I heard about you. People are saying that you were sorted into the wrong house."

She blinked at him, disbelieving that people were speaking about her, "What? Why?"

"Oh. People have just mentioned that you are kind hearted. You even spoke for a boy in Gryffindor against your own house of Slytherin."

Ariana frowned. This wasn't at all what she had planned. Why was staying under the radar so difficult? She had really messed up. She couldn't believe how fast news would spread. And did not understand why she was even part of the gossip.

She shrugged, "It was nothing. People are just over exaggerating."

She turned back to the assignment on her lap, trying to show him that she was busy with her school work and to leave her alone. But the boy was rather persistent.

"You got that wrong," he informed her. "You know. I can help you. I doubt any of the other Slytherins have been helping you. They aren't known for their kindness."

Ariana turned to give him a longer look. She was relieved that he did not look like a sparkling vampire. Though, she didn't want to offend those who liked Robert Pattinson or anything. He was just not for her. Anyway, this boy was as handsome. She had to give him that. Perfectly combed dark brown and smokey grey eyes.

"I'm sorry. What exactly do you want from me?" she questioned him.

He smiled at her, "I've just been watching you and you've always been alone. I just wanted to see how I could at least help you with your school work. I'm a third year so I already know the material."

She wanted to decline him. Though he may not be one of the main characters, she did know his fate. And she knew Cedric to be a very kind person. The kind of person she could see having a real friendship with. But that would mean heartbreak in four years. She had to let him die… right?

What should I do? she asked herself.

She was on the verge of failing all her courses. She did need help and Cedric had kindly offered it to her without asking for anything in return.

She sighed, giving in, "Alright. Honestly, I'd greatly appreciate any kind of help. I haven't any idea of what I am even doing."

He softly laughed at her, "Not a problem. I will do my best to explain everything to you so you have a better understanding."

She offered him a smile, "Thank you."

"No problem, Miss Kindhearted Slytherin."

She shook her head with a smile, "You are terrible at naming people. Ariana will do."

"Then you can just call me Cedric."

Ariana couldn't believe that two months had already flown by and Halloween had arrived. Back in her past life, this had been her favourite time of the year. The costumes, the candy, and just overall having a blast. Surprisingly, being a witch made it less of her favourite. She wasn't sure any holiday was her favorite in this life. Loneliness would do that.

She popped in the last of her candy that Ripley had sent her via his black owl on her way to Charms class. She had sent her own to give thanks for the candies he had sent to her for Halloween. She supposed she could have just used the gem to say it to him but she wanted an excuse to use Nero, her beautiful black owl with odd icy blue eyes that would pierce through even the darkest of nights.

She finally got to her class. But much to her dismay, she was one of the only ones left to enter and so her table was in front of Draco and his sidekicks. She already dreaded what was to come. She really couldn't stand the boy any longer. He was stubbornly always such a bully. Though, she wasn't sure what exactly she expected from him. He was written this way after all. It wasn't like his personality would change. Not yet at least. She kind of felt sorry for him. He was meant to be one of the smartest in their year yet he was just a nasty boy who ended up just being a complete coward.

I feel like he is wasting all his potential, she thought as she sat down.

Her mind began to wonder why J. K. Rowling had written him this way. She heard from her friend that the author hated Draco. Was that the reason she wrote him this way? Without truly reaching his greatest potential?

"Miss Zavier."

"Huh?" she let out confused, looking around to see Professor Flitwick staring at her. She heard a few of her classmates chuckle.

"See? How could you pair me with such a-"

Professor Flitwick interrupted Draco, "That's enough. I have already made up the pairs. Now off you go."

I'm sorry? she thought as she watched Draco begrudgingly walking to her table and sitting next to her with his arms crossed. Well, considering this class was filled with just Slytherin students, she didn't exactly have a good choice anyway. She would just have to deal with it.

"What?" he questioned her, impatiently as she continued to stare at him.

"Oh, nothing, Mouthboy."

His head snapped to her, "What did you just call me?"

"Mouthboy," she answered him with a fake sweet smile, "Isn't that your name?"

"It's Malfoy. Not Mouthboy. You stupid filthy little mudblood! Just wait until-"

"My father hears about this. Blah blah," she finished for him.

His face turned red with anger. She dared to mock the great Draco Malfoy. But that was just the kind of relationship they had developed. He had somehow got her to be just as rude to him as he was to her. He had tested her patience so much that she was now the one to call him names. And boy, he did not like it.

The professor began to speak, causing the two to place their attention away from each other, "Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" Professor Flitwick perched on top of his pile of books as he usually did during his lessons. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too - never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

When the professor was finished, Draco turned to her with his regular air of arrogance, "Just stand aside. I can do this myself without the help of a mudblood."

She shrugged as she watched him swish and flick his wand with the words leaving his mouth. It levitated for a few seconds and dropped. She chuckled. The boy wasn't so perfect at everything after all.

"You think you can do better?" he sneered at her.

She smiled at him before turning her attention on the feather. She recalled what Ripley had told her while they were training together. She had to let the magic spread through her body and have perfect control over her inner thoughts and emotions. She took a deep breath in, sending her intent to the feather. She felt the pleasant warmth of her magic in her body as if it were accepting her command. And a moment later, the feather began to slowly fly up.

She smiled at her work as the feather flew above their heads without much trouble before it turned smug at Draco, "It seems so."

His mouth had widened in surprise, "How did you…? You must have cheated!"

"Well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Zavier done it!"

"But how?" Draco questioned. "She must have cheated. She didn't use a wand or words. It's impossible!"

"Nonsense," the professor defended her, "Miss Zavier just uses wandless magic. It's not unheard of. She just so happens to have great skill in magic that she does not need a wand to cast spells." He turned to her with a smile, "I expect great things from you."

Oh, no. She watched as her classmates whispered amongst themselves. She already knew that they would spread this new information with other people. But at least they didn't know the whole thing. Them believing she could simply do wandless magic was better. She supposed that Dumbledore must have told the teachers this instead of the real truth. He did, after all, tell her to keep it to herself. So, she wasn't about to correct Professor Flitwick.

Having the need to wash her face after Pansy 'accidentally' spilled her drink on her during dinner, Ariana stopped at the girl's washroom. It seemed that she had angered the Pure-Blooded Slytherin girl by being deemed skilled by a professor. It was obvious that Pansy was trying to put her down out of jealousy. How dare a mudblood look good out of all the pure-bloods, right?

Honestly, she thought, letting a sigh pass her lips as she quickly washed her face.

She heard quiet sobs from one of the occupied stalls.

"Hello?" she called. "Are you alright?"

"I-I am fine," a weak voice spoke back.

"Sounds like you are crying to me," she waited for a response but got none. She decided to go slow, "My name is Ariana Zavier. What's yours?"

"I k-know who you are," she replied through her sobs, "We are in Potions with Professor Snape together." She paused sniffling, "Hermione Granger."

Ah.

"Let me guess. Carrothead or whatever said some nasty things and made you cry." Hermione remained silent. "He is just jealous of how smart you are. Don't be ashamed of your intelligence. I think it's really cool that you take school seriously and put the effort to learn everything you can. It's admirable. I wish I had that in me but… Well, I don't. I have the attention span of a fish."

She heard a soft laugh through crying.

"Thank you for saying that. I suppose the rumours are true about you. You are the only decent Slytherin."

Ariana laughed, "Thank you, I guess. Will you be alright?"

"Yes," she replied, finally unlocking her stall door and stepping out. Her eyes were swollen from her tears but she was remarkably a beautiful girl much like Emma Watson which surprised Ariana. Though, there were some minor differences she noticed, like her nose was the tiniest bit wider and her face shape was a heart rather than oval.

"Right. Okay. It was nice meeting you officially, Hermione."

"You too, Ar… Ariana," she managed a weak smile after hesitating on her name.

"Alright, let's go back to eat!"

Ariana wanted to take her leave back to the Great Hall. She hoped she hadn't missed dessert but she couldn't exactly ignore a person when they were upset. She didn't think there was much hard just saying a few kind words to the main female character of the famous trio. It wasn't like they would be great friends now or anything.

Just as the two girls turned to leave, they noticed they were not alone.

"A m-mountain troll," Hermione stammered out in fear, moving back.

As if by pure instinct, Ariana moved her body to shield Hermione from getting hurt. Ariana took a deep breath, focusing her magic as quickly as she could muster.

"Sleep," she said to the troll, putting more intent behind her words. "Sleep." Surprisingly, the troll began to swag from side to side as if it were falling asleep. "Sleep."

Hermione let out a scream as the troll began to fall forward towards them. Ariana quickly pushed the two of them back, away from the falling troll.

How could I forget this part of the plot? she scolded herself. She hadn't meant to be there and now she had messed up the moment where the trio would become friends. Stupid. Stupid.

"Hermione!" they heard Harry call her name. As if on cue, the two boys had arrived and stared at the sleeping troll in shock.

"You are a little bit late to the rescue," Ariana said with a sigh. It wasn't like she was going to let the troll hurt them. Was she meant to just hide in the stall and wait for the boys to rescue them?

Well, shit.

"How…?" Ron questioned looking back and forth between the two girls and the troll.

"Ariana put a sleeping spell on it," Hermione answered him matter-of-factly.

"Wicked," he responded, "Not bad..." He shrugged, "For a Slytherin."

"Are you two alright?" Harry questioned them with concern.

"Yes. Thank you, Harry. For coming to save me," Hermione said to the boy with a smile.

"I'm here too!" Ron exclaimed, earning a huff from her.

"You too, I suppose. But how did you know I was going to be in here?"

"Well-"

"What on earth has happened here?" all four of them turned their heads to see their professors at the entrance of the girl's washroom. Professor McGonagall had the one to have spoken to them, looking rather shocked and angry all at once. "Well?"

"It was my fault," Ariana started, causing all eyes to fall on her, "I wanted to prove to my fellow Slytherin that I was worthy to be in the house. So, I went looking for the troll by myself. These three must have followed me and saved me." She turned to them as if trying to tell them to just go with it. All she could see were their confused and shocked expressions. "Thank you for saving me."

"I- You're welcome?" Ron replied, unsure of himself.

"Well — in that case…" said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them, "Miss Zavier, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Ariana found it strange that those were the same words she was meant to speak to Hermione. "5 points will be taken from Slytherin for this." She turned to the three others, "As for you three, you each win 5 points each for Gryffindor. I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. But next time, tell a professor and not put yourselves in danger. You understand?"

"Yes."

"Now, off you go back to your houses. All of you," she said to them, letting them leave.

Once the four of them had reached far away from the professors, the three Gryffindor students turned to the Slytherin.

"Why did you lie?" Harry questioned her, "You are a Slytherin. You were the one to take down the troll. Not us."

"Yes. Well, if I hadn't you would have gotten in trouble for not listening to go back to your tower," she said with a shrug.

"The other Slytherins will be furious you lost points for them," Ron said, looking oddly upset.

Ariana laughed, "They already hate me. It's fine. I don't take pleasure in seeing people get in trouble."

Harry smiled, "You really aren't like the other Slytherin."

"So I've been told."

"Thank you for saving me," Hermione blurted out, "But how did you do that? You didn't have a wand out or said a spell. You just kept repeating 'sleep'. I haven't read this in a book."

Ariana watched the redhead roll his eyes.

"It's not in a book. It's like a compulsion. I just made the troll think he was sleepy and needed to sleep. Luckily, I heard that trolls aren't the brightest. So, manipulating his mind was simple enough. With a regular person, I'd have never been able to."

"That's amazing!" Hermione complimented.

Ariana shrugged, "Not really." She turned to the two boys, "Seeing as the two of you are in my debt now." They gulped. "Make sure you take care of Hermione, will you? I'm not in the same house as the three of you so I can't really do that myself."

"Excuse me, what?" Ron questioned as if he couldn't believe his ears.

Ariana was now the one to roll her eyes, "She's a brilliant girl. You'd be an idiot not to be a friend to her." She moved past them, "Well, I should get to my own tower now. I will see you around, I suppose." She waved off behind her shoulder without looking back. Hoping that those words would fix whatever she had messed up by being the one to save Hermione. Those three needed to be friends.

You are an idiot. How many times are you going to get yourself involved, Ariana? She scolded herself as she quickly made her way back to her tower alone.