There's Something About Potter

Chapter 17

The news of a Yule Ball at the end of their holiday break was definitely a jarring surprise.

From the moment Headmistress McGonagall had made the announcement in the Great Hall that morning, up until the time the Slytherins began making their way to their first class of the day, more than half of the entire student population at Hogwarts was already caught up in Yule Ball fever.

Aria would have been amused by how much the school's atmosphere seemed to remind her of her fourth year, had she not been on the receiving end of five poorly excecuted invitations to the Ball during breakfast alone, and another three on her way out of the Great Hall.

Unfortunately, the added stress of having to avoid so many male (and female) students hoping to ask her to the Ball, combined with the effects of the consecutive all-nighters she had to pull these last few days to catch up to her NEWT study schedule, was quickly beginning to catch up to her. And by the end of that morning, Aria's mind had shut itself off, and she began mentally fast-forwarding through the rest of that week.

To give herself credit, she could make out a few of the things that happened.

She remembered all of her awkward encounters with Draco in the Slytherin Common Room, and how he walked away from her every time she tried to approach him, pretending as though nothing had happened between them.

She also vaguely remembered participating in the Slytherin – Hufflepuff quidditch match they had a few days ago, and how they almost lost because Draco had refused to acknowledge her during the game, severely crippling their team's strategy.

Lastly, she remembered her DADA tutoring session with Corey that weekend. Not surprisingly, even the younger Slytherin had noticed her absent-mindedness, but that was probably because he kept having to shout at Aria to not use her full magic against him whenever they mock-dueled.

Everything else that happened during that week, however, just flew right over Aria's head.

The next thing she knew, it was Sunday and she and the rest of the Slytherins were in the library, studying together for their upcoming NEWT exams after the holiday break.

They were seated around a long wooden table, with Aria, Blaise and Zach huddled on one end and helping each other review for DADA while Pansy, Draco, Neville and Morag were on the other end, quietly outlining their study notes. Every now and then, when she was sure the other Slytherins weren't looking, Aria would look up from her book and glance resignedly at Draco, only for the blond to stare back blankly at her and look away, pretending to busy himself with something in his notebook.

Aria gritted her teeth in frustration.

She hated this.

She had always considered herself to be a very confrontational person, and frankly, the way Draco was being so annoyingly passive aggressive about their situation was really beginning to piss her off, adding even more to her stress that week.

Draco had done nothing but ignore her since their afternoon together in the Forbidden Forest a few days ago, and other than the few times they'd been forced to participate in group conversations with their housemates, they hadn't spoken a single word to each other. Granted, they didn't fight or verbally antagonize each other the way they used to, but Aria realized that she would have actually preferred that. The icy tension between them now was becoming unbearable, and it was obviously palpable enough to their housemates that it made Pansy and Neville's little cold war at the start of the year look like child's play.

To be fair, even if Draco did talk to her, Aria honestly had no idea what she could say to him to fix their situation.

She had been so busy that week because of NEWTs and Quidditch that she didn't exactly have the time to properly think about how she felt about Draco; or about why she still couldn't seem to answer his simple question about her trusting him, even now.