The Heart to Heart
word count: 3776

"You're a dick!"

"It's not my fault I'm better than you, Oxton!"

"Bullshit. Rematch. Now!"

"What the hell are you two doing?" Arden cried out. She was sitting at the Gryffindor table with Lena and Ron, trying her best to study for Charms and understand more about wand magic, but the fight occurring right beside her was too distracting to focus.

Ron scoffed as he began moving the Wizard's Chess pieces back to their starting positions.

"Just a friendly game of chess here Arden, nothing else-"

"Friendly game my arse, you cheated!" Lena cried, slamming her fist against the table. Arden's eyes widened at her friend's short temper; she never normally was like this, but apparently competitiveness brought out her nastier side.

"How do you even cheat at chess?" Ron asked, throwing his hands in the air as he grew increasingly frustrated with the Hufflepuff across from him. "It's a game of intellect, it's not something you can just find short cuts in!"

"Why are you two going nuts over this stupid game?" Arden asked.

Ron scoffed, "it is not stupid, it is strategic," he defended. "Besides, we're playing for that chocolate chip muffin that is rightfully mine," Ron hissed, reaching his arm out to swipe the heated muffin placed beside the chess board. Arden rolled her eyes and snatched it from the table, causing the two to whine and beg for it back.

"You two are so thick," she laughed, pointing at the basket of many more only a little further away from them. Both Ron and Lena groaned and mumbled obscenities as they reached for one muffin each. Arden couldn't help but laugh at their childishness. She grabbed her things and made her way out of the Great Hall, rolling her eyes as the bickering between Ron and Lena began again with her absence.

Arden was on her way to the library, wondering to herself why she didn't go there initially. While walking, Arden's mind was swimming with thoughts as to why she couldn't use magic without a wand. She recalled her going into Ollivander's for her wand right before her first year at Hogwarts. She was with Cedric, and the two were there for a little over two hours before Mr Ollivander eventually gave a wand and told her to buy it without even testing it; each wand she attempted to use had left poor Mr Ollivander's shop with patches of soot from small fires, shattered glass, book pages shredded across the floorboards, and all sorts of mess.

Since then she had wondered if she was a squib, but being able to use magic with her hands ruled out that possibility. Arden wondered if there was more to her abilities than just being defined as 'wandless magic,' since there were some things she could do with her magic that others couldn't with or without a wand; it was as if she invented spells that she didn't even know the incantations to.

Arden was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't notice Pansy Parkinson walking towards her. Pansy easily could have dodged the oblivious girl, but a part of her purposely wanted to stir trouble. Arden's shoulder sharply collided with Pansy's, the two of them briefly losing their balance.

"Watch it, Diggory!" Pansy spat, shooting daggers at Arden with her eyes.

Arden sighed, and apologised to Pansy with a soft voice, not wanting to look for a fight. Turning away from Pansy, she heard Pansy begin to rant and rave about something along the lines of entitlement and disrespect, but all Arden heard was a bunch of shrieking nonsense. She rolled her eyes and kept walking, an obnoxious attention seeking bully was the last thing Arden wanted to have on her mind.

"You can't just ignore me, Diggory!" Pansy yelled. However, Arden did just that, and minded her own business. That's when Pansy began to get riled up. Envy and jealousy disguised as hatred boiled in Pansy's blood as she watched 'Pretty Diggory' act like she was no more than a speck of dust on her shoes. Pansy hated how Arden got away with everything; even with her poor skills in magic, she managed to do well in her classes. She felt that Arden was a brat that always got everything she wanted.

If only Pansy saw the irony in her thoughts.

Pansy uttered the first few syllables of the knockback jinx, pointing her wand at Arden as she did so. An unusual feeling in Arden sparked up, as if her senses had been greatly heightened. Arden's strange magical abilities made it so that Arden could hear Pansy's mumbles, and also so her reflexes were quick enough to cast a defense against her jinx.

It was as if time slowed for Arden. The speed at which she turned around and held out her hand to block the spell was too fast for Pansy's mind to comprehend. Arden's powerful magic deflected the jinx, but with her mind she made sure it didn't hit Pansy. Instead, the jinx was deflected onto a painting on the wall, causing a knight to jump and scurry out of his painted setting.

Pansy's mouth hung open slightly, dumbfounded by what had happened; syllables left her mouth, but no coherent words were spoken. Arden panicked slightly, worried that Pansy would run around chanting that she was a mutant who possessed unstable sorts of magic. It was as if Arden's magic had a mind of it's own, or better yet, understood her emotions and acted on them in defense. Her fear of Pansy's blabbing caused magic to be unwillingly exerted from Arden's body, where a weak memory charm was cast onto Pansy, where she only forgot the incident that had just occurred.

Arden struggled to control her breathing as she watched Pansy's expression switch from dumbfounded to confused.

"What are you staring at, Diggory?" She spat, before turning away into the great hall, as if nothing happened between them.

Arden was unsure how to feel. She knew that the magic she had just used was common in younger wizards, where intense fear and anger activates an uncontrollable magicial response. She felt a sense of power in her, knowing that without full control, her emotions took hold of her magical abilities and performed a dangerous spell, but at a safe level. On the other hand, it scared Arden. The thought of her emotions taking control of magic was frightening, there was no way of knowing what a mood change could do to others around her. The amount of power she held was terrifying; numerous thoughts of losing full control over her magic as well as people using her for her abilities made Arden's hands tremble.

She was so lost in thought again, that she didn't hear Harry's voice call out to her.

She jumped, noticing him standing before her, worry all over his face.

"Are you alright?"

Arden nodded slowly, not entirely sure if she really was. "Just got lost in thought," she answered. Harry furrowed his brow, looking down at Arden's hands and noticing their intense tremor.

"Your hands are shaking like mad," he muttered, taking hold of her hands. "Are you sure you're-"

"Yes!" Arden snapped, snatching her hands out of Harry's. "I- I'm fine, I'm brilliant actually," she said defensively. "I was just heading over to the library, everything's fine."

Harry knew that there was something off about Arden, and it wasn't just the current moment that gave him that conclusion that there was definitely something different with her.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" Harry said softly, staring intently into Arden's eyes. Normally when Arden looked into Harry's eyes for longer than a few seconds, she'd find herself melting for him, blushing and acting timid while giving in to him as she had always found his striking green eyes so endearing it was impossible to ignore him. This time however, she did not melt for him; her cheeks remained pale, and her eyes remained cold and loveless.

"I know," she shrugged, then brushed past him quickly before he could let another syllable leave his lips. Harry stood in his place dumbfounded; he also knew how Arden normally became flustered while around him, and while he knew she hadn't been like that for a while, noticing that her eyes didn't dilate even the slightest when she looked at him confirmed his fears that Arden didn't care for him anymore, and poor Harry had no idea why.

While Arden was the only thing that Harry's mind fixated on as he made his way to the Great Hall, Harry was the last thing on Arden's mind as she continued her journey to the library.

-

Arden had spent the rest of the day pulling at her roots in the library trying to cram as much information into her mind as she could. Professor Flitwick had even walked past her and granted Hufflepuff ten points for her hard work and dedication, before ultimately telling her that curfew was starting soon and she needed to head off to her common room.

She didn't bother to hurry back like she normally would when curfew was about to start, instead she dragged her feet along the stone floor as negative thoughts swam through her mind. Why was she so horrible at understanding Charms? Or Transfiguration? Her mind went back to when she was sitting in the library, trying to cast a vanishing spell on a quill. She attempted it over a hundred times, and each time nothing happened; it wasn't until she slammed her wand on her desk and wished she could make it disappear that the spell actually worked.

It wasn't long before Arden became the only student roaming the halls. She purposefully took a wrong turn and found herself in the cloister of the viaduct courtyard. The moonlight seeped through the arches of the colonnade, along with light snow that gave the stone floor a light sheet of ice closer to the openings between the arches.  Arden sat on the ledge in one of the arches, her legs dangling over the thick layer of snow in the courtyard. Snowflakes found home atop her dark curls, while her cheeks and the tip of her nose began to redden from the extreme cold. Her eyes were glassy as she fought tears to fall from them; her frustrations with magic showing the toll it has on her emotions.

Since childhood Arden's father would push her and her brother to be the best, and achieve everything and anything. For years Arden felt in Cedric's shadow as he was always excellent at all of his subjects as he was great at magic while also being intelligent, meanwhile Arden's only strong suit was Potions. The shadow grew darker when Cedric won the Triwizard Tournament, and all of a sudden it was like Arden had more pressure to achieve something. Arden never liked to think about the invisibility she felt in her family, but at times where she felt hopeless and alone, she couldn't help it.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made Arden jump slightly. She looked into the direction of the sound, expecting a teacher to lecture her and take house points, but instead she saw her older brother standing with his arms folded over his chest while trying to hide a smirk.

"You're not meant to be roaming around the castle at this time, you know," he teased. "I thought that's something a prefect would remember." Cedric looked at Arden's robes, noticing that her prefect badge wasn't pinned to her chest. "Although I'm not sure you've even remembered that you're a prefect at all," he said solemnly. Cedric took a seat beside his little on the ledge, his feet touching the snow while hers hovered slightly above due to her short height.

"You don't do much. You just have a badge,  you can tell people what to do, and you have a fancy bathroom," Arden signed. She looked down at her feet, which caused the tears she was holding back to fall, dropping onto her robes. Cedric noticed, and immediately out his hand on her shoulder in comfort.

"What is it? Why are you crying?" He asked. Arden let out a deep breath, looking out at the snow coated courtyard as she played with the idea of telling Cedric everything that made her feel how she was. Cedric's thumb gently traced back and forth on her shoulder as a way to comfort her, let her know that he was listening. Looking at his sister he noticed her eyes were slowly getting more watery, and her lips were quivering. He extended his arm around her and pulled her closer to him, and that's when Arden had no more strength to hold anything back. She sobbed uncontrollably into her brothers chest, his thick winter robes muffling her wails. Cedric could feel tears of his own beginning to form listening to the despair his sister was in, but he held them back as best as he could, though a few did manage to roll down his cheek.

"This isn't about Harry, is it?" Cedric asked cautiously, his body slightly tense as he wondered if he was treading in dangerous territory with his question. He felt Arden shake her head, signalling no, and his body relaxed. He made sure both of his arms were around her, telling her that it was okay to cry, which only made her cry more.

Cedric felt his heart ripping apart the longer he sat in the cold with Arden crying in his arms. They were normally quite close, Cedric would tell Arden everything on his mind, and she would always be there for him to listen. She was one of the very few people who believed him and Harry about Voldemort, as well as being the only one who ever truly understood how he felt unhappy after winning the Tournament. As Cedric thought back on all the times he confided in her, and how she knew everything about him, he realised that he himself didn't actually know anything about what Arden felt, nor could he recount a time where Arden came to him to vent about anything. That's when Cedric pulled away, making Arden look into his eyes so he could give back the patience he owed Arden after years of receiving it from her when he needed it most.

"Tell me everything," he muttered.  Arden was hesitant, she also knew that she was always the one opening her arms and heart for others when it came to confiding in someone, not often was she the one to open up, at least not about what she felt now. However, she knew that Cedric was very giving, he the kindest person she knew, there was no reason not to open up to him, because unlike many others, he wouldn't only take from someone and never return the favour. So Arden poured her heart out to him. She cried and cried about feeling like a failure for not being good at magic,  about how their father, and even the entire Wizarding World makes her feel insignificant compared to her brother.

Then, she cried about how afraid she is of herself.

She told Cedric about how ever since she was younger, she could always perform magic with her mind or her hands. She described years worth of ridicule for causing things to blow up using her wand, how she felt subpar of a wizard compared to every one else, how she felt like a freak. Arden then began telling stories of getting so angry her hands would begin to burn whatever they touched, how she has healed wounds where there was no possible spell to heal such injuries, how her panicking casted a memory charm without her permission. Arden told both stories of miracles and stories of destruction, outlining how the power she had made her feel terrified and ashamed of who she was.

"Why can't I just be normal?" She whimpered, her silver eyes staring up at her brother, begging for an answer. Cedric looked down at her wide eyed. He didn't expect such tales to leave her lips, and nor did he expect to be slightly fearful also of what she could be capable of. He did notice that a lot of the time, Arden was lead by her emotions rather than her mind, and hearing stories of her emotions casting dangerous spells such as memory charms, or her fear casting near destructive protecting charms was frightening. While a part of him felt in awe at her capabilities, it was the fear of there being little control behind the great power that made the fear apparent in both of them.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "But I do know that what you have is a gift, or its a curse, depending on how you look at it."

"And how do you look at it?" Arden asked.

"Honestly? I see it as both," Cedric admitted, turning his eyes to the snow in her courtyard before he could see Arden's disappointed expression. "Many wizards have lived decades wishing they could do what you do, but those that achieve it know how to control it, while you don't. It's a gift, because you can do the impossible, but it's also a curse, because there's the price of not being able to control it every time."

"Do you think I could control it?"

"There shouldn't be a reason why you can't," Cedric breathed out. "Just imagine how much more glory you'd have than me once people see the great Arden Diggory using powerful magic no one has ever seen before," he said, smiling as he lightly nudged Arden in a teasing way as means of cheering her up. Arden couldn't help but crack a half smile. While glory was not something she deeply desired in life, that didn't mean it wasn't a nice thought to think about having it for her abilities.

"It sounds nice," she chuckled. "It's just a matter of knowing how I can have it all under control..."

Cedric took Arden under his arm again and pulled her close to him. "I can't lie to you, I really haven't got a clue, but I do know that you can figure it out. Whether you figure it out on your own or with help is entirely up to you."

Before Arden could reply, a bright light appeared out of the corner of her eyes. Her and Cedric both turned into the direction of the light, squinting and shielding their eyes so they could see where it came from. Arden let out a sigh of annoyance as she realised the light was coming from a wand, and of course it was none other than Professor Snape's wand.

"Mr Diggory I know that some tend to be lenient with you because of your eternal glory and all but I however, will not," he snapped. "Five points from Hufflepuff house."

Cedric sighed, swinging his legs over the ledge so he was standing on the stone of the cloister.  "And I don't expect you to Professor, I'm sorry."

Satisfaction was slightly apparent on Snape's face from Cedric's response. His eyes then diverted to Arden, and quickly his expression turned stern.

"As for you Miss Diggory, since this is the first time you've been caught breaking school rules consider yourself lucky that I am letting this slide. Now both of you hurry to your common room before I change my mind."

Arden's eyes widened. She nodded quickly, getting up and running to the Hufflepuff common room with her brother by her side. Snake rolled his eyes, then resumed patrolling the halls to make sure other students weren't out of bed. They reached the nook that lead to the Hufflepuff basement and knocked on the right barrel to the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff before hurrying through the passage that lead them to their common room.

"Can't believe Snape was actually nice to me," Arden laughed, breathing heavily from how fast and far the two had ran. Normally Snape was quite neutral with her as she always impressed him with her Potions work, but she didn't think he'd ever be less strict when it came to the rules with her.

"Maybe it was that magic of yours," Cedric joked. Arden smiled softly; there was a comfort within her from Cedric knowing about her abilities, and it made her feel better knowing that he wasn't treating her differently, instead he was normalising it to make her feel less excluded. "I'm heading off to bed, and you should too."

Arden nodded, following Cedric towards the tunnels that lead to the dormitories. Before Arden branched off through the tunnel that lead to her dormitory, she stopped Cedric by pulling him into a tight hug. Cedric didn't hesitate to hug her back, rubbing her back gently as a way of telling her that he loved her no matter what. The two didn't need to say a word, but Cedric knew that Arden was thanking him for listening to her, and not letting anything she said change their relationship. As Cedric pulled back, he ruffled the top of Arden's head, purposefully messing her hair, then bid her good night.

As Arden was getting ready for bed, one sentence that her brother said was swimming through her mind.

"Whether you figure it out on your own or with help is entirely up to you."

Arden was thinking of how she'd ever be able to figure out how to control her magic on her own. Cedric barley understood it, so his help was out of the question. The theorised for a second if perhaps Dumbledore could help, but then she remembered that he was barely in the castle to begin with thanks to Umbridge, not to mention, the man knew everything, so wouldn't he have known about Arden's abilities before she even had an understanding of them herself? Arden shook the thought from her head, wondering to herself why she thought of the suggestion.

Then she realised there was only one other person who knew about her magic other than Cedric, and around them, her magic only lost control once. A part of her didn't want to admit it, nor did she want to consider asking them for support, but she knew that after what she had told them, after they had still kept her secret, they were the best choice.

Arden sighed, knowing that the one person she was thinking of before she drifted off to sleep, was Draco Malfoy.

~

It's been a while. Thank u for being patient xx.