When I woke up in the morning, I was back in my own bed, in the dorm; I sat up in the bed, and rubbed my eyes, before falling off the bed. I was in the middle of doing up my shirt, when Ginny and Kerkera walked into the room, and at once both came over, and looked at my bruised neck.

"Kara, what happened here?"

"OMG! WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?"

They tried to touch them, but I flinched away, and hurriedly did up my shirt, pulling the collar up on it, to hide my neck. They let it drop, and I accompanied them down to breakfast, where we were handed our timetables.

All the lessons for the rest of that week were the "You need to concentrate, so that you can pass your OWLs" lessons, in which we didn't really seem to concentrate, but that didn't matter. I was reunited with my old friends, Suki, Annabelle and Denisa, whom I allowed to read my diary, and so they understood everything. I had missed them.

But every night, without fail, I would be in Seiji's arms, as he held me. He would mutter endless things in my ear, never shutting up, and so I would often sleep with my head under the pillow, to block him out. This plan was foiled however, when he started to tickle the parts of my body not covered by anything, causing me to squirm and shake with silent laughter. So I had to put up with his babble.

One night, he had turned to me seriously, and looked into my eyes, "Hey, Kara, will you promise me something?"

I had nodded, and laid my hand on his heart.

He smiled, sadly, and then went on, "Promise me, that you will never, ever, get off this bed. When you are here, don't get off this bed. If you do, I will not be able to protect you, and he will find you, and kill you. Do you promise?"

I nodded again, hoping I understood, and my hand still on his heart, I placed his on my own, and kissed him once again.

Not being able to talk caused difficulty in some lessons, especially with the new Potions master, Professor Slughorn, whom didn't seem to understand that I couldn't talk. Luckily enough I was pretty good at Potions, but unfortunately that also caused problems, for example the time when I had been selected to answer a question.

I couldn't, and had sat there feeling most stupid, only managing to make strange noises in the very back of my throat. After about ten minutes of this, big tears had welled up in my eyes, and the Professor had finally given up, turning to ask someone else. It was horribly awkward.

Later in the term, I was walking along the corridors, with heavy books piled in my arms. At that precise moment, for no apparent reason, I jumped, shivering, and dropping all my books on the floor. My bag split open at the same time, and all my things fell to the floor, with ink bottles smashing, quills snapping, and parchment flying everywhere, as well as all my drawings. I went bright red, and was very glad that the corridor was deserted. I bent down, and quickly began gathering my items together, so that I could return to the common room, and fix my stuff.

"Kara," I heard a voice, but didn't look up. "Let me help you with that."

A pair of feet appeared in front of my face, and I looked up to see Draco towering over me. Well, he would've been, as I was crouching on the floor, but he soon came down to my level, and helped me to gather up my papers.

"I'm sorry I haven't seen you," he began. "How are you?"

I tried to speak, but yet again, the only sounds that came were the guttural squeaks from before. So I decided to try something else, and drew my wand out of my pocket, before standing up. I would try to write a sentence with sparks from my wand.

However, when I stood up, so did he, and as I drew my wand, he spoke, "Kara, what the fuck are you doing?" And then he drew his wand, and before I could even begin to write, he had stunned me, and I had fallen to the floor.

"Oops," he spoke, as he crouched down beside me, and lifted me in his arms. "Maybe she wasn't trying to curse me. Kara, Kara?" he called as he shook me.

And it was then that Harry walked around the corner, and seeing Malfoy crouching over someone, began to run, "Oi, Malfoy! What do you think you're doing?"

Draco dropped me, shocked, and jumped up, and backwards a few steps, "Nothing. What's it to you Potter?"

Harry rushed to my side, and seeing it was me, went violently anger, and drew his wand, "Stay away from my sister, you got that?"

Draco glared at him, and scuffed his foot on the floor, "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?"

"Just stay away from her," Harry hissed.

Draco stalked off, and a few minutes later I came around. "Hey, you ok?" Harry asked me.

I nodded, and smiled weakly.

"Let's get this stuff picked up, and go get dinner, ok?"

I nodded again, and between us, we quickly picked up all my stuff, and managed to dump it all in the common room, before making our way downstairs for dinner.