Alina

"Hogwarts!" she Shouted the name of the school out as she tossed the floo powder at her feet. Her body immediately felt like it was being squashed and pulled through a winding small tube as the floo powder activated. Before she was able to get used to the feeling she felt her feet land on solid ground and she opened her eyes. She was back.

"Welcome back Miss Black," the Headmaster called out to her as the fire in the fireplace died down. As she dusted the left over floo powder off her school robes she could start to see that he was sitting behind his desk, he had that usual twinkle in his eye. This was the first time she had ever been in the Headmaster's office before. Under normal circumstances she would have been terrified to have to be here but today she was thrilled.

All around the room were mysterious looking objects making all sorts of strange and fascinating sounds. She could see on one of the many shelves of the rooms only a few objects that she actually recognized. One of which she noticed was the old Sorting Hat, who looked to be taking a nap on a stack of large books. Her curiosity and the awe at all the strange things in the Headmaster's office created made it hard for her eyes not to wander.

"Thank you sir!" she answered, not able to hide her excitement at being back.

"How are we feeling today?" Dumbledore asked her.

"I'm feeling much better sir thank you for asking. Doctor Murino said I'm doing better than he had expected already and the rest of my magic should return by the end of the week," she answered. A large red phoenix beside the Headmaster squawked following her answer. Only in Dumbledore's office would someone be able to not notice a phoenix with all the other fascinating things around. She gave the bird a smile and slight bow of her head as it bowed its head to her.

"I'm relieved to hear that. And I am glad you will at last be returning to us," the Headmaster responded, his eyes twinkling again as he spoke.

"Me too sir, although I must day that I am nervous. There are lots of blank spots still from this year so far, I'm scared of how behind I will be in my classes," she replied honestly.

Hogwarts had been closed the day she had been taken into the Chamber, which was almost two weeks earlier than the school would have normally been closed for holiday break. The ministry board members along with Headmaster Dumbledore decided even with the basilisk defeated that the school would stay closed until the beginning of the new year, and as a result all of the students would receive a longer holiday break. For most students this came as a relief. For them, any opportunity to get a break from school work and studies was a good thing. However, for her it was a bad thing, especially since was already behind everyone else.

Since the day Marik, Daphne, Hermione, Harry, and the spiders had all come to rescue her she had been stuck in her hospital room until today. During her stay in the hospital everyone from her parents, the minister, aurors, and many others came to interview her and ask all the questions they could to try and piece together what happened. In the end they all told her that all they were able to piece together was that the diary she had been writing in is what possessed her, which she already knew. Unfortunately no one had any idea what the magic was, or how it worked.

As unlikely as it may sound being possessed is actually a very bad thing, especially when it comes to being a possessed student who is supposed to be doing class work. Although pieces of her memory here and there had returned, there were still huge gaps in all of her lessons and classes. To make things worse her doctor had made her stay at St. Mungos a full two weeks after Hogwarts opened back up, which meant she had another two weeks of missed classes to catch up on. So you might say that so far her first year was not going so smoothly. Thankfully though, at least she was finally back. And thankfully she felt entirely herself.

"Well Miss Black all of the professors are aware of your situation and I am sure they will be understanding, at least for a short while. Although from what I have heard about your abilities in class I am sure you will catch up quickly," the Headmaster stood up from behind his desk as he spoke. She couldn't help but smile after being complimented by the Headmaster.

I wonder if Daphne has ever been complimented by the Headmaster? She daydreamed to herself. The Headmaster walked over as she daydreamed and tapped the Sorting Hat, who had started snoring, on the tip of his hat waking him up.

"Sir, I wanted to apologize again for everything," she said, looking down at her feet. She had apologized to him and everyone else over a hundred times probably by now. No matter how many times she apologized though she still felt guilty for everything that had happened.

"Again Miss Black there is no need for you to apologize. The same boy responsible for possessing you once walked the same hallways as me for seven years. The same boy opened the Chamber before and killed another girl. The fault is on me if it is on anyone, for not being able to do anything or connect the dots in time. However," the Headmaster popped a sweet into his mouth from one of the many trays of candy on his desk "for now you should put it all out of your mind." He finished saying with a smile.

"Right sir. Thank you again for everything." She gave a slight curtsy as she headed towards the door. "Oh and sir," she said turning back to the Headmaster.

"Yes Miss Black?" the Headmaster asked her.

"My dad wanted me to threaten you, and he gave me a few choice words to make sure I told you. However, I like being a student here and don't want you to expel me, so if he asks you will you tell him I told you? He promised me a new set of dueling boots if I did," she told the Headmaster nervously.

Her dad had taken everything a lot worse than anyone else she knew had. If it had not been for Harry's dad her father probably would have hexed half of magical Britain that night. Thankfully he went back to his normal self after a few days of staying in the hospital with her. Although, whenever the Headmaster's name came up in conversation he tended to get angry again. Dumbledore let out a few chuckles at her statement.

"Very well Miss Black, I think that is fair. Now hurry off before you miss breakfast," he said still chuckling.

"Right!" She left through the door to the Dumbledore's office and skipped down the stairs two at a time. While she was overjoyed about coming back to school, most of her was more nervous than anything. Unfortunately the whole being possessed incident had resulted in her making zero friends so far at Hogwarts, and she imagined being known as the possessed girl probably would not help her make any this time around either.

The castle was crowded and busy, just like it was on most weekends. Students were gathered in packs all around and already she could hear murmurs and whispers from them as she passed them. She let their words bounce off her skin though and just continued onwards with a positive attitude. Later she would maybe get upset at being whispered about behind her back, today though she was only being happy.

The walk to the Great Hall from the Dumbledore's office was thankfully a short one and she arrived into the large room in no time. Thank Merlin too because she was starving! Hospital food sucked and she had been craving Hogwart's breakfast biscuits like crazy! It felt like years since she had been in the Great Hall and just like during her first day at Hogwarts, for a few brief moments she was awe struck at the magic and beauty of the room.

Man I missed being here. She thought to herself as she took in the majesty of the Hall.

"Alina!" she heard someone call out her name. She turned her head from the candles floating midair overhead to try and find the person who had called her. "Alina over here!" the voice called out again.

She turned her head over to the Ravenclaw table and saw Hermione and Harry waving her to come over. Startled briefly at seeing them, she made her way over to to where they were sitting. It was hard not to notice all the eyes in the Hall fixated on her as she walked across the Hall. To her surprise when she made it over to the part of the table where Hermione and Harry were sitting she was met by a warm hug from Hermione, followed by one from Harry too.

"It's so good to see you Alina, did you just get back? Here sit, sit,Hermione started asking her as they all sat down on the bench. It took her a few seconds to get her thoughts straight, she was still a little caught off guard by their reaction at seeing her.

"Yeah, I just got back a few minutes ago actually," she answered Hermione, still a little off guard.

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked her, handing her a basket of bread in the process. She took a large piece out and immediately began drowning it in the nearby butter dish.

God I missed these so much! She thought to herself, practically drooling.

"Much better since the last time you guys were at St. Mungos. My doctor said I should have regenerated all my magic back in a week tops. And all my symptoms for magic deficiency disease have been clear for three days now."

Harry and Hermione had visited her a few times during her long stay at the hospital. She figured they had just stopped by each time they came to visit Marik but she was happy they did, even if was just out of obligation because she and Harry were family. It felt good having someone besides her mom and dad to talk to. She loved her dad, but after a few days being stuck in a small room and making endless small talk that would drive anyone mental.

During one of their few visits to her room, Hermione and Harry had been the ones to tell her what they knew of what all happened that day in the Chamber. Many of the gaps in her memory had come back to her as she recovered in the hospital, her memories of her time in the Chamber of Secrets though was not one of these gaps that got filled though.

She had been amazed and cried uncontrollably for hours when she learned from Hermione that Marik had also been left behind at the school the day everyone was evacuated. She could only imagine how horrible Harry and Hermione must have felt as they left Hogwarts on the Express, knowing that they were leaving Marik behind.

She had also been extremely surprised when she learned what Daphne, Hermione, and Harry had gone through for her. Well Daphne for her, Harry and Hermione were mainly going for Marik, but still. She would never in a million years have imagined that her sister would sneak out of their house and break into the freaking Ministry of Magic to come look for her. She had felt guilty they had risked so much because of her, and that Marik was in all this pain because of her, but in the end she couldn't help but feel a little happy for it all. After all, if they had not gone through it all she would not be here today.

It was hard for her to believe the parts of the story Harry and Hermione told her about all that Marik had done to find her. Marik had risked his life over and over again for her; someone he didn't even know. Marik had trekked into the forbidden forest at night all on his own to look for her. He literally walked into a nest of thousands of spiders the sizes of muggle cars and not only did he manage to somehow not die, but he also inconceivably found a way to convince the spiders to help him find her.

If riding in on the backs of spiders, going in the forbidden forest alone, and saving her wasn't enough Marik had even defeated a freaking basilisk in the Chamber. Inside the Chamber, Hermione and Harry's story of what Marik had done for her only made the entire story even harder to imagine. Although they had arrived to the Chamber at the end of everything, from how they described it Marik had apparently been casting or experiencing some pretty incredible magic when they arrived.

As crazy and unbelievable as all of this sounded the hardest part to believe was that Marik had done all of this and gone through such lengths all for her. Although she had gaps of everything he had done for her in the Chamber her memory was still clear as day of the time they had spent together by the lake. She had stunned Marik at point blank range with a stupefy spell and as a result had risked getting him hurt worse by being the reason he missed the Express.

She had given him literally every reason any normal person would need to turn and walk the other way. She yelled at him, attacked him, and lied to him. Apparently for some unknown reason though none of that mattered to him though. Even with every reason not to, he still came for her, like some hero out of a fairy tale. He was a hero. . . He was her hero.

She had snuck out of her room a few times during her stay at St. Mungos to go to Marik's room to thank him for everything. She never did get the chance to speak with him though as each time she tried he was either asleep, being worked on, or his parents were in the room. Harry and Hermione had gotten the opportunity to talk with him once over the break from what they told her.

Marik's memory of the Chamber was apparently pretty hazy. Hermione and Harry told her that they had tried to piece together parts of the puzzle of what happened before they arrived with him but didn't really make any progress. All he could remember was seeing her, talking with tom, and killing the basilisk. Everything after that was blank, almost as if it never even happened. She knew something had happened though, and regardless of whether anyone remembered or saw it or not she would forever be thankful to Marik. Whatever happened and whatever he did, he saved her life.

"That's great! Although I must say I think I liked you better when you were pale, It made me actually look tan for once," Hermione joked, bringing Alina out of her memories and thoughts. She couldn't help the giggles that came out in response to Hermione's joke. It was true, she was much darker than Hermione was.

"You excited to be back?" Harry asked her, still rolling his eyes at Hermione's bad joke.

"Yup, I am very excited. My mom wanted to let me come a few days earlier because she was getting tired of me talking about coming back so much. I'm a little nervous about being back though, I feel like I missed so much time and am going to be so far behind everyone," she answered Harry through bites of bread.

"You will be fine I'm sure." Hermione said, trying his best to comfort her.

"I think you are screwed!" someone said from behind them. They all turned to see it was her sister.

"Daphne!" She jumped up from the bench and rushed to give her sister a hug. Her sister brushed her off though after a few seconds. She guessed the sweet Daphne that had been nice to her at the hospital over the break was gone now, and the ice-queen, as Marik called her, was back. Her smile grew a little as she thought back to how hard she had laughed the first time she had heard her sister called that.

"Did you just get here?" her sister asked her.

"Yup, a few minutes ago," she answered returning to her bread. This food tasted like heaven compared to hospital food.

"Welcome back. Here." Daphne started searching through her bag.

"Did you get me a welcome back present?" she asked her sister, knowing her well enough to know that hell had not yet frozen over.

"Yup. Here is your present." Her sister took out a stack of papers about three feet thick along with five different books. "Your professors gave me all of the work you missed while you were gone, assignments you never turned in, and review work to help you catch up. And Snape wants you to read these extra books outside of everything else to prove to him that you are worthy of still staying in his class." Daphne dumped everything in her hands on the table. Alina felt her heart sink.

"Good luck." Daphne attempted to make a smile as she turned towards the Slytherin table. Alina looked at the huge pile of work now on the table in front of her and instinctively her body slumped over head first onto the table.

"I'm screwed. Hermione, Harry it was a pleasure knowing you," she said to the two of them from her spot, face down on the table.

"Wow I see how it is! Guess it wasn't a pleasure knowing me?" another voice said from behind them. She slowly lifted her forehead off the table and again turned to find out who it was, dreading it may be someone with more work to give her. It certainly was not.

"Marik!" she shouted out into the Hall. She knocked over her drink and the butter bowl as she jumped up from the table and rushed to give him a hug, knocking him a few steps back with the sheer ferocity of her hug.

"Mpfff," was all she heard him say in return as she pressed herself against him, not wanting to ever let go and hoping her hug would help to express her endless thanks.

"Alright alright!" Marik finally said after a few moments and finessed his way out of her arms. She pouted for a second and then quickly blushed when she saw how many people in the Hall were looking at her. Hermione and Harry both got up from their spots on the table to give him a hug.

"Welcome back Marik," Harry said, a large smile on his face as Marik took the seat next to him.

"Did you miss me?" Marik asked the table as he reached for the bread bowl and started drowning his piece in butter. Her smile grew even bigger.

"What was your name again?" Hermione joked from the other side of the table. Hermione's joke earned a laugh from Harry and herself and a devilish sneer from Marik.

"So rumor has it that some crazy girl tried to take over the school. I hear her goal was to take out Dumbledore and make Snape the new Headmaster. I even heard that she had a secret Chamber that she used to torture kids in her house that snored too loud," Marik joked, looking at her as he made light of things. She stuck out her tongue out at him in response to his lame joke.

"Haha not funny! Don't make me call my giant-snake out on you again Ose!" she joked back. Marik did a spit-take with the orange juice he was drinking.

"Too soon!" Harry said, laughing.

"Seriously though Marik, It is good to see you back where you belong again," Hermione said to her friend, putting an end to the joking.

"Thanks 'Mione," Marik replied, he had his normal smirk back on his face now. She had not seen that look in a while. It really was a cute smirk. "So they finally let you out too huh?" Marik asked her, grabbing another piece of bread in the process.

"Yeah, this morning. I didn't know you were getting released already too," she answered. Last she had heard Marik still had at least another two weeks before he was supposed to get released.

"Well the doc wanted to keep me for a few more weeks but I managed to plan an early escape," Marik answered, sneering proudly.

"MARIK OSE! You did what?" Hermione said in a voice that honestly Alina thought even rivaled McGonagall's.

"Relax, I didn't do anything bad. I just sent an owl to Kingsley saying after spending so much time in the hospital I was thinking about dropping our private lessons and putting more time into learning herbology. Within minutes he came storming into the hospital shouting you will not waste all of my hard work and efforts and made the doctors let me loose," Marik said in his best Kingsley impression. It was quite a bad impression. He looked proud as he told his story though and she couldn't help but laugh at it.

"Only you," Harry said, shaking his head.

"Well are you really doing okay?" Hermione asked. Her look made it seem that she was not happy that he had left the hospital wing early.

"I'm getting there yeah. No spasms in three weeks. I still have to use this though for another week or two." Marik lifted up a cane from under the table that she had not noticed before. She felt bad for hugging him so hard now. "But other than that I feel fine. Since they had no clue what was going on they obviously wanted me to stay longer but Kingsley said he would keep a close eye on me and make reports on my progress to them."

While she had certainly had it bad during her stay at the hospital Marik had things a hundred times worse during his. The spasms he kept having ended up killing a lot of Marik's body's nerves. As a result of the nerve damage he had lost a lot of muscle strength. If that wasn't bad enough his magic for the first two weeks of his time at St. Mungos had been unable to replenish itself.

Every time his magic started to regenerate it released itself out of his body during a spasm. The same thing happened every time they tried to give him potions. His body just rejected them and released all of their magic in another spasm. That meant that Marik had to go through the healing process with practically no magic, and a lot of the pain killers since they required magic, all of this meaning his healing process had most likely been hell.

Standing before her now though she thought he certainly did look a lot skin had returned to it's normal tan color and all of the black splotches on his skin had vanished. The only real visible scar that Marik had was his eyes.

Again, while there were many parts of her memories that were gone the night the two of them had spent by the lake was one of the few things she remembered vividly. She remembered at the time watching his silvery-grey eyes reflecting off the water and how easy to look at they were. They were certainly still easy to look into but their color had changed from the way she remembered.

The grey color in them had been almost bleached and now they were closer to a white looking grey than their old darker grey. His iris had also absorbed a lot of the black splotches it seemed as all around them Marik now had black lines and marks scattered throughout the white-grey. Different looking or not, she still loved his eyes.

"Any new news?" Harry asked his friend, breaking her daydreaming.

"Nope, they still have no clue and I still have no clue," Marik answered stuffing another piece of bread into his mouth. "But I for one am okay with not knowing. I just want to get back to the old stuff. God this bread is so much better than hospital food!" Marik continued. She giggled at the last part.

"I agree," Hermione added.

"What is all this stuff?" Marik asked, looking through all the papers Daphne had dropped on the table. For a few minutes she had forgotten that she was screwed. Her head again returned to the table as the feeling of unavoidable doom returned.

"All of the work I missed and have to do. I'm so screwed," she said, pouting again.

"No you're not. I'll help you catch up," Marik said, smiling at her from the other side of the table.

"YOU WILL?" She couldn't help that it came out as a scream as she lifted her head up.

"Of course I will. So will Harry and Hermione. We aren't just going to let our possessed friend fall behind. The school would get so boring if you failed out." Marik tried making a joke but she was closer to tears than she was laughing. He had called her his friend. . .

"You guys. . ." She was practically speechless.

"Marik I think you broke her," Hermione said, staring at her looking worried.

"You okay Alina?" Marik was waving his hand in front of her face.

"Yeah I am, it's just you said you wouldn't let your friend get behind. . ." She didn't know how to explain what she was feeling.

"Yeah. . ." Marik looked confused now. Not knowing what to say she just leaned over the table and wrapped the three of them in a hug.

"Oi Ow!" Marik shouted as she pulled him into a hug along with her other two new friends. That sounded so weird saying. Friends. . . Her, the possessed first year girl who opened the Chamber of Secrets had friends. She held them all in a hug for a few moments before finally letting go. That moment would go down as one of the best moments of her life.

"Alright alright! Enough with the ooey gooey stuff! Here let's get started on your first lesson." Marik pulled out his wand and conjured a pair of large obnoxious glasses onto his face. He pushed the glasses that looked like they were made for a face the size of a troll up his nose as he grabbed a paper of her stack. She couldn't stop giggling at the funny sight. He looked so goofy!

"Lesson one: How to avoid being possessed by a crazy dead dark lord. Step one: Don't be lame and write in a diary," Marik said in his best Snape impression.

"Hey you brat! I write in a diary!" Hermione shouted out, throwing a muffin at Marik in the process.

"Well that explains the possessed demon-like personality. . ." Harry joked, from the other side of the table also earning himself a muffin to the face.

After a few seconds all of them erupted into laughter. Her sides started hurting after a while from how hard she was laughing. She could see through her tears of laughter that students all around the Hall were looking at them like they were crazy. She didn't care though. This was one of the best moments of her life. She was laughing, and she was happy, and best of all, she was with her friends.

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