2nd September

So when my face finally stopped burning on the 28th and I had stopped shaking with rage, I walked into the house and grabbed the medical kit from the kitchen. I used antiseptic wipes to clean up the wound, which stung like mad. Tears streamed from my eyes, making them all red and blotchy. Thankfully it had stopped bleeding and I wasn't going to need stitches, I bet it is going to leave a nasty scar, though...

The next morning I woke up with a lovely reddy-purply bruise. I looked like I'd just been slapped, oh, wait. I walked downstairs and made it very clear to both mum and dad the extent of my injuries, not like they cared nor had any sympathy...

Yesterday, Mum gave me a lift to King's Cross Station and just as I was about to get out of the car, she put her face millimetres away from mine, her face red with anger, "You mention where you got that bruise and I'll give you another one to match it." I was genuinely petrified.

On the platform, I ran into Hermione and her parents. "What happened?" the look of shock on their faces as they looked at the gash on my face meant that I had to lie, quickly.

"Walked into the kitchen cupboard door..." I said, shyly. Then I found a compartment on the train. The clock struck 11:00am and we were off... Hermione waved frantically to her parents and I sat back and noticed something, "You didn't see Ron or Harry did you?"

She turned to me, "No...? Shall we go have a look?"

I put my hand up to my face, the bruise now a purple-green colour accompanied with a significantly reduced cut, but it was still sore and terrible looking. I took some of my long brown hair and strategically placed it over my injuries, in the hope that no one would notice. As we walked down the carriages, I kept my head down, looking up at intervals into the individual compartments.

I caught eyes with Fred who in turn kicked George, who stood and walked in my direction. Panic flooded through my body and I fled to the toilets. I was not prepared for him to see me, not like this... A few deep breaths later, I found myself facing the world again, heading straight for our compartment and not stopping for anyone. Hermione was already there, Ron and Harry were not. They apparently didn't get through the barrier...

Do you know the feeling when you know you're being stared at? That's what happened at dinner. I looked up to see George staring at me, puppy dog look and all. Harry and Ron were nowhere to be seen and Hermione was being no help whatsoever, saying, "It doesn't look that bad, I promise!" which I knew for a fact was a big fat lie, which made me all the more self-conscious. After the feast, I rushed away from the table, from George who looked like he so badly wanted to talk to me. As soon as we got into the common room, I was already half way up the stairs to our dormitory where I shut the door behind me and burst into tears...

Half an hour later, Hermione came in and said, "You'd never guess how Harry and Ron got here." By the look on her face, she was not one bit amused... My guess was that it was something highly dangerous or highly stupid! On both counts I was correct.

"They flew their dad's enchanted Ford Anglia from King's Cross to Hogwarts, and to make it worse, they crashed it straight into the Whomping Willow."

I struggled to keep a straight face, the image of a flying car, and it crashing into the tree! I would have paid to have seen that! Actually I would have paid to see their faces! "How very wrong of them!" I nodded and smiled at her, she was not amused.

Classes also started today. But before I tell you about them, Ron got a howler through owl post from his mum. I had never heard of them before, but now that I have, I'll not forget! Mrs Weasley screamed, her voice boomed throughout the Great Hall at breakfast, Ron's face the colour of the tomato ketchup he had on his plate. I can confidently state that he had well and truly learnt his lesson. The letter went something like this:

"RONALD WEASLEY! HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR! YOU FATHER AND I ARE ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! HE'S NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! YOU AND HARRY COULD HAVE DIED! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN! AS FOR THOSE MUGGLES- YOU WAIT UNTIL I GET A HOLD OF YOU! YOU'RE EXTREMELY LUCKY NOT TO HAVE BEEN EXPELLED! YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE AND I'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME!"

It was priceless.

Our first lesson was Herbology and I've seen enough soil to last me a lifetime this past summer. The pond, I filled up with earth and planted an assortment of flowers. But that's neither here nor there! (In class) We were replanting mandrakes- a hideous looking plant that looks like a very big potato that can move! We had to put earmuffs on, I got lumbered with a pair that were pink and fluffy, quite ironic with my surname, (many people liked to point that out). Their cries could supposedly knock us out for hours. I'm pretty sure Neville fainted. It's always him, isn't it? We were in groups of five and Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff joined us.

"You're the famous Harry Potter!" he said, shaking Harry's hand enthusiastically. "You- you're Ron Weasley; it was your car that crashed into the Whomping Willow! Nice one!" he smiled, nodding his head approvingly. He then turned to Hermione, "You are Hermione Granger- always top in everything!" Hermione blushed and shook his hand. "And you, you're Kathryn Pink-"it was quite clear he hadn't a clue what to say. "I- I- like your surname." Then he turned awkwardly away.

"Original." I whispered.

During the practical, I was so tempted to take the earmuffs off so that I could join Neville in the hospital wing, but Hermione had a close eye on me. So we re-potted the mandrakes and had enough time to scrub ourselves clean before transfiguration where we were turning beetles into buttons.

With having Hermione beside you in class has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages being that she can tell me where I'm going wrong, the disadvantages are that she constantly does better than me because she is simply fantastic. But I wouldn't have her any other way! By the end of class I had 3 buttons, she had nearer 20! I decided to ignore that fact; Ron, however, had managed to create nothing but clouds of smoke that smelt like rotten eggs. That made me feel loads better!

During lunch, Hermione became even more excitable by the minute. We had DADA next. She had the Voyages with Vampires book propped open in front of her. Ten minutes before class, the four of us went outside for a bit of fresh air. An over-enthusiastic first year, by the name of Colin Creevey approached Harry and asked him if he could have a photograph to send home to his muggle family. Then the whole world, including the wonderful Draco Malfoy and the dashing Lockhart himself came to take advantage of all the publicity. (If you don't notice the sarcasm, just, no.)

As we escaped, Ron said, "You'd better hope Creevey doesn't meet Ginny, they'll be starting a Harry Potter fan club!"

"Shut up!" Harry said. He drew back to talk to me, letting Ron and Hermione walk on to class together. "Make me invisible, Kathryn! Please?"

"What?" I was a bit shocked.

He lowered his voice to a whisper, "You said last year that you were an invisibilia?"

"Yeah...?" I was wondering what on earth he was asking, it's not like I can transfer power or anything!

I could tell he was trying to choose his words, "Well... can you make other people invisible, too?"

"I've never tried!"

We looked around; there was no one in the corridor. He held out his hand, instigating that I should try. He placed his hand in mine; I stopped in my tracks concentrating all my energy into making the two of us disappear. I felt Harry squeezing my hand, "We're invisible!" he whispered, smiled broadly. I opened my eyes and watched as Percy, Ron's prefect brother walked past, totally unaware of us.

"You can talk normally, he won't hear you! Well, unless you want him too?" I said to Harry, "Yeo! Perce!" my voice sounded even more like the broad Belfast one we had back at home, we waited for a second to see if he responded, which he didn't, "See?"

"That was absolutely amazing! Nothing like the cloak!" Harry responded.

"Well, that's because the cloak is a cloak, and that is being truly invisible, my friend!" we ran to class where we took advantage of the seats Hermione and Ron saved us in the back row. I was sandwiched between the two boys, Lockhart looked from Harry to me and then back again. The two of us quickly piled up our books on the desk so that he couldn't see us giving him dirty looks.

He strutted down the stairs, smiling like someone with botox who couldn't physically make himself stop. He coughed to get our attention, "Welcome, I would like to introduce you to your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, me, Gilderoy Lockhart!" Blah-blah-blah. He loved himself, I just couldn't take it.

Ron, Harry and I sighed as Hermione gazed dreamily in his direction. Goodness me.

Lockhart then handed out 'a little quiz' to test us on our knowledge of the books we had allegedly read over the summer holidays. Everyone looked at each other, but Hermione was overjoyed to be given a test on the first day back. I took a look at the first three questions:

What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?

What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?

What, in your opinion is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

I hadn't the faintest of ideas. So, I did what I do best, I used my imagination and wrote highly sarcastic answers, here are a few I can remember:

Pink; come on, best colour out there.

To take over the world by creating an army of men just like him. What more could you want?

The hair. Look at it, its fab. He grew it himself.

... The questions continued...

32. "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite feature?" To which I answered, "What is there not to like, it's all pretty perfect."

All the way down to question 55. "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite memory?" There was no way that I could take that seriously, so I wrote, "The day he first looked into a mirror to notice how amazing he looked."

Harry, Ron and I were in stitches. There was a point where I thought I'd need resuscitated, I couldn't breathe! Half an hour later, Lockhart collected them in, looking through them as he did. He lifted up mine and said, "I'm sorry Miss Pink, but my favourite colour is Lilac, not pink, though it does come in a very close 3rd place!" then he proceeded to take Harry's paper, but stopped and lifted my paper out from the back of the pile.

"Miss Pink?" his voice sounded taken aback.

"Yes?"

"How did you know what my actual secret ambition is?"

"Intuition, Professor." I said, highly embarrassed that my sarcasm was actually real.

"And-" he paused, "Miss Pink, I think you know me better than I do."

"And how is that?" I asked, Ron and Harry were trying to mask their laughter beside me, tears were streaming from Ron's eyes.

"I do use my own brand of shampoo, and it is the best! I did have a pet dog, and the mess was too much for me to clean with my delicate hands! My favourite past time, other than making the world a better place is having manicures and pedicures! ...What am I thinking right now?"

I thought really hard about this one, "That you really ought to check if your curls are still sitting nicely? There is one out of place, right..." I pointed at his forehead, "there." The look of astonishment on his face said it all.

"By the way, I have a special potion in my collection upstairs if you'd like to use it on that cut of yours? It would make it look so much better! " he said, clearly disgusted at my face. It took all I had not to walk out of the room.

After he returned from looking in the mirror on his desk, he then took Hermione's paper and read right through it to the end, "Fantastic, absolutely fantastic! Full marks! Here, take 10 points for Gryffindor!"

Why does she always have to steal my thunder?

As for the lesson, it was a disaster, but I couldn't say I wasn't expecting it. He took out a cage of Cornish pixies and set them free in the classroom, expecting us to get them back in the enclosure again! He hadn't even taught us any spells or... anything.

The Cornish pixies flew in all directions of the classroom, causing ultimate mayhem and destruction. Shattered glass came from the direction of the windows. Ink was splattered across his portraits, the rubbish in his bin ended up... over me. Hermione lost a few strands hair. Neville was lifted by the ears and suspended on the candelabra, hanging by his robes like a rag doll. Textbooks were thrown and ripped to shreds. The only thing that didn't manage to happen was Seamus setting the place on fire!

Lockhart rolled up his sleeves and spoke the incantation, 'Peskipiksi Pesternomi' so confidently that it was so awkward when it didn't work! What made it even funnier was when a pixie took the wand out of his hand and chucked it out of the broken window! He dived just in time to miss Neville (and the candelabra) landing exactly where he had been standing a seconds before! When I turned around to see what would happen next, I saw Lockhart slip into his dormitory at the top of the stairs. He caught my eye and said, "I'll just ask you four to nip the rest of them back into their cage? Thanks." He shut the door promptly behind him.

"Immobilus!" Hermione cried.

The Cornish pixies froze in mid-air. We caught them and put them back in the cage and left the classroom as quickly as we could. Hermione was glad of the 'extra experience'. Harry, Ron and I were not convinced.

"Rubbish! Look at all the things in the books he's done!"

"Says he's done." Ron said under his breath.

6th September

Awkward encounters in the corridors doesn't even come close. I've been ignoring George all week for such reasons mentioned above. I hate the look of pity everyone gives me. Lockhart hasn't offered his precious potion again, luckily for him. I've made myself invisible half the time so I don't have to deal with it; it really comes in handy sometimes!

After an exceptionally horrid day of hard work, I was walking down the corridor to the library after lunch and I heard George shouting after me. I tried to run, but there were so many people in front and he caught up quickly. He put his arm on the wall beside me to stop me from walking any further.

"You've been avoiding me." He said, slightly out of breath.

I stared at the ground, shaking my head.

"What's up?" he asked as he lifted my chin.

Panic shuddered through my body. Somehow it was harder to lie to him as I had done with everyone else. He looked straight into my eyes and I felt like putty. Emotions got the better of me and tears formed in my eyes.

"Hey, hey! Please don't cry!" he awkwardly tried putting his arm around me in the busy corridor and directed me into a nearby empty classroom. He placed his hand on the back on his neck and rubbed it anxiously, "Look, if this is about the bracelet, I've fixed it, im wearing mine now, here's yours and it's warm, touch it!" That just made me cry all the more, "...I'm sorry-"

I couldn't help myself but hug him, he smelt so good and he held me just as tight, his grip making me feel safe for the first time in weeks. When I finally let go (and believe you me, I made the most of the time I had) he handed me the bracelet and smiled so sweetly.

"There's something else, isn't there?" he brushed my hair gently out of my face. It was only then that he noticed the monstrosity on my face. "What happened to you?" he looked so concerned.

I looked at him, terrified.

"It wasn't you mum, was it?" He touched my cheek, examining the scab, "She hit you?" I couldn't look at him. How did he guess? "Come on, you can trust me!" he pleaded.

My voice quivered as I turned to him, "She said she'd hit me again if I told anyone what happened."

The look on his face said it all.

"No! George, please!" I grabbed his hand as went to leave... I was trembling, "Don't."

"Alright! But can we go to see Madam Pomfery; she's bound to have something to clear it up so you stop hiding that bea- that face of yours!" he smiled at me, "I'll come with you!"

That was an offer I couldn't resist.