'... and then, I dunno, I just felt, like, butterflies in my stomach and my head was whirling and I could feel my legs going weak.' I scribbled into the diary. I had been talking to it every time I went up to my dormitory and every night in bed. Tom Riddle was just so charming and understanding, he gave great advice. I had spilled out everything I had ever felt for Terry and Draco, and now I was telling him about what I had felt when Terry squeezed my hand before he had to go up to get Sorted on the first night here.
'That sounds like you have a crush on him, Daisy. And it sounds like he likes you, too. Maybe you should drop hints here and there when you're talking to him, try and get him alone more, and maybe he'll ask you out.' Tom replied.
'Thanks, Tom. You always give such great help!' I replied, putting down my quill and putting the cap on my ink bottle.
'It's a pleasure.' He wrote. 'Oh, and don't forget about showing me your powers. I am an encased memory, surely with your powers, you can send me memories of when you did some of those ... extraordinary things?'
I froze with my screwing the cap on the bottle. I hesitated, then wretched it off and refilled my quill.
'Sure. When I figure out how ... but not right now. It's half one in the morning, I need to sleep. See you tomorrow!'
I settled down in my bed after slipping the diary under my mattress.
---
I was unceremoniously woken in the morning by non other than Katie. By unceremoniously woken, I mean pushed onto the floor out of my bed.
"You what mate?" I gasped, blinking my eyes slowly. "Bloody hell, Katie!"
"Quidditch practice!" She exclaimed happily.
"Why are you a morning person Katie?!" I huffed, shutting my eyes. I was exhausted. I hadn't even got five hours of sleep, by the looks of it. It was six o'clock!
"Because WHY NOT!" She squealed, hopping around the room. She threw my Quidditch robes and shoes on top of me.
"Katie!" I squeaked, dragging my tangled sheets that fell off the bed with me up further over my head.
"Now, Daisy, where's your broomstick?" She hummed. "Oh! Found it!" Then an extremely hard object clunked down on my head.
"KATIE!"
"Who's dying?" Parvati mumbled, sticking her head up from under her covers.
"Now hurry up and get dressed! Oliver sent me! We need to PRACTISE!" She sang, then danced out of the room.
"Why, Katie, why?" I muttered, the room spinning around and around. "And why, Oliver, didn't you send Angelina or someone? Urgh!"
I have this thing where when I wake up, I'm really dizzy for a few minutes, then for half an hour, I'm just slightly dizzy. I don't know what it is, it's some medical problem, but it's part of the reason why I hate getting up. I can never walk straight that first half hour. I always stagger or walk off-course.
Of course, the only people I've told about this (or have found out by force is another way to put it) are Harry, the Insurgents, Hermione, Ron, and Draco. I'm not a sympathy grabber. But, you know, I said THE ONLY PEOPLE I'VE TOLD ABOUT THIS. As you know, my fellow Insurgent members have very big mouths, so they went around blabbering to everyone about my little morning secret, so now when I come down to the common room, everyone bugs me just to annoy me. The only reason they know (because I knew that they'd tell everyone!) was because all the people I listed up there (except for Harry, he and the Dursley's already knew of course) were playing truth or dare, and I was wisely testing the waters first, so I picked truth, and George's question was, "Do you have any medical problems?" (for reason on point - to take advantage of it if I had one) and of course I had to tell the truth.
I lay there for the first few minutes, waiting off the worst of the dizziness, then got up and stumbled about, putting my robes on.
I grabbed my broomstick, then made my way down to the common room.
"Finally, Daisy!" Fred cheered. He and his twin were puffy-eyed and tousle haired, and my twin looked the same.
"Shut up, you know about my problem, and Katie woke me up in the worst way imaginable, and now I'll have bruises FOREVER!" I huffed.
The three of them grinned, and us two sets of twins set off for the Quidditch pitch, Fred and George on either side of me, steadying me. Of course, we met Colin on the way down (he's stalking Harry and I) and we congregated in the changing rooms as Colin went off to the stands to watch us.
"About time you lot." Oliver said to us, then noticed the way I was walking/staggering, then said, "I'll let you off this time."
"See, it's a good thing that we told everybody!" George whispered to me as Oliver went off on a speech.
I glared at him and pushed my hand in his face. "Talk to the hand, 'cause the face don't wanna hear."
We all sat on the benches and listened to Oliver talking about his tactics. Fred's head drooped right onto my shoulder and he began to snore.
Harry's eyes were glassy and he was staring off into space. Katie was sitting up, eagerly listening to Oliver, and Angelina was yawning, her eyes unfocused. George's eyes were closing then opening slowly every few seconds and I began to nod off onto Fred next to me.
"So." Oliver said, jerking me out of my half-sleep. "Is that clear? Any questions?"
"I've got a question, Oliver." George said, who had woken with a start like me. "Why couldn't you have told us all this yesterday when we were awake?"
So we went out to the pitch and practised for a bit, Colin snapping pictures of us every few seconds. Oliver suspected that he was a Slytherin spy, but then I pointed out that he was a Gryffindor and a very good chum of mine. Terry had made him a 'Daisy Potter's #1 fan' badge, and I could see him wearing it from up in the air. Despite not being able to walk well in that first half hour after waking up, I could still fly perfectly well.
Then the Slytherin team came out to the pitches.
"What the fuck are they doing here?" I asked blearily, flying to the ground. The team followed.
"Flint!" Oliver bellowed. "This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!"
"Plenty of room for all of us, Wood." Flint replied, his smirk growing wider. I'll wipe that smirk off his face ...
"Oliver booked the pitch! He booked it!" I hissed, stepping forward and looking Flint in the eye. I swayed a bit, and Harry grabbed my arm to steady me.
"Ah, but I've got a specially signed note from Professor Snape. 'I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practise today on the Quidditch pitch, owing to the need to train their new Seeker and Beater.'"
"You've got new team members? Where?" Oliver said, distracted.
Then from behind the five large figures before us came Draco and Floppy. Dafuq?
Something made me want to rip that Beater's bat right out of Floppy's hand and smash it into his face until he begs for mercy, that little shit.
Then Harry noticed their new brooms. 'Look!' He sent to me, throwing a glance at them. My eyes widened. They were the latest models that only came out last month: the Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-One!
And all of the Slytherin team had them!
The Slytherin's noticed us noticing them and started bragging about how Floppy's dad paid for them while Draco looked at me apologetically. Then Hermione and Ron ran onto the pitch, and Hermione sassed them.
"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to BUY their way in. THEY got in on pure talent." She said sharply.
"OOOHHH! Need some ice for that BURN?!" I yelled as Fred snapped his fingers in a 'z' formation and George said, "Hermione the Sass Queen!"
"No one asked for your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood." Floppy said bitterly. Oh hell nah!
Flint dived in front of him to stop Fred, George, and I jumping on him, Angelina shrieked, "How DARE you!", and Ron plunged his hand into his robes yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" He pointed his wand furiously under Flint's arm at Floppy's face, and a bang sounded.
Ron fell back onto the ground. "Ron, Ron, are you okay?" Hermione squealed.
Ron sat up shakily, then belched, and a load of slugs slithered to the ground. Fred, George, and I determinedly avoided each other's gaze.
The Slytherin team were pissing themselves laughing, but Harry, Hermione, and I helped Ron across the pitch and out to Hagrid's house.
We had some banter there, Ron recovering a bit, only letting out one or two slugs every few minutes after we left. Professor McGonagall got us before we reached the Great Hall and told us where and when our detentions would be.
Ron was to clean the trophies in the trophy room, Harry was to address fan mail with Lockhart (at which I sniggered) and Terry, the twins, and I were to round up a few unicorns with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest for Professor Kettleburn's Care of Magical Creatures class. We were to go at eight PM on Saturday.
That night I spoke with the diary again. I felt like Tom was becoming a close friend of mine ...
~~~
We were in the Forbidden Forest. We were wandering around in a group, doing these weird whistles Hagrid taught us to summon unicorns.
We had a total of ten unicorns now. Hagrid was feeding them something every now and then to keep them with us.
I was just about to do another whistle when I felt something like cold fingers wrapping around my neck, then squeezing, squeezing HARD.
I stopped, gasping and clawing at my neck. Only, there was nothing there. It was as if a poltergeist was doing it.
"Peeves-" I glanced up. But Peeves wasn't there. Peeves wouldn't even do that to me in the first place, we were besties!
Shit! Who was doing this?! I couldn't breathe!
"Daisy? Daisy, are you alright?" Terry stooped a little to my height. A little equals a lot in this case.
Just like that, the sensation of being strangled vanished.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I gasped.
"I don't think you are. Your face is all ..." George gestured.
"Yeah, and you've got bruises forming on your neck." Fred agreed.
"I think yeh better get up ter the hospital wing." Hagrid said, and I nodded, shooting off to the castle. But on the way there, I heard an evil, triumphant laugh in the back of my mind ... a very familiar, high, cold, cruel laugh ... before everything went dark.
The Gryffindor common room. That's what I saw. How did I get up here?
There was hardly anybody here, only Harry, Ron, Terry, and the twins.
I don't remember coming up here. The last thing I remember was running through the Forest to go to the hospital wing - that LAUGH - then nothing. Blankness ... then now. What?
I swayed on my feet. "Daisy!" Terry caught me as I fell. "Are you okay? You kind of just came in looking really blank, and, well, not yourself, then you look like you just woke up or something, then you fell! What's wrong?"
"N-nothing. It's fine. I just - I don't feel well from - from this morning. I still feel like what I felt when I got up. It happens. Why are you in the Gryffindor common room?" I lied.
Terry sighed. "Well, I came to see if you were alright."
"I am." I told him, smiling.
"Sorry to break this cute moment -" I glared at Fred, "but Harry here has some freaky news."
"Yeah!" Harry says. "I heard voices, it was really creepy. They were saying that they wanted to rip, tear, and kill someone!"
"And Harry is officially insane." I said.
