Alana awoke during the middle of the night in a heavy sweat, trying to regulate her breathing from the short gasps, as she awoke from the nightmare. She looked over to see that Cardel was no longer in bed. She frowned and arose, slipping her feet into her slippers and heading downstairs. She found the man sitting at the kitchen table with his head resting in his hands looking over the letter they had been sent from Kefira's school.

She walked over and placed her hands on his back. "Cardel, you should come back to bed."

"I can't sleep, Al." the distressed father said. "I can't sleep knowing my daughter,is...is... I don't even know what the hell to call it!" he threw the letter away from him. "And to think the bastards only send us a letter?! There's nothing we can do!"

"Car-"

"It's rubbish! Telling us that we can't see her, that's our daughter! I don't give a damn if they are wizards or witches..or whatever! We didn't get her home for Christmas...it's not right! How much longer does she have to stay there? What's taking them so long?!"

"Shh...Cardel quiet the girls are sleeping."

"No, we're not."

The parents turned to see Rosemary, Nellie and Lottie.

"Girls you should be sleeping." Alana said.

"How can we?" Rosemary said. "We all feel the same. We want Kefi home safe."

"And she will be okay, the school reassured that." Alana said. "Let's all not forget that it's Kefira we are talking about here. She can pull through everything and anything."

In the petrified state, Madam Pomfrey had informed all those that the students were completely unaware of anything around them. She reminded Neville several times that anything he said to Kefira, she couldn't hear him. But after awhile, she gave up as the boy seemed to just to speak to the girl's body as a sense of comfort.

However, Madam Pomfrey wasn't aware that while Kefira was stuck in a stiff position and she wasn't fully aware of her surroundings,  her mind was still quite active.

"I'm trapped in my own mind." Kefira thought to herself. "This is...weird."

She couldn't move, she couldn't speak, two of the most frustrating things Kefira ever experienced. She wanted to be up and moving, not trapped inside her own body.

"Ugh, this is so boring."

But her mind wandered back to what got her in the position in the first place. What she had witnessed in the reflection of the window before everything had become dark.

Besides the giant serpent that loomed over her, it was the person she had seen.

 What the hell was Ginny Weasley doing with a giant snake?

"Horrible choice of a pet, Ginny."

Neville walked into the dorms, about to head over to his bed, he saw that the room was a bit of wreck on Harry's side. While Harry was messy, he wasn't that messy and to Neville, it looked like someone had been through Harry's things.

He knew he had to tell Harry, in case anyone had taken anything. However, he was sure it wasn't one of the boys in the room, none of them would do such a thing.

Neville frowned to himself, he wondered what else could wrong that school year, Kefira was still in the Hospital and by that point, she had spent way more time in the Hospital Wing then Neville did in both years of attending.

He took a deep breath, as much as he wanted to be there for Kefira, he had other things to do.

He went to find Harry.

Severus set down the angry letter he had received back from the Walsh family. No matter how many times he wrote back reassuring the family that Kefira would be fine once the Mandrakes reached maturity, the family were ready to storm the castle walls to retrieve her. But that wouldn't help the situation at all.

After the fifth letter, Severus was regretting not letting McGonagall or Dumbledore handle informing the family. The way the family was writing to him, he was quite thankful they couldn't send howlers because he was certain he would be deaf by the end of it. He tried to tell them that removing Kefira from the school would be a poor choice and would not benefit her in the long run, but they wouldn't hear a word of it.

He sighed sitting back in his chair, completely annoyed by how much trouble could be caused by one trouble, it was bad enough he had to deal with Potter and his friends.

He knew what it was all coming down to.

He was going to have to pay the Walsh family a visit in person.

"How unfortunate."