"No visitors! The girl needs rest, not guests!"

A series of moans and whines cascaded around the room, flowing into my pounding head. Groaning, I slowly pulled myself up off from the soft bed, my arms aching with the process. 

"Is she waking up?" someone whispered excitedly.

Ignoring the tiredness, I carefully opened my eyes at the voice who had just called out. The white paint hurt my already sore eyes but the want to see my best friend overpowered the torment.

Suddenly, firm hands pulled me back down again. I didn't need to look to know who it was, her cold hands giving me painful memories of forcefully drinking liquids and disgusting pills being shoved into my mouth.

"But Madame, she's our friend. I'm sure she'd like to talk with us rather than unwillingly being held captive here in this-"

"Out! Get out, all of you! You'll be able to talk to her in a few hours time after  she gets some sleep," Madame Pomfrey said whilst shooing the remaining students away.

With that statement, I could just about see a group of girls being pushed out of the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey shook her head in annoyance as she walked past the empty beds to the cupboards.

"Kids these days,  no respect for their elders," she muttered under her breath.

Holding back a smile, I closed my eyes once again as I enveloped myself into another dreamless sleep.

***

It had been three days since I had been let out of the infirmary. Three days of catching with my classwork and homework.

I took out my textbook, letting my eyes wander over the seventh book of the day. I could feel my body start to collapse from overusing it but I pushed on. In my opinion, I think it was the five foot essay given to us by Snape that really drained me. It was appalling to think that so much work was set upon the first years. Or maybe that was due to us still settling in. Either way, sometimes I feel like I would forget that Hogwarts was still a school, and not somewhere to relax.

Ginny nudged my arm. "Hey, I'm going to go up to my room. Call me if you need any of my notes," she said as she flung her arm over the banister of the staircase.

"Mhm," I replied.

I distincly heard her sigh before she trudged up towards our dormitory. I felt a little bad that I was ignoring her, but the work was starting to take a toll on me.  Maybe that was the reason why she was always going to her room. I wasn't spending enough time with her.  Was I not a good friend?

Shaking my head, I shifted my focus back onto the page before me. "To turn a mouse into a needle, you need to flick your wand upwards and slide it diagonally before saying..."

I yawned in tiredness. Maybe this could be left for tomorrow morning?

***

It had now been a full month since school had started. Surprisingly, everything concerning homework and learning had died down a bit from when I had first started. However, I had started to notice a bigger change in Ginny. She never seemed to talk to me or Donna as much, even resulting in other classmates asking me about it. But when we had approached Ginny, she just shook her head and walked away.

A chair scraped its way next to me at the Gryffindor table. "Hey," the raven-haired twins said simultaneously.

I arched my eyebrows. Over the last month, they had made no effort to converse with either me, Ginny or Donna. We had just learnt to ignore each other and get on with school. Why would they talk to me now?

"Hi," I replied back in a questioning manner.

The slightly taller one out of them, Rebecca, spoke out," How have you been?"

"Good."

"Cool. Anyway, we wanted to let you know that you need to meet us at six a.m at the Owlery."

"Why?" I questioned.

"It's Ginny.  Ever since your incident, she's become more and more suspicious. We've seen her sneaking out early morning, to who knows where, and coming back crying. Donna already knows. We're all confronting her there tonight."

"You two, out of everyone, should know I have talked to her about a hundred times already, with no response," I said.

Reyna rolled her eyes before replying, "Just trust us, this will work. Anyway, we think she's been getting things from someone. She always comes back with a strange parcel in her hands. If she's doing something, then we need to tell a teacher."

Contemplating over this, I hesitantly agreed. Maybe they were right. Anyhow, if she was innocent, we wouldn't tell anyone. Right?

"Sure, I'll be there. But this is only for cautionary purposes, right?" I asked.

The twins gave each other a fleeting smile before replying in unison, "Yes."

I nodded as they walked off back towards the Common Room. It wasn't that I didn't trust them, but it was hard to when they didn't make an effort to speak to you until now. 

I finished gulping down the rest of my dinner and started to head back to the Common Room.

***

"Right," Reyna whispered, "here's the plan. We wait for her to go to wherever she goes. Then, Donna will creep behind her and follow her until she reaches the dormitory. There, Rebecca and I will talk to her, see if she's nervous or anything. Briar, you'll be 'sleeping', so when she comes back into our dorm, keep an eye on her."

We were currently discussing our "battle plan" to find out what Ginny was hiding. It was quite early, so no one would be awake at this hour. Everything had been timed perfectly, it was just Ginny we were waiting for now.

Reyna and Rebecca conversed rapidly, while Donna and I stood awkwardly next to them in the girls' toilet that no one ever seemed to use. The twins' were the ones who had decided on the place, so Donna and I had only found out this morning that we were to be standing here in the dirty, messy cubicle, minus the smell.

Suddenly, a soft patter of noise could be heard from outside the bathroom. It echoed across the wooden floor, becoming clearer by every second.

"Guys, I think someone's coming," I said urgently.

We all looked at each other nervously. It wasn't really about if we would get caught, but more so about what we were doing in the bathroom.

The footsteps were now growing louder, and it seemed to belong to more than one person. An arm brushed my shoulder, wrenching me backward into the cubicle.

"You and Donna stay here, we'll be right back," Rebecca muttered into my ear.

I nodded my head fearfully in response. I watched alongside Donna as the twins crept along quietly to the door. Reyna slowly poked her head over the door...

"Who are you?" a voice blurted out.

I gasped in shock. I knew that voice. In fact, it was the voice of the brother of whom we'd been plotting against.

I cautiously opened the bathroom door, and what I saw made me open my mouth in shock. There stood Harry, Hermione and Ron, in front of us, but more importantly, in the girls' toilet.

"Briar?" Ron called out.