Author's Note: *Ducks sharp objects thrown at head* I am SO sorry about the inexcusably long wait between updates! And yes, I realize this is a bit short, But I really wanted to get a chapter out before midterms killed my soul... But in my defense, even though I know you guys don't really care, life is CRAZY! Moving out and work and new school and life... Yeah I know I suck... But hey here you go! And on a bit of a positive note, I have now discovered the wonders of livejournal. So if you want to yell at me for my abysmal updating skills, like my ever-frustrated beta, that is the best place to do it! There's a link on my profile. I'd also like to give a huge thanks to all of you sticking with me through all my struggles; I will finish this I promise, so please don't give up on me! So enough of my ramblings... ON TO THE READING!

I fell asleep that night with Tom's ever-watchful eyes never leaving me. Well that's a bit of a lie; I never actually slept. How could I, knowing that thing was watching me?

I just closed my eyes and made my breathing even, hoping that he would go away once he thought I was no longer awake. I have no clue if I actually fooled him. Probably not. I never seemed able to properly keep anything from him.

But I tried, anyways. I stayed still as I heard the house elves deliver my Christmas presents and through the long hours till I saw the clock read 8 o'clock through my squinted eyes, only then feeling it a safe time to "wake up." You know that saying "she didn't feel safe in her own bed"? Well I never truly appreciated that statement until that night. I couldn't even hide under the covers.

Very few nights in my life have ever felt so long as the night after Tom showed himself to me for the first time. Seconds stretched to minutes and minutes to hours and hours to decades as my mind reeled in terror imagining all the things that Tom might do, unable to think of anything else or at least fall into the respite sleep would bring. Even nightmares would have been better than the hours of just thinking.

And remembering. I kept reliving over and over in my mind the feel of his hand running up my foot to my ankle then continuing to my shin. A sickened shiver still runs down my spine remembering the look on his face as he touched me. It was a horrific combination of joy and triumph and hunger. It was as if he was sucking out my soul through his fingertips and consuming it. Well… I guess that's a pretty apt description of what was happening, isn't it?

So when 8 in the morning rolled around I couldn't hold still any longer. Opening my eyes, I slowly sat up. Not looking at the end of the bed, I knew that he was gone; at least his somewhat physical presence wasn't there.

Without glancing at the presents that not even 24 hours ago seemed so important to me, I walked in a daze directly to the shower. I turned the water on painfully hot and stood under the steaming fall till my entire body was raw and red and the heat made me feel on the verge of passing out. I wanted the feel of him off me. I felt so dirty.

Dirty in a way no amount of hot water could ever wash clean.

Sooner than I thought possible the castle filled up again with students. Of course, time does tend to move rather quickly when you're walking through life as a zombie.

I had completely shut down. I refused to let myself feel all the fear and pain and uncertainty that the holidays brought. So I felt nothing.

Better to be numb than in pain.

The autopilot that my body went into never fully left me. I would eat, go to classes, do my homework, and sleep just as I should. Probably better than I had before, actually; I gained back a bit of the weight I lost due to all the meals I had skipped earlier in the year. But I wasn't really present for any of it.

Still my silent hell went unnoticed by the masses.

One notable exception was Professor Snape. The first Tuesday after the holidays saw me in my new bright purple jumper sitting front row in potions. Yeah, I know, probably the worst color ever when it comes to complimenting my complexion, but hey, at least my mum didn't make me a Gryffindor red one.

Without really knowing how I did it, by the end of the class period I had a nearly perfectly brewed potion sitting in front of me. I finished before the rest of my classmates, so for the rest of the double period I sat staring at the wall, listening to Tom's voice whispering in my head. I didn't notice a particularly intense gaze lingering on me.

When the class was finally over, I was jerked out of my reverie by the racket signaling that the other students were cleaning up preparing to leave. Slowly following suit, I was the last to exit.

"Miss Weasley," said a voice I would have loved to ignore as I walked past the lectern.

"Yes, Professor?" It shocked me for a moment how dead my voice sounded to my own ears. I couldn't even remember the last time I spoke aloud. Snape appeared a bit startled as well.

"Are you…" he seemed unable to find the right words, or at least unwilling to speak the ones he had, "are you quite all right?"

By the look on his face he was just as surprised to hear those words leave his mouth as I was. His expression quickly returned to neutral, but half a year in Slytherin wouldn't let me miss the slight widening of the eyes and the stiffening of the lips before he caught himself.

"Yes, Professor. I am… quite all right," I answered slowly, as if talking to someone mentally unstable. Of all the people I might confide in, Professor Snape didn't even make the list.

I would have been perfectly happy to end the conversation, the first I'd ever had with the greasy professor, there. I was even already planning to turn and walk out of the classroom, when suddenly I heard myself speaking again.

"Why do you ask, Professor?" my voice came out stronger and fiercer than I'd heard it in months.

"You just don't seem quite yourself," Snape said, trying for a note of finality.

"Was there something wrong with my homework, sir?" I found myself asking, gaining strength from his obvious wish to end the conversation he probably regretted starting. It wasn't seemly for the potions professor to show interest in any student, let alone a Weasley.

"No," was the professor's succinct reply.

"What about today's potion? Was it in some way inadequate?" I pressed.

"No."

"Well then, have I been disruptive to you or the learning of the other students?"

"No," he snapped, losing all patience he had with the direction of my questioning.

"Then, sir, I don't see how anything that may or may not be happening in my personal life would be any of your business."

He seemed about ready to explode in what I'm sure would have been quite an impressive telling off, most likely including quite a few detentions for my insolence, when I crossed my arms over my chest and brought my eyes up to match him glare for glare.

Suddenly, much to my surprise, his eyes widened in what appeared to be shock and he was momentarily struck dumb.

"Good day, Professor," I said. Using this moment to make my leave, I whipped around and exited the classroom before I could be called back. I spent the rest of the evening wondering what had come over me and what could have possibly lead Professor Snape to let me leave without punishment.

I didn't realize at the time that the answer to both questions was the same.

I wasn't the only student whose mood had only worsened over the holiday.

I thought our relationship was strained before, but Daphne came back to school in January with what could only be called a chip on her shoulder. I hadn't noticed till term resumed that the anger and intensity in her eyes had dimmed the more time she spent in the castle.

This came back full force, and, if possible, became more pronounced. When we were alone together in our dorm the hostility radiating off her was positively suffocating. So it should come as no surprise that I spent as much of my time out of her company as possible.

One particularly cold February night found me in an unused sixth floor classroom at midnight, far past the time I should have been back in the common room.

By then I was seeing Tom everywhere. He would walk me to classes and chat to me while I ate in the Great Hall. The first time he appeared to me in the middle of a crowd I nearly screamed out loud. In any case, I stopped dead in my tracks, causing a fifth year Ravenclaw to run into me from behind and give me a withering look. But strangely, no one seemed to notice him standing there smirking at me. A few seconds later a third year Hufflepuff walked right through him and I understood. He was only real to me.

He was my own personal walking nightmare.

I was barely able to take a single note in Charms, too busy trying to drown out the sound of his voice whispering in my ear. But soon I became adept at giving no outward sign that anything strange was happening. In fact, most of the time my brain had absolutely nothing to do with what my body did. I would follow Tom's instructions without a thought and later be unable to say how it happened.

But that night I was alone. Well, as alone as I ever was that year.

"So, Ginny, that was an interesting potion today, wasn't it?" he crooned sweetly, evilly, as he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Please, Tom, just go away! Leave me alone, please…" I wrote in response, refusing to acknowledge that he no longer needed the diary to communicate.

"Silly girl! Aren't you tired of this little game yet?" his smirk widened. He seemed to truly enjoy my stubbornness.

"You don't need me anymore! Aren't you bored of me yet? I'm nothing special. I'm sure you could find someone much more interesting to be with," I frantically pleaded.

"Nice try, Ginny!" his eyes suddenly darkened, "You know I cannot yet truly live separately from you." The maliciousness intensified as his eyes bored into me and his smirk returned, "and you also know very well that I won't be able to until I have consumed every drop of your dark little soul."

The sound of his cruel laughter was what finally made me break down in tears.

Even with my extensive knowledge of secret passageways, the trip back to the common room took me more than twice as long as it should have because several times I had to take a quick detour to avoid Filch or a prefect doing their rounds.

The common room was completely empty when I crept in at nearly 1:30 in the morning. I tiptoed up to my room and when I got there I did that doorknob trick to make as little noise as possible. Two steps into the room and all of a sudden I was faced with a lighted wand about an inch from my nose.

"What the—" I exclaimed, falling backwards a step and knocking into a nightstand in the process. It took a couple moments for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. When they did I was face to face with an obviously livid Daphne Greengrass. "Can you get that out of my face?" I whispered as furiously as a whisper can be. She lowered it about a centimeter. At least it wasn't completely blinding anymore.

"Where have you been?" she spat back.

"Oh, were you waiting up for me, Greengrass? I'm touched, really I am," I brushed her wand aside as I walked around her to set my book bag on my bed.

"Oh, you think you're special, do you?" she sneered as I turned back to look at her. "You think that just because you're precious Ginny Weasley that you don't have to follow the rules like the rest of us?"

"Leave it alone, Greengrass," I deadpanned, brushing by her shoulder as I crossed the room to the lavatory. I busied myself finding my toothbrush, pretending not to notice that Daphne had followed me and was standing, staring at me, in the doorway.

"Too good to listen to me, too, are you?" She pitched her voice higher in what was clearly supposed to be a mockery of me, "Oh, I'm baby Weasley! I'm so perfect and special! I don't know how I could possibly have been sorted Slytherin. Boo-hoo! And now my whole family, my lovely Gryffind—"

"Don't talk about my family," I whipped around to face her, unused toothpaste clinging dangerously to the end of my toothbrush. "Don't you dare talk to me as if you know anything about me or my family. Don't stand there telling me how I feel," I fumed. I was seeing red. I wanted to claw her perfect blue eyes out.

"Hit a bit of a sore spot, did I?" she smirked and leaned over to rest one shoulder gracefully against the doorframe. "Does Baby Weasley have family issues? Is she so sad that the rest of the ginger clan just can't understand her? You are just so misunderstood, the little black sheep" she scoffed, that damnable smirk still begging me to slap it off her mean little face. Her eyes darkened suddenly, her expression morphing from amused and condescending to bitter and angry without any physical shift in feature. "Like you know anything about real family issues."

"You don't think I've lost anything?" I shouted back, finally forgetting the time and that I should stay quiet. My ire had hit its breaking point and with every word I spoke, my self-control slipped away a little bit more, "You haven't a clue what I'm dealing with. Not only do I have to put up with you, which, let me tell you, is quite enough of a bother for anyone's life, but most of my brothers wont even look at me! And my parents can hardly even get through a letter without blatantly telling me how much of a disappointment I am. Even with all that, getting sorted Slytherin is the least of my problems! You have absolutely no idea what it's like to ha—" I snapped my mouth shut hard enough to make my jaw hurt. I couldn't believe how close I came to slipping up.

"You really don't want to play the 'who's life sucks worse' game with me," Daphne's voice came out soft and intense.

"Oh, really, and why's that?" I spat, annoyed that she seemed to have lost steam in the argument.

"Because," she seemed almost wistful now, "I will always win."

And she shut the bathroom door in my face.