I may have sunk to a new low.

I had a sort of notion that there was a reason you weren't supposed to mix potions, but until I woke up this morning I really had no clue. It felt like a bludger had hit me in the head when I wasn't paying attention. Not just any bludger either, but one with
the Modicum of Safety charm removed- like the rogue that went after Potter second year.

I spent a while staring at the ceiling and hoping for some sort of end to it all- unconciousness, death, laudanum, something of that order- when I realized I really have no one to talk to. No one intelligent, at least- not on my level. Except, of course, for father, and he's far too busy working to waste time on idle chitchat. So I got out a quill and started writing, and here it is. My new conversation partner, who can truly understand me- myself. Well, a journal at any rate. Nothing truly secret, not like those diaries some of the girls in Slytherin used to keep (bloody boring reading,
those were)- more of a log of my latest thoughts. A way to get a sort of objective look at myself over time.

So, where ought I start?

Well. This summer has been... an eventful one, to be sure. I suppose before I attempt any real description of it I should sleep the effects of these potions off. Maybe I'll come to my senses, and decide this journal is a waste of my time.

Until morning, then.

I feel as though my head was jinxed full of nails.

I wonder if this is what Potter feels like when his scar hurts. I certainly hope he's got it as bad as this.

Vaguely considering owling a mediwizard. The mirror and the elves think I ought to, as I am looking very pale.

Still. I must prove to Father that I am not weak. Sod the mediwizard.

Well, I was going to relate my summer, but I hardly know when to start. The train, I suppose.

The train was different without Crabbe. Everything has been different without Crabbe. I've started avoiding Goyle. The two of them were like brothers. I don't know how to act, I don't know how to handle it. Don't know how to handle him or the way he's feeling. I'd never seen Goyle cry before, even when we were seven and he broke his leg.

There was a point during the last days of the term when I wouldn't let him have his wand except during exams, for fear of what he might do to himself with it. That, at least, I think he got past. On the train, he cried. That was what I was trying to say in the first place, trying to tell you about my summer. He cried all the way from the school to the station and I had to just sit and watch it. What do you do when something like that happens?

The first part of break I spent occupied with whatever Father assigned me to do, trying to figure out what to do without the pair of them.

You know what?

Forget about my summer. It doesn't matter.


I wonder how Goyle is?