A/N: So, fair warning I wrote this as a junior in high school, which was about seven years ago now. I can't help but cringe when I read this, but since I decided to write and post a fanfiction for Black Butler my family has been endlessly bothering me to post this too.
Updates will be once a week since I already have the whole fourth year written. And since I saw this a lot with OC characters in Harry Potter fanfics, I'll let everyone know that this character is NOT a Mary Sue. Other than Draco the characters will be with the person they're supposed to be with.
Hogwarts Express
I, Bella Hawthorne, sat quietly in the train compartment. My parents and I had arrived at platform 9 ¾ rather early. My future fiancé, Draco Malfoy, was unaware that I was now attending Hogwarts. Narcissa Malfoy, his mother wanted it to be a surprise for him.
Draco and I had been engaged almost since the day we were born. Narcissa Malfoy and Eleanor Hawthorne, my mother, are the best of friends. Both are ladies of high society, purebloods, and both have husbands with important positions. When the two got pregnant around the same time, they spoke of how exciting it would be if one of them had a boy and the other had a girl. They were quite pleased when this occurred, and they have been planning the wedding ever since.
It's lucky that neither Draco nor I consider marrying each other to be an unpleasant prospect. The two of us grew up together. Our parents threw us together whenever they possibly could. When I was eleven my family moved to France, my mother's home country. My mother wished for me to attend Beauxbatons Academy of Magic as she did, so that I could become a 'proper' lady. I am not a 'proper' lady in any sense of the word. I despised the school and everyone in it. The school and its inhabitants returned the sentiment. During those three years of hell, Draco and I regularly exchanged letters by owl.
After much prodding (with a bit of help from Narcissa and Lucius, who both adore me) I was able to convince my parents to let me attend Hogwarts instead. After all, how could they keep me away from my precious (I'm being sarcastic here) future fiancé? It also helped that my father attended Hogwarts during his schooling years.
There are a couple of reasons why I wanted to attend Hogwarts. One is that I believe I'll receive a better education at Hogwarts than I was getting at Beauxbatons (Beauxbatons taught magic, of course, but also focused heavily on manners and proper behavior for any given situation). Two is that I believe that I'll like my classmates more at Hogwarts. Third is that I would get to be with Draco and Blaise Zabini (one of my best friends). And the fourth reason is the most important one of all, a personal mission of mine, the result of which meant everything to me. Hopefully, I would succeed.
I looked up as the door to my compartment was opened, tearing me away from my thoughts. A girl with frizzy brown hair and two boys standing behind her looked in and asked, "May we sit here? Most of the compartments are already full."
"All right," I replied. I probably should have been looking for Draco, but it would be nice to make a few friends before actually arriving at the school.
"My name is Hermione Granger," the girl with frizzy brown hair said, sticking out her hand.
"Bella Hawthorne," I replied, shaking her outstretched hand.
Hermione sat next to me while the two boys who had been behind her sat down across from us. "I'm Ron Weasley," the first boy, who had red hair said.
"And I'm Harry Potter," the second boy said. My eyes widened a bit. Well, well, well, if it wasn't 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' himself. He was also, based on Draco's letter, the bane of my future fiancé's existence.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all," I said with a slight smile on my face.
"I don't think I've seen you around before," Potter said. "What house are you in?"
"Actually, I'm just transferring to Hogwarts," I told them. "I was previously attending a wizarding school in France, but my family decided to move back to England, which is where we lived until I started school."
"That's strange," Weasley said. "I've never heard of anyone transferring into Hogwarts before."
Truth be told, I was rather surprised myself, but my father did have quite a bit of power and influence. "The Headmaster decided to make an exception for me, I suppose."
"Well, the three of us are in Gryffindor," Potter told me. "Our house is for the courageous of heart," he said with a slightly embarrassed smile. I was guessing that the embarrassment was from telling a pretty girl he was courageous.
"Gryffindor is the best house at Hogwarts!" Weasley testified.
I was fairly certain Draco's family would not approve of my current company, but that really wasn't my concern. Perhaps one of these three could answer a question that was very important to me. "Do any of you happen to know if the muggle studies class is very accurate?" My three companions looked at me oddly. "I have a dear friend who is a muggle, and I'm from a pureblood family," I began to clarify for them. "I don't have the faintest idea what common household items are, and it looks rather odd to my friend and her family. The other day she asked me to turn on the oven, and I didn't have the faintest idea what an oven was, let alone how to turn one on. Lucky for me, I come from a wealthy family, so she just assumes that I'm spoiled rotten at home. It's a bit of a problem."
Granger chuckled a little at my plight. "I'm muggle-born and in muggle studies," she told me. "The teacher is fairly accurate sometimes, but other times she is a long way off. If we have the class together I can help you separate what is real and what the wizarding world has merely assumed."
"Thanks," I said, smiling at her. I know, I know, you are in disbelief that someone from a family that is friends with the Malfoys could possibly have a muggle friend, but my choices are my own and I don't care what anyone says. I do share many characteristics with other purebloods, but I never really understood the whole prejudice thing. My parents, who are not exactly fond of muggles or muggle-borns, weren't thrilled at my being friends with a muggle. However, my parents consider prejudices to be a weakness and a disadvantage. They did not want to pass their prejudice on to me, so I got to keep my muggle friend, though it's not something that my parents share with their pureblood companions.
"What other classes are you interested in?" Granger asked me.
"Oh, arithmancy, ancient runes, and potions I suppose." Hermione's eyes lit up when I mentioned arithmancy and ancient runes and we spent the next hour discussing them and various other scholastic topics.
Hermione's two friends spent the time talking about the quidditch world cup. Since tickets were on sale while my family was moving from France to England, we had been too busy to get tickets. I was jealous of those who had been able to go, and didn't particularly wish to discuss it. I was sure I would hear all about it from Draco, who had gone with his parents. Luckily, Granger had little interest in talking about quidditch.
I was thrilled to learn that Granger was as much of an intellectual as I was. It seemed like she and I could be very good friends. Of course, my brains may be a bit of a problem soon. I was worried that I would get sorted into the house of Ravenclaw rather than Slytherin. That would make my personal mission a bit harder. Speaking of missions, it was about time I went to find Draco.
When there was a break in the conversation I stood up and said, "I'm going to go change into my school robes." Hopefully, Draco would be on my way to the changing room. Otherwise, I might have to search the whole train for him.
On my way to the changing room there was a group of students standing in my way. One of them was tall and had white-blond hair. Looks like I got lucky. The other people around him were likely to be lackeys. Draco was the type of guy who would have lackeys.
Since Draco's back was to me I walked quietly, so he wouldn't hear me coming. Blaise was the only one who saw me approaching and he smiled when he saw me. He wasn't shocked to see me as I'd told him I was going to try to convince my parents to let me come to Hogwarts. I'd also told him not to tell Draco. I put my finger over my lips and Blaise looked away from me so he wouldn't draw any attention to me.
As I came up to Draco I put my hands over his eyes and whispered in his ear, "Guess who." Draco froze. He probably knew it was me, but couldn't believe it. After all, he thought I was in France.
I removed my hands from his eyes and asked, "Miss me?" as Draco craned his neck to look at me.
"My mother told me I'd be getting a surprise this year, but I certainly didn't expect for you to be the surprise," Draco stated before turning around hugging me.
"This was better than anything you imagined, wasn't it?" I said before hugging him back. Though Draco had his faults, I did care for him dearly (though I didn't always show it) and I was glad to be near him again. It was then that I noticed a pug faced girl glaring at me. I vaguely wondered with amusement if she had a crush on Draco. I had known Draco my entire life, and not to sound obnoxious, but she didn't stand a chance against me. I was intelligent, clever, had a vivacious personality, and was slightly malicious and eccentric. And it certainly didn't hurt that I am positively gorgeous. I have soft, dark, curly hair that goes halfway down my shoulder blades, a great body, perfect skin, and bright green eyes that practically glow. I have met few girls that match me in the looks department.
"Please," Draco said, smirking, "I may have been the one who got the surprise, but you're the one who has the privilege of going to school with me." Typical Draco. "You look great." Draco looked at me admiringly. I supposed he had yet to see me with my new womanly figure yet.
"You too. It appears both of us have grown up a bit in the past three years." Draco had always been a cute kid but he was very attractive now that he was older.
After hugging Draco I moved on to hug Blaise while the rest of the little group looked on in curiosity. "It's great to see you again," I told Blaise.
"You too," he said. I'm an only child and I'd always sort of viewed Blaise as my brother. Growing up he had often played with Draco and me.
After that exchange came the introductions. The pug faced girl was named Pansy Parkinson. The other three people in the group were Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Adrian Pucey. I had met the three boys before when I was quite young, though I hadn't recognized them. I'd shoved both tweedle-dum and tweedle-dummer into a river, and I'd pushed Adrian down a well. I thought it was amusing, their parents, however, no longer visited anywhere my parents were with their sons after that if I happened to be with them. Imagine that.
"Well, I'm off to change into my school robes. I'll see you soon, Dray. Bye Blaise." I walked through the rest of the group and on to the changing room.
When I got out from changing into my school robes, Adrian Pucey was standing there. He looked smarmy to me. "Well Bella, seeing as you're just coming to this school, it looks like you'll need someone to show you around." Apparently he did not remember the well incident. That could have something to do with the concussion it gave him.
"No thanks," I told him with a strained smile. "I think I can manage on my own."
"Oh come on," he prodded. "It's a big school, and it's easy to get lost. We would hate for that to happen, wouldn't we?" Adrian was standing so I couldn't get past him. Not without forcefully removing him, anyway. He was beginning to get on my nerves. Seeing and talking to him here was bad enough, I was hardly going to allow him to show me around the school. It'd be nice if I could just say that I belonged with Draco, but can you imagine being fourteen and telling your classmates you're already engaged? That was something that definitely was not going to happen.
Just when I was about to tell Adrian exactly where he could put his idea, two tall boys who looked similar to Ron Weasley and were obviously twins came up behind Adrian and asked, "Is this boy bothering you, miss?"
I smiled at them and answered, "Why yes, he is."
One of them put something down the back of Adrian's robes. Within three seconds whatever it was exploded. Adrian shrieked and ran off, cursing the twins. Into pranks, were they? I'd been known to dabble in such things myself.
"Nothing like saving damsels in distress and pranking Slytherins to start off a new school year," one of the twins said cheerfully.
The other twin grabbed my hand and jokingly bowed low over it. "Might we have the pleasure of knowing the damsel's name?" he asked teasingly.
I smiled and said, "The damsel's name is Bella Hawthorne. Do her two white knights have names?"
"Fred and George Weasley at your service," the twin who had put the exploding object in Adrian's cloak said with a flourish of his arms. So they were related to Ron. "I'm Fred and he's George. We haven't seen you around before. What house are you in?"
"I'm new actually. This will be my first year at Hogwarts, and my fourth year in school."
"Well then, best of luck in the sorting process," the two said at the same time. Talking in synchronization, now that was talent.
"Thanks for the help. See you around." I gave the twins a little wave as I walked back towards my compartment.
"That took a little while," Granger commented when I returned. "Did you get lost?"
I replied, "No. I ran into Weasley's older brothers. Nice blokes."
"Yeah," Weasley said, "until they decide to prank you."
"Well, what's life without a few laughs?" I asked, holding my arms out to the side and shrugging my shoulders.
The rest of the train ride was filled with Weasley and Potter discussing quidditch, with my occasional input, and Hermione telling me all there was to know about Hogwarts. I was warned that someone to stay away from at all costs was Draco Malfoy. That was a little awkward and a bit amusing. I wasn't quite sure how to tell them that that would be an impossibility without alienating Hermione. This I had no desire to do. It was hard for me to make friends with girls for some reason (they tended to be jealous of my looks, and have the odd belief that I would try and steal their boyfriends), and I was really hoping to be good friends with Hermione.