Chapter 1

"Bella, are you ready?" I hate it when my father talks like that, it sounds like

he's half dead, not that he looks much better at the moment, or acts like it for

that matter.
"Yeah yeah, i'm ready.." I have been dreading this day, another

year in Hogwarts to somehow go wrong. I should try and take my mind off the bad

and think of the good. A new copy of The Daily Prophet lays on the small desk

that occupies my abnormally tiny room, I take the folded copy and read the front

page, 'Hogwarts declared safe?' Great, i'm thinking of the bad again. I try and

encourage myself that everything will be alright and look around to check if

i've forgotten anything. My trunk is packed, the room is tidy and the window

above my bed is closed, I think that is everything I had to remember.. Hmm, my

feet are cold, "oh, my shoes." I smack myself in the forehead and grab some

shoes out of my closet.
"Hurry up Bella, we'll miss the train." My father

said that rather calmly, odd how he can do that.
"Don't rush me, i'm coming."

I walk out of my room pulling along my trunk and hop down the hall into the

living room where I grab Milo. Milo is my cat, he can be vicious at times but he

means well, that was a bad lie. Milo's short brown hairs tickle my arm as I

carry him to the front door where my father is waiting for me, he also has his

things packed and ready.
"Ready for your fourth year?" My 'new' father, (as

you could call it) Severus Snape stands like a corpse in-front of me with a

slight smirk on his face. I've been living with him since the start of the

summer when my mother passed away. I never saw Snape before that time except at

school, I didn't even know he was my father until the ministry released my

mother's will, I don't think he knew either..
"Ready as i'll ever be, I

guess.." That wouldn't sound convincing to even the tone death. We apparated to

an ally-way in kings cross station, Snape bought the tickets for platform 9 and

3/4 yesterday so we wouldn't be late. He walks really fast, I mean wow, I have

to run to keep up with him.
"Can you slow down?"
I know what his response

will be so just to annoy him I think i'll mouth it with him, "can you speed up?

Oh ha-ha, very funny miss Bella." I hate it when he calls me that, he knows too

because he only says it when I get on his nerves.
"Anyway, if we weren't

walking so fast we wouldn't have reached the platform by now."
"That was

quick.." Snape disappears through the brick wall in-between the marked platforms

nine and ten, I follow after him to try and catch up but I find that he's

waiting on the other side for me anyways.
"I need to get on the right cabin,

I suppose you can find your own way?"
"Yes, I know where the Griffindor

cabin is." Snape hated that I was in Griffindor when he was in Slytherin,

apparently I was the first Griffindor in the family for over a thousand years, I

consider myself special in that way. Snape once said that he went to check with

the sorting hat to see if he had put me in the right house, apparently the

response was, 'it was a hard decision, especially because of her attitude.' I

don't believe that the sorting hat said that, Snape just says it to annoy me

further. I like being in Griffindor though, not only because of the people but

because when Snape hates something, I love that something.
"Then i'll see you

when we arrive." Snape walks off and vanished somewhere under the steam. I put

my trunk away and hop onto the Griffindor cabin. Nearly everyone stares at me

while I try and find a compartment to sit in, you would think they would be

polite about it too, but the follow me, twisting their heads while I walk down

the narrow walkway in-between the seats, I need to hurry up and find somewhere

to sit before I burst out in anger.
I'm starting to dread my fourth year

already..