Chapter Eleven
The next day, Bella awoke in her bed of the Gryffindor girls' dormitory - sadly, alone. Her night was restless, for she was unable to keep her dark dreams of Victoria returning to find her and loved ones, away because she didn't have the comfort of Edward's cold, hard arms around her while she slept. Damn school rules, Bella thought angrily to herself as she got out of her bed to get ready for her first day of classes. She was upset that the school rules said that male students couldn't go up into girls' dormitories once it was curfew, so Edward couldn't sneak up to comfort Bella through her sleep last night at all.
Sighing, Bella got dressed in her school robes, noticing that these were new because they had the Gryffindor crest adorned on her robes. She gathered her things and headed down to the Gryffindor common room, to see Edward - along with other students - waiting around in the room of the early morning. Edward looked up when he felt Bella's stare on him, and smiled crookedly over at her.
"Morning, Bella." Edward greeted her when she came over and sat down beside him, shifting so he could kiss her warm blushing cheek. "Hi." was all Bella mumbled back. "So, how did you sleep last night?" Edward asked her, wrapping his cold arm around her waist. "Horribly." Bella groaned, snuggling herself closer into Edward's side. "I couldn't stop the nightmares that I had last night." Bella told him, nuzzling her face into his shoulder.
"Do you want to tell me about them?" Edward asked softly, stroking Bella's hair. "Victoria." Bella simply stated, where she felt Edward stiffen. "She was hurting you and your family in my nightmare, and there was nothing that I could do." Bella continued, frowning. "Well, you don't have to worry about that nightmare coming true, Bella, love. I can assure you that Victoria is not going to get anywhere near hurting any of us before we can kill her." Edward explained quietly, embracing Bella fully into his arms and kissing her lips briefly.
"We better drop the subject because Tyler and Mike are coming downstairs." Edward whispered to her, scowling with his golden eyes staring up at the stares. "I still take it that you don't like them at all?" Bella asked him rhetorically, giggling. Edward though minutely nodded, just before he saw the two buffoons walking down the winding staircase from the Boys' dormitories. They spotted Edward and Bella on the couch, and being the courageous idiots that they were, they made their way over to them.
"Hey, Bella." Mike greeted her first, smiling. She waved at him, giving him a fake friendly smile that he didn't see as a pseudo smile. "Edward." Tyler greeted him, coughing awkwardly; Edward bobbed his head in acknowledgement and pressed Bella closer into his side. "Edward, Bella!" Hermione's call alerted for Bella and Edward to look up to see her, along with Harry and Ron, walking towards them as well.
"Hey guys." Bella greeted them, now smiling a real grin at her friends. "Hermione, Harry, Ron, these are two of my friends - Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley." Bella introduced her three magical friends to two of her human - or at least supposedly human - friends. Harry nodded over to them, briefly remembering about how Bella told them all about her human friends from Forks.
"Hi; Bella's told us all about you and her other friends." Ron said, inaudibly snickering when he remembered how badly these two usually flirted with Bella when they first met her. "Really?" Mike asked, sounding surprised. "Yep." was all Harry said, nodding his head while he too held back his snickers.
"Well, we better be heading off down to the dining hall before classes." Hermione stated, grabbing Harry's and Ron's wrists and began dragging them off to the door of the common room. Edward and Bella also stood up, but before Bella could take her first step in walking, she was swept up into Edward's arms in quick human speeds and was on his back where he began walking. "Hey! I can walk perfectly fine, you know." Bella protested, pouting at Edward.
"One: not in a straight line, you can. And two: I had to show those two that you are still my girlfriend - and of course, my secret fiancée." Edward explained, chuckling. That shut Bella up then, blushing her natural shade of red.
Once in the dining hall and seated, the five began eating their breakfast - Edward passed for since last night he had his daily dose of blood as he so well put it. (Thankfully, none of the other students heard that so Edward didn't have to worry about accidently revealing his kind's secret.) While Ron, Hermione, Harry and Bella ate their food, Jacob came over from the Hufflepuff table with Cedric following beside him. "Hey." Jacob greeted them, sitting down on the other side of Bella while Cedric stood from behind Jacob's right.
"Hi." Ron greeted them around a mouthful of food, waving with his fork, to which caused Edward and Cedric to simultaneously chuckle. "You two are seriously almost like twins." Bella looked up from when she heard Alice's voice, and there she saw her standing behind Edward with Jasper at her side. "Oh, hi Alice, Jasper." Bella greeted them, smiling and also waving - though not with a fork like Ron had. "How can any of you eat that ghastly food?" Jasper asked, his face scrunched together in disgust.
"We're humans; we need something to eat unlike you vampires." Cedric commented quite quietly, smirking. "What does human food taste like to you and your family?" Hermione asked Alice. "Like dirt." Edward stated, snickering while Bella giggled from remembrance of when she had dared Edward to eat a bit of her pizza when they first met each other.
Abruptly, the same tight lipped witch from last night was coming by, her hands full of parchment. She handed the group their schedules, with Hermione thanking her; "Thank you, Professor McGonagall." "So, shall we compare our schedules?" Jacob asked, smirking while he looked at his parchment schedule. "Oh no." Bella moaned, pouting. "What is it, love?" Edward asked her. "We don't really have the same schedule. We don't have two classes or so together. And I was hoping that I could be there with you in all of your classes; ugh, this is just like Forks High School before we left." Bella explained to him in misery, pouting.
The group laughed at Bella's complaining, whereas Edward merely smirked. "And I thought you weren't the clingy, complaining type." Edward told her, tapping her nose with his index finger. "I'm not; I just don't like being away for you, and we'll have to for this school year." Bella grumbled, holding onto Edward's arm tightly. "Only for two classes, Bella." Alice pointed out, rolling her eyes. "Still..." Bella trailed off, sighing dejectedly.
"Wow, we feel so loved." Ron joked, rolling his eyes at Bella's dramatic acts. "I'm not unhappy that I'll at least be with people that I know; I just wish Edward would be with us too." Bella defended herself, sticking her tongue out childishly at Ron. Before the conversation could go any farther, a loud bell began booming off in the distance, and the breakfast food on their golden plates disappeared. "Time to go to classes!" Alice chirped cheerily, standing up and skipping off with Jasper, and the others following behind.
Edward quickly kissed Bella's lips, before he along with Hermione walked off to one of their classes, while Bella walked alongside with Ron, Harry, and Alice and Jasper. "So, what's the class we're all going to?" Bella asked them. "Since we're all together like this, I guess we're heading up to the North Tower; that's where Divination is." Ron told her, groaning to himself.
"What's so bad about Divination?" Bella asked him, her eyebrows furrowing. "The teacher." Harry answered, shaking his head. "Just wait and see, Bella." Alice told her, smirking to herself. The group walked across campus, and finally made their way up one large winding staircase before they entered through a door, being greeted by a strong smell of incense and a gust of smoke.
"Welcome, children." an airy, raspy voice greeted the students - some were from Gryffindor, while most of them were from Ravenclaw. "Come on, let's go find some seats." Alice murmured to the group, already making her way over to a table that had two small chairs and glass ball waiting, along with other tables and chairs waiting for other students. Jasper followed after her naturally, and while Harry and Ron got a table together, Bella walked over to a table on her own, staring at the glass ball questioningly after she plopped herself quickly in one of the small chairs.
"You'll strain your eyes if you keep staring at it like that, Bella." Bella jumped and looked up to see who said that, to see none other than Angela Weber, looking positively smart in her Ravenclaw school robes while carrying her books. "Oh, hey Angela." Bella greeted her, smirking from her joking. Angela nodded and sat down beside Bella, getting situated. "So, I have a ton of questions." Bella began, pointing an accusing finger at Angela.
"I'll answer any of them, as long as I get to ask some back." Angela compromised, also pointing an accusing finger at Bella. "Alright. So, first off, what are you and the others doing here?" Bella asked her, sitting back with her hands resting in her lap. "Well, after you and Edward had mysteriously disappeared from school, along with Alice, a few days or so I had received a peculiar in my mail while I was still finishing up some of the invitations to graduation. I read the letter, and it said something about how I was accepted into this school called Hogwarts, and that I had a few more months to get all of my school supplies together before coming here to England in attending this school.
"I told the others about my letter, and the really odd thing was that they all had gotten the same letter like mine too. Mike and Eric thought that this was just some little prank someone was pulling on us, while Tyler and Jessica were all for giving this a chance. Lauren and I were both stuck of how to handle this situation, and in the end, we all decided to leave Forks behind us and head off to England. We received more letters of how to get to this one place called Diagon Alley, and let me tell you; we were all freaked out when we entered it. And, everything about Diagon Alley was so foreign to us. Getting our wizardry money, our wands, our books, our cauldrons, our wizards or witch hats, our pets, our school robes, our brooms - you wouldn't believe how confused yet excited we were when we got all of this.
"Getting onto the train was rather weird too. Entering through a portal pillar? Well, I guess that's magic for you. When we had gotten to the Hogwarts Express, I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing! A bright cherry red train that was filling up quickly with other "students" while saying goodbye to their parents and everything! What really surprised me was that I had spotted you, Jacob Black - your friend from La Push - and all of the Cullens entering the very train just before we got there. I mean I was pretty suspicious of why you and the Cullens and Jacob were here in England like us, but I couldn't question you at all - even during our sorting.
"So, yeah; that's how and why we're here." Angela finished explaining nonchalantly. "How did Ben take all of this?" Bella asked her, whereas she dumbly began her assignment with Angela; both of them didn't want to look like they were slacking off on the first day. "I couldn't tell him the truth of why I was leaving, so I had to lie to him. But, I'm planning of telling him the truth sometime in the near future - though I don't know if I can without being kicked out of this school so early." Angela explained, sighing sadly.
"What about the others? Did they already tell their families of where they went?" Bella asked her. "Not that I know of; I'll have to ask them about it. Now, that's three questions, Miss Bella. That means I get to ask you three questions as well." Angela pointed out, giggling. "Fine; shoot away." Bella said, smirking. "Okay, first off; why did you and Edward come here and didn't tell me about it?" Angela asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Damn; I was hoping she wouldn't ask that. Bella thought to herself, mentally sighing.
"Well, we came here because we just wanted to. Edward thought that it was high time for me to stop being so cooped up in Forks, and so, before graduation, he told me that it would be a nice idea for just the two of us to head here to England before we would graduate. I couldn't tell you about it because we sort of left immediately." Bella told her. "Okay; seems reasonable enough. Now, how did Edward's siblings know that you were here?" Angela asked next.
"Edward must've called them and told them that we were here in England. Alice probably got excited, and she was able to convince the others to come along with her to England so they could come an find us." Bella explained, shrugging her shoulders. "Wow. Well, it does seem like an Alice thing to do. Alright, now, did Edward give you that gorgeous ring?" Angela asked, staring down at the secret engagement ring Edward gave to Bella, in admiration.
"Oh, um... yes, he did. It was his grandmother's old ring, and before he moved into the Cullen family, he was able to get his grandmother's ring from his mum because she had told him that if he were to ever find the perfect girl for him, that he should give her the ring for safe keeping because he would know to trust her with it." Bella lied, though Angela didn't seem to notice.
"Aw! That is so sweet and romantic of him!" Angela gushed, clasping her hands together while she fluttered her eyelashes over at Bella, giggling. "It is; Edward really is a romantic boyfriend, and I absolutely love him. Though, he thinks that he's no good for me." Bella told her, rolling her eyes. Abruptly, before the girls' conversation could continue, the school bell began ringing off in the distance.
"Oh great. I guess since we were too busy with our conversation, I didn't hear what the homework was." Angela grumbled, smacking her forehead with her hand. "Don't worry; you can probably ask Alice or Jasper for help on it. I'll ask either Edward or Hermione about it." Bella told her, smiling while they got up and gathered their stuff together. "So, what was that last question, Angela?" Bella asked while they left the classroom.
"Oh; what's your next class?" Angela asked her, giggling. "Um, Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. What about you?" Bella asked her. "Potions... with Professor Snape." Angela told her, shrugging after she looked away from her schedule. "Oh, too bad; I wanted to catch up with you some more." Bella thought sadly, pouting. "We'll be able to catch up later, Bella. See ya!" Angela yelled to Bella once she began running off to her next class.
Bella waved goodbye to her friend, and then she too hurried off to her next class, being one of the last few ones to enter. She looked through the heads of the class, and she smiled when she saw a familiar bronze colored head sitting off near the back of the class with one seat empty. Feeling her stare, the bronze head turned away and there, Edward smiled over at Bella.
Bella stumbled her way over and sat next to Edward, smiling; she however noticed a certain dark curly haired head slump away and when she saw that it was Jessica, wearing her Hufflepuff house uniform, Bella frowned. "Don't worry about Jessica, love. I would rather much sit next to my fiancée than someone who can barely stop talking." Edward whispered gently to his Bella, patting her knee in comfort.
When the bell rang out, the students in the classroom looked to see if they could find Professor McGonagall anywhere in the room, but no one could. Besides the students sitting at their tables with a partner beside them, only a tabby cat was sitting on the desk in front of the room. The cat licked its paw, and with a turn of its head, the cat jumped off from the desk, where it transformed and molded from a cat to Professor McGonagall, laden in velvety dress robes and her witch's hat on her brunette bun tied hair.
Some of the students jumped back from surprise, and some of the students clapped; one of them from the class was Jacob who was sitting beside Cedric. "Welcome to Transfiguration class. I'm Professor McGonagall, and what you have just saw was an example of Transfiguration. Now, Transfiguration is not something you can just do on the first try. It is a difficult form of magic, and very few wizards or witches have been able to perform such a task. The idea is to concentrate on a certain animal that you might like, or one animal that may suite your personality. Just use that simple method, and eventually, maybe some of you will be able to get the gist of it. I'll let all of you concentrate for a bit, and just go with your instincts." Professor McGonagall instructed the class.
The class period went on, with only Jacob able to easily transform himself into his werewolf self. Edward was able to get as far as getting his face to look like a mountain lion, but he wasn't able to fully transform himself into it. Other than that, the other students had failed miserably at the task. When they bell rung out, they class got up and began walking towards their next class.
"So, what do you have next?" Bella asked Edward who was walking beside her. "Care for Magical Creatures class. You?" Edward asked, looking down at her while his hand wound around Bella's waist. "The same." Bella stated happily, throwing her arms around Edward's waist as well. Chuckling, Edward and Bella walked off to their class which took outside to Hagrid's hut.
"Hey mates." Ron greeted Bella and Edward when they got to Hagrid's hut, Harry and Hermione beside him. "Hi. So, what do we do in this class?" Bella asked the trio, not leaning away from Edward. "Mostly take care of creatures of Hagrid's." Hermione informed her.
"'Ello, class!" came the booming voice of Hagrid, causing all of the students to look over at Hagrid. "'Ell, today, I got me-self a nice lesson for all of yeh. Now, 'ollow me all of yeh; don't get lost in this forest." Hagrid ordered after all of the students gathered together before they all began following after the giant man. Through the walk in the woods, Bella kept stumbling on her own feet, causing the Slytherins - besides Rosalie - to snicker at Bella's clumsiness. So, the rest of the way, Edward had Bella on his back for a piggy back ride, and Bella contently, yet childishly, stuck out her tongue at the Slytherins who sneered at her.
Eventually, the group came to a stop in the middle of a clearing, with no sunlight peaking through from the trees. "It's pretty sticky up here, so yeh can take off your robes if yeh get to hot." Hagrid instructed them before he walked off into the trees. Most of the students took to Hagrid's words and took off their robes to set them on the ground with their school stuff.
"I wonder why Hagrid went off into the trees like that." Harry wondered out loud to the small circle consisting of Ron, Hermione, Edward, Bella, Neville - another Gryffindor and a close friend of theirs - and himself. "Who knows? I just really wonder what he'll have us do for class." Edward muttered, minutely bending down to kiss Bella's hair while she was in his embrace.
"Whatever it will be, that girl of yours won't be able to handle it if she's bumbling around like Longbottom." a snide familiar voice crept in, to which Edward snarled at. "Shut it, Malfoy." Ron growled at the blond Slytherin - the same boy that they ran into from the Quidditch World Cup. "Why should I, Weasley?" Draco Malfoy taunted back. "Going to sick your little -" Malfoy was cut off from exposing Edward's and his family's secret when a cool, chilling voice cut in next. "You really shouldn't mess with my friends, you sick little pest. Now, shut that trap of yours before I seal it shut, permanently." the honey smooth voice of Rosalie growled out through the air. Students who were surrounding Malfoy moved out of the way, for the terrifyingly beautiful Rosalie to make her way through the crowd of the students and to glare menacingly down at the blond haired weasel.
She glared at Malfoy from the corner of her eye, sending him cowering off to the side, before she smirked and strutted her way over to her brother and his fiancée. "Why in the bloody hell are you sticking up for the little Gryffindors, Rosalie? They're just stuck up little - " Malfoy was cut off when Rosalie snapped her furious gaze over her shoulder and at him. He flinched, especially cringing backwards from her icy tone.
"These two Gryffindors happen to be a brother of mine, and his girlfriend. Plus, the others are my friends as well. So, heed my warning, you filthy little pest!" she spat, turning her head furiously back to the others. Before the argument could be taken any further, Hagrid came towards the group, a creature that had the head, wings and forelegs of an majestic eagle, while it had the body and hind legs of a strong horse.
"What is that?" Bella asked out loud, staring up at the creature with a confused expression. "That is a Hippogriff." Hermione told her quickly. "This 'ere is Buckbeak Jr. He's a really tamed thing, he is. Now, who would like to see if they can try to be friendlay with Bucky Jr.?" Hagrid asked from the group, looking at them. Some shuffled away and coughed awkwardly.
"Let Bella Swan give it a try!" Malfoy suddenly shouted, snickering over at the human girl. "What?!" Bella cried. The other Slytherins laughed at Bella's panic, but cheered along with Malfoy in getting Bella up there. "Alright then; come on, Bella er, Swan is it?" Hagrid asked. Bella, blushing, nodded and broke away from Edward's refusing hold, until Rosalie held him back from keeping Bella there.
Bella timidly stood next to Hagrid, staring at the Hippogriff in fear. "Now, yeh need to look Bucky in thee eye, and keep looking at him while yeh bow low to the ground. And, if Bucky should bow back at yeh, then you can come up and pet him; sounds easy enough?" he asked her, who nodded from the information. Hagrid then stepped back for Bella.
Bella gulped slowly, her hands trembling at her sides. "You can do, Bella!" Rosalie yelled to her encouragingly, ignoring the snickers of her housemates. Bella nodded minutely, not straying her eye contact with Buckbeak Jr. She curtsied low near to the ground, her eyes still looking up at Buckbeak Jr.
The Hippogriff titled its large grey head to the side in confusion, before it slowly bowed back to Bella. "Excellent. Now, approach him slowly and cautiously." Hagrid instructed over to a smiling Bella. She slowly rose upwards, keeping eye contact on Buckbeak Jr., and began taking slow, tentative steps towards the large beast. She raised her hand to the creature, and with its head bowed down for her, Bella petted the head of the Hippogriff softly.
"Excellent!" Hagrid announced happily while the Gryffindors clapped for Bella's bravery of approaching the Hippogriff. "Now, who would like to go next?" Hagrid asked the group. Bella stepped back some, and smiled over at her vampire. But, instead of receiving a smile back, she saw that Edward's face was contorted into one of shock and fear.
Before she knew what was happening, she was suddenly thrown into the air, twirling so her body in the air was facing towards her classmates and friends, before she landed heavily on something, and felt the thing running fast. "No, Bucky!" Hagrid shouted, while the classmates jumped out of the way from the speeding Hippogriff, with Bella holding onto Buckbeak Jr's neck for dear life. She let out a terrified scream when she felt Buckbeak Jr. rising into the air, its wings beating up and down with ease.
"Bella!" Edward, Hermione, Ron, and Harry all shouted for her, their figures disappearing from the trees, while Bella gasped in fear and closed her eyes tightly when she felt Buckbeak Jr. still flying off somewhere. Eventually, Bella opened her eyes, when she realized that all of this felt just like riding on Edward's back when he would run at his lightning fast vampire speeds.
She gasped the Buckbeak Jr. was now lazily gliding in the air heading towards the all too famous Black Lake that sat outside of the Hogwarts castle. She looked down at the lake, smiling when she saw the shimmering of the light from the sun, and squeaked a little when she felt Buckbeak Jr. easing his way down towards the lake.
He flew down to where only his horse hoof feet were skimming the water of the lake. Bella giggled, before she yelled out in her joyous, care free, adrenaline mood now from riding this majestic, magical creature. She couldn't wait to tell Edward her experience of flying a Hippogriff.
And I'll end the chapter there because I'm getting a small headache now. XD
So, what do you think of this chapter? Any good?
Please review to tell me so!
~*Lady Lily of Darkness*~
