Chapter 2: New Chances
The two bumped hard into each other and fell both on the floor. Bella landed softly, but the person that layed under her obviously didn't.
„Oh my God, I'm so sorry!", Bella said, flushing in embaressment as she picked herself up the ground. „Did I hurt you? Merlin, I'm so clumsy...", she murmured, she couldn't even get herself to look at the person she bumped into.
„I'm alright don't worry, but what about you?", asked the person while chuckeling a bit, obviosly it was a boy.
„I'm okay too.", answered Bella and finally looked at him. One pair of bright green eyes met the other and they stared at each other for a second. Then a loud and angry meow was heard and let the boy frown. Zar jumped out of Bellas coat and looked at her utterly disgraceful, and walked away, deeply offended.
„I'm sorry Zar, I didn't do it on purpose.", Bella sighted and flushed red again. She just talked in front of the boy to her bloody cat. She could have slapped herself for that.
But the boy didn't laugh at her, he just smiled and looked after her precious cat.
„He is really pretty with those white paws.", he said instead and then looked back at Bella. Bella smiled and then both of them picked themself up off the ground. The boy grabbed Bellas trunk, that laid right next to him and handet it over to her.
„You're in fifth year too, am I right?", Bella asked the boy and was suprised of herself that she asked a stranger a question.
„Yes, I am. Fifth year Griffendor, thats right. I'm Harry.", the boy said, smiling softly at her. Those green eyes…
„And you are?", he asked her, pulling her out of her thoughts once again.
„I'm Bella. Fifth year.", she replied shyly. She didn't say her house though. Griffendors and Slytherins are supposed to hate each other and she didn't want to do that right now.
„Slytherin, right?", Harry asked her, but there was no hate or disgust seen in his eyes. Bella nodded.
„Uhm, do you… maybe want to sit with my friends and me in one compartment? We have still some seats left and you look kind of… lost.", he smiled at her friendly.
Bellas eyes wided in shock. „Really? Uhm, yeah of course! That's really... nice from you."
„No problem. Come on then.", he said and walked away, just a few compartments further.
„Ron, Hermione… that's Bella. May she sit with us?", he simply asked as he stuck his head through the door. Bella could see the red headed boy nodd and the girl with the bushy hair smiled friendly at her.
„Hi guys.", Bella greeted them and put her trunk in the luggage holder, then awkwardly took the seat next to Harry.
„Where and when did you guys got to know each other?", Ron asked, appereantly confused. Harry and Bella looked at each other and both smiled slightly embaressed.
„Well, uhm, basically... I fell into Harry as the train started moving."
„Well, I guess that's it, yes.", laughed Harry and looked at her. Bella had long, dark silver shining hair, that fell down to her waist in beautiful curls. Her green eyes were exactly the same shade as his, she had dark brown eyebrows and a round shaped face and full lips. She looked absolutely stunning, but also kind of exhausted. Dark shadows laid under her eyes and her face seemed a little bit sunken. She had pale skin but according to her silver hair this might just be normal. But still, she was so beautiful to him, he could stare at her all the time. Why hadn't he noticed her before at school?
Bella tried to look at Harry without making it too obvious. She liked him, really. But maybe just because he was the first person that was nice to her. She didn't feel like she deserved to be handled by someone like that.
Harry was really good looking in her opinion. Those green eyes, even the glasses looked good on him. His hair was kinda messy but it looked really nice on him though. And then there was this scar, it looked like a bolt…
Bella could have slapped herself again for her stupidity. This was not just some Harry, this was Harry Potter. Not that it mattered to her if he was famous or not, in fact that didn't make a difference at all, but why has she been so blind? That was the only thing that really bothered her. Her own stupidity, blindness, in fact everything that had to do with herself bothered her. And the more suprisingly it was, that Harry actually liked her. Well, maybe he had just taken pity for her, because she looked so helpless, lost and alone. That must be the reason. She couldn't be really… liked, it was not possible. No one ever did before, so why should Harry do?
Bella ran her fingers through her hair, she alwasy did that when she was nervous. Then she heard a muted meow and looked to the compartment door. Zar was standing outside and was begging her to let him inside.
„Not mad at me anymore?", she asked as she opened the door for him. Zar ran towards her and she held out her arm, so he could climb up. He then took place on her shoulder, Bella didn't know how he could feel comfortable up there, but for some strange reasons he did.
„Oh you also got a cat? What's his name?", aked Hermione, looking at him with twinkling eyes. Only then Bella noticed the red cat next to her feet. It had a really flat nose and looked kinda shaggy, but still cute. He was much bigger than Zar, what didn't surprise her, because Zar was really small for a male cat.
„Zar.", told Harry Hermione, before Bella could answer. Hermione raised an eyebrow and threw a glance at him.
„Such a nice name. It fits him really well. His name is Crookshanks. Well, I think it is well fitting too.", Hermione laughed as she pointed at her red cat.
Bella smiled and stroke Zar's fur. The nervousness begann falling off of her slowly. She started feeling comfortable here, with them. They were all so nice to her.
They started talking about their holidays and school and the time flew. The witch with the trolley came by and Harry and Ron loaded up on sweets. Hermione took a few also, but Bella refused. First, she didn't really have the money and didn't want to take anything the boys had bought. On the other side she was scared, because she knew herself. Either she couldn't eat anything or just a little bit, or she would eat everything at all. It was a bad habit, really, she knew that, but she just couldn't help it. It had always been hard for her to eat normal, she was a bit chubby her first years at Hogwarts and since Draco Malfoy called her a „fat filthy Mudblood", she had finally lost all her confidence.
Unsurprisingly her eating habits have gone worse since then, but she didn't really loose a lot of weight back then. She just struggeled a lot during the last year with overeating and purging afterwards. She felt disgusting for it and was so ashamed. During the summer months she managed to get the binging a bit more under control and lost a lot of weight during the last few weeks. She didn't really see a difference for herself, but she saw it on the scale. She was at a perfect weight for her age and height now, but she still saw herself as way too much. She often felt miserable but it was alright. She knew for what she was doing this and she knew that she would get happier with every pound she'd lose. She would go on until she found herself pretty enough.
„Hey, you're alright?", asked Harry and looked at her, a bit worried. „You look like you've seen a ghost." Just as these words left his lips, his facial expressions froze. Bella knew somehow why.
„I'm really sorry, Harry."
The three of them looked at Bella suspiciously.
„F.. for what?", asked Harry, even though he already suspected what this all was about. But it couldn't be that this girl could read his thoughts so easily, could it?
„You're thinking about Cedric Diggory, don't you? It is terrible to see someone die and the more it is when it is someone so young. I mean, it's not as easy as I'm saying but I want you to know that none of this is your fault. It is Lord Voldemorts. You are not responsible for this Harry. You couldn't know that this would happen I mean, who would have?!"
Silence. Bella felt immedeatly guilty.
„I am sorry, it just… I didn't want to upset you or something, it just slipped out, I'm truly sorry.."
„No, there's nothing to be sorry about, Bella. I'm just shocked by the fact that you are the only person I know from this school that belives that Voldemort is back."
Bella frowned. „But why shouldn't I?"
Harry let out a laugh. „Well because the whole world doesn't and it is all over the Daily Prophet that I am the biggest liar and attention seeker of the century."
„And you are using his name too.", said Ron, his voice letting Bella know that he was not happy about that. She could understand, many people were afraid of his name. But she wasn't.
„We should get our robes on, we're almost there.", claimed Hermione to change the subject. The four of them looked at each other and nodded.
As soon as they got their robes on the train slowed down and they got their trunks. During the ride to the castle all of them remained silent, each of them deep in thought. Zar rolled up on Bellas lap and she slowly stroke his soft, black fur. Zar purred quietly, and it always calmed her down. He could feel that Bella was nervous so he did his best to comfort her.
As they reached the school grounds they all got up the stairs to the Great Hall. They had to part here.
„Well… maybe we'll see in class. Thank you guys, I was having a wonderful time with all of you.", smiled Bella and Zar snuggeled himself up in the pocked inside her robe.
„We did too!", said Hermione, her eyes twinkeling.
„Yes, we'll uhm…. See you by then. Bye Bella.", said Harry, his cheeks flushing a bit.
Bella nodded and then went to the Slytherins table. She didn't want to part with them but maybe they just had enough of her and were just trying to be friendly. It would not be really nice to bother them with her presence all the time. Bella sat down in the corner at the end of the table, where she always sat. She was most of the time on her own down there. She looked around the table and caught Pancy glance at her. Why did she do that? Bella smiled friendly at her, but she just looked somewhere else quickly.
She shared a bedroom with Pansy, as with the other 5th graders of course. Daphne, Millicent and Tracey were the other girls in her year. She couldn't really get warm with them, they were just so different. Sometimes she wished she could have a room for herself. The other girls were all worshiping Draco Malfoy, and Bella couldn't even bring herself to think about that. She didn't like Draco at all, obviously. He insulted her really bad and she could never forgive him what he had said to her. But he didn't even care about her. In his eyes he hadn't done anything else than said the truth.
She didn't even listen to the Sorting Hat, neither did she to the usual speech Dumbledore held. She didn't really care, she just wanted this year to get over and get her O.W.L.s.
Thankfully she had Zar with her. He was always there. As the speech was over, the feast begun. Bella didn't really want to eat, but it was the Start-Of-Term Feast, so she loaded up on some of the food. First she tried to get vegetables and fruit only, the only things she didn't worry much about while eating. But all the delicious food in front of her led her to binge. She couldn't help it, as soon as the decision fell, that she would go purging afterwards she didn't stop eating. She didn't really care of the others looking at her, it was just her and the food in the moment.
She could eat all her problems away and flush them down the toilet afterwards. Every time she did this whole procedure, it was a relief for a short time. Long term it didn't get her to anything, she didn't even lose weight with doing this, but she needed to do this. It was ridiculous, but it was simply the truth.
Finally she was finished with stuffing her face full of food, then gulped down her goblet of water. She waited for an opportunity to slip out of the Great Hall without anyone noticing.
She didn't have to wait long, because suddenly the ceiling of the Great Hall turned into a black, stormy cloud and blew all the candels out. The pupils started to panic a little bit, and Bella stood up quickly and without anyone noticing, she slipped through the front door.
Or at least she thought so.
A pair of black eyes followed her figure. Those eyes belonged to no one other than the Head of Slytherin House, Severus Snape. Nothing was unnoticed by him. Not even Bella slipping away as the others panicked. But as far as he knew Bella, she disliked social situations. He suggested she just wanted to be alone for a few moments. No one could relate to that more than him.
