A/N: Hi. This chapter is short, it was supposed to be a part of chapter 1 but I thought it was too long so I split it up. Again, feel free to correct any grammatical or story related mistakes in reviews or PM.

Thanks.

EDIT: 08/07/2018 - Some continuity and grammatical errors fixed.

Chapter two

As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching Edward surreptitiously. Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face – it was hostile, furious. But I saw something else there too. Hunger. I thought of vampires again and shuddered. I looked away quickly, going red again. I'd noticed that his eyes were black – coal black.

The teacher signed my slip and handed me a book. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by Edward Cullen.

I didn't look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad. I was curious but I also needed to pay attention to the teacher so I decided to think about it later. I let my long dark hair fall over my right shoulder, making a curtain between us and tried to make notes carefuly.

I couldn't stop myself from peeking at him occasionally through the screen of my hair. During the whole class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible.

The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. When the bell finally rang, Edward was out of his seat and almost literally disappeared out the door.

I sat frozen in my seat, staring after him. I repeated in my head what I knew about vampires apart from their looks. If he really were a vampire, surely I wouldn't be the only one in danger. He didn't seem to hate any others of my classmates though. So why me? What was this reaction supposed to mean?

"So you're Isabella Swan?" a male voice asked.

I looked up to see a boy that had been sitting with us at lunch but I didn't know his name. He had a boyish face and pale blond hair carefuly gelled into orderly spikes. He was smiling at me in a friendly way.

"Bella," I corrected him with a smile.

"I'm Mike."

"Hi, Mike."

"Do you need any help finding your next class?"

"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it."

"That's my next class, too."

We walked to class together; he was a chatterer, which suited me well because I didn't have to talk much.

We played volleyball in gym. I'd never played it before so naturally I wasn't very good at it but I didn't mind. Unlike Quidditch it was actually pretty boring.

The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork. When I walked inside I saw Edward Cullen standing at the desk in front of me. He didn't appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free.

He was arguing with her in a low voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time – any other time. Well, if he really had a problem with me, it only seemed logical. But I still felt a bit angry at him. I didn't do anything wrong to him. But there was still my vampire theory. I decided to look into it more closely when I had time.

The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Edward Cullen's back stiffened and he turned slowly to glare at me – with piercing, hate filled eyes. For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. He turned back to the receptionist.

"Never mind, then," he said hastily. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." And he turned on his heel without another look at me and disappeared out the door.

I went to the desk and handed the receptionist the signed slip. Without a word I went back to my truck.

I drove home slowly but more confidently than in the morning. I tried not to think about school or Edward Cullen's suspicious behaviour. I focused on the driving instead.

When I got home I went to check out the fridge. There was nothing in it except for some eggs and bacon. I knew that Charlie was a terrible cook so I didn't understand how he could survive all these years without a woman or someone who would cook for him. I sighed. I knew some basics like toasts or scrambled eggs but I'd never had to care about food. Since I wasn't ready to live entirely on eggs or pizza the whole time, I decided that I would have to learn to cook.

I thought about making a list of things I wanted or needed to do in Forks. First, ensure that I and Charlie wouldn't starve to death, second, catch up with my new school because it was much harder than I'd thought, third, find out as much as I would be able to about the Cullens, fourth, learn as many new spells as possible on my own so I would be able to fight when I got back to Britain.

I started with the easiest one and tried to find a cookbook in Charlie's bookcase. There were a few, all of them looked untouched. I shook my head and opened one with some simple recipes. I decided to try and make roast chicken and potatoes so that meant I had to go shopping.

The supermarket, like almost everything in Forks, wasn't very far so I was back in half an hour. The instructions in the recipe were quite simple so after another half-hour the chicken was roasting in the oven and potatoes were boiling in water on the stove. I felt satisfied with myself so I underlined a few more simple recipes for the next few days.

While waiting for the dinner to be ready, I called my mum. We hadn't been that close while I'd been at Hogwarts because she didn't accept the fact that I was a witch very well. It got better this summer when I'd told her I'd finished the school and decided to live in America. I couldn't tell her the truth because she wouldn't be able to handle it. I'd stayed with her for the whole August and then she talked to Charlie and we decided together that it would be better if I went to Forks. But at least we'd somehow found our way to each other again.

Also she was the only person I could be regularly in touch with. I didn't know how to contact my friends in Britain. I couldn't send my owl, because although she's specially trained for long journeys, she would probably be intercepted by the Ministry or Death Eaters. The only other way was my enchanted galleon but I couldn't send any message without using magic, which I couldn't do because I was still underage. I wasn't sure if it was safe anyway. I had been expecting Ginny to send me a message now that she was at Hogwarts but so far nothing. I only hoped she was alright since I didn't have any information about what was happening in Britain. I had a small wizarding radio that I could listen to and get some news that I'd gotten from the Weasleys. But it was the same as with the galleon - I had to wait until my 17th birthday because you had to use magic to tune to any wizarding radio station. I'd never looked forward to my birthday so much as now.

The dinner was finally ready – it smelled surprisingly good – so I waited for Charlie to come home. He arrived after ten minutes.

"Bella?" he called from the door.

"Hey, Dad, welcome home."

"Thanks." He smiled and then came to a halt. "You made dinner?"

"Yeah." I smiled sheepishly. "I tried to make chicken so I hope I won't poison you."

"It smells good," Charlie assured me.

We ate in silence. It was quite good, actually. Maybe we won't starve after all.

After dinner I asked Charlie how to get to the local library, because I needed to get the books from my reading list tomorrow.

Then I went to my room. I opened my trunk where I still had my Hogwarts books hidden. I still hadn't decided where to put them, maybe I would just leave them there. I rummaged through the books for a while until I found what I was looking for.

After a while there were all my Defence Against the Dark Arts books lying on my bed. I knew we learned about vampires in my second and third year but I didn't remember all the facts, only the basics. So for the rest of the evening I tried to find all I could about them.