CHAPTER THREE:

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair. Charlie sat across the table from me and read his newspaper while I ate my cereal, pausing only to feed bits of toast to Griselda, who had actually deigned to gift us with the rarity of her presence and was perched up on the back of the chair beside me.

After I finished eating Charlie said goodbye to me and wished me luck and I retreated to the bathroom to shower. As I dried my hair, my eyes crept across to the mirror to examine my appearance with a critical eye. I had no idea how I was supposed to pull off the whole Phoenix look– I was about as far from 'tan, blonde and sporty' as you could get; I'd been born with the sort of pale, ivory skin that spoke of spending very little time in the sun and living in Britain hadn't helped. I didn't even have the excuse of blue eyes or red hair– no, my hair was long, straight and dark brown and my eyes were brown too, though they were a few shades lighter then my hair; closer in colour to chocolate or chestnuts then mahogany.

As I peered closer in the mirror, the insecure teenage part of me wished I could blame the light for my sallow-looking reflection. My skin could be pretty, but the stress I was under had made me thinner and look pallid, and in the mirror my eyes appeared too big in a face that seemed too skinny. I sighed and watched as my breath fogged up the mirror. Great.

Abandoning the mirror, I dragged a brush through my freshly dried hair then made my way back to my bedroom, moving robotically as I dressed in a pair of jeans, thick woollen socks and a warm, light-blue sweater.

I couldn't resist pulling my Ravenclaw pin out of my trunk, wanting some piece of the school I loved– no, the world I loved– to hold on to, and discreetly slid it into place next to one of the pearly buttons of the sweater.

An anxiety I couldn't quite place was pulsing through me and it took me a minute or two to figure out that I was actually nervous. I almost laughed out loud with the realisation– how could I possibly be anxious about starting muggle high school when I was currently on the hit-list of You-Know-Who thanks to both my blood status and my friendship with various 'Undesirables'?

"Don't be stupid, Bella." I told myself sternly before locating my new book-bag filled with the school supplies and placed my wand inside.

There. I was ready.

(I really, really wasn't)

-

-

It was drizzling outside but not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that I knew Charlie always kept hidden for me under the eaves by the door and locked up the house before hurrying over to my truck.

Inside was nice and dry and very clean, though the tan upholstered seats smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline and peppermint.

The truck's engine started quickly as I turned the key but very loudly. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw, I reasoned. The radio worked when I tried it, though, which was definitely a bonus.

Finding the local high school wasn't difficult as Charlie had driven us past it the day before, after our shopping trip. I was glad he had, as it wasn't immediately obvious it was a school– it looked more like a collection of matching houses built with maroon-colored bricks. Then again, I supposed Hogwarts didn't really look like a school either, so I couldn't really judge.

I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading Front Office. No one else was parked there, so I was pretty sure it was off limits but decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around cluelessly in the rain.

I stepped out of my truck and walked quickly down the little stone path and inside the building. Brightly lit and a touch too warm, it was a small office with an attached little waiting area. It had padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpets, notices and awards cluttering up the walls and a big clock that was ticking loudly and irritatingly.

The large red-haired woman wearing glasses and a purple t-shirt looked up, as she heard the door close. "May I help you?" she asked in a voice that wasn't exactly overly-friendly.

"Um, I'm Bella Swan." I told her and her eyes lit up slightly in awareness.

"Miss Swan," she smiled widely, "It's lovely to meet you at last! I have your schedule around here somewhere." I waited uncomfortably as she started to look through a stack of papers on her desk. "Your father rang yesterday to get you all set up." She told me, thankfully locating the paperwork fairly quickly. "Here it is, and these forms are for you to give the teachers, so they can sign them. You need to bring me your forms at the end of the day." She informed me cheerfully.

It seemed simple enough, a stupid wasteful step, but simple. Of course I'd be in class today, did they think that I was plotting to get my schedule and then, since the teachers were none the wiser, just never go?

She gave me a map too, but six years of navigating my way around Hogwarts meant I only had to look at it once before heading off to my first class after quickly moving my truck to the student car park where the nicest car was a shiny silver Volvo.

I kept my head down, my face hidden behind a curtain of hair as I walked to the sidewalk crowded with teenagers. It was a simple matter to find where my first class was located in building three, as I'd predicted. The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. Feeling the dampness of my sweater, I wished I'd thought to bring a coat of my own. I was used to being able to cast a drying spell on my clothes if they got wet so it honestly hadn't even crossed my mind that I might need a jacket to protect myself from the rain.

I took my slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked when he saw my name– something I found mildly amusing and similar in nature to the looks I saw directed at Ginny's crush, the leader of the DA and Boy-Who-Lived Harry Potter.

At least Mr. Mason didn't make me introduce myself to the class and the empty desk he sent me to was at the back of the class. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me when I was behind them, though a few of the more determined ones still managed it.

Sighing, I looked down at the reading list the teacher had given me. I recognised the titles 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Wuthering Heights' of course, but that was about it. The rest– Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner– I'd seen other Ravenclaws read and I was even pretty sure I'd seen a few in the school library, but I hadn't actually read them myself. I was slightly annoyed they didn't have any Jane Austen books– those I had actually read; they'd been gifts from Renée and after the visit from the American Ministry of Magic representative and subsequent revelation of my status as a witch those had been few and far between.

To say Renée wasn't a fan of the whole 'magic' deal would be an understatement of epic proportions, but I pushed that from my mind and focused on the class instead, unwilling to dwell on thoughts and memories that would only bring me down.

When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair as black as an oil slick made as if to lean across the aisle to talk to me. I purposefully knocked my book and pens off my desk to have an excuse to duck away from him and then fled from the room before he had a chance to try chatting again.

I wasn't here to make friends– and how could I, when I couldn't actually be honest with anyone? Besides, I had friends. My friends. And no one could even come close to replacing them– I refused to even try.

Most of my morning passed that way; classes I only half understood, people trying to talk to me and so much Merlin-damned swearing. After English my next class had been Home Ec. and then Math, where we were studying trigonometry. I'd already covered something similar in Arithmancy and so had no trouble keeping up. The most challenging part of the class had been the teacher, Mr. Varner, making me introduce myself. Even that could have been worse, though; I used to be almost paralysingly shy when I was younger, but after all that I had witnessed and gone through I was well past being embarrassed of public speaking– that didn't mean I actually liked it, though.

By the time lunch came, I'd made a reluctant acquaintance with a short, curly haired brunette by the name of Jessica who'd sat next to me in Math. She talked a lot and I didn't try to keep up with her, instead focusing my attentions on figuring out a polite way to get away from her.

Unfortunately I couldn't think of one in time that wouldn't end up alienating her so at lunch I managed to find myself sitting at the end of a table filled with several of her friends. I recognized one of them as the boy who tried speaking to me in English.

The only one at the table I halfway liked was a rather shy looking girl with long honey-brown hair who was wearing stylish rectangular framed glasses and had at least one Asian parent. She gave me a small smile when I first sat down but didn't join the others in their game of twenty (thousand) questions, all of which I either avoided or deflected.

With every second that passed (and every bloody question that was asked), I liked her and her Rowena blessed silence even more.

It was sitting there, with one pleasant and six nosy strangers, that I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in as my magic seemed to hum in my veins, a warning– and preparation to fight.

I felt my body stiffen as about a hundred different scenarios ran through my head, most of them involving Death Eaters and Snatchers and even– very irrationally– the terrifying, snake-faced Voldemort himself.

Sucking in a deep breath, I crossed the fingers of my left hand while under the table I let my wand slide out of my sleeve and curled the fingers of my right hand tight around the handle. I turned my head slightly to see what it was I was dealing with, only to have to bite back a very undignified scream.

Five figures had just entered the cafeteria, moving with the sleek sort of grace no human could achieve. And that wasn't the only inhuman aspect about them– the devastatingly, otherworldly beauty? The chalky pale skin? The dark, purplish, bruise-like shadows under those dark, dark eyes?

It only took me one look to identify what they were, it was so glaringly obvious. And as the terrifying realization washed through me, I felt my heart start thudding erratically in my chest.

Vampires.

Vampires in bloody Forks of all places!

As two of them turned my way– likely prompted by my suddenly racing heart, or the shocked gasp I'd barely managed to muffle– I had to work to hide the blatant terror from my face.

The two looking at me were stunning, just like any vampire. Both were boys, one huge and muscled with dark curly hair cut short, and the other lanky, less bulky, with untidy, odd bronze-colored hair. The large one looked at me with no small amount of curiosity on his face while the bronze-haired one's expression remained blank. I held their gaze for half a second before turning back around, looking down at my lap where my wand rested, a reassuring weight even if it was currently unusable to me– using magic here, summoning Snatchers to this location, could very well end up been the death sentence to every muggle in the vicinity.

the vampires doing here? What were effing vampires doing at an effing mugg– human high school? And why the bloody hell did it look like they were pretending to be students?

In my anxiety I realized my face had paled and the fingernails of my left hand were digging into my palm with almost enough pressure to reopen the neat little row of crescent-shaped, scabs along my palm– I did not want to start bleeding in a room with five vampires.

"I see you've noticed the Cullens." The girl from my English class, Jessica, said. I looked up at her in confusion.

"Um, who?"

Jessica rolled her eyes and my general indifference and slight irritation towards her merged into something a lot closer to dislike.

"The Cullens. The people who just walked in." She stated, speaking slowly like I was a moron.

It only took a moment for the realisation to dawn on me and my eyes widened slightly– she was talking about the vampires. I had to bite back a slight snort at that; yeah, the "people" who'd just walked in. "Ah." I said. "Right."

"Mm," Jessica leaned in slightly, her voice hushed as if she was telling me a great secret. Pity that a vampire's hearing was about ten times as good as a human's– Jessica may as well be shouting at the top of her lungs, they'd hear her gossiping just as easily either way. "The two blondes are Rosalie and Jasper Hale, and the three others are Edward, Emmett and Alice Cullen. They're all the adopted children of Doctor Cullen and his wife." She told me.

My previous amusement immediately vanished. Two more? I thought, somewhat helplessly. Sweet Rowena, this sucked (no pun intended).

Witches and wizards were born with a natural defense against vampires– our blood, while it smelled the same as a muggle's, wouldn't make a vampire's throat burn with thirst, instead acting almost like a soothing agent. Actually there was even an old potion from the days when witches and wizards used to go vampire hunting for sport that could turn our blood to a poison that could burn a vampire from the inside out.

There were also, of course, a plethora of spells that could be used to restrain, destroy and ward away vampires. It was a pity I couldn't actually use my wand for another three bloody months.

I resisted the urge to thud my head against the table. Just... great. Fan-flipping-tastic.