On the morning of September 1st, I left for London with the Weasleys. There I quickly picked up some stuff from my apartment to cram into my trunk. Because of this, we were only just in time on the train.'I hope that jerk Terence doesn't spoil everything this time', Charlie hoped aloud. I nodded. But luckily Charlie was right and my fellow Slytherin stayed away. Who did come to visit us was Jess.
'Oh here you are Belle. I was wondering why I couldn't find you by our house.' Suddenly I realized that Jess didn't know my friends from the other houses yet.
'Hey, um this is Donaghan and Bonnie.'
'This is my friend Jess', I said as I turned to the others.
'So oh my god Belle, did you know that Sigrid and Terence kissed? Suddenly he came to get her out of our compartment and right outside the door he kissed her. When I couldn't listen to Sigrid's boasting anymore, I came looking for you.'
I'd seen Sigrid in our common room many times before, but because she's a year older, I've never really talked to her.
'Yes, I can understand that you wanted to leave then', I grinned while Jess sat down next to me. Once we arrived in Hogsmeade, she left us to sit in a carriage with her Slytherin friends. And there they were again: the Thestrals. They weren't really there, but still I saw them. Like some kind of ghosts. 

During the sorting ceremony, the first-years gathered in front of the sorting hat. I remembered when I was standing there myself. The stress that all the staring students gave. And now I was one myself. 

The next morning a second-year immediately stormed up to me: 'Are you Belle Brown?'
'Yes that's me.'
'I had to give you this note from Professor Dumbledor.'
'From Professor Dumbledor?' I expected it from Snape or any other professor, but not from the headmaster. The note contained the following:
Hello Belle,
Would you please report to my office at eight o'clock tomorrow evening?
                                                                                                          Albus Dumbledor
That didn't bode well. In the afternoon we had our first elective: care of magical creatures. On the way, I told Charlie who had sent me a note that morning.
'Oh Belle, that doesn't sound good indeed.'
'What should I do now? If I've gotten myself into trouble one way or another, I'll stay in it because I'm terrible at sucking up.'
'Maybe you should bring him a present. Something to eat. A man is always in a better mood when his belly is full', Charlie grinned.
'Because yes Charl, I really have a present for the headmaster in my trunk,' I replied sarcastically.
'If I knew this, I would have baked something at home.' Since I had plenty of time during the holidays, I improved my baking skills.
'You can still bake something here. Bill sometimes secretly brings tons of sweets into the common room to share with his friends. I know he gets that in the kitchen.'
'Oh would you please ask how I get there?' I begged with pouty eyes.
'I will do my best.'
Care of magical creatures was given by Professor Kettleburn in the open air. When we arrived I saw a middle-aged man with only one and a half limbs, an arm and half a leg. The rest was gone.
'Welcome to care of magical creatures. As you may have noticed, I'm not very good on my feet anymore. Attributing this to my reckless behavior in my younger years. But don't worry, today we start with completely harmless animals: namely the flobberworm.' He held out a brown worm to us, that was a little less than a ruler long. Half the group was already wailing.
'Yeah, yeah, I know they're a bit boring, but we're only spending one lesson on them', tried Professor Kettleburn to cheer us up.
And everyone was right: flobberworms were indeed terribly boring. All you could do is give them some lettuce and watch them eat it without teeth. When Kettleburn came to check on me and Charlie, the last one asked:'Professor are we going to study dragons in the next few years?'
'Hogh, Dragons Charlie. For that you will have to wait until the seventh year. And even then we only see them theoretically.'