"Welcome home.
Just breathe."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Great Hall swam with the lights of the floating candles, abuzz with the chatter of students reconnecting with friends and faculty. These familiar sights and ambiance brought a sense of calm to Bell. Finally, back to the place she felt most at home: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Belllllllllllll-" James came careening down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, nearly knocking over a group of gossiping third years as he went, and practically tackled Sirius off the bench with a side-arm hug, using his momentum to swing around and sit beside his friend. Laughing at her friend's antics, Bell almost knocked a fork off the table, and Sirius caught it as he wheezed, having been caught completely off-guard.

"I just noticed how fun that is to say. Belllllll-"

"Alright, what happened in that carriage?"

James leaned around the front of Sirius and Bell did the same, effectively forcing their ebony-haired friend to lean back and grab the bench he sat on as to not fall off.

"Come on now, Prongs, Angel, can't I have a bit of space?"

Teasingly ignoring him, James said loudly, completely eradicating the semi-secrecy he'd assumed by leaning forward, "Lily and I got talking and Marlene kept nudging her and eventually she told me that HOGSMEADE IS A FUN PLACE ISN'T IT and of course I said YES and she said she and Marlene and Molly Prewett would be going there next weekend SO YOU MIGHT SEE US THERE IF YOU GO and I said YES I WILL and she sort of frowned but THAT's OKAY because it's not quite a date but IT'S CLOSE!"

Poor Peter, having not at all expected this enthusiastic outburst, had completely toppled backward off his chair next to James. Sirius, who was grinning but covering his ears at James' volume, beamed at Bell, who'd leaned back with slightly-widened eyes the first time her excited friend had raised his voice.

"I think you might have had something to do with this."

"I think you might be right."

Always the observant one, Remus nodded his head at Lily herself as she approached from further down the aisle, raising an eyebrow at James. Bell nudged her friend's shoulder, reaching around Sirius' back to do so, and warned him, "Better watch out- I think Lily heard every word you said right there."

"But how could she?" asked Sirius with mock surprise, his eyebrows comically raised as far as they could go. "He was so meek and quiet when he told us!"

Genial laughter muffled Lily's greeting words and Bell could only hear "you-hey-Hogwarts" out of the whole sentence (or maybe two, she couldn't tell). A sigh as she apparently gave up on what she'd been trying to say, but as she walked past James, he gently grabbed her hand and gestured for her to sit beside him, mooning, "Oh, sweet Lilyflower, why don't you take a seat at the side of your future husband-"

Lily looked like she wanted to backtrack out of the Great Hall and let the storm sweep her off the entrance bridge into the Black Lake.

"Aaaanyhow-" cut in Bell, trying to keep things amicable between the pair before James made Lily hurry to sit somewhere else, "Lily, come sit next to me. You too, Marlene." Turning away from James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter to talk to the two girls sitting next to her now, Lily to her left and Marlene to Lily's left, Bell didn't notice how James furrowed his brow and looked away from his darling Lily with a sullen expression.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sirius, however, did notice.

"What's the matter, Prongs- Lily's rejection hit hard this time?"

James shook his head and sighed, running his hand through his already-unkempt hair, unintentionally making it even messier. "It's not Lily, it's her." Here, he nodded his head at Bell, appointing her as the topic of his concern. "I think something happened to her over the summer."

"I was thinking the same."

Remus' chime in made Sirius frown. Two of his friends had also noticed what he had? Proof that his worried weren't just paranoid assumptions. "She was really formal with you guys in her letters, too?" Nods in return as Peter leaned around Remus to join in the conversation. 

"Same here."

"So I'm not just being overprotective and worrying over nothing, then?" More nods. And a few shakes of the head from James, who couldn't seem to figure out if he should answer 'no' as in "no, you're not being overprotective" or 'yes' as in "yes, you're correct in that you're not being overprotective" to the question. 

"I'll talk to her about it later."

"Actually, Remus, I think I should."

All three pairs of eyes turned to Sirius as they narrowed at him. 

"You're not just saying that because-"

"No, James, and be quiet, I'm saying that because-" He glanced behind him and noticed Lily eavesdropping on their conversation as Bell and Marlene talked about some new Muggle band album. Not bothering to lower his voice, he went on, staring Lily right in the eyes, "-because she's one of my best friends."

Lily looked away and jumped in the other girls' conversation with a mention of a beetle or something and Sirius turned his head back to face his friends. Remus was looking at Sirius with a "nice try, Buckaroo" expression while James looked away, clearly trying to keep himself from laughing, and Peter- well, Peter had moved on to snacking on half a chocolate frog he found in a crumpled box in his pocket.

"I'm serious, you dolts."

"Yes, we know that, what kind of friends would we be if we didn't know your name-"

"What James means to say is that we don't exactly believe your reasoning but we're all for you being the one to ask her..." Remus leaned around James, adding in a much quieter voice, "Just so long as you take care not to up-and-kiss her right then and there while she's telling you her woes."

Sirius gave a harsh cough and turned away, trying to deflect the teasing warning, and he felt a hand laid lightly on his arm. "You alright?" asked Bell, twisting her top half around to speak to him from where she was sitting with one leg on either side of the bench, facing Marlene and Lily. Nodding and offering Bell a smile that made a passing Ravenclaw girl swoon, Sirius replied, "Why wouldn't I be, Angel? We're back!" Bell narrowed her eyes at him and he realized he'd quoted her exactly from a short while ago. Just as he offered a smirk, trying to play off his mistake as a joke, she shrugged and withdrew her hand, leaving what felt impossibly like a chill on the place where she'd touched his arm.

"I was asking about that cough, silly."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Welcome, all of you, to Hogwarts! Welcome, all of you, to school!"

The familiar voice of Professor Dumbledore rang out its hearty bellow across the Great Hall, bringing an almost instant quiet to the room. Sirius, his mouth open to offer a reply to Bell's note of concern over his hoarse cough, shut it and gave her a quick nod to signify he was fine. No one dared to whisper or mutter under Dumbledore's gaze when he was about to make a speech. It didn't matter what house you were in- the respect a good portion of the student body had for Professor Dumbledore trumped their need to socialize, and if you didn't respect or possibly loathed Dumbledore (as most of the Pureblood Slytherins openly did), you at least had enough wits about you to quiet down when everyone else did.

"These are dark times. I will not deny you this truth." As Dumbledore spoke, Bell absentmindedly noticed that his beard looked about a good six inches longer than when she'd last seen him the previous June. It was beginning to fade in color, the last hints of auburn he'd once had in his youth fading to silvery-blond peppered by pure white strands, all of it held neatly in an hourglass form by a string with two little tassels on each end. Were those- glittery dice? Bell squinted to see if she could discern whether or not those baubles were, in fact, two fashionably-sparkling instruments of many board games but was unable to tell from this distance. 

She nudged Sirius' arm and drew his attention in a voice barely above silence to the cubical ornaments and together, they squinted and wondered until Dumbledore's speech was up and they had determined that the tassels, in fact, should and would henceforth be referred to as "Dumbledore's Decorative Dice for his Wondrously Waggly Whiskers".

The very moment Dumbledore ceased his speech and lowered his arms, the welcoming banquet appeared in a dazzling fashion, foods of every flavor found across the world spread along the center of every table from one far end to the other. After revealing to their friends what she and Sirius had been so fixated on during Dumbledore's grim but somehow still optimistic speech, Bell dug into a plate of baked ham cooked with pineapple, a soft roll of bread with generous lumps of butter, mashed potatoes, and a tall goblet of pumpkin juice as her friends gorged themselves on the other delicious offerings spread across the Gryffindor table. After all, who could resist? They were back to Hogwarts for one final, magnificent, set-to-end-regret-free school year- they might as well start it off with a full stomach!