Posted: 7 March, 2015
Three years after her trip through the Veil, Alice was sitting in a little diner in a tiny town in America's northwest.
"Here you go."
She looked up and thanked the waitress before digging into her bacon and eggs breakfast. She wrinkled her nose as she realised something was missing and looked around. There!
"Excuse me?" she asked the diner at the next booth over, "could I borrow your tomato sauce? No, sorry—you call it ketchup here, right?"
The man froze for a moment, then reached for the bottle before turning to hand it back to her.
And then it was Alice's turn to freeze.
The man was … well, gorgeous was the only way to put it. Honey-blonde hair, light golden eyes, and skin pale like alabaster. She suspected he was even geometrically beautiful, both halves of his face perfectly symmetric. Really, the single, small flaw he had were the shadows under his eyes, like he hadn't been sleeping well.
Alice had never met anyone so flawlessly stunning before. The closest was probably Fleur or the other veela she'd encountered in her former world.
At that thought, Alice had a lightning-strike feeling of realisation.
He was too beautiful to be real.
He was inhumanly beautiful.
And then she realised that the man's eyes had narrowed and there was a wary sort of air about him as he set the tomato sauce down on her table slowly.
Oh, she'd made him nervous with her staring, hadn't she? Probably, being a non-human in a thoroughly Muggle world, he disliked drawing too much attention to how he didn't fit in.
Except that wasn't quite right, was it? Apparently this world wasn't entirely Muggle after all. The being before her was proof of that.
And to be fair, she had encountered the occasional human here and there with almost uncanny abilities. Abilities that she'd call weak, magical gifts, except that the people showed no other trace of wizarding or creature heritage.
Finally Alice cleared her throat. "Thank you," she said, tipping the bottle towards him before liberally pouring some over her breakfast.
He remained half-turned in his seat, arm over the back of it and looking towards her. She noted how his nose subtly wrinkled as she took a bite. Not a fan of bacon and eggs? Or did her tomato sauce addiction put him off? It could be that he wasn't a fan of human food in general. For all Alice knew, he survived on a diet of moss and moonlight. You never could tell with other species.
"I don't mean to intrude ma'am, but I haven't seen you around Forks before. Are you new to these parts?
One eyebrow rose and she took a slow sip of her orange juice to give herself a moment to try to quell the faint blush on her cheek. His voice was slow and pleasantly mellow, mostly generically American as far as she could tell, but with a faint drawl. Something southern? She wasn't really great with identifying accents, especially outside Britain.
"I am new," she confirmed. "Just arrived yesterday."
He tilted his head. "What could possibly draw someone here of all places? And from all the way across the pond? Forks is hardly a tourist attraction."
She laughed lightly, noting that he went very still at the sound. Too still. "Oh, I don't know. It's sort of charming in its own way. Very green. And all the rain makes me feel at home," she joked, referring to England's own less-than-sunny weather. Alice paused then and leaned towards him, whispering in a tone too low for anyone else to hear, "You need to breathe or blink or something, or people are going to get suspicious."
He did so at once.
Alice noted the faint widening of his eyes and the way he tensed. Should she not have let on, so blatantly, that she knew he was more than human?
"You never did say what brought you this way."
Alice remembered, then, exactly why she had come to this tiny, rainy town. After years of trying and failing to find Sirius, she had been losing hope. She needed a break from her self-imposed mission, she had decided, and had sat down to read her tea leaves with an entirely new goal in mind. Instead of seeking her godfather, she had asked for guidance, purpose and direction … maybe even for somewhere to belong, or people she could call friends and trust enough to be herself around, to openly be a witch again in this seemingly-Muggle realm.
Several more readings, of flame and mirror, and then a scrying with crystal and a map, and Alice had a destination.
Hermione, she was sure, would be properly aghast at her studies into Divination, a subject Alice's friend had scorned so much as to drop back at Hogwarts. But it was the only way Alice could tap into her prophetic ability in a controlled manner, without risking her sanity.
"I suppose you could say Fate led me here," she mused with a wry twist of her lips. She had a conflicted relationship with the deity who had ruled over, and made miserable, so much of her childhood, only to turn around and gift her with insight once she had fulfilled the prophecy. Alice still wasn't sure whether her gift was a blessing or a curse. She shook her head. "And I haven't even introduced myself!" She held out a hand. "Alice Potter."
He paused, but when he took her hand in his there was no hesitation. "Jasper Whitlock."
His hand was cold in hers, and clearly unhuman to those willing to believe in such things. It felt like granite, hard and just slightly rough.
"If you'd like someone to show you around town," Jasper said slowly, "I'm not busy today."
She considered it. On the one hand, going off with a stranger was rarely ever wise. When said stranger was of an unknown race and threat-level, the choice verged on stupidity. But … there was something about this man, this being, that drew her in. And strangely that draw didn't put her on edge, but instead put her at ease.
Well, she had come here seeking —among other things— companionship from someone who would understand. And here, her first morning in town, she had run across her first non-human in three years, someone who might not freak out at Alice being not-quite-normal herself.
While not as impulsive as she'd once been, Alice still knew when to trust her gut. Still … it couldn't hurt to make doubly sure.
Since she hadn't ordered tea, she would make do with what she had. Alice drained the last of her freshly-squeezed orange juice and then peered at the bottom of the glass, wondering as she did whether she'd be safe if she went with him. Her eyes naturally parsed out symbols and meanings in the pulpy dregs and she smiled to see her instincts confirmed.
"Yes," she told Jasper, "a tour guide sounds lovely, thank you."
Forks was small. She didn't really need a tour guide. And the tour was over almost before it had begun.
"And that … is the extent of our bustling metropolis," Jasper drawled ironically.
They were walking down a fairly quiet street now, mostly lined with trees and all the lush green vegetation that grew so well here. It was raining lightly, more of a fine mist. They'd both drawn up the hoods on their jackets, but were otherwise unbothered by the weather.
"So what do you do?" At his cocked eyebrow, she elaborated. "Around here, I mean. For fun or a living, or whatever."
He shrugged. "My family's big on the togetherness. We go on camping trips a lot. I also occasionally work at Forks High as a student counsellor," he said with a slight grimace.
"Not a fan of your job?"
"It's alright. I'm just more for quiet is all, and kids are … noisy."
Alice nodded, understanding completely. "Yeah, me too. Never much liked crowds or attention. A few good, close friends to hang out with is all I really need. Though," she added wistfully, "I can't say I never envied Ron's big family, even if it was loud."
"Ron?" he asked, eyes pinned on her.
"Childhood friend," she said a bit sadly. "We lost contact."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay." She shook her head. "What about you? Family?"
"Hmm. Esme and Carlisle Cullen are sort of like my parents, I guess. They adopted me and my sister, as well as a couple of other kids."
"Oh? How many of you are there?"
"There's the sister I mentioned: Rosalie. She's four years younger than me. So's her boyfriend, Emmett. He was adopted into the Cullen family too." He gave her a sly glance. "You can imagine the gossip it caused in small-town Forks when 'brother and sister' started dating."
"But they're not related-related, are they?"
"Nope."
Alice shrugged. "Don't see the fuss." And she really didn't. So they were adopted siblings, so what? She'd heard of pureblood wizard families that married first cousins, and they were blood related!
"Rose and Emmett finished high school last year and took off for college. They visit pretty regularly though. Edward, Emmett's younger brother, is a senior at Forks High right now."
Alice laughed. "And how does he like having you as his student counsellor?"
"It's a bit awkward, I'll admit." Jasper shrugged.
"So…" Alice took a deep breath and adjusted her glasses as she gathered her courage. "Are they all like you?"
He was still walking beside her, but apart from that seemed very still. "How so?" he asked, an edge to his voice.
"Not quite human?" she said, and then he stopped completely. She paused too, and turned to face him. Maybe that had been too blunt? He looked on edge, unsure, and a touch dangerous with his darkening eyes. Yes, too blunt. Maybe if she extended some trust it would calm him down. And so, "I'm not entirely normal myself," she confessed quietly.
"Oh?" The tone was absolutely neutral, not giving anything away.
Alice bit her lip, then nodded. "I'm a witch," she confessed.
Jasper finally blinked. "A witch?" His tone was sceptical, but his eyes were assessing. "I can tell you believe what you're saying, but…"
"Maybe a demonstration?" she offered, and drew her wand from her sleeve, making sure they were alone and no one else would see. She ignored his amused look and mutter of, "Magic wand? Really?" and pointed it at a nearby branch, murmurring, "Wingardium Leviosa."
Jasper twitched, then stared between her, the wand and the floating branch. "So a witch is, what, a telekinetic?"
"A bit more than just that." After another check to make sure they were alone, Alice dropped the branch and made a tree turn bright, fluorescent pink. Then she turned to a nearby road sign and transfigured it into a giant lollipop. "Impressed yet?" she asked Jasper with a somewhat cheeky grin.
His eyes were bright with fascination. "Very," he admitted, and gave her an admiring look that made her blush, and which in turn made him smirk a bit, which didn't help the blushing situation at all.
"Well…" She coughed and then quickly reversed her work before pocketing her wand and restarting their stroll. "So yeah, I'm a witch."
"Are there others like you?" Jasper asked. "What's the limit on what you can do?"
"Yes and no." Alice felt a deep throb of sadness. It must have come through in her tone because Jasper gave her a concerned look and walked closer to her. She found his proximity comforting. "There were others like me, but not here. Maybe one, my godfather, but I can't find him. The others I sort of … lost contact with."
"Like your friend Ron?"
"Exactly like Ron."
"Why not make contact again? You obviously miss them."
"I can't," she said, pained, and was thankful he didn't push. "As for limits … well, there are only a few. We can't conjure food, or at least not food that has any nutritional value. We can't create money either, so no get-rich-quick spells. And creating anything from nothing is exceedingly difficult and tends not to last unless it's very simple. True love can't be replicated, immortality is impossible unless you're a genius alchemist, the sort that tends to come around once-in-a-millennia or so—I'm not that sort of genius," she added. "And lastly, the truly dead can't be resurrected."
"That still leaves a lot of possibility," Jasper mused.
She nodded. "I does. Magic is pretty amazing really. Of course, each individual is also limited by their personal ability, generally governed by inherent power, intelligence, creativity and determination."
"And how do you rate?"
Alice pursed her lips, considering. "Above average, but not extraordinary," she admitted. "I had a friend, Hermione, who was an absolute genius. She could get spells right on the first try, and her magical knowledge was so far beyond any of our peers."
"I'm sorry," Jasper murmured. At her questioning look, he said, "For making you think about her. You're obviously still grieving."
Alice was surprised, thinking she'd hidden it pretty well this time. "Not your fault. And it's been years. It's past time I got over it really. I'm sure they're all fine. Ron and Hermione are probably married by now." The thought made her a little wistful, because she'd never be there to see it, but mostly it made her glad. She hoped all her friends were happy. "So what about you? Now that I've been incredibly transparent about my own oddness, will you answer my earlier question? Are any of your family like you?"
Jasper gave her a long, assessing stare. Finally he said, "All of them."
"And what exactly are you, if it's not too rude to ask?"
Jasper looked away, uncomfortable. "That's not something I really feel comfortable talking about. Not without the rest of the family's okay."
Alice bit her lower lip. "Yeah, alright. I understand. Not just your secret to tell, and all." Still, she was a bit disappointed.
"Maybe … I could talk with them. See if they wouldn't mind."
"Really?" she asked, hopeful. She really did want to get to know these people who were different too, if not like her then in their own way.
Jasper smiled a little at her excitement and Alice's breath caught because, oh, that was a nice look on him. And then he smirked and she suspected he had caught her reaction so she huffed and looked away, possibly pouting a little.
Jasper laughed. "Really," he said, returning to the topic. "Edward already broke the rule anyway. At least I'm trying to get the family's okay before spilling the beans."
"Edward's … your youngest brother, right? He told someone?"
"His girlfriend," Jasper said, shaking his head.
Just then the trees thinned out a bit as they reached the street on which Alice's hotel stood.
"Well," she said, "this is me."
Jasper ducked his head, then paused and asked, "Maybe we could catch up again? Even if my family aren't keen on sharing things?"
There was something endearingly shy about his request, and she got the impression he wasn't shy often. So she smiled softly and nodded. "Sure. I could use a friend. Even if you can't share just what you are."
Jasper gave a sigh, and then another of those arresting smiles. He gave her a tip of an invisible hat, and a particularly drawled, "Till tomorrow then ma'am," and turned and went on his way.
A/N: So basically, Twilight cannon's Alice never existed. Instead we have fem-Harry (aka Alice Lily Potter) who bears some striking resemblances to the Alice Cullen we know. Her personality is different of course, but we have the visions, the amnesia (albeit less extreme), the messy black hair… She even meets Jasper in a diner because vision/divination led her there. So yeah, I had some fun with this.
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