Chapter 4 – High School Annoyances

Monday came far too soon for Harry's liking. The last time he had stepped foot inside of a school was graduation day at Hogwarts, which had been postponed due to the war. He wasn't exactly nervous about going to school again, but he'd be lying if he said he was completely comfortable with the idea. His formal Muggle education stopped at the age of eleven when he began his Wizarding one and, though he continued to self-teach himself various Muggle subjects should he ever need to know them, Harry was a tad bit worried. He had no idea what else had been incorporated into Muggle education during the time he had stopped worrying about academics after graduation until now.

With a sigh, Harry got off of his bed and went to take a shower. It was a human habit, really, and he wasn't quite ready to give it up. Acastus saw fit to make insanely lewd comments and attempt to catch a view of Harry in the shower. He had drooled at mental images his brain drew up and informed his Childe, much to the mortification of Harry, and sometimes even dared to try and sneak in with him. This hadn't worked out very well for him, however, considering the fact that Harry's vampire senses let him know whenever the blond vampire was in the vicinity and the fact that Harry always placed hexes and jinxes around his bathroom.

After his shower, Harry casually dressed himself. It was the first time since yesterday that he had been completely relaxed in his own home. Just like he had figured, Edward Cullen became somewhat of an annoyance. He could sense the American vampire outside his house, watching his every move and looking for signs of Acastus. It agitated him to no end and forced him to act even more human than would've been necessary. Edward Cullen had also creeped him out; honestly, when you have all the time in the world at night to do whatever you wanted, who would choose to watch humans sleeping?

Harry frowned slightly, remembering how boring it had been to pretend to sleep for eight full hours. He grabbed the car keys from the table by the door and left the house. It didn't take long for him to drive from his house to his new school and he was happy that there were only a few people there. His new and shiny car, without a doubt, would draw a lot of attention, as if being the new student from Britain wasn't enough. Even though the Muggles here had no idea that he was a huge celebrity in his world, he knew that the stares he'd receive would be no better. It seemed like no matter where he went, eyes would follow him and stare, gawk, watch...

Harry lightly shuddered before shaking his head. He walked into the building, already feeling awkward as the few people that were on school grounds pointed and whispered about him. Taking long, swift steps, Harry reached the office in no time. He took the time to smile kindly at the lady behind the desk and then waited for her to finish shifting through her papers.

"May I help you?" she asked with a smile of her own.

"Yes, I believe you can," Harry replied, feeling slightly worried when her smile widened. "I'm Harry P—"

"Ah!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining suddenly. "Harry Potter, the new transfer student from Britain; lovely accent you have. If you'll wait a moment, I'll get your papers ready."

"Thank you," Harry murmured, eyeing her somewhat warily. He didn't really like the look she gave him or the way she was analyzing him.

"Here you are," she said as she handed him his schedule and a map. "Would you like to take a tour of the school first or do you think you can manage?"

Harry pondered this momentarily. "Well, I suppose a tour might actually be a good idea," he mused out loud.

"Great!" the woman exclaimed. "I think my daughter would be an excellent tour guide. She's quite the looker, I'll tell you, and knows her way around the school quite well."

Harry internally groaned. Was this an attempt for him to 'get to know' and 'become enamored' with her daughter? He was starting to feel uncomfortable as his mind jumped to conclusions and became indecisive. On one hand, he wanted to flat out refuse to take the tour and stomp out of the room. On the other hand, he wanted to accept the offer and not appear to be the rude, new foreigner on the first day of school. Opening his mouth, he soon found out that he didn't really have to make the decision.

"Hello, Mrs. Weber. How are you today?" Alice Cullen asked as she almost magically appeared by Harry's side.

"Oh!" the woman said, startled. "I'm quite well, Alice. I'll help you in a moment; let me just attend to this transfer student."

"Actually," Alice interrupted, "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and decided to offer my services. I mean, Harry and I have already met and, well, I'm here right now. It wouldn't hurt for me to show him around."

"I see," Mrs. Weber said, looking somewhat disappointed. "Well, if it's fine with Harry."

"That would be great," Harry decided, feeling unbelievably relieved. "Thank you for the offer, Mrs. Weber."

"No problem."

Harry couldn't help but feel slightly guilty at how put out Mrs. Weber seemed. "Thank you," he told Alice as soon as they exited the front office. "It was so awkward in there."

"I could tell," Alice teased, smiling at the wizard. "You don't do so good with saying 'no', do you?"

Harry sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "It's just, I didn't know what to do. I mean, she looked excited to introduce me to her daughter and I've no problem with making new friends, but at the same time it seemed as if, I dunno, she was a vampire just waiting to sink her fangs into me."

Alice nearly snorted at Harry's choice of words. "Now you're being silly," she admonished, smiling as she led Harry towards her stiff siblings.

Harry let out a sigh. "Yeah, you're right," he murmured. "Vampires don't exist; I'm just being paranoid." He noted, with a large amount of satisfaction, that Edward Cullen seemed to be uncomfortable and awkward. He didn't notice Jasper's confused expression.

'Good,' he thought to himself. 'Now he knows how it feels.'

Alice chuckled. "So, are you ready for that tour?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Harry said, mock glaring at Alice as she laughed at him. "Oh, hush. I have every right to be nervous! How on earth am I going to get through a class of American history? I barely know British history!"

Emmett let out a rather loud laugh and was slightly surprised when Harry didn't jump like most humans did. He was going to say something when he noticed Rosalie's glare and promptly kept his mouth shut. Edward witnessed the scene and rolled his eyes before paying attention to Alice and Harry's interaction. The "human" made him feel somewhat uneasy; he had no scent, his mind was somehow blocked, and his entwined destiny with the Cullens had won him Alice's loyalty. Decades after making sure their family kept to themselves in voluntary solitude practically disappeared in the span of a few hours all because of Harry freaking Potter and Edward, though he trusted Alice's judgment, wasn't comfortable with this turn of events. His mind wandered back to the vision he had seen inside of Alice's mind; it seemed more like a dream or a fantasy than a possible future outcome and he thought that was perhaps the reason why he was so skeptical.

"—right, Edward?"

Edward snapped back to reality as his family looked at him expectedly; he was slightly embarrassed to discover that he had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he only caught the last part of Alice's sentence. Jasper and Emmett grinned at him, their eyes glinting dangerously. "Um," Edward practically stammered, "it sounds wonderful, Alice."

That, apparently, had been the wrong thing to say. Alice smirked wickedly before turning to Harry. "You see, Harry, even Edward thinks dressing you up in skin-tight leather would be hot!"

If Edward had blood, it all would've rushed to his face by now. Emmett let out booming laughter and Jasper chuckled. "Well, I, uh," Edward murmured, attempting to think of a comeback.

Alice wagged her finger in his face. "That's what you get for not paying attention," she said with a giggle.

"Did you really ask that?" Edward questioned after a few moments of silence.

"No, she didn't," Harry answered. "She had said that we have last period Biology together."

"Oh."

Emmett clasped him on the back. 'Nice going, bro,' he thought with mental laughter.

Edward sent him a scowl and muttered under his breath, "Oh, shut up."

'She had you wrapped up!' Emmett continued to tease.

"Are you choking right now, Em?"

Emmett was confused. 'Huh? No, why?'

"Well, I figured the leash your wife has on you is just so short that it would be causing you some relative discomfort right about now," Edward replied lowly.

That promptly shut Emmett up and Jasper smirked at the brawny vampire. "So, Harry, why did you move here of all places in America?" the empath asked, attempting to converse with Harry and earning a smoldering, thankful look from Alice.

"Well," Harry said slowly, "I didn't want to live in Britain anymore due to personal reasons so I decided to move. I wasn't completely ready to give up the atmosphere of Britain, because though I've no desire to live there anymore that didn't mean I didn't like it, and so I searched for places with the same climate as it."

Alice nodded in understanding before glancing at her watch. "It's almost time to start class," she said almost mournfully before giving Harry a hug. "I'll see you in English, Harry! Bye!"

"See you later, Alice," Harry replied, returning the hug without thinking. He mentally cursed himself, realizing he was supposed to be a human and, therefore, not exactly able to hug a vampire with no problem, and pretended to give a little shiver. "Do you want my sweater, Alice? You seem a little cold."

Alice's eyes twinkled knowingly before she shook her head in the negative. "No, I think I'll steal Jasper's. It smells so good!"

Harry gave a mock-pout. "Are you trying to tell me that mine will smell bad?"

Alice shrugged her shoulders. "Not really. Hey, Edward, do you wanna check?"

Edward, who had been eyeing Harry suspiciously, jerked his head toward her and gave a little glare. "You're a comic genius, Alice," he said dryly.

"I do try," Alice retorted, giggling. The warning bell erupted into shrill notes, causing everybody near it to cringe and shrink back. The Cullens winced as their delicate hearing started to ring and Harry put his hands over his ears, glaring at the offending metal contraption.

"What the hell? Does the school want their students to go deaf? If there's a problem with my ears, I'll be forwarding them the bill!" Harry exclaimed, rubbing his ears.

Edward rolled his eyes. "Oh, suck it up," he blurted out before he could censor himself.

Harry's eyes flashed in semi-amusement and annoyance before he grinned. "So, the dull one can perform a more coherent sentence than 'well…I…uh'!"

Edward's jaw twitched before he forced his lips to form a strained smile. "Dull?" he inquired, ignoring the not-quite-muffled snickers and chuckles from his siblings.

"Oh dear, I had no idea your brother was more of a parrot than a human, Alice," Harry chirped, happy to put Edward on the spot.

Edward fixed a glare on Harry. "Parrot?" he grit out.

Harry shook his head in mock sympathy. "I am so sorry about that, Alice. Good luck with him." Harry then turned to Edward. "I'd love to stay and have you repeat every word I say, but I have class to attend to. Toodles!"

As soon as Harry was gone, Edward whirled on Alice. "Did you know he was going to do that?" he demanded.

"Maybe," Alice admitted, twirling her hair and giggling. "Oh, wait; I'm seeing something right now!"

"What? What is it?" Edward questioned.

Alice smirked. "You're going to be late if you don't leave right now."

Edward scowled before walking off, shaking his head all the while. He made it to his classroom with mere seconds to spare, earning a sharp look from his Government teacher Mr. Jefferson. A sheepish look drifted across his face before he made his way to his seat. It wasn't until he was seated and opening his notebook did he notice the seat in front of him, that was normally empty, was currently occupied. His nostrils flared in annoyance when he realized it was Harry freaking Potter.

"Why are you here?" he hissed lowly, trying not to draw attention to himself.

Harry dropped his pen and leaned down to pick it up, hissing in reply, "If you had been paying attention when Alice was speaking, you'd know I have this class with you as well!"

Edward frowned and breathed deeply in an attempt to regain some of his lost composure. "Tch, great," he mumbled to himself. "Just what I need."

Harry rolled his eyes before softly muttering, "Suck it up," in a mocking manner.

"Now who is the parrot?" Edward retorted under his breath, shocked at himself for even continuing to banter with Harry. It was weird for him to act like a regular teenager when he was over one hundred years old.

"Edward, since you and Harry are already on friendly terms, judging by the amount of talking you both are doing, you will tutor him on our government. Yes?" Mr. Jefferson told him amiably, smiling.

Edward's eyebrow twitched, though the movement was so slight that it was invisible to the human eye. "Yes, sir," he replied, annoyed that he had allowed stupid Harry Potter to get under his skin and was now stuck in this predicament.

"Good. Now, class, today…"

Edward tuned out the entire lecture, already familiar with the content. Instead, he found it more interesting to attempt to burn holes into Harry's head. Ever since that stupid non-human, whatever-he-was thing, came to Forks, Edward and his family had been thrown in a loop. Rosalie and Alice had a falling out, Emmett was somewhat subdued for fear of remaining celibate for the rest of his days, and Edward was being made a fool of. It was simply infuriating! If Harry Potter had never shown up, life would've continued normally and the Cullens could've finished living in Forks for however long they could without too much difficulty.

When he still couldn't see the whiteboard through Harry's head, Edward decided to glare at the clock that was ticking too damn slow. His fingers lightly tapped in rhythm with the second hand and it wasn't long until he was bored with that as well. Agitation built within him before he took a deep breath and calmly remembered the vision Alice had let him see. Edward couldn't quite understand how somebody as annoying as Harry Potter could cause such happiness in his family. Not to mention, the vision was so far in the future that Edward didn't know what decisions would change it or cause it. He shook his head and sighed. Who knew how that vision would happen. In his opinion, it was still too ethereal to be a possibility…

Rosalie smiled widely, her eyes sparkling as she noticed the little girl running towards her. Without another thought, her arms outstretched and she caught the girl within them, laughing and twirling her around. The little girl laughed as well and wrapped her arms around Rosalie's chest.

"I like it when you do that, mom," she said with childish innocence.

"I bet you do," Rosalie replied, smiling at the girl. "I think it's better when dad does it to both of us, don't you agree?"

The girl nodded her head. "Dad! Come swing us around," she demanded, obtaining an air of superiority.

Emmett rolled his eyes. "I'm just a slave to you women!" he complained as he obediently picked them both up and swung them around.

The little girl squealed happily. "That's right!" she replied arrogantly. "Because men are here to serve all women!"

Rosalie smirked and patted her on the head. "That's my little Samantha," she murmured proudly.

"Lunch time!"

The three vampires turned to see Esme and the rest of the Cullens around the picnic table. "Good," Emmett boomed. "I'm starving!"

"You always are," Edward commented, earning a punch on the arm that knocked him to the ground.

"Wait, not around my cake! I spent a lot of time on this!" Harry exclaimed, appearing from out of nowhere.

Rosalie glanced at the cake approvingly. "Good job," she murmured, soaking in its appearance and smell.

Harry beamed. "I know," he replied gleefully. "It would be bigger if somebody didn't pick at the batter!" He glared at the culprit.

Edward shrugged his shoulders innocently. "Not me," he declared. "It was Jasper!"

A bonk on his head had him turning around. "Trying to pick on me while I'm not here?" Jasper teased, mock glaring at his brother. Small arms wound around his torso and Edward made a face as Alice and Jasper shared a loving kiss.

"Come on," Carlisle said, gesturing to the seats. "Sit. Let's eat."

"Wait!" Esme cried. "A toast, first!"

The adults lifted their wine glasses and Samantha raised her cup of juice. "To Harry," Alice said happily. "Without him, none of this would be possible right now."

"To Harry," everyone else murmured.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I think everyone should receive a toast," he said, trying to take the attention off of him. "If you all hadn't been so open-minded," he nudged Rosalie with a smirk at which she kindly kicked him in the shin in reply, "then it wouldn't have made a difference whether or not I was here to help you all."

Carlisle smiled. "Okay; to everyone!"

They drank on it and Harry and Edward shared a smoldering glance. Their fingers entwined and Edward lovingly caressed Harry's hand with his thumb. The day finished with the sound of their laughter and the joy of all of their dreams fulfilled.

Edward came out of his reverie and shook his head, scowling. The vision made absolutely no sense. For one, how did Rosalie and Emmett have a little girl? Adoption was possible, but then why did the girl resemble them so much? And what was the deal with them eating food? They were vampires, for heaven's sake! Human food isn't appealing; why would they eat it then? And then there was the obviously different relationship he had in the vision with Harry. What was that about? His gaze returned to Harry who was studiously scribbling notes into his notebook. Edward let out a soft snort. As if that would ever happen.

A/N: Yes, it's late, but my computer went bleh. Hope everyone likes this chapter and leaves a review. I debated with myself for a small period of time whether or not I should show Alice's vision so early, but I decided to allow a little foreshadowing come into the story. Also, I've received too many reviews with the same question: What is Acastus and Harry's relationship? Instead of tiring myself and answering to every single question, I'll post the answer here. They are only friends. Though they flirt a lot and imply a lot of things in a sexual manner that is all they are and all they'll ever be. No, Harry has not lost his virginity to Acastus. Edward is the only one that will have that privilege.

Hope that clears things up. Please leave a review letting me know what you think of this and thanks for all the votes on the poll!

BTW: Deviant art deleted my banner, so I'll post a link to my photobucket later.