Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me but the plot and punctuation errors. Harry Potter and Twilight are owned by J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Stephenie Meyer, and Summit Entertainment, respectively.

Warnings: No beta. No outline. Selective canon. Slash and suicidal themes.

Author's Note: Yeah, so I got about two-thirds of the way into this chapter before I realized that I had accidentally written it in present tense. So then I had to go back and change everything over which was sort of off-putting so I kind of left it to languish there for a while. Sorry about that. I really liked the first draft too, and I'm not sure if it sounds quite right like this, but what can you do, right? I think I got all those pesky present tense verbs out of here, but please do let me know if you spot a mistake so I can go back and fix it!


Chapter Seven

"No." The old man said. "No, I don't believe that is the path for you to take, my boy."

"What then?" Harry insisted heatedly. "If you won't teach me to kill him, what would you have me do?"

"The killing curse withers the hearts and souls of those who wield it. Your power, Harry, lies not in your ability to destroy, but in your capacity to love above all else. It is the one thing you possess that Tom Riddle does not."

White-hot anger bubbled up inside of him from the near-constant simmer he maintained. "I've never been in love! And not a single goddamn person has ever loved me! My own flesh and blood can't stand the sight of me; you know that, you left me with them. I know nothing of love. And even if I did, how am I supposed to use that to kill Voldemort?"

Dumbledore's eyes did not twinkle as they regarded him from behind half-moon glasses. "Love comes in a great many forms, Harry, and you possess a good deal more of it than you realize. It is what has caused you so much sorrow this past year. I have long wished that I could take some of your pain for you, but your ability to feel it so deeply is a very powerful force. I believe the answer to defeating Voldemort lies within it."

More vague half answers and cosseting platitudes. When would they stop treating him like a child? "So you won't teach me." He said flatly.

"No. I will not teach you this." Dumbledore sighed and seemed to wilt before his eyes. Harry was reminded of just how much the man had aged in the last year, and for a moment he found himself wishing that things could be the way they used to between them, but he couldn't find it within him to dredge up the old admiration and affection. There was too much bitterness there now, too much mistrust between them.

His eyes were cold when he spoke again, his voice impassive. "You know the prophecy, you know what I must do. A nation is depending on me Professor, and you would have me sit back and watch the world burn, waiting for some unknown power to manifest itself." For just a moment, the hard exterior he wore like a shell now cracked and revealed the scared boy underneath. "Please, Professor," he whispered in a broken voice, "I can't watch any more people die."

"I am so sorry, my boy, so very sorry. I know that I have done you a terrible disservice, but I fear there is nothing I can do to lighten your load. It is a terrible burden that we ask of you, Harry, but I believe that you have the strength to bear it."

Harry stood and turned to leave without a sound. There was nothing to say, no words to describe his grief and disappointment and rage.

"They would be so proud of you, Harry. Your parents, and Sirius." Dumbledore spoke to his retreating back.

He paused in his departure, and for a moment he stood stock-still before the exit, his hand resting on the doorknob, not looking back. "No, they wouldn't." He said. "And I don't care." He walked out the door.


Harry woke up seething. Dreaming of Dumbledore always filled him with a frustrating mixture of anger and loss. He viciously tried to stamp down the memories. He didn't want to think about this now, didn't want to feel the numerous emotions that it brought with it. Righteous anger he could handle- hell, he welcomed it. It was a break from the never-ending cycle of depression and numbness. It burned and swelled inside him and filled up the terrible emptiness there, however briefly. It gave him energy again, made him feel alive- almost like he actually cared about something. But his feelings for Dumbledore were too mixed up; all that bitter resentment jumbled up with too much hurt and regret and disappointment.

He understood now, that to some extent Dumbledore had known all along. Dumbledore- the great manipulator- who had raised Harry up to be a good little martyr and kept him in the dark, driving him to desperation so great he would have done anything to escape feeling another ounce of despair. And still he couldn't hate the man for it. Because when it came down to it, what other options had the headmaster had? There had been no good choices in the war, only some that were less bad than others, and if Dumbledore had decided that Harry's life was worth less than the rest of the wizarding world combined…well, he could hardly hold that against him. It was the truth after all, and Harry had made that same conclusion himself, even if it had been Dumbledore's manipulations that had led him to making it. In the end Harry knew Dumbledore had hated himself for his machinations more than Harry had ever been able to. And so he was left in this deadlock, unable to forgive, and yet unable to place the blame on Dumbledore's shoulders, both of them directing all their disgust and reproach inwardly.

It required more energy than he had to spare and Harry was just so tired now. He had only just woken up, but he was bone-weary all ready. It was the kind of exhaustion that sleep could never cure. He couldn't stand to think about it anymore so he pushed it away and squeezed his eyes shut tighter and buried his head deeper into his pillow. And suddenly in addition to feeling angry and hurt, he was confused and anxious and mortified. Not to mention vastly, vastly stupid. Because his pillow was not his pillow and he was sleeping on Edward Cullen. His body was curled toward the inert vampire; his fingers firmly twisted into the front of Edward's shirt and his face pressed into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He abruptly stopped breathing. It belatedly occurred to him that that was probably not the best way to hide the fact that he was awake, but he figured his suddenly frantic heartbeat would be enough of a giveaway that it didn't really matter how unsubtle he was in the rest of his body language. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell was he supposed to do now? And why the hell was Edward in bed with him?

His lack of breathing caught up with him and he choked a bit on his next inhalation. Edward did not move. He didn't know why neither of them were saying anything, as they were quite obviously both awake, but the pair continued to lie still and silent on the bed, and Harry continued to wordlessly stress out until he was so tense he was practically vibrating. Finally, finally, he felt the slightest shift of movement underneath him and for a crazy second he thought he felt Edward's hand hovering over his head, but it did not touch down.

"You had a bad dream." Edward spoke at last, his soft voice much closer to Harry's ear than he'd expected it to be. He flinched a bit in surprise and then nodded his acknowledgment, which was difficult with his face still pushed up against Edward's shoulder. A bad dream. He didn't remember any dreams from before the one about Dumbledore, but it explained the hand fisted in Edward's shirt at least. He was no stranger to nightmares. They had gotten so bad during the last year of the war that Ron and Hermione had taken to sleeping alongside him, all three of them piled up on his narrow four-poster bed like abandoned puppies in a cardboard box. Grabbing on to one or both of them as he struggled to ride out the painful and grotesque visions used to be the only way he made it through the night. He realized his fingers were still clenched tight, holding Edward to him and he struggled to release them, cramped and frozen into position as they were.

"You must be starving." Edward murmured as Harry tried to inconspicuously maneuver himself away. "I'll fix you some breakfast."

And then Edward was noiselessly slipping out of the room and Harry was alone and freaking out. This, whatever this was, could not happen. He couldn't be here, around these people. He couldn't eat Esme's cooking, or smile at Emmett's antics, or bask in Carlisle's gentle smile. He could not grab on to Edward while he slept. These people were not his family; his family was dead. His family was dead and he needed to leave. Now. He wrenched himself out of bed and shoved his feet into his ratty trainers, the only piece of clothing that had survived his jump and subsequent trip to the hospital. He knew he was probably only about a day or two away from Carlisle proclaiming him fit to walk on his own and driving him to La Push, but that was not soon enough for him.

He walked quickly down the stairs, limping only slightly and praying all the way that there would be no one waiting nearby to stop him. Luck was obviously not with him as he noticed Rosalie was lying on the couch flipping channels on the telly within plain view of the door. On second thought, perhaps that was lucky. His leg was feeling better, but he had no illusions that he could make it all the way to the reservation on foot. Not to mention that even if he could handle the walk, chances were Edward or one of the others would realize he was gone and catch up to him long before he made it past the border.

He looked around nervously and wondered if this was a good idea. Rosalie hadn't shown any particular interest in him, not sparing him more than a handful of words since his arrival, but maybe that would work in his favor. The others, for whatever reason, seemed inclined to worry about his health and he didn't think they'd be inclined to assist him in his getaway. Rosalie, for all her aloofness would probably be most likely to help, if for no other reason than to irk Edward, whom Harry had noticed she seemed to bicker quite a bit with.

"Hi." He said in a voice that he hoped was loud enough for her to hear, though not so loud as to catch anyone else's attention in another part of the house. She gave him a contemptuous sort of look and he anxiously fidgeted with his shirt cuffs while contemplating the best way to ask for help. Finally he just blurted out, "Um…think I could get a ride?"

She cocked one eyebrow at him imperiously and at first Harry thought she was going to refuse, but then with a flip of her hair she grabbed her keys and headed for the garage. With a small sigh of relief he fell into step behind her and they made their way to a flashy looking red convertible sandwiched in between two other expensive looking cars in the massive car park.

She did not ask for his destination, but she took off in the direction he thought the coast was in so he assumed she understood where he was going. He only vaguely recognized his surroundings from his drive to the ocean last week, but they were moving along quickly and he didn't think it would take long to get there. Contrary to the relief he thought he'd feel once they were on the road, Harry only felt himself getting more and more jittery the farther away they got from the Cullens. It was a completely irrational reaction, but it left him worrying his lips and bouncing his knee restlessly all the same. The silence in the car was grating on his nerves but he didn't want to test Rosalie's patience by flipping on the radio, and talking was definitely out of the question.

Almost as if she had heard his thoughts and wished to spite him, the beautiful vampire chose that moment to speak.

"Are you going to jump again?"

He couldn't tell from the look on her face whether she was actually concerned or just curious, but no matter her motivation he thought it best to hold back the sarcastic retort as he had no idea how far they still were from the border and he really didn't want to be dropped off right here.

"No," he answered honestly, "I don't reckon that one worked out too well for me last time and I don't fancy another week of needing to be carried to the bathroom just so I can take a piss."

"But you are going to try something." It was not a question.

He shrugged, but there was no reason to lie about it, so he replied, "Eventually, yeah. Most likely I will."

"You have no idea what you're throwing away." And now there was definitely annoyance in her voice.

"Huh. That's kind of a stupid perspective." Well, so much for holding back his rudeness. He really had tried, but he was still unjustifiably agitated about leaving the Cullen's and her self-righteousness was kind of pissing him off.

"Excuse me?"

"It's just I think I'd have a much better idea of exactly what it is I'm throwing away than you would, don't you think? What with my having lived it and all."

"Possibly," she said, though her imperious tone suggested she didn't really believe it, "but I have a bit more experience with dying than you do."

He chuckled dryly. "Not the kind I want to do. Look, no offense Rosalie, but you really don't know anything about me or my situation so you're not in any position to judge what it is I'm giving up." The car rolled to a stop in front of the 'Welcome to La Push' sign, and Harry opened the door to get out. "Thanks for the ride." He paused. "It was nice meeting you all. And tell Carlisle and Esme thanks for me. And um…tell Edward I'm sorry." He shut the door and started walking.


The forest was beautiful, all towering cedars and ferns and lush green moss. The weather was perfect in that gloomy way he loved; chilly but too mild for snow still, the washed out skies offering a constant drizzle that trickled down the back of his collar and in between his shoulder blades just perfectly so. He loved the rain, it felt…clean. He might have actually been smiling if he hadn't been wandering through the forest for close to an hour now. He was soaked and cold and his leg was aching something fierce. Not to mention he was still twitchy as hell. He couldn't shake that damn feeling that something was wrong. Like he should be walking back in the opposite direction. Back towards Forks.

Needless to say, he wasn't best pleased when he finally stumbled upon his bike only to find a boy kneeling beside it, digging through his rucksack. He looked about the same (physical) age as Harry, and had copper skin and long straight black hair that fell neatly to his shoulders in a manner that Harry's would never achieve no matter how long he grew it. His was almost half there already; it had been months since he bothered to cut it and it hung almost long enough to pull it back into a short ponytail, but was still shaggy and wild, curling over his ears and neck and constantly falling into his eyes.

He gave an irritated cough to announce his presence and waited for the teenager to look up. He had to revise his first estimate of the boy's age when his head snapped up and Harry saw his face. Judging by the hint of boyish roundness around his chin, he was closer to 15.

"Oh, hey. Sorry. I guess this is your bag I'm going through, huh?" The kid smiled somewhat sheepishly. "I wasn't gonna take anything, I was just trying to find out who the bike belonged too. It's been out here for a while." He grinned widely and handed Harry's rucksack to him. "I was sort of hoping no one was coming back for it. It's a great bike."

"Thanks." He said, shifting his bag over his shoulder.

The boy continued to chat even as Harry straddled the bike and settled in. "My friend's got a dirt bike I work on sometimes, but nothing as nice as this. It's a 250, right?"

"Yup."

"A Marauder?"

He smiled. Admittedly, he'd originally been attracted to the bike just for it's model name, but the Marauder had managed to worm it's way into his heart over the years.

He slid on his sunglasses and flipped up the kickstand.

"Well, I guess you probably wanna get out of here, huh? Can't blame you there. Maybe I'll see you around." Did people really talk this much? It was disturbing for a person to be this friendly. He was almost as bad as Alice.

He nodded his goodbye as he hit the starter and the engine roared to life…and promptly died. He tried six more times, but each time the engine shut off as soon as he stopped feeding it gas. He finally gave up with a curse and a sigh and turned to the overly-cheerful teenager who was still standing nearby.

"I don't suppose you'd know the name of a good mechanic."

"There's one back in Forks," he said, pointing back in the direction Harry had just come from, "he's way overpriced though. Cost you an arm and a leg."

"Bloody great. I don't suppose he'd be willing to come pick the bike up if I called him."

"Nah. They don't really do that around here. I could give it a lift for you though, I've got a truck."

"Really? Are you positive?"

"Sure, sure. It's no problem."

"Uh…do you need help loading it up?"

"Nah, truck's at home. I'll have to run and get it first." He seemed to think a moment before he added, "You know, you've probably just got some water in your spark plug; leaving it out in the rain like this isn't very good for the electrical system. If you open it up and give it a good cleaning, let it dry out for a day or two it'll probably run just fine. Save you a lot of money too."

"Thanks, but I don't really know anything about engines. I wouldn't even know what the spark plug looked like."

"Well, I can take a look at it if you like. I'm pretty good with this stuff. I completely rebuilt my truck's engine."

"Oh. Uh- wow, okay. That's really nice of you. I'm not really sure how well it'll be able to dry out here though."

"I can take it back to my garage. If you don't mind, I mean."

He forcefully tamped down the instinctive mistrust as it tried to rear up. This kid hardly looked like someone who was going to try and screw him over. Between the wide, easy grin and the spark of excitement in his eyes he didn't even look like he knew the meaning of the word 'guile.'

"I don't mind, but are you sure your parents won't?"

"Nah, I'm the only one who uses it really. I'm always out there working on stuff."

"All right. Well, great. How should we do this then?"

"Do you have a phone number I can get?"

"Uh…no. Not really."

"Okay, well, I'll give you mine, and my address too. It should probably be good to pick up in a day or two, but give me a call and I'll let you know after I take a look at it."

"Sounds good. Er…I just realized I don't know what your name is." He should probably also be asking how old he was, but he'd always hated it when people questioned his ability to do something based on his age. He'd been fighting dragons at 14, so who was he to say this kid couldn't fix his engine?

"I'm Jacob Black." The boy said, offering his hand to shake.

"Harry Potter." He replied, and then, "Oh!" as he felt the tingle of magic when he clasped Jacob's hand. It was hard to detect, tucked away deep and muted as it was, but it was quite definite once he knew what he was looking for. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. So Jacob was one of the La Push 'werewolves' that the Cullens had seemed so wary of.

He'd had both good and bad experiences with werewolves and animagi alike, and it was their human sides, not their animal components, that caused him trouble more often than not. As a human, Jacob seemed more like an overgrown puppy than an angry wolf, so Harry didn't really see himself having any problems here.

"Sorry," Jacob apologized, pulling his hand away, "did I shock you?"

"Huh? Oh, no. Just took me by surprise. You must be one of the wolves I've heard mentioned."

The other boy gave a startled laugh. "The what? What are you talking about?"

Whoops. He'd spoken without thinking. It hadn't even occurred to him that the shapeshifter might not know what he was talking about. Maybe he was wrong? But no, the magic was most certainly there. Maybe he just hadn't changed yet. He couldn't imagine why he wouldn't know about it though; the Cullen's had said it was some kind of hereditary thing, so wouldn't his parents have told him about it? Of course, so was wizardry, and Harry had managed to go 11 years before finding out about that. Well, whatever it was, he needed to think of an explanation. Fast.

"What are you talking about?" Or stalling for time worked too.

"Wait, what?" Jacob's brow furrowed. "I'm confused. What did you say before?"

"Um…what did you say?" Quick, what rhymed with wolves?

"I said I was sorry for shocking you." All right, Jacob was giving him decidedly weird looks now.

"And I said…something about…mulves?" Oh yeah. That was brilliant.

"O…kay. You're kind of a weird guy, Harry." He said it with such a big and accepting grin on his face that Harry couldn't even begin to get offended by it.

"Trust me, you don't know the half of it."


Harry was limping rather heavily by the time he made it back to the road, and he still had quite a few miles to go before he got to...well, he wasn't sure where he was trying to get to. He had no form of transportation right now unless he wanted to try apparating, and he really didn't think that was a good idea until he was fully healed. He might feel like he wanted to chop his injured leg off at the moment, but he was pretty sure he'd actually be quite pissed off if he left it behind. Besides, the Marauder was still in La Push and he didn't want to go too far away from it. It was one of his few possessions he really cared about. Actually, it was one of his few possessions, period. He'd never been able to bring himself to destroy the things from his old life, but he hadn't been able to keep them with him either. The few things that had had meaning to him- his invisibility cloak, his Firebolt, his photo album- had all been stashed a couple years back in a safe deposit box in a bank in Zurich, the same one he'd transferred all his funds to before departing the wizarding world. He hadn't wanted anyone tracking him down and the Swiss gnomes were much more circumspect than goblins.

Without his bike or the option of apparating, that pretty much left him with walking, which limited him to Forks, and if he was going to be stuck in Forks that pretty much left him with the Cullens. He could try to find a motel to crash in of course, or even just a bar to pass out in, but he didn't think it would be long before Edward or one of the others would catch up to him and bring him back to the big white house.

It was getting more and more difficult staying with the Cullens. He didn't think he'd had more than a second to himself since he'd gotten there. He didn't know if they were doing that on purpose or if it was just that there were so many of them that it seemed like at least one of them was always around. He suspected it was the former though. They all seemed to be afraid that if they left him alone for more than a moment he would disappear on them. Which, he mentally acknowledged, was obviously not unreasonable considering that he had done exactly that.

What he couldn't figure out was why they cared. He'd known them barely a week, and his demeanor did not exactly invite personal relationships. He was moody and caustic and melancholy and slightly crazy, not to mention that he accidentally blew things up. Why on earth did these people care about him? Worse yet, why was he starting to care about them? And that there was the real reason it was getting so hard to stay with the Cullens- he liked them. When they weren't driving him up the wall with their constant presence, he genuinely enjoyed their company. He recognized that feeling he got every time he saw Jasper and Emmett roughhousing, or Esme mothering Edward, or Carlisle greeting his children when he came home from work. It was the same feeling he used to get whenever he would watch the Weasleys interact- that peculiar combination of happy and sad- that warm, soft sort of feeling in his chest, mixed with a bone-deep ache of longing.

He was just crossing the border between the reservation and Forks- and still debating over where he was going to go- when he was unexpectedly lifted off the ground and wrapped in a pair of solid steel bands. He felt his magic quickly and uncontrollably expanding, preparing to lash out at the unseen threat when he suddenly realized he recognized the cold, muscular arms he was incased in.

"Edward?" He asked incredulously, all the while trying to calm his magic's defense mechanisms. The vampire didn't respond, just set Harry down in the front seat of his Volvo and buckled him in before moving around the car to climb in the driver's side. He shifted the car into gear and took off at an extreme speed as Harry continued to gape at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He finally managed to ask, a little less politely than he'd intended.

"I could ask you the same thing. I left you in bed, after all, waiting for your breakfast." His voice was quiet and velvety as usual and Harry thought he felt a slight blush rising to his cheeks at the implications of Edward's statement.

"I wasn't hungry." He said lamely, and then mentally beat himself over the head. Yeah, like that explained why he freaked out and ran away after waking up wrapped around a ridiculously good-looking vampire. He rolled his eyes at himself. Nice one, Potter.

He noticed Edward pressing his lips together then, looking as though he were stifling a laugh for some reason, and Harry felt himself hard pressed not to glower at said ridiculously good-looking vampire.

"You never answered my question." Harry barked. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you might need a ride with your motorcycle out of commission." Edward's lips were still quirked slightly, but there was a hard edge to his voice, and Harry could not identify the emotion behind it.

"How did you-"

"Alice."

"Right." He huffed. "Bloody seers. She couldn't have checked a bit earlier, let me know I wasn't going to be able to start it?"

"I agree. It's a shame she didn't notice anything prior to your leaving. I could have stopped you before you had to go and do further injury to your leg like that." He turned to Harry, face severe and reprimanding. "Of course, that also could have been avoided if you weren't so completely unreasonable."

"I wasn't being unreasonable, my leg feels much better now."

Edward continued speaking as though he hadn't heard Harry. "Unfortunately Alice's thoughts were busy elsewhere and she didn't become aware of your plans until Rosalie dropped you off. Don't worry though," he said with renewed cheer in his voice, "she's promised to keep a much better eye on you from now on."

Harry scowled at him, but if anything Edward's grin just got wider.

"What?" He finally snapped, after Edward continued to smirk at him, not even bothering to pretend to watch the road.

The attractive vampire quirked one eyebrow. "Mulves, Harry?"

"Shut up." He muttered, and slumped further into his seat, drawing his shoulders up to hide his embarrassed blush.

With the speed Edward was driving at, it was less than five minutes later that they were pulling back up to the big white house. "You found him!" Alice squealed, bounding out to meet them as they exited Edward's car.

"Right where you said he'd be." Edward smirked.

"I'm so sorry Edward." She said, clearly feeling ashamed of herself.

"Don't worry about it. We don't expect you to watch everything all the time, Alice. Give yourself a break."

"Thanks." She smiled, the guilt erased from her face. "Still, I'll keep a closer eye now. He's a wily thing, isn't he?" She ruffled Harry's hair affectionately, ignoring the daggers he was glaring at her.

"I am standing right here you know." Harry groused.

"You're right." Edward frowned, and then scooped Harry up so that he was no longer standing. "My apologies."

"Cute." He said, looking down to hide a smile because- damn it- he really was. "That's not what I meant and you know it. Now stop talking about me like I'm a wayward puppy and put me down."

"Certainly." Edward agreed, before carrying him up two flights of stairs and over to his bed prior to complying. He took ridiculous care in setting him down, handling him like he was a china doll, and hadn't survived a fifty-meter drop into rocky waters only a week before.

"Why do you care anyway?" He snapped, his frustration from earlier rising back to the surface and mixing with his irritation at being handled so delicately.

"What?"

"Why do you care? Having Alice monitor my futures, picking me up at the border…I don't get it."

Edward looked utterly lost for words. Alice, presumably noticing the same thing, answered for him. "We like you Harry. And we're worried about you. We want to make sure you're safe."

Harry's heart sank and at the same time a traitorous little part of him gave a thrill at the words. It was not a good idea for them to like him.

"But why? I mean, what does it matter to you? You barely even know me and in few days my bike will be fixed and my leg will be healed and I'll be on my way."

"You don't have to be." Edward forced the words out all at once, almost too fast for Harry's ears to pick up.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't have to be on your way. You could stay here."

Harry froze. There was no way Edward had just said that. He must have misheard or something. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. Well…not exactly, because he hadn't actually imagined for a second that this was a possible outcome. It had never been an issue before.

In over six years of travels he had of course come across a few people whom he hadn't been able to scare off with his attitude or mood swings; mostly old women who had wanted to take him home and fatten him up, or younger women who wanted to take him home and shag him, even the occasional child looking at him with big eyes and sweet smiles, wanting nothing more than a push on the swings. But he had never had to face this kind of predicament before. Always there had been something that kept any of the people he met from trying to keep him there. There was something in the way he carried himself, the energy he gave off that had always warned them quite clearly from trying to do so.

So was the problem now in his hosts' lack of ability to sense that? Or was it that the vibe he was giving off had changed? There was a part of him he could no longer deny- albeit a very strange and conflicted part of him- that wanted to stay. He didn't know what to do.

"I have to change!" He practically shouted the words and then cringed at his own awkwardness.

"What?" Both Edward and Alice looked baffled this time.

"My…my clothes are wet. I need to change them."

"Harry," Edward started to say, and was promptly interrupted by Alice who apparently recognized his complete lack of wanting to talk about Edward's proposition for what it was.

"We'll just wait outside while you get dressed."

"Thanks."

He upended his damp rucksack onto the bed and rooted around for the driest pair of denims and shirt he could find. It only took him a minute to get dressed but he barely had his shirt over his head before Alice barged back in with Edward in tow.

"Hey!"

"Oh, sorry. Weren't you done? It sounded like you were done."

He rolled his eyes. He wasn't actually sure he'd ever heard an apology that sounded less contrite. "You guys don't have a very high expectation of privacy around here, do you?"

"Nope. Between Jasper and Edward and me, and the super-hearing, you sort of get used to everybody being in your business. And being in everybody else's business. It's fun!"

Before he had the chance to comment or ask about how Edward contributed to the lack of privacy, she gave a horrified gasp and pointed a dramatic finger towards the bed.

"What on earth is that?"

"Um…a bed? I realize you don't sleep and all, but surely you and Jasper are aware of their other uses."

She broke from her theatrical outrage for a moment to shoot a leer at him- a decidedly strange look on her usually angelic face.

"I meant on top of the bed. Please tell me this isn't your whole wardrobe." She said as she started rooting through his clothes.

"Should there be more?"

She gave a cry of wordless outrage. "More than six black shirts and two pairs of ratty jeans? Yes!"

"Seven shirts and three pairs of jeans. You forgot to count the ones I'm wearing now."

She threw a disdainful look at his long-sleeved tee and holey denims. "These shirts look like they came in a three pack."

From her wrinkled nose he gathered that wasn't a good thing and wisely decided not to confirm her theory on his shirt's origins.

"That's it. I'm taking you shopping. This is just wrong! You don't even have anything that isn't black!"

"Shopping?"

She nodded decisively. "We need to get a little color in your wardrobe. I bet you look stunning in green."

"Shopping." He echoed again.

Shopping didn't tend to work out too well for him. It was ridiculous, he knew, but it seemed he couldn't even escape thoughts of his past life in this one simple thing. Even his attire was affected by his psychosis. Everything reminded him of something he didn't want to be reminded of. Orange took him back to Ron's old bedroom, plastered in Chudley Cannons posters from floor to ceiling. Purple brought memories of Dumbledore's ostentatious robes. Yellow was the Hufflepuff jersey Cedric was wearing the last time Harry had seen him, barely visible beneath the blood and dirt. Red was Gryffindor, and the Hogwarts steam engine, and the blood running from the gaping hole in Hermione's ruined chest as she choked on her last breath. Green…green was everything. Green was Slytherin. Green was his mother's eyes, and the Christmas jumpers Mrs. Weasley used to knit for him, and the color of the ink on his first Hogwarts letter. Green was the killing curse. The last time he had gone shopping he had been so inundated with memories every time he tried to pick up a shirt, that he froze up and finally just grabbed whatever he could find in black and ran out the door.

"Um…thanks, but I don't think so. I'm good with what I have."

Alice's face fell. "But…but they're horrible! And you're so cute!" She turned her large, pleading eyes on him. "Please?"

Fearing the persuasive powers of Alice, he turned his own beseeching eyes towards Edward. He doubted they could be anywhere near as potent as the pixie-like vampire's, but it didn't take more than a second before Edward was clearing Alice out of the room and shutting the door firmly behind her, saving Harry from accidentally agreeing to play dress-up doll for the tiny fashionista.

"Thanks."

Edward snickered as he settled himself on the bed next to Harry. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone look quite so terrified at the prospect of shopping."

"Yeah, well…it's not really my thing."

The other boy's eyes turned serious then, and Harry realized he had been rescued from one conversation he didn't want to have, only to be cornered back into the other one he didn't want to have.

"I meant what I said before, Harry. I would like for you to stay."

He sighed heavily. "I can't stay here Edward. Look, I don't know if you've noticed at all, but I'm completely screwed up. I don't know how to function on a normal, civilized level anymore. I'm barely even capable of interacting with other people!"

"I don't care about that."

"You should. I don't belong around people, it just…it hurts them. And the more they care about me the more I manage to hurt them." It was the truth. Even after the war was over and the people he loved stopped dying for his cause, he still hurt them. Because he couldn't heal and they couldn't help him. Watching him suffer caused them too much pain and in the end he'd left because of it. He had enough guilt piled on his shoulders without having to feel bad about feeling bad. That was just stupid and it made his head hurt to think about.

"There's something wrong with me Edward. And whatever it is, it's catching. So for both our sakes, I'm going to say no thank you and move on as soon as I can."

"Let me just make sure that I have this straight. You can't stay here because your presence might somehow taint my family. My vampire family."

"I suspect that's supposed to be sarcasm, but it doesn't really work when what you say is completely true."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that. There's nothing wrong with you, Harry. We want you to stay here. I want you to stay." He leaned towards Harry, eyes intense and focused.

"You…?" He started to speak but lost his train of thought before he could say anything of worth.

"I want you to stay." He repeated. Edward leaned closer still, which shouldn't have been possible, because really, how close could he get? His eyes flickered downwards, to Harry's…chin?…and then back to connect with Harry's own. One hand came up to cup his face and a thumb gently traced his lower lip. Oh. Right. Probably not Harry's chin he was looking at then.

Harry was vaguely aware of his uneven breaths and the fact that he should be pulling away and then Edward's sweet breath ghosted over his face and he felt his eyes fluttering shut in spite of himself. Edward moved slowly, so impossibly slow, as if to give Harry every opportunity to back away- and if he'd been capable of any kind of rational thought he would have- but he was frozen, frozen, Edward's lips were frozen and they were pressing against Harry's, so so softly and he was still frozen, he couldn't move, couldn't back away. He didn't want to back away. Why didn't he want to back away?

He kissed back.


Author's Note 2: So, some new voices for me this time. Personally, I quite liked my Dumbledore. I'm really unsure of my Jake though. What do you think? About Jake and Alice's visions- Jake hasn't yet become a wolf and well, it was never really specified in the books whether or not Alice could see them before they first made the shift, so I'm going with the idea that, yes, she can. Also, I know even less about engines than Harry, so I don't really know if my little scenario there is at all correct, that's just what I found using Yahoo! Answers. Meh, close enough, right? As always, you're wonderful with the reviews and I can't thank you enough.