A/N: Thank you to Kacie232, Guest, and Little Miss Sunday for reviewing, and to NicNack4U and Little Miss Sunday for favoriting and subscribing.
Getting close to the end now...
Disclaimer: Justin, Alex, and Max, and all other characters here belong to Disney Channel.
Chapter X
This Feels Familiar
The first time Justin Russo meets Juliet van Heusen, it's love at first sight. Justin falls for her, and he falls hard. Despite the competition between the Waverly Sub Station and the Late Nite Bite, the Russos and the van Heusens, with much convincing from Alex, eventually allow their children to date.
However, Justin often wonders why it feels as though Juliet's name is exceedingly familiar. The first time she introduces herself, saying, "I'm Juliet van Heusen", he'd responds with, "I know." He doesn't know how he knows, because he has never seen her before – but they laugh it off as a slip, a reflex response on Justin's part.
And though he grows to be completely at ease around Juliet, Justin is constantly wary of her parents, and he isn't sure it is just because they had tried to eat Alex's and Harper's blood. True, he is uncomfortable about the fact that they are vampires, but if that were the only reason for his mistrust, why does he not feel wary of Juliet?
The mummy Justin has to hunt down in order to complete his Monster Hunting course frightens him more than it should. For no reason he can determine, the mere idea of a mummy gives him a sense of foreboding in his gut. Somehow, he has the inescapable feeling that the mere idea of a mummy is bad news.
And he turns out to be right. His search for the blasted mummy leads to his losing Juliet to the very monster he is supposed to hunt. He has to give her up and let her become the mummy's slave in order to save her life, and he swears to her that he will save her. But when Alex promises that she will help him save Juliet, he is besieged by an irrational fear that she will get hurt, and shoots down her offer altogether.
When Alex starts gushing about a boy named Mason, both Justin and Max wonder why the name sounds familiar to them. Though Mason appears to be a perfectly normal, ordinary person, the first time Alex brings him home Justin is immediately sure that he's hiding something. Alex doesn't believe him until she realizes that Mason keeps sneaking away before the sun sets.
As is later revealed, Mason is a werewolf, and Justin would feel totally vindicated in saying "I told you so" if he isn't so miserable about his failure to find and rescue Juliet.
Neither sibling dreams that accepting Mason's offer of help to find Juliet would yield such tragic consequences. After Juliet leaves as an old woman and Mason runs into the forest as a proper wolf as a result of their battle against each other, Justin and Alex sit on the steps of the castle, both heartbroken, finding solace in each other.
"Justin, promise me we'll find normal people," Alex pleads.
"We're not normal people," Justin sadly replies. After a beat, he adds, "But you know something?"
"What?"
He clasps her hand in his. "Don't give up hope. It might be reversible – they could come back."
Her eyes light up with a glimmer of hope. "Really? You think so?"
He smiles at her. "You never know."
Amazingly, Justin turns out to be right, and both Juliet and Mason return and are reunited with their respective other halves. By this time all three Russos are aware that Max is approaching his sixteenth birthday, and each of them is working hard to make sure that they will win the wizard competition. For some reason, even after Justin and Alex mess up by misguidedly trying to reveal wizards' existence and are demoted to two levels behind Max in the run-up to the wizard competition, Max remains convinced that one of them will still end up winning the competition. And it is Max who manages to persuade Alex to reconsider her decision to quit the wizard competition.
"I'm two levels behind you, Max," Alex reminds him.
"So what?" Max asks. "That doesn't matter. You could easily catch up."
"How? There's not enough time."
"You're Alex," Max tells her simply. "You'll think of something."
"But what's the point?" asks Alex. "Justin will win. He's teaching his delinquent class – and that will get him back in the competition. Even if I get back in, I'll probably lose to him."
"Nah." Max disregards that. "You so totally can win this, Alex. You're a great wizard."
At this, she looks at him strangely. "Why are you telling me all this? Don't you want to win the competition?"
"Actually, I don't think I do," Max admits.
Despite Alex's demands for him to explain, he does not tell her that he has no clue why the idea of becoming a full wizard gives him so much apprehension.
The day of the wizard competition finally arrives, and after making it through Rounds 1 and 2, the Russo sibling are told that for the final Round 3, the first one out of the maze will become the family wizard. At this, they all glance at each other, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu, as if they have lived through this before. However, there is no time to dwell on that, as the next minute they are racing into the labyrinth to find the exit.
In the final lap, Justin sees Alex running ahead of him, just a few yards away from the exit through the Tunnel of Mist. As he sprints desperately to catch up with her, his foot gets caught in a bunch of roots, and as he struggles to get free, he sees Alex pause just before the exit. She turns back to look at him, and he knows – somehow, he just knows – that she will not cross the tunnel, that she will backtrack to help him. And when she does, he is both touched and frustrated, because it's so beautifully selfless of his little sister, but dammit, this is a competition and they are opponents and she isn't supposed to give up her win to help him.
But she does, and then Max catches up, and they are at the same point in the race – and there is that overwhelming sense of déjà vu once again. The next instant, it is gone as they all sprint for the exit.
Though Justin makes it out first, he already knows that this victory belongs to Alex, and it should be Alex who becomes the family wizard. Somewhere in his mind, he knows that he will not let Professor Crumbs proclaim him the family wizard, and sure enough, he cannot bear to go through with it, and gives the reward to Alex instead.
While Crumbs makes Alex the family wizard, Max whispers conspiratorially to his brother, "I bet he's still going to make you a full wizard somehow. You deserve it."
"That's ridiculous, Max," Justin responds. "He can't – it'd be breaking the rules."
And yet that's exactly what Professor Crumbs does, and Justin is both overjoyed by his new position as WizTech Headmaster and thoroughly amazed by how Max knew what was coming.
After Max professes his happiness at having the Sub Station bequeathed to him, Alex remarks, "Hey, look – we're all happy –"
"– at the same time," Justin and Max finish. Alex is surprised that they knew exactly what she was going to say, and after a moment of staring at each other in bewilderment at their uncanny mind-reading, they laugh.
Alex knows she should be more mature and responsible about her powers, but it's hard for a leopard to change its spots. So it doesn't come as a complete surprise when Jerry and Theresa start reprimanding her for using her magic frivolously. She does try to curb her selfish impulses, especially where Mason is concerned – but it stings when she feels that her parents are still constantly comparing her to Justin.
When a wizard named Dominic Fitzgerald turns up claiming to be one of Justin's colleagues, Alex doesn't trust him for a minute, and though she's tempted by his suggestion to cast a spell to remove the bad parts of her personality, she decides it's not a good idea to have two versions of herself running around. She later confides this to Harper and Max overhears; for once not as oblivious as he normally is, her younger brother comforts her and sticks up for her the next time their parents chide her for being immature.
"Don't be so hard on her," Max says to them, standing by his sister. "She's trying."
"She has to do better," says Jerry – he looks somewhat surprised that Max is defending Alex.
"And she will," Max assures him. "But what were you like when you were her age?"
Jerry blinks, silent for a while until Max prods him. "I was just as bad," he admits. "I'm sorry, Alex."
"Me too, mija," Theresa puts in. "Your father and I just want you to learn to be responsible, that's all."
"I'll work on it," Alex promises, with a grateful smile at Max.
Justin is introduced to Dominic Fitzgerald while taking his first tour of WizTech as its new Headmaster. Dominic is cordial and respectful, but Justin instantly dislikes him. In his opinion, Dominic is too smooth, too friendly, and too sycophantic to be genuine. He instructs the other teachers to keep a close eye on Dominic, and a few months later (in fact, very soon after he tried to trick Alex), Professor Malony catches Dominic plotting to take over the world. Dominic is fired and arrested by the Wizard Council, and Justin finds himself glad that he trusted his instincts. When he learns what Dominic tried to get Alex to do, his feeling of relief intensifies.
After reading up on wizarding history, Justin wonders if it might be a good idea to reach out to magical creatures to assure them of their place in the wizarding world in order to ensure that wizard-creature interaction remains cordial. When Juliet informs him that her parents are talking about a vampire revolution, he immediately approaches the Wizard Council and recommends that they improve relations with the vampire, werewolf, mummy, and other assorted magic communities as soon as possible. The Council accepts his advice and emissaries are sent to each community of magical creatures.
The next time Juliet sees him, she reports gladly that her parents are no longer entertaining the idea of a revolution.
And so the years pass, from 2009 to 2019, as the Russos live their lives, unaware that in the process they will make or break their future.
A/N: Final chapter tomorrow! (More of an epilogue, really, but still...)