Disclaimer: Still not mine. Harry Potter and Twilight belong to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Stephenie Meyer, and Summit Entertainment, respectively.

Warnings: No beta. No outline. Selective canon. Slash and suicidal themes. Kind of a ridiculous amount of angst. Seriously. This is possibly just getting stupid now.

Really Long Author's Note: So it's been a year and a half since my last update. Yeah. Sorry about that. When I started writing this story I had no real plotline, or knowledge of the Twilight books, or…anything. And after a while there was…still no plotline. But I developed AMBITIONS of a plot. There was even sort of an outline at one point- granted it was mostly written out on various post-its and the occasional fast food napkin- but it was still sort of an outline! Let's face it though, really this story is mostly just Harry angsting, and Edward angsting about Harry angsting, and Jasper being fucking awesome but not in the story enough.

ANYWAY, the point is that while I still have vague ideas about this story actually going someplace, that's just not going to come to fruition right now. Basically, because I have completely lost interest. While Harry Potter will always be the fandom of my heart, and Twilight is…also existing…mostly I'm too obsessed with Supernatural and Inception and various USA shows (hi neal caffrey! ILU!) to keep going with this. I hate unfinished stories though and I did want to give this some measure of resolution, SO HERE IS A FINAL CHAPTER (and epilogue) FOR YOU. I hope you like it and that it satisfies all your conclusiony needs. There may at some point be a sequel to this that actually- I don't know- goes someplace, because I do have snippets written, but I wouldn't hold your breath or anything.

Also, half this chapter was written a year and a half ago and is randomly interspersed with the other half which was written last night at like 3 in the morning and I'm not really sure that it flows very well at all, but I'm going to post it anyway because the guilt of leaving this thing unfinished is driving me mad and I can't proofread it or I'll never actually post it. Sorry.

Chapter Twelve

Edward stood at the window, in the exact same position he had been in for the past twenty minutes, staring out into the night. Staring out at Harry, who'd been standing out in the rain on the front lawn for the same amount of time. Head thrown back and arms raised to the sky in supplication, his voice was just barely audible to Edward- laughing and sobbing and shouting into every crash of thunder.

He waited another ten minutes- until he could see Harry's sodden form collapse wearily to the ground- before he opened the door and crossed the lawn to Harry's side. He could no longer hear the sounds of the wizard's breath over the beating of rain, but from the slow rise and fall of his chest, he seemed to have calmed.

He didn't try to give Harry a hand up, instead he sank to the ground and sat in the mud beside him. The smell of earth and ozone was heavy in the air.

He couldn't honestly claim that he hadn't been surprised by some of the things he had seen in Harry's head. He had known there was darkness in Harry's past: tragedy, horror and brutality. He hadn't contemplated the amount of anger and hurt inside his heart though. He hadn't been able to comprehend the sheer size of the wound on his soul. Now that he did…well, now that he did nothing actually changed.

He didn't know how to explain that to Harry exactly, but he needed him to understand. Harry had never been perfect. He had been broken and bleeding the day he had come to them and Edward had never been blind to his scars. He was- if Edward was being honest- probably one of the most truly screwed up, self-loathing individuals he had ever met. Edward was okay with that. He loved him despite the flaws. Maybe he loved him because of the flaws. And nothing he had seen today had changed anything for him.

He didn't want some innocent kid, some person that had never lost anyone or anything, some person that had never suffered. Not that he wanted Harry to have suffered. He would do anything to take that hurt away from him, to keep him from ever having to go through any of that. But the hurt and self-loathing were part of who Harry was and part of what had drawn him to the other boy in the first place.

It wasn't that he liked the way Harry looked at himself. He pretty much hated it. But it was something that made sense to him, even if it didn't make sense that Harry of all people should feel that way. He just…God, he was starting to understand what Harry meant about his thoughts making him insane. Maybe Harry's crazy really was contagious.

The thing was…he didn't understand happy people. He couldn't relate to anyone who was completely comfortable with who they are, anyone who didn't hate themselves at least a little. No one lived the kind of life that didn't deserve a bit of scorn. No one lived a life without sin.

Perhaps it was just jealousy, that other people could forgive themselves where he could not, but he had been inside too many people's heads not to associate happiness with stupidity and selfishness just a bit.

And so it was not that he wanted Harry to hate himself. He hated that Harry did, hated that Harry didn't believe he deserved good things. But he understood it.

They sat in silence for a while, while the rain slowly gentled to a soft trickle and Harry rhythmically squished his shoes in the mud under their feet. There were a hundred words on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to say, reassurances that he wanted to give, but if he had learned anything in the past 6 weeks it was that sometimes Harry responded better when given space. Metaphorical space that was to say- the eight inches that currently separated them was all the physical space he was prepared to give at the moment.

Of course sometimes Harry needed to be pushed and prodded and cajoled, and sometimes he needed to be yelled at until he snapped out of it, but he was pretty sure this was one of those times when space was the better option. It was a delicate balancing act with the moody wizard, but he thought he was starting to get a handle on it.

So he bit his tongue and sat in the mud and watched as Harry's hair- even blacker now and for once flat under the heavy rainwater- dripped steadily into the other boy's shadowed eyes.

When Harry did finally speak he almost missed it for its abruptness.

"They're dead."

He wasn't sure if Harry was actually talking to him now or if he just needed to say the words out loud, needed to hear them to know they were true. He responded anyway.

"Yes."

"And I'm not."

"No," he agreed. "You're not."

"I miss them. All the time."

"I know."

"I can't…I'm not going to stop missing them. I'm not going to let go of them."

"No one says that you have to, Harry."

"That's not true."

"No?"

"Everyone always wants me to be better, wants me to be different. They want me to move on." He hissed the last words out like they were something dirty.

He hesitated this time before speaking, choosing his words carefully. "It is…difficult, to see a person you love in pain. I don't think people want to change you Harry, they just don't want you to hurt anymore."

"And what do you want, Edward?" They were the same words Harry had shouted at him not more than an hour ago, but without any of the heat now, just a quiet sort of intensity; something between resignation and desperation.

A thousand words bubbled up and consequently lodged in his throat. How did he answer a question like that? There were so many things he wanted; too many things. He wanted to be a good person, he wanted not to be destined for Hell, he wanted not to be starving all the time, he wanted not to be a monster anymore. Those were not things Harry could give him. As much as magic could do, there was no cure for vampirism.

He wanted to be a different person. He wanted to be someone who could be happy with what he was, who could revel in his speed and strength and the ease with which he moved through life. He wanted Harry to tell him it was okay to like himself, wanted him to make Edward like himself. But even if Harry could offer him that benediction, he was not sure he could ever accept it.

And he wanted Harry to stay. Stay here, stay with him, be with him. He wanted Harry to smile at him and touch him, he wanted to let Harry's heat seep into his skin and warm his bones. He wanted Harry to love him. He was not sure those were things Harry could give him either, or that he even deserved them at all.

"I want you to be happy! Of course I want you to be happy," is what wound up bursting out of his mouth, despite him knowing it was the wrong answer, despite not knowing if it was even true. Did he want Harry to be happy? He worried he loved Harry's misery as much as he loved Harry himself. Was that because it was so much a part of Harry or because it was something they had in common? He wanted to be the kind of person that would want Harry to be happy. But maybe…maybe the people that wanted Harry to be happy didn't really know him at all.

He took a deep and unnecessary breath. "I do want you to be happy," he asserted both to Harry and himself, "But I think that you need the hurting sometimes. And I understand that."

"Yeah?" A little bit of the tension went out of Harry's shoulders and he thought he saw a glimmer of something in his eyes; some hint of affection or connection or maybe something that resembled gratitude.

"Yes," he replied. "And that's all right. As long as you don't shut me out. As long as you understand that I'm not leaving. I don't need you to be happy all the time, Harry. I just need you to let me be there when you're sad."

Harry's shoulders were slumped now and his face was bent down towards his lap, stubbornly refusing to turn in Edward's direction. Still, he stared unblinkingly at Harry's profile, and though Harry would not look at him he put every ounce of deliberation and sincerity he felt into his eyes. They sat like that for a long minute, locked in that strange tableau- Edward so earnest and Harry…Harry trying not to laugh, Edward realized as a strangled cackle finally escaped the wizard's throat.

"Sorry! I'm sorry. Just…are you kidding me? Do you come up with this stuff yourself or do you sit around reading Harlequin novels when I'm not around?" Harry teased, a slightly hysterical smile spreading across his face. "Oh my God, is that what you read when I'm sleeping? Do you read them right next to me?" He looked lost, and frenzied, and desperate for Edward to play along. Desperate to return to some level of normalcy. But he was laughing and there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there before and Edward thought he might have had something to do with bringing that back.

"Shut up," he replied with a manic grin to match Harry's own, too enthralled with the sight of Harry smiling to be very indignant. "You don't have a romantic bone in your body, you uncouth heathen."

"No, really. That was a very touching moment. Should we hug now?"

It was not actually an invitation, he knew, but Edward resolutely ignored that as he pulled Harry in and wrapped him in his arms. He needed this connection, needed to calm the turbulent emotions that had been coursing through them both for the last hour.

"We should get inside," he reluctantly admitted several minutes later. "You're going to catch pneumonia if you stay out here much longer."

"Yeah, and I'm sure all ten minutes that I suffer from it will be really dreadful," Harry scoffed. "Let's just…stay a few minutes longer, all right?"

"All right."

Harry leaned a little more heavily into Edward's embrace and closed his eyes before speaking. "I don't- what do I…? I don't know what to do now."

"Neither do I," Edward confessed.

"What, really?"

"Is that so surprising?"

"Kind of, yeah. You just…you seem so sure of yourself. Like you have all the answers."

He didn't know how that was possible, but it was nice to hear all the same. Still, he decided to answer that one honestly, even if it did dispel the superhuman image Harry apparently had of him.

"Harry, I have been wandering blind for the last hundred years. Truthfully, you are one of the only things I have ever been sure of in my life."

"Wow. That's kind of…well, that almost makes it seem like I've got my shit together, huh?"

Edward laughed. "Kind of."

"So…what do we do?" Harry asked despite just being told that Edward had no answer for the question.

"We could see a movie," is what he answered, mostly because it seemed like the kind of flippant answer Harry preferred and he hoped it might make the other boy smile, but also maybe because he really did kind of want to take Harry out on a date.

"I could go for a movie," Harry replied. "Anything good playing?"

This time he did offer Harry a hand up after getting to his own feet. "Come on. Let's check the listings."

"What, you mean you can't just like…read the moviefone guy's mind? I'm disappointed. No, really, I'm becoming very disillusioned about you now." Harry laughed and poked fun and Edward smiled, leading them back up the lawn to the house, content to be teased.

Between the rain still falling gently around them and Edward's attention being so pointedly fixed on Harry, they were almost back to the house before Edward noticed her. She was standing on the drive facing the house, but as he watched her, her head swiveled in every direction, her eyes darting side to side and even up and down as she methodically canvassed her surroundings.

She was drenched to the bone, but even with her hair plastered against her skull, the vivid red color was apparent and should have been his first clue as to what she was there for. It wasn't, however, until they got close enough for Harry to see her- close enough for Harry to freeze up with a look of pure shock in his eyes, and close enough for the woman to spot Harry in return and shout his name with surprise and glee- that he realized who she must have been.

He had to force himself not to jump in front of Harry when she broke into a flat run and flung herself at the shocked wizard standing next to him.

If he had anticipated the possibility of seeing any of Harry's old friends, he was fairly sure he would have expected their minds to be as shielded as Harry's was. This woman's thoughts however, were racing a mile a minute and almost as cacophonous as Harry's during one of his slips of control. Harry's own mind had been closed up tight since the blast of memories he had pushed at Edward earlier, and his family's minds were a familiar and easily ignored humming in the back if his head. The only fissure in the otherwise peaceful moment he and Harry had carved out for themselves came from the redhead in front of him.

The woman's- Ginny, his mind supplied, this must be Ginny- thoughts expressed a riot of feelings; surprise, confusion, overwhelming relief and spitting anger. Overlaying all of that was a constant chorus of Harry. Those were the ones that were echoed out loud, pressed softly into Harry's shoulder and neck, but perfectly discernable to Edward's keen ears.

"Harry. I knew it. Thank Merlin, Harry. You're alive, I knew you were alive. Oh Harry. It's really y-"

The last sentence was cut short as she pulled back to grip his face in her hands, and got her first good look at the boy in her arms, but the unspoken 'you' resounded in her mind.

Edward had Harry tucked behind him and was poised to attack before she could finish drawing her wand.

Harry, with his complete lack of self-preservation instincts, was not quiet as on board with this action as most reasonable people would be.

"Edward stop," he said, trying to shrug Edward's restraining hand from his shoulder. "She's not going to hurt me."

Edward knew that, because he wasn't going to give her the chance to hurt Harry, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what Harry meant, and contrary to whatever the other boy said, the witch in front of them gave every indication that she would in fact attempt to kill them both if not satisfied with whatever answers Harry could provide.

"Won't hurt you, my arse," the redhead scoffed, voice lacking all of her earlier tenderness and confirming Edward's misgivings. "You have five seconds to tell me who you are before I rip your intestines out through your nose and string you up with them."

"Ginny, it's me."

Met with only a cold blank stare and a minute twitching of Ginny's wand, he tried again.

"I'm Harry."

"No, Harry is twenty-four. You're…you're polyjuiced or something. This is a glamour."

Harry seemed more amused by that then Edward thought anyone with a wand pointed at his face had any right to be. "Come on. That doesn't even make any sense. Why would someone steal my face, de-age it, and use it to walk around Forks, Washington?"

Her brow furrowed, but her wand did not waver. "I don't know, but you're not…you can't be Harry. This isn't right."

"I can explain. It's me, I swear."

She shook her head, mind screaming fervent denials of Harry's words.

"Just think about it, Ginny. You tracked me down. I don't know how, but here you are halfway around the world standing in front of me and…how would that work if I wasn't who I said I was? You somehow got a lock on a Harry imposter that was staying completely off the grid? It doesn't make any sense."

"None of this makes any sense!"

"All right, I'll give you that one. It's a little odd. I guess I've had some time to get used to it, so…why don't you take a moment…and a few deep breaths, and then you can tell me how you found me."

"Don't you bloody patronize me, Potter!" she snapped. Her voice was still hard, but between her use of Harry's name and the not insignificant relaxing of her wand arm, it was clear she was softening towards him.

Edward felt his own guard ease up as the threat declined. He wasn't afraid of her-far from it- but he was wary, and that wariness doubled when she was staring down the end of her wand at him. As a rule, vampires and wizards did not mix. It happened on occasion of course- a power hungry wizard would endeavor to gain control of vampires to use as minions, or some audacious vampire would attempt to feed from wizards, preferring the spicier flavor to that of ordinary humans. It never ended well. Nine times out of ten when vampires and wizards got into it, they both wound up dead.

There was no spell that could easily kill a vampire. Just like without magic, the only way to permanently destroy them was to take them apart and burn them. While powerful cutting curses and conjured fire might make that slightly less difficult than it would be for a muggle, you still had to be able to hit them with a spell for it to be able to work, and even the slowest vampire was simply too fast for that. On the other hand, if a vampire wanted to kill a wizard they had to slow down and get close enough to sink their teeth in. They often managed it, but in the process they opened themselves up to spell-fire, and usually wound up exploding into little bits of flaming vampire parts. It was rare for either party in such a conflict to come out alive, and in the end, both species had tacitly agreed to stay away from the other.

So he wasn't afraid of her, but all the same he wasn't dropping his guard completely until she was gone. Harry though, seemed even more unthreatened by her than before as she fractionally lowered her wand and answered his question.

"The letter didn't come back."

"The what?"

"The letter I sent you- him- he's never taken it before."

"I don't understand. How did you use the letter to track me? You can't charm parchment like that."

"It wasn't charmed. I- it was the first time the letter ever made it to you. I thought… if Athena could find you that time, maybe she could do it again. And maybe I could go too."

"Do you mean to tell me you followed a bloody post owl across the Atlantic?"

She shrugged. "I had a week off."

Edward wasn't well versed in the specifics of broom-flight, but he gathered from Harry's gobsmacked expression that that was about as insane as it sounded.

"Right well, overlooking the fact that that is…completely mental and previously thought impossible, how would that have worked if I wasn't really Harry? Post owls don't deliver mail to polyjuiced people. I mean, they do, but they deliver it to the people they are, not the people they're polyjuiced to look like."

Ginny's mind twisted in turmoil as she wrestled between wanting desperately to believe that Harry was Harry, and a chilling fear of what it might mean if he was. Edward almost felt bad for her. Almost.

"Prove it," she said.

"When you were eleven you wrote a poem about my eyes being as green as a fresh pickled toad," Harry said without missing a beat.

She choked out a laugh mixed with a sob and threw her arms around him again. "You're supposed to use secrets that are embarrassing for you, you prat."

"Sorry."

"Liar." She pulled back far enough to grip his cheeks with her hands and tilted his face down to her. "Merlin, it really is you. You look…exactly the same." She sniffed and drew herself up taller, seeming to tuck away her overt emotionalism for the moment. "Tell me what's going on, Harry."

"It's kind of a long story."

"I'm kind of not going anywhere. Now talk."

Overall the talk went much quicker than the one the Cullen's had received. Without any of the background information needed, the explanation focused primarily on the spell Harry had used and the effects it had had afterwards.

"And that's it?" she asked. "It just made you immortal? No other strings attached? No blood drinking, no soul draining, nothing?"

This time it was Carlisle that spoke up, standing on the other side of the sitting room Edward had brought her to, carefully situated between her and the rest of his children.

"While it's true that immortality usually does require something of a price like the ones you mentioned, in Harry's case, I believe his immortality to be the sacrifice itself. Nothing else is required of him."

"Right, and who are you, exactly?" She turned to Harry. "What are you doing here, with them?"

"Ginny, this is Carlisle Cullen, and his family. They're…friends of mine."

"Friends who know all about…" she waved her hand, a gesture clearly meant to encompass Harry's situation.

"It's kind of a-"

"Don't you dare say 'long story' again or I swear to Merlin I will bat-bogey you so fast your head will spin."

"Well, it is!"

"And they're wizards?" She looked skeptical as she eyed them up and down.

"Not…exactly. They're vampires."

Edward saw her spine stiffen in the same instant that her mind stuttered to a screeching and disbelieving halt. "Vampires. Okay. But…you're not, right?"

"Right."

"And they haven't killed us," she quietly reassured herself, "So that's good. Harry, do you think maybe we should go now?" Her voice was calm, even if her brain was screaming, 'GO GO GO!'

"They're okay, Ginny. They don't kill people at all. They feed off animals."

"Who cares? Are you insane? That doesn't mean they're safe!"

"Don't do that. Don't get all-"

"Don't get what? Cautious? It's not about pure-blood propaganda, Harry. They could lose control, they're dangerous. And I can't believe after everything you've been through that you would put yourself willingly into this kind of situation."

"Please, like anyone wants to eat you," Rosalie muttered nastily from her side of the room. Edward struggled to suppress a smirk, even as Carlisle shot her a quelling look.

"I jumped off a cliff!" Harry shouted, seemingly apropos of nothing.

"What?"

"Six weeks ago, I jumped off a fucking hundred foot cliff into cold rocky water and I didn't die Ginny. There is no situation here. Not for me."

"No. Stop it. That's not…you don't…"

"Want to kill myself? Yes, I do Ginny. I mean, I did. Or…I don't know. But they took care of me. My ribs were broken and my leg was shattered and they took care of me until I could walk again and they're still taking care of me Ginny, so don't tell me that they're dangerous, because they're not. I'm dangerous."

"To yourself, you mean," she spat.

"To everyone! I can't control myself anymore. I can't control my magic."

"What are you talking about?"

"There's all this magic, all this power, and I don't know how to stop it."

"You mean the spell- the power from the spell, you still have it?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't think so, I mean not really. It's more like- there was all this magic that blasted through me, and afterwards, after Voldemort died, I could feel the power drain out of me, and I thought it was over. But then…it's like when a big surge of water comes rushing down a stream and crumbles away the banks, you can't get back the old, narrow riverbed even after the water stops rushing, you know? And now there's all this open space in me and I can feel magic everywhere, in the ground, in the air, in you and the Cullen's. And it's as if I draw it up when I forget to think about it. And I always forget to think about it because how the hell are you supposed to think about something twenty four hours of the day!"

"I get so angry and so crazy and I just want to hurt things sometimes, and I don't know how to make sure that doesn't happen, because I don't actually want to hurt anyone Ginny, I don't!"

"Harry, Harry, calm down. You were with us for an entire year after this happened, you never hurt anyone."

"I ripped a man's skin off!"

This was apparently not news to Ginny and she countered immediately with, "He was trying to kill you."

"But I didn't even mean to do it. I didn't think about it at all. It just happened."

"It wouldn't just happen to someone you love, Harry. It wouldn't."

"I set fire to the quidditch pitch. I loved the quidditch pitch."

"I…did not know that was you," she said.

And then she burst out laughing. "It took Professor Sprout a month to regrow the pitch!" she wheezed out in between giggles. "She was so angry!"

"You think this is funny? This is my life! I'm a freak, Ginny."

"So what, that's why you left? You thought you couldn't tell us? You're not a freak, and even if you were we wouldn't care. Harry, you could have been changed into an immortal, fire-breathing fishman and we would still love you."

"Fishman?"

"You're still Harry and that's all that matters. You should have told us."

"It's not why I left. I didn't even figure that part out until a couple of years ago."

"Then why?" she asked, and then proceeded to answer without waiting for Harry. "You were unhappy, I know. But to leave like you did, and no word for six years…how could you do that?"

"I wasn't unhappy Ginny, I was miserable, and I was making everybody around me miserable too. I broke my promise that I wouldn't try killing myself again and I knew I was going to break it again. I couldn't keep putting you through that."

"So you just decided it would be best if everyone thought you were already dead?"

"…Yes?"

Her fingers twitched in the direction of her hip, and Edward moved back to his protective position in front of Harry.

"I swear Harry Potter, say one more idiotic thing like that and there is no vampire on this planet that can save you from being attacked by giant, flying bogeys."

"Trust me Ginny, it's better for everyone if I just stay away from your family."

The redhead narrowed her eyes dangerously. "From your family, you mean."

Harry hesitated a second too long.

"No. You don't get to do that. You don't get to just decide that we're not family anymore! That's not how it works. You're part of us Harry, and no matter what you do, or how much you've changed or we've changed, you're still part of us. That's what family means. It's the people you're stuck with, no matter what."

"Does that mean you expect me to ring up the Dursleys while I'm at it?"

"They're not your family! They're just...relations."

Much as Edward might agree with what Ginny was saying, he didn't really appreciate the sentiment being directed at Harry…from her. It was one thing to know that Harry had another family out there. A family that Harry had left, in spite of how much they mattered to him, and how long they had been a part of his life. That had come as a blow, yes, but it was another matter entirely to have one of that family show up on his doorstep wanting to claim Harry back. It caused an emotion he hadn't felt in a very long time to bubble up in his stomach. Fear.

"You don't want to come home?" she sniffed, "Fine. We'll come to you. You don't want to talk about the past, we won't talk. But you're not cutting us out again, Harry."

Edward didn't care who she was or what she meant to Harry, she wasn't taking him away from them.

"Ginny-"

"You're not running from us anymore. You let people know when you check out of the hospital Harry Potter, or when you leave the country!"

She may have had Harry for 7 years as opposed to the Cullen's meager 2 months, but he was theirs now and they weren't giving him up.

"Ginny-"

"You want go on holiday, fine, but you send a bloody postcard!"

"GINNY!"

"WHAT!"

"I'm sorry. I just...I'm so sorry."

The quiet apology seemed to break through her furious tirade and she broke down sobbing in his arms.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Harry."

He huffed out a humorless laugh. "I don't know if I'd go quite that far."

"You're alive anyway. The rest will keep." She released a shaky sigh of relief. "Merlin, I can't believe…I need to contact Mum and Dad, let them know."

"Look, Ginny...do you think you can wait a bit before you tell the others about me?"

"No," she responded immediately.

"What, that's it? You're not even going to take a second to think about it?"

"No. They need to know you're okay, Harry. I'm not going to take an ad out in the Prophet, but Mum and Dad, the twins, they need to know."

"Can you just, give me a few days to...wrap my head around it?"

"You've had five bloody years to get your head on straight. What's another day or two going to help?" She wiped her eyes and pulled a pocket mirror out of her bag with unsteady hands.

"Wait, Ginny, wait! I can't. You don't understand, I just can't. Please, please, just give me some time."

Harry's voice took on a desperate tenor and Edward was prepared to do anything to fix the situation. A desperate Harry was a running Harry and Edward was not going to let this witch send Harry running again.

"You have no idea what it was like Harry, not even knowing if you were alive. I'm not going to put them through that any longer."

"I'll write! Okay? I'll send them a letter, I'll tell them I'm okay, I'll tell them I'm sorry. Whatever you want Ginny, I just can't…I'm not ready yet."

"You'll tell them you'll come see them soon?"

He hesitated, but then nodded. "Whatever you want."

"And then you will. I mean, it doesn't count if you're just placating them Harry, you actually have to come."

That one got an eye-roll. "I know that."

"And it won't stop them from looking for you. Once they know for sure you're alive, they'll find you, just like I did."

"You give yourself too little credit. No one else will be able to follow a post owl across the bloody Atlantic. You're the best flyer I know."

"Besides you, you mean."

Harry looked at her a little sadly and nodded, though Edward wasn't sure if that was an agreement or something else, some sad thought or memory that only Harry knew.

And then he stopped wondering because Esme was insisting on fixing them some dinner, and Carlisle was offering Ginny someplace to sleep, and Rosalie was flouncing off to the garage with Emmett on her heels, and Harry- Harry was being dragged off to some secluded corner to talk to the witch in private.

Edward did his best to keep his ears (and mind) to himself, out of respect for Harry if not Ginny. He was only mildly disgruntled that he didn't get his trip to the movies with Harry. He was slightly more irked when the other boy gave his bed to Ginny for the night, but that was appeased when he opened Edward's bedroom door whisper quiet and padded over to settle on his couch a couple hours later.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said before Edward even opened his mouth.

"Okay."

"I don't even want to think about it anymore, but I can't stop. I can't sleep, and I can't stop thinking, and I can't concentrate on anything else."

"Well, normally my next question would be, do you want to talk about it, but I think we've already covered that."

"Funny."

"So I guess my next question is: what are your thoughts on fifties music?"

That seemed to stop Harry short and a confused look settled over his face. "What, like Elvis?"

Edward tried not to let his smile look too predatory as he walked over to his record collection. "You had better settle in," he said. "We've got a lot to cover."

Harry's lips twitched at the start of a grin.

So maybe Ginny had spent the last two hours talking to Harry in private, and maybe she had had his friendship for seven years before that, but Edward had him now and he was making him smile and that was more than he could say for the redheaded witch.

It was enough for now. It would have to be.

He couldn't say he was anything but relieved when Harry told him late the next day that Ginny was heading back to her family in England- by herself. He was so relieved that he dropped his guard and didn't notice Ginny's plans to corner him until it was too late to get away with anything approaching politeness.

He thought maybe he shouldn't have been so concerned with good manners when the first words out of her mouth were, "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're in love with Harry. It's pretty obvious. I've seen enough people in love with Harry Potter to know what it looks like."

He was tempted to ask if she herself was included in that, but held his tongue as he was pretty sure Harry wouldn't appreciate that.

"I take it you have something you want to say about it?"

Yes, her mind hissed. I have a lot of things I want to say about it.

"Look, I don't trust you."

"Because I'm a vampire," he concluded.

Also because you're a prat, her thoughts unknowingly answered.

"Because I don't know you!" Well that was also true, if not the whole truth. "And I don't trust anyone I don't know. Especially not with Harry." She paused. "But you're important to him. And from what he's told me…it seems like you've been good for him. All of you. So I want to give you some advice."

He refrained from outwardly rolling his eyes, but he couldn't stop the scowl from crossing his face.

"Harry doesn't trust easily, less so than me even. He's slow to give his trust and fast to take it away. And once it's gone…he doesn't give second chances. Not anymore."

He didn't doubt that was accurate, but all the same he felt a bolt of resentment at being given advice on Harry from someone else. "You haven't seen him in over five years. What makes you think you still know him that well?" he asked vindictively.

"I know him." I was the one at his side when his faith in humanity was crushed.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You have no idea what it's like, losing him. Wondering, worrying, not knowing where he is or if he's even alive."

That wasn't true- not entirely- but he had lost Harry for a period of hours, not years, so he didn't bother to correct her.

"There's not a day that's gone by that I haven't thought of him, prayed for him. And I should probably say that I wouldn't wish that on anyone else. But honestly I don't really care if he breaks your heart. I'm telling you this because he can't handle any more disappointment in his life."

"I'm not going to do anything to lose his trust."

"Good."

"If I may, I'd like to offer you a piece of advice in return. Harry was broken when he came to us. He was messed up, and lost, and alone. He's still messed up, but he's not alone anymore. He's doing well here."

"I know," she said. "I can see that." And though she left her words at that, her mind churned with sadness and relief and what Edward thought was more than a little jealousy.

"I'm sorry, but was there any actual advice in there?"

"The advice is this- be careful what kind of pressure you put on Harry, or what you say about him to others. Because if anyone comes around and makes him feel uncomfortable, or makes him feel like he has to run again, I will destroy anything and everything that spoils the peace he's found here."

She narrowed her eyes at the threat, but inside she gave a little cheer. It confused Edward until he realized that alongside her resentment and jealousy of Harry finding a new makeshift family, she was happy they loved him enough to fight for him.

He thought maybe they had more in common than he had previously realized.

He still wasn't sorry to see her go.

Edward considered it a point in his favor that he knew Harry well enough now to recognize when he pulling away. Unfortunately it was several points against him that he could see Harry doing it now. They had been making real progress when Ginny Weasley had shown up and derailed it, and now in the wake of her leaving he could see the uncertainty settling in Harry's eyes again.

He didn't know how to fix that and he didn't really think it was up to him to do so, but if he could help with it, even a little, he figured he had to try. His previous efforts had all proven pretty much useless and occasionally even counter-productive, but it wasn't in his nature to give up.

He found Harry where he'd been spending a lot of his time the last couple of days, leaning up against a giant moss covered cedar on the edge of their property. He'd been trying to give Harry more physical space since Ginny's leaving, and though it hurt, he thought it had been helping. Looking in Harry's eyes now though he wasn't sure there was enough space in Forks to give Harry the distance he needed.

He thought back to the fight they'd had before Harry's little meltdown and waited until the other boy met his eyes before speaking.

"You said I only feel this way about you because your mind isn't open to me the way everyone else's is, but that's not true. I see enough, the good and bad, inside your head and out."

Harry didn't say anything, but he cocked his head and raised an eyebrow in what Edward took as an invitation to continue.

"I know you lose your appetite when you're stressed or upset, which is too much of the time for you to be healthy, but when you're feeling okay you can put away enough fish and chips to feed a small country.

"I know you love the rain. You love when it drizzles because it makes you gloomy which in turn makes you cheerful which is the most ridiculous and contradictory thing I've ever heard but it's true. You love thunderstorms even more. Because they remind you of magic, right?"

"They are magic," Harry corrected. "You can feel it if you stand in it long enough."

Edward nodded but didn't pause to discuss the matter. "I know you like reading but hate studying and schoolwork. I know you love music because it blocks out the other thoughts in your head. I know you hate being the center of attention but are too used to it to let it get to you."

"I know that you constantly worry about your magic going wild and hurting people, and that at any given time you're aware of all the exits in a room and how many people you would have to kill or seriously disfigure to make an escape."

Harry cringed a little, but didn't shake his head in denial.

"I know that you love this world. As much as it betrays you and disappoints you, as much as it wears you down, you truly love it. And it kills you that you can't fix every problem wrong with it. You take so much on yourself Harry, too much, and it frustrates you when you can't meet these impossible standards you've set for yourself- that the world set for you."

"How am I doing so far?"

"Have you ever considered getting a hobby or something?"

"That good?"

Harry smiled a little, but it was weak and unsteady, and Edward felt a flicker of uncertainty, wondering if he had gone too far, scared him off again. "Yeah," he said, "you're doing pretty good."

"Listen," Harry continued, with only a little trepidation shaking his voice, "I've got to go for a bit. I need some time to think, work some things out for myself. I'm going to come back, I just…need some time alone."

He liked to think it didn't affect him as much this time to find out Harry was leaving. Maybe because he was used to it by now, maybe because he had more trust in Harry, Maybe because Harry had actually told him this time- and promised to come back. Whatever it was he wasn't so scared this time.

Still, scared or not he could keep from asking, "How long do you think you'll need?"

"A week maybe? Maybe two."

Edward nodded and didn't ask where he was going to go. He didn't ask if he was going to visit his other family, because he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. He just pulled Harry in for a hug and told him to come back in one piece, and if his eyes stung a bit with tears he couldn't cry that was no one's business but his own.