Chapter Twenty
A/N:OK everybody, here we are again! I'm so sorry I haven't updated sooner, but I've had so much to do that I haven't had a lot of time and I was focusing a little bit on another story… The point is, I'm back now!
Good news: I think everyone will agree, HBP was amazing! Best Potter film yet in my opinion, and Rupert Grint was fabulous! He's my new favourite actor now! Plus, the New Moon trailer showed before the movie. Yay!
Bad news (or is it?): We're very near the end of Blurring the Lines. After this, there are only three chapters left! Are you happy? Sad? Indifferent? Tell me!
As always, kudos to those lovely people we call reviewers: AnnabethChase5450, LilPinkKitsune, Chibi Angel of the Uchiha, WeirdRandomHyperTwilightFREAK-, Twin of Alice, Wolfwhisperer, Lady Lily of Darkness, Dare2dream00, xoxokat, VeronicaD13, amylily123, musicaldancer7700, Alyssa the Twilight Lover, HarryPotter'sCharmed, .Her, xh8-the-famx, To die upon a kiss, Becca Winchester 00x, FrequentlyDazzled93, wallytops, ELAELAELA, ChocolateGal16, xxsecretwriterxx, Team Rosalie, sweetdarkchild, lilyalice, eleonerhermione hale and XmAinStReAmPuNkBoRdErLinEeMoX . I asked you to help me get to 300 reviews- you made it to 327!!! You guys are amazing, I love you all and keep up the good work!
On now with our not-so-thrilling (or at least, not yet) tale…
Love as always,
Ciara
x x x
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Jake's POV:
I woke up Christmas morning blinded by light as Nessie ripped open the curtains in my dormitory, which was empty except for me. And now, my crazy girlfriend. I scrunched up my face as the light hit my eyes. Not pleasant. I groaned and threw a pillow at Nessie. Which, of course, she dodged, being a freaky half-vampire with near perfect reflexes. Then, to top it all off, she jumped onto my bed, bouncing excitedly up and down. I was so glad the rest of my roomies were spending the holidays at home with their folks. I'd never hear the end of it if they saw my girlfriend jumping up and down like an excitable six year old. And OK, technically she was an excitable six year old, but they didn't know that, did they?
"Morning sunshine," Nessie trilled, ruffling my hair cheerfully. Honestly, I loved the girl to bits, but she could be pretty damn annoying when she wanted to. She just had to be a morning person.
"Go away," I groaned, burying my head under the pillow which hadn't been fired at Nessie. "I'm tired."
"Oh, and Merry Christmas to you, too," Nessie pouted, hopping lightly onto the floor and walking away with her nose in the air. "If you're so tired you won't want your Christmas presents, will you?"
"Hey now, I never said that!" I grinned, hurriedly jumping out of bed and diving at the little pile of gifts which had been delivered in the night. "You can never be too tired for Christmas presents!"
Nessie smiled, a glowing grin which stretched right across her face, and rolled her eyes in a very Rosalie-esque way. "I'll go get mine, wait for me, 'k?"
"Depends how long you take."
She picked my pillow up from where it had fallen on the floor and fired it at my head with all the precision and accuracy of a military-trained weapons expert. I was still rubbing my forehead when she came back with an armful of colourfully-wrapped gifts.
Then, it was more like two excitable six year olds.
There were a couple of things that had been mailed from the rez. Billy sent money (always handy), Seth sent a mix CD he'd made, along with the snaps from Emily and Sam's wedding tucked inside the Clearwater family Christmas card (Seth grinning like a loon, Sue smiling and Leah scowling, all dressed in dorky festive jumpers) and the rest of the guys sent a top hat with a stuffed rabbit inside (not remotely funny, but at least they tried.
Bella had gotten me a new pair of Converse, as well as a note informing me that if I morphed while wearing them she would personally kill me. Edward, who I had disliked for so long, got me some really good CDs… I hoped I'd still like them by the time we got back to Forks. It sucked not being able to use my iPod at Hogwarts. Alice and Jasper had clubbed together to get me an expensive-looking leather jacket. Again, it came with a note threatening torture and death, not necessarily in that order, if I morphed while wearing it. Stupid smug bloodsuckers.
Emmett got me a new Beater's bat. After looking at Blondie's 'present' I guessed it would come in handy. A dog bowl? Hardly original, and quite offensive if you're a sensitive werewolf/shapeshifter. So really, Emmett had been pretty damn thoughtful. The Beater's bat wouldn't cause any lasting damage. Just a great big dent in Blondie's ego, which was absolutely fine by me.
Harry and Ron had gotten me a huge package of Zonko's products, while Hermione got me a huge book called Quidditch Through the Ages. It looked like a good read. Or a good paperweight. Emma and Laura got me a hamper of sweets from Honeydukes, and Hazel got me a Metro Station t-shirt. That was something I would treasure.
And Carlisle and Esme got me this magic mirror thing. The note said they'd sent the other one of the pair to the rez, so I could talk to the guys (and Leah) whenever I wanted. That was awesome.
The last gift was from Nessie. She went really quiet as I reached for it, and her skin wasn't so much roses-on-china as fire engine red.
"What's up?" I asked, sliding my finger under the seal and shooting her a furtive glance out of the corner of my eye. I noticed her gulp.
"Nothing," she said, a little too quickly.
"Ness," I pressed, nudging her. "Tell me."
"Ijustopenedyoursandthelocket'ssobeautifulandpoignantthatI'mafraidminewillsuckincomparison," she gasped in one breath. I stared at her.
"In English please."
Nessie took a deep breath and, staring fixedly at the floor, spoke at a pace a normal person could understand. "I just opened yours, and the locket's so beautiful and poignant that I'm afraid mine will suck in comparison."
I took her chin in my huge hand, and forced it upwards gently so that she had no choice but to look me in the eye. Then I kissed her forehead.
"You're one of the smartest people I know," I said quietly. "But sometimes you can be really dumb, Ness. How could you think I wouldn't like anything you picked out for me?"
"Open it before you go making any grand speeches."
Just to shut her up, I did. And, obviously, I was blown away. Because everything Nessie did blew me away. Because she was Nessie. And she knew exactly how to make me smile.
"Oh Ness," I breathed, staring at the collage in my hands. It was all I could say. The collage was made up of photos of us, just us, together. In some pictures, Nessie was a tiny toddler sitting on my shoulders. In others, she was a kid with bouncy ponytails grinning as I pushed her on the swings. In the most recent, she was the most beautiful young woman in the world, her perfect lips pressed to mine. That was my favourite.
"OK, OK, I'm a self-conscious idiot," Nessie grinned, getting to her feet and sticking out a hand to help me up. "Help me fasten the clasp on this locket, and then we can go down to breakfast."
My stomach gave a rumble louder than Blondie when somebody messed up her hair. Nessie snorted with laughter and we headed downstairs.
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When we got to the Great Hall, we found that all the House tables were gone, replaced with one small table in the middle of the room. It made sense, I guess. There was only me, the Cullens and Harry & Co. left at school over the holidays.
"Hey you two, Merry Christmas!" Alice sang in her bubblegum-pop, sweet-as-cotton-candy voice, looking up from stroking Jasper's hair.
"Same to you," we chorused, sliding onto seats beside them. The ceiling was snowing again, as it had been on and off for the last few days.
"Hey Blondie, did you like your present?" I called across the table, where she was sucking some serious face with Emmett. Honestly, the girl saves him from a vicious bear and he ends up in love with her. I think I'd take the bear.
"Oh yeah, dog," she drawled, in a manner very similar to Malfoy. "A grow-your-own warts kit. Very thoughtful."
"What can I say, I just figured you acted so much like a witch already, you might as well go the whole hog."
"Hey!" Hermione scolded, smacking my arm with some new book her parents had sent her. "Less of the smart comments about witches, thank you very much."
"Sure, sure," I said pleasantly as I slurped down some hot chocolate, complete with mini-marshmallows.
After breakfast, we headed out into the grounds, armed with hats, scarves, gloves and a couple of Fred and George's new, improved Dungbombs. The snow was getting pretty heavy, and it was nice and crisp on the ground. All of this added up to a very pretty scene for next year's Christmas card photos. Or, in our case, a kinda violent snowball fight.
"Alright troops," said Emmett, striding up and down the line once he'd been elected as our team captain. He had a grin on his face which could only be described as pure evil. I mean, seriously, he was like the spawn of Satan or something. "Here's the plan: We take down the strongest soldiers first, leaving us with the easy targets to pick off at the end."
"I like it," chimed in Ginny. What the hell was with people and competitiveness when it came to snowball fights? "Who's taking on who?"
Emmett glared shrewdly at our opponents- Blondie, Jasper, Edward, Bella, Hermione, Ron, Emma and Hazel-, sizing them up. After a minute or so, he turned back to us, gathering us into a team huddle.
"OK, they've got an extra player, but I think we've got the edge, strategy-wise." I couldn't conceal a snort. Come on, since when had Emmett been the king of strategising? He took a swipe at my head, then continued. "Edward and Jasper are going to be their strongest players. Alice, try to predict their moves and we'll take them down. Jake, Rose is all yours-"
"You've just made my day," I grinned wickedly. Damn, now I was getting into the evil competitiveness thing. Oh well. I was past caring now that it involved killing Blondie.
"Yeah, I know," said Emmett in a bored voice, interrupting my happy visions of causing Blondie immeasurable pain and humiliation. "Anyway, as I was saying, Ness, you can totally take Bella down. She's your mom, she's practically a geriatric."
"What does that make you, Mr. Born-in-1915?" Bella teased from across the way.
"Respect your elders, missy," Emmett countered, drawing himself up to his considerable full height. "I'm not going to engage in any mind-games with the enemy." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "OK Nessie, now you really better take her out."
"I'm on it," Nessie grinned. "Maybe then she'll regret not letting me learn to drive."
"Then if Harry takes Ron, Ginny and Laura can definitely take Emma, Hermione and Hazel. Hermione'll be more of a hindrance than a help, with her coordination. Everybody know what they're doing?" We all nodded seriously, not a hint of a joke left. Emmett had a mad glint in his eye that made even me, who had chronic foot-in-mouth disease, shut the hell up. The guy was freaking scary. "OK then. Let's do this. Go team!"
We did a cheesy little group high-five thing, then broke apart and began to gather our ammunition. I set my sights on Blondie, and then the battle commenced.
I had to admit it; Emmett was right. We did have the upper hand on strategy. Edward obviously knew exactly what we were planning before we did it, but Alice knew what they were going to do even before they knew themselves. So our strategy was the thing which tipped the contest in our favour.
A well-timed toss from Ginny sent Hermione crumpling into a snow drift, and while Ron was distracted with stopping her from choking on snow, Harry got him from behind. Laura felled Emma and Hazel in quick succession before taking a heavy hit to the face that left her choking and spluttering. Blondie clearly thought she would be easy pickings then, but I came up behind her and smushed a handful of snow in her hair. Nice. Her choice of swearwords was very impressive.
"Emmett, duck!" Alice called, as Jasper took aim at his brother. She wound up like a baseball pitcher before releasing a rapid shot that caught her husband squarely between the eyes. Emmett then hit Edward, who was busy fretting over Bella. God, talk about over protective.
In retaliation, Edward hit Nessie with his own snowball. I growled and dropped my ammo, running at him in an attempt to rugby tackle him into submission. But, being a mind reader, he dodged and sent my flying into a tree trunk. He wrestled me to the ground and whispered teasingly in my ear, "Now who's overprotective?"
Stupid smart leech.
"Get out of my head," I muttered, throwing him off me and taking off in pursuit of Blondie, who was attempting to wring out her hair a little way away.
Our team won convincingly, of course, and Emmett and I were feeling decidedly smug as we traipsed back inside once the snow turned into a blizzard and it was getting hard to see. Well, for those of us who didn't have perfect 20-20 vision. The vamps were only being polite. They could probably have played in the pitch dark, being all perfect.
"This isn't over, pup," Blondie scowled, stalking past me to clean up before Christmas dinner.
"Just how I like it," I retaliated sweetly. "Be careful, or I might force some human food down your throat at dinner."
I dodged into the downstairs corridor to the Hufflepuff common room before she could come up with a clever comeback. Nicely done, 1-0 to me.
A couple of minutes later I headed up to the Great Hall for Christmas dinner. We all gathered around the smaller table, drinking eggnog and eating turkey and chipolatas and, in the Cullens' case, making polite conversation while looking mildly disgusted by the food on offer.
After several helpings of trifle and pulling a couple of Cribbage's wizard crackers, which gave me a heart attack when they popped with a noise like cannon fire, Nessie and I were sitting curled up by the fire in the deserted Hufflepuff common room. Hazel had already gone up to her dormitory after writing a letter home, and now we had the room to ourselves. Call me soft, but I loved just sitting there, holding Nessie tight, talking about nothing. It wasn't my fault; blame it on the imprinting.
"Ness," I murmured softly, kissing the corners of her lips.
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
She laughed, a reaction I hadn't exactly been expecting. "I sure hope so, it'd be a bit extreme of you to move in with me and my family if you just liked me," she quipped.
"Shut up," I groaned, cringing. There was a moment's silence, then-
"I love you too Jake."
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The next few days passed in the same sort of way- pulverising Blondie at snowball fighting, teasing Blondie and fighting with Blondie. Pretty normal. There was also a lot of hanging around with Nessie. The light at the end of the tunnel that was living around Blondie.
A couple of days later, the rest of the students returned. Suddenly, the school was full of squealing teenage girls and numbskull guys again. Fabulous. I was missing the quiet time already.
Still, it was nice enough to get back into our routine. When did I get so domesticated? Routine? Ugh, Esme really was starting to rub off on me.
We were all sitting on a couple of rocks beside the lake, watching Emmett throwing scraps to the giant squid. I was arguing happily with Blondie about the general stupidity of blondes. Edward and Bella were staring into each other's eyes in that gormless way they had, like star-crossed lovers or something. Nessie was talking spiritedly to the others, and Alice and Jasper were playing chess on a portable chess board. Alice, of course, was winning. Alice always won. That was one of the advantages of being a psycho/psychic.
All of a sudden, everything changed. Alice was just about to call checkmate, when her hand fell and she knocked over half the remaining pieces. That should have tipped me off immediately. Vampires never do anything by accident. In fact, vampires don't do accidents, period.
"Alice," said Jasper urgently, tossing the board aside and taking her hands in his. "Alice, what is it?"
Bella was having much the same one-sided conversation with Edward, shaking him and repeating his name. Neither of them seemed to notice anything but whatever Alice was seeing and Edward was picking out of her head. Emmett stopped feeding the squid. Blondie and I shut up, and didn't even glare at each other. Even Harry & Co figured out that something was really wrong.
We all stared anxiously at the pair of them, waiting impatiently for them to tell us what the hell was going on. Then they spoke in perfect unison.
"They're coming."
I'm sure I wasn't the only one getting a sense of déjà vu. It was freaking creepy, it reminded me so much of the time those friendly Volturi decided to come calling.
"Who's coming, Alice?" Jasper asked, taking her face in his hands.
"The Death Eaters…. The Volturi…. Volde-voldemort."
"What?!"
Alice seemed to come back into herself. With a shudder, she opened her eyes and fell weakly into Jasper's waiting arms.
"Voldemort has joined forces with some of the Volturi. They're coming to take Hogwarts. And- and to kill us."
"When you say some…" Bella trailed off softly, looking at Edward.
"Jane. She-she's taken over with Caius. Aro and Marcus are dead."
It was a shock. There was no denying that.
"What can we do?" Harry whispered. "I mean, Voldemort's targeting me, right? I don't want anyone else dying for me."
The bleak words sent a shiver through the group as we all considered the certain destruction coming our way. Then I stood up from the rock, determined.
"We can fight."