Harry and Merope and the Mystery of Forks

Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own any of these characters, only the plots and situations that you do not recognize.

Chapter 10

Bella found Trigonometry class to be rather dull, but then it was not one of her best or favorite subjects. She would rather have spent the period thinking about her meeting with Edward and daydreaming about how lunch with him would go, but she had the unfortunate pleasure of having to sit next to a rather irritating girl, who she thought was named Jessica. They spoke just briefly before the teacher called for quiet, which didn't seem to deter the girl from trying to talk to Bella during the entire class.

At first, Jessica just seemed to be the overly friendly type. She was very welcoming, asking her how she was feeling about Forks, if she had made any friends, et cetera. Bella almost thought her to be genuine, but it was the look in her eye that told Bella all she needed to know about the type of person she truly was, at which point Bella started tuning her out and getting lost in her own thoughts.

Bella got the impression that the girl was nothing more than what would best be described as a fair-weather friend, who was only interested in befriending Bella right now because it would help her get attention from the other students. She wasn't being friendly with Bella to be a true friend, but to be popular and to gather and spread gossip. Bella was positive that if times were to get tough, she'd take off faster than one could say, see ya.

It was with that mental analysis that Bella decided that she would do her best to remain polite to Jessica, but she had no intentions on becoming more than casual acquaintances with her. She had had her fill with flighty friends in Phoenix, and she intended to only surround herself with friends she could trust from now on.

Bella's thoughts then turned towards Harry and Edward.

Her intuition told her that Harry was a genuine friend that she would be able to count on. He seemed to be protective in the way she imagined a brother would be.

Her thoughts on Edward ran a little differently. She didn't believe he would fall into the friend/brother category, but she didn't dare hope at this point that he fell into the romantic category, not that she had any experience in that area at all.

Bella was startled out of her thoughts when the bell rang, indicating that Trig was over, which was when crap sort of hit the fan.

Bella was gathering her stuff, while Harry waited for her by the door, when Jessica came over to offer to show her the way to Spanish class.

"Oh, thank you," Bella said, avoiding saying the girl's name, as she wasn't sure if she remembered it correctly or not, "but Harry has the same schedule as me, and he's already offered to show me the way today."

Jessica froze, briefly, in shock before she sneered and asked, "What makes you so special? I've been trying to get his attention away from that slut of his for weeks, and you have the gall to just waltz right in and take him from me?"

Bella narrowed her eyes and said through gritted teeth, "For your information, he offered as a friend. For another thing, you've got some nerve calling another girl a slut, when your whole demeanor right now is oozing it."

"How dare you insinuate such a thing?" Jessica screeched. "Why I ought to —" but she was cut off from saying what she ought to do, when she suddenly found herself face-to-face with Harry himself.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Jessica and said very deliberately and menacingly, "Is there a problem here, Jessica?"

Jessica's whole demeanor changed when Harry started speaking to her. She smiled at him in what she thought was an appealing way, Bella just thought she looked constipated. "Why, of course there's no problem, Harry," Jessica simpered to him and she reached out her hand as if she was going to try to touch him. He skillfully evaded her and she sighed in disappointment. "We were just talking girl talk," she added with a smile, hoping the thought of girl talk would deter him from thinking too much about what he may have seen or heard between herself and Bella.

"Oh," said Harry. "So you're saying that I didn't hear you speaking in a threatening manner towards my new friend, Bella?" Jessica opened her mouth to retort, but Harry continued to speak, "And I didn't hear you speaking disparagingly about my girlfriend? I do believe it hasn't been all that long that I warned you that you would regret it if you continued with that sort of behavior. Calling Merope the term 'slut' falls into the category of speaking disparagingly about her, just in case you're too dim-witted to figure that out."

Jessica blushed in embarrassment at having had Harry overhear her losing her temper, but still didn't have the grace to apologize.

Harry shook his head in aggravation. While there was no Ministry of Magic or MACUSA in this world to regulate the use of magic on muggles, he really didn't want to get in the habit of using magic on all the annoying muggles he came in contact with here. Not that the Ministry of Magic or MACUSA would have had the ability to stop or regulate him to begin with, but it was the principle of the matter, he didn't want to go down that slippery slope. He thought maybe a few nonpermanent pranks would be in order, something that would inspire a behavioral change. He'd had to talk it over with Merope, and maybe get a few ideas from the Cullens. Then again, Harry doubted the Cullens had ever even thought of pranking the humans because they were worried about drawing attention to themselves. Harry mentally shrugged and figured it was about time they had a little bit of fun.

Deciding he would deal with it later, Harry turned his attention back to the matter at hand and said, "Jessica, I've been as polite to you as I can be, but if I need to behave like a bastard in order to force you to drop you delusions about myself, then I will."

Harry took a good look at Jessica's facial expression and saw that she was still looking at him with a rather stupidly lovestruck expression and rolled his eyes. "Look, as much as it may appear to you, my family and I didn't live a fairytale life before we came here, Jessica. The things we have seen and experienced together would give you nightmares for years, if not the rest of your lifetime. The things that Merope and I have experienced together have bound us to each other in a way that you could never comprehend.

"No amount of simpering or bullying any girl who befriends me will make me see you any differently. You are an immature and stupid girl that is too full of herself to see that she has nothing I want or will ever want. So I suggest you move on from this delusion you have and leave me and my friends alone. Now get to class."

Jessica stumbled backwards away from Harry, then turned back to her desk and grabbed her belongings, before rushing out of the room to head to Spanish class.

Once Jessica was gone, Harry turned his attention back to Bella and asked, "Are you ready for Spanish, or do you need a moment to collect yourself?"

Bella gave him a grimace and said, "I'm alright." She ducked her head down to finish gathering her stuff and mumbled, "I'm sorry to be the cause of such trouble."

"You're not the trouble, believe me. That girl has been nothing but stupid since the day Merope and I started attending school here," Harry said as he chuckled. "Now, let's take a deep breath, as we're probably going to need the calm by the time we reach Spanish class, because Miss Gossip Queen will have already come up with some sort of sordid tale to tell the masses."

"Yeah, I did get that impression from her." Bella said with a sigh.

Edward was glad that Harry had left his mind open to him after they had met Bella in Government. He was still reeling over the fact that he had met his mate and she was human. He was torn between jumping for joy and running for Alaska. How could his mate be a human? Even more worrisome, how was he going to get over how delicious she had smelled? She had smelled unlike any other human he had ever met before Harry had done whatever he had done to block her scent.

He certainly didn't want to have to rely on Harry's magical ability to block her scent in order to keep himself from devouring her. Maybe he could ask Harry to use his magic in a way that would gradually let him get used to her scent? He would make note to himself to ask Harry about it the next time they were able to talk.

He had to fight down his protective instincts when he heard Jessica Stanley's thoughts when they were directed at his Bella. Thankfully, it appeared as if Bella saw right through the girl's attempts to pretend friendship. He had very nearly decided to skip Gym when he witnessed Jessica's thoughts and behavior after Trigonometry before Harry intervened. He tuned into Harry's thoughts in time to hear about the possibility of pranking the delusional girl and decided that, yes, that was something he could agree to help with.

Edward decided that he really owed Harry for his help. Not only did he take the brunt of Jessica's attention away from himself when he and Merope had moved to Forks, but he also was going out of his way to befriend and protect Edward's newly discovered mate when he himself was unable to do so.

As he dutifully made his way towards Gym, Edward's mind and focus remained on Bella via Harry's thoughts. It was a good thing he was a vampire and had a mind that could think about so many things at one time, otherwise he would have never made it through Gym without drawing unwanted attention to himself, though Alice still managed to see something was different about him.

"What's going on with you?" Alice thought to Edward as the bell rang to signify the end of the period and time for lunch.

Edward responded too quickly and quietly for any of the humans around them to hear, "Harry will explain everything at lunch, but the short version is that I met Bella Swan and found out that she is my mate. I have also invited her to eat lunch with me, so we will be eating lunch together at a separate table." Harry's and Merope's vampire meals couldn't have come at a more convenient time, Edward thought to himself.

Alice's eyes grew wide in excitement and had to keep herself from squealing out loud, "Really? Oh, this is so exciting!" She squealed in her mind, then she sobered a bit. "Rose will be very unhappy to be including a normal human into our group."

Edward shrugged and thought with a smile that Bella was probably far from a normal human, considering she was a vampire's mate and he couldn't read her mind, but replied in a normal tone, "Well, I'll see you later, sis."

"Okay." Alice replied out loud, thinking to herself that this could be interesting and really wished she had her ability to See, so she would know what to expect in the cafeteria. She understood that Harry and Merope were still trying to figure out what they could do to bring back her gift to her without leaving, but so far they hadn't had much luck.

A/N: I'm going to put my note for this chapter on my profile page.