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 11
Thankfully, Spanish class went by pretty quickly and without any drama. Bella was able to get her slip signed by Mrs. Goff easily enough, and she had a neighbor that didn't do more than give her a friendly smile, rather than trying to distract her with fake flattery and pretend interest. She felt sorry for Harry when she saw that Jessica was his neighbor, but she was certainly glad to not have to have her as a neighbor two classes in a row, though at least the girl didn't appear to be trying to bother him very much.
Being from Arizona, Bella was very familiar with the Spanish language, but she didn't have much call to use it too much out of class, so she wasn't as fluent in it as many others from Arizona might be, with it being so close to the Border and all, considering she spent most of her time at home or in the library when she wasn't in school. Not to mention the fact that she never had any close friends in Arizona, despite living a good bit of her life there, she was too busy making good grades and making sure her mom didn't spend all the money before bills could be paid.
She was so thankful when her mom met and married Phil, because it made the decision to come to Forks that much easier. She loved her mom and her mom was her best friend, but she was so happy that Phil was around and would take care of her mom, so she no longer had to feel as if she were the parent taking care of her child.
In Forks, her dad was very clearly in the role of parent and she, for the first time in her life, was able to firmly place herself in the category of the child. Though she did still take care of the household chores, such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry, Charlie was a man after all; however, her dad was a responsible adult that actually knew how to keep track of when the bills were due and stick to a proper budget. She didn't have to worry that her dad was going to spend all the money before enough of it was put to the side to pay bills. Her dad was solid and dependable and she hadn't realized how much she had missed being around him until she was here.
Bella was broken out of her thoughts when the bell rang signifying it was time for the lunch break, causing her to suddenly feel a little nervous. Was Edward planning to meet her in the cafeteria? Was he planning to meet with her after class? She quietly gathered her things and looked around for Harry, seeing him waiting for her by the door, she walked over to him.
Her thoughts of Edward made her blush a little, then chastised herself for blushing for no apparent reason, which caused her face to turn beet red by the time she made it over to Harry.
Harry raised an amused eyebrow and asked, "Are you alright? Did someone say anything to you and I didn't notice it?"
Bella shook her head and fought down her blush. After having finally accomplished some semblance of calm, Bella whispered, so as to not be overheard by anyone, "I'm just a little nervous about lunch. I don't know what to expect. It feels different than just a normal, friendly invitation to lunch."
Harry shrugged and said, "Well, there's nothing to feel nervous about. If it makes you feel any better, Edward is probably just as nervous as you are. You're the first girl in this school that he's ever asked to join him for lunch, or anything else, and he's been here for at least a year or two before my girlfriend and I moved here this year."
"That just makes me feel more nervous," whispered Bella as she started walking out the door. She was stopped short when she exited the door and saw Edward waiting there with a crooked smile that made her knees feel weak.
"At least I was paying attention, otherwise I would have ran right into her." Harry thought to himself in amusement.
Edward just barely managed to keep his lips from twitching in amusement, but soon his full attention was on his mate. "Hello, Bella," he said softly with a smile.
"Hi," she replied with a shy smile, as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
Harry noticed Jessica's frustration at suddenly being ignored and chuckled to himself in amusement and said, "Alright, Edward, I'm going to find Merope and the rest of the gang. I'll catch up with you both after lunch when we head to Bio."
"Thanks for your help today, Harry," Harry heard Edward think to him in his head.
"No problem, Edward," Harry thought back, as he headed off to meet Merope at the cafeteria and update the remaining Cullens about the changes to their normal lunch routine.
All during Spanish, Jessica silently fumed about the confrontation she had had with Harry and the horridly plain Bella Swan at the end of Trigonometry. Things seemed to have been going well, she had thought that she had conveyed genuine desire for friendship well enough that she could have garnered tons of popularity basking in the new girl's presence. Mentally shaking her head at herself, she just had to go and ruin the effect by letting the stupid newbie get under her skin with her quick friendship with Harry.
And worst of all, Harry had witnessed her lose her temper and really laid it into her this time. She lost herself in a daydream of Harry laying it into her in a different way before she shook herself from those thoughts. She started to wonder what he meant by the things they had experienced would give her nightmares. It was impossible for her to imagine. After all, by all appearances they lived a very pampered life, even if they were both orphans, they had their older siblings who basically let the two of them do whatever the hell they felt like doing it seemed.
Not willing to let the snub stand, she decided that at lunchtime she would hold court and tell all her friends about how she had offered to show the new girl around, but that she thought she was too good for this small town and had already set her sights on the elusive Harry Potter, who had fallen for her because she was the new shiny toy.
She was halfway decided on her course of action when the bell rang to signal lunch. Nodding to herself, she gathered her stuff and walked out the door to leave, when she saw Edward Cullen waiting outside the classroom.
"Oh! Hi, Edward," Jessica said with a flirtatious flip of her hair. And just that quickly, her mind started fantasizing about herself and Edward Cullen, rather than herself and Harry. She was so lost in her fantasy that she failed to see Edward grimace at her thoughts.
Edward cleared his throat, effectively ending Jessica's disturbing fantasy and said more formally, but simply, "Hello."
Jessica giggled, thinking about how sexy just that one word sounded coming out of his lips and started a new fantasy about where she would like those lips to be.
If vampires could get sick, Edward would surely have thrown up all over Jessica Stanley from just the idea of the places that she imagined his lips should be. He really wished he had Harry's magical abilities so he could throw up one of those spells that would make her ignore him.
As Edward was searching his mind for how to send her on her way, he heard Jessica say, "If you're waiting for Harry to come to lunch with you, you're probably wasting your time. The new girl got her hooks into him and he'll probably abandon you all so he can sit with her at lunch." Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder and blinked her eyes at him, "You're welcome to eat at my table, Edward."
It was that moment that Bella walked out of the classroom, with Harry following not far behind, and he forgot all about Jessica attempting to speak to him. He fought his amusement at Harry's inner dialogue from his sudden stop behind Bella, and then smiled at Bella and greeted her, feeling ecstatic as she returned his greeting with that shy smile of hers.
After Harry walked away, Edward was reminded of Jessica's presence when he heard her let out a very audible huff of frustration. Raising an eyebrow, Edward asked her, "Is there something else you needed, Jessica? If not, I have lunch plans with Bella and we still need to stop by Bella's locker, so she can store her books. The clock is ticking."
Ugh! What is it that this girl has that I don't? Harry hanging on her and now Edward Cullen? I'm going to make her pay somehow, some way, Jessica thought to herself.
Edward barely maintained a polite expression after hearing her thoughts explode out of her mind. She very well would not be making his Bella pay for anything and if she even thought about laying a hand —
"Oh, I didn't realize you two knew each other," Jessica said lamely. "I need to stop off at my locker, too. I guess I'll be seeing you."
As Jessica walked away, Edward returned his full attention to Bella, who had been watching the proceedings with a slight frown. "Is everything alright, Bella?" Edward asked in concern. He really hoped that she didn't think he had anything going on with Jessica.
Bella blushed a bit and Edward enjoyed the effect it had on her complexion. She sighed and said, "It's nothing."
"You can tell me, I won't laugh. I promise," Edward said as he indicated for her to lead the way to her locker.
"I just have a bad feeling about her and I don't want to be around her, that's all," Bella admitted.
"I feel the same, though I try to be as polite as I can to her," Edward admitted, as he fell into step beside her.
Harry met with Merope at the cafeteria entrance as he normally did, greeting her with a quick kiss on the cheek.
"So I hear through the rumor mill that you're cheating on me with the new girl, Bella Swan," Merope said in amusement.
Harry rolled his eyes and said, "I'll explain it all when we sit down to lunch." Placing his arm around Merope's shoulders, they walked over to their usual table and sat down with the remaining Cullens, casting just a muffliato. They hadn't felt the need to have to cast a notice-me-not spell in awhile, as everyone had finally gotten used to their presence and stopped staring so often.
"So what's this we hear about you and Bella Swan?" Emmett joked as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Harry shrugged and began opening his lunchbox as he said nonchalantly, "Turns out we share the same schedule and the other students were making her uncomfortable, so I offered to help show her around and sort of deflect the crazies.
"Mike wouldn't stop trying to undress her with his eyes, and probably his thoughts. Jessica was trying to convince her that she'd make a great friend." Harry had his sandwich out by this point and took a bite, after chewing and swallowing he added, "Mike didn't like my interference when he tried to hit on her after Government. Jessica didn't like the fact that she was hanging out with me. It's a toss up between Mike and Jessica, who actually started the rumors."
Then as if an added thought, Harry said, "Oh, and it turns out she's Edward's mate and they're going to eat lunch together."
"Oh! That's wonderful!" Merope clapped in excitement. Harry noticed that their vampire friends, however, had a range of emotions going on. Emmett appeared to be highly amused. Alice was giddy with happiness. Jasper seemed to be frozen in disbelief. Rosalie appeared torn between irrational jealousy and anger.
Harry found Rosalie's emotional response to be strange, considering she had a mate in Emmett, but he decided that perhaps he was misreading something and would just wait and see, maybe Merope could find out what was wrong.
A hush fell over the entire cafeteria, drawing the Potters' and Cullens' attention to the entrance where all eyes were on Edward and Bella as they entered together. Harry noticed Bella seemed to shy away from the attention, the slight ducking of her head caused her hair to fall in front of her face, she appeared to be attempting to hide behind Edward, too.
As Edward and Bella walked together towards an empty table near the Cullens, the watching students broke out in excited whispers, many of them shooting curious looks back and forth between the table where the Potters and Cullens sat and where Edward and Bella finally sat.
"Aww, they're so sweet together," Merope whispered. Alice bouncing in her seat, nodded in agreement.
Emmett leaned back a bit and crossed his arms, "Finally, things are starting to get interesting!"
"For the love of God, don't make a big deal out of it and cause a scene," Edward hissed under his breath, so that only his siblings were able to hear.
Alice pouted, but proceeded to take the first taste of her vampire meal that was prepared by the Potters and her eyes lit up in happiness. "Oh, this is delicious!"
Upon hearing her approval, the other Cullens tried their meals. "It tastes as if it's human blood," Jasper whispered in shock.
Emmett hummed in agreement and said, "It actually tastes better."
Rosalie tasted hers tentatively, momentarily forgetting her disgruntlement over Edward and his human. She had to fight down a moan at how delicious it was. Turning her eyes to the Potters, she whispered, "Thank you! I never realized how much I truly missed being able to eat with a fork until this moment."
Merope smiled back at Rosalie encouragingly and said, "Of course! We were delighted to have found a solution for you all."
Harry added, "Besides, with the number of animals you all probably have to hunt in a year, it would have been only a matter of time before the humans became curious."
"Why is that?" Jasper asked curiously.
"I watched a documentary the other week where the wildlife conservationists are putting trackers on some of the wild animals that are connected to their GPS equipment. If they notice the animal has stopped making regular movements, they come out to investigate and find out the cause. I shudder to think of what they would think if they came upon one of the animals you had drained and buried." Harry responded, before eating the last bite of his sandwich and then taking a drink of his water.
When he looked back up at the vampires, Harry noticed that they all stared at him dumbfounded, Edward included, though he tried very hard to not appear affected, he was trying to focus on Bella after all. He did mentally agree that the food was delicious after he had taken a bite.
When Merope also noticed the surprised look on the vampires' faces, she asked, "Are you telling me that after all the places you've been and everything else that you all keep up with that you never once knew that it could have one day been a problem?"
Jasper shook his head and said, "No. I mean, we know well enough to stay away from the endangered species, but I don't think I'm alone when I said I've never considered that the humans would care enough to actually start tracking animals."
"Well, as long as you stay away from any of the animals with ankle bracelets, then you should be fine. I don't think they've managed to figure out how to implant a tracking device under the skin yet, though I doubt that technology is too far off." Harry said.
"We should probably mention that to Carlisle," Jasper said in response. "I can't believe we overlooked that kind of possibility."
Harry shrugged and said, "Well, on the bright side, Merope and I are going to work together to figure out if there is a way we can teach Esme to prepare these meals, that way even if we prepare you enough for several lifetimes before we leave, you'll still be able to eat this way after we're gone and the food we've prepared runs out."
"So do you think we'll be able to give up hunting altogether?" Rosalie asked hopefully.
"Well, there's only one way to find out. Skip hunting and see how long it takes you to feel thirsty. Maybe having three meals a day, rather than hunting once a month will keep you from being thirsty. Who knows." Harry said with a shrug.
Everyone at the table was quiet after that, thinking about the possibilities that Harry had laid out for them.
Soon enough it was time to return to classes and back to pretending to be normal.
A/N: See profile for notes, if interested.