Hello all, I want to start off by apologizing for the long hiatus I took on my writing.
As I mentioned before my client that gave me ample time to write passed away, then my family and my roommates family got ill.
Well both my grandparents passed away within a couple months and my roommate/beta lost her brother and her father.
It has been a long time getting back into the writing mood for me.
Now, onto the good news! I got a new job!
I will start May 10th and I will have every weekend off, so HOPEFULLY that means I will have more than enough time to work on my stories.
For now I hope you enjoy this chapter and I want to thank every single one of you for the love and patience
you've shown me during this time! All your comments helped me get through the rough patch I was in
Beta love to starkiss666
Hermione was frozen in her seat; she was careful to keep her heart beat slow and her breathing even. She didn't want them to realize how much his revelation startled her, while she knew he had been part of the Volturi she had thought he'd left long before their introduction to the wizarding world. Blinking quickly, she continued to stare at Carlisle, the easy smile on his face seemed to falter a bit as she watched him.
She watched him flinch a bit when she suddenly reached into her purse and palmed her wand while calculating her options. Her eyes darted from face to face, she could easily freeze them all and bolt, but she didn't want to leave Bella alone to face the wrath of the angry vampires if she did that. She quickly considered freezing them and obliviating the memories of ever having met her, but she knew that wouldn't work with Bella, she was truly happy with the leech and Hermione couldn't bring herself to take that happiness away from her cousin.
Calling upon her magic she sent out a non-verbal immobulus maxima through the living room, everyone, including Bella, was frozen in their spot. She could see the panic in most of the vampire's eyes, the beautiful blonde's eyes were alit with hatred which made Hemione grin internally. Yes, she would like the blonde it seemed, the woman was full of fire but what made her flinch was the understanding in Carlisle's eyes and the betrayal in Bella's. Sighing she stood up and walked behind them all to just outside their vision and sent a patronus to her dad along with grasping her charm to let him find her. It didn't take him long before a small *pop* was heard outside and someone was knocking at the front door. Hermione called for him to come in and he glanced around with an amused grin.
"You froze them? What did they do to warrant that?"
Hermione snorted quietly, "Carlisle seems to know about magic, he caught me off guard and I decided I needed backup to figure out what to do. There's no way I could handle obliviating the lot of them myself if something went wrong."
Sirius nodded and ran his thumb over his lower lip as he considered their predicament.
"Unfreeze him and his wife, from the stories I highly doubt they're likely to attack you, we will start with them. You should unfreeze your cousin as well, she looks rightly miffed at you."
Hermione flinched when he said that with a tone of reprimand, she sighed and released Bella who startled when she could suddenly move. Bella glared at her cousin and opened her mouth to yell at her when a cool hand grabbed hers and she glanced to see Esme smiling softly at her.
"You can't fault your cousin for what she did, you know how dangerous it is for us if the Volturi finds out you know, well I'm sure there's rules and laws that she has to follow as well regarding who knows about magic."
Hermione frowned at the understanding the matriarch of this family was able to portray through her words. She wasn't used to people being so understanding about, well, anything.
Carlisle cleared his throat in an attempt to garner everyone's attention, "Yes, I was with the Volturi when we signed the agreement about keeping magic a secret. I've known about your kind for many years Ms. Black, and I must say it came as no surprise to me once I learned your relation to Bella. It also explains her natural ability to block many of our, gifts."
Hermione nodded; she wasn't really sure what to say in response to the doctor's words so she looked at her Papa for his reaction.
Sirius seemed to snap out of his own thoughts as he extended his hand towards Carlisle. "Dr. Cullen, it is a pleasure to meet you, I must say you're a very rare case, at least to the magical community. Hermione here has read about you and your family, though, the texts seem to be out of date because they don't mention all of your children. I am sorry she felt the need to freeze you, I believe you caught her off guard."
Carlisle didn't hesitate to shake the man's hand with a smile, "I understand completely, I had hoped to approach the subject much better than I did, alas, can't change the past now, can we?"
Hermione sucked in a breath and started coughing, Sirius shot her a grin while Carlisle and Esme just looked worried. She waved a hand at them and finally got her breathing under control.
"Sorry about that, what you said just made me think of the past and I choked on air."
Sirius just snorted a bit and Carlisle looked unsure but made eye contact with Esme and they both nodded to her.
"Ms. Black-"
"Hermione, please call me Hermione."
Esme smiled a beaming smile at her and grabbed her hands,
"Hermione, then you must call me Esme, please. I was hoping you'd consider thawing the rest of the family, I can assure you they mean you no harm."
Hermione and Sirius shared a look and then she glanced at Bella, who gave her puppy dog eyes and grabbed Edward's hand. Nodding to herself she pulled out her wand and waved it at the rest of the vampires in the house, non-verbally releasing them from their frozen state.
Hermione let out a shriek when the burley brunette vampire suddenly picked her up and hugged her to him.
"That was the WEIRDEST feeling ever, can you do it again? What else can you make me do?"
Emmett hadn't realized that he was still dangling Hermione off the ground until Rosalie pinched his ear until he set Hermione down and tugged him back to the sofa. Hermione stood there dazed for a moment before Carlisle cleared his throat yet again, drawing everyone's attention to him.
"So, Bella tells me you're going to be the English teacher when school starts this fall?"
Hermione relaxed a little bit more as she sat back in her chair, this was a safer topic for her to discuss.
"Yes, I will be the temporary English teacher, I had planned on viewing you from afar as your teacher but Bella seemed to have other plans."
She shot her cousin a grin as she said this to make sure she knew she was just poking fun at her.
"I do hope you'll let me, not study per say, but, observe you? I'll try not to act too clinical but vegetarian vampires are completely unheard of outside of your clan and the fact that our books are so out of date that only Edward is mentioned it makes me wonder if there's more of you out there."
Carlisle and Esme shared a look before Esme gave the briefest of nods to her husband.
"Well, as far as we know there is only one other group of vegetarian, as you call us, vampires. They are our cousins, The Denali clan. As you can probably guess they live in Denali Alaska. They are much more secretive about their lives then I have chosen to be. Working as a doctor was my dream when I was younger and being turned has given me the gift to study all forms of medicine that I choose. I have had years to hone the practice of not being drawn by a human's blood."
Hermione had conjured a note pad and pen and was taking notes as the doctor spoke, her eyes sparkling with the knowledge that no other wizard has been privy to.
"Well, I shall introduce you to my children, you've already met Edward and I'm sure you know of his gift of mind reading, next is my daughter Rosalie and her mate Emmett, if you have any need of auto repairs or have any questions about automobiles feel free to ask Rose, she is an incredibly gifted mechanic."
Sirius's brows rose into his hairline before letting out a low whistle, "I think me and blondie will get along just fine, might have her take a look at my bike, I've enchanted it to fly and become invisible but I've been having some issues with the clutch slipping and I'm not overly knowledgeable in mechanics."
Hermione wanted to snort, Sirius was more than capable of fixing his own bike, he had for years, but she recognized it for the olive branch it was and smartly kept her mouth shut.
Rosalie blinked slowly at Sirius before a small smirk slid up and she gave him a nod of acknowledgment.
"Emmett here is much stronger than the normal vampire, I personally believe the only vampire that could match him in strength is that of a newborn. Next, we have Alice and her mate Jasper, as Alice has already told you she gets visions, they're not set in stone and are dependent upon the person making a decision. Such as when Edward decided to meet you in the store, she could see him doing this but not who he was meeting, due to your magical blocking. Jasper has the ability to sense and manipulate people's emotions..."
He trailed off with a weird look on his face before continuing, "I don't know how his power would affect you given your own abilities, he is able to somewhat manipulate Bella's emotions but not to the full extent that he could a normal human or vampire."
He shot off a proud look that swept over his family, "Lastly we have my beautiful mate, Esme, she enjoys restoring old houses and has recently taken over the housing market around Forks, I believe you may have bought your new home from her company."
Hermione nodded eagerly looking up from her note pad, "Yes! I believe you were spoken to about Ms. Crane and her horrible attitude."
A stormy look passed over Esme's face when she said that and Hermione worried, she had said something wrong but she didn't get a chance to backtrack before Esme started speaking,
"Yes, I did have a talk with Jeff about Margaret's attitude, it appears I was too lenient with her and I've made the decision to let her go. I did make sure the commission from your home was given to Mrs. Halstrom and her husband. It has helped them greatly with the cost of his treatments and she wished me to pass on her thanks for everything and her apologies for not being able to make it."
Hermione waved a hand at her, "It was nothing, Sirius was the one who did it all. None of us take very kindly to those who look down on others the way she did."
Esme gave them a beaming smile before settling back comfortably in her seat. Carlisle squeezed her hand and turned back to Hermione's family.
"I can swear to you we will all keep your secret, so long as you agree to keep ours?"
Hermione shared a look with Sirius, talking without words before she nodded to the vampires.
"So long as you keep my cousin safe, I see no problem keeping your secret. I will be keeping an eye on you though, not just for my research but because I can't fully let go of my wariness so quickly. I had never had a good meeting with vampires before yourselves."
Carlisle and Esme nodded understandingly and the kids just ignored her for the most part, Edward was still stuck on the fact she was going to be their English teacher. Just as he opened his mouth to ask about it, he was interrupted by a cell phone ringing.
Sirius flinched, not expecting the loud rock song to come blaring out of his pocket, "Sorry, sorry that's Remus."
He answered the phone and told Remus that everything was fine, they just hit a bit of a speedbump in the meeting that Hermione had needed a bit of help with. Hermione felt the need to check her own phone and smiled when she saw she had a message from Sam, she quickly responded that yes, she was doing just fine and she'd call him when she left.
She noticed Edward was staring a hole into the side of her head and she left out an audible sigh and turned to face him.
"Yes?"
He jerked in response having zoned out thinking about different ways to bring up her new employment again.
"I was just, curious, about how you're becoming our teacher this year? You're not that much older than Bella, there's no way you have the qualifications for this."
Hermione gave a smug grin at his questioning, "While I'm not much older than Isabella I am old enough to have my credentials, I continued my muggle education while I was at Hogwarts and graduated with honors from both schools, I had taken a few university classes during my summers before everything got bad and was able to get my degree sooner than the average person."
It was stretching the truth just a hair but none of them needed to know exactly how she got her degree. She smiled at the astonished look on Edwards's face. Sirius finally hung up the phone and apologized again.
"I'm sorry about that, Kitten are you ready to head home? Remus is going stir crazy without us there."
Hermione nodded and stood, she was taken aback when Esme came forward and gave her a motherly hug, she stiffened a bit before melting into the hold. She hadn't had a motherly figure in her life since her mother died, Molly had never really treated her like one of the family, she'd never quite forgotten the article in Witch Weekly about her being a trollop. She'd never even been given a Weasley sweater unlike all the other significant others, including Fleur. Shaking out of her thoughts and realizing she was still hugging Esme she pulled back with an embarrassed flush, but Esme just gave her a knowing smile and kissed her cheek before whispering "If you're ever in need of motherly or womanly help, please don't hesitate to reach out to me."
Hermione ignored the stinging in her eyes as she nodded at the woman's words, maybe these vampires weren't like the rest at all. She shook Carlisle's hand and waved at the rest, laughing when Emmett pouted as Rosalie stopped him from glomping her again.
"Isabella? Are you okay with coming now or would you prefer Edward to give you a ride home later?"
Bella glanced up at Edward from under her lashes and he gave her an easy smile, "I think I'll stay here for a bit, but I'd like to walk you out."
As they left from the room Sirius hopped in the passenger seat of her car typing away on his cell phone, Bella stopped Hermione with a tug on her hand.
"Can you please do that privacy spell?"
Hermione waved her hand, hearing the telltale buzzing of the muffalito settling around them. She wasn't prepared for Bella to fling herself at her and she almost fell over.
"Thank you! Thank you so much for coming and meeting them. I'm sorry I was angry you froze us; I should've understood."
Hermione just chuckled and hugged her cousin back, "It's fine Isabella, I understand. I am so glad you are happy, but I want you to promise me, if anything and I mean anything happens, even the smallest occurrence, please come to me, ok?"
Bella nodded and finally let go of her cousin, Hermione canceled the spell and waved her off, climbing in the driver's seat and waiting for Bella to get back inside before turning the car around and taking off down the drive.
Once home she pulled out her phone and sent a text to Sam, confirming their dinner plans for 6pm, that gave her just enough time to change and relax from that meeting.
Stripping down she filling the tub with her wand and lit all the candles around the room, her hair was magicked up and out of the way of the water before she climbed in and settled for her relaxing bath, letting the milk and honey scent lull her into a very relaxed state.