Chrysalis
"What are we, Edward?"
Alice looked up. Bella was sitting at the piano, watching Edward compose lullabies. She hadn't seen the question coming.
He sat like a startled hare. Edward looked like his first instinct was to run. She watched him start playing with his words while his fingers trailed through familiar tunes.
'Does it matter?' he said in one future, smiling at Bella and kissing her on the cheek. 'To me you are a blessing, a gift.'
'What, so I'm some god-given reward for your morally superior behaviour? Eww. Don't objectify me.'
That future vanished.
'I love you, Bella. To the moon and back.' Alice watched Edward's second attempt play out.
'Harry talks about the moon sometimes like she's alive. He also says I don't need to be afraid that you'll eat me. Does he know what you are, do you think?'
Alice winced.
'For you, I can be whatever you want me to be,' Edward decided to say.
'That's a bit strange, isn't it?' future Bella replied. 'Mum and dad and Harry all taught me that if you're changing yourself for the sake of a relationship, then something's seriously wrong.'
'Is that what your question is about, Bella? Do you want us to be in a relationship?'
Future Bella blinked. 'We hold hands and kiss, I'm pretty sure you don't mean that platonically. You're sitting there writing me songs and composing confessions, but you keep backing away when I want more.'
"I see," Edward said aloud. "If you want, we could be officially dating?"
Bella's smile was brilliant. She plonked her fingers on the keys, playing Harry's ode to the moon, and Edward wove an accompaniment around her. "Yeah, Edward. I'd like that."
Alice watched Edward decide to kiss her on the lips. Within moments they were buried in each other, like teenagers who were in love for the first time.
"Oh my God," Alice said, getting up. 'Edward', she thought at him, 'Next time, you ask for consent verbally like a normal person. I did not need that.'
She found Jasper in Carlisle's study. Alice led him into the forest for some fresh air and a hunt.
.oOo.
Charlie watched Harry and Edward sitting at the kitchen table with a smile in his heart. Bella had finally announced that the two of them were dating. They could hear the shower running upstairs.
"Because it's spring," Harry had explained last night, combing his fingers through Charlie's hair after their slow, comfortable love-making. "Ostara is about fertility."
"Harry, please don't mention my teenage daughter's fertility."
"I can talk to Edward about it if you like?" the man had said.
If he could, Charlie would be filming. Carlisle and Esme probably wanted to see this, too.
"What are your intentions towards our daughter?" Harry said, and suddenly Charlie was glad it was just the three of them.
"To love and to cherish her," Edward said, solemn as a tomb.
Charlie winced. "How old are you, son?"
"Seventeen."
It was a long time ago that Charlie had been seventeen, speaking those exact words to his pregnant girlfriend. "How many times have you been in love?"
"Bella is the only one for me."
"How long have you been seventeen?" Harry said.
Charlie laughed. Of all the ways to ask someone's birthday, Harry took the cake. "Edward, I know you mean well, but don't get ahead of yourself. You do right by Bella, and the rest will fall into place. I don't want to hear about marriage or children until she's out of college at least."
He didn't regret his daughter, his wedding, his career. But he wanted more for her, so long as more was what made Bella happy too.
"Yes, sir."
Edward and Harry were still eyeing each other over the kitchen table. Charlie went to find some snacks to take to Billy's later.
"Forever is a long time," he heard Harry say. "Keep those eyes gold, or I'll haunt you like Death herself."
Edward looked ghostly pale. "Yes, sir," he whispered. They all turned to the stairs at the sound of Bella's clattering steps.
"I'm ready!" she announced, her hair still damp.
Charlie loved the way her eyes lit up at the sight of her boyfriend, the way mooning teenagers always looked. They watched her put on hiking boots and shrug into the old yellow parka.
"It'll be sunny," Edward said, helping her back out of it. "You'll see, the meadow is almost as exquisite as you." He tucked Bella's cork necklace around her neck and led the way out, all the while wearing the sweetest smile.
"You didn't have to threaten the kid, Harry," Charlie said, tucking Harry against him to watch the truck drive off.
"I don't know. Sometimes these instincts come to me. Like when I followed the magic in the trees, and she led me to you."
Harry had a lot of instincts, Charlie had noticed. Making jewellery, climbing old oaks, trusting the Cullens not to eat them.
"Are they going to be alright? Bella's not much of a hiker."
"I have a good feeling about today," Harry said.
"That's enough for me."
.oOo.
"This is a terrible idea," Harry was saying.
Whenever Esme had been helping Harry with his meditations or whatever, Alice had organized girls' nights. The last two times they'd been in Bella's room instead of at the Cullens', because Rosalie liked to loom.
She hadn't realized that the process involved Esme watching Harry take a bath. Carlisle and Charlie just relaxed in front of the TV, but the last time she'd been home during a session all Bella's hair had stood on end.
"It's perfectly safe," Alice had said, probably listening to the sound of Bella's heart. But Bella couldn't shake that something making her feel deeply, supernaturally uncomfortable. It made her think of those half-forgotten nights listening to Billy's voice ringing out over a crackling fire, about all the things she used to believe were myths.
Sometimes Bella wondered if Harry was one of those things she'd dreamt of as a child, something that went bump in the night, a nightmare to be soothed away by cocoa and cinnamon.
The day before, they'd held a vote to take Harry to a hospital, and Bella was the only one who agreed with Harry's decision that this was a terrible idea.
They drove to Port Angeles in the very early hours of the morning, because Carlisle had pulled a lot of strings to get Harry this MRI appointment and it was apparently as good or bad a time as any. When Edward and Alice said they were going with, Bella wouldn't be left behind.
She trailed through the hospital hallways after her family wearing goosebumps. Bella had read the word recently. Kenopsia: a conspicuous absence of people in a place that was meant to be bustling with life. It reminded her of the vampires, always so quiet and still.
She wondered sometimes if Edward would turn her. She wanted it some days, and on others she wasn't sure. She'd heard her mother's lectures on there being no such thing as forever, but she looked at Charlie and Harry on the couch and knew that she wanted exactly that.
Edward vacillated between self-loathing and intense longing, but Bella wanted that quiet, mutual peacefulness of a game after dinner. Two pieces that were damaged in their own ways, but slotted together just right.
A nurse nodded as she passed. Bella nodded back and hurried to catch up with the others.
They all crooned at Harry like he was a frightened animal, laying him in a tube that groaned and droned. Bella could see the same calming breaths that Harry had taught her after Jessica's accident, and she could tell they weren't helping.
Esme was singing. Harry got left in the tube with a cage over his head while they started the machine.
Voices crackled over the microphone. Harry continued his crooning lullaby.
"Are you doing alright, Harry?" Carlisle said evenly, but Alice was already pushing buttons.
"Out, we need to get him out right now," Alice said.
Bella pushed her back against the wall, watching it all unfold.
"Harry, love, we're stopping the machine," Charlie said. Esme rushed through the door, dropping her watch and ring.
The monitor showing Harry winked out. They were plunged into darkness.
"Oh shit."
Bella didn't know Carlisle could swear. Emergency lights went on, the blinking and humming of fluorescent tubes sounding as loud as Bella's heart. She met Edward's eyes just as the emergency lights died.
She heard Charlie groan.
"Carlisle." Edward's voice was thick. "Operating theatre two. You might be able to—"
"I'll get the power back on," Alice said. The door whooshed shut.
"Ch—Charlie?" Bella reached out. They were all upset, but why was nobody surprised that Harry had done this?
Edward used his phone to light the room. Bella's hands found her father's and didn't let go. She wondered if Harry's power was like a vampire's gift.
Walking through the dark halls of the small hospital felt wrong. Eventually they found Esme and Harry on the roof with their legs dangling off the side of the building.
Charlie looked so lost standing beside Bella with tears in his eyes. A streetlight below glowed yellow against flashing blue. Nearby on the roof, some engines started humming. The lights in the hospital came back on, they watched the few people milling outside file back in.
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, eyes lifted to the moon.
Charlie held tight to Bella's hand, pulling her with him. She watched her father put an arm around Harry's shoulder, guiding him away from the ledge.
"I forgive you," he said, simple as that. "Let's go home."
Bella looked back toward Edward. In all her life she'd never wanted something so badly. It was irrevocable, her yearning for a love as simple as that.
.oOo.
"We don't really know what happened to Harry," Edward said on the slow drive back. "He's been getting much better at controlling whatever it is since Esme was working with him. We know he has muscle memory but little narrative memory. When Alice couldn't see anything happening tonight, we thought it was safe. Carlisle and Charlie had been hoping to finally get answers on how to help him."
The newspaper was late that morning, the article on the front page had two typos in it.
Olympic Memorial Hospital suffers Freak Power Outage at 4:15 This Morning.
Three dead. Two awoken from comas. Surgery patient saved by Forks' own Dr Carlisle Cullen.
They didn't talk about it, but the paper stayed on the mantle for weeks.
Watching Harry shuffle around the house wearing black, Bella wondered how anybody had thought putting him in that machine would help him.
.oOo.
Charlie wished he were better with words. I love you, he wanted to say. It's going to be okay, he wanted to promise.
Carlisle said the magnets in the MRI had knocked something loose in Harry's head, as if it was a good thing that Harry couldn't sleep without nightmares.
'His name was Voldemort,' Harry would say when Charlie woke him. 'I touched him and his skin turned to ash. When he touched me, it burned like snake venom. He told me to die so that everyone might live, and I went to meet him.'
They were snippets and snatches of a world full of death, war, and magic. Harry said he didn't remember them in the mornings, but Charlie wasn't sure. Sometimes Harry flinched from nothing, always clutching at that stick hidden in his pockets—
—the magic wand Harry kept in a hoodie pocket like some kangaroo. When Charlie asked if they were in danger, even offered they move to Australia, Harry smiled and said that his friend's parents were nesting there.
"I don't understand what's going on," Charlie said when it was just the four of them at the dinner table around a half-eaten dish of lasagne.
"This is a good thing. Harry's mind is healing," Carlisle said.
Charlie squeezed Harry's hand. "Harry, you've stopped leaving the house. You're not working, or eating, you only talk to me if it's the middle of the night. I'm worried. Billy's worried. Rudi's worried."
"There's magic in the trees," Harry said, staring out the window. "She'll protect us."
Esme patted Harry's hand and got up. "How about I run you a nice bath?"
Day 31 of an update every day this December.
My discord is linked on my profile page, you can find the update schedule for all fics on there. You can also find this fic already completely uploaded on ao3.
It's been an engaging month, thank you for being on this journey with me. See you in 2022, my friends!