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 5

While everyone else left in the direction of the baseball field, Esme stayed behind to call Carlisle on the phone, who picked up before the second ring.

"Esme, is something wrong?" Carlisle said when he answered the phone. "You don't normally call me while I'm at the hospital."

"We have company," said Esme.

"Are they dangerous?" Carlisle asked.

Esme sighed and said, "I'm not sure yet. They know we're not human, but they don't know what we are and they're curious." When Carlisle remained silent, she added, "They claim to be supernatural beings, too, but they have heartbeats, so I don't know what they are. They don't smell like the dogs from La Push. They don't smell like food, either."

"My shift ends in 20 minutes. I'll be home as soon as I can." Carlisle said soothingly.

"Okay." Esme said. "The kids have taken them out to the baseball field, something to do with a race."

"Well, they can't be too dangerous if the kids seem taken with them, they're usually very cautious, especially Edward." Carlisle responded.

"Perhaps," said Esme. "I'm just worried about the Volturi somehow finding out that a human knows about us, I guess."

"I'm sure it's not as bad as you're thinking, dear." Carlisle said. "I'll be home as soon as I can. Okay?"

"Yes, okay." Esme said softly.

"I love you," said Carlisle.

Esme smiled and said, "I love you, too."


Down at the baseball field, Harry was setting the wards while the Cullens/Hales watched. "You know," he said, "I can make these wards permanent so that only you all can enter this area, if you wanted me to."

"Would those wards be able to mask any sounds we made?" Alice asked.

Harry looked at her curiously and said, "Yes, that's usually part of any standard ward schemes, whatever sounds made inside the wards are not heard outside of them."

"What about when we play baseball out here. Would these wards of yours prevent the ball from going as far as it can, or will it bounce back at the boundary?" Edward asked curiously.

Harry thought for a moment and said, "Since you're asking that, I'm guessing that on top of having super speed, you also have super strength then?"

Emmett chuckled and said, "Yup."

"I'd probably have to tweak the wards a little, maybe test them while you're playing a game and see what we can come up with." Harry said.

"We usually only play during thunderstorms, as it can get very loud and thunderstorms make it easier for the sound of the bat hitting the baseball to blend into the sounds of the storm," said Alice by way of explanation. "I used to be able to predict the weather before you came here, but my ability to See into the future has gone all staticky, since the middle of the summer, like it is when Edward tries to read your thoughts." Alice added with a frown.

"So you're a seer?" Merope asked.

"I guess you could call it that." Alice replied.

Edward explained it for them, "She can See into the future, but what she Sees is very subjective and is based on decisions being made; so, she must wait for a decision to be firmly rooted in a person's mind, or acted upon by that person, before she can See the end result."

"You must be feeling as if you're missing a part of yourself then, Alice," said Harry. "I'm sorry that our coming here has made things more difficult for you."

Edward joked and said, "Well, we've just had to rely on the weatherman on the TV more often than we used to."

"Why do you need to watch the weather so closely?" Merope asked curiously.

"Oh, it must have to do with the sunny days." Harry said with a nod of understanding. "Your skin shines in the sun, which would hinder your ability to blend in on those days." Turning back to Alice, Harry said, "Let me think on it a little bit and we'll see if the two of us can figure out what it is about us that's causing you to not See in the way you're used to."

"I would appreciate that greatly, Harry," Alice responded cheerfully.

"Back to the weather issue, Harry," exclaimed Merope, "we could attach some charms to a bracelet or a ring or any other piece of jewelry."

"What would these charms do?" Rosalie asked curiously.

"Oh, it would just create a glamour so that no one would be able to notice your complexion. You could be shining like the world's brightest disco ball, but no one would notice it, except you and/or those who were keyed to the charms." Harry responded.

"You would do that for us?" Jasper asked in surprise. "We haven't even told you what we are yet."

Harry shrugged and said, "Well, you haven't tried to kill us yet, so that's good friend material in my book already."

"Used to people trying to kill you, are you?" asked Jasper drolly.

Nodding grimly, Harry said, "Since I was a year-and-a-half years old."

"And yet you're still alive?" Rosalie asked in shock.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," replied Harry.

Further conversation was interrupted when Emmett asked, "Is everything all set for this race I was promised?"

Harry laughed and said, "And here I thought you had forgotten." Then he wandlessly summoned his broom to himself and climbed on. He then flew up high into the sky and did a few loops in the air before coming back down to hover in front of the shocked group of friends.

"That was amazing," said Emmett in awe.

"Why, thank you," Harry responded with a grin. "Now, is everyone joining this race or will it just be Emmett and I?"

"You know that I've already declined, Harry," Merope pointed out. Harry just smiled and nodded in response.

"I think I'm going to just watch," said Rosalie.

"Me, too," said Alice.

"Okay," said Harry. "Where are the start and finish lines?"


Edward, being the fastest among the siblings, won, of course, and there was some good-natured ribbing on the way back to their respective ladies.

"I knew you guys had to have been faster than my broom, but I wasn't expecting to be left so far behind. You are extremely fast!" Harry exclaimed.

"Well, Harry, maybe you should take a trip back to our original world and get one of the newest models?" Merope suggested.

"You can jump between different worlds?" Edward asked curiously.

"Yes, it's one of the perks we have. I'll tell you the story some time. I haven't actually purposely traveled back to a world where I've already been and left, though." Harry said as he ran his fingers through his messy hair in thought.

"Well, it's something to think about another day," said Merope, looking at her watch, "I expect Mr. Cullen has probably arrived by now and is waiting for us."

"Wow, we were having so much fun that we weren't even watching the time," said Emmett excitedly.

"Time flies when you're having fun, as they say," Harry said with a wink. Then he took Merope by the hand and said, "I bet we'll beat you back to your house." Then they promptly disappeared with a silent pop, leaving five vampires staring at an empty space in surprise before they all took off running as fast as they could back to their home.


Carlisle arrived home as quickly as he could after his shift. First, going to the mudroom that was built away from the house, so that he could change out of his hospital scrubs and place them into the washing machine located in said mudroom, which was purchased especially for this purpose, to wash out any and all blood that may have ended up on him during one of his shifts. Then Carlisle took a quick shower in the small shower stall that had been installed so that he could wash off any traces of blood that may have gotten on his skin, after which, he dressed in a pair of khakis with a pullover sweater.

Even though Carlisle himself had long since stopped being bothered by the smell and taste of human blood, that didn't mean he wanted his family to suffer unnecessarily over the scent of human blood lingering on his person.

He stepped out of the mudroom and he was halfway to the house when he was shocked into stillness when a pair of teenagers appeared out of thin air, laughing together. The pair noticed him after about a minute and the male said with a smile, "Oh, you must be Dr. Cullen.

Before Carlisle could respond, his children had arrived and all attempted to talk at once. "How did you do that?" "Why would you fly a broom if you can just disappear and appear at will?" "You didn't even leave a trail, that'd make tracking you very tricky."

Harry laughed and raised his hands in a placating manner and said, "That's a lot of questions, that I'm sure we'll be able to answer for you at some point." Then Harry gestured towards Carlisle and said, "But it seems your father is home, so we have a meeting to attend to now." Which caused them to collectively turn to Carlisle, each with a sheepish expression on their faces and Alice said with a grin, "Hi, dad!"


Once everyone was gathered around the living room, Harry started, "Dr. Cullen, Mrs. Cullen, I apologize profusely for forgetting our manners and not introducing ourselves when we first met. I'm Harry Potter, this is my wife, Merope, we're on vacation for a while and posing as students, so while I'm still going by Harry Potter, Merope's last name for school purposes is Grant."

"Wait, wait, wait. You're married?" Emmett asked in shock. "How long have you been married and how old are you really?"

Harry laughed and said, "Based on all those graduation caps up there at your stairwell, I could be asking you all the same question."

Turning back to Carlisle, Harry said, "I'm not going to go into my full background just yet, because we could be here for several days if I did, but I do want you all to trust us with your secrets, so I'll tell you some of ours." Harry looked at Merope, who shrugged.

"We don't know how old we really are because we stopped counting after getting to around 200, on top of the fact that we time traveled a few times, there was just no point in trying to keep up with our true ages, also, we're immortal. I was 30 years old when I noticed that I had not physically aged past the age of 23, so I created a charm that would make it appear as if I was progressing in age normally." Harry said, to the shock of everyone else in the room.

"I see that I've made you all speechless," Harry said, as he scratched the back of his neck, as he sometimes does when he feels a little nervous.

"You're immortal, but you have discovered a way to make yourselves appear to age?" Esme asked, hope shining in her eyes. "How?"

"Like I said, it's a long story, but the immortality bit came about by pure coincidence. When I was 17, I inadvertently collected three magical items that collectively were called the Deathly Hallows, making the one who reunited them the Master of Death. I'd have to tell you the Tale of the Three Brothers to help give you a better understanding of the items, but one of the items was a family heirloom that had been passed down the family line for generations.

"I tried to keep the heirloom, as it was one of the few things I had left from my father who died to protect me when I was a toddler, and I attempted to get rid of the other two items. They kept coming back, no matter how many times I tried to throw them away or hide them. I think I may have even purposefully broken one at one point, but it would repair itself and reappear along with the others. Finally I just gave up and accepted that the items weren't going away, and then they were absorbed into my body and magic."

"As to discovering a way to appear to age, well, I was born a wizard and I learned how to do charms and such at my magical boarding school. They didn't specifically teach how to age oneself, witches and wizards already age at a slower rate than our non-magical counterparts, which we call muggles. Now, someone had invented an aging potion, but that having a large stock of that, in order to keep taking the next dosage, wasn't something that I could easily explain away, so I had to develop the charms for myself and I was able to make them automatically age me at a certain time every year."

"Do you think you could make such a charm for us?" Edward asked curiously.

"Sure," said Harry. "I'm going to assume, since you asked that, that you all have an immortality problem, too, along with your skin that shines in the sun?"

At Edward's nod, Harry started to study them with a calculated look in his eye, until his gaze stopped at Carlisle. "Are you ready to admit what you are, or should we start throwing out guesses?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Why don't you throw out a guess or two, and then if you guess wrong, we'll tell you," said Carlisle, intrigued by what he had heard from the young man so far.

Harry shrugged and said, "All right. Well, at first, the color of your eyes all reminded me of my father's friend, Remus, he was a werewolf, but the rest of what I know about you does not fit the characteristics of a werewolf, aside from the strong sense of smell, that is.

Merope smiled at their collective reactions at having been compared, even briefly, to a werewolf. And based on what Harry said next, he must have noticed, too.

"Ah, your reactions just gave me another clue. Based on the reactions you had to being briefly compared to a werewolf, in addition to everything else I've learned about you all, I'd say that you are vampires, or at least a hybrid-type version of vampires. I've only met one other vampire, but he seemed more sickly in appearance than you all do." Harry said.

"You are correct," said Jasper. "Are you perhaps frightened, now that you know, that we may attack you and drain you of your blood?"

"You all have had every opportunity to have done so and you haven't, so I doubt very much that I would need to worry about that." Harry responded. "Although, I highly doubt you could harm me, since the wounds I received from a werewolf healed immediately and didn't turn me during the next full moon."

"So you've met and fought true werewolves?" Carlisle asked curiously.

"Yeah," said Harry. "I helped a lot of them, too. The society we came from was very prejudiced against them. They refused to allow them to work, even though they were only affected by their disease once a month. The majority never wanted to be turned, and they certainly never wanted to turn anyone else. They just wanted to live. I owned an island where I gave them a safe haven during their changes and provided them with the potions that would allow them to keep their minds while they were forced to be wolves."

Carlisle was taken aback. "That's very admirable of you, Harry."

"I was only doing what I felt was right," said Harry.

"I don't understand how you could help all of those werewolves, even after having fought against them at some point," stated Edward.

Shrugging, Harry responded sagely, "Just as with people and witches and wizards, there are good and bad in every species. There are good werewolves and bad ones, just like there are good vampires and bad ones. One can't judge an entire species based on the experiences one has had with only a handful."

"And you're not worried about what we 'eat'?" Edward asked, almost as if he were trying to give Harry and Merope a reason to flee.

"Not unless you want to tell me, but I'm suspecting because you're around humans basically all day, and Dr. Cullen is, well, a doctor, you all probably survive off either donated blood from a blood bank, or you live off of animals," Harry said with a small grin.

Carlisle smiled at that response. "So we have established that you've known several werewolves, but you've only met one other vampire?"

"In the world I'm from, yes. I only met him briefly when I was 16, not for long enough to carry on a conversation or anything, but like I said, he appeared a lot more sickly than you all do." Harry replied.

"I wonder why that would be?" Carlisle asked curiously.

Harry shook his head and said, "Your guess would be as good as mine at this point. It could be that the vampires in my world are just genetically different to the ones that inhabit this one."

Carlisle nodded in response and then turned to Merope and asked, "And you're immortal, too?"

"Yes." Merope responded. "My story is intertwined with Harry's. And, yes, I'm magical as well, qa witch. You see, these Deathly Hallows gave us the power to jump back and forth between timestreams or worlds, perhaps even dimensions." Merope said with a shrug. "Harry came back in time and saved me from my fate. We fell in love. After we were married, he told me he was immortal, and somehow my profession of love, regardless of if I had a lifetime or forever with him triggered the Hallows to include me, so I became immortal, too. A bit romantic and cliched, I know."

"You still have a heartbeat, does that mean you can still have children?" Rosalie asked softly.

Merope gave a soft smile, "No, not anymore. But we were able to have and raise one child before the Deathly Hallows made me immortal. I was already pregnant at the time, you see. We had a son, we named him Edward, he was such a good boy." Merope said, with a faraway look in her eyes. "We were never able to have more children after that, though, but we have adopted children in other timelines and worlds, children who would have otherwise been abused or neglected, so it really hasn't been all bad."

Merope noticed a pained look that flitted across Rosalie's face before she was able to hide it, then she said, "Well, at least you did get to experience motherhood."

"Yes," said Merope.

Having noticed Rosalie's sadness, Harry asked, "Would you ever consider adoption, Rosalie?"

Carlisle interjected here and said, "It would be against our laws to adopt a child and turn them into immortals."

Harry shook his head and said, "That's not what I meant, Dr. Cullen. I mean, obviously you all may not have had the option before, as I'm assuming you're having to constantly move around a lot in order to not draw suspicion to yourselves, which means repeating high school over and over, so that you all can stay in one place for longer. Am I right?"

"Essentially," responded Carlisle. "Where are you heading with this?"

"Well, I can charm several pieces of jewelry to give you many different appearances, going so far as to change your eye color to blue, brown, purple, whatever you want. Want a different hair color? You name it. Each one can be set to age you for a certain length of time and reset itself when you take it off, then when you're ready to move on to a new location, you could all change your identities with a new piece of jewelry and start over. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"We can stay in one place for many years, instead of only a few," said Esme.

Harry nodded and said, "Exactly. But you could also potentially establish yourself in a town for a few years, adopt a young child, raise said child, and when the child has grown, if you have revealed your true nature to them, you could give them the choice to be turned or not."

Carlisle shook his head and said, "As much as that sounds like it would work, I fear that it won't. One reason is that we have unnaturally cold skin, we could hardly raise a child and be able to cuddle with them with our body temperatures so cold."

"Okay. But I can just add a warming charm to be part of the glamour packages that I'm already planning to create for you, and no one would be able to tell by touching you that something is different." Harry replied.

"Okay. Another issue would be the Volturi," said Carlisle.

"Who is that?" Merope asked.

"It's the ruling coven of our species," said Edward. "It's against our laws to allow any humans to learn of our existence. If they do, the rules are to either turn them or kill them. What if the child chose not to be turned into a vampire? By our laws, we would then have to kill the child we raised and loved as our own. It would be very painful to do."

"How would they find out though? If you live among humans and you don't interact with other vampires, I mean." Harry asked curiously.

"There is a coven that's like us in Alaska, who feed on animal blood and live amongst humans, they are close friends of ours that we visit frequently, but we do still, on occasion, run into other nomads," Carlisle said in response.

Nodding, Harry said thoughtfully, "So as you're close friends with the coven in Alaska, you probably don't expect betrayal from that quarter; however, I have experience with friends betraying me, so I wouldn't rule out that they wouldn't. The nomads sound like your biggest concern, though. But what would the likelihood be that they immediately run to the Volturi to report you? Some of them may just think you had only lured the child away to 'feed' off later."

"You may be right," said Carlisle, "but there is one additional problem. We have a treaty with the local werewolf pack stating that we agree to never turn another human, so we couldn't in good conscience raise a child with the intent to give them the choice to be turned, because we made that treaty with them."

"Oh, there are werewolves here, too?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yes," said Carlisle.

"But what business is it of theirs if you turn a willing human into a vampire or not? It doesn't affect them in any way." Harry questioned curiously.

Edward piped in saying, "They feel it as their duty to protect the humans from vampires, that it's what they were born to do."

"But how do they keep the humans protected from themselves?" Merope asked, thinking about full moons, with the shake of her head.

Suddenly Harry's and Merope's stomachs began growling in sync, bringing a halt to the current discussion. Harry cleared his throat and apologized, saying, "I'm sorry. I hadn't realized how much of your time we'd taken up," upon noticing it was now thoroughly dark outside.

"Oh, don't be. It's been an intriguing experience getting to know the two of you, please stay. I can make you something to eat," said Esme.

"You keep food in the house, even though you don't eat human food?" Merope asked curiously.

Esme said, "Well, it's a small town, someone is bound to notice if we're not buying groceries."

"Hmm. Yes, but what happens to the food once you've brought it home?" Harry asked curiously.

"Oh, we normally donate it to one of the homeless shelters in Seattle within a day or two of purchasing, but I only just went grocery shopping this morning, so we haven't made the trip to the shelter yet." Esme responded with a smile.

"That's a wonderful idea, Esme," said Merope. "I was just about to suggest you all just spread the rumor that you had built a couple of greenhouses and started growing your own food. Donating your food to people in need is a worthy thing to do though, so I won't be offended if you don't take me up on that suggestion."

"Hmm. A greenhouse is a good idea, though, and we could still donate the food we grow," said Esme thoughtfully. "I can't say that I've ever attempted to grow my own garden before, other than flowers, it might be interesting to try it in a couple of greenhouses."

Harry added jokingly, "Just think of how much fun you'll have when you're able to move to a warmer climate where you could grow a vegetable garden without the help of a greenhouse, and not have to worry about the sun bothering you, as you'll have the charmed jewelry to allow you to live in warmer climates if you wanted."

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself, to be honest, I'm so used to living in cloudy and rainy places." Esme said, "But I do look forward to seeing your charms at work, even if we never move to a sunny state or adopt a human child."

"Well, I more or less just wanted Rosalie to realize there could be other options. She appeared as if she wished to be a mother and I wanted to help give her a way to make that dream a reality." Harry said with understanding, "I know what it's like to wish for a family. I was orphaned at a young age and I know that it wouldn't have mattered to me if someone had wanted to adopt me, even if they were vampires, as long as they loved me and treated me like family."

Rosalie nodded with a small smile and said, "Thank you for at least giving me some hope that it might be possible one day."

Harry smiled and said, "You're welcome." Turning to the rest of the family, Harry said, "I thank you for the offer of cooking for us, but we should head home to eat, we still have homework to do as well.

"Though, the fact that a lot of the school probably saw Merope leave in your car and saw myself walk home, so it might be best if I just pop back home and one or a few of you drive Merope back home. Just to keep up appearances."


Later that night, after the Cullens had made a show of returning Merope to her house and Harry had come outside to greet her and wave goodbye to the Cullens, the Potters made some sandwiches for supper and sat down to do their homework.

"So far I like the Cullens and the Hales a lot. I never thought I'd make friends with a coven of vampires before, but then, they're really more of a family than just a coven," said Harry conversationally.

"I know. I feel as if I've known them for a long time, but we really only just met them today. I can't believe that today was only the first day of school, actually. After the day we've had, it feels as if it's been at least a week." Merope said as sat next to Harry on the sofa, packing the rest of her homework away.

After checking the clock, Harry asked, "You want to help me get started on those charms so we can give them to the Cullens and Hales at school tomorrow? I think we can get at least one set for each of them done in about an hour, the rest of the can be done after consulting with what other disguises they may like to have. But since they're already established in this town with their current looks, these charms will just have to be more basic than the rest of them."

"Yeah, let's do this," said Merope with a clap, as she sat straight up again. "Are we going to be using the goblin-made jewelry we have?"

"Yes," said Harry. "They're more likely to be able hold the charms better than muggle-made jewelry. Though we may have a time trying to find a piece of jewelry that looks modern enough to pass for something muggle."

Merope shrugged and said simply, "So, we're already planning to just key them to only ourselves and the vampires in the Cullen family, and we can add notice-me-not charms specific to the piece of jewelry, so that no one except for us and the Cullens/Hales can see them. We just need to make sure they're tasteful."

Nodding at that, Harry said, "When you're right, you're right. Okay. Let's get started.


A/N: Okay. I'm pretty sure this is my longest chapter yet. Whew. So I'm going to play with the polls that I can supposedly put somewhere on my profile page, but whether I can figure out how to get it set up or not, if you all have a preference as to the pairings for Jacob, Bella, and Edward, like, if you want canon pairings or whatnot, then I would like your input. I'm not going to do any of the multi-pairings or slash pairings, though. While I've read those types of stories, I don't know that I'm capable of writing them, or if I ever would feel capable of writing them.

Just be advised, if they're not canon pairings, figuring out a way to get the Volturi physically involved in the story, instead of just mentioned, may be more difficult for me to accomplish, as it's going to require a whole lot of plot thinking, but I'm game to try a different pairing and winging it, if that is the majority's preference.

I'm not planning to fully follow all of Twilight's canon plot points, but I'm expecting to include elements of them, like the appearance of James, Victoria, and Laurent. What I'm not planning to do is make this story a complete rewrite of Twilight with only a little bit of new elements mixed in. I'm hoping that I've done a good job of making it a fairly unique storyline so far.

I didn't mean to turn this A/N into another story unto itself, so I'm going to go post this chapter now and figure out how to make a poll.