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.

A/N: Okay. So I've replaced the "deleted scene" with the actual chapter 16. I'm going to create another story thread specifically for placing my deleted scenes for this story, should I actually have more to share, which I don't at this point.

A/N (5/29/2021): NOT AN UPDATE, just fixing an error I spotted while rereading this chapter to refresh my memory before I started writing the next one.


Chapter 16

Three days later, the Cullens, with Bella, were gathered around the living room of the Cullen home, waiting as patiently as they were able to for their guests to arrive.

Since the Denali Coven were looked at as cousins by the Cullens, it wasn't anticipated that there would be any form of trouble, so Sam and the pack chose to remain home on the reservation. Harry had provided them with emergency portkeys in the event that they received the emergency signal, and then they could be there in seconds to provide assistance, should it be needed.

Each of the Cullens were provided with a coin that was similarly charmed like the DA coins from Harry's original fifth year at Hogwarts. Though rather than relaying a specific message, the coins would heat up as a way to notify the Potters that assistance was needed.

Overall, they were all tired of guessing why Alice's vision went blank after the Denali Coven's arrival, but they were hopeful that it wasn't due to anything ominous.

To make the waiting more bearable, the family spent their time playing an elaborate game of chess they had made up over the years which allowed each couple to work together as a team. They had designed their own board out of marble, though technically it was a table in and of itself with the board design painted onto it. it was the size of a small dining room table with enough room on each side for each of the couples to play in a four-way match. Bella used her shield to make sure that Edward couldn't read anyone's mind in order to predict anyone's moves, though that didn't prevent Alice from using her talent, much to Edward's disgruntlement.

"Seriously, Bella, if you can't block everyone's powers, then it's completely unfair of you to block those of us that you can, it just guarantees that Alice and Jasper are going to win." Edward grumbled, much to everyone's amusement.

"If you complain about it one more time, Edward," Bella responded sternly, "I won't even consider opening up my mind to you for at least a year, if not longer."

"You've figured out how to do it?" Edward asked excitedly.

"I might have," Bella answered, as she glanced over at him.

"Will you do it?" Edward all but begged.

Bella rolled her eyes and said, "I've been saving it for a special occasion. I may be persuaded to open my mind when we are alone later on, but you're going to have to be nice and stop complaining when I shield everyone's thoughts from you."

Edward nodded eagerly as he took hold of one of Bella's hands. "I can be patient," he said softly. "It is rather nice to have only my own thoughts in my head."

Bella smiled in response and gave him a brief peck on the lips before saying, "Yes, I thought you would like the experience of having some peace inside your own mind. Though, I promise when your cousins arrive, I'll pull my shield back, so that you will be able to hear them.

"Thank you," Edward said gratefully, then they returned their attention back to the game.

Alice and Jasper were on the verge of winning, to no one's surprise, when Edward mentioned that the Denali Coven was close, as he was starting to pick up their thoughts. Within a few seconds, there was a knock on the door and then a brief pause before Carlisle called from the living room, "Come in, cousins."

A second later found the Denali Coven frozen at the entrance of the living room with a slack-jawed expression, which was quite amusing to look at on a group of pale vampires. A moment later they were crouched in defensive stances, as they took in the human-like appearance of the Cullens.

"Who are you and where is your scent?" Tanya demanded with a hiss.

"Peace, Tanya," Carlisle said.

Tanya's eyes narrowed and she turned her focus to the Carlisle lookalike and said, "Well, you sound like Carlisle Cullen and you resemble him, but you have no scent and you look human." She then glanced around the room at the other occupants warily, noticing that none of them had moved to a fighting stance.

Eleazar slowly came out of his crouch and made his way forward and studied the Cullens with a strange look on his face. Carlisle believed he was sensing something with his gift, but unable to understand what he was seeing. He looked at Edward who confirmed his thoughts with a brief nod.

"Hello, Eleazar," Carlisle greeted with a smile. "It's really us."

"How are you able to appear human?" Eleazar questioned in awe. "Did you discover some kind of cure for vampirism that you neglected to tell us about?"

Carlisle chuckled ruefully and shook his head. "I'm not sure you would believe me even if I were able to explain it to you. The answer is, no, there is no cure that we have found; however, we have become good friends with someone who was able to solve the problem we had with having to move every few years because we couldn't age. Now we can appear to age, so we are able to stay in the same place for as long as a lifetime and not risk exposure."

"Truly?" Carmen asked in amazement, as she too came out of her defensive crouch.

"Amazing," said Eleazar in wonderment.

At this point, Tanya, Kate, and Irina relaxed out of their crouches and looked around the room at the rest of the Cullens, at which point Tanya's attention focused on Edward and Bella.

"And who is this, Edward," Tanya asked curiously, eyes completely focused on Bella.

Carlisle thought, based on the narrowing of Edward's eyes, that Tanya wasn't having very nice thoughts about Bella.

Edward said calmly, "This is Bella Swan, my mate."

Tanya stiffened briefly at that declaration, but brushed it off quickly. "Oh, and where do you meet?"

Bella answered, "High school. We share a few classes. You know how these things go, one thing led to another and here we are."

"You are human?" Kate asked incredulously, while Tanya looked at Bella as if she were less than dirt.

"Well, I'm more than human now, since I was bitten by a rogue vampire, but I'm not a full vampire, no." Bella said matter-of-factly.

"How can that be?" Eleazar asked incredulously. "There has never been such a case heard that one can survive a vampire attack and not change into a full vampire."

Bella shrugged and said, "We have some extraordinary friends that are able to make a lot of things that were previously impossible actually possible."

"It seems we have much to catch up on," Tanya stated, in an attempt to regain control of the discussion.

"Of course," responded Carlisle. "Why don't you join us for dinner?"

Irina, who had been quiet thus far, said, "Oh, Carlisle, you should know by now that we hunted before we came here."

"Ah, forgive me," Carlisle said with a twinkle in his eye, "I should have realized. We, however, postponed dinner so that we could invite you to dine with us. Would you care to join us in the dining room while we partake of our own dinner?"

Alice giggled at the look of confusion on their faces, as she jumped up from her chair and danced across the room and down the hall to the dining room, with Jasper following at a sedate pace, finding their confusion entertaining.

The three sisters, Carmen, and Eleazar exchanged glances as they watched their cousins relocating to the dining room before waiting on their response. Shrugging a shoulder, Kate decided she was curious enough to see what was going on, so she followed along, leaving the rest of her family to decide whether or not to join as well.

The Denali Coven were again frozen in shock upon entering the dining room to see their cousins all gathered around the dining room table with actual food sitting in front of them. Not only was the food sitting in front of them, but the food was being consumed with no apparent disgust or discomfort.

Emmett's deep chuckle distracted them from their surprise and Kate exclaimed, eyes wide in astonishment, "What in the name of irritable grizzlies has gotten into you?!"

Bella smirked in amusement as she said, "It's as I said before, we have extraordinary friends."

"You can try some of it tomorrow, if you all plan to be here for an extended stay," Esme said warmly. "Now, why don't you have a seat and visit with us."

"Yeah," Emmett said around his food. "Why don't you tell us what brought you our way, since you didn't call to give a head's up."

Rosalie smacked Emmett on the back of the head and hissed, "Don't talk with food in your mouth." Emmett just responded with a grin.

Tanya raised an eyebrow and said, "We figured Alice would have told you."

Carlisle shook his head and said, "Alice only saw that you were coming, but her vision stopped after your arrival, she never saw the reason for your visit."

"Oh, that's strange. I wonder what could have caused that." Tanya said curiously. Then she looked at Edward and asked, "And you haven't picked it up from our thoughts, Edward?"

Edward gave Tanya a quizzical look and said, "For some reason, you are all being very careful with your thoughts, so, no, I haven't picked it up from your thoughts."

Tanya and Eleazar exchanged looks before she nodded and Eleazar spoke. "We didn't wish to alarm you straight off, but we heard rumors that the Volturi were planning to send some scouts to this area. We were not privy to their exact reasons, only that it may involve the sighting of some werewolves." He watched those around the table warily as he added, "I remembered we spoke once about a tribe that your family made a treaty with, the last time you lived in the area. And you know how Caius has a vendetta against werewolves, so I have no doubt that the rumors are true."

The Cullens straightened to attention at that announcement and Carlisle turned to Alice and asked, "Have you not Seen anything from the Volturi?"

Alice shook her head in the negative and said, "I didn't See anything about it. I would guess that it's because the decision was about the wolves and not them coming to visit our family, so I wouldn't have Seen it." Then she clarified further for the Denali Coven, "I can't See the wolves at all. They are blank to me." Frowning, Alice said quietly, "We'll be going into this blind."

Carlisle turned to the Denali Coven and said, "Thank you for bringing us this news. Do you intend to stay?"

Tanya wrinkled her nose and said, "I don't relish the thought of getting involved with anything to do with werewolves, knowing what Caius' feelings of the creatures to be. My sisters and I barely escaped the wrath of the Volturi the last time we had an encounter with them, and I would rather not be around for anything that will draw their attention upon us." Tanya sighed and said, "Perhaps it would have been better for us to call you with the news, rather than risking coming here and leaving our scents behind."

"For all we know, they could already be here snooping around the area," Kate said unhelpfully, then added thoughtfully, "Though, the Volturi know that our covens are quite close, so it shouldn't be a shock for them to find our scent here in the area, they would only believe us to be visiting.

"Yes, you're right, Kate," said Carlisle. "But the fact that our scents are blocked from them may or may not become problematic," he added with a slight frown.

Esme looked worried and said, "Harry, Merope, and the Pack are already on standby, we should contact them to come so we can discuss this and make plans." Her eyes flickered to the Denali Coven before she added, "Perhaps they'll be able to do something about our scent dilemma."

"Who are you talking about?" Tanya asked curiously.

"You'll see," Alice said with a mischievous smile. "Perhaps we should outside," she said as she pulled out the coin Harry gave her and squeezed.

Everyone had relocated outside not five seconds later, and then five people appeared where no one had been standing before. They were all alert and ready to move into action, should the occasion call for it.

"What the hell?!" Tanya exclaimed in shock. The rest of her coven were in just as much shock, looking back and forth between the newcomers.

When Harry saw that no one was fighting, he relaxed his stance and everyone else followed suit a moment later.

Harry turned to Carlisle with a raised eyebrow and said, "Well, we're obviously not here because a fight broke out."

Carlisle gave a slight smile and said, "No, there's not been a fight yet, but we did find out why Alice's vision disappeared. Shall we all reconvene inside?"

Harry nodded and gestured for him to lead the way and explain, which Carlisle did after introductions.

After hearing about the Volturi scouts, Harry had to calm Sam down from wanting to take off and hunt down the scouts, then he raised a silencing spell around the room they were in, just to be on the safe side. He doubted the scouts were nearby, as Edward would have heard their thoughts by now, but it was always better to be prepared.

Harry shook his head and said, "So let me get this straight, the Volturi, which is a power hungry coven to begin with, has a leader with a strong hatred for werewolves and will stop at nothing to eradicate the species from the world?"

"That's correct," Carlisle said solemnly.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows and clarified, "And the fact that the La Push Pack are actually shape shifters and, in fact, not werewolves will do nothing to deter this Caius from his self-imposed mission?"

Carlisle sighed and said, "Not likely. Especially not when they find out that the wolves have the ability to kill vampires."

Harry hummed in acknowledgement as he thought.

Merope decided to say something, "Well, La Push has already been warded to prevent the entry of any vampires that are not the Cullens, so that should keep the tribe safe."

Sam nodded, though he was still concerned about the arrival of more vampires. Even if the Denali Coven only stays for a day or two, it could mean that more wolves will shift. On the one hand, it would be good to have the extra wolves if this Volturi started trouble, but on the other hand, he would need time to train them.

As if reading Sam's mind, which he probably was, Harry said, "If more wolves shift, you can use my time compression room to get them trained up, Sam." Which caused Sam to instantly relax and give Harry a grateful look.

"Time compression room?" Irina asked in confusion.

Turning his attention to Irina to answer her question, Harry said, "The long and short of it is, my wife and I are magical immortals. We can't die. And, no, we're not vampires, we're what's called the Masters of Death. It's a long story. Anyway, I designed a room in our house that can become anything I need it to be. It can become a room where time only passes on the inside, but not the outside. They could spend months under time compression and barely a minute or two would have passed out in the real world when they came back out."

The Denali Coven was speechless after hearing that information.

Esme interrupted and said, "We wondered about our scents, Harry. You've made it to where neither we or the wolves have a scent. Do you think we should do anything about that? The Volturi will definitely question things if they can't smell our scents, much less the fact that we all appear to be human now. It might open up a whole different sort of issue."

Harry shook his head, "It doesn't matter if they have questions about it. If it becomes an issue, they can take it up with me."

Tayna's eyes widened in shock. "The Volturi is not something you want to mess with," she said fearfully.

Harry shrugged and said, "I've handled worse than a coven full of self-important vampires that only care about power, don't worry about me." Causing the Denali Coven to exchange various looks of awe and shock.

Looking at Sam, Harry said, "The Pack should only shift on tribal land inside the wards, where the Volturi scouts will be unable to enter and see. Don't worry about trying to do any patrols outside of La Push, leave that to Merope, the Cullens, and I, okay? We can handle it, I promise."

Sam looked grim, but agreed. It was his duty to protect his tribe before that of the other humans.

Then Harry added, "The fact that your scents are blocked should keep you safe. If we're lucky, the scouts will appear and not see or smell any evidence of you, and then leave."

"And if we're not lucky?" Paul asked sarcastically.

Harry gave a feral grin that gave everyone except Merope chills, "Well, then I get to show the Volturi why they shouldn't mess with my friends."