Warnings: Contains many references to Hinduism and Buddhism (not in a convert-y way – I'm an atheist – but in a "this religion works well for this story" way), slash, Twilight (scary stuff there), crude language, shorter chapters than my norm

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and associates of whom I am not one. Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer and associates of whom I am (thankfully) not one. No views, religious or otherwise, are meant to reflect the views of the author (well... except the ones that make fun of Twilight, but those are well deserved!).

2: Right Intention

It had always been in Edward Masen's nature to obsess over things. As a human in the early 1900s, his obsession started with music and it was only natural that he would learn to play the piano; he was not a natural genius at it, but he was so diligent and focused on it even in childhood that if he had been he might well have put Mozart to shame. His next obsession was with money, because his family was just under the median of middle class at that time, and he wanted to be above that line when he was an adult. This waned over time, but vestiges of it remained. His third obsession was reading, and though it was lesser than his fascination with music, it remained prevalent even after his turning.

In the decades since his turning, Edward had been obsessed with many things. His love for music grew with each new style he heard over that time, to the point where his other obsessions – justice, his constant feeling that vampires were soulless (which, little did he know, was true), and educating himself beyond what any human could were just a few – were dwarfed by it.

Until now.

It was in Edward Cullen's nature to obsess over things, because vampires felt everything more keenly than humans. So when his newest obsession would have been different a hundred years ago, it was instead so great that it made his love for music seem like a phase. Rosalie would blame the reintegration of Cedric for this, and she would be entirely right. It had never been in Cedric Diggory's nature to obsess over anything; he was too nice, too laid back to really obsess over anything, but his crush on Harry Potter had only grown stronger in Edward over the past year, and combining those feelings with Edward's obsessive nature...

Well, Esme was lucky that Edward even came home with Rosalie after the visit to Walmart, for all the minute he had taken to unload the groceries and say good-bye again.

Following Harry Potter's scent had been so entirely easy. Edward had never smelled him before, and yet when he did he knew the scent so completely, as if it had been locked in Cedric's memories despite Edward knowing that it wasn't. The only time they had ever been close enough that Cedric could have smelled Harry, both had smelled too much of blood and sweat to make out an individual scent, and humans so rarely could.

Harry Potter smelled like wood polish and the wind, but underneath those scents was his distinctly human scent and the scent of magic, his personal magic, his soul, that was so easily discerned from every other person on earth Edward thought he could find Harry from thousands of miles away.

As it was, he only had to follow the trail one mile away from Walmart to a rather nice house of decent size on the outskirts of town. Not so far on the outskirts as the Cullens' of course, but far enough out from the center that there were few beyond it. Edward lamented that the scent was so far from his own home, but there were only so many houses that went up for sale in a town like Forks.

At the time of his arrival, Harry and the red-heads – Weasleys he read from their minds, the Weasleys – were unloading bag upon bag of food from an old Ford Anglia that just nagged at Edward's finer sensibilities, specifically those related to automobiles. That was another obsession, one that his entire family shared. The vehicle was old and smelled feral. If he had forgotten for even an instant that these people were wizards, that car would have reminded him.

"Harry dear, could you help me with putting the groceries away? We're running out of room!" The mother of the group had a nice voice, though Edward thought that it was probably more accustomed to motherly tones and scolding than simply asking for help. Harry's head nodded as he made for the house, his bangs moving a little as he did, the rest of his hair too short to do more than quiver. Edward stuck to the tree-line, up in the limbs since people never thought to look up, and moved so that he could see in through the kitchen window.

Harry entered bearing one more plastic Walmart bag full of eggplants – Edward noted in his thoughts that the mother (Molly) had bought them only because the twins (Fred and George) had been juggling them. She'd felt guilty about letting anything those two might have tampered with into muggle hands, especially when the Weasleys had moved there because the US Department of Magic wanted Arthur to look into reports throughout Washington and Idaho of magical tampering. Or something like that. Edward only paid her thoughts cursory note, which meant he did get most of the pertinent information.

The Boy-Who-Lived's thoughts weren't actually too interesting. He was thinking about when they would expand the back garden for some Quidditch, wondering if the locals would notice him and Ron playing in the woods, wishing Ginny would stop flirting with him because it was awkward even though he knew she didn't mean it – Edward checked and was relieved to find that she really didn't – and various little things that could be found in anyone's head. Edward was a little disappointed.

Shouldn't Harry think deeply profound thoughts? Cedric had always believed he must, considering his fame and all. But no, as Edward found, Harry's thoughts were as interesting as Mike Newton's (which were thankfully more than Eric Yorkie's), even if the subject matter itself was different.

While Harry tried to remember which of the cupboards was for vegetables – for all Arthur Weasley tried, Molly wouldn't allow a Fridger-baiter in her house because who even know what a Fridger was? What if it was dangerous and baiting it resulted in someone getting hurt? – Edward marveled at the normalcy. He envied it so deeply that he wondered if he might explode.

Never mind that Carlisle had heard whispers two months back that Voldemort was defeated – by Harry, Edward had known without a shadow of a doubt, because any incident involving one would someone involve the other – which Edward sort of expected to fill Harry's thoughts for months to follow, but shouldn't there be something? Any inkling to show that Harry Potter was not just your run of the mill school boy?

He killed Voldemort at one! Faced him again at eleven! He fought a basilisk at twelve with naught by a sword and killed it! He warded off one hundred dementors simultaneously! He won the Triwizard Tournament!

And yet there Edward sat, in a tall fir tree still dripping from the rain two hours past, listening in on such purely normal thoughts that he almost had to wonder.

Edward did not return home that night, or the one following. He received a call from Carlisle on the third night, and so he went hunting with the family, though he refused to tell them why he had been away. They didn't really ask, either, though Rosalie gave him the stink-eye throughout the entire hunt. They had worked out who the family was, and Rosalie at the least knew something was up. Edward did his best to dissuade her of the notion, but she had always been a difficult one.

Later, Edward would be a bit ashamed of his... stalking, for lack of a better term. But it wasn't for a few more days, the day before school began, that the idea of his obsessing being potentially bad was even suggested to him.

At wand point.

Edward didn't even know how it happened. One moment he was hiding, watching Harry meander through the woods, enjoying the beauty of nature – rain or no rain, Harry could appreciate it easily – when Edward found himself flat on his back, ignoring the water falling into his eyes from the heavens, and simply wondering if anyone got the license on the car that ran him down. A moment later he was looking down the length of Harry's holly wand – something Cedric had seen, and Edward had glimpsed once or twice – into wide green eyes.

Wide was not a word normally used to describe Harry's eyes. They were an almond shape, and prominent on his face, but they weren't wide, as with fear or surprise, very often. At this moment in time, they were both.

What's more, it seemed Harry did have interesting thoughts. As if a veil had been removed from Edward's eyes, he could hear thoughts below the everyday ones that seemed to circle in Harry's mind. He suddenly knew that Harry had been full aware of being stalked the past few days.

Edward felt like a jerk, especially when other thoughts came to his attention, ones Harry actually voiced.

"Who are you? You're a real idiot if you think disguising yourself as Cedric will make me easier to get to," Harry was scowling at him, but his eyes were wide and his thoughts open. Belatedly, Edward realized that Harry had been using occlumancy to keep his deeper thoughts secret. The shock had made him lose concentration and he was hastily fighting to get them back up, but that was fine. Now Edward knew. "Well? Answer me."

"Edward Cullen; I am a vampire." It was only fair that he reveal it. It wouldn't take more than a couple meetings for a wizard to figure it out, and given how much Edward wanted – no, needed – the teen before him, it was only natural that he should share that.

"So magical disguises wouldn't work... you honestly look like Cedric," the green eyes narrowed, and the occlumancy shield snapped up again, closing off Edward's access to the deeper thoughts. But that was fine, because now that Edward knew they were there, his interest in Harry had only grown. "How old are you? Where is the rest of your coven, or have you got one at all?"

"17," Edward knew better than to leave the answer of his age so short, however. "I was turned in 1918, making my overall age one hundred and three. As to my family... Esme is probably at home painting, Rosalie and Alice were planning to go shopping, so their husbands, my brothers, are likely being dragged along. Carlisle would be at the hospital right about now. That is all of us." Maybe he was being loose lipped, but this was Harry Potter. He wouldn't betray the trust Edward put in him.

Harry was, quite naturally, a little dumb-founded. "Hospital?"

"Carlisle is a doctor," Edward explained without further prompting. "He is over three hundred years old, and he has very good self control. His occupation has been that of a doctor for some time."

Settled vampires; must be sangualis, went through Harry's surface thoughts. Edward might have had to look it up, but having access to Harry's head meant he knew that that was the wizarding term in the EU for a vampire that drinks the blood of animals, based on Latin of course.

"Correct," Edward nodded. He completely forgot that he hadn't mentioned his "ability" yet.

"What?" Harry blinked down at him, now less threatened feeling – the scent of his pheromones had lost the fight-or-flight tinge, now smelling more relaxed and tantalizing – in favor of being confused.

"My ability is enhanced natural legilimancy," was the explanation given. Edward liked to listen to the cogs working in Harry's head, even if he could only see the first layer below his face rather than all the inner workings. "I cannot read absolutely everything from you though. You are quite good at occlumancy." There was a flash in Harry's head of a hook-nosed man that the Cedric-side of Edward could recognize. Professor Snape had taught him then.

"Right," Harry had backed up a pace but kept his wand trained on the vampire before him. Edward commended him for the decision, but felt rather saddened at the distrust. He would gain it in due time. "Why do you look like Cedric Diggory?"

Edward, naturally, could not stop himself from explaining that "He was my reincarnation." Of course, he had done a lot of research on reincarnation and the factuality of it since regaining his soul. The little tidbits of information retained on Cedric's soul had been enough to make him curious, and he was quick to buy up several volumes from a small wizarding shop in Port Angeles when they arrived in Washington – there was no wizarding population in Alaska to speak of, outside of those working at the wildlife reserves – which made him better educated on the subject.

Learning a bit more about vampires had been part of that deal, and Edward imparted what he could quickly. He spoke the most of Cedric's soul returning to him on June 24th, just over one year ago, and what he had learned from it. He did not, however, mention Cedric's crush. He didn't want to scare Harry off. (The irony that he was saying all these ridiculous things and was worried that telling Harry that Cedric had "liked" him would make the young wizard run off when nothing yet had would never strike the vampire.)

"So what does that make you? Some half-Cedric vampire who thinks he can weasel his way into my life?" Harry didn't look too pleased with the information. "What do I call you then? Cedward Diglen? Edric Cullery?"

It didn't occur to Edward that as a human he probably would have winced at the spite in those words. He could read Harry's thoughts, the surface ones least ways, and knew that it was a passing anger, short lived. "Edward Cullen. Just Edward, preferably." The fake names sounded silly... and he wasn'tCedric Diggory. He was Edward Cullen. He was Edward. It didn't matter that he had picked up some pieces of Cedric in the process, he was Edward.

End of story.

"Right," Harry said again. His wand arm lowered, but the stick didn't leave his hand. Edward knew that they only reason Harry had dropped his aim was because his arm was screaming in protest at being held up for so long. During the discussion, Edward had been allowed to prop himself up on his elbows so that the rain would stop dripping in his eyes. It messed with his vision. "Well, we were warned of vampires in the area. I shouldn't be so surprised at weird stuff happening around me any more. Just stop stalking me, okay?"

Edward agreed, albeit reluctantly. Alright, so stalking was illegal and immoral... but he'd been doing what he could to subdue his obsession, feeding it. If he just let it fester... well, even with the changes fostered by Cedric, Edward knew himself.

"I'll see you later then," Harry waved dismissively and walked away, leaving Edward seated in the mud to stare after him.

If Harry had realized how right he was, he wouldn't have said anything. Just yesterday he told the vampire they'd see each other later – Forks was a small town, and it was likely the vampire coven lived in or around the town, after all – and as soon as Arthur drops them off at the muggle school, a silver car pulled into the school's lot, disgorging 5 "teens" who were too beautiful to be anything other than vampires. Or veela, but considering Cedric's pre-incarnation had mentioned he was part of a family of seven...

Well, Harry only squeezed Ginny's shoulder and gestured for Ron to join the rest of the students lining up outside of a building that said "Cafeteria" in large font. A few paper signs were pointing in that direction, telling everyone to pick up class schedules, and who was Harry to protest? Ginny and Ron were both paying more attention to the vampires, naturally, but having already met one, Harry was more keen on retrieving his death sentence.

The Weasleys joined the far right line (U through Z, the neglected section of the alphabet), while Harry was two down from them (M through P). Three of the vampires were in the far-left line (A through C) with the other two waiting two lines to the left of them (G through J). Each line moved slowly, given the school population actually being higher than that of Hogwarts (1), and Harry rather wished Mr Weasley hadn't been so enchanted with the idea of his children and pseudo-son attending muggle school. Not because he found waiting tedious; he was British and could probably be a professional at queuing (2) even if he was the adventurous type, but because of the people.

The boy behind him in the queue, a blond named Mike Newton, immediately singled him out as new and decided Harry needed to be shown the ropes. This in and of itself was not a bad thing. Mike seemed like a nice bloke, and he was definitely funny with a crowd-pleasing attitude, but he acted as if Harry didn't know anything.

This was likely because Mike had no idea how little Harry cared about rain or the like.

"Off in that far line, I'm sure you've noticed them, the really really ridiculously good-looking (3) people? Well, okay, only three are in that line, looks like the Hales breezed through; Rosalie probably charmed them to the front rather than deal with her peers," Mike rolled his eyes to show his opinion of such behavior. "The three still in line, those are the Cullens. Emmett's the big guy. He seems pretty good natured, but Rosalie, his girlfriend, has him tied around her finger, so he won't talk to anyone. Alice is the little one bouncing up and down like a puppy. She's kind of aloof but she does talk a bit at least, so that's something. The last one is Edward; he's a pretty cool guy, nothing like his family. I mean, he's still kinda distant, but he definitely knows how to have fun!"

Harry nodded along, slightly surprised. He could see what Mike meant. While the other two "Cullens" were talking only to each other, Edward had no trouble chatting with others in his line and returned every wave and greeting sent to him, even those that he should have pretended not to hear, being a vampire. He had a sort of social ease; was it entirely unreasonable that all Harry could see in that instant was Cedric? He thought not.

This, however, was really the only useful bit of information Mike told Harry. The Boy-Who-Lived appreciated the sentiment, really he did, but he was glad when he was out of the line and able to return to Ron and Ginny, even if it was only for a few moments so they could discern if they shared any classes. Harry had English and French with Ron, and Ginny was in his Phys Ed class at the end of the day, after she left Advanced Algebra with Ron, but other than that there was no connection between any of their schedules. They parted ways, Harry and Ron heading to English and Ginny to her History class.

High school was much like being up a river without a paddle. This applied to both the class work - it was all "review", but Harry couldn't make heads nor tails of it, and the Weasleys were even worse off - and walking in the school. Despite the "small" class sizes, everyone seemed to be everywhere at once, and more than a few times Harry wished he was back at Hogwarts where there were ten ways to get from one class to the next, not counting the half dozen secret passage ways no one else knew about.

Harry was so honestly miffed by the time he reached his Trigonometry class (how he scored higher than Ron in Math, high enough to get into such a class, he would never know) that he barely even noticed when Edward sat beside him. He did notice of course, and took appropriate action - a polite greeting and a mental warning that Harry was armed - but otherwise paid little mind to the vampire.

The usual introductory speech occurred, and the class was given work sheets. Harry was officially lost at sea the moment he saw the first equation.

"The number before the x shows how many steps up the lines goes on the graph for each to the side," Edward informed him quietly. Harry nodded discreetly, but still didn't understand much. Edward's quiet coaching lulled Harry into the frame of mind he often got when Hermione was helping him on homework (he almost wished he had stayed in Britain with her, instead of heading to the States, but... well, that would have ended poorly). He still didn't understand it at all, but he at least had an idea of a process.

"If you want, I could tutor you?" Edward offered. Harry knew exactly what he was doing, or what he thought he was doing. Seeking contact with his previous life, trying to understand Cedric, it was undoubtedly something of that nature. The wizard declined without even considering. He needed the help, but he could go to the after school tutoring center with Ron and Ginny if he actually cared about his muggle grades.

Edward continued to make small talk throughout the lesson, but not enough to distract Harry from getting at least half the worksheet done. It ended with an invitation for Harry, Ron and Ginny to eat at the Cullens' lunch table, which Harry declined again, though more politely than the offer to tutor.

He had no way of knowing that Edward's self-satisfied smirk was not from finishing the work sheet, but because he considered step one of Mission: Get Into Harry's Good Graces a success.

Author's Note: Originally this fic was going to be updated weekly. Obviously didn't happen. But hopefully when the next chapter goes up I will at least start updating it... more often than I have been. Heh.

(1) Based on the size of the Hogwarts class of '98 (aka: Harry's year) the average year at Hogwarts contains around 40 students. Which means there are only about 280 students at Hogwarts. There is an error margin of course, but if I remember correctly that's still about one hundred less than Forks High. (Forks High's entire population is about the size of my graduating class by the way... not counting those who didn't manage to graduate.)

(2) ... A joke... based on a line in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

(3) A reference to Zoolander, which is something that if you HAVEN'T seen youmust be living under a rock. Or 12. This is Twilight after all, so I can't say.