HPOV
Two days before the full moon, I gather the ingredients for Jasper's Potion. The family are in the living room, and I am in the garden, with a small cooking cauldron hanging on a tripod over a fire. I can feel them watching me, but it's not hostile. They're concerned, first and foremost, of any side-effects or problems that may occur as a result of this Potion.
The first stage is the easiest - I just mix the general ingredients, and there are no special instructions for it. The magic happens when you mix the venom and the blood into the mixture. Jasper is watching me too, but he's in the garden, some way off, under a tree. I'm able to stand now, move about the pot, do the mixing, do the adding. It's easy, this bit, and having the range of motion makes it all the easier. After an hour, I call Jasper over.
"Life the pot off the fire, put it on the stones. It has to cool for a full day - tomorrow night, before dark, we'll add your venom. We'll put it in the clearing, and at midnight, we add my blood." He lifts the pot, places it on a large, completely flat stone that Emmett found by the river, and we place it well away from the fire, which I douse with water.
"The transformation takes three days?"
"Yes. Remember that you need to be sure, Jasper. Totally sure. I cannot reverse the Potion, once I have administered it."
"I am sure, Hermione."
"Then, on Sunday, you will be human. You only have to make your final choice right before you drink it."
"Are you trying to talk me out of this?"
"No, Jasper, I'm not trying to talk you out of it, it's just - mortality is a definite choice. It's delayed finality. Sooner or later, you'd die and that would be it."
"Yes. And I would die with you as my wife, and I'd die an old man." He frames my face in his hands. "I want to die an old man, Hermione, warm in a bed, safe and old and ready. If I want death like this, I would need to be ripped apart and then burnt. When I first told you I wanted to be human, I didn't tell you that I wanted stock things. I wanted to fall in love, and I wanted to hold my wife in my arms and feel her, soft and warm, and not feel like I'd break her, I wanted to see my children grow up, I wanted to be able to have them. I've already taken that first step, I have fallen in love. I want to spend my life with you, Hermione. I want to have children with you and I want to watch them grow up. I swear to you, I am not going to backtrack on this."
"The Cullen's have been your family for many years. Will you miss them?"
"Yes. But they will always be my family, and that won't change. Hermione, I am sure about this."
"OK. I just needed to make sure."
"Thank you for caring enough to be sure. What shall we do with it in the mean time?"
"We should carry it into the house, once the metal has cooled fully, to protect it."
"Protect it?"
"Might just be better to keep it out of the open. Don't want any leaves or whatnot falling into it."
"Fun. How will you stop that happening in the clearing?"
"I'll put a protective shield around it, a magical one that won't stop the moonlight getting through. I can't do that now because it'd hold the heat in and it won't cool properly if that happened. We just leave it for now."
So we leave it, and then we move it into the house. I stir it at regular intervals, to stop it congealing and to make sure air reaches all of the potion, not just the top. And the rest of that day, and the night, and the rest of the next day passes. And just before sunset, Emmett carries the cauldron to the clearing. The entire family comes, but most of them hang back on the line of the trees. Only Carlisle and Jasper follow me into the clearing itself, after Emmett has placed it in the centre.
"Are you ready?" I ask Jasper.
"Yes. How much do you need?"
"I need you to fill this vial. It's about a litre."
"OK." Carlisle takes the vial from me, and Jasper raises his wrist to his mouth. A dark silver, viscous substances begins to trickle slowly from the wound he's opened up, and Carlisle catches the stream with the vial. When it's full, he hands to me, and Jasper lowers himself unsteadily to the floor. While Carlisle tends to Jasper, I suspend the vial in mid air, over the caution, and banish the glass away, leaving the liquid to drop slowly into the cauldron. Instantly, the Potion bubbles violently and turns a bright, shimmering gold. I hear Alice gasp behind me, and the liquid rolls. I step back, and erect the shield around the cauldron.
"You OK?" I ask Jasper, sitting beside him on the grass. It's dark now, the sun sets very quickly here. The moon is visible through the leaves of the trees, but it won't be fully overhead until midnight. Already, however, the potion is responding, rolling and bubbling like a cheerful stream.
"I'm good."
"Hermione? We drawing this blood now or later?"
"Now is fine. Jasper, hold these. I need to drink them right after. It's going to make me dizzy as hell."
"Good thing I'm a doctor then." Carlisle sets up, and I cast a spell to sterilise the area around us. He wipes my arms with some anaesthetic cream and sterilises the area. "Close your eyes. You feel that?"
"No."
"OK, here goes. Putting the needle in now." He's very, very good, and it's over quickly. Jasper uncorks the vials and hands them over one by one. I shudder after the third.
"That is vile, vile stuff."
"Here," Esme says quietly. She holding out a Tupperware box. "I remember after the - after you came back, you said they tasted vile. I brought you some sandwiches - get rid of the taste and stave off hunger."
"Thank you, I say quietly. Carlisle is checking things like blood pressure and heart rate, and then hands me three medical bags of blood. More than one vampire is currently licking their lips, no doubt. "You people don't have to stay. I appreciate I smell pretty good."
"You do," Emmett says, blandly. "But somehow, I'm not being overcome with the desire to suck your blood."
"Nope, me neither."
"Maybe it's a witch thing," Carlisle suggests.
"Maybe. What time is it?" I ask.
"Half past ten. What do we do?" Edward asks, softly.
"We just wait," I say, quietly. Jasper reaches for me and takes me in his arms. "Jasper. I get that you want cuddling. But this is really, really not comfortable."
"Sorry." He rearranges us, so he's leaning back against a tree stump, and I'm leaning back into his chest, his arms crossed over my front. I can see the others now, my eyes adjusting to the light.
It's a very long couple of hours, but finally, Edward's watch beeps.
"Two minutes," he says, very quietly. I stand up and approach the cauldron. Jasper brings the bags of blood, and I lower the field.
"We add the blood, and then, at sunrise - you drink it."
"How much of it?"
"All of it. There's a fair bit there, I know, but I don't think it hurts while you're drinking it."
"You don't think."
"Nobody ever recorded that part."
"It's midnight," Edward says, very quietly. I look up, and see the moon overhead, huge and pale. The Potion is bubbling like it's boiling, and the noise is very loud in the silent woods. Jasper hands me the first bag of blood, and Carlisle hands me a knife. One by one, I slit the bags and add the blood. As the last drop hit's the surface of the Potion, it turns red, then blue, and finally turns to glittering silver. The moonlight sparkles off the surface, and its like a cauldron full of diamonds.
"It's beautiful. It's like magic," Alice whispers.
"It is magic." I put the field back up and retreat.
"Sunrise is at six thirty."
"Hermione, you should go back to the house, get some sleep."
"No, I should stay here." Edward leaves the clearing.
"Then you'll sleep here," Jasper says. "But you must sleep."
"OK. OK, I'll sleep. Wake me before sunrise, or if the Potion changes."
"What are we looking for?"
"It should keep glittering like that. When the moon leaves, obviously it'll stop, but if you shine a light on it, it should glitter. Check it every five minutes, that's very important. If it doesn't glitter, wake me up."
"OK." Edward returns, holding blankets and carrying a mattress. He makes up the bed for me, and I climb into it, accepting that I'm exhausted. I close my eyes, and almost immediately everything sounds far, far away.
CPOV
We check the Potion as instructed, but it never changes. the only sounds in the clearing is the bubbling Potion and Hermione's slow, even breaths. Jasper's leaning on the mattress beside her, and he's looking down at her sleeping form like some guardian angel from the stories. Before we can even begin to think about how many implications the contents of that cauldron has, the first rays of light are creeping over the trees. Jasper looks up, and then he places a gentle hand on Hermione's shoulder.
"Wake up," he whispers, shaking gently. "It's nearly sunrise."
"Nooooo," Hermione mumbles, snuggling deeper into her blankets. "Five more minutes." I see Jasper smile, and then he leans down and kisses her cheek.
"You have to wake up, beautiful." She finally stirs and pushes the duvet away.
"OK, I'm up. I'm awake. How is it?" She asks, coming over to the cauldron.
"Still glittery."
"Good. Jasper?" She says, holding her hand out to my son. He takes it, takes her hand goes to the cauldron. He hands her a glass, and she dips it into the cauldron, and brings it out full of glittering silver liquid, and she hands it back to Jasper. They look at each other. "It's only final when you take the first sip." He keeps looking at her, and then he raises the glass to his lips and drinks.
When the cauldron is empty, he stays standing.
"How do you feel?" Hermione asks him.
"Um. I feel - I feel - I can't feel you. I can't feel any of you." He looks frightened.
"It's starting. I think it'll be quick for you. Carlisle, we need to get him back to the house." Hermione approaches him, and he looks down at her. Already he looks less pale. "I'll see you very soon," she whispers to him, and then he falls. His legs give out, and he just goes. She tries to catch him, but he's a dead weight. Emmett takes Jasper's unconscious form into his arms, and heads back to the house.
It's time.