Harry had had a really fucking terrible weekend. He stayed up late reading about Revenants. Definitely not vampires. Definitely much, much worse.

The Vampires Harry had met over the years had to feed maybe once a month, even then they only needed a couple of litres to keep them going. Most of them had small groups of humans they kept around to feed on every month. Sometimes it was a forced thing and that's when Harry or the local coven would be expected to step in, but most of the time it was a mutually beneficial relationship.

Only the crazy ones actually killed people for food, most of the time if a Vampire killed you it was for territorial reasons or because you destroyed their favourite rug or something. The weren't the most logical group.

That kind of mutual feeding went out the window if you were venomous. Everyone a Revenant bit either died or changed into one of them.

And they needed to feed almost weekly in large amounts.

He didn't want to imagine how many muggles had to die to keep one vampire alive for a lifetime. It had been confirmed by the first book he read that wixen blood was basically toxic to them, they naturally avoided wixen and magical creatures alike.

The first book was written by a young pureblood on a tour around Europe who had stumbled across a lone Revenant in the 14th century. He referred to the Revenant as Astaroth and together they spent months baiting muggles.

Apparently, they took joy from tricking muggles into volunteering, exchanging allies and loved ones for the chance of immortal life. Most of their volunteers they killed anyway, after killing everyone they loved in front of them of course. Some they released with some vague instructions on how to avoid pissing off the Volturi.

Harry felt sick.

The wizard seemed to delight in the sadism as long as they were torturing muggles. When Astaroth threatened a witch who was protecting a village they targeted he was quick to turn on his Revenant friend.

Fiendfyre seemed to work.

The Wizard seemed to see his murderous hijinks as a great new dinner party tale and faithfully recorded everything he knew about this 'strange vampyre'.

Astaroth was faster and stronger than vampires the wizard had encountered previously. His senses were unparalleled. His skin was impenetrable. He didn't need to sleep. He had glowing red eyes.

The wizard was shocked to realise his new friend operated by a strict set of rules, his actions dictated by a distant ruling body in Italy. The Volturi.

Astaroth described members of the Volturi as witches, they had powers that went beyond anything Astaroth could do. One could read every thought you ever had with one touch of his hand. One could cause immense pain without even touching you. One could take away all your senses, leaving you blind and vulnerable.

Avoiding any attention from the Volturi was Astaroth's highest priority.

Horrified by the actions of two monsters Harry was glad when he could close the account, breathing deeply he pressed both hands into his eyes.

He'd been awake all night and all he could see when he closed his eyes was monsters, mouths dripping with blood, surrounded by a trail of broken and drained bodies.

He wasn't going to be able to sleep now anyway. He summoned a pepper up and pulled the second book towards him. This one was slimmer and written in modern English which was a relief for his still tired eyes.

This one followed an amateur magi-zoologist who encountered a trio of sisters in Russia in the mid-1800's, he had been wandering through the Siberian wastes tracking a Hippogriff herd that had been blown too far north. Camping at the side of a stream he watched as they took down a bear, drinking its blood once it had been successfully captured.

He approached them, begging them to let him write about them. Because of course he did. After his first read through of Fantastic Beasts and where to find them Harry had been enamoured with the idea of becoming a magi zoologist.

Ron's reaction when Harry had expressed this to him had been memorable.

"Are you mad?"

Harry had been annoyed by his dismissive response until he found out how many magi zoologists died. Even Charlie Weasley looked at magi zoologists with confused awe because whilst he worked with dragons, he didn't head out into the wild to find them. He worked on a reserve. With medical facilities. And back up.

Magi zoologists were seen as completely mad, and a little bit suicidal, by most of the wixen population.

Reading about this wizard leaving his wards in the middle of the wilderness to approach a group of potentially dangerous creatures with no back up plan made Harry want to groan into the table. At least Luna took people with her when she went wandering in search of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

Even that had been a battle. Neville had eventually bullied Luna into an unbreakable vow to always try to take people with her because none of them trusted her to have any self-preservation instincts whatsoever.

The moron followed them home and miraculously they didn't turn him into dinner. He stayed with them a month before he needed to report home. When he returned 2 months later it was to find their cabin deserted and no sign of where they had moved on to.

He described their beauty as cold and bright, touching their skin was like touching stone and when they had recently fed their eyes were a bright liquid gold.

Finally, the last bit of confirmation Harry needed. The Cullens were revenants.

Harry had to flick through pages of descriptions of some of the more carnal adventures the wizard had with one of the sisters before he found the reason for the difference in eye colour. Their eyes were gold because they did not feed on humans.

They fed on animals only.

Thank fuck.

Harry wanted to think his relief was because this meant that the Cullens wouldn't be hunting in Forks. The residents, his friends and the other students were still safe.

But if he was being honest with himself a big part of the relief was that he wasn't going to have to hunt down Jasper.

He'd gotten better over the years at doing what was necessary, he'd given up his chance of an innocent life when he was seventeen. Maybe even 11, looking back at Quirrel's death still made Harry uncomfortable.

But he didn't think he could ever kill a friend.

Jasper was his friend now, and the thought of having to kill him had been weighing on him. As more and more horrific details poured out of the books in front of him. If he needed any proof that he considered Jasper a friend, the weightless feeling coursing through his body now confirmed it.

Continuing to read Harry found out more about the less murdery lifestyle of the blonde trio, they lived like muggles, on the outskirts of a human town. They had given up human blood when their lovers kept dying and they had focused on their self-control over the years. The lack of human in their diet meant they could stay in one place longer. No mysterious disappearances or deaths to run from.

He already assumed that whatever the Cullens were, they were capable of coexisting with humans on some level. Otherwise, Edward's relationship with Bella was even more confusing.

Harry wanted to smile at the thought of what Jasper would say but his smile didn't feel right on his face anymore. He'd known Jasper was something vampire-like but having it spelt out for him was still jarring. He didn't regret getting to know Jasper.

He couldn't.

His jaws felt slack and his eyes were still burning. Closing the book in front of him he tidied away his notes and put the books into a locked drawer.

He rested his cheek on the table in front of him and closed his eyes.

The Cullens might not be the murdery kind of Revenant but that didn't mean that he could relax.

And that sucked because Jasper really did have such pretty eyes.

His last coherent thought before he fell asleep was that he was well and truly fucked.

Harry woke up half an hour before school started.

He felt like a zombie, his brain running through sludge. He pulled on a fresh t-shirt and gave up the rest of his morning routine as a bad job.

The drive to school was driven by adrenaline and apathy, he almost hit the stop sign on the way into town for the fourth time but managed to swerve just in time.

He wasn't letting himself think, if he started thinking he would have to start processing and there was no way that would go well.

When he got to school, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, he vaguely felt someone walking alongside him but couldn't bring his thoughts in to anything resembling order.

Focusing on the paper in front of him only to realise they were starting Oliver Twist this week really was the cherry on top.

The easy conversation with Eric at least fell into a comfortable space, he could even ignore the floating miasma of conflicted feelings that had replaced Jasper in his mind.

Harry could blame the weekend he had, or the way his emotions felt rubbed raw, or the way Eric's question felt like it was ringing around his brain.

The overwhelming rage he felt towards the paper in front of him felt like it was going to spill out and burn something. He remembered watching Oliver! for the first time in class when he was a kid. The songs had been great, he'd loved the Artful Dodger and had hidden tears from Dudley and his friends when Nancy was killed.

Oliver was like him, an orphan. Harry wasn't in an orphanage, and he tried to be thankful to the Dursleys for that. When he watched Oliver go home with Mr Brownlow at the end it made his dreams of someone coming to find Harry feel closer. More real.

He had made his way to the library to pick up his first book by Dickens and it had been hard going, the language wasn't easy for a nine-year-old and it had taken him almost a month of break times to read through it.

He'd asked the librarian one question when he finished. "Why did Oliver get rescued?"

"Because he was a good boy, he never lied or stole or did anything wrong." The librarian smiled down at him as if she was giving him good news. "Just like you Harry."

Harry had just nodded, handed over the book and left.

Harry lied all the time. Every time the nurse asked about his latest bruises, it was easier than dealing with the phone call to Aunt Petunia. He stole food from the Dursleys when he'd been banished to his cupboard, sneaking into the kitchen after dark. Taking anything he didn't think they'd miss.

He would sneak books from Dudley, the ones Dudley didn't like and kept in his second bedroom, always putting them back before anyone noticed.

Harry wasn't like Oliver and that meant Harry wasn't going to get rescued.

"Do they still have orphanages in the UK?"

Harry wanted to laugh but knew it would come out sharp and discordant, his throat was too tight. He was 43, this book shouldn't still make him feel like a broken nine-year-old.

"No, they were closed down in the mid-20th century."

Hadn't that been a revelation, the Dursleys' long-time favourite threat even emptier than it seemed.

He remembered Dumbledore showing him that first meeting in an orphanage with a young Tom Riddle. Wanted to show Harry what a monster looked like so he could know him better, so he could kill him better.

Even after he saw the damp musty room with the threat of muggle war on the horizon. Even after he saw the edges the orphanage had given Riddle Harry thought that an orphanage might have been better than his cupboard.

Even a young Voldemort had been fed. He had a bed and clothes that fit him even if they were clearly worn.

Charles Dickens named the characters of Bill and Fagin after workers he met during his short stint in a workhouse as a child. He left the workhouse with the rest of his family when his father inherited some money.

So, of course, Dickens knew what it was like to be an orphan, he'd experienced the feeling for a couple of months before his family came back for him.

"Orphanages in Dicken's time were mostly run by churches and funded by charity. No oversight, no government involvement. Just a place for people to dump kids no one wanted and then wipe their hands." No need to check in on them if they were already in the best place for them with other kids like them.

"They were meant to provide food, clothing, and a roof over your head. Train up all the orphans to be good, normal members of society so when they kick them out at 17, they can claim they did their best." Harry sighed and smoothed the now crumpled paper flat on the desk in front of him. "Of course, because there wasn't an actual system to monitor them a lot of orphanages didn't actual do that. Orphanages were full of disease, children were starved, neglected and beaten. Forced to work or kicked out to join gangs."

Harry glanced up at Eric who was frowning down at his sheet. "Did you know that they reckon that almost 60% of the criminals in Victorian London were orphaned children?"

He didn't wait for an answer. "There were good orphanages I'm sure but in the 1900's the Victorians believed being poor was a personal failure and chucked kids in workhouses so they could earn their keep. Even 100 years later at the beginning of the 19th century orphanages were more factories to churn out well behaved citizens, and get low cost labour, than real homes. It took a long time for us to realise that it took more than food and shelter to actually raise a child. Even when children started to have rights and adoption became an actual thing it was only the less traumatised 'normal' kids that got adopted."

He refused to look at Jasper, his emotions were whipping around him like a maelstrom, and he felt like one look would make him crack more than he already was.

"Like losing your parents sets you up to grow up normal. If you were sad, or broken, or different in any way they'd just ignore you or pawn you off on anyone who needed an extra pair of cheap hands as an apprentice or for day labour. It's still the same now really. If you're a girl, it's worse. If you're black, it's worse. If you're different, it's worse." He paused. "In Oliver Twist the orphans are starved and beaten, Victorians deliberately made workhouses unpleasant because otherwise they were worried the lazy poor would want to stay there."

Eric glanced down at the worksheet and Harry knew what he was looking at.

Dickens used the popularity of his work to campaign for the rights of London's poorest, criticising the working conditions and treatment of Britain's lower classes.

"Wasn't Dickens trying to change that?"

"Maybe." Harry shrugged.

A voice piped in from the next discussion group. Harry thought her name was Jenny? Jemima? He was pretty sure Jessica was someone else. "I thought Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in response to the poor laws that would have forced more people into workhouses."

"He did." Jasper confirmed with a nod. "Dickens spent time in a workhouse when he was 12 and he was part of the campaign against laws that forced all charitable funding for the poor into forming more workhouses."

"So wasn't Dickens just showing everyone how badly orphans were treated to encourage them to do something about it?" She had red hair, and her eyes were earnest. Harry couldn't look at her. "Wasn't he trying to help by telling people a heartbreaking story about an orphan with a heart of gold?"

Harry just shrugged again. "Maybe."

The other guy on her table leaned in, "I don't get why you hate this book so much. I get not liking Dickens, the guy didn't know when to stop talking but isn't Oliver Twist focusing on making a crap situation better?"

"Sure if your name is Oliver Twist."

That seemed to prompt universal confusion.

"Oliver is pretty perfect right? Always polite, always nice to everyone he meets, never angry." A couple of reluctant nods. "Even speaks with perfect grammar, perfect King's English."

Eric starts rifling through the book, "Jesus, he totally does. How did I not notice that?"

The girl was frowning down at her copy now, "Didn't he grow up in the workhouse?"

"Yep, might as well have popped out the ground fully formed for all the impact growing up a poor orphan in Victorian England had on him." Harry tapped the cover of his book impatiently. "Surrounded by poverty, hungry, beaten and humiliated. Oliver doesn't steal food, he asks politely for more. Oliver expresses proper Christian horror when the other kids steal and is incorrectly arrested for it when he doesn't run away. Oliver doesn't even let himself think badly of his abusers, happy to suffer in silence. He represents absolute moral good and so the audience are happy when he's saved from his life as an orphan on the streets of London."

Harry can feel Jasper's eyes burning into the side of his face.

"Dickens gives Oliver 'goodness'," Harry's fingers made angry quotation marks and he pressed his palms flat again, repressing the need to hammer his anger in with violent gestures. "It makes him better than all the other orphans and everyone can see it. He can pickpocket someone and be taken into their home, he can take part in a robbery and end up nursed back to health by the targets. He looks like them, he acts like them, so they take him in and protect him from the consequences of being a poor orphan in London."

Everyone was silently looking down at their books.

Harry almost flinched when Jasper spoke even though his voice was soft. "They didn't even have to pretend to sympathise with the poor to like him."

"Yep."

Eric looked between them, "What do you mean?"

"Oliver was from a rich family, all along. He wasn't even meant to be in the workhouse, only the manipulations of an evil man put him on the street in the first place." Jasper shrugged. "He isn't good despite his lower-class origins; the grand reveal is that he isn't lower class at all."

Harry looked down at his hands, too focused on his hands twisting together to care about the silent classroom around him. "Dickens focuses on Oliver getting his happy ending and ignores the orphans around him. Do you think the Artful Dodger emerged from the womb ready to rob people, cheat and steal? He was made into what he was just like the rest of them by a world of adults that didn't do anything to help them survive. And he didn't have a long-lost rich family to rescue him, or to help him before he had to commit crimes in order to stay alive."

He snorted. No need to do anything if the problem solved itself by dying after all.

"Not many job opportunities for an orphan on the streets of Victorian London. Steal, beg or starve. The rest of the orphans stay in the workhouse, or on the street, or are sent off to die in Australia like the Artful Dodger. And when the children they ruined and ignored and dismissed turn into men like Bill Sikes they see this as confirmation that they were right to not help them in the first place."

Happy to run around making villains out of abandoned children.

He fell into bitter quiet, his head down. Chewing on his hatred and forcing it back down until he could at least muster a neutral expression.

He looked up at the class who were openly staring at him, any other discussions had fallen into silence.

Merlin, he was not in the mood to be stared at.

He focused on Eric who was frowning down at his copy of Oliver Twist. "Dickens made a palatable story for his cause. Gave them an ideal figurehead to point to because if orphans like Oliver existed then they had to do something about it." He shrugged. "I get it, Dickens was writing to entertain, and he needed a perfect hero."

Harry sighed heavily. "But it really fucking sucks that even in fiction no one can make themselves care about the broken ones."

Harry couldn't look up; he could feel his cheeks reddening as his hands clenched around his book, bleaching the knuckles white.

Mr Mason clapped his hands together at the front and attention was sharply diverted from Harry. "Right! Great discussion on the historical context, we'll do more about the state of Victorian Britain later on in the week." Harry didn't think he'd ever been so grateful to a teacher and several of his old teachers had literally saved his life. "Now let's talk about serialisation and the impact the printing press had on fiction."

Soon the class was back to murmuring about industrialisation and trying to pick out quotes that weren't four normal paragraphs long.

The next few hours felt endless, Harry felt tight anxiety coiling around him. It was suffocating.

People left him alone. Even Moppet kept to himself in Chemistry, if Harry had been able to concentrate it would have been the first chemistry lesson he could actually hear.

Apparently today was a free day, students were allowed to head off campus for lunch so most of the class were happily chatting away about their plans to get food in town.

Forks didn't have a huge number of restaurant options but the prospect of avoiding cafeteria food was enough that it was all anyone could talk about.

Harry was relieved when no one tried to engage him in conversation about the pros and cons of the taco truck on the main road. One traumatic kebab when he was 21 had put him off truck-based eateries for life.

When lunch started Harry aimlessly wandered away from the class until he found himself in the almost empty cafeteria. He hesitated, it had started to drizzle outside and suddenly the empty tables around him seemed like a fantastic option.

"Harry! Wait up!"

Harry flinched, his hand hovered over the door to the back field before he sighed and looked back towards Bella who was hurrying to catch up to him.

"Hi"

Harry just stared at her. She had stopped him; it was up to her to do the talking.

"Um." She tucked her hair behind her ear and ducked her head. "Do you want to sit with us?"

Harry glanced behind her and spotted the Cullens, most of them were carefully not looking in their direction even though they could probably hear every word.

Jasper was looking panicked, and Edward was looking directly at him.

Bella seemed to take his silence as an answer and Harry blamed his lack of sleep for how slow he was to react when she took his arm and started to lead him over to their table. He was over halfway to their table by the time he even realised he was moving.

For fuck's sake. It would look really weird if he turned around and left now.

He hadn't processed yet, he really didn't want to make any decisions until he'd at least thought about things on a full night's sleep.

Hermione had always yelled at him and Ron for doing things without thinking, and he was really trying to make his brain think before he reached the table.

Running away from the conversation was probably not an option, he still needed time to work out what his plan was, and it would be pretty obvious he knew something if he suddenly fled.

But equally staying would mean he had to talk to the vampire slash revenants occupying the table he was being frog marched to.

Incredibly brave and stupid had been his tagline for years. He was a Gryffindor, jumping into things was basically a calling card at this point. And the conversation scared him more so his instincts told him he should do it.

Morgana the house system had a lot to answer for. Fucking bravery as a house trait. So fucking stupid.

He settled on the chair Bella indicated and watched as every golden eye at the table came to rest on him.

Merlin they were unsettling. He wanted to tell them that they needed to work on how frequently they blinked but that would be a real hint towards the whole Harry knows what you are revelation.

Now it was his turn to be awkward. "Hi."

The small brunette was the first to react, thrusting her hand forward with an enthusiastic smile that made her look twelve and not at all like an immortal blood-sucking teenager. "Hello! I'm Alice, we're in Chemistry together."

He shook her hand, suddenly very aware of how easily she could crush his bones to a fine powder. He added brewing up some skelegro to his mental to do list.

The big one reached forward next, his hand swamping Harry's. "I'm Emmett and this is my girlfriend Rosalie." He gestured to the breathtakingly beautiful blonde woman beside him.

Rosalie nodded to him in a way that seriously implied he smelt bad. He smiled at that which seemed to confuse her; she reminded him of Fleur. Fleur had always had the uncanny ability to communicate enough disgust to kill a man with just a look. Pretty but mean.

"Edward", Edward nodded at him but also didn't offer a hand. Harry was glad, the guy gave him the creeps.

Was it a slight though? He wasn't exactly a fan of Edward, but the guy was looking at him like he'd kicked his puppy.

Maybe he hadn't gotten good enough at shaking hands without crushing them.

Maybe he had accidentally crushed all the Cullen's practice hands.

Harry felt like hysterically giggling. Picturing Edward practising how to shake breakable human hands. What would they even use to practice? Bags of sand? Bananas?

Harry pressed his lips together; no giggling would be happening.

"And you know Jasper." Bella seemed to have taken up the helm of conversation leader as unlikely as that seemed.

Harry tried a friendly smile at Jasper but when Jasper eyes went impossibly gentle Harry had a feeling that his wide eyes were giving more bambi than he was comfortable with.

"So how are you settling in?" Morgana, she sounded like somebody was holding her at knife point and forcing her to make conversation. This kind of awkward small talk he could get behind, it felt like home. Next question would be about the weather or the football game last night.

I eat my five a day, I've handed all my homework in on time, and I barely ever murder people for food. How about you?

He'd left it too long to respond and now this was even more awkward.

"Er, sorry, distracted today." Harry rubbed the back of his head, "Settled in fine. I have yet to find a good tea brand and your chocolate tastes weird. Otherwise, fine?"

The next 20 minutes were torture, Bella asked about his favourite books, what music he liked, where he wanted to travel, what his ambitions were, where he wanted to go to college.

And constantly there was a light brush against his shields. Turns out Edward didn't even need eye contact to be an invasive dickhead.

If Harry wasn't completely convinced Bella was obsessed with Edward, he would think this was a weird first date. With an audience.

With Edward's constant attempts to touch his mind he reckoned this was a terribly planned ambush. Did he reckon boring Harry to death would help him get in? Seriously, what was the plan here?

10 minutes in Harry was answering in a monotone. 15 minutes in he was sending actively pleading looks at Jasper who was clearly laughing at him.

Bastard.

Dammit, even cursing him mentally was starting to sound fond.

Bella nodded and sent a desperate look towards Edward. Definitely a badly planned ambush. "What's your, um, favourite thing? About the US that is."

Merlin why was this happening.

"I like the trees?" Everyone was going to think he was obsessed with trees, why was his brain incapable of finding less weird answers. Right, he liked Jake's chilli but that would also be weirdly specific. "Erm. I like having family around, I try to get over to the reservation a couple of times a week for dinner."

Bella appeared to be searching for another follow up question with all the speed of a broken rolodex when the atmosphere changed.

Suddenly alarm bells were going off in his head, the hair raised on the back of his neck and a growl resonated through the room. The push on his shields intensified.

Harry barely stopped himself from summoning his wand as he turned toward the source of the sound.

The part of his mind that wasn't occupied with his surroundings was making sarcastic comments about how the Cullens fooled anyone into thinking they were human. Who growls at someone?

Edward's eyes, usually impassive, had gone wide and urgent. "You have family on the reservation? Who?" Edward's voice was low and harsh. Even Bella flinched away from her boyfriend before hesitantly reaching up a hand to rest on Edward's forearm.

Harry was suddenly very aware of the empty cafeteria around them. He pushed down his immediate instinct to remove the threat.

"Back off." The voice was quiet and cold, nothing like Jasper's usual lilting baritone. Harry kept his eyes fixed on Edward, but the sound of his maybe-friend's voice still sent a thread of relaxation down his spine. The still figure of Jasper next to him shouldn't have been this reassuring but Harry felt weirdly calm.

A strange calm had settled over the whole group, he found his muscles relaxing and he watched as Edward's face became less rigid although his eyes became no less urgent.

Harry looked down at his hands confused, where had that adrenaline gone? It felt like someone had fed him a calming draught.

Bella was the one to break the silence, "Harry is Jake's cousin."

Merlin's beard these guys were confusing. Why was that important?

"I am. Jake and Billy are the main reason I moved here." Harry glanced at Bella, unsure why this was even news. It's not like he had hidden this fact.

Jasper was still a steady presence on his left, but he could see the other revenants stiffening and for the first time in their presence he heard them all take an audible breath in.

But they didn't need to breathe. The reading he'd done over the weekend had been very clear, they didn't need to breathe, they didn't need to blink, their hearts didn't beat.

They were scenting him.

Suddenly Harry didn't feel so calm, he leant back deliberately placing both his feet firmly on the ground, making it easier for him to stand and giving him quicker access to his holsters.

"Why are you-"

Harry stopped speaking when another wave of calm fell over him. Unnatural calm, Harry's eyes widened, and he started to push back.

Unnatural.

Someone was manipulating his emotions.

He pushed his chair back ignoring the sound of it clattering to the floor and stepped away, rapidly needing to put distance between him and the creatures sat around him.

He felt a different kind of calm settle over him now, the familiar readying as he dropped into an easy combat position, arms loose and feet steady. He could feel the beginnings of his magic answering his call, crackling and flickering invisibly in his fingers.

His voice was low and deadly. "What the fuck was that?"

For a moment he thought he was going to get an actual answer, but when Alice looked at him with bright, innocent eyes he knew he was about to be played off. "What do you mean?" She glanced around with visible confusion, "I think there might have been a draught? Are you feeling okay?"

She was a good liar, if Harry was a normal 17-year-old he would probably be feeling embarrassed about his outburst and talking himself out of it. Falling for sympathy and concern and dismissing what he felt.

But Harry knew what they were, and he wasn't a 17-year-old boy. He could still see the tension rippling through the group, Edward hadn't taken his eyes off him.

But he didn't need to let them know that he knew he was being manipulated. Priority 1 was still just getting out of here.

He rubbed the back of his head and projected bashful with everything he had, he needed to get out quickly and the easiest way to do that was going to be to play right back into it.

"Ah, sorry. Didn't get much sleep, been feeling terrible all day." He laughed quietly, "Must be coming down with something." He shivered theatrically and pulled his jumper closer around him.

"I hope you feel better soon!" Alice chirped from where she was sat, "Are you going to head home? I can send you my chem notes if you want? Saw you were pretty distracted in class."

He scooped up his bag from the floor and shouldered it, he needed to play this off as weird teenager behaviour if he wanted to salvage anything here.

"Do you want me to take you to the nurse?" Jasper's voice was back to his normal lilt, concern bleeding through it.

His eyes met Jasper's, he looked anxious. Why was he-?

Guilt.

Fuck. No wonder he had started to trust them. Fucking hell, he hadn't even noticed Jasper affecting him.

He was shocked by how much that hurt.

He needed to get out of here and he needed to not look at Jasper.

Harry plastered an insincere smile on his face as he quickly backed away from Jasper who had gotten up, hands outstretched to help. "Nope! No need, I'll just head over there now."

The door wasn't far away, he could tell the nurse he was ill, go home, think, eat a pint of ice cream.

"Harrison." He glanced up and met Edward's eyes.

He had only a second to regret making eye contact before he felt the agonisingly familiar stabbing weight of an attack on his occlumency shields.

It was blunt force and clumsy, but Edward was strong and he had thrown his entire mind's weight at once. He felt his first barrier fall.

Why was he falling apart like this? Edward wasn't the first person to try and get in by brute force. He'd worked hard at his occlumency over the years he should be able to push back.

His emotions were chaotic. He couldn't hold a clear thought just desperate, overwhelming sadness clawing at any calm he managed to muster.

He wasn't in the cafeteria anymore, he was desperately holding on to precious memories of his friends, of his cupboard, of his life, as a bitter man rifled easily through his every thought.

When the next barrier fell in a blazing haze of agony Harry could distantly feel tears running down his cheeks, mentally huddled behind his last shield.

He was writhing on the floor in the ministry, his parent's murderer using his voice, draining his magic. Taunting him with the repeated memory of Sirius falling through the veil.

He could feel the last shield buckling, his thoughts too scattered to rebuild, falling too quick to reinforce.

A rumbling crack and he was falling to his knees, he felt his magic leave him in a rush pushing away the threat in a last-ditch attempt to protect his fractured shields.

Adrenaline coursing through him now he was no longer paralysed by agony, he was on his feet with his wand in his hand in seconds. The floor underneath him had cracked, splitting the table in front of him down the middle.

The revenants had been violently pushed back by the first wave of magic, sending them careening into the concrete that made up most of the cafeteria. Harry could see cracks in their skin from the impact, they lay like broken dolls scattered around what used to be their lunch table, cracks in their skin that were already rapidly starting to heal.

Edward had been thrown backwards into the window which had shattered but held its shape. As soon as he drew his magic back it fell, glass littering down covering every surface.

A couple of feet ahead of him he could see Bella looking at him with terrified eyes. The glow of the shield that had protected her from the destruction around her faded and suddenly all he could hear was her panicked breaths.

The revenants were still out cold, and the adrenaline started to recede as he took in what he'd done to his school's cafeteria. His muggle school.

He knew this would happen at some point. He'd hoped for longer, longer with the new family he'd found and the friends he'd made. He looked at Jasper.

Or at least thought he had made.

He closed his eyes and sighed, brushing at the drying tear tracks running down his cheeks.

He would do what he could to make sure this didn't impact anyone else and then he would start over.

With a flick of his wand, he repaired the table and windows, putting up a quick ward to prevent the magic registering. The previous outburst would likely be dismissed as natural surge or magical creature, wandless magic tended to escape most monitoring unless you were underage.

He painstakingly repaired the floor and placed a repelling ward around the area that would keep people out of the cafeteria until the revenants had recovered enough to leave.

Bella had fallen entirely silent at the blatant display of magic, Harry just picked up his backpack absent mindedly tapping it with his wand to repair the strap.

"I've put up a ward, it will keep people out until everyone's awake again." Bella flinched when he started talking but he didn't have the energy to care. "When they wake up let them know that I'll be leaving town soon, no need to do anything dramatic, I'll be out of their hair by the end of the week probably."

Bella gaped at him, her mouth moving silently.

"All your phones are probably fried." Harry's voice was dull. He needed to think about practicalities, or this was going to be harder than he needed it to be. "I'll talk to Billy and Jake before I leave." He glared blearily at her. "I will check in on them and if anything happens to them, I will suddenly be a big problem for you and yours."

Bella seemed to be trying to say something now, but her voice still wasn't working. He stared at her for a moment before looking back down at Jasper.

Any cracks had healed, his eyes were closed peacefully and without the golden eyes Harry could almost imagine he was human.

"Right."

And then he apparated.

Jasper had been confused when Bella cornered Harrison and panicked when she basically dragged him to their table.

He had asked them to stay out of this.

Clearly something had changed.

He glanced at Edward who was looking at Harrison with an intensity Jasper didn't like. Curiosity was curling around his brother like a thick fog, he was smug.

He had clearly asked or suggested this to Bella. Why did his brothers have to be so interfering? He was perfectly capable of becoming closer to his mate without his family getting involved.

Edward's eyes flashed to him for a moment, and he felt a pulse of amusement from him.

Harrison was right, Bella had to be an alien, it was the only explanation for her putting up with Edward.

The second pulse of annoyance felt like victory.

Bella continued to introduce them all, it felt like a weird panel interview. Harry looked him with wide beseeching eyes, begging for rescue.

Jesus he was adorable. Jasper hoped Harrison never brought his full power to bear, Jasper would be putty in his hands. He felt like cooing.

He really hoped Edward wasn't listening. Luckily, he seemed to be focusing on Harrison.

Bella was persevering with asking awkward questions Jasper could almost hear Harrison's sarcastic responses, it looked like it was taking him a physical effort to not roll his eyes.

"Where's the next place you want to travel?"

"One day I hope to make it to Seattle." Harry continued when Bella looked confused, "I've heard there's a needle that goes all the way to space and a wall made entirely out of chewing gum. It sounds like the happiest place in the world."

Looks like the sarcasm filter had finally given up.

Harrison was sending him increasingly desperate looks, but Jasper was way too busy laughing. He had wanted to introduce Harrison to his family later down the line but now it was clearly going to happen with or without him he was determined to enjoy it.

He didn't have to worry about is family liking Harrison, Alice looked ecstatic he was here and Emmett was not so silently chuckling at some of Harrison's responses.

Even Rosalie looked secretly delighted when Harrison told Bella that he had always wanted to be a professional bridesmaid.

"I'm really good at painting nails and with my skin tone and legs, I can pull off any bridesmaid dress." He sighed happily. "I just really feel like it's my calling."

As the conversation went on, he could see Harrison getting tired. The exhausted frustration that had bled into his exasperated rant about Dickens that morning was starting to become visible as every answer got shorter.

No was his whole answer when Bella asked if he ever wanted to return to the UK.

Jasper was delighted to hear that news but was starting to get worried when Harry seemed close to snapping.

This morning had been eye opening; Harrison was so good at presenting a happy front that Jasper had forgotten he was an orphan. And had been for almost all his life.

It had been clear on the whole class' faces that they had all forgotten too.

He was emancipated, Carlisle had found some paperwork indicating that his situation with his guardians hadn't been good.

Listening to his impassioned anger at Oliver Twist and everything he represented, made him feel like hunting down everyone who had ever made Harrison feel broken. Picturing anyone hurting his mate filled him with a boiling rage.

He didn't know enough about what happened to help. He had so many questions.

Jasper wanted to reach out to him, sooth him in some way but the vibrating tension that was coming off him in waves made it clear that it wouldn't be welcome. Would possibly never be welcome.

Sometimes he felt like Harrison was starting to relax around him. He would smile or laugh and then his eyes would become impossibly warm, and Jasper would feel like melting.

Sometimes Harrison looked at him like he was a stranger. Cautious glances when Jasper looked away, examining him looking for a threat.

The last month had been a lesson in patience, he didn't want to move too fast and scare him off but couldn't resist ravenously taking anything Harrison would give him. His smiles and stories preserved and squirrelled away.

Jasper took advantage of Bella being a distraction to just look at his mate, taking in the delicate curve of his ear, the way his nose wrinkled when he thought something was stupid, his hands moving for emphasis every time he talked.

And then Edward growled and Jasper went from relaxed to ready in less than a moment. A wide-eyed look around the room didn't reveal a threat and within milliseconds he was looking back at Edward.

Edward who was focused on Harrison. What?

Why was Edward facing Harrison like he was suddenly enemy? A burst of something from Harry had him speaking before he could think.

"Back off." Every instinct was telling him to push Edward away from Harrison, with long practice he shoved down his rage and projected manufactured calm. He needed this not to escalate because he didn't know what he'd do to his brother if Edward made one wrong move here.

"Harry is Jake's cousin." Bella's voice rang out, a burst of anxiety accompanying it as she looked frantically between her boyfriend and Harrison. Clearly, she didn't know what was happening here either.

Harry was sat still, no outward indication of any tension but Jasper could feel the emotions roiling against his forced calm. He got bursts of strong emotions from Harry sometimes but most of the time it was an indistinct feeling of emotions changing or surging with no idea which emotions were which.

It was endlessly frustrating, particularly when the bursts of emotion he did get made no sense.

Like now. He wasn't sure what Harry was feeling except none of it was fear.

"I am. Jake and Billy are the main reason I moved here."

Jasper hadn't realised he had family locally, it made a lot more sense for a 17-year-old to move to a random town in the US if it was to be near family.

Suddenly his hold on the calm loosened, Jake and Billy. Bella's friend Jake? Harrison's family was on the reservation? Wasn't Jake one of the wolf shifters? That would make Billy one of the Tribal elders. That would make Harry part of the treaty.

Did Harrison know what they were?

Was he blood-related? What if he had the same predisposition to shifting? Jasper couldn't follow him onto the reservation.

He would lose him to the pack.

No.

No.

Jasper looked with panicked eyes at the rest of his family, who looked back with matching concern, coming to the realisation simultaneously. Had Edward known?

He took a deep breath, trying to sort through Harrison's scent to find any hint of the acrid burn he associated with the shifters from La Push. He could smell hints of it hovering around his person, a faint amount lingering on his backpack. Touch only.

He had spent time there but there was nothing in his scent that hinted that he had that potential. Jasper felt like shouting jubilation to the sky the relief falling through him like cool rain.

He felt similar reactions from his family as they came to the same conclusion, the relief was so immediate that it shocked him when he felt Harry's emotions spike.

He was pushing back from the table, looking at all of them. Jasper felt the spike of panic and moved to sooth it. He needed to work out what had caused this reaction before Harrison ran like he was clearly poised to.

"Why are you-"

In his own panic at Harry's rising voice Jasper pushed too roughly, the wave of calm rolling over the group was aggressive. Bella almost looked comatose, her eyes half closing.

For a moment he hoped the clumsy move had gone unnoticed, that he had time to pull back and ease off. And then he felt Harrison violently throw him off.

It felt like every tendril that had been reaching out was suddenly severed, where he could usually feel Harrison's pulse of nameless emotions was suddenly nothing, like a wall had been raised between them.

It felt like being doused in cold water, the shocking absence hurt. He hadn't realised how much he had been relying on feeling the current of emotions however vague and undefined they were.

He let out a small involuntary sound as their connection was ripped from him.

Harrison propelled himself backwards, surprisingly graceful as he took several steps back facing the still frozen vampires sending his chair backwards to crash into the floor.

Jasper just watched him with aching eyes, he'd done this. Too wrapped up in imagined scenarios and panic to even be able to pinpoint where this had gone so wrong.

The air felt strained, instead of feeling any emotions it suddenly felt like the air charged with something tangible. His family tensed as the unfamiliar feeling washed over all of them.

"What the fuck was that?" Harry's voice was like a whip crack. Low and calm but magnified by the atmosphere of tension.

Every part of Jasper was begging him to apologise, to explain, to do anything to make this better. He had never been that clumsy before, he hadn't been that forceful since he was dealing with newborns.

Harry looked desperate for an explanation; Jasper moved forward slightly desperately trying to think of anything he could say that would adequately excuse whatever had happened.

The moment Alice rose from her chair Jasper felt relief, she would know what to say. She always did. She launched into their usual attempts to explain away, moving towards Harrison who Jasper was relieved to see relax.

He still couldn't feel even a presence of emotions from Harrison but he seemed embarrassed, he looked tired and Jasper watched as he shivered. The concern he'd felt when he first seen him this morning came back with a vengeance, he looked like he hadn't slept in days.

Harrison gathered up his stuff to leave and Jasper could feel the relief spreading through his siblings, they would be able to talk and plan on how to deal with what Jasper had accidentally done. Edward was still ringing with anxiety and strangely intense curiosity but the emotions in the room were as peaceful as could be expected after so much tension.

"Do you want me to take you to the nurse?" Jasper needed to know he was okay, that he hadn't accidentally hurt him.

Harrison looked up and Jasper drank in sight of tired eyes that still had that glorious brightness that was just Harrison.

And then something changed, Harrison's face remained fixed in a smile, but he looked panicked. His eyes scanning frantically over Jasper's face. Whatever he found wasn't good, his body minutely slumped and he looked distraught.

When Harrison looked away Jasper didn't know what to do.

"Nope! No need, I'll just head over there now." Harry's voice was false and chipper, and he vaguely waved at them before he walked towards the doors.

Jasper started to follow, his mind barely conscious as he trailed behind. Then suddenly something changed behind him, Edward's curiosity hardened into crystalised determination.

"Harrison." Jasper barely had time to register his brother's determination changing to grim satisfaction before suddenly Harrison's emotions hit him like a wrecking ball.

Clarity he'd never had before, at any other time he would want to bathe in feeling his mate so close.

It was chaos. Jasper was almost driven to the ground with it, an outpouring of grief and rage, desperation running like floodwater and drowning every other feeling.

Within seconds he was deeper, devastating sadness and a cyclone of hatred and fear. Jasper forced himself to open his eyes overwhelmed with the need to get to his mate, to stop the mental anguish he was projecting.

Anguish that Edward had caused, faint against the all-consuming pain echoing out from Harrison Jasper could still feel that desperate curiosity, the satisfaction, the determination. What was Edward doing to him?

He opened his eyes just in time to see Harrison collapse, tears running down his face in a constant stream. Eyes still wide open and fixed on Edward.

Jasper could feel himself screaming, it had been seconds but it felt like hours, the shock only just starting to run through the rest of his siblings as they watched Harrison fall.

He desperately moved towards Harrison, wanting to catch him before he hit the ground.

The bubbling tension that had filled the air suddenly stilled. A crack echoed out splitting the floor beneath his feet and sending him crashing to the ground.

A moment of silence and then a wave of green energy burst out of Harrison.

It ruptured the ground as it approached and Jasper had no time to respond before he was being flung backwards, he hit a wall with an audible crack.

And then Jasper experienced unconsciousness for the first time in 160 years, his last desperate glance fixed on his mate.

Slumped on the ground, surrounded by destruction, burning with sadness and betrayal.