A/N: Hello, people!
I don't own Harry Potter or Twilight.
I have no beta.
ENJOY!
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TAGS: Filler-ish?, Exploring Magical Britain, Edward Having Experiences, Bella Being Bella, Humor, Drama, Mild Language, Victoria Cameo, Magic, Mentioned Violence, Flirting.
~Sorry, I forget FFN exists anymore. My life is too hectic.
We are housed for now! The house has no heat or hot water. And we went half a month without internet. We have run out of food. The house is dilapidated, and we can only stay here if we fix it up while we're here. But it's not permanent, and the walls of my 'room' are falling apart around me. There's a huge crack that stretches halfway across the ceiling and the walls are full of bigger cracks and holes. The ceiling in the next room over collapsed. I'm very tired.
~.O.~
"So, you're telling me that you somehow got permission from your old schoolteacher to bring your boyfriend and your girlfriend to your magical school, despite the fact that they are not magical people themselves? And that we are going to spend the next few days exploring an ancient castle in the highlands of Scotland?"
"Yeah. Being a hero does have its perks now and then I will admit. Things like hero worship are completely useless to someone like me, but it can be good now and then when I want to skirt the rules a little bit or get away with something typically not done."
"How are we going to get there?"
"We Floo, of course."
Bella was easily able to determine that she did not like flying, Flooing, Apparition or the Knight Bus. So far, every kind of magical transportation was horrible, and she wanted nothing to do with any of them. And as usual, Edward seemed perfectly fine. Being a vampire was such an unfair advantage in the most meaningless ways.
Harry told them that they were going to a place called Hogsmeade Village first, so that Bella could get a better understanding of a smaller magical village. Diagon Alley was like a cultural hub in a sense, and it was considered far more modern despite the outward presentation, than Hogsmeade Village was. He wanted her to get a feel for how old things were like in small towns on the magical side.
"We have joke shops and little cafes that students from Hogwarts like to have dates in. Everyone loves the Hog's Head, simply because they like to bother Aberforth, who is the bartender and owner. Oh! And there is a small radio station that's been set up recently. A muggleborn figured out how to use the wireless radio with magic and Britain has finally gotten with the program after decades. We can even have live radio now and there's a tower nearby."
Never would Bella have thought that radio would seem like a new concept at any point in her life, but she had to remember that these people avoided the modern day like the plague. Every little advancement was like some kind of personal victory. She had to wonder if they would ever master televisions, and eventually cell phones.
Or perhaps they'd finally be original and come up with things that could do the same exact thing as televisions and cell phones without ripping off the idea of a completely different person and passing it off as their own.
Still, at least at least it seemed like these advancements in magical technology were being well received by the populace. It could have been a lot worse.
Harry dragged them to Zonko's Joke Shop, and Bella was able to compare what she'd seen of the Weasley Twins' business, to this one. The one that had supposedly inspired them. It was very easy to say that whatever inspiration this brand had once upon a time had finally dried up. She had a feeling that the business was open due to nostalgia and being closer to the kids, not necessarily because the products were good or innovative anymore.
In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if the Weasleys ended up buying out the shop and just combining the two businesses anyway. It would at least be better than the brand falling into obscurity and the business closing down completely.
"Fred and George are considering opening a location down here, but it would also be a lot more effort than necessary when there's already a competitor in the area. I don't know why they can't just partner up and have Zonko's sell Weasley products. Both benefit in the end," Harry murmured.
Edward looked off toward the business in question, golden eyes narrowed. "Judging by their reaction to your presence in Hogsmeade, I can confidently tell you that they do not like having competition, because you're a close friend of the twins and you are the financial backer that got them started. They are not too pleased with you. Or your friends."
"So, at the end of the day, it's just injured pride. Bloody ridiculous."
Bella wasn't exactly feeling like going to Zonko's now. While she couldn't claim to know Fred and George from the womb or anything, she had found them to be very agreeable company. And the unique kind of pranks they pulled had gotten a laugh or two when they visited The Burrow. Sure, she could understand that it would suck to finally have competition in something that only you had a hand in in your small community, but one would think that would push them to improve and put out new products to stay ahead of the competition.
Apparently, owning the monopoly on a certain area of the market was just so much more important than anything else.
Whatever.
"What is that garishly pink place?" she asked the moment her eyes landed on the shop in question.
Harry's face twisted up, and then it went red. "Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. It's the haunt of happy couples. It's all pinks and hearts inside with lace and perfumes."
So, a place that a Barbie would feel right at home in.
"It's where the worst date of my life took place. Not only did it look like the office of the teacher who was actively torturing me in school at the time, but my date would not stop talking about her dead boyfriend and making herself cry about it. And then she threw a tantrum because I mentioned a friend of mine who happens to be female as well. And she stormed out in a huff much to the shock of the entire shop."
So what Bella was getting was that Harry had gone on a date, quite reluctantly, to this specific tea shop and was traumatized by the design because of current traumas a schoolteacher was inflicting upon him. And while trying to deal with that, his date was too emotional and worked up over her ex to really be a proper date. But then still had the gall to be offended when Harry mentioned Hermione.
And Bella knew that it was Hermione that Harry would talk about because she was his only real female companion for several years.
She knew that they were teenagers and teens have a whole range of emotions that they're trying to understand, but sometimes, Bella really could not tolerate other teenagers. She had unfair expectations of how people should behave based on how she herself behaved. And while she realized that she was being unfair, it was hard to not think this way and not be the way she was.
"We'll shop around, stop for some lunch, and then from there, we'll take a carriage up to the castle. You both might find it… interesting," Harry said as they walked. He looked especially giddy.
"What's that building in the distance?" Edward asked, gesturing to a rickety looking house on a hill afar off. It looked as if a stray bit of wind would knock it over.
"The Shrieking Shack. Literally, Hogwarts students try to claim that it's the most haunted building in Britain, but it's not haunted at all. And Hogwarts literally has hundreds of ghosts and a poltergeist lurking about, ready to cause mischief. The ghosts even throw Death Day parties to celebrate being dead."
His words got the desired reaction from both Bella and Edward.
Ghosts celebrated being dead… Did something like, get lost in translation after death? Were ghosts the full soul of a person or just what was left behind?
Did ghosts fear anything at all? Was there anything to even fear if you're dead-dead in the traditional way, and not in the vampire-like-Edward way where their hearts just stop but they keep on going?
"Oh! We have to stop at Honeydukes before leaving because I want to get an assortment of sour sugar quills."
"Are they actual quills or just candy made to look like quills?" Edward asked curiously.
"They have a small metal bit with a nib inside that holds actual ink that can be used, but the rest is just hard candy. They only recently came out with the sour versions and only Honeydukes sells them. We can get you and your family some Blood Pops too. Honeydukes has a huge variety of those despite not being popular with most humans."
The excitement on Edward's face made Bella smile. It had to be nice to discover a new kind of food you can eat that is ethically sourced and won't harm your morals. She had no doubt that he was going to buy the place out.
As for exploration... Hogsmeade certainly had a lot to offer.
Edward stared in shock at the ghosts that just floated past them… because they had minds that he could read.
A ghost was not a physical being. He had read the books that Harry had lent him, and he knew that they were more like after images of a person's soul that were left behind. However, Edward being able to still read the minds of ghosts implied that the mind was more of a spiritual thing and not a physical thing. And while it sounded kind of obvious now that he actually thought about it, especially after what happened to James, he had never read the mind of a non-corporeal being before.
Up until recently, he hadn't even been aware that such beings existed. But no, there was a ghost conversing with another ghost in the grand entrance hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he could hear not only what both were thinking but could also see through the eyes of both ghosts to perceive the world the way they did.
From a ghost's point of view, the world was very black and white. Quite literally, it felt like all of the color had been leached from the environment and living beings tended to glow with an extra sort of energy. A minty green kind of color to be specific. Bella had the green light around her person from their perspective, and Edward had a more sickly, yellow-tinted kind of green light that was barely there at all.
But Harry…
When the ghosts looked at Harry, they got very nervous. As with everything else, Harry's form was in black and white. Or maybe a better example would be to say that ghosts viewed the world in a negative space. Harry's form was composed of shades of grays and whites, save for his hair, but what set him apart from Bella and Edward… was the darkness.
There appeared to be a constantly pulsating dark aura around Harry at all times. It reminded Edward of the fire that Harry had used to destroy the vampire, James.
When the ghosts looked at Harry's former teacher, she too had a minty green aura around her, like Bella did. It was obvious through the few examples that he had been given, that Harry was the outlier here. That this darkness around him was not normal, and it was enough to scare those who had been long dead and could not die again.
It wasn't hard to put the pieces together. Harry had died, and Harry had become immortal. Harry also had a modicum of control over the concept of death, as well as the Being known as Death. Edward was quite certain that this darkness that surrounded Harry's form from the perspective of the dead, had to do with him being the Master of Death.
Perhaps because of his otherworldly powers, Harry was capable of doing some kind of harm to the dead and undead. It would explain why despite them greeting him with nervous smiles, they were internally begging him to move on and leave them alone.
At that moment, Edward was pretty certain that he shouldn't say anything about what the ghosts were really thinking. He didn't want to be the person that ruined this event for Harry.
"You don't have to be so down," Harry said suddenly, patting Edward's forearm. "I know the ghosts are scared of me. It's fine. I have the ability to exorcise them, and they don't want that. Nick is still fine with me being around though, so I'll introduce you to him later."
He then smiled, and leaned up on his tiptoes so he could place a kiss on Edward's cold cheek. "It's sweet of you to be so considerate of my feelings."
Bella was snickering beside them, and Edward sent her a half-hearted glare. He was just trying to be nice; he wasn't doing it for praise.
"Come on! I want to show you the Gryffindor Common Room!" And then he led them to 'the grand staircase' which was certainly grand, no doubt about it.
It took only a few minutes before Bella tapped Edward's shoulder and asked, "Could you please carry me? I don't want to walk up all these stairs."
Slinging her into his back was easy, and Harry's amused snort was met with a light kick from Bella's foot.
"I guess this is for the best," Harry relented. "There are over one hundred and forty staircases in Hogwarts and a majority of them change orientation."
And right before their eyes, the mass of staircases that stretched onward, up and up and up into the school, were moving. It was like watching Jasper doing cards tricks as they passed back and forth all the way up, becoming distracting and making it hard to focus on just one.
"Yeah, quick question. Has anybody ever fallen off the staircases when they suddenly moved? Because this seems like the school is trying to kill you," Bella murmured. Her heart thudded madly against Edward's back, letting him know how nervous she actually had become. "And I know the building is supposedly sentient, and it cares about the students or whatever, but that is not safe, and I wouldn't trust a damn thing in this place if I was alone."
Harry hummed for a moment, before turning and walking right off the landing they'd just made it to! The staircase they'd formerly been on had moved away and there was nothing there to stop his descent!
Slowly, Harry began to float back up, hands in his pockets and looking totally unfazed. "So, there's nothing set up to protect people from falling to their deaths," he noted. "I can't believe the school has been around for a thousand years and no one thought that was a problem. I'll tell McGonagall about it," he promised.
Bella clutched a hand on her chest. "You are going to give me a heart attack and gray hairs before I'm even twenty! I'm gonna be an old hag too soon."
Harry flushed and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "I'm sorry for worrying you so much. Thanks for caring."
The fact that he always felt the need to thank them for being concerned about him… Edward wished things could have been better for Harry growing up.
"The Common Room is at the top of Gryffindor Tower, so we have a long way to go!"
It was indeed a very long trek of the many winding staircases. Every now and then they would pass a suit of armor and it would wave in greeting but had no mind with which to prove sentience. All of the portraits were capable of moving and speaking, but none of them possessed minds for Edward to read.
From what he had read in the books so far, portraits were impressions of magical people painted by other magical people with very special paint. The very essence of the person was captured at that moment in time, and they retained some of the Magic of the person so that they would have memories of the person up until the portrait's creation.
It was fascinating how there was technically a remnant of a person in both a ghost and a portrait, but only ghosts somehow had minds that Edward was able to read and eyes that he was able to see through from their own perspective. But he could not get a read on magical portraits. And to think, before meeting Harry, he never would have had cause to think in such a way.
When they finally reached the Seventh Floor, Harry gladly introduced them to 'The Fat Lady'. The portrait of a woman who seemed to be from around the mid-sixteen hundreds… She was obviously of high nobility judging by just how decorated she was.
"This is Jocasta, though she doesn't mind not being called by name. She's been guarding Gryffindor's Common Room for centuries."
The woman in the painting wore an old, pink gown with a rigidly shaped bodice. The voluminous sleeves flared out, and the various layers of the skirts made her look much larger than she probably had been. In her hand was a goblet of wine, and on her face was an exasperated expression. "Didn't you refuse to finish school here, Mr. Potter?" the woman asked.
"I did. But I moved away to finish schooling elsewhere and I came back for the summer because I wanted to show my partners around Hogwarts."
"Hm… Greetings to you both. I am the Fat Lady, or Jocasta if the title truly bothers you."
"I'm Bella Swan."
"And I am Edward Cullen. It's nice to meet you, madam."
Jocasta sent Harry a faux stern look and said, "They're more well-behaved than you are, Mr. Potter."
Harry flushed. "I wasn't that bad!"
Her blank stare had him blushing even more. "Okay, I was pretty unruly now and then, but I wasn't malicious about it! That's got to count for something!"
"Hm… Since it is the summer holiday, I suppose no password is needed. You may go in, however be aware that I am going to visit my friend Violet's portrait, so if you leave and want to get back in, you'll have to wait."
"Thanks for the warning."
The portrait then swung outward, revealing a gaping tunnel that appeared to lead into a large, circular room covered in various reds and golds. It reminded Edward of the decorations in Harry's house in Forks. Obviously, you could take the boy out of Gryffindor, but you couldn't take Gryffindor out of the boy.
It was easy to tell by the design of the wood and the upholstery of the furniture that everything came from the same time period, but not one piece of furniture actually matched each other. It seemed more like the designer was going for matching the colors rather than making a cohesive setup. Yet despite the mishmash of things, it all still came together in a very homey sort of way.
Like a house that was very much lived in and appreciated.
Hary threw himself down on the sofa in front of the fireplace. "The Common Room was one of my favorite places to be when things weren't going to hell."
"How many people would typically be in a Hogwarts House per year?" Bella asked as she inspected the trophies and awards on the mantle.
"About two hundred and fifty give or take a dozen here and there. That leaves a bit more than thirty students per year in each House. It's not as big as you'd think because sometimes there are more boys than girls so they might have to have multiple dorm rooms for the students of each year. Mine only had like six or seven for the longest time."
Boarding school sounded like it would be insane. Edward was so glad he would never have to attend one of those in the states.
Harry was still talking about the students and their housing situations. "All the Houses do something different too. I know Slytherins share dorms until Fifth Year and then each person gets an assigned room of their own. And that's because a lot of people don't stay around after O.W.L.s. They just want to make sure they can legally use their wands outside of school once they're of age. If they don't get their O.W.L.s their wands will be confiscated until they do, or snapped if they commit an egregious enough crime."
As if they couldn't just go somewhere and buy a new wand…
It seemed like a glaring oversight, in Edward's opinion. Because even if Ollivander's in Diagon Alley was not legally allowed to sell an underage person without the proper grades, another wand, that did not mean that there weren't other wand crafters in the world.
"To think that I wouldn't have been able to see any of this had you not held my hand through the barrier," Bella grumbled, hands on her hips. "Though I did see the Thestrals and… they were kind of cute, not gonna lie. I'd have one as a pet if I didn't think they should be with their families first."
Ah. Those. Edward had found them severely unnerving. They were mild-mannered and calm of course, but the dark leathery skin they had, coupled with the foggy white of their eyes, was something he wasn't used to seeing.
That didn't mean Edward agreed with people treating them as bad omens simply because of how they looked. It wasn't their fault that people had to witness the death of someone, and comprehend what it meant, before being able to see them.
Magical creatures that could only be seen if you personally had experienced a certain event in life, was a fascinating concept.
For example, unicorns supposedly only liked virgins, according to the books. But Harry had challenged that by saying unicorns loved him despite him not being a virgin. In more traditional books, it was actually described as 'innocence of soul' and it was only taken to mean virginity by overly religious people around the early eighteen hundreds.
But it still meant that people had to do something or live up to some kind of standard before they could interact with unicorns.
Edward wondered if a unicorn would flee from him since he was the ultimate predator and animals tended to fear his kind. Or maybe they'd sense that he meant them no harm.
Like, sure, he tended to hunt animals to avoid harming humans, but the idea of hunting a unicorn didn't even cross his mind. They seemed far too special to endanger.
"Bella, I think you and Hagrid would get on well. He loves creatures and beasts and anything that tends to be overlooked by humans or discriminated against. We can visit him around lunch tomorrow since he lives in that big hut on the grounds."
"He's the half-giant, right? Does being half come with any perks?"
Harry hummed as he considered it. "Guess the best way to describe it is that Hagrid is two men high and four men wide. He is extremely magic resistant and is very safe against many types of beasts and creatures simply because he's strong enough to hold them back from either hurting him or someone else."
That had to be incredibly useful.
"If someone was to try and send a stunner at Hagrid, it would bounce off him. A lot of Transfiguration would not work on him at all because he isn't a full human and human-to-animal/object Transfiguration is difficult enough as it is. Many Charms would not work. Lesser curses and hexes wouldn't affect him at all. Technically, the things that pose the most danger to somebody like Hagrid would be the kinds of spells that require astronomical levels of skill, precision, and power."
Edward wondered if there were any spells that wouldn't work on his type of vampire.
Of the four types of vampires that Harry's people had recorded the existence of, Edward's type was the most dangerous. However, Harry had proved that he could use magic on vampires like him, so Edward had to wonder if, by technicality, a wizard was actually higher on the food chain than a vampire by way of capability.
After all, Harry was able to set fire to somebody without even having to speak. And he just demonstrated the ability of unsupported flight half an hour ago. He could literally steal souls!
Or perhaps Harry was able to affect a vampire in the way he did, because he was the Master of Death. His circumstances were particularly unique, so Edward had to wonder if other wizards were capable of doing the same thing. Could anyone else summon the black fire with ease without even having to speak it into existence? Would Edward burn to ash if such a thing happened to him?
The problem with things like this was that he desperately wanted to know the answers, but he also did not want to personally go through the experimentation necessary to actually find the answers. Not when existing had become much more bearable lately. Perhaps, a few years ago, he would have gladly been a test subject for a potentially lethal experiment, but now he valued his own life too much.
He had too much to live for these days.
"Want to see what the dorms look like?" Harry asked as he sat up suddenly. "My bed was by one of the windows because I liked to sit and look outside. And sometimes Hedwig would come up for a visit if I opened them."
They both followed him toward the staircase, which eventually split off into two separate directions.
As they walked, Harry acted as a tour guide. "In my first year, I found out that it had been a common thing for decades that boys were not allowed to go up the girl's staircase, but girls were allowed to go up the boy's staircase. Apparently, the teachers expected the girls to be more mature. Some point in the 90s, a bunch of the students complained about how unfair this was to put the pressure of maturation on only the girls. So now when the school year is active, those recognized as girls go to the girl's dorm, and those recognized as boys go to the boy's dorm and that is it. Hogwarts can always tell because your sense of self affects your magic and that is what Hogwarts reacts to."
"So, say a student knows they're trans when they get here, but it's not something they've told anyone yet," Bella suggested lightly.
"Hogwarts will put them in the place they most closely identify. That's just how it is. I found out about things like that for the first time in my Fifth Year. A Third Year Hufflepuff ended up being switched from the boy's dorm to the girl's dorm. It had been the talk of the school for a time, but none of the students outside some muggleborns really cared. It drew negative attention from certain folks in the government though. Bigots abound, basically."
"There are people who do identify as neither option on the gender binary," Edward pointed out. "Is it really not possible to just make a third dorm option for those who fall in between or outside those options?" It seemed pretty simple to him. "Also, if this is some attempt to stop sexual behavior... I feel like the teachers don't understand the concept of sexuality at all." Young people would do whatever they wanted.
Harry paused outside the door he'd lead them to, a look of concentration on his face. "I've never considered that before, but it's a good idea. Hey, Hogwarts! Did you get that?"
The walls around them seemed to buzz, vibrating with an energy they could not see, but could certainly feel deep in their bones.
"She heard," Harry noted. "She's already expanding herself to fit these new rooms for the future."
Hogwarts, the castle, was capable of just changing its interior? At will? Any time it wanted?
"And I know what you're thinking, and yes, Hogwarts does change now and then. The classrooms and clubrooms are known to hop around and leave everyone lost for days as people try to keep track of where everything went."
Edward wondered if there was ever a dull moment in this place.
The Seventh Year Boy's Dorm was spacious, and currently housed eight fourposters with large red curtains set for privacy. There were a few, very tall windows, each with their own potential window seats. Every bed got a matching wooden desk and chair. There was even a decent amount of space between the beds.
"So, if there ended up being more than eight students would the school just magically add more beds?" Bella asked as she sat on the nearest desk chair.
"Actually, the House Elves would just retrieve extra beds from the Come and Go Room and set them up here with a snap of the fingers."
"Do all the dorm rooms in Gryffindor look like this one?" Edward asked.
"Yeah. Even down to the lions engraved on the bedposts."
To think that Harry spent so much time in this school in places like this whether it was a good or bad year.
While Edward thought that everything they had seen thus far was fascinating and amazing and definitely appreciated how it all appeared, he could just tell that he was not the kind of person who would take boarding school very well. As a vampire, it was very easy to get sucked into the monotony of doing the same thing over and over. He had been attending high school for decades by now, and it did get a little old, but at least with how humans were, things could be different every day.
At least with access to a car and money, he could go anywhere he wanted and do anything he wanted in his spare time. Being stuck in a place like Hogwarts without the option to go wherever he wanted once school hours were over, would drive him crazy.
Harry had told them all about Hogsmeade Weekends and how they were not every weekend. Students of Hogwarts had to wait patiently for that one weekend a month where they were able to go down to the small village and buy new things. And that was only for students Third Year and above! The rest of them would have to deal with placing owl orders in magical magazines and circulars.
Yet, despite all the problems Edward could easily see cropping up in a place like this, it was still the place that Harry largely considered to be his home, because despite all the things that had happened, being at Hogwarts was still better than being with his relatives. A sad reality for a young person to have to come to grips with.
Edward wished that Harry could have had a normal life. That he didn't have to lose his real family, or have a maniac after his life, or have to give up his own life for the sake of the 'greater good' at some point. He should have been able to just be a teenager living life with his friends.
While he was glad to have met Harry and gotten to know all these things, Edward could feel the bitterness on Harry's behalf, building up inside.
When Bella thought about everything that Harry had been through, she tended to get very angry and very violent. When it was Edward, though, he just became very bitter and spiteful.
Not healthy mindsets to have, but they were a reaction to some truly terrible situations. If it was for the sake of a loved one, then surely it was at least borderline acceptable?
"You two get so easily distracted by your thoughts," Harry noted, watching them both in confusion. "I don't know what it is about the Gryffindor boy's dorm that's got you both feeling so down, but maybe a trip to the kitchens would lighten the mood?"
Yes. That could be a nice change of pace.
"Apologies," Edward coughed awkwardly. "My mind got the better of me."
Bella snorted and blatantly stated, "I was just thinking about how nice it would be to stab your aunt and uncle."
Harry placed a hand on his chest, his expression soft despite the words that had just come out of her mouth. "You'd do that for me?"
"If I was more capable as a person, I'd move heaven and earth for you, Harry."
Her confession was met will a sudden 'glomping' as Alice would call it. A very specific way of hugging that put all of Harry's emotions out in the open as he squeezed her for dear life.
"You're great as you are," Harry whispered into the dark strands of hair pushed against his face.
Edward realized that he should be disapproving of such behavior… but honestly… he felt much the same. So… "If you actually do it, I'm a master at clearing up crime scenes." He had a lot of experience after all.
"You lot are mad," Harry declared. "But that's what makes you both so sweet."
Edward, Bella, and Harry had only been gone for a couple weeks when the first Vision came. And it had to come about while Alice was in the middle of designing some clothes for their little trio of lovers to wear together.
One moment, she was comparing fabrics and what she thought Bella would think of them, and the next her eyes were filled with the red-haired woman from a couple months ago. The one who had been with James and Laurent. The nomads who had hunted in their territory without making an effort to be inconspicuous.
Harry had sworn up and down that Victoria was going to come back at some point. Her wrath had been kindled against Bella. Even her former companion had said she would. So, Harry had proposed the idea of going to Great Britain on vacation for the summer. That was why Edward had gone with them.
But it seemed that Harry was right because the Vision that Alice had been accosted by was full of Victoria pacing the outskirts of the Swan residence. Her ruby red eyes were manic as she realized that Bella hadn't been there in quite some time. But she chose the next best option… attacking Charlie. However, an invisible barrier around the house itself forbade her entrance.
She gnashed her teeth as she was repeatedly thrown back by it.
And Edward wasn't here to warn everyone faster, so Alice had to do it herself.
She was in the living room before she could even realize it. "Victoria is coming back tonight, and when she realizes Bella isn't here, she's going to try and change Charlie Swan into a vampire to get back at Bella."
They were all silent for a moment, before Rosalie of all people, spoke up. "So, is this her forfeiting her right to existence?"
"In Harry's terms, yeah."
Harry had already proved that he was perfectly capable of taking the souls of other people. Alice had no doubt in mind that he was capable of doing other things with those souls. When Harry found out about Victoria's plans, she could only imagine what would be in store for that woman.
"Should we text Edward about it?" Emmett asked. "He's on vacation and they're safe from her influence entirely where they're at. We can protect the Chief until they get back and there's no real need to interrupt them this early on."
The idea of keeping any information from Edward when it was pertinent to himself and his lovers, didn't sit well with Alice. At the same time, they had only been gone a couple of weeks and finding out about this would definitely ruin the mood. It might also encourage them to come back as soon as possible.
But it was Bella's father's safety on the line here.
"I'm going to text Bella about it," Alice decided. "Since it is her father who is actually the target right now, she has more right than anyone to know about what is going on and how to proceed." It just made the most sense. Since it was all to get back at Bella, that meant that Charlie Swan could become collateral in Victoria's war of revenge.
Alice was also a little miffed over the fact that Bella was the one getting blamed for Harry's actions. She understood why Victoria was choosing to target the fragile human instead of the ethereal being who was capable of stealing souls and burning people with black fire from who knows where without even having to move to do it. But that didn't mean she wasn't pissed off about it.
Even after Harry had been kind enough to let her go free, because he didn't believe in attacking someone for something they hadn't yet done, she still chose to be an idiot.
It was because of Victoria that they had to congregate outside of Bella's house every night in hopes of catching the intruder off guard. However, there was something just slightly off about her as if she was able to tell they were waiting for her and therefore stayed clear.
Her survival instincts had to be incredibly sharp for her to realize that the Cullen Coven had some way of determining where she was and what her plans were. The future that Alice had seen never came to pass, because Victoria somehow knew to avoid Forks despite putting all of her hopes into coming back and taking Bella out of the picture for good.
The biggest concern was that, even after a few days, Bella had not responded to Alice's text. Of course, she was aware that Harry intended to show Bella and Edward around magical places, and that magic and electronics did not mix well. But she'd rather have Bella's input in this moment, than just spending all their time focused on one thing.
Without Edward around, the coven wasn't as safe as it usually was. It was becoming readily apparent that they might have been taking advantage of Edward's ability too much if they were so reliant upon it when he was gone during a... disaster.
She hoped someone messaged them back soon.
~.O.~
A/N: Another is done!
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