125Harry and Merope and the Mystery of Forks
Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own any of these characters, only the plots and situations that you do not recognize.
A/N: Nothing has changed in this chapter, except that I corrected a typo where I had the same word twice. I noticed it as I was rereading it in order to refresh my memory on where I wanted to go with the next chapter.
Chapter 2
After a very pleasant afternoon, Harry and Merope sat down to make plans for their time in Forks; sibling names and basic background information, whether they were going to actually buy a car or create an illusion with the flying carpet they had acquired at some point over the years using a variety of muggle repellants, notice-me-not charms, etc., and when they were going to look for a home.
Realizing how small Forks actually is and the fact that everyone probably knew everyone, which is very similar to wizarding communities, they knew they were going to have to show the four of them actually arriving in town and moving into town together. That also meant that they were going to have to call ahead to a realtor to make an appointment to look at the local houses before just showing up.
In looking at the calendar, they realized that they had arrived here halfway through the summer and if they wanted to be enrolled in time for classes starting at the end of August, they needed to find a phone and set up that appointment for the realtor.
Ultimately, they decided that the next day, they would pack up their tent and the four of them would check in at one of the local hotels, then call a realtor for an appointment.
Harry and Merope decided on the names Evan Potter and Meredith Grant for their older siblings/guardians, while Harry would be, of course, Harry Potter, and Merope being Merope Grant.
Evan was a taller and bulkier version of Harry, with hazel eyes and glasses, looking very much like what James Potter would have probably looked like in his 20s. Evan is 24 years old.
Meredith was, of course, an older version of Merope, but curvier with blonde, waist length hair and blue-eyes. Her age was 22 years old.
The next day found the four at the Quileute Oceanside Resort in La Push. Harry and Merope fell in love with the location and thought that, if they decided to stay in the area after their high school graduation, they just might consider finding a property along the beach for the two of them.
Harry and Merope very vocally chose to go hiking together on the trails surrounding the resort while Evan and Meredith took care of the boring stuff, like looking at houses.
It was a couple weeks later that they found a house they liked that met the criteria of being within walking distance of Forks High School. It was a four-bedroom/two-bath two-story house. There was a dining room, den, living room, and a basement. Harry decided the basement was going to be their new Room of Requirement.
The house was also fully furnished, as the previous owners had won the lottery, or so the rumor said, and were going to use their winnings to get them brand-new furniture to go in their shiny new mansion. Harry and Merope were happy with that, as that meant that they wouldn't have to include a moving van in their little illusion, just the illusion of a full SUV of personal belongings to be unloaded.
The four of them made a big show of moving in, while the neighbors spied out of their windows and a few of the more nosy ones came out to make introductions and be the first to get all of the latest gossip. The tragic story of their parents' deaths and the fact that the set of brothers were dating the set of sisters AND living together would be all over the town by nightfall.
While they had created the illusion of moving in, they were actually watching all of the fuss from inside the house.
While watching yet another female teenager come up to introduce themselves to the Harry illusion, the real Harry wondered out loud, "You know what I just realized?"
"What?" Merope asked curiously.
"Since there is no magic in this dimension/world/timeline/whatever, there is no Statute of Secrecy. There is literally nothing that would stop us from just openly using magic, no magical government to attempt to have us arrested or fined or whatever if we were caught or noticed by the muggles." Harry said.
Merope nodded in thought and said, "True. But if we start doing magic in front of muggles here, we may forget ourselves the next time we travel and have to spend a ridiculous amount of time throwing out obliviates like they're candy."
"Of course, dear, I wasn't trying to say that I wanted to make magic obvious," Harry said a little awkwardly, "I was only making the observation that we could."
Merope gave Harry a knowing smile, which he promptly ignored as he was absolutely fascinated with the way the light was reflecting in the window he was looking out.
After a few minutes of silence, Merope said, "Harry, rather than calling each other dear and sweetheart, we're going to have to come up with more modern terms of endearment. I'm fairly certain that only the gray-haired couples still call each other dear and sweetheart."
Harry gave her a little smirk and said, "I've no problems with calling you, Babe, instead."
Merope returned the smirk and tapped her chin and said, "I think I'll call you, Buck." At Harry's questioning look, Merope added, "It is what the Americans call a stag, is it not? And it matches your patronus."
Harry just shrugged in response and said, "I'm not sure how young and hip that will make us sound, but maybe after we've had a bit of time to get settled, get used to behaving like teenagers, and make friends, then maybe we'll be able to come up with better names of endearment."
Merope smiled in response and they fell into a comfortable silence as they resumed orchestrating their illusions and kept up with the conversations with the neighbors.
Finally, after several hours of fueling the illusion of moving in, all the neighbors went their separate ways. Harry and Merope were feeling pretty tired after holding the illusions for so long, so they made their way to the room they had claimed and promptly fell into an exhausted sleep.
In their guise as Evan and Meredith, Harry and Merope, had just escaped — er, left the FRONT OFFICE, after having finished enrolling themselves at Forks High School, Harry in the 11th grade and Merope in the 10th grade. They were now scheduled for their placement tests a week before school was scheduled to start.
"Well, the secretary seemed to certainly be enjoying your good looks, Evan," said Meredith, as they walked across the parking lot to the flying carpet disguised as an SUV.
"You're one to talk, Meredith, since I distinctly recall seeing the principal, what was his name again? Oh, yes, Mr. Greene, eyeing you up and down as if he'd like to take you home tonight." Evan said with a playful grin.
Once they were inside the SUV and within the wards and charms, he said cheerfully, "This acting stuff is more fun than I thought it would be. Seriously though, we might need to keep an eye on some of these teachers, their thoughts were being broadcasted so loud that I didn't even need to use legilimency to read them. I know that technically we are adults and are posing as adults at this moment, but if I see any of them acting inappropriately with the other students or when we ourselves are students, they will be reported. And if reporting doesn't work, well, it won't be very hard to stage a little accident for them."
Meredith agreed. Then the two of them made a stop at the grocery store, chatted with the locals for a bit, and then headed on home.
As the weeks passed, a routine was set. Evan and Meredith would get up early and go to the local gym for a workout, the owner of the gym seemed grateful for all of the extra members that seemed to be following them in, and was dreading when the two would start commuting for college in Seattle and only start coming in on the weekends.
After the gym, they would go back home to clean up and then go about their days working on their different hobbies separately. Meredith chose to take up painting, while Evan took up birdwatching.
Harry and Merope, in the meantime, would spend much of their time exploring the local library, in an attempt to familiarize themselves with the structure of muggle school, along with their subjects.
While they were familiar with the muggle world and could easily pass for muggles, they had not actually studied many muggle subjects that were taught in high school, as something else always seemed to take priority in times past, so they wanted to make sure they at least had some idea of what they should know, to make sure that they could be placed in the grades they wanted without resorting to confundus charms.
When they weren't at the library, they would alternate between looking at the local shops or the shops in Port Angeles. They would pick a trail at random and go hiking on one of the many trails in the surrounding public forests. They also spent a fair bit of time down at the beach in La Push, as it reminded them a bit of the first home they had together, where they raised their son.
As it would raise too many unwanted questions if they walked back and forth to La Push or Port Angeles, Harry charmed a pair of brooms to look like ordinary motorcycles, which turned out to be a pretty big hit with a few of the young men of the Quileute tribe when they were visiting La Push.
A young 15-year-old named Jacob seemed especially intrigued by them, and had it not been for the specialized wards, he would have noticed they were not what they appeared to be right away.
They passed their placement tests with flying colors, which eliminated the need for confundus charms for now. And it was now finally time for Harry and Merope to start school.
All eyes were turned to them as they walked across the parking lot and up to what they had decided must be the place where they should wait until the bell for school rang.
Merope shifted her bag on her shoulder, feinting awkwardness as she said a little louder than needed, "One would think that all the newness of our arrival would have calmed down by now, we have been here since the middle of summer after all," as she narrowed her eyes towards the group that appeared to be all of the gossiping popular kids, who quickly averted their gazes in embarrassment.
Harry smiled and gave her a wink as he threw an arm around her shoulder, then said, "Hey, don't be like that, babe. They're just jealous that they don't get to live in the same house as someone as hot as you."
Merope noticed the few people, who were clearly eavesdropping, start to blush, causing her to giggle a bit before leaning into Harry's embrace and saying, "Oh, Buck, you know just what to say to a girl." Harry just smirked in response, as they continued to walk their way towards the front doors.
Before they actually made it to the building, though, a shiny, silver Volvo came speeding around the corner and into a parking space, causing Harry and Merope, along with everyone else, to turn and watch the newcomers.
Merope noticed there were five extremely beautiful people getting out of the car; three guys and two girls. One of the guys was quite buff, with dark, curly hair. The second guy was taller and leaner, but still muscular, with honey blond hair. The last guy was lanky and less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair.
The girls were opposites, the tall one actually reminded Merope of her Meredith guise, she had long, golden hair, with a figure to die for. The shorter girl was pixielike, very thin, with small features. Her hair was black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.
As the new group were walking towards the building in a slow and graceful way, Merope elbowed Harry and asked quietly, "Hey, isn't that bronze-haired kid the one we saw in the meadow with shiny skin, I wonder what he's doing here?"
Before Harry could respond, the kid in question suddenly looked up quickly and met Harry's eyes, with a slightly panicked expression on his face. His panicked look was mirrored on his companions, causing them to briefly misstep before catching themselves and straightening back up.
Harry glanced down at Merope and then back at the newcomers before he said, "I think we can list 'excellent hearing' to that list of abilities, babe," Harry said, and then he grinned widely when he noticed those eyes widen in shock even more.
Merope took a closer look and said, "Hm. Well, we should probably visit with them after school, it seems like they're trying to blend in here, being as they are at a school full of muggles. Oh, look, they're confused over the word, muggle, maybe I should have said humans or mortals. Oh, look how their eyes widened at that. I'm not even speaking that loudly, they must have more than just excellent exceptional hearing. They're probably worried we'll blow their cover, based on their reactions to listening in on our conversation."
Harry grunted in response and said, "Bronzie and Pixie appear frustrated now."
Merope said, "Why don't you just pick it out of their minds? I know you can."
"Babe, that's an invasion of privacy, I only use that ability if it's an emergency and I'm unable to get the answer I need the normal way," said Harry, finding amusement at the changes of expression that went across all of their faces and decided it was nice to let a bit of his Marauder side out every once in a while.
"Oh, there's the bell", said Merope. Turning around and heading towards the doors, she added, "I'm starting to regret being in a different grade than you."
"Edward," Rosalie growled quietly with a glare, "how were they able to get close enough to see you without you knowing it?"
Edward answered quickly, "I don't know! I never smelled or heard them."
Jasper was using his powers in order to keep his family from panicking, the last thing they needed was to actually create a scene. They were just lucky that no one noticed them briefly stumble all at the same time and that whoever those people were, were not actually speaking loudly enough for the humans to hear. Turning to Alice, Jasper asked, "What do you See, Alice?"
"Static. Nothing but static," said Alice mournfully with a pout. She had never been without the benefits of her gift in all of her existence before and she was sorely missing it.
Emmett looked at Edward and said, "What about you, can you get anything?"
Edward shook his head in confusion, "No, all I'm picking up is static, too."
After a moment of silence, Rosalie asked quietly, "Did I just hear them say something about picking it out of our minds? You mean that Edward is not the only one?"
Emmett said, "Well, at least it sounds like this new guy is able to control it and respects others' privacy."
Edward just glared before saying, "Well, it's not as if I have the ability to just turn it off. Believe me, if I could turn it off, I would."
"Well, the bell has rang, we need to go to class. From the sound of it, they intend to search us out after school, so hopefully we'll get some satisfactory answers at that time," said Alice, with significantly less enthusiasm that she normally shows.