I have never had to write NO THIS IS NOT SLASH so many times. Are authors in this fandom known for being liars or something?

Sorry for the long LONG wait. I got a few of rants/comments that were so ignorant or insulting that I just got fed up with this whole story for a while. Later, just as I settled in to give it another go, I got another remark essentially saying 'if you have to say it's not slash, it's probably slash'.

Or, y'know. It's not slash.

It's enough to make me want to write 'Harry Potter and the Homosexual Hurrah' sometimes, swear to god.

/Rant.

Right! Sorry about that, just needed to get it off my chest.

This chapter is longer than usual but certainly one of the roughest.

Massacre

July 14th (continued)

Only about twenty seconds had passed by the time Rosalie got home but it had been enough to get her whole family up in arms.

Carlisle, thankfully home on a Rostered Day Off, was visibly hesitating to do any mercy-biting and Edward was seething. Harry had been lain on the couch and was panting shallowly, skin waxen, completely unconscious and so close to death that you could smell it on him. Esme was fretting, wringing her hands so hard she was in danger of cracking them and Jasper was frowning darkly with an arm over Alice - who had her entire face scrunched up as she tried to get a fix on the future.

"I can't!" The pixie-like girl exclaimed, as Emmett met Rosalie at the door and took her coat, his own brow furrowed in uncharacteristic worry. "I-I'm looking, but… I just can't! I don't. I don't know why." She turned to her husband, eyes wide and frantic. She'd been more on edge about her talent since it had failed her in Forks but to see nothing at all when actively trying… Jasper was visibly struggling to calm her down.

"I can tell you the future if you don't help him!" Edward snarled. "He'll die. Come on Carlisle!"

"What's the hold-up?" Rosalie demanded, walking further into the room with Emmett at her heels.

"Carlisle won't turn him." Edward snapped, looking ready to attack the man for it - or failing that, try and do it himself.

"Why not?" Rosalie asked, trying to keep her cool as Harry's last breaths rattled in his lungs.

"Besides the difficulty of hiding a death and controlling a newborn in the middle of a crowded English suburb?" Carlisle raised an eyebrow. "I'm concerned that this is… very sudden. We've known that the boy-"

"Harry." Edward interjected tersely.

"-Harry," Carlisle amended "has been sick for weeks. We knew it was terminal but no-one even suggested turning him. Now there's urgency and panic and I just think it's best that we not make a decision rooted in it. Considering recent events, it's natural to be… more affected than usual, by a tragic and seemingly senseless death-"

"You changed me, a complete stranger, because you thought to gift me to Edward." Rosalie cut in, so cold that her words should have burned them all. "Had I been any other woman I might have capitulated to the man who saved my life and whored myself out to pay for your decision. Now, when Edward himself is claiming the boy as his Other, you hesitate?"

The room fell silent but for the fluttery, labouring throb of the human's heart. Though they were speaking at full vampiric speed, he didn't have time for this.

"…I like to think I have become a better man since then." Carlisle said eventually, pained and a touch ashamed. "Would you have me repeat my mistake?"

"But you turned Emmett for Rosalie." Edward jumped in. "When she asked-" "Begged." Rosalie corrected bitterly. "-you trusted her instincts and turned someone none of us - not even her - knew. Why won't you trust me now and turn Harry?"

Still, their sire hesitated and Rosalie wondered if it was simply because Harry was male. They tried to keep up with the times but they were inevitably products of their upbringing. Could Carlisle not accept the fact that Edward was gay?

Edward shot her a dark look and she glared back. The idiot was begging for Harry to be turned on account of being his Other and Harry was male. He may not have thought of himself as gay before but he didn't have much choice anymore.

Vampires didn't imprint like Werewolves but it wasn't unknown for their senses to give them a shock when they found their Other and risked losing them. Carlisle had met Esme and moved on, only realising how important she was a decade later when he found her dying. It had been the same for Rosalie - she'd found Emmett dying and it had been like a shot of adrenaline to her system, a sudden panicked need to keep this human alive, not to feed or kill but to change. If Edward was feeling the same thing…

She supposed she could forgive him for wanting Harry saved now so he had the opportunity to wrestle with his sensibilities later.

Carlisle went perfectly still - then nodded. He moved swiftly towards the couch and bent down.

"Wait!" Emmett blurted. Edward snarled at him and Rosalie instinctively snarled back. Carlisle, on the other hand, looked almost relieved.

"Sorry," Emmett shifted awkwardly but held his ground. "It's just… Ed, are you sure? I mean. I like the kid, but… I don't think he's into di-dudes." He covered swiftly, mindful of Esme's presence.

Rosalie blinked. Most of her mind was shouting in frustration at all the wasted time, but…

But it was true. If nothing else, she knew Harry was firmly attracted to females. She's smelled it on him whenever they'd gone out, had seen his appreciative eyes flick over herself and other girls in the street. He blushed when faced with a topless female statue at the museum and squirmed when she teased him about the fit of his clothes or the appreciative eye of a waitress. Was he bisexual then? Or… or had Edward fixated on someone who wouldn't be able to return his advances…?

"Jasper?" She asked, turning to their resident empath - who was abruptly scowled at by Edward.
Unruffled, the southern vampire just shrugged.

"I don't know about the kid." He said shortly, minimising the amount of air he was forced to take in - even though Harry didn't smell even remotely appetising right now. "Edward is… urgent."

Urgent? She wondered. Not panicked? Desperate?

Edward snapped around again. "Don't tell me how I should feel!" He shouted at her. Emmett growled low in his chest, arm tightening slightly in readiness to attack.

A clattering tapping against the window stopped them all dead. They turned at one, only to still at the completely ludicrous sight of a large white owl trying to get in.

Animals did not seek out the presence of a vampire. They fled, like all prey before a predator.

This one seemed to be glaring at them as it scratched and tapped and flapped its wings, plainly trying to get in rather than away.

Alice blurred over to open the window. The animal startled at her speed but otherwise didn't react, flapping inside with curt bark and coming to rest on Harry's chest.

"It's carrying something." Alice observed, fascinated. The world had suddenly taken a left turn into bizarre and only Edward still looked ready to tear his hair out.

The bird was carrying something - some sort of box, which it gripped tight with its left talons and pecked at with its beak, tugging it open and taking something out. Some sort of pellet? She knew this was Harry's bird, they'd all seen it flying about the neighbourhood and Emmett had seen it go in and out of Harry's window, but why would it enter a vampire's lair just to eat some food it clearly didn't need help accessing…

She stared, wide-eyed, as the bird didn't eat the pellet but instead hopped up to Harry's head and stuck it into his mouth instead.

Shaking his head, Carlisle stepped forwards - to shoo it away or maybe get with the program and turn the human before it was too late - but the bird swivelled its head and pinned him with a golden glare, puffed her feathers and spread her wings with a threatening shriek.

"The hell..?" Emmett breathed. Rosalie agreed. Carlisle ignored the display and brushed the animal aside, lifting Harry into prime biting position and reaching to remove the choking hazard of whatever the animal had put in his mouth - only to frown in bafflement as he found nothing but a slightly hairy residue.

Harry stopped breathing.

Carlisle bared his fangs, tips skimming the bared skin below.

The bird lunged at his head, clawing and biting and shrieking - not hurting their sire in the least of course, but throughly distracting him as Esme jumped forward to corral the animal and Harry-

Harry convulsed. Something putrid and black spewed from his mouth like he'd started his day by drinking a bucket of tar. It hissed as it dribbled down his skin and smoked lightly as it spattered the couch.

Carlisle swore in startlement, pulling the boy swiftly off the couch and flipping him over, a hastily grabbed tea-towel clearing his and Harry's skin of the toxic liquid even as more was vomited up to eat slowly away at the living room carpet.

On and on it went, more black tar than she thought the human could possibly hold, but the more he threw up, the stronger his heart beat and the pinker his skin got.

She moved closer and crouched to pick up the box, knocked to the floor and forgotten. It was a simple thing made of folded cardboard, a faded logo stuck to the top like an old-fashioned matchbox or cheap tobacco container.

Ghaddabout's Goat Bezoars

Hand-picked for guaranteed quality!

Each bezoar formed over no

less than two years.

"What's a bezoar?" Emmett, looking over her shoulder, asked their shared question. She knew she'd heard of them before but what could possible cause such an intense reaction? She opened the box to find five 'stones' - slightly furry like tightly packed hairballs or maybe grass - of various sizes. Absolutely nothing like any sort of proper medicine, even an emetic.

Carlisle looked up, surprised on top of the background astonishment at the rapidly-strengthening human hanging in his arms.

"An old-fashioned, borderline mythical cure for poison." He answered. "It does actually tend to work on arsenic but nothing else - and I've never heard of anything like this." He gestured at the black liquid that had finished eating through the carpet and was now making an effort to dissolve the concrete beneath. "There's no way this is simply arsenic and I can't understand how it hasn't eaten through his stomach lining. He should be throwing up blood at the very least."

As if his words had commanded it, the next convulsion of the youth in his arms brought a spray of dead and fresh blood and only strings of the black stuff.

All the vampires reflexively stopped breathing, although the stench of the stuff that came before would almost certainly prevent any blood lust. Jasper disappeared back upstairs and Esme busied herself with fetching a basin of water and clean cloths, throwing an old towel over the mess on the floor. They might have to move again, or maybe just not ever breathe (and therefore talk) at home. Alice pulled some undamaged cushions to the floor and helped Carlisle situate a shivering but no-longer-throwing-up human onto them.

The bird seemed to finally grow some sense and booked it out the still-open window. Esme showed up with a soft blanket and tucked it around the boy before flitting away again to look through their for-show human food supplies.

Edward just stood still, seemingly at a loss for how Harry was still breathing, stronger and deeper and very much not a vampire.

Rosalie eyed him, carefully not thinking about her sudden doubts or what she'd almost helped condemn Harry to. There'd be time for that later.

For now, she focused on just why the terminally-ill kid had a box of bezoars - desperate hope maybe? But then why had they seemingly worked? Had this near-fatal attack been part of his illness at all, or…

Edward glanced over at her.

"You think he was poisoned?" He asked incredulously. She shot him a look but didn't answer in unspoken irritation. Bad enough that he 'listened in' on her thoughts at all, reacting to them just drew attention to his actions.

"Who would do that?" Emmett asked, baffled.

"Maybe he did it to himself." Alice speculated. "If he was sick of waiting maybe…" She trailed off. They might not know him very well but the idea didn't sit quite right with any of them - especially Rosalie and Emmett. Except for the time she'd found him crying in the rain, Harry had only ever been cheerful in their company. He still worked at that stupid garden like his family's personal slave. He hadn't seemed the type to just 'give up' and of all places to try to kill himself - the park?

And what was that black stuff anyway? Some kind of industrial oil? Why would he have drunk so much? And why would a bezoar affect it? Why would merely throwing it all up somehow make him better? Removing a toxin didn't undo the damage it caused so why wasn't he on the brink of death anymore?

Too many questions and all of them pointing at something they couldn't see, ignorance blinding them to the answer.

Oblivious to them all, Harry slept.

Massacre

July 20th

The Summer continued on.

After waking up in the Cullen's home, Harry had to work hard not to freak out. He remembered being in the park, the flu that had turned into stabbing pain and sudden terror as he realised death wasn't a future threat at the end of a wand - it was right then and there, alone and painful and pointless.

He remembered Rosalie had been there, her hands smooth but hard as they'd lifted him up and tried to cradle him. He remembered she'd spoken softly even though her eyes were wide - and he thought he remembered her arguing with someone but the next he knew was a cool damp cloth on his forehead and Mrs Cullen smiling down at him.

Two days later.

Now, that would be a bit weird even under normal circumstances but knowing (or suspecting) that the whole family were vampires? He hadn't been able to make his excuses and get out fast enough. He'd barely managed to wait until he was home before checking every inch of his body for suspicious bruising or bite marks, neither of which he'd found thank Merlin.

He may be overreacting but he couldn't help but wonder… had he really been sick? Or could some vampires trick their prey into collapsing. If he had just been sick - was that normal? He'd been sure he was dying - had he freaked out over nothing? Ugh, how unutterably embarrassing if he had.

He spent another couple of days just resting up and trying to get the stink of his brewing out of the walls. Hedwig had flown in exactly once before turning tail and living in the tree outside instead. He didn't blame her.

Once he was feeling a little less shaky, he took a dose of preventative potion and got back to work on the garden - after his seeming brush with death, he found himself suddenly a lot more fond of Privet Drive and its' boring normalcy.

The weather continued to be unpredictable and changeable. Harry heard the news anchor on tv poking gentle fun at the weather reporter for it as he made dinner for the Dursleys. He wasn't sure why, as Britain was somewhat infamous for its fickle weather.

Emmett and Rosalie both continued to visit him, whenever he was working out the front. It was a bit awkward at first (they'd probably thought his 'terminal illness' had acted up or something) and both continued to get called away at odd moments, but by now Harry simply accepted it as something normal to their lives and no longer wondered if it was to do with him.

At first, he's wondered if Rosalie had shared his 'terminal illness' with her family, and that was why she and Emmett kept visiting him, only to leave abruptly - that they were acting out of propriety and not personal interest. But, Emmett had come over and made conversation and offered to help before Harry met Rosalie, so it was unlikely that that was the motivator for him. And Rosalie... well, Harry was quickly learning that Rosalie was Rosalie. She didn't do anything she didn't want to do.

Whereas Emmett continued to enjoy mucking about in the dirt with him just as much as sneaking out to go wandering, Rosalie rarely stepped foot in the garden choosing instead to simply speak with him or, more often, abscond with him to the local theatre or tourist trap. She got more sneaky about buying him things too - especially clothes - but so far Harry had successfully matched wills and fought her off.

Emmett had shared that he and his brothers had a wager between them as to when the natural order of things - aka Rosalie Hale getting her way - would resume. He confided he'd picked the longest odds, so if Harry could just see his way to...?

Harry had laughed, real and full, and made a solemn promise to hold out for as long as possible.

A side effect of Rosalie's visits - a much less enjoyable one - was that the garden was taking longer than expected and his Aunt and Uncle were very displeased. Harry had been relegated to bread and water until he caught up again, something his guardians felt quite righteous considering his wilful disobedience, wanton sickness and shameless slacking.

Fortunately for Harry, his wandless magic was making itself useful. He could hold a piece of fruit or a sandwich and make it almost completely invisible. There was a bit of distortion and he had to really concentrate for the entire time he wanted it hidden, but there was a real thrill in using magic to sneak good food right out from under the Dursleys' noses. One time his Uncle had been shouting at him and kept pausing to sniff the air, unable to work out why he could smell hot chicken.

The chicken was being held gingerly in Harry's right hand, slowly burning patches of skin. Despite the pain and the need to focus as he shifted the meat around, Harry had had to work to a smirk off of his face.

Not all things were so good, though. There were times during the day - though mostly at night - when Harry remembered that Sirius was gone and that it was mostly his fault. There'd been more than a few nights where he'd cried himself to sleep, no matter how good the day before had been. When thinking of Bellatrix, he'd punched a wall twice.

During the day, though... Harry mostly managed to forget about it - or at least was distracted from thinking about it. Interacting with his relatives made him angry and depressed, but interacting with Rosalie and Emmett was unexpectedly cheering. He felt connected to them in a way he hadn't experienced before and hesitated to contemplate. He felt it most strongly when he and Emmett were working together, be it side by side or on opposite ends of the small garden. There was something about Emmett's personality, something upbeat that just cheered him up no matter what they were talking about. He'd laughed more in the last four weeks than he had in all of his summers combined. On top of that, the older teen listened. Really listened. More than once, Harry had caught himself about to unload about things he shouldn't, saying more than he meant to and feeling better for it despite the risk.

Rosalie was the same, but in a different way. She was self-contained, but generous. Sharp-tongued but never cruel. She spoke to Harry about things he'd never considered before in his life, and she never looked down on him for not knowing what she was talking about. On the contrary, she just took him out more. To museums, art galleries, cultural exhibitions, science centres - she showed him anything and everything and she noticed what he found interesting and always had something new to take him to that was connected to it. Then they had things to talk about, and they did, be it out in London or at home in the Dursley's garden.

She listened too, just like Emmett. And, just like with Emmett, Harry found himself telling her things he hadn't told anyone else (with careful, law-abiding edits). His teachers were an easy subject - Boring Binns, Strict Scott McGonagall, Slimeball Snape - and Rosalie's reaction to them was by turns amused and irate. Her rants on counter-productive educators always had Harry chuckling, even when her remarks on substandard education made him wonder if maybe there was another option besides Hogwarts - and if he should maybe take it.

Rosalie was sleek and sharp and caring - in a bullying sort of way.

She and Emmett... sometimes, they kinda felt like...

Like having a sister, a brother, old enough to be cool but not so old as to be out of touch. Sometimes it felt like he'd known them his whole life, like they'd been the family he'd wished for as a child…

Harry shook his head and re-focused on his work. Ridiculous. He felt childish for even thinking it.

Today he was installing the pump for Aunt Petunia's water feature. Not content with a boring old pond, she'd decided she wanted a sort of miniature river. A birdbath had been delivered and now sat square in the middle of the right-hand side of the lawn. Spiralling around it, Harry had carefully dug an increasingly deep path which ran under the main walk from gate to door (building the level bridge for that had been a job he foisted off on Emmett) and came to a halt at the edge of the big hole he'd dug in the left-hand side of the lawn. Bags of river stones and rolls of waterproof black plastic were piled against the house, but he couldn't lay them down until he got the pump set up.

It was designed to drain the water from the bottom of the pond, feed it back along the path and into the piping of the birdbath. Simple, in theory, but a little trickier to put together than expected. Maybe he was de-muggle-ifying or something. In a couple of years he'd be yelling at the fellytone and starting a plug collection.

"C'mon." He growled. "Why won't you work?"

He was sure everything was connected the way it should be. Since Vernon had bought the whole thing 'from a gentleman at the office' on the cheap, it didn't come with an instruction manual either.

Switching it on just made it vibrate loudly before it cut off.

"So, not a techie then?"

Startled, Harry looked up. He'd been so busy glaring at the machine keeping him from lunch that he hadn't been paying the slightest attention to anything else.

Standing by the fence, wearing a white cotton sundress and an overlarge white sunhat, was a girl he hadn't seen before but who couldn't possibly be anything other than a Cullen. Or, he supposed, a Hale.

"Alice, right?" He replied, remembering the name from his conversations with Rosalie and Emmett. Alice, who was in a relationship with her brother as well. He was half-convinced they were all just pulling his leg by this point.

The girl beamed, gleaming white teeth matching her dress. She looked far too summery for the weather, which was heavy with black clouds and muggy air.

"That's right!" She said excitedly, as though Harry knowing her name was an unexpected gift. "And you're Harry!"

She hesitated, so quickly that he barely caught it, then lent over the fence and thrust her hand at him. Harry stretched closer and shook it, steadfastly keeping his eyes above her neckline as he noted how cold and unyielding her hand was. Her eyes were golden like Rosalie's - and like Emmett's had become.

They had to be vampires. It seemed to rude to bring it up, though.

"It's nice to meet you." He said perfunctorily, "I've heard a lot about you."

Alice beamed - there really was no other word for it - again and jumped neatly over the fence to take a seat on a dusty bag of river stones.

"I've heard a lot about you too!" She sang, smoothing her dress over slim thighs. She was unexpectedly beautiful. Maybe his exposure to Rosalie had somehow made him think that no other girl could be as pretty, but where Rosalie was cultured elegance, Alice had a youthful freshness.

Or something. Sue him, he wasn't a poet.

"So I had to come over - meet the man, as it were." Alice chattered on. "See the sleek Brit competing for Rosie's hand, the spiky-haired minion set to help Emmett take over the world, the kitten with a will of steel and the shark who lost Jasper and Edward two hundred bucks to Emmett!"

Harry choked. He wasn't sure which of those falsehoods to address first.

"Kitten?!" Came out first, outraged and tinged with embarrassment. Alice cackled. She tried to pass it off as a giggle, but Harry knew a cackle when he heard one.

"That's what Esme calls you." She waved it off. "It kinda stuck - but hey, there are worse nicknames!"

Harry groaned and turned back to the pump. He'd gotten the feeling that Mrs Cullen was a maternal sort, if quieter than Mrs Weasley, but kitten? Ugh. He'd prefer Malfoy's sneering 'Scar-head'.

"What do you mean a shark?" He tried to change the subject, before the blush creeping around the back of his neck could suffuse his face.

"Oh, just a little bet between my brothers." Alice dismissed with a curl of evil amusement. "Do you deny that you deliberately held off Rosalie's shopping advances until Emmett said okay?"

Harry couldn't help a small, sly grin. Alice, seeing it, grinned right back.

"To be fair." Harry confided. "I didn't actually give in at all. Everything I come home with is bought with my own money. I just let Emmett think otherwise."

Alice tilted her head back and laughed, feet extending gracefully before her to maintain her balance. Harry glanced down at the white-leather sandals (with glittering stones nestled in white flowers) and then away. No girls at Hogwarts had affected him quite like this - not even Cho. Fleur came close, but Fleur hadn't been wearing a light dress and showing a lot of skin not even half a meter away.

Harry wasn't feeling pervy at all - just very, very aware - but he couldn't shake a sense of anxiousness that a reaction of any kind on his part would be perceived as pervy.

It had been easier with Rosalie, he internally grumbled. His first contact with her had been during a period of tears, self-pity and tough love. Her beauty took a back seat to that... kind of like with Hermione. Having known her as a person before a pretty girl, it was easy to just... not notice it.

Hopefully, with time, this would turn out the same way.

"Oh, that's perfect!" Alice shouted with glee. A second later she was on her knees beside Harry, dress hem brushing the grass and hands clasped before her in supplication.

"Please let me tell them? Please, please, please, please, please?"

Despite himself, Harry chuckled.

"Are you sure? Rosalie seems happy to stay quiet." He asked, amused and a little (wickedly) looking-forward to the fallout that might happen if she did.

"Rosalie would." Alice snickered. "She'll enjoy Jasper and Edward's revenge just as much - more probably. She does so love the expression of befuddled indignation on Emmett's face. Of course," She added, face growing a little serious. "If Emmett finds out you played him... he'll get you."

The last was said with slightly twitching lips. Harry, thinking back to the books of wandless magic in his room and the avenues open to him via ambient magic just grinned back.

"Bring it on." He declared, to Alice's delighted squeal. A moment later, he frowned slightly. There was something... odd... about her arms. He reached forward automatically,brushing her icy skin with wandering fingers.

"Is that... glitter?" He asked, before realising both exactly what it was and what he was doing and snatching his hand back with another onrushing blush.

Alice froze, absolutely still, before almost blurring to her feet.

"Oh yeah!" She laughed quickly. "I forgot about it, I really should wash it off, so - bye!"

Harry echoed the farewell, his skin warming under a random beam of sunlight as the slight girl all but ran from him towards her own house, shouting "It was nice to meet you!" behind her.

Yep. Vampire.

He caught a flicker of movement from Number 5 as a housewife twitched her curtains closed again. All of Alice's shouting probably had several pairs of lips pursed - not to mention the scandalous indiscretion of the Cullen children hanging around him in general. He was surprised that none of them - most of all his Aunt or Uncle - hadn't stepped forward to warn them off.

Then again, maybe they had and the Cullens - or Hales - simply hadn't listened.

It was a nice thought, one that left him smiling even as he turned back to the troublesome pump once more. It was nice to have friends.

Massacre

The Cullens (including Edward, still stiff and awkward but plainly trying hard to be social) continued to visit and Aunt Petunia stepped up her efforts to prevent it. If she heard Rosalie speaking, she'd come outside and order Harry indoors for some chore he was apparently neglecting. If Alice dropped by to gab, Dudley would waddle out in short order to do his best piggish impression of Don Juan. Harry suspected the stand-offish Rosalie intimidated his cousin, otherwise he'd be trying it on her too.

Between the two of them, the Dursleys were reasonably successful. Rosalie could only make off with Harry if she caught him quickly enough and thus took to showing up in a taxi (although if Petunia saw a taxi go past the house towards number 11, she now brought Harry inside as a precaution). For his part, Harry took to carrying some money in his pocket at all times just in case he got abducted and needed to buy a thank-you flower.

Petunia met failure though, when she tried to get Emmett to stop helping out in the garden. She was repeatedly rebuffed by the large boy's cheerfully deliberate obliviousness to her hints and 'polite' assurances that his aid wasn't needed and eventually she just gave up. Emmett proved he knew exactly what she was trying to do by displaying an uncanny knack of knowing just when his aunt was busy elsewhere and literally running off with Harry slung over one shoulder.

Mostly they went to the park and just hung out, sometimes they'd head into the main part of town if something was going on and once or twice when the weather was particularly pleasant, Emmett invited him back to the Cullen's house to play video games.

Harry wasn't very good - the controls and goals and patterns were quite alien to him - but he certainly enjoyed practicing.

Mrs Cullen was also always very nice to him. The first time he'd come over, she'd apologised for whatever she said during their first meeting that had upset him. Blushing to the roots of his hair, Harry had apologised right back for being so rude as to storm out, not to mention inflicting his illness on them just a couple of weeks ago.

The two of them had been so effusively apologetic to each other that, watching, Emmett had cracked up laughing. Afterwards though, Mrs Cullen not only made him the most unbelievably delicious lunch and snacks he'd ever had but also seemed to genuinely want him to stay as long as he could.

Harry felt... welcome. Even Mr Cullen, who Harry had met briefly before running out the front door during his last visit, always seemed happy to see him - if a bit prone to watching him like he was waiting for something.

His O.W.L results arrived alongside birthday wishes and small presents. Both the Weasleys and Dumbledore invited him to leave the Dursleys and again, Harry refused. He only had another month here before Hogwarts and he wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could.

Besides… tucked away on his bookshelf were a couple of new volumes outlining magic schools all over the world. He'd learned that neither Beauxbatons nor Durmstrang would take him as part of an agreement between the three main European schools not to poach each other's students, but schools in Australia, Canada or America might. He was still waffling on actually applying - it felt a lot like running away, even though he'd come to agree with Rosalie. The education at Hogwarts was pretty poor - but then he hadn't exactly been trying himself, had he? Look at what he'd done just this summer! He'd read up on things of interest and practiced what he could and didn't he feel stronger for it? More Wizardly?

Maybe he should go back to Hogwarts but just sort of… do a Hermione. Live in the library, teach himself anything interesting and just do the bare minimum to pass his classes. What did grades even matter, really, in the end? He wouldn't be looking for a Ministry job after all.

August 6th

The garden project was done.

Between them, Harry and Emmett had worked out that the pump had some sort of automated mechanism that killed the pump if it was operated without water. They weren't sure why, but testing it in a bucket proved the theory and installation of the water feature had proceeded quickly after that.

Emmett and Harry had laid down the plastic and stones under Rosalie's exacting supervision and the blonde herself had deigned to get physically involved when it came to creating a stone wall for the miniature waterfall. Her dainty, white lace gloves had gotten mucky despite her care, something Emmett ribbed her for with a little too much enthusiasm, apparently blind to Rosalie's ever-narrowing eyes.

Emmett wore gloves too, the garden pair that his girlfriend/sister had bought for him weeks ago, even though all they were doing now was laying and sealing.

He would miss them, Harry realised later that night, sitting on his desk chair and looking out his window at the narrow slice of street he could see. The end of the garden project represented an end to Emmett and his ever-present hoodie. An end to laughter and companionship. An end to Rosalie's spontaneous whirlwind trips and promises of an alibi should he wish to try his luck stealing a car.

It wasn't the actual end of course, not yet. Emmett had already invited him over for a marathon session of Resident Evil and Rosalie had been making noises about a trip over the channel for some more refined entertainment, but still…

Thunder rumbled lowly in the distance and he turned away, climbed into bed.

Had he ever been so simply content in his life? Even at Hogwarts? Would he ever be so again?

As rain began hushing the world, Harry closed his eyes and slept.

Massacre

"Harry!" Mrs Cullen greeted him with a smile, opening the door so fast it was like she'd been standing right behind it.

"Hi Mrs Cullen." He greeted sheepishly. The woman looked too young to be a 'Mrs' anything but the way she fussed over him wouldn't let him call her anything else.

"You can call me Esme." She teased, shutting the door behind him.

"Yes Mrs Cullen." He grinned cheekily, getting a fond eye-roll back before the woman disappeared back into the kitchen to make him tea.

By now, he was well over his paranoid suspicion that they'd been cultivating him for a snack. He was also 100% certain he was right about their species. All of them now had golden eyes instead of the murky reddish-gold they had before. Every one he'd seen always looked perfectly put together and he was certain that none of the girls wore makeup despite appearing to have a flawless complexion. None of the blokes were ever unshaven, they never smelled of sweat or had pit stains, their skin was always cool and hard to the touch and there'd been several times when he'd spotted it glittering in a random sunbeam before they covered up.

They were vampires, who were pretending not to be. He was a wizard, pretending to be a Muggle.

What was the etiquette here? Did they know he was a wizard? Was it okay to reveal if they didn't? He'd like to be able to talk properly about his school and Voldemort instead of having to hide it all. He'd tried dropping some hints here and there but either the Cullens were all fantastic actors or none of them had a clue was he was trying to say.

Typical.

He'd been pretty sure that Edward, at least, knew about wizards. It was the only explanation he could come up with for why the semi-stalker kept following him around. He was probably some sort of Boy Who Lived fan who knew he was too old for it but couldn't help himself. It would explain the awkward attempts at making conversation about the weather, some tv show he'd never heard of and two separate recent plane crashes. It would also explain why the older boy kept standing too close and making intense eye contact for long stretches of time. Give him a camera and a sugar rush and he'd probably be another Colin Creevey, Merlin help him.

Speak of the devil - as he entered the living room, Edward was walking downstairs with another brother Harry hadn't met before. Huh. This must be Jasper.

Harry looked him over curiously, noting the golden eyes and tight expression. Maybe this one had more trouble controlling himself among humans? It must be hard, to be a vampire amongst humans.

There was only a flicker of movement to warn him before something shoved him backwards – hard. His head bounced off the drywall with a dull thunk as cold hard hands gripped his upper arms with unforgiving strength.

Harry opened his eyes and glared at his attacker, magic prickling under his skin. His work with ambient magic all summer had hones his awareness like never before and considering just what was laying hands on him, he was reasonably sure he could set him on fire just by thinking about it.

Edward loomed over him, bruising his arms as he stood so close they were almost touching.

"Get off me." Harry growled, abruptly fed up with the idiot. The lurking was annoying. Laying hands on him was unacceptable. He shoved, more out of instinct than any real belief it'd make a scrap of difference. Predictably, Edward didn't budge.

Harry gathered his magic to his palms, readying himself to deliver a nasty shock when Edward ducked his head intimately - or for a vampire, threateningly.

"You know what we are." The vampire accused. "I thought you might, but now I know for sure. You even know what our eyes mean. How?"

Harry met said eyes and remembered the day when he'd put together just why a domestic golden-eyed vampire would have streaks of red. Where a youthful-looking family of American probably got it.

Edward jerked as if struck, pulling back sharply – bringing Harry with him - before snarling openly with fangs extended as he slammed the human back into the wall.

This time Harry couldn't help but cry out and another flicker of movement became Jasper – standing behind Edward and looking ready for a fight.

But with whom? Harry or his brother?

"If you know, then why would you come here? Keep coming here?" Edward demanded. "You know what we are – you know that every pump of your heart is like a siren call to us. You know that we've failed to resist it before - why would you risk your life? Why do you keep coming back?" There was a desperate edge to the question, a hidden torment that cooled Harry's temper at being manhandled.

"Rosalie said you're dying." Jasper said quietly from behind his brother, his face strained but otherwise calm. He seemed to grasp the situation easily from what Edward was saying. "Is that why? Do you want to change species?"

Harry blinked, honestly and completely surprised. The thought had never occurred to him. In some ways, it seemed that the prejudices of his world had affected him too. He didn't see any reason not to befriend a vampire or werewolf - but he'd never want to be one either.

Jasper seemed to relax even as Edward tensed further. His expression, tightly controlled though it was, was visibly torn. His fingers flexed and loosened before tightening again, almost like he was afraid of Harry slipping away.

"So that's not it." Jasper said, before Harry could deny it aloud. "So what, then? You just enjoy Edward's company? Because I find that difficult to believe."

There was a split second pause, before Edward turned to glare at his brother – to which Jasper unexpectedly grinned broadly.

Everyone in the room seemed to calm a few notches. Harry caught Jaspers lips moving slightly, though he didn't hear anything. Edward's face was turned away but presumably he was talking too.

When he turned back, he still looked a bit ticked off - but also, somehow, gutted.

"You shouldn't come here." He said with a finality that instantly got Harry's back up. "Maybe you think you're dying anyway so it doesn't matter… But trust me, dying via Vampire is no picnic. This many of us.. as fragile as our control is right now.. we'd tear you apart. Do you understand? We'd fight over you, tear you limb from limb. It hurts to be bitten and our venom feels like acid injected directly into your veins."

Harry stared at him silently for a long moment, his hands pressed against Edward's chest.

Then he shot a bolt of magical energy through them both, sort of like a defibrillator. Edward yelped and leapt back from him, eyes wide. Harry massaged his aching arms and refused to apologise.

"No offence," He deflected, "but why do you even care? I know that your eyes mean you prefer to eat animals but… you're vampires. It's natural to crave humans and you live in a bloody suburb. You aren't exactly removed from temptation and my family would open a bottle of champagne if I just disappeared one day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying 'chow down, mates', just… why get so uptight?"

Jasper raised both eyebrows and looked over at his brother curiously. Edward just stared at him, eyes intense. He shifted minutely closer. His eyes flickered down then up again so fast Harry barely registered it.

Behind them, Jasper went very still.

"...You shouldn't come here." Edward repeated, very quietly.

Harry drew a long breath and looked around as he sighed it out. Mrs Cullen looked nervous and belatedly, Harry realised that they might actually have reason to be alarmed that someone knew their secret - especially if they knew what he was and who he could report their presence to.

"Look," He tried, still a little irritated but a little worried too. He knew the summer had to end eventually, but not like this. "This isn't a big deal. As soon as I started to suspect what you were, I took precautions."

He glanced around, looking for something sharp to prove it. A bit of blood and they'd realise he smelled about as appetising as a rubbish bin. Cold hands closed over both of his own and he raised startled eyes to the vampire in front of him - who was eyeing him like he'd gone insane.

"You can't-!" Edward cut himself off almost immediately as Harry's stare rapidly turned suspicious.

"Harry!" Alice shouted gleefully, bouncing into the room - passing her shopping bags off onto her boyfriend, who took them with a look of resigned patience, before disrupting Edward's hold as she glomped her human friend.

Harry greeted her, relieved for the break in tension and distracted from his suspicion. As Alice tugged him away and chattered brightly, Rosalie walked in with her own armful of bags, closely followed by Emmett bearing armloads of snack food. The blonde shot a mildly surprised look at Jasper's appearance, then a curious one at Edward.

"What precaution?" She asked too quietly for Harry hear. All three of them had overheard part of the confrontation as they'd come up to the house.

Jasper's thoughts were also clearly asking for an explanation.

Edward frowned as he replied. "I didn't catch it all, but he did something that he seems to think makes his blood smell unappetising."

Rosalie glanced over her shoulder. "He smells fine to me." She observed. Emmett came up behind behind her and wrapped her in his arms.

After Forks, before Harry, she would have met such an attempt with a backfist to the nose. Now, she leant back into it, content.

"Should I be jealous?" Her husband joked. Jasper grinned a little, though the expression died as he glanced over at Edward.

"No. Not you."

Massacre

Like I said, roughest chapter so far. I appreciate those of you who point out the errors I miss, I'm sure there'll be more than usual today. I just wanted to get this done and out before my break was over.

Not long to go now! I'm rubbish at predicting story length but… maybe one more chapter? Maybe two?

See you next time.