Avenger of Blood by ElrondsScribe

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

The man raised his wand and pointed it toward Cedric. For a split second he understood who was meant by "the spare"; but before he even had time to think of a defense the man cried, "Avada Kedavra!" and Cedric knew no more.

~oo00oo~

Instead of the nothingness he had expected (as far as he had actually given the matter of death any thought), Cedric found that he seemed to be waking as after a night's sleep. He was lying on his back on something solid, though he was not uncomfortable. There did not seem to be anyone around. There were no voices or footsteps. If this is what dying is like, he reflected. It's not so dreadful after all.

He sat up and looked around. He seemed to be in a great white hall, with high walls and a roof of something which looked like glass, though he got the impression that it was actually much more valuable than glass - or would have been, if this were the sort of place where money was worth anything.

"Cedric Diggory," said a deep, heavy, solemn voice.

Cedric rose automatically to his feet. A very tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a cloak with a hood was walking toward him. His face was handsome, but immovably grave, and Cedric knew without asking that he was the Judge of the Dead, the Doomsayer. He wondered fleetingly if he should be afraid, but something about the solemnity of the pale face assured him rather than otherwise. Cedric dared to imagine that the grimness was wholly the Doomsman's nature, and that he was not in any way malevolent toward the souls that he gathered.

"Are you here to take me?" he asked.

"I am," said the Doomsman. "It is mine to judge the dead, and to send them forth, or to keep them."

"So I have died," said Cedric. "Please - Sir - what do you mean by send forth?" It seemed rather cheek to refer to such a dread Lord without some term of repect.

"The Children of Men who come into my care linger only briefly before passing beyond the World to their eternal destiny. These Halls are but a resting place for most."

"Most, Sir?"

"There are some," said the Doomsman. "Who have so defiled and maimed their own souls that they must remain in my Halls forever."

People like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - Voldemort, thought Cedric.

Then, suddenly, a door opened to his left some distance away. Through it he saw darkness, which confused his eyes for a moment. Then he saw clearly the graveyard where he had died. Harry Potter stood alone, surrounded by a ring of men robed in black. He stood facing a tall, thin, barely human figure in a black robe with a dull, dead-white face, scarlet eyes, and two thin slits for nostrils. The two seemed to be duelling - at least their wands were lowered and pointed at one another, but they seemed to be connected by a beam of golden light. Both wands trembled and vibrated in the hands of their masters.

As he watched, both Harry and his opponent were by some unknown force lifted from the ground and carried through the air. In an open space they came to rest, their wands still bound together by the bright golden thread. And now from that one thread of light there sprouted others, and they sailed high over the heads of the two duellists until they were surrounded by something like a great dome-shaped cage made of gold light. The men in robes were in disorder now, running wildly and shouting.

"What's going on?" asked Cedric, turning to the Doomsman. "What's happening?"

"Your schoolfellow now stands in combat with his enemy who has plotted his death for nearly all of his mortal life," answered the Doomsman.

"Who - " began Cedric, puzzled. Then he gasped. "You mean - Voldemort?" He had to force himself to say the name. "Harry's duelling with Voldemort?"

He turned back to look. Harry's face was covered with dirt and sweat and tears, his right arm dripped blood, and he was trembling with evident fatigue and gasping for breath. Knowing that he was duelling with Voldemort, Cedric suddenly understood everything else he was seeing. The men who were now running about like a group of chickens with their heads cut off must be Death Eaters. As for Harry and Voldemort themselves -

"The Priori Incantatem!" cried Cedric. "Harry Potter's wand has the same core as Voldemort's, doesn't it? That's why I can see them, isn't it, because Voldemort's wand was the one that killed me?"

"It is even so," said the Doomsman. "You and all others who were slain by that wand may speak to your friend and even intervene briefly on his behalf. If you wish, you may go to him now. But be swift, for you will not have long."

"Oh, thank you Sir!" cried Cedric, and he rushed forward toward the open doorway. He sprang over the threshold and found himself in the graveyard standing before Harry. Harry looked up into his face, shocked. Cedric stared back at him, willing him to remain strong, to keep up the struggle. . .

"Hold on, Harry," he said, and did not doubt that Harry could hear him.

It was no surprise to find himself joined by an old man, a Muggle from what could be guessed.

"He was a real wizard, then?" said the man, his eyes on Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did. . . You fight him, boy."

A woman joined them next. "Don't let go, now!" she cried. "Don't let him get you, Harry - don't let go!"

Harry's arms were trembling violently; he did not look as if he could keep it up for much longer.

A second woman appeared, tall and lovely, with red hair and green eyes that looked so much like Harry's that there could be no question as to who she was; and she said, "Your father's coming - hold on for your father - it will be all right - hold on. . ."

Then came a man whose resemblance to Harry (except for the eyes) was so startling that one again it was obvious who he was. "When the connection is broken," he said softly. "We will linger for only moments, but we will give you time. You must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts. Do you understand, Harry?"

Of course now it seemed the obvious thing to do, to hold off Voldemort for the seconds they had remaining while Harry made his escape.

"Yes," gasped Harry.

No doubt it was selfish of him, cruel and wrong, to ask more of Harry than he already had to do, but Cedric asked it anyway. "Harry, take my body back, will you?" he said. "Take my body back to my parents." He could not comfort them, but he could do that much for them. And for Cho and Anthony and Michael and Maxine and Heidi and Herbert and Tamsin.

"I will," panted Harry, now shaking all over.

"Do it now," murmured James Potter. "Be ready to run - do it now - "

"NOW!" bellowed Harry, and he broke the connection with a wrench that must have hurt his arms horribly. Cedric turned with the others and flew upon Voldemort as he could never have hoped to do in life, and had the satisfaction of seeing Voldemort's terrified face for a second or two. Then the graveyard vanished before his eyes, and he was standing alone once more in the wide white hall. The hooded Doomsman stood waiting for him.

"Will he be all right?" asked Cedric anxiously. "Will he make it back?"

For a moment the Doomsman was silent. Then he said, "So much I will tell you: Harry will return to the school, unharmed, bearing your body back to your father and mother, as you asked of him."

Cedric nodded. He was going to ask about Voldemort when something struck him - quite tardily. "Sir," he said. "Where are Lily and James Potter and the other woman and the old man? They were killed by that wand, weren't they? Why aren't they here with us?"

"They have all passed beyond the Circles of the World," replied the Doomsman. "They were summoned only by the call of the wands in battle. You linger here in my Halls because you were slain before your full purpose was fulfilled."

"Then - " Cedric's mind spun a little. "My dying was an accident? It wasn't supposed to happen?"

"In the Tapestry of Life there can be no accidents," answered the Doomsman. "I set before you a choice: you may pass beyond the Circles of the World to your eternal fate, or you may return, for a while, to the land of the living and in due time take up the fight against him who names himself Voldemort. But know that when you have made this choice it cannot be unmade."

Cedric was silent for a while. It would be much simpler, and certainly much more peaceful, to pass on beyond the Circles of the World and join all those who had died before him. There would be no warfare, loss, pain, or struggle. He could wait there for those whom he loved - his father and mother and sisters and brothers, his friends at Hogwarts, and Cho. They would come, one by one, and he would greet them, and be glad at their coming.

But then he thought of Harry, standing alone with dirt and tears on his face and blood on his arm and his wand locked with Voldemort's. He thought of his own father, and the Ministry of Magic, and Headmaster Dumbledore and everyone at Hogwarts, bowed under the rule of the Dark Lord.

"I wish to go back," he said. "I know I'm not important enough to make any real difference, but I want to join the fight against Voldemort, if I can."

The countenance of the Doomsman did not change. "So be it," he said, and immediately the bright hall began to fade away before Cedric's eyes.

~o0o~

"Ah, he is waking."

Cedric blinked and looked around again. This time he was lying in a bed, and the light surrounding him was sunlight. His body was wrapped in something soft and warm. He looked up for the source of the voice he had heard.

Hovering above him was a vision of wisdom and grace and power such as he had never seen in any mortal. The vision was like a man; but there were no words, at least in English, to describe the beauty of the face. There was a long braid of midnight-black hair, and two large blue eyes which glowed like a pair of stars.

"How do you feel?" asked the apparition in a voice of flutes and harps and trumpets. Cedric was so amazed that he forgot to answer for a second or two. Then he stammered, "I - where am I? A-and who are you?" His own voice sounded rough and uncouth by comparison, and he shut his mouth quickly.

The man - was he a man? - laughed lightly, the very sound a glorious melody of joy. "Where are you?" he said. "You are here, and that is enough for the moment. I am named Daeron, which is Shadow in your tongue, I think."

"Daeron!" said a different voice, and Cedric was immensely relieved to recognize a perfectly human female voice. "He did not ask for a lesson in languages!"

Cedric sat up. He was in a plain but spacious bedroom, and besides Daeron there were two other people in the room. There was another man - if man was the right word - with long black hair in an elaborate system of braids and grey eyes. He was taller than Daeron, and he had the same superhuman beauty. But the other figure was a blessedly human teenage girl with blue eyes and a blond braid over her shoulder.

She smiled at Cedric. "Hello," she said, and Cedric realized belatedly that she spoke with an American accent. "We've been waiting for you.

Chapter 2

Read Chapter 2

Over the next six months, Cedric learned a number of things.

He seemed to have landed in Washington state in America, somewhere in what was called the Olympic Peninsula. It was undoubtedly the wettest place Cedric the day after he had died in the graveyard in England (and he really had died there, so far as he could discover). He was currently in a large, somewhat luxurious house which belonged to Daeron, whom he had seen on the first day of his new life. The house was in the country, miles away from anything.

The strange, beautiful people who seemed to be his hosts called themselves Eldar, Eldalie, Peredhil, Vanyar, Noldor, Eluwaith, Denwaith, People of the Stars, and all sorts of other confusing names. Julie, the girl who had first greeted him, simply called them all Elves, which further confounded Cedric, for these powerful creatures were nothing in the least like the house-elves he had had for servants back at home. Far from thinking themselves born to serve, most of these new Elves seemed rather to assume that the whole world was theirs by birthright, and Cedric was not inclined to tell them otherwise.

Besides their mere physical beauty, which in itself far surpassed that of the loveliest Veela, there was always an air of blended sorrow and joy about them, whatever their actual mood at the moment. They were immortal and ageless, and in many cases very wise and powerful, and seemed to have been alive for many thousands of years. They were immune to human illnesses, and had sharper senses and greater physical endurance than humans. They could be killed violently though, and they could apparently die of nothing more than a broken heart. Most importantly of all, they knew a great deal about Magic, both what was taught at Hogwarts and much that Cedric had never heard of before.

Julie Gaffney was a young American witch who was part of a group of two dozen teenage witches and wizards (twelve boys and twelve girls exactly) who were always in and out of the house, mainly on weekends. They all appeared to be in a special program at a wizarding school in Pennsylvania called Weston's, which was on the other side of the country. Over half of them (all twelve of the boys and one other girl besides Julie herself) called themselves the Mighty Ducks, and said they had all been on a sports team together before. The Elves seemed to be keeping a very close eye on the whole group, and they would not say why.

There were so many of them around to teach what they knew - Daeron was the one who owned the house, and in his knowledge of music, history, and languages he was almost unrivaled (almost - except for Maglor). He seemed to have a hundred guests coming and going at a time, and most of them were other Elves - Ingwe and Maedhros and Thingol and Denweg and Oropher and Elrond and Cirdan and Glorfindel and dozens of others.

They were in constant contact with the world of wizardry, and witches and wizards were almost always Apparating and Flooing in and out of the house. In fact, there were all sorts of visitors: not just other Elves, but also Dwarves (again somewhat different than the ones he had learned about int school) and Mortal Men (who once again could hardly be called Muggles) and even a few Hobbits. There were also some visitors that Cedric did not often see and that the Elves said very little about.

Cedric himself was generally kept out of sight when other people were around. This he did not much like, but he knew that it was for his own safety.

It took him much longer than it should have to suddenly realize something. "Er, Daeron," he said about a week after arriving. "How'd you get hold of my wand?" For his wand had been next to the bed when he had first awakened, and he had automatically picked it up without thinking about it.

"Eh? What?" said Daeron with a start and a very guilty look. Cedric congratulated himself on choosing Daeron - he might be a genius, but he was also terrible at keeping secrets.

"I said, how did you come by my wand? It's not like I carried it with me into the afterlife."

"I would rather you did not say 'afterlife,'" said Daeron, who was twisting his fingers. "It sounds like the Egyptians' excuse for burying their kings with a great deal of treasure - "

"My wand, Daeron," said Cedric.

"What about your wand? Is aught wrong with it?" Daeron made a pathetic attempt at looking anxious.

"I believe I asked where you got it."

Daeron looked at the floor and shuffled his feet. "It is possible that we might have stolen it out of your grave," he admitted.

Cedric blinked. "My - my grave?"

"Did you not know?" asked Daeron, looking up with wide eyes. "They buried you."

This is the weirdest conversation I've ever had in my life. "They did?"

"What did you think had happened to your body when Harry was Portkeyed back to Hogwarts? They buried your wand with you - or your corpse, I suppose - and Albus held a memorial to you in the Great Hall - "

"Headmaster Dumbledore held a memorial for me?! Why?"

"Because you were murdered by Voldemort, and he wanted people to know it."

"Why?"

"Because the British Ministry of Magic does not wish to acknowledge that Voldemort has indeed returned."

Cedric decided to leave this alone for the moment. "So you dug up my casket, broke into it, and stole my wand?" he asked. "How did you know I would need it?"

"I did none of those things!" protested Daeron, flushing to the roots of his hair. "It was Celeborn and Galadriel's doing!"

Now Cedric understood. "Well, if she knew I was coming, that makes sense," he said. "Is there anything that goes on in the world that at least one of those two doesn't get involved in?"

"Not really," said Daeron, peering at Cedric. "Are you angry, then, about - "

"No, no, no," said Cedric hastily. "I'm just glad I have it. Most people would consider it grave-digging, but it's my grave and my wand. Don't be anxious, Daeron." And there was an end of the matter.

But Cedric did not forget what Daeron had said about the Ministry. He could not imagine what reason the Ministry could possibly have to deny the return of Voldemort, and the next day he returned to the subject.

"So what is going on with the Ministry in the UK?" he asked Daeron.

Daeron sighed. "I have heard that your Minister, Cornelius, fears for his position, and so will not believe that Voldemort has returned. It seems that most of wizard society does not believe that Voldemort has returned either."

Cedric thought of his father, who was himself a Ministry employee. "But how do they think I died, then?" he asked.

"I believe the story now is that you ran across a very nasty Acromantula in the last task of the Triwizard Tournament."

"D'you mean," asked Cedric in dismay. "that nobody's doing anything about - about - " He still could not bring himself to say the name.

"About Voldemort?" Daeron shook his head. "No one wants to believe it, and so they will not tolerate so much as a mention of him."

"But he's there!"

"Of course."

"Then what's he doing?"

"We think he is in hiding, working through his followers to achieve some aim or other of his. But we do not know yet what it is."

Cedric's heart was sinking lower and lower by the moment. "What about Headmaster Dumbledore?" he asked rather desperately. "He believes Voldemort's back, there has to be something that he can do."

"Ah." Daeron paused and looked at him intensely, obviously considering his answer. "He is doing something now, though I cannot tell you yet what it is. But you will know before long, I am sure."

"Well, if - " Cedric gritted his teeth. " - if Voldemort has an army, then Dumbledore ought to have one, that's all I can say!"

But he did not have many idle moments in which to ponder such things, for the Elves seemed quite anxious to train him up to be a fully competent wizard in as short a time as they could manage. They taught him wandless and non-verbal magic, themselves very difficult arts, as well as two disciplines they called "Thought-Speech" and "Shielding."

"Thought-Speech" was not exactly magic, though it came more naturally to those who regularly practiced magic. It was, more or less, communication without speaking aloud. It could be nothing more than two minds in conversation like spoken words; it could also be incredibly powerful, allowing the sharing of one's complete incorporeal self (The Elves called it one's fea). This could obviously be very dangerous if used wrongly, for it was possible to, for example, seize possession of another person's body in this manner.

That was where the "Shielding" came in. Elrond, who was really the one teaching Cedric both Thought-Speech and Shielding, said that every living soul had a natural set of defenses which could be raised or lowered as needed, and that this would block a Legilimens quite as effectively as (and much more naturally than) Occlumency. It also blocked all forms of Thought-Speech.

Cedric found both Though-Speech and Shielding difficult, but rewarding and well worth the effort.

Upon learning that his strengths lay in Charms, Transfiguration, and spells taught in Defense against the Dark Arts, the Elves began training him relentlessly in exactly those areas too (Honestly, it's just like being back at school without all the books, thought Cedric. Isn't it summer break?). He kept his mouth shut, though, and toiled away. But the fact remained that he had never had such and enormous workload in his life, and he nearly buckled under it before asking Daeron for a day off.

"Ai, forgive us, Cedric!" cried Daeron, looking distressed. "We forget so easily that you are only mortal - "

"Nice for you," said Cedric rather crossly. "Not to have to be frail and delicate and human like me."

But Daeron paid this no heed. "Why did you not speak sooner?" he fussed. "And why did we not notice sooner? You look exhausted. . . You are going back to bed, and we will not bother you about your studies for a solid week. After that we will be reasonable, I promise you. Not a word!" as Cedric opened his mouth. "So help me if I do not see that you get rested - go!"

Hardly daring to believe his good luck, Cedric went.

Chapter 3

Cedric's birthday! I skipped over it completely in the first edition.

Read Chapter 3

It was during that week of liberation that Cedric's eighteenth birthday came up. He tried very hard to not draw attention to it, and he would have succeeded were it not for the Ducks - Connie Moreau in particular. She was a very pretty (and very flirtatious) girl with long brown hair whose sharp tongue, quick temper, and killer punches had earned her the nickname "Velvet Hammer" among her teammates. She was the only girl Duck aside from Julie, and for some reason the two did not get along particularly well.

Cedric had met Connie shortly after his arrival, and she had flirted shamelessly, despite the fact that her very steady boyfriend, Guy, had been standing right beside her. It had made Cedric feel very awkward. What made it worse was that poor Guy seemed to be used to it, as he was not the least bit unfriendly to Cedric.

On that occasion Charlie, another of the Ducks, had asked Cedric what his birthday was; and it seemed that Connie had kept the date in mind. On September 22, which was the day before his birthday, she came breezing into the house and announced to anyone who was listening that Cedric's eighteenth birthday was the next day.

At once there was a great hustle and bustle about the house and Cedric was chased into his bedroom (he protested this very much, but no one listened to him). He tried to explain to anyone who was listening (which ended up being the walls) that people in wizarding society came of age at seventeen, and as he had already come of age there was no need to go to so much trouble.

The next day he came out of his room to find that nothing short of a feast had been laid on the table in the big dining room, and that a Great Many People were waiting for him. All the Ducks were there - Charlie Conway, Adam Banks, Guy Germaine, Jesse Hall, Les Averman, Luis Mendoza, Ken Wu, Dean Portman, Fulton Reed, Greg Goldberg, Russ Tyler, Julie Gaffney and Connie Moreau. Quite a few Elves were also there - Daeron of course, his best friend Celeborn with Galadriel his wife; Celebrian their daughter and her husband Elrond; Daeron's other best friend Maglor with his wife Failawende, and two of his six brothers, twins Amrod and Amras.

"HAPPY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY, CEDRIC!" they all shouted when they saw him, and they cheered and whistled and applauded and jumped up and down (Cedric wasn't sure how you managed jumping up and down while sitting in a chair, but two of the Ducks were certainly doing it).

Cedric flushed to the roots of his hair. "Oh. Uh, thanks!" he stuttered, glancing around for an empty chair. The only one available was at the head of the table.

"Come and sit down!" cried Daeron merrily.

"Sit down?" Cedric's flush deepened. "Sit - there?" he pointed to the chair.

"Where else?" asked Celeborn, who was one of Daeron's best friends as well as being one of the oldest, wisest, and toughest Elves alive.

Cedric walked over to the chair and sat down. "What now?" he asked in rather a small voice. He had never had so many people celebrate his birthday at one time before, not even at Hogwarts, where he had been fairly popular in Hufflepuff.

"WE EAT!" roared Dean Portman, who was easily the biggest and most well-built of all the Ducks.

Everybody dug in, and the meal was sumptuous. There were platters of bacon, bowls of scrambled eggs, pans of steaming gooey cinnamon rolls, and endless pitchers of pumpkin juice. Cedric ate and ate until he thought he would burst if he took one more bite, and watched in amazement as the Ducks plowed through mountains of food without stopping. The Elves just laughed at them.

"Who did the cooking?" asked Goldberg as he was eating. "This is good!"

"We did!" said the redheaded twins in unison. They reminded Cedric a little of Fred and George Weasley, what with their red hair, their adventurous and fun-loving personalities, and the fact that you never saw one without the other. But unlike with the Weasley twins, Amras' hair was just a shade lighter than Amrod's, and Amrod never seemed quite happy unless Amras was within eyesight. Cedric suspected there was a reason for this that he did not want to know.

After breakfast was over (basically after everyone stopped eating, which was a good long time), the Ducks all said it was time for gifts.

"Gifts?" said Cedric, amazed.

"What, don't you get gifts on your birthday in England?" joked Jesse Hall.

("Smart aleck!" said Julie, who had a bit of an ongoing banter-rivalry with Jesse.)

"It's not that," Cedric protested. "It's just - you really didn't have to - "

"Cedric!" Charlie Conway's voice was uncharacteristically sharp - he was known for being unusually kind. "We know we didn't have to, but we did it anyway, because we like you and we want to celebrate your birthday! Just accept it and say thank you!"

"Oh. Okay," said Cedric. "Thank you!"

Now satisfied, the Ducks herded Cedric out of the dining room and into the great room. In the middle of the floor were piled a number of presents - only four, Cedric noted with some relief. There were two flat oblong gifts, a rather large upright something, and a very long brown parcel whose shape he knew very well.

"Open them!" said Guy Germaine. "The two flat ones are from us Ducks."

'The two flat ones' turned out to be books - a copy each of Quidditch Through the Ages and A Short History of Quodpot.

"We noticed Daeron didn't have anything for sports players," grinned Jesse.

The long parcel had a card attached to it, and turned out to be exactly what it had looked like - a broom, and a Cleansweep Eleven at that. The card on it simply said "From Glorfindel and Miriel." Cedric was sure that it was really Glorfindel's gift, as Miriel his wife was an exceptionally skilled needle-worker (so much so that she had been nicknamed "The Broidress.")

The last gift was a cage with a tawny owl inside it - a solid looking female who allowed Cedric to pet her without fuss and only flew as far as the windowsill nearby when he let her out. Daeron, who had followed the young people into the room, admitted to having bought it for him, and said that she answered to the name of Tessa.

Of course, Cedric had to try out his new broom, and for once he was allowed to go outside and fly above the house to his heart's content. When he was finally tired of flying and came inside, it was time for lunch, and it was then that Celebrian vanished into the kitchen and reappeared bearing in great pride a very large coconut cake with white icing and the words "Happy Birthday Cedric" on top in icing which changed colors.

"The twins were loath to let me into their precious kitchen long enough to bake this for you," she grumbled as she set it on the table.

"We're not accustomed to letting a woman invade and occupy our kitchen," complained Amrod.

"You know that sounds really sexist, right?" Connie let them know. "Like a woman shouldn't be able to cook or something."

Celeborn tutted. Amras shot him a dirty look.

"Sexism has nothing to do with it," said Daeron. "Noldor men do most of the cooking, and their women do the baking, and there is an end of the matter. And it is technically my kitchen anyway." The last statement was directed at Amrod and Amras.

"Not as long as you give us the reins for the day," said Amras.

"See Cedric, Mommy and Daddy are always fighting," said Dwayne in an annoying high-pitched "little kid" voice.

"Insolent duckling," said Celeborn who was actually very fond of the Ducks. Dwayne knew this perfectly well, and flashed the Elf a cheeky grin.

"Because it's my birthday," said Cedric. "Would you please not fight?" The Elves could get into rather vicious quarrels about their version of racism in five seconds flat.

"You ask it as a birthday favor. . ." said Amrod grudgingly.

"So we will try to behave. . ." said Amras.

"For now," finished Amrod.

"Thank you!" said Cedric with a relieved smile.

"Are we gonna eat that cake or what?" asked Goldberg.

"We have to sing happy birthday first!" shouted Fulton. "Ready, guys? One, two three - "

And before Cedric had time to register that everybody was going to sing, the room was drowned in a deafening chorus, every line of which was punctuated with a little blast of fireworks from Ken Wu's wand. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!" (bang) "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!" (bang) "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR CEDRIC!" (bang) "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"

Celebrian's coconut cake was delicious, and apparently Cedric was not the only one who thought so, for she got lots of compliments from around the table (some of them uttered around mouthfuls of cake). Cedric only managed to snag two pieces before the whole thing was utterly demolished.

"You guys!" howled Les Averman. "Did Cedric even get any?"

"Yeah, I had some," Cedric assured him.

Averman rolled his eyes. "Like what, one piece?"

"No, I had more than one!"

"He had two," Maglor put in helpfully.

"Time for games!" announced Daeron from the other end of the table.

There was a bit of volleyball outside behind the house, played Muggle-style, and to his great surprise Cedric loved it. The Ducks were horrible at it, but their hilarious antics made the game more than worth playing, just for the laughs. After Cedric got tired of volleyball (about an hour later), the young people went back inside and had a few rounds of supervised recreational duelling. Connie wanted to duel with Julie, but Julie wasn't having any of it, and Daeron intervened before things got too serious. Maglor matched all the partners after that.

Not everyone had had a chance to duel when Amrod/Amras (it wasn't always possible to tell which was which) came in to say that it was time for dinner, whereupon they all stampeded into the dining room to eat again. Cedric, being by this time very tired, fell asleep at the table with his head on his arms, and had to be prodded awake and sent to bed by the ever-helpful Charlie.

It was undoubtedly one of the noisiest, happiest, most tiring birthdays that Cedric Diggory had ever had in his life. And yet it was not enough to keep a hint of loneliness from tainting his dreams: he was a long way from home, among relative strangers, and he was not likely to see anyone he knew again for a very long time.

Chapter 4

Read Chapter 4

Shortly after his birthday Maglor said that Cedric had better have a semester of Muggle school starting in the winter. Cedric didn't like this at all, and protested mightily, but most of the other Elves seemed to think it was a good idea. So despite his protests, they began getting him ready to stay for a while in a tiny Muggle town nearby which went by the name of Forks ("not to be confused with Spoons, my lad," said Maglor). Among the more difficult preparations was learning how to drive a Muggle car.

The Ducks helped, too. They taught him how to use a computer, how to use both a landline and a cell phone, and how to use Muggle appliances like toasters and microwaves. They gave him a bundle of American dollars and got him Muggle clothes. Cedric tried to protest this, but it turned out that Adam Banks in particular came from an extremely wealthy family, and he, if no one else, had nothing but money to burn. Not for nothing was he called "Cake-Eater" by the other Ducks.

"But there's no point in my going to a Muggle school, especially if it's only for the last semester!" complained Cedric as Maglor handed him a stack of Muggle school textbooks to look at.

"You are a sharp and diligent student," said Maglor ignoring him as usual. "I think you can keep up easily at this school, even though you have never attended a Muggle school before."

Cedric heaved a sigh and began dutifully looking over the textbooks.

The day after New Year's, Daeron took Cedric down to Forks in a Muggle car to a Muggle house where lived a Muggle family. They had agreed to let Cedric stay with them for the remainder of the school year, and their name was Stanley. Cedric was not sure how Maglor had got them to agree to have a complete stranger share their house for five months, but he decided not to ask too many questions.

"Now remember, Cedric," said Daeron anxiously as they neared their destination. "You must look, speak, and behave exactly like a Muggle for six months. Call me on the phone if anything goes wrong. I know you have your wand in case of emergencies, but once again I urge you - do not use magic otherwise, and - "

"I know, Daeron!" said Cedric. He was already beginning to be depressed; he had been missing his parents and his friends, but now that he was going to spend six months trying to be a Muggle he realized just how very lonely he was going to be. He was not used to loneliness; he had been liked and admired a great deal at school (at least among fellow Hufflepuffs; he was not unaware of the scorn in which he had been held by most everybody else in Hogwarts, especially during the Tournament) and had never wanted for companions.

Mr. Roger Stanley was for the most part polite and rather disinterested; he didn't particularly seem to care what Cedric did or where he went as long as he was inside by midnight and didn't disrupt things in the house. Quite the contrast, Mrs. Stanley and seventeen-year-old Jessica, who was attending the same school as Cedric was now attending, seemed most fascinated with him, especially Jessica.

Indeed, the first time she saw him as he walked in through the front door with his suitcase she gaped openly at him for a full minute, making him very uncomfortable as he stuttered his way through his prepared introduction.

Later on, when she was taking him up to the room that was going to be his, she explained herself. "I'm sorry about staring at you like that," she said. "I just freaked out for a minute because you look almost exactly like someone whose family recently moved away. Like seriously, the resemblance is scary."

"Oh," said Cedric. "That's all right." He paused. "Er, Jessica, would you mind showing me around a bit tomorrow?"

"Oh, sure, no problem," said Jessica. Cedric now rather wished she would leave him alone to get unpacked, but she hung about, chattering on about which teachers were harshest and which couples were cutest. It was when she began talking about the Cullen family that he started actually listening.

It seemed that Edward Cullen, whom Cedric seemed resemble so closely, was part of a family that had been much envied and rather anti-popular while they had lived in Forks. Dr. and Mrs. Cullen had three adopted children - Alice, Emmett, and Edward - and an orphaned niece and nephew, Rosalie and Jasper Hale, in their care, and all five of them had gone to the high school where Jessica now attended. They had given the impression of being very rich, and they were also uncommonly good-looking, both of which factors should have made them the most popular kids in school, if they had not been so aloof toward everyone around them.

What made it even stranger was that they were all in pairs - Jasper Hale with Alice Cullen, and Emmett Cullen with Rosalie Hale. Only Edward, Cedric's look-alike, had been "single," and he had not expressed interest in any of the girls around. Or at least, not until last March.

It was then that the daughter of the Chief of Police, Bella Swan by name, had moved in from Arizona to live with her father. All of a sudden, Edward had seemed fascinated with her - he had seemed to hate her at first for some reason, but all too quickly it became evident that he was interested in almost nothing else besides her. Bella herself, according to Jessica, had been quite obviously besotted with Edward from the first, and after the two had started dating she was almost never seen without him.

"And it's not as if she's even that pretty," said Jessica. "Sure, she gets decent grades, but she doesn't have any real talents. And she's incredibly clumsy - or maybe accident-prone is a better word. It was like anything and everything dangerous goes looking for her."

Cedric wondered briefly if Jessica was just jealous because Edward had chosen Bella, but did not press the issue. Instead he said, "Well, what happened to the Cullens, then? You keep referring to them in past tense."

"Oh, they're not dead or anything," said Jessica, and some unmentioned thought made her roll her eyes. "They just moved away a few months ago - Dr. Cullen got an offer in New York that I guess he couldn't refuse. The whole family went with him. But I think something must have happened between Edward and Bella, because ever since they left, she's been like a walking corpse.

"I heard her father had to send a tracking party after her, when she went for a walk with Edward and didn't come back, and they found her lying unconscious in the woods. Ever since then she's been like a walking corpse. I mean, I can understand something like that for a couple of weeks, or maybe a month, but the Cullens left in September and Bella's still totally lifeless."

She passed on to more gossip about the Cullens and about the various girls who had tried their hand with Edward for what must have been another half an hour before she finally left. Only then could Cedric take out his wand, which was the only magical article he had brought along, and find a place for it in safety.

Then he got into bed, and tried without success not to think too much about the coming day. When he did manage to sleep, he slept fitfully.

The next morning he woke up feeling groggy and disoriented. It took him a few moments to remember where he was and why. When he did, he got up reluctantly and trudged off to the bathroom with a set of clothes, where he showered and dressed. He went back to his room, put on his new boots, and packed up his books. It was while he was doing the last that Jessica knocked at the door. "Are you ready, Cedric?" she asked.

"Nearly," said Cedric, who was at that moment hastily shoving his wand into his backpack with his books. Then he opened the door to find Jessica waiting.

"I'm ready now," he said, and followed her down the stairs to the kitchen where they both a bowl of cold cereal which was called Raisin Bran and a glass of orange juice. Cedric found he did not much care for the cereal, as it turned into soggy mush if you didn't eat it within the first few minutes.

"Don't they have Raisin Bran where you're from?" asked Jessica in amusement as she watched Cedric down the last of the mush.

Cedric busied himself with a mouthful of orange juice, which he liked considerably better, as he tried to think of a good answer. Of course had had never had Muggle food before in his life, and he had no idea if Muggles in England regularly had stuff like this for breakfast. At length he settled on, "Well, I've never had it, I don't know about Britain in general."

After breakfast they went out into the cold and the drizzling rain and climbed into Jessica's car, which was parked in front of the house. Jessica drove since Cedric did not know the way, and within a quarter of an hour they arrived at Forks High School. Cedric had not expected it to look in the least like Hogwarts, but he was still rather startled at how small it was. It was no more than a collection of seven or eight single-story buildings just off the highway.

Jessica told Cedric that since it was his first day he would have to go to the office and get a map, his class schedule, a slip which was to be signed by all the various teachers, and would be returned by the end of the day. She parked in the lot next to the building which had a sign on it that read FRONT OFFICE. Cedric climbed out of the car and walked up to the office alone.

The office proved to be small, but warm and brightly lit. Behind the long counter that cut across the middle of the room were three desks, one of which was occupied by a woman with glasses and red hair. She looked up when she heard Cedric come in, and started a little.

"Mr. Cullen?" she said uncertainly.

Cedric blinked. "Er, no," he said hastily. "I mean, no, I'm not Edward Cullen - my name's Cedric Montgomery - "

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the woman seeming to recover herself. "It's just that the resemblance is so strong, though I'm sure you already know that. All right, I know I have your schedule and map here somewhere. . ." She began riffling through a pile of papers on her desk for a few seconds before pulling out a few sheets of paper and handing them to Cedric. He took them rather carefully; he was still unused to using paper instead of parchment, and had received quite a number of cuts on the sharp edges and corners.

"That is your class schedule and a map of the school," she said. "And here is a slip for all your teachers to sign. Please bring it back to me at the end of the day, and good luck!"

Cedric thanked her and went back out to join Jessica in her car again. She drove around the school till she reached the student lot, and there she parked again.

"What's your first class?" she asked.

Cedric pulled out his schedule and looked over it. "I've got Gym first," he said.

She seemed disappointed. "Well, I can show you the way there, if you need me to. . ."

"Thanks, but I think I'll be fine," said Cedric. He climbed out of the car and took a good look at the map before setting off.

Chapter 5

Read Chapter 5

With the help of the map, he found the gym easily enough. Coach Clapp, the sports teacher, signed his slip and handed him a uniform and promptly sent him off to the boy's locker room to change. Most all of the other boys were tired and only mildly interested in him, and didn't ask much about him besides his name and where he was from. No one commented on his resemblance to Edward Cullen.

When they had all trudged out of the locker room, Coach Clapp had everybody take turns playing tennis, a game that Cedric had never seen or heard of before. He did the best he could on the fly, but of course he could hardly be expected to master an entirely new sport in one hour of Gym class. He felt he had made a complete fool of himself before the hour was up. It was possible, of course, that as a Seeker and captain of his Quidditch team he was not used to being bested at a sport, and he acknowledged this to himself as he was changing back into his clothes after another shower. It didn't make the blow to his pride any easier to tolerate.

He pulled his class schedule out of his bag and read it again. His next class was Calculus in building five. He stifled a sigh. Calculus was the subject that, of all his school subjects, he wasn't sure he would be all right in. He had been frankly terrified when he had first cracked open a Calculus textbook, and only the knowledge that he would be studying it in this new school made him even look at the book again. Now he was going to a real class to study it, and at the moment he rather hated Muggles for inventing it.

But there was nothing for it. After a look at his trusty map he walked outside into the drizzle for the second time. It seemed that the other students were more awake now that their first class was over, and it was not long before Cedric found himself accosted by Jessica.

"Hey Cedric!" she cried, running to catch up with him. "How was Gym?" she asked.

"Gym was all right," said Cedric hastily, not wanting to talk about the complete fiasco. "I've got Chemistry next, actually."

"Lucky you," said Jessica making a face. "First period Gym and second period Chemistry!" And she was off again in one of her monologues, mostly complaints this time, while Cedric listened with half an ear, and tried not to notice how many people were obviously trying to listen in on their conversation. Jessica walked beside him until he had fairly reached the door of building five, before saying she had to go and scurrying off to her own next class, which seemed to be Calculus.

The Chemistry laboratory looked a little bit like a Potions classroom, with the obvious exception of the cauldrons and fires. Also this classroom had quite a bit more cheer than the dungeons at Hogwarts. The black-topped tables had two seats each, most of which were filled already.

Mr. Banner, the teacher, stared a little when Cedric told him his name and handed him the slip to sign. He signed it, however, and handed it back without asking Cedric to introduce himself; he merely directed him to an empty chair about the middle of the room next to a tall, pretty girl with just a little too much makeup and light blond hair in a strange short haircut. She gave him an openly flirtatious smile as he sat down next to her.

"Hello!" She said brightly. "I'm Lauren Mallory, and I'm guessing you are Cedric Montgomery?"

"That's me, yeah," said Cedric.

Mr. Banner began the lecture then, effectively ending the conversation for the present, and Cedric opened his notebook. It might have been his resemblance to Edward Cullen, or it might have been the fact that he was new, but Cedric felt the other students staring at him during the lecture, and it made him feel uncomfortable.

The subject matter in itself was difficult enough to engage Cedric's full attention, though, and he distracted himself by trying to follow what Mr. Banner was saying. He was beginning to wonder why wizards (purebloods in particular) considered Muggles of lesser intelligence - Chemistry at least was hard.

His brain was in a muddle from trying to make sense of it all by the time the bell rang. Lauren turned to him and bestowed on him another broad smile. "Hey, what's your next class?" she asked sweetly.

Cedric checked his schedule. "I've got Civics, in building six." Muggle government - what would that be like?

She looked disappointed. "Well, I'm headed in that general vicinity, I could point you in the right direction if you needed me to."

"That's all right, thanks," said Cedric. "I've got a map." He was not entirely sure he liked her, and he was pretty certain that she would not leave him alone unless he left her no excuse for hanging around.

"Well, let me know if I can help you in any way," said Lauren Mallory, and off she went for her next class.

Cedric picked up his backpack, put on his jacket, and went out behind the others.

Apparently Lauren Mallory was not the only one eager to talk to the new boy. On the way to building six, another girl approached Cedric. She was small and slender, with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks and long black hair that looked artificially colored. She introduced herself as June Richardson and asked him how he liked Forks.

"Well, it's cold and wet, but I like it otherwise," said Cedric, wondering how many different answers to that question he could invent while being at least partially truthful.

"Different from where you're from?" asked June.

"Well, we do see the sun a bit more in Devon," said Cedric. "England, I mean."

She looked at him for a moment, then asked, "Is it true that over there you always drink a cup of tea in the afternoon?"

Oh gosh - do they?! "Yeah, we do," Cedric hazarded, wishing desperately that he had taken Muggle Studies back at Hogwarts.

"And that you have buildings and streets there that are, like, hundreds of years old?"

Cedric relaxed. "Sure. I don't really know that much about them, though, and I lived in the country."

"What made you decide to come to America?"

Well you see, June, I actually got killed by the most powerful evil wizard in the world. And then I came back from the dead to get myself killed again, as like as not, fighting against him. Till then I'm sort of in hiding. Kindly don't tell anybody, will you? "It's a long story."

"Oh. Okay." She looked rather more disappointed at this than was strictly necessary. So, if Cedric was not mistaken, did the boys and girls who happened to be walking close by. Oh, come off it, this is a small town. Of course they're curious. Why shouldn't they be?

June was silent for the remainder of the walk, and soon they were going into Civics class together. Having had rather a roundabout path to get there, Cedric and June were among the last to enter the room. June went straight to her seat next to a boy with curly red hair; Cedric, of course, went up to the teacher, Mr. Jefferson, to get his slip signed and a seat assigned to him. The man sent him to a desk near the window with one seat empty. The other chair was occupied by a girl with long mahogany hair.

"'Scuse me," said Cedric as he moved around to the far side of the desk to sit down. The girl looked up automatically as she shifted her books.

She froze when she saw him, and her already pale face went so much paler that Cedric feared for a moment that she might faint. She was pretty too, in a waxy colorless sort of way, quite the contrast from the heavily made-up Lauren Mallory or the rose-colored June Richardson. She looked somehow delicate, as if someone had broken her and she had not quite mended. But it was the tortured look in her wide brown eyes that stopped Cedric in his tracks.

"I'm sorry, is something wrong?" he stuttered, blinking.

At the sound of his voice the girl started violently. "No," she said in a strangled sort of gasp. "Nothing's wrong." Cedric could see that her hands were trembling now as she moved her books.

Belatedly it struck Cedric what the trouble must be. He sat down next to her and put down his backpack and started pulling his own books out of it. "Aren't you Bella Swan?" he asked.

"Maybe. Why?" said the girl in the same breathless, dried-up voice. The anguish that stared from her large eyes went straight to his heart.

"I, er, I've been told I look like someone you used to know - ," he broke off, searching her white face and finding no answers. "Is it something you'd rather not talk about?"

Bella Swan nodded and with an obvious effort wrenched her eyes from his face, turning her head toward the front of the classroom. Cedric took the hint, and said no more.

But throughout the lecture (which was about the inner workings of presidential elections) Cedric could not help but glance down at Bella every now and again. Once or twice he caught her looking back at him with that same tortured look in her eyes. It unnerved him very much, and he wondered what about Edward had so traumatized her that she would react like this at the sight of someone who looked like him.

Or perhaps it's just that she liked him so much that she can't bear being separated from him, he reasoned. I really ought to give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose.

It seemed an eternity until the bell finally rang. Cedric shoved his books into his backpack before getting up the nerve to turn back to Bella. Come on, be a man! "Er, Bella?" he said cautiously.

Bella immediately dropped her books. Cedric went scrambling after them, and when he straightened up found that she was staring fixedly at the floor, which was rather a relief. I'm not sure how much more of that stare I can handle, he thought nervously as he handed Bella her books back.

"Thanks," she mumbled as she took them.

"You're welcome - can I walk to the cafeteria with you?" asked Cedric all in a rush.

She blinked. "Uh, sure, whatever."

Cedric walked beside her in silence for a minute or two, wondering what on earth he had intended to say. Bella would not look at him, for which he was grateful.

At length he blurted out, "Bella, listen - I'm frightfully sorry about what happened between you and Edwin Cullen - "

"Edward," said Bella automatically.

Cedric felt himself flush with chagrin. At least I could have gotten the wretched name right! "Sorry, Edward," he ground out. "I know it's no business of mine, but - well, I know what it's like to - to lose somebody I cared for - " (Honestly, that made it sound like somebody died!) " - and I wondered if perhaps we could be friends? Just friends of course - I, er, haven't really got friends here yet." Merlin, I sound like such a sap. He cringed and looked at Bella.

"No," she said, her voice suddenly cold and abrupt. "I don't think that would be a good idea, at least not right now."

"Right," said Cedric, a little shocked at her tone. "Sorry about barging in like that." He began to hurry on ahead, but a frantic "Wait!" from Bella stopped him.

He turned and looked cautiously back at her. She had stopped too, and was standing with her arms wrapped around herself as if to hold herself together. She looked small and lost and lonely, and her eyes seemed to beseech him - don't go, don't leave me!

Confused, Cedric walked back to her. When he reached her, he took her gently by the arm. "Come on," he said gently. "You can't stand out here in the cold and wet."

She nodded, but did not move.

Cedric stifled a sigh, and adjusted his hold in Bella's arm. Then he began to walk back toward the cafeteria, pulling her along beside him.

Chapter 6

Read Chapter 6

Cedric tugged Bella into the cafeteria, and did not let go of her until they had reached the tall stacks of trays. It was only when he had let go that he saw a few of the others staring curiously (or in a few cases, nearly all of them boys, glaring balefully). He turned his attention back to his tray and filled it with food (how he missed the meals at Hogwarts and at Daeron's house!), noticing with pleasure that Bella was doing the same of her own accord. Then he looked around for Jessica, and saw her seated at a table with half a dozen others, Lauren Mallory among them. Oh, bollocks.

Knowing that Jessica might very well take offense if he did not eat with her, he shuffled dutifully over to the table where she was sitting. She looked around and was him approach.

"Oh, hi Cedric!" she said, waving.

"Hullo, Jess," returned Cedric, coming up to the table and sitting down next to her. He thought he saw Lauren make a face briefly, but Jessica took no notice.

"Guys, this is Cedric Montgomery," she said. "Cedric, meet Eric Yorkie, Mike Newton, Ben Cheney, Angela Weber, and Lauren Mallory."

"I've met Eric and Lauren already," said Cedric. "Nice to meet you, Ben, Mike, Angela."

"Hey, look who decided to grace us with her presence!" said Lauren rolling her eyes. Bella Swan was now coming up to the table. Jessica raised her eyebrows. "Wonder what brought this on," she muttered. "She's been eating by herself the past few months."

"She didn't have to stop now," said Lauren.

"Shh, Lauren!" hissed Cedric. "She might hear you!"

"Hey, guys," said Bella a little nervously as she came up to the table. She was smiling politely but tentatively, as if unsure how she would be received.

Sure enough, most of them stopped talking and eating and looked at her. For the first time, a flush rose in her snow-white cheeks, and her smile quickly started looking fixed and unnatural.

Angela Weber, a tall slender girl with dark hair and a kind smile, came to the rescue. "Welcome back, Bella," she said. "Have a seat."

Bella sat down - next to Angela. It was actually the only empty chair left at the table, but Cedric imagined that Bella would have taken no other seat.

There was an awkward pause.

"Awk-ward," said Cedric into the silence in an attempt to make someone giggle. No one did.

Forget lunch, thought Cedric. "Honestly, why so quiet?" he asked. "Is this a Quaker meeting?"

Most everybody at the table frowned and said, "Huh?" or "Is it a what?"

Cedric sighed. "I thought it was an American joke," he said lamely. He had first heard it from Averman.

"It is an American joke," said Mike Newton grudgingly, and that seemed to start the flow of conversation again, for of course the others had to know where the expression had originated, and that turned into a rather uninformed conversation about Quakers. After that it moved into more modern topics. Mike, Jessica, Eric, and Lauren did most of the talking; Angela and Ben and Bella said very little, except to interject once or twice. In fact, Bella said nothing at all, and seemed to be trying to make herself invisible. Cedric remembered from Jessica's stories that Bella hated attention.

He got the idea that Mike Newton rather liked Bella, and didn't appreciate the way Bella had returned to normalcy only when he, Cedric, had appeared. There also seemed to be something unresolved between Mike and Jessica; Cedric guessed they must have dated and broken up in the past. They didn't talk to each other directly if they could help it.

Ben and Angela were clearly an item, and had been for at least a year, to judge by Jessica's comments. Lauren was (now at least) the most popular girl in school, and rather a nasty clique-brat. She reminded him of Pansy Parkinson. He thought of Cho with a sudden pang of homesickness; she was popular in Ravenclaw, but she wasn't mean like Lauren.

Eventually it came time to go. As they all got up and started dumping trays, Jessica snagged Cedric. "What kind of voodoo did you do on Bella?" she hissed. "She hasn't been this energetic for months!"

That was energetic?! "I dunno," he said. "One minute she looked at me like I was a ghost and the next minute she couldn't let me leave."

Jessica looked at him doubtfully, but all she said was, "Well, good luck with your next class. What have you got?"

Cedric smiled ruefully. "Calculus, I'm afraid."

"Ugh," said Jessica, grimacing. "You don't want to be late for that, Mr. Varner will bite your head off."

"Well, I like my head where it is," said Cedric. "So I'll see you when you get out of your last period."

"Okay. Bye then," said Jessica, and Cedric dragged out his trusty map once again and set off for his last class.

Calculus was the subject that, of all his school subjects, he wasn't sure he would be all right in. He had been frankly terrified when he had first cracked open a Calculus textbook, and only the knowledge that he would be studying it in this new school made him even look at the book again. Now he was going to a real class to study it, and at the moment he rather hated Muggles for inventing it.

Mr. Varner, the Calculus teacher, made Cedric introduce himself in front of everyone else. Cedric merely stated his assumed name, his age, and his hometown before taking his signed slip from the teacher and marching off to an empty seat about the middle of the room.

Calculus was even harder than Chemistry. At least with Arithmancy, the closest equivalent in the wizarding world, you knew that you were using numbers and complex equations to predict the future. Calculus just seemed to be formulated so as to give you a headache. And of course, he could not use magic to compute the numbers that were actually numbers (and not symbols like x and y and i); his only help was a calculator and his own pencil (no quills).

His brain was in a muddle from trying to make sense of it all by the time the bell rang. Relieved, he shoved his books back into his bag and was in the process of dragging out his schedule and map when Eric Yorkie approached his desk.

"Hey Cedric!" he said. "Do you need any help finding anything?"

"Hullo again, Eric," said Cedric. "Actually, this is my last class, as I've already fulfilled my foreign language requirements, so to answer your question, no. Thanks for the offer, though."

He spent the next hour in the cafeteria studying, as there was nothing else to do until Jessica was finished with her last class. He checked the time on his cell phone, courtesy of Adam Banks, every now and then. When the hour was about up, he gathered his books for the last time that day and stuffed them into his bag. Then he went out to Jessica's car to wait.

In a few minutes she came hurrying up, and climbed into the driver's seat. "So how'd it go?" she asked as she started the car.

"It was all right," sad Cedric. "Nothing to complain of."

Jessica began backing the car out of the space. The student lot was very small and hard to get out of, and Cedric did not relish the idea of driving in and out of it on a regular basis. He debated asking Jessica to do the driving, but he did not want to lose his hard-earned driving skills, and so he made up his mind to do the driving himself.

Jessica drove him back to the office, and Cedric got out and returned his slip to the woman with red hair. "So how was your first day, honey?" she asked, much like Jessica.

"First day was all right," said Cedric, truthfully enough, with the exception of playing tennis in Gym. He walked back out to Jessica's car and climbed in.

"I can drive home from here, if you like," he said to Jessica.

"Fine with me," said Jessica, and the two promptly switched seats. Cedric drove carefully; he was still rather nervous behind the wheel. But he got them home without incident.

Mrs. Stanley was finishing dinner as they came in: that is to say, she had baked some potatoes and a cookie sheet full of rather overdone fish fillets, and prepared a bowl of very vinegary greens. When Jessica saw it, she said, "Did you bake tilapia again, Mom?"

"I certainly did," said her mother.

"It looks delicious, Mrs. Stanley," said Cedric; and it did, if only the fish did not look quite so dried out.

"Oh, I get it," said Jessica. "You're cooking to impress Cedric."

"Maybe," said Mrs. Stanley. "You're still going to eat it."

Jessica groaned.

But when Mr. Stanley had come home and it was time for dinner, everyone ate heartily, and there was really not much to complain about. Cedric only remembered to thank Mrs. Stanley for the meal after it was over and he was about to leave the kitchen to finish his homework.

"Why, you're quite welcome!" said she, smiling at him.

Cedric hauled his backpack up to his room, and the first thing he did was to pull his wand out of his backpack and put it away. Then he went over to the computer and checked his e-mail, as he had been taught by Ken Wu. In his inbox were three unread messages. The first was from Connie's e-mail address, and it had been sent the day before, in the morning. She wrote:

Hi Cedric! Check your e-mail soon, you dinosaur :) How's Muggle life?

The second e-mail was from Adam, and it had been sent about eight hours after Connie's. All it said was:

E-mail me back when you get in.

The third e-mail was from Elrond, and it had been sent just a few hours ago.

Hello Cedric!

I've been remiss in not messaging you earlier. Have you enjoyed being a Muggle so far? How do you find your studies? Have you made any friends?

Elrond

PS. Charlie is reading over my shoulder, and he wants to know if there are pretty girls there.

Cedric chuckled and began typing replies. The first and shortest one was to Adam.

Sergeant Banks,

Have arrived safely. Sorry for not messaging you sooner.

Lieutenant Diggory

The second reply was to Connie.

Velvet Hammer,

Is this soon enough for you? I am not either a dinosaur! I have a cell phone and an e-mail account, thank you very much! Muggle life is all right, considering. I think I must be doing all right pretending to be one, as no one's been looking at me funny.

Ced

Last of all came Elrond's.

To Elrond Earendilion, called the Half-Elven, Herald of Gil-Galad, Master of Rivendell, Wielder of Vilya, etc.

Howdy! I actually hadn't checked my e-mail before now, so it's not like I was waiting for your e-mail. Muggle life hasn't been too awful, all things considered. My classes are pretty hard, but I think I can muddle through them with a passing grade. I've made a few friends, but mostly everyone here stares a lot.

That reminds me! I forgot to tell Connie this, she'll probably whip my tail - apparently I look a lot like some cake-eater that used to live here up until a few months ago. A few people even mistook me for him. Isn't that weird? He belonged to a family that I've never heard of before, but I wonder if they might possibly have been wizards. Their name's Cullen.

Hiya, Charl! Yes, there are plenty of girls here. At least one is already interested in me, I think. But she's not really my type - I don't care for snobs.

Your humble servant,

Cedric of the Badger Patronus

He spent the rest of the evening struggling through his homework, and went to bed with the certainty that the next five months would fall into a routine very quickly.

Chapter 7

Read Chapter 7

That night he dreamed of Bella.

She lay in an open casket, a ray of sunlight illuminating her still white face and making it look even whiter. At the foot of the casket stood a tall figure wrapped in shadow. Only a pair of golden eyes blazed visibly from the darkness. The eyes were fixed on Bella's face.

As Cedric watched, a tear formed in one of the eyes and fell out of sight, presumably rolling down the cheek of the shadowed face. Then another tear appeared the other eye and also fell out of sight.

"I hope this was what you wanted, leech," said a male voice from the other side of the casket, and a hugely tall figure came into the light. He was broad-shouldered and uncommonly muscular, and his copper-colored skin gleamed in the sunbeam that lit Bella's lifeless face. He was handsome, with rock-hard dark eyes and cropped dark hair.

"You didn't want her anymore, so she just faded away and died," he went on. "Is that what you wanted?"

The dream shifted, and now Bella lay comfortably nestled into the bower of a tree, on a bed of soft grass.

A third tall figure approached her. He wore a dark cloak, such as wizards were seen in. He was shorter than the other two. He held a wand in his left hand. His back was turned so that Cedric would only see the wizard's cloak, brown boots, and dark brown hair. He walked right up to her, and took one of her hands in his.

Instantly, Bella's white face flushed with color, and her eyes opened. She smiled brilliantly as she sat up. "Cedric," she said softly. "I've been waiting for you."

Cedric started awake, the dream vivid in his mind. That wizard he had seen holding Bella's hand - it had been himself. He hesitated a moment, and then groped for the lamp on his nightstand. He found it and turned it on. Then he pulled from his nightstand drawer an inkpen and a notebook which he had ended up not needing for school. He opened it and began to scribble his dream down on the first page.

Once he was finished recording the dream, he stared for a few minutes at what he had written. Then with a sigh, he put the notebook back into the drawer and turned off the lamp. It had been one of those dreams that seem prophetic or meaningful in some way when you are awake, and he did not know what to make of it.

Of course it could mean nothing at all. Cedric rather hoped it did because honestly, what could it mean? That he was himself supposed to "bring Bella to life" or something ridiculous like that? He hoped not.

I'll think about it more in the morning, he told himself, and with a significant effort he put the dream from his mind and went back to sleep.

He overslept a little that morning, so that when he did wake up he had to rush through getting ready for school. He only washed his face and did not bother with a shower, as first period was Gym and he would have to shower after that anyway. Still, he only just barely made it downstairs to eat before it was time to leave for school.

"What took you so long?" asked Jessica as they walked out to her car together.

"I slept a bit too long, I think," said Cedric. "That's weird, I don't normally miss my alarm."

"New time zone?" suggested Jessica.

"Well, I've been in the region for a while," said Cedric truthfully enough. "It really shouldn't still be like this."

Of course then Jessica wanted to know how long he had been in the States, and why he had made the move, and what his plans were after high school. She grilled him about it for almost the entire drive to school. Cedric did his best to be vague without sounding evasive, but he was fairly sure that in the latter effort he was not particularly successful. He had never been subtle; subtlety was something that Ravenclaws and Slytherins were generally known for.

The drizzle form yesterday had cleared, but the sky was still overcast and the sun hidden. The roads were still slick and wet, which prompted Cedric to drive no faster than thirty-five miles an hour. This amused Jessica to no end when she finally gave up asking awkward questions. "And I thought all boys drove fast!" she said as he pulled carefully into a narrow space in the small student parking lot.

"I'm sure I'm sorry to be such a disappointment," said Cedric cheekily, mainly so that Jessica wouldn't think he was trying to be caustic.

Gym that day was only slightly better than yesterday. Coach Clapp was continuing the tennis games from the day before, and Cedric still wasn't used to a sport where you kept both feet on the ground in addition to swinging a racket. A few of his classmates openly snickered at him, and he gritted his teeth.

"Come on, cut the crap," snapped Coach Clapp. "Let's play tennis, people."

Cedric was relieved when the ordeal was over.

Chemistry was even worse. He was tired and his mind wandered, and when he did focus on the lecture he could barely follow it. He tried to take notes, but even the notes made no sense to him. He wondered gloomily if all his subjects were going to be like this, and if he was going to make a passing grade on any of them.

On the upside, Lauren Mallory did not attempt to talk to him again after class. She seemed a bit resentful, and Cedric wondered if it had anything to do with the way he had acted around Bella the day before.

The walk to English woke him up a little, and he was in much better spirits by the time he entered the building and sat down. He was not even dampened much by the doom and gloom of 1984. What did get to him was the was people kept turning their heads to stare at him for no apparent reason other than to study him - probably has something to do with Edward Cullen, he reasoned, but the thought did not comfort him.

On the way out of school, he found himself accosted by yet another girl (what was it with all the girls here?) with sandy hair. She introduced herself as Whitney Haranhan and asked him how he liked Forks. He said, truthfully enough, that he hadn't seen much of it, but so far he liked it. Whitney, unlike Lauren and June, actually didn't seem to have much to say to him, and after a few rather random comments she said she had to get to her next class, and cleared off.

Civics was next for Cedric, of course, and Civics was the class where he had to sit next to Bella Swan. After her odd, inconsistent behavior yesterday (not to mention his dream, which he tried without success to forget entirely) he was not sure he relished that idea. He paused for a moment at the door of the Civics building, then steeled himself to go in.

The first thing he saw was that Bella had not yet arrived. He hung up his jacket on the row of hooks which was inside every building in the school, and hurried to his desk. He was in the midst of pulling out his notebook and a couple of sharpened pencils when he saw her come in out of the corner of his eye. She looked paler than usual, and weary, as if she had not slept much the night before.

Her shadowed eyes swept the room as she advanced, and in a few seconds caught sight of him. She halted momentarily, as if she had hoped she would not see him there, before walking slowly up to the desk. He dropped his eyes as she approached, and only looked up again when she sat down beside him.

"Hullo, Bella," he said cautiously.

Bella stared at him without speaking.

Cedric felt himself flush slightly. "Are you going to speak to me?"

She blinked, as if such a concept were foreign to her. "Maybe," she said.

Now is not the time to act cross. Now is the time to act sympathetic, Cedric reminded himself. "Is there any way I can help?"

"Help with what?"

"Well - " Cedric remembered just in time that he had intended to say something very much along the lines of what he had said yesterday, and he had been rebuffed yesterday. "I meant, you know, homework and stuff - "

Bella's eyebrows raised, and for once she did not look sad or broken. "You're offering to help me with my homework?" she asked quizzically.

"Er, sure," said Cedric, flushing in earnest by now, as he was fully aware of how hopelessly stupid he sounded. "You know, homework and studying."

Her lips twitched - is that a smile? "Homework and studying. Right."

"Calculus is hard, Bella," said Cedric with what he hoped was a convincing pleading look. "And I know barely anything about American government."

Bella actually giggled. "You know you're a really bad liar, right?"

Cedric sighed. He'd always been a bad liar - why did he think he'd fooled her? "Well, I thought I'd try, you know."

She was still smiling a little. "How about a movie on Friday night?"

A movie. With all the more basic Muggle activities the Ducks and the Elves had covered with him - making calls on landlines and cell phones, using the internet, operating microwaves, driving cars, etc., - there hadn't really been time for leisurely things like computer games and YouTube videos - and movies. "Sounds good to me. What's in the theater?"

"Um," Bella seemed lost. "I actually don't really know. . ." She looked apologetic. "I haven't really been keeping up with - with things like that."

Not keeping up with current movies is rather hard to do even in a small town like this. She's really been out of it, hasn't she? "We could decide when we get there," he said. "By the way, is Jessica coming?"

"Jessica?" Her brow furrowed in confusion, then cleared as she suddenly remembered. "That's right," she said. "You're living with the Stanleys, I forgot. She's going to kill me if she finds out I invited you and left her out."

Cedric was about to ask Bella what was going on between herself and Jessica, but Mr. Jefferson was just starting his lecture, so he shut up. During class, he looked on occasion at Bella, and saw that she looked in general much more like a living human girl and much less like a china doll than she had before.

Damn me and my dreams.

When the bell rang, he turned back to Bella. "Can I walk to lunch with you again?"

She gazed solemnly at him. "On one condition."

"Which is?"

"I pick the table. Period."

"Oh, right." Cedric remembered the fiasco of yesterday. "Fine by me."

Once again, Cedric felt the eyes of the other students on him as he walked with Bella to the cafeteria. If Bella, who was reportedly over-sensitive when it came to attention, felt them too, she said nothing about it. When they went into the cafeteria, though, the staring became impossible to ignore. So did the talking.

"What? No way!"

"Pay up, suckers!"

"Aw, man! First new cute boy in town since the Cullens left and he has to get snagged by Bella Swan!"

"Told you she'd hook up with him. He's Edward freaking Cullen's look-alike!"

"How long do you think it'll take them to start making out?"

"Oh gosh," said Cedric to Bella. "They think we're an item."

Bella was flushing bright scarlet, quite the contrast to her usual pallor. She seemed to be trying to hide behind Cedric's jacket. "I don't care where we sit, just as long as we're alone," she groaned.

"That'll really make it look like we're seeing each other," said Cedric, but he was not particularly inclined to sit with anyone else at the moment. After moving through the line (which was bad enough with all the stares and snickers given him and Bella by the other kids around them), he led the way to an empty table, and Bella followed him.

Bella and Cedric ate their meal mostly in silence, mostly relieved to be away from the questions and teasing they would have certainly had to deal with if they'd sat with anyone else. It was only when Cedric had finished his meal - for, predictably, he ate more quickly than Bella - that he said, "Bella, is there something going on with you and Jessica?"

"Why?" asked Bella suspiciously.

"Because she gets rather huffy whenever she mentions you."

"Oh no," groaned Bella. "She's been talking about me?"

Cedric rather tardily perceived his mistake. "A bit. But she talks a lot, and not about just you."

Bella heaved an angry sigh. "I just haven't been particularly social lately. She was offended. That's really all it is."

"Oh. I see." Cedric left it at that. He at least knew not to ask why she had not been social of late.

They soon parted ways for their next classes, Calculus for Cedric and Chemistry for Bella. Jessica did not bother to catch up with him on his way out, and he was pretty sure he could guess why.

Calculus was more bearable than he had expected, certainly more so than Chemistry had been that morning. He managed to remain focused for most of the lesson. Mr. Varner was starting to remind him a bit of Professor Lockhart from his second year at Hogwarts, what with his self-assured "I am undoubtedly the best teacher in my field that you can find and you're very lucky to have me" attitude. It was rather off-putting.

After that, he scribbled dutifully away at Civics homework until Jessica's last class let out, and then he drove her back to the house.

Chapter 8

Read Chapter 8

That evening, Cedric mentioned to Jessica that Bella had invited her along for a movie on Friday.

 

“She invited me?” Jessica seemed rather more surprised than was necessary.

 

“Yes, she did,” said Cedric. “It’s totally up to you if you want to come.”

 

Jessica pursed her lips, but she said, “What movie are we watching?”

 

“Think that’s up to you too,” said Cedric honestly. “I don’t really know what’s in the theater, and Bella doesn’t really either.”

 

“So she invited you to a movie that she hasn’t decided on?” asked Jessica quizzically.

 

“That about sums it up,” said Cedric.

 

Jessica shook her head. “Bella Swan just gets weirder and weirder,” she said, but the remark held rather more humor and less resentment than before.

 

The next day, Friday, passed without event. When Cedric walked into Civics, Bella was already sitting at the desk they shared. When she saw him, she actually smiled a little - guiltily, as if someone had forbidden her to speak to him and she was doing it anyway.

 

“Hullo,” he said tentatively as he sat down next to her.

 

“Hey,” said Bella just as cautiously. “I, uh, talked to Jessica in Calculus this morning, and she says she’s coming to see the movie with us this evening.”

 

“Did she?” said Cedric. “I thought she might. Is she choosing the movie?”

 

“I guess,” said Bella. “Since I don’t know what’s playing anymore than you do.” Her lip curled in irony.

 

“We’ll come pick you up this evening, then,” said Cedric. “By the way, have you got any plans this weekend?”

 

Bella blushed, paled, and blushed again. “Are you - ” she seemed to choke a little on the question. “Asking me out?”

 

Cedric started violently, blushing himself. “No!” he squeaked, and cringed at the sound of his voice. “I mean no!” he reiterated in a rumble like the sound of an oncoming train. “Er, no, Bella,” he said in what he hoped was his normal voice; and then he recognized his mistake. “Not that you aren’t pretty or anything!” he said in a great hurry. “But I wasn’t asking you out. I mean, I know you were very close to Edward Cullen and - ”

 

But this was apparently forbidden ground, for she went rigid in her seat and all the color drained from her previously flushed face.

 

“Bella!” hissed Cedric. “Bella! Are you all right?”

 

Her eyes were wide open and vacant, and what with her sudden unnatural stillness and her extreme pallor she looked like a corpse.

 

“Bella, pull it together!” said Cedric catching her by the shoulders and giving her a shake. She gave a little gasp and blinked hard. Cedric let go of her immediately, and watched as she seemed to come back to herself.

 

“Don’t do that again,” she panted.

 

“Sorry,” said Cedric penitently. “I know I’ve no right to lay hands on you like that - ”

 

“Not that,” said Bella rubbing her forehead. “Don’t say his name to me. Just don’t.”

 

Mr. Jefferson began the lecture then, effectively ending the conversation. Bella seemed to recover herself, and every now and again glanced Cedric’s way. Cedric tried not to meet her eyes; he was a bit dazed at all the drama that already come up.

 

After class let out, Cedric offered once again to walk with Bella to lunch, and Bella said he could do whatever he wanted. Cedric tried not to take offense, for it was obvious that she didn’t quite mean it; but he walked by himself anyway.

 

He joined Jessica and her friends at their table, and very soon he wished that he hadn’t; for Jessica and Eric and Lauren all wanted to know if he was trying to date Bella. He denied it earnestly; nobody believed him. Mike seemed rather cross with all this talk of Cedric liking Bella, and said nothing. Cedric now felt sure that Mike liked Bella, and had been refused by her in the past.

 

Cedric’s remaining class, Calculus, passed slowly and painfully; then he sat and tackled his assignments for an hour while Jessica had her last class.

 

“So when should we go get Bella?” asked Jessica during the ride home.

 

“How about an early showing and then some dinner later?” Cedric proposed.

 

“Sounds good to me,” said Jessica.

 

So they went home, told Mrs. Stanley that they were going up to Port Angeles (which was an hour’s drive away) for a movie, and went almost directly back out to drive to Bella’s house. Jessica drove this time; she said she knew her way.

 

She seemed excited about the trip, and chatted merrily about some of the movies that had just been released. She seemed most in favor of an action movie called A Night at the Museum, and Cedric decided it sounded interesting too. A Muggle museum full of exhibits that came to life during the night! That he had to see.

 

The Swan house was small and only one story high; the only thing parked in front of it was Bella’s old rusty red truck. Jessica honked when they pulled up to it, and after about five minutes Bella came out, her purse swinging on her arm. She walked up to the car and climbed into the back seat.

 

“Hi, guys,” she said as she fastened her safety belt. “Did you guys decide on a movie yet?”

 

“I was thinking maybe A Night at the Museum?” Jessica suggested.

 

“That’s fine by me,” said Bella, and Cedric said, “I’m down for whatever, really.”

 

Jessica, predictably, carried the conversation for the duration of the ride to the city. She talked as much to Bella as to Cedric, and if Bella’s antisocial behavior of the previous months still rankled, Jessica said nothing about it.

 

The movie theater was unlike anything Cedric had seen before in his life. After paying for the tickets, Jessica led the way into a very large, somewhat dark room with row upon row of chairs all facing in roughly the same direction. At the end of the large room facing the chairs was an enormous blank screen.

 

Cedric followed Jessica and Bella, who obviously knew what they were doing, and plopped down beside them when they chose their seats. He noticed as he did so that a number of the other people choosing their seats held bags of popcorn (a few were already eating it), the sight of which made him hungry. Evidently people ate while watching movies.

 

“I say,” said Cedric to the two girls. “Are either of you hungry?”

 

“Sure,” said Jessica. “You want popcorn, Bella?”

 

“I’m fine,” said Bella.

 

“Okay, I’ll be back,” said Jessica, and she left the theater and went back out to the room where they’d bought the tickets. In a minute or two she had returned with a large bag of popcorn and three tall cups with straws in them.

 

“It was a special,” she said. “Buy three large drinks and get a free order of popcorn. Hope you guys like Pepsi, because that’s what I got.”

 

“Pepsi’s fine,” said Cedric, who had in the past week taken a liking to soda.

 

Bella just shrugged and accepted one of the cups without comment.

 

The previews in the beginning were a bit of a shock. After the first one was finished Cedric thought the whole movie was over, and began to get up only to be yanked down again by Jessica who hissed, “Where are you going? It hasn’t even started yet!” And Cedric sat down again feeling rather glum. Thanks for nothing, Ducks, he thought darkly, for no one had warned him about the previews.

 

Then at last the movie finally seemed to be starting; or so Cedric guessed, because it took so long to introduce. It was exciting and funny, and Cedric rather enjoyed it. The story, as best he could tell, was all about a man who took a job as a night security guard at a museum where all the exhibits came alive at sunset, which seemed to be the doing of a magical stone from Egypt. He wondered why wizards hadn’t yet found a way to to replicate this - if Muggles could do it with what Jessica called “fancy editing and greenscreen,” why couldn’t wizards use magical means to do nearly the same thing?

 

The movie itself ran for about an hour and a half, not counting the end credits, and as soon as they started most everyone stood up to go, including Jessica and Bella. Cedric followed their lead, and together they filed out to where Jessica had parked the car. It was about half past seven at this point, and Cedric found that even after numerous handfuls of popcorn he was quite hungry.

 

“Where are we going to eat?” he asked.

 

“Oh, I’m down for anywhere,” said Jessica. “How about you, Bella?”

 

Bella’s answer was a little wide of the mark. “There’s a McDonald’s down the street,” she said, pointing to where a big lighted yellow “M” was visible from the parking lot.

 

“McDonald’s it is, then!” said Cedric.

 

So they drove into the lot and ordered their food at the drive-thru. Cedric found it rather odd, and rather uncanny, to talk to a big black screen which talked back in a muffled human voice and blinked their orders in red letters; he had never ordered fast food before. They paid at the first window and were handed their food in paper bags at the second; then as they started to eat, Jessica pulled out of the lot and began the long drive home.

 

Cedric wondered how anyone could eat and drive and talk at the same time, as Jessica was doing. He wondered if he should have offered to drive, but it was too late for that now. And anyhow, Jessica seemed to take pleasure in multi-tasking. Bella, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to quite manage eating her meal while doing nothing else. Cedric looked back at her every now and again, and the second time he looked he saw that she had dropped her sandwich all over the front of her sweater, and was trying to wipe herself free of mayonnaise.

 

It was a quarter to nine o’clock when Jessica pulled up to the Swan house. A white police cruiser with its red and blue lights on top now sat next to the big red truck, and Jessica merely pulled up to the curb for Bella to get out.

 

“Thanks for the ride, Jess,” said Bella, and left the car. Jessica stared after her as she left.

 

“Well, that was interesting,” she said.

 

“What was interesting?” asked Cedric.

 

“Bella. She’s not rude, but she never goes out of her way to talk to people. At least not recently.”

 

Bella had by now reached the front door. She opened it and went inside, and Jessica at once drove away from the house.

 

- -

 

Elrond sat in front of his desktop. Celebrian stood behind him, reading Cedric’s e-mail over her husband’s shoulder.

 

“Carlisle is gone?” said she.

 

“So it would seem,” said Elrond. “What do you make of it?”

 

“I do not know what to make of it,” said the silver-haired elleth. “His coven is not nomadic; it was my belief that he had only returned to the area two years ago.”

 

“He did,” said Elrond. “That is why I do not like this. He would not leave so soon unless there was an urgent reason to - perhaps Jasper gave in to his thirst for human blood?”

 

Celebrian shook her head. “There would be news of an unexplained disappearance if he had. All the same, I think it is time to visit La Push at least, and see for ourselves what is happening. Perhaps we might even pay Cedric a visit.”

 

“Certainly,” said Elrond. “And it has been thirty years since last I saw Billy Black; I am rather overdue, certainly since Sarah died. Rachel and Rebecca must be out of college by now, and Jacob I have never met in person. Yes, it is long past time for me to see him.”

Chapter 9

Hey, what do you know, it's me again! I'll be posting this and the next two chapters at the same time.

Disclaimer: Need I even say it? I own nothing, of course.

Read Chapter 9

It was Saturday.

Bella Swan was driving aimlessly after work, unwilling to go home just yet. She was not paying much attention to where she was going - empty side roads, mostly. She only knew that she was avoiding the empty house that her father called home.

On that fateful day she had first met Cedric in Civics - the strange English boy who looked so like and yet so unlike him - she had been initially overwhelmed with the crushing pain that inevitably returned whenever she thought of him, or any of the Cullens (with the possible exception of Rosalie). But the pain had brought her out of the shell of numbness that she had built for herself, and made her aware of her surroundings, from which she had withdrawn entirely.

"It will be as if I'd never existed." Ha! Had he truly thought so - he whom she dared not name, even now? A bubble of harsh, strange laughter left her lips, even as the pain returned to drown her again. She braked, hard, and pulled the gear stick to P, knowing she had no business driving in such a state, and returned to her dark musings.

Would she ever heal from having known and lost him? Would she ever come to the point where she could remember him without ripping herself to pieces all over again? Or would she even more fortunate, and perhaps lose all memory of him eventually?

Who am I kidding? She asked herself darkly. How could he possibly keep a promise like that? How could it ever be for me as if he never existed? That promise was broken the moment he made it, in fact before he ever made it.

How then? Was there any point in keeping her promise to him, as his promise to her was already broken? Was there any reason not to be reckless or stupid if that was what she wanted?

She laughed again, struck by the folly of it. This was Forks. How on earth could one be reckless in a place like this? Now if she were back in Phoenix, on the other hand - well! But she was not in the city, she was in a tiny town of which her own father was the chief of police. How could one accomplish recklessness under those circumstances?

She took a look around to make sure she wasn't near the home of anyone who knew her and might see her there - and of course she found that she was sitting directly in front of the Marks home, where lived one of her own classmates' family. Luck was against her once again.

Or was it?

For in the front yard of the Marks house was a big cardboard sign that read FOR SALE, AS IS, and next to it were two rusting motorcycles that looked as if they were both on their last legs. Motorcycles! Now there was a way to be reckless, even here. Charlie had been called in on far too many fatal motorcycle accidents to consider them as anything other than reckless and stupid. He had made her promise, when she was ten years old, that she would never, ever, ever accept a ride on a motorcycle.

Recklessness and stupidity and motorcycles all in one go - it was a sign. Bella cut the noisy engine, climbed out of the truck, marched up to the Markses' front door, and knocked. It was answered by one of the two boys - Casey, if she remembered his name correctly.

"Bella Swan?" he asked in surprise.

"How much d'you want for the bikes?" she asked, going straight to the point.

"Are you serious?" he asked incredulously.

"Sure I am."

"But they don't work."

This she had already inferred, from the sign. "How much do you want for those bikes?" she repeated.

"Well, if you really want one, just take it. My mom made my dad move them down to the side of the road so they'd get picked up with the garbage."

Bella glanced over her shoulder at the bikes. "Okay," she said. "Can you help me get one in my truck?"

"Might as well take them both," said Casey Marks. "Maybe you could scavenge some parts from one of them."

And true to his word he immediately helped her lift both the heavy motorcycles into the bed of her old truck. He seemed eager to be rid of them, and she asked no questions.

"What are you going to do with them anyway?" he asked curiously. "They haven't worked for years now."

Erm . . .

"Maybe I'll take them down to Dowling's," said Bella, naming the local auto shop.

Casey raised his eyebrows. "Dowling would charge more to fix them than they'd be worth running," he remarked. This was, in fact, true. John Dowling had earned such a reputation for his pricing that most people with car problems would attempt the drive to Port Angeles. Bella had been very fortunate in that regard - her truck was nearly fifty years old, but she hadn't had a problem with it in the year that she had had it. Jacob Black, the son of her father's old friend Billy, had kept it in excellent condition while he had owned it. . .

Aha!

"Don't give it a thought," said Bella with considerable relief. "I know someone who builds cars."

"Oh. Okay then," said he, looking much relieved himself. Bella could not help smiling as she climbed back up into the driver's seat of the truck. What a nice boy.

She lost no time in dialing up the police station, and when the deputy answered the phone, she asked for Chief Swan. "Tell him it's Bella," she added.

"Oh, hi, Bella," said the deputy. "I'll go get him."

"What's wrong, Bella?" asked Charlie as soon as he picked up.

"Can't I call you at work without there being an emergency?" asked Bella.

There was a moment of silence before he said, "You never have before. Is there an emergency?"

"No, I just wanted directions to the Blacks' place - I'm not sure I quite remember the way - and I'd like to see Jacob."

When her father spoke again he sounded much happier. "That's a great idea, Bells. You have a pen handy?" And he proceeded to give her a good simple set of directions.

She had to talk him out of coming down to La Push (that was the name of the reservation where the Blacks lived), and she hoped she could get Jacob alone for a bit, so as to keep the motorcycles a secret. She sped off in the direction of the house. It was vaguely familiar to her when she arrived, small and wooden and painted red.

She saw Jacob look out of one of the narrow windows as she pulled up - no doubt he recognized the loud engine - and he came bounding out of the house with a wide grin on his face to meet her. "Hi, Bella!" he boomed, and Bella couldn't help pulling up short with surprise.

He was much taller than she remembered him being on that day she'd gone down to the beach with Mike and Jessica and the rest the year before. His long dark hair was loose about his not-yet-broad shoulders, and his face had lost all hints of childhood. His eyes were sparkling with excitement.

"Hi Jacob!" she said, and for the first time in what felt like ages she felt her face relax effortlessly into a real smile, a wide, lighthearted smile. And this was the lesser surprise - what really took her off guard was that she was honestly happy to see him.

"You've grown!" she couldn't help adding, tipping her head up to look at him.

Jacob laughed. "Six five," he said proudly.

Bella whistled. "Is it ever going to stop? You're huge."

"Still a beanpole, though," said Jacob with a grimace. "Well come on in, if you don't mind meeting a couple of my dad's friends."

"No, I don't mind," said Bella, and she followed him into the house, watching in amusement as he ducked his head to get in the front door. "Hey Dad, look who stopped by!" he said.

And Bella Swan got a severe shock.

In the tiny living room Billy Black sat in his customary wheelchair, talking to two other people who seemed to have just arrived - a man and a woman - and all three turned to greet Bella as she came in.

It was the sight of the two strangers that had pulled Bella up short - at least "man" and "woman" were the closest that Bella could come to describing them. To her trained eyes it seemed impossible that they were human, and yet she did not think they were vampires either. They were taller even than Jacob, lithe and long-limbed, and their loveliness, while far beyond what was possible for a human, was totally unlike vampire beauty. Their faces were unwrinkled and without blemish, but their eyes were deep and profound, full of memory and wisdom.

The woman's hair was an unusual but beautiful shade of bright silver, rather like raindrops in moonlight, and her eyes were a bright sparkling blue. The man had a thick bundle of very curly jet-black hair pulled over his shoulder, and clear grey eyes. To complete the enigma of their appearance, both were unassumingly dressed in blue jeans and comfortable sweaters.

"Well, what do you know!" Billy wheeled himself over to her. "It's good to see you, Bella!" He shook her hand.

"Hi," said Bella, feeling more than a little tongue-tied.

"Elrond, Celebrian, this is Bella Swan," said Billy to his other guests. "Bella, meet Elrond and Celebrian."

Jacob choked. "Dad! Seriously?!" he protested.

Bella blinked and did a quick double take. "Oh, right, yeah, Celebrian and Elrond," she said. She was something of a reader, and though she stuck mostly to classics, she had occasionally picked up more modern and popular works every now and then.

The grey and blue eyes twinkled mischievously. "It's wonderful to meet you too, Bella," said the silver-haired woman in a voice that was far too lovely to be human and entirely un-vampire-like. She held out a long, slender hand, and Bella shook it, noting that for all its model-esque beauty (and very human warmth) it was quite strong.

Bella glanced at Billy, who was trying not to smirk, and blurted out, "This is a joke, right?"

Billy winked. "Of course it is," he said. "These are my old friends Ethan and Carmen Stebbins."

Jacob tried without much success to stifle a sigh.

Bella suddenly wondered what it was all about. Billy had known for a while that she knew that they (she could not name them even in thought) were vampires, so he knew that she knew that vampires existed. He knew that they had left the area. Could it be possible that vampires were not the only legendary creatures who were not merely legendary after all?

Jacob was obviously embarrassed, and annoyed at his father, and Bella gathered that he at any rate still believed in nothing supernatural.

But first things first. She needed to do something about the two motorcycles sitting in her truck. "Jacob, can I, um, talk to you for a minute?" she asked.

"Uh, sure," said Jacob. He took her out to the back of the house, where there was a space of shrubs and trees that separated the house from the garage (It was really just two big sheds bolted together with the inside walls knocked out). "Shoot," he said.

"Well, it's just this," began Bella, looking up at him. "I don't know how much you know about motorcycles, and I just acquired two bikes that are not in the greatest condition. Could you - could you get them running again?"

"I could give it a try," said Jacob, and he began to look more excited. "Yeah, I could definitely go for it."

Bella held up her forefinger. "But the thing is, Charlie doesn't approve of motorcycles," she cautioned. "Honestly, he'd probably bust a vein in his forehead if he knew about this. So you can't tell Billy."

"Sure, I understand," said Jacob. "On the other hand, my dad's friends - the ones you just met - are pretty sharp, and I don't know how we'd keep this from them. I can try, though." A roguish grin was beginning to spread across his features, and his eyes had brightened again.

"I'd pay you, of course - " began Bella, but this seemed to rather offend Jacob. "No, no, I want to help. You can't pay me," he protested.

"How 'bout a trade, then?" asked Bella. "I only need one bike, and I'll need lessons too. So how about this - I'll give you the other bike, and then you can teach me."

"Sweet!" said Jacob, and his white teeth flashed once more in one of his frequent smiles. He really had a contagious, not to mention gorgeous, smile, Bella noticed.

"Wait a sec," she said suddenly, brought up hard by an unexpected difficulty. "Are you legal yet? When's your birthday?"

"You missed it," said Jacob rolling his eyes. "I'm sixteen."

It occurred to Bella that his age had probably never stopped him before, but all she said aloud was, "Sorry about your birthday," for she had missed it.

"Don't worry about it, I missed yours. What are you now, forty?"

Now Bella rolled her eyes. "Close."

"We'll have a joint party to make up for it," suggested Jacob.

"Sounds like a date."

Jacob's eyes sparkled, and Bella wondered what had gotten into her. Probably it had been such a long time since she had felt so carelessly happy that she was having a hard time reining herself in.

"So when'll you bring the bikes down?" asked Jacob.

"Well," Bella flushed a bit. "They're actually in the back of my truck now."

"Great!" said Jacob enthusiastically.

"Won't Billy or - his friends - see if we bring them around?"

Jacob gave her a conspiratorial wink (it might also have been a flirtatious wink, but I'm not going to confirm that). "We'll be sneaky," he said.

So they made their way along under the trees towards the front of the house. As they were walking, Bella asked, "Billy wasn't being serious, was he?"

"Huh?" said Jacob. "Oh, back at the house. Geez, Bella, I don't know. You know he believes the old tribal legends, or half believes them, but they don't have anything to do with all that fantasy stuff. I really don't know or want to know, seriously. Hang on, here we go."

It was now time to sneak the bikes from the bed of Bella's truck into the trees. Bella stayed behind the shrubbery, and Jacob swiftly got the bikes down onto the ground and one at a time wheeled them over to her. Once the bikes were safely undercover, they proceeded to wheel them back to the garage.

"These aren't half bad," said Jacob as they went. "This one here will actually be worth something when I'm done - it's an old Harley Sprint."

"That one's yours then," she told him.

"You sure?"

"Absolutely."

"They're gonna take some cash, though," said he, looking down at them. "We'll have to save up for parts first."

"We, nothing," Bella was firm. "If you're doing this for free, I'm paying for the parts."

Jacob looked uncertain. "I don't know. . ."

"I've got some money saved," she wheedled. "College fund, you know." And in her mind she justified this by thinking, "It's not as if I've saved up nearly enough to go anywhere special - and I'm not leaving Forks anytime soon anyway. What difference does it make if I skim a bit off the top?"

And Jacob nodded, much relieved.

Once they got the bikes back to the garage, Jacob said that the bikes wouldn't have to be hidden any further than storing them there. "It's not like Dad can ever get his chair out here," he said, and Bella's doubts were laid to rest.

Jacob began pulling the motorcycle that was to be Bella's (it was red like her truck) to bits at once. He opened a door of the car that he had been working on before Bella's arrival, and offered her a seat so she did not have to sit on the floor. He kept up a steady stream of conversation as he worked, needing only occasional prods from Bella to move things along. He told her all about his sophomore year of high school, and of the misadventures of his two best friends, Quil Atarea and Embry Call.

"Those are unusual names," Bella commented.

Jacob chuckled. "Quil's a hand-me-down and I think Embry got named after a soap opera star. Can't say anything though - they fight dirty if you start on their names - they'll tag team you."

"Great friends," said Bella raising her eyebrows.

"Nah, they're good guys - just don't mess with their names."

"Jacob?" somebody shouted in the distance, and Jacob shook his head. "Speak of the devil," he muttered, and he seemed to be blushing.

"Is that one of them?" asked Bella amused.

"Jake? Are you out here?" called the same voice from not quite as far off.

"Yeah, I'm here," said Jacob.

Not three minutes later two boys came into the garage. One of them was nearly Jacob's height and reed-thin, with chin-length hair that was parted straight down the middle. The other was thicker in build and not quite so tall, with a well-toned chest and arms. His hair was cropped very close.

Both of them stopped when they caught sight of Bella, and the shorter one grinned impishly at her.

"Hey guys," said Jacob rather warily.

"Hey Jake!" said the one with the grin, still looking at Bella. She found she couldn't help but smile back at him, and when she did he gave her a wink. "Hi, there!" he said cheerfully.

"Quil, Embry, this is my friend Bella," said Jacob.

The two boys exchanged a look full of meaning.

"Charlie's kid, right?" said the broad-shouldered one, and he shook Bella's hand. "I'm Quil Atarea," he said pompously.

"Nice to meet you, Quil," said Bella.

"And I'm Embry Call," said the taller boy. "But you probably figured that out already."

"So what are you guys doing?" Quil cut in, never taking his eyes from Bella.

"Bella and I are fixing up these bikes," said Jacob. The word "bikes" had a magical effect, and both Quil and Embry had to examine the project at once, plying Jacob with questions about this piece or that. They were still engrossed in this kind of talk when Bella suddenly remembered that after all she did have to feed her father. Regretfully, she got up out of the car.

"We're boring you, aren't we?" said Jacob.

"No," said Bella truthfully. "But I really do have to go make dinner for Charlie."

"Oh. . .well when do you want to work on them again?"

"Can I come tomorrow?"

Quil and Embry exchanged grins.

"That'd be great!" said Jacob in great delight.

"If you make a list, we can go shop for parts," Bella suggested.

Jacob grimaced a bit. "Still not sure I should let you pay for everything."

"No way!" cried Bella. "I'm bankrolling this party. You're providing the labor and expertise." When Jacob still looked doubtful, she added, "Look, Jake, if I took these bikes to a mechanic, how much would he charge me?"

"Okay, you're getting a deal," Jacob admitted.

"Not to mention the riding lessons," Bella reminded him.

Quil whispered something in Embry's ear that Bella did not quite catch. Jacob whacked him on the back of the head. "That's it, get out," he said.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Jacob," promised Bella, and tramped out of the conjoined sheds. As she headed back to the house she heard Quil and Embry chorus, "Woooo!"

She laughed softly to herself as she went. Boys.

Back at the house, Billy was still talking to his two friends (Elves, possibly?). Bella had meant to just say a quick goodbye, but the silver-haired one - Carmen, or was it Celebrian? - actually stood up. "May I walk with you, Bella?" she asked.

Bella eyed her cautiously. She was not ready to fully believe in Elves just yet, but she was certainly past refusing to believe in anything unusual. "Sure," she said cautiously.

---

Chapter End Notes

This chapter was mostly Twilight material, of course.

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Read Chapter 10

(Ithaca, New York, the day that Cedric was dropped off at the Stanley home)

Alice Cullen looked suddenly up, her eyes unfocused as always when her foresight changed in a significant way.

"Yes, darling?" Jasper noticed the change in his wife's emotions, which were now alert and curious. "Who is it?"

"Bella," said Alice in a puzzled voice, and without giving him time to shrink from the subject she added, "Jazz, does Edward have any relatives that particularly resemble him?"

Jasper raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Carlisle might, though."

Carlisle's golden head appeared in the doorway of the couple's room. "Why do you ask?"

Alice looked up. "Because someone just moved to Forks who looks almost exactly like Edward, and is bound to meet Bella tomorrow at school," she said. "And I've been watching Edward ever since he left; he's still tracking Victoria." Her brow furrowed. "That's odd. I didn't see him - the boy, I mean - at all until a few moments ago."

"What about Bella?" asked Esme coming up to stand beside Carlisle. She really was very fond of the human girl, and had been beyond grieved to leave her in the way that Edward insisted they do so.

Alice grimaced. "Bella's in for a rough surprise," she said. "I can't really see too much, as there are so many variables involved in what will happen over the next few days."

"Poor Bella," sighed Esme. "How is she, Alice?"

Ever since the Cullens had left Forks, Bella had become the unspeakable subject, the elephant in the middle of the room, the name which was not spoken. This was Edward's bidding, for he had wished to remove himself and his family entirely from Bella's life. "No calls, no emails, no messages," he had said. "And no looking into her future either, Alice. We've done enough damage, and it's time to stop before we do more."

Even after Edward had left the family to track down Victoria, it had been uncomfortable to speak about her.

Alice looked sad. "She's doing the bare minimum necessary to survive and nothing more. It's as if being without Edward has killed her. It's genuinely painful just to watch. No, Jasper," she added as he opened his lips to utter some words of self-reproach. "I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, do not blame yourself for Bella's pain. And no, it wouldn't have mattered if you'd drunk yourself to bursting before the party, or stayed away from it. Things happen, love. Even Edward acknowledges that."

"She is right, son," came Carlisle's deep, quiet voice. "Do not hold yourself to blame for what should not have been."

Jasper remained silent, but his expression remained unconvinced.

"As long as Edward is gone, then," said Alice. "I think I'm going to keep an eye on Bella and this strange boy who looks so much like Edward. If Edward comes back, I'll try to focus on something else. I've got a funny feeling about this one that I've never had before."

~o0o~

(Saturday)

Alice suddenly leaped to her feet in alarm. "Bella!" she cried involuntarily.

Having felt her distress, Jasper was at her side almost before she had spoken. "What is it?" he asked. "What's happened to her?"

"Is she okay?" asked Emmett, flying into the room quicker than thought. Rosalie appeared behind him in a few more seconds, and came no further than the threshold of the living room, where Alice sat with Jasper now beside her.

"She disappeared!" wailed the distraught Alice. "Just like that - without any kind of warning, and now she's gone!"

By this time her entire vampire family had gathered in the room, and they were all staring at her in unadulterated horror.

"What did you see before she vanished?" asked Esme, her eyes wide.

"I don't know! She was driving down to La Push with two used motorcycles in her truck for some reason I can't fathom, she was about to park, and then - just like that - she disappeared completely!"

"Could the Quileutes have - " began Rosalie.

"Absolutely not," said Carlisle firmly. "They are guardians, not predators."

"A crash? Did she hit the house?" asked Emmett.

"I don't think so - I'd at least be able to see someone inside the house, or even the house itself," said Alice.

Esme looked troubled. "How can we check on her?" she asked. "At Edward's request we broke all contact with everyone in the area."

"But Edward can't make us forget her cell phone number," said Emmett. "We can still call her on it, can't we?"

"She wasn't liable to answer it when her ringer was on full volume and she had nothing else going on," said Alice, picking up her own cell phone nonetheless and dialing. She held it to her ear, and they all heard the phone ringing. It rang and rang and rang, and at last Bella's voice responded, "Hello. You've reached Bella Swan. I am currently unable to take your call. Please leave me your name, number, and a brief message. Thank you."

The tone sounded, and Alice spoke, not bothering to keep the worry from her voice. "Bella, if you check your voicemail, this is Alice, and I'm so sorry for not saying goodbye to you when we left - in fact, I'm sorry for everything, but if you get this message, please, please, please call me back as soon as you get a chance." And she hung up.

"Should we try to contact Edward?" asked Esme.

"Not on your life!" said Rosalie vehemently. "He'll want to go straight to La Push and tear it apart looking for her, and nothing we do or say will stop him."

Jasper straightened up. "If Bella doesn't call back in the next four hours," he said. "I propose that at least one of us call Edward and we all go back to Forks and the surrounding area - without being seen - and start tracking her."

As no one had a better idea, everyone agreed to this, and Carlisle glanced at his watch and said, "Now we can only wait."

But Alice suddenly frowned in complete puzzlement. "Wait," she said. "There she is again. She's with Billy's son - Jacob, apparently - and nothing in particular seems to be happening. They're talking about her motorcycles - now she's flickering - argh! This is so confusing! Here she comes again, they're wheeling the motorcycles to the back of the house, and - ooh, this can't be good!"

"What can't be good?" asked Esme.

Alice grimaced. "Bella's apparently going to have Jacob fix the motorcycles so that he can teach her to ride them later."

"Bella on a motorcycle? That's definitely trouble," said Emmett decisively. "Charlie can't possibly know about this, can he?"

"No, and that's on purpose," said Alice. "She and Jacob are going to hide the bikes from Billy so that Charlie doesn't find out."

"Maybe that explains her disappearing," said Rosalie.

"No, I don't think so," said Alice. "It seems to have something to do with the house, oddly enough, because as long as Bella stays a fair distance from the actual house I can see her just fine. Very odd." She frowned. "Well, it looks like she's going to be sitting and watching Jacob fix cars for a while, so I suppose technically we don't have anything to worry about for the present. I'll keep an eye out though, I don't care what Edward said, and he's not here now anyway."

The next few hours passed in watchful quiet as Alice kept an eye on Bella (and Jacob and eventually his two friends). When at length Bella got up and said she had to go on home, Alice tensed. "There she goes," she said. "She's headed toward the house - and she's gone again, just like I thought! What now?"

"I propose we wait and see if she reappears," said Emmett. "And if she doesn't, we go back like Jazz suggested."

"Hey!" protested Jasper. "Only Alice is allowed to call me Jazz."

"She hasn't reappeared," said Alice, biting her lip in anxiety. "It only took a minute or two for her to reappear last time - "

"Then maybe we should - " began Esme, but Alice's ringtone suddenly sounded. Not too many people called Alice on the thing, so she checked it. "It's Bella," she said, looking up. "Bella's phone anyway. I still can't see her."

"Well, answer it," said Emmett.

Alice put the phone to her ear.

---

Chapter End Notes

Shorter than I like to post, but at least I've got it sandwiched in between two longer-than-normal ones!

Okay, so about the Cullens:

What you need to know first off about them is that they are a coven of vampires (personally they'd prefer the term "family") who do not drink human blood - they only drink the blood of animals. This sets them apart from almost all other vampires, at least in Twilight canon.

Carlisle Cullen is the head of the coven, and is considered the adoptive father of the Cullen family. He "created" (bit) all the others.

Esme is his wife; she is considered the "mother" just as Carlisle is the "father."

Edward, the vampire who had a relationship with Bella, has a special talent: he can hear people's passing thoughts, unless the person is actively guarding them or blocking him out. That is, of course, the reason that he asked his family not to speak or think of Bella anymore, because he doesn't want to have to hear thoughts that would remind him of her. At the moment he is not there; he is attempting to distract himself by following the aforementioned Victoria.

The other four, as elsewhere indicated, are all in pairs: Jasper with Alice, and Emmett with Rosalie.

Jasper has a rather interesting ability to sense and influence the emotions of other people. He also has not been a non-human drinker for very long, and so has the tendency to occasionally "fall off the wagon" and drink humans occasionally. In fact, it was because he attacked Bella in a fit of bloodlust that Edward became convinced that Bella would only be safe so long as she was near no vampires - and so he got the family to move away from Forks.

Alice has, in short, the ability to see the future - but that is a rather simplistic way to describe what is really a rather complicated talent. What Alice sees is the outcome of a decision that someone has made - if they change their current decision, Alice's vision of that future changes accordingly. If a person is undecided about what they will do, Alice sees a vague blur. If someone dies, Alice's vision of that person becomes total blank - and that is why she was so worried about Bella. The reason she couldn't see Bella will come up in a later chapter, but for now, I shall simply say that Alice's vision does have loopholes she's not aware of yet.

Like Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie don't really have "talents" per se beyond their basic vampire superspeed and superstrength and so on. Emmett is the jokester of the family, and Rosalie the vain, self-centered snob - and that's literally all there is to their characters in the book. And that's it for the Cullens!

Victoria is a vampire who has a talent for self-preservation - that is, she can anticipate danger and escape from it. Her mate James was killed by Edward because James tried to kill Bella, and so she looks on Bella for James' death. Edward is at this point only hunting her down to distract himself from having left the other (better and worse together) half of himself back in Forks, and is not doing it very well simply because of her talent of evading danger.

Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Of course I own nothing.

Read Chapter 11

Celebrian could see the wheels turning in the girl's mind as they walked together toward the big red truck. Her shoulders were slightly hunched and her posture unconsciously defensive, and her aura, which seemed mostly an unexcitable teal color, was full of little spikes of nervous (and incredulous) green.

"Don't be afraid, Bella," said the Elf comfortingly. "I wasn't at first altogether sure what to make of WIlliam's little indiscretion back there, but he did tell us - my husband and me - that you were familiar with the Cullens and were aware - "

Bella stopped walking and turned so pale that Celebrian thought she could almost see through her skin to the bones underneath. Her face looked thin and hollow, and her too-large brown eyes were overly luminous and full of pain. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously.

Bella's lips moved, and no sound came out. Celebrian reached tentatively for her thoughts, and to her surprise found them locked away and guarded as by an impenetrable wall. Wondering if the Cullens had taught Bella how to shut her mind, Celebrian opted for simply pulling the girl into her arms and gently rubbing her back. She very much wished then for Elrond's extensive knowledge and power in healing*, for Bella obviously needed it.

"I - I'm sorry," murmured Bella weakly after a moment, clearly embarrassed but also somewhat calmer.

"Don't be," said Celebrian gently. "Will you talk to me about it?"

Bella huffed a short laugh. "I have to go home and feed Charlie."

"I'm not sure you should drive just yet," said Celebrian. "Let me take you, and you direct me."

Bella looked surprised, but she handed her keys over without protest and went around to the passenger's side while Celebrian climbed into the driver's seat and started the car. The engine coughed and spluttered only a very little (but very loudly) before turning over with a roar, and Celebrian turned to Bella. "Directions?" she reminded her.

"Oh yeah," said Bella, and reached for her phone. As soon as she saw the screen, she gasped and her hand went up to her mouth. "Impossible," she whispered.

"What's impossible?" asked Celebrian cautiously.

Bella pressed a few buttons and put the phone to her ear without answering, and Celebrian could clearly hear the automated voice say, "You have one new message," and then the voicemail itself: "Bella, if you check your voicemail, this is Alice, and I'm so sorry for not saying goodbye to you when we left - in fact, I'm sorry for everything, but if you get this message, please, please, please call me back as soon as you get a chance."

Bella hit her callback button as if in a trance, and after a few rings Celebrian heard a voice on the other end of the line. "Bella?" it said cautiously.

"Alice?" croaked Bella, her eyes filling with tears. "Is that you?"

Instantly the phone seemed to explode with noise - Celebrian could hear five other voices in the background all talking almost at once - and over it all came the voice of the aforementioned Alice: "Bella, where are you? You completely disappeared! I can't see you at all right now!"

"You - you can't?" quavered Bella.

"No! You're a total blank, and have been for the last five minutes! Bella, you aren't trying to kill yourself, are you?"

"Uh, no," said Bella completely bewildered under whatever shock had her crying. "I'm sitting in my truck in front of Billy Black's house about to go home. Alice - who's there with you?"

"W-well, most of the family," came the voice of Alice, seeming suddenly rather hesitant. "I - I'm really sorry, Bella, about everything - technically I'm not supposed to be talking to you right now - " ("To hell with it, he's not here to order us around!" said a second female voice that sounded very annoyed) " - in fact, I'm not supposed to be looking for your future - why can't I see you?!"

Looking into her future?! What was this?

"Alice - " Bella sniffled and wiped her streaming eyes. "Alice, is - is he there?" The desperate, pleading note in her voice made Celebrian look at her sharply.

"No, Bella," said Alice, and she sounded very unhappy. "He's gone tracking Victo- "

"Shh, Alice! Don't frighten her!" hissed a third female voice, and Alice trailed off. But even if Bella couldn't hear what was going on in the background, Alice had clearly said enough.

"Victoria?" she asked sitting bolt upright and looking horrified. "He's tracking Victoria? Why?"

"I don't know - he needed something to occupy him and he wouldn't let any of us come with him - "

"Why would he do that?!" cried Bella becoming quite agitated. "It's too dangerous - he could get hurt - "

"Now see what you've done," said a deep male voice. "She won't stop worrying about him until she knows he's stopped."

"Oh, for the love of all life," cried the second female voice. "he left her! Didn't he tell us that he told her he didn't want her and - "

"Bella," said Alice over all the noise. "You have to believe me. I didn't want it to happen this way, none of us wanted this except for Edward - "

"Why we let him boss us around is more than I know," said the second female voice sourly.

"We did as he requested because he sincerely believed that it was best for her, Rosalie," said a second male voice.

"Sometimes I think he doesn't appreciate the depths of his own idiocy," went on Alice. "Don't say it, Carlisle, you know he can be an idiot - "

Carlisle? Carlisle Cullen?

"Alice," Bella seemed to have listened enough. "Do you know if he's all right?"

"Yes, he's fine," said Alice. "He's not doing very well in tracking her, so he's not in any danger, does that make you happy?"

"Yes," said Bella with a deep sigh. "Just as long as he doesn't get hurt."

Teenagers and their melodrama. Celebrian just barely refrained from shaking her head. She now was quite sure by now that this Alice was part of Carlisle's coven, as Billy had told her and Elrond that not only did Bella know the Cullens' secret, she also had to all appearances developed quite an attachment to one of them.

Billy had also confirmed what they'd already heard from Cedric, that the Cullen coven had left quite suddenly in the early autumn, and under rather suspicious circumstances. Apparently Bella had been found lying unresponsive in the woods that surrounded and permeated the tiny town of Forks, which was quite close to the La Push reservation. Billy also knew from Charlie, Bella's father and the chief of police, that Bella had left a note saying that she was going for a walk with Edward that day, and as she did not return that night Charlie had sent out a team to search for her. It was the day after that that the Cullens were discovered to have left the area.

And now Celebrian knew why they had left, if all that she was hearing over Bella's phone was true, and was wondering what exactly this Edward had said (or done) to Bella to leave her in such a state as Samuel Uley, one of the young Quileute men, had eventually found her.

"And you're really okay right now?" asked Alice rather disbelievingly. "This is so unsettling, hearing you talk to me and at the same time not seeing you."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what else to tell you," said Bella. "I'm not even doing anything right now other than talking to you and - holy crow, I almost forgot! I just met two Elves today!"

"Huh?" Alice seemed thrown off balance. "Bella, what are you talking about?"

"You have to see it to believe it," said Bella. "Carlisle would have a field day. But anyway, where are you?"

"In Ithaca, New York," said Alice. "Carlisle's a practicing doctor again and Jasper's going to Cornell. But that doesn't mean we can't come back to Forks."

"Oh, would you?" cried Bella. "You'd really come back?"

"I'm coming back, if no one else does, just to make sure nothing terrible is happening to you," said Alice. "Of course Jasper's coming with me."

"Wait, he is?" said the deep voice in amusement.

"I guess I am," said a voice that Celebrian had not heard speak before and which must have been Jasper's.

"I'm sure we'd all love to go back," said the gentle female voice, the one that had warned Alice not to frighten Bella.

"I'm fine where I am, thank you very much," said the other female voice.

"In fact, I think everyone's going to end up coming back, eventually," said Alice. "It's hard to tell - everybody's gone so blurry suddenly! I don't like this at all. I'm going to get some plane tickets, and hopefully we'll be back as soon as we can - and please, please keep me posted, will you? Let me know you're alive?"

"Yeah, okay," said Bella, and the call disconnected with a click. Bella pulled the phone down from her ear and stared at it.

"That was the Cullens, then?" said Celebrian.

"How would you know?" asked Bella suspiciously.

"I had heard that Carlisle and his coven had left the peninsula, and that you had known them well before they had gone," said the elleth. "And I heard everything that they said, you know."

"How? My phone wasn't on speaker, was it?" asked Bella.

"Of course it wasn't," said Celebrian. "Elvish hearing, you know." Thank heaven for Ronald and for publishing agencies! "By the way, are you going to direct me to your house or not?"

"Holy crow, it's almost five!" cried Bella. "Charlie's going to think I've left him to starve. Okay, I don't remember the way too well, so. . ." she opened her rudimentary GPS program and mapped the directions to her home, and Celebrian revved the engine and began the drive.

"So you're an elf," said Bella after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes," said Celebrian. "I'm an Elf."

"So Tolkien didn't make you up?" asked Bella.

"No, dear," said Celebrian. "Because we don't often write our stories down, every thousand years or so we ask someone to write them down for us. Ronald Tolkien had the idea of publishing them as stories that people would want to read. There aren't too many legends and tales in general that are very far from being true, you know."

Bella arched her eyebrows. "Like mermaids?"

"Certainly."

"And dragons?"

"Of course."

"And unicorns?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Fairies too?" - rather skeptically.

Celebrian laughed. "Yes, Bella, fairies too. They're not at all impressive, but they're certainly real."

Bella shook her head. "Wow. Just. . . wow."

"Let's see, what else?" mused Celebrian with amusement. "Hum - Dwarves, of course, and Hobbits, and centaurs, and goblins, and giants, and ogres, and vampires, and werewolves, and pixies, and gryphons, and House-Elves, and winged horses, and skin-changers - "

"Skin-changers?" Bella seemed confused.

"Haven't you read The Hobbit?" asked Celebrian arching her eyebrows. "Don't you remember Beorn?"

"Beorn - oh, that's right," said Bella. Then suddenly she gasped and her eyes widened. "Wait!" she said. "Wait - there've been stories floating lately about these huge bears being seen in the area - in the open, sometimes - are those actually people like - "

"Like old Beorn's kind," said Celebrian. "You're right, Bella."

Some thought passed behind her eyes which made her shiver slightly and lapse into silence for the rest of the ride. Eventually Celebrian pulled up in front of the small, one-story home and handed Bella her keys, and both of them climbed down out of the truck. "Thanks for driving me," said Bella, and walked up to the front door, where she paused as the obvious suddenly occurred to her, "Wait - how are you getting back to Billy's house?" she asked, turning around.

"Well, as it happens," said Celebrian. "Elrond and I were actually coming to Forks anyway, to visit a friend of ours - I don't suppose you know a Cedric Montgomery?"

"Cedric?! He goes to my school!" cried Bella. "Does he know about - you know - "

"Yes, he knows," said Celebrian. "We'll leave it at that for the present. Good evening, Bella." And without further delay, she Disapparated with a loud crack, leaving behind a rather stunned Bella.

---

Chapter End Notes

*I'm not sure if Elrond's knowledge in healing extends beyond the strictly physical to the mental and emotional, but it seems rather odd to me that it wouldn't.

Well, these last three chapters were certainly a surprise! I'd been stuck at this point in the story for months and months, and suddenly the inspiration hits me in waves!

A Tolkien reference! *dances* I thought it was time I put one in, seeing as I have Elves actually living in the modern day and everything. Makes everything quite convenient, really, because instead of having to give long, complicated explanations, Celebrian can just say, "Do you recall reading such-and-such?"

About Celebrian being able to Apparate: This was a stretch, I know, especially as in my headcanon every species - Human, Elf, House-Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Hobbit, etc. - has its own specific kind of magic, inimitable by any other species. (That is, incidentally, why none of the Elves in this story will be performing Summoning Charms, Switching Spells, etc.) But it seems to me that all the sentient beings in Harry Potter can Apparate - that is, travel instantaneously - albeit with different limitations.

If I've forgotten anything I need to explain, let me know. Thank you!