Chapter Text
Voldemort has taken over Wizarding Britain, and muggleborn Bella Swan has fled England to live with her father in America. Unable to use magic and in constant fear of being found and thrown in Azkaban- or worse, Bella doesn't have time for romance, despite how drawn she is to the handsome vampire she sits next to in Biology.
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INTRODUCTION:
About three things I was absolutely positive.
First, Edward was a vampire.
Second, there was a part of him- and I didn't know how dominant that part might be- that thirsted for my blood.
And third, I had to stay the hell away from him- for both our sakes.
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CHAPTER ONE:
Charlie met me at the airport. His face had more lines since the last time I'd seen it and his hair was greyer, but it was still undoubtedly him. When I caught sight of him, I couldn't help the exhausted smile that broke over my face and the moment I was within arms reach he pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight.
If I hadn't been as physically and emotionally as I was, I'd probably feel awkward and slightly stunned– Charlie and I had never been the type for sharing physical affection. But I was that tired and as my father held me in his arms, the inevitable tears started falling. Before I even realized it, I was crying great big ugly tears into his shoulder, my whole body shaking with the force of them, and Charlie was rubbing my back and making soothing noises. "It's gonna be okay, Bells, it's gonna be okay." He assured me, over and over again.
It took longer then I would have liked, but eventually I regained enough control to stop the tears and I stepped back slightly, wiping across my eyes with the back of my hand. Charlie gently took my hands, small and cold, in his own warm, calloused ones and looked at me with serious eyes that were perfect copies of my own. "You'll be safe here." He said firmly and there was a fierce promise in his voice and expression.
Still, I couldn't help my doubt. I knew my father could keep me safe from the ordinary monsters of the world– but I wasn't in danger from ordinary monsters and even as I gave Charlie a watery smile of thanks I couldn't help but wonder just how safe I would be in the sleepy town of Forks, Washington.
Together, Charlie and I located my luggage with very little difficulty. My Hogwarts trunk stood out amongst all the normal bags and suitcases, gaining me more then a few strange looks– less then they would if I'd been travelling with Griselda, though.
Speaking of the feathery menace– "Is the bird cage still set up?" I asked Charlie, my voice only a little rough from the crying, and he nodded.
"Took it out of the garage straight after you called." He assured me and I forced my tired, downcast features into a small but genuine smile.
"Thanks dad."
"No problem kiddo. Ready to go h-home?" He stumbled slightly over the last word, but something inside me warmed slightly at the sound of it– home.
"Yeah. I'm ready." I told him, and I meant it.
It was quiet, awkward almost, as we made our way through the airport and over to where Charlie's cruiser was parked. Watching Charlie grunt as he lifted up my trunk made my heart hurt and the corners of my mouth turn down. One flick of my wand and all that trouble would be gone, my trunk either levitated or made as light as a feather. But right now that was impossible– and it was all because of the Trace, the charm put on underage witches and wizards to detect when they cast magic that was currently being used by the corrupted British Ministry of Magic to round up any underage witches and wizards on the run.
Witches and wizards like me. I couldn't use magic without notifying the very people I'd just fled Britain to get away from of my whereabouts– and I wasn't under any illusion that that couldn't quite possibly end up being my death sentence.
"Three months," I told myself quietly, speaking aloud under my breath. "Just three months." Because in three months I would turn seventeen. In three months the Trace would be lifted.
In three months I would be free to use my magic.
"You okay, Bells?" Charlie asked, his voice audibly concerned, and I started slightly, realizing I'd been staring at nothing for who knew how long. A light blush warmed my cheeks and I nodded.
"Y-yeah, just..." I released a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm still processing everything." I admitted.
"It's okay." Charlie said quietly and I gave him a sad smile.
"Not yet. But it will be."
One day it would be okay. Just not today.
The drive to Forks was mostly silent, neither Charlie or I talking. He kept shooting me furtive worried looks which I half noticed but my thoughts were too preoccupied by the fear still sitting heavy inside me to pay them much attention. Because I was still afraid– devastatingly so– and not only for myself and now for my muggle father who I'd quite possibly just painted a target on, but for those who were fighting and for the ones I'd left behind when I'd fled Britain, especially my best friend in the entire world; Luna Lovegood.
Was she alright? I wondered, a little desperately. Had the Carrows hurt her, trying to get information on me? Was she suffering right now? Oh sweet Rowena, Luna...
I had to blink back a fresh wave of tears as the terrible fear gripped me and twisted in my chest. Luna Lovegood was my first and best friend from age eleven onwards. We were misfits together; Luna because she was, well, loony, and me because as well being quiet and almost paralysingly shy, I was an American muggleborn and so was suffering from double the cultural shock.
Luna will be safe, I told myself, sternly– she had to be safe; she was a pureblood, after all. Not like me.
She wasn't a mudblood.
It hadn't taken us long to realise that I couldn't stay in Britain, that not even Hogwarts was safe after Death Eaters had taken over the Ministry. Less then a week after the school year began it had become abundantly clear that I was going to have to run, along with all the other muggleborns in the school. The Carrows... I couldn't help my automatic shudder, the metallic taste of fear suddenly thick in my mouth.
Within a mere handful of days the Carrows had earned themselves a terrifying reputation when it came to discipline, with the smallest of transgressions resulting in the most horrendous of punishments– and it was muggleborns, halfbloods and the children of blood traitors who were targeted the most.
Oh Luna, I thought desperately, praying to a god I didn't even believe as nausea welled up inside me, oh Luna... please be safe!
"Bella?" Charlie's voice broke me out of my thoughts again, but this this time I realised he'd done it because I was on the verge of crying or plunging into panic attack– or both. My breathing was fast and shallow, my vision was blurred from unshed tears and my hands were clenched together so tightly that I could the hard sting of my nails digging into the soft flesh of my palm.
I worked on calming my breathing the same way that Luna used to talk me through my fits of anxiety, relaxing the muscles in my body one by one and loosening my hands. The skin on my palms had been broken in places and I eyed the red smears with a sort of detachment. Blood had used to bother me as a child; the smell of it had made me sick and I'd even passed out from exposure a few times.
It didn't bother me anymore. Hadn't for some time now. It was funny how life and death situations involving being half drenched in blood could rewrite what had been such an integral part of what made up who I was.
The battle in the Department of Mysteries had changed a lot, though. Overcoming my severe childhood aversion to blood had only been one of many outcomes of that horrible night.
Charlie handed my a tissue to clean my hands and face and wipe my nose. He didn't ask if I was okay– he knew that I wasn't and I knew that I wasn't. Instead he asked me; "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I really don't." I told him honestly. "Not yet."
"Okay." Charlie nodded, and to my relief that was that.
Nearly a half hour passed in comfortable silence before he spoke up again. "I found a good car for you, really cheap." He said and I blinked in surprise.
"On this short a notice?" I asked, ignoring the suspicious way he said 'a good car for you' as opposed to just 'a good car'– I wasn't as clumsy as I once was, the massive amount of exercise and agility it took to get around Hogwarts assured that, as did the fact that my classes weren't exactly the 'sit down and take notes type', but I still wasn't the most coordinated person. Charlie was well-aware of my lack of coordination, I assumed he had compensated for that fact in some way– I was far more focused on the fact it had only been about a day ago that he'd learned I was coming to stay in Forks. That Charlie had managed to acquire a car for me already was highly suspicious.
"Er, yeah," my father scratched behind his ear, looking a bit more like his normal awkward self as he glanced sheepishly across at me. "I actually bought it for you a few months ago... I was planning for it to be a present for your seventeenth birthday. I know that's special for– for your world."
A very real smile spread across my face as heat bloomed in my chest, helping to dislodge the icy weight of the fear. "Thank you dad." I told him warmly. His cheeks had turned a little pink even as he smiled back.
"Don't thank me yet. It's not exactly a Mercedes." He joked.
"What type of car is it?" I asked, curious. I didn't know a lot about cars, but I knew a bit– enough to identify the different brand names, at least.
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy." Charlie explained and I had several questions about my new car, but settled for just the one.
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" Charlie asked, glancing over at me.
"Vaguely," I said, frowning in thought. La Push is the small Indian reservation on the coast and I could faintly recall visiting a man with long dark hair and russet skin, but not well enough to make out his features. "I remember his daughters better– Rachel and... Rebecca, I think?" I glanced to Charlie for confirmation.
"That's right," he said, looking a touch surprised that I'd remembered as much as I had. "Well, he's in a wheelchair now and has been for a few years, so he can't drive anymore. He offered to sell it to me cheap a couple of months ago."
"Thank you dad." I said, genuinely pleased about the prospect of having my own transport– I just hoped that my police chief father would be open to helping me forge a fake license.
Charlie blinked. "You're not going to ask about the year?" He asked, sounding surprised.
"Um, year?" I give him a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"Don't you want to know when he bought it?" He clarified, his voice a touch nervous, "as in... how old it is?" I shook my head.
"No, I trust you dad." I said honestly and my father actually blushed at that, hastily turning to look ahead at the road.
"Thanks Bells." His voice was slightly gruff as he said that and I tried not to smile at his embarrassment, succeeding mostly because of my own embarrassment.
Like I said, Charlie and I weren't exactly the outwardly affectionate type.
A yawn escaped me and I leaned against the car window, staring out at the surroundings. It was beautiful, here. Everything was green; the trees with their trunks covered in moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns... It reminded me of the tamer parts of the Forbidden Forest, where we went sometimes during Care of Magical Creatures to look at the unicorn and thestral herds– and we'd even visited a dryad, that one time. The memory made me smile, albeit sadly.
Forks might be beautiful enough, but I'd trade its beauty for the wildness of the Forest anytime.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's small two-bedroomed house where, parked in the driveway, was my new truck.
I fell in love at first sight. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. It looked like one of those solid iron affairs that never get damaged– the kind you saw at the scene of an accident surrounded by pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed with its paint unscratched.
"It's brilliant!" I exclaimed, with the first real bit of enthusiasm I'd felt since arriving in America.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said, his voice gruff again in his embarrassment. "Welcome home, Bella."
Turning to face him, I smiled. "It's good to be back." I said. And I actually meant it.
I didn't used to like Forks. As a young child I had detested it, instead loving Phoenix with its sun and blistering heat and vigorous, sprawling city. But after spending nine months a year for the last six years in Britain, in a relatively isolated and very old-fashioned castle, I'd grown to... maybe not love, but certainly to gain a fondness for the beauty of solitude and for the cold, the rain, and even the snow. Forks, with its near-constant cover of clouds, rained more then any other place in the United States of America.
To me, that was perfect. A sort of home away from home considering that since age eleven, Hogwarts had been my home.
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My room looked exactly how I'd left it from when I was last in Forks during the summer holidays the year before, with the light blue painted walls, the bronze door and window frames, the feather-patterned curtains around the window and the bird-cage set up in the corner. The bookshelf held a mix of magical and muggle texts, the desk had an inkwell hollowed out in the wood and there was a new dust bin in the corner.
A sudden movement caught my attention and another real smile crossed my face. "Grizzy!" I exclaimed happily as my owl swooped through the open window.
Griselda, who I named so in a moment of pique, let out a loud hoot that had Charlie slamming his palms over his ears as I held out my arm, letting her perch on it. "Hey beautiful," I murmured, reaching out to tickle under her beak. She gave me an affectionate nip as if to say she'd missed me. "Love you too, beautiful girl." I crooned and the owl let out a much softer hoot before flying over to the Cage she never spent much time in and I always left open so she could come and go as she pleased, making her way inside and over to the little dish where Charlie had cut up some fresh fruit. The thoughtful gesture by my father had me feeling embarrassingly weepy, though I put that on my current emotional state.
"Thank you... for everything." I still told him as I turned back around to face at him. My voice shook slightly and threatened to crack, and Charlie's face softened.
"Of course Bells. Anything." He promised. For a moment I thought he might stay, might ask why I had to flee England and why I was so obviously distraught despite the way I was trying– and failing– to hide it, but instead he just gave me one last small smile. "The bathroom's free all night if you feel like a shower. I'll order us some pizza."
I nodded and he retreated, leaving me to myself and giving me time to gather my thoughts, a gesture I appreciated.
I unpacked slowly, separating my muggle and magical belongings. The witch things I mostly kept in my trunk which I locked and pushed under my bed, with the exception of my wand and a small stack of my course-books. The course-books I added to my bookshelf, but my wand I decided to keep on me.
I might not be able to use it except in the case of an emergency but the fact was an emergency wasn't exactly as improbable as I'd like it to be. In fact, the probability of experiencing some sort of emergency was actually a lot higher for me then the probability of there not been one.
I couldn't help but shudder a little the depressing thought.
Taking in the stiffness of my body, partly caused by stress but mostly from trying to sleep on a plane, I decided to take Charlie up on his offer of a shower.
The warm water felt like heaven, but it also relaxed my body and mind enough for me to become aware of just how tired I really was– tired enough that I barely made it back to my bed before falling fast asleep, the first time I'd been able to in the last forty-eight hours.