Chapter 3: First Day of School

“You’re sulking again,” Rosalie Hale murmured to her ‘twin’ Jasper Hale in the back of their first period English class. “Quit it.”

“I am not sulking,” Jasper denied, his tone too low and his tempo too quick for any but his sibling to hear him. “They’re all just so…” he shuddered lightly, “exuberant.”

And they were. The other students were all putting off the most annoying waves of glee, happiness, awe, and amusement. It was the same thing every time the first day of school rolled around. While Jasper miserably drug himself to this never ending purgatory, these humans did it happily and forced their emotions on him.

It was almost enough to make him snap and force some emotions on them.

See how they liked being abruptly ripped from their joy as Jasper sent out waves of fear and sadness.

“That’s your sulking face again,” Rosalie said, interrupting Jasper’s vengeful thoughts.

“Whatever.” Jasper idly drew in his notebook, his pencil freely drawing out a snow covered landscape, as he focused on blocking out the intrusive emotions.

Jasper really, really, hated humans.

As he trailed through his morning classes, being freely ignored by all but his siblings, he wondered why he had even signed up for high school. Carlisle could have told everyone that Jasper was the oldest, a freshman in college, and he could have spent his time doing literally anything else.

But no. This was the best way to ‘blend in’.

Not that the Cullen or Hale’s succeeded much at that. They were too cold, too unnaturally attractive, too ‘odd’ to truly fit in with humans. Which made sense, considering they were as different from humans as any other predator could be.

Jasper didn’t mind being ignored by the human students that surrounded him. The less attention they paid him, the easier it was to block out their warm scents. The smell of the warm blood flowing beneath their easily pierced skin making the venom in Jasper’s mouth pool.

He didn’t want to be a monster, never again, but denying his very nature? It took an exceedingly large amount of self-control. A task made simpler the less time he had to spend around the soft and easily broken humans.

The humans who were driving him insane with their emotions today.

“They don’t have to be so excited all the time,” Jasper complained to his siblings as they all sat at their lunch table together.

‘Eating’ alone, as usual.

Though he doubted if any of the humans would want to join Jasper as he actually consumed a meal. The mere idea had his eyes flashing and Edward scowling.

“There’s a new student, he’s making them more excited than usual,” Edward said as he tried to distract his brother from dwelling on thoughts of humans and meals.

Jasper glanced around the cafeteria quickly and frowned slightly as he saw all the recognizable faces.

“I don’t see a new student,” he said.

“His names Harry, he’s a junior,” Alice trilled off quietly. “The students think he’s weird.”

“I thought Edward was the mind reader,” Emmett teased their sister. “Or have you made new human BFF’s?”

Jasper chuckled beneath his breath. Emmett’s hulking, masculine size coupled with his use of teenage girl slang amusing him deeply. Emmett spent too much time with Rosalie.

“I’ve heard them, you can too if you’d pay attention,” Alice stuck her tongue out at them.

Jasper ignored his siblings as he did something he tried to avoid: paying attention to the boring humans.

”… just so weird!”

“Did you see his eyes?”

“… his accent?”

“… was held back.”

“Foreign exchange student?”

“… so cute though.”

“Did you see his scars?”

“He sounds nearly as popular as we are,” Rosalie rolled her eyes, apparently listening to the same bits of conversations that Jasper had. “Lucky guy.”

Jasper scoffed at that. ‘Lucky’ was one thing he and Rosalie agreed that they were not. Would never be.

‘Lucky’.

“Has anyone tried telling him stories about the scary Cullens yet?” Emmett asked Edward. His tone was casual, but they all knew better. They needed Edward’s talent in times like this. As much as Jasper hated things being boring, dull, it was safe. Anything, anyone, new could expose them and push them to fleeing to a new location in a snap.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Edward murmured. “I’ll let you know this afternoon. I’m sure we’ll share at least one class.”

Jasper nodded, his interest in the new person dimming as he was sure it was just another dull human here to assault Jasper with their exuberant emotions.

“Time for PE,” Emmett said as the bell rang and the five of them got to their feet. “Ready to get your ass kicked in basketball Rose?”

“Only if you’re ready for a real match when we get home.” Rosalie studied her perfectly manicured nails, but Jasper could feel the soft waves of smugness that radiated from her. Even though they had to dial it back for the humans, always playing a part Jasper never quite fit in, Rosalie and Emmett had plenty of time to truly play the sport once they were in the safety of their home.

“Bet,” Emmett laughed and threw a muscled arm around Rosalies shoulder. “Who wins Alice?”

Alice scrunched her nose up as they moved carefully, slowly, to their lockers.

“You do,” she finally told Emmett.

Which must be a lie because Jasper could sense a feeling of mischief from her.

Alice loved meddling with people.

“Awesome!”

Jasper didn’t share his brothers enthusiasm, though it was much more bearable to be around than human enthusiasm was. But he did dutifully follow Emmett and Rosalie to PE class, where they did indeed have to suffer through basketball. Jasper might have enjoyed the class, an opportunity to use his tightly coiled muscles, if he was actually able to do so. But instead he moved as slowly as (in)humanly possible and dribbled and passed the orange ball back and forth with his teammates.

After PE, Jasper and Emmett went to calculus, Emmett grumbling under his breath all the while over their teams defeat.

“If I could really play then they wouldn’t all look so smug,” Emmett said. It wasn’t that Jasper didn’t empathize with his brother, he simply didn’t care. But Emmett hated to lose, and Jasper silently made plans to go hunting tonight in the event that his guess was correct and Rosalie would best Emmett during their rematch.

Jasper would have skipped off his final class of the day, Spanish II, if Edward hadn’t whispered a confusing message to them all during the passing period.

“The new student isn’t in any of my classes, but I know he’s here somewhere, everyone else keeps thinking about him.” Edward looked frustrated, he knew it was his job to watch out for danger for their family, and he could hardly do that if he couldn’t find the new person and check their mind for any suspicions.

So Jasper resigned himself to attending Spanish class, the new student could reasonably be in attendance as the class was a mixture of grades 10-12.

Jasper glanced around the room vigilantly after he settled in his seat in the back, but all the students were the same ones he had known from his previous year of attendance at Forks. Wherever the new kid was, it wasn’t Spanish class.

Jasper, with his flawless Spanish, let his mind wander as Mrs Goff droned on in her own butchered accent. Maria would have laughed at the humans attempt to mimic the language of her home.

Laughed then ripped her throat out for a snack.

Jasper thought of something else, anything else but that, during his last fifty minutes of pretending. He wondered if Alice would join him on a hunt tonight. Or Edward maybe.

He knew that Rosalie and Emmett would be… distracted after their game. Alice, Jasper, and Edward would not have that same distraction, as romantically unattached as they each were.

Jasper’s lips curled up in an unwilling smile as he thought of the decade he and Alice spent trying to force a relationship that just wasn’t there. It should have been obvious to Jasper at the fond familial affection he could sense Alice felt towards him, but they had given it a go before finally accepting defeat. Alice was simply his sister. His charming, annoying, little sister.

Jasper wasn’t quite sure that she was his type anyway.

His type or not, Alice was perhaps his best friend. And when he left Spanish at the final bell of the day, she was waiting for him beside his locker.

“We’re hunting tonight?” she asked brightly.

“Apparently,” Jasper drawled.

It was hard to make plans that included Alice without her seeing it immediately. One of the many reasons none of them ever tried to surprise her for any reason.

“I’ll join you guys,” Edward volunteered as the five of them left their lockers for the parking lot. “I could use- Alice, why are you singing rap?”

Jasper was startled by Edwards emotional shift to suspicion, and Rosalie laughed at his accusation.

“It’s a good song,” Alice said defensively.

“And it keeps me out of your head?”

Alice gave their brother an innocent smile at his question. “Now why would I do that?”

Edward and Jasper shared a look of commiseration. If Alice was keeping Edward out of her head, it was because she had a vision of something she thought one of them would find ‘fabulous!’ and didn’t want Edward to spoil it.

Jasper desperately hoped that whatever it was, it didn’t involve him.

“You’re a sneaky little devil,” Edward told Alice, his tone teasing as opposed to truly annoyed. “You’re hiding something, I can- oh.”

Jasper would have asked Edward what caused him to stop in the middle of the parking lot, his siblings all stopping alongside him immediately, if he wasn’t struck silent himself.

Fear. Pain. Anger. Despair. Fear. Panic. Self-hatred. Fear. Agony.

“Is someone dead?” Jasper choked out in a low whisper. His siblings were almost to Edward’s car, but a mass of students surrounding another car between here and there were blocking them. And Jasper couldn’t imagine what was causing a human (or multiple humans as strong as the emotions were) to put off those kinds of feelings aside from something terribly grisly and morose.

“It’s the new kid.”

The five of them edged around the crowd, stopping and staring once they got to Edward’s car. ‘The new kid’ was hidden behind a mass of bodies, all students, mostly male, who were talking rapidly with mounting enthusiasm about…

“Look at his car,” Rosalie sighed.

Jasper, who still couldn’t see the new student behind the others despite his overtly perfect vision, was able to see the car. It was an ostentatious red sports car, just the type of vehicle that Rosalie adored.

Though Jasper couldn’t imagine why that was causing someone to be filling his head with such broken emotions.

“He wants them all to go away,” Edward murmured under his breath to his siblings. “He hates the attention. It’s making him-“

“Panic,” Jasper finished his brothers thought as he focused on his own gift. He had been wrong, it wasn’t multiple humans suffering through those emotions, it was only one. The other humans were excited, envious, awed, and bemused.

Jasper was bemused as well.

“Harry’s about to yell,” Alice declared cheerfully. “In three… two… one-“

“PISS OFF!”

“Oh my,” Rosalie covered her mouth with her hand and giggled as she leaned casually against Edward’s car. “He’s got a mouth, doesn’t he?”

“And an accent too,” Emmett said. “Where’s he from?”

“London,” Edward answered automatically, his expression darkening at whatever he was reading from ‘Harry’s’ mind.

“I’m going to go say hello!” Alice ignored her siblings muted gasps of surprise as she danced her way between the rapidly retreating male students. Jasper wondered if the new kids face was as angry as his emotions, if so he could certainly see why the other students were fleeing to their own vehicles.

Though he couldn’t imagine why Alice was going to ‘go say hello’.

“Harry,” Jasper heard a now soft and heavily accented voice say. “Harry Potter.”

“Alice Cullen,” Alice responded, still out of Jasper’s eyesight. “Let me introduce you to my siblings.”

No. No. No.

Why would Alice do this?

Why would she do it to him?

Harry Potter’s emotions were powerful, a heady wave of agony that Jasper couldn’t push off.

Why would she bring him closer?

“He thinks her skin is cold, but he likes it. She reminds him of someone though and I think he likes whoever it is,” Edward whispered to them quickly.

“You think?” Rosalie raised a blonde brow at Edward’s vague response.

“His mind is… clouded? Blocked maybe?” Edward sounded as if he were gritting his teeth, unused to having an difficulties on breaching people’s minds. The mystery of Harry Potter’s mind was pushed to the back of Jasper’s thoughts once his sister began leading Harry to them.

Because Jasper had never seen a human like Harry Potter. While his emotions, and his mind, were intriguing, they had nothing on the way he looked. The way he carried himself.

The fire in his eyes that screamed he was burning inside.

Harry Potter was thin, frail in a way that made Jasper consider all the human diseases that could cause such a physical fragility. His skin was white, a slight flush darkening his cheeks, and he stood barely taller than Alice. Jasper could see his wrist bones protruding through his pale skin and his cheekbones were hardly any more hidden.

He wore clothes that Jasper knew Alice must be crinkling her nose internally at. A knitted sweater, stitches slipped here and there in the dark green yarn, and jeans that had clearly seen better days. His hair was as messy as his clothing, black locks that were too long, too tangled, to be the intentionally messy look that humans found appealing. He had on glasses that were perfectly round, as black as his hair, that rested on a nose that was curved and appealing in an adorable sort of way (had Jasper truly just thought that?!). His lips, twisted in to a scowl that Jasper imagined was semi-permanent, were startling red against his pale skin and heavily chapped.

The human was wary, his defensive posture putting Jasper’s war-honed vigilance on edge. The visible skin, his small hands, his fragile face, were all scarred. This boy was a fighter. A survivor of some sort. There were heavy bags beneath his eyes, as dark as any hungry vampires were, and a weight of grief,loss,anger,agony in his eyes.

Jasper had never seen eyes so green before.

He noticed all these things in the time it took Harry and Alice to take a single step towards the waiting Cullen and Hale siblings. Jasper was focused on this new person, this interesting person, and missed Edward’s look of surprise as he heard his brothers thoughts.

“Don’t eat him,” Rosalie hissed sharply to Jasper. Jasper shook his head free of the new student as he processed the emotions Rosalie was now sending off.

Protection. Possession. Loss. Wistfulness.

What?

Jasper rolled his eyes at his sister, intent on discovering where those feelings were coming from later, as Alice and Harry joined them.

“Harry, this is my sister Rosalie-“

Jasper was surprised to see the warm smile Rosalie gave Harry.

Since when did Rosalie smile like that at humans? Especially tiny, frail humans whose emotions were driving Jasper insane.

“- and these are my brothers Edward, Emmett, and Jasper.”

“Hello.” Harry spoke quietly as he nodded at each of them as Alice pointed them out. He put his hands in his pockets, attempting to look casual while Jasper could sense the stress signals his body was sending out. “My names Harry Potter.”

“Hello Harry,” Edward greeted him politely, his voice clear and slow, the one he used when interacting with humans. “You must be new here?”

Harry shrugged, scuffing one of his sneakers against the pavement as he avoided eye contact with Edward.

Grief. Loss. Self-hatred.

Why was Edward spawning these emotions from him?

If Jasper was a human he imagined that he would be heaving as rapidly as his head was spinning. There were too many emotions surrounding him.

Alice, excited. Edward, confused. Rosalie, protective. Emmett, bored.

Harry, agony.

Jasper focused on Emmett’s emotions, cloaking himself with the boredom, and subtly pushed a mild wave of calm towards Harry.

“Yeah,” Harry said, his tense posture relaxing slightly as Jasper’s gift affected him. “I just moved to Forks this summer.”

“You’re a junior?” Rosalie asked him curiously.

Jasper was curious about that as well. Harry hardly looked like a sixteen year old junior. He looked like a man.

A man whose seen as many fights in his life as Jasper had.

Which was ridiculous because this Harry was a young human, and Jasper had seen wars that Harry could never even envision.

“Kind of,” Harry shrugged again, his cheeks darkening with a flush of blood-

cold blood. an icy scent to it. not appetizing. but heady.

-as he felt embarrassment.

“I’m supposed to be a senior, except I bombed the placement tests,” Harry explained. “So, ta da, they held me back and put me in the remedial classes.”

“Ta da,” Jasper repeated softly, intrigued by Harry’s heavy England accent.

“Well I’m happy you’re here and I’m sure you’ll catch up quick.” Alice beamed at Harry, and Jasper was surprised to see Harry smile back at her softly. Jasper had only known Harry Potter for two minutes and thirty seven seconds, but he didn’t seem to be the kind of human who smiled easily.

“Thanks,” Harry said. He turned and glanced at his car over his shoulder before offering the rest of them a tight, forced, grin. “I should get going… Suppose I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“You will,” Alice told him. “Drive safe!”

If Jasper wasn’t an immortal with a perfect sense of balance, he would have stumbled at Harry’s abrupt shift in emotions. His caution at meeting them shifted to amusement at Alice’s words.

“Sure.”

Jasper joined his siblings as they climbed in Edward’s car, though they all subtly watched as Harry got in the glossy sports car and drove out of the parking lot as if-

“Damn. Kid drives like he’s invincible,” Emmett chuckled. Rosalie sucked in a shocked breath as Harry turned his car sharply at the last second to avoid hitting the blue minivan parked in the teachers lot.

“I like him,” Alice said simply, relaxing back against the passenger seat as Edward drove them home. “I think he’s interesting.”

“I couldn’t understand his actual thoughts, just the general ideas in his mind.” Edward had his brows mashed together in frustration. “I don’t know why his mind was so hard to access.”

“Maybe he’s an idiot,” Emmett offered as an explanation. “He did say he was in remedial classes.”

Jasper wasn’t sure why Harry’s mind was so difficult for Edward to read, but he was certain that wasn’t the cause. As was Rosalie apparently.

“He is not an idiot,” she said snappily. “I think he seems sweet.”

“I think he seems like he could use a few hot meals and some sleep,” Emmett laughed, unbothered by Rosalie’s heated tone. “Kid looks like he could break right in half.”

Jasper hummed in agreement with the first half of his brothers statement, but he thought Emmett missed the mark again with the second half.

Jasper didn’t think Harry was someone who would snap in half so easily. Certainly not without a fight.

“What do you think Jasper?”

“Hm?” Jasper focused on the conversation as Alice twisted in her seat to look at him. “About what?” he asked her.

“About Harry of course,” Alice said, blinking with a look of innocence that didn’t suit her.

Jasper looked out the window to the trees that were blurring as their car sped past them and considered Alice’s question.

“I think you’re right,” he eventually said, his voice soft and thoughtful. “I think he’s interesting.”