Green & Gold

Monday September 10, 2003

Jasper and Rosalie waited patiently in the high school parking lot for Harry to arrive. Alice had told them this morning that Harry was going to be late, and Rosalie refused to attend class until she was assured of her beloved humans well-being.

Jasper was simply... keeping his sister company.

That was what he kept telling himself.

But he couldn’t deny that at 8:27, the exact time Alice told them Harry would be arriving, Jasper wasn’t internally gleeful at having waited for him. Because...

Lord have mercy.

Jasper had seen some of the most mesmerizing, beautiful, unnaturally attractive immortals in his life. Thousands of them, in fact. But as Harry Potter pulled in to the high school parking lot, on a motorbike that looked entirely natural beneath him, Jasper knew that no vampire could hold a candle to this single humans beauty.

***
In Ms Ramsey’s Sociology class, Alice Cullen closed her eyes and watched as a future formed.

She wasn’t sure how it would work, only that it would.

In his seat beside her, Edward smiled with joy at the vision within his sisters mind. Though he also scoffed with amusement;

Trust Jasper to fall for a human.
***

“Is he even human?” Jasper breathed.

Harry didn’t look human. Surely humans would be bothered by the rain that drenched their hair. Their skin wouldn’t glow beneath the steady downpour. They wouldn’t be radiating their emotions (joy.pride.sorrow.) so loudly as they pulled a classic motorbike in to a parking lot. They wouldn’t look so powerful, effortlessly graceful, as they swung a short leg over the side of that motorbike and stretched their back out either.

A mere human would never have eyes so flawlessly and purely green.

So bright.

Rosalie snorted and gave Jasper a scathing look. “Of course he’s human, idiot.”

But Jasper wasn’t sure that Harry Potter wasn’t some sort of mortal sent straight from a god, an offering of beautiful humanity that was meant for anyone except Jasper.

Never Jasper.

Perhaps he was sent from hell in that case.

“Oh, hey.” Harry shook his head, sending droplets of clear water flying in every direction, as he walked up to them. “Were you guys late too?”

“We were waiting for you,” Rosalie told him. She quickly inspected him from top to bottom and shook her head at what she saw. She held the umbrella her and Jasper were using out in a silent invitation. “Harry, are you trying to get sick? Driving a motorcycle in the rain? Honestly.”

Harry glanced down at his soaked clothes, a black hooded jacket on top of a crimson tshirt, jeans, and black boots, and shrugged.

“You have a car where you can take the top off,” he quipped back at Rosalie. “Don’t you ever drive it in town?”

Jasper bit his cheek to keep from chuckling. Rosalie felt both affection and exasperation at Harry’s question.

“Of course not,” she sniffed with a dazzling half smile for the human. “A car like that? I’d never destroy the interior in such a way.”

Harry laughed at Rosalie, not at all put out by her haughty manor and Jasper felt himself smiling as he took note of how musical his laugh was.

“We should probably get to class,” Harry checked a small black wristwatch and grimaced. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got detention waiting on me.”

“There’s only twenty five minutes left of first hour, we could skip.”

Harry gave Jasper a surprised look, one that slowly morphed in to a small smile. A mischievous smile. One that Jasper thought suited him very well.

“Won’t I still get detention?” he asked.

“Not if you have a doctors note,” Jasper told him with perfect honesty. “And you may not know this, but I know a doctor whose handwriting I can easily mimic.”

The startled laugh he got from Harry, along with a wave of delight, would be worth explaining to Carlisle later how he had abused his signature for the sake of skipping class.

The twenty five minutes Jasper spent in Edward’s car listening to Harry talk with Rosalie was wonderful. But it wasn’t enough. Harry hardly spoke of himself, and Jasper was burning to get to know him better.

He decided to begin at lunch that very day.

Patience had never been a virtue of his.

“Where did you get your bike from?” he asked Harry after he sat down with Alice at their table.

grief.love.sorrow.GUILT.

Jasper sent a delicate wave of peace towards him, desperate to mute the bottomless agony that his question revealed in Harry.

“It was my godfathers,” Harry said quietly. He tapped the tabletop with his index finger as his eyes took on a faraway look. “He loves- loved- he loved that bike.”

“It’s a beautiful bike,” Jasper said gently, his dead heart filled with phantom pain at proof of yet another loss in the young humans life. “A Triumph 650 Bonneville? They don’t make them like that anymore. It’s a classic bike, worth a fortune.”

“I can’t believe it runs so smoothly considering how old it is,” Rosalie added.

amusement.

“Yeah it’s magical, isn’t it?” Harry grinned at Rosalie and his eyes flashed with mischief. Jasper felt very much as if Harry were enjoying a private joke that he desperately wished he was privy to.

“I think if you keep riding a motorcycle in the rain that you’ll be too sick to come hang out on Sunday,” Alice told Harry. Or really, Alice was informing her siblings that Harry’s reckless disregard for his health was going to affect her plans to go shopping with her human this weekend and she didn’t care for that at all.

“I’ll be fine,” Harry rolled his eyes and Jasper was elated at the motion. Harry was more lively today than he had been since they first met. “You worry too much Alice.”

“And you don’t worry enough,” Rosalie sighed. “I’m going to have to go get the car parts today if we don’t want you to get pneumonia.”

“You can fix my car?” Harry gazed at Rosalie with such blatant admiration that it made Jasper bristle. He suddenly regret his disdain for auto-mechanics and wished he had spent even a few of the last 169 years of his life bothering to learn how to rebuild cars.

Edward stared down in his lap and took a few deep breathes to prevent himself from laughing outright at Jasper’s thoughts.

“It’s a giant pain in the ass, but yes,” Rosalie gave Harry a smile that would knock any straight man to his knees. “I think I can make her run again.”

“Might put a cap on his speed though Rose,” Emmett chuckled. “You’d make a killing in Nascar kid.”

Harry squinted at Emmett and suddenly the five vampires spent the rest of the lunch period explaining the concept of ‘yes people really do get paid millions of dollars just to drive fast cars around a racetrack’ to Harry.

Rosalie also nearly ground her teeth to dust when she had to explain ‘no Harry, you cannot join them because it is dangerous’.

If Jasper’s thoughts lingered on the human boy too often before that morning, it was nothing to how they were now. Harry James Potter (for Jasper had peeked at Harry’s enrollment paperwork, desperate to find out anything about the human and only learned his middle name) consumed his every thought.

Luckily for Jasper, Alice was terribly clingy and possessive of her friends and was finding constant excuses for Harry to visit their home.

‘Don’t you want to help Rosalie repaint your car?’ earned Jasper a couple of hours of listening to Harry’s charming accent as he happily painted the nearly finished car. Truthfully, Rosalie was relieved Harry had no true understanding of how long repairs should take as she had rebuilt the damn thing in five days, as opposed to the months a human mechanic would take. Harry had stroked Jasper’s own ego when he noticed his own motorcycle in the garage and sent off bright waves of delight at the sleekly designed bike. Jasper told him they could ride together sometime, when it wasn’t raining, and he rejoiced in Harry’s shy agreement.

‘I need someone to shop with and you’re my only friend!’ coupled with a pathetically pretty pout from Alice brought Harry over early one weekend morning. His eyes were bleary, he smelled like alcohol, but he gave Jasper a friendly smile when he brandished a silver cell phone.

“I thought you might want to know, I finally got a phone,” he said. “Took me a while to figure out how to set it up though, (pride.mischief.sorrow.) I was gonna see-“ Harry’s cheeks turned a shade of red that would have had venom pooling on Jasper’s tongue if his blood wasn’t so unappealing to his vampire appetite. “-if you’d want to add your number? Maybe if it ever stops raining we could still take our bikes out together?”

Jasper would have had his number in Harry’s phone before the human could even blink, but he reigned himself in at the last moment and calmly did it at a human pace instead.

“I’d love to,” Jasper told him sincerely.

Edward also helped his brother out, seamlessly following the plan Alice formulated within her thoughts.

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher when I finish college,” he lied smoothly. “Really you’re doing me a favor by allowing me to tutor you.”

Harry looked, and felt, suspicious at Edward’s story, but he nodded his head and squared his shoulders anyway.

“Think you can help me get out of remedial classes?” he challenged him.

“Oh Harry,” Edward smirked at the short human boy. “If you aren’t out of those classes after Christmas break then I’ll personally remove the cap on your car engine.”

Alice had laughed at that, as did Harry, but it brought Harry to the Cullen house two evenings a week, for at least two hours each time, as Harry attempted to get up to an average eleventh grade education.

Through all their interactions, Jasper learned tidbits of information about Harry as the boy dropped them. Harry wasn’t an open book by any means, and his anxiety soared when he was asked direct questions about himself, but that just made every bit of information Jasper discovered that much sweeter.

Harry’s parents died when he was only one, he never truly knew them. He was raised by his aunt and uncle (fear.pain.self-hatred.) and they didn’t talk since Harry moved out last year.

Harry was an adrenaline seeking daredevil. He had shown up at lunch one day and eagerly discussed how he went ‘cliff diving’ with ‘Paul and the guys’. Apparently ‘cliff diving’ was a popular sport at the La Push Reservation, where Harry’s uncle and cousin lived. Jasper had been worried about Harry’s connections to the Quileute Tribe, fearing they would share stories about the vampires they held a treaty with, but Harry never mentioned it and Jasper eventually pushed the worry away. He also ignored the jealousy that reared its ugly head when Harry said that he thought some of Jacob Black’s friends were warming up to him as they said they’d call him the next time they planned a trip back to the cliffs.

Why wouldn’t they want to spend time with Harry? Jasper certainly did.

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were Harry’s first and closest friends. The three of them were in the same club for their seven years at boarding school, and he missed them fiercely. He smiled softly and his emotions were joyous, and equally envious, when he said he imagined he would receive a wedding invitation within three years from them.

Harry knew how to cook, but he hated to do so. The Cullens had discovered that while Harry never ate any substantial meals, at least in their presence, he would snack absently on fruits if they were readily available and they eagerly stocked the house with a variety of them for their human.

Harry enjoyed reading, but his textbooks ‘made no bloody sense.’ He admitted that Hermione had always helped him with his written assignments as he ‘did much better with practical work’.

Jasper felt a bit guilty adding this but... Harry was also exceptionally unobservant. He had once spent an entire Saturday with Alice and never questioned the fact that she didn’t eat, drink, or use the restroom once.

Esme had scolded her daughter for that, it was careless to act so inhuman in front of Harry, even if he either didn’t seem to notice, or simply didn’t care.

And by the end of September, Jasper could admit to himself that he was terribly, irreversibly, infatuated with the human.

The human whose lifespan was a mere blink of the eternity that Jasper faced. Less than that when he factored in Harry’s alcoholism, recklessness, and disregard for basic human safety.

Harry’s eyes were still burning, his emotions consistently deep and agonizing, but Jasper thought they were lessening every time Harry was around them. He convinced himself that if he was beginning to form an attachment to the human, perhaps the human was forming one to him as well.

“You’re blushing,” Alice breathed in Jasper’s ear when he watched Harry drive out of the parking lot in his newly restored car one afternoon in early October.

“With my frozen heart?” Jasper raised a brow down at his sister. “I think not.”

“Ugh, don’t spend all night moping,” Alice whined as they climbed in the backseat with Rosalie, apparently seeing a vision Jasper couldn’t. “I wanted to run to Seattle tonight!”

“Dude, you’re not serious?” Emmett turned from the front seat and glared at his brother. “The World Series is on tonight! We’re watching the game!”

“You suck.” Alice stuck her tongue out at Emmett and Jasper and pouted the whole drive home. Apparently seeing that Jasper would indeed be watching the game. A foregone conclusion really when he had a fair amount of money riding on the Yankees.

Just because he was from Texas didn’t mean he was stupid. If ever the Yankees were due for a comeback, it was now.

As much as he wanted to immerse himself in the simplicity of watching a baseball game with his brother that night, his mind, with its endless space, wouldn’t allow him to relax.

Jasper was driving himself insane with his own tumultuous thoughts. It was the same idea, the same thoughts, again and again:

Do what was right and ignore his attraction and attachment to Harry, allowing him to live free of the vampirism that impacted Jasper’s eternity, or...

Or talk to Carlisle? Carlisle had changed Esme because he saw something beautiful in her. He changed Emmett because Rosalie asked him to.

Would he do the same for Jasper?

Would Jasper ask him to do such a heinous thing?

Would Harry even want Jasper in the same way he was beginning to see he wanted him in?

Jasper was a monster. A true villain in any story. He had killed thousands, hardly bothering to recall their faces, certainly not their names.

Harry deserved better. Deserved a life devoid of constant thirst and fighting against his very nature. Deserved a life, period.

But didn’t Jasper deserve anything?

Did he not deserve the same perfect happiness that his parents and two of his siblings had?

Didn’t Harry? Didn’t the human boy with the agonized soul and the deep sorrow and loneliness deserve a family that would accept him, friends to remain by his side for eternity, and a mate so singularly dedicated to ensuring his never ending happiness?

Jasper had never worried about a concept such as ‘love’ before, content to remain romantically nomadic. But now...

“Do you believe in soul mates?” Jasper asked Emmett quietly. The two of them were alone in the living room, Emmett standing in front of the television and Jasper by his side. Emmett was easy to be around when Jasper’s own emotions were in turmoil, his constant joy was relaxing to smother his angst with. He knew his family scattered around the property would hear his question regardless of how quietly he asked it, but they were typically polite enough to ignore hushed conversations.

“Hell yeah,” Emmett smiled goofily as a commercial kicked on and he turned to his brother. “How can I not? Look at me and Rose. We’re end game baby.”

Jasper turned the question he was burning to ask Emmett over and over, an attempt to find a delicate way to ask about the thought that plagued him.

“Are you happy though?” he said. “Is immortality worth being with Rosalie?”

With only a brush of wind, and what seemed to be a lifetime spent anticipating attacks, Jasper had a mere fifteenth of a second warning before Rosalie was in his face. Her lips were pulled back in vicious snarl and her eyes were dark and flashing with fury.

“Leave him alone,” Rosalie hissed, her gleaming white teeth covered in a film of venom and bared directly in Jasper’s face. “I’ve seen how you look at him, and I will kill you Jasper Hale, I swear to God. I will burn your body to ash if you dare touch one hair on Henry’s head.”

“Harry.”

Rosalie spun around, her neck twisting hard enough to pull a muscle if she had been human, and she fixed her newly appeared sister with a hard glare. “Excuse me?”

“Harry,” Alice repeated, her voice calm and steady. “His name is Harry.”

Rosalie didn’t blanch, as she was unable to physically do so, but her eyes did flash (grief.loss.love.) and she took a step away from Jasper.

“That’s what I said,” she said cooly. The rest of their family, who had all flown to the room after Rosalie did, didn’t correct her. But they all knew what name she had said.

And now Jasper had to find out who the hell Henry was.

“Why do you think Jasper is going to harm Harry?” Carlisle asked Rosalie, nodding gratefully to his son as Jasper released tranquility in the tense group. Emmett moved to Rosalie’s side, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. Alice and Edward moved to either side of Jasper, both calmly assuming protective measures should Rosalie attack him.

“You heard him,” Rosalie said, her tone still heated but much more calm than it had been. “He wants to turn him! He thinks that his love,” she sneered the word, “is worth this life!”

“Oh Jasper,” Esme gave her son a watery smile (joy.love.confusion.). “You love him? Truly?”

“I-“ Jasper broke off as he felt the weight of his entire family staring at him. “I did not say that,” he said slowly. “I was simply discussing relationships with Emmett.”

Rosalie was having none of Jaspers equivocations, “Bull shit. We’ve all see it Jasper. The way you watch him, the way you talk with him. And I’m telling you I won’t stand by and let you damn that boy to this life.”

“What if he wants it?” Jasper challenged her. “What the hell else does he have?! He’s miserable Rosalie! He doesn’t have a family! He’s alone! Did you ever think maybe he’d be happier with us? With me?”

“Jazz... no.” This time the rebuke didn’t come from Rosalie, but Edward. His brother shook his bronze hair and gave Jasper a small frown of disapproval, though he was radiating waves of sympathy. “You can’t force this life on him. He’s a human, he’s young. He deserves better.” Carlisle was nodding in agreement as Jasper’s shoulders slumped.

He knew that. He knew Harry deserved better than him.

“That’s not what I-“

Edward’s apology, for he hadn’t meant Harry deserved better than Jasper, simply better than this frozen immortality, was interrupted by Alice.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said with her quiet confidence. “I don’t see any future now that doesn’t include Harry and Jasper together.”

’I don’t see any future now that doesn’t include Harry and Jasper together.’

Together.

Him and Harry.

His.

His.

Jasper thanked his lucky stars that Alice found him and drug him along to join the Cullens when she did. He thought perhaps all the effort he put in to preserving human life must be the reason behind Alice’s vision. Jasper hadn’t sensed any romantic or affectionate emotions coming from Harry, but there must be a part of his subconscious that was interested if Alice could see them together.

Esme was rejoicing, thrilled that her sensitive and empathetic son had found someone to bond with. Rosalie let out a furious snarl, because how dare Jasper selfishly force Harry to this life? Carlisle maintained a calm expression, though he was internally arguing with himself as he believed Jasper deserved happiness as much as Harry deserved to live a normal life. Edward frowned, puzzled by the visions flashing rapidly through Alice’s memory.

“You can’t say that for sure,” he said. “Look at your own visions, most of them are filled with gaps and white blanks.”

Alice’s forehead crinkled with her own confusion, her visions had never done that before, before smoothing out and smiling serenely. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Even with the white spots- I don’t see Harry or Jazz separate in the future. They’re going to be together.”

“Carlisle!” The family turned to Rosalie who, despite the calming energy Jasper was attempting to force on her, looked wild with fury and concern. “You can’t just stand there and let him do this! Harry is a human! He’s young and healthy and has a whole life ahead of him!”

“He’s miserable and alone,” Jasper snapped at her, now entirely warmed up to the idea. “He’s just constantly depressed! He’ll drink himself to death if something doesn’t change anyway! You’ve seen him; do you think humans are meant to be so pale? So withdrawn? So frail and depressed? We could be his family. He’d be happier, I know it.”

Rosalie ignored Jasper’s self righteous, selfish, speech and focused on Carlisle. Her eyes burned in to his as he carefully considered the situation.

“Does Harry look happy in your visions with Jasper?” Carlisle asked Alice calmly. This was the first part to resolve, would Harry even be happy with his son?

“He does.” Alice beamed at her brother, incredibly pleased that he had finally found someone to soothe his restless spirit.

“But he’s still human in all these visions,” Edward pointed out. “Who knows if he’d still be happy with Jasper if he was turned? Maybe this means that Jasper should just be with him for the rest of his human life. It would hurt to lose him eventually, but Harry may resent him for damning him for eternity.”

Jasper’s surging joy and hopes crashed at that revelation.

“He’s human in all your visions?” Carlisle asked Alice. “Interesting.”

“Not really,” Alice said thoughtfully. “I think it just means that Jasper won’t change him and you haven’t decided to yet.”

Yet.

“Is this what you want?” Carlisle asked Jasper, ignoring his other children and focusing solely on the one. “Is this what you would ask me to do?”

“I don’t...” Jasper’s voice failed him as he looked in to Carlisle’s compassionate eyes. “What would you do?” he asked in a desperate whisper.

“Leave,” Rosalie snarled. Her father and brother ignored her as they focused on each other.

“I can’t answer that,” Carlisle said gently. “You deserve happiness and love, as does Harry. I have never, will never, regret the actions I took to build the family we have, but I do regret that none of us were given a choice. If you ask me to turn him, I will. But I won’t do it without his informed consent.”

Jasper wasn’t unaware of the weight behind Carlisle’s words. He could feel it in his expression and his emotions. He truly loved Jasper as a son, wanted the best for him, but would not take away Harry’s mortality lightly. And certainly not without Harry knowing all the risks.

Not without Harry knowing that he would one day outlive his cherished friends, as faraway as they currently lived.

Not without Harry being informed of the dry burn he would suffer in his throat for an eternity.

Not without Harry discovering that he would be forever frozen, an eighteen year old until he one day outlived all creations aside from his fellow monsters.

“What if he says no?” Emmett asked slowly. “If Jasper tells him, and he says no? He can’t just walk around knowing about us.”

Damn.

Trust Emmett to choose this exact moment to be so logically rational.

“That does present a problem,” Carlisle said.

“A dangerous one!” Rosalie cried. “We can’t just go telling a human about us! It would force him to have to join us!”

“Or risk exposing us,” Esme interjected softly. “I don’t want my children to be in harms way because of it.”

“Harry wouldn’t expose us.”

“Harry would never.”

Jasper and Rosalie exchanged surprised glances at their simultaneous defense of the human before they scowled and turned away from each other.

“Clearly we have all grown fond of Harry, but maybe some space would be a good idea?” Carlisle suggested gently. “We have been monopolizing him, and he’s clearly in an emotionally vulnerable state. Why don’t we give him some space to see if he is as fond of Jasper as Jasper is of him? Space to see if perhaps he wouldn’t be happier with human acquaintances filling his time?”

“We could take a camping trip,” Esme jumped in quickly, eager to end her children’s fighting. “It’s supposed to be cloudless the next couple days anyway. Let’s all go out to the Rockies together. We can hunt, run, relax. Then we can talk about it when we get back.”

Jasper didn’t like it. He didn’t want to leave Harry alone and hope that he did (didn’t?) find humans to bond with during their absence. He felt a well of despair as he considered the many more deserving, normal (boring), humans within the school that would happily take Harry’s attention from him.

Alice was no mind reader or empath, but it didn’t take one to understand the flash of emotions in Jasper’s eyes at Esme’s rational suggestion and unravel the thoughts behind them. She loved Jasper, he was her first friend, her first family member, and the first person to care for her. And she wouldn’t let him spend his time in temporary exile worried out of his mind. So she double checked the future-

Harry and Jasper.

Jasper and Harry.

Harry and the Cullens.

Jasper meeting Harry’s friends.

-and turned sideways so that no one but Jasper could see the wink and slight shake of her head she sent him.

She wasn’t sure how, she didn’t understand why, but the future was filled with Harry alongside Jasper. Her visions weren’t terribly far, as Harry was human and the same age he was now in all of them, but Harry and Jasper looked dedicated and desperately in love in each vision.

Alice honestly thought they made an adorable couple. Privately she hoped Carlisle turned Harry so that she could plan an amazing wedding for the two of them every fifty years or so.

She hid her concern at the large white gaps in the visions involving Harry. No need to rile Edward up and put him even further on Team ‘Leave the Human Mortal’.

Jasper was relieved at the small shake of Alice’s head. She must have somehow sensed his worries, and was reassuring him.

“That sounds great,” he lied politely to his mother. “Certainly a few days away won’t hurt anything.”

Esme beamed and kissed Jasper’s cheek before she rushed off to make arrangements. The rest of them, sans Rosalie who stubbornly sat beside Emmett on the couch, causing Jasper to relocate to the recliner, went back to their previous activities.

Jasper didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to toy with fate by testing to see if Harry would find someone new to interact and eat lunch with. He didn’t want Harry telling other people about his past, or sharing his smiles, as rare as both behaviors were.

But he didn’t want to fight with his family either.

He also needed time to consider how he could find out if Harry would ever consider joining his family, without risking their safety from both exposure and the Volturi.

It was a delicate question that would have given Jasper a headache if he had been human. As it was, his own emotions were tense and frustrated as he sat in the recliner and thought about it.

And the damn Yankees lost the World Series too.

Which was truly karma for a confederate soldier having placed money on their win.