James
Harry focused clearly on the image of the library, only mildly curious about where precisely he would end up apparating to, as he turned on the spot and pulled Edward alongside him in to the darkness.
Don’t fall, he told himself firmly. The last thing he needed to do was pop in a room with a pissed off vampire and a possibly ‘being drained of blood’ muggle and trip over his feet like the buffoon Snape always accused him of being.
So, of course, they landed and Harry stumbled forward. But that was less to do with his own shortcomings and more to do with the startling roar that came from Edward beside him.
Before Harry’s feet had even touched the ground, Edward was slamming James in to a wall, sending books and splinters of wood flying across the room.
Harry watched them slam against one another, a booming crack as stone hit stone, and wavered in his resolve to begin slinging fire. He was almost entirely certain that he’d told Edward he needed a clear shot if he didn’t want burnt. Edward looked like he was doing alright though, so Harry took the chance to look for Bella.
“Bella,” Harry tripped over his feet in his haste to get to the bleeding girl on the floor. She was close to the door, curled on her side in a pathetic heap surrounded by her own blood. “Hey, hey,” he crouched down beside her and let out a gust of air at the sight of the blood pouring from a bite on her arm.
’Look... at... me...’
“Not now,” Harry growled to himself aloud. He didn’t have time to lose himself in his thoughts, he had to figure out how to keep her from dying.
“Harry... he bit... bit my arm... camera- there...” Bella’s pupils were blown wide, the black engulfing her warm brown. She twitched her arm weakly towards a corner where a green light was glowing from a camera.
Was Harry going to be this bloody dramatic when he’d been around for hundreds of years?
Merlin.
Harry felt his entire body recoil as he recognized the crescent mark on her arm. The veins in her arm were already starting to swell, distending from the venom.
Harry could heal a cut. He could fix the obviously broken bones. But he couldn’t remove venom from a bloodstream.
“Help me!” Harry shouted. He turned and saw that James had Edward in a headlock, both vampires were snarling and clawing at each other. Harry caught Edward’s gaze and tried to think as very, very, hard as he could:
Duck.
Edward moved the same time Harry threw a silent sectumsempra at James’ neck. It barely avoided Edward, but it wasn’t like it was a fatal move either.
“Trade me,” Harry barked. He pulled his wand and began slashing it as he repeated sectumsempra over and over. James snarled and lunged at Harry with his teeth bared. Harry didn’t have a hope of dodging a vampire but he could-
“Bombarda!”
James was thrown back, pieces of glass from the French doors Harry blasted him in to spraying out and cutting Harry’s hastily defensive arm. He didn’t stay back long though, he was back on his feet almost immediately, hissing at Harry like Crookshanks used to hiss at Scabbers.
“They don’t care about you,” James said with a cruel twist of his lips. “They’re using you, wizard boy.” He feinted to the left, and Harry matched the movement with his wand. “They’re using you for your magic.”
(Jasper’s eyes, soft and golden while he took Harry up to a mountain peak. Alice’s laugh when she made Harry try on a girls blouse without telling him. Rosalie’s snark after Harry flung bits of paint at her. Edward spending hours with Harry when he thought he was just a muggle, patiently teaching him basic mathematics. Emmett’s booming laughs and attempts to teach Harry how to play ‘Mario Party’. Esme handing Harry a bag full of sandwiches and ‘her best attempt at treacle tart’. Carlisle offering Harry a private medical exam, thinking he was afraid of hospitals.).
“I’ve been used for worse,” Harry drawled nonchalantly. He flung a stunning spell at James’ left side before following with another sectumsempra at his right. He had expected him to move to the right, dodging the bright red stunner he aimed at his left side- but James dodged the sectumsempra and fell literally right in to the path of the stunner.
“Dang.” Harry stepped closer and smirked down at James. “That was daft wasn’t it mate?”
“Incendio.”
Harry felt a bit concerned at his level of detachment as he watched the flames engulf James.
Shouldn’t he feel bad?
Where was his panic now?
Harry just stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched as James was slowly reduced to mere ashes, his crimson eyes trained on Harry throughout it.
Harry assumed he’d feel guilty later, later he would consider how he should have offered James a chance to surrender or something ridiculous, but for now?
He felt fine as he watched.
Calm.
Peaceful.
It was all a bit anticlimactic really.
Or it was, until Edward’s stream of soothing noises brought his attention to the corner where Bella was.
Bella.
Idiot, he berated himself as he quickly scrambled to his friend.
“She’s going to turn,” Edward said tonelessly. “Look.” He pointed at the bite on Bella’s arm, her entire forearm now popping blue veins out. Edward had her cradled in his arms, his eyes filled with grief as Bella was being transformed right before their eyes.
“It’s burning,” Bella cried weakly. “Please,” she gasped and then let out a scream. “IT’S BURNING!”
“How do we stop it?” Harry asked Edward, his previously diminished panic hitting him like a brick wall at Bella’s obvious pain. “Edward- how?”
“We can’t,” Edward moaned. He held Bella closer and put his face on the crown of her head. “I- there’s no way to get the venom out. It’ll reach her shoulder soon and then travel straight to her heart.”
“So let’s cut off her arm!” Harry suggested a bit madly. “Better to lose one arm than her life.”
“That’s it,” Edward lifted his head and there was a new spark of hope in his eyes. “Not cutting her arm off, that’s the craziest thing you’ve ever said you psychopath, but just get rid of the venom.” Edward blocked out Bella’s shrieks and brought her arm to his nose, running it along the arm and stopping at the crook of her elbow. “It’s not spread far yet,” he said. “Just pull it out Harry.”
Harry was still processing that somehow Edward, the most dramatic prat he’d ever met (perhaps second to James or Malfoy), had called him crazy.
Edward was bloody well stalking Bella for weeks, wasn’t he?
“HARRY! Can you summon the venom out?”
“What?” Harry focused on the unfolding situation, his mind feeling as sluggish now as the venom spreading through Bella’s arm. “No.”
“What use are you then?” Edward snarled. “Just use your magical wand!”
...
What use was he?
Did Edward just ask what use Harry was?
Harry just killed the vampire- singlehandedly.
The stunner was a lucky shot, but he didn’t see Edward catching the dramatic git on fire with luck, did he?
“I CAN’T JUST ACCIO VENOM!” Harry screamed, his temper flaring to a boiling point. “YOU CAN SUCK THE VENOM OUT YOURSELF YOU ARROGANT BLOODSUCKING ARSE!”
Edward gave him a terrified look, and Harry knew rationally that he wasn’t being entirely fair, that Edward was just scared and freaking out and not being an arse on purpose, but there wasn’t time for that. James bit her and Bella deserved more than to have her soul and her morality taken away by some dramatic leech with a video camera.
“I’ll kill her,” Edward croaked. “Harry, I- I won’t be able to stop. I’ll kill her.”
“I’ll kill you first,” Harry promised. He pointed his wand at Edward’s head. “If you don’t stop, I’ll kill you.”
“Swear it.”
“I solemnly swear.”
“I’m sorry love, this is going to hurt,” Edward murmured. He locked his eyes on Harry’s, pulled Bella’s arm up to his mouth, and covered James’ bite mark with his own mouth.
Harry held his wand steady- he wouldn’t be able to catch Edward on fire with Bella in his arms, but he’d land a nice little stunner at this distance.
Bella screamed, an unholy sound of excruciating pain from the moment Edward began pulling the blood back out through the wound.
“Kill me,” she screamed. “Please, god, kill me.”
’Kill me!’
‘KILL ME!’
‘I am not worried Harry, I am with you.’
‘Severus... please...’
“You’re almost there,” Harry murmured. He didn’t know if he was talking to Bella, Edward, or himself though. But he saw as the veins in Bella’s arms were diminishing, shrinking down to a normal size as the venom was pulled back out of them.
Bella kept screaming, unaware of anything around her outside of the intense burning pain in her wrist. Her eyes finally, thankfully, rolled in the back of her head and she went limp in Edward’s arms.
“That’s enough,” Harry told Edward. “Smell her and check.”
Edward had closed his eyes though, his face looking as if he were floating on an untouchable island of ecstasy. Bella’s lips were turning white, her cheeks no longer red from the screams.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Harry yelled. “YOU’RE GOING TO KILL HER!”
The stunner was on the tip of Harry’s tongue, he would stun Edward, fix Bella up, then decide what to do with Edward. Right before his tongue moved to form the first syllable, and with some insane level of inhuman control, Edward pulled his mouth off Bella’s arm and took deep shuddering breaths. He pulled Bella up to his chest and his shoulders shook while he buried his face in her hair.
“I thought I would kill you, Bella. Oh Bella. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Harry didn’t want to interrupt Edward’s victorious moment of successfully not draining his girlfriend of blood, but she still had a hell of a lot of other injuries they needed to deal with.
“Is it all out?” Harry lowered his wand as it didn’t seem like he’d need to kill Edward today after all.
“She- she smells clean,” Edward said tightly. He laid Bella gingerly on the floor in front of him and put his nose directly on her arm by the bite mark again. He trailed upward slowly until he got to her shoulder. “There’s no venom, but Harry... Harry she’s going to bleed to death. We have to get her to a hospital.”
“Move.” Harry ordered him. Edward was stiff, his muscles tense while it looked like his shoulders were shaking with unshed sobs. Harry wasn’t unsympathetic to watching someone you love die-
Sirius falling.
Harry screaming.
‘CRUCIO!’
‘You have to mean it.’
But he had.
-it just wasn’t the time or place if she still had a chance to live.
And Harry made a promise to bring Charlie Swan’s daughter home to him. He couldn’t give Teddy back to his parents, but he could do this.
These were people he could still help.
Harry blasted Edward to the other side of the room, a spot where he could still have Bella in his line of sight, but where he wasn’t in Harry’s way.
Harry went ahead and stuck him there just for good measure. If Bella started screaming, Harry didn’t want bit in the process.
Edward screamed anyway, cursing Harry’s name and demanding he let him go.
“WE HAVE TO GET HER TO A HOSPITAL!”
Edward probably forgot that Harry was a wizard. Which was fair, because sometimes Harry forgot he was a wizard who could use actual magic to improve his life. Either that or Edward didn’t expect Harry to know any healing spells. Whichever it was, Harry ignored him as Edward screamed and cursed over and over.
“Episky,” Harry set his wand on the floor beside him in favor of running his bare hand over Bella’s broken skin. “Episky. Episky.” He watched as the skin slowly knitted itself together, all but the sluggishly bleeding crescent wound on her arm.
He really hoped Severus Snape was as brilliant as the man considered himself to be. If a spell could heal one type of un-healable dark wound, maybe it could heal another?
He grimaced and went ahead and picked his wand back up, wanting to mimic the weaving motion that had once sealed the cursed cuts Harry left on Draco Malfoy in a girls bathroom.
“Vulnera Sanentur,” he sang. He weaved his wand over the bite marks that made his stomach churn. “Vulnera Sanentur.”
Edward finally quit screaming and was silently watching from the spot Harry stuck him. They both held their breath as Bella’s skin began growing over top of the open wound. Harry repeated the chant until it was fully healed, no blood leaving her body.
“This is the part that’s going to hurt,” Harry warned both Edward and Bella if she could hear him in her unconsciousness. He sucked in a breath and looked at Bella’s very obviously broken right kneecap.
Merlin don’t let me vanish the bone.
“Brackium Emendo.”
Bella gasped then let out a scream so sharp there was no way she didn’t tear her throat.
Edward was doing the shaking sobbing noise behind him, moaning Bella’s name, but Bella began thrashing and Harry could only do so much.
Why hadn’t he called Hermione?
Oh yeah, because she’d be furious.
“‘What were you thinking? You could have been killed! Or worse, expelled!’” Harry snorted as he mimicked tiny little eleven year old Hermione aloud. He’d be so lucky to have either things happen to him. “I’m going to stun you if you don’t quit moving,” Harry warned Bella. He didn’t think she could hear him, but it looked like he had a wrist and collarbone to heal and stunning her now would be easier than explaining to a muggle healer why a teenage girl is missing bones.
Bella ignored him, as he assumed she would, so he went ahead and petrified her.
“Brackium Emendo.” Harry tapped his wand to her collarbone, privately glad he didn’t have to see her warm brown eyes react to the sharp pain he knew she had to be experiencing. “Last one now,” Harry assured her softly. “Brackium Emendo.”
“I think she’s fixed,” Harry panted. He inspected Bella’s body as carefully as he could and nodded to himself. “Yeah, I think she’s fine. Probably needs some blood though.”
“Harry please unfreeze me, I am not going to hurt either of you.” Harry looked over his shoulder at Edward and saw that he did look very calm. He waved his hand in his direction and noticed in a very dispassionate and detached sort of way that it was shaking.
Hands weren’t really supposed to shake that much.
Edward was at his side in an instant, gently moving Bella’s clothes around to look for injuries.
“One more gash here if you can,” Edward murmured, pointing out a deep cut on Bella’s thigh that Harry missed.
Harry put his hand directly on the cut, “Episky.”
“Why is she still so stiff?” Edward asked quietly. “Did you do that or...?”
“I did it,” Harry said. “Hold on-“ he cast the counter-jinx and they both watched as Bella’s eyes began fluttering.
“Ed-Edward?” She sounded terrible, a side of effect of her pain probably.
“I’m here, Bella, I’m here.”
Bella opened her eyes with a small gasp and immediately began spilling tears down her face.
“It was a trick,” she wailed. “He- he said he had my mom!”
Harry would have called her an idiot for thinking that a vampire had managed to move her mom from Phoenix, Arizona to London, England so quickly, but...
But he’d once thought that Voldemort had kidnapped his convict godfather and broke in to the Ministry of Magic without alerting anyone, hadn’t he?
Bella threw herself on Edward’s chest, all of them ignoring the smoldering ashes on the opposite side of the room.
“And Harry! Harry!” Bella abruptly flung herself at Harry, ignoring his twitch in favor of sobbing on him. “You saved me!”
Harry pat her back awkwardly, his vision swimming as he tried to focus on the muggle soaking his shirt with her tears. He opened his mouth to suggest she go cry on Edward instead, but the moment he did he caught a whiff of the burning vampire and immediately threw up a mouthful of stomach acid.
Then, because life was truly unfair, Harry blacked out in a state of bliss.
Harry woke for a moment, disoriented and confused. He blinked up and thought he saw Jasper’s face.
“You have a cute face,” he murmured.
He was unconscious before Jasper could decide between crying or laughing.
“He’s waking up now.”
Harry grunted at the annoying voice that was interfering with his sleep. He turned to shift in his chair better, and felt immediately off-kilter by the flat softness beneath him.
He opened his eyes and groaned aloud when he recognized the red walls and posters across from him.
“Sirius?”
“Jasper.”
Harry flipped in the other direction and saw Jasper perched on the edge of his bed (not Sirius’ bed, because Sirius is dead and Harry is alive). Carlisle stood behind him, his eyes a dark amber as he watched Harry.
“Good morning,” he said with a small smile. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.” Harry recalled the fight with James, fixing Bella’s injuries, and then nothing. “Passed out I guess?”
“You did,” Jasper answered. “And I hope you don’t mind, I had Carlisle break in to your house to come break in to your other house to treat you and Isabella.”
“I’m pressing charges,” Harry deadpanned. “How’s Bella?”
“Thanks to you? Perfect. All she needed was a bag of blood to replenish her.” Carlisle positively beamed and patted Harry’s leg gently. “I wish I could heal all my patients with a magic wand.”
One day Harry was going to get the Cullen’s to quit prefacing everything he did with ‘magic’.
‘Magic spell’.
‘Magic wand’.
‘Magic broomstick.’
“I’ll leave you boys alone to catch up. We could go home tonight if you feel up to it Harry,” Carlisle said. “Isabella is already downstairs enjoying a meal that your lovely house-elf made for the two of you.”
“Lovely?” Jasper swung his head around to gape at his father. “Kreacher attacked me with a knife, again, when I carried Harry inside.”
Harry grinned and grabbed his glasses off the table beside the bed. That did sound a bit like something Kreacher would do.
“Well imagine how it looked for a vampire to be carrying in his unconscious friend. His friend who was covered in blood and bruises, in the arms of a ‘nasty creature’,” Carlisle spoke calmly, but there was an undeniable twinkle of laughter in his eyes. “And it’s not like he was able to hurt you.”
“Not for a lack of trying,” Jasper grumbled. Carlisle chuckled and clasped his sons shoulder before leaving to give the two of them some privacy.
“How’d you find me?” Harry sat up and propped against the headboard.
“Magic,” Jasper said impassively. Harry held his gaze with a lifted brow until Jasper caved. “Edward called me after you threw up in Isabella’s hair and passed out.”
“I-“ Harry blinked, never having been so horrified in his life. “I threw up in her hair?”
“You did,” Jasper’s lips twitched like he was fighting off a smile.
“That’s disgusting,” Harry breathed. “Merlin.”
“She deserved it.” Jasper swung his legs up on the bed and stretched out next to Harry. “She shouldn’t have run off.”
Harry shrugged, his eyes flickering around Sirius’ room. “If she thought her mum was in danger, I mean it makes sense she went.”
“She walked right in to a trap,” Jasper said. “She had no reason to think her mother was truly there.”
Harry scowled at the wall across from him, his eyes roaming across the poster of the muggle woman on a motorcycle.
“This used to be my godfathers room,” he said. “And it might still be his room, except I walked in to a trap and it got him killed. So I don’t think Bella did a single thing that I wouldn’t have done.”
Jasper didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Harry kept his eyes trained on the poster across the wall.
“Is that why it’s decorated with women in bikinis?”
Harry snorted and turned to give Jasper a small smirk. “Yeah, he was a rebel.”
Jasper laughed and reached for Harry’s hand on the bedspread.
“You did good,” he said softly. “I saw the video. She would have died if it weren’t for you.”
Harry nodded, maintaining his passive expression, but he registered the truth in Jasper’s words.
She would have died one way or another if it weren’t for him.
She was alive because of him. Not dead, not turned, but alive.
There had been a lot of people he couldn’t save-
Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore. Hedwig. Moody. Dobby. Tonks. Remus. Fred. Colin. Snape.
-but not Bella Swan.
He saved her.