CHAPTER SIX:

Despite my desperate brainstorming and thorough reading of every (now un-shrunken) school book I had that even mentioned vampires, I was no closer to figuring out a solution to my problem. Add to that a nightmare that had me waking up shivering and soaked in sweat at four in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep, I was not in a good mood on Tuesday.

It only got worse when Ms. Varner called on me in math when my hand wasn't raised and I had the wrong answer, and then, much to my dismay, it turned out McKayla was in my History class, as well as the skinny black-haired girl, and McKayla immediately came and sat by me, then walked with me to my next class, the other girl glaring at her all the way.

My reluctance to be rude to a girl had me then trapped sitting with the same group at lunch as the day before. At least by this point I'd remembered the Hermes–look-a-like's name was Jeremy, and I'd also learned the names of a few others who sat at the same table– there was Abel, a quiet boy with rectangle-framed glasses and a faintly bookish air about him; a sporty red-head called Colleen, who had apparently been impressed with my performance in volleyball yesterday; Erica, the skinny, black-haired girl in my math class; Becca, who, going by the big doe eyes she kept giving him, obviously had a thing for Abel; and Logan, who, going by the angry eyes he kept giving me, obviously did not like me.

And just to put the cherry on the sundae, as I tried not to drag my feet while following McKayla into the cafeteria, I got a good look at the five vampires who, much to my utter dismay, all seemed much more interested in me today then they had yesterday.

My admittedly odd behavior had obviously stirred up suspicion, leaving me both frustrated and afraid and I wished that I was back in my bedroom– preferably, sleeping. Even more then that, though, I wished I was back at Hogwarts, and that Headmistress Dumbledore had never been murdered, because if she was still alive then the Dark Lady wouldn't have taken over, and I'd still be with Lyric and Gordy and even Neve, and Harri, Ronda and Hermes would be safe, and I wouldn't be stuck here, in a muggle high school, absolutely bloody useless, unable to even defend myself against vampires.

My distraction continued from lunchtime into my next class, where my lack of attention cost me as a stray volleyball rebounded off the wall and pelted against my hip. This caused burning flare of pain that had me stumble, not having expected it.

Coach Clapp must have seen the way my face instantly went white, both my hands lifting to press almost automatically against the skin between my ribcage and hip. I blamed my lack of sleep for the way it felt, for a heartbeat, like I could still feel hot blood leaking through my fingers.

"Old injury?" she asked briskly, ushering me off the court, over to the side. I concentrated on taking several deep breaths, the pain having mostly faded by this point, before answering her.

"I was in a car accident a year ago," I lied, and she immediately looked concerned.

"I want you to go check in with the nurse, alright?" she said. I was about to protest when I realized I'd just been granted the perfect opportunity to get out of biology.

"Okay," I agreed, and Coach seemed surprised but pleased by my lack of argument.

"I'll show Beau where the nurse's station is," offered McKayla, who I hadn't even realized was close enough to overhear our conversation.

I grabbed my stuff from the locker room, not wanting to make a return trip when I– hopefully– managed to get a sick pass, then followed McKayla. She kept giving me big, concerned eyes, clearly dying to ask some question or other, and I wasn't sure how much of my explanation to Coach she'd overheard.

She led us to the front office where Mr. Cope had handled my paperwork yesterday, then past the front counter, toward the door at the back of the room.

A grandfatherly old man, the school medic, looked up from a novel he was reading as we entered. "Is everything alright?" he asked, in a deeper voice then I was expecting. McKayla looked expectantly up at me and I cleared my throat.

"Um, I was hit by a volleyball in Gym," I said, "it aggravated an old injury from an accident I was in last year, so Coach asked me to come here." The nurse nodded.

"Alright, can you tell me what happened? I don't think we've got your medical records yet."

No, they most certainly didn't– my last muggle medical record was from when I was eleven. If the school asked for a copy of them, then Charlize was going to have to provide more fake papers– she'd gone with 'my crazy ex-husband didn't believe in schools so he home-schooled Beau' as well as producing a bunch of fake exam results to explain away my lack of school records, but I was pretty sure there were a bunch of muggle immunizations I hadn't had that would raise questions– questions Charlize and I wouldn't have answers to.

"I, uh," I paused, turning to McKayla, trying to indicate that I wanted her to leave. She didn't seem to get the message but the old man did.

"Thank you for bringing Mr. Swan here, Miss Newton," he said, and much to my relief he practically pushed her out. When he closed the door I actually let out a sigh that was far more audible then I'd intended, and the nurse let out a chuckle. "Do you need to sit down, son?" he asked, and I was about to shake my head because by now the pain had completely vanished, but then I remembered I was supposed to be playing it up to get out of biology.

"Um, yeah. That would be good." I said, trying not to stumble over my words– I wasn't a good liar. I'd never really needed to be one, before now. I awkwardly sat down on one of the cots, the crackly paper covering the vinyl mattress scrunching beneath me.

"I'm Mr. Hammond," the school nurse introduced himself, "now, what type of accident was it that you were in?"

"Car accident." I said, awkwardly, because that's what I'd told Coach.

"Can I see?" The old man asked, and I realized that one of my hands was pressed against my side again in a rather telling fashion. Reluctantly, I lifted my gym shirt, and Mr. Hammond made a sympathetic noise.

The scar was half an inch thick and deep, curving under my ribcage and down to my left hip. It had nearly killed me when I was fourteen and, along with Lyric, Harri, Hermes, Ronda, Gordy and Neve Longbottom, had broken into the Department of Mysteries.

The entire situation had been a complete disaster– Harri had been lured into a trap by the Dark Lady, and those of us that had followed her had been ambushed by Death Eaters. We'd all been lucky to get out of there alive, though for some of us it was a near thing. We could have all died that day.

Hermes had been hit with a very Dark curse by Antonia Dolohov, a curse that had left him on the verge of death– it should have killed him, but he'd hit Dolohov with a silencing spell earlier, which had weakened the curse enough his heart had kept beating. Ronda had been badly concussed and then attacked by a tank of aquavarius maggots (and Lyric still brought those up as proof whenever anyone tried to say one of his creatures or other didn't actually exist) which had done something to her mind, an effect similar to being roofied with muggle drugs; Gordy had been hit in the ankle with a bone-breaking curse; Neve had broken her nose head-butting a Death Eater; Lyric had managed to stay mostly unscathed, other then a few small cuts and bruises, and Harri had actually been– very briefly– possessed by the Dark Lady herself.

I was hit in the side by a cutting curse by Evanna Rosier, one of the Death Eaters who had escaped Azkaban. I'd nearly bled out on the hard stone floor of the Death Chamber, and the last thing I remember before waking up in the Hospital Wing was Harri's anguished scream as a gaunt-faced woman, her face forever frozen in a last laugh, fell through the Death Veil.

Later I learned that the woman had been Stella Black; Harri's godmother, the woman who everyone said had betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lady and the only witch or wizard to ever break themselves out of Azkaban (the Death Eaters broken out by the Dark Lady didn't count because She had broken them out). It turned out that Stella hadn't been guilty after all, but it was only after her death at the hands of her own cousin Braxton Lestrange, a true Death Eater and one of the Dark Lady's best lieutenants, that she was finally exonerated.

"That looks nasty," Mr. Hammond said, and I gave a weak laugh.

"Yeah. I don't actually remember any of the accident– the doctors say amnesia– but apparently they had to dig bits of metal out of my side." I lied, and Mr. Hammond nodded.

"Do you get a lot of pain?" he asked, concerned.

"Really only from rough contact." I answered, which was true– Dark curses left their marks in more ways then just physical; wounds just didn't quite heal right, the Dark magic lingering to cause whatever pain and grief it could. "Do you think I could lay down for a bit?" I asked, and I tried not to look so victorious when he nodded.

Pulling my legs up, the crackly paper making complaining sounds, I slumped over so I was laying flat. The cot's mattress honestly wasn't that bad and I even dozed off for a bit.

Mr. Hammond woke me in time for my last class of the day– English– and I stopped briefly in the bathroom to splash cold water on my face before sitting down to listen to Ms. Mason dissect Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' and reminded myself I actually needed to read the text. Then I remembered that I was only going to be going to Forks High for three more days, and gladly zoned out.

When the final bell rang I was relieved, and when when McKayla spotted me in the corridors I pretended I didn't see her, walking as quickly as I could to my truck while trying not to look like I was running away from her (which I absolutely was).

Clambering inside The Thing, I practically slammed the door shut, and twisted the key, the engine roaring to life. Pulling out of the parking space, I could see McKayla, a frustrated look on her face, over by the main office. I continued pretending I couldn't see her, driving home as quickly as the speed limits and the old engine in my even older car allowed me.

I considered not bothering with my homework– only three days left– but the Ravenclaw in me was horrified at the idea, and the memory of my embarrassment in math that morning was enough for me to drag out my textbooks and get to work.

I was struggling my way through a particularly difficult trigonometry equation when I heard the sound of Charlize's cruiser pulling up in the driveway I'd left clear, parking my truck on the street instead.

Looking over at the clock hanging up in the family room, I winced when I saw the time– nearly eight pm. I probably should have started making something for dinner. In the week I'd spent moping around the house, I'd put myself in charge of cooking the meals. We'd had left overs yesterday that Charlize had reheated, but nothing today. I wasn't even sure if Charlize had done the grocery shopping or not.

When my mother entered the house, though, she brought with her the unmistakable smell of fresh-cooked pizza. My stomach let out a growl in response to the mouthwatering scent, and I realised for the first time that I hadn't eaten anything since lunch.

"So," Charlize said, a pleasant smile on her face as she walked over through the tiny family room to where I was sitting at the table. "I hear you were in a car accident."

I cringed, not having expected the school to contact Charlize about my visit to the nurse's office– Hogwarts had certainly never sent any owls home, not unless you were in really big trouble. Not even after I'd nearly died in the Department of Mysteries, or when students were being petrified, or a mass-murderer (later exonerated) broke into the school- twice, or when Death Eaters broke into the school and the Headmistress was murdered had they ever sent anything home to either Reese or Charlize.

"I can explain?" I offered, and Charlize lost her smile, her brown eyes, usually warm like chocolate, going hard and angry.

"You bet your ass you can explain, Beau!" She snapped, slamming the box of pizza down on the table hard enough that I actually flinched. "Why the hell am I getting a phone call from your school saying you were in a car accident last year, when I know for a fact that you were either with the Lovegoods, at Hogwarts, or with me?"

Cursing myself, Mr. Cope and Mr. Hammond, I reluctantly lifted up my jumper and t-shirt, exposing the scar for the second time today. A hiss escaped from between Charlize's teeth, and her face visibly paled.

"Beau," she said, and her voice wasn't furious now, it was horrified. "Beau, baby, what happened?"

Ignoring her use of the very undignified pet name, I cleared my throat awkwardly. I didn't want to lie to Charlize, but I didn't want to tell her the truth either– I didn't want her to feel as helpless and useless as I was right now, thinking of Lyric getting injured at Hogwarts, while I was trapped here. "Beau," Charlize repeated, when I stayed silent. "Just tell me the truth, okay? I won't be angry, I just need to know."

I looked down at my hands, clenched in tight fists over my thighs. The scars on the back of my hand from Professor Umbridge's stupid quill stood out faintly against my skin– I must not break the rules.

"You know how I explained that it's... not common for two muggles, two non-magical people, to have a magical child," I said, finally, deciding to be as honest as I could. "Well there's... there's some witches and wizards who think that those of us who are born with non-magical parents don't deserve our magic. I got... caught in the crossfire of a fight between those extremists and a sort of vigilante group." That sounded better then 'I followed one of my friends into a trap, breaking into a government building and ended up fighting against convicted murderers who had been broken out of maximum security prison by their leader, a mass-murdering psychopath with serious daddy issues and a burning hatred for anything related to either muggles or Harri Potter, both of which I am'. "I got hurt pretty badly," I admitted, "but I was never in danger of, you know," I made an awkward gesture that hopefully translated as 'dying' or 'ending up not alive', because saying it out loud would mean Charlize hearing the blatant lie for what it was.

My mother was pale and her hands shook as they opened the pizza box, revealing cheesy, pizza goodness. If there was one thing I had really missed over in England, it was pizza, cheeseburgers, onion rings and curly fries. Basically, all the cheap fast-food that Reese had only let me have on rare occasions, therefore creating in my young mind the whole 'forbidden fruit' attraction; loving it because it was forbidden to me.

"And this is related to why you had to leave Britain the normal– er, muggle way?" Charlize asked, her voice pained, and I nodded, relieved that she'd accepted my highly edited story. She muttered something under her breath and ran a hand through her hair. "Jesus, kid," she said, finally, "you're going to turn my hair grey."

And, in true Charlize fashion, that was that. "I'll get the plates– there's a game on tonight." She said and, to my relief, the interrogation was over.