Chapter Text
The sky is grey, the clouds are grey, and everything in this town of Forks is outdated and dreadful.
Honestly, while he's totally onboard with the gloomy vibes, the small-town-feels this place was giving was so not his style.
But, considering that it was the early 21st century, local time-traveler extraordinaire Marshall Jones should just be grateful he even owns a touch screen phone. (Don't ask him how he got it.)
Being the only goth kid in the entire town, he was entitled to have his own secrets.
And considering how he just moved into town, living alone in a wooden lodge in the forest, everyone's just dying to know everything about him.
Nevermind the fact that living in a wooden anything was so not his vibe. (He took one look at it and said I can fix her.)
He blames his grandma.
So what if he bought a 'deathtrap' motorcycle right after he got his license? It's not like it's his first time driving! Hell, it's not even his first life, period.
And anyways, the biker gang he joined for funsies was actually made up of really nice older guys who do charity barbecue events every month, so shut up, granny! He knows what he's doing.
Yeah, she didn't listen. So, now he's here. In a town where literally nothing ever happens. Said it might help him slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.
Like redoing eyeliners every hour because the damp and rainy weather keeps making it run!
Eugh.
Oh, and going to high school... again.
This definitely wasn't what he had in mind when he decided to graduate a year in advance from Ilvermorny.
Like what the hell, grandma?!
So, now he's riding his 'deathtrap' Kawasaki Ninja (he's still giddy from the rebellious prank he managed to pull on his grandma when he snuck off to Forks on his bike instead of taking that portkey like she told him to), on the way to this dinghy, red bricked school.
(The downside to that was how he had to express ship most of his stuff since his bike obviously couldn't carry it all.)
He briefly wondered why he couldn't just apparate to school before remembering that, as the new kid in town who also happened to be very recognizable, the nosey aunts would totally know whether he passed by or not.
And while he could choose to change his style to fit in with the crowd, the mere thought of dressing so boringly was literally giving him the ick.
Anyways, it's not like he's against riding his bike, so this little inconvenience was tolerable.
If it did happen to rain while he's on the road, he could probably just cast a discrete rain repelling charm overlayed by a notice-me-not charm.
Yeah, that could work.
But, damn. Living in a muggle town is such a pain in the ass. For real, for real.
Marshall groaned in annoyance as he pulled up into the school parking lot, being the only one in a motorcycle in a lot filled with halfway broken-down cars from the last century. Aside from a Volvo.
What a basic bitch.
Bet they're the type to spend an eternity lounging in Starbucks after ordering just a single drink.
Taking his helmet off, he reluctantly pulled out the keys from his beloved Ninja and patted the gas tank like it was a horse and not a bike, ignoring the curious stares he was getting from the local hillbilly fetuses and instead, opted to fix his recently dyed black hair and double check his fit consisting of a plain turtleneck under a leather jacket paired with ripped jeans and combat boots (All black, of course).
A goth boy's hair must always be perfect no matter the situation after all. Even if the only audience would be a bunch of onion-smelling teenagers.
Just thinking of it was already filling him with dread.
He almost regretted becoming an animagus. If the smell was bad as a regular human with a regular nose, imagine possessing the heightened senses of an animagus.
He really didn't want to think about it so early in the morning, so he just filled his head with random fun facts.
Like how dolphins sometimes become attracted to humans and would attempt to engage in sexual activities with said humans.
Unknown to him, while he was lost in thought, a certain 'basic bitch' in a Volvo cringed in both horror and disgust, wanting to erase whatever he just heard from his brain.
...
Somewhere at the corner of his eye, he spotted a deathly pale- possibly undead, pixie-like girl who was bouncing and clapping at the sight of him before she was hastily pulled into one of the classrooms by an equally pale boy. (That's so weird. Wtf.)
"Aight. Let's see what bullshit I'mma be putting up with this year." Marshall muttered to himself as he stalked through the now mostly empty halls, having just come from the staff room to get his schedule.
Starting school as a Junior in a town where pretty much everyone already knew each other was bound to set him apart from the rest. More apart than how he already was. Eh, he'll burn the bridge when he gets there.
Atleast there's a crude map of the school along with his schedule.
Aside from the mandatory classes of Science, Math, and all that jazz, he personally chose to take Advanced History, second period on Mondays and fourth period on Thursdays- simply because while they covered History of Magic in Ilvermorny, Salem knows they taught fuck-all about the non magical History of the world- and Music class for third period every Wednesdays and Fridays because, in his grandmother's own words, Even your older brother, squib that he is, knows how to play the violin.
First thing's first; how to get to English class.
Thank Morgana this school isn't that big. He had enough of getting lost in repeating hallways back at Ilvermorny, thank you very much.
Looking around the scattered classrooms, he scanned the area briefly to figure out just where exactly he was in the map, eyes drifting past windows as he walked until-
Golden eyes met his own blues.
It was unnerving.
Just a split second contact was enough to make him feel like his soul was laid bare for the other person to see.
Yeah, not gonna fuck with that one.
Abruptly looking away, he speed-walked to his destination, pretending nothing happened.
And if there was a loud sound of something crashing to the floor behind him, followed by a yell of, "Mr. Hale! Get back to your seat this instant!", then he knows nothing about it. At all.
This place is so fucking weird.
Ah, there! That should be his class.
...
He should have known, in hindsight.
He was new in town. The mysterious kid who enrolled past the beginning of the school year. Of course, the teacher would use him as an excuse to assign the class a self introductory essay!
With a minimum of five hundred words at that!
Seriously?
He'd barely talked to anyone and he already made a bad impression. Even with his head bowed, he could feel them glaring at him.
What would he even write anyways?
My name is Marshall Jones, and I'm an alien. I was born in 2001, and 1989. My hobbies include trolling people and cursing crocs to bite the toes of their wearers.
Yep. That definitely wouldn't land him straight to the mental ward.
So, bullshitting 101 is a go!
My name is Marshall Jones, and before I moved to Forks, I lived in Seattle with my grandparents-
By the time class ended, Marshall's social battery was already barely hanging on with a single bar remaining.
Honestly, it was all so predictable.
First, the teacher made them write an introductory essay. Of course, the follow up step to that was getting them all to read it aloud to the entire class.
But, just because he'd already expected it, didn't mean he was emotionally prepared!
Give him a nest of acromantulas to fight anyday and he'd do it without flinching. Just, don't force him to talk in front of a class full of judgemental teenagers.
That shit scares him.
So, in a manner that's incredibly identical to a stumbling inferius, Marshall trudged to his next class, ignoring the curious stares that followed him around.
Hopefully, History class would be better than English.
...
It was not.
Or maybe it was?
He didn't really know.
While the teacher didn't really assign something as drastic as an essay, he did call up Marshall to introduce himself briefly to the front of the class before he began with the lesson.
Which he did as briefly as he could. Meaning, all he gave them was his name.
Fortunately, that seemed perfectly sufficient for Mr. Grey who looked about just as done with everything as Marshall felt inside.
The class though? Not really. They probably expected to get something gossip-worthy from him to share to their friends behind curious stares and judgemental whispers come lunch.
Heh, sucks for them. They're not gonna get anything from him aside from the essay he wrote earlier. (It's probably being spread around by the people in his previously class already.)
Such is the life of every new transfer.
Now, if this class could just get a tiny bit more interesting, that would be great. Maybe then, he could actually pay attention to the lesson instead of letting his thoughts wander around.
Whoa, that loner at the back is totally getting picked on by those jocks. Hope he doesn't snap and become a school shooter. Yikes!
(Geez. He picked muggle history as an elective to learn about past events, not to mentally profile his classmates.)
Now that he thought of it, his previous class also had a bunch of weirdos sitting at the back who looked like they could be selling drugs to each other.
Or maybe it was just the gloomy weather making everything look more suspicious than they really were.
This class though, was extra weird.
For one, there's a girl with a fork keeping her bun together at the front of the class. Then, there's a guy a few seats down who was slurping korean noodles on a huge take out container hidden precariously behind a book.
And the guy who sat right behind Marshall (who was definitely not an undercover vampire btw) kept staring at him with an odd look on his face. One that looked like a cross of horror, awe, and like being stuck in a desert for days only to come across a dancing watermelon. To eat, or not to eat, that is the question.
Alright, Mr. Tragic Shakespearean male lead. I hear ya.
Maybe if he talked to him, he'd stop.
"Hey, uh. I knew this one guy who suffered from bone cancer. They had to chop off both of his legs." Marshall idly studied the chipping edges of his black nail polish. "You could say, the disease de-feeted him."
Yeah, no. He's still staring creepily. Honestly, if the guy wasn't so pretty, even with his eyes blown wide like that, he wouldn't even bother. But, hey, atleast some guy at the back of the class snorted!
Though, now that he got a good look at the guy, he actually looked a bit like an overstimulated hamster, with his eyes wide and glassed over while his body was frozen stiff. Wait, maybe he really was overstimulated. Must be hard for a blood drinker to remain calm when surrounded by walking blood bags. Which- aww, poor baby.
But, for real. There's something absurdly wrong with this small town school.
...
Alright, so remember those two weirdos from history class? The girl with the fork bun and korean noodles guy? Well, it turns out, they were actually best buds. And those trio of drug dealers during English were actually trading pokemon cards. So, no drugs here, unfortunately.
He could really use a hit right now.
And, why exactly did he know this now?
Well, it's simply because they all banded together to abduct him to their lunch table.
This single table probably housed the entire school's population of weirdos. The junior year's, atleast.
"Oh my gosh! You're like, real!" Was the first thing Fork Girl said once he begrudgingly sat down. He was already regretting it.
"Ah, yes. I too wonder about the realness of my existence sometimes." He deadpanned. If there was an empty table somewhere, he would've already claimed it in his lonesome, instead of being forced to socialize with actual teenagers whose emotions fluctuate as sharply as the country's economy.
"You're creeping him out, G." Korean Noodles huffed as he took a huge bite out of a pizza slice he pulled out from a pizza box previously hidden inside his bag.
Just how does he manage to hide so much food in there? Are there any space left for actual school books?
"No, it's just-" Fork Girl tried to articulate her words but all she did in her excitement was wave her hands like a flapper dancer. "I've never seen a real life emo before! I just saw some pictures online but I thought it's just something city folks did during Halloween."
He'd like to clarify that he was a goth, not an emo, thank you very much. Yes, there is indeed a difference.
"I don't know, guys. Maybe we should introduce ourselves to the new guy first before freaking out about fashion statements?" Drug Dealer #1 suggested with a calm shrug. "I'll trade you that Roark for my Gastly."
"No way, man!" Drug Dealer #2 scoffed. "Get that shit out of my face."
"Suit yourself." Drug Dealer #1 sighed and turned to peak at his other friend's deck. "Oh, hey! Is that a shiny?"
"...No?" Drug Dealer #3 guiltily hid his cards back in their box.
"Whatever. Anyways, nice to meetcha! Don't know if you remember anything from first period, but my name's Chris Stoned, and these two guys-" Drug Dealer #1, or Chris, now that he knew his name, patted the shoulders of the guys sitting on both sides of him. "-are my best buds, Ryan High and Jeffrey Dope."
Fuck. There's no way that's their real names. Are they for real?
"Ooh, me next! It's my turn now, right?" Fork Girl buzzed in her seat, nearly knocking over Korean Noodles' coke bottle who just sighed helplessly. "I'm Gwen Forks! My dad's the current Mayor. Not that I'm bragging or anything... Just-"
Under Marshall's mildly creeped out gaze, she quickly pulled out the fork from her hair and held it up like it would save her from social death. "Forks pride?"
If her father wasn't the mayor, she would so be the first person to get bullied by the entire school.
Anyways, seeing no way to escape from this table without appearing to be incredibly rude, he figured he might as well engage in idle conversation and distract himself from staring incredulously at whatever's happening at the neighboring table filled with definitely-not-vampires displaying food in various states of modern art weirdness.
Also the fact that one of them just happened to be staring at him intensely.
"...Right." Marshall drawled out hesitantly. "And you, Korean Noodles? Am I gonna get a name or do I just call you Korean Noodles for the rest of the year?"
After being pointed out by him, the rest of the table looked right at the boy who was neither Korean, nor noodles, in confusion.
"Korean noodles?"
With an eyebrow raised, the boy addressed them in disinterest before going back to his second box of pizza. "No."
Marshall blinked at the blatant dismissal, pondering whether he liked this boy's attitude or not.
And, right when he was about to come to a decision, the boy flicked an assessing glance back at him before rolling his eyes. "You can have a slice though."
Yeah, he likes him. But he hopes they never talk to him ever again.
...
The rest of the day passed normally with nothing notable happening, and before he realized it, school was over and he's back at the parking lot with his precious Ninja.
Unknown to him, just some meters away, a certain overstimulated hamster was having a mental war with himself.
One moment, he'd bravely step closer to the new boy, and the next moment, hesitation would creep in and he'd pull himself back.
It went on over and over again until, finally, a girl who looked somewhat related to him, with their similar pale skin and blond hair, seemed to have gotten fed up with him and pulled him into the back seat of the silver Volvo while a petite girl with short and wild dark hair attempted to pacify his conflicted emotions.
As his siblings sat on both sides of the car's backseat, blocking both doors from him, the immortal teenager could only watch sadly as the mysterious newcomer drove away on his motorcycle. Uncontrollably, his eyes tracked the boy's visage as he passed right by the car's window and up until he disappeared into the road.
"Today might not be the best day to meet him, Jasper. He's still busy with a lot of things right now." His dark haired sibling patted his arm in a calming manner. "Tomorrow looks like it'll have better prospects though!"
That might be true, but right now, the only thing he wanted to do was find the boy and maybe get closer.
Not too close, though! He's not sure if he can handle it yet.
Maybe... Three meters away?
Yeah, three meters sounds just about right.
...
With a groan that sounded like it could possibly be understood by inferi, Marshall threw his body dramatically into the couch; the only furniture he begrudgingly left alone instead of thowing it out like what he did to the rest of the rotten and musty smelling furniture.
He'd been in this remote town of Forks for merely three days and already, he managed to report his move to the Town Hall, bought groceries and daily necessities, unpacked and organized the minimal amount of stuff he managed to cram into his backpack, attended high school, cleaned this old and frankly, too big house, subsequently destroyed all the light bulbs, which he'd been replacing with glow stones up until he crashed into the couch in exhaustion.
Yeah, he deserved to rest now, he thinks.
Until the rest of his stuff arrive via owl mail on Wednesday, atleast.
Ah, fuck.
Moving in was such a pain in the ass. Why did he think moving out of Seattle was a good idea again?
Oh, right. Freedom from grandma and other social responsibilities.
Atleast, there's something good that came out of this. Morgana knows how much work his grandma would dump on him now that he's free from Ilvermorny, attending muggle high school or otherwise.
Honestly, he's just happy to be free of all the magic bullshit even though he knows it'll eventually find its way back to him and bite him in the ass like a deranged crup.
But, until that time comes, he would enjoy every bit of peace he could milk from this place.
Which meant ignoring the stubborn owl that kept tapping on his window incessantly. No matter how tired that owl was from having flown from the British Isles all the way to Forks, Washington, Marshall had made up his mind to turn away from all things magical for the rest of the day!
Fuck.
Alright, he's not that cruel.
...
Upon the highest peak of Mount Greylock where the magical school of Ilvermorny stood, hidden under hundreds of pretection wards, a man of noble countenance strode into the owlery in deep thought.
Within his grasp was an envelope containing what might unveil mysteries of the past, and completely reshape the magic world's view. And its future.
But this message wasn't something he wrote, himself. It was written by someone who was gifted enough to think of something world-changing, yet naive enough to write it down as an ordinary thesis. Never even thinking of the consequences it could bring.
And, even now, he had most likely completely forgotten all about it already. That boy, his most prided student.
So, here he was, the youngest professor in the academy, a societal bombarda written in slightly crumpled parchment in his hand, ready to be sent off to the MACUSA archives and cause chaos to the world.
Surely, once the world sees the genius of the boy like he did, the boy would be forced to make use of the brilliant mind of his instead of letting it all go to waste.