The Charmed Ones Meet the Boy Who Lived

The Charmed Ones meet the Boy Who Lived: Chapter One

"Nothing but the sand and the sun, right, Ron?" Harry asked, shoving his sunglasses up into his messy hair. He glanced over at his best friend.

"Yeah, and the ocean, and the babes. Man, why to all the really hot girls live in America? There is nobody like that in England," Ron replied, pointing a little ways down the beach towards a group of three women sitting under a huge beach umbrella. They were all-pretty and looked somewhat alike. A moment later, a guy who looked a lot like them joined them under their umbrella.

One of the girls seemed to feel his stare and looked up, meeting his eyes with a bold, powerful stare that made Ron blush and look down. Harry grinned as Ron's face flushed to match his hair. "Hey, when are your brothers going to get here?"

"I dunno," Ron replied, looking up at Harry again. "They obviously can't Apparate straight here, so they should be along. And Ginny's on the boardwalk. We should have the spot to ourselves for at least an hour." He looked up, shading his eyes from the sun. Out of the corner of their eyes, the two teenagers watched the group of young people. The guy and the girl who'd caught their eyes were strolling off towards the water, a good four feet between them. Ron put his energy to spreading out their beach gear in the shade of a lifeguard tower. When he looked up again, he saw the group had grown, adding three more women and two men.

The young pair had gotten farther down the beach, apparently looking for shells. Ron watched as the girl bent over to pick one up and laugh at something her companion said. They were both tan, fit young people, maybe about sixteen. The girl had dark brown hair that shone when the sun hit it just right. The boy was blond, bleached that way by the sun.

"Mom!" the girl called, turning around and waving up the beach at the group of people. "Mom, c'mere!" One of the newly arrived women detached herself from the group and trotted off down the beach. She smiled at Ron and Harry as she ran past. Both turned red and leaned as far back into the shadow as they could.

"American women, man!" Ron murmured, not able to tear his eyes from the girl. Harry elbowed him and nodded with his chin up the beach.

"Here comes the party," he remarked dryly. Ron looked and groaned as he saw his brothers- Fred, George, Charlie, and Bill- coming towards them. He grimaced at Harry, who made a face at him.

"We have arrived!" cried Fred, dumping the load of beach gear he'd been carrying. His red hair curled wildly about his face and Ron snickered. Fred stuck out his tongue and yanked off his shirt. George followed suit. "Come on, you two. It's the beach, let's go swimming!" The twins raced towards the water, yelling like madmen and laughing. Suddenly, they stopped short and stood still as stone. Harry and Ron exchanged looks. The Weasley twins had seen women.

Ron stood up with a shrug and took off his shirt, revealing winter-pale chest and back, with freckled shoulders. Harry was just white. They trotted down to the water and laughed. It wasn't as cold as they'd thought from the sight of it.

"Too bad Hermione couldn't come," Ron commented. "She'd have loved this."

"Oh, I'm sure she would have. Hanging around all day at the beach with seven guys and your little sister." Harry took a deep breath and ducked under, getting himself thoroughly wet. He popped to the surface, his glasses streaming water. "Because that's just what I would want to do were I in her situation."

"Oh, and I suppose that going to India with her parents is a barrel of laughs," Ron retorted, submerging himself and swimming away from Harry. Harry laughed and followed, comfortable in the water now that he knew how to swim. He turned around to see if Fred and George had overcome their initial girl sighting and nearly choked on a mouthful of water.

"Ron!" he hissed. Ron swam back to him and looked where Harry was looking.

"Blimey!" he breathed. There, on the beach, Bill, Charlie, Fred and George were lounging near their towels, talking animatedly with the three girls and one guy their age. "No fair, that!" Ron muttered. He began to swim back to shore vigorously, followed a little doggedly by Harry, who shook his head in amusement.

They walked back up to their towels. "Oh, here they are," commented Charlie as they approached, dripping wet. "My brother Ron, and Harry Potter." The three girls smiled and offered their greetings. The attractive girls who'd caught their attention held out her hand.

"I'm Emily. These are my cousins, Prudence and Bethany Halliwell. Also, my brother, Wyatt." Ron took her hand and shook it gently. Her hand tightened imperceptibly and she breathed in sharply. Then she let go. Bethany seemed concerned, and put her arm around her cousin's shoulders. Emily shook her off and smiled sweetly. Ron felt his legs melting beneath him and leaned heavily on the lifeguard station. "We were just talking about England. My dad has been there, a lot, but no one else in my family really has. I always thought you accents were incredibly charming." Bethany hid a giggle when Emily had finished. Emily grinned when she realized what she had said. "Anyway," she added, shaking her head. "We were wondering what part of England you're from?"

"Surrey," responded Harry promptly. He smiled. Emily responded in kind. She seemed to be the spokesperson for her little group, though quite clearly not the oldest.

"Em!" called one of the men from down the beach. She turned quite quickly, recognizing the warning in her father's voice. She scrambled to her feet, followed quickly by her brother and cousins.

"Excuse us, please," she said, offering one more smile before they ran off. Ron's legs collapsed and he folded, sitting down hard on the sand, missing his towel completely. Bill glanced at him.

"You look like a fish, Ron." Ron glared at his oldest brother and stood again, moving onto his towel. He watched Emily, and sighed in disappointment as she left the beach shortly thereafter. He turned to Harry, who was also looking disappointed.

"Oh, don't look so down, you two," Fred said, a hint of a tease in his voice. "She asked us over for supper. They're having a barbeque." Harry and Ron instantly cheered up.

Emily had been watching them all morning, ever since they'd shown up. She felt the veiled power in both of them, and the others, when they showed up. The premonition she'd gotten when she shook Ron's hand had been strong enough to knock her down, had she been standing. As it was, her head still rang.

"What did you see?" Bethany asked again as she followed Emily down the street.

"Nothing, Beth, don't worry about it. I think, though, that I need to learn how to orb on command. Otherwise, I'm going to lose control of it, and... well, I'm not exactly certain or what."

"You should tell your dad."

"Tell him what? 'Say, Dad, I need to learn how to orb or I'll get stuck in a foreign country filled with evil.'? Do you honestly think I could tell my father that?" They were so involved in their conversation that neither noticed the redheaded girl leaning against a lightpost, watching the ocean.

Ginny Weasley heard every word.

"Okay, so maybe you can't tell him that... but... you felt their power, didn't you?"

"I did. If they are a group of demons or warlocks, Mom will have a fit. We need the BoS, and a vanquishing spell of potion."

"Do we have to vanquish them? I mean, that one, that Charlie... He was kind of cute."

"And way too old for you, Beth," Emily retorted with the swiftness and ease of long practice. She sighed and stopped. "I don't want to vanquish them. I thought they were really nice. But remember the stories Mom used to tell us about Jeremy? Before she met my dad, and he tried to kill her after dating her for six months. I am way too young to die, and if I am, so are you."

"Test them."

"What?"

"Test them. Use your powers. My mom said that our powers don't work on good witches, male or female. They only work on warlocks, demons... you know, your typical bad guy."

"Yeah, except when they don't. I still can't levitate with dreadful accuracy or regularity. And your powers aren't much help either. You can't move things very far still. Not that you ever practice, though."

"Just because you can't control when yours comes and goes, don't blame me when mine don't always work either," Bethany retorted and stalked off. Emily shook her head and followed. Ginny took her hand from her mouth and stared after them. Then she turned and ran towards the beach, searching desperately for her brothers.

Emily stretched and sighed. She'd been looking in this book for hours, and she still couldn't find anything. She yawned and closed the huge tome, setting it back on the bookstand the way she'd found it.

"Come on, it's getting dark," Bethany called from downstairs. "And I bet if you tried, you could orb us to the beach and we wouldn't have to walk."

"Yes, we'd only have to swim, because I can't plan a landing to save my life, and I certainly couldn't carry a passenger yet!" Emily called back. Bethany stuck her face in the attic door and stuck out her tongue.

"Come on, then, or we'll miss dinner." Emily sighed again and got to her feet. She and Bethany locked the house and raced each other down the street. It took a short amount of time to run to the beach, and the sun had just finished setting when they got there. A fire let them know where they'd left their family, and as they ran up, they saw the large group of red heads and the messy black one. Emily smiled and found her father.

"Did you find anything?" he asked quietly, shooting glances over his shoulders. She shook her head.

"I looked at every page. Nothing. No spell, no potion, not even identification." She shook her head again. "Whatever they are, they've either not been encountered yet, or they are good. I just don't know. Bethany said to test them. Do you think I could get Mom to freeze them, just to see?"

"You could try. I haven't seen her since she went off down the beach to look for shells. That was about twenty minutes ago." As if on cue, there was a scream outside the range of the firelight and Piper Halliwell came running towards them, missing a shoe, her hair falling down, and dirt streaking her face.

"Mom!" Emily and Wyatt shouted at the same time.

"Piper," cried Leo, Paige, and Phoebe simultaneously.

"Coming," she said through gritted teeth. "Having a few issues. Hello," she greeted the Weasleys and Harry before turning her attention back to her family. "Didn't you hear me calling earlier?" she asked waspishly. "I could have used some backup!"

"Honey, calm down. We-"

"Calm down!? Calm down!"

"Mom!" Emily shouted, clapping a hand over her irate mother's mouth, forestalling the words she knew were coming. She gently turned her mother's head towards the staring Weasleys, and whispered something to her. Piper nodded and Emily released her mouth. Piper threw up her hands in a gesture that appeared exasperated. Something exploded out in the darkness.

"Ow!" cried an indignant voice. Harry and Ron looked at each other and grimaced.

"Oh, no!" they both groaned in unison. Emily looked at them quizzically, and a little suspiciously.

"What?"

"I know that voice."

"I may not be very nice, but that is no reason to throw things at me," drawled a sarcastic voice. Its owner strolled into the circle of firelight and Emily gasped.

"Draco Malfoy. What the hell are you doing here?" Harry asked, his voice tight with anger. The handsome boy swaggered over to Harry and looked him up and down.

"Enjoying my vacation. At least, I thought I was. But now I'm sure- the opportunity to taunt you on summer holidays is...it's just a dream come true." He glanced over Harry's shoulder. "Hel-lo!" he exclaimed, his silver eyes pinning Emily in place, transfixed. Ron growled, but Draco ignored him.

"Um, Emily, can you help me here?" Bethany asked, deliberately calling her cousin's attention away from the pale newcomer. Emily smiled and the spell was broken.

"Sure, Beth." She trotted over to the divot in the sand where her mother had blown up her demonic stalker. She looked down and grimaced. "Um, Beth," she said, kneeling down next to her cousin. "Is that... warlock blood?"

"Seems so. It sure isn't human, that's all I'm saying."

"So... whose is it? Warlocks don't leave traces when they're vanquished. Not blood trails, anyway." She paused. "I've got a weird feeling about this." That was all she had time for before the shadow sprang from the darkness and tackled Emily while Bethany screamed shrilly.

"At last I have you, witch," the shape hissed. Emily swallowed her fear and pushed, hard. "Not so fast, my darling."

"Get OFF!" she cried, shoving with all her might.

"Emily!" shouted her father. Her attacker looked up.

"Ah, a pure-blood, I see. Well, I will enjoy killing you next, whitelighter," he hissed. Emily whimpered when he summoned a crossbow. "Don't worry, pretty one. This will only hurt for a moment, and then you will join me in hell."

"I think not," declared a voice. "Wingardium leviosa!" Abruptly, his hold on her was broken. Emily looked up, surprised, to find Draco pointing a stick at him. She wasted no time in climbing to her feet.

Focusing her power, she breathed a quick prayer and leapt straight up. And hovered. "Yes!" she cried, enthused. She turned her attention to him once again. "I thought I'd killed you once already," she remarked casually. "Go away, and no more be. You bring death, but not to me. I sentence you, to utmost hell. Leave me now, before the bell." A bell tolled once and he exploded. Emily shrieked and lost hold of her levitation, plummeting. Bethany helped her up. "Dad, the dust?"

"I think we all have secrets," remarked Fred Weasley quietly.