The Charmed Ones Meet the Boy Who Lived

The Charmed Ones Meet the Boy Who Lived: Chapter Two

"So, this is where you live?" George Weasley asked, slightly awed. Everything was immaculate, even the china in its glass cabinet. He whistled in admiration. "And all ten of you fit?"

"Yes. Beth, Prue, and me share the big room upstairs. Mom and Dad sleep in the room next to that, Aunt Phoebe sleeps in the room at the end of the hall, Aunt Paige and Uncle Mike share what used to be the guest room, and Wyatt, well, Wyatt sleeps downstairs, though I don't know why. It's creepy down there."

"Just because you're a little fraidy cat," her brother taunted, causing Emily to shoot him a glare.

"Anyway, I guess now we know that you're magical."

"Yes, that would be the logical conclusion," drawled Draco Malfoy. Harry and Ron shot him a joint glare. Emily glanced sideways at her mother, who looked fed up.

"Can't you do anything? Shut him up a little?"

"You know what happens when we use our powers on good witches." Piper shook her head.

"Witch!?" Draco spluttered, furious. "I'm not a-"

"SHUT UP, Malfoy!" yelled Harry and Ron in unison. Draco shut his mouth under their glare. "Go ahead," Harry said, once he'd assured himself that Draco wouldn't open his mouth again.

Emily nodded her thanks. "We do pretty well here. I wonder..." The doorbell rang suddenly. Emily went to get it. They heard the door open and Emily gave a little cry. A moment later, they saw why.

She reappeared with an arm wrapped around her waist and a knife blade pressed against her throat. "Let me go, damn you," she growled, completely unafraid. Piper raised her hands.

"Ah, ah, ah," the demon murmured. "Anyone lifts a finger, and the little one here gets it." As if to prove his point, he drew the knife blade gently across her neck, creating a shallow cut. Blood ran for a few seconds before the cut sealed itself. Ron, Harry, and Draco surged to their feet. "Not another step." Emily tilted her head to the side, a thought coming to her.

"Aunt Phoebe, the shapeshifter spell... do you remember it?"

"Um, maybe... let's see...

In the circle that is home,

Safety's gone and evils roam."

"Shut up," hissed Emily's captor, drawing the knife across her neck once more.

"Dude, you are getting blood on my clothes," Emily protested, providing the distraction needed. Paige threw out her hand and concentrated.

"Knife!" The blade shimmered in motes of white light and disappeared, appearing only seconds later in Paige's hand across the room.

"Rid all evils from these walls," Phoebe continued, and Piper chimed in for the last line. "Save us please, now hear our call!" Emily spun in the confining circle of his arm and shoved at his chest as he began to dissolve. When the arm holding her abruptly disappeared, she stumbled back, nearly falling, straight into Draco, Ron, and Harry, sending the four of them tumbling to the floor.

She laughed helplessly. "Welcome to Demon Central," she said, climbing swiftly to her feet. She held out both hands to help them up, surprising all three boys when she lifted them effortlessly to their feet. She smiled broadly. "One good thing we've learned," she said quietly. Phoebe nodded.

"We can trust them."

Harry cocked his head, confused. "How do you know you can trust us?"

"That spell. The words were rid all evils from these walls. You weren't gotten rid off, ergo, you aren't evil, ergo, we can trust you. It's a pretty simple way to learn when to trust and when not to trust." She sat abruptly on the sofa. "It's too much thinking for me. My head hurts." Wyatt sat next to on the floor and leaned his arm against her leg. Faintly, the skin between them started to glow. She sat up straighter and sighed in relief.

"Keeping yourself from bleeding too much might have that sort of effect on you, Em," he said softly. She squeezed his shoulder and yawned slightly, covering it quickly with her hand.

"Pretty handy way of doing things," remarked Fred, noticing the exchange between brother and sister. "What was that glowy thing you did?" Emily looked at him and smiled.

"Nothing. So, we're back to...witchcraft. I guess, we should start with specialized powers," she began, looking to her parents, who nodded and left the room. "Mine are levitation, premonition, and an electric spark that I can use as a offensive weapon. Wyatt's are... more powerful. He has limited abilities to heal and he has the same explosive power as Mom. He also possesses a powerful shield that he uses for protection. Beth has telekinesis. Prue's are kind of fun. She can freeze time and when she's mad, things tend to burn. My dad can heal, and my mom freezes time and makes things explode. Aunt Phoebe levitates and sees the future, like me. Aunt Paige has the power to move things with her mind, like Beth. We use it all to vanquish, or destroy demons like the one you just saw." She stopped to take a deep breath and Wyatt took over.

"Our powers tend to attract demons when we aren't careful. They've learned that our alarms are sensitive to their presence if they're in the house, so they usually knock on the front door."

"Why not put up wards that will help identify them farther away?" asked Bill reasonably. Emily tilted her head and looked at her brother. He shook his head slightly.

"We've been working at that, but it hasn't come to much. Inside the house, the wards and alarms are protected, but outside, the demons would taste the magic and destroy them." Piper and Leo returned then, bearing two trays of hastily gathered food. Leo held the tray with a bucket of ice and glasses, while Piper set down the tray carrying snacks. She went back to bring out the pitchers of drinks. Wyatt handed Emily a handful of crackers and a glass of lemonade. She murmured her thanks and yawned.

As she drank her juice, Phoebe continued the story. Bill and Charlie recognized some of the words and events that they spoke of, including the day when it seemed that all magic was completely gone from the world. The others were either not paying attention, or hadn't remembered those days. Through it all, Emily listened with a glassy quality to her eyes. She was definitely not paying attention, but only Wyatt seemed to know.

After about an hour of explanations later, the alarms abruptly went off. Emily shrank back into the couch, holding her head. The alarms stopped. "Damn," she muttered, barely loud enough to be heard. "I forgot how cursed loud those were." Prue turned to her and smirked.

"Forgot, huh?" Her smirk changed to a grin. "We haven't used those alarms since Beth was a baby." Beth made a face at her older sister, and proceeded to turn her back on Prue.

"Oh, stop it, you two," Paige admonished, settling back into her armchair with Phoebe perched on one of the arms. Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys were starting to fidget. Only Draco Malfoy's attention remained riveted.

"I didn't mean to set them off," Emily said quietly, stopping the argument before it went anywhere. "I'm just tired, is all." Piper shot her a look. "I think maybe I should go to bed, if it's all right." Her mother nodded, still suspicious about the alarms, but she didn't want to say anything. Emily got up and carefully picked her way through the tangle of limbs on the floor. She waved once more to the room's occupants, then darted up the stairs, showing more energy than she had previously.

At the top of the stairs, she paused, making doubly sure no one was coming after her, then she turned and climbed the rest of the stairs to the attic. Carefully, she eased the door open, knowing what she would see.

Unexpectedly, she saw, not Chris, as she'd expected, but Chris and another someone. A woman with long hair. Angrily, she shoved the door open, alerting her family's traitor whitelighter to her presence.

"Oh, Em..."

"Don't you dare. Don't talk to me. You..." Rage made her nearly incoherent. Her fingertips began to spark with the electrical charge that had proved lethal in all its previous uses. It was still the only thing that could keep a whitelighter contained, besides water. "Don't make me use this on you." She tried to control her anger, with limited success. The lightning that had worked its way up to her elbows was now confined to her hands. Though it had dimmed, it was no less swift or deadly. Chris eyed her hands as though she carried snakes.

Chris smiled one of his charming, disarming smiles, and Emily's lightning flared brightly. "Do that again, and I'll set the alarms off downstairs. You know how fast Mom and Dad could come running." The woman, who, thus far, had been ignored, suddenly made a desperate grab for the heavy tome sitting on a stand. The book glowed deep gold and leapt off the stand, toward Emily. She shoved at the alarms downstairs and tossed a handful of lightning at the woman. It hit, and she exploded in a shower of green chunks. "Eew..." Emily complained absently as the demon mess drenched her from head to foot. Lightning played more brightly across her palms and up her wrists. Chris spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. He took a step forward and exploded into light, that a moment later coalesced back into his body. He glared over her shoulder.

"That hurt!"

"I know!" crowed Piper gleefully. Emily grinned. She tossed a handful of lightning towards Chris just as he began to orb out. It brought his molecules crashing back together, thudding him onto the floor. Paige tossed the trap crystals into their places on the floor. Instantly, he was enclosed in a cage of glowing white light.

"You aren't getting away so easily this time," commented Leo. There was a note of pride in his voice. "We've been training for this, Chris." Chris's eyes widened.

"But you... I killed you!"

"You can't kill someone who's already dead, moron," Wyatt said dryly. The whole family was arrayed behind Emily and Piper, and Chris finally started to realize that his plans had many gaping holes in them. The BoS, for one, was lying outside his glowing cage, and he could tell that he was more than outnumbered. He glared at Wyatt. Wyatt was the prophesied baby who had ruined his first plans as an infant.

His glare then transferred to Emily, who stood watching him, electricity climbing rampant over her hands and arms up to nearly her shoulders now, even thought he was safely confined. Her eyes were wide and he saw both the guilt and the anger in them. Emily was the easiest to read. Like Phoebe, she mostly wore her emotions on her sleeve. Right then, Chris saw the weak link in the Halliwell chain. He hid his delight at the revelation and smiled slightly.

"Well, it seems you've caught me. And I can see that you're well prepared." His delight faded somewhat when the slightly slower Weasleys, Harry, and Draco managed to crowd into the attic. "Who the-?"

"No matter," Piper said hastily, brushing his question aside as she realized what must have caught his attention. "Now you," she said, her tone managing to be both gleeful and menacing simultaneously, caused a shudder of pity to course down the spines of those eight not normally associated with Piper. Emily frowned, but her mother continued. "You are going to explain to us your plans. The truth now. And why, the hell, you are looking at Emily like that!" This statement ended in a shout. Emily jumped, startled. She hadn't even realized he was staring at her. But her eyes quickly hardened. She squared her shoulders and walked over to the book, picking it up off the floor carefully.

Almost instantly, her muscles tensed and the visions raced through her mind. She gasped with the potency of them. She nearly dropped the book as she forced her muscles to work despite the premonition. She placed it gently on its stand and straightened. She glared a bolt of lightning at Chris, who shouted, his neck smoking from the contact. Piper shot her daughter another look.

But it was Phoebe who asked the question they all wanted to.

"Honey, what did you see?"

Emily shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it here." Obediently, they parted to let her through, and the fifteen of them followed her down the stairs.

"Mike, will you guard him?" Paige asked before she went. No verbal answer was heard, so Emily assumed that her uncle had remained.

Once they had all made it downstairs, Emily sat on the couch. "It wasn't like my usual premonitions," she said without preliminaries. "I saw open countryside, and a huge stone castle. There was a lake and a forest. The sun was shining. Then I saw something darker, and the castle rushed up to me. I was inside. There were people, and they... I didn't recognize any of them. Well, few of them. I saw Harry, and Ron. And Draco. There was a big room, and lots more people. I saw myself, like I was someone else looking at me." She paused and took a deep breath, almost for courage.

"Then I saw Chris, behind me, and a dagger to my heart, and blood..." The visions came rushing back, and she struggled for a moment to control them. "I saw a premonition within my premonition. Chris had the Book of Shadows and had used it to kill you all...I was the last.

"I saw him speak the spell that opened a gate into Hell. He destroyed the world in one short moment as the me in my premonition struggled to keep her heart beating just a little longer."

Silence greeted her words.

"I don't know what the place was, or what I was doing there, but..."

More silence.

A small, tentative voice spoke up suddenly.

"That castle you saw was Hogwarts. Where we go to school." Heads swiveled to look at Harry, who cowered under their glares. He swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."

Emily put a comforting hand on his shoulder and went rigid. She fell off the couch in a dead faint. Phoebe, Paige and Piper screeched and leapt to their feet. Leo placed a hand on his daughter's forehead, watching start to glow gold.

Emily's eyes sprang open and she stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Death! He will destroy the world!" she shouted in a voice not her own.