Disclaimer: The characters of the Vampire Diaries do not belong to me. It is the property of L.J Smith and the CW. Suing is futile.


A split second later, Stefan blurred out the door and lifted himself up off the floor, hurling him into a table with some flowers on it. Wait, Kol shook his head. There were two Stefans? He turned to ask Damon what was going on, only to see him watching the scene with some amusement.

Stefan 1-who had been pushed into the table-stood up shakily with one broken table leg pointed in what was supposed to be a menacing way at Stefan 2. "Who are you? Where am I? Where are my parents?" He looked around in confusion, momentarily lowering his makeshift sword before raising it again when Stefan took a step forward. "Don't come any closer. Why can't I remember anything?"

"O-kay. Stefan that's enough" Damon announced

"Enough? No, I don't think so" Stefan 2 - whom Kol now deduced was the real Stefan - interrupted as he stalked quite angrily towards Stefan 1

Stefan 1 finally noticed the people downstairs as he turned towards the voice that had spoken. "Who are you people? And why does he look like me? Is this one of Qetsiyah's little mind games? That I am my own enemy?" He shook his head. "No. No, Qetsiyah will never do that. This, this is a hallucination. I'm sick. I have a fever or something. Mother will cure me, and then I'll wake up. This is all a dream. Yes, that's it".

"This is not a dream pal. Your little amnesia act doesn't fool me" Stefan 2 said coldly. "And if you won't stay dead, I'll just keep killing you until you get the hint"

Other-Stefan looked up when he noticed how close the other him had gotten. "Stay dead? What do you mean stay dead? Did you kill me? Am I dead?" he asked animatedly

"Stefan, I said that's enough" Damon iterated, with more force this time. Real Stefan stopped advancing, though Kol noticed it took all his willpower to do so. "Silas, calm down. We're not going to hurt you" Damon tried to soothe

Kol's eyes widened in realization. "That is Silas?"

Silas whirled around, his piece of wood now pointed at Damon. "How do you know my name?"

"The Silas?" Kol asked, bewildered

"We're family" Damon answered, which was not exactly a lie

"How come I don't know you? And why are you wearing such strange clothes?" the immortal witch asked, suspicious

"Just put down the stick, and we'll talk" Damon said, approaching slowly with arms raised. He didn't know if this version of Silas was human witch or immortal psycho

"Stop" Damon kept walking. "I said stop. Don't come any closer, I'm warning you" Silas said. When Damon continued moving towards him however, he muttered a spell. "Přesun!"

Damon stopped moving when the boy stretched out his arm, expecting either an aneurism or to be magically flung into the nearest object. Suffice to say he was surprised when he found himself still standing after what was clearly a spell had been leveled at him. "Huh. Would you look at that"?

Silas was now in a full-blown panic. His eyes widened. "What have you done to me? What did you do to my magic? Co jsi mi to udělal, ty bláznivý? (What did you do, you imbecile?)"

"Bonnie?" Damon sung

"On it" the witch replied as she muttered a spell under her breath. Damon rushed to catch Silas as he went boneless in sleep, lifting him up and laying him on the couch, before pushing Stefan-quite forcefully-into one of the chairs opposite.

"You have one hell of an explanation to make mate" Kol stated plainly


"So, Stefan just fainted?" Elijah asked. "And a supposedly dead immortal witch not only managed to resurrect but marched himself to Stefan's school, only to also faint?"

"Yes Elijah. It's not so different from when dear old Mikael came back from the dead to frighten poor little Kol to death, is it?" Damon said, exasperation evident in his voice at the number of times he had to repeat the surprisingly short story of their current dilemma

"Except Mikael did not collapse" Klaus added. "Would have made it easier to kill him then"

"You know, Katerina and Tatia and Elena may have had the same face, but they were so different from each other it wasn't hard to tell who was who" Kol spoke, his face inches from Silas' sleeping one as he observed the witch. "But this… They look the same. Unless the amnesia is an act and he goes back to being his psychotic self, I couldn't tell him apart from Stefan"

Elijah sighed. As per usual, his siblings seemed to have gotten over the shock of their vampire hunting father being alive and gone back to their insufferable selves; Klaus to his snark and Kol to well, everything Kol. He was beginning to wish for the somber attitude from the car a couple of hours ago. "Kol, stop staring and let Miss Bennett do her job, will you?"

"Hmm?" Bonnie seemed to have zoned out of the conversation. "Oh, he'll wake in a few minutes. I think I found a spell that might work" she announced. "Geez, this book is so old I'm afraid it will crumble if I open it"

"I know some restoration spells that might do the trick" Kol said

"Really? Guess I could use a few" Bonnie replied

"Yes, that's great and all Bon Bon, but do you have any theories as to why people who are supposed to be not so alive are suddenly alive and kicking?" Damon asked

Bonnie shook her head. "Not really, no. I mean, when the other side went away, every soul trapped there should have disappeared. Sucked away into oblivion or whatever. It crumbled. Folded in on itself. I don't see how anybody could have escaped its collapse. Even if they did, why did it take them so long to show themselves? No offense, but Mikael hates you…" she said to Elijah

"None taken" Klaus whispered

"… If he was alive all this while, he would have hunted you down by now. And all Silas wanted was to be human so he could die. We find him a couple hundred miles from where he died and with no magic? Silas died a witch. And according to Qetsiyah, a quite gifted one. He would know the right spells to knock us out in a heartbeat. Everything about this is all wrong. I know something big is coming, most likely something terrible. But what parts are Silas and Mikael going to play in that? I mean, are they allies or enemies? Do we need an extra witch and original vampire to survive what is coming? There are so many questions that need answering"

"Ugh, I need a drink" Damon said, standing and moving towards the bar

"Right behind you mate" Klaus piped, following

Martha rolled her eyes. "Can I get you anything to drink, Miss Bennett?"

"Please, call me Bonnie. A glass of water will do, thanks. I need to be focused"

"Of course, Bonnie" Martha said with a little curtsy, which amused Bonnie. She returned with a moment later, repeating the movement while handing Bonnie the water. The young witch's curiosity prompted her to ask.

"Why do you keep doing that? I mean, it's nice and all, but you don't have to bow to me"

"You're like royalty to her Bon" Damon said around his glass. "Just let her indulge, will you?" His bourbon suddenly splashed all over him as the glass exploded. "Come on Martha. Shopping for glasses is tedious work. You can't just keep breaking them"

"Really? I wonder how you would know that, seeing as I'm the one who has to replace them almost every week when you break them all" she scolded

"What did he mean royalty?" Bonnie asked

"Oh, it's nothing" Martha tried to brush off. "It's just… your family… your magic… I've just been wanting to meet your family for a very long time. I almost cried when I learned that Emily Bennett had come and gone while I was on a long errand for Mister Salvatore. She had to have owed Miss Katherine something big for her to allow my boys to be manipulated so. But, that notwithstanding, she was one fine and powerful witch. You Bennetts, your kind of magic, is very rare. And…"

"What do you mean our kind of magic?"

"Have you wondered why only women in your family are witches?" Martha asked

"I always thought it was because women were better witches than men" Bonnie said teasingly

"That is so not true" Kol countered, as she knew he would

Elijah and Martha both laughed. "Well, there is that too of course. But…"

"Why is this one empty?" Elijah asked, before immediately apologizing for interrupting Martha, though he was also interrupted by Silas' waking moan. He looked around at the strangers in the room.

"It was not a dream, was it?" he asked, a pinch of fear in his voice. It changed a moment later, however when he noticed the leather-bound book in Elijah's hand. "How did you get that?" he asked, getting to his feet

All eyes were suddenly drawn to the book Elijah was still holding. Even Damon and Klaus came over. "Do you know what it is?" Kol asked, mentally slapping himself at the question when Silas gave him a look that clearly stated that he thought the original was stupid. He was a witch. Of course, he knew what a grimoire was. "I'll take that as a yes"

"Look, I don't know who any of you are, but you need to let me go. My parents will kill you if you don't, and it won't be a quick death" Silas threatened

"Good to know murder has been in the family for millennia. It runs in our blood" Damon snarked. "Look here, Harry Potter, your parents aren't coming. They are dead. Have been dead for two thousand years. As a matter of fact, you were dead too, until this morning that is. We just want to know how come you're still here. But first things first. What do you know about this empty book?"

Bonnie face palmed. Typical Damon to drop such news on Silas like that. She looked at the emotions playing across his face, letting her believe more and more that he was not faking the amnesia. He really couldn't remember anything.

"W-What? They're dead? Two thousand years? What are you talking about? They were… They were having lunch… in the garden… It was… I was… How…" the boy was thoroughly confused

Martha stepped in before the boy started hyperventilating. "It's okay son. Calm down. I'm a witch. And so is she" she pointed to Bonnie. "You can trust us" she added, letting him feel her magic, before throwing a glare in Damon's direction. She kept repeating the first two sentences until she felt the boy relax

"You're witches. What are they then?"

"Vampires, mate" Kol answered

"What's that?"

"There'll be time for explanations later" Elijah begun

"You'll tell me why he looks like me?" Silas asked, pointing to Stefan

"Among other things" Elijah accepted. "First, you need to tell us about this grimoire"

"Okay. It belongs to my best friend, Qetsiyah. She's very powerful. Stronger than me… than I used to be" he added, remembering his inability to do magic. "Qetsiyah, she sometimes made up new spells. She was very gifted that way. This book contains her most potent spells"

"In case blindness came with your amnesia, the grimoire is empty" Stefan spoke for the first time since their little skirmish

Silas scoffed. "Of course, it isn't. Qetsiyah's mother helped her make it, and she was asked to keep it in the family. So Qetsiyah being Qetsiyah, did it in the most spectacular way. She wrote the spells in her blood, binding each one to the pages so it could never be torn out or copied. The quill she made herself from a combination of a tree she magically grew and the feather of some obscure bird; I don't quite remember. And finally, she cast a longevity spell with the elements; elemental magic if you will, it's quite rare. The grimoire could never be destroyed, but she made sure only she and her family would ever be able to read its contents. She put in so many factors and conditions, no one outside her family would be able to read what is in that book. So, unless you have Qetsiyah stashed here somewhere, you can forget ever seeing the contents of that book"

Everyone stared at him with a what-the-hell look. "That book better be an instruction manual on how to pluck the sun from the sky" Kol deadpanned

Silas shrugged. "You'll never know"

"Say, you wouldn't happen to know the spell Qetsiyah used to actually write in the book, do you? Cos, I know blood ain't invisible" Damon asked

Silas shook his head. "She didn't need to spell her blood. The invisibility was made possible by the quill she used. I sat with her a few times when she wrote. She seemed to know what she was doing, but all I saw, even while I could see her writing, was a blank page. I repeat, unless you have her sta…"

"I'm her family" Bonnie suddenly announced

"What?"

"Qetsiyah and I are related" Bonnie repeated slowly. "You said only someone from her family line could read the book. That means I can, right?"

"Yes, but…" Silas narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Bonnie. "I don't know you. I know all of Qetsiyah's family, but I don't…"

"Two thousand years' mate. Keep up" Klaus said. "She's a distant relative"

"Well, if you really are Qetsiyah's family, the book should have sensed your magic and opened for you"

Stefan scoffed. "Another dead end. Thanks for nothing psycho"

"Not necessarily, no" Silas spoke, ignoring his lookalike's jab. "There is another way but it's dangerous. Are you absolutely certain that you are a descendant of Qetsiyah?"

"I'm sure" Bonnie answered

"Like your friend here keeps repeating, apparently, it's been two thousand years. That is a very long family tree to keep track of. And if you are not a descendant, you will die immediately"

"She said she was sure mate. Just tell her what to do" Kol interjected

"Alright" Silas conceded. "I need some parchment and a quill". At the confused look Bonnie gave him, he rectified. "I need something to write with".

Elijah dropped an unfinished homework book before him, along with a pen. Suffice to say, Stefan was not a happy camper but a glare from his older brother limited his complaints to a petulant pout. Silas spent a few seconds admiring the writing materials of the twenty first century, then got to drawing what looked like a sigil or crest of some sort. When he was done, he looked to Damon, being unconsciously drawn to him in particular without knowing why. "This is the insignia of Qetsiyah's family. I don't know why the book can't sense your magic but Qetsiyah wrote this in her blood. Therefore, her blood should be able to unlock it. Draw this insignia on the grimoire in your blood. No incantations necessary. It should open"

Bonnie nodded and took a deep breath. She made an incision in her palm and made a fist, watching as blood trickled down into one of Damon's wine glasses. Why he even had those she didn't know because she had never seen Damon drink wine. She then dipped two fingers in the blood and started to trace what Silas had drawn on the grimoire's first page. The symbol itself was easy to draw, and it filled Bonnie with a slight amount of pride that their family had been deemed important enough at some point to warrant a recognizing mark. She gave a shuddery breath when the sigil was done and words started showing themselves. The spells were written some two thousand odd years ago, and Bonnie knew on some level that it should be more difficult for her to read let alone understand what they meant. But she just knew what each spell she read did. And she knew Qetsiyah had to be really powerful to create an immortality elixir and its cure and single handedly create the other side but damn, that witch was something else. The power behind the words coursed through her like electricity, and she felt invincible. Even her Expression had not made her feel this way before. She felt all three of her magic swirling within her, just dying to be let loose.

Damon's face creased in slight worry. "Bonnie? You okay?" he asked warily

Silas watched in fascination. "Incredible! She's gifted. Like Qetsiyah and me. Like I used to be…" he corrected. "That was why the grimoire wouldn't open before. You don't have only one source of magic. You can tap into several. The book couldn't decide"

"What is going on right now?" Martha asked

"I don't know" Silas answered. "It looks like a binding ceremony of some sort. The grimoire is familiarizing itself with her magic. Cataloguing it in a way"

"How long is that going to take?" someone asked. Damon wasn't sure who.

"Oh, you'll know when it's done. Trust me" Silas replied, ecstatic. "There will be a massive release of power unlike anything you've ever seen"

"How massive?" Damon asked, the wary tone back. Bonnie was no garden witch. If she was releasing magic unintentionally…

"She has Qetsiyah's blood running through her veins, so I will say pretty massive" Silas replied, before seeming to pick up on Damon's uneasiness. "What types of magic is she familiar with?"

"Spirit, traditional and Expression"

"Did you say Expression?" he turned to Damon, horror slowly dawning. "How good is her control? If she lets go, and it is Expression and she cannot control it…" he left the sentence hanging but everyone understood clearly what he meant.

"We need to contain it" Kol announced solemnly

"I don't think we have enough time" Silas said as he took a wary step back. Stefan unconsciously followed suit.

The front door suddenly opened with a deafening sound as a voice spoke, causing Damon to groan loudly. "He's right. There's no time"


Uh oh! Who could that be? I'll update soon.