Chapter Four

Light trickled through his curtains as he looked down at his watch, seven a.m., there was no way he was going to go to sleep after that lovely little dream.

It's too early to be predicting Sirius' death. Chris thought to himself, Just a dream. A nightmare…but still…he'd never seen the veil before.

Sliding out of bed and putting his shoes on he opened his door and decided to go exploring, maybe there was a library somewhere downstairs. Making his way to the stairs he climbed down quietly cringing when one of the steps creaked loudly. Calm down Christopher, you don't have to sneak around. He scolded himself.

It was pitch black when he managed to make his way to the first floor, summoning a ball of whitelighter energy above him the young witch went to look around. And to his joy the first door he opened, the walls were covered in books, maybe there's something to help me understand the significance of that damned veil. Chris was having a hard time getting the look of Sirius' fear filled face out of his mind.

Browsing titles he came across one entitled 'The Department of Mysteries', opening it slowly he began to read, The Department of Mysteries lies inside the Ministry of Magic, containing objects unknown, prophecies and the-

"Hi."

Chris looked up and saw a girl with dark blonde hair and brown eyes staring at him from the doorway.

"Hi, did I wake you?"

"No." She smiled walking further into the library, "Sometimes I come in here to read. What are you doing?"

"Trying to understand my dream." He answered, he looked up, "My name's Chris Halliwell by the way."

She extended her hand, "Hermione Granger. What are you doing here?"

"Meeting my father." He said with a lopsided smile, "It was either that or stay in the manor and be reminded of my family and make my self miserable."

"Why would your family-"

"They're dead." He muttered, "And what gets me is it was a completely mortal way to go. You'd think the Charmed Ones would go down fighting demons, but no…a car accident wiped out everyone but me. Because I was at home sick." He said bitterly.

"I'm so sorry."

Chris smiled, "Thanks. Are you hungry?"

"Yes I suppose I am."

"Point me in the way of the kitchen." He said as he slid the book back on the shelf. Neither Chris nor Hermione noticed the book on the Department of Mysteries disappear from the shelf.

Once in the kitchen Chris took a moment to familiarize himself with it, Hermione watched as eggs and flour and water and butter were mixed, a slight grin appeared on his face as he orbed out, only to reappear a few seconds later with a bag of Choc-Bits, the smell drew everyone from upstairs down to the kitchen.

"What's that smell?"

"Pancakes." Chris replied as he flipped another over in the pan, Ron noticed Hermione was covered in flour.

"What happened to you?" Ron laughed.

She shot a glare at Chris, "It was his idea of a joke."

"Oh come on Hermione," Chris grinned, "It was funny. Besides, you're not the only one it got. Have you seen my hair lately?"

They looked up and noticed it was rather white. He shook his head and white flecks of powder flew in all directions, "Alright, so it was a little funny."

Twenty-four rather delicious pancakes later it was Hermione and Ginny doing the dishes and discussing Grimmauld place's newest arrival.

"What do you think of Chris?" Ginny asked.

"He's nice. I can't believe he's Sirius' son."

"I know!"

"Hey! Talkin' bout me?" Chris drawled from the doorway.

The girls jumped and turned around, "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to know I'm 'kinda' cute." He pouted, "I thought I was at least 'reasonably attractive. Um, Hermione do you mind if I talk to you in the library for a sec?"

She followed him to the library, waving his hand casually the door shut with a slight thump, "Chris what's going on?" She asked, seeing the slight look of unease in his eyes.

"I had a dream last night. It might have been a premonition…I saw his death. I saw him fall through this veil, I tried to reach him but I couldn't-"

"Reach who?"

"Sirius. It's too early to be predicting someone's death isn't it?"

"Are you sure he died? Is premonition a power of yours?"

"No. I'm not sure he died but it was so real. I felt the fear. And I'm an Oracle, so yeah, premonition is part of my power."

"So you're dismissing it? Why did you want to talk to me?"

"I was looking at a book entitled 'the Department of Mysteries' and the funny thing is," he pointed to a spot on the shelf, "I put it right there."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Chris said sharply, wincing at her jump, "Sorry. I guess I'm just a little testy this morning."

"It's understandable."

The door opened and Sirius poked his head in, "I was wondering where you two got to."

"Well you found us." Chris grinned, he patted Hermione's arm, "Thanks for your help."

"You're welcome." She smiled as she walked past Sirius.

"How are you Chris?"

He walked toward his father and smiled, "I'm alright, still trying to wrap my head around the fact I have another father. It's just mind blowing."

"What happened last night?"

"Oh," he said faintly, "I'm really sorry about my temper tantrum. I needed to talk to my mother, I had to know whether or not this was all true. But, my Grams said it was too soon. But Wy pointed me in the direction of her old journal." He pulled it out of his pocket and showed him the photo he'd found.

"I remember that day." Sirius said, watching Piper laughing in the photo, "she was so happy but she went home a few days later because your aunts needed her."

"And she didn't come back?"

"She might have Chris, I don't know. It wasn't long after that that I was taken to Azkaban."

"If you don't mind me asking, why were you thrown in jail?"

"I was arrested and charged for associating myself with the Dark Lord-"

"The who?" Chris suppressed a laugh.

"I'll get to that in a second." Sirius said, "And also for aiding the Dark Lord in killing my best friend, his wife and the attempted murder of my godson.And other things" He noticed the alarmed look on Chris' face, "None of which I did by the way!"

"I believe you." Chris said as his empathic (a/n: if you want a 'Chris' powers list' ask in a review) powers wrapped its tendrils around Sirius' mind for a moment.

"Thank you." A rather insistent jingling started in Chris' head and the young teen frowned, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Chris smiled, his hand unconsciously reaching for his mp3 player ear phones, he'd find a way to block it out.

As the day wore on the jingling grew more and more insistent and Chris, who'd had his ear phones in all day was becoming more and more frustrated, evident to the other people in the house by the small and infrequent explosions that were occuring at random intervals but on most occasions in the same room as Chris.

Finally he'd had enough, at that stage he'd acquired a headache that felt like he was going toe to toe with half a dozen darklighters. He pulled out his ear phones, looking up at the ceiling Chris shouted, "FINE! STOP YOUR DAMN JINGLING I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE!"

Now, considering he was in a room FULL of people this sight was although the sight was slightly amusing it was also kind of hazardous to their health because although they didn't know his family, Halliwell temper tantrums could be rather dangerous. He could quite clearly remember setting fire to the library books at Magic school because he couldn't get his own way.

He looked down, "I'm really sorry about that. The Elders have been calling me ALL day and I've kind of been ignoring them. I'm really sorry about my behavior today and I hope you can forgive me. I will be back as soon as possible."

Before anyone could object Chris shot them an apologetic smile and disappeared in a swirl of blue and white orbs.

Reappearing 'Up There' he shot the council a rather dirty look, wholly tempted to hold up a hand, raise a certain finger and say some rather impolite words that shan't be used just yet.

"What is it?"

"Christopher we are sorry for your loss but your anger does not excuse you ignoring us for the better part of the day."

"Funny, I thought it did."

"Now that's quite enough, the loss of the Charmed-"

"You don't get it!" He hissed, "They weren't the 'Charmed Ones' or the 'Twice Blessed'. They were my mother and aunts, my father, my brother, uncles, cousin and Grandpa! MY FAMILY!"

"We have a Charge for you."

"In case you've forgotten Zola, I'm NOT a whitelighter. My birth father's a wizard. Frankly you can shove this charge right up your-"

"It's your father's godson." Theo said, cutting off the rather pissed off not actually half bred angel, "You will be meeting him shortly. And in regards to Leo not being your father…your mother sought us out to give you whitelighter powers, genealogy aside for all intensive purposes in our eyes you are a whitelighter and you will, at your mother's request only receive ONE charge. All we ask is that you find some way to keep him alive as he has a nasty knack for getting into trouble. Now go, and not another word!"

Chris pouted and huffed before orbing back down to the same stunned crowd he'd temporarily left.

"So what happened?" Hermione asked. The 'insufferable know-it-all (Sorry I loved that line! And she really is a know-it-all!) had done a quick spot of research in the Black Family Library and had explained what the Elders were.

"Nothing much, all 'sorry for your loss' and stuff like that." He said casually, not quite sure why he didn't tell them about his new Charge, "what'd I miss?"

"Nothing, you were only gone ten minutes." Bill said.

"Oh, okay then." He shrugged, "So…whaddya wanna do?"

Now there was a rather amusing creature Chris had yet to be introduced to, and no, I am not talking about that demented little house elf.

"We could always introduce you to Buckbeak…" Ron suggested.