Magic 101

"Piper..." Paige said with concern in her voice. She didn't like what she saw on Piper's face.

"Not now Paige." Piper groaned. Her eyes looked up quickly to where Matt was standing behind Paige before hastily returning to her baby sister.

"Who is this Chris person you and Leo were fighting about?" Matt asked, curiosity twinkling in his gaze. He was petty damn good at faking it.

"How dare you eavesdrop on a private conversion." Piper snapped, rising to her feet quickly.

"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" she hissed.

"Of course she did. I got lost getting back to the living room and all, I didn't mean to over hear. My ears just picked up the end of the conversion. I'm sorry." Matt held up his hands in peace.

"Piper, just relax," Leo interjected, trying to calm his wife down.

"You don't talk to me," she ground out, having to fight the urge to turn him into whitelighter confetti.

"I'm sure he didn't mean to listen in, Piper," Phoebe offered up in defense of Paige's new eye candy. A part of Piper knew she should just calm down, and not get too mad at the innocent they were supposed to be helping.

"Sorry," Piper snapped towards Matt, not really meaning it at the moment, but would later once she was back in control of her emotions. She stopped wringing her wrists, and tried to calm down.

"Is she always this grumpy?" Matt whispered in Paige's ear.

"it's the hormones...I think," she murmured. Phoebe looked between her two sisters. This was going to get very complicated very fast.

"So...Matt this is going to be a very strange question but do you know why that guy was after you?" she asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"No...no clue," he lied. Phoebe nearly let out a groan. It could never be the easy way with innocents. At least Daisy a couple years ago knew about Darklighters and stuff.

"Ok…another kind of strange question….anything weird happen to you lately, something you probably couldn't understand?" Phoebe asked, cringing inside, thinking she sounded too much like a character in Harry Potter.

"What do you mean by weird things?" he asked in a nervous tone.

"Oh...you know...being able to do things that you couldn't before," Paige interjected. Wyatt looked at his aunt and tried to stifle a laugh. Could she sound any more like a Harry Potter character?

"Um..." he began, tapping his chin in thought. Paige couldn't help but find that gesture cute.

"Well now that you mention it...I have been feeling kind of off lately. I don't know how to explain it," he finally answered.

"Ok...so either he's a witch just coming into his powers or he's a future whitelighter," Piper muttered loudly.

"Piper," Phoebe and Paige hissed at her in unison.

"What?" Piper hissed back.

"Well he is going to find out anyway," Piper said sighing. Leo wanted to go and comfort his ex-wife, but for fear of making her angry in her crazy hormonal state, he backed off.

"Alright now what the hell is a whitelighter? I am so confused," Wyatt lied smoothly, instantly projecting someone who was starting to freak out.

"It's...like a guardian angel. They guide witches and future whitelighters," Leo answered, being an expert on the subject.

"You people are nuts," he accused.

"No...no we're not. We're good witches. We help people. And we can help you...if you'll let us," Paige countered, pleading with him with her eyes.

"So do you like...fly around on broomsticks and wear funny hats?" he asked with a laugh. He knew Phoebe would bust into the lovely tale of saving dear Melinda Warren.

"Well only once," Phoebe said snickering. Paige gave her older sister a weird look, even she was confused on what Phoebe was implying.

"Ok Phoebe, we are trying to get him to trust us, not scare him away with a myth that clearly never happened," Paige sighed, rolling her big brown eyes.

"It did happen, Paige. Totally saved Melinda Warren," Phoebe said after a moment. "Ask Piper," she said pointing towards Piper.

"Ok, this is not the time to be going down memory lane," Piper sighed as she saw Phoebe and Paige start to bicker.

"Who is Melinda Warren?" Matt asked.

"She's our ancestor. She's the beginning of our line of magic," Phoebe answered happily. She'd always been the most in tune with their history.

"And you saved her..." he trailed off.

"Yeah...well it turned out my demonic boyfriend sent us back in time to try and kill us," Phoebe began.

"Phoebe...this is not the time. Can we please focus on the present?" Piper snapped, throwing her arms up in exasperation, accidentally blowing up the grandfather clock.

"Damn it!" she swore. Matt just looked on in awe.

"How...did you do that?" he asked.

"Magic," she answered irritably.

"Piper, we just got that fixed," Phoebe whined, as she saw the pieces of the grandfather clock all over the floor.

"That is beside the point, we were supposed to be introducing him slowly to it, not scare him off by blowing up something," Paige snapped. She gave Matt an apologetic look, but he didn't look all that freaked out about it.

"Ok…so you can blow things up...can you all do that?" he inquired. Of course he already knew the answer to that question but he had to play dumb.

"No...I can move things with my mind. It's call telekinesis," Paige explained. She held out her hand and looked around the room.

"Vase," she called out and the object disappeared in blue and white lights, reappearing in her hand. Matt's eyebrow rose at the action. He seemed to be impressed.

"Yeah...and I have premonitions...I see things before they happen," Phoebe explained.

"What about you?" Matt addressed Leo.

"I can err…teleport from place-," he orbed, and reappeared next to Matt. "to place." Leo could tell that they were running out of things to talk about, and had started to wonder if this innocent was a future whitelighter, or a witch. He was about to ask when all the sudden, in his peripheral vision he saw baby Wyatt orb into Piper's arms.

"Wyatt!" Piper exclaimed, clearly surprised to see her oldest son orb into her arms. She looked at her wrist watch. She couldn't believe that they left him in Magic School.

Matt eyed the child in Piper's arms nervously. He hadn't counted on meeting his younger self for a while. He had at one point contemplated taking him back so that his family could not save him.

"I'm guessing he's yours?" he asked, pointing between Leo and Piper.

"Yes. This is Wyatt," Piper answered, taking Wyatt's hand and waving it in Matt's direction. Matt had to admit, he was pretty cute at that age.

"So where did he come from just now?" he wanted to know.

"We sort of left him at Magic School," Paige muttered, looking embarrassed.

"Magic School?" Matt questioned.

"Yeah…kind of like Hogwarts to the little squirts new to magic," Phoebe quickly explained. "And teenagers…" she said after a moment. Paige nearly rolled her eyes at the Harry Potter comment.

Piper couldn't believe she forgot about Wyatt. She felt like a terrible mother to one of her sons. At least she was able to help Chris a little bit, and she got to know the reason why he was so reluctant to talk with her.

"You know those are just books right? People don't actually wave wands around and say stupid Latin phrases," Matt interjected. The books had always annoyed him. They'd painted magic as some foolish thing rather than a revered craft. He had not lost that reverence just because he became evil.

"You're right. We say things in rhyming couplets instead," Piper replied, rocking her one-year-old in her lap. The child gazed at Matt and it creeped Matt out. It was like he could see who he really was.

"But we do make potions...lots of potions," Paige added.

"So...we haven't figured out what I am yet," Matt said, standing and starting to pace.

"Well you said you can do things. Maybe you're a witch," Phoebe offered.

"But...how would I know?" he countered.

"Well with us, our powers came out when we were feeling powerful emotions, fear, anger…" Phoebe explained.

"Lust," Paige added, poking Phoebe in the arm. Phoebe just glared at her younger sibling.

"Uh...ok. Right," he muttered. He had to make this look believable. He concentrated, holding his hand out towards the table. He managed to make the picture frame on the wall shake a little bit.

"Good. Keep focusing," Paige coached. He finally let go and the picture came flying at him.

"Looks like he has telekinesis," Leo commented. Piper looked a bit surprised. Were other witches not in the family allowed to have other powers?

"Cool," Matt said, leaning back on the couch and giving Paige a smile.

"Looks like we have something else in common," he whispered to her. Paige blushed as a smile crept onto her face. Phoebe snickered as she heard him flirt with Paige.

"Another person with telekinesis," Piper muttered to herself as she bounced baby Wyatt.

"Maybe we should show him the Book of Shadows, get him more in touch with his newly found witch side," Paige suggested.

"I'm not sure that's such a good--" Piper began but Paige ignored her older sister.

"Book of Shadows," she called out. The large leather-bound book appeared in her lap.

"Oh relax, Piper,' the youngest Halliwell said with a dismissive hand gesture.

Before anyone could say another word for or against showing their much coveted family heirloom to Matt, the front door opened and slammed shut. All heads turned to see Chris walk in. He saw Leo and daggers shot between them. That didn't last long though. He caught sight of Paige with the book.

"What the hell are you doing? You don't even know this guy. And you're showing him the book. What is wrong with you?" he shot, grabbing the book from her.

"Hey would you back off? I know you've had a rough day but I think we know what we're doing," Phoebe interrupted, taking the book from her nephew's hands.

"Actually, I'd have to agree with Chris on this one," Piper said. Matt looked at Chris and barely hid a snicker.

"Chris...why don't we let them handle this," Leo suggested, nodding his head towards the sun room.

"No. Screw you asshole. I'm not fucking talking to you," Chris spat venomously.

"Hey! Watch the language around the baby," Piper shouted at him. She stood up, handing Wyatt to Phoebe. Wordlessly she dragged Chris out of the room.

"Chris…" she began.

"Mom…" Chris said mimicking her. Instantly her gaze became steely.

"I know that you are still angry, but please don't curse around your brother," she whispered. Chris just rolled his eyes.

"Ok, look. I agree with you about not showing Matt the book. But majority rules and your Aunts want to show it to him. They think he's a new witch," Piper sighed. She looked towards Leo, warning him with her eyes not to come in, and turned back to Chris.

"But when we have an innocent here, you can't just explode because your Dad is here," she explained.

"Can't you just tell him to leave. He's useless," Chris spat.

"You're going to have to deal with this because I can't have a neurotic son from the future hell bent on killing my ex-husband," Piper said, looking suddenly very tired.

"And no I'm not going to send him away. He can heal. You can't," she stated matter-of-factly.

"So what. If he really loved you he would have asked to be demoted or something," her second son grumbled.

"Don't make this about me, Chris. This is about you and him," Piper rebutted.

In the next room Matt was listening intently. Chris, always trying to blame things on their father. He had to admit, Leo was a decent scapegoat.

"God, he's never been this freaky," Paige said, sounding apologetic.

"Paige...he's just going through a rough time," Phoebe countered.

"Who are you kidding, he hates my guts," Leo groaned.

"Oh Leo he doesn't hate you," Paige retorted.

"Actually Paige...I think he does," Phoebe corrected her younger sister.

"Why?" the youngest Halliwell questioned. Phoebe thought it should be Leo who explained why his son hated him. She looked at her brother-in-law and nodded at him.

"Leo, you explain it," she ordered.

Leo looked from Phoebe to Paige to Matt and back again. He didn't want to discuss family business with an innocent around.

"Not to sound rude, but this is personal. Why don't I tell you in there," Leo said, motioning for Paige to follow him. She stood up and did so.

"So why does he hate you?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Because in his future I ignore him. And he says that I let Piper die," Leo explained, a pained expression on his face. Paige took a step back.

"But...you wouldn't do that," she stammered.

"I know. I want to talk to him but you saw he's not going to listen to a thing I have to say. It's bad enough I just found out I had another son," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. Back in the living room Matt was looking at Phoebe.

"Does this sort of thing happen a lot?" he asked.

"Actually…it's probably more common to have a demon attack," Phoebe answered, actually sounding like she wouldn't mind a demon at the moment.

"Demons?" he asked. It was too easy to fool them all.

"We'll explain it later," she sighed and stood up.

Suddenly the hallway was filled with a loud crash. Phoebe took the two strides out of the living to see what had happened. A vase lay shattered against the wall and Piper looked furious.

"That was Grams' vase," she shouted.

"Sorry," Chris grumbled.

"Everything ok out here?" Phoebe piped up.

"No. It all just sucks. I've been here almost a year and we still haven't found out who is after Wyatt. Mom refuses to throw him out," Chris began to rant but stopped when Leo and Paige appeared. Leo took a step towards Piper to make sure she was alright but Chris sent him flying. Just as he was about to collide with the staircase, Piper froze him.

"Do not make me ground you," she threatened, not sure how threatening it actually was.

"Oh please, get real. I'm twenty-two. You can't ground me," he shot back.

"Maybe not but I can freeze you," she called, flicking her wrists. Surprisingly Chris actually froze.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Phoebe asked, eying Matt still sitting on the couch.