Yeah! Another chapter, and at long last. Thanks so much to Princess SkywalkerOrgana, who with out, I would not have had this chapter up so soon. I give her all the credit for this chapter. Yup. I didn't write this one. I think now that summer is in full swing, I can get these out sooner. Ok. no more boring things. On with the story.
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A cloak. "Great." Phoebe said. "Just great. Something comes in, but it is a cloak. Why couldn't it have been the Book of Shadows?"
"Well at least we can keep warm." Prue said, optimistically.
"If it was going to keep us warm, it should've been a blanket." Phoebe snapped. "This cloak can only cover one of us."
"Power of three spell." Piper said a minute later.
"The Power of Three will…" The girls started to chant, but then Piper put her hand up.
"What?" Prue asked, a bit irritated.
"This isn't a cage, it is a shield." Piper said. "All magic will just resound off of it if it works in the first place."
"GREAT." Phoebe said, starting to freak out a bit.
"Its ok." Piper said comforting Phoebe. "We are the Charmed ones. We will figure something out."
Prue looked at the cloak while Piper was comforting Phoebe. It looked very familiar to her. "I have definitely seen this cloak before, she thought, but where. It isn't one of ours so where could I have seen it before."
She put it over one of her hands. Her hand seemed to disappear before her eyes. She took a deep breath. It is Harry's cloak, she thought. Harry!
"Piper." Prue said, trying to control her voice so Phoebe wouldn't get upset again. "Piper!"
"What?" Piper asked coming over.
"Wadwork is going to be going up against Harry now." She said her voice rising. "His cloak is here. We know he doesn't have Harry yet, because Harry would be in here with us if Wadwork had captured him. But what it does mean is that Harry left his cloak out somewhere."
"Something doesn't add up. Why would his cloak have been sent in here if they don't have him yet? Did they want us to remember our innocent again?"
"Maybe they gave us more credit then they should've and assumed that the great Charmed Ones would never have forgotten about their innocents." Prue said, her voice showing that she was beating herself up for not thinking about Harry sooner.
"We can't protect charges if we don't protect ourselves." Piper said. "We have to concentrate on how we can best protect him now, and we can beat ourselves up later."
"I wish there was someway we could see if Harry was safe." Phoebe, who had collected herself now, said.
"You are a genius!!!!!" Piper exclaimed.
Phoebe shrugged at Prue's questioning look. "Mind filling the rest of us in." Prue said.
"Leo." Piper said. "He can orb here, then orb to Harry."
"Leo!!" Prue called.
"Don't forget about the shield." Phoebe said.
"Orb in a bit farther from us then usual." Piper called.
Leo orbed in quickly, on the other side of the shield. "I have been so worried about you." He said. "What happened?" He was about to reach over to them.
"Don't." Piper snapped. "There is a shield there."
"Why don't you use a Power of Three spell?"
"It will probably bounce right off and kill us."
"What do you want me to do?" Leo asked, deciding it was better just to follow orders rather then try to tell Halliwells what to do.
"Find Harry. I know you got a focus on him. Orb him and his friends… to the Manor and stay with him." Piper said. "But first orb to Dumbledore and tell him what is going on. Then come back here to tell us Harry is ok. Make sure not to stay for too long, though. Wadwork will be heavy on your tail. Remember, Wormtail can change into a rat."
"We don't want to tip our hand by moving him too quickly. If we think Wadwork is coming there we will call you. And also, we will try to come up with something else really quickly." Piper said. "The most important thing is to make sure Harry is safe. Go!"
Leo orbed out. "Now we need to work on getting out of here." Piper said.
"Let's all just sit quietly and think for a bit." Prue suggested.
"Ok." Phoebe agreed.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione raced to the common room. Breathless, they soon noticed that no one was there. "It is supper time." Ron commented.
"Let's go to the Great Hall." Hermione said. "Harry is safer where there are a lot of people."
They headed down to the Great Hall. "The invisibility cloak." Harry said. They pulled it off and hid it clumsily behind Harry's back.
It fell out of Harry's hands on the way to the Great Hall and he didn't notice.
A while later Wadwork came and saw the cloak lying on the ground. "What does this do?" He said, feeling the magic pulsing from it.
He put it over his hand in an eerie reflection of what Prue did later. "So this is how they get away from me." He said, laughing. "Well now I will lock it carefully with the Charmed Ones. If they disappear before my eyes I will know where they have gone. Maybe this will give them a fright that I have Harry." He smiled evily, and shimmered to the abandoned house.
Leo orbed in just outside of the Great Hall, he could sense that Harry was inside, but he didn't want all eyes turning to him when he orbed in. Also, he knew that it would be best that very few people knew about the attack, and where Harry and his friends were.
He walked inside. "Ah, Leo." Dumbledore said. "I was wondering where you, your wife, and sisters-in-law were."
Leo waited until he was right at the head table before answering. "There was an attack. Piper, Prue, and Phoebe are afraid that Wadwork is going to try and come back for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They told me to orb those three to the Manor. Is there a way I can orb them away but no one will no that they have left the grounds?"
"Well, after supper those three have a habit of going off on their own. So if you just take them then, no one will notice."
"I think Wadwork can't turn himself invisible."
"That may be, but Wormtail can turn himself into a rat. Rats are hard things to spot. I put some spells against animagi in the common rooms myself after the scare last year, so once they get into their common room you don't have to worry."
"Ok, thanks."
"Now why don't you eat, if only to keep up appearances?" Dumbledore said.
As soon as Harry, Ron, and Hermione spotted Hagrid and Leo they wanted to come up and ask about the sisters, but Leo motioned them back to their seats.
'Now how am I going to get into the Gryffindor common room without being obvious,' Leo thought.
Luckily a Gryffindor first year came up to him and started asking him questions, about the class that night. "Let's go to your common room and we can discuss it." Leo suggested, thinking, "thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Leo sat with the first year for about twenty or thirty minutes, soon other kids joined them, listening intently. Then he got up and said. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasely, Ms. Granger," remembering how most of the Hogwarts teachers addressed their students, "I need your help on a few things if you please."
"Of course, Professor." The three came with him. "Wadwork is going to come back for you." Leo told them, when he had gotten to the Vistarus Room. "So I need you to come with me, I am going to take you to the Halliwell manor." He held out his arm, and motioned for them to grab it. Holding their breath, Harry, Hermione, and Ron prepared for the sudden jerk that they got when they touched a port key. They were pleasantly surprised to go slowly. Leo orbed them to the kitchen.
"Wow." Ron said, "This place looks like my house. It is a bit bigger, but still…"
"This is their hereditary home." Leo said. "Feel free to go anywhere; please don't mess with the potions though. If the doorbell rings, don't answer it though. No matter who it is. I will orb Piper, Phoebe, and Prue in." Leo hesitated. "Well, if it is Darryl open the door, but he has no reason to stop over. I will be back very quickly. I just need to check up on the sisters."
"Ok." Hermione
said.
"Um." Ron asked sheepishly. "Where is the bathroom?"
Leo slapped himself on the head. "I am being a really bad host, sorry." He said.
He gave them a quick tour of the place, including the attic because he had been watching their antics and knew if he didn't show them the place they would end up there themselves.
Then Leo orbed to the basement, where the girls were trapped.
"Harry, Ron, and Hermione are safely at the Manor." He reported.
All three of the sisters let out sighs of relief. "Ok, well we are having no luck busting ourselves out." Phoebe reported.
"Can you get the Book of Shadows?" Piper asked. "I think there is something in there about magical shields. I was reading it the other day."
"Take it to the Manor and flip through it, so Harry and company aren't alone for long then bring it back." Prue said.
Leo orbed out. He quickly stopped by Hogwarts, grabbing the book.
"I will be able to Orb the best out of all the whitelighters at this pace." Leo said, joking to the three kids. "I need to try and find something in here for the sisters."
"What happened to them?" Harry asked.
"Voldemort put them behind a magical shield. They are afraid to do a power of three spell because the magic will bounce back or get absorbed. But Wormtail mentioned that magic can get in." Leo said, while flipping.
"Can I help?" Hermione asked. "I am very good at looking things up in books; I do it all the time."
"Umm." Leo said, still a bit hesitant about letting a non-Wiccan see The Book, but also he didn't want to offend a guest. "No thanks, I am ok. I am familiar with this book so I should be ok. Thank you though."
"No problem." Hermione said.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione explored the house while Leo searched for the page on Magical shields that Phoebe had been talking about. He found it and orbed to basement after calling out to the kids telling them that he was going.
"I found the page; the problem is that you need a potion to get it to work."
"So what is the problem?" Phoebe said.
"I can't do magic, there is enough energy in me to get back. Going from London to San Francisco really wipes me. I just can't do magic." Leo said, "That includes mixing potions."
"Ron, Harry, and Hermione can." Prue said. "You can direct them."
Leo hesitated. "They are not Wiccan! You want non-wiccans to do Wiccan magic?"
"Yes. What other choice do we have?" Piper said.
"Piper, that isn't right."
"Why not?" Phoebe said. "We can't be that stuck into our own ways to not let anyone else in. Its time to change the ancient rules. Its not like we haven't before. I mean, look at you and Piper."
"Teaching them about Wicca is one thing, but asking them to actively do Wiccan magic is another." Leo said, ignoring Phoebe.
"Evil's weak point has always been their inability to make Alliances and work together. Is good going to take that flaw from them?" Phoebe asked.
Leo stayed silent. The Halliwells pressed some more.
In the meantime Wadwork shimmered into the Gryffindor dormitories. He saw a first year sitting all alone. He smiled to himself. "Hi." He said, smiling his most disarming smile. "I am looking for Harry, where would he be?"
"Who are you?"
"A friend of Professor Dumbledore."
"He, Ron, and Hermione went with Professor Wyatt somewhere." The first year answered.
"Thank you." Wadwork said. He walked out to the common room. He looked down both sides of the hallway, for any one passing by, and smiled evilly. "That whitelighter would've taken them to the Halliwell manor." Wadwork said to himself. He quickly shimmered out.