Chapter One
Albus Dumbledore looked at the tall manor in front of him once again, with great interest. He could tell just from standing outside that there was great power inside the house, even if the vibrations of power were of a different variety than those he was used to.
He checked the address on the letter once again. The venerable headmaster had kept the letter ever since he had received it nine and a half years ago. Of course, the address had only appeared on the letter that morning, the morning that Harry Potter turned eleven, or at least, according to the letter, would have turned eleven.
The story contained within the letter was so fantastical that even Dumbledore, who had seen many unbelievable things in his time, had his difficulties believing it. But there was something in the fantastical nature of the story that made it believable, something in the utter absurdity of the tale that made it seem to be more realistic.
Finally making up his mind to confront the boy who lived, even if he wasn't Harry Potter, and invite him to Hogwarts, Dumbledore mounted the steps to the front door. Reaching out with one hand, he rapped sharply on the shining brass doorknocker. After a moment, a voice sounded inside the house,
"Wyatt, will you get the door, I'm trying to get mini-you to finish his cereal before the others arrive."
After this comment, there were more, quieter, muffled voices speaking inside, then the clatter of feet approaching the door. Then the feet stopped and the door was abruptly pulled open. Dumbledore found himself then looking into the startled blue eyes of a blonde man in his early thirties.
The man's eyes wide open in shock and his mouth was also hanging open in stunned silence. Then the man's mouth snapped shut. With one hand, he gestured for Dumbledore to come inside, which he did, and then with the other he slammed the doors. Once the door had been closed, the man whirled almost violently on his heel and yelled,
"Chris, Albus Dumbledore is in the lobby."
This statement confused Dumbledore, although he did not let it show. He had no memory of ever meeting this man, and the family, though famous in one magical world, had little reported experience of theirs. He did not have long to muse on this, however, as the clatter of running feet alerted him to another presence entering the room.
The headmaster looked up as another man ran into the hall, skidding to a halt just behind the blonde, who stood looking shell-shocked. The new man placed a concerned hand on the blonde's shoulder and asked, gently,
"Wy, love, are you all right?"
The softly spoken words seemed to shake the blonde out of his shocked stupor, and he turned back to Dumbledore and spoke authoritatively,
"Professor Dumbledore, is there any particular reason why you are here? Our separate magical communities are not known for interacting."
Professor Dumbledore frowned again, not recognising either of the young men before him, nor knowing why they knew him by sight, and seemed to be familiar with him. Then he noticed that the two were still waiting for an answer, and he deemed that the best way to receive the answers to his questions would be to provide answers to at least some of theirs.
"Just under ten years ago I received a rather intriguing letter, which today provided me with this address. As the matters it pertained to are exceptionally crucial, I apparated here immediately."
The two young men exchanged glances before the dark-haired one, Chris, spoke,
"I'm guessing this letter was from a Cole Turner and Phoebe Halliwell-Turner?"
It was not really a question, but Dumbledore nodded anyway. Wyatt and Chris rolled their eyes in unison and then gestured for Dumbledore to take a seat. Wyatt spoke then, his voice still rather dry, but more steady now,
"You might as well sit down, Cole and Phoebe are coming round this morning as it's Will's eleventh birthday, they should be here soon and then you can talk to them about whatever it is that you want to talk to them about."
Dumbledore frowned slightly at this,
"Will?"
Wyatt rolled his eyes,
"Will's our cousin. Phoebe is our aunt and Cole is her husband."
Dumbledore tried his hardest not to gape at this statement, as he also tried not the stare at the possessive arm Wyatt had around Chris's slender waist. Chris however saw his gaze and scowled,
"Yeah, we're brothers, we also sleep together, get over it."
Before Dumbledore could formulate a response to this statement, another person entered the lobby where they were seating. This person was a woman in her early forties, but still attractive and obviously still in top form. Her hair was long and dark, as were her eyes. Her skin was slightly tanned and she was slender enough to be almost thin. There was twinkling humour in her eyes but it disappeared when in saw the remnants of fear on Wyatt's face. She crossed to the two men and, ignoring Dumbledore, asked,
"Wyatt, are you okay?"
Wyatt sighed and shook his head slightly,
"It's difficult seeing people and remembering what I did, could still do."
The woman sighed and wrapped her arms around both of the men, who looked slightly uncomfortable with the attention. In the end, Chris ended the hug by ducking out of the woman's encircling arms. He pushed his dark bangs out of his eyes and spoke seriously,
"Piper, Professor Dumbledore's here to see Cole and Phoebe, I think that it's about Will."
All humour and compassion went out of the Piper's eyes as she whirled on Dumbledore. She raised her hands in front of her and approached the headmaster, saying as she did so,
"What do you want with my nephew?"
Dumbledore eyed Piper's hands carefully, wondering what her power was that she was obviously threatening him with. Before he could speak, however, Wyatt walked to her side and laid a hand on her arm, speaking quietly,
"Don't attack him, mum, he's on the right side."
Piper's expression didn't soften, but she did stop approaching Dumbledore and lowered her hands back to her side as she asked,
"How can you be so sure?"
Wyatt flinched slightly as he answered,
"Because if he wasn't on the side of good then I wouldn't have taken such time, effort and delight in killing him."
Chris came up behind Wyatt and wrapped his arms around the other man's waist in support. Dumbledore frowned in confusion and Chris spoke when he saw this,
"Wyatt and I are from the future."
Wyatt spoke next,
"Perhaps we should leave all the explanations until after everyone else is here. Cole and Phoebe said they'd bring Will round after breakfast."
Piper nodded,
"Yes, that's a good idea. Professor, if you'd like to come into the living room."
And with that, Piper whirled on her heel and left the room. Chris and Wyatt followed her with a gesture to Dumbledore to accompany them.
When Dumbledore was firmly ensconced in a comfortable armchair and Piper had brought him a cup of tea, Wyatt and Chris lounged on the sofa, Chris's dark head resting in Wyatt's lap. Wyatt turned from stroking Chris's hair and asked Dumbledore,
"Do you want anything else, Professor?"
Dumbledore was tempted to ask for an explanation of what was going on, but instead he requested sherbet lemons. Wyatt crooked an eyebrow, but he materialised a bowl of sherbet lemons, just as Piper re-entered the room.
"No personal gain, Wyatt."
Wyatt frowned and said,
"They're not for me."
And saying this, he handed the candies to Dumbledore. Piper frowned at this and spoke sharply,
"You shouldn't trivialise your powers, Wyatt."
Wyatt rolled his eyes and quipped,
"Mom, it's magic, not the Force."
It looked as if Piper was about to say something more, so Wyatt changed the subject,
"Where's Leo?"
Piper scowled,
"Your father had to go and talk to the other elders."
Chris sniggered,
"It's the weekly staff meeting."
Wyatt stared at the smiling face in his lap,
"They have staff meetings?"
Chris nodded,
"Yeah, every week. All whitelighters and elders have to attend, it's compulsory."
Wyatt frowned,
"Then why aren't you there?"
Chris rolled his eyes,
"I may still be the charmed ones' whitelighter, but I'm also family and part witch, I haven't been invited back into the holier-than-thou club yet and have no intention of ever rejoining."
Wyatt sighed and looked as if he were about to make some comment to Chris, when there was the sound of feet running down the stairs. The footsteps approached the door and two small bodies hurled themselves into the room at Piper, who caught both of them with ease. As she did this, Dumbledore saw two tousled heads pressed together, two eerily familiar tousled heads. He turned from staring at Piper to staring back at the two men who claimed to be from the future. Wyatt noticed his gaze and rolled his stormy blue eyes in sarcastic humour.
"We're from the future, they're our miniature versions."
Dumbledore worked hard not to gawk and to maintain his normal level of twinklitude as he did so. Wyatt noticed this and smirked. Then he turned to Piper and asked,
"Do you want to call him, or shall I?"
Dumbledore assumed that they were referring to the muggle fellytone, so, when Piper nodded that Wyatt was to 'call him' he was somewhat more than a little surprised by Wyatt's loud yell.
"Dad, tell the other elders where to go shove it and get your damn dead ass down here right this minute."
Some of Albus's shock must have shown on his normally neutral face, because Chris raised his head from Wyatt's lap and spoke sarcastically,
"Wyatt has such a charming way of phrasing things, don't you think?"
Wyatt heard this and turned from being lectured by his mother about his language to swat Chris playfully around the head in an affectionate manner. Chris continued unabashed and made sure to duck Wyatt's next, not so affectionate swat,
"It's not his fault, Professor. Wyatt was born this way. But, maybe you'd better not mention it, as Wyatt's still rather sensitive about it."
Piper turned from her continuing rant about Wyatt's bad language to chastise her other future son about teasing his brother. However, fortunately for Chris, familiar whitish-blue orbs formed in the centre of the room, taking the form of a familiar man.
However, though these orbs and figure were familiar to Wyatt, Chris, Wyatt, Chris and Piper, they were not even slightly familiar to the now slightly shell-shocked, but hiding it well, Albus Dumbledore. So, the headmaster of Hogwarts could only watch in astonishment as Leo turned, annoyed, to his oldest son.
"Wyatt, I am perfectly aware of your opinion of the Elders, but was that absolutely necessary?"
Wyatt did not answer; he merely smirked and poorly stifled a laugh behind his hand. Chris noticed this, not that it was hard to miss, and looked up at his lover's face. Looking at the expression on Wyatt's face, he gasped then burst out,
"Wyatt, you didn't?"
It was apparent that both Chris and Wyatt knew exactly what Chris was referring to and they both said nothing more, except to collapse into sniggers when Wyatt nodded. Piper, however, didn't know what they were talking about and was not in the least bit impressed by this fact, so she blew up the cushion Wyatt's head was resting on, causing both the young men to be showered in white feathers.
Chris raised his tousled head from Wyatt's feather covered lap, blowing white fluff out of his eyes and glaring petulantly from under his long fringe. The white feathers scattered in his dark hair made him look like he was going prematurely grey and he scowled as he brushed them out of his hair. He then turned his mock-hurt gaze on his mother and whined,
"Mom, what was that for?"
Piper was not in the least softened by what was an extremely impressive pout and scowled as she spoke,
"You know perfectly well what that was for, young man. Tell me what your brother did right now."
Piper placed both hands on her hips and glared at her future sons, making her young sons carefully back two steps out of the danger zone. Seeing the less than impressed look on his mother's face, Chris sent an appealing look at his older brother, who relented and answered for him,
"I may have, hypothetically called for Leo and might, hypothetically have…"
Piper frowned, distinctly less than pleased with her eldest son,
"Cut the crap, Wyatt."
Wyatt nodded quickly, obviously recognising the threat of making Wyatt baby-sit his younger self that was implicit in Piper's voice. The last time that Wyatt had been made to baby-sit himself, he had ended up covered in flour from head to toe. His younger self had then decided that it would be a good idea to soak Wyatt from head to foot in ice-cold water, a move that had not impressed the former source in the slightest. Then, Wyatt had slipped on the water-soaked kitchen tiles and had landed face first in a bowl of golden syrup. Needless to say, he had thought of every possible excuse to get out of the duty since then, but the author digresses. So, with the painful memories of becoming a pastry still fresh in his mind, Wyatt made with the cutting of the aforementioned crap. (A skill the author wishes she possesses)
"When I called Le… Dad, I did it so the other elders could hear me."
It was obvious from Wyatt's face that this was not all he had done and the expression on Piper's face informed her son that if he wanted to escape any more, possibly fatal, embarrassment, he had better continue,
"It is also possible that I may, did make a giant version of my face appear up there as I said it."
There was silence after Wyatt said this, a rather apprehensive silence, as if Wyatt did not know how Piper was going to react. And, however he expected her to react, it was probably not as she did, by bursting into peals of laughter. Before this could go any further, two things happened at once. The first was the appearance of another lot of blue orbs, which formed the body of an attractive redhead in the mid-stages of pregnancy.
The second event to happen was really two things: First, a couple who appeared to be in their late thirties blurring into the room, for that was the only way their arrival could be described. And then a column of fire appearing in the centre of the carpet, turning into a scowling boy who looked to be about eleven years old. When the woman saw how the boy had arrived, she turned on him, scowling in an expression remarkably similar to his own,
"William James Halliwell-Turner, what have we told you about flaming in the manor?"
The boy rolled his eyes in a bored manner and replied, as if reciting something he had heard many times,
"That I'm not to flame unless I really have to, and under no circumstances am I to flame in the manor."
The woman sighed,
"Yes, Will. And why did you flame here then?"
Will rolled his eyes in exasperation,
"I've told you mum. I can't help it, it's just what comes naturally to me."
The woman sighed,
"I know that, love. But you know it's dangerous."
The boy scowled fiercely,
"Why? Because if I flame I'll immediately turn into baby Lucifer again? I have better control than that."
The man spoke then,
"But apparently not enough control to stop yourself from flaming when you've been specifically told not to."
Will winced,
"Daad."
The man was not impressed,
"I'm sorry, Will. But we've talked about this. We can't risk losing you, you mean too much to us."
Will scowled,
"Because I'm immediately going to turn evil? Get over yourself, dad. I'm not like you."
It was not really a gasp, but a ripple of something went round the room, and the mother made to turn on her anti-social son, but Wyatt intervened.
"Will, I know you think everyone's fussing, but it's really for the best. You have a lot of power and 'with great power comes great responsibility'. You're just going to have to be careful, like I have to be careful and younger me has to be careful."
Will sighed,
"I guess. I'm sorry mom, sorry dad."
His parents smiled and hugged him, an activity he quickly shrugged out of. Sighing at this typically male behaviour, Piper turned towards the middle Halliwell sister and said,
"Pheebs, while you've obviously been having yet another family drama, we have a visitor who says you and Cole left him a letter when you went to collect Will from those odious Dursleys."
Phoebe rolled her eyes,
"Goddess, I'd forgotten all about that. Well, I hadn't forgotten, I just had forgotten that that was today."
Cole rolled his eyes slightly at his wife's forgetfulness and turned to Professor Dumbledore,
"You're Albus Dumbledore, correct?"
Dumbledore nodded,
"Indeed I am. You are Cole Turner, I presume?"
Cole nodded and gestured towards Phoebe,
"I am, this is my wife Phoebe and our son, William, who, as you must know, went for a time as Harry Potter."
Will looked interested,
"Did I? When? That's cool."
Cole smiled at his son,
"After you was born, when I was dead."
Dumbledore couldn't stop the words escaping from his mouth, even as he wondered what had happened to his usual self-control,
"You were dead?"
Cole smirked and quipped.
"For a bit. It didn't really take."
Helpless before the force of his own curiosity, Dumbledore asked,
"How did you… die?"
Cole smirked even more and the redhead replied,
"Oh, we killed him."
Dumbledore knew he was gaping, but dismissed it as the product of what had already been a very confusing day,
"May I ask why you killed him."
The third sister, whom he guessed to be Paige, replied to this with a perfectly serious expression on her face,
"Yeah, well, he was evil, and he was going to kill us. So we had to kill him. Then he came back, again."
Dumbledore found himself mouthing 'again', to which Cole was polite enough to reply.
"Oh, they'd vanquished me before. There was the time when Phoebe pretended to vanquish me. Then they vanquished my demon half. Then I became the Source and they vanquished me again."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, thankful to have some control over his facial expressions once again,
"The Source?"
Wyatt replied this time, looking up from the patterns he was stroking in Chris's tousled mop,
"The Source Of All Evil. Pretty much what it says on the tin really. Ultra-evil, ultra-powerful, the whole works. I was the Source in the future, so Chris came back to stop be from being turned. Then the person who turned me almost killed Chris, so I blew up the planet and came back and healed him. Then our bond made me good again. I don't really understand that part, you'd have to ask Cole, he knows more about it than I do."
Dumbledore nodded in a sage manner, trying to pretend that he actually had a clue about what was being discussed. Then he decided that he probably didn't want to understand it. He concluded that he had best return to the reason why he came here in the first place. He turned to Phoebe and Cole and asked,
"I presume, when you left your son with Lily and James, they told you the prophecy which may well have referred to him."
Phoebe nodded and Will looked up from where he was having a complex discussion with his cousins about some prank that sounded highly explosive in the least.
"There's a prophecy with me in it? Cool."
Phoebe attempted not to smile as she answered,
"Not, it's not cool, William. This prophecy means that there are lots of people who will want to kill you."
Will rolled his eyes,
"Loads of people already want to kill me. That's what comes from being the son of a Charmed One and an invulnerable uber-powerful former demon, as well as the nephew of a Elder, and the cousin of the twice-blessed child. Not to mention what the seer said about me being destined to be the most powerful magical child the world has ever seen."
Phoebe frowned at Cole, who tried to hide his smile behind his hands. She then turned back to her smirking son,
"I don't like that attitude. Just because people want to kill you all the time you shouldn't be so blasé about it."
Will quirked his lips,
"What, it's not like I'm going to get hurt by any old demon. Hello, super-powerful being here. Besides, Wyatt's teaching me how to sword-fight, plus, I'm already pretty good with throwing daggers and the crossbow."
Phoebe did not seem the least bit impressed by this statement,
"And who taught you how to use a crossbow and throwing daggers?"
All eyes turned to Cole, who tried to look innocent, but of course failed spectacularly. Phoebe frowned at her husband,
"I don't like you teaching our son how to kill."
Cole sighed,
"Will's always going to be a target, he might as well know how to defend himself."
Phoebe was in no way appeased by this statement,
"Christ, Cole. He's only eleven years old."
Cole frowned,
"And when I was his age I'd already committed ten assassinations for the Source. Will's never going to be normal, and we shouldn't ignore his need to be able to protect himself."
Sensing that this was going to degenerate into another one of his parents' arguments on whether he should be allowed to fight, Will quickly changed the subject,
"Anyway. What I'm saying is that I can take care of myself. Just because another loony wizard and his followers want me dead, doesn't mean I'm just going to lie down and die for him. Who's this guy anyway, the one who wants me dead?"
Dumbledore shook himself from his stupefaction to answer,
"The wizard is known as Lord Voldemort, and likes to call himself the Dark Lord. His followers are known as Death Eaters and bear his mark on their arms. Most people are too afraid of him to say his name however and refer to him as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Will snorted,
"That's dumb. Firstly, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself and secondly, what about the people who don't know who, I mean that could really degenerate into a pointless discussion if no-one actually has a clue about who the other's talking about."
Dumbledore stifled a laugh as a polite cough and said,
"You're a unique child, Will."
Will rolled his eyes,
"Yeah, One in a bloody million, that's me."
Phoebe scowled,
"Will, watch your language."
Will ignored his mother and turned back to Dumbledore,
"So, Moldywarts and his Death Munchers want me dead. How is he any different from the rest of them?"
Momentarily confused, Dumbledore asked,
"The rest of who?"
Will shrugged, as if it ought to be obvious,
"The rest of the people who want me dead."
Trying not to think too hard about what could have made this eleven-year old boy be so blasé about people wanting him dead, Dumbledore explained the serious nature of the threat posed by Lord Voldemort.
"Lord Voldemort is an extremely powerful, extremely evil Dark Wizard. His aims, as far as anyone can tell, are world domination and extermination of all muggle-born witches and wizards."
Will interrupted him at this point,
"I see, this is mostly normal megalomaniac behaviour; a desire for power to compensate for a feeling of childhood inferiority, then a vendetta against those who made him feel inferior. I presume he started trying to gain power, a trail of murders, building up his power base and scaring people into aligning with him, then more murders to keep his supporters under control, as well as to get rid of anyone who disagreed with him?"
Dumbledore blinked,
"That is a very mature interpretation."
Will shrugged,
"It's textbook stuff. Mom's an advice columnist with several degrees in psychology and dad's a lawyer, when I'm not being shrinked over my choice of breakfast cereal, I'm being told about criminal profiling."
Dumbledore nodded, pretending to understand what this scarily over-mature eleven-year-old was talking about.
"Well, events carried out much as you described, then, at the height of his rise to power, Voldemort attacked Lily and James Potter and their young son, Harry, who apparently was you in disguise. He killed the Potters and then turned his wand on you. He used the same curse as he had used to kill countless other fully-grown witches and wizards, a curse which cannot be blocked or counteracted, a curse that no one has ever survived, so much that it is called the Killing Curse. But you survived. You came out of a confrontation with the most powerful Dark Lord in recent history with nothing more than a lightning bolt scar on your forehead, thus you became known as the Boy Who Lived."
Will listened to the explanation intently and then, after a few moments, asked,
"What happened to Moldywarts?"
Dumbledore smiled, and twinkled,
"Nobody really knows for certain. Most say that the curse backfired on him and he died. However, I am of the opinion that he was not human enough for the curse to work on him fully, so he fled, his powers weakened but not destroyed, and his body wasted."
Will nodded,
"Well, that theory would explain why Moldywarts couldn't kill me. I probably wasn't human enough for the curse to work on me either."
On seeing Dumbledore's look, Will explained further,
"My father used to be a half-demon, and I inherited that, as well as the fact that I was conceived when he was the Source of things ooky."
Phoebe quirked and eyebrow,
"'Ooky'?"
Will shrugged,
"It seemed to suit the purpose."
Phoebe frowned,
"Firstly, I'll have you know that I was the Queen of all things 'ooky'. And secondly, how much have we spent on your education for you to come up with words like 'ooky'?"
Will rolled his eyes,
"You don't pay for my education, magic school's free."
Phoebe scowled,
"Stop being such a smart-ass, anyway, that's beside the point. The only person in this family still young enough to get away with words like 'ooky' is Chris, but you don't see him using them."
Will smirked at this and then turned back to Dumbledore,
"So, now that we've established why I survived, why did Voldemort want me, or Harry, dead in the first place?"
Dumbledore looked at the young man closely, trying to judge whether or not he should tell him the truth. He decided then, that honesty would be the only way to persuade this young man to come to Hogwarts and save the Magical Community.
"Around the time of your birth, our Divinations Professor made a prophecy in which she stated that you would either kill or be killed by Voldemort, and you were the only one who could kill him. Voldemort caught wind of this news and went to kill you, and so it went."
Will nodded, absorbing this and considering it seriously,
"So, when Voldemort comes back, he's going to be pretty pissed with me, isn't he? And I'll be on the top of his 'People to Kill' list. And I also can't count on my demonic heritage to protect me all the time. I have my demonic powers, which pack a big punch and I have my magic, but I have the feeling that that's not what I need to get rid of the Voldemort?"
It was not really a question, but Dumbledore answered anyway,
"I very much doubt that your type of magic will be enough on its own to defeat Voldemort, no matter how powerful you are."
Will nodded, obviously expecting this answer,
"So, what do you advise, as I have no wish to die, particularly at the hands of someone with as ridiculous a pseudonym as Voldemort?"
Dumbledore smiled slightly,
"If you would be amenable to the plan, you can take the place at Hogwarts that Lily and James got for you after your birth, though under your real name, as the non-existence of Harry Potter is a fact and no subterfuge of this kind will be necessary."
Will smiled at this,
"Hogwarts is your guys' version of magic school, right?"
Dumbledore nodded,
"Yes, I am the headmaster of Hogwarts."
Will nodded at that and gestured towards his smiling uncle,
"Cool, Uncle Leo's the head of our magic school, ever since the former head met with an 'unfortunate accident'."
Dumbledore decided not to ask what the unfortunate accident had been that made the others around the room smirk so wickedly. Will continued,
"So, I could go to this Hogwarts place and learn how to do this wand magic?"
Dumbledore nodded and Will turned to his parents,
"Please can I go, please? I'll be really good, well good for me anyway."
Phoebe smiled at this,
"I don't see why not, though I want to know why you're so willing to leave magic school, I thought you really liked it there?"
Will frowned,
"Yeah, Magic School's cool, but it's the other students there that I'm not so cool with. They all call me evil when they think I can't hear. It'd be nice to be able to go to a school where everyone isn't watching me in case I start jumping up and down and declaring myself the ruler of the underworld."
Phoebe smiled wryly,
"I knew you were having problems at magic school, but you could have told us."
Will shrugged,
"It's not that important. Anyway, Professor Dumbledore, would it be possible to flame back home at weekends so that I could work on my powers, cause I don't want to risk losing control and hurting the other students."
Dumbledore smiled slightly at the child's foresight,
"I think that would be a most excellent plan."
Leo nodded thoughtfully then and spoke,
"I'm not sure just training at the weekends is going to be enough, Will. In fact, I don't think abandoning your education at magic school is at all a good idea. So, I'll get Wyatt or Chris to collect assignments from your teachers and bring them to you each day."
Will groaned,
"You're a harsh man, Uncle Leo, but I get the point. I don't want to accidentally incinerate one of my fellow students, or fall behind in my studies of witchcraft, not to mention that alchemy project I've just been assigned."
Cole and Phoebe nodded their agreement and the former demon turned to the headmaster of Hogwarts and said,
"It's settled then. Will shall attend Hogwarts from September, under the condition that he comes home at weekends to train and continues his studies there."
Dumbledore smiled and twinkled as he reached into his robes and pulled out a letter and a miniature golden key. Placing these on the coffee table, he said,
"In their will, Lily and James left the entirety of the Potter estate to young William here, the key here gives you access to your Gringots vault, from where your school fees shall be taken as instructed by the deceased. This letter contains your train ticket, your acceptance letter, and the details of the school year and the list of supplies you need. In it there are also instructions as to how to get to Diagon Alley, to buy your supplies if there are any you cannot get here, but I recommend you go there as well as wherever you shop here, as Ollivanders is truly the best wand maker in the world. Now, I must be off, otherwise Minerva will think I've run off with a goblin."
And with that rather obscure comment Dumbledore apparated out with a popping noise, leaving the Halliwell-Turner-Wyatt-Matthews-Brody family to celebrate and discuss what had been a rather interesting visit.
It was ten o'clock on the first of September when the Turner family shimmered into an abandoned warehouse not far from Kings Cross station. They quickly exited the warehouse, Will lagging behind and complaining loudly about the weight of his luggage. They entered the station and Will opened the envelope containing his train ticket and the details of the journey.
Will paused with his parents outside of the Burger King booth and rolled his eyes as he read the instructions.
"It says here the train departs from Platform 9¾ at eleven o'clock. Obviously, the platform can only be accessed by some kind of portal between platforms nine and ten."
Cole snorted at this comment and Phoebe rolled her eyes.
"Well, I'm sure that it's meant to be extremely clever, but we'd better get going, otherwise you'll never get an empty compartment to sit in."
Will nodded,
"As you command, my master."
Phoebe sighed and lightly smacked her son around the head,
"Watch your mouth, young man. And the phrase is 'as you command, my mistress'."
Will rolled his eyes and followed his parents down the passage that led from the main part of the station to platforms 9,10, and 11. They came to the divide between Platforms 9 and 10 and Will scanned the magic in the area. To his amusement, the barrier itself was revealed to be the portal entrance between the normal world and the magical platform. He pointed this out to his parents and they were just about to cross the barrier, when another family entered the vicinity of the platform.
It wasn't that this was unusual. Many groups of people were crossing the station, and some of them were families. But something with this family caught the Turner's attention. The daughter, a girl around Will's age with bushy brown hair, was pushing a trolley, with a large wooden trunk balanced on top of it, a trunk almost identical to the one at Will's feet.
The girl then pulled a parchment envelope from the pocket of her jeans and slipped out the letter it contained. As they were fairly close to the Turner's, Will and his parents could hear the girl say in a soft and confused voice that the train departed from Platform 9¾. Will saw that the parents looked as bewildered as the girl and, after nodding at his parents, crossed over to the girl, keeping his most helpful expression on his face.
"Excuse me."
The man looked at him in aggravation and he quickly continued,
"I couldn't help but overhearing you mention a Platform 9¾. Are you looking for the Hogwarts Express?"
The mother looked visibly relieved and asked,
"Have you been at Hogwarts long?"
Will shook his head,
"No, this is my first year. But I could sense the portal."
Seeing that this only confused the family, he continued,
"To get on the platform, you have to run at the barrier dividing Platforms 9 and 10."
The girl spoke up then, pushing a lock of her bushy brown hair out of her eyes in a nervous habit,
"Are you sure?"
Will shrugged,
"Well, I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure."
The mother spoke again,
"Are you from America, dear?"
Will smiled,
"It's that obvious? Yeah, I am. My family's from San Francisco."
The father saw Phoebe and Cole approaching and asked,
"Are those your parents?"
Will nodded,
"That's my mom and dad."
The father still did not look entirely trusting, but then he saw the large trunk and owl cage on the trolley Cole was pushing. Will winked at his owl, a pure snowy white owl he had named 'ebony' out of perversion. The owl was not the only pet he had purchased, but he had secreted the other on his person. Although the letter had specified that he could only but a cat, owl, or toad, he had developed a fascination with a pure black snake he had seen and, after a brief but entertaining conversation with the animal, had decided to purchase it.
The snake, which had introduced herself as Lilith, was now wrapped around Will's upper forearm, hidden by the sleeve of his jumper. He smiled at his mom as she approached and said,
"They didn't know how to get onto the platform."
Cole rolled his eyes and said,
"We guessed that. Aren't you going to introduce us?"
Will sighed,
"Well, I would, but I don't actually know their names."
Phoebe sighed and held her hand out to the mother,
"My name's Phoebe Halliwell-Turner. My husband's name is Cole Turner and this is our son Will."
The mother smiled and shook Phoebe's hand,
"I'm Rachel Granger, that's my husband John and our daughter Hermione. Your son was kind enough to tell us how to get onto the platform."
As the grown-ups did their grown-up discussion, Will turned to Hermione and was about to speak when he saw the gobsmacked look on her face. He scowled and asked,
"What is it?"
Hermione managed to shut her mouth and then speak,
"You're him, you're the boy who lived."
Will groaned,
"So?"
"So?"
The girl practically screeched,
"I read about you, you're in loads of books. I hadn't thought you'd be coming to Hogwarts."
Will rolled his eyes,
"So, I'm the boy who lived. Big deal. I didn't exactly do much. I just lay there going 'goo-goo ga-ga' while some megalomaniac tried to kill me. It's not exactly something I keep on my business cards, well if I had business cards."
Hermione had the grace to blush.
"Sorry, it's just, I only just found out about magic and it's all really exciting."
Will smiled at her,
"It's cool. I mean, it was a bit of a shock to me too."
Hermione frowned,
"You didn't know about magic before you got your letter?"
Will shook his head,
"No. I've been doing magic for years, all my family is magical. But I didn't know much about this type of magic, and it was a bit of a shock to find some old geezer in a dress telling me that I had this magic too and had to go to some magic school in England."
Hermione frowned, Will reflected that it made her quite cute, with her brow furrowed in confusion,
"What do you mean, type of magic?"
Will smiled,
"My family's been magical for generations, it's our heritage. But we practise a different type of magic and apparently I'm the first to develop both types."
Seeing that Hermione was still confused, he explained further,
"We practise Wicca."
Hermione gaped,
"I thought that was just…"
Will smirked,
"New age rubbish?"
The look on Hermione's face revealed that that had been her opinion on Wicca, so Will continued,
"Most Wiccans aren't magical. But there are a lot of Wiccan witches and my family is the most powerful line in history, as far as we know. We're kind of infamous. But, the magic we practise is just as real as wand magic and just as, if not in some cases more, powerful."
Hermione smiled,
"That's cool."
Will shrugged,
"It's okay, but there are lots of expectations cause of it. I mean, at my old magic school."
Hermione frowned,
"You went to a magic school before Hogwarts?"
Will nodded,
"Yeah, it's run by my uncle."
It looked like Hermione was going to ask more questions, but her and Will's parents gestured for them to come over so that they could get onto the train. The two kids shared a look that was understood by all children in the world. The look clearly said, 'Parents'. But Will and Hermione nodded and walked over their respective adults.
Phoebe led the group over to the divider between the platforms, with Will and Hermione lagging at the back in an in-depth discussion about some movie they had seen recently. When they reached the barrier, the Grangers hung back, as if unsure what to do, but Will strolled up to the very solid barrier and stuck his arm straight through it.
Having done this, however, he pulled his arm right out again.
"Woah, that's just weird."
Phoebe rolled her eyes,
"Weird, he says. After everything we see at home, you think that's weird?"
Will scowled,
"I'm serious, it's like you can sense the magic around you."
Phoebe followed her son's example and pulled back just as quickly,
"You're right, that is weird."
Eventually, the discussion of how 'weird' the barrier was came to an end, and the party crossed through the divide, a slightly nervous Hermione leading the way, as the Turner family were still debating the weirdness of the magic.
Finally, the entire group was standing for the first time on Platform 9¾, looking at the large red steam train that sat impressively at the Platform, as groups of students and their families made their farewells and got onto the train. Will gasped slightly,
"All cheesy comments aside, that's actually kinda cool."
Phoebe smiled,
"It is at that."
Will smiled and hugged his mom then, in an impulsive display of affection that was uncharacteristic for the usually reserved teen.
"You'd better get going. If we put my stuff on the train and find a carriage, then you guys can get home. I'm sure dad has a case he's working, there are always demons to vanquish, not to mention that Elise is contemplating giving our home telephone number to that Jason Dean guy if you don't get your column in on time."
Phoebe groaned,
"Yeah, she did mention that… Hang on, have you been reading my emails again?"
Will shrugged unrepentantly,
"Listening to your messages, actually. Anyway, you may or may not have work to do, but I have three assignments from Uncle Leo to complete by the weekend."
Phoebe turned to her watching husband,
"Do you get the impression that our son doesn't want to be seen with us?"
Cole smirked,
"I do get that feeling. Do you even think he would accept our help getting his trunks onto the train?"
Will paled, and his parents laughed,
"No, no really. I'm not ashamed being seen with you. Please help me to get my stuff on the train."
Phoebe laughed,
"Did you really have to pack all this stuff?"
Will nodded,
"Of course, I needed all my stuff for Hogwarts, and my stuff for Magic School assignments, and all my books for my normal exams."
Phoebe smiled,
"I know. Come on, let's help you get all this stuff onto the train before all the good carriages are gone."
Bidding farewell to the Grangers, the Halliwell-Turner family headed towards the end of the train, where Will would be least disturbed. Locating an empty carriage, and empty compartment, they loaded on Will's trunks and bags then turned to bid him farewell.
Phoebe hugged her son fiercely, not caring about the looks he gave her,
"Be careful."
Will scowled and pulled himself out of his mom's embrace,
"Mom, chill. I'll be fine, and I'm coming home every weekend anyway."
Phoebe smiled sadly,
"Yes, I know. But I worry about you. I'm going to miss you."
Will smiled,
"I'll miss you guys too."
Cole smiled and quickly pulled his son into a very manly embrace, with lots of backslapping. As Will entered the carriage, and just before his parents shimmered out, he thought he saw beads of moisture in his dad's eyes, as well as the tears in his mom's. But that had to be his imagination, his dad never cried, not ever.
Will settled into the compartment opening one of his trunks to find his book on the uses of Mugwort in vanquishing potions. He tried to read, but he couldn't concentrate on the words in front of him, distracted by a strange ache in his stomach that he couldn't identify.
He was still attempting to study when the compartment door pushed open. He had been watching a large red haired family out of the window, laughing as two of the children attempted very successfully to drive their mother round the bend. As his attention was divided between the twins' discussion of blowing up teachers and stealing toilet seats, and his half-hearted study of Mugroot, he didn't notice the door opening until he felt somebody standing in front of him.
Scowling, he looked up, prepared to yell at whomever it was who had disturbed him, when he saw it was the girl Hermione he had met on the Platform. Then he realised something else. This wasn't Magic School. People here wouldn't know him and wouldn't know about his powers. Given Hermione's reaction to hearing his name, apparently everyone here knew who he was, but not what he was. This meant that he wouldn't be attributed the same fearful respect that he had at Magic School.
Seeing the hurt expression on Hermione's face, he sighed and put down his book, gesturing for her to take a seat,
"Sorry about that, I just value my privacy."
Hermione shifted, not sitting down,
"If you want, I can go."
Will shook his head,
"No, stay. I never really had friends at my old school, so I'm kinda touchy."
Hermione smiled tentatively,
"I didn't have many friends at my old school either."
Will smiled and Hermione, looking slightly more comfortable, sat down opposite him. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and continued,
"I read a lot, I still do. So loads of people at my old school called me a nerd and those who didn't never really took the effort to get to know me."
Will frowned,
"That's not cool, but I can relate."
Hermione perked up slightly,
"You read?"
Will shrugged,
"I read a lot of magic books, but that's for study, not leisure."
Hermione frowned,
"So, what do you mean?"
Will smiled,
"Well, everyone at my old school thought I was evil, and those who didn't were scared of me."
Hermione frowned,
"I don't understand."
Will scowled,
"It's complicated."
Will turned back to his book and attempted to study. After a while, he looked up and asked,
"Your parents seemed cool?"
Hermione flushed,
"They're okay, they're kinda overprotective though."
Will groaned,
"I totally get that. So, tell me about your family."
Hermione blushed,
"There's nothing really to tell. I'm the first in my family with magic. My parents are dentists, nothing really exciting."
Will shrugged,
"My family's totally crazy. Like I said, everyone in my family is magical. Except my Uncle Kyle."
Hermione smiled,
"That must be cool. So, tell me what your family do."
Will shrugged,
"My dad's a lawyer. He's a senior partner at a big San Francisco firm, but he does loads of Pro Bona work. My mom's an advice columnist for a newspaper. My Aunt Piper used to be a chef, but now she owns and runs one of the hottest clubs in San Francisco. Her husband, Leo, is an elder, but he's also the headmaster of Magic School. Wyatt and Chris just bum around really, and help out at magic school and P3, when they can be bothered. Aunt Paige is a Whitelighter and a Social Worker, her husband, Kyle, the one I mentioned before, is a Fed."
Hermione gaped,
"Woah, that's a lot."
Will shrugged,
"We're a crazy bunch."
Hermione nodded, then asked,
"Do you have any siblings, or cousins?"
Will smiled,
"Aunt Paige's pregnant, she's due in a couple of months. Then there's Wyatt, who's nine and Chris, who's seven. Then we have older Wyatt and older Chris."
Hermione looked like she wanted to ask what he meant by this, then decided that she probably didn't want to know.
"I don't have any family other than my parents, really. Well, my grandparents are still around, but they live in London and we never really see them."
Will smiled,
"We don't really have much in the way of grandparents, really. I mean, my mom's dad's always busy with work, but he's cool when we see him. Occasionally my mom's grams pops in, along with mom's mom, but other than that, not really."
Hermione frowned,
"What about your dad's family, or your uncles'?"
Will snorted,
"My dad's mom might still be around, but nobody wants to meet her. As for the rest, they've all been dead for years."
Hermione gasped,
"That's sad, but why don't you want to see your grandmother?"
Will rolled his eyes,
"She's evil."
Hermione frowned,
"I think I don't really want to know."
Will smiled,
"That's a good decision."
Hermione shrugged. The two of them sat in silence for a time, Will turning his attention back to his study of the people on the platform, and his book. As the hour approached eleven, the train became fuller, as students flowed into the carriages and filled the compartments. Fortunately, no students entered the compartment where the two first years sat.
At eleven o'clock, the train, with a loud blast of steam, pulled out of the station and began heading north. As the suburban view from the windows of the train gave way to more rugged countryside Will put down his book and turned to Hermione, who was reading a book entitled 'Hogwarts, the History'. When the girl noticed his gaze, she blushed red and put the book down.
Will gestured at the book,
"You've read that many times?"
Hermione flushed,
"Well, I didn't know anything about magic before getting my letter, so I don't want to be behind all the students who've been doing magic all their lives."
Will smiled,
"I understand that, I went to the Magic School library after getting my letter and read everything I could find on this magical community, as well as picking up a few books in Diagon Alley, but I didn't find that one particularly informative."
Hermione frowned,
"I've been quite impressed with it."
Will shrugged,
"It's a good enough introductory text, but there are more than a few gaping errors that serve to make everything more confusing. Not to mention that some explanations are more than a little obscure. They rely on the pretext that the person reading already knows what they're reading about, so often are more confusing than they are helpful."
Hermione nodded,
"Yes, there's this whole section on something called Quidditch, and no satisfactory explanation of what Quidditch actually is."
Will smiled,
"Yes, I disliked that part. I had to look up what Quidditch was for the chapter to make any sense."
Hermione smiled,
"Yeah, I guessed that it was some kind of sport, but I cannot work out any more than that."
Will shrugged,
"It's some sport played on broomsticks sixty feet in the air. Something like a cross between basketball, with a couple of players with baseball bats, and about four different balls. There's also one player who has nothing to do with the rest of the team, just goes around looking for this small ball with wings."
Hermione's forehead creased,
"That's unusual."
Will snorted and rolled his eyes,
"It's not unusual, it's just plain weird. I mean, what kind of witch rides a broomstick."
Hermione eyed him curiously,
"You mean, you don't ride broomsticks?"
Will grimaced,
"Not really. My mom did once, but that's because she can levitate, otherwise brooms are really only used for ritual purposes."
Hermione gazed at him, intrigued by all the new knowledge she was gaining,
"Ritual purposes?"
Will sighed,
"Brooms can be used to sweep evil from your path."
Hermione frowned,
"That's different."
Will shrugged,
"It's not done often now, it's far older, more traditional."
Hermione nodded. She was just about to say something else, but, just as she was about to speak, the door to their compartment slid open and an old lady stuck her head in and asked,
"Anything off the trolley, dears?"
Hermione shook her head, but Will left the compartment and came back minutes later with arms full of chocolates and sweets and drinks. Hermione stared at them and Will shrugged,
"Well, I don't know what the food's gonna be like at this Hogwarts, so I'm stocking up, just in case. You want anything?"
Hermione shook her head,
"My parents are dentists, they'd kill me."
Will glanced at her,
"They'll only kill you if they find out. What's it going hurt if you have something to eat?"
Hermione bit her bottom lip for a moment, then shrugged. Will smiled and poured most of the sweets into one of his bags, placing the rest on an empty seat between the two of them. Will grabbed a box that declared itself to contain chocolate frogs, and opened one, grabbing the frog before it could make a break for it and efficiently decapitating it.
Hermione smiled slightly at his antics and pulled a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans towards her. She opened the box and poured what she guessed to be jellybeans into her hand. Picking out one in an attractive shade of turquoise, she bit into it and squeaked.
Will whirled around to look at her.
"What is it?"
"This bean, it tastes of paint!"
Will picked up the box and shrugged,
"They must really mean it when they say every flavour."
Hermione grimaced and spat out the bean she was eating. Will laughed and poured some of the beans into his own palm. Sorting through them, he picked out a rich red one and popped it into his mouth. He quickly spat it out again,
"Blood, that's just wrong."
Hermione giggled and Will looked through the beans in his own hand more carefully, eventually choosing a pink one,
"Candyfloss, that's much better."
Hermione smiled and picked out a similarly coloured bean, grimacing as she bit into the Pepto Bismol flavoured treat. The rest of the journey passed in a similar fashion, with the two making a little conversation, but mostly just passing the journey in comfortable silence. Fortunately, they were not disturbed for the rest of the duration of the train journey.
However, finally they heard people outside beginning to change into their robes, and with Will grimacing at having to wear a 'dress', changed into their robes, getting ready just before the train pulled into Hogsmeade station. While Hermione went out of the carriage to change with some other girls, Will managed to coax Lilith into his trunk, placed between his favourite cashmere sweater and a tome on magical transformations. Entreating her with promises of lots of treats, he managed her to persuade her to use her own limited magic to stay hidden until he returned.
Then Hermione re-entered the carriage and the train came to a stop, and the two exited the carriage, entering the flood of students filling the corridors and descending from the train.
TBC.
AN: WELL, THAT'S THE FIRST CHAPTER DONE. OVER NINE THOUSAND WORDS, I FEEL SO PROUD. SORTING NEXT CHAPTER, WHAT HOUSE DOES EVERYONE WANT WILL TO BE IN?
WHAT DOES EVERYONE THINK OF MY CHARACTERISATION, I PARTICULARLY WANTED TO MAKE WILL DIFFERENT FROM BOTH HIS PARENTS AND HARRY.
ROMANCE? WELL, IT'S A BIT EARLY TO SAY, BUT I AM CURRENTLY LEANING TOWARDS WILL/HERMIONE
GOT SOME FLAMES LAST CHAPTER ABOUT HAVING Wyatt PAIRED WITH Chris. I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY, I DID INCLUDE A WARNING IN THE SUMMARY THAT THIS STORY CONTAINED THIS PAIRING Wyatt/Chris. IF THAT PISSES YOU OFF, THEN DON'T READ IT. ANYONE WHO CAN'T DEAL WITH IT SHOULD JUST LEAVE IT ALONE, INSTEAD OF SENDING INSULTING MESSAGES TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE BROAD-MINDED ENOUGH TO ACCEPT THAT LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES. NEXT TIME, KEEP YOUR NARROW-MINDED PREJUDICES TO YOURSELVES.
ON A HAPPIER NOTE, I SAW THE SEASON FINALE OF CHARMED LAST NIGHT AND WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT IT WAS VERY COOL.
BYEE
HAKUCHIHIROLOVER