I'm back! I'm alive! Jejeje! I know, it's not exactly funny, but I was having some serious trouble deciding how to continue this fic. I knew what I wanted, but couldn't find the words. However, now that's been sorted out. This chapter will reveal a few secrets, especially concerning Mel's identity and powers. I ask you to read the note at the end of the chapter and if you still have doubts feel free to express them in your review


Chapter 14. Darkness and Light

Even if it was still considerably early in the morning there was already a significant amount of activity in the Halliwell household.

Piper was washing the dishes with some help from her youngest daughter, waiting for her husband to return from settling some pending matters in Magic School, there weren't classes as the Winter Break had begun already. Her eldest children no longer slept at her home, but she was happy with her 'surrogate ones', who she knew were in one of the bedrooms doing homework or something like that.

"Hey mom!" A male voice called.

"Wyatt, don't do that!" Mel cried out as she practically jumped at her brother's sudden orbing.

Wyatt just laughed lightly as he messed his little sister's hair and gave his mom a peck on the cheek, all the time smiling.

"Hey!" Melinda complained. "I'm not a puppy."

Wyatt didn't reply to that, but continue smiling.

Their happy family-moment was interrupted by a sudden crash upstairs.

"What was that?" Piper asked.

No one had any idea but they immediately ran upstairs, where they found Harry, Hermy and Draco peeking out one of the bedroom doors, their confused and slightly scared expression making it obvious that they didn't know what that noise had been either.

Wyatt vanished in a haze of blue sparks, deciding it would be better if he went ahead, as he didn't want to risk his mother and sister to some demon.

It took the three seventeen-year-olds just a second to agree with him and go after him. Harry orbed too, along with Hermy, who in the last moment held onto him; Draco apparated away.

"Hey!" Mel cried out.

Melinda was angry, why was it that she couldn't orb, or apparate like the others? She knew why, she didn't have the power to orb, and she couldn't apparate because she wasn't yet off age, and hadn't gotten a carnet. Life just wasn't fair sometimes.

So Piper and Mel had to accept the difference there was between them and the other teens and climbed the rest of the stairs up to the attic as fast as their feet would take them.

What they found up there was certainly far from anything they could have been expecting.

A young woman, in her late teens or maybe even her early twenties, was laying on the ground, tangled in the dark cloak she wore over a tight-leather outfit, weapons strapped to her back and hips.

But as shocking as her appearance may be to some, that wasn't the Halliwells' case, they were just too used to strange-looking people (or creatures) appearing in their attic (or any part of their house really).

What was really shocking was how she remained there, frozen, her eyes fixed directly on Wyatt's, and her facial expression one of complete and absolute panic.

"M-my Lord…" she gasped, as she tried crawling backwards, but her body seemed just too heavy, she couldn't move.

"What?" Wyatt was extremely confused, he didn't understand who the young woman was, or what she was talking about.

But before he or any of the British children could even try to understand what was going on the attic door opened, allowing Piper and Mel inside; the last who immediately made her way to the front of the group.

"Jade?" She asked in a low tone.

At the sound of the voice the woman immediately spun around in Mel's direction; and as she locked eyes with the younger woman things seemed to take another very confusing turn.

"Lady Melinda!" The older woman cried out.

The panic vanished from her expression, replaced by a blooming hope, as she immediately got on her feet and practically jumped over the dark-auburn haired, olive-eyed witch.

.--.

It took a few minutes to get the mysterious young woman to calm down, and when they finally managed that Piper suggested that they all went to the living room to discuss things calmly.

"First of all, introductions are in order." Mel declared once they were all seated. "Everyone, this is Jade Juvelsinca, she's a Jewel Witch, and a very powerful one as well. Jade, this is my mother: Piper Halliwell, you already know my brother Wyatt, my boyfriend Draco Malfoy, my cousin Hermione Granger and her boyfriend and friend of all of us: Harry Potter."

"Piper Halliwell…" Jade gasped. "One of the Charmed Ones…"

"Yes…" Piper nodded, a bit confused by the unexpected awe the younger woman showed. "I am the eldest one, Phoebe and Paige are currently in their own homes, though depending on what happens we might have to call her and the others."

The rest nodded.

"Can you please not look at me that way?" Wyatt suddenly spoke.

"S-sorry!" Jade stuttered and immediately turned to look at the ground.

And it was that until then she had been turning around at everything and everyone, but her gaze continually came back to rest on Wyatt, with a mix of respect, confusion and fear…

"Jade, listen to me, before we go into whatever it is that brought you here you must understand one thing." Mel said seriously. "Wyatt Is Not Evil."

That had an immediate response of two people, as Jade snapped her head up to look at Mel's face, shock clearly showing on her face, Draco seemed thoroughly shocked as well, he hadn't been expecting that one.

"The Destroyer doesn't exist here, he never did." Mel continued explaining, momentarily ignoring Draco and her brother. "You…we are now in an alternate reality. That's also why you can see my mother and other people that probably would have never come anywhere close to SF; especially not after the Shadow Age began."

"So…so Lord Wyatt is…" Jade seemed to be very shy and frightened still, incapable of even finished sentences.

"He's not evil, he won't hurt you or me, or anyone else." Mel assured her.

Wyatt lowered his eyes suddenly as he understood; that woman, whoever she was, feared him because of something an alternate version of him had done.

"I need to know one thing first of all, Jade." Mel declared. "How did you get here?"

"I used an ancient transportation spell." Jade answered. "Using the remnants of the spell the Traveler and the Phoenix used once."

"That explains why you came to be in this reality and not any other…" Mel declared as she nodded, thoughtfully. "Why did you chose to travel in the first place?"

"Oh Lady Melinda!" Jade cried out suddenly. "It's all so awful. Since you left us there is no sun in the mornings, no moon in the nights. Most of the rebels either committed suicide or gave up soon after the new stage began; those who didn't were either executed or captured soon afterwards…for all of us earth has become a worse hell than the Underworld could have ever been…"

"What about you?" Piper asked.

"What about me?" Jade seemed confused.

"What happened to you?" Piper elaborated on her question. "Were you captured as well?"

"Oh…that…" Jade sighed. "I'm afraid they couldn't have captured me, as it's been too long since I've been free, I can't even remember what that is like to be honest."

"Not free?"

"I've been a slave since I have memory." Jade deadpanned as she took off one of her boots to reveal an elaborate tattoo on her ankle. "This is a slavery tattoo. As I'm a 'valuable slave' I have it in my ankle, and not in my neck or other more sensitive body-part."

"What does it do?" Hermione dared ask.

"If I don't follow my Master's command or displease him in any way he can activate it with just a word to punish me, the severity depends, of course, upon him. It can go from a minor shock, to leaving me unable to use my feet for more than a day." She answered nonchalantly.

Hermione flinches involuntarily at the crude description.

"It's not that bad." Jade said unexpectedly. "At least for those of us who have never known a different life, it isn't. I was given to my Master since I was very little, and he rarely punished me, only when I displeased him greatly. He said I was a valuable possession, as I'm the only remaining Jewel Witch, at least in my dimension."

"Who was your Master?" Draco questioned.

Jade didn't answer, just turned to look at Wyatt for a fraction of second, but that was enough. And it only made the oldest of Piper's kids all the worse. It didn't matter that it hadn't really been him that did all those terrible things, he still considered it was a part of him, and thus he couldn't help but blame himself.

Melinda didn't seem to be paying any attention to the pain and guilt her brother was feeling, or the confusion of her boyfriend, friends and even her own mother; she was too busy immersed into her own thoughts.

"Mel?" Draco suddenly brought her out of her reverie.

"What is it Draco?" She asked.

"That's what I would like to know." He replied. "You've been absolutely silent for more than ten minutes straight, and if you keep pacing over the same spot for much longer I fear to might wear a hole in the carpet."

Mel smiled slightly at her boyfriend's joke, but he could see that the smile didn't reach her eyes. He realized he was seeing a side of Melinda Halliwell he had never before seen, in fact, and for the way the others looked at her no one had. In that moment she wasn't she happy, open, and most-of-the-time-carefree sixteen-year-old most people knew; in that moment she was serious in her expression, stiff in her posture, and there was a look in her eyes Draco had only seen once before in her eyes, when they had faced Severus Snape on Halloween.

"Jade." Mel called suddenly.

"What is it, my lady?" Jade asked dutifully.

"I've been thinking about everything you just said, and there's one thing that doesn't seem to add up." The girl explained. "How long has it been since the last time we saw each other?"

"Around four years, my lady." Jade answered.

"Four years…" Melinda gasped as she finally collapsed in a chair. "That means it's been at least five years since Christopher left there the second time…" she sighed as she covered her head with her hands, another question came a bit muffled. "Things got pretty bad after that, didn't they?"

"Very much so, Lady Melinda." Jade nodded. "What little resistance was left was easily

crushed by the Shadow Army. They had no chance…without you…we were lost."

That last phrase made almost everyone sigh sadly.

"Without you?" Draco asked, quite confused. "That's must be wrong. She must mean the Melinda from that reality, right?"

"I'm afraid not Draco." Mel said seriously. "She means me, literally."

"But I thought that that you had told her she was now in a different reality." Draco explained. "How then could she have known you?"

"Because I don't truly belong to this reality, but to hers." Mel whispered in a very low tone.

.--.

After that little tidbit of information had been revealed the others had decided it would be better to leave Mel and Draco alone so she could explain the particulars to her boyfriend in private Meanwhile, the extra bed in the boy's room was moved in the girl's, and everything was arranged to have Jade stay there with them, even when she insisted they need not bother for her, they had all been pretty insistent.

Draco was still sitting in his chair, he hadn't moved at all since his girlfriend had made the shocking revelation more than a quarter of an hour ago.

Melinda, on the other hand, was standing next to a nearby window, but she wasn't really watching the beautiful trees and flowers on the front lawn, the sidewalk or the cars that went by the street a few yards away; instead, in her minds eye she was seeing an empty front lawn, debris all around, shadows and the rests of long-ago destroyed cars in an empty street, all around devoid of any life…

"Darkness." Mel declared suddenly.

Draco turned to look at her but didn't spoke, too surprised at her sudden declaration.

"That was all I knew for years." Mel began telling. "I was born into an era in which no one dared go out during the night, even those who didn't actually know about magic knew it was foolish to go out after the sun had left the sky. And those of us who knew…well, it's wasn't foolishness that drove us, but the fact that even when we knew that no matter how much we fought the war was lost, we just couldn't stop doing it." She sighed. "The war in fact had been lost since years before I was even born, when an evil clan kidnapped Wyatt and used a very special magic on him, they turned him completely. They raised him in the absolute darkness, to hate everything he would have once loved and respected. He became the Destroyer."

Tears began falling down the girl's eyes, but she went on.

"I never knew my Aunt Paige. She actually died years before I was born, I think that a year before Chris was born, in fact. Aunt Phoebe lived longer than that, in fact she got to marry and had a baby girl; life seemed to be going fine for her…until they were both killed, for no reason at all except that she was a Charmed One. She never smiled again after that. She helped me and Chris a lot as we grew and eventually died one night, the very same night our home was taken by the forces of darkness."

She couldn't help but cringe at the awful memory of what had happened when she had been barely fourteen years old.

"Both of my parents had died by then as well." Mel continued. "Mom when I was about ten, and dad when I was just a baby. Chris and Bianca took it upon themselves to take care of me when Aunt Phoebe was gone. The next years we were constantly on the run, never able to stay on one place for too long, out of fear of being found and executed. We were the appointed leaders of a rebellion, just because Chris and I were the children of a Charmed One. And Bianca, even if she was technically the daughter of a witch-hunter, she still had chosen to be with us, she truly loved my brother, in a way she still does I guess."

Draco could see stray rays of the sun reflecting on the tears that were, by then, steadily falling down his girlfriend's cheeks, but he dare say nothing at all.

"I remember the happiest day of our lives was when Bianca told us she was pregnant." Mel said softly. "I don't think I ever saw my brother so happy…but that happiness wasn't meant to last. A patrol caught up with us, and one of their attacks hit Bianca in the belly; my healing powers weren't strong enough…I couldn't save the baby…" she had balled her hands into fists so tight she very nearly drew blood. "Chris and Bianca never blamed me, of course not, but they need not to. I blamed myself, and that was enough. I lost my niece or nephew because I wasn't strong enough to save him/her…"

Draco couldn't stay immobile any longer, in a second he was standing behind his girlfriend, holding her tightly to him.

"After…it was after that day that Chris began making plans." Mel told him in a lower voice. "He was so sure that if he could travel into the past and stop Wyatt from ever turning against us everything would right itself. I wanted to believe him, but it was just so hard…I couldn't help but think on what would happen with the rebellion if he failed, if they lost him, our most powerful player…" she sighed and laid her head against Draco's shoulder. "Truth is I think I just didn't want to think what would be of Me, without him."

She was so dependable of her brothers, but especially of Chris. Even if most of the time she acted as though she didn't like all the attention, and was even annoyed by him, the truth was that she had never stopped depending on them, not even after getting to a completely new reality, she had always needed her big brother, and always would.

"Still, I supported him in his decision." She went on. "Shortly after he first left for the past we were attacked. Bianca was captured and I came very close to being killed. I don't really know what happened to her while she was captive, I just know that she somehow got my brother back to our time for a short while; then he was gone again, and she was dead, killed by Wyatt himself." She sighed. "Christopher never came back. Here I learnt that was because he died protecting Wyatt…ironic, don't you think? He died protecting the one who, in his own reality, had been the cause all of lives were destroyed…"

She laughed then, a dark, empty laugh.

"There was a huge battle then, and something happened." Mel continued after taking a deep breath. "It was something no one could have expected, especially not me…I became the most powerful witch to ever exist…"

"How?" Draco asked.

"I think it was somehow Bianca's doing." Mel answered. "You see, Bianca is what some call a 'phoenix', she was born into a clan of witch-hunters; but she turned her back on the clan out of love for my brother. However, she never stopped being the heiress of her own line. Now, the Clan 'Phoenix' had the particularity that whenever they hunted a witch or warlock they could rob them of their powers, not for themselves, but to sell them to others in the 'black market'. The selling and purchasing of powers is actually quite common in the underworld. Anyway, Bianca had inherited all the 'powers' her mother had collected in her years and others her ancestors never sold, you could say I was the beneficiary of this particular inheritance; except that for some reason I absorbed the powers and assimilated them. Therefore becoming the most powerful witch."

"I've never seen you use any of those powers." Draco pointed out.

"That's because I'm not supposed to." Mel explained. "I wasn't born with them, and it takes a lot out of me to use them. Then there's the fact that at least half of them are dark powers; some that no one even knows I have…"

"I get it, no using those powers." Draco nodded. "But there's just one thing I don't understand yet. How did you end up in our reality?"

"Remember the day we went after the Horcrux?" Mel questioned. "Remember what we talked about the tittles?"

"Yes." Draco nodded. "You said your oldest brother was called the 'Twice-Blessed-Child' and your other one was the 'Traveler'. Henry then mentioned something about you being called the 'Golden Avatar' or something like that."

"Exactly." Mel nodded. "During that battle I was telling you about, we ended up at a standoff. Even if I technically was as, if not even more powerful than Wyatt, I couldn't take upon all his army alone. So instead we settled in a tentative truce. They didn't attack us, we didn't attack them. Not exactly the best plan, but at least it assured there would be no more pointless deaths. Months later, however, I was contacted by a very particular group. They were Avatars. They told me they had been observing me for quite a while and had decided to make me an offer to join their ranks." She sighed. "I refused."

"But why?" Draco asked. "If I remember correctly the Avatars are the most powerful beings that exist, not just in this dimension but in all of them."

"Yes." Mel nodded. "But Avatars aren't supposed to get involved with any reality; in fact they tried it once and the results were unpleasant to say the least. They then made a different offer." She sobbed softly. "They offered me a new life, in a world where I would get to have a family and peace, the life I couldn't get to have the first time around…that's how I ended up here."

"The Avatars sent you here?" Draco asked for confirmation.

"Exactly." Mel nodded. "Truth is that Piper Halliwell in this dimension didn't have any more children after Christopher, she couldn't. I was taken from my original dimension and de-aged to a year-old baby and then given to my parents. They told them I came from another reality and that they had to take care of me. Of course they accepted immediately, mom had always wanted to have a daughter. It wasn't until years later, when Chris met Bianca for the first time, that he somehow also gained the memories of his alternate self. That's how they found out which reality I came from."

"What about you?" Draco inquired. "Did you remember as well?"

"I never forgot." She admitted quietly.

"So you're saying that your whole life you've gone knowing that the first time around one of your brothers' lived to kill you and the other to protect you and that most people around you never had a chance?" Draco was shocked.

"It's a bit of a crude way to say it, but yes, that's pretty much it." Mel nodded.

And suddenly Draco realized something else.

"That's why you acted that way with Snape, and in the other fights against the DE." He said softly. "This isn't the first war you go through…"

Mel just nodded silently, as another sob fought to escape her throat.

"I'm so sorry…so sorry…" Draco whispered as he tightened his embrace. "I can't believe I ever supported Voldermort and his ideas. I must have been utterly stupid indeed."

"Not stupid…" Mel said in a cracked voice. "Only misguided."

"Never again." Draco assured her. "I'm not making the same mistakes ever again. I promise you that I'll help you. And together we'll all make sure that this reality never sees the darkness you had to endure once.

"Thank you Draco, thank you so very much."

"It is you I should thank, my sweet. For showing me this light you are. I'll never let you down. I'll always be here for you. We'll win, you'll see, in the end, the light will prevail."


So...Melinda is not from this reality...actually I got that idea after someone made a comment that made me realize how illogical the powers I had given her were. After all, by the time she was conceived it had been a long time since Leo had stopped being a white-lighter, therefore there was no reason for her to have such abilities, and yet she had one that not even her brothers got. I at first considered chalking it up to writer-liberties, but in the end thought better of it; that's how this little plot was born. It also gave me the chance to bring Jade into existance, she will be very important for this fic.

Now, if you still have questions regarding Mel, feel free to ask me, if the questions are about Jade (or Jewel, as I might call her from time to time) wait a bit, more will be revealed in the following chapters, though some things will remain unsaid, as she is another of this fics mysteries.

Coming next chapter: Billie has an unexpected reencounter with someone she hadn't seen in a very long time. How much will this meeting affect her, how much will it effect everyone's future. And some people might be coming very close to finding the truth about Harry and his friends...

Don't forget to review! (And thank you again for your patience) I shall see you in the next chapter!