Charmed Wizard

The occupants of the kitchen all stared in shock, not understanding why a demon that had been vanquished a decade and a half a half ago was standing in their kitchen. Even Cole himself seemed surprised by his own pretense.

Paige decided to go ahead and voice what everyone was thinking. “What the hell? Why is he here?”

“Believe me, I don't want to be here. Why am I here?” Cole asked the Elder who'd summoned him. The last thing he knew, he was helping a lost soul find their way. Then all of a sudden in was in the Charmed Ones' kitchen, the last place he wanted to be. He thought he was done with dealing with them after he helped Piper, and ultimately Phoebe.

“Because there are things I need to explain and they involve you,” Sandra said.

“How do they involve him? No, actually, it doesn't matter. We don't need him to save that kid,” Phoebe said while glaring at her ex-husband. This was just what she needed. There was already discord with Coop because of that damned picture. Literally putting him back in their lives wasn't going to help that.

“Agreed. Get him out of here,” Coop said angrily.

“Hey! I didn't ask to come here!” Cole snapped in annoyance.

“Okay, everyone, stop! This crap isn't helping anyone,” Piper said, taking control of the situation before it got farther out of hand. Then she turned to Sandra. “You, tell us what the hell is going on.”

“Yes, of course. I want you all to understand that this isn't something we all agreed with. There were those of us who felt it was the wrong choice,” Sandra said.

Piper eyed her suspiciously. Clearly this was going somewhere bad. These assholes had done something to screw with them, again. “What did you people do?”

Sandra looked at Phoebe as she spoke. “The boy from your premonition, Phoebe, his name is Harry Potter. He's fifteen-years-old.”

“Fifteen? He looked younger than that,” Phoebe commented.

“Wait, Harry Potter?” asked a shocked Leo. He'd heard of the boy. He was a whitelighter and then an Elder. He doubted there was anyone in either of those species that hadn't heard of Harry Potter.

Leo turned to her husband. “You know him?”

“No, of him. He's part of a prophecy. He's said to be the one meant to destroy an evil wizard trying to take take over the world,” Leo said.

“Oh, God, one of those? Why the hell do people put that crap on a kid?” Piper asked, quite annoyed. It wasn't the first time she'd heard of a kid being asked to do something like that. They'd met a boy years earlier that was supposed to be responsible for stopping an evil witch. It wasn't right. These were kids. They were supposed to be driving their parents insane and procrastinating on homework, not fighting things that adults were perfectly capable of going after themselves.

“Wait, so this means the kid is definitely an innocent then, right?” Paige asked.

“In the context of Phoebe's vision, yes, though the vision has already played out,” Sandra said.

“No. Is he okay?” Phoebe asked with concern.

“Yes, he's fine. He survived the encounter and is back at his boarding school,” Sandra said.

“Great, so it's over. There's no problem. So why do we need the meeting, and again, why does he have to be here?” Paige asked as she pointed at Cole.

“I'm afraid it's not over. Harry wasn't supposed to come into his demonic powers. All his active powers were bound when he was an infant,” Sandra said.

“Wait, this kid is part demon?” Cole asked. He figured as long as he was forced to be there, he should get caught up on what was going on.

“Part demon, part wizard,” Leo answered.

“That's not entirely accurate, Leo. He's part demon, part wizard, part wwiccan,” Sandra said.

“Whoa! He's a witch?” Paige asked surprised. She hadn't heard of any witch willing to get with a demon, except for Phoebe. It wasn't something that generally happened.

“How is that possible. Demons and witches don't happen,” Coop said.

Phoebe sent her husband a look.

“Well, I mean aside from that. It was different circumstances,” Coop said.

“Why were his powers bound?” Piper suddenly asked.

“They were too strong, and he didn't have the capacity to understand right from wrong, which means the darkness in his demonic powers could influence him too much. In the womb, he used his powers to try to harm someone he was angry at. He didn't understand that he shouldn't. It didn't help that for months, he'd been influenced by pure evil. We felt it best to keep his powers away permanently. Unfortunately, we couldn't strip his powers. We could barely bind them. He is very powerful,” Sandra explained

“But the binding broke,” Leo said.

“Yes. I believe that it just could not hold against such power anymore,” Sandra said.

“Please tell me he's not living with his demon parent right now. If he is, we have to get him away. He has to learn to use his powers for good,” Phoebe said.

“Both his parents were killed when he was a baby, by the wizard he's supposed to stop. Wait, both his parents were from the wizarding type of magic, so where do the wiccan and demon roots come in?” Leo asked.

Sandra sighed and looked between Cole and Phoebe. “I have to tell you again how sorry I am. Harry's journey into the world wasn't conventional. He was ejected from his mother's body and into a demon as a fetus. When the demon was destroyed by his magic, he was ejected again and found another to reside in until he could be born.”

“That's freaking possible?!” Paige asked in shock and fascination.

“It's never happened before, but it's the only explanation we could come up with,” Sandra said.

“You said he was ejected from his mother and taken by a demon. Then his magic destroyed her,” Phoebe summed up.

“It had help, but, yes,” Sandra confirmed.

“Help? Help from us?” Phoebe asked. She'd figured it out. The apologies, the similar story, Cole's presence, not to mention the deep need she had to save this boy. It all fit.

“What are you talking about, Phoebe. We had nothing to do with this,” Piper said confused.

Phoebe ignored her sister and continued to address Sandra. “Why do you keep apologizing, huh? Because you took Harry from his parents. You took him from me!”

“What?” Cole asked in shock and confusion.

“Phoebe, what's going on?” Paige asked.

“Think about it. Her story is way to familiar. A demon took Harry from his mother, from me, and the demon was the Seer. Then we used the Power of Three spell to force her to use his power to the point where it killed,” Phoebe explained.

Everyone in the room, aside from Sandra, looked shocked.

Phoebe turned back to Sandra and glared. “Then they found out he was alive and they decided not to say anything.”

“Our son? Our son is alive?” Cole asked with hope in his voice. He'd loved that child so much. His time as the Source was awful. It was like his body had turned into a cage he couldn't get out of. Only two things kept him going. Phoebe and his son. And he'd lost both.

Sandra nodded.

“You took their kid?” Piper asked, barely containing her anger. This was the reason she hated the Elders. They had a need to manipulate people's lives. It was one thing to do with with them though. They could defend themselves. Going after their children just infuriated Piper.

“We didn't exactly take him,” she tried.

“You may as well have! You may as well have plucked him from his crib in the middle of the night!” Phoebe yelled angrily. She could hardly believe it. They stole her child. People who were supposed to be good robbed her of the right to raise her own son. She may not have shown it, but she loved and grieved that baby. How could she not. He was hers. He always felt like hers, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that he wasn't.

“Why? Why didn't you tell us? He's our son! You had no right to keep him from us?” Cole said, just as angry. He agreed with Phoebe. They stole his child. They decided that they had the right to make decisions for his and Phoebe's son. Who knew what would've happened if they hadn't done that. Maybe they would've been a family.

“We felt that it was better for him to be away from this type of magic. We thought maybe if he was away from it all, we wouldn't have to worry too much about him choosing evil,” Sandra told them. She knew it would only infuriate them more, but it was all she could offer.

“Who the hell are you to decide what's better?” Paige asked in disgust.

“Where is my son?” Phoebe demanded to know.

“He's at school. You won't be able to get there. There are too many wards to stop you. In a few days, he'll be at his relatives home in England. The address is Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging. I'm very sorry,” she said again.

“Get out. And I hope you realize you've burned your last bridge with us. Don't any of you come to us again,” Piper warned. She was done. This was the last straw. She'd found a way to forgive or at least tolerate after Gideon went after Wyatt and killed Future Chris because that was only one of them, but this was all of them. They would not deal with them again.

Sandra started to leave, but Coop stopped her. “Wait, what about him?” he asked as he motioned towards Cole.

Sandra looked at Cole. “Cole, I didn't merely summon you here. I brought you back as you were when you were vanquished. That means you have your powers from when you were Balthazar. Your penance is complete. Now all we ask is that you teach your son to use his demonic powers for good.”

“What about your penance?!” Cole snarled. She was crazy if she thought he was going to thank her for bringing him back after her and the rest of the Elders kept his son away.

Rather than answering, Sandra simply orbed out.