A Second Life

Disclaimer; I don't own Harry Potter, that honour belongs solely (in my opinion anyway) to J.K. Rowling. Also I don't not own the Charmed Sisters, though even they don't own the witch concept…anyone know who does. I do however take pride in the creation of Jason Aberro. Thank you.

A/N; I have had this done for a while now; I was going to wait until I had gotten to a tenth chapter of Wizards of the Djinn but I am having problems with my other stories. This story is a crossover with Charmed. I will be avoiding spoilers if I can help it, there will be vague mentions of season 8 but nothing concrete.

On a more important…if anyone reading this is in the USA please do not mention recent events of series 8 charmed as I am British and we are a few episodes behind you…please don't ruin it for us!

This story is SLASH; if you have a problem with that then go and read something that isn't! In any case it won't be explicit as I am not really a romance writer.

Phoenix Catcher

Chapter 1; Soulmates

In the middle of London a pub unlike any other sat between two shops just like any others on a street just like any other in the bustling centre of the busiest city in England. A City that was both the capital of two worlds; One of almost ninety million and the other a bare fraction of that but unknown to its larger host.

What made this pub unique over all other taverns or pubs in either world was that it was for both worlds. The two peoples would sit beside each other drinking, eating and laughing as they told stories. Of course the Magical peoples never mentioned their world yet they weren't subtle about it either. The Mundane of them turned a blind eye, unintentionally as it was, to the strange occurrences that sometimes occurred there and more than once a quick memory loss spell was needed by the owner.

November 2nd; The Wandering Myth; Flat

His name was Jason Aberro, the owner of The Wandering Myth. He was proud of his pub which he had inherited from his grandfather not so long ago; it had been in his family for generations and had been named after his family; Aberro meaning 'to wander.'

The young man looked to be about twenty-five, he was about 5'10'' with a lithe figure that showed the amount of energy and time he put into his business. His hair was cut short and had blond streaks dyed into the light brown hair. It was also clear that it was normally spiked up at the front however it had obviously been recently washed as it stuck out at weird angles as if defying nature's laws.

He was dressed in an undone dressing gown half covering the fact that all he was wearing was a set of boxers. Evidence that even at the end of the morning he had either only just got out of bed or hadn't bothered to change.

He whistled as he worked around his small kitchen making a late breakfast for two knowing that even though his flatmate had woken several hours before him, he wouldn't have eaten yet and that if someone didn't stick food in front of him then he wouldn't eat for a long time yet.

He had eventually made it upstairs in the early hours of the morning. Whereas the Wizards that he catered for rarely stayed late the Muggles tended to still like to drink later into the night. He hadn't been surprised though when his flatmate and boyfriend was still awake when he finally shooed away the last customer. He had found him yet again reading under a dim light in the study with yet another of his strange books. He was always reading odd books in weird languages and on odd topics and Jason didn't even bother to try to follow the topics. Now and then his boyfriend would teach him a charm or other that he had learnt and that he thought it would be best for Jason to know.

Jason had learnt a lot from the unspeakable that way. But even with the information that he managed to dredge up Jason still wondered at how he could always get so engrossed. He knew why the man did it but never understood how he could sit there hour after hour translating the muggle way and practicing the things he learnt.

He switched to humming as he dropped a couple of sausages on the two plates and then transferred them onto a tray before carefully lifting the slightly heavy breakfast, complete with juice, into his hand and made for the door that led into the living room and from there to the study where he knew his love would be as he always was.

The door was closed as usual but in the hope that it was ajar he turned to push his side against it but it remained still. He made a half hearted lurch to try to twist the handle with his leg before grunting with annoyance. He knew he could always use magic to levitate the tray long enough to open the door and could even just make the tray follow him like an obedient puppy but he knew that way his boyfriend wouldn't have to get up and open it for him.

"Hey in there, open the door would you!" He yelled cheekily through the door, he heard a muffled reply and a groan of irritation so he continued, "Come on love, I haven't got a free hand and I've got food. We all like food!"

He could sense the mental roll of his boyfriend's eyes and grinned like a child as the door clicked open and swung open seemingly on its own power and as he stepped across the threshold he felt a polite tug at the tray and let it go to watch as Harry waved his hand and the heavy tray flew to the table and smoothly landed without spilling a drop of the juice.

"I could have carried it you know," he mumbled, "you don't have to go show off and everything!" He smirked at him to show he was kidding and met the mans bright eyes as he looked up from the book he had on the desk.

The man was slightly shorter than Jason but only by an inch or so. His hair was spiked all over in a slightly shorter cut than Jason's own. His hair was raven black with silver highlights but unlike Jason's own dyed highlights they were natural. A side effect of having an animagus form like his.

Dark blue eyes met emerald green eyes for a few moments and Jason felt the power surge across their soulmate bond as he felt Harry Potter's amusement.

"It's not my fault you're too clumsy to levitate a tray and keep everything on it." Harry laughed. It was true, not much escaped Jason when it came to magic, especially with Harry's constant teaching but for some inane reason he just couldn't levitate a tray of food.

They sat across from each other for a few minutes silently eating the breakfast before Jason felt something again across their bond. He realised it was an emotion that Harry was trying cover with his mental shields. He looked up at the one year younger man and tried to make eye contact knowing that even if Harry could hide emotions from him behind his shields, unless they were strong like this one, he couldn't hide it when the bond was at its fullest and that was when they made eye contact.

Harry refused to meet his eyes again.

"Harry?" Nothing. "Harry love, look at me please." He said softly but firmly.

Harry's head dropped further down when he realised he was caught and slowly looked up to meet the eyes of his lover.

Emotion swept over Jason as Harry also let his mental shields drop to let Jason in. Jason analysed the emotions carefully and sorted out two main ones. Shame at being caught trying to deceive Jason and at trying to hide the next emotion. It was a tough emotion to work out as it was filled with all sorts of different ones. Horror, fury, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of sorrow.

Jason made a point of squashing the feelings of shame to show that he hadn't minded Harry's secretiveness and moved around the table to sit on the arm of Harry's chair before allowing himself to be pulled by Harry onto his lap as an arm went around him.

"What's happening Harry?" He asked gently.

Harry had never really stuck to the rules when talking about his work which was supposed to be highly classified so he knew that Harry would eventually tell him.

After a few minutes of quiet Jason felt Harry move slightly and felt a couple of secrecy charms go up around the room. The building didn't yet have proper charms on it like most buildings because most if not all wards prevented or deterred Muggles from entering them and that would be bad for Jason's business.

"It's a job I'm helping the Hit Wizards with tomorrow. They're moving on a suspected Death Eater safe house controlled by one of the lesser Lord's under Voldermort. I'm supposed to go in with Nigel as recon and capture whoever's running the place."

Jason frowned at Harry knowing there was more to this. He wasn't disappointed.

"I scanned it for souls earlier using a spell we use in that Department of Mysteries. It wasn't pretty; they have over a hundred prisoners in there and most are weak enough to show they have been there for over a month."

Jason knew that after Ron had been captured by Death Eaters two years ago on an Auror raid and Harry had gone to rescue him and failed and watched Ron die in front of him he had always felt these feelings before a mission like this. Especially since his orders meant that he would have to leave all the prisoners to the Auror Hit team until his own target was secured.

There wasn't anything Jason could say to comfort his lover so he just softly kissed the man he loved with his heart and soul and laid against him as the man started to read again. They sat like this for almost half an hour till Harry shifted to look at his watch and nudged the man sitting on him.

"If you don't get ready soon your going to be late opening and I know for a fact you didn't clear up last night." He said with his old twinkle back in his emerald eyes and a twitch at his mouth.

"Only because you distracted me!" Jason tried to sound indignant but couldn't really find fault with the younger man. He swept in for a more heated kiss before leaving the room with the tray in his hands to leave the man to his work and preparation for tomorrow knowing that the man would be down later to eat early to get some sleep before leaving in the early morning as he always did on a mission like this.

The door closed after Jason with a twist of Harry's hand and a bit of wandless magic. Harry could do most magic without a wand. His only restrictions were the power involved meaning if it was very powerful magic he would need his wand to draw in extra magic like other normal wizards did for all spells. It was rare for a Wizard to use his own magic to accomplish things, most just used a small spark to start the collecting off. Harry used his own magic first and that made his spells almost impossible to block or get around as they were made up of a purer magic. His other limitation was that magic that formed a beam, like the killing curse couldn't be done. Without his focus or wand the power would just build up till he channelled it through something like his wand.

His complete abilities however he kept a secret to all but Jason, like his animagus form. Nobody but the head of his department and Jason even knew that he could change into a raven with black feathers that had glints of dark green in them and only Jason knew that he could turn into a black coloured phoenix with feathers lined with silver ice rather than the normal golden phoenix with fire lining the feathers. It was this form that gave his human form his silver highlights, his improved vision that made his glasses obsolete and gave him the power to control water and through that ice.

He glanced down at the book in his hands; 'Chemisty; A-level.' He'd been looking up properties of Ice and water but had quickly gotten bored of it. He returned the book to the desk reminding himself to give it back to Michael next time he did a shift in the pub downstairs. He was a Muggle who's sister was a Muggleborn and therefore perfect to work part-time in the strange pub as he knew enough about Wizards to not freak out when something happened and could relate to the Muggles.

He slipped a book from a hidden drawer between two others on the desk. It was thin and leather bound. It was also handwritten by the looks of the title.

'The True Bonds'

There was no author as it was a book from the Department of Mysteries so it would have been written as a research project and everyone knew they couldn't take official credit for any of their work because of the classification involved.

He flicked to the section on Soulmates that he had already read the start of and turned a few more pages to find the subject he wanted.

Deaths; All Soulmates have a bond so deep that the worse scenario is the loss of one half of the bond. I will split the breaking of the bond due to death into three headings. These are physical, magical and psychological

Physical; The effect on the body is minimal when a soulmate bond is broken. This is because all damage to the physical body is done in the instant of death. The survivor will feel the physical pain of his dying mate but as soon as the soul, the part the bond resides in, has departed the dead mate's body the pain is cut off. After that point as the dead mate's soul is without body no pain will be inflicted upon the survivor. However sleeplessness and nausea are common side effects as the survivor will miss the presence and touch of their departed mate.

Magical; The damage to the Magical core of the survivor is one of the most obvious side effects when the bond is broken. The magic involved in a Soulmate bond is extremely strong and the breaking of such bond is normally enough to create a magical backlash where two things can happen.

The first is more common where the survivor is the more magically powerful of the two. His magic will automatically try to help the dying mate, whereas this has been known to heal their mate's wounds and form protection in life, if the mate has died it will completely drain the survivor permanently and he will lose any capacity to manipulate magic.

The second outcome is the most curious. It is well known that people's magic is unique and cannot be mixed. However it has become evident in my research that the constant mixing of the souls whilst the soulmate bond is in place shifts the very makeup of somebody's magic to closer match their mates. Throughout the bonds life this can be seen most by the slight increase of magical capacity of the weaker of the two mates. This creates the possibility where if the survivor is the weaker of the two mates then the magical capacity of the dead mate will transfer over to the survivor making him more powerful to the point half way between themselves and their mate. We have come to the conclusion that the dead mate's soul retains the remainder of their own magic.

Psychological; This is the worst effected in most cases. Apart from the shock and depression created when they realise their mate is dead they will begin to feel that a part of themselves has been destroyed, the mind can break the same way as if one of a twin were to die. The effect is greater is one of the bonded is killed violently. In some cases where the survivor was stronger the magic splits their body from their soul and the survivor died in an attempt to rejoin their bonded. In the event that the stronger of the two died then the soul of the dead may linger in an attempt to watch over the survivor until he two dies. However the feelings of the survivor are the same in either case.

If the two mates are the same in power the effects are the same as above but can tip either way.'

The book carried on covering the bond between twins but Harry wasn't interested in that. He dropped the book back into the desk drawer and lent his head against his hands with his elbows on the desk. He was worried about Jason, they both already knew he was the weaker in Magic out of the two as he had started to feel his power building up inside him and it was this that spurred Harry to find out everything he could on the bond they shared.

He was also worried about what would happen to Jason if he was killed in this never ending fight and he hoped that finding the answers would help but they hadn't. He was horrified by the effects his death could have on Jason, not just emotionally like normal but magically too. He was cheered up slightly that he would be able to watch over the man though. Assuming the researcher was correct, he'd been extremely blunt abut everything so Harry doubted he had a soul mate himself.

Thoughts of Jason soon led to him replaying their meeting in his mind. It still amused him to think how easily they could have never crossed paths but still that his Magic had seemed to work towards their meeting. It had started the September after his graduation. Ron, Hermione and himself had gone to France for the summer to get themselves together before they all split to work on careers. Harry had returned to find a letter from the Head of the Department of Mysteries telling Harry that he would be accepted as an Unspeakable if he wished. He had gone to the ministry in person a few weeks later to discuss it with his new boss and had got caught by the press on his way back through the Leaky Cauldron.

Flashback; 6 years ago; September; The Leaky Cauldron

Harry stepped through the back entrance to the tavern and made to pull up his hood but was to slow as people instantly recognised him and he was assaulted by a wave of flashes and questions. Dimly he realised that someone must have tipped off the press to his whereabouts. He ignored the questions for a few moments as he imagined humiliating and painful things to do to these people.

"Harry Potter! Is it true?" One reporter shouted over the rest who had only been asking about his personal life and such. Harry dignified the small man with a raised eyebrow to point out the stupidity of his useless question.

The man went bright red as most of the reporters looked at him. "Uh…Is it true you were offered a position in the Department of Mysteries?"

Harry answered instantly, though not the way the man had hoped, "Well done, I'm so glad you can work out how to ask a question. I'm so proud of you." Sarcasm dripped from his voice as he made to push through. "Moving on!" He declared in a good impression of his late Headmaster.

He pushed through the closest set of reporters only to find more. He eyed the door and lifted his wand throwing a blast of air in front of him which pushed the men and women back enough for him to make a quick get away and he soon slid onto the road. He heard the door slam back open behind him before he had managed to get five feet down the road so he almost silently disapparated not thinking of a destination as long as it was the other side of London.

He lingered in the vortex created when you apparate, a skill he had mastered for this type of occasion when he didn't have time to think of a destination but just wanted to leave a place he didn't like. He pulled himself over to the other side of London in his mind and felt it drawn to a street he wasn't familiar with. Without a care he figured he had nowhere better to go so sent his body over to his mind and concentrated on apparating where his mind was being pulled.

With a loud crack that he wasn't used to and a feeling of fatigue he reappeared in the middle of a dimly lit room. Voices quickly stopped as a sizeable group of people looked at him in horror and fear.

"Oh great," He muttered, "Muggles. I am so dead."

He heard a cough from behind him a met the eyes of a gorgeous man, barely older then him. He felt something click in the deepest part of his mind but pulled his eyes away when the man coughed again and raised his eyebrows.

"Opps?" Harry offered meekly as if apparating into a Muggle building, even if there was a wizard in it as he sensed the man in front of him was, through a permanent anti-apparition ward and several Charms designed to stop this very thing from happening.

The young man snorted in amusement, and it was then that he noticed the not so pleased face of the old man behind the counter of the pub. Realising that this man was also a wizard he reached out to sense the room properly and found another six wizards dotted around the room. The other thirty people were muggles. He vaguely wondered about a pub that served both as it was obvious from the shaking Muggles that they weren't used to intrusions like this one.

He decided he had to do something so he called up his magic and cast a low level stunning spell over the room. The thirty muggles instantly fell unconscious as well as one of the wizards who Harry realised was only a ten year old boy, obviously out with his parents for a early evening meal. The spell was strong enough that it could knock out a room full of people but could easily be shrugged off by most. It was used by Aurors to control large amounts of Muggles so that they could work unhindered.

With that done he turned to the old man behind the door. "I'm so sorry about that, I didn't have a destination in mind when I was escaping some reporters so I let my Magic guide me and it seems to have led me here." He found his eyes drawn to the dark blue ones of the young man between him and the bar.

The old man mumbled something unintelligible before wandering off to talk to the other wizards and get their help obliviating the Muggles. Harry felt suddenly weak again and he had to credit the wards power that he had punched through. The only wards he had yet to manage to break when he tried were Hogwarts' and Gringotts' which were both ancient and powerful. To feel so exhausted over a pubs anti-apparition showed that they were well layered if not powerful. It also wouldn't have helped that he had stayed in limbo for at least five minutes deciding what to do which was a drain on his Magic.

He felt a strong, yet gently grip under his arms as he swayed and his eyes slipped closed for a second and was led to a booth and sat down.

"Your Harry Potter aren't you?" Then young man asked, it was more of a statement then a question and Harry could only nod in reply.

"My names Jason Aberro," he said shaking Harry's hand, "My grandfather runs this place."

End Flashback

So it had begun. Harry had spent the next two weeks helping to rebuild the wards and realising the flaws in them which had sapped Harry's magic, because they were custom made in an attempt to allow Muggles through they had to be weak so if someone tried to get through it weakened the wizard by drawing the power from them and from the other charms, thereby shutting the whole system down and having to start from scratch. The advantage was that any normal wizard trying to apparate in would be pushed away to somewhere else as his magic begun to drain as a natural response. It was a problem that he had recently got around and after the raid tomorrow he planned on placing powerful and permanent wards around the place that wouldn't affect the Muggles in any way.

Jason now owned the pub after his Grandfather passed away with old age two years after they had met. Harry and Jason had gotten together earlier and were in a serious relationship by that point so Harry was asked to move in with Jason. Over the next year they grew closer until they both realised their bond and by doing so allowed it to complete itself. Binding them together for eternity as Soulmates.

A/N; Next chapters going to be about the Charmed and then a little bit at The Wandering Myth…I'll see you all soon…please review.