One Way Or Another (Hocus Pocus 2 fanfic)

Chapter 1

3rd Person P.O.V

It had been twelve years since that fateful Halloween night. The year was now 2005. Max and Allison had been in a steady relationship since 1993, and Max had been thinking of proposing soon enough. Speaking of which, Max was getting ready to take Allison out on a date, when he heard a knocking at his door.

"Max, hurry up. Allison will be here soon." Max heard Rowena's voice, causing him to laugh a little.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm almost ready." Max said. There was a reason he referred to Rowena as his mother. Back in June 1994, the Dennison parents had had to go on a business trip to Las Vegas for Mr Dennison's work, but had unfortunately been killed in a car crash after a drunk driver had collided with their car at a high speed. Max and Dani had found out via a news report, which had left them devastated. Rowena had quickly offered to let them live with her, which they had accepted, and had managed to legally adopt the siblings within two weeks, as Max has still been a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, and was therefore not quite of age to become Dani's legal guardian at the time. The blood-adoption had come about after Max had found one of Rowena's notebooks that had detailed the idea that she'd written down sometime in the 1830s, and after asking her about it had found out that adoption was something she'd been considering, but had ultimately never gone through with it due to her having to move all the time, and the fact she would also outlive any potential children. Once she had discussed it with the two, it had actually been Dani's idea to include Sarah's DNA, so then once the blood-adoption had been complete, she and Max had become Max and Dani Pendragon, the blood-adopted children of Rowena Pendragon and Sarah Sanderson.

"That's good. Although I know what you're like." Rowena said, causing Max to laugh. He finished getting ready, and then headed downstairs to wait. Sure enough, the doorbell rang a few minutes later, and Max went to answer the door, seeing Allison there.

"Hey. You ready to go?" Allison asked.

"Yeah, let's go. See you later, Mom!" Max called behind him.

"Have a good time, you two! Stay safe!" Rowena called back. Max and Allison left a few moments later, closing the door behind them. Once they were gone, Rowena headed to her study.

"Dani, how is the potion coming along?" Rowena asked, entering the room to see Dani standing over a small cauldron containing a pale purple potion. Thanks to the blood-adoption, Max and Dani had both gained magical abilities, as well as the same rowan leaf mark on their right wrists that Rowena had. Therefore, Rowena had trained them both to help them gain control of their new powers, and Dani had also gained a keen interest in potion-making despite her near-miss with the Life Potion twelve years prior.

"It's almost ready for the last ingredient to be added. Just one more minute." Dani answered, briefly glancing up from the cauldron. Rowena gave a light nod at this, as she knew what the last ingredient for the potion was. She walked over to the desk and picked up two vials. One contained strands of her own long brown hair, and the other contained strands of long blonde hair that belonged to her lover, Sarah Sanderson, who had given them to her back in 1993. When the potion was ready, Rowena took a strand of hair from each vial before dropping the brown strand in first, and then the blonde strand. Dani stirred the potion clockwise seven times, and then anti-clockwise seven times, before the potion was complete.

"I've spent years working on creating this potion. I hope this works." Rowena said, carefully ladling some of the potion into an empty vial.

"It will work." Dani insisted, knowing that her mother would not test the potion unless she was absolutely sure it would work. Rowena gave a smile at this, before she drank the contents of the vial, though she did shudder a little at the taste. The only downside about potions was that trying to make them taste better rendered them useless.

"And now, we wait a few weeks to see if it worked." Rowena said. Dani nodded at this before ladling the rest of the potion into more vials, and then placing a stasis spell on all of them to preserve them.

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Sure enough, the potion worked, and nine months later Rowena gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Cassandra Sarah Pendragon, or Cassie for short. Max and Dani had both been thrilled about having a new sister. During those nine months, Rowena had managed to recreate the spell that had backfired on her and caused her immortality, except this time she had modified it so that the intention of the spell was for it to grant a person immortality rather than it being caused accidentally. With their permission, as neither of them wanted to cause Rowena the pain of outliving them, Max and Allison had had it cast on them a few months before Cassie had been born, permanently freezing their ageing. Dani, on the other hand, had requested to wait until Cassie was seven before she received immortality, her reason being that seven was a powerful magical number, although she later admitted that her real reason was that waiting another seven years would mean she would be twenty seven, which was the same age Rowena was when she first became immortal. She eventually admitted this to her mother, who was touched by the gesture. Things were definitely going well for the Pendragon family. The only thing Rowena felt could make it better was if she was able to bring Sarah back, and not have to worry about disappearing again at sunrise the next morning. But she was determined to find a solution, and Max and Dani both knew that once Rowena set her mind on something, she would get it done, no matter how long it took her.