Penelope Halliwell

Penelope "Penny" Halliwell, born Penelope Johnson and generally referred to as Grams, is the daughter of P. Baxter and Gordon Johnson. Penny was married four times, the longest to Allen Halliwell, with whom she had a daughter Patricia, who is the mother of the Charmed Ones. Penny was an extremely powerful witch and one of the most devoted witches of the Warren family. As a descendant of Melinda Warren, she inherited the power of Telekinesis. Penny is responsible for the creation of many spells and potions in the Halliwell's Book of Shadows.

Early Life
According to the family tree, Penny was born in a breach birth on June 23, 1930, in Boston, Massachusetts, in a hotel room to her parents, Gordon Johnson and P. Baxter. Her mother P. Baxter died in December 1970, when Penny was forty years old.

Penny married Allen sometime in the late 1940s. Together, they had a daughter, Patricia, who was born in 1950. During Patty's wiccaning, The Necromancer attacked, desiring to absorb the spirits of the Halliwell matriarchs though Penny banished him to the spirit realm.

In the mid-1960s, Penny and Allen became leaders in San Francisco's hippie community. They made plans to hold a "magical be-in" at the manor and tap into the power of the Nexus. What Penny did not know, however, was that her best friend, Robin, was really an evil witch who had been planning to slaughter everyone at the "be-in" with her warlock boyfriend, Nigel. On the night of the be-in, Allen walked in on Robin chanting an evil spell, and Robin killed him with a fireball. Penny flew into a rage upon seeing the carnage, and killed Robin and Nigel in short order. Her friend's betrayal, her husband's murder, and the vanquishing all served to have a dramatic effect on her for the rest of her life: she transformed from a peace-loving, simple-minded witch into a ferocious slayer of demons and warlocks, one who practiced and honored all of her Wiccan abilities to the extent where she became reputed as one of the most powerful witches of her time. She learned how to focus her telekinetic powers, effortlessly employing them to perform great feats, and created spells and potions on her very own. In fact, according to Penny herself, the vast majority of the spells and potions in the Book of Shadows was her work, which was a justifiable claim, given how skillful and knowledgeable she was as a witch.

Later Life and Family
Later in life, Penny started her own coven with her closest friends and non-magical practitioners as members, including her college sorority sister Gail, who commented that she was "the most skillful witch any of them ever knew".

Penny married a total of four times (starting with Allen), and was engaged for a total of six times, but the relationships did not work out, which made her very cynical towards men. However, she admitted that, at least, her first husband, Allen, was a good man, and their marriage might have survived if he had not died early. When Patty married Victor Bennett, Penny did not allow her to take his last name, a tradition that will be followed by her Piper.

Penny witnessed the birth of her granddaughters Prudence, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell, later earning the nickname 'Grams.' When Patty was forced to give a warlock named Nicholas immunity to the girls' powers, Grams had no choice but to bind the girls' powers for their protection. During this time, Penny, Patty, and the girls were visited by the future Charmed Ones who came to stop the pact from ever being made. Grams was able to write a spell to send them back to before they ever time travelled, erasing the event from her memory.

Penny was forced to keep the secret about the birth of Patty's fourth child Peter from everyone, because Peter was fathered by Patty's Whitelighter, Sam Wilder; and relationships between witches and Whitelighters were then still forbidden by the Elders. Penny helped Patty and Sam decide that it was best to give the baby up for adoption.

After Patty's death in 1978, Penny became surrogate mother to Patty's first three children, and would continually argue with Victor about how the girls should be raised. Because of their conflicting views, Victor eventually left his family: the girls didn't see their father again for almost 20 years. Penny was essentially a single mother from then on.

Death
Shortly before her death, feeling it was her duty to protect her granddaughters as best as she could, Penny created a potion to permanently relinquish her granddaughters' powers. Frustrated because she thought that the girls would never be able to come together as sisters, she believed that it was not their destiny to live the life she and her daughter Patty led: constantly battling demons and the forces of evil, and facing the many hardships they endured over the years. Whilst creating the potion, Penny and Patty's ghost had a minor argument as to whether it was the right decision or not to relinquish the sisters' powers: Patty argued that it was not their choice to decide the destiny of her daughters, but Penny was adamant, insisting that they were not ready for such a destiny, and that she did not want to put them directly in harm's way. Penny then placed the Book of Shadows in a trunk in the Attic of the Manor, but before she could administer the potion, she had a heart attack and fell down the stairs, after which her granddaughters rushed to her side.

Afterlife
Sometime before her death, Grams was ordained as a wiccan High Priestess and posthumously returned to Earth to perform special ceremonies for her family.

In late 1999, Grams' spirit audibly spoke to each of her granddaughters, attempting to get them to combine The Power of Three into the Power of One. After the sisters succeeded at this, Grams appeared to them from the afterlife, wishing them a happy anniversary of becoming witches and revealing that it is her who turns the pages of the Book.

A year later, Grams appears to Phoebe when her granddaughter needs advice on whether or not to give Piper her blessing to marry their whitelighter, Leo, fearing that The Elders would punish the entire family because of it. Grams tells her that while the Charmed Ones are destined for greatness, they have a right to true love as well. She knows the feeling; she was married four times and never found true love. Before she disappears, she tells Phoebe that Piper will know in her heart when the time is right. Later on, Grams, as a High Priestess prepares to bond Piper and Leo through a hand-fasting ceremony, unfortunately, Leo is taken by The Elders. Later that year, Grams successfully performs the hand-fasting ceremony for Piper and Leo.

After the death of Prue, Piper attempts to summon her sister but gets Grams instead. Grams tells her that she must move on with her life so that she must fulfill her destiny. Later on, Grams and Patty were forced to tell the girls of the existence of their half-brother, Peter.

Powers & Abilities

 * Basic Powers
 * Spell Casting: The ability to cast spells and perform rituals.
 * Potion making: The ability to brew potions.
 * Scrying: The ability to locate a person or object by the use of a scrying crystal, a map, or sometimes other tools.


 * Active Powers
 * Telekinesis: The ability to move things with the power of one's mind alone. Her power greatly surpassed Prue's. In 1975, when the Charmed Ones visited the past, Grams thought that they were warlocks. Using her telekinesis, Penny was able to move the sisters through an intricate path out to the porch, showing both the strength and skill which Penny possessed.


 * Other Powers
 * High Resistance: As a powerful witch, this power causes her to be resistant to powers such as Fire balls and other lethal powers.


 * Spirit Powers
 * Wisping: As a ghost, Penny possessed the power to teleport through white-lights. This power, much like orbing, surrounded her in swirling white lights, until she vanished and appeared elsewhere. It appears that every ghost of a witch is granted this power upon death.
 * Summoning: The ability to draw or transport another dead being from the afterlife.
 * Projection: Penny once used some form of projection to write a message to Prue,Piper and Phoebe on the Book of Shadows, wishing them "Happy Anniversary" on their first year as witches.