I just couldn't get this out of my head. It felt really real to me and I had to put it in to introduce some parts.
Warnings – Mentions of drinking and smoking which are not encouraged by the author.
. Vagueness at a few points.
. Flashback within a flashback.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HP series. RR and JKR do.
Words –3225
"Mother! You cannot do this to me! By the love of the Gods, you –"
Sally rolled her eyes and said, "Pepe, cut out that British accent!"
Percy's eyes widened as his girlfriend grabbed his arm and dragged him to the door.
"Mom! Stop her!"
Annabeth did her best not to smile. It wasn't enough, because her face was threatening to split into two at the sight of her boyfriend's antics.
"Really? We're only going to the City Library –"
"I have bad experiences with libraries." Percy said standing his ground. Annabeth pulled on his arm but he didn't budge. He smirked.
"I'm not going anywhere!" He declared.
Sally raised an eyebrow. She was seated on the love seat, her magazine sprawled on her lap with her cup of coffee half empty.
"Honey, don't tell me you're not going to stand there for more than a minute? You know that the ADHD doesn't let you."
"Well, I'll tell that ADHD to go and stuff it!"
"Good luck with that." Annabeth muttered.
"You'll see. I am not going to a planet full of migraine creating books! Before I know it, the books and shelves and ground will be moving too!"
"So you won't do it for me? You'll let me go alone all the way there?" Annabeth asked in a small voice, her eyes going large. She blinked rapidly to give the impression that she was barely holding tears back.
Percy's stared at her and said, "Of course not, Annabeth. I would never let you go alone. Stay here."
"But I have to go." She said and turned away from him, her head bent. Percy let out a breath of uncertainty as he took her hand and said, "Look at me. You can stay here with me. I'll be there for you. Forever."
They stared at each other and Sally cried out, "Wait a sec! Let me make some popcorn and then you can continue with the drama!"
"Aw, Mom! You totally ruined the mood!"
"I'm not complaining, though. I can't believe I said all that!" Annabeth said. She looked at Percy and said, "Will you come with me, Seaweed Brain?"
Percy sighed, "Okay. But you owe me, Wise Girl."
She kissed him on the lips. It was a sweet kiss, their lips moved softly and Percy cupped her cheek. Annabeth pulled away and grinned, "Do I owe you now?"
"Smurf…"
"Bye Ms… Sally." Annabeth amended and tugged on her slightly speechless boyfriend. Sally laughed and waved.
The door shut and she sighed. She could see that he was really happy. He was more energetic and less moody now that Annabeth and he had talked by the lake. And by the way the silence had reigned when they didn't talk.
She really liked Annabeth. For a demi-god, she wasn't as hyped as Sally had expected. Although, that may have been due to the fact that her mother was Lady Athena.
Sally remembered when Pepe used to crush on Angelina Jolie. What had he said? She was awesome at fighting, she was pretty and her hair was nice.
Well, Annabeth is certainly brilliant at sparing. She is really beautiful (well, she's the daughter of a goddess!) and her hair was certainly natural blond. Sally was pretty sure that her looks had nothing to do with Percy's subconscious liking.
She looked at her cold cup of coffee. It was sweet of Percy to accompany her to the library. The end of the Second Titan war had only been two weeks ago and yet Sally would get nightmares of what she had witnessed in the battle. She had seen the Titan Kronos himself in the demi-god body of Luke Castellan. That image flashed into her head. The gold eyes looking right at her. Sally thought that she was going to die then and there when he had –
The phone rang and shook Sally out of her thoughts. She leapt to take it and heard a voice recorded message.
Sally sat back when the message was done and tried to think of calm thoughts.
Libraries. The first time she had taken her boys to a library, they had caused an explosion. They were three. The second time when they had gone into the town library in London…
Percy kicked a stone which rolled away some feet from him. As he walked, he kicked it again. Harry sighed.
"I just needed some company. It won't take even half an hour."
Percy gave Harry a playful push on his shoulder and said, "It's okay. But I wanna play later. Tag!"
"We'll see." Harry said and the two six year old boys climbed up the steps towards the large library. The renovation had been done months ago and Harry just knew that historical books about Egyptian Civilization were there. He had had a strange dream regarding the Great Pyramids of Giza and wanted to know more. If there was anything he knew, it was that dreams weren't just stuff from imagination.
"History books on Egypt? Well, it's in the South Wing. Just take a right at the end of the corridor, dear." Leslie the Librarian said, smiling at them.
Percy ran the length of the corridor and slid the last few feet on the smooth tiled surface.
"Careful." Harry cautioned. Percy only skipped in and looked at the books around the large room. He jumped on one of the couches and said, "Goodnight!"
"It's a Saturday afternoon, Percy." Harry commented looking at the Egyptian section of the shelves. He checked three rows before coming right next to a large bronze globe of the Earth in a rotator holder. He noticed that it looked a bit old. One spin and it actually might come off. He supposed it was for show.
'Treasures and Tombs of the Pharaoh Akhmenrah IV.' The title caught his eye and he took it out to examine the index. Harry wasn't sure what he was looking for but he knew that he was on the right track.
Percy sighed and opened his eyes. His legs were sticking out and he swung them before sighing again. He looked at Harry who was engrossed in a thick book. The front cover was elaborate and there were triangle sand-castles (at least, that's what it looked like) with some kind of injured person, who Percy supposed should have been in a hospital because he was covered in bandages from head to toe.
He leapt up to his feet and walked around slowly wondering if there was any book with a small number of pages and many pictures. He took a small book about Chinese text and opened it. The words and sentences looked like a river was flowing vertically downwards. He wondered if he could actually learn a language where he could write as well. Not that he knew how to speak in Chinese…
Percy kept back the book and closed his eyes to calm his head down. The letters were like tiny sceneries before they had started to move. He wandered around the large room, making his shoes squeak against the floor with each step.
"Percy…" Harry warned without taking his eyes of the book. Percy huffed and ran to the window. He could see the small service road which ran parallel to the main road in front of the library. There were a few vehicles going along. He heard the tingling music of the motorized cart of an ice-cream vendor. He peered to the right to see the man push his cart out of sight. He wondered if Harry would take a longer time.
If he hurried, they might be able to get some ice-cream. But Mum wouldn't approve of eating anything without her permission.
Percy wondered how many things had they done without her permission. He was pretty sure that putting monsters to sleep came under that list.
Harry had dragged Percy to a remote section of London on a dull Tuesday. They had skipped school under the pretext of feeling 'under the weather'. Percy was happy that they were going on an outing and hadn't realized what Harry's real intention was until they stopped outside a gloomy looking alleyway in an abandoned segment of a warehouse.
Percy had heard low voices and some raucous laughter that villains on the Telly would have done.
"What?" Percy asked Harry but the latter clapped his hand over the younger boy and took out some red berries from his pocket. Percy looked at them and felt thirsty for no reason.
"Can I have one?" He whispered but Harry shook his head almost frantically.
"These are bad fruit for bad people. Wait here."
Percy watched as Harry slipped in through a small window hatch near the top. Harry squeezed his body through the hole and landed behind some large crates. The men in the room hadn't noticed a thing.
Percy observed the room. It was large and badly lit. Some lanterns were on a table and some others were hanging. There were about eight men in all, sitting around a table, smoking and playing cards. They seemed to be the kind of company Smelly Gabe would have kept around 24/7. The smell of liquor reached Percy and he wrinkled his nose. Another man came in holding four bottles of what he supposed was the beer that was in the fridge in their house that Mom would never allow him or Harry to touch.
He saw Harry creep slowly through the wall of crates. Harry made his way carefully towards the edge of the table and dropped the berries into a small plate at the corner. He immediately darted out of sight and up to the window where Percy helped him out.
"Now what?" Percy asked and Harry looked at him as if contemplating something. Then he said, "Believe it or not, but they'll fall asleep when they eat the berries."
"No way!"
"Way."
The boys waited for some time until one of the men noticed lots of bright red fresh berries sitting unattended on the table.
"Oy! Markus! You leave food?"
"Eh?"
"Fruit? Here." He took the plate to another person sitting opposite to him and the man hiccupped.
"Taste good!" Another one exclaimed and soon all nine of them were fighting for the berries. There seemed to be enough.
After another five minutes, they slumped down on the table or onto the ground and didn't move at all.
"Whoa." Percy mumbled. Harry nudged him.
"We have to go back to the nurse's room before she realizes that I'm not giving you a nerve reactivating massage on your shoulder blades."
"Huh?"
Percy blinked and came back to the reality of the vast library. He walked to Harry and stared at the large Earth globe. It was completely bronze but the continents and countries were embossed. Percy ran his fingers over the globe and then gave it a small push. It rotated with a tiny creaking noise.
Percy sneaked a glance at Harry to see if he was watching but the older boy had taken another smaller book with the picture of a long necklace and replaced the first book back.
The son of Poseidon sighed and pushed the globe fast. He did it again with more force. His grip slipped and Percy fell face-first onto the ground. The iron frame over the globe broke and the large sphere fell out of its place onto Percy's back and then onto the ground, where it rolled on the tiled floor.
Percy let out a groan and Harry turned around to see, at first, the empty room. He then looked down to see Percy on his stomach.
"Bless you." Harry said.
"The Earth's moving!" Percy shouted.
"Prior to the belief of the Catholic Church centuries ago, the priests didn't think so." Harry replied and bent to pick Percy up from the floor.
"No! The ball thingy! It broke when I pushed it!" Percy pointed at the globe which was spinning away from the room at an alarmingly fast rate.
Harry dropped Percy on the floor and ran after it, "Get up! We have to stop it from leaving the Library!"
Percy groaned, "You dropped me!"
"Buck up! The surface is frictionless! That's why it's rolling so fast! This is not good!"
The globe went across the main Hall. The few people that were around stared at it in utter shock. Leslie put on her glasses and blinked hard to check whether it really was the Earth Globe from the South Wing that zipped passed them.
About seven seconds later, Harry was seen running after the globe followed by a grumbling Percy.
Percy ran faster and went sliding across the floor to match up to Harry's speed. But the globe went out the door down the stone steps with bangs and predicted dents in it.
"We have to save the world!" Percy shouted and jumped every few steps along with Harry.
Simultaneously, their hands fell on the sphere. Unfortunately, they were still on the steps and the two of them along with the globe tumbled down till the ground.
With their momentum, the globe almost flew across them and went straight across the nearly empty road towards the construction building on the other side. The globe crashed into the foot of a huge crane.
Now you may be thinking how that would be bad. The globe was about a foot in diameter and the crane was usually designed to withstand the strength of large metal crates.
The boys were on the ground trying to focus their senses. The only noises were that of the globe rolling and the ice-cream's jingle that was becoming louder.
Luck was not on their side when the globe hit the huge iron stand-on-wheels of the crane. The jolt caused some levers to shift and its hooks opened to let a metal bar, fifteen feet long and half a foot thick, fell more than twenty stories.
Harry and Percy were still on their stomachs. Percy pressed his hand to his temple and asked, "Hey, Harry? Is that a shadow?"
Harry looked at the ground and saw a dark form growing bigger and more defined.
"Yeah…" He said slowly. A strange, faint high-pitched noise came to them from above. They looked up wondering what that whistling sound was.
Just a second had passed when the bar fell right in front of their faces. The concrete pavement cracked and so did the bar.
The boys stared at the object that was just inches from their faces.
Percy let out a sniffle and Harry tried to shush him.
"Come on, buddy." He whispered pulling Percy up again. The younger boy gripped his hand tightly, having no intentions of letting it go.
People started ambling out of various shops and houses around the area. Leslie was the first one to scream. She ran down and dragged Percy and Harry away from the bar to check them.
"Are you alright? You're not hurt? What happened? Oh, I have to call Sally! Thank God! You look terribly pale!" She fussed as she brushed off some dust from their clothes.
"No, we're okay. Don't call Mum. She'll worry herself too much. We'll tell her later today." Harry tried to assure her. A man ran up to them and said, "Great Scott! Ye should've seen 'em, Missus! The pillar just missed 'em! I thought they were goners but look at 'em! They're alright! Fancy that!"
Percy looked up at the man and saw that he was wearing an ice-cream man's uniform. The jingle was still playing.
"Ye know what? I reckon they need something soft that would calm 'em down. Got just the thing 'ere…"
He went to his cart and took out two small iced lollies.
" 'Ere ye go! That's free, but don' expec' me teh do that all the time."
The commotion died down about an hour later. Harry had just realized that he was still holding the small Egyptian book in his hand. He looked at the cover. A golden chain with a grand locket like pendant. There were symbols on it in a circular boundary and a sapphire embedded in the middle.
Harry frowned at that. He opened the book and turned to the right page to see a large picture of the necklace. The symbols looked wrong. Harry leaned back on the couch and looked at Percy being checked by a nurse from the local hospital.
Harry got up and ran to Leslie's place behind the counter. He stood on his toes to reach the magnifying glass kept on the top of a shelf. Making sure that the adults were still engrossed in their intense discussions, Harry crouched to make sure that he was hidden.
Through the glass, he could see the symbols clearly. He might not know Egyptian, but he was smart enough to know that the pendant didn't actually belong to that Pharaoh. The signs did not look like tiny pictographs. They looked as if they represented each letter. Some letters were together and that indicated that they were words. Egyptian symbols usually depicted an action or a series of words.
The chain most certainly was not Egyptian. The Pharaoh must have looted another country. Or maybe, it was given to him.
Harry read the last few sentences of the paragraph.
'…most peculiar and valuable gem of his reign. The Artibuh expedition for the search of this stone was unsuccessful as they had found the inside of the small pyramid in ruins. Though this was the result about five years ago, explorers and museums have still not lost hope to find the sacred stone of the Zithad Era.'
Harry had the most peculiar feeling that he was missing another bout of information somewhere here…
Sally jolted up from her nap. She blinked and realized that her neck was a bit stiff. She righted herself on the love seat and sighed.
When the Librarian had called her to tell that 'something' had happened, she had rushed over and nearly fainted when the truth was out.
Her thoughts were still lost to the past when the door slammed open and Percy and Annabeth came in breathing hard.
Sally stared at them, inquisitively.
"Um…" Percy said.
"Please don't tell me blew the library up. If you burnt it down, don't tell that either." Sally asked wearily.
"Nothing like that! Annabeth was…er…persuading me that she actually doesn't owe me one and I was persuading her into thinking the opposite. And then the librarian persuaded us to never darken the place again." Percy rambled and Sally let out a small laugh.
"She didn't persuade me! I'm so going back there! The new release on the debate between Modern and Ancient Architecture is actually there! I'm going back next week." Annabeth declared and Percy groaned.
"I'm going to have to persuade you into not going." He said looking right into her eyes and she grinned back at him. "I'm going to have to persuade you into accompanying me."
Sally got up to go into the kitchen. It wasn't as if she didn't approve of them. It was just that her heart felt hollow when they unknowingly displayed that level of affection around her.
She sighed and hugged herself wishing with all her might that he would get better soon.
Really vague? Yeah, it may seem that, but when the main stories start to come out, you'll see that it fits like puzzle pieces.
Stay tuned for the next update on The Cursed, which is in a few days.
Cabba.