Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, nor any of their related entities and properties. This story is written by a fan, for fans, for no gain or profit to me.

To the well organized mind, Death is the next great adventure. - Albus Dumbledore

Harry Potter couldn't explain how it had all come to this. No, that wasn't true. He knew exactly how it had come to this. He simply couldn't explain how it all went out of control so quickly.

It began with the death of his cousin in the summer following his fourth year. The dementors had come. Harry didn't know why, or how, but he did know how to fight them. Dudley, in his terror, had hit Harry, knocking his wand loose, but thanks to a sort-of wandless lumos he had recovered it. The patronus charm was on the tip of his lips. But he... hesitated. He'd been warned of the dire consequences of using magic during the summer- especially this summer. But these were dementors, and if he didn't do something, he and his cousin were both as good as dead.

Once, Harry would have joked that, if Dudley was kissed by a dementor, no one would know. It wasn't like his cousin had much personality anyway. But the reality was anything but a joke. Harry had hesitated, and Dudley had paid the price. Not just his life, but his very soul.

There was little love lost between himself and his so-called family, but he'd never wished anything like this upon them, even those times when he hated them more than anything. Even the most heartless person would have felt sorry for Petunia when she was wailing, and the lost look in Vernon's eyes would haunt him forever. They were too wrapped up in their grief to even hate Harry properly, though once they'd regained some composure that didn't stop them from kicking him out for good. It was his fault, they'd said, and they weren't wrong. Harry had hesitated.

There was a hearing, of course. Harry had used magic in front of muggles, and the ministry was just looking for an excuse to crucify him. But the body of a soulless muggle was compelling evidence, even for the bigoted Wizengamot. Sure, they would have loved to gloss over a muggle death, but the means of that death had terrifying implications, and a full investigation was launched. Whatever else they said about Harry Potter- that he was unhinged, unbalanced, unsafe, and just about every other un in the book- he did not eat souls.

This inquest led to the sacking and incarceration of one Dolores Umbridge, but she took the fall alone. No one wanted to believe that anyone else had anything to do with it, and no one wanted to believe Harry was telling the truth about anything else. Especially him.

Undeterred, Harry sought after his mentor and Headmaster for advice, only to find that that avenue was cut off to him. For reasons he did not know, Dumbledore was avoiding him, and Harry was alone. Even his friends, who had lied to him about, well, just about everything that summer, were keeping their distance. Just as well- Harry was in no mood to forgive just yet.

Hogwarts came, and it was business as usual. Hermione was her bossy self- complete with prefect badge- and Ron began to undermine his own badge authority as fast as he could. Fences were mended, and the Golden Trio was three once more. Their new DADA professor, a thoroughly disagreeable man named Dawlish, seemed to have a personal vendetta against Harry. It was like having a second Snape, only this one had reason to throw curses at him with impunity.

"The Boy-Who-Lived should be able to effortlessly block the confringo curse," he'd sneered, before throwing the curse- full power- at Harry. Harry's shield hadn't held, of course, and he'd spent a week in the hospital wing.

But in the end, Harry was sort of grateful to Dawlish. The bitter auror taught Harry well, though it wasn't the man's intention. But Harry would not be trod upon, no matter how many times McGonagall told him to keep his head down. He studied, practiced, and trained, doing everything in his power to improve himself. Because Dawlish was right- the Boy-Who-Lived couldn't afford to slack in his studies, not with Voldemort about.

His other classes suffered, of course. Charms and Transfiguration were still okay- they had some things that would be useful in a duel- but Harry all but ignored Potions, and stopped going to Divination and History altogether. He didn't have the heart to do the same to poor Hagrid once the man returned from whatever mission he was on, but deep down knew that this was not time well-spent.

Hermione was worried about him; he knew this, and tried to reassure her as best he could. But one rant too many about him skiving had him carefully explaining the facts of life to her. His life, and how it wouldn't go on much longer if he wasn't ready. She couldn't really understand, but she did try, once he'd spoken to her. Harry had met the eyes of death, and that changed a person. He just hadn't been ready to admit it until now.

The next time Dawlish tried to hex him, it was the auror who wound up in the hospital wing.

Immediately, there were whispers all over the castle of Harry using dark magic. How there was no way he could take an auror without resorting to rituals and such. But Harry knew better. Dawlish had underestimated him- much as Voldemort had in the graveyard that night- and Harry was able to get lucky. Neither would make that mistake again.

Harry was quite sure that he and Dawlish would have a third and final round before the end of fifth year, but he never got a chance to test that theory.

Shortly before the end of term, Harry had a horrible vision of Arthur Weasley being attacked by a giant snake. He was the snake. But everyone was so distant this year, he wasn't sure who to turn to. All he knew was that Mr. Weasley was on a mission for the Order of the Phoenix, protecting something at the ministry.

Harry was reluctant to tell Dumbledore, given that the man had avoided him all year, but after warring with himself for an hour, he finally relented and told him.

He was too late. Arthur Weasley was dead.

Harry had had enough. Too many people had died, directly or indirectly, for him. Voldemort wanted the weapon so badly? Harry decided to get to it first. The Order wasn't guarding it against him, after all.

He'd made it to the ministry undetected, sneaking out from Grimmauld place after hours. He remembered the way thanks to the hearing that Mr. Weasley- poor, loving, dead Mr. Weasley- had taken him to. When asked his purpose by the phone, he'd scathingly that he was here to save the day. He pinned the badge to his chest without giving it a second thought.

Harry Potter – Hero

Ironic, he'd thought at the time. But as much as he didn't want to be the hero of an uncaring, unthinking populace, he couldn't stand idly by while his friends died one by one.

He'd made it to the Department of Mysteries unchallenged. He'd worn his cloak, of course, but still, he should have known. It was the Department of Mysteries, where all the facets of magic were studied in ways most people can't even understand. Where some of the most secret knowledge was kept. And it was unprotected?

The weapon, it turned out, was nothing more than a glowing sphere. Sibyll Trelawney to A.P.W.B.D.- Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter. That was the only label. Trelawney, the fraud? What did she have to do with it? Only... Harry knew she wasn't a fraud. At least, not all the time. She'd given a true prophecy, at the end of his third year. Did that mean this was...?

The answer was confirmed by Dumbledore. He'd followed after Harry, it seemed. But Dumbledore would not tell Harry the prophecy, not until he could protect his mind, and bade Harry to give him the sphere. He handed it to him, and that's when everything went wrong.

Dumbledore's hands were just taking the sphere when the sickly green curse took him from behind. The sphere fell, shattered, and was ignored. Peter Pettigrew- murderer, traitor, and slayer of the great Albus Dumbledore, hesitated as he levelled his wand at Harry. Harry did not hesitate, and Pettigrew joined Albus Dumbledore on the next great adventure. Harry used every skill he'd learned, every talent unknowingly beaten into him by Dawlish, to survive the next several minutes of the Death Eater ambush. Both sides had gone all-in, and the Department of Mysteries was a war zone. But with their leader killed, the Order was demoralized. Of course, their first priority was 'protect Harry,' while the Death Eaters had a much simpler 'kill everyone' mission, now that the sphere was destroyed. Harry saw the faces of the fallen as the Order desperately tried to usher him from the battlefield. Remus Lupin, not far from the body of Walden MacNair. Harry's eyes burned with tears when he laid eyes on his parents fallen friend. So much that could have been...

There were others, too. Emmeline Vance, who Harry barely knew, and Dedalus Diggle, who would never excitedly shake Harry's hand again. Alastor Moody, whose death had not come cheap, judging by the mostly unrecognizable lumps of former Death Eater nearby. Harry was surrounded by death, and more and more of his escort was taken by it.

And even with such a high cost, in the end it meant nothing at all. Voldemort himself had come, and the last of Harry's escort had fallen in a room with a strange, whispering veil hanging from an archaic, thoroughly disturbing arch. Two Death Eaters attended their master- but as a testament to the Order's tenacity, many of those were injured.

What shocked Harry the most, though, was the not the presence of the Dark Lord, but that of his two closest friends. Hermione, slumped against a wall, trying desperately to stand. Ron, laying on the ground behind- too still. And to add surprise to shock, he saw that Ginny too had apparently come along- her sobs as she clung the still form of her brother the only noise besides the peculiar whispering of the arch behind him.

Voldemort wasted no time. He had toyed with Harry in the graveyard, but not this time. It was a single moment in time, almost an eternity. Hermione met his eyes, and Ginny, too, looked up at him. No regrets. Sadness for their losses, but no regrets. And love. So much love. Voldemort didn't appreciate not having his victim pay attention to him. He spoke only two words. The two, final words of death. Harry didn't move. He accepted his fate. His friends had died for him, and now, he would die for them. Not in their place, for surely Voldemort would kill them next, but he died with no regrets.

Avada Kedavra

And the body of Harry Potter fell without a sound through the veil of death, onto his own next great adventure.

A/N This is just a short, teaser prologue for a much longer story. Note that, up until the summer before Harry's fifth year, this story follows canon. The rest of this will be a proper story, rather than two and a half pages of exposition. But I wanted to- concisely- set the stage for what was to come. There may be the occasional flashback, going into more detail about specific scenes, but I felt this was the right way to present the 'backstory' here.

Due to the fact that Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson novels have completely different timelines, I will be fudging things to make this work. Harry's fifth year will be Percy's third, set in the end of 2005 and beyond. Why 2005? Because I'm not 100% of the exact dates that the Camp Half-Blood series takes place in, and 2004 was a nice, easy number that is 10 years past Harry's canon time for year five. Percy and company rely a bit more on modern technologies than any of the Potter crew does, so it made more sense to use a setting that would allow those things to still exist in a meaningful way.

To anticipate one question I figure I may see if this is read, yes, I did leave out some names when listing the Order dead. Hmm...

This will be a dark story, fair warning given. Not dark as in 'blargh blargh Harry kills all!' but dark as in, things will get bad, and then they will get worse. I'll try to keep the crying and angst to a minimum- it's not a story about 'woe is me,' but rather about overcoming terrible adversity. As always, thank you for reading!