Chapter Two

Hello hello! Thanks for the reviews! We all know that reviews are basically virtual biscuits. In several reviews/PMs, I was told that they didn't mind my Harico idea, while some people did, so I came up with a compromise… it is a very popular ship in the HP fandom, and I'm sure that plenty of you both love and hate it… IT IS THE WONDROUS DRARRY! I mean, what if Draco shows up at some point, in some scenario or other, huh? ;) Tell me what you guys think. I need a majority vote here, okay?

Also, sorry for typos and such. I'm a terrible person and cannot be bothered to edit.

"Wizard?" Annabeth paled as well, and looked down at the boy who had once seemed so innocent, and now came off as nothing but sinister. "That's not possible, Percy." Her eyes flashed back up to the Son of Poseidon's face. "Is it?"

Percy had been pacing further down the crest of the hill for the past few minutes, barely even noticing the chill of the shade on his bare skin as the sun was set behind a heavy cloud. He was busy trying to digest what Arnold had said.

"Wizard."

The first thought that crossed Percy's mind was that there was no such thing as wizards. And then he felt horrible, like a hypocrite, to be thinking that. After all, he was a demigod, and demigods weren't supposed to exist either.

He then heard a noise, back up where Annabeth and Arnold were. The sound of a pair of feet.

Nico.

Percy rushed back up the hill to see Nico remove Arnold from Annabeth's care and shadow travel them back to camp, but he froze when he saw the expression on Nico's face as he looked down at the body. There was a mute horror, a horror that Percy could not understand.

Percy cleared his throat noisily to get Nico's attention.

Immediately, the Son of Hades' head whipped up to stare at Percy, almost disbelieving, before back down to Arnold's face and then back up again. Annabeth merely looked tired as she rocked back onto her heels to allow Nico to room to collect the body.

"Jason told you?" she asked. Nico blinked at her.

"Yeah," he said. "But I didn't think that he was being serious when he said…" he trailed off.

"You'd better hurry," Percy said, to which Nico gave a single tight nod, hooked his arms beneath Arnold's armpits and dragged him into the shadows that were collecting behind him.

Then they were gone.

Annabeth stood, looking down at her bloodied hands.

"Sorry about the shirt," she said flatly, to which Percy gave an unsteady laugh as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Arnold needed it more than I did," he said, before frowning. "I don't understand what Nico meant."

"About what?" Annabeth turned so that they were facing each other.

"What was it that Nico didn't think that Jason was being serious about?" Percy looked down at Annabeth, though without really seeing her. "What's so hard to understand about us finding a body?"

"Oh, Percy," Annabeth sighed, looking at him gravely. "You can be so blind sometimes."

"Gods." Percy pressed a palm against his forehead. "What did I miss now? Let me guess - he's Nico's long lost brother or something?"

"Close," Annabeth said, with the hint of a smile as they began walking back. "But seriously - we all saw it. Me, Jason, Nico. Everyone but you. That boy - Arnold - forget that he said that he's a wizard."

"Hard to," Percy muttered, but then Annabeth whirled on him and jabbed a finger at him, taking him by surprise.

"He looks just like you," she said. "It took both Nico and I by surprise. I might have thought that he was you, except that you were right behind me."

"Wait a second," Percy said, astonished. "Hold your horses. You think that we look the same?"

"Well, it's a bit difficult to tell while one is unconscious," Annabeth said, a line forming between her eyebrows, "but there are very obvious similarities, you know."

"Oh well," Percy said, trying to smile. "Then we'll have two of me walking about camp soon enough. Lucky you."

"If he lives, anyway," Annabeth said grimly. "That's not a good state that he's in."

"Hm."

"But don't you see, Percy?" Annabeth cried, turning back to him. "Things just calmed down, and suddenly this Percy-Jackson-lookalike turns up? It's bad news, don't you think?"

"I-" Percy cut off as it occurred to him what Annabeth was thinking. "Oh. I see."

"Yes." Annabeth peered up at him, eyes bright with worry. "What if he's another son of of the sea god?"

They fell into a meditative silence as they continued along, Percy considering the probability of having another brother all the while.

He was floating in a sky of pure white.

But he wasn't alone.

Faces.

Why were there so many faces, blinking in and out, or was that his consciousness that was blinking?

And why was there a centaur? Harry remembered that centaurs weren't huge human fans. Nor muggle fans, definitely not, so why was there one here with the muggles…?

Harry decided to stop thinking about it. He was just too tired. But whenever he thought this, another issue arose in his mind. Such as, Ron and Hermione. Had they gotten away? Had they been caught? Had he been caught? And then, there was also the fact that the name 'Arnold' kept on floating around him. What was with that? And his face - it stung, from where that ministry wizard had taken a swing at him, but the pain was nothing to his chest. Harry felt certain that there was a gaping hole there or something. Anything to account for that inexplicable agony.

"Ambrosia and nectar," somebody was saying. "He needs ambrosia and nectar."

"But he might not be a half-blood," a deeper voice countered. "If we feed that to him and he is merely a mortal, then he'll die."

"Don't you understand, Chiron?" another voice said - a female this time. "If we feed it to him and he's a mortal, he'll die, yes. But if we don't feed it to him, he'll die anyway. We need to take the risk."

The original voice, the one who had recommended this ambrosia and nectar in the first place, said, "There's a very high chance that he's a half-blood, if he was by the border. No mortal could find their way there."

"True," the deeper voice - Chiron - said, before heaving a sigh. "Arnold's life does hang in the balance."

Poor Arnold, thought Harry.

"I suppose it is a risk that we must take," Chiron continued. "His condition is only worsening, after all. My, this boy is like your charge, isn't he, Percy, Annabeth? Ambrosia, then. Oh, look, you already had it prepared."

There was silence, and I felt something probing at my lips. It was cool - metal?

"I hope that this will make you better, Arnold," the female voice said heavily - Annabeth, was it? "You must eat it."

Harry wanted to tell her that she had come to the wrong person - he wasn't Arnold, and this Arnold person sounded as though he needed this ambrosia a lot.

But then the ambrosia ended up in his mouth, and it tasted just like treacle tart - the one at Hogwarts that he had never grown sick of, not in his six years there. He found himself devouring it - even if he was somehow unconscious, which he couldn't quite understand. It was as though he was in his body, but with no control over it anymore.

"This is bad," the one called Percy muttered, and that was the last that Harry heard before he drifted back into his sky of white.

When Harry woke up, he properly woke up - his eyes opened.

He noticed to figures in the room with him, but without his glasses, was practically blind. He floundered around for them, making an excellent first impression on the two currently present, he was sure, as he finally recovered his glasses from a table by his bedside and slid them onto his nose, feeling surprisingly clear-headed and awake - a rare feat for a person who just woke up from a coma-like state.

Harry was greatly relieved when he saw that the two in the room were fast asleep, meaning that they had not witnessed his flapping around like a drowning pelican. He then felt a twinge of pity - they were sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall. Not comfortable. Of course, Harry knew a lot about uncomfortable. He had grown up the first eleven years of his life uncomfortable.

Stifling a yawn, Harry took the spare moments to observe the boy and the girl, the girl's head resting against the guy's shoulder.

They looked to be about his age, he thought. The guy looked to be pretty tall, tan and lithe like a surfer. He wore an orange t-shirt with the initials CHB printed across it, and a beaded leather necklace around his neck, and had black hair that could have rivalled Harry's own hair's messiness. He looked cool, even asleep, in a star-quidditch-player-and-captain way. The way that Cedric Diggory had seemed, back when he was alive. A lump formed in Harry's throat, but he moved on to the girl.

She was pretty - beautiful, even. Curley blonde hair, which had obviously seen the sun plenty, and there was an almost serious set to her face, the way that Hermione got whenever they had an exam, or homework… or class in general, Harry supposed. The blonde girl wore an orange t-shirt like the guy's, which emphasised her lean, athletic frame, and also wore a leather necklace, though it was tucked into her shirt so that Harry couldn't see the beads - if there were any.

They looked like they could be muggles.

Harry lifted a hand to scrub at his face, except that a sting of pain shot through his chest. He looked down over himself for the first time, wincing. He must have splinched when he apparated, judging from the layering of bandages across his bare chest. He wouldn't be able to apparate again for a little while, if he wanted to be able to heal up again.

He fell back again, pressing a hand against his face at his uselessness - only to yelp loudly, bringing the girl back to the waking world. He'd forgotten about taking a punch to the face, but he couldn't forget now, not with it throbbing as if a bludger had thwacked him in the side of the head.

The girl blinked open eyes that were a startling grey, and Harry met her gaze clear on, unsure of whether he was meant to run or not.

"You're alive," the girl said, without really processing her words as she stifled a yawn and made to go back to sleep, except that her eyes suddenly widened, and she looked at a frozen Harry clearly now.

"Di immortales," she breathed, and then said more loudly, "You're alive!"

It was truly impossible to tell whether she was dismayed or relieved, but either way she shook the guy next to her awake.

"He's alive," she whispered as the guy jerked away, looking around in bewilderment before apparently remembering where he was.

"I'm alive," said Harry, trying to keep his confusion at bay. "Shouldn't I be?"

"And you're…" the guy quirked a brow, looking amused, "English."

"And you're American." Harry stared. "I haven't met an American before."

"You haven't met an American in America?" the girl stood, scraping her hair back into a ponytail, the guy standing with her. "That's… unusual."

"America?" Harry frowned. "I'm in America?"

"Yeah." The guy didn't bother to elaborate, as if people were always turning up and not realising what country they were in. His eyes - an unforgettable, violent shade of turquoise - were incredibly bright as he peered at Harry. "So you are a half-blood."

"Yes," Harry said, growing excited. So they weren't muggles - the girl was a witch, and the guy was a wizard! Unless they were squibs. "Um, how did you guess?" Had they seen his wand? But that wouldn't explain how they knew that he was a half-blood. He could have just as easily been a muggleborn, or a pureblood.

"If you weren't," the girl said, "you'd be dead after eating the ambrosia."

"Oh." Harry had no idea what she was talking about, but he didn't question it. Maybe it was a weird American thing.

"So, do you know who your dad is?" the guy asked, and there was something nervous in his expression - as if Harry might say something which would cause the world to detonate.

"James Potter," Harry said, timid now. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised that none of them had leapt on him about being Harry Potter, or the Chosen One. Not that he wasn't grateful, but maybe they were testing him, to see whether he was who they thought he was, before they could call in the death eaters or something. All that it would take was the word 'Voldemort' aloud. Harry became abruptly cautious.

"How about your mom?" With the word 'mom', the girl turned to glare at the guy, which Harry didn't understand.

"Lily…" said Harry, dejected. "Lily Potter… Evans…"

"Interesting," the girl said, narrowing her eyes at Harry, though not in a nasty way - more pensive. As though there was something to his words that she didn't quite believe. Harry was no longer quite so sure that this was a trick.

"This might be a sensitive question, sorry," the guy interjected hurriedly, "but do you know both of your parents? I mean, are they both… alive or something? Or is there any weird story about either of them being missing?"

"I'm an orphan," said Harry flatly. "They're both dead."

"Oh," the guy said, embarrassed, lifting a hand to cup the back of his neck. "Sorry."

"They died when I was one," Harry said, shrugging as if he didn't care, though he most certainly did. He avoided both of their gazes. "I never really knew them, so…" He didn't even remember them, more like.

"It makes sense, though," Annabeth said. "Makes your being a half-blood even more believable, even if you don't know which one of your parents is an Olympian…" she snapped her fingers suddenly.

"Olympian?" Harry said, as though it was a different language, but the girl paid little attention to him.

"But it was ingenious to give you names for both of your parents, you know? You would have been very unsuspecting of your true heritage, which is probably why you have gone so long with no monsters coming after you or anything."

"Monsters?" Harry held up a hand. "What are you talking about?"

"I know," the guy said, grinning in an almost mischievous manner. "It was pretty confusing my first time, too."

"Wait," the girl said. "We haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Athena."

"Percy Jackson," the guy said. "Son of Poseidon."

"Athena?" Harry repeated. "Poseidon?"

"At this point," Annabeth said, "you're undetermined, but I have my suspicions… oh, speaking of, we should probably call Chiron in."

She went over to open the door, and sunlight streamed in. Harry could see a veranda outside.

"Chiron!" she called. "Arnold's awake!"

"Now, wait a moment," Harry said crossly. "Stop with the bloody 'Arnold' thing. First of all, my name is Harry."

"Percy!" Annabeth said, to which Percy blushed. "I distinctly remember you saying that you were positive that he said 'Arnold'!"

"I thought you did," he mumbled, but Harry was just getting started. In the span of things, he didn't care about whether or not he was identified with the wrong name.

"Second of all, I don't know why you seem to think that monsters should be after me," he said, his voice rising, and he sensed a wind beginning to stir around him, the way it did when his magic became aggressive, "and thirdly, why in Merlin's name are you going on about Greek gods? I may have been out for a few hours, but I am not nuts, you know!"

Done, he paused to catch his breath. The breeze settled back outside again. It was surprisingly easy to get winded when you had a chest injury.

"Four days, actually," Annabeth said indifferently, as though being in a coma for four days was a normal occurrence here. She didn't bother to turn around from leaning out the doorway. Harry felt abruptly weak in the knees, even if he was lying down.

"Four?" He felt torn between going on another rampage, blacking out to add another day to that number, or just blinking stupidly. He finally settled for the latter.

"Are you done?" Percy said, trying not to smile.

"Yeah," Harry said.

"It was pretty impressive, while it lasted."

"Thanks, mate."

"No worries."

"Here comes Chiron," Annabeth said, backing out of the doorway and casting a glance over her shoulder. "He'll explain everything to you." But there was still an almost weary cast in her eyes as she looked at Harry.

"He might come as a bit of a shock to you," Percy warned Harry, right before Chiron came into the room.

Chiron turned out to be the centaur who Harry thought he had seen in his unconsciousness. His upper half was a man, with a scraggly brown beard and brown hair, and his lower half was a majestic white horse. Harry felt abruptly uncomfortable lying in bed, and made to try to feebly stand as the centaur came in. The centaurs who lived in the Forbidden Forest were proud, and they were to be respected. Harry did not feel respectful in bed.

"You must be Arnold," Chiron said, and Harry flushed, sending an irritated look in Percy's direction.

"It's actually Harry, sir." He tried to pull himself out of bed to stand, bow, whatever, but Chiron held up a hand.

"Please, remain in bed, dear boy," he said. "You have been through much. And you may call me Chiron - there is no need for this 'sir'."

"Yes, sir-" Harry hurriedly corrected himself. "I mean, Chiron." He could see Percy and Annabeth exchanging shocked looks in the background, but did not pay them any attention.

"I must observe, though," Chiron continued, peering at Harry, "that you do not seem particularly surprised to be seeing a centaur for the first time. No shock factor?"

Obviously, shock was the standard reaction. Harry laughed weakly.

"I'm acquainted with centaurs," he said, and Chiron's eyes abruptly darkened, as if he saw something that hadn't been there before. Harry persisted anyway. "Not all friendly, though. At my school-" he began, but saw the most subtle shake of Chiron's head and fell quiet.

"Percy, Annabeth," Chiron said, turning toward the other two present in the room, "if you would be so kind as to check on Mr. Di Angelo for me? I'm still a little worried about him."

"Sure, Chiron," Percy said, grabbing Annabeth's hand and pulling her out of the room after him - her expression said that she would have given much to have stayed in the room to overhear the conversation that was about to come to pass.

"Mr. Di Angelo?" Harry questioned, feeling slightly more settled with the two strangers out of the room.

"One of our campers," Chiron said promptly. "He was the one to transport you back here from the border of the camp, and he has been slightly… unsettled ever since. You will most likely meet him once you leave this room." He turned to gaze out the window. "For your information, you are currently lodging in the Big House, until we decide where would be appropriate to place you. But things seem a little more complex than usual here, Mr. Potter."

"Oh," Harry said. "'Harry' would be fine, Mr., er, Chiron."

"Of course," Chiron said, turning his head towards Harry slightly, so that Harry could see the twinkle in his eyes, right before it vanished again. "But can I assume that you are a student at Hogwarts?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Was, I mean. Uh, how did you know?" It seemed like a pretty stupid question to him now, because everybody in the wizarding world knew about the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the most wanted wizard in the world. But in his short amount of time in that room, with Percy and Annabeth's lack of recognition for him, Harry had almost forgotten who he was.

He wanted to hex himself for being so stupid as to let his defence down.

"Because you mentioned centaurs, at your school." Chiron sighed. "Believe it or not, but Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the only magical school that is acquainted with centaurs. And also, I managed to piece together that by 'Harry', you are also Harry Potter."

"Yeah," said Harry. "I suppose that it wouldn't take a detective to work that out."

"I'm sorry to do this," Chiron said, "but could I ask you to refrain yourself from mentioning to anybody else that you are a wizard?"

"Why?" Harry asked, abruptly sounding childish in his own ears.

"All in good time," Chiron said. "See, this is a very new situation to me, Harry," he continued. "Do you know why?"

"Um," said Harry. "Sorry?"

"It's because I am meeting you," Chiron said, and finally turned to look at Harry straight on. "A wizard, who is also a demigod."

"A what?" asked Harry, trying his best to maintain an intelligent voice, but probably failing horribly. He imagined that if Ron was here, they'd both be in the same boat, and it made him feel slightly better.

"All in time, Harry," Chiron said. "But this may come as a bit of a surprise to you."

"I'm pretty sure I can handle it." Nothing could be as surprising as Hagrid bursting into the room at midnight on Harry's eleventh birthday to deliver that news that Harry was a wizard, a somebody.

"The Greek gods are real," Chiron said, "and either your mother or father is one. Half human, half god. Which makes you a demigod, Harry, or more commonly known as a half-blood."

Whaaaaat. Wizard AND demigod? Harry is a special snowflake, now isn't he?

And if you're a person who doesn't bother to read longish A/N (the one at the beginning), let me quickly summarise here: Drarry or Harico? Please vote now!

~Black Cat Widow~