The Drought of Peace

Travis wasn't jealous.

Nope, that would be stupid. Connor and his pranks are the best, that was for sure.

But Travis would be lying if he say he didn't start to… dislike the Weasley twins. Yeah, sure, blowing up the toilet is something. But not something Connor and Travis hadn't done before.

Prank wars are out the picture; Chiron would kill him, literally. Or worse, torture him first.

But this guy in front of him was annoying the crap out of Travis.

"Once, they painted the whole corridors red and gold, and didn't even get detention for it! Like, seriously, I bet no one else can get away with something like that. Another time though, they did get caught for making Professor McGonagall's hat levitating from her head, but somehow still managed to get out of that mess. They. Are. Amazing. Let me repeat: the Weasleys are amazing. And then another time-"

"Okay Tommy, you can shut up now." He didn't intend his words to come out harshly, but he was too grumpy to apologise.

Travis had decided to stalk for the Weasley's information; unfortunately the person he chose to interrogate seemed to act like he was their BFF or something, unable to stop praising the Weasley twins and making Travis feel like there was an upcoming test about 'The Weasley's and their pranks 101'.

Tommy seemed to have finally understood that Travis was no longer interested and mumbled a short, "Oh okay. Sorry. I'll go for breakfast now." and left the common room.

Travis wished Connor had joined him suffering the last half an hour of being indirectly insulted by being second best in the world of pranksters.

But noooooo, Connor had ditched him and went to the great hall with the excuse of "I'm going to find Percy. You know, about the quest." He was probably digging into the food right now. Great brother he was.

Travis sighed. He was late- breakfast was already about to end, judging from the empty common room. Not wanting to miss it, he walked to the exit, but not before Katie came running down from the stairs muttering "I'm late!" before crashing him to the floor.

"Ouch Katie! My body can't sustain your weight! My ribs are breaking!"

"My ba- wait, your rib is breaking? Do you mean to say that I'm fat?" She asked indignantly while getting up.

"Gee, you just noticed? You are as heavy as a giant, you know that? Now, why the late morning?"

Responding to his insult with a roll of her eyes, she answered, "No one bothered to wake me up. Great roommates they are. Not even the only girl whom I thought was friendly." she pouted a little. "Why are you late?"

"Oh, no reason really. I just took your friendly advise to mind and tried to find out more about the Weasley brothers. Unfortunately, I asked the wrong person and before that I got ditched by my own brother. To make things even better, someone with the weight of a giant had to crash onto me, resulting poor me with a broken rib. Other than that, I am having a very fine day. Thank you very much."

Katie just stared at him, putting her hand up as if to check his temperature.

"I never even asked you how you were doing. I think you really hit your head hard. Do you need to go to the infirmary on the very first day of your quest, Travis?" She respond easily, smirking slightly.

"Har har har. Now Katie, you might want to go to the infirmary, but I'm hungry and I'm going down to the breakfast hall for breakfast. Goodbye." He mocked a bow before exiting the common room, followed by Katie from behind.

"Sometimes I hate you so much." Katie muttered.

"So you do mean that the rest of the time you love me?" Travis joked, and Katie's face heated up. Seriously, it was too easy to get her to blush, and Travis just loved to do that.

Katie just mumbled a string of curses Travis had no doubt was for him, but he just couldn't help grinning. His pitiful morning just brightened up by the sight of her. Not that he was going to tell her. Or anyone for that matter.


Harry was annoyed.

Now he was known as 'the-boy-who-lies' in Hogwarts and even Seamus is avoiding him. Before he reached the great hall with Hermione and Ron, the Ravenclaw girls hurriedly formed a tighter group when they saw Harry approaching near them, like he would harm them or something.

Why did they not believe him? He was speaking the truth! And they decided to live in denial that Voldemort had not return. Seriously! As if that would keep them safe!

"Hi guys!" Percy said cheerfully as Harry, Hermione and Ron sat across him, Thalia and Connor. Harry supposed that they haven't been reading the daily prophet, so they didn't know the latest news. Thank Merlin.

"Hello!" Harry replied, along with Hermione and Ron, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but Harry thought he saw Hermione blush. But before he could continue pondering over it, hundreds of owls came soaring through the upper windows. They descended all over the hall, dropping letters or parcels to their owners and showering the food with water. Clearly, it has been raining outside. Percy and Thalia seemed a little bit confused, while Connor tried to catch one of the owl's parcel, but failed. Instead, he received a new scratch on his face.

"Ow.." he mumbled.

Percy, Thalia and Connor seemed surprise when they received letters, and hurriedly opened them. They exchanged sheepish grins with each other after reading the contents, before placing them in their pockets.

Harry felt betrayed when he saw Hermione ordered a daily prophet. She saw Harry's look at her and explained, "It's best to know what the enemy is saying." and unfurled the newspaper.

After a while, when breakfast was almost going to vanish, Travis and Katie finally came to the big hall, one cheerful and as bright as day, the other just grumpy. Connor grinned as they sat beside him.

"So, what did he say?" Connor asked, receiving a sickly sweet smile from Travis in return.

"Oh a lot of things actually! A shame that you couldn't join me when wisdom was slowly filling my brain until it was about to explode. Well, at least I had Katie here to accompany me. Maybe I'll just get her next time. How about that Connor?" he replied sarcastically. Katie softly punched him and whispered something in his ear that Harry couldn't hear. Then Travis looked at Harry and grinned, "Hiya' Harry!"

"Hi?" He replied, but it came out more like a question than an answer.

Just that moment, Professor McGonagall moved along the table, handing out their timetables.

"I have History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defense Against Dark Arts." Percy read, then questioning everyone about their timetables. Harry realised he had the same exact one.

"Same as you mate. Binns, Snape, Trelawney and that Umbridge woman all in one day! I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted..." Ron groaned.

"Do my ears deceive me?" said Fred as he and George moved their seats next to Ron. "Ronnie-icky- kins, the prefect, wish to skive off lessons?"

"Shut up Fred. Look at what we've got today and you'll understand why." He shoved the timetable under Fred's nose.

"Fair point bro." said Fred, scanning the column. George continued the sentence for him.

"We have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

"Why's it cheap?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"Because you'll keep bleeding and shrivel up; we haven't got an antidote yet." replied George as he helped himself to a kipper. Harry heard Travis snort.

"After all I've heard of them, they just came up with something that they don't have an antidote for." Travis complained softly, but unfortunately loud enough that the Weasley twins heard him.

"Excuse me?" Fred said, faking a polite smile.

Uh oh. Harry thought. The Weasley twins absolutely hated it when someone insults their superb skills, because according to them, their talents were unique and entertaining. Being questioned about their talents, or worse, insulting them... Well, let's just say they won't let you off with it.

But Harry totally supports the Weasleys as number one in pranking; not everyone can magically make Filtch trip on every step he took without getting caught.

Travis turned to look at him.

"Sorry, what?" Travis asked him mockingly.

"Oh, sorry, I thought you just insulted our ability to prank. Surely you didn't mean that, right?" Fred asked, looking straight at Travis from across the table. Travis jutted his chin out in a proud manner, but then bit his lip and turned to Katie. Katie gave him the look that said, 'suck up your pride', but Travis just narrowed his eyes. Harry hoped that meant he was going to apologize. He noticed Ron and Connor were looking back and forth between them.

"Oh, look George, he has to ask his girlfriend about every reply he makes. Ain't that independent?" Fred teased, looking at his brother. His brother's face told him to calm down but no, Fred and Travis' pride seemed to not waver.

"Oh, look Connor, I think the oh-so-awesome Weasley brothers aren't so awesome at all in the end, huh. They can't seem to differentiate the difference between a good friend and a girlfriend. Hmm... I wonder why." Travis indirectly retorted. "Maybe... it's because they're born without brains?"

Connor gulped but offered a nervous grin.

"Whoa, dont drag me into this guys." Katie said, trying to cool down the atmosphere. Even Percy and Thalia, who were looking at other Gryffindor student's timetable was now interested in the pranksters' conversation. Travis cup of plain water splashed on him and he turned to look at Percy, who gave him a warning look in return.

"So," Fred said, crossing his arms. "You think you should be idolised? Maybe have a status made after your unfortunate face?"

"No. You assume too much. We simply think we prank better than both of you ever could." Travis narrowed his eyes in defiance.

"Care to prove it?"

"Sure, if you aren't too scared. I mean, my brother and I, we are the definition of extreme."

"Well, my brother and I are the definition of fearless."

They glared at each other. Harry had never seen Fred being so unfriendly to a Gryffindor before, and, judging from the look of George and Connor, they hadn't seen their brothers acting that way before too. They would be good friends if they hadn't started off like this.

"Okay guys. Time's up. The two of you, calm down. It's just a small issue!" Katie said, secretly wishing she had the charmspeak ability given to the chosen few of Aphrodite's children.

"Yeah, listen to your girlfriend Travis."

"What part of 'she's not my girlfriend' do you not understand? Or maybe I'm overestimating your ability to comprehend the English language. Was your mum disappointed?"

Fred got up but got pulled down by Harry and George.

This was the most stupid cause of fighting Harry had ever witness.

Just on cue, Annabeth came to the Gryffindor table. "Hey, guys! Chiron forgot to tell us something." she said cheerfully, but everybody who knew her knew that the smile plastered on her face was barbie dolled fake. She pretended to have just noticed the small commotion. "Oh, hey Travis!" her voice was so full of fake cheerfulness that Travis broke the glare and looked at her.

"Am I barging in at a bad time?" she asked softly but clearly, her smile still in place. But Thalia answered instead.

"Nope. Not at all. Travis was getting into a fight with Fred just because he said his pranks are better, so yeah, not a bad time to barge in."

Harry tuned them out as he saw Fred and George leaving the great hall, Fred with his usual mischievous glint in his eyes and sly grin.


Percy was hoping that Potions would be an interesting class.

He has seen movies where kids add one liquid to another, and poof! A rainbow appeared. Percy was actually humming to himself in anticipation as him, Thalia, Connor and Travis headed down to the dungeons.

But he stopped when Harry gave them a grave first-timers' warning -'Don't make eye contact with him, don't talk without being called, and if he asks you any questions, end your sentence with a 'sir' and, most importantly, do not interrupt his sentence. Professor Snape isn't one professor you would want to get on your bad side.'

So, yeah. There goes Percy's bubble.

They joined the queue lining outside Snape's classroom door.

"This quest is going downwards already, huh?" Thalia randomly commented.

"Sorry." Travis muttered. Truthfully, he felt bad, especially after getting scolded by Annabeth and Katie. But he wasn't going to regret it. Nope.

Thalia sighed. "Nevermind Travis. Just try to not argue over something so stupid."

"It's so not stupid, Thalia! I'm a Hermes kid!" Travis yelled indignantly, receiving a stomp on his foot by Katie.

"Well, I'm a Zeus kid and you don't see me blasting people to bits!"

"Oh yeah, but your glare paralyses people, isn't that a Zeus thin-"

"Guys, take a chill pill. We know that you, Travis, are a Hermes kid, and you, Thalia, are a Zeus kid. No need to get so worked up." Percy got in between them before they could punch the lights out of each other.

They both looked at him. "Well, you're a Poseidon kid."

Percy stared back. "Yeah, so?" he smirked. "Are you two jealous? You think Poseidon is the coolest of them all, don't you? I wouldn't blame you though. He is my father."

"Pfft. Zeus can blast your father to bits."

The other demigods (including Travis) groaned. Not this again.

"Pfft to you back! Poseidon can call upon millions of dolphins to chew Zeus up!"

"Zeus will send his lightning bolt-"

"That I had 'stolen'!"

"-to vaporize all dolphins!"

"Well, sea disasters? They're the strongest and more feared!"

"Air disasters are the most feared, Percy. Have you read your history book?" Thalia glared at Percy, her fingertips sparking with electricity.

"Dude, you hate history! That doesn't even make sense!" Percy glared right back.

"That doesn't mean I don't read 'em!"

"This is stupid." Katie muttered. Travis and Connor nodded their heads in agreement. "Exactly how many times have they been fighting about this?"

"Yeah right, Thalia." Percy rolled his eyes. "But honestly? Even without your stupid made-believe history book, Poseidon is the strongest, coolest and awesomest. Zeus is just plain bo-ring. No offense Zeus." He added, thunder struck from a distance.

"Stop dreaming Percy. Zeus is all about drama, and no drama has ever been second best by a barnacle bearded marine creature."

"Poseidon-"

"Hades is the strongest. Although definitely not the coolest. If you get what I mean." Nico appeared right next to Percy. Percy jumped. "Miss me?"

"Fates, you gotta stop doing that." Percy said, backing up a bit.

Nico shrugged and smirked.

"How's Slytherin?" Thalia asked, playfully punching him in the arm.

Nico snorted. "Boring. They live by the rule of only liking pure-bloods, which are wizards which have wizarding ancestors, and they all despise muggleborns as if it was some pandemic disease. "

Thalia snorted. "Idiots. What's a muggleborn?"

"Well, Malfoy," Nico spat out his name with venom. "Likes to call them 'mudblood'."

"I'm guessing that's a bad thing?" Percy asked.

"A horrible insult. Muggleborns are wizards born without magical ancestors. Which means their parents are ordinary humans."

"Aren't they more special, since they got Hecate's blessing?" Katie asked, brows furrowed.

"The Slytherin house doesn't seem to think so." Nico said bitterly. "Wonder how I got sorted here."

Percy and Thalia laughed, "Come on, Death breath, cheer up."

"You're sitting with us later." Percy winked and put his arm around Nico and dragged him forward as the dungeon door slowly creaked open. Nico ignored that flutter in his stomach and push off Percy's arm, but only got a laugh in return.

The demigods sat one row in front of the Golden Trio.

"Settle down," Professor Snape said coldly before closing the door behind him. But really, there was no need for him to order; Snape's mere presence was enough to make everyone quiet down.

"Before we begin today's lesson," he said, sweeping over to his desk and stared at them coldly. "I think it's appropriate to remind you that next June, you will be sitting for an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions. Moronic through some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to at least scrape an 'Acceptable' in your O.W.L. , or... suffer my displeasure.

"American transfer students, do not make the mistake of thinking that you will be exempted from this examination or my expectations. I want no less from you either." his gaze landed on Percy and Percy gulped. Mental note to self: Harry was right- Professor Snape is not someone you would want to piss off.

"After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me," Snape went on. "I will only take the very best into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, which means some of us are surely going to say goodbye." His eyes rested on Harry, Percy noticed, and Harry glared right back at him. "But we have another year to go before that happy moment can arrive. So, whether or not you are intending to attempt N.E.W.T., I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high pass level I have come to expect from my O.W.L. students.

"Today, we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: The Drought Of Peace. It's a potion used to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned: If you are too heavy handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay more attention to this potion more than others."

Percy had a problem, granted, it wasn't just him. He and the other demigods- they have ADHD. Hopefully, whatever Professor Snape had meant had nothing to do with staying still.

"The ingredients and methods-" He flicked his wand to the board, and words appeared on it. "Are on the blackboard. You will find everything you need-" He flicked his wand at the store cupboard. "In the store cupboard. You will have an hour and a half... start."

If I can do all that with just a flick of the wand, I won't even need to clean up my cabin anymore! Gosh, I'm a genius! Just flick here flick there and everything would go back to its original place. Connor then pinched Percy out of his ingenious idea, and reminded him that they only had one and a half hour to concoct something they have never made in their whole entire lives.

Percy was pretty sure that Professor Snape wouldn't be helping them much.

After Percy scanned the blackboard, he wished that Annabeth was here.

Percy glanced at his fellow demigods, hoping that they may be of some assistance.

Unfortunately, none of them were.

Thalia was randomly adding ingredients into the cauldron with the fire at its highest level; Travis and Connor were using their wands, flicking them over and over again at their empty cauldron. Percy reckoned that they were hoping for some sort of magical wand miracle; Katie was having trouble herself, but at least she was trying. Hermione was helping her at the same time, and Percy had absolute confidence that they would make it out alive, that is, if there was an explosion of some sort; Nico... was just being Nico- copying every move the Slytherin guy makes next to him.

Percy inwardly sighed, and went to get the ingredients from the cupboard, and tried his best to not make a 'potion of disaster'.


"A light silver vapor should now be rising from your potion." Snape announced, with ten minutes left to go.

Oh yeah? Percy thought. Well, mine has Aqua coloured vapour rising, certainly not silver. Maybe you're wrong, professor?

Percy was sweating profusely, and he was irritated. His father must had been the one turning his potion into blue. It's either that, or Percy's potion-making skills sucked.

He looked around the dungeon hopelessly.

Thalia's potion was blood red mixed with some disgusting yellow substance, releasing sudden pops once in a while. Katie and Nico's potions were almost perfect, with darkish silver vapor rising from it. Ron's was spitting green sparks. Harry's was issuing copious amounts of dark grey steam. Hermione's was absolutely perfect.

Why am I not surprised? Percy did a face-palmed.

As Snape walked pass Hermione, he looked down his hooked nose at it, without any comment, and Hermione gave a sigh of relief.

At Harry's cauldron, however, he stopped. A horrible smirk slowly creeping on his face. "Potter, what is this supposed to be?"

The Slytherins at the front of the class all looked up eagerly, like they loved to hear Snape taunting Harry,

Without any hesitation, he replied, "The drought of Peace, sir."

"Tell me, Potter, can you read?" He mocked, softly.

A boy in white, glossy hair in Slytherin laughed.

"Yes I can." said Harry, and his fingers clenched tightly to something.

"Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter."

Harry squinted at the blackboard.

"Add powdered moonstone, stir three times counter-clockwise, allow to simmer for seven minutes and then add two drops of syrup of hellebore."

The look of realization dawned over Harry.

"Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?"

"No," Harry answered hesitantly, quietly.

"I beg your pardon?" Snape mocked again, clearly relishing in Harry's moment of embarrassment.

"I said NO. I forgot the Hellebore. You happy now?" Harry snapped.

"Do not raise your voice at me Potter. Your potion is completely useless, and so is the maker of it. Five points from G- "

Percy stood up, cutting Snape off. All eyes in the dungeon turned to him.

Percy didn't know why the heck he had had to poke his nose into someone else's business but then again, he was supposed to protect Harry. And he was really fed up with students and teachers cooperating with each other to bully a helpless student. Gosh, he was bullied so many times before he came to Camp Half-Blood he gave up counting.

"Excuse me sir, but you really shouldn't call someone useless. Honestly, you are a professor, you should set a good example." Percy said, staring straight at Professor Snape, poker face and all that.

Professor Snape's surprise at being interrupted was short lived; he looked irritated.

"Well, if it isn't another Gryffindor student. Didn't your parents tell you how rude it is to interrupt someone in mid-way sentence?"

Percy shrugged. "Well, they certainly told me once that no one should call anybody useless."

"Are you, a new transfer student, going to teach me how. To. Do. My. Job?" Snape's voice was uncomfortably calm, but Percy replied with his own calmness.

"No, but maybe I can teach you some useful moral ethics. You never know, it may come up in a test."

"Sir."

Percy gave him a blank look. "Why the heck are you calling me sir? My name's Percy."

Many Gryffindor students snickered.

"I honestly don't know and don't want to know whether you were this... simple-minded in your old school Jackson. But let me teach you an important moral ethic," he repeated Percy's words, "In this school, when you speak to a professor, you should know your place."

Percy didn't reply, he merely glared at Snape right in the eye and Snape glared right back. When Snape spoke again, he still didn't break the glare.

"Fifteen points from Gryff-"

"You really shouldn't do that." A new voice joined the conversation- Thalia. Percy broke the glare and glanced at Thalia and saw that she was still looking as superior then ever, glaring at Snape.

"Oh. Another Gryffindor's going to teach me to perform my disciplinary actions?" Snape sneered. Thalia just shrugged.

"I wasn't about to. I was merely going to point out the fact that many of the Slytherins' potions are worse than Harry's and Percy's," She looked at Percy, then back at Snape."And yet you only criticise the Gryffindors. Don't you think it's a little unfair?"

Snape inhaled a sharp breath, getting Gryffindors and Slytherins alike to flinch.

"Miss Grace, are you planning to take on the job of being a judge, now?"

Ouch, Percy thought, flinching. He knew how much Thalia hated her surname.

"Don't. Ever. Use. My. Surname." Thalia glared at him using the 'death glare', twins to the one Annabeth can conjure, just that this glare was much scarier.

"Why, Miss Grace? Do you want us to be on first name basis, now?"

"And if I said yes?" Thalia said, her cauldron producing electric that popped stronger than before.

"You better don't answer that." Nico commented while now joining in the conversation. Snape looked a little taken aback that it was one of his own snakes that talked.

Snape pointedly ignored him and Thalia. He swept back to his front desk and said, "Thirty points from Gryffindor. And for those of you who managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name and bring to my desk for testing," said Snape. "Homework: twelve inches of parchment long on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making. Make sure it is handed in by Thursday. Class dismissed. Oh, and Potter, Jackson and Grace, detention at eight o'clock tomorrow night, my office."

Thalia's cauldron exploded in a spectacular yellow firework show, and the people near her backed up, hands over their flagon to protect it. Even Snape looked shocked.

But Thalia just smiled sweetly, "See you in detention tomorrow, sir."

She packed her bag swiftly and left the dungeons, various eyes staring at her back for a short while before turning back to hand their flagons to Snape.

Harry was visibly seething. Judging from his frequent look at Ron's potion, Percy figured that it was because Ron's potion was worse than his, yet he didn't get humiliated by Snape. Percy knew how he felt, and he too, didn't fill his flagon. He'll probably score zero anyway.

"Hey." Percy turned, Harry was talking to him.

"Hey! Looks like we've detention together, huh." Percy smiled at him.

"Yeah, and about that, why did you stand up for me?"

Percy winked. "I've won the being-unable-to-take-any-bull-from-anyone award."

Harry laughed.

Once again, I love you guys.

-Edited-