DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Harry Potter or Percy Jackson characters. Those belong to J. K. Rowling and Rick Riordan!
Author's note: Guess who turns fourteen on Monday? Jayelyyn! My parents are probably going to force me to do fun stuff on Monday, so I'll be updating somewhere around Tuesday. Sorry it's been a bit longer than usual. My internet shut down for two days. I've had this chapter written for two days, and not being able to post it was kind of murdering me. Enjoy the chapter! Sorry-not-sorry for the small cliffe!
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^Harry
Harry's hand was throbbing like crazy by the time he got out of his first detention with Umbridge that week. The words I must not tell lies were definitely never going to go away. Harry tried to ignore it as he trudged up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, but he was finding it difficult.
It became significantly less difficult when he heard a scream coming from somewhere above him. Harry dropped what he was thinking and sprinted up the stairs.
He had been expecting an attack. Hell, he'd been extremely on guard and prepared for one. But how could a Death Eater get this far into the castle without Dumbledore noticing? He might've turned a blind eye on Harry, but Harry was more than positive that he wouldn't turn a blind eye on impending Death Eater attacks.
Harry reached the landing of the stairs and turned to his left.
He froze.
What in the name of Merlin was that? It was disgusting, and definitely not human. Instead of legs, it had snake tails that it half-walked and half-slithered on. It did look human enough from the waist up...except for the terrible shade of green that was her skin. She had long, black hair and cold eyes. She was carrying a spear and a shield while attacking everything in sight.
Harry had almost recovered his wits when suddenly, through the portrait hole, Percy Jackson came busting out, with Nico di Angelo about a second behind him.
Percy charged straight at the monster, seemingly weaponless. But then, out of nowhere, there was a long, shimmering bronze sword in Percy's right hand, and he slashed at the snake-lady without hesitation.
All Harry could do was watch in amazement as Percy fought the monster. The thing would hiss as Percy's sword came close, step back, and jab with her spear with amazing speed and agility. But, unfortunately for her, Percy had even more speed and agility. Percy pressed her back, and after distracting her, he gave Nico and look. Nico seemed to immediately understand, and he nodded.
Harry wished he could communicate with his friends like that. It'd be really convenient.
The snake-lady suddenly charged straight at Percy, and Percy smirked at her, his intense eyes saying a clear message: Go on, have at it. Good luck getting anywhere near me, though.
Crazy-Snake-Lady raised her arm, her spear aimed directly at Percy's heart. Harry heard more screams throughout the corridor as the thing got closer, but Percy didn't seem very concerned. Just as she started to bring down the spear, someone appeared right behind her, slashed a black sword her midriff, and she exploded into some sort of yellow powder.
Percy grasped Nico's hand in a solid, slightly painful-looking handshake. They both smiled, but when they looked up, the smiles were wiped off of their faces.
"So much for undercover," Nico muttered quietly to Percy, but the corridor was silent enough that everybody could hear him. Everone was frozen in shock, staring at either Percy, Nico, or the dust scattered around the floor. For once, nobody was staring at Harry. Harry couldn't help but smile a little bit at that thought.
"Do you think the Mist will work on them?" Percy whispered back to Nico.
"One way to find out," Nico responded.
Percy nodded, and then looked back up to everyone surrounding them. He held up his hand like he was about to snap, and said, "None of this happened. Nico dropped a pot of cornflour on the ground, and now we're helping clean it up." And then Percy snapped. He quickly bent down to help Nico, who had started gathered up the powder all over the floor.
And Harry believed him, though somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew something was vaguely wrong with it.
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^Percy
"I still feel kinda bad for doing that to them," Percy said, two hours later.
Nico opened his mouth to say something back, but Percy held up his hand and muttered, "Yeah, I know it was necessary. But I can't help the feeling of guilt."
Nico seemed to think about this for a second, and then said, "I didn't like it much, either. Did you see Harry's face? He still seemed...suspicious."
Percy nodded. "I did notice that. You think that'll be a problem? Or maybe he'll just forget about the incident and move on with his life."
"We'll have to watch ourselves," Nico warned. "Monster attacks...I didn't really think that a monster would get this far into the school. It seems to be heavily protected."
"Yeah, but I need to talk to you about something else. The actual mission."
Nico grimaced. "I don't think we should..."
"Then, what are we going to do? Chiron was so vague...how are we going to figure it out if we don't talk about it?" Percy asked.
"I dunno. I just..."
Percy raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, we need to talk about it."
Nico nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, we do."
"Chiron was so vague..." Percy repeated. "I mean, the words When the time comes? Defy the Fates?"
"I don't think anyone has ever defied the Fates before. I really don't think it's possible."
"But...we need to, in order to succeed on our quest."
Percy watched as Nico stared at the ground, thinking. Nico knew way more about the Fates than Percy did, and it was a bad sign that Nico was in such a bad mood. Apparently, defying the Fates was impossible. But they had to. Did their quest make any sense at all? And this man that they were supposed to save...Percy and Nico knew nothing about him, or even who he was; just a name.
Chiron's exact words: Protect Harry Potter while you're at Hogwarts. When the time comes, defy the fates, and save the man.
The man. No, not Harry. Someone else. Someone else entirely.
"We should...I dunno, get to bed," Nico said. "We'll talk about this some other time."
Percy nodded reluctantly and got up out of his chair in the Gryffindor common room. As Nico trudged back up the stairs, Percy stared around the common room. There were Fred and George, sitting in a corner and whispering with their heads together. Ron and Hermione were sitting on the floor on the left side of the fire, and Harry was sitting on the right. Harry was staring at his hand, and Hermione looked like she was scolding him. Ron looked incredulous.
Percy sighed and got up. He might as well go to bed, too. Nothing like a monster attack to exhaust you.
0o0o0o0o0
The next night, Percy and Nico were sitting unseen in the common room. The only other people in there were Ron and Hermione, and they were oblivious to their presence. From what Hermione and Ron had said, the demigods gathered that they were waiting for Harry to get back from detention with Umbridge.
Hermione held a bowl of weird yellow liquid in her lap. Ron was looking thoughtful and anxious. When the portrait hole finally opened to reveal a miserable-looking Harry, Hermione sprang up instantly from her chair and rushed over to him, Ron half a step behind her.
"Here," she said to Harry, pushing the bowl toward him.
She started talking to Harry some more, and Nico sighed and said, "Why are we hiding here, again?"
Percy shrugged. "We need to find out more about Harry. We can't ask any more questions without looking suspicious. So we resort to spying."
Nico mulled this over for a second, and then nodded mutely.
Both of them turned back to the three wizards.
"—another Decree saying anyone who complains about the High Inquisitor gets sacked immediately?" Harry was saying.
Percy had no idea what he was talking about, thanks to the fact that he and Nico had started talking.
Percy sort of zoned out...he wasn't listening to anything Harry or Hermione or Ron was saying. He just watched Harry's face for any unusual emotion—anger, sadness. After a few minutes, Harry started showing this look of suspicion on his face. Percy instantly snapped back into reality and started listening to what he was saying.
"If you're talking about Lupin..." Harry said slowly.
"No, no, I'm not talking about Lupin," Hermione responded. Percy couldn't see her face, as her and Ron's backs were turned to the demigods. "He's too busy with the Order anyway, the most we could see him is during Hogsmeade weekends and that's not nearly often enough."
Percy wondered what the Order was, and Hogsmeade. He looked over to Nico, and Nico shrugged, pulled out a piece of paper, and started scribbling in Ancient Greek. Percy looked over and saw the words Order and Hog's Mead.
Percy had gotten distracted again. Damn his ADHD.
"About me what?" Harry said. Once again, Percy had no idea what was going on. Great. He was obviously an amazing spy.
"I'm talking about you teaching us Defense Against the Dark Arts," Hermione said.
Harry looked stunned, and he stared at Hermione. Percy wondered what could make him qualified to teach a bunch of people his own age Defense Against the Dark Arts. Yeah, Percy knew that he somehow made the most evil wizard ever known disappear, but Harry had only been a year old then. How could Harry have known what he was doing at the time?
"That's an idea," Ron said.
"What's an idea?" Harry asked. His face was uncomprehending.
"You," Ron said to him. "Teaching us to do it."
"But..." Harry trailed off. Then, he started grinning. "But I'm not a teacher, I can't—"
"Harry, you're the best in our year at Defense Against the Dark Arts," Hermione said.
Percy raised his eyebrows. Okay, there's a reason. Best in the year? Even Hermione?
"Me?" Harry said, grinning broadly, like he thought Hermione was joking. "No I'm not, you've beaten me in every test—"
"Actually, I haven't," Hermione said, her voice reminding Percy a lot of Annabeth when she was correcting him (which was, like, all the time). "You beat me in our third year—the only year we both sat the test and had a teacher who actually knew the subject. But I'm not talking about test results, Harry. Look at what you've done!"
Percy and Nico looked at each other. Here it comes, Nico's eyes seemed to say. Percy nodded and turned back to the three wizards with rapt attention.
"How d'you mean?" Harry asked them.
"You know what, I'm not sure I want someone this stupid teaching me," Ron said to Hermoine. "Let's think," he said, turning to Harry. "Uh...first year—you saved the Stone from You-Know-Who."
Harry shook his head immediately. "But that was luck, that wasn't skill—"
"Second year," Ron cut Harry off, "you killed the basilisk and destroyed Riddle."
Percy gaped. Basilisks? He had encountered a bunch of basilisks in Alaska, and they had not been pleasant. In fact, his friend Frank had to kill them using an undead warrior.
"Yeah," Harry said, "but if Fawkes hadn't turned up I—"
"Third year," Ron said, a bit louder, "you fought off about a hundred dementors at once—"
"You know that was a fluke, if the Time-Turner hadn't—"
"Last year," Ron said, louder still, "you fought off You-Know-Who again—"
"Listen to me!" Harry said, a hint of anger in his voice. Percy was staring at Harry, wondering just how alike they were.
Percy had felt the same thing before. He'd felt like everything he'd done was fake, due to the fact that he had friends with him, or the help of some god or goddess. People had made him out to be a hero, but everything he'd done hadn't really been as heroic as it sounded.
"Just listen to me, all right?" Harry continued. "It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck—I didn't know what I was doing half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help—"
Harry broke off and looked at Ron and Hermione, and whatever he saw seemed to enrage him even more.
"Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I? I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defense Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because—because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right—but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing—STOP LAUGHING!"
Harry stood up angrily, and the bowl of yellow liquid crashed to the floor. A furry ginger cat streaked away and his under a sofa at the sound of Harry's outburst.
"You don't know what it's like!" Harry almost yelled. "You—neither of you—you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own—your own brain or guts or whatever—like you can think straight when you know you're about a second from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die—they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that—and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up—you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me—"
Ron interrupted him, but Percy wasn't paying attention anymore. He glanced down at Nico, who had been writing furiously in Ancient Greek. The list now had all of the following words:
Order
Hog's Mead
Stone
Riddle
Fox
Dementors
Time turner
Diggory
"We need to find out what these things are," Nico whispered to Percy. "Ron just spilled a lot of Harry's life."
Percy nodded grimly and turned his attention back to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
"—facing him...facing V-Voldemort," Hermione was saying. She sounded extremely close to tears, and her voice was laced with fear as she stuttered on the last word.
All of the anger seemed to wipe from Harry's face, and he seemed suddenly calmer. He sank back into his chair and was starting to look guilty.
"Well...think about it," Hermione said quietly. "Please?" When Harry silently nodded, she stood up and said, "Well, I'm off to bed. Erm...'night."
"Coming?" Ron said awkwardly to Harry as he got to his feet.
"Yeah. In...in a minute. I'll just clean this up," Harry said, gesturing to the yellow liquid on the floor and the broken bowl.
Ron nodded and left.
Harry took out his wand, muttered, "Reparo," and the bowl automatically fixed itself.
Percy was staring at it when something unexpected happened.
Harry turned in Percy and Nico's direction and said, "I know you're there. If you wanted to know about my past, you could've just asked me."
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Author's note: Please leave a review! They're seriously appreciated!
I'll be posting a Leo Valdez one-shot on my birthday. I wrote it on paper during school a while ago (I think it's four pages, front and back). I thought it was good. I just need to get it typed up.
Tell me what you think. Suggestions and questions are brilliant. Thanks!
