Nico drifted up through the haze of sleep and opened his eyes to be blinded by the sun. Yawning, he sat up and blinked at the clock. Classes started in twenty minutes! He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, hurriedly standing up. Changing robes and running a comb through his hair, he deemed himself presentable and left his room, almost running downstairs and out of the common room. Judging by the lack of people, everyone else was already at breakfast. Finally reaching the dining hall, he scarfed down some food and ran back upstairs to get his supplies, earning some strange looks from the students and staff who were already prepared and making their way calmly and leisurely to their assigned places to be. Even rushing, he arrived panting at his first class of the day, Potions, moments before the bell rang. Silently cursing himself for not setting an alarm, he filed into the dungeon with the rest of the second year Gryffindors and Slytherins.
Having missed three days of school, he took the only empty seat available, which happened to be next to the three Slytherin girls he met on the train. The one called Sophia stuck her nose up and looked away, while the other two were blatantly ignoring him. He blinked in surprise and confusion. Had something happened during the three days he had missed? The Professor, Snape he thought he heard someone say, took roll, and afterwards smirked.
"So Mr. DiAngelo has finally decided to favor us with his presence." Snape said, his voice oozing contempt. Nico shrank back into his seat, fighting the urge to lash back verbally, as laughter swept through the green clad Slytherins. He wasn't supposed to blow his cover, so he couldn't afford to draw attention to himself. Didn't mean he had to like it, though. Sophia smirked openly.
"So class." He started abruptly, "Today I'm having you start Gilant's Potion of Misery1. This is a complex potion that you will be tested on in the finals, and I do not expect any of you to do even remotely close to well on the first try." He said boredly, flicking his wand and making the instructions appeared on the blackboard. Nico squinted up at them and cursed. A lesson later, Snape walked around, making dismissive remarks on some potions, and completely passing over others. He reached Nico and his lip curled.
"Did you read the board at all Mr. DiAngelo?" He questioned, sounding delighted to find fault with Nico's potion.
"I tried." Nico answered truthfully. Snape smirked evilly.
"Can you not read English Mr. DiAngelo?" Snape asked, contempt fully. Nico looked down into his cauldron full of what looked like tar, blushing embarrassedly. Oh, how he would love to sick a hellhound or two on him. Or maybe a ghost, there were plenty around the castle.
"Not exactly." He mumbled. Snape smirked even more and moved on. Sophia and Vivi gawked at him, but Rose looked away. He reached Sophia's cauldron and looked in.
"Excellent progress Miss Vaim, ten points to Slytherin." Snape praised her, and she preened and smirked at Nico. He felt a spike of anger and her potion bubbled up, splashing all of them, including was a moment of silence before the three girls shrieked and Nico shrank down into his stool. Then he felt… cheerful, oddly and inexplicably cheerful. Snape flicked his wand and the potion vanished.
"Girls, back the hospital wing. Mr. DiAngelo, fifty points from Gryffindor." He sneered, and continued his rounds. Nico didn't really care, about the points lost, or about the fact that Snape had automatically assumed it was him at fault, or even how he hadn't sent Nico to the hospital wing in spite of the fact that he had been splashed too. In fact, Nico was humming lazily. He didn't hum, never. He would rather join his father's court then be seen committing such a carelessly cheerful action. Sophia must have messed up the misery potion, because it was having the opposite effect on him. He didn't remember being this cheerful since before Bianca died. The memory made him flinch and he was brought back to reality just as the bell rang. He packed up and headed out to Transfiguration. He thought he felt Snape's stare burning a hole in his back, even as he walked out of the door, and he resolved to watch out. Maybe there were monsters in the wizard world.
Transfiguration wasn't that bad, except instead of turning his mouse blue, he turned it into a porcupine. After a scolding from Professor McGonnagal, he headed to herbology. There, they filed into the greenhouse. They were learning the proper way to care for carnivorous daisies when a supposedly harmless vine tried to strangle Nico. Professor Sprout helped him to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey gave him a glare and made him drink a disgusting tasting potion.
He could still taste it on the way out, but at least he was sent on his way when lunch started. He sat down at the Gryffindor table, unfortunately next to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They stopped talking and turned red the moment he sat down, giving him clue to what they had been discussing. Sighing, he took a small jar of fire out of his bag and set it on the table. He tossed some of his turkey in the fire and though "To Hades". Then he thought about the potion incident this morning, and smiling slightly, he added, "And Jenny."
The trio was giving him very odd looks, so he quickly screwed the lid back onto the jar and dug into his meal.
"So Nico, are you liking Hogwarts?" Ron asked, stuffing his face with a meat pie of some sort, and apparently deciding to ignore any questions he had about the fire.
"Aside from the terrible potions teacher, impossible transfiguration, and killer plants, then yes." Nico said. They looked at him curiously, as if not sure what to make of his statement, "Let's just say I had a normal day." Nico added, smirking slightly into his food. He finished his food quickly and left the awkward silence that followed. He walked outside onto the grounds and blinked in the sunlight. He must look out of place in the sunlight, dressed all in black. Like a shadow in the midst of a sun. Crossing the grounds quickly and praying that no one would see him, the forest was forbidden after all, he retreated into the shadow of the forest. Nico walked until he got to a point where he was fairly sure he wouldn't be seen from the castle and called out softly "Jenny?"
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he whirled around to see the young blonde girl in question grinning up at him.
"You called, my Prince?" She asked, her voice high pitched and scraping down his spine ever so slightly.
"Drop the title." Nico snapped. He liked having the powers, but when even the spirits that he was most familiar with still treated him with cold courtesy, it got a little annoying. Ah well, asking someone to explain the behavior of underworld inhabitants was like asking a mouse to explain why the moon circled the Earth. "And I've told you not to sneak up on me."
"If you called me here just to criticize I could get plenty of that back in the underworld." She commented dryly, folding her arms, bearing a slightly miffed expression that didn't fit well on the child-like face that she wore. Nico rolled his eyes.
"I had a dream about someplace called a dreamscape." He confessed, starting to pace. Jenny froze, staring off into the distance with something Nico would have called fear, if he didn't know that she was incapable of emotions. "Do you know someone called Amar?" Nico questioned further, feeling dread rising in the pit of his stomach. Jenny unfroze, practically radiating anger in that inhuman fashion that reminded him that despite all the time she spent with him, usually forced one of their parts, she really was a true servant of his father, and was accordingly dangerous.
"I'll be right back." She snarled, disappearing into the shadows. Nico stared after her for a moment.
"Way to be helpful!" He shouted into the now empty forest, his voice echoing back to him, making the shadows swirl in response to his frustration.
Harry's POV (Don't do other POV's that often, I know)
Harry was walking by the teacher's lounge when his scar started burning. Hissing in pain, he stopped and brought his hand to his scar. The door was open a crack, and when he looked in, the pain increased. He pushed the door open to see a small figure in a black, draping garment that resembled a dementor's robe standing threateningly next to Dumbledore.
"-And I swear old man, If the same thing happens to Nico, not a single soul will leave this castle alive ever again." They hissed in a cold, high-pitched voice that sent a chill down Harry's spine. He had no trouble believing that they would carry through on their threat, whoever they were. Then they backed up slightly and lowered their hood. Harry felt gut wrenching recognition as he saw the seemingly innocents child's face, as if a very old memory had resurfaced. Appearing not to notice him, she turned and backed into the shadows, disappearing.
Dumbledore turned and looked at Harry, who backed up, afraid of being reprimanded for eavesdropping. Dumbledore sighed instead, looking more weary than angry.
"That was not meant for young eyes Harry." Dumbledore sighed sadly.
"Professor, who was that?" Harry asked,his voice quivering a little.
"A very old acquaintance." Dumbledore replied, weakly smiling as if there was an inside joke.
"What did she mean, 'if the same thing happens to Nico?' Nico DiAngelo?" Harry asked trying to piece it all together, but he didn't have enough pieces. Dumbledore shook his head sadly.
"Some sacrifices must be made. Unfortunately I have no trouble believing that our friend will make good on her word." He frowned.
"What sacrifices?" Harry asked, now thoroughly confused.
"Some things are best left alone." Dumbledore advised him. Thoroughly confused, Harry walked away, turning over what he had heard in his mind, and wondering if this was a danger not even Dumbledore could protect them from.
Nico's POV that evening in the common rooms
Nico collapsed into the common room chair. Double Charms hadn't been too bad, but it still puzzled him how it worked, he wasn't a wizard, he was a demigod. Flying lessons weren't as terrible as he expected. As soon as he was within a five foot radius of any broom though, it hit the floor. So he watched from the shade as his classmates whizzed around on broomsticks. He even made a ghostly servant bring him some iced tea while not one was looking. Eh, he might get chewed out later, but right then he didn't care.
All in all it was a nice afternoon, and currently he was pondering whether it was immoral to order underworldly minions to do his homework for him so that he could go explore the 'forbidden' forest. Really, that was like sticking an invitation on the place. Two redheads of maybe 16 or seventeen walked up to him, with an evil glint in their eyes. Ah yes, Fred and George. He had been warned to stay away from them.
"Hey Nico, want some sweets?" One of the twins asked, grinning. He narrowed his eyes, but accepted one, popping it into his mouth and chewing. After all, it was a wizard school, what could hurt him? He swallowed and looked oddly at the twins who were watching him with anticipation.
"Bit stale." He commented, and they walked away, disappointed. Deciding he should get to work on his homework, he stood up and stretched, heading up to his room. His door was ajar. Funny, he could have sworn that it was closed when he last left. Cautiously walking forward, he opened the door and stepped warily inside. Then the aura of death hit him. It was Harry's aura, masked by another, even stronger aura of death. It felt, oddly enough, slightly like Thantos.
Looking around more carefully, he noticed an odd rippling in the corner of his room that the feeling was emanating from. Looking harder he saw Harry was beneath some sort of invisibility blanket. Or cloak… Wait, could it possibly be the cloak Thantos had lost centuries ago to that clever mortal? That would explain a lot, no self-respecting deity would let themselves be stolen from by a non-magical human. Anyways, he pretended he couldn't see Harry, who had probably been searching his stuff. It angered him, but he didn't really have anything to give away his past.
Retrieving his homework, he noticed that his photo album had been left open. It was a relatively cheap little book with transparent plastic sleeves for pages. One of the pictures had been jammed hastily back into the sleeve. The album had been given to him by Annabeth, half filled with pictures. Only, now there was one missing. That made him more angry than anything, that they thought he wouldn't notice. He knew that album cover to cover, knew every picture, every caption written on the back. The missing one was the only one he had managed to convince Jenny to let her picture be taken, he and Percy wore those hideously orange camp t-shirts, and next to him, Jenny stood, looking out of place and a bit annoyed, but very amused at the shirt that Nico had unwillingly donned. He would find some way to get back at Harry, but not now. He would bide his time.
Collecting his supplies, he went back to the common room to work on his homework. It was relatively easy, since the textbooks were magic, they helped his dyslexia a lot, and it was at least more interesting than say, math. A ghost floated into the common room, spotted Nico, and then left, probably to tell it's friends all about him. Great, by morning the whole castle would know that they had the ghost king in residence. He briefly contemplated chasing it and swearing it to silence, but what would really be the point in that? Others would see him too, sooner or later. He finished his homework and went down to dinner with everyone else. The trio arrived late, sitting next to him. He wanted to move, but that would be rude and he was supposed to befriend them. Sighing, he dug into his tri-tip, pretending he couldn't hear them whisper about him, until Harry mentioned something of interest.
"-And it was so weird, It was just a little girl blonde girl, looked harmless to me, but Professor Dumbledore seemed almost scared of her." Harry was telling his friends. Nico listened in, his heart pounding.
"What did she say?" Ron asked, while Hermione just looked skeptical.
"She threatened to kill everyone in this school if something happened to Nico." Harry replied. It took all of Nico's self-control to continue feigning ignorance, and not to demand more information. Was he talking about Jenny? Was that what had happened after she stormed off? Curiosity settled in his stomach, along with a hint of dread and perverse excitement. Any threats that Jenny made came straight from his father, she was very rarely more than a mouthpiece or a baby-sitter. What could be worth slaughtering hundreds of innocents though? Surely his father didn't care that much about his well being?
"Well, I'll look into it." Hermione said doubtfully, "But are you sure you didn't imagine it?"
"Yeah I'm sure." Harry replied vehemently, Ron put his hands up in surrender.
"I believe you mate." Ron said meekly. Nico finished his dinner quickly and stood up. Harry was rummaging around in his pockets for something. Probably to give the stolen picture to his little bookworm friend.
"Where are you going?" Hermione asked quickly.
"To talk to someone." Nico replied, heading out towards the forest. His thoughts were whirling as he walked, he didn't even notice anyone who tried to approach him as more than a momentary annoyance. He arrived and crossed his arms as a pure white fawn walked up, looking slightly guilty. He glared at her as she turned back into human form. He crossed his arms.
"Something you want to tell me?" He asked, his voice holding repressed emotion.
"No. Oh, Thantos was glad to hear that his cloak has been located." She replied, doing a scarily good job at feigning innocence.
"I meant about a certain confrontation you had after you stormed off earlier today." He prompted. She shifted, looking uneasy.
"So what I threatened Dumbledore? The boss told me to use any measures necessary to make sure that you come to no harm in this world." She explained, although Nico got the feeling there was something she wasn't telling him. There was always something she wasn't telling him.
"Okay, why did you freak out when I mentioned Amar and the dreamscape?" He questioned. Jenny sighed, sounding tired, and for once, like the hundreds of years old that she was.
"A long time ago I… I made a mistake. I trusted wizards, and bad things happened." She said haltingly, carefully.
"What mist-"
"Look, I can't tell you anything else, and I have a job to do." She cut him off, melting into the shadows. Nico stomped in frustration. Would no one tell him anything? The only people he ever learned anything from he had to spy on! In a fit of anger, he shadow travelled back to his room to see Harry rummaging through his stuff. Again. Once could be called reasonable paranoia. Twice was just rude.
"What are you doing?" He asked, and Harry jumped, pulling out his wand.
(1)- No clue if this is a real potion or not.
