Q: MoonWatersLight: Yeah, that was pretty jerky of Nico, but in a way they should know that they had a really good chance of dying anyway. Hmmm... well, I still immensely enjoyed the chapter and absolutely loved Hermione and Nico's cute way of apologizing and forgiving! Adorable! Keep up the excellent work and update soon!
A: Dude. Seriously. You murder me with your compliments. Stop it. I will soon die because you are too nice.
Nico thinks that everything can be fixed with a hug, as long as he's the one to hug first. I just love writing this different side of Nico. He's just less... protected in his emotions than he is in the Godly world. Here, they're trained to be dangerous, but, by the gods, there are actual rules for him to follow an/or break and everything! He likes it better because he can drop his shields and be himself, not a dark, angry little nitwit.
Q: Anomaly (Guest): Wow, I love this! :) It's a brilliant idea. Nicomione, which I ship now, was a stroke of genius. Do you think that later you'll add in Luna? I've read multiple things where Luna is a BRILLIANT daughter of Athena, not loony at all. This is a fantastic fanfic. You kept saying you were in need of characters, so here's a few: (Insert OCs here) I hope that these people are useful! I have tons. I never run out of ideas for people or plotlines, but I'm horrible when it comes to stringing it all together and actually sticking with the story. :/ Let me know if there's anything I can do to help the story. That would be fun, but you're doing a brilliant job on your own. Can't wait to see a new update! :)
A: OHMIGODS PEOPLE YOU ARE LIKE THE BEST PEOPLE EVARRRRRRRRRRR STAHP YOU'RE JUST TOO NICE I'M ABOUT TO EXPLODE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. But, yes, to answer your question, Luna will come into the story later. I have a plan for her. Just wait and see. Thank you for the OCs, I can never have enough. You can help more with the story by leaving me more OCs and plot ideas. I've only planned up to the end of second year, and that's still just a rough outline. I need more ideas. I have a plan to actually get Nico and Hermione together.
Here's a hint: It involves a party, spiked drinks that most CERTAINLY didn't come from Fred and George Weasley, and no small amount of mistletoe.
On with the show!
In the next test chamber, there was nothing to contest them but the smell. The stink presumably came from the dead mountain troll in the corner. At first, Hermione thought this was due to decomposition, but then she remembered how the girl's bathroom smelled for weeks after the troll in there. Hermione brought up the collar of her shirt to her nose, so that she could breathe somewhat fresh air.
They moved easily into the corridor which led to the next room.
At first, they saw nothing but a table. Then, seven bottles shimmered into existence on it.
Note to self, Hermione thought, Tell Colin that one child of Hecate went to Slytherin. Tell Colin that said son of Hecate has no sense of humor, no imagination, and no defining traits except for looking like an overgrown bat.
Each and every bottle was different; Different shapes, varying sizes, and a rainbow of colors. Though, as soon as Harry and Hermione, the first two people, went over the threshold of the room, flames burst into life at both entrance and exit. Nico, however, wasn't deterred, and showed all signs of being about to shadow-travel into the room.
"Wait," Hermione said. "Bring the others with you."
Nico replied, "I'll have to take two trips."
First, he grabbed Victoria's arm, because she was closest. She grabbed Seamus, who grabbed Dean. They disappeared from the hallway, and came out of the wall in the room with Harry and Hermione. Nico went back through, then came back with Neville, Draco, and Tony. he looked drained, but still ready for anything.
Hermione had picked up the parchment scroll off the table.
"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight."
Hermione read the riddle out loud. "So, there are seven bottles. There are three of poison, two of nettle wine, one to let one of us go back, and one to let one of us go on. We have four clues to help us figure out which is which. Let's get started, then, shall we?"
Nico raised a hand. "I could just shadow-travel us all through, though it would take two trips."
Hermione shook her head. "Save your strength. Only one of us can go through using the potion, so you'll have to bring eight over, counting yourself. You'd faint if you had to bring us all. Let's just figure this out as quick as we can so we might be still able to save the Stone from Quirrell, alright?"
Draco, Hermione, Nico, Neville, Tony, and Victoria put their heads together and had all the potions figured out in less than five minutes. Written on the back in a pen that Victoria kept on her at all times in case of something funny to say in a letter to her sister: The first, fourth, and fifth were poison: Leave those alone. The second one and the sixth one were nettle wine, which tasted horrible. The seventh would take someone back, and the third would let someone move forward.
Hermione looked around, trying to judge who would take the most out of Nico to transport. After Nico himself, Harry was the tallest, but Neville was a bit on the chubby side. She tried to quickly calculate their mass, but in the end decided to give the potion to Neville. He, too, had tried to decide who was the biggest in the group, and looked insulted when he was being handed the potion.
"Am I being told something here?" he asked, his meaning clear.
"Oh, Neville, you're not overweight. The rest of us are just underweight. Right guys?" she glared at the other boys, who quickly agreed with her.
Neville shrugged his shoulders, unstoppered the bottle, and downed it all in one. Then he ran through the black fire that had overtaken the exit. Nico, who had been leaning on the wall, straightened and went to grab arms with the people nearest to him, Seamus, Dean, Harry, and Victoria. He pulled the shadows around them and came back a few seconds later, winded. He took a few seconds to catch his breath. As soon as he wasn't panting anymore, he latched onto Hermione, Draco, and Tony. He pulled them through the shadows, which was not an entirely pleasant feeling, by the way. The darkness deposited them on the other side of the black fire. Nico, utterly spent, slumped. Draco and Hermione, who had been standing on either side of him, caught him by the arms.
They set him against the wall of the corridor. He panted like a dog in a desert, his face paler than usual. His eyes fluttered. He had used too much energy, shadow-travelling them all both into and out of a room in less than ten minutes. His mana core was exhausted.
Nico turned to Harry. He whispered, "In my bag. The things that look like squares of lemon bars." Nico had shown them some of that stuff. It was ambrosia, the food of the gods. It could give him energy again, but it wouldn't last for long. Nico opened the plastic baggie that Harry dug out of the bookbag Nico had been carrying the whole time. He shoved three of the little squares int his mouth and chewed, before swallowing and standing up. Without any hesitation, he led them all straight down the corridor, pushing past everyone else in the group. Nico forged ahead like a bullet train, obviously just wanting to get this done and over with.
Nico stopped at the end of the hall. His hand twitched toward his wand. He normally didn't do all that much magic unless he had to; it was a nasty habit to get into, relying on magic, as he had told Hermione once.
Nico pulled a knife out of his left combat boot, the blade and hilt as black as the rest of his clothing, while the pommel was a ruby the size of his eye and the binding was silver. The knife looked too long to fit into his boot, at about a foot long, but Hermione decided not to question it. Sometimes it was better not to know.
Nico held the knife in a sure grip, and told the others to pull out whatever weapons they had. Seamus and Dean, who were both mortals, had no weapons other than their wands, so Nico pulled two extra knives from his bag.
Neville, who was a legacy of Ceres, had a spatha made out of Imperial Gold, which he had kept belted at his waist the whole time.
Hermione, who on top of being adept with a spear, was also as good a sorceress as children of Hecate and Trivia. Her weapon was an Imperial Gold and steel alloy spear, which doubled as a focus for her magic. While most of the time, demigods didn't need a focus, most battle spells were better when a ficus was used: The different materials, as a daughter of Trivia in 6th-year named Shelley had once explained to Hermione, resonated battle magics perfectly to make the spell stronger than it would've been without a focus. Hermione had energy stored in the gem, a sapphire, on the non-business end of the spear, which she could draw from if she needed it. her weapon turned into a bracelet made of gold and steel beads with a small sapphire set in silver in the middle.
Tony, a demigod whose parentage was yet unknown, had a longbow and a quiver full of arrows with tips of celestial bronze and iron alloy, so on the off chance that Quirrell was a demigod, the arrows would have twice as much punch, even though wizard could be affected by all godly metals. As all archers, he also wielded a long knife in the instance that an enemy got too close to safely shoot. The knife was standard-issue celestial bronze, and was done in the normal gradually-pointing way as most Greek weapons. His bow turned into an earring, which he insisted was clip-on for ease of use, even though they all knew his ears were pierced because of a bet he made in the fourth grade. His knife turned into a key he wore on a string around his neck.
Harry, as a son of Proserpina, had his plant powers, which Nico had affectionately dubbed as Harry's 'Flower Power', and he also wore on his belt the scabbard to the Roman gladius he was now holding. Harry relied greatly on magic from the focus and his non-focused powers, a habit Nico greatly disapproved of and tried to train Harry out of, but so far, no dice. He also had a standard-issue gold shield which he wore as a watch.
Victoria had a celestial bronze sword, about three feet long, like most Greek sword. However, she had another, much more deadly weapon. In holsters on either side of her hips, she had two Glock 38 pistols with celestial bronze bullets. At first, Camp Half-Blood had been against the idea of a modern weapon in a demigod's hands, but when she showed that it was easy to conceal and that they could melt down some of the smaller knives they never used and recast them as bullets, filling the heads with monster dust instead of gunpowder, which got the bullets going faster than they would've done with gunpowder. The guns themselves and the first few rounds of bullets had been gifts from her sister, Bellatrix, for Christmas and a birthday or two. Bellatrix Cooper seemed to be the kind of person that Sarah would take a shine to. The guns morphed into earrings, and the bullets were easily disguised as beads on two bracelets that she wore. Her necklace was the sword.
Draco was even more inventive with his weapons. Despite the fact that he was brilliant in mathematics and science, he had an amazing imagination. Unlike most humans, who could only reach the full potential of 20% of their brain, some of the more gifted children of Athena, like Draco, and on occasion, Hermione, could reach peak on 25-30% of their brain. Their minds would go into overdrive, making them fast enough and strong enough to bring down a Navy SEAL by themselves. They became smarter, able to calculate the perfect angle to throw a guy at the wall at. Hermione had only ever used this power once, and it was a complete accident in training. Draco trained with it every other day at training. He also had a sword and a knife, which he disguised as old rings that didn't seem out of place on the pureblood heir's fingers.
All in all, the group was ready for just about anything. Hermione went up to Nico, and pulled down his head. She kissed him on the cheek and hugged him. He blushed like a cherry tomato.
Nico shifted the knife in his hand to a readier hold, still blushing. He turned back to his team, desperately trying not to focus on Hermione alone, and counted to three.
One
Two
Three
Then, he opened the door. He didn't rush in, as Hermione, Draco, Victoria, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Harry, and Tony had expected. He walked in, calm as you like, marched up to Quirrell, who was in a mind-palace of some sort, and went to stab him in the shoulder. But Quirrell was fast, faster than Hermione or anyone had anticipated. He twirled a knife out from nowhere, and gave Nico a shallow cut on the arm. It bled a little, but Hermione wasn't worried. Nico and Quirrel sparred for a short while, and Nico The rest of the group rushed in.
Quirrell pouted. "Well, this is a bit unfair. It's nine against one."
Nico gave him a cocksure grin. "That was the idea, yes. Please, make this easier on all of us and just surrender now."
The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor smirked. "No, I don't think I will." He was suddenly on the other side of the room, holding Hermione in a chokehold. He had taken her spear and thrown it at the wall, where it stuck by the point between two stones. Hermione was scratching at Quirrell's hands and wrists, trying to weaken his hold on her neck. Her vision would start to go black soon, the just knew it. She glanced behind Harry, where Quirrell had wordlessly bound them like Christmas presents and accio'd them to his side of the room. Hermione couldn't believe how easily he'd done such complex magic. That was magic she would expect of McGonagall, Flitwick, or Snape. Not of their stuttering Defense teacher who didn't know a thestral from a unicorn.
Nico, who would've normally already done something, had run out of energy from the ambrosia already from his sparring with Quirrell. He couldn't hurt a fly at this point. "Now, Harry Potter, tell me how to get the Philosopher's Stone, or I'll kill all your petty little friends while you watch." he grinned. "Oh, and as a side note," He broke Hermione's arm and tied her up, same as the rest.
With a flick of his wand, Professor Quirinus Quirrell's turban fell off. Hermione, who was behind him and could see the back of his bald head, had to suppress a scream. The skin was scaly and white, like an albino snake. There was a second face on the back of Quirrell's head. It had no nose, and it's eyes were a beady red. It grinned maliciously with teeth like a shark's.
Quirrell turned, so that Harry, still on the other side of the room, could see. "Harry James Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived. I'd like to introduce my master, Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Legacy of Hecate, Legacy of Hades, the man who is going to end your pathetic life. Any last words?"
Ravenclaw: Chapter Ten: The Clouds of Shadow
Word Count: 2,502
Additional Notes:
Headcanon 3: Nicolai di Angelo believes that everything can be fixed with a hug. He just doesn't show it, and only believes this true if he is the one to initiate the hug. Unless it's Hermione, in which case, all bets are off. He hugs her back if he can get over the shock.
Okay. I still need OCs. I still want headcanons. Headcanons pertaining to PJO, Harry Potter, or any combination of same. Shipping headcanons welcome, although it would be nice if they were stuff I shipped.
Give me love. Anon love, not anon love, I just want to know what you think. Reviews are better, but I'll also take PMs!
Peace, Love, and Bacon,
Pwnie3