A/N:
Alright... So that may have been just slightly longer than a couple of hours. But in my defense, the chapter is like 5,000 words long. And I do have a life so...
Actually, scratch that last bit, that was a lie. I totally don't have a life. (;) like anybody on this website does).
Hope you enjoy as always!
Percy woke up as soon as the water the rag was soaked in touched his forehead.
Epizon extended at his mental command and was pointed at the neck of his would-be attackers before he had even opened his eyes.
Someone screamed, a glass dropped and shattered on the ground, and it was then that he opened his eyes.
It was Mrs. Weasley at the end of his sword.
The kind, motherly woman had probably just been trying to tend to him after he'd been injured, and he'd gone and reacted like that. What was wrong with him?! Why couldn't he just be normal for once?!
"Don't touch my mother!", someone he recognised as Ron yelled from behind him.
His eyes widened, and his sword immediately disappeared back into his necklace.
"Oh my gods! I'm so sorry! I didn't know it was you! It was just a reaction! Oh my gods...", he said, catching her as she swayed and setting her down on the couch right where he'd just been laying.
Immediately, he was shoved away from the woman as her family crowded around her. He didn't protest. He deserved it for scaring her and them like that.
Once everybody had calmed down, they all turned to stare at him with varying degrees of anger. Ron seemed to be the most furious of the bunch.
"What is wrong with you?!", he yelled. He went to get up from his spot on the couch but one of his older brothers restrained him.
"I-I don't know!", Percy choked out desperately, wishing for all the world that he knew the answer to that question.
Mrs. Weasley must have recognised his panic and growing anger in himself, because she stepped in to deescalate the situation.
"It's alright, dear. Everybody is fine now. And after that panic attack you had, I'm not too terribly surprised you reacted the way you did".
That statement seemed to draw everybody's attention away from Percy's disorientated attack on Mrs. Weasley, and back onto the strange occurrence that was his reaction to floo powder.
Now all he saw in their eyes was puzzlement and confusion. It was an improvement on the anger of before. Albeit a small one, but an improvement nonetheless.
It was then that Percy noticed that there were a few less eyes that usual trained on him. Hermione being among those missing.
"Where's Hermione? Is she alright? Oh, I knew I should have stopped her from using that weird green fire transportation thing. Why fire? And why is it always green?! Is it just me who sees how many different ways that can go wrong?!". He probably would have said more, but thankfully the twins stepped in before he made an even bigger fool of herself.
"Don't worry about Hermione, mate".
"Yeah. She's fine. She, Harry, Dad, and Sirius all went on ahead of us".
"We volunteered to stay behind".
"Until you woke up, that is".
"But obviously that happened sooner than we expected", they said together in their typical Fred-and-George style. They said the last sentence at the same time, and both their eyes danced with laughter at Percy's confused expression with the way they spoke. Thankfully, he was already semi-used to it thanks to the Stolls back at camp, so it didn't take him as long as it normally took people to understand just what it was they had said.
"Oh. Well that's... good, I guess", he said awkwardly. "I really am sorry, Mrs. Weasley. I definitely didn't mean for that to happen". He went to take a step closer to her as she spoke, but he noticed Ron tense and send him a small glare as he did, so he decided to just back off and give the family some space.
"You okay, Percy?", Bill asked. He stood a little ways away from the rest of his family, leaned up against the wall.
Percy sensed the deeper question there and gave him a small nod.
"Good. Well we really should get going now", Mrs. Weasley said, standing up and walking back over towards the kitchen (and consequently Percy), despite the protests of her children. She had evidently gotten over her small shock for the day and was back to her usual bossy and busy ways.
Ron watched her go carefully. He had elected to stay behind with Percy because he wanted the opportunity to make his own judgement without the input of his friends. Despite what some people may say about him (*cough cough* Fred and George), he wasn't completely helpless without them. He did have his own brain.
So far, he hadn't liked what he'd seen.
Attacking someone's mother? That's low, mate? Even for a mini-Voldemort-in-training.
Once again, they were all gathered in the kitchen, and the small sack of floo powder was being passed around. Percy gulped as it was passed to him.
'Come on. You can do this, Percy. It's just a little bit of magical green fire. That's nothing compared to the rest of what you've faced', he thought. Yet he still couldn't get himself to take the necessary handful. He just couldn't do it.
Of course, he had other ways of travelling that would be much easier for him. But those were directly involved with his demigod powers, and the witches and wizards couldn't know about those. The minor use of his powers earlier during his panic attack he could pass off as his untrained magic. But breaking himself down into molecules of water and then transporting that water at great speeds to another location? He was pretty sure that there was no magic that could do that.
After what felt like hours but was probably just a few seconds thanks to his ADHD of agonising decision, Percy had an idea.
He could fake it. Go through all the necessary steps, through down the floo powder and everything, and then just vapour travel before the flames (magical or not) ever touched him. They'd never be able to tell. And what the Weasley family didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
He nodded to himself resolutely in his head before taking a handful of powder and stepping forward into the fireplace.
'Aunt Hestia, protect me', he prayed as a last resort before throwing the powder at his feet and proclaiming in a loud voice, "Diagon Alley!".
The powder erupted into green flames, and just before they could touch him and take him away to his chosen location, he dissolved into mist.
The magical fire sputtered out as a result of the fire, leaving a small puddle behind.
The Weasley family stared at it in shock for a moment before anybody spoke.
"Did he just... turn into a puddle? Because I don't think that's supposed to happen".
—
Percy rematerialised in quite a cozy and old-fashioned bookshop. He made sure to land in a fireplace, that way if anybody saw him it would look like he really had just gotten there by using floo powder.
He stepped out of the fireplace and immediately felt overwhelmed.
He had been living in a house that was only coloured various shades of grey for close to two days now. It didn't sound like that long, but now that he was out and around such bright colours again, it felt like it had been an eternity.
Just outside the windows at the front of the shop was a whole new, magnificent world. It wasn't anything like, Olympus, or either of the two camps. It wasn't like anything he had ever seen. Witches and wizards in robes of all types hurried past shops filled to the brim with weird and exotic things. He even thought he saw a shop for brooms across the way. How stereotypical could they get?
He walked down one of the aisles in front of him, hand brushing against hundreds of spines of books of all kinds. None of which he could read, of course. But that was a bridge he could cross when he got to it.
He barely even registered the multiple 'swoosh' sounds from behind him that signified the arrival of the Weasley family, too caught up as he was in this new world around him.
At the front of the store, there were quills of all types along with bottles of ink and all different types of parchment.
He was just running his finger along the particularly beautiful peacock feather quill when a hand landed on his shoulder, making him jump.
"Ah! There you are, Percy. And Molly! We were beginning to get a little bit worried about you. Everything go alright?", a plucky male voice Percy recognised as Mr. Weasley asked.
It seemed the rest of the Weasley family had been walking just behind him, watching in silent amusement as he opening gawked at everything.
"Yes, yes. Quite alright, dear. Just a little bit of confusion when Percy first woke up. But we figured it out".
Percy saw Ron give his two friends a meaningful look, and he knew that he'd be filling them in on everything that had happened later on.
Mrs. Weasley made her way over to stand by Percy at the window.
"It's all quite overwhelming at first, isn't it?".
He nodded, but didn't say anything more, too preoccupied with trying to absorb everything that was going on around him.
She pulled out a folded up piece of parchment and showed it to him, though what it said he couldn't tell you.
"Though you're 17 now, and most 17 year old's are entered into 7th year, you are a special case. You've never been exposed to magic before, so we very well can't put you in the highest year, but at the same time, Dumbledore doesn't wish to embarrass you too much by putting you in the same class with all the first years. So you'll be in fifth year, along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It's your OWL year, so as long as you work really hard at it, you should be able to catch up enough to take the OWL's at the end of year along with everyone else. I wouldn't worry about it too much, dear. But you have a lot of work to do. And that means a lot of reading and a lot of books for you. I'd start looking if I were you".
Percy audibly groaned. He could take being stabbed, whipped, buried, and even set on fire. But if there was one kind of torture Percy simply could not stand, it was reading.
—
A headache and a very confusing crash course on the inner workings of expansion spells later, Percy finally managed to escape the book store.
"Finally! Fresh air!", Percy cried over dramatically as they walked out of the shop.
"Oh stop being so dramatic. You're almost as bad as my boys", Mrs. Weasley said with a teasing smile.
"Hey!", all five of the present Weasley boys complained.
Percy snorted in amusement at the triumphant expression Mrs. Weasley wore as she walked away.
"Alright, alright. It's time to move on. We haven't got all day, you know", Hermione said, a faint smile of her own adorning her face. "Next stop: Gringotts. Hogwarts has a vault there for new muggle-born students so that they can buy their supplies. It's not very big, and you're not muggle born, but I'm sure in this circumstance you apply quite nicely", she said, already walking off down the street towards quite a large white building that stood out among all the others.
Percy stared at it for a moment, not quite believing what he was seeing. In front of him, was a white marble building that reminded him so strongly of some of the buildings in New Rome, that he had to double check his surroundings a couple of times to make sure that one of the gods wasn't playing some sort of trick on him. It was obviously very heavily influenced by the Roman culture, and even the poem on the outside could have fit in anywhere in Roman society. A beautiful piece of work created to protect and warn against the dark underground, full of underhanded tricks and schemes.
"What is this place?", Percy asked, running his hand up and down one of the pillars on the outside. He couldn't help but think about how much Annabeth would have loved the architecture on this building.
"This is Gringotts. It's a Wizarding Bank. The best and safest one in the world. Nobodies ever managed to steal something out of it, and nobody ever will", Hermione replied, sounding quite proud. Percy couldn't help but get a feeling in his gut that told him that that was wrong, but he wasn't about to say anything and ruin all their fun.
"Come on then, Perseus", Harry spit from the open doorway, "Hermione said earlier we haven't got all day".
Percy froze. Saying his name out in public was never a good idea. But saying his name out in public in the middle of a magical subculture filled with creatures that were probably split between worlds, and you have a major problem.
"Harry! How many times do I have to tell you to call me Percy!". Harry would have generally ignored this statement, especially coming from the grandson of the evil snake lord himself, but there was something about the panicked expression on face and in his eyes that told him to listen. "Okay...?".
It wasn't until he had walked completely inside the bank that he realised why it was so important.
Every single goblin in the place was no staring at them. Including the usually completely emotionless head goblin at the very end of the corridor-like lobby.
"Did you say 'Perseus'? As in, 'Perseus Jackson'?", he asked after a few uncomfortable beats of silence.
All of the wizards were confused but nodded nonetheless. This was not usual behaviour. Not usual at all.
Percy, on the other hand, only looked annoyed. Like he knew that this was coming. And that only served to make him look more guilty and suspicious in Harry's eyes.
"Ave, Praetor!", all the goblins said in latin, giving sharp salutes.
Percy sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose in defeat, but stood up tall and gave the salute as he was required to in return.
"Ave!".
Normally, he would finish that by calling them people of Rome or legionnaires, but these goblins were neither, and he frankly didn't know what to call them.
His wizarding companions were still standing in the doorway open-mouthed, so Percy decided to take advantage of that time when they weren't paying attention to get the majority of the transaction over and done with. Less time for them to ask questions he couldn't answer.
"What can I do for you, Praetor Jackson?", he head goblin asked him in Latin as he approached
"I'm not praetor anymore. I was only praetor for like, a day. I don't understand why you all keep insisting on treating my like a praetor. Can't I just be Percy?", he replied in kind, letting some of his exasperation with the entire situation leak through into his voice.
"Once a praetor of Rome, always a praetor of Rome, my lord. It is a sign of respect".
Percy sighed once again, realising that he was not going to win this battle and deciding to just get it over with before the wizards behind him suddenly became brave enough to interrupt his conversation.
He nodded and took a few steps closer to the desk. "Does Olympus have a vault? I have just discovered that I am a wizard as well. I'll need money".
"Of course, praetor. If you would just follow me". He climbed off his chair and began walking down a tunnel towards a mine cart. Percy was hesitant to follow. He might have been on better terms with Hades than he was with Zeus, but that didn't mean he should just go walking into his domain. Unfortunately, it seemed that that was the only way. Just as a precaution, he sent a prayer to the god of the Underworld before walking into the dark.
The group of witches and wizards he had walked in with watch him go in stunned silence.
"I know I've said this before, but what the bloody hell was that about?!", Ron exclaimed, the first to break the silence.
All the goblins looked at each other apprehensively, but nobody noticed.
"Was that Latin they were speaking? But nobody speaks Latin anymore. It's a dead language! Even to wizards", Hermione said, looking simultaneously excited and frustrated with this new knowledge.
"This is just more proof of why he can't be trusted!", Harry said, frowning and looking in the direction of where Percy and the goblin had disappeared. Sirius in his animagus dog form barked his agreement.
"Didn't you hear anything Percy said this morning, Harry? He has done nothing wrong to earn our distrust!", Hermione cried, throwing her hands up and spinning on her heel to begin pacing.
"Oh yeah?", Harry challenges, "Then where did he go, Hermione? Where did he go?".
"To his vault!", she yelled back.
"With what key?!". All arguments fell silent as they realized that Percy had never taken the key to the vault he had to get into. "He walks in here, the goblins recognize him by name, he speaks to them in a dead language, and then he walks off to who knows where with one of them. And you're trying to tell me that that's not suspicious?!".
Hermione now looked troubled. Everything Harry had said was true. And he was right, it was suspicious. But everything in her still screamed that he was trustworthy. Besides, she was never one to make decisions without hearing both sides of the story first.
And so she, and the rest of the group watched and waited for their newest house guest to re-emerge from wherever it is that he had gone.
When Percy reappeared, he had a grave look on his face, as though he had just been told a family member had died. The goblin who had been his guide hurried back to his work station, and Percy made his way back over to the group. Who were all, despite even Mrs. Weasley's best efforts, glaring at him rather suspiciously,
He slipped something into his pocket and looked around the bank before his roaming gaze landed on Harry. And what he saw in that gaze, Harry can honestly say startled him.
With Percy's calm demeanor and easy-going attitude, it was easy to discount him; even with his weapons and who his grandfather was. After all, he hadn't been taught any magic. Even if he did have great magical potential like Dumbledore had thought, that wouldn't mean anything until he was taught how to use it.
But then someone would say say something. Or something would fall and make a loud sound, and this look would appear in his eyes. This look that just told you he was dangerous. That seemed to taunt you. And you would just know that he was already ten steps ahead of you, that no matter what you did he would always be ready. It was predatory. Determined. And mixed with flashes of pure panic that were always covered up as soon as they appeared in the first place.
It was that look that Harry saw in his eyes as he came up from that tunnel and checked his surroundings, like instinct.
Harry knew that nobody else had seen the expression. For he was sure that if they had, they would have struck him down and immediately brought him back to the Order to be questioned in more detail. No questions asked.
Harry narrowed his eyes and automatically took a step back. Hand resting on his wand as he watched the youngest Riddle walk towards he and those he considered to be his family.
"Where did you go?", Hermione asked him as soon as he was within hearing range.
Percy was suddenly very glad for the pre-prepared excuse that the goblin had given him when they had been sorting through his family's vault.
"The goblin told me that I was the heir to the Riddle vault and took me straight down. Sorry, I suppose I should have told you before I just walked off down some dark tunnels with a goblin, huh?", he said with an easy smile. The lie slipped off his tongue easily. Once upon a time, Percy would have been appalled with himself just how easily. But after Tartarus, he wouldn't put anything past himself anymore.
Hermione nodded and released a tension-filled breath, as though all her questions had been answered. But Percy could still feel the rest of the family's distrustful glares on him.
"Yeah? Than how'd you get into the vault? You don't have the key", Ron asked, hazel eyes narrowing.
Percy's grin never wavered, but those who knew him would have been able to tell quite easily that it was fake.
"Blood", he answered simply. "An enchanted piece of parchment and a drop of blood were all I needed to confirm my identify and gain me access to the vault".
Ron opened his mouth to protest and then immediately closed it again. He didn't really know how Gringotts worked. Especially for all these really old pureblood families. For all he knew, that was true and he was simply being paranoid.
But Harry wasn't quite as willing to let go.
"And the Latin?", he asked.
Percy grinned. "So you recognized that, huh? Let me guess... Hermione?".
Said girl blushed.
"I learned it at a summer camp that I go to in America every summer".
Harry frowned. No matter how much he looked, he couldn't find anything overly suspicious about his reasoning. And he couldn't very well accuse him of having a scary look in his eye. That would never work.
"Now then!", Percy started, clapping his hands together and striding purposefully through the group towards the door. "I believe we still have a great deal of shopping left to do".
Ron groaned, making his mother and sister laugh. And they were off again.
—
"Okay. All there's left to get you now is a wand and a pet", Mrs. Weasley said, consulting their list as they walked out of Madam Malkins' Robe Shop.
It was quite the hilarious ordeal watching Percy get fitted. He kept fidgeting, and then the witch would accidentally be poke her with her needles, and then he would yelp and jump away just to be poked by another one on the other side of his body. It didn't help that all the way through the whole ordeal Percy kept complaining about how baggy and dress-like the robes were.
Needless to say, when they had finally finished, the twins had tears in their eyes from laughing so hard.
"Alright, alright, you two. Leave poor Percy alone", she said, thankfully stopping their teasing before his face grew too red. "We'll get your wand next, dear. Ollivander's is just up here".
Percy squinted up at the sign as the group made their way towards the little shop.
"Makers of wands since... 392 BC?!", he asked incredulously.
"Yep. Everybody gets their wands from Ollivander's", Hermione answered, waving her own wand proudly.
When they walked in, Percy was surprised to find that the shop was quite dark. Compared to the colourful and bright hustle and bustle of every other shop they had been to in Diagon Alley so far, Percy's initial instinct would be that something was wrong. But nobody else seemed alarmed, so he figured that it must be normal.
His eyes had just been browsing the rows upon rows of strange long boxes when it seemed that a man just appeared in front of him. He hadn't heard him come in, there was no telltale sound of apparition. Just... one second he wasn't there, and the next he was.
"Oh shi— I mean... Where did you come from?", Percy said, hastily correcting himself at the glare that Mrs. Weasley had shot him. Fred and George were just barely able to stifle their laughs.
The man seemed to ignore him, simply choosing to just stare at him with pale grey eyes. It was only slightly unnerving.
"Perseus Riddle", he finally said in a thin, airy voice.
Percy started at the use of his full name. His entire body tensing up despite himself.
"It's Jackson, actually. Percy Jackson".
The man didn't seem to hear him. Instead, he turned around and began walking up and down the various aisles of shelves with surprising spryness considering how old he looked.
When he came back, he had a stack of boxes so high he couldn't see over them.
"You will be an interesting case, I'm sure", the man, Ollivander, said as he peered at him through glass-like eyes. "All Riddles are".
Percy would have protested the use of that name again, but he sense there would be no point.
"Now then", the old wand maker said, opening the first box on top of the pile, "Holly with a Unicorn Hair core, 11 inches long, rigid". Gently, the wand was placed in Percy's hand. He didn't really know what to do with it, and so stood there for a few moments, awkwardly holding it in his hand without knowing what to do.
"Well? Go on then! Give it a wave".
And so he did. And the wand proceeded to explode.
Again and again and again. With each new wand he tried, more bad things happened. By the time they had reached the bottom of the stack of boxes, the shop looked all but completely destroyed.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Olllivander. I really don't know what I'm doing wrong". Percy really did feel bad. The shop was completely torn apart, and by the man's older appearance, it would take him ages to get everything cleaned up.
"You have done nothing wrong. You are just a very peculiar young man, as I suspected you would be. I had hoped— But no. It seems it is the only one left". With that mysterious half-completed sentence, he shuffled back into the dark depths of the shop.
When he returned, he was carrying only a single box. Percy felt drawn to it. As it was set on the counter between them, his hand seemed to move on his own to open the box. (A/N: There's a picture of the wand at the top).
Inside, was a rather dark, tan wood wand. The handle was carved perfectly smoothly, yet the rest of it was rough and uneven. It seemed to glow with a sea-green light, and as soon as he had picked it up and given it a flick, that light expanded until it had covered the entire shop and everyone in it. Percy felt like he did whenever he created his own hurricane, except this sort of wind was magical, and not at all violent. It ruffled his hair like a sea breeze, and the smell of sea salt that he loved so much filled the air.
When it was over, all the destruction that had been caused by his wand-choosing process had been reversed. The shop looked just as it did when they had first entered. Better even. Dust no longer coated every surface, and the ornate wood furnishings now shone as though they had been freshly polished.
The Weasley family, Harry, Hermione, and Sirius the dog gaped, but neither Percy nor Ollivander paid them any mind.
"Yew wood, Dragon Heartstring Core, 10 3/4 inches long, and very flexible".
Sea-green orbs looked up to meet pale grey as the wandmaker uttered something that would stay with Percy for the rest of his life.
"Death has followed you, child. And it always will. With a wand like that, you could either be the light's greatest protector, or the darkness' greatest asset. Beware, Perseus Riddle. Beware the fate that awaits you. I fear it may not be a pleasant one".
And with that, the old man shuffled off, back into the shadows of his shop until they couldn't see him anymore.
A vague warning that foretells his direct involvement in saving the entire world?
Why was he even surprised anymore.