Chapter 11- The Storm and the Rain

Percy's p.o.v.:-

Percy stared at Harry for a moment as he finally understood what he was saying. He looked around and realized that the weather was really changing, in fact a bit too rapidly. The large black clouds and heavy gusts of winds were making the surroundings look quite eerie.

Just then the alarm button on their ship went on and Leo came running on the deck.

"Guys, something strange is happening," he said looking very scared, "I think Zeus has lost it or something, because the winds are blowing too fast. I just set up the alarm to warn everyone."

Soon, everyone else came on the deck looking quite alarmed and worried.

"What happened?" Annabeth asked immediately.

But before Percy could answer, the winds started blowing faster than he had ever experienced in his life and their ship got caught very badly in it. They all had to immediately clutch something in order to stop themselves from getting thrown overboard.

"Leo, do something!" Percy shouted.

"Sorry, but it's beyond my control! Can't you and Jason try to control it somehow though? If you guys can create storms then you'd be able to control them too," Leo shouted back over the loud noises of the wind.

"You guys created storms!" Ron said in disbelief, clutching a side of railing tightly.

So Percy and Jason held their swords in cross position just like they had done before and tried to control the ever increasing storm.

"Dad, please stop this!" Jason was muttering under his breath.

"Harry, let's try the shield charm!" Hermione said immediately.

So, Harry and Hermione tried to use the shield charms to shield their ship from the storm.

But, neither the methods used by the wizards nor the ones used by the demigods could do anything to stop the storm and after a few minutes the situation was worse than ever.

"I think we should all just go inside. If we stand on the deck any longer we are sure to topple down," Draco Malfoy said, sounding very scared.

Percy was wondering whether this was the trick of some monster but he suddenly noticed that Harry was staring at the sky, his eyes narrowed a little.

"What?" Percy asked him.

"The clouds, they seem to look quite different. Something about this whole situation isn't normal," Harry answered.

Before Percy could reply to him, however, thick black drops started to fall from those clouds.

"Oh! No! Now it's raining!" Draco screamed.

"This isn't rain that's falling from those clouds," Annabeth said, narrowing her eyes, "It's some different substance."

"This thing burns! And the impervious spell isn't working on it," Hermione said, desperately waving her wand to do something.

Percy summoned water to clean off the black burning chemical from everyone but it seemed to be waterproof. Percy couldn't understand what was happening. Who, in the name of Olympus, would do such a thing? Well, okay they had a lot of enemies, but none of them usually tried to drench them in acid sort of black rain. Just then Leo gave the next shocking news to their group.

"Guys, this rain is seeping through the deck. It's entering all the rooms of Argo-II, just like that!" he exclaimed, looking totally freaked out.

"Oh Merlin! Why the hell did I decided to come on this ship!" Draco started screaming again.

Just then, a bright golden light appeared above them. They all stared at it, completely shocked, as the ball of light slowly floated down and made its way towards Harry. Percy was a little worried and ready to attack, should it try to hurt Harry.

Harry looked a little apprehensive as the ball of light made its way towards him and as others stared at him. It stopped right in front of Harry, who extended his hand to touch it, but Ron yelled,

"Don't touch it Harry! It could be dangerous!"

"I don't know Ron," said Harry, sounding a little unsure, "I guess this is okay."

He slowly touched the light thing, looking very nervous.

Everyone gasped, because at Harry's touch the ball of light melted and reformed its shape, now becoming a bright golden shield, quite large in size.

A godly voice spoke, "Use this gift wisely, my son!"

"What's this?" Harry asked, still looking at that shield in wonder.

"Harry, I think it's from your mother," Annabeth answered, narrowing her grey eyes a bit as she added, "See whether this works against the rain."

Harry caught the shield by its handle and held it above his head. Immediately, he became dry and the black chemical couldn't pass through the shield.

"Hey, it's working!" he exclaimed, and said, "You all come under it too.

They all immediately ran towards him, Hermione muttering something about there not being enough space for everyone.

But the shield grew in size as they came and soon they all were accommodated under it.

"It's a pity it can't cover the whole ship," Leo said disappointedly as the drops increased in size and fell rapidly than ever on their ship, seeping into it quite easily

Percy was sorry about that, but at least they all were safe under the shield. Right now only that mattered to him, apart from the fact that Harry's mother had provided help to them at the right time.

"You know something, it seems to me that this rain is falling in all the directions, almost everywhere," Ron said looking around in all the directions.

It rained for what seemed like hours. They all just stood huddled up in the cover of the shield, watching helplessly as rain and storm struck their ship and made it change its direction and glide along, as though it were a toy.

At last, the rain stopped, the winds became calm and they were once again greeted by bright sunshine.

"Wow that's over! Thank the gods! And by the way I'm definitely gonna ask dad whatever made him do such a thing." Jason uttered with a sigh of relief.

"Jason, I don't think your dad did it. This was, really, a very, I would say, extraordinary phenomenon," Annabeth said, choosing her words carefully.

"I think you should call it a terrifying phenomenon," Draco said.

"Wow, Harry, this shield's amazing!" Ron said excitedly.

Harry didn't answer; he and Hermione were too busy examining the shield which had now shrunken back to its original form. Harry was just about to tap it with his wand, when Leo once again came running from the control room,

"I've got news guys, and you won't like it," he said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"What's it, this time?" Jason asked.

"Well, at first I was happy that the big black chemical didn't spoiled the controls of our ship much, but it looks like the storm hit us pretty badly," he took a deep breath and said, "We are at least a thousand miles away from our designed route and the direction sensors fitted in the ship are not working properly, so I guess we are, um, lost."

"LOST! Are you out of your mind?" Jason almost yelled at Leo in shock.

"Calm down Jason, it's not my fault," Leo said, then asked the others, "Do you know what we should do now?"

Annabeth said, "Well, Percy has an excellent sense of direction when we are at the sea, so I guess Jason should be able to do the same now that we are flying in the air."

"Um, Annabeth, sorry but I can't tell the direction even in air," Jason spoke looking a little ashamed.

"Isn't there any spell or something to tell the direction?" Percy asked Harry

"Well, there's the…" Harry began, but immediately stopped and asked Annabeth and Draco, "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Well, there's something above your head Potter," Malfoy replied in his sneering way.

"Harry, your mother, she has finally claimed you," Annabeth said, with a look of terror on her face.

And as Percy looked at the bright hologram sort of symbol above Harry's head, he understood the reason. A symbol that largely looked like a picture of earth surrounded by lots of fruits was glowing over there. He recognized it immediately, there was no mistaking it, it was the symbol which the ancient Greeks used to represent a certain evil goddess of earth, Gaia.

Jason and Leo were staring at it too with horrified looks of recognition on their faces. Ron and Hermione were just looking at it with plain curiosity.

Harry looked up and stared at the symbol, confusion written all across his face. He obviously didn't recognize whom it belonged to. As the symbol slowly faded away, he turned to look at Percy and the others and asked,

"So, whose symbol was that?" he must have noticed the feared looks on their faces, because there was a little uneasiness in his voice as he asked the question.

"Harry, that was the symbol of Gaia, the earth goddess. And, and, this means she is the one you were seeing in your dreams. She is your mother," Annabeth finished quietly.

Before Harry could respond to that, Jason broke the silence,

"How could this be possible? Surely there's a mistake! Chiron wouldn't have sent us this far to retrieve Gaia's son, of all the people."

"Well the prophecy did say that the hero would be the son of the darkest parents. So it's only fitting that his mother should be Gaia," Leo pointed out, looking quite pale.

"Wait! What's going on? Which prophecy are you talking about?" Ron asked looking totally confused.

"None of your business!" Annabeth immediately snapped at him.

Ron was about to retort angrily, when Harry said,

"So, my mother is Gaia. But, didn't you said something like she is very evil and all that?" he asked Percy.

Percy didn't know how to answer. He was himself quite shocked by all this. He had never thought that Harry would be Gaia's son. No doubt he hated heights. This whole situation was meaningless according to him. First a horrible storm accompanied with the mysterious acid rainfall occurs. Then Gaia gives Harry a shield which protects them from the rain and then suddenly decides to claim him. All of this just didn't make any sense to him.

To Harry however he replied, "Gaia is an evil goddess. But you needn't worry about that right now. We can discuss this when we go to the camp."

"But why didn't Gaia waited till we reached the camp to claim him?" Jason asked confusedly.

"She might have thought that Harry would be thrown out of the camp if they found out that he was Gaia's son" Annabeth answered in a serious tone.

"Would they really do that?" Harry asked.

"Look, there's no point in discussing this right now. We can talk it out with Chiron when we finally reach there. Leo, just try to fix the problems in the ship somehow. The rest of us should go inside I think," Percy finished, taking charge of the situation.

"But how am I supposed to fix it?" Leo asked.

"There's a spell called the four-point spell," Hermione said immediately, "It points the wand in north direction, like a compass. I know it's not much but it should probably help."

So, she went with Leo to the control room and the rest of them went inside.

Harry and Ron went to Harry's room, to examine the shield and Draco went to his own room to rest.

"So," Jason started, "Looks like Gaia has played a nice little trick on us isn't it. Trying to make her own son the hero of the prophecy and all that."

"Stop it Jason! Harry seems to be just as clueless about this whole situation as we are. Besides, we don't know much about him," said Annabeth.

"That's exactly my point! We don't know much about him! What if he has already started working for his mother? I mean, remember yesterday. He wasn't ready to come with us at first, but then suddenly, he has a dream from his mommy and decides to accompany us? That's downright fishy!" Jason pointed out.

"That could be true," Annabeth said slowly.

Percy was lost in his own thoughts. He still couldn't believe that Harry could be evil, after all he had met people like Calypso and Zoe Nightshade in the past whose parents were evil titans, but they were not like them. He didn't think that being Gaia's son should necessarily mean that Harry is evil.

"Well, I don't think that he could be downright evil, but I think that Jason's partly right. We can't just take it for granted that he is a very nice person. I mean, he has got his friends over here with him and we don't exactly know the extent of the powers of these wizards. We should probably just keep a close eye on him, until we reach the camp," Percy finished, feeling quite impressed with his improved ability to take decisions.

There was a noise at the door, Percy turned around, and was shocked to realize that it was Harry. He had returned back with the shield, probably to tell something about it to them, and judging by the look on his face, he seemed to have heard what they said.

"It's not how you think it is," Percy said immediately, "We just had to be a little cautious…"

The feeling of hurt and betrayal in Harry's eyes was quite obvious, for some reason it made Percy's heart clench painfully, making him wish that he should have thought before speaking. The fact that Jason was glaring at Harry and Annabeth had her grey eyes narrowed in suspicion wasn't helping, either.

Percy opened his mouth once again to somehow explain the situation to Harry, but before he could say anything Harry turned around and left the room, banging the door loudly behind him.

A.N.:- Hello everyone, so I guess the next chapter would be about the effects of the storm on the rest of the wizarding world and the Olympians. Also, do you want me to make them go to Camp-Half Blood or make their ship get lost and land in some unknown place?

Please tell me if you liked this chapter or not! AND PLEASE REVIEW!