Lily's POV

After Nico and I told the others about Octavian's plan to attack tomorrow morning, we decided to take the night off and get some sleep. We decided that Rose and Al would guard the Castle until midnight, when Annabeth and Piper would take over. The demigods choose to sleep in Gryffindor in the few extra beds we had. Nico and I left before the others and walked back to the common room in silence. We stepped through the portrait hole to find all of Gryffindor waiting for us.

A large blonde boy whose name was something like Ricky or Micky came forward, "Would you like to explain what is happening and why a bunch of lunatics with swords are attacking us?" he said in a nasally voice. Nico sighed tiredly, "Look Nicky, it's a rather long story…" Percy and Annabeth took this opportunity to push open the portrait hole, laughing loudly. Nicky looked startled, "Who are they?" His eyes trained on Annabeth's knife strapped to her hip.

"They, well, they're friends." Nico stammered. "But they attacked us! I remember that guy, he hit my brother in the head, gave him a concussion!" Nicky exclaimed. Percy held up his hands in a sign of peace, "Sorry about that, I thought you were the enemy, but you're obviously not." I stepped forward hoping to calm the crowd, "Look, I know this is confusing, but Nico, Percy, Annabeth, and all the others are here to help us. They're going against their families for us, so show them a bit of respect. It's their choice whether or not they tell us about who they are."

My mini speech seemed to work, as Nicky and the rest of them seemed less certain. I took full advantage of this, "There is going to be another fight tomorrow so why don't we all just go to sleep." Nicky grumbled for a bit, but eventually followed everyone else upstairs, leaving Annabeth, Percy, Nico, and the newly arrived Piper, Jason, and Travis with me. "Right, I think that went rather well." I said, making Nico laugh, "They think I'm even weirder now."

We sat on cushions in a semicircle around the fire. "What's going to happen tomorrow?" Piper asked softly. Jason took her hand, "I don't know Pipes, but we have to try to end it peacefully. I don't want to hurt any of our friends." Nico shook his head, "Octavian won't listen. I tried to end it peacefully with Percy and we couldn't, I doubt Octavian will even listen to us." "He'll just name us as traitors and attack us immedietly." Annabeth sighed, leaning on Percy's shoulder. "We can't give up hope," Percy said, "We have to make the gods listen. We've fought wars before, all of us. We survived, I know we can do it again."

I suddenly felt like I was intruding on something very personal. I'd never fought a war with them, hell I hadn't met most of them until this afternoon. I wanted to leave, but that would be so much more awkward. Nico must have noticed my awkward situation because he looked at me, yawned, and said, "Well, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to bed, and you all should too. Big morning tomorrow." We all stood up and everyone made their way upstairs saying goodnight. I hugged Nico tightly and whispered, "Thank you," before kissing his cheek and rushing upstairs.

I fell asleep quickly and woke the next morning to Rose shaking me. "They're 10 minutes away," she said. I got up quickly and threw on jeans and a tank top, Sand grabbed my wand. I rushed downstairs and caught Nico, Al, and Rose just as they were leaving. We hurried down to the door. The four of us stood in a line along with McGonagal and the demigods, including Katie who had recovered from her injury, but was still leaning slightly on Travis. As we stood there, the demigod army marched into view. Nico took my hand and smiled at me, and we charged.