Chapter 28- The Revelation


Annabeth's P.O.V..:-

Annabeth Chase's mind was working furiously. She was basically trying to come up with a plan for capturing the Maenads, who were at present glaring daggers at their group.

For a moment or two everyone stood completely still, and Annabeth felt as though the Maenads were sizing up their opponents. Babette and Leo looked ready to attack each other, while Draco Malfoy was trembling with fear from besides Annabeth. She could also hear Hermione muttering random spells under her breath.

Annabeth held her dagger tightly in her hand, and just when she was pretty much sure that the fight would start, Percy gasped loudly.

"Bunker 9's on fire! Harry and Octavian are inside it, we need to go and help them! Quick!" he yelled.

Everyone turned to stare at Percy in shock, and Annabeth momentarily wondered whether he was saying this just to distract the Maenads. But that thought completely vanished from her mind the moment she looked in the direction where Percy was pointing.

A large cloud of smoke was rising from the place where the cliff containing Bunker 9's secret entrance was located. At first Annabeth couldn't make out anything else other than the bright orange flames, but when she peered a little more, her eyes widened and she let out a panicked yelp. The fire was constantly changing shape to form different monsters like dragons, chimaeras, sphinxes and others, which were spreading out in all directions. A few were coming towards them too. The sight made her feel both frightened and sick at the same time.

By now, the others had noticed the fire too. And Annabeth could hear gasps of shock and outrage from all of them.

Leo was the loudest of them all, as he yelled, "No, my Bunker!" his voice clearly filled with pain and shock.

Before anyone could stop him, he ran towards Bunker 9. Percy, Ron and Hermione also followed him. But Babette and her friends were too quick for them.

"No, you don't!" one of the Maenads yelled, as she made an attempt to grab Leo. But Leo summoned a huge load of fire and threw it right in the Maenad's face which managed to distract her for at least a few seconds.

Some of them were trying to block Percy's path.

Hermione used a couple of stunning spells on the Maenads that were trying to attack her. Unfortunately the Maenads were too quick and managed to dodge those spells quite easily. One of them grabbed her, the other caught hold of Ron's leg.

"Well done Buffy!" Babette exclaimed happily to her friend who had grabbed Hermione.

"Enough!" Percy yelled, he summoned a large amount of water and hit the Maenads in his path. Jason zapped the one holding Ron with lightening, while Annabeth gave a powerful punch to Buffy.

Percy, Leo, Ron and Hermione continued to run forwards, and just at the last moment Alyssa ran past Annabeth to join them. Annabeth wasn't sure but she thought Alyssa was looking much paler than usual, and was muttering something like, "Oh Gods! That's a Fiendfyre!" whatever that meant.

Annabeth was half-thinking of joining them too, but just then Percy turned around and told her,

"No, you stay here and handle these Maenads!"

Their eyes locked for the briefest of moments and Annabeth gave him a little nod, immediately understanding what he was trying to say. Even though the fire was a serious problem, it would have been foolish for all of them to go over there, and it made complete sense for a few people to stay behind and deal with the Maenads.

She was brought out from these thoughts by a loud noise, and saw Jason trying to electrocute a couple of Maenads. Draco Malfoy was trying to use some kind of spell which Annabeth had no idea about. But the Maenads were moving too fast for the attacks of either of the boys to work on them.

Annabeth realized that they had been quite easily outnumbered and if she didn't come up with a plan soon they would just as easily get overpowered too.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Babette charging towards her at a rapid speed and a sudden idea formed in her mind. She made it look like she was going to attack her back, but jumped out of the way at the last moment. This confused Babette for a split second, and taking advantage of that, Annabeth grabbed her from behind and held her knife to Babette's throat.

"Surrender to us! Or else I'll kill your leader!" Annabeth shouted in her most commanding tone. She hoped that the rest of the Maenads wouldn't dare to continue fighting with their leader in danger.

Her threat had the desired effect. The rest of the Maenads froze in their place, and looked at her as though she had gone nuts. Jason and Draco were gaping at her too.

"You can't do that," Babette whispered in a taunting tone, "If you kill me you'll suffer from Lord Dionysus's wrath."

"Well, what if I don't care about that? Do you really want to know?" Annabeth asked her in return. Of course, she did care, and she didn't have any plans of actually killing her; though it was highly tempting.

Babette and the rest of the Maenads had gone quite pale by her threat. Annabeth realized that none of them wanted their leader to die, and they weren't really sure about what Annabeth would and wouldn't do.

Babette was struggling in her grip though, and it was hard to keep a firm hold on her. Annabeth looked at Draco, and quickly thought of something,

"Draco, do you know any spells or charms that would work on these people?"

"Well, he knows a tap-dance sort of spell. But I doubt if he can do anything else," Jason said.

"I can do more than that Grace," Draco growled angrily. Then he turned towards Annabeth and said, "Well, let's see. I know a spell that can stun people and a body-bind charm too."

"So you are scared of killing us!" one of the Maenads suddenly commented and launched herself forward.

"We are not going to kill you at present, but if any one of you moves from your place than I will kill your leader," Annabeth warned them in a very dangerous tone.

Glancing sideways at Draco, she added, "I think the stunning spell will do."

Annabeth personally felt that Draco's spells weren't as strong as Harry's or Hermione's, but still he managed to do the job all right. In less than a minute, all the Maenads were lying on the ground, completely unconscious.

Annabeth remembered that Babette had stated earlier that she had a job to do at the camp. She wondered whatever that might be.

"There are some questions that I need to ask these Maenads. I think it would be better if we take them back to the camp and keep a watch on them," Annabeth suggested to the boys.

"But, what if they try to attack us again?" Jason asked.

"I can stun them again! Just let's get away from here, before the fire spreads any further!" Draco exclaimed.

Annabeth once again glanced in the direction of the fire. Almost wanting to go over there and help the others. But she knew it pretty well that Percy and the others were capable of handling the situation.

Her, Jason and Draco's job was to deal with the Maenads.

"Let's get back to the camp," she firmly told the two boys.


Percy's P.O.V.:-

Percy Jackson was running as fast as he could towards the fire. He could hear shouts and yells from behind him.

He glanced behind once, and saw that Annabeth, Jason and Draco were too busy fighting with the Maenads.

Leo, Ron and Hermione though, were right behind him, and were yelling stuff at the top of their voices. He could also see Alyssa hurrying up to join them, and Percy wondered whatever for. Her powers had been snapped up because of the rain, so most likely, she wouldn't be able to assist them in extinguishing the fire. He thought it would have been safer for her had she remained behind.

"Holy Hephaestus! How did the bunker catch fire? I must have totally messed up something when I was working over here last night!" Leo exclaimed in despair.

"Merlin's Pants!" Ron shouted, making everyone jump. "I had once seen my older brothers put out fire using a water-summoning charm. But they don't teach that kind of stuff to us until our sixth year," he muttered, looking dejected.

"Well, I roughly know that spell from a book I had read…" Hermione began looking a little nervous.

"Well then you should try! Your spell-work is awesome, you know!" Leo exclaimed encouragingly.

Hermione beamed at him, and then pointing her wand toward the fire shouted, "Aguamenti!"

Percy himself felt that it wasn't bad for a first attempt, especially if it hadn't been taught to them at their school yet. He was sort of impressed by the huge jet of water, but gasped with shock as it evaporated before it could even hit the flames.

"What the…maybe you just need more practice?" Ron wondered.

"Ron, this isn't a normal fire. It's… its fiendfyre," Alyssa told him. Percy didn't knew what a 'fiendfyre' was, nor could he understand why Hermione let out a huge gasp and turned white as sheet upon hearing that term, but what he did understood was that it was something highly dangerous, and they needed to get Harry and Octavian out as soon as possible.

He concentrated as hard as he could, mustered his entire strength, and summoned the largest amount of water he could have ever summoned. At the same time he had to make sure that the water summoned by him doesn't drown up the entire camp, so what he did ended up doing, was creating a huge arc of water straight from the Long Island Sea up to Bunker 9.

A huge cloud of smoke rose up in the air as the fire and water reacted, slowly the fire-made dragons and chimaeras started to vanish, but the fire was still taking a painfully long time to get doused off.

"Why is it so slow? You usually extinguish fires much quicker than this," Leo said to him.

"It's taking time because this is a fiendfyre guys. It's a cursed fire, and normally, water can't extinguish it, but I think it's possible to douse it with demigod-powers," Alyssa explained to them.

"But it's still too slow," Percy complained. He just hoped that Harry and Octavian wouldn't get roasted till the fire got doused.

"You did your best, mate," Ron muttered encouragingly, and even Hermione gave him a small smile. Both of them still seemed to be in a little awe of Percy's water-powers.

'But it's not enough', Percy thought to himself, and suddenly realized, that if the fire was going to take a lot of time to get extinguished, then there was only one way to get the work done faster.

"We just need to add more water", he muttered to himself, as he closed his eyes and concentrated again. He could feel the rhythm of the sea inside him, as he once again summoned as much water as he could, and directed it towards the Bunker.

He had to do it at least a dozen more times in a row, by the end of which he was feeling exhausted, dehydrated and was staring at a wet and soaked Bunker 9, with all the fire completely put out.

Percy felt like he was almost going to collapse from all the exhaustion but Ron and Hermione caught him just in time.

"Come on everyone, let's go inside and check," Leo said and dashed inside the bunker closely followed by Ron, Hermione, Percy and Alyssa.

Percy gasped as he saw what had became of the bunker. The walls were scorched and burned, most of the machinery was destroyed and a load of weapons and gadgets invented by the Hephaestus kids had been reduced to ashes.

Leo looked like he was close to tears. He let out a hastily stifled sob and muttered, "Well, at least my important inventions weren't burned," he pointed towards a row of gadgets wrapped in white clothing and said, " I had been using the special cloth from Ogygia for wrapping all the important stuff. You know, the same one I had used for wrapping Frank's stick."

Percy nodded. He vaguely noticed how Leo had avoided using Calypso's name. Percy didn't knew the details but he had learnt from Piper that something wasn't quite alright between Leo and Calypso.

"We should start searching for Harry and Octavian," Ron reminded them.

Percy mentally slapped himself for forgetting the bigger problem at hand, so shocked was he after seeing the plight of bunker 9.

"We should spread out and look for them," he suggested. Leo and Alyssa ran straight ahead, while Ron and Hermione hurried towards the left of the bunker yelling Harry's name at the top of their voices.

Percy made his way towards the right, mainly because he had just noticed something rather strange. There was a small part on the right wall of the bunker where Leo had put up maps of the camp and different charts of the stuff he and his siblings were developing. Percy realized that this small section of the bunker hadn't been affected by the fire at all. It didn't make any sense to him.

He noticed a blank space on the wall which was oddly enough coated with a layer of dust. Percy frowned. He wondered whether someone had recently removed a piece of paper from there but that still didn't explained why this place wasn't affected by the fire.

Percy heard a swishing sound behind him and to his surprise saw a large dragon made of fire heading straight towards him, he had probably missed him while extinguishing the fire. He had just enough time to dodge it at the last second but the dragon just turned around and came back towards him faster than ever.

But just then, Percy saw a huge pile of sand zooming through the air and landing directly on top of the dragon thus managing to douse it. He turned gratefully in the direction from where the sand had came and found to his immense relief and surprise a rather exhausted and sooty-faced Harry standing beside a three-legged table and staring nervously at him.

Percy ran over to him and pulled him in a hug. "Are you alright?" he asked him, "Where's Octavian? I was so worried when I saw the fire. How did it start anyways?"

"I am fine. And no, I didn't saw Octavian," Harry muttered. Something in his voice sounded a little different. Percy wasn't sure, but for some reason Harry was looking guilty.

"What happened? It's okay if you didn't found the formula, we can search for it now," he said to Harry.

"No, I found the formula alright," Harry said as he took out a piece of folded parchment from his pocket and handed it to Percy, "It was put up on that wall, amongst all those maps and charts. It's the missing page from Hufflepuff's diary."

Percy took it in his hands but before he could examine it he heard a squeaking sound from behind Harry. He jumped thinking it was another one of those fire-borne creatures but realized that the three-legged table behind Harry was making the squeaking noises.

"Buford!" a figure dashed past Percy and Harry and almost tackled the table with a hug. The table emitted a panicked sound but eventually relaxed into the hug.

Percy realized that this was the same table which Leo had used for distracting Gaia's minions during the war. He knew that Leo was quite attached to the table.

Percy was just going to ask Harry how he found the table when he was pushed out of the way by two figures who pulled Harry into a tight hug.

"Harry! Are you alright?" Hermione asked, sobbing a little.

"I'm fine," Harry muttered.

"We were so worried about you mate," Ron said, "The fire was looking really scary, and Hermione couldn't extinguish it with magic."

"Yeah I know, I couldn't extinguish it with magic either," Harry said sounding a little dejected, but Percy felt that that wasn't the reason why he was sounding so upset.

"Where's Octavian? Did anyone found him?" Leo asked, finally looking up from Buford.

"We didn't saw him anywhere," Ron said.

"I couldn't find him either," Alyssa said, appearing around a corner, looking sooty-faced and tired. Percy noticed that her clothes were covered in sand.

"And honestly," she continued, " Why is there so much sand in the bunker? I was already feeling a little dizzy because of the potion and then I slipped in that sand twice."

"Well, that's because of me. I realized I could summon huge heaps of sand and mud, which helped in dousing the fire," Harry replied.

"You can summon what? Oh, must be because of Gaia, right?" Leo asked him.

Harry nodded.

"Harry, tell us everything from the start," Hermione almost ordered him, "We want to know what happened? How you got caught up in all this mess?"

"Well," Harry was looking really nervous about something but started telling them after a pause, "when I got inside the bunker the fire had already spread out everywhere and then I found out that magical spells didn't worked on it either. But I was worried that the formula might burn in the fire so I decided to enter anyways."

Percy felt that it was really brave of Harry to enter a burning bunker like that. He suddenly felt his respect towards Harry increase, not that there wasn't any in the first place.

"That was so reckless!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Yeah, how were you planning to get through the fire?" Ron asked.

"I wasn't sure at first about how to get through the fire, but my ADHD problem helped. It made me extra alert and I was able to dodge the flames easily because of it," Harry told them.

"And then I noticed something weird," Harry continued, "The right corner of the bunker wasn't harmed by the fire. It was as if some sort of invisible barrier was stopping the fire from spreading any further. Since it looked like the only safe place inside the bunker I hurried over there."

"That's weird alright," Leo muttered, "I don't get why this place wasn't affected by the fire."

"I saw lots of different sketches and drawings on the wall in the right corner," Harry continued, "But what really caught my attention was a sketch drawn on a parchment which looked exactly like the parchment used in Hufflepuff's diary. When I used the revealing spell on it, the parchment started glowing and the sketch changed into symbols similar to the ones in the diary," at this point Harry took out the parchment from his pocket and handed it to Hermione, "Here, take it," he said.

Hermione inspected it closely and said, "This is written in the same language as the diary. Malfoy would be able to decode it in no time," she then beamed at Harry and said, "Well done Harry! Good job!"

Harry smiled, but Percy couldn't help noticing that he still looked worried, and was it guilt showing on his face? Percy wanted to know why Harry was feeling guilty.

"You still haven't told me how you learned to throw piles of sand?" Percy asked him.

"Well, after finding the antidote formula I was planning to leave the bunker but just then I heard some groaning noises. I thought someone was stuck in the fire so I went to help. It turned out to be this table," Harry nodded at Buford.

"Wait, so you saved Buford? Thank you so much for that!"" Leo exclaimed, looking ready to hug Harry.

Harry gave him a small smile, which looked more like a grimace to Percy, and then continued his story, "I had just rescued Buford and we were going to get out of the bunker, but unfortunately we were trapped from all sides. There was fire everywhere and the fire-made dragons and chimaeras were heading straight towards us."

"Blimey! What did you do then?" Ron asked with concern.

"I didn't knew how I did it, but I was feeling really desperate and then suddenly I had summoned a large mound of sand and hurled it towards the fire. This seemed to douse it a little bit, so I did it again and again until a good portion of it was doused," Harry explained.

"Good! You are slowly learning to use your demigod powers!" Percy praised him.

"This still doesn't explain why the right corner of the bunker didn't caught fire?" Leo wondered.

"I think Hufflepuff must have done some kind of enchantment on her parchment to keep it safe. That must have stopped the fire from spreading close to the parchment," Hermione guessed.

"So, all in all, Harry saved the day and found the formula too. Well done, Harry!" Percy said feeling proud of him.

"Stop praising that spawn of Gaia!" Octavian said, suddenly appearing round the corner.

"What's your problem Octavian?" Percy asked him angrily.

"My problem is that you are unnecessarily praising Potter when in fact he was the one who started all this trouble," Octavian replied.

"What do you mean Octavian?" Ron asked him.

"I mean, that this horrible cursed fire was started by none other than your precious wizardemigod, Potter. He is responsible for all the damage done to this bunker, and had any lives been lost in this fire, then he would have been responsible for it," Octavian told them.

Percy closed his eyes. He didn't wanted to believe this, but then again, he knew that Harry's magic was currently out of his control.

"Is this true Harry?" Hermione asked him, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Yeah," Harry answered without meeting anyone's eyes.

"But this was a fiendfyre Harry. How could you? First the killing curse, and now this?" Hermione asked him with teary eyes.

"You need to learn to control your powers mate, otherwise you'll keep on doing more and more dark magic," Ron commented.

Just then, someone angrily brushed past Percy and grabbed Harry by his collar.

"This bunker is like my second home!" Leo shouted angrily, "How could you destroy it like this? Had you gone nuts!" Leo screamed, shaking Harry roughly by his collar.

"Leo calm down!" Percy said and hurried to get him away from Harry.

Percy and Alyssa pulled a raging Leo Valdez away from Harry. Percy turned to look at Ron and Hermione for help but saw that neither of them were ready to look at Harry. Both of them seemed to be in some kind of shock after finding out that Harry had started the fire.

"He is evil!" Leo shouted again.

"No he isn't evil Leo. Don't forget that he put his own life at risk to save Buford from the fire. Harry is a nice person. Whatever that is happening isn't his fault," Percy said firmly.

He turned to look at Harry who was busy staring at the ground and refusing to meet anyone's eyes. His own eyes looked teary at the moment. Percy sensed that he needed to do something quickly or else the others would say even worse things to Harry.

Percy quickly took charge of the situation and said, "So, we will head back to the camp now, and show the formula to Annabeth and others. Hopefully, they would have defeated the Maenads by now which would make our work easier. Then Malfoy would be able to decode the formula."

When no one showed any sign of moving, he said insistently, "Come on guys! We have a lot of work to do and it's not going to happen by just staying here and doing nothing."

Finally Ron said, "He is right. Let's get moving."

So they made their way back towards the camp. Percy noticed that Octavian and Leo were glaring at Harry who was looking quite ashamed of himself. Ron and Hermione were throwing doubtful glances in Harry's direction which didn't do anything to ease the situation.

Back at the camp, a huge crowd had assembled to greet Percy and others. Percy saw that they all were staring at them with hope and awe in their eyes.

"Did you found the formula?" Nico asked eagerly.

"And what happened of the fire? Did you managed to douse it?" Will Solace asked them. Percy noticed that Nico and Will were holding hands.

"Yeah, Harry found the formula. And we doused the fire," Percy told them.

"Oh, and aren't you going to tell them who had started the fire?" Octavian jeered.

"Octavian, shut up-" but before Percy could complete his sentence, Leo interrupted him.

"I'll tell them who had started the fire," Leo spoke in an angry tone. He then retold the entire incident to everyone assembled over there, by the end of which most people were glaring daggers at Harry.

"You burnt down our entire bunker?! How could you?" Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin shouted angrily.

"You are definitely a dark wizard!" Jake Mason yelled at Harry.

"See, I was right about Gaia's son being evil just like her," Jason spoke, suddenly appearing from behind the crowd.

"Another dark curse Potter? Looks like you are enjoying dabbling with the dark arts," Malfoy sneered from behind Jason.

The two of them were followed by Annabeth who yelled in her most commanding tone, "Shut up everyone! Harry is not a dark wizard! He put his own life in danger to get the formula and saved Buford, how could you doubt him after that?"

She then said to Harry, "I think you should go and get some rest Harry. This has been a very hard day for you." Harry didn't need telling twice. He hurried to leave the scene as fast as he could, but not before Percy noticed the tears leaking from his eyes.

"Hermione, Alyssa and Draco, I want the three of you to translate the formula as soon as possible," Annabeth ordered them.

"Alright," Hermione said, her eyes still fixed on Harry's retreating form.

"And Percy, I want you to come with me to interrogate the Maenads," she said to Percy.

"So you managed to capture them?" he asked her, feeling impressed.

"It wasn't that difficult," she answered with a shrug.

So Percy followed Annabeth to interrogate the Maenads, but all the time he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He just wanted the interrogation to end quickly, so that he could return to his cabin and comfort Harry.


Author Note:- Hello everyone! I know I am updating this story after almost two and a half years, and I am REALLY SORRY for that. A lot happened in the two years because of which I couldn't update this story on time. I sort of dropped engineering because it was too tough and I didn't liked it, and I am also suffering from a very bad case of depression.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. If you have any doubts or queries feel free to ask me. And as always, PLEASE REVIEW!