Author's note:
Yessss, so the heavily implied cannibalism in last weeks chapter cough cough. Please don't report :( This week will be slightly better, or at least I have the feeling it will be. Not a happy one tho, so brace yourself. Overall, there'll be three big revelations for different characters: Harry and his squad, Leo and of course all of Argo III will find out more about the Eternals from Malcolm ;) Hope you enjoy! This one does for once have a happy ending.
Annabeth:
Night was over. The Argo III had landed. They were anchoring on the waves, the washed out blue of the sky above them.
The dining room was crowded. Dull light hit the table in the middle; the windows were open to let fresh air in. Simple food had been served. Annabeth hadn't tasted a thing. The stew smelt like nothing, had the consistency of nothing, and looked like nothing. She had wanted to spit it out, but forced herself to swallow each bite.
Well, at least Annabeth had been able to eat. Most of the other's hadn't. If it was because of the shock or because they weren't hungry; the daughter of Athena had no clue. But she couldn't blame them. And neither did she care.
She was still numb; almost as numb as last night. After all that, she and Percy had cried themselves to sleep. For all she could remember, it was 1 o'clock in the morning by the time Percy's sobs had been diluted to semi-steady breathing. He was cute when asleep. Still that little drool she had learnt to love over the last five years. Annabeth stayed awake. 3 o'Clock. 4 o'Clock. 5 o'Clock. The ship bells rang. She just stared at the ceiling, questioning everything that had happened.
Was it their fault for not having come fast enough? Yes. Was it her fault that she had allowed him to go alone? Yes. Was it her fault that he'd died? Yes. Somehow, his life continued to flash through Annabeth's mind. Even during breakfast: that first encounter; the snowy night; Dr. Thorne and the cliff. Bianca- and a ten year old Nico. The Labyrinth; Nico's fury. His raising of the skeletons. He at the head of Hades' Army during the battle of Manhattan. The Bronze Jar. And the fall. How his face had loomed over the edge, his hand stretched out. A few meters above them; so close yet so far away. The way his hair had hung towards her and Percy when they had finally let go. The shrinking of his face, sprinkled with tears, as the two fell into Tartarus. The end of the war; his talk with Percy. The banter. A happy Nico. Kai. And now- nothing.
Nothing.
A dead son of Hades. 16 years old. Not unusual.
But Annabeth couldn't blink the tears away. What did she care about other children of Hades? This wasn't some child on the other side of the planet. This was her Nico they were talking about; someone she had fought side by side with. Someone she had laughed with. A Warrior.
She'd never hold him again. She'd never see his face again. He was gone. And she couldn't believe that.
"We need to get the bodies." Percy broke the silence, ripping her out of remembering last night. His voice was shaky. His shoulders were still slacking, his entire body slouched. His eyes stared holes into the table. Below it, Annabeth squeezed his hand. He had known Nico better than she had. He'd know how to bury him.
No one answered Percy.
"We need to get the bodies!" Percy almost screamed. He had stood up, with such force that his chair had fallen. The demigods stared at him. Numb. Just like Annabeth felt. Then one nodded, then the next. They seemed to agree with Percy, regardless of the danger they'd put themselves in by returning to the shore.
"No." The room froze. Nobody moved. Malcolm had spoken. For the first time since his rescue. He was pale; gaunt. He seemed to have stopped puking, for he was without the bucket.
"What do you mean with No?! I'm not asking you. This is an order! We're going!" Percy glared at him, red fury within his eyes. He had straightened his shoulders. As a son of Poseidon, he was used to leading. Not to being talked back to. He had served on more quests than Malcolm, had more beads on his necklace, was older than Malcolm and was the son of the second highest ranking god of olympus. He outranked Malcolm in every way. He had no right to flat out refuse Percy's request. Annabeth almost thought he'd slap her brother for the insolence.
He didn't. Not because he didn't want to, but because of Malcolms next lines.
"You can go. But there are no bodies to bury." he pulled a shaky breath, his eyes wide, and then continued. "That is unless you'll cut open the bellies of every Eternal to fish out what remains of them".
He didn't look them into the eyes but turned around at once, swaying as he left, almost as if drunk. They could hear him puking in the corridor.
Annabeth looked around. The expressions of the others were those of confusion. But slowly, they became those of fear and disgust. They were reaching the same conclusion Annabeth had already drawn.
"you don't mean…"
"So…"
They ate them?!"
The daughter of Athena had to fight hard to keep her morning stew within her stomach.
She looked at Percy. Her boyfriend had collapsed in his chair, right next to Leo. His outside was calm, almost at ease. His muscles had relaxed. His once clenched fist was now open. He seemed… normal. Except for his eyes. It was his eyes that scared her.
Harry:
The common room was almost empty. It was late. He, Ron and Hermione had waited for some privacy to discuss the american problem, how they had begun to call it. They still weren't back from wherever they had gone to. It had almost been a week. None of their friends new - Harry had asked Katie, he had asked Colin and Kai. He had even asked Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs that had the same classes as the americans. Nothing. He had found nothing.
By now, he was almost a little worried about the americans. Almost. He would have felt so, if Nico hadn't held a sword to his throat, hadn't tried to kill him.
Hermione had read during most breaks, as much about wizard-muggle wars as possible. Harry had asked why she bothered; the americans were unlikely to have visited the battlefield of Gloucester, or hidden inside the castle at La Rochelle.
"To defeat an enemy, you must know them." She had told him, without looking up from 'British wizard-muggle wars; the deeds of Richard I, Henry Longchamp and Thomas Becket.'
"So have you found anything yet?" Ron asked her once the common room was completely empty.
"No." Hermione sighed. "It's unbelievable. We have nothing. NOTHING on CHB in any of the books except for what we already found. It's like they've been erased from history."
Ron hit the table. "Damn it! We won't find out more then. We'll just have to wait until they're back".
"If they come back at all." Harry said, dully. He feared they had seen the last of the americans. They had found what they had been looking for, and then fled.
"Are you still sure that they weren't working for Voldemort?" he asked them. It was the only possible explanation. Who else would want a muggle wizard war? They had to at least be allied to the dark lord. And with Nico's abilities… well. The ghost stuff was dark arts for sure.
Hermione moaned in exasperation. "Yes Harry, I am certain. If they had, Dumbledore would have never let them enter the school. And we've never heard of Voldemort accepting teens into his ranks before. It's just not plausible."
Ron coughed. "Could you PLEASE stop calling him by his name?"
"Anyways, you think Nico would date a halfblood if he was a supporter of Voldemort?" Hermione asked, ignoring Ron's interjection.
Harry nodded reluctantly. "That is true." Kai hadn't taken things well. He seemed both sad and angry; Harry guessed Nico hadn't told him anything at all.
Ron shivered. "Is it just me, or is it getting cold here?"
Harry felt it too. The hair on his neck stood up.
"It feels like… like Dementors." Hermione whispered.
"No… I'd hear my parents, and I don't." Harry replied quietly, both eyes focused on any sounds.
Ron pulled out his wand. "Well, better safe than-"
Suddenly, the sound had disappeared. The crackling of the fire had been muted. Ron's lips still moved, but no sound came out. He looked astonished, and so did Hermione.
What is this? Harry mouthed, but neither of them seemed to know. Hermione just shook her head. Then, a door squicked. The moon was shining through the windows, illuminating the couches and tables. The fire had died. The common room had been dipped in cold, blue paint.
Suddenly, the portrait of the fat lady began to swing back. Ron jumped. Inch by inch, the door moved out of the way. Harry's eyes widened. Behind the hole, two silhouettes, pitch black, stood unmoving. Their robes flattered, but there was no wind.
Their eyes were holes of pure emptiness. Half walking, half gliding, they entered the Gryffindor tower. Like angels fallen to serve the devil they approached the wizards. Next to Harry, neither Ron nor Hermione had moved an inch. Harry pulled all his courage together and took his wand.
The shadows got even closer. He could see the cloth covered hollowness of their mouths.
"Expecto Patronum!" He screamed, thinking of his parents. It worked. A giant beast erupted from his wand, and ran into the nearest shadow-
just to evaporate. A cackling, coarse and high pitched came from the monster. Harry's patronus had done nothing at all, not even slowed him down. They got closer, and closer, and closer.
When they were close enough to kiss the wizards with their raw hands and ragged, empty mouths, they stopped. It was freezing. The blue moonlight bright and almost blinding, but the shadows were not reflecting any of it. Instead they were drinking it; like black holes, pure darkness.
"Where are they?" The front one rattled, and Harry got more goosebumps than he had thought he had hair. The voice did not belong to this world, nor had Harry heard it ever before. He thought he had seen large fangs, teeth the size of his little finger move while the shadow had spoken. Mesmerized, he stared at the cloth covering the mouth.
"Where are the demigods?!" The shadow almost screamed.
What the hell was he talking about? Harry thought, slowly backing away.
"If- If you mean the americans, we haven't seen them for a week. We have no clue where the went. We asked everyone here. They just disappeared." Hermione spoke up quietly. Her voice quivered and her eyes stared at the ground, to scared to look at what lay before her.
The monster turned its ugly head. For a long time, it stared at the witch. Then, the two, as if in slow motion, faded into nothingness. The last thing Harry heard was the crackling of a just re-awakened fire. Then, everything turned black.
Leo:
Another nail,
Another CLONK as the hammer punched it into the wood.
Another nail,
Another CLONK.
Another nail,
Another Clonk.
Leo needed to work. it was the only way he could sustain himself.
Whereas the other had puked or cried during the aftermath, all he could do was worry and pain himself to insanity. Well, worry wasn't the right word to describe the clenching of his guts and the pain he felt in his chest. It was more like agony. he hadn't slept, he hadn't eaten.
He did not know where Calypso was, he had not been able to contact her. The others hadn't see her die, hadn't seen her corpse. The latter made sense now. The corpses had been eaten.
But he still felt a glimmer of hope, that she might be alive. That she might be well. He had grabbed onto that glimmer, held tight, never wanting to let go.
Another nail, another CLONK.
He wiped the hair out of his eyes. It had been soaked in a mixture of grime and tears. His cheeks were dirty, broken. As if a battle had been fought on them.
She just couldn't be dead. He couldn't take it. Nico- he didn't care. Chiron- he didn't care. But Calypso, by all the gods, please no! Please let her live!
He sobbed. With an angry scream, he threw his hammer at the opposite wall. It broke through the wood and fell out of sight, down down, to at some point land in the ocean. The Argo III was flying again. They had decided there was no point of going back. Especially if all the bodies where gone. So he'd never now…
Leo's eyes leaked more tears as he rolled himself into a small pile of misery on the planks beneath him.
An eternity passed.
"Leo." Someone said. Leo didn't want to respond. He didn't want to see the others. He just wanted to die. Or at least be left alone with his pain.
"Leo!" that someone said more urgently. Leo still ignored him. Maybe he'd go away after some time. Maybe he could finally sleep on this wood, and maybe, just maybe, he'd never have to wake up from his dreams.
"LEO!"
Leo sighed and slowly unwound himself to climb up the ladder, out of the underbelly of the ship, that still needed some final planks to be installed for the floor and the different walls.
Up there stood Theo, happy for once. But Leo didn't care. If the son of demeter could get over that many deaths at such speed he was welcome to. Leo wouldn't.
"What?!" he asked irritated once having reached the top.
"You wont believe this!" Theo exclaimed, shaking the son of Hephaestus by his shoulders. Theo's eyes radiated positive energy. He smiled like crazy. "Its Calypso! She IMed us! She's alive!"
Alright, hope you liked this one, was dark at the beginning but had a very happy ending for my standards. Think Harry and his friends survived their encounter with the eternals? What might they do after this, especially now that they know the americans are "demigods"? I promise, this fanfiction will slowly lose some darkness. Not everything is as bad as it seems. Any reactions? Feedback? I am always happy for any reviews ;). This one of course had no Nico (or just little with Annabeth thinking about him), but over the next few weeks I'll include more and more one shots which I'm planning to incorporate into earlier chapters but put them in the new chapters at first so that you can read them without having to search through the entire fanfic.
Hope you all have a great week, see yah next sunday!
Fives signing out