Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.

The Ever Twisting Wind: Threshold Breakthrough

Chapter Twenty Four: Styx Has Her Due

Beta: ShadowofAxios

"To the end of O.W.L.s!" Dean Thomas offered as a toast as he, Seamus, Neville and Ron clinked their glasses of firewhisky together.

"To the end of O.W.L.s!" Ron joined the others in echoing the toast.

"Can't believe they're finally over." Neville said as he leaned back into his chair in the Gryffindor common room where the post-O.W.L.s party was being held by the House's male Fifth Years before taking a sip of his drink.

Since the N.E.W.T.s were still ongoing they couldn't exactly throw a full blown party without disrupting the Seventh Years' revision, so their celebration amounted to simply them huddling in a corner of the Common Room and engaging in some underage drinking of alcohol that had been smuggled into the castle and provided to the underage boys courtesy of Ron's twin brothers Fred and George. They could wait for the year end post-exam party... But after surmounting the hurdle of the O.W.L.s, the last paper having ended earlier in the day, they just could not wait any longer. So their little drinking session was a nice compromise.

"Yeah man," Seamus said in agreement after downing a large gulp from his glass. "I know these exams are important but seriously did they really have to be that draining?"

"Yeah! It's like ten times worse than the normal year end exams!" Dean declared with a groan.

"Which is why I still find it crazy that Andi took both her O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s together this year." Neville said with a disbelieving shake of her head. "Is she even human?"

"Not anymore," Ron said with a laugh.

"Whatcha mean by that?" Seamus asked with a grin. "You saying she's what, a goddess? I know she used to be your best friend, but that's a little over the top yeah?"

"Seamus is right," Dean said with a nod to the Irish half-blood. "You like her or something?"

Ron's danger sense was tingling but the firewhisky was starting to kick in. Helped along by the dozen or so glasses he'd 'sampled' earlier in the day from the bottle that his brothers had supplied him for this celebration even before he and his roommates had sat down tonight. As a result, he was fueled by too much reckless, liquid courage to notice.

"Nah," Ron said with a chuckle. "Just saying the truth is all. Since she's a demigod turned goddess."

Immediately, the sky resounded with supernatural thunder but none of the revelers noticed. Instead, they just played it off as the sign of an incoming storm and kept drinking. Normally Ron would not have been so foolish, but he was a little too busy deflecting his friends' teasing.

"Oh~!?" Seamus said with a mischievous grin. "So you're saying she was hot before but now that she's shown that she's smart too, you found her even more hot?"

"No, no!" Ron said, waving his hands frantically in denial.

"No need to be shy about it," Dean said with an exaggerated lick of his lips. "Andi is smoking hot."

Seamus and even the usually shy Neville nodded, albeit the latter was sporting a blush while he did so. Ron blushed too, Dean wasn't wrong. Andi was incredibly attractive, especially after becoming a goddess. But she was his best mate! He didn't think of her that way!

He was about to tell the guys that when suddenly he found his body acting out of his control and giving voice to words that were not his own.

"Heed my words, this is Hogwarts' last year! The new one will start but never finish, ending instead in disaster."

Even as he finished uttering the words, a feeling of dread filled Ron as he knew what they really were. They were a prophecy! That knowledge settled into his mind with a certainty that had to be divine in origin. Fear washed away any trace of alcohol induced foolishness from his system and he realized what he'd done.

Oh shit! I broke my Oath! Ron thought with dawning horror.

"That's your deflection? Really Ron?" Dean said with a laugh even as Seamus and Neville just looked confused. "Are you drunk or something?"

They don't believe me!? Ron said, his horror growing by the minute though his rational mind quickly reasserted itself. Of course they don't! What I said was totally crazy!

Even if he knew it was the absolute truth of what was about to happen.

I'll have to tell someone who will believe me.

"Maybe," Ron said with a forced chuckle. "I'll, uh, go to the loo and wash my face. Maybe that will clear my head a little. Can't be totaled even before we really get started with our celebration, can I?"

With his excuse made, the youngest Weasley son slipped off his chair and all but ran up to his dorm room's bathroom. His friends jeered and teased him about how he was just running away from admitting how pretty he thought Andi was, but he couldn't care less. Not when something as important as the fate of Hogwarts was at stake!

Inside the empty bathroom, Ron rushed to the nearest mirror and began praying.

"Andi! We need to talk! Now! Something very important has just happened!"

For a second, the redhead thought his friend had not heard him and was about to repeat his prayer but was saved the trouble when the mirror's surface suddenly shimmered to reveal the image of a tired looking Andi.

"What is it, Ron?" Andi asked snappily as she ran a hand through Hedwig's feathers and fed her familiar some bacon.

"Andi, thank you for answering my prayer."

"Just tell me what's wrong Ron. I'm tired and am in no mood for pleasantries."

Could goddesses even get tired? An idle part of Ron's mind wondered, even as he suppressed it brutally. Now was not the time for such musings.

"Andi, I just broke my Oath and I think I was smacked with the curse of prophecy for it! And I made one about how Hogwarts is going to be closed down!"

"That's not how Styx works, Ron." Andi said with a shake of her head. "If you did break your Oath, she wouldn't give you a powerful gift like prophecy. She'd make your life hell instead. Betcha you're just imagining things. You were drinking and tipsy."

"You don't believe me." Ron realized as he recoiled in horror as the knowledge of the true extent of his curse settled into his mind with the same divinely inspired certainty that he knew about his prophetic powers.

I am doomed to give prophecies but never to be believed. I'm a modern day Cassandra of Troy!

"If there's nothing else, it's been a trying day hunting Anemoi Thuellai and I would really like to rest. So good night."

Ron could only nod absently. He was too consumed by terror to do anything else.

It was not until Andi's image disappeared and the mirror returned to normal that Ron finally collapsed to his knees and cried out in despair, at last giving vent to the turmoil that had come to grip him.

Even as Ron lamented his newly cursed fate, a goddess with a face with delicate and sublime features, ebony hair, and obsidian eyes gleaming with absolute hatred hovered over the Bloody Lake. Unseen by the mortals within, she looked towards Hogwarts castle and in particular in the direction of a redhead wizard with contempt, her black silky robes fading at the trims into billowing volcanic smoke that writhed in yet another visible display of her displeasure.

"Oath-breaker. I have nothing to do with what happens next." The goddess Styx, for that was who this goddess was, said with malice. "But I nevertheless take pleasure in its coming. If only all oath-breakers could be punished as fully as you will."

Looking away from the castle, the goddess looked down towards the churning Bloody Lake.

"Know that you have my blessing in what you are about to do, monster." Styx told the twisted lake. "Deliver the oath-breaker's most just punishment."

Taking this as its cue for action, the monstrous waterbody shifted its magic and began to bring a substantial portion of it to bear against the castle's wards particularly those around the pipes that led from its depths into the school. As it did, the ancient wards slowly began to erode away. The process was so slow, the damage so minute that it was barely noticeable at all.

But Styx was a goddess and she noticed it just fine and it brought a satisfied grin to her face.

On the first day of the next school year, Ron entered Hogwarts castle not full of excitement like he usually would have every year before but instead full of trepidation. How else could he feel when he knew what lay ahead? Not that anyone believed him about it.

He had spent the whole summer trying to warn everyone he could that Hogwarts was doomed but no one was willing to hear him out. Not his parents when he begged them not to send him and Ginny back to school. Not his friends. Not the Professors. No one believed him. The only one who had was Luna. But she and her father had promptly disappeared shortly afterwards. Which meant he had no help from that quarter.

So it was that Ron was tense throughout the feast, the sorting and all the way till he prepared for bed later that night. He was constantly on the lookout for whatever might be the cause of the terrible future he'd prophesied. Yet nothing stood out to him.

The only thing out of the normal was the fact that the castle's water was all tinted slightly red but the Professors had easily explained that away by informing everyone that the filtration spells in the pipes needed refreshing which would be completed shortly and assured everyone that it was perfectly safe to drink.

That night as the castle's living occupants lay crumpled on the ground, their beds, or slumped over toilets, surrounded by puddles of their own urine and feces those assurances would ring hollow indeed.

"A-Anyone a-live in here?" Hermione said as she weakly pushed open the door to the Sixth Year's boy's dorm, thankful that unlike with the stairs to the girls' dorms the one to the boys' dorms didn't keep out the other gender. Things were terrible enough as is, having to deal with that on top of everything else might just have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Shaking the random thought out of her head, the muggleborn surveyed the room. The first thing she noticed was that the room smelt terrible. Much worse than even a typical boy's dorm. Covered in shit and piss as it was that was to be expected. Between that and it being in no different state than the rest of the dorms made it bearable.

The excrement and blood, many had pissed and shat themselves so badly they'd torn something, all over the place had transformed the Gryffindor dorms into a scene out of a horror movie. But that wasn't the worst part of it. It was the silence that frightened the budding young woman the most. The portraits in the Common Room were nowhere to be seen, and that was bad enough because they never feld! But even worse than that was the way that everyone she'd found in the dorms so far were motionless corpses.

And she'd checked almost everywhere by this point. After checking all the girls' dorms, she was certain that of the female Gryffindors she was the only survivor. And the tally was just as grim among the First through Fifth Year boys' rooms too.

The silence that haunted her was finally, blissfully broken by a groan. She rushed to the sound, nearly tripping over some clothes left scattered about and barely managing to keep from slipping in the puddles of filth that covered much of the floor. Seeing the familiar head of ginger, relief flooded her veins.

"Ron!" The muggleborn witch cried out as she fell to her knees by the bedside of her former friend and pulled him into a hug, heedless of the disgusting state of his pajamas. Hers weren't any better anyway and now wasn't the time for such concerns. "I'm so glad you're alive."

"H-Hermione," Ron said weakly as he tried but mostly failed to return the hug. "P-Pray to A-Andi. W-We n-need her h-help."

"W-What good would that do?" Hermione stuttered as the charms she'd used to fend off the effects of whatever deadly malady had killed almost everyone in her House began to fade. As they did, she could feel her gut churning uneasily.

"S-She's a g-goddess n-now. S-She can h-help." Ron said as he lost control of his bowels himself for what must have been the umpteenth time since last night and soiled himself again.

In any other situation, something so disgusting would have had Hermione pull away in revulsion. But instead she just hugged Ron in comfort, ignoring it altogether. Something she did by the tried and trusted method of thinking about something else. Like how the idea that Andi of all people becoming some celestial being was positively ridiculous. Sure, a demigod made sense from the evidence she had been shown, but turning into a divine being? Who would let that happen!

"W-We have t-to try." Ron insisted, sensing her hesitance.

Hermione was about to disagree when the churning in her gut reached a crescendo and against her best efforts, her magically full bladder and bowels emptied themselves.

"O-Or w-we'll all die." Ron told her, looking Hermione in the eye with a level of seriousness that she had never seen from him.

Blushing scarlet at how she'd just humiliated herself in front of a boy, one that she even fancied a little no less, she just nodded.

"A-Alright," she said, hiding her face with her hair. "What do we need to do?"

"That's a good boy. That's right, you are such a good boy!" Andi cooed as she scratched Hunter's chin. They had been playing fetch all morning, it was a fun pastime for the two and her lovable pooch deserved some attention from her. Especially since she had been too busy lately to give it to him what with all the shenanigans she had been getting into as of late. "Now let's try three tennis balls at once!"

Hunter's eyes gleamed at the challenge!

"Alright, ready! Set! Gooo-!"

Her words faltered when a prayer rang out in her noggin.

A-Andi! It's Hermione, please, please hear this! W-We need help. So many are dead, please hear this. We need help!

The wailing plea from Hermione caused Andi to stay in a throwing position, the balls in her hand falling to the ground as she listened to the words.

"Hermione? What happened? What's wrong?" She asked through the prayer.

Merlin, i-it worked! Y-Yes, Andi, we need help! S-Someone poisoned the whole castle! Almost everyone is dead, we need help! And Ron… He's dying! Please! Save him!

"I'll be right there!" Andi assured her wizarding friends before turning to the empty spot to her side. "Wendy!"

"Ready and waiting, Andi!" Her faithful Aura lieutenant said as she materialized, her arm raised in a salute.

Andi nodded even as she reached out to her superior. She wanted answers damned it.

Hecate, is this what you meant by an issue in the Wizarding World!? Andi sent her superior telepathically, her incredulity clear.

This is… Beyond my expectations. Styx went crazy this time it seems. Hecate sent back sounding both shocked and appalled.

Styx did this!? Why? Andi replied, even as the answer dawned on her.

I think you know why.

Ron broke his Oath… Andi didn't need her divine insight to know that was the case, not with Styx involved. It had to be about the Stygian Oaths that she'd foolishly had Ron and Hermione make all those years ago and if that was the issue then it was almost certain the redhead which broke his. But this, this tragedy is completely disproportionate! Surely she's broken some of the Ancient Laws by-

I have not. A new unfamiliar voice echoed into Andi's mind. The disaster at Hogwarts is not my doing. If anything it is yours, Andromeda Aurae, for is it not you who created the monster known as the Bloody Lake that is responsible for this?

The Lake did this!?

Styx's only reply was to laugh maliciously as she pulled away from her mind.

Andi, considering the scope of this crisis… You might want to bring along specialists.

Andi sent a burst of agreement before quickly conjuring a piece of paper with a scribbled note for Dionysus and Chiron.

"Deliver this to the Big House at Camp Half-Blood ASAP." Andi declared holding the missive out where a Aura materialized and reverentially took it from her.

Andi waited till the messenger nymph vanished to carry out her task before teleporting herself and Wendy over to Hogwarts to begin trying to help handle the disaster.

In a zephyr, Andi appeared in the Gryffindor common room and immediately felt a sense of nostalgia. It was squashed by the crushing silence and the lack of overall life she could sense in the castle. That and the puddles of drying shit and piss that seemed to be everywhere. Though they paled in comparison to the many, many dead bodies that littered the room.

"What in the Pit happened?" She asked as Wendy appeared next to her.

"Ugh, it smells all gross." The little Aura said, pinching her nose and floating off the ground to escape the filth that covered the floor.

Andi herself ignored it easily enough. Animals did the same after all. Though that this was a human domicile and this was distinctively inhuman behavior did unsettle her.

"Hello? Anyone here?" She called out to the tower.

"A-Andi! Up here!" The muffled call of Hermione rang out from one of the boys' dorms. Immediately, Andi transformed into a gust and was before her and Ron within moments.

"Gah!" Hermione yelped in surprise while Ron groaned in a weak greeting.

"What the fuck…" The goddess murmured as she looked around. "What happened here?"

"The w-water." Ron managed out even as his bowels let out a painful sounding rumble and he voided them. Not for the first time if his stained clothes and bed were any indication.

"It's the Lake's fault." Hermione added as she shifted uneasily, blushing as she tried and failed to hide the fact she too no longer had control over her bowels. "It poisoned the castle's water supply."

"Fuck that lake, seriously I'm going to ask someone to drain that thing. Or burn it." The goddess snarled but took a breath to calm down. "Let's fix you two first, can't have a conversation with you two blowing your bowels. Wendy, use the Feather on them."

"Righto," Wendy said as she materialized next to Andi and pulled her Phoenix Feather from its usual place as an ornament in her hair. It glowed with a fiery aura that quickly spread over the witch and wizard, healing them of the worst of their injuries.

"Oh my god, er, goddess." Ron said with clear relief. "J-Just let me clean up, yeah?"

Andi did that for both him and Hermione with a wave of her hand, but grew a frown as she did.

"Wendy, why do they still seem like they're half dead?"

"I dunno," the Aura said with a frown as she looked at her Feather with narrowed eyes. "The Feather is working fine. I think, maybe, whatever poison or magic or whatever the Lake thing used is just that deadly?"

"Deadly enough to resist the power of a Phoenix Feather?" Andi asked, her frown deepening.

"Hey, some of the old stuff can really be scary."

"But the Lake is new." The goddess whined, even if she knew that didn't mean it wasn't powerful. She had first hand experience of just how powerful it could be after all. She turned back to her two, well, old schoolmates and assessed them again.

They aren't up for it. I'll have to call in reinforcements. Andi concluded as she turned away to address empty space. "Alright, when I got here I sensed some life left, so I want you two to head outside while I go round them up."

With a soft whistle, almost too quiet for human hearing, several Aurae appeared. All young, roughly Wendy's height with their hair being of different shades of color that reflected the climates from which they hailed.

"Alright, I need you girls to find all those living in the castle. Be it human, pet or elf. I want them out by the front of the castle, got it?"

"Don't bother with searching the rest of the Gryffindor dorms," Hermione said, looking out a window and sporting a haunted look. "Everyone else here is dead."

"Everyone!?" Ron asked, looking horrified. "Ginny?"

Hermione nodded, eyes pinched shut as she broke down into sobs. The reality of the death that surrounded them finally hitting her like a ton of bricks. Ron soon joined her, pulling her into an embrace as they both broke down.

"Like you heard, just focus elsewhere…" Andi frowned as she felt her heart pang with sadness. What a waste of life.

"Yes Lady Andromeda!" The Aurae saluted and disappeared in a chipper breeze.

"Let's go, you two." Andi commanded softly as she helped them to their feet and began guiding them towards the door whilst also using her powers to conjure a breeze that blew the stink and budding decay away from them.

"And I know this isn't the best time, but is Luna-"

"S-She s-should be f-fine," Hermione managed to stifle her crying long enough to say. "S-She didn't s-show up for s-school this y-year."

Frowning at this, the goddess sighed. "I'll have someone check up on her. That doesn't sound like her."

Hey Lady Andi, mind giving us a lift to, um, Hogwartys? Percy's voice suddenly filled Andi's mind as he reached out via a prayer, or his version of it anyways. Rachel said it would be best if you created a portal or something. She said speed is for the best, whatever that means.

Right, I'll set it up. Thanks for getting on this one, Percy. Andi replied as she reached out to some of the nymphs in the Forbidden Forest.

Guys, I need you to set up a portal to Camp Half-Blood for me. I'll lend you some of my power, but you set it up for me alright, I kinda have my hands full up at the castle. Andi told the various local nature spirits as she fed them a sliver of her power.

At once, our lady. The nature spirits replied in unison as they immediately got to work.

"Right. In the meantime," Andi said even as she finished off her various telepathic conversations. "Let's get you two out of here."

"Yeah," Ron said with a despairing look. "But could we gather the bodies? I-I don't want to just leave Ginny here. Not like this."

"We'll have to leave that to the first responders, Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore said as he limped his way into the dorm room supported by a cane. "I am glad to see you survived. You as well, Ms. Granger. And it is a pleasure to see you Andi. You've made something remarkable of yourself it seems."

"Fawkes help you out, Dumbledore?" Andi asked, feeling the similar effects to that Ron and Hermione were sporting from Wendy's feather. "And yeah, I've become something special alright."

"Barely in time, young lady." He nodded his head. "I thought it was age at first and so did Fawkes. Thankfully, we realized it wasn't before it was too late and his tears managed to save me."

"Where is Fawkes?" Andi said as she herded all three wizards down the stairs that separated the boys' dorms from the Gryffindor common room.

"I have him healing as many as he can with his tears. He's in his prime right now, so he should be able to help most of those that survived."

"We can corroborate that, my lady." One of the Aurae Andi had sent out earlier said as they returned. "He's also carrying out the survivors one by one and laying them down on the lawn outside the castle."

"Good. Girls, help out as best you can. Grab a few dryads and set up a triage where he's set the others down. By the way, how many survivors are there?"

"A little over a couple dozen." Another of the Aurae informed her grimly.

"At least it isn't a single digit." The goddess said with a sigh as she crossed her arms. "What a mess."

"I see you have the situation here in hand," Dumbledore said with a nod and stumbled towards the Gryffindor common room's fireplace. "I'll go to the Ministry and call for help. The illness must've addled me, I only thought to do that now."

"Yes, it leaves your head feeling like it's wrapped in cotton wool. Makes it very hard to think." Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Sounds nasty." Andi commented, her teeth grinding together in anger at the horrible disease that the Lake had unleashed on school children!

She reined in her temper though. Losing her cool now would not help things.

"Yeah, go get some rest afterwards though. I know you want to help, but even a great wizard needs some shut eye after this." The goddess of the wild firmly told the older man as he tossed some floo powder in the miraculously still roaring fireplace.

With a weak, but confident smile, Dumbledore nodded and, muttering out his destination to the magical flames, walked through the now green blaze.

"Alright, let's get you two out of here." Andi told her old schoolmates.

They both nodded and made the slow walk out of the castle. Andi would've teleported them but considering their weakness, she wasn't willing to risk it. Who knew if their bodies could handle it?

"Seriously guys, thanks for the assist." Andi told her cousins with honesty as Percy, Bianca and Nico stepped out of the portal she'd conjured for them and walked over to where she stood in front of the hastily created hospital tent on the lawn in front of Hogwarts' main entrance. A depressingly small tent for a depressingly small amount of survivors.

The three demigods had been summoned by Andi's hasty missive to Camp before coming down to the castle. Having not known what to expect, Andi had simply asked for Camp's finest. Apparently, someone at Camp, probably the Pythia Rachel Dare, had known who best to send. With the son of Poseidon for the water issue and the children of Hades' affinity with death, hopefully they could settle this.

"No problem." Percy said, his eyes looking over at the Bloody Lake, a pained grimace on his face.

"There's a lot of death here. Are you sure this is a school ground? Because a lot of it feels so old." Bianca said, eyes darting around seeing spirits only she and Nico could perceive.

Well technically Andi could too if she wanted, but unlike the children of Hades she didn't have the ability on as default and she would rather not. Death really wasn't her thing.

"A lot of new souls though." Nico informed them as they walked up to the castle. "Some seem to be sticking around while others have already gone to the Underworld."

The goddess of the wild let out a sigh at that. "That's good, I guess. I'll have to give Charon some drachma to file them quicker. Otherwise, he'll just make them hang around the D.O.A. aimlessly for a couple centuries for the heck of it."

"How many were in the castle?" Percy asked as Andi began leading them into the tent.

"I'd say roughly five hundred plus?" Andi guessed as they arrived. She spotted the familiar bushy hair of Hermione as she helped Wendy whilst the Aura went around using her Phoenix Feather to aid her in healing the sickly survivors.

"Hey!" Andi called out to them, grabbing their attention.

"Andi," Wendy and Hermione both greeted tiredly as she came over. The latter especially so since she was still recovering herself from the damage caused by the disease that the Lake had created. Despite that though, the headstrong witch insisted on trying to help.

"How are things?"

"There hasn't been any more deaths." Wendy said with a sad smile. "Not much else to report than that."

"The Headmaster hasn't got back either." Hermione added.

"He won't be back for a while." Andi told her with a shake of head. "He passed out shortly after flooing to London."

"That explains why Fawkes flashed away just now." Wendy said with a sigh.

Andi just nodded, before changing the topic. "How's Ron?"

"Same as everyone besides Hermione." Wendy told her with a frown. "Even with healing whatever the Lake did to them has left them completely drained both physically and magically. Most of them have fallen into a coma like sleep as their bodies try to recover."

"And you managed to escape that?" Percy asked, looking at Hermione suspiciously. "How?"

"I, uh-"

"She didn't. She's just better at powering through it than most. That and her body seems a lot better at operating on low magic than the others. She's liable to drop at any moment."

"I'm fine." Hermione insisted defiantly.

"And she's too stubborn to just lay down." Andi added with an exasperated shake of her head.

"Reminds me of Annabeth," Percy said with a chuckle.

"In more ways than one," Andi said with a laugh of her own. "But thanks Wendy, Hermione. You two better get back to looking after everyone. I'll deal with letting them know what they're here to deal with."

Both girls nodded and quickly walked off to continue their rounds.

"So let me guess, we need to go kill that Lake that Wendy mentioned? The one outside that looks like it's full of blood?" Percy asked, looking at Andi incredulously.

"Honestly, I didn't know the end goal was when I summoned you guys for this quest." Andi admitted sheepishly. "I was kinda in a rush and didn't know the details. But now, yeah, that's what I want you guys to do. Man killing a body of water has to be a new one."

The demigods exchanged a look.

"Rachel did say to just defer to Lady Andi when we got here." Bianca said with a shrug.

"She didn't bother with a prophecy?" Andi asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Nico nodded. "She said it's not a real quest. Just monster extermination."

"At least the girl's direct. I'll give her that much." Andi snorted. "A good trait for an Oracle."

"Don't they need to be all double meaning and self fulfilling?" Percy joked with a grin.

"Exactly." The goddess said as she giggled into her hands.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "I know you two are joking and all but direct is ten times better."

Both her brother and the son of the sea nodded in agreement.

"Talking about being direct, maybe we should get on with the mission?" Nico said with a frown. "I promised Cameron to play a round of Mythomagic with him tonight and I don't want to be late."

"You've got a date?" Percy blinked in surprise. "With Cameron from Hermes Cabin?"

"Yup," Nico nodded. "And like I said I don't want to be late."

"You won't be." Bianca assured him. "Right, Lady Andi?"

"Not if I can help it. Come on, I'll walk you guys to the Lake's edge." Andi said as she gestured for the demigods to follow.

They walked in silence away from the tent and towards the lakeshore. Percy looked relaxed, but Andi knew that was a mask and like the di Angelos he was psyching himself up for the fight ahead. He was just a lot less obvious about it.

She had just finished making this observation when a lance of bloody water shot out of the lake directly at her. The demigods scattered even as Andi began to fly away from the battle that was about to begin. Nico had already drawn his own sword and summoned his shield while Bianca had brought out her barbed spear as the churning entity that was the Blood Lake shot a volley of its blood lances at them.

"Oh what the Pit!?" Andi whined even as she saw Percy quirk a brow in her direction even as he used his hydrokinesis to deflect one of the bloody lances that the Lake had sent his way. "I hate having to leave this to you guys, but-"

"Yeah, we get it." The son of Poseidon grumbled as he brought out Riptide. "We've got this handled."

"Thanks. I promise to make it up to you guys!"

"Don't go setting precedents, Andi." Percy shouted as he immobilized a tentacle of water the Bloody Lake had extruded to try to smack him and the di Angelos. "You're a goddess now! You can't go just rewarding us demigods for doing our jobs. It'll piss the other gods off. Favoritism and all that."

Andi pouted, it made sense but this was her problem and they were fixing it. It felt cheap to not reward them.

"Since when did you know this?" Bianca asked, sounding shocked even as she sent boulders flying at the Lake with swings of her lance and her geokinesis.

"Annabeth explained it to me." Percy shouted back whilst he fought to keep the Lake immobilized even as it created three new pseudopods that it attempted to use to crush them, an increasingly difficult task if the sweat on his brow was anything to go by.

"Less talking, more killing the crazy monster lake please." Nico shouted back as he and a small cadre of skeleton warriors he'd summoned hacked at the lake with their swords to little effect.

"Listen to Nico," Andi suggested as she finished her retreat from the battlefield. "And good luck. See you guys in a bit."

Percy honestly wished he had stayed in bed today, but when he heard something had killed off nearly all of Andi's old school and Chiron wanted his help in dealing with the monster, he'd hurried back to Camp as fast as he could. Something with that kinda kill count couldn't be allowed to walk around.

Though killing it was probably gonna be easier said than done.

"Guys! It's getting harder to keep it frozen by the second." The son of Poseidon informed the di Angelo's as the strain of attempting to do so with his hydrokinesis caused sweat to stream down his face like a waterfall. "Any ideas on how to kill this thing before it overpowers me? 'Cos if we don't I'm not liking our chances against a whole freaking lake. The damned thing could just wash us away in a tsunami if it wanted to!"

"Can blood boil?" Nico asked as he deflected a deadly lance of blood with his sword.

Percy had tried to stop the Lake from shooting out the damned things, but he already had his hands full with restraining the monster's pseudopods and its attempts to transform into a gigantic wave to sweep them away.

"Yes. Dad joked about it when we last talked to him!" Bianca shouted as her spear was swinging around in a deadly dervish of black Stygian Iron. "But I dunno if I can manage a volcano big enough to boil this lake off on my own. Nico, come help me."

"Gotcha," the son of Hades said as he raced over. "Skeletons protect us from the lances while we work. Phalanx wall!"

The undead warriors couldn't talk but they nodded and quickly formed up into a protective ring around the two children of the Underworld. Within this circle of rusted weapons and animated bone, the two half-bloods of Hades clasped hands and began pooling their power. Something that had an immediate effect as the ground beneath them began to rumble unnaturally.

The Lake seemed to sense the danger and redoubled its efforts to fight the restraining power of Percy's hydrokinesis, causing him to fall to his knees at the sudden increased strain.

"Woah, holy crap." Percy muttered as he could feel the ground shaking. Violently, like either Lord Hades or his dad was pissed at something and knocked over a chair. Or stubbed a divine toe.

At the same time, the largest volley of blood lances yet shot out of the monstrous lake and flew at the di Angelos like homing missiles. Thankfully, their undead protectors' shield wall was surprisingly effective and held. Sure a skeleton warrior here or there got its shield smashed and run through, but they just shrugged off being impaled, tossed aside their old ruined shields, pulled another out from the Underworld - Percy hadn't known they could do that - and got back into formation.

Undead are bullshit. Percy concluded with a pout even as the rumbling of the earth finally reached a crescendo and with a sound like a massive bomb going off a pillar of lava suddenly shot out of the centre of the monster lake.

Huh, so that's what the outside of a volcanic eruption looks like. Much better view then from the inside. Percy thought idly as the lava began piling up around the Bloody Lake and forming into a mountainesque shape. Something was off though.

"Uh, shouldn't it be I dunno dying?" Percy asked with a frown as despite large chunks of its body being boiled away by the lava, the Bloody Lake seemed as voluminous as always. It seemed that every time part of it was reduced to gold dust an equal amount of its bloody water just appeared out of nowhere to replace it. All that the rapidly forming volcano seemed to be doing was push it up off ground level as it caught the monstrous water body in its rapidly rising caldera.

"Oh horse shit. Is it honestly fighting it off?" Percy asked as he grunted, stomping his foot in the ground to keep his stance as he could feel the pull in his stomach trying to rip free via his bellybutton at this point.

"No," Andi said as she appeared next to it, a dark frown on her face. "It's just not dying. Like something is refusing to let it."

"So we can't kill it?" Nico shouted from where he was still helping Bianca form the new, still erupting volcano.

"Maybe if we ask it nicely to stay dead?" Percy asked with a grimacing smile.

"I don't think we can kill it with kindness." Bianca argued as her body shook from the strain of channeling too much power.

"No, but if we can't kill it then we can only negotiate." Andi concluded with a scowl. "Much as I hate to, it's our only option. Percy, you're up."

"Huh? Why me!?" Percy said with a groan even as he already knew the answer.

"Because it hates me and you are the closest thing we have to a water negotiator being a son of Poseidon and all. Unless you want me to phone in Triton or Kymopoleia."

Percy sighed and nodded.

"Okay, fine. But let me just say that this plan is stupid."

"Noted." Andi nodded with a smug little smile. "Let's just get this over with, alright?"

"Let's." Percy said with a resigned nod.

"So you just want to be left alone?" Percy asked the humanoid avatar made of its constituent bloody water that the Bloody Lake had created for the negotiations as he stood across from it on the monster's new waterline in the caldera atop its new volcanic home.

Yes! It said in the form of a few bubbles noises that only he, and probably Andi, could understand. No more wizards on my shore. No more demigods. No more goddesses. I just want peace!

"I mean, yeah, that's cool and all but you could have just said so without all the murder. I'll be honest, I kind of want to dust you for all those kids you killed."

They started it. Besides I had tacit approval from Lady Styx. I'm hardly to blame.

"You can always be blamed for murder." Percy told it, his eyes narrowed. "Do this again, and I promise I will find a way to end you. Permanently. Not even Tartarus will be safe for you."

Bold words, hmph! But threats aside, can you make the wizards agree?

Percy shot a look behind him to where Andi was watching the negotiations from a distance, something the Lake had demanded before it even agreed to talk. She nodded.

"I'll put in the word, but if not you're going to have to live with it. You've got a mountain between you and them now. That's gotta be enough."

Hardly.

"Well it better." Percy said, a touch of menace in his tone.

The Lake's avatar's shape lost cohesion at its edges at the display, perhaps expressing its fear, but it nodded.

Very well. But I reserve the right to defend myself if they choose to antagonize me.

"Defend. Not assault. If I hear you messing around for giggles, I'm cashing in a lot of favors to have you removed."

The shape nodded before melting away, slithering like a slimy snake back into the rest of the Bloody Lake.

Asshole. Percy fumed internally. He wanted to rip the whole lake apart, tear it asunder but whatever was leaving it alive wasn't letting that happen anytime soon.

It felt too hollow to even call this a victory.

"You can't be serious!" Dumbledore shouted, getting into Andi's face as she explained to him the terms of the agreement that Percy had struck with the Bloody Lake. "We can't abandon Hogwarts! We've been in operation for a thousand years!"

"It's that or risk the Lake repeating what it just did or worse," Andi told him, undaunted by the Headmaster's bluster. "Do you want to see hundreds of school children die on your watch again?"

Dumbledore flinched back at the reminder of the tragedy that had transpired.

"A school is a school, Dumbledore. The lives of the students matter more." Andi continued sadly, even a touch torn. "We can't kill this thing. As long as it's somehow immortal, learning magic is going to have to happen elsewhere. At least for the childrens' sake, right?"

"But-"

Before Dumbledore could muster another argument, the matter was taken out of his hands as suddenly the magic of Hogwarts shifted and everyone within its grounds were consumed by a brilliant white light. Andi could have fought the magic at work but she sensed it wasn't malicious and so let it run its course. When the light faded, they all found themselves outside the Hogwarts grounds altogether with its front gates slamming shut forcibly behind them.

"Huh, leave it to the school to protect all those within it with what it can." Andi commented with a sad smile. "I'm sure you feel responsible for this, don't you Hogwarts? Thank you though for doing the best you could."

My work is not done. The castle replied, its voice sounding like the melodious union of innumerable children. The Lake harmed those under my care. I will never forgive it for that! I will make it pay!

Hehe, give it a punch in the water dick for me, Hogwarts. Andi told the sentient masonry.

The goddess of the wild got a telepathic thumbs up in reply even as Mist rolled in from nowhere and surrounded Hogwarts, its new volcano and the Bloody Lake. Within moments, they all vanished, absorbed into the realms of Hellenistic myth and fated to appear somewhere, sometime else to serve as a mythic locale and challenge for some intrepid heroes in the future.

"Wha-!? What just happened?" Dumbledore asked in confusion, but Andi just ignored him.

"It's a whole new chapter, huh?" Andi wondered aloud as she spun on her feet and walked away. "Dumbledore, I'm leaving. My nature spirits will be too now that your Mediwitches and Healers have arrived. You can handle the rest."

Without waiting for a reply, Andi transformed into a zephyr once more and teleported away with her subordinates and the half-bloods she'd recruited.

"You sure about this?" Andi asked Hermione worriedly.

The emaciated young woman nodded. Despite all the treatment she'd received from St. Mungo's and the healing that Andi had arranged, the damage that the Lake's disease had done to her still clung to her like a vile cloak. Just like it did with all the other survivors.

"Someone has to be Ron's mouthpiece." Hermione told her with a fond glance at the redhead who was dozing off in the wheelchair behind them both. "If not his words would never be believed. It might not work, but hopefully if I repeat his words rather than others hearing them directly it'll raise the chances of them being believed."

"Yeah, but does it have to be you?"

"Yes," Hermione affirmed with a firm nod. "I can't let something like Hogwarts happen again. I can't let Ron's prophecies go unheeded."

"Alright, but Oracle stuff isn't fun. I've seen my fair share of depressing things it can lead to. Be careful."

"I can handle it." Hermione declared boldly. "Besides, Ron has no choice in the matter does he? And I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I walked away and left him to such a grim fate."

Smirking, Andi nodded. "Nope. Be good to him and live a long happy life. It's all I ask… Okay, 'Mione?"

"You should go, Andi." Ron said suddenly, revealing that he was awake. "But don't teleport. You have visitors outside."

Andi frowned and looked to Hermione.

"Go. I'll take good care of him." The muggleborn assured her.

Andi just nodded and walked out of the small cottage that the two now shared on the grounds of the recuperation home that the wizards had dumped them in to recover. As she did, the familiar banks of Mist rolled in to surround the cottage and transformed it into an ivory tower before disappearing it away to wherever it now fit into the Hellenistic mythos.

"Good job, Andi." Apollo said as he materialized next to her. "A Stygian Oracle? It'll make a wonderful addition to our collection!"

Dr. Stevenson, dressed in a fashionable pants suit thankfully but still sporting the collar that marked her enslavement to the god, let out a sigh of frustration at her master's words before she followed it up with a smack to the sun god's head.

"Be nice, Lord Apollo." She chided her master. "Lady Andromeda is probably feeling terrible at the costs involved with creating said new Oracle."

Bold of her. Andi mused as she nodded to Apollo, who seemed to be ignoring his slave entirely. "It wasn't planned, unless you saw all of this happening?"

"My power of prophecy is not unlimited." Apollo admitted with a shrug and a disarming smile. Not that it worked on Andi at all. "Most of the time I just leave it to the Oracles themselves to do their jobs."

"That better be true, Apollo." Hecate said as she joined them in a burst of multicolored fire. "Because if I discover you let so many of our wizards die just to secure a new Oracle, there will be a reckoning."

"You want me to swear on the Styx?" Apollo asked, sounding thoroughly amused by the whole thing.

"Lady Hecate, sorry, but you mind dealing with this?" Andi asked tiredly. "'Cos I'm too tired after everything to deal with this."

Hecate shot her a sympathetic look and nodded.

"Go home, Andi. I'll handle this."

"Thanks," the goddess of wizardry told her superior honestly as she teleported away.

As she rematerialized in the entrance hall of her home however she was greeted with an urgent hoot from her faithful delivery owl who stretched out a leg laden down by a letter tied to it.

"I've got wizarding mail?" Andi blinked in confusion. Considering almost all her correspondence now got delivered by the Hermes Express, getting old fashioned owl mail was plenty surprising. "Who's it from?"

Your friend Luna. Hedwig helpfully informed her as Andi removed the letter.

"Luna?" Andi gasped urgently as she hurriedly opened the letter, eager to find out what had happened to her missing friend.

Done and done! Thanks to Nameless and Axios as always!

Man, now this was a chapter! I know some parts were gross, others sad, but I think this one really shows Andi in her element as a goddess. In some capacity at least.

Nameless: Yup. She really had to take charge a bit as goddess of wizardry with this. Speaking of goddess' taking charge… Styx was a bitch wasn't she? Well, as far as I can tell from her limited characterization in the Trials of Apollo, she comes across as being very vindictive when dealing with Oath-breakers so as extreme as what she condoned here is, it seems like something that she totally would do.

And of course we made Hogwarts the most badass Hogwarts ever. The eternal battle of lake versus a castle. Truly epic. I salute thee, fine castle, go to battle with valor!

Nameless: And it also shows how we envision that Hellenistic myth gets added to in the modern age. After all, while the PJOverse operates a lot on new renditions of the old classics, new stuff must be added to it occasionally right? With as much of a lived in world as it is, it boggles the mind to imagine that not happening ever.

Myths are a wide canvas, anything can happen to it. I think? Maybe I'm saying it weird.

Nameless: I think you got the point across nicely enough.

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