9: I Win
After his win in the first trial, Percy takes a bath and accidentally falls asleep. At some point he wakes up with a mouth full of bubbles and coughs violently. He can breathe underwater but the soap tastes bad either way.
After changing he thinks to go find Annabeth but remembers she said something about spending the evening in the Slytherin common room.
It's nearly curfew anyway, so Percy heads to his own common room instead.
One of Percy's favorite things about being in Hufflepuff is it has easy access to the kitchen, perfect for any-time snacking.
Once he has climbed through the portrait on his way to the common room, he sees a dozen Hufflepuffs doing exactly that. They are laughing and debating on what to grab as they scrounge through cupboards, most everything on hinges hanging open.
Once the portrait squeaks shut behind him every one of them freezes in place and looks at him.
A pair of them are balancing a platter with a cupcake tower on it. The very top one falls to the floor with a splat.
"Uh . . ." Percy grins. "Carry on, I'm just passing through."
Silence.
No one so much as breathes--then a first year sends his stack of napkins flying and sprints through the open entrance of their common room, shouting, "He's here!"
"What--"
The rest of them start rushing into the common room, dropping a considerable amount of the food they're juggling on the way and avidly ignoring Percy as he follows closely behind them.
"Guys, come on, you're dropping so many pretzels, I--"
"SURPRISE!"
The common room has been transformed. The earthy room bathed in warm hues is now also littered with blue confetti falling lazily from seemingly nowhere, streamers dancing around in the air, and a huge banner strung above the fire place that reads, 'CONGRATULATIONS PERCY'. There's food on every flat surface and his entire house is bursting with excitement.
Percy laughs. "Oh my gods, you guys are amazing."
Clear he was completely surprised and loves it, the Hufflepuffs cheer and he gets bombarded by thirty of them, speaking at once. The only things he manages to hear are a whole bunch of congratulations and aw at his performance in the arena. After a few minutes someone puts on some music and Percy has to stop himself from laughing at the top hits of 1994.
"This is incredible," he tells Cedric, "I can't believe you put it together so fast."
"You were gone for two hours which gave us plenty of time. And Annabeth helped with the color choice of foods. The Ravenclaw blue almost started a riot but we got it under control. I had to explain to everyoneyourthe Hogwarts Champion not just the Hufflepuff Champion."
"Annabeth's here?"
"I think she's hiding out in a corner."
Percy goes off to find her, eventually locating her beside the door to the girls dormitories, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, drumming her fingers.
"It took like thirty minutes for me to figure out you were here," he tells her. "Did I fail some kind of test? You look mad."
"I'm not mad, I'm trying to limit my interactions with our enemies."
"Admit it, you like it here."
"I like that we aren't being attacked by monsters every ten minutes."
He takes her hands and pulls her off the wall towards a group of dancing students. "I know back at the Astronomy tower you said we shouldn't get too involved or whatever, but we're going to be here for months. You can't just avoid all of them. I think it's okay to have a little fun while we're here."
"I am having fun," she replies, swaying to the music. "See? Fun."
Despite the sarcasm, Annabeth does relax after a few minutes, letting herself get sucked into a conversation with Tamsin who is trying to convince her to try an every-flavor-bean. Percy gets caught watching a food stacking competition for a while.
After about three hours the music has been turned down lest they risk the attention of anyone who might hear at this time of night but other than that, no one is slowing down.
Someone snuck in some kind of alcohol for the older kids. Cedric takes it upon himself to make sure the younger kids get drunk on nothing but sugar and Annabeth decides to help him in this effort, dutifully informing the little ones of all the other fun they can have.
Percy is again recounting his fight with the dragon at the request of Herbert who missed the entire affair because he was in the hospital wing after accepting food from the Weasley twins.
"They let you keep the egg? That's so awesome!"
Percy picks up the golden egg he had set down on an end table and holds it out for him. "Yeah Dumbledore said it's the clue for next task in a few months."
"There's a latch on the top," Annabeth says absently, more focused on the little structure she is building out of pretzle sticks with the help of three second years.
"Go on then Percy, open it up!" Cedric urges.
The whole common room agrees, causing them to chant.
"Shhhh," Percy urges as the chant grows. "Too much noise!"
"Open it up then!"
"Alright, alright. You guys are insane, the whole house is going to have detention!" He undoes the latch and the shell opens like like a flower to reveal a shimmering center, swirling with gold, white, and blue. And from the egg comes the singing of a choir.
Everyone immediately cries out or reacts in some way and Percy looks on at them in confusion. The singing isn't bad . . . He turns to Annabeth who has her ears covered as well. The sight of her pained expression has him snapping the egg closed.
"Hell of a clue," Cedric says, rubbing his ears.
A few of them mutter their agreement.
Percy's confused about what they mean but decides to ask Annabeth about it once they get a moment alone which turns out to be no time soon. At some point during the night Percy gets so tired that he stretch out on a couch, wedging himself behind Annabeth and falls asleep.
When he wakes up, the common room is bright, sunlight streaming through the small windows along the top of the far wall. The distant chiming of a bell though tells him it's six in the morning.
Annabeth is asleep on the couch with him, her head resting on his arm and her legs intertwined with his. They'll get in trouble should Professor Sprout walk in but Percy doesn't have the heart to wake her. His invulnerability practically forces him to sleep whenever possible but Annabeth has a habit of foregoing sleep in order to complete whatever tasks are in front of her.
Since they've arrived she's been exploring the castle every night with her invisibility cap. She wants to map out the entire place but they have since learned the castle occasional changes its lesser used corridors and rooms for the fun of it.
On top of that she's also dedicated much time to studying the magic, the spells, the people, the world. If she didn't have to physically stop to eat and rest Percy is certain she would keep on working at it.
She is not really one for staying still too long, a trait he both admires and hates, as it is a source of constant worry for him. Even before they came here she wasn't sleeping much, choosing instead to devote a majority of her time to the reconstruction on Olympus.
"Are you asleep?" she asks, not opening her eyes.
"Yes," he replies. "Don't move."
As usual, she does the exact opposite and sits up. He stubbornly clings to her waist in case she gets any ideas about standing.
"Percy, I need to get back to my dorm. We'll be in so much trouble if Professor Sprout comes in here."
"What are they gonna do, expel us?" he asks, tugging on her waist.
"They actually could, we pass through the border now."
"If they try to kick us out you can just do the mist thing on them."
She gives in and lays back down. He buries his face in her hair, wishing he could stay like this forever and pretend nothing exists beyond Annabeth.
"Percy did you hear the screeching coming from the egg last night? Everyone else couldn't stand to listen but you weren't effected."
"It was singing," he replies.
"You must have heard something different because you're the champion. Open it when no one's around."
"M'kay," he mumbles.
"I really am getting up now. I need to touch base with the Weasley twins and breakfast is the only time anyone knows where to find them on the weekends. They never miss a chance to have the gourmet Belgian waffles."
He reluctantly lets go, letting her slip out of his grasp.
"Don't fall back asleep," she warns. "If you fall back asleep you'll be out all day. Your friends should be up soon, maybe go have some fun with them."
He mumbles his agreement, eyes already closed.
"Percy."
"Annabeth," he replies.
Instead of reiterating what she's told him, she leans down and kisses him, gently at first, then with much more passion, latching onto his waistband with both hands.
Coming alive, he tries to pull her back down on top of him but instead she pulls away.
"Don't go back to sleep," she repeats. "We'll meet later for some sparring."
"Just sparring?"
"Sparring first."
Percy watches her walk out and throws his head back with a groan of anticipation. He's wide awake now, which was her intention. "Gods, she'll be the death of me."
Getting up, he goes to his assigned bunk and digs through his trunk for a set of clothes. Whatever God sent them here seemed to have just taken every article of clothing from his cabin and thrown it in, clean or dirty.
After changing he takes Annabeth's advice and takes his egg into the corridors of Hogwarts in search of a place with no students which turns out to be harder than he though.
Every student in the halls seems to make it a point to walk with him a few steps and have a conversation, those who don't still call to him as he passes, saying hi or congratulating him.
"Top notch work at the trial."
It seems overnight Percy has transformed from a nobody to having all of Hogwarts well and truly rooting for him.
Even Viktor and Fleur who wouldn't give him the time of day now invite him to sit with them in the courtyard.
"Have either of you opened your egg?" Fleur asks, tossing her hair back.
She usually has a small army of her classmates with her but now she is alone. All her attention on their conversation.
"I did," Viktor says cautiously, but says nothing more.
Percy then realizes what this is. They're trying to feel him and each other out for information on the next task. He hasn't listened to the words or the song yet but he it's weird they would want to compare notes for the clue.
Taking a gamble, Percy says, "Me too. It nearly burst my ear drums."
Viktor nods. "The same for me. It was screaming."
They talk some more minutes, hedging their answers to questions the others asks. Taking his leave of them, Percy resumes his mission of finding a secluded spot, eventually settling for an unused classroom.
He pulls out a quill and paper then opens the egg which once again sings for him.
[A direct quote form The Goblet of Fire written by JK Rowling]
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
When the song loops back to the beginningPercy verses it and studies the text. He's going to do a treasure hunt for the next trial? And a stolen treasure at that. He wonders what they might take from him. He's not attached to anything here except his sword and his camp necklace . . .
He's got weeks before he has to worry about it anyhow. Deciding to leave it be, he returns to the Hufflepuff dorms and tosses the egg onto his bed before leaving.
It's mid afternoon now and he goes looking for his friends, correctly assuming they're at the quidditch pitch. He passes the next hours with them until night falls, signaling it's time to meet Annabeth.
He meets her at the edge of the forest and they walk in, weaving around trees in a direction Annabeth memorized as the way to their training spot.
As they walk he recites the riddle from the egg and tells her that he talked with the other champions about the egg.
"But the thing is, both Viktor and Fleur say they only hear the screaming. They could be lying but I don'tthink they are. A riddle can be solved but the egg just screaming as a clue would have me asking for help too."
"That makes things much easier then," Annabeth replies. "We now know where the next trial will be and what it is."
"Yes to the second part."
"Think about it. You understood the egg when your fellow champions did not. What makes you different?"
"I'm a demigod."
"So am I," she replies, encouraging him to follow the logic. "But I heard no singing."
"I'm a son of Poseidon."
"Which brings us to the logical conclusion."
He recalls the first line he heard and snaps his fingers. "The second trial will be in the lake! That's why I could understand. It was the merpeople singing."
"Exactly."
Once they arrive to their usual training spot, they fall into a practiced pattern of sparring. Percy rolls out of Annabeth reach at one point and jumps back up to his feet.
He almost charges for his girlfriend but stops. Something stirs in the corner of his vision. Percy shifts his stance in that direction, sword outstretched.
Annabeth follows his lead. "What it is?"
"Thought I saw someone," he says squinting at the trees. "It was small though. Must have been a forest animal.
Aside from the spider they saw in the woods the first time they were here, no creatures have come crawling out to face them.
Occasionally he'll catch a glimpse of creatures between the trees but they're always quick to hide or run. They seem afraid of them, which has him wondering if they can smell the god in their veins.
"I think they can," Annabeth says when he voices his thoughts. "Most of them are afraid but in the case of those dragons from the trial it made them even more hostile.
Their training finally comes to an end when Annabeth uses a tree to run up and flip over Percy's head, landing behind him with her dagger resting against the base of his neck.
"I win."
He can hear the smile in her voice and grins. "I'm invulnerable."
With lightening reflexes he spins around and deflects her blade with his own, sending it flying. Dropping his sword, Percy seizes Annabeth by the waist and spins them so she's pinned against the tree.
"I win," he tells her, planting a smug kiss on her cheek.
oOoOo
Much further off in the forest, Dumbledore stands with Charlie as they prepare the dragons to return home.
Charlie strokes the neck of the Swedish Short-Snout, muttering soothing words. "She'll have a rough time of it now, the wound will heal but she'll never see out of this eye again."
"And the sword?"
"Nowhere to be seen. The spell must have worn off."
"Yes, must have," Dumbledore echoes, his mind already figuring this new development in the mystery of the two false students.
The way Mr. Jackson held that weapon . . . it was almost unearthly. The utter ease with which he faced the dragon is most concerning.
"I hope the rock isn't in the poor things eye. It'll be a nightmare to get out."