PERCY

Percy was ready to quit his job.

Because of course Harry, Ron, and Hermione had seen him kill the hellhounds — the Fates hated Percy too much for anything else. Would he be smited if he cursed the old grandmothers out for their inexplicable vendetta against him? Probably. Did Percy have the suicidal urge to do it anyway? Oh, definitely.

But contrary to what Annabeth would have claimed, he did possess some degree of self-preservation. So Percy decided to focus on the immediate problem instead: his three witchy friends, who were staring at him as if he had grown a second head.

"Don't freak out," Percy spluttered. He raised his hands slowly.

Then he realized that they were staring at something behind him, not at Percy himself, a split second before red light sparked through the air from Hermione's raised wand. The hellhound froze, toppling forward. Percy uncapped Riptide and brought the blade down on its head — they had already seen the sword, anyway, so there was no point in trying to hide it.

He recapped Riptide and turned toward Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Thanks. Um, quick question: what are you guys doing here?"

"That's what we should be asking you," Hermione fired back, obviously shaken. Harry and Ron were both still gaping.

They were totally freaking out. Percy couldn't blame them.

"Touché," he acknowledged. "Um… I felt like taking a walk?"

"In the bloody Forbidden Forest?" Ron said incredulously. He shivered, glancing around at the dark, looming woods around them. "Really pleasant place to have a stroll in, innit?"

Percy shrugged. "It's a cool place. The trees are very… um…" He searched for positive adjectives, but came up empty. "...tall."

The three continued to stare at him. Percy nodded, mostly to himself. "Alright. You know what? Let's get back to the castle so that we're not in immediate danger of being mauled to death, that's probably —"

"INTRUDERS IN THE FOREST!"

The sound of… hooves? broke Percy off. Centaurs thundered from the trees into the clearing with a sound like stampeding elephants. They surrounded the four of them in seconds with their bows drawn, and all Percy could think was, Please let them not be Party Ponies.

"Name yourselves!" The leader commanded, cantering forward. "Who are you, and what is your business in the Forbidden Forest?"

Percy turned around to face him slowly, lifting up his hands in a gesture of peace. At least, he hoped it was — he had learned from Chiron's cousins that centaurs were incredibly unpredictable. Especially when they were drunk. "We were just passing through. We'll be on our way now —"

"Lies!" The leader drew his bow back further.

"Okay, chill," Percy said, hand inching towards the pen in his pocket. "No need to get so aggressive."

But the leader's attention wasn't on him. He stared past Percy, at the three students behind him, and suddenly he roared in anger.

"You! I recognize this one —" He pointed at Harry — "And the girl. Last year, when they came with the arrogant toad-woman! They presumed to use us to do their bidding; supposing themselves, as humans, superior to us filthy centaurs. Even worse, they brought upon us that bumbling giant who destroyed our sacred trees! You dare to set foot in this forest again?"

He swung his bow towards Harry and Hermione. Percy filed away his speech to ask them about later; for now, there was a more immediate problem at hand. He needed to distract the centaur maniac before his friends got shot.

"Are you Party Ponies?" Percy blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

The leader half-lowered his bow in surprise. "What?" Then he recovered and lifted it again. "How dare they! See how willingly they will compare us, the noble breed of centaurus silvam, to those wild, alcohol-drinking, party-throwing, folly-loving, human-helping, order-destroying, tradition-ignoring paintball shooters! They disgrace the name of the centaurs!"

There was the sound of hundreds of bows being pulled to full draw. "They shall die!"

"DIE!" Was the chorus.

"This is your fault," Ron muttered to Percy.

"My fault?" Percy said back. "My fault?" He paused, thinking. "Actually, you're probably right. But you guys are the ones who had to get on the centaurs' bad side or something last year!"

"That was Harry and Hermione, not me!" Ron scowled.

"Shut up, you guys!" Hermione hissed.

"No words to defend yourself?" The leader taunted. "Silent in your last moments? Very well then, it is your —"

"We know Chiron!" Percy called out hopefully.

The clearing fell silent. Percy felt the eyes of all the centaurs trained on him. He wondered if he was just digging their graves deeper and deeper — that tended to be an annoying little habit of his. But at least he had tried…

"Chiron?" The leader repeated. Something flickered in his dark eyes.

Percy nodded. "Yeah, he's my mentor."

A murmur ran through the crowd. The leader's hooves clopped back and forth, tail twitching nervously. "Chiron is your mentor, you say…"

"Yup," Percy said. "He teaches at my, uh, school." He glanced back at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, hoping that the centaurs wouldn't blow his cover.

"School? Is that what he now calls his camp for —"

"Wizards! Yes." Percy gasped. "Camp for wizards. School for wizards. Same thing."

"Hm." The leader eyed him suspiciously. "I sense that you are not lying, that Chiron is your mentor. We defer to the Chiron, as he has found favor with the gods and therefore is held in high honor among us. It would be disrespectful — and perhaps even punishable — to mistreat one of his students. Especially —" His eyes widened. "No, impossible. Surely you are not that boy he so often talks about? Perseus Jackson?"

"He talks about me?" Percy felt his cheeks warm. "I'm not that good of a student…"

But the centaurs had lowered their bows, murmuring amongst themselves with some sort of awe. The leader dipped his head in a reluctant bow.

"Boy, you are the savior of Olympus. Why did you not inform us? We would never have dared draw our bows on you!"

"What are they talking about?" Harry muttered to Percy.

"Um…" It was nice to not be in immediate danger of dying anymore, Percy thought, but the downside was the aggressive flow of questions that would inevitably follow from Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Just something that happened at my old school. Really, it's nothing to worry about."

"Right." Hermione sent him a look that clearly said, we'll talk about this later.

Wonderful. Just fantastic.

"We owe you our respect, then," the leader continued. "I am Magorian, leader of this tribe. It is an honor. However," he turned back again to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, "These three are of the filthy wizard school at which the traitor Firenze teaches. I have no reason to hold back from killing them."

He made a motion with his hand, and the ring of centaurs surrounding them drew their bows again.

"Wait!" Hermione squeaked. "Please don't kill us!"

"Don't kill them!" Percy blurted out at the same time.

"Why shouldn't we?" Magorian asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity. "They are intruders. Polluters. They deserve to be gotten rid of."

"Yeah, but they're with me. They're my friends," Percy explained. "If you kill them, that's like… that's like attacking me."

Magorian scowled, but signaled for the centaurs to drop their weapons. They lowered their bows obligingly. "Very well then. If you choose to place these students beneath your protection, we will not lay a finger upon them. But know this — if I find them wandering in the woods here where they do not belong, stinking up the air with their human stench, and if you are not there to defend them, we will not hesitate to shoot."

"Deal," Percy said.

Magorian stared at him for a moment longer before turning and cantering into the woods, his centaurs following behind. The four of them were left in the clearing alone. Ron broke the silence with a muttered exclamation.

"Bloody hell."

—l—

"So your school's activities director is a centaur? And that centaur happens to be the one that the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest look up to?"

"Yeah, that's what I just said," Percy said impatiently. Ron goggled at him.

"Well, what about the beasts from earlier? They were going to kill us!" Harry exclaimed.

Percy coughed. They had made their way back to the castle after leaving the forest, and were now talking in the empty Gryffindor common room. Well, it was more like the Interrogate Percy game at this point. He was really starting to think that he was not the best person for this quest.

"Just awfully scary beasts from the forest, I reckon," Ron said in a low voice, luckily not realizing that the question was meant for Percy. "Haven't ever seen those before, but then again, I don't make it a daily habit to have tea in the Forbidden Forest. We could ask Hagrid about them —"

"No!" Percy interjected — a little too quickly, as the three looked at him strangely. "I mean, uh — no, he probably won't know what they are. I don't think I've ever heard of them before, either. Have you, Hermione?"

Hermione frowned at the roaring fireplace. "I don't think so. I've never been that knowledgeable in the areas of magical creatures, though, so it's quite likely that Hagrid will know more than me. But what I want to know is how you fended them off, Percy." She glanced at him through narrowed eyes, and he gulped. "Since when did you have a sword? And are swords even allowed at Hogwarts?"

Percy scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Well, we did a bit of physical combat training at my old school."

The understatement of the century. He deftly dodged the second question.

"A bit of combat training?" Ron repeated. "Mate, you looked like a bloody swordsman back there. Whack! Slice! Stab! "

Percy laughed nervously. "Hehe, yeah… it's a lot easier than it looks. Plus, I actually like using a sword — probably more than using my wand, so I'm probably better than most people."

"Really?" Ron bounced in his seat like an excited five-year-old. "Reckon you could teach me how sometime?"

"Ron," Hermione scolded.

Ron looked at her, wide-eyed. "What?"

"How come your school has combat training, and not ours?" Harry asked, cutting in. "It's not exactly a typical wizarding thing. Don't you rely on wands mostly?"

"Of course," said Percy, lying through his teeth. "But you know, what if you lose your wand? I used to be infamous for losing pens. If you're disarmed in the middle of a battle and there's an enemy coming at you, you have to be able to defend yourself without the wand, don't you?"

"I suppose that's true. Have you been in a battle before?" Hermione asked suddenly, catching him off guard.

"Nope," Percy replied quickly.

"And what about all those things the centaurs said? Savior of — of…" she trailed off. "That's strange, I can't remember."

Was that the Mist at work? Percy barely dared to hope. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said confidently. "The centaurs didn't say anything about a savior."

"No, they did," Harry disagreed, and Percy's stomach sank. "But I don't think they mentioned of what. At least, if they did I don't remember."

"Yeah," Percy said, relieved. "I don't know why they would call me a savior. They must have been thinking about someone else."

"Hm." Hermione eyed him uncertainly. "Well, I suppose we got lucky, then." She was quiet for a moment, then added slightly grudgingly, "Thank you. For saving us, I mean."

"Yeah, thanks," Harry chimed in. "We would've been — er, supper for some beast if not for you."

"Yeah, no problem," Percy said, glad that they had moved on. He hated to admit it, but he also couldn't help but feel a flush of pride at their words. It was nice to be recognized. He smiled slightly, fingering Riptide in his pocket.

"Can you teach me to swordfight?" Ron asked again.

So there we go! Not quite a "demigod reveal" just yet, but things have begun to happen.

In response to a reviewer, ThunderSphinx: Thanks so much for your input! I definitely agree that an American wand would have been better; however, Percy was in England and introducing an American wandmaker might have created unnecessary complications to the story. But you're right, he probably should have gotten a wand that corresponded with the location of the gods.

So as for the core, I purposefully combined two "supreme cores" in a dual core. This is because dual cores are usually made up of either two lesser cores or one supreme core and one lesser core to balance it out. I sort of played with the idea that demigods are inherently more powerful than wizards, and so Percy would require a much more potent core.

Now, the two fire cores don't really make much sense. I was looking at the descriptions of the core-wielders as noted on Pottermore, which is why I didn't take into consideration the fire element. That being said, looking back on my notes, the phoenix feather probably should have been a unicorn hair instead; phoenixes are supposedly independent and detached from the world, which doesn't exactly fit Percy's personality, plus he has a connection to horses (as you said). So yes, I agree that unicorn hair would have been ideal.

(Since they don't have Pegasi in the wizarding world, it would be difficult to make a core from one.)

Regarding the wand wood: Again, I was looking at the frequent qualities of the wand wood-owners, not the wood itself. According to Ollivander, "Whenever I meet one who carries a cedar wand, I find strength of character and unusual loyalty. My father, Gervaise Ollivander, used always to say, 'you will never fool the cedar carrier,' and I agree: the cedar wand finds its perfect home where there is perspicacity and perception. I would go further than my father, however, in saying that I have never yet met the owner of a cedar wand whom I would care to cross, especially if harm is done to those of whom they are fond. The witch or wizard who is well-matched with cedar carries the potential to be a frightening adversary, which often comes as a shock to those who have thoughtlessly challenged them."

Honestly, I couldn't find a better match for Percy's personality. He's loyal — that's pretty much his defining trait, what with it being his fatal flaw and all — and if harm is done to his loved ones, he isn't someone you should cross. He is a pretty frightening adversary, which definitely came as a shock to Ares when they battled in book 1.

I'm not so sure about the "perspicacity and perception" bit — Luke comes to mind — but the other qualities, I think, overrule that.

I also went back in to Chapter 12 and fixed those errors you pointed out. It didn't even occur to me that Percy could speak to hippogriffs, my bad :')

Anyway, thanks for putting in the time and effort to write such thorough reviews! I really appreciate it :)

And thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter, I get unreasonably excited whenever I get a notice in my inbox. Seriously, they make my day. Please keep it up!

unfinished . nocturne