Hello? Anybody there? I'm writing a chapter you know!

*voice in a distance* (singing tone): Not interested!

What!? But you told me you wanted to read more of this story!

*voice*: I only said that to make you feel better.

Ugh. Oh well. There are plenty of others aside from you who want to read more of this story, so let me complete it and go *beep* yourself.

LOL. I'm just kidding. Anyway, I express my gratitude to all those good sirs and madams who very kindly took time out of their busy schedules to read and review the story of this humble author, dhairyasood748.

I know, I know, I'm extremely late than usual. But bear with me please readers, as I have school, and, of course, parents.

Onward to the story!

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, Sirius wouldn't have died. If I owned Percy Jackson, Luke would have never died, but rather redeemed himself before his possession by Kronos at the end of the Battle of the Labyrinth.

-Line Break-

Harry, being the early riser he was, naturally, was the first one to wake up. He didn't even bother to check. He knew Annabeth or Tyson wouldn't be awake yet. And Percy? Forget it. It took forever for even Annabeth to wake him up, so the very idea of Percy waking up early on his own was just plain absurd.

He walked to the bathroom, cleaned up, showered, brushed his teeth, etc… You know, the usual.

He was about halfway through setting breakfast (cornflakes with eggs and milk) for the others when a voice that sounded way too cheery broke over the intercom.

"Good morning, passengers! We'll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don't forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o'clock, and for our special guests, disemboweling practice on the Promenade!"

He paused. Disemboweling practice?

As soon as he thought that, Annabeth's head poked out from behind the kitchen door. "You hear–What are you doing?" She questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Setting breakfast, as I had doubts about either of you three doing so yourself."

"Well, I could, but wasn't really in the mood, so you got that right." Harry handed her her breakfast, which she accepted, giving him a nod in thanks. "Anyway, as I was saying, did you hear the voice over the intercom?"

Harry nodded. "Yup. Something is definitely wrong with this ship."

She snorted. "No shit, Sherlock."

Harry glared at her, and she laughed. "I'd hurry, if I were you. We need to see what's going on here." She began to walk off, her breakfast in her hands.

"You could sit here, you know." He remarked dryly.

Annabeth turned her head as lightly as possible for her to give him a look for the briefest of seconds, of which he could not quite interpret the meaning of. Then she turned and walked away.

He sighed and shook his head. He would never understand girls. Especially daughters of Athena. He laughed inwardly at the irony of him, a son of Artemis, not understanding girls.

He put everyone's (except his own) breakfast on a tray and put the tray aside. He sat on the table and began eating his own breakfast. Harry loved his own cooking.

After finishing his own breakfast (it didn't take long), he walked out of the tent, he had enough practice to ensure steadiness of the tray and himself. He didn't even mind cooking breakfast for all of them, out of all the chores Vernon gave him, cooking was one he enjoyed. He was also a natural at it.

His mother had later told him that cooking was a part of the Hunt, and that Lily, his mortal mother, if she remembered correctly, had always loved cooking, so it made complete sense for his complete naturalness at cooking and his default fondness for it.

When he came out of the tent, he found Percy on the bed rubbing his eyes, and Tyson on the couch, still half-asleep.

Annabeth must be in the other room, he figured. As a way for Percy to eat his breakfast faster, he charmed his eggs and cornflakes blue, and made his milk chocolate-chip flavored.

He handed Percy and Tyson their respective plates, Percy smiling brightly at Harry after seeing the blue food like the six-year-old who'd just got his favorite toy from his parents after pestering them way too much.

But then, Harry's brows furrowed as Percy's eyes filled with mirth, and he said, "Thank you, kind sir. We will try not to bother you again. Do forgive us for if any inconvenience you had to bear."

He scowled at being treated like a butler, but retorted nonetheless. "You know Percy, I'm surprised at hearing such… polite words from you. Oh, right, Annabeth must have taught you." He winked at Percy, smirking, and his face flushed.

Before he could retort however, Annabeth emerged from behind the door, asking, "Are you three done?" Looking at Percy, she clearly got her answer. "Percy, why does your face look like a tomato?" She asked, one of her eyebrows raised.

Harry resisted himself to laugh at all, but he wasn't completely successful, since a snort, which he had intended to disguise as a cough, escaped his lips. He wasn't even successful in doing that.

Percy didn't answer, but glared at Harry, and returned to his breakfast.

Annabeth sighed. Under her breath, she muttered 'boys' which she thought nobody heard, but Harry did, only chose to remain silent.

-Line Break-

About 10 minutes later, Percy and Tyson had finished their respective breakfasts, and all four of them were roaming the quarterdeck of the ship.

A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.

Nobody asked who they were. Nobody paid them much attention. But there was something wrong, Harry could feel it.

As the family of swimmers passed them, the dad told his kids: "We are on a cruise. We are having fun."

"Yes," his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. "We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool."

They wandered off.

"Good morning," a crew member told them, his eyes glazed. "We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.

Harry frowned. "That's weird." He stated.

"Yeah," Annabeth agreed. "They're all in some kind of trance."

Then they passed a cafeteria and saw their first monster. It was a hellhound–black mastiff with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must've been young, because it was small compared to most–no bigger than a grizzly bear. Harry twitched, and Percy paled. They both had almost gotten killed by one of those last summer.

The weirdest thing: a middle-aged couple was standing in the buffet line right behind the devil dog, patiently waiting their turn for the eggs. They didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

"Not hungry anymore," Tyson murmured.

Before any of them could reply, a reptilian voice came from down the corridor, "Ssssix more joined yesssterday."

Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place–the women's room–and all four of them ducked inside. Harry noticed that it was a girls bathroom, but now wasn't the time to worry about being embarrassed.

Something–or more like two somethings–slithered past the bathroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against the carpet.

"Yesss," a second reptilian voice said. "He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong."

The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been snake laughter.

Annabeth looked at Harry, then at Percy. "We have to get out of here."

"You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?"

"Percy! Now's not the time!" Harry said. "Besides, I'm pretty sure she means the ship, not the restroom."

Annabeth nodded.

"Smells bad," Tyson agreed. "And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship."

Then there was another voice heard from outside–one that caused Harry hands to clench, and blood to boil. If there was one thing he hated above all, it was people hurting the ones he called friends and family.

"–only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!"

It was Luke, no doubt about it.

"I'm not pushing you!" another guy growled. His voice was deeper and even angrier than Luke's. "I'm just saying, if this gamble doesn't pay off—"

"It'll pay off," Luke snapped. "They'll take the bait. Now, come, we've got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket."

Their voices receded down the corridor.

Harry's head set to work. Take the bait? What was Luke talking about? Moreover, who did he mean by 'they'? Not…

Tyson whimpered. "Leave now?"

"We can't," Percy told Tyson after a moment.

"We have to find out what Luke is up to," Annabeth agreed. "And if possible, we're going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus."

"As much as I agree that Luke deserves it," Harry butted in, "but there is a lot of risk of this being a trap here. Are we even sure that Luke hasn't got something planned? For all we know, he could already know we're on the ship and is using us as bait."

Annabeth's determined expression faltered. She looked thoughtful, and a little bit guilty too.

"We'll be careful!" Percy protested.

Harry gasped dramatically. "You? Being careful? On your own?" He shook his head. "That's just absurd."

Annabeth snorted. "Well, he's not wrong now, is he?"

Percy pouted. He turned his head, and grumbled to himself about having such great friends.

"Anyway, back to the topic at hand, we are not going after Luke." Harry said firmly.

Tyson, who had been quiet for the time, finally spoke, "Harry is right. This place smells bad. Big dogs and snake women don't seem as friends."

Annabeth nodded, looking defeated. "Alright, I see your point. The question is, do we stay on the ship some more, or do we leave?"

"We should leave, since if what Harry said is true, and this place is a trap, knowing Luke is bound to find us sooner or later, one way or another." Percy said, still looking a bit miffed.

Harry nodded. "Alrighty then. We're leaving."

-Line Break-

They sneaked through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs that led to the nearest lifeboats.

It shouldn't have taken that much time, but it looked like Nike wasn't completely favouring them, for as they turned a corner, they bumped into Chris Rodriguez, one of both Harry's and Percy's cabin mates from the Hermes cabin, who froze when he saw them.

For a split-second, everything was calm. Then Chris's fists clenched, and he said, "Doing a little sneaking, are we?" He meant to sneer, but it didn't really come off as it. Harry remembered him as polite, never rude to anyone, unclaimed, always kinda sad. He could tell that he had been lured, not joined the Crooked One of his own free will.

Percy started, "Chris–"

"Don't, Jackson," he said, his fists still clenched. "I know what you're going to say, I honestly expected it, as did everyone on this ship."

"Too bad, you won't be able to sneak off anymore." He said, smirking as he did, and reached out towards the emergency siren button onto one side.

Harry chose that moment to act, and flipped out his wand through Sagittarius, as quick as he could, just as Chris broke the glass and punched the button, Harry shot an Impedimenta on him. A siren rang out through their ears, loud enough to be heard by the whole ship, and he knew they were f'ed.

Chris was thrown back with the force of the spell, rendering him unconscious.

He looked at Percy, thankfully he got the message, and they ran to the nearest lifeboat, which was fortunately only ten yards away from them. Their not-so-pleasant company had come in sight, and Harry did not like it one bit.

Six Scythian Dracaenae, and two hellhounds, more than twice as big as both Harry and Percy, were slithering and pounding over to them. The four jumped in the nearest lifeboat with Percy using Anaklusmos to slice the ropes.

The boat landed in the water with a SPLASH!

"How do we move this?" Harry said. His magic won't be enough to do it.

"How am I supposed to know?" Annabeth replied frustratingly.

"The thermos!" Percy suddenly voiced. "Annabeth, the flask! Quick!"

Annabeth did as asked without question. She tossed the flask to Percy, who grabbed it and yelled out "Hang on tight!" before giving it a quarter turn.

There was a blast of wind as a jet of white air propelled them forward with speed none of them had ever gone before, which of course

They heard a wail of outrage from the ship behind, but they were already way out of weapon range.

In less than a minute, the Princess Andromeda had faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, and then it was gone.

As they raced over the sea, Annabeth tried to send an Iris-message to Chiron.

The wind from the thermos had stirred up a nice sea spray that made a rainbow in the sunlight—perfect for an Iris-message—but the connection was still poor. When Annabeth threw a gold drachma into the mist and prayed for the rainbow goddess to show them Chiron, his face appeared all right, but there was some kind of weird strobe light flashing in the background and rock music blaring, like he was at a dance club.

They told him about sneaking away from camp, and Luke and the Princess Andromeda and the golden box for Kronos's remains, but between the noise on his end and the rushing wind and water on their end, Harry was not sure how much he heard.

"Percy," Chiron yelled, "you have to watch out for—"

His voice was drowned out by loud shouting behind him—a bunch of voices whooping it up like Comanche warriors.

"What?" Percy yelled.

"Curse my relatives!" Chiron ducked as a plate flew over his head and shattered somewhere out of sight. "Annabeth, you shouldn't have let Percy leave camp! But if you do get the Fleece—"

"Yeah, baby!" somebody behind Chiron yelled. "Woo-hoooooo!"

The music got cranked up, subwoofers so loud it made the boat vibrate.

"—Miami," Chiron was yelling. "I'll try to keep watch—"

Our misty screen smashed apart like someone on the other side had thrown a bottle at it, and Chiron was gone.

An hour later they spotted land—a long stretch of beach lined with high-rise hotels. The water became crowded with fishing boats and tankers. A coast guard cruiser passed on their starboard side, then turned like it wanted a second look.

"That's Virginia Beach!" Annabeth said as they approached the shoreline. "Oh my gods, how did the Princess Andromeda travel so far overnight? That's like—"

"Five hundred and thirty nautical miles," Percy said, without thinking.

Annabeth stared. "How did you know that?"

"I don't know."

"Probably because of your dad." Harry said. Percy turning turned to him, eyebrow raised.

"Percy, what's our position?" Annabeth questioned.

"36 degrees, 44 minutes north, 76 degrees, 2 minutes west," Percy answered immediately, his eyes still on Harry because of his earlier comment. Then he blinked and shook his head. "Whoa–that's weird. Buuut also really cool."

"Yes, well, you're now our personal human GPS unit." Harry snickered.

Before Percy could say anything, Tyson tapped on his shoulder. "Other boat is coming."

All of them looked back. The coast guard vessel was definitely on their tail now. Its lights were flashing and it was gaining speed.

"We can't let them catch us," Harry said. "They'll ask too many questions."

"Keep going into Chesapeake Bay," Annabeth said. "I know a place we can hide."

Percy looseened the thermos cap a little more, and a fresh burst of wind sent them rocketing around the northern tip of Virginia Beach into Chesapeake Bay. The coast guard boat fell farther and farther behind. They didn't slow down until the shores of the bay narrowed on either side, and they entered the mouth of a river.

Percy's shoulders dropped. He looked tired and frazzled, not active like moments ago. Huh. Must be due to the sudden change to fresh water from salt water.

He could still move the boat, so with Annabeth directing him, he followed her directions.

"There," she said. "Past that sandbar."

They veered into a swampy area choked with marsh beached the lifeboat at the foot of a giant cypress.

Vine-covered trees loomed above them. Insects chirred in the woods. The air was muggy and hot, and steam curled off the river. Basically, it wasn't the most pleasurable atmosphere for Harry.

"Come on," Annabeth said. "It's just down the bank."

"What is?" Percy and Harry asked at the same time. They turned to each other with raised eyebrows.

"Just follow." She grabbed a duffel bag. "And we'd better cover the boat. We don't want to draw attention."

"Allow me," Harry said, stepping towards the boat as he pulled out Sagittarius and flipped out his wand.

He tapped the boat with his wand, watching as it disappeared. Well, not completely disappeared, but it adopted the same colour and texture as of the surroundings. A very useful charm, this one, he mused to himself. He had found this charm rather out of boredom when he was doing some extra reading when he was at Hogwarts.

He then put Sagittarius back in his pocket and told Annabeth to lead the way, with Percy, Tyson and him following behind, wondering where this adventure would bring them next.

-Line Break-

So… how did it fair for you, readers? You can always leave your opinion and/or suggestions in the reviews or PM me, of course. Whatever suits you. I do appreciate them, you know.

I was asked the question that how does Harry know spells beyond his year, spells which he wasn't supposed to know until certain year.

I'm gonna answer this by reminding whoever wrote that review that I mentioned Harry liking to read ahead of classes, as well as digging up useful things that could be important in his life later, which included spells.

So now that I've cleared that up, I'm gonna be signing out. Until next time, readers!