Chapter 20
Annabeth
After Offense Against the Dark Arts class, as we were now calling our evening sessions, prom shopping ran late again. It was at least one a.m. by the time I got to my room and showered. Unlike Percy, I can't just jump in anybody of water, dry instantly, and call myself clean.
After I dried off and put on my pj's, I went through a door I had earlier asked Leo to have the aerials to add. Percy and I now had adjoining rooms, though he had apparently not noticed this. I quietly slid into bed next to him and he was startled awake.
"Wh,,, What are you doing here?" He whispered with a smile as he turned on the light on the night stand.
"Always together, remember?"
"Well yeah, but I didn't think you meant when we were asleep." He put his arm around me and we reclined on the monstrous pile of pillows in his bed.
"I meant all the time. Oh, but you can go to the bathroom by yourself. Unless you want me to..."
"No, no, I can handle that by myself. Uh, so, I know we talked about, you know, sleeping together. I thought we had an understanding, but, well, now I'm confused."
"Oh, sex. No, nothing has changed. I still feel and think the same way. Do you?"
"Well, yeah, but, well, if you are going to be next to me in bed I imagine I'll have some differing thoughts from time to time." He grinned.
I figured this would come up and had put some thought into what to say next.
"We can talk about those when they come up. Growing up from being a teen to being an adult isn't supposed to be easy, and its probably harder on us than most. Let's face it, our parents, both mortal and immortal probably assume we've already done it. Our friends too, but, well, its our decision when we want to and when we think its the right time. I'm not saving myself for marriage like they did 50 years ago, but I'm in no rush to move to that stage either. Honestly we marched through Tartarus together, seen each other die and nearly die, and through it all its always been Percy and Annabeth. And its always going to be. We've had intimacy most people couldn't dream of. We just haven't had sex."
"Uh yeah, I guess that's true. And its always nice sleeping beside you, even when its on hot, broken glass. I think a mattress and sheets made by servants of the gods will probably be a vast improvement." He smiled as he leaned over to kiss me, a kiss I gladly returned.
"And this way, you won't get yourself killed in the middle of the night." I smiled. "Now, we should get some sleep. I can't wait to see what Nico has done to Umbridge in the morning."
"Yeah, any idea what he did?"
"No, and he won't tell anyone. I don't think even Will knows."
"Its nice about Reyna and Neville isn't it?"
"Yeah, I don't like having too many single women around you." I smiled.
"You know what I mean! And geez, you know all about us at Jupiter. She wanted us to be close but I remembered one thing from Half Blood and that was you. So come on, cut me some slack, I'm not a cheater."
"No. Your loyalty is legendary. Some even say its your weakness. But its one of the things I love about you. Now. Sleep time. Good night." I said as I kissed him once more and pulled the comforter up to my chin and then rolled over. "Spoon me" was my last comment before he turned the light back off.
It felt so wonderful and safe in his arms, I knew I would sleep like never before.
"Percy?"
"Yes?"
"Did you bring your sword to bed?"
"No, Riptide in my shirt, you know that."
"What's poking me in the back then... oh. Never mind" I said as I scooted away from him a bit and fell asleep.
The morning came too early and I dashed to my room to get ready to face the day. Percy slept another hour and was still able to get ready before me. Still he waited patiently while I did my make up. Yes, I wear make up for school, just not generally for Camp Half Blood. No one really cares what you look like there. It has been one of the ways Piper and I have bonded as neither of us knew anything about it when she first came to camp, although once she learned she was the daughter of Aphrodite it hardly mattered.
Breakfast was coffee, shared with our crew as we each dragged in to the dining room. No one had slept long enough and the tired was beginning to show in our eyes. Even bright eyed Ginny was beginning to show the long hours. We mostly made chit chat and for the most part were left alone. We talked some of expanding our group and bringing in Luna and several of the trusted Gryffindors, but we generally tabled that for awhile to see how our current group did. Once they no longer needed individual attention we could expand to those loyal to Dumbledore and Harry. Of course we didn't say this, we, the demigods, merely said "Let's wait a bit and see how it goes."
Defense against the Dark Arts was even weirder today. It was clear Umbridge had not slept, perhaps in two or three days now, and was again arguing with herself. She gave the Americans and Gryffindors excellent marks on homework we didn't do and she didn't assign, then scolded Slytherin for not doing the same. She suddenly took an interest in making sure everyone knew what a stunning spell felt like and had stupified Crabbe before the rest of Slytherin began blocking her shots.
"Why do you have your wands out? The Ministry believes you don't need them as you're not going to be attacked!" She shouted as she continued to fire stupefy jinxes into the mass of students.
Finally we heard the door shut, and looked back to see Snape and Dumbledore. Snape disarmed Umbridge, and Dumbledore gently led her away. We would learn later from Neville, Reyna and Will, that she was in the mental ward of Mungo's, but for the day all we knew was the announcement at dinner that Defense against the Dark Arts class was canceled for the rest of the week. This was good news for several reasons. Since the aerials could make breakfast, we got to sleep in an extra hour. And of course it meant Umbridge was gone from our lives. Who ever replaced her was bound to be an improvement.
It was a night of celebration in the American Wing of Gryffindor Tower, but that didn't stop us from having a great class on tells and not telegraphing attacks.
"Okay, so you guys are all about attacks. Isn't the attacker the one that is usually to blame in a fight though? I mean, not against Death Eaters so much, they wear those masks and stuff, but just in general?" Hermione asked at one point.
"Good question. Let me ask you, have you ever seen a fight at school?"
"Well, I punched Draco in the face third year." She replied to her Gryffindor friends laughter.
"Okay, well, other than one you've been in yourself, one you've observed."
"Hmm, well last year a couple of the girls from Ravenclaw got into it with a girl from Slytherin and her friend in Hufflepuff. That was in the dining room, I guess everyone saw it, but I don't know what it was about."
"Excellent! Who threw the first punch?"
Hermione stared into space as though trying to remember, then finally said "I can't recall."
"Exactly! Two almost universal truths about every fight. One, when its over, rarely do most people know what it was about, and two, no one ever remembers who threw the first punch. So, while we don't advocate violence to solve problems, as between people it never does, if a fight is coming and isn't avoidable, like with the Death Eaters and Voldemort, hit first, hit early, hit as fast and as hard as you can and try to devastate the opponent with your first shot, hold nothing back. Now, team drills. Leo, are you ready?"
"I am indeed Madam Sargent at Arms, more importantly our training partners are ready." He replied. I had asked him earlier to build some of his devices for the Gryffindors to shoot at that would shoot back in a non lethal way. For Leo, this was an hour in the afternoon and a half hour after dinner to complete.
"Right this way ladies and gentlemen" he said as he led us through the stables and to an open field. Under an oak tree at the base of a hill was a picnic table where Aurum, Argentum, Skippy and Festus were all napping, having played all day. We joined them at the table and Reyna introduced the dogs to everyone that didn't know them.
"Okay, so those little gold guys" I said, pointing up the hill at the several training drones for lack of a better word, "are your opponents for the evening. Leo, lets start with three of them, ranged across about 20 meters apart. Guys, your job is simple. Each has a few target spots on them. Some kill them, some disarm, some wound. Leo will tell you which is which. Your job is simply advance up there and capture the flag that is placed behind them. They are programmed to react like normal fighters might. No surprises on these first few runs. Oh, except, like normal fighters, they shoot back. If you get hit by a red spark, you're considered dead. If you get hit by a blue spark, wounded, but only able to fire from where ever you are when you're hit, and if you get hit by a spark meant to disarm, well, you will be disarmed. Any questions?"
Leo went over the color coding of the targets, and the Gryffindor kids said they were ready. No one took a shield on the first try, not that it would have mattered.
"Okay Gryffindor on the count of three... wait, thats a mouthful. What are we going to call you guys in our training?
"How about 'DaDa 2' for "Defense against Dark Arts 2" Ron suggested.
"Well, if we're going to do that, why don't we just go with 'DA' for 'Dumbledore's Army'? That's what the Ministry is afraid we're going to do anyway." Ginny suggested to the smiles of the Gryffindor kids.
We all looked at each other, nodded, and I shouted, "One! Two! Three! Team DA, advance on targets!"
They all took off screaming and shooting jinxes and were cut down in about 10 feet. Only Ron wounded a target and I suspect that was just luck.
"Damn it! That hurt!" Ginny shouted. The poor girl had been hit by several red sparks at once as she found herself out in the open.
"Its better than dying. Trust me on this" Percy said.
"Okay, so what went wrong there?" I asked.
"We were out classed. They shot faster and more accurately than we can." Hermione said.
"Bullshit" replied Jason. They weren't that fast, all of you were shooting faster in practice yesterday.
"Yes, but then we had planned what spell... Oh. We didn't have a plan." Hermione said.
"Exactly. You didn't have a plan. You fought as five individuals, not one cohesive unit. A lot of that is combat experience, but we can't give you that. We can only simulate it, and we're going to until fighting together as a unit becomes second nature to you. You discuss it fast, then hit them. With practice, and having partners you trust, eventually you don't need to discuss it. And todays' is going to be easier than real life for a couple of reasons. One, you won't die if you fuck up, and two, the enemies are going to stand still. If they come to attack you, they are going to be moving. They have to be, other wise you could just move away from them and defeat their objective. Now, lets do a demo. Leo, how many of those do you have ready?"
"Seven, but give me a half hour and "
"No seven is plenty. Let's see. Percy, Jason and myself will be the attackers this time. Percy, would you lead us?"
"Uh, sure," he said, getting up and stretching, "as long as Jason doesn't mind."
"Oh, no worries, I'll get next." Jason replied.
"Good, now pay attention students, you don't often see this in the wild. Its called 'Bromance' and its a beautiful thing." Leo joked, causing even Frank to laugh.
"Right." Percy smiled. "Annabeth, left flank, Jason right, whoever breaks first circle to the rear, I'll hit the center and handle suppressing fire. Oh, and no inherent skills, it wouldn't be fair to DA. We good? On three, Leo, count it off."
On the count of one, each of us grabbed a shield, on two we faced the drones and on three we raised the shields and took off left and right as Percy unleashed as many spells as rapidly as he could along the line of seven drones. They fired a few sparks back, but as they were programmed to act like human attackers, the shots were wild as they dodged his incoming fire.
Percy began correcting his aim and soon took out two, wounding one and killing the other. I hit one and Jason must have hit one or two. I got to the line just as all of the survivors focused their fire on me. I dropped down behind my shield and to my right saw Percy begin to charge what was left of their line just as Jason began hitting the column essentially in the rear from his position on the left as they were turned towards me. The fight then ended in seconds as Percy hit the wounded one again, and Jason hit the remainders.
"Boooyah! And that's how its done!" Jason said. Percy just went back and laid down on the picnic table.
"Okay, but if you use shields, how can you use both wands and swords?" Hermione asked.
"Good question. While there are some shields that are small, called 'bucklers" that you could use a wand or sword in that hand with, larger shields as used by the Romans and Greeks wouldn't allow for it. But remember, if you are fighting just spells against spells then your deflection charms are your shield, and your curses and jinxes are your projectile weapons. You won't need your blades until you are up close and with luck they won't be expecting them."
"The real difference is we had a plan, and each of us understood it. Jason and Annabelth were in charge of different areas to attack, and to allow them to move in my job was to fire as many spells as possible so the enemy couldn't raise up to defend. Essentially I played the role traditionally held by archers or artillery of pinning the opponent down, with Annabeth and Jason being the armor or cavalry or even infantry, of attacking the enemy and killing it." Percy said.
"Let's try it again. Leo could you set up three again?"
This time the DA talked it over first and easily won, so we reset it with five then seven. With five they did fine, but seven caused them to loose a couple people so we ran it again, over and over, until they got it right. Then we did some speed drills where each faced two drones, firing off deflection and stupify's off alternativly as fast as they could.
I was disappointed that so far none of the DA had starting teaching us anything about spells and we were having to explain their uses to them, but finally Hermione, gods bless her, said "So it appears that once the drones go into motion we can use some curses and jinxes not just to attack with, but to, uh, suggest their movements to them."
A silence fell over us.
"Go on." I finally said.
"Well, if they are programmed to react like people and you wound or shoot near one, wouldn't the reaction be that they wouldn't go there anymore?"
"Yes. That would be the natural and normal reaction. Please continue." I couldn't help but smile now.
She stared and furrowed her brow as though thinking hard on it. "Well, then working together you could fire at both ends of the line for instance and move them to the middle, then, well they would be bunched up and easier to hit? Maybe?"
"Yes! And more importantly, its harder for them to shoot at you when they are in each others way! Congratulations Hermione! You crossed over the line from tactics to strategy! Now tomorrow night, we will work on what shapes you might want to put them in, and what shapes you might want to deploy your own team with. You're making wonderful progress! Now, and I think I speak for everyone here when I ask, what spells do you suggest we use, and how, to crush the enemy once we have them bunched up, Hermione could you be ready to teach us that tomorrow?"
"Yes, I suppose, I mean, I will have to think about it and do some research but"
"Be creative!" I said. "Think outside the box."
"No, its just quidditch try outs are tomorrow evening and"
"And the next day is Saturday, so we can sleep late. But tomorrow night will be mostly class room and we will practice the next day. We don't go to Hogsmeade do we?"
"No, not this weekend, we can next." Ron said.
"Well, there you go! We can practice Saturday!"
"Too bad we can't have quidditch try outs and practice here. It would solve the security problem." Harry said.
"Why couldn't you?" Jennifer asked. "Its not like we're using all the space out here. Leo, could you set up a quidditch court here?
"Sure. If I had any idea what size it is, or what it looked like."
"Well then its settled. Practice here. If just Gryffindors are trying out have them meet in the common room and bring them in.
"Jason, why don't you guys go look at the Hogwarts pitch while we girls finish up with gowns, we have purses and shoes to work on too. Honestly I don't know how it will all get done!" Piper asked.
"Piper, I love you, but I swear you're turning into..." Jason began to say.
"Into what honey?" She smiled.
"A girl" Nico said, making us all break out laughing.
