Chapter 45
Percy
I'll let you in on a secret. Someday's, when we are fighting or in some sort of conflict, I am the best on the field. Its a son of Poseidon thing. Although Zeus is the king of the gods, and Ares the god of war, Poseidon is the best fighter. Not to take anything away from Jason, Frank, Reyna or Annabeth, they are all amazing, its just, well, I'm a little bit better. Unless I'm in water, then I'm a lot better. However other days, when we are training or organizing, I'm just a guy who is really good at talking to fish. I was beginning to really look forward to the end of this quest so that Annabeth and I could get on with our lives, set the date, and start college and with it, retirement from the questing life. The giants and titans were vanquished. Sure, we had killed them from this plain of existence, but as immortals they were never truly dead. It would be a while before they could reform with any real organizational strength. The Carters were having their Egyptian problems but seemed to be handling just fine, and Annabeth's cousin was holding his own in Odin's realm.
Each time I fought and was injured it hurt worse. Twice in three months I nearly died on what was supposed to be an easy mission. I was ready for retirement and letting someone else take the reins, but had to finish this quest first. In the mean time I helped train where I could and lusted after my fiance. Oh, and went to class if there seemed to be nothing else going on, even though it was clear that none of the professors actually expected me there anymore.
Once Dumbledore and the Hogwarts kids had told us about Drumstrang and the chauvinistic attitude they had towards magic and warfare, Hazel had come up with the plan of waiting for a fight to pick on her own in order to call them out. No way any guy could have labeled them cowards and have the needed effect, but likewise there was no way their honor would let them seek vengence on a little girl either. The "Hello Kitty" bag was Will's idea. He really does spend a lot of time thinking about purses.
Anyway, it worked and they were shamed into compliance. Once they began training they came along pretty well but for the first couple of weeks Neville, Ron and Harry beat the shit out of them with practice swords while Hermione and Ginny beat the crap out of them with spells. By Christmas break they were a bruised and battered lot, and quite humble. Viktor turned out to be an okay guy in the end, but his flirtations with Hermione caused some friction until she made it plain she was with Ron. He then got shot down by all the American's, including Rachel who was ambivalent about his quidditch prowess. He did become the coach of our quidditch team and here he would have been a great help except that we didn't give a damn about quidditch and his flirtations with Hazel, who now seemed like his best friend most days, ended with "I'm 85 years old and my boyfriend is a dragon."
Compared to Drumstrang, getting the cooperation of the ladies of Beaxbaton was pretty easy. Piper put her mark on everyone and we went to the south of France. Some of the girls there were descended from Veela, a race of uncanny beauty related to both sirens and harpies, but as I understand closest to what we half bloods would call nymphs. In any event, as pretty as they were, Piper made sure our girls had nothing to worry about, and by placing her mother's mark on all the guys going we proved to be a bigger distraction than they were.
The problem was, although they were fiercely loyal to their Hogwarts friends, especially Harry and Ron, their approach to magic was pretty passive. While they learned the same spells, they didn't really learn combat or even defense beyond the basics. Still they were anxious and excited to do so, and as a result we gave them a week with Hermione reviewing basic defensive and offensive spells. The few males at Beaxbatons did pretty well and the girls did as well once they got over the initial giggle fits. The concept of using swords, arrows, spears, any sort of physical weapon really, seemed foreign to them but they got into it fast. The Beaxbaton's crowd was surprisingly happy to move into the Leodis as apparently they had fairly tight quarters in France. Neither they nor Drumstrang would be going to the States with us and poor Leo and his aerials were having a hard time keeping up with both the need for housing and the need for training drones and materials.
The best part of this time for me was when Annabeth and I were called on to assist in guarding Ollivanders during the day. The Death Eaters had tried to hit it at night a couple times but while one or two aurors defended the building, Ollivander would apparate away to a safe location with all his inventory, which he kept ready to go in a box with an extension charm on it. We would guard from the cafe across the street, usually with an auror out front being obvious to spot. They never attacked when we were there, but it gave Annabeth and I time to just hang out and talk. This had be rare for us since we arrived in the UK and we cherished every minute. Finally Annabeth came up with the idea of just moving Ollivander and his inventory to the Leodis at night and all were agreeable. So we had one more for our trip back home.
With a week to go we held our last weekly meeting, with the usual folks there as well as representatives of Drumstrang and Beaxbatons. We reviewed the prophecies and concluded that no progress had been made. Slughorn had not given either Harry or Hermione any indication that he was willing to fess up to the truth of his conversation with Voldemort regarding horcruxes and there was general agreement that even if he did there was no way to know, other than the assurance of the prophecy itself, if it would report an accurate number. This was when Rachel of all people hit upon a novel idea.
"What if we ask someone else?" She said.
"No one else would know." Snape replied.
"Oh sure. Voldemort would know. That occulemancy thing you were teaching Harry, that works both ways doesn't it? She said.
"Yes, but there has to be a connection between the minds, the two people must know each other somehow, otherwise magicians would go reading the minds of muggle stock brokers and use their knowledge to become wealthy in muggle money." Dumbledore kindly explained.
"Right, but there must be a connection between Harry and Voldemort because Voldemort was able to enter Harry's. We always say the best defense is a strong offense, why don't we attack his mind?" Rachel asked again.
"It can take years to master the entering of a person's mind, and we already know the harm that the dark lord can cause when he enters Mr Potter's. Candidly, Mr Potter's abilities in this area are wanting." Snape said.
"I bet we can teach Harry in less than a day. Are the spells necessary in the library?" Annabeth asked.
"Well yes, or course, they are in Goshawk's 'Advanced Spells Compendium' but to master it in one day seems absurd. I've studied it off and on for years and have no where near Professor Snape's ability" Sirius said. "Headmaster, you can't allow this. It is just too risky."
"I want to try." Harry said. "At least let me try."
"I believe we can not only teach him the spell, but that he will be mentally strong enough to overpower any one you choose by tea time tomorrow" Reyna said.
"If Professor Snape agrees to defend, and if Harry can over come his defenses, I will allow it. But only under those conditions. And I would ask Miss Jennifer to be present should Mr Potter attempt to invade Voldemort's mind. I believe her extraordinary talents may be required." Dumbledore said.
With that Reyna, Annabeth and myself rose. "Come on Harry, we have a spell to figure out." I said as we left to go to the Hogwarts library.
"Neville, would you join us please." Reyna asked with a smile, and a nod towards Hazel, who understood and nodded her assent.
As we got to the ballroom, Harry and Neville turned to exit the Leodis and go to the Hogwarts library, but Annabeth said "Not yet guys, we have to talk."
"Aurorum, Argentum, guard my door. Allow none to enter." Reyna commanded to her dogs as we entered her chambers. Once everyone was seated and comfortable in her drawing room, we began.
"Okay guys. This doesn't leave the room okay? No one else needs to know this. Not friends, girlfriends, not DA1, 2, 3, Dumbledore, Sirius, no one. Agreed?" Reyna said.
"Uh,, sure, what's..." Neville said while Harry looked between us nodding slowly.
"Okay, so since we've been here you've seen us learn spells, from Professor Weasley and Hermione. In one sense we do. We don't know what any spell does when you actually use it. I'm convinced that the strength and power of our spells is that we had no preconceived notions as to how strong they were supposed to be, and that has been pretty much proven by you guys having come up to our level. But the thing is, well, we don't learn spells. Not the way you guys do. Well, we do, but before we came here we never did. We had no reason to. We each have abilities, like I can control water and Jason can control air, Hazel controls precious metals and gems, Nico controls the dead...sorcery Sirius calls it"
"I knew it!" Harry exclaimed, "Wait, you don't really do magic?"
"Sure we do, but we just call it being a demi god. The magic comes through us and is magnified and focused by our wands, same as you, but the difference is, well our source is different. It's just what we do because of who we are. We could learn spells your way, but it would take time we didn't have. Here's the thing. It was decided that we needed to fit in here, so Hecate gave us wands. But they aren't like yours, not even yours as far as I know Neville. To speed up our learning of spells, our wands do it for us."
"Okay, that must be convenient." Harry deadpanned.
"Oh it is. It lets us fit in while all the time planning to defend every room we are in, and kill every Death Eater that might appear at any time. Remember what we are here for. Its not to learn, its to teach, defend and protect." Annabeth said.
"So, yeah, by tea time tomorrow you will know occulemency. Because you will have my wand." Reyna said.
"Uh well, that's great, but what about the strength of the spell, I mean, I won't be able to cast it at the same level you guys would. That took weeks to learn."
"Sure you will. When you started casting spells at our level you cast all of them at it, not some of them, well except Percy with water spells, Jason with air, you know, our natural talents. But just to be safe, what Percy said about each of us having talents? Neville, could you explain mine to Harry?"
"She can give you courage and power, she like, what would you say honey? Shares the power and fortitude of Bellona with those that are deserving. You can't tell anyone this, but its how Ron got the guts to overcome his shakiness for quidditch try outs. He was about to not try out until Reyna helped. He doesn't even know she helped. She's helped a few of the students when they felt like they would never be able to cast spells at our level. Oh! But check this out... did she help her boyfriend or any of his friends in DA1? Oh no! They had to do it on their own!" Neville laughed. "Trust me! I asked her a hundred times that first night if it was me or her that was doing everything I did."
"And as I told him, I don't think I could fight Annabeth and Percy to a draw in one night. I'm good, but damn, that is asking a lot. I just helped the others enough to cast one spell at high level. After that they believed they could do it and didn't require anymore assistance. And none of you guys needed my help." Reyna said.
"This is why you can't tell anyone. First, we must seem like regular students at least for the most part, otherwise people will begin to believe that they are not capable of doing what we do. We need all of our army ready to overwhelm and destroy Voldemort's. Frankly when the day comes, I hope the Order stays out of the way. Second, if any of the students that Reyna has helped found out, then they would simply collapse back to where they were. Third, well, its sort of embarrassing to be at a school of magic and be the only ones that do not do magic the normal way." Annabeth giggled.
"Well that makes sense I suppose" Harry said, "and I have no reason to tell anyone. Is this how you learned quidditch as well?"
"No, although our brooms came to us from Hecate and apparently are like yours, only we had an easier time connecting with them and learning to fly. Percy still sucks at it." Reyna said.
"Yeah, I noticed. No offense Percy, but the Prophet makes you out to be a really gifted flier. How do you expect to pull that off by the time of your next match? Your two game grounding is over isn't it?" Harry said, referring to our game against Ravenclaw in January. We had just defeated Hufflepuff the week before and the Prophet was all about some Percy coming back.
"I expect to have a season, or perhaps career ending injury in practice just before then." I smiled. "See, I'm really nervous flying. A few years ago I was told I might get shot out of the sky if I was ever to fly again and I'm still not sure how serious the threat was so I spend most of my time in the air watching my back."
"Some other demi god?" Neville asked.
"No, Zeus. God of the skies. He doesn't care for me to be there." I replied.
With that we left for the library and quickly found the necessary spell. Harry practiced a few times on me and Neville without success using his wand, then we programmed ours, and he used Reyna's. In a flash he was in my mind wandering around and reading all my thoughts.
"Wow!" He exclaimed, "You really were in... is that Atlas holding up... hey there's Reyna I almost didn't recognize you woah!"
"What is it Harry?" Reyna asked.
"Young you just turned me into a hamster."
"Okay, I think that's enough" Annabeth said.
"I... wow he really loves you, I mean,,," Harry said as he left my mind.
"You mean what?" Annabeth giggled.
"I mean, like... every thought you have Percy, its all related to Annabeth."
"Awwwww" Annabeth said as she hugged me tight. I flashed Harry a smile and a thumbs up, which he returned.
After several more run throughs, only without Harry revealing my inner most thoughts, we were as ready as we could be. Harry entered minds at will, and with the defensive spells was able to keep others from entering his. That and a little boost from Reyna is all we could hope to do to pull it off. No one was able to enter Harry's mind and it actually hurt to try, then we remembered the ring that Jennifer had given him from Morpheous.
"So really, there is no reason to cast the defensive spell first, I should just go for the throat." Harry said.
"Or even let Snape attempt to invade your mind first and while he has a head ache from trying go on the offensive." Neville suggested.
The next night Harry's try out against Snape was a foregone conclusion. After what we learned in practice we fully expected Harry to enter his mind, find some bit of info that he was thinking just for the occasion, and come out and tell us.
What we did not expect was for Harry to be in his mind for several minutes and both of them leaving afterwards without saying anything, Snape just got up and left and after a moment with a stunned expression on his face, Harry ran after him. Harry caught up to the professor just out of ear shot. They spoke for a second, Snape smiled and nodded, placed one hand on Harry's shoulder, then they walked together to sit by the lake, and talk for hours as tears poured from their eyes.
No one, not even Ginny I suspect, ever learned what they talked about.
