o0o Chapter Sixteen o0o
December 20th, Christmas was soon. He wasn't cold; it didn't even matter. Decorations were up, Christmas trees dotted the halls, fairies flew through corridors—everything was beautiful, festive, everyone was happy.
Percy noticed though, Harry would sometimes be slightly off, a little gloomy, a little different, it could have been because of the season or something entirely different. He covered it rather well, under a heavy mask, Percy sometimes saw it in his eyes, or in the way he breathed so roughly, quickened breath—and then it'd go back to normal.
He would slip back easily though, it seemed. Most of the time Percy saw his roommate he seemed relatively happy.
The demigod wasn't envious of any one of the happy people roaming about, it brought a terrible, sad smile to his face. Percy began worrying people could see through his façade; it seemed as if people were beginning to give a wider berth in the hallways, avoid him when possible, moving a bit away when he sat near them in the dining hall or in the Common Room. These Holidays, Christmas especially–they were meant to be spent at home. He hadn't spent a birthday, a Christmas, a night at home to eat, to be with his family in years. A tear slid down his cheek, it froze there, he didn't feel it.
His mom was home, she was sitting there, not knowing whether or not Percy was alive. He meant to tell her earlier but he never was able to do it. The demigod was staying alive, living for Annabeth and his mom. He knew it was their love–his love for them that kept him alive.
The string tying him to that of the living world was thinning, it had never started strong. Percy hadn't been able to give his mom false hope, showing her that he was alive—only a month later to die, riptide in his hands, covered in his own blood. A nightmare and a dream, one of his own doing. He couldn't let her see either, the hollow shell, the monster he'd become, how terribly he'd torn himself apart then built himself back up with shreds of skin and blood in order to survive. An end goal of which, he feared his mind as the culprit the most, for coming up short for.
Recently for him, it had been a general mood of pissed off and too-tired-to-think that's stopped some of these thoughts, the ideas, these plans from reaching anywhere outside his dreams. He was starting to think staying awake longer wasn't doing any better for his sanity than dealing with his subconscious though.
He hadn't been able to break out yet, and it was driving him crazy. The school's barriers were holding well, they weren't supposed to trap anyone in but they did. They trapped him, he was a bug with a bird's eye—slamming himself into a cup's glass walls.
Percy knew nothing of the outside world at this point. He felt like the dome around him was that of a fake world, constructed just as a prison.
Annabeth was in the real world, a place seemingly so many billions of miles away, the distance just stretched as time did. He had a wonderful friend, and some of the teachers were wonderful as well. The school was a work of art, and every lesson was so above the ordinary—it was magic after all.
He felt alone though. He couldn't help but feeling utterly alone. There were people, his friends, his family, back home suffering from the after-effects of a war. Children who, when they wouldn't talk to anyone else, for some reason they came to him. He had been able to help people.
Coming here was a mistake, he'd never had a choice in the matter but all he knew was that he had to get out. He should have made a larger attempt earlier on, even if it didn't work then he would have probably been out if he'd worked this whole time on getting out.
Then, a little voice in the back of his brain started whispering, he ignored it; he tried. He knew though, it was possible, that here he could aid in a war, maybe even prevent the worst of it. Percy hated how no one else could seem to take his mantle, how everything was just forced on his. Most things were forced from his own morals and loyalty, and he was done putting up with everything. It was all too much.
He could just—leave. It'd be terrible, he'd accomplish none of the things he knew he could to help. It was easier though, he wouldn't have to be faced with it or thinking ever again, that is if he could find a way to die properly, no life beyond. Just the sweet and peacefulness only death seemed to offer.
He wouldn't though, he knew he couldn't. Annabeth needed help, his mom needed a son, his friend needed a wingman, all his cousins–they needed him and he needed them. He was going to go to school this year. That much was accomplished, he supposed, another year setback for finishing high school. He felt like laughing at that, it was so ridiculous to even think about. Annabeth was on her deathbed and he might as well be dead as a stone for all his mom knew. But he was held back from high school—the absolute pinnacle of worry.
Laughing. It was hysteric, it was the laugh of a man nearing something close to madness, his body felt empty, he began to cough; it didn't end for a long while. Percy was on the ground now, clutching his chest, oxygen feeling as if it were scratching at his lungs with any ability to fill them.
The dummies he'd summoned had been giving him the shit, between spells and blades while he was distracted. Sure, he'd fought on autopilot for a good while, like doing laps, head in the clouds—having a mini manic breakdown was something different all together. Far more distracting in his opinion. The magically imbued ones had a spell each, all dispensing them, tennis ball shooters of fire, or stuns, or slashes, or maybe a blunt hit, etc.
Standing from his hunched position, he took a Link style swipe (whether it's a dork move or badass is in the eye of the beholder), taking out the first row, a good thing too, as he began to register again, he realized he was getting a little crisped and a few light stabbing and swipes were coming from dummy offense.
This room sure could summon shit, damn good dummies too. Epically, it would also play music—taking a moment to step back and then punch a dummy through the throat—Percy heard that as well, he'd forgotten about it. Bangarang was playing, chuckling, he fired an ice knife at those closest. "I guess dubstep never does die," he muttered, followed by a sharp exhale as the pommel of a sword found his lower back. Prefect form kidney hit, he thought. "Fuck."
As he dropped to a knee, he saw shards of the ice stuck in a few of them, wood splintered, an arm fell off and such. He felt a shockwave emanate, the closest blew apart, the rest got pushed away. He stood back up, ignoring the throbbing in his abdomen.
No time to think between blows and returns. Perfect, he thought, re-immersing himself in combat, willing the room to bring more enemies.
He decided to go weaponless, a challenge. Riptide and his wand lazed side-by-side on a stool. His fists bare, clenching and unclenching—then they began to swing.
A slash came down, without a thought he put his arm up to block it. Only then did he realize, as the blade bit into his arm, he had no armor on. He twisted away, water poured from the air, swelling around his arm; it began to heal, ice formed—an arm guard, soon the other forearm had donned the same wrapping formation.
His leg swept out catching a dummy, he smashed his hands down on it, icy fists breaking the wood. Crouched atiptoe he spun around, catching the blade in his hands, ice forming around his grip. He twisted it out of the dummy's hand, sprung up and delivered a high kick to the thing's head. He whipped around—dodging a yellow bolt, sparking with energy—catching a blow to the head from the flat of a great sword.
He let out a growl as black began to weave into his vision for a sudden instant. There were a lot of them, wooden little shits wielding daggers or swords, either two or two handed it seemed, if a hand didn't hold a blade it held a shield, if not a shield its wooden hand was held out-stretched, a spell dancing around its fingers.
Percy blinked, they aren't even little are they, he amended in his mind as he dropped again to a crouch, letting two of the dummies shoot each with beams of light, one burst into flashes, the other just dropped. Lovely.
A dagger caught his shoulder and a spell hit him square in his midsection, as he played limbo with a fireball. He felt his joints beginning to lock up as a sword slid down his back, not too deep—the dummy was ranged. He saw multiple in front of him as he stiffened, his back loosened as it throbbed. More beams fell, his clothes seemed to be bright too, burning maybe. He was dazed and still punching, kicking, ramming these things, feeling half like a statue. He was slow, he felt slow, he didn't know why anymore.
Then he was fast again, wind built he could feel it, it kept them at bay for a moment as let water fall on him, surging with newfound energy, he saw blood in the water as it swirled in spout about him, the solace lasted only seconds.
The water glinted as something flashed by, no towards him, at him—it hit. Wind replaced water as it whistled by, filling his ears as he felt his body careening backwards, there was a crack as body collided with the wall.
The demigod unceremoniously began his descent, his head was fuzzy. Was that the crack? He hoped not. His hands found his head, it was wet to the tough, thankfully it was only sweat. What he did discover in this attempt is that only one hand reached his head, the other erupted in pain—he couldn't move it right. It must have hit the wall first.
Focusing on the arm wasn't hard even as he slammed into the floor. That resulted in more shoulder pain anyway. He looked down, vision slightly blurred, the arm hung too limply, the skin was too stretched and the bone looked wrong. A dislocation.
Assessing damage wasn't something he had time for though, that became obvious as he blocked a new round of volleys from blades and spells alike with a blade of ice which had sprung from his palm.
The challenge was well over. He'd killed so many, he could see the wooden forms on the floor. HIs vision went black and he saw real bodies—it was war, it was camp, it was New York, it was Greece, it was- memories, it was memories—he jerked back as a mini-explosion rocked him back. Don't look.
The room had never given this many, it always knew when to stop, when was practice, when was hard, when easy. It could read his mind, it knew. It had never bloodied him anywhere near this point. He had wanted—what had he wanted?
He blocked one with an icy blade, shot another with shards of ice, sent three out with a wave of water. Blocked a spell with a shield of mist, sensing it, he hardened it to ice. The spell caught. Interesting.
He willed a shield of ice float around him, his right arm was in no way capable of holding it anyway. He hasn't wanted to die. He makes sure that thought stays away, if it intrudes he always bats it away. With force. The room no longer seemed to align with his thoughts.
It wanted him dead. He could not let that happen. His mom, Annabeth. No, he had to be alive. Annabeth could be dead. You are too slow.
The demigod yelled as his thoughts betrayed him. "She's alive! She is! I'm going to- I'll make sure of it.
"Goddamnit!"
He swung wildly in frustration, dizzying himself and taking out a front line. Minutes and seconds meant nothing, only wood, spells, and blades. A blur of it, and black. Every time he blinked there was more when he opened his eyes.
There was pain but he didn't feel it. It wasn't there anymore. Annabeth's life was his, his life was hers. He would not die. The magic was against him, something was wrong. It was on purpose, he could feel it.
Few thoughts took residence in his brain as he fought.
Something wanted him dead.
It was not himself.
Annabeth needed to be okay.
He had to live.
Tears. Scratched throat. Screaming.
•••
"-that American bell-end. Saw him defending a bloody cripple the other day. "
Olivia turned her head towards the speaker, a seventh year by the looks of it, a Gryffindor—there were another few kids surrounding him as well, laughing at his comment. She knew who they were talking about, of course she did, 'the American' practically was Percy's name to everyone who didn't know it, didn't care to, or liked it as an insulting nick-name for him.
"Oh it'll be his newest bloody girlfriend, betcha. That slag, always sneaking around." A Ravenclaw boy commented.
She wanted to punch him in the nuts really hard for that comment. Absolute asshole.
"Boyfriend actually, the queer bastard." Added a Hufflepuff girl laughing.
She pushed past the five of them not wanting to hear any more as they continued talking shit about her friend.
Olivia was in the halls a lot naturally, and she often caught a lot of conversations she knew the people holding them didn't think others noticed. She knew what rumors clawed through the halls, which stuck and which circulated. Percy certainly had a good amount drawn up around him.
A wanker from America, a muggle born this, a mud-blood that, an easy target, weird, menacing twit, nutter, sad looking git, American arsehole, bell-end, dick, git, whatever curse or comment you could imagine to after American really. People also liked to comment on how he was only ever seen in class, had his head in the clouds instead of on his shoulders, couldn't read or do magic, and of course was ugly and had no friends and all the other basics. On the offhand people would call him hot, only to follow it by scrubber or in this case—slag. Well, she did hear a few girls every now and then talking about him. Quite a few, now that she thought about it, had been talking about asking him to the party or angled towards getting asked by him. That was besides the point though.
He was undeniably odd, whether it be rude or just fact it didn't really matter. The way he would act sometimes strangely reminded her of how she was her first year. Even as a half-blood, decently exposed to magic it was still rather awe-inspiring to be in such a magical place. She lived in a muggle city, where magic was used only in the house, rather sparingly too—her mom was not very fond of it.
Years later, now in her fifth—coming back still had its initial shock, but—she was used to it. Percy though, every little factoid, spell, or anything really that he learned here seemed to be completely new to him. In classes he played it coolly, she didn't think many other people, or anyone really, had noticed.
There were certainly rumors that he was dumb and knew nothing, that just earned him the title of an idiot rather than attract any suspicions. Somehow though, despite knowing bat-shit about the England wizarding world, or even the magic community in general sometimes, he found a way to help Olivia out. She still wondered sometimes how that came about. That he could help her with magic, often easily pulling her out of a deadened spell or charm she couldn't figure out, when he could hardly get a rather simple charm on his fifth try or so.
He would help her on homework and she would tell him about the people, or England's magic community and so on. She sometimes tried to help him with his magic but she wasn't very good at it, and more often than not he denied and somehow steered away from the topic without her noticing.
In fact, she did a lot of noticing after the fact with Percy. She would be talking to him, and bring up something like where he grew up and before she knew it they were talking about her potions essay due the next month and convinced her that was the important thing at the moment.
He had started telling her more things though. He had told her about his girlfriend—mentioned her every now and then after he'd first brought her up. He didn't seem the 'hopeless romantic' type, it seemed like more, but she still had to fight a laugh when he'd call her sappy things such as 'love.'
She was excited for the Christmas party tonight—it would be interesting to say the least. All of Slughorn's famous favorites would be there, and Ginny, and Ginny was really fucking pretty. Percy was a great dude and after talking about his girlfriend and stuff she assumed he was straight, no matter how awesome someone is it's way easier to come out to some who's also queer than someone who's straight.
They'd never talked about crushes or who's pretty or hot, Olivia now guessed it was because he had a girlfriend—she stayed away just on the off chance he didn't take kindly to her calling girls hot. Her crush on Ginny had also been persistent for so long it was slightly embarrassing anyway.
Olivia didn't really know what shot she thought she had tonight but there would be a lot of pretty people dressed up in pretty clothes. She really wanted to see what Ginny would wear. It was a stupid thought and Olivia tried to focus on the conversations and people flowing around her again instead of picturing Ginny in her mind's eye for the millionth time.
On the way to her last class of the day—herbology she was deep in over thinking what she would say and what she would wear when Luna bumped into her.
"I heard there's flutterby bushes in today's class," Luna's voice drifted over the din. "I'm going to ask if I can have sprig."
"What's that bush do again?"
"It's said to increase protection from ghosts. It's also very pretty."
"Right—you think I could snag one as well?"
"Up to chance isn't it—I didn't think you were much of a plant person, why do you want some of the bush?"
"Well, if it's pretty I thought maybe- fuck, I owe you three sickles now."
"I told you," Luca sing-songed mockingly. "So, what'd he tell you?"
"Well, first of all he invited me to the Christmas party as a friend, I said I'd go but I thought I'd tell him I might go off and talk to Ginny. I figured it was as good a time as any other so I told him I liked her.
"I can't say I said so too confidently, he could tell I was uneasy and his stupidly smart brain figured it out before I said anything—I think at least. Anyway, before I finished my sentence he deadpan came out to me as bi. So yeah three sickles to you, he isn't straight."
"Told! You!"
"Yeah, yeah, you got it. But he's got me worried too. There's two reasons, not of equal importance but they're taking the same bloody amount of space in my head.
"First, he made me realize I don't have anything to wear or anything, more important though—something's wrong with him. Things don't quite add up."
"Let's worry about the first thing now and the second thing second, mate. Tonight, it's about you. We'll take care of the hot mess another time."
"But an outfit seems a little less important than a person's well-being."
"You're right, but for a few hours it's whatever, yeah?"
"Yeah, yeah, just friends today and whatever's going on can wait until after today."
"Bloody right you are."
"That means I have to go back to freaking out? Shit."
"Ha, you'll be fine. I'm sure we can get you something to wear."
"But Luna, but what about the I'm me part? How do I talk to people? How do I know what to do?" They began their trek across the lawn towards the greenhouses. The crisp air didn't have much to do with her face reddening as she mulled over the night's possibilities.
"The less you worry about the better. We'll get you a pretty plant for your hair and a pretty dress, we can even—do you know how to do makeup?"
"No, but-"
"It doesn't matter Liv, what does matters is that you feel good, that way you're confident. And if you're confident you'll have no problem. I'll let you wear my Scudinger earrings, they're made from the beetles' shells. They're really pretty and their magical property keeps away the Alphumns, they eat confidence. My father helped me make them"
"Shit, thanks Luna. Percy did say he knows how to do make-up 'pretty well' though," Olivia threw air quotes in as she spoke, "which I am very curious about."
"Oh! He does look like he could. I wonder if he'd do mine, adding extra colors always feels very nice."
"I'm sure he will. Are you ready for this class though? I heard Sprouts' been in a real foul mood recently, don't know why though."
"Well, however it goes, Care of Magical Creatures is next." Luna side-eyed Olivia then smiled and gave a light laugh, "Then you can tell Percy all about Ginny and give my ears a break for once."
The Ravenclaw swatted the other on the shoulder, blushing, "I hardly even talk about her. I mean, like, if we see her—I mean I'll say she's pretty or something, but it's not-"
"We're in her year, Liv! We see her all the time!"
"Um, well, I don't really- ah fuck this, I'd rather get frostbite then get further embarrassed by you."
"Don't worry, you might be able to even talk to her tonight, tell her for once that she's pretty."
Luna laughed as Olivia shoved her hands in her pockets, "Oh come on, it's just a compliment."
"Well yeah, I'll tell her she's pretty, because of course she will be tonight because-"
"Oh shut up, we're here and you better be able to focus on plants for a little."
"Right, right, because I'm the one dragging this out."
"All jokes aside though, I hope you'll have a good time tonight, if anything there should be good food. You also get to watch Percy be forced to talk to people."
"Oh shit… you're so right. This will be a night to witness."
"You have to tell me all about it."
"Of course, good friend, I could never keep such golden information from you."
•••
He could feel the pain again. Spells—magic pain. He twitched with it. Jerking as waves of sharp pain ran through him, jaw set in some determined frustration, Percy stayed standing.
Water lashed out, freezing on contact with wood—breaking it, splitting. More came. And more. There was blood on the floor. There was too much.
He spun to meet the dummies behind him, cutting their heads off with a solid swipe. He dropped and let a spell fly.
"Stop!" He didn't know to whom or to what he was yelling. He didn't know if it was blood or tears dripping down his face. He didn't know why it all hurt. Why everything had to hurt.
A blade found his calf, he fell as he felt the muscle tear apart under the blade. Collapsed on the ground, more spells hit. More blades. There was no blade as he felt a deep gash appear on his leg, there was nothing in the air as he flew backward, no smoke to the fire devouring his cloak.
The demigod felt as if his throat were going to tear from his body as he screamed. Of pain, confusion, anger, loneliness.
The feeling of loss became overwhelming, suddenly it felt as though she were gone. Rocked momentarily, sure Annabeth had died. "Stop," he panted.
"Stop," he muttered again, as if somehow his brain would stop spinning its terrible webs in his skull. "Stop. Fucking. LYING!"
Fire grew from his fingertips, ice from his back. The flames circled him, smoking, blue, orange, red, white. The circle grew and grew, it burnt the wooden things to ashes. Spells could not reach him and vines of ice grew, deflecting, absorbing everything that came close.
The ice had vines with thorns of blades, the fire was thick with false death and ash. The floor blazed and the walls were rife with tongues of flame. The ceiling hung with ice, violent formations spiraling down in a turbinate hurricane. Crystalline and beautiful. Frozen and deadly.
The inverted pinnacle, the origination of the organic sculpture, was a person curled in upon himself. Hurting and feeling so far from safe.
Percy wished the cold would chill his bones, he hated that he felt warm in the moment as frost crept through his body, stemming what it could of his flowing blood. A small pool of red, violent arms of ice, tripped with spikes and frosted blades, fire raging around this terrible circle and a boy at its center.
Scales had been thrown, not in his favor, and by whom he had no idea. As he succumbed to the creeping black, the only prevalent thought in his head was abundant and unwanted; someone wanted him dead again. What he'd seen of Annabeth was real, and it was because of him.
. . . . . . . .
Who(m)/what is behind this? Is Percy just loosing it? What's Liv going to do? Anyway, I'm going to start to try for a monthly and just post whether it's long or short, as long as something's complete. Happy Labor day, y'all. Thanks for reading! :) - BBB (9/2/22)