It was surprising just how mundane a simple school year could be – not that Harriet wasn't grateful for such a thing. The year would have probably felt far longer had she been bombarded with monster attacks and her own brand of natural disaster. Harriet wondered if she was like a magnet when it came to her and disaster, or perhaps, more aptly, chaos. She didn't doubt a certain god who loved to visit her on the train in her dreams was to blame. He loved chaos far too much. Harriet didn't really know what to think of him, other than that he was very, very dangerous, and undoubtedly not someone to mess with or otherwise cross. A soft sigh escaped her, even as she packed her things up, readying herself to head off to summer camp. The summer camp of all summer camps: Camp Half-Blood.
Her odd sense of amusement hadn't allowed her to tell the twins that she was also going to Camp Half-Blood, and neither had she allowed her mother to tell either Josephine or the twins. Lennard had been giving her odd looks the entire time she had hung out with him and the twins, and he hadn't approached her about camp.
Harriet wasn't sure whether he'd definitely been sent there for her, what with how her father had personally delivered her own invitation to that camp. A camp full of ADHD children with too much power at their fingertips – ones who all, more often than not, aspired to impress their godly parent, ignorant to the potential cost.
The way they could end up eaten, devoured, or otherwise broken on the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Harriet was all to aware of the potential risks, and her father was an utterly terrifying figure in her mind. He did, after all, known what she was.
Part of her shuddered at the thought of being around so many people, while another part of her longed to have some semblance of control over all her abilities, oddly numerous as they were. She didn't want to set another forest ablaze, and neither did she want to take the number of pandemics she had caused up to two. That was yet another reason why she looked forwards to going to camp, nervous as the thought made her of being under the watchful eye of gods. One of which was her father. The same father who she resembled far too closely, not that many people, if any, could actually see her golden eyes. Her father's wrathful eyes.
A vision clouded her sight, another golden-eyed figure standing there. "Come down, little half-blood," the voice rumbled, imaging changing to that of a pit and a green-eyed boy.
He had featured in her visions far too much.
Part of her almost pitied him – to have fate so woven around him tightly, connecting him to tragedy after tragedy. She empathised with such a creature, controlled by prophecy and fate. Yet she could change that. She was an arbiter of fate that time around. It was why she was going to change some things. She wasn't going to let any of her family die that time around.
Her teeth bared, even as she came back to herself, feeling a familiar trickle of blood from her nose. It had to have been an important vision, she mused, absentmindedly grabbing a hold of a tissue. He was ever so important, the echoes of a prophecy echoing in her ears – a prophecy much greater than the ones given out so very often.
A 'Great' Prophecy.
"A half-blood of the eldest gods," she murmured, the rest of that prophecy coming to her as clear as day, and Harriet could only ponder on how easily prophecy came to her – despite how she loathed its existence sometimes. Fate was a fickle, cruel thing, more so to her. Truly, she didn't know whether her ability to see was a blessing or a curse. Maybe it was neither. She couldn't decide.
"Harriet, sweetheart!" her mother called, and she shut her suitcase with a distinct click. This was it, she realised with an odd sense of fear and numbness. The thought of her father watching her brought a cold sweat to her forehead and neck, fear making her heart pound as she tried to ponder on the motives of an immortal being known for fickleness and a temper. She swallowed down her nerves, mentally bracing herself.
She had been Harriet Potter before she had been Harriet Carter, and she wasn't about to let fear stop her. It wasn't like the prospect of fear stopping her had ever been successful before. Her boggart had been a dementor – a personification of fear itself. "I'm coming, hold up!" she called back, pulling her suitcase off her bed and rolling it behind her as she went to her mother's car. The car which would take her off to Camp Halfblood where she could finally start playing with all of her powers with less fear.
A vision hit her before she could get in the car; trees were clustered off in the distance, children sitting on the stone seating of the amphitheatre, and Laurel and Alexander were stood there, talking and laughing almost animatedly as the campfire in front of them crackled and popped. The scene shifted, them caught up in the centre of attention as two holographic symbols appeared, one over each twin's head. A golden lyre.
"It is determined," the centaur spoke.
The vision cut out, and Harriet looked up, wondering if she too would one day have the image of a golden lyre floating above her head for but a few moments. She wondered if everyone would bow to her too, as they had done for her half-siblings.
The same half siblings who had no idea she was coming along.
A wicked smile curled at her lips – certainly the twins had rarely succeeded with surprising her with anything, but now was certainly the best chance she would have to pay them back in full for even their futile attempts.
"Are you thinking of pranking your friends?" her mother asked, raising an eyebrow, a smile curving at her lips, even as she strapped herself in and reminded her to do the same.
Harriet shifted in her seat, ever restless as she felt. "Is it that obvious?" she mumbled, pouting then, even as she peered out of the window, watching as the scenery started to roll by – at least until they got caught up in the inevitability known as traffic.
"You've got that look on your face," her mother said matter-of-factly. "The one that says you're plotting mischief. I should know." Fingers pinched at her cheek ever so briefly before her mother's attention returned fully to driving. "I've seen it enough times."
Harriet smiled, humming cheerily, blinking as her mother turned the radio on and music filled the air. It didn't quite have the same feeling to it like the music sung by her half-siblings in the amphitheatre, but it was nice all the same. Her gaze grew distant, part of her wondering what her life at Camp Halfblood would be like. She would be there under her father's gaze – and all the other gods. The ones who didn't know what she was and would smite her if ever they found that much out.
"Do you think the twins will be surprised?" she wondered, still watching as the scenery rolled by. It was one of the more entertaining things to do, especially seeing as how her mother couldn't really play any games while driving.
"I think they might," her mother answered.
A grin pulled at her lips, part of her wanting to bounce around in excitement at the thought. Truly, the thought of playing such a childish, harmless prank had her feeling excited. Harriet wondered if she could blame her small body on that much. Though her excitement was soon dampened whenever she thought about the future ahead of her. Of the many futures she could see, unwinding and unfolding before her very eyes. The same futures she could alter as she wished, being a being unbeholden by that world's fate. The same status which would probably get her smited. Secrets had a way of coming to light, and that thought was enough to dampen her mood once more.
Her eyes closed, fear pulsing in her chest as her vision tinted with gold and she was pulled under the tides of a new vision.
She was floating in the air, the grass painted with a mixture of red and black blood which seemed to dissolve into golden and black dust. Well, all the blood except the stuff coating her hands. A smile which felt like it didn't belong to her curled at her lips.
"Oh, sweet summer's child," the familiar voice of her dreamtime visitor greeted her ears. "I did warn you about that temper of yours…"
The world dissolved into static, the scene changing abruptly, and it was as if she were watching the scene through an old, static-filled television which couldn't get signal. "Make it stop," she pleaded, the sound of her own voice jarring her as she tried to focus and make out what she was seeing. Ever was her own future hard to see unless it involved major events. Or maybe it was the god on the train who was hard to see?
"Darling," he spoke once more in a different time aboard that dream train of his. Or was it hers? Harriet didn't know. "You cannot stop what's already begun." A hum of patchy laughter grated against her ears. "It is in your bones. In your flesh and blood."
Her gold-tinted world returned in full focus and clarity, the vision snatched away from her before she could even begin to understand what it could have been. All she was left with was pain from the vision she probably hadn't been ready for. It was as though she had been hauled back away from the doorway as it was being shut on her fingers.
"I suppose there's always been a part of me that knew," a new voice sounded. "You're more divine than human, and trust me, Harriet – it shows."
Golden eyes flashed, something dark and maddening in their depths.
"Go ahead and wage your war, martyr. Mark my words though, should one of my siblings be harmed, then I'll slaughter you and the rest of your pathetic army."
A frission of fear curled down her spine at that, part of her almost wondering why that voice sounded so much like her own. She wasn't sure she liked it – what she saw and heard herself becoming. It frightened the innermost part of her which still mused on her life previous, faint as those memories seemed at times. Then again, it wasn't like she couldn't change what she became. She was an arbiter of fate for a reason.
"Harriet," her mother called, breaking her free from the clutches of her visions, and Harriet blinked in confusion as she realised that the day had flown by and that they were slowly driving down a road with signs proclaiming it to be Delphi Strawberry Service. "We're here." There were white picket fences with the words pick your own strawberries written on them. A product to help the mist ensure all saw the place as strawberry fields, meant to ensure that no mortals encroached on Camp Halfblood.
There were no other cars around, nobody else having come to drop their kids off, but Harriet supposed her and her mother might have been a bit later than the rest of the rabble. It was late afternoon, encroaching into early evening. The others had arrived days before and generally more towards the morning hours of the day, especially for the newer campers. Those were generally the ones who needed to be shown around and given a tour. Though Harriet supposed none of them had the so-called gift of prophecy. They hadn't wandered those lands in their visions until all of it felt so very familiar to them.
"You don't have to go, you know," her mother murmured, not looking at her right then and there. "You can easily wait another year or two…"
"Father knows," she said, realising then that she had forgone telling her mother about the fact that there had seemingly been a country-wide hunt for her father's plague-causing child. "He's the one who wants me to come…" she mumbled, wondering whether her father's wishes were the only reason she was there. Somehow she didn't quite think that was the case. There was a part of her which wanted to stay there at Camp Halfblood, a part of her which wanted to learn how to control her powers.
She didn't want to cause anymore chaos and destruction. Harriet glanced down at her hands, wondering then, if, somehow, chaos and destruction were a part of her very nature itself. She hoped not. A shaky breath escaped her, a nervous smile coming to curl at her lips as her mother handed her the suitcase with all her belongings.
"I'll be fine," she promised. "You'll see me at the end of summer, y'know," she said, feeling the strangest sense of homesickness as she stood there, staring at the gigantic pine tree which marked the beginning of Camp Halfblood's borders. Thalia Grace. Harriet frowned, nodding even as her mother wished her well and made sure she knew to look after herself.
Then it was time to cross the property line to where it was safe.
She would be monster free for a summer – able to train both herself and her abilities in some degree of peace.
"Summers place of mortal and divine,
A design of that which is not benign.
Whispers of the snake,
The Golden Child's mistake.
Apollo's hidden daughter,
To see the ground painted in endless slaughter."
Harriet blinked, the words she had spoken ringing in her ears as she paused beyond the threshold, feeling her mother's eyes on her still, even as she headed towards the sky-blue building known as the Big House. "Brilliant," she muttered dryly. "Just brilliant." She had spoken yet another prophecy and never had she wanted to bash her head against the wall as much as she did right then.
Somehow, she doubted she would have the peaceful summer she had just been looking forwards to.
::
The Big House was aptly named, or so Harriet mused to herself as she arrived at the doorstep, the sun beginning its final descent in the sky as her father's hours drew to a close. A soft sigh blew from her lips, part of her wondering whether or not she was supposed to knock. Hoofbeats answered for her, the steady clip-clip of the centaur she knew to reside there ringing out as Chiron detected her arrival. Dimly, she wondered whether it was some odd sense he had picked up over the years or whether she wasn't half as stealthy as she thought.
Probably the latter, knowing her luck.
"Ah, I see I might have been remiss in assuming all our new campers had arrived," Chiron spoke, looking down at her from top of the porch steps which only served to make her feel that much smaller.
"Hi!" she declared, reaching out her hand for a good old fashioned hand shake. "I'm Harriet Carter. You're Chiron, right?"
Looking rather bemused, he shook her small hand, gesturing then for her to come inside the Big House. "I believe we should have just enough time to get you settled in before lights out. The tour will have to wait until tomorrow morning though, I'm afraid."
"Mhm." Harriet nodded, hauling her suitcase up the steps.
"You can leave your belongings there. I'll have someone set you up in Cabin Eleven before it grows too late. Oh, Grant, excellent timing," he called, addressing the older teenager who'd had the misfortune of walking by the Big House at that moment in time. Grant glanced at her, listened to Chiron's orders, nodded, and took her suitcase with him wherever he was headed.
Harriet thought on Cabin Eleven, knowing that Grant would wind up dropping her things off there – unclaimed as she was. She chewed on her lip, thinking on the vision of the twins' claiming. Her eyes darted to the sky and the space above her head, part of her wondering about whether she would be claimed and whether or not she wanted to be claimed.
Though she would be sleeping on the floor until she was – so… Harriet hummed to herself. It probably was better to be claimed. To be acknowledged by the father figure who hadn't really been there for her in that life just yet. Though she supposed that, unknown to everyone else there, James Potter had cast a long shadow. James and Lily Potter had died for her. Celeste Carter had lived for her. Apollo had never been there, or, on the sole occasion he had, he had utterly terrified her.
Her heart beat frantically in her chest, nerves coming back around to bite as tiredness set in for some reason. She yawned then, pausing in the midst of the room as she realised exactly where Chiron was heading. "I already know everything that's covered in the orientation video," Harriet declared, not wanting to sit through her father's absolutely terrible poetry and performance made for the introduction of campers to Camp Halfblood. The visions of that might well have scarred her for life. That, and the amount of times it had seemed to materialise in those visions of hers. It was something easy for her to view – in the fact that visions of it had never given her nosebleeds.
The centaur arched an eyebrow, glancing down at her curiously. "I hadn't mentioned orientation videos," he said. "Though I suppose I should ask how much you know before I send you off. Then we can have a tour, and perhaps an explanation arranged for you early tomorrow. The others who arrived today had their chance to look around camp earlier and ask their questions."
"I know what my father is, and I know what this place is intended for – and I intend to make full use of that," Harriet said, being as brief as humanly possible. She wanted to go and surprise the twins and then fall asleep on whatever patch of floor there was for use. The journey there had evidently taken it out of her. Not that she'd done anything. It had been eerily peaceful, unlike the visions of some others' journeys to Camp Halfblood. She had gotten off rather easily in that respect, but Harriet had a horrible feeling that the prophecy she had spoken meant nothing good for her summer right then and there. It wasn't like she had ever had something good happen because of a prophecy, even one she had spoken herself.
"That is… rather vague," Chiron admitted, hand resting on his chin as he almost seemed to size her up. Harriet was all too aware of how she looked: she was only eight, and she was a small eight-year-old to boot. Though there was still plenty of time for her to grow.
Harriet shrugged. "I'm tired and I want to go and see my friends and sleep."
He chuckled at that. "Then I suppose we can wait until tomorrow to get things in order. I'll have someone show you to Cabin Eleven – that's where you'll be staying until you get claimed by your godly parent." Brown eyes darted over, catching sight of someone who was unfortunate enough to be wandering around the Big House. Harriet silently made a mental note to not linger about where Chiron could see, lest she be given work she didn't want to do. "Luke. Good timing," he called, catching the attention of a camper a few years older than her. "I sent Grant ahead with her suitcase. This is Harriet Carter," Chiron said, introducing her to a boy she would have recognised instantly, had he had the scar on his face. Though that hadn't obviously happened as of yet. "She arrived just now. Harriet, this is Luke Castellan. He arrived here last summer and has been staying with us ever since." Chiron smiled, introductions completed. "Would you take Harriet to Cabin Eleven and get her settled in for the night?" he asked, though Harriet supposed it was less of a question and more or a command.
"Sure thing," the teenage boy agreed, the centaur watching them go, even as they headed on their way to the cabins. "It's Harriet, right?"
"Mn." She nodded.
"You regular or undetermined?" Luke asked, and he had to have seen the brief look of confusion which flitted across her face at his words. "I mean, did Hermes claim you, or has your parent yet to claim you?"
"Undetermined," Harriet answered succinctly, watching as his shoulders drooped ever so slightly.
"Right." He nodded, not seeming too put out by the fact he wasn't guiding one of his half-siblings. "I suppose that's what we're here for," he said, leading her towards the U-shaped arrangement of cabins, all of which she had seen before, no matter how briefly. Gold caught her gaze, eyes automatically drawn to Cabin Seven which gleamed like it was solid gold in the fading light of the sun. There was an odd longing in her heart as she watched another blonde teen and a boy a few years older than her with black hair head inside the cabin. Part of her wanted to follow them inside, to the one cabin whose interior she knew off by heart. Yet she couldn't. Not until her father deigned to claim her, that was.
She hoped he didn't take too long.
"This way," Luke called, jogging up the path to the oldest-looking cabin with peeling brown paint and the symbol of a caduceus above the door. "Home sweet home – for now, at least," he said, holding the door open and gesturing for her to go in. "We've had two others who arrived today, they're—"
"HARRIET!"
A blur of blonde and orange tackled her bodily to the ground, slamming the wind out of her as she landed on the porch area. "Hi Laurel," she grumbled, wincing even as a familiar set of blue eyes bore into her from above with all the force of an excitable puppy.
"Laurel!" Alexander hissed. "Harry – you alright?" he asked, peering down at her and offering a hand as Laurel climbed off her.
"I was just happy to see her – I didn't know she was coming," Laurel declared, rounding on her twin then. "It was a nice surprise." She folded her arms, even as Harriet clambered to her feet with some help from Alexander. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming to this place too?" Laurel turned on her then, arms still folded.
"Because I wanted to see your face when I appeared out of the blue," Harriet answered truthfully, a smile curving at her lips at the range of facial expressions that Laurel went through before deciding on indignant, amused anger.
"You little—" Laurel muttered, wrapping an arm around her neck and drawing her in close so she could grind her knuckles against her head.
"This is Harriet Carter," Luke spoke, and Harriet was abruptly reminded that she wasn't alone – in fact there were a lot of campers staring at her and Laurel right then and there. Oh how she didn't miss being the centre of attention. Anonymity was her best friend. It always had been, once she had stepped into the wizarding world a whole lifetime ago.
"Regular or undetermined?" someone asked.
"Undetermined," Luke announced.
Groans rang out across the cabin.
"Hey!" Laurel yelled, stopping in messing up her hair for the briefest of instances. "Don't be mean to Harriet!"
"She's right," a girl who looked to be the oldest camper there spoke. "That's what we're here for. Hermes welcomes all travellers." She smiled then, looking at the three of them, evidently amused by Laurel's greeting. "Nice to meet you, Harriet," she said. "I'm the Head Counsellor here. Name's Tracy Perloin. Let me know if any of this lot gives you any trouble," Tracy said, jerking a thumb in the direction of most of the rest of the campers of Hermes' Cabin.
"Tracy," someone groaned. "Must you implicate the rest of your cabin?"
Tracy chortled, clapping her hands together. "Right, you ugly bunch, lights out is soon, so start getting comfy! No one outside the cabin after curfew. Harriet – I'll go grab you the basics, so for now just settle down with your buds, m'kay?"
Harriet nodded as best she could, head still imprisoned by Laurel's arm.
"Excellent." That said, Tracy vanished out of the door, leaving her alone with the twins, Luke, and the rest of Hermes' Cabin.
"Come on," Laurel said, releasing her and grabbing her by the hand instead to pull her over to the little patch of floor the two of them had evidently claimed for themselves. "Your suitcase is there. I should've recognised it," she muttered, pointing at her luggage situated in one of the few patches of empty floorspace, plonking herself down on one of the two sleeping bags settled towards the rear of the cabin room. "I still can't believe you're here – that means—"
"She's a demigod too," Alexander said matter-of-factly.
"Hey, who do you reckon your parent is?" Laurel wondered. "Me and Alex have been trying to figure out ours – though somebody mentioned they could be different, however that happens."
Harriet choked on her own spit, not wanting to think or muse on gods having threesomes right then and there. Knowing her luck she'd have a traumatising vision if she thought on such a topic a little bit too hard.
"It'd be your dad, wouldn't it?" Alexander said. "Like us. Imagine if we turned out to be siblings… I mean, we do all look slightly alike…"
"That'd be awesome!" Laurel prattled on.
Harriet only smiled, wondering then what Laurel's reaction would be to finding out that the three of them actually had the same father. Her vision became tinted with gold, the surprise ruined, but Harriet only smiled softly, reality coming back to her as the twins chattered around her until Tracy came back with her supplies and declared it was time to get some rest.
Undoubtedly it would be a busy day when morning came.