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He was dreaming once again, he realized, as he saw the sight in front of him. A large palace, made of the whitest marble imaginable, with gold lines running through it, towered in front of him. Golden lightning bolts were affixed over the giant doors, and above the palace, clouds swirled peacefully, sunlight filtering through them in bright streaks.
"My palace, built by the Hecatoncheires when Olympus was created," a powerful voice spoke from behind him, and Harry turned around to look at the speaker. A gasp escaped out of his throat as he beheld the black-haired, blue-suited man. His electric-blue eyes and the aura around him easily gave away who he was looking at "Of course, it has undergone several additions over the centuries, especially after the—well, that is a talk for a later time."
"Lord Zeus," he mumbled quietly, hastily lowering his eyes and kneeling down. He placed his fist over his heart just like what Chiron had taught them to do, "It is an honor to be in your presence."
"Rise, Harry Potter…or Evans, whichever you prefer," the Sky god spoke pleasantly, crossing his arms behind his back and walking by his kneeling form, "What is the last thing you remember?"
"I-uh-I was fighting the Chimera," he murmured, looking down at the cloudy floor beneath him, closing his eyes as he focused upon the memories of the monster, phantom sensations of fangs piercing his skin and his muscles tearing from exhaustion and reminding him of what he had been doing, "I had grabbed its jaws, and tore it open from mouth to neck. Before I fell unconscious…and an eagle cried over my head."
"Hmm, so no lasting damage to your brain," Zeus nodded to himself, turning around to look at him, "That eagle was one of my wind-spirits, and he carried you back to Camp-Half Blood before your condition could deteriorate any further. You accessed quite a bit of divine energy in the bid to kill that Chimaera, more than what your body could safely handle at this stage."
"Thank you, Lord Zeus," he said, before a frown made its way on his as he looked up at the King of Gods, "forgive me for asking…but why did you save my life?"
"Why would I not save the life of my son?" He arched an eyebrow, conjuring a throne-like chair before he sat down on it, "Half though you may be, you are still my son Harry."
"Whu-What?!" he whispered, his face draining of color as his vision swam, and he fell to the ground. He had known that he was a child of some god…but this?! This was way out of what he had ever thought. A son of Zeus?! the strongest, wisest, and the most revered of gods?! "I am your son?!"
"You are…though not completely," he nodded, a somber expression coming over his features as the sky over them thundered, white clouds turning somewhat darker as a harsh gale blew through the area, "A Demigods birth is a process, Harry, instead of a single-night affair unlike what the demigods and the mortals themselves think. More powerful the god, the more time he or she needs to have intercourse for the conceiving of the child. For someone like Apollo, this takes barely two weeks of sex. For someone like me, who is the most powerful god, it takes more than a month."
"So did you leave my mother mid-way?" He asked, taking care to not let the growing irritation and hostility show within his voice, knowing that despite however correct he might be…it won't matter one iota to Zeus, "Is that why I am half your son?"
"No, my son, it's not any fault of my own that you carry only half of my power within you," Zeus softly said, sighing heavily as he looked down, "Another god entered your mother's room once during the time we were together, and took her forcefully against her will. I came to know of this only after the deed was done, and by then it was too late."
"Who was it?" He growled, remembering the smiling redhead he had seen in his dreams once or twice, her emerald green eyes so like his own, "Who did this, father?"
"It was Poseidon, my child," he sighed wearily, and Harry snarled as his eyes shone a powerful mix of blue and green, his hair swaying in the wind as electricity crackled across his form. "He was the one who raped your mother to humiliate me, and get his sick, twisted pleasure from it, just like he did with Medusa and Pasiphae."
Harry's eyes shot open the next moment as the dream ended, and the first thing he saw was the familiar painting of Lord Apollo. Groaning as he tried to sit up, a burst of pain shot through his head, and the memories of his dream came back to him instantly. Fuck, Lord Zeus was his father wasn't he? All those times when had used lightning, and created winds with nary a thought…he had just been doing that instinctively. Using the powers the God of Thunder and Sky had passed on to him.
However, with those memories came the flashes of the times he had swam through the Thames as easily as he walked on land. The times when the water had felt like a home to him, never needing to breathe, never needing rest despite however many hours he had swam through the depths of that river.
"Fucking bastard," he swore, Zeus' words and all the memories of how Poseidon had been the furthest thing from a god echoing in his mind. The treachery and rebellion against his father, the rape of Medusa and how he had taken his anger out on Pasiphae among the various other things his dreams had shown him over the months. Maybe it was the act of the Fates themselves? Preparing him for when he would come to know how his mother was defiled by the Sea God.
"Oh good, you are awake!"
The air was driven out of his lungs at the same moment that he heard Abigail's voice. She hugged him tightly, and he grunted as his back once again made contact with the bed, his face full of her golden blond hair. Wrapping his arms around her, Harry sighed as the thoughts about using Poseidon's trident to impale him into Tartarus faded from his mind.
"Hey midget," he smiled, pinching her waist and making her yelp. "Were you the one who attended to me this time? My own blond nurse?"
"Don't get any ideas pervert," she giggled, intentionally pressing her budding breasts into his chest. "You have been sleeping for two days Harry, get up and come out before everyone thinks about making your shroud too."
"So, err-you guys know about Michael and Cynthia?" He asked uncomfortably, not meeting her eyes for the fear of judgment and disgust he would find in them. "Who told the camp?"
"Father came to our cabin the same night you were brought back by that huge eagle," she said, sniffling for a moment before a sad smile came on her face. "He gave us Michael's possessions, and the keys to his mothers house in Manhattan. Apparently, she died last winter, and her properties came to be in Michael's name, which as his siblings, we all have inherited now. Lady Aphrodite did the same for her cabin, except the only thing they got was the Countach Cynthia had charmed a man into giving her for free."
"I am sorry." he whispered, burying his face into her neck and sniffling quietly, the memories of the blood-soaked Lamborghini and the spot where Cynthia had been…coming back to him, "If I had been just a little bit faster, I would have saved them both—or at least prevented Cynthia's death."
"Maybe you would have," she nodded back, sitting up on his stomach as she wiped her eyes, "Or maybe we would have burned your shroud instead of theirs two days ago. You can't change the past Harry, so stop beating yourself up about it—especially since you barely made it back alive from that fight. If it hadn't been for that wind-spirit flying you here, you would have died from the overuse of divine energy. Your flesh was almost glowing by the time you made it here, cracks going over your skin like it was about to flake off any minute. If the treatment had been even an hour late, you would have died for sure. So thank whatever deity who decided to save your life."
"I will," he muttered, sending a prayer to Lord Z-his father as a thanks for the help he had provided. "Now, you think I am fit enough to leave this wonderful bed, Nurse Abigail?"
"You most certainly are Mr. Evans," she nodded with a mock-serious voice, getting down from him and picking up the paper on the table. "Broken ribs, cracked ribs, cracked tibia, punctures in palms, mild burns, torn muscles, and a dozen other things I don't want to read. Now get up and go to Chiron, he wants to hear the details of your quest."
He had seen the most brutal, bloody, and destructive wars in history first hand, from the fall of Titans and Giants to the Greek-Roman wars that had happened numerous times over the centuries. But as he looked at the knives, the fangs, and the silver xiphos in front of him, Chiron couldn't help but shiver as he saw another war brewing on the horizon.
By Chaos, what had possessed Lord Zeus to do something so…depraved and insulting and twelve sorts of wrong?
He had known that Harry was the son of Lord Poseidon straight away when he had first laid eyes on the boy—and always assumed the boy to be particularly strong with the Storm given how easily wielding lightning came to him. But even in the most wildest of Lord Morpheus' creations, he could not have imagined him to be a changeling.
They were rare, as rare as the sight of the Tier 5 monsters themselves, but one appeared every couple hundred or so years. A demigod son of two gods, birthed due to the influx of another's god's divinity into the growing fetus and the mothers flesh. And Lord Zeus had a precedent for it. A total of nine times he had done this to various gods and their paramours, but each time, it had either been one of his sons or some other minor god. And even then, he had never let so much of his power go to the children he had changed into half his own. Hades, out of those nine, only Lord Apollo had recognized what had happened once, with none other than Chiron knowing the truth about the other eight.
But this?! Deceiving his brother's paramour, changing his demigod son? And given how similar the two brothers looked, no one would have ever even realized the situation unless Lord Zeus came out and said it outright. After all, it was the only reason why a wind spirit would carry an apparent son of the Sea back to safety.
"I knew it from the first day, you know," Lady Hestia's voice echoed in the empty room, and Chiron sighed as he clenched his fist, "But a part of me always hoped that I was wrong."
"Given that he ordered Harry to be carried back, I am sure he had already told him his version of the events," he said, feeling a protective dome go over the Big House for a moment as Hestia stopped anyone from listening in on them. "Do you think Lord Poseidon knows?"
"He doesn't," Hestia said, growing into her adult form as she took a seat before him, lowering the hood to reveal her beautiful amber eyes, the perfectly sculpted face, and the luscious brown hair falling to her waist in waves, "If he knew, he would have started the war on Olympus by now."
"Which is going to happen sooner or later," he grimaced, looking at the array of items on the table. "What does he gain from doing this? Humiliation for his brother, personal satisfaction, or was he unable to control himself once he saw Poseidon's paramour?"
"I don't know Chiron," she sighed, worry flickering through her eyes as she looked up at the ceiling. "But if I know Zeus at all, then it can be just as petty as taking Poseidon's woman to show him up. But what I do know is that Harry is a very powerful demigod, and an equally powerful wizard as well—and given how Zeus ordered that wind-spirit to bring him back to the camp, I can imagine he has already made contact with the boy."
"Do you think that this time it was Lord Poseidon who did the deed?"
"Poseidon is many things Chiron," Hestia softly said, fire dancing across her hair for a moment as she looked at him, "He has done several wrongs and blunders and atrocities in his life…but this is something only Zeus can do. Besides, I saw Harry's mother once, standing together with Poseidon on the shore of the lake in Hogwarts. She had prayed to me then, to keep her home and her child safe, and that sheer joy and hope in her eyes couldn't have been created."
"Are you going to do something about it?" he asked, closing his eyes as the mother of all headaches began to pound away the inside of his skull, "Maybe tell Lord Poseidon about it before he finds out from somewhere else and attacks Olympus?"
"Oh…he knows now," she sighed, and Chiron coughed as he felt the air inside his lungs leave him. "I can feel his growing anger right now…By Chaos, he must have seen the eagle carry his son back to the camp, and with how high Harry's capabilities with lightning and air are, it must have cleared up the things for him. Fuck!"
"Wh-Why hasn't he done anything then? Claim Harry as his own, or maybe come to the camp himself to meet his son?! Because I assure you Lady Hestia, Lord Zeus will claim the boy as his own at the dinner today—and if the way the boy had been asking questions about the Ancient Times meant anything, someone has been sending him the memories of various things from the Old Days."
"I don't know everything about what my brothers think Chiron," she gently said and stood up, "I am late for my meeting with Hades, so I must take my leave now—and you have your own task coming up to you. Don't say or do anything about this Chiron, let the future take its course."
At the last word, Hestia disappeared in a swirl of flames, and Chiron immediately felt that little spark of hope and positivity within him die at her departure. Of course, Harry had to choose right that moment to enter the Big House, and now that he knew the truth, it was all too easy to spot the little bit of Lord Zeus in his features. The sharper cheekbones and the slight greyish sheen his hair had when light struck at a particular angle—along with the slight flecks of blue he was now able to discern in his emerald-sea green irises.
"Was that Lady Hestia?" He asked, and Chiron nodded, knowing the next words before they even came out of the boy, "Whoa, never seen her so…grown up."
"Only a few ever do," he nodded again, and leaned back into his wheelchair. "Now that you are all healed and fine, do you think you can tell me about what happened after you moved past the fourth wall?"
"Right, Uh…after the fourth wall," he muttered, taking a seat on the sofa and closing his eyes, "I killed a couple of dracanae, saving a huntress from at least a maimed leg and receiving three dozen glares for it. I used the mist to hitch a ride to the last known location of Michael and Cynthia, where I found out that they had driven to a motel a couple of miles away. I decided to walk to that place, killed a few hellhounds, and within a few minutes I was able to see the Countach. However, once I reached closer to the car, I saw the smashed front, and smelt the blood from it. The windshield was shattered, and the hood was almost broken off…and Michael's arm was still inside the car with his xiphos gripped in that."
"There was no body?"
"No…the chimera had eaten him right on the top of the car after severing his arm," Harry said after a moment, and Chiron gripped the armrest of his chair so tightly that the wood snapped underneath his fingers. A Chimera, at the age of nine?! Before he could even say something in the face of that, Harry continued, "I felt angry, you know? My first friend, my brother was dead and Cynthia was missing, a girl who had always helped me whenever possible. And then, I sort of felt something shift in me…and I could feel the earth below me for miles. I felt the monster then, walking a few hundred meters away from me, and I ran to it. I broke through the walls of a cave system, and found it inside, a chimera and its lair. We fought, and I killed it after a sudden rush of strength hit me. However, I was once again late, and it had already…eaten Cynthia before I got there."
"Very well," Chiron nodded, making the items behind him float to Harry, "As the spoils of your victory over the chimera, you got its fangs. And as a thank you for avenging her daughter, Lady Aphrodite has decided to give you her daughter's knives. Along with it, Lord Apollo has asked you to visit his temple tomorrow morning."
"Oh…okay then," Harry nodded, taking the knives and the fangs from him, before picking up his sword from the table, "Is there anything else you want to tell me Chiron? Or any guesses about who my parent is?"
"I think you already know the answer to that, Harry," he said, closing his eyes as he leaned back, his mind awash with the thoughts of how this was going to blow up in everyone's faces, "You ready for dinner now? You must be famished after the last three days."
"I am telling you what I saw," Ashley, a son of Apollo who had mostly handled Harry's case, grunted out, smearing peanut butter all over the bread, "that was chimera venom in his blood you lackwits. I am the best at poisons and toxins, and believe me, after the chimera attack five years ago, you better believe me when I say it."
"So you are saying that Harry, our Harry got bit by a chimera, and then also killed it?" Lee asked, his eyes wide as he took a bite of the pizza, "Gods, that kid scares me more than the thought of Lady Artemis turning me into an animal to hunt."
"Well he is coming right towards us, so you can ask him all about his quest now," Turner said as he nodded in the direction of the Big House, and soon, chatter on every table stopped as they spotted the demigod in question walk towards them, "Is it me or Chiron is really looking ike he'd be anywhere but here?"
"Well, we do give him a lot of hea…fuck me."
Turner's voice trailed off into a whisper as lightning flashed across the suddenly dark sky, and a bluish-white thunderbolt appeared over Harry's head. Electricity flickered across his whole form, and his eyes glowed a bright neon-blue for a moment as Chiron fell to his knees…followed by every shocked demigod around them. They all placed their fists over their hearts as the King of Gods claimed his son, the sky lighting up brilliantly with flashes of thunder.
"It has been declared," Chiron proclaimed, his voice echoing all around them as the demigods looked at the lightning bolt with wonder and horror both, "Hail Harry Potter, Son of Zeus, the King of Gods and Olympus, the God of Thunder, Sky, and Justice.
Regarding Hestia refusing to tell the truth, some members in discord also raised questions...but it is all part of the plot, and yes, it has an actual reason instead of just prolonging the lie and making it edgier. Also, comment and favourite if you like what you are reading!
