o0o Chapter Three o0o
The books had arrived as promised, around (what he guessed to be) an hour after they had, Hecate made her second appearance. By her side was a woman Percy didn't recognize, something about her told Percy she was not a goddess though.
The lady seemed to be of average height and build, she had dull eyes, that match her drab brown hair, which was just as plain and tied up a tight ponytail. She wore thick, rectangular tortoiseshell glasses, that sat a little bit too far down on the bridge of her nose. Her sharp gaze bore into Percy's eyes as she seemed to assess him. She reminded him of a teacher he had hated in the third grade.
"This woman will educate you for the next month or so about all magical things in America. Once you are educated, I will come back and discus what your purpose here is, what you will say when sent to do your task, and answer any and all of your questions. After all has been sorted out I will send you to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the United Kingdom." The stern voice of Hecate filled the silence briefly, then she flashed out.
Once he uncovered his eyes he found the women's gaze hadn't left Percy sense arriving. They stood in silence for around half a minute, then she began talking, Percy wished she hadn't. Her voice was shrill and loud as she introduced herself.
"My name is Mrs. Lerben; I will be here from seven am to eight pm every day. I am going to teach you how to use magic, about the magical history of America, and about magic culture. You will also learn a little about the school you," here she made quotation and with her fingers and looked even more disgusted as she stared at him, "-went to."
This woman is absolutely delightful, he thought.
She ordered him to grab the book labeled "The Proud History of American Magic" and that's how it started.
This went on for around a week and half, far too long in Percy's opinion. He had yet to learn about magic itself, much less attempted it. After Percy was able to answer question after question about 'his school' and 'where he lived' and 'his community' did she let him move on. It bored him to death, but he saw the logic in it (though that didn't make it any less painful). He could now tell very well told lies about his totally really life in America amongst his fellow wizards.
Just thinking about that reminded him of the situation he was in. Honestly, his life would never cease to amaze him with all the weird things he landed in, and the absolutely endless store of bad luck he seemed to have.
His teacher just left, and he was stuck contemplating – not for the first, and definitely not the last time – whether or not he should risk trying to sleep. Sometimes he received wonderful dreamless sleep, it felt like pure bliss and he always felt so energized after he got a good sleep. Though most of the time he had nightmares, some would dig at his fears and tear open a trenches in his mind he'd rather leave untouched, others unearthed memories and allowed his mind scratch old scares until they left him feeling vulnerable and raw, others tore at his guilt, they reopened hatches in his mind to things he tried to bury, but he always knew it was there and it always came back.
He was actually kind of excited for tomorrow, he was supposed to start learning actual magic, he supposed he should sleep. The problem was, it could possibly result in feeling much more tired than if he didn't risk. He did though.
He laid on top if the surprisingly comfortable white carpet on his back, finally he stopped fighting it and a wave of tiredness crashed over him, and let it drag him into the dark depths of sleep.
A dreamless bliss greeted him, as he slept. The next morning, he awoke to a loud dull alarm vibrating through the air, it blared for a good thirty seconds before shutting off.
:-:-:-:
Despite the rather rude awakening he felt light, not happy as ever - hence the situation he was still in - but not quite as dragged down as he typically felt after waking up.
An apple appeared in front of him - how weird is it that this is his normal now? - and he ate it, the water bottle appeared next to it a few seconds later, if this he only took a sip. After that finished his apple, he had, to his calculations, approximately three more minutes of nothing.
He really hated this way of living, he felt like an animal in a cage, being trained every day to do new tricks, just to appease the owner. It was to save lives, he had to endure it. Percy constantly has to remind himself of this, there were a lot of worse ways to spend his time.
Just because I hate this doesn't mean anything, other people are dying, if I can save them I will.
After a little while longer, until he heard a faint 'pop' and turned to look where he knew Mrs. Stick-up-my-ass stood.
The demigod was confused with what he saw. There was another random person, but this time, it was a man. An old man, white hair surrounded his head, sticking up in all directions, he had a good-natured face with many crease lines and wrinkles, looking as though formed from sliming and worry. His cool blue eyes seemed to be filled with wisdom and sat under the shade of big, bushy gray eyebrows.
"You will receive your wand today Mr. Jackson, I am going to leave you to it. I will be back in half an hour." Annnnnnnnnnnd she left.
He turned to the still unidentified man that she left behind, "Hello?" He meant to be polite, but it just came out as a question.
"I'm Mr. Ollivander," he said sticking his hand out.
"Percy Jackson." They shook hands, Percy couldn't help but notice the English accent, and for the first time, realized just how bad he would stick out wherever Hecate was sending him.
"This is quite an odd place..." the man commented offhandedly, seemingly to himself. "To no offense of course!" He hurriedly added on, Percy couldn't help but chuckle.
"None taken, not my place. Rich parents, crazy summer school. It's supposed to help me focus, get my grades up next year, I'm not sure they choose the right place."
The man shared his laugh, this is the first descent person he seen in a while, it was quite sad, but still, he relished in it.
"Now, I've been informed you broke your wand, and need a new one, correct?"
"Yeah, my last wand was just kind of given to me though. I'm not sure how this all works, should I look at them and pick one I like or-"
"Given to you! No wonder it broke, the wand chooses the wizard Mr. Jackson, not the other way around."
"How?..." Percy trailed off, he had seen plenty of weird things but, magic has its own place in the weird column.
How is a stick going to choose me?
"First we'll do some measurements," Ollivander said as he waved his wand and a tape measure came flying at him. It went everywhere, measuring things that should not need to be measured for a stick he going to have to hold. The demigod felt quite uncomfortable while it flew around, and very relieved when it soared back to its owner's hand. The man looked him up and down a few times, seemed to think about something, waved his wand and a box appeared in his hand.
He took the lid off the box and then offered it towards Percy, when he just stared at it dumbly he said "Well give it a wave!"
He picked it up and sort of just rolled his wrist around creating a circular motion with the wand. An identical ring of fire appeared around his feet, he jumped out of it just as it rose towards the ceiling. The old man quickly put it out and snatched the wand.
He put the lid back on and waved his wand, the box disappeared only to be replaced with another.
This time he took the wand when offered and waved it in the same fashion, nothing happened.
Ollivander shook his head and repeated the process.
Percy decided to wave the wand a bit differently, just a simple back and forth motion, sand started to pour out of it, quickly. It had already reached at least four feet around him before Ollivander plucked it out of his hand.
They tried again, he tried to do it differently, Percy flicked it at the wall. A huge dent formed, and cracks started to spread from it. Yet again, Ollivander took the wand and fixed the damage.
While Ollivander stared at him he thought about Annabeth, it would so much easier with her here.
This time he freaking conjured up a book. This process just kept repeating, new wand, some new damage, or random thing, Ollivander refused to get discouraged though, even though he actually made one of the wands explode. Throughout the entire thing Ollivander muttered things to himself, like 'curious, 'interesting,' 'queer', and even the occasionally slightly alarmed 'nope' when he did particularly bad damage, the room almost imploded at some point.
After what was probably over thirty minutes Percy was ready to take a chance with any wand that didn't cause anything crazy, Ollivander seemed more interested then ever though.
After a few more wands ranging from doing nothing, to blasting the pair (rather forcefully) apart, Ollivander stared for a while at Percy, conjured another box and stared at it thoughtfully before offering it up.
The wand felt warm to the touch, Percy picked it up cautiously slightly scared it would explode, but when he picked it up the feeling intensified and spread throughout his body, it didn't feel dangerous though, just powerful. He waved it and what looked like a firework came out, a dazzling blue-green color filled the room and it sprinkled harmless light over the two.
He examined the wand in his hand, it was a beautiful mix of swirling woods, a russet brown, mixed with tawny and some wood the color of dark chocolate. It was slender with a simple line shallowly carved twisting and snaking around it to the top.
"That's the one Mr. Jackson, it was one of my experiments. Quite a powerful wand, mix of woods, Acacia, English Oak, and Blackthorn, core of Phoenix Feather. Eleven and a half inches, slightly springy. No two wands are the same, but I doubt you'll find anything even close to similar, it's quite unique, I questioned if it would ever find an owner."
Not knowing what else to do Percy shoved the wand in his pocket.
"Thank you, sorry I took so much of your time. I would go ahead and pay you, so you could be on your way and all but, that's not exactly my choice, I really don't have any money."
"That's quite alright, you were a good challenge and quite an interesting customer."
:-:-:-:
As soon as Percy reached the, this is getting really award phase, Mrs. Lerben arrived, and for the first time he was actually glad to see her.
"Thank you, Mr. Ollivander." She said curtly, as she handed him a pile of golden coins, and that was all he got from her. Feeling a bit rude, Percy stepped up and said thank you again – more kindly – and then he left.
"I'm glad you finally got a wand, your mistress said I had to wait when I was about to come in, you've put us behind schedule. We must start immediately. Have you read up on the different spells?"
Now typically Percy wouldn't have, I mean why read in the only free time he had, but this was different. Here there was nothing to do but think and sleep when 'school' wasn't in session, so he read.
"Yes ma'am."
"Good, I want you to attempt some, start with ones from the defensive book."
:-:-:-:
That's how it went for three weeks, trying spells, and the teacher tweaking them. There was only one flaw, Percy wasn't very good. Even at simple stuff. She was displeased to say the least, nevertheless Hecate came.
Yesterday morning Hecate came instead of the teacher, she explained in more detail what his purpose was. He needed to protect the school and keep everyone within it safe. Apparently, he should keep a close eye one specific student though, the hairy wizard.
He also should make sure 'noting out of the ordinary' happened. How he was supposed to that he had no idea, everything at a magic school was 'out of the ordinary' for him.
Any way, that's how he ended up stranded at some British train station an hour early, standing idly, having his ADHD murder him alive a few yards away from the brick pillar he had to run into.
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Yeah, that's it, sorry to disappoint, I know it's not very good. Hopefully, I'll get better as time goes on, I am trying my hardest though to make sure it doesn't suck completely.
Sorry about the long wait, I know you don't want to hear them, but I do have excuses. Called school. I mean, I'm doing online, and I think I might actually have more work, I wrote at least like two or three chapters worth of essays last week alone, it's getting hard to keep up.
Thank you to any of you who are actually still here, it means a lot. Also a big thanks to anyone who, faved, followed, an especially those of you who reviewed, it does help me to get going and write.
That's kind of it, unless you want to know my reason behind the wand, which imma explain really quickly.
So, I did do a little bit of research on the wand woods, and I had three I couldn't choose between, so I thought well why don't I do them all? I thought it was a bit ridiculous but then, I'm just like well I did want it to be different...So, you know where that went.
I chose: Acacia - a very unusual wand wood, which I have found creates tricky wands that often refuse to produce magic for any but their owner, and also withhold their best effects from all but those most gifted. Blackthorn - which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. English Oak - a wand for good times and bad, this is a friend as loyal as the wizard who deserves it. Wands of English oak demand partners of strength, courage and fidelity.
Yeah, then Phoenix feather, this is the rarest core type. Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike. Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalize, and their allegiance is usually hard won.
And I got all of that from Harry Potter Wiki. (The length and flexibility (or whatever you want to call) I just sort of made, whatever sounded right.
And if you're still here, sorry again for the wait. I'll probably update somewhere between one and two weeks, but I'll try and make it sooner, I'm still trying to figure out how to fit this on my plate.
:) Thanks for reading, BBB (10/11/20)
