"blah blah"- Speaking Greek
"blah blah"- Speaking Amestrian
'blah blah'- Thinking
***** - Begin/end flashback
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Percy Jackson. Good thing too, or they wouldn't be nearly as good as they are now. They belong to J.K. Rowling, Hiromu Arakawa, and Rick Riordan. Just to be safe, I also don't own the song 'This is War' by Thirty Seconds to Mars.
Percy
When Percy woke up, he expected another ordinary day. Wake up, eat, suffer through classes, eat more, suffer through some more classes, eat again, flail through headache-inducing homework, go to bed, repeat. Easy (read: torturous). Normal. No room for anything to go wrong.
Oh how wrong he was.
But of all the things he had thought might go wrong, he hadn't thought that he would run into trouble before even exiting the Common Room; and he hadn't at all considered the situation he was in right now.
"Well?" Ron demanded, fixing the three demigods with a steady glare. Beside him, Harry and Hermione wore grim expressions. "Why would you even need to consider killing someone?"
Percy, Nico, and Thalia had been ambushed before they could even make it to the door. It seemed that they had underestimated the investigative skills of their three friends, who had apparently eavesdropped on one of their conversations. And of course, they had heard a conversation that would be very difficult to explain.
To Percy's right, Thalia took a deep breath. Percy had no idea what she was planning, but he hoped whatever it was would work.
"We…didn't want to tell you…" Thalia began hesitantly. She stopped, averting her eyes and dropping her head slightly.
"Tell us what?" Harry demanded, frowning as he stepped forward from behind Ron.
Thalia looked back up, a new determination in her eyes. "After what happened," she began, "with Sirius Black–" Harry's eyes widened, and Hermione immediately looked worried.
Thalia paused once more before continuing. "We were thinking about going after him," she said in a rush, lifting her chin.
"You were what?!" Hermione exploded, while Ron and Harry simply looked shocked. "Why on earth would you do something so incredibly stupid?" Hermione raged, throwing her hands in the air. Percy forced himself not to shrink back from the sheer volume of her voice. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be?!"
"We have every idea how dangerous it is!" Thalia snapped back, clenching her fists at her sides.
"Then why would you even consider it?!" Hermione asked in frustration. "You could get yourselves killed!"
"Or worse, expelled," Ron muttered with a snicker.
Hermione whirled toward him angrily. "This is serious, Ron!" She scolded.
Thalia stepped forward with her hands up in an attempt to placate Hermione. "We know how dangerous it is," she said. "But our whole lives are full of danger, so we figured that one more murderer wouldn't be too different."
"But he's a skilled wizard," Ron pointed out. "And even if you can fight, you're still only third-years!"
"And what were you planning to do if you could somehow catch him?" Hermione asked, beginning to calm down.
"Well," Nico said, reminding them all of his presence. "That's…what we were arguing about."
Hermione snapped her mouth shut as she realized what Nico was saying. "You mean," she said in a hushed voice, "that you were actually considering killing Black?" When her question was met with silence, she swallowed hard. "Oh…I see."
"Don't do anything crazy," Harry said after the silence had become awkward. "At least not without telling us first."
The three demigods nodded and mumbled their agreement to satisfy their young friends, and the group was finally able to leave for the Great Hall. Percy breathed an inward sigh of relief and nodded thankfully at Thalia, who nodded back grimly.
'That was almost a disaster,' Percy thought as they rushed to breakfast. 'We need to stop having such close calls, or something is going to go very wrong, and we may not be able to fix it.'
~o~O~o~
Murmurs echo throughout the hall, and a young girl anxiously hops from one foot to the other while keeping her place in line. Her light green eyes dart quickly across four large tables, searching for familiar faces. A boy waves his hand vigorously from a table, and the girl's eyes light up. She waves back eagerly, grinning. Silence soon falls across the hall. The girl stills her movements and nervously bites her lip. Names are called. Houses are shouted. The group thins. Finally, she hears it.
"Taylor, Elsie."
The name echoes throughout the hall. The girl stumbles forward and hops onto the stool. She sees her brothers grinning at her from their table. Taking a deep breath, she sets the hat on her head. There is silence throughout the hall as the girl listens to a small voice in her head. The brothers exchange anxious looks. The elder taps the table incessantly. Finally, they hear it.
"Slytherin!"
The hat is removed. Elsie Taylor slowly rises to her feet, shocked. Her brothers sit, frozen and staring in disbelief. Clapping and cheers ring out from one table, and one table alone. Not to say that all the other tables were completely silent; the girl is sure that she hears at least three people calling out boos and jeers.
Elsie forces her legs to move, carrying her to the table, even as the beginnings of tears shine in her eyes. She find her brothers' faces one more, hoping to find comfort there. Instead she only finds shock and uncertainty. Arriving at an empty seat, the girl is greeted with scowls and angry muttering.
It takes her several heart-stopping seconds to realize that they aren't aimed at her; but at the few who were, in fact, jeering at her selection. Smiles are turned toward her, if a bit cold and formal from the older students. An older girl squeezes Elsie's hand at smiles down at her sympathetically.
"Don't worry," she reassures. "You'll get used to it eventually."
Despite the intent to comfort, the girl is on the brink of tears once again.
"But…I don't…I don't want to be…I mean…" Elsie ducks her head, and over the cheers of the next sorting, no one hears her desperate whisper. "I'm not…evil…am I?"
Percy jerked awake, knocking a book and several papers off of the library table. He rubbed his head, trying once again to make sense of his dream. As so often happened, he didn't remember all of it clearly, and the details were muddled together in his head.
"Are you alright?" Thalia asked from across the table, looking up from her essay.
"Yeah," Percy said, leaning out of his chair to pick up the fallen book and papers. Sitting back up, he spoke again in a lowered voice. "Just another dream."
Nico's head came up from his book and Thalia's eyes widened. Setting her quill down, Thalia quickly glanced around to be sure no one was within easy listening distance.
"About Alex?" She asked urgently, leaning across the table so her whisper could be heard. "Or I guess I should say Elsie…or maybe I should say Alex, in case someone overhears us…" Thalia shook her head. "It doesn't matter. What happened?"
"Well…" Percy began uncertainly, tapping his fingers on the table. "I don't remember exactly…it was El–Alex–again, but she looked older. She was being sorted, and she got put in Slytherin, and she was really upset, I think…" Percy frowned. "I don't really remember anything else."
Thalia groaned. "Why can't your dreams give you something helpful? How is her backstory going to help us?" Percy shrugged.
"I've been thinking about the prophecy more," Nico cut in. "I think I may have found a problem."
"Great," Thalia grumbled. "Just what we needed, another problem."
Nico ignored her and kept talking. "The line where it says 'a warning to the prophets; the liar, the honest;' we already decided that Luna–Luna was probably the 'honest'. But what about the liar? Who is that?"
Percy frowned. "Now that you mention it, I never thought about that." He furrowed his brow and stared hard at the table. "Could it be Trelawney?" He suggested after a few seconds.
Thalia shook her head. "I don't think so…I mean, Trelawney is no Oracle, but she has made a few correct predictions, and don't forget the true prophecy that she's going to give this year."
Percy turned to Nico. "What do you think?" He asked. "You said that you've been thinking about it."
"I have a few ideas," Nico offered hesitantly. "Kind of."
"Something's better than nothing," Thalia said with a sigh. "What've you got?"
"Nothing solid," Nico admitted. "But we do know that the Liar is a person who is either pretending to be a prophet and deceiving people, or they truly believe themselves to be a prophet. Either way, they will have an important impact in the war."
Percy and Thalia nodded in agreement. That much they knew already.
"So," Nico continued, "I think that the Liar is misguiding people; either on purpose or by accident; and they're lies are going to have some sort of devastating impact on the coming war."
"Where are going with this?" Thalia asked slowly, turning her quill between her fingers.
"I had an idea," Nico began, staring at the book in front of him. "It's…kind of crazy, but it's an option."
"Come on Nico," Percy prodded impatiently. "What is it?"
"We all know that prophecies are confusing," Nico said, looking up to meet their eyes. "So what if when it says 'prophet' it doesn't mean an actual prophet? What if it's just the name of something? Like maybe a newspaper?"
Percy's eyes widened. "The Daily Prophet," he breathed. "Of course!"
Thalia's eyes lit up as she grinned. "That does make sense!" She stopped, her smile fading into a frown. "But the Prophet doesn't really start printing a lot of lies until the fifth year. How would that have an impact on what's happening now? Especially considering what Luna said about the graveyard?"
"I don't know," Nico sighed. "That's what I was unsure about."
"Other than that," Percy cut in, "this is progress." He turned to Nico with a grin. "Glad you were thinking about this a lot."
Nico gave him an odd sort of smile in return. "Yeah. Good thing."
"Enough of that for now," Thalia said. "Nico, did you find Alex?"
Nico sobered immediately. "I did," he confirmed. "She hasn't done anything interesting–she's just been a typical Slytherin student."
"Has she been to the library yet?" Percy asked. If they could find out what sort of things Elsie was studying, they might be able to get a better lead.
Nico shook his head. "I only just found her yesterday though, so we need to give it time."
Thalia clenched her fist "We don't have time!" She growled. "We need to catch her before she can hurt anyone else!"
"But we need to be more careful about this," Nico cautioned. "We were almost caught today. We can't risk that happening again."
Thalia scowled and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Yeah, I know. We can't let anyone get that close another time. They bought our story for now, but if they catch us again, we're going to have a hard time convincing them to trust us. And we can't let that happen."
Percy and Nico nodded grimly in agreement.
"We need to catch her," Percy said seriously. "And we need to do it soon."
"That's right." Thalia gave him a tight smile. "Dream some more dreams, Percy. You might just find us something worthwhile."
~oO~O0O~Oo~
Elsie hurried down the hall towards the library, a slip of paper clutched tightly in her hand. As she sped past a group of older students, she heard a voice call her name. She easily recognized the boy who called her, but she had no intentions of stopping.
"Elsie!" He called out again, and she heard the pounding of footsteps behind her as he ran to catch up.
Frowning in annoyance, she quickened her gait, but his legs were longer and he easily overtook her.
"Elsie, stop!" A hand reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to a halt.
"What is it?" She snapped impatiently, turning to her brother in annoyance. He hurriedly released her arm, raising his hands in defense.
"Elsie, I just wanted to see how you're doing!" He protested, slowing lowering his arms. "You've been so reclusive lately…you haven't spoken to me or Mathew in a long time; are sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine," Elsie insisted, scowling in annoyance as she turned to leave. "Now if you will excuse me, I have somewhere to go."
Peter reached out and grabbed her arm again, this time the one that secured her precious slip of paper. Seeing it, her brother's face tightened.
"The restricted section again, Elsie?" He asked, worry obvious in his tone. "What are you doing in there?"
"That's none of your business." Elsie whipped her head around to glare at her brother, pulling her arm in an attempt to break free. "Now let go of me!"
Peter tightened his firm grip on his sister's arm. "Elsie…" he began cautiously. "You…you're changing, Elsie. I don't like it…and I'm worried about you."
"Maybe you should have worried sooner," Elsie hissed, narrowing her green eyes threateningly and yanking on her arm again.
Her brother stepped back in shock, allowing her to pull her arm free and turn to leave. She was halfway down the hall by the time Peter snapped himself out of his surprise and called after her. But by that time she was far enough away that she didn't have to worry. She eagerly looked down at her valuable slip of paper.
'Now it's time to see if this book has what I'm looking for.'
