Nico was awake all night with Percy and Annabeth in the hospital wing. No one dared tell them to leave. Chiron went to bed after a while of staying up, he did, after all, have a class to teach in the morning.

"I can't lose her." Nico said quietly, Percy and Annabeth on either side of him, not touching him but just listening, being there. "I already lost one sister, I can't lose another, not because of some nosy witch." bitterness seeped into his tone and a tear ran down his cheek, Annabeth looked like she wanted to wipe it away but restrained herself, Nico didn't like physical contact.

"She'll survive Neeks," Percy said, twirling riptide in his fingers, "She always does." but she didn't the last time this happened a voice nagged in all of their minds, she died, remember? Nico stood suddenly, "I need to take my mind off this, what do you say to a little sparing in the forbidden forest?" Annabeth shrugged, Percy stood, riptide in hand, "Let's go death boy."

They found a clearing about a mile in and took up fighting stances. Annabeth and Percy temporarily teamed up against Nico so they could have their rematch sooner than they thought. Nico summoned a skeletal warrior to even the playing field and they launched into battle.

Nico and his skeleton managed to gain a little ground at first, with Nico moving with lightning speed and his undead partner having the training of a roman soldier. But Percy and Annabeth had other plans. They let Nico gain a little ground, hoping to wear him out early in the fight to eliminate him as a threat. A tactic that had won both of them many a battle before and that they knew well.

Nico, however, had been present for the countless games of capture the flag and one on one duels in the arena. He knew this tactic, so he held back as well, resolving to play the long game. They fought for hours, hardly tiring. Each of them with only scratches to show for their efforts. Nico smirked when Annabeth called for a water break. Way to be obvious wise girl.

"No water for Percy, unfair advantages and all." Nico said and took a swig of his water.

"Unfair? I think you have it wrong Nico, Percy's powers are just as fair as your's, we could say that summoning the dead is an unfair advantage on you part." Nico scowled but relented and Percy gulped down his water, the few scrapes he did have disappearing along with the hint of exhaustion in his eyes. "Jokes on you Annabeth, you'll have to fight him when you finish with me, then you'll eat your words." Annabeth smirked and took her stance, Percy following suit a moment later. Nico summoned a second skeleton and launched into battle.

It was hours later that Nico managed to overpower the senior heroes. Driving them into a corner and having his skeletons pin them with blades to their throats, "I win." Nico said and released them.

Annabeth let out a low whistle, "You've gotten good Nico." she said appraisingly. He smiled, barely. Percy smirked and held out his hand for Nico to take. He took it and found himself flipped over Percy's shoulder and tossed on his back, "Good fight Nico." Percy said, as if nothing happened and walked off with his arm around Annabeth. Nico followed them a minute later back to the castle, where they showed him where he could sleep in the Slytherin commons.

~oOo~

The next morning Nico woke up to someone shoving him off the couch he had made his bed. "Hey, I was sleeping there." he said as he looked at his attacker. A skinny blond boy with a snarky look on his face. Why not?

Nico scowled at the boy, "I suppose you're Draco." He said and picked his jacket off the ground, now aware of all the eyes belonging to Slytherins getting ready for the day, all trained on him, particularly his exposed arms, which were marked with scars from hundreds of battles fought since he was ten years old, physically anyhow.

"You must be pretty bad with your wand to have that many scars." Draco stated, a bit smugly. Nico raised an eyebrow, "My sister is nearly, if not dead, and you want to taunt me about my magic skills." there was only the tiniest hint of anger under his words, but it was enough for most of the gathered students to avert their eyes and get on with their days. But not Draco. That boy was going to get himself killed.

"You might have been able to help her, had you not refused to use magic of any kind, what kind of muggle school to you attend anyway? And one that has it's own policy for the healing of students? Rubbish if you ask me, I doubt it's actually a real school." Nico kept his face perfectly natural as he pulled on his aviators jacket and strapped his stygian iron sword to his belt.

"If ours is not a real school, then why not go to your headmaster with your suspicions? Stop wasting my time, I've got to go check on my sister, you people have done enough damage to my family as is, and I would hate to inconvenience my father with your nonsense." Nico pushed passed the pure blood and picked a yellow band off the floor. It must have fallen off his wrist while he slept. He tied it back on and straightened it so the little black skull and crossbones with the orange sun behind it was on the top of his wrist.

"That doesn't seem to fit your usual color palette. Was it a gift from your girlfriend." Draco said in a taunting tone, entirely oblivious to the death threat. Nico smirked and turned to face the Slytherin, who was nearly an inch taller than him, "No, boyfriend actually." he said, resting his braceleted hand on the hilt of his sword.

Draco look appalled. He blubbered something about improper and unnatural, the usual garbage. Nico ignored him and made his way out of the room. He went down to the potions class, where Snape's ghost was teaching the class.

He stopped abruptly when he saw the demigod, "My lord," he said, bowing his head, Nico cut him off just as he was about to say something else, "I will not tolerate your presence here much longer Severus, so say your goodbyes, I'll be back when my sister is back to full health or dead, and if she dies," he looked the potions master in the eye, "You will pay dearly." then he dropped into a shadow, leaving the nerry confused magic types to figure out what he meant. And a terrified potions master to complete his lecture.

~oOo~

Nico arrived at camp. Everything was much the same as usual, campers climbing the rock wall or forging weapons, or canoeing, or doing any number of normal, everyday, camp half-blood activities. But if you had been to the camp before, on a normal summer day, than you would be able to sense the difference. The air was heavy with feelings of pity, worry, sorrow, much like the aftermath of a lost battle.

Nico's worry increased and he hurried to the infirmary.

~oOo~

Word spread quickly of Nico's little chat with Snape. The demigods just shook it off when they were questioned, saying that Nico had been grief stricken and angry, that any of the threats he made were just the grief talking. There were rumors of him operating on school grounds as well, but no one dared ask the exchange students about that. Everyone was at least a little more cautious after the war.

Percy was in his bed that night and sleep was pulling at him, the fish in the lake outside were singing lullabies and the squid was humming along, creating a melody that would lull him to sleep even after the worst of battles. When sleep did take him, so did the nightmares.

He was at the ledge again, hanging on to the tiny shelf of rock and Annabeth, she begged him to let her go. He looked up and there was Nico. but instead of agreeing to lead the other to the doors of death, he stands up and starts laughing. Suddenly the rest of the crew was there, laughing with him. A scream broke through the dream and he woke up.

He bolted out of bed and was pounding on the girls dormitories entrance before he even realized what he was doing, knowing for absolute certain even before he was fully awake that the screen was Annabeth's. The door was opened by a bleary eyed girl a moment later and he pushed past her, rushing in and pulling Annabeth into his arms. She was sobbing and muttering in greek, recounting moments from their quests, some of them twisted around, like his dream had been.

He held her tightly and whispered to her in greek, comforting things, the sort of sweet nothings normal couples would take for granted. She clutched at his shirt and hair, eyes still frantic as if she were still in a nightmare. He ignored the other girls in the room for a few minuted, until her sobs quieted enough for him to pick her up and take her to the commons to the girls could get some sleep. He apologised, through the girl who opened the door insisted that it would have been worse if had not come.

Percy carried Annabeth to the commons and curled up with her next to the fire while near silent tear streamed down her face. She told him the dreams then, every horrible detail. She switched between english and greek, telling her about Nix and misery, and the Ari and Bob and the doors. She told him everything, how her dream had been a reel of all the best and worst parts of the wars, but the good parts were twisted into moments more horrible than some of the bad memories. Friends turning on friends, Percy making a different decision after Kronos, Luke sneering at her and telling her that she was nothing, just a worthless runaway.

He held her and listened. Because sometimes that's all you need. Sometimes all you need is for someone to listen to what you have to say, not for them to give their opinions or advice, or to tell you that they understand, but for them to just be there and listen.

~oOo~

Hermione was tearing herself up trying to figure out what Nico had meant. He had said the potion was showing her the truth. But how could that be the truth? Hazel had been perfectly fine, she clearly hadn't been being stoned to death by invisible rocks. Perhaps she had been though. Maybe, Hermione thought, there was a spell keeping her alive, and the truth potion had torn it down. No. If there was a spell meant to keep her alive, it wouldn't have been torn down so easily, not with such powerful witches and wizards at her school to cast it.

She looked at the book in front of her. It was a latin to english dictionary. She held her wand to her ear and listened to the recording she had made after the 'new prophecy' had been issued in divination. She couldn't find a way to cast a spell on a spell like this so she had to decode it manually.

She scrawled down the next few words in latin, then translated them below. She had put together a kind of script, showing who said what when. She translated the last few lines and admired her work. She had everything listed out in an orderly list with the speaker underlined after the dialogue,

Another prophecy - Percy

I think so. - Annabeth

At least this time it doesn't say any of us will die. - Percy

Been there, done that. No fun. - Hazel

half hearted laughs from all of them

But why so soon, I mean we just got Leo back! And Calypso just got off her island. I just don't think I can handle another prophecy, those things have done nothing but ruin my life so far. - Annabeth

You don't suppose we could switch ourselves out for Jason Piper and Leo, do you? - Percy

No, we have to see this through. - Annabeth

Hermione tried to make sense of it. Apparently they had experience with prophecies, that much was obvious, but she didn't understand the rest of it. Hazel said something about dying, that was what interested her. If Hazel had been dead, or near dead, when the spell was cast to save her life, then that would explain why it had been so weak. No one must have thought to strengthen it when whatever it was that nearly killed her was over.

Hermione, believing she had her answer, stowed the paper with the conversation in her robe and started to put away the dictionary, then thought the better of it. It had taken her forever just to figure out what language they were speaking, she wanted to have a way to translate whatever they said on her at all times.

She flipped to the back of the book and found a translator spell. She quickly cast it on her ears so if she heard either of the remaining exchange students speaking latin it would be instantly translated for her. That way they couldn't hide behind language barriers to keep secrets. Besides, secrets will always be dangerous things.

Hermione tucked the book into one of her large pockets just in case and walked out of the library, still pondering all the other little puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit. Maybe I'm putting together the wrong picture. A voice in her head said. Part of her listened, coming up with outlandish theories to make the pieces fit. The other part of her, however, kept itself open, but grounded, unlike the other part of her mind, which was starting to consider aliens as a possible explanation.

She shook her head to clear it and marched down the hall. One thing was for certain, those kids were up to something, they were Slytherins after all. What she couldn't figure out was what or why. She was positive their teacher was in on it, he seemed to know everything there was to know about anything and everything. She wanted to look like that one day, like she had thousands of years of memories in her head, just behind her eyes.

~oOo~

That evening Hermione borrowed Harry's cloak and snuck into the Slytherin commons, where she waited. She tried to follow Annabeth into the girl's room but she failed to get in the room before they slammed shut. So she sat on the floor and waited for something to happen. She didn't have to wait long. A scream rang out through the halls, and Hermione was sure half the castle could hear it.

Hermione had heard people wake up screaming from nightmares before, especially after the war, there was always at least one kid who relived a traumatic event in their sleep and woke the whole dorm with their shrieks. Those screams were of fear and sometimes pain.

Annabeth's screen was different. It was worse. It was a sound of pure, unfiltered, terror. A sound like a heart breaking a thousand times over. Hermione could practically feel the fear and pain in that moment. Whatever it was that that girl had gone through to be able to produce such a sound had to have been hell itself in order to compare.

Percy came sprinting past then he disappeared and all Hermione could hear were muffled sobs for a while until Percy came back, a broken looking Annabeth in his arms. He was whispering something to her but Hermione couldn't hear. She moved over so they could sit by the fire without discovering her and listened.

Much to her dismay, latin wasn't the only dead language they spoke, the exchange students also spoke what sounded like greek as well. They switched between english and greek so she only picked up bits and pieces of the conversation, but it sounded like Annabeth was telling Percy her nightmare.

"...Luke looked at me...golden…" she blabbered in greek for a while and Percy just held her, whispering those little romantic phrases that everyone says but knows they mean nothing, things like 'I love you' or 'you'll be okay' occasionally something in greek then again with the phrases, meanwhile Annabeth kept talking, "Time... the sky...Di Angelo...lotus hotel…" then she broke down for a few minutes, apparently the greek bits meant more than the english ones did.

Annabeth seemed to calm down a bit and she started talking again, talking more in english this time, rather than the occasional word, "I-I was...ghost king...the battle... something was wrong, he looked happy Percy, but not like now but like-like on the bus, our first quest remember? The one you blew up?" Percy laughed through his tears and Hermione realized that he had had a nightmare as well, though clearly not as bad as his girlfriends.

"I remember, I have destroyed a lot of stuff since then." they both laughed, but it was a bit hysterical, "Indeed you have…" she switched to greek and was suddenly crying again. Percy held her tighter and she switched back to the jumbled mix of languages, some of it, Hermione realized, was latin, which was being translated to english through the spell.

"Luke was possessed again, his eyes, oh gods percy his eyes, they were all golden again, but this time he was gone completely and we lost the war. Then… you said yes and left me alone then we were falling again and there were spiders. So many spiders...prophecy...misery...poison, and you were choking her and it was terrifying, Percy, you scared me." He looked uncomfortable but held her closer, "Then Bob…" she choked and said the rest in greek, but whoever 'Bob' was he had done something worth crying about back when Annabeth was...wherever she was dreaming about.

Everything else was in greek and Hermione turned her attention to deciphering what she understood. Percy had scared her. That much was plain. He was apparently choking someone, and it scared Annabeth. The was was surprised Hermione the most though, that anything could scare Annabeth at all. And all that about golden eyes, and again, meaning it happened in real life.

Hermione looked over to see the two of them had fallen asleep in eachothers arms. She stood and left the room, going back to her dorm and planning to return the cloak to Harry the next day, preferably before he noticed she took it. She got to her feet as quietly as possible, managing not to make a sound, and glanced at the entrance.

Draco stood there, a look of longing on his face as he stared at the sleeping couple, both so content in eachothers arms. He sighed and left, accepting that they had something he never would.

Hermione was surprised. Then she cursed herself for being surprised. Of course Draco wanted something like that, didn't everyone. But Hermione knew that those two had been through something that would drive anyone else insane just to forget it. They had seen things that no one understood and done things, she realized, that would make people sick. Why else would they be so good at fighting? Why else would their academy have such an unusual education system? She had seen the effects of war on people, the way that many of her classmates joked more and cared less. She saw the little flashes in their eyes when they remembered something they wanted to forget.

Hermione looked back at the couple, noticing little things she hadn't before. The way both of them had bead necklaces with matching beads, except Annabeth had more. The way where the long sleeves or hems of their pajamas lifted there was alway scar tissue to be seen,

Hermione looked more closely at one on Percy's side where the bottom hem of his shirt lifted just enough to reveal three long, deep looking scars on his side. At first she thought they were from a knife or a sword, which would make sense given their training, but when she looked closer she realized they couldn't be. The three scars were to jagged to be a blade like the ones they had fought with. And it couldn't have been a serrated blade because all of them were identical. Claws, her mind said. But from what? She decided to leave this new mystery for the morning and exited the room.

As soon as he stepped out the door the cloak was ripped off of her. Draco stood there, holding Harry's cloak with his eyebrows raised. "How…" she asked and he scoffed, "Do you think I'm deff? With the two of them sleeping all that noise you were making couldn't have come from them, so I figured one of you nosy lot had an invisibility cloak in there." She had to hand it to Draco, he was no idiot.

"So you decided to wait for me to come out." she said, he nodded and handed the cloak back, "I assume your friends put you up to this." He said, crossing his arms, "No, actually, I came on my own. I don't think they would like me spying on them, not after the whole thing with Hazel." Hermione pulled the cloak around her shoulders, "They think it was my fault, everyone does." "I don't." Draco looked like he wanted to take the words back as soon as they left his mouth. Hermione looked at him curiously. He cleared his throat, "What did you find out, I don't think you were in there just to watch them sleep." his tone was almost teasing, and it was mysteriously lacking in the cruel undertones he was always using.

"Like I would tell you." She said and pulled the hood over her face, "You're a bully Draco, you could use anything I say against me or them, and believe me, they do not need that." she was about to leave when Nico tumbled out of a shadow and fell into the hall. Draco started and looked like he was caught between sneering and saying something. Hermione stayed completely silent, hoping the Draco wouldn't give her away.

"Take that cursed cloak off Hermione, and don't say it Draco if you want to keep your arms." Nico looked like he would pass out before he could do any damage, but Draco wasn't willing to test that theory. "Where are they?" Nico asked, staring directly at Hermione as if there was nothing to keep him from seeing her. She put down the hood, "How…" He glared and she shut her mouth, pointing at the passage, which was shut. He pushed through without saying the password and it let him through. "Hey lovebirds! Get up, we've got to get to camp now!" he shouted and there was the sound of two groggy teenagers trying to untangle themselves and grab their things, "Leave your school bags! Just bring your personal bags, you'll need them, and Percy, please tell me those pajamas have pockets." Percy came back from grabbing his bag and said, "Of course, I make sure everything I own has pockets, "Well you'll need new pajamas after this." Nico said as the three of them walked out into the hall, "Why?" Nico looked suspiciously at the two students who were still standing in the hall, dumbfounded. "I thought you couldn't apparate at hogwarts." Draco said, Nico looked him dead in the eye, "Good thing I didn't then." Annabeth snorted, "You really don't have any subtlety do you ghost king."

He smirked at her and grabbed both her and Percy and dragged them into a shadow. They dropped into it, leaving no trace and using no wands, for all the wizards knew they didn't even bring their wands with.

"Three of seven shall go to a place unknown, but be discovered by a change in tone, two worlds combined once again, will the half bloods again defend." Hermione whispered, "What?" draco asked, still bewildered from the mysterious spell. "That was the prophecy from divination," Hermione's eyes widened, "Nix, falling...oh god." She ran off down the hall, rushing straight to the library and forgetting to put her hood back up.

Draco followed, not entirely sure why. He followed her into the library, where she scoured the shelves, looking for something if particular. She pulled out a book and threw it open on one of the desks. He tried to read it as she flipped through but she was going to fast.

Finally she found what she was looking for and pointed at the picture on the page. It showed a woman in a greek style dress floating across the sky, night following behind her.

"What about it?" he asked and Hermione pulled a piece of paper from her robes. On it was the conversation she had translated.

"This is what the exchange students said after the prophecy in divination." Draco read it over, "So? They say some weird stuff, but what has that got to do with a, mythological night goddess?" Hermione sighed in frustration and explained what she thought she understood Annabeth's nightmare.

"You still haven't explained the goddess." She threw up her hands, "They mentioned Nix by name," She gestured to the top of the page, where the goddesses name was written, "They mentioned falling and there were claw marks-" Draco cut her off, "Wait, claw marks?!" she waved him off and continued, "I think they went to taurus, which is basicly greek hell, that would explain everything! The way that they are always keeping secrets, the reason they all are super good at fighting and wandless magic, the scars…" She waited for Draco to understand but he just shook his head, "That's crazy, those are just myths. That would mean that those kids are greek style heroes. I refuse to believe that without more solid proof at least, Hermione." she stared at him for a moment then deflated, "I know, but I'll prove it, you'll see." with that she marched off with the greek mythology book, grabbing a greek to english dictionary on her way.

Hey, hope you guys liked the chapter. So I wanted to clear something up. Some of you assumed they they wee there to protect Harry or something, this, however, is not at all the case. The only reason he was brought up at all before the quest is because he is a bit of a celebrity at this point so it would be strange if the new exchange students had no idea who he was. Otherwise they would have just been told that it is a scouting mission to check up on what happened after the war, because Chiron lost his only contact in the school before the end of the war and was only able to hear whispers in the magic community that the war was over. The demigods are in no way there for the golden trio. I hope I cleared that up.