Nico opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Light was streaming through the windows and the scent of the sea breeze filled his nostrils. He rubbed his eyes groggily. He must have been having a dream about being home again. Then he looked back up. The room was still there.
Percy was by his side in an instant. "Nico!" he cried, looking very relieved. "You're awake, thank the gods!" He was grinning ear to ear. "Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat? It's almost lunch time."
Nico reached out a hand to touch Percy, who felt warm and solid. So he wasn't dreaming? "My fever must be worse than I thought," he muttered.
Percy started to laugh, to his surprise. "No, really! I got in last night." And then he told Nico the whole story. As he listened, Nico's eyes got wider and wider. Percy had done that... for him? Maybe he had been wrong. Would someone who didn't actually care about him break down a wall and take a random stranger at sword point? Nico wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and couldn't quite decide if he was still having some weird fever dream. "Also, Sirius says hello," Percy added as he finished.
Nico started. Sirius! He hoped he hadn't gotten in too much trouble for Nico's sake. From what Percy had told him, he had very gallantly helped get him out of there. Him and Percy both owed him a lot. "Thanks," he said, quietly. He wondered if they'd ever be able to meet again.
"Don't mention it," Percy said, looking uncomfortable. "I sorta owed you from last year, so this really isn't a big deal."
Nico blinked. Was Percy telling him that he only did this so he wouldn't owe him anymore? He couldn't be sure. It would explain why he was so willing to help. Nico bit back a cold response, but inside a bubble of hope popped and he slowly sank into himself.
"You really were out cold," Percy said, turning back to the fountain and tossing a couple more drachmas into the water to restock it. "You've been unconscious for three days! Are you hungry?"
He shrugged, but now that Percy mentioned it, Nico was starving. "Is it time for breakfast?" he asked hopefully.
Percy chuckled and walked back over to him. He messed up Nico's hair, which Nico hated. It made him feel like a little kid, and Nico wasn't a little boy anymore. "You kinda missed it. It's almost lunchtime." He took his hand off Nico's head, and Nico touched his scalp as Percy started sifting through discarded clothing on the ground. Bianca used to do that to him when they were younger, he remembered. The gesture had been warm and protective then, like no matter what, his family always had his back.. For some reason, he felt that way about it when it came from Percy. Maybe it wasn't a completely bad gesture. "I think I have something you can wear," Percy said, tossing him a Camp Half-Blood shirt. "Your old stuff was pretty rank."
Nico wrinkled his nose at the bright orange rag that was burnt, slightly bloody, and torn. Not to mention he doubted it had been washed in weeks. "And this is better, how?" he asked, but he dutifully pulled it on over his head. The shirt fit him more like a long tunic, which was humiliating.
Percy made gagging motions and held his nose. "Trust me," he teased, "this is better."
He pushed his cousin, but it wasn't a cruel gesture. For once, Nico actually felt like joking around with other people. Any doubts he had about Percy helping just to square off their debts faded as the atmosphere lightened.
Nico hopped into the bathroom inside Percy's cabin to clean up, because he wasn't too clean after his battle with the fake Zeus in Grimmauld place. The room was filthy, and being flung around it had stirred up enough dust and dirt to cake him solid. The hot water rinsed away all his apprehension and finally convinced him he was awake. This was real.
The two of them left the cabin together and started towards the open air dining pavilion. "Oh, shoot," Percy said, snapping his finger as he remembered something. Nico stopped in his tracks. What was wrong now? Was Percy deciding he didn't want to be seen with him? "I promised Annabeth I'd go get her when you woke up, but she's at the Big House with Chiron, working out her next trip to Olympus." He gave Nico a quick grin. "Meet you up there. Save me a seat?"
Nico let out a wry smile. Like there would be hoards of people fighting to sit next to either of them. It was forbidden to sit at a table other than yours, but sometimes Chiron or Mr. D looked the other way in the case of the Big Three kids, as they had no one to sit with.
Percy jogged off towards the porch on the other side of the U of cabins. He didn't glance back except at the door, and then he waved before disappearing inside the building.
"Hey, Zombie Boy!" called a deep, cruel voice behind him. Nico turned around slowly, dread washing over him. It had already begun. The voice belonged to a beefy Ares camper probably about Percy's age. He wore a leather jacket and was popping his knuckles threateningly. Behind him were two of his menacing friends. "Back so soon from your little vacation? Guess we didn't scare you off for good yet, huh?"
They gave him menacing looks. Nico wasn't sure whether to try and claw his eyes out before they mangled him good or run away, hard and fast. Being picked on by campers sucked, but at least it got him ready for actual battle situations.
That was Nico's life. A whole freaking endless battle.
"Nice dress," the guy added, looking at Nico's humongous camp shirt. He was right, it did fit him more like a dress, which was embarrassing as Hades. Nico turned red, and it was super obvious when he did so because the second guy snickered.
"Touchy subject, huh?" he chortled to himself. Nico hated him.
He didn't even know these kids. Why were they bullying him? What made him so much more of an easy target than the rest of the campers? Was it some strange camp tradition at this point? One of them shoved his shoulders and he went down hard. At this point, he felt exhausted, even though he had just woken up from a three day nap. He fell on his butt and the guy loomed over him, casting a long shadow over Nico.
"Careful, he's a fragile loser," the second jerk laughed. "Wears dresses, check. Frail pussy, check. You're turning into a freaking girl."
"Boy, girl," the first one sniffed. "I'll beat anyone up." Then he reared back his fist, ready to slug Nico in the head.
Nico realized he was sitting in his shadow just in time and melted away into the darkness, leaving the jerk's fist to swish straight through air. He thought he heard a howl of rage as he vanished from the scene.
He hadn't had a destination in mind when he zipped out of there. He tried to go back to Grimmauld Place so he could see Sirius, but for some reason the shadow world blocked him from exiting straight into Sirius's kitchen. Oh well, he thought, they had imprisoned him for so long that he doubted they'd be glad to see him. Besides, if he couldn't shadow travel out of there, he'd just wind up in more trouble than before.
As he drifted through time and space in the shadow realm, he wondered about Sirius. He had been so nice to him. They had barely known each other. He realized that he was missing him really badly, that he wanted to go see him again. Sirius, Nico finally understood, was his friend.
Nico wasn't quite sure how to deal with this revelation. His stomach growled loudly again. McDonalds, he thought. I want McDonalds. He didn't know where he wanted to go, but he knew that he wanted to go somewhere far away. This time, he decided to make it back to camp for the night. There'd be no more of this 'insane imprisonment' business. He could just get hopped up on caffeine and make the trip home, then crash in his own bed.
The vague shadow travel landed him in the middle of an alley, and the only other person in it was a homeless guy who looked so muddled and confused that he just glanced at Nico. "Are you an angel?" he asked, and Nico smelled alcohol on him. He shuffled away. Drunks freaked him out.
"No, I'm the devil," he told him before striding away. In response, the guy passed out on the pavement.
And right next to him, praise the gods, was a glowing McDonalds sign! Nico grinned. Maybe he was better at this whole traveling business than he thought!
He slowly realized he didn't have any money. That sucked. There wasn't really a way to shoplift the food, either. Still, he was too... not afraid, per se, to return to camp. He had fought in a war last summer, to fear a bully was dumb. What Nico was afraid of, however, was rejection. From Percy, and also from Annabeth.
He slid into a booth and pretended to be playing with his iPod while waiting for someone. Next to him, a family was eating their dinner. A toddler was flinging handfuls of french fries at her father and screaming eagerly. She saw him watching, grinned devilishly, and beaned him with her chicken nuggets. They bounced off onto the table, and Nico popped one in his mouth. Yum.
Her mother jumped up. "I am so sorry!" she cried. "I can't believe she just did that!"
Nico waved her off. "It's fine," he said.
This was usually the part where people turned away from him and went back to their own business. Maybe they were intimidated by his clothing, which usually had a more gothic feel to it. Maybe they felt the aura of death and fear around him that lingered no matter what he did. No matter what, they just resumed ignoring him, like he wasn't even there.
This family was different. The little girl's mother's eyes fell on the chicken nuggets he had swept off the table and was trying to smuggle into his pockets. Her eyes narrowed and he wondered if he was about to have to pull a Houdini. He jumped up. "Uh, I have to go meet my... parents," he said, wincing at how lame the lie sounded even to himself. "Nice meeting you..."
"You hungry?" the toddler asked, except it came out much more adorably, like "Oo hung-we?" He started to shake his head, but his stomach let out a particularly traitorous growl. Nico wondered if it was time to bolt yet. He winced at their concerned looks.
"I... have to go," he said.
The woman shook her head and grabbed a chair from a nearby table. She pulled it up next to them. "Eat with us," she said. Then she offered him the rest of her fries.
Nico wasn't quite sure what to do now. Why were complete strangers—people he had never even met before and probably would never see again—being nice to him, when his fellow halfbloods couldn't even muster up a kind word? The woman's pleasant smile only made his heart throb with a dull pain. He dropped his eyes to the table, which was the color of puke and greasy fries.
Then he saw the toy that had come in the Happy Meal the little girl had sitting in front of her. It was a Mythomagic figurine, and not just any figure. The statue was a black and silver twisted skeleton man with a long black cloak swirling around him. He recognized it—it was a Hades figure, the way the mortals saw him. The portrayal was offensive and rude, and under different circumstances, Nico might have flung the disgusting statue out the window.
Nico smiled sadly, painfully reminded of the boundaries between mortals and the gods. He would never fit in with either world. Nico backed away from the woman's inviting meal. The thought was nice, and Nico was surprised by the random act of human kindness, something he so rarely saw. Still, as eager as he was to sit down with this family and talk to them, he didn't trust them. Something in the back of his head told him he couldn't trust anyone but himself. Nico suspected that it was nothing more than old instincts engraved on his mind by the last three years of being mercilessly bullied for who his father was, but he didn't want to risk the chance.
He turned heel and ran out the door. As Nico threw it open, he threw a mournful glance back. The family was sitting there with puzzled expressions. The first patch of darkness he found, he flung himself into and dove back into the realm of shadows. The gnawing hunger in his chest only seemed to point out the emptiness he felt everywhere else.
Harry stepped over the dewy grass and let out a long breath. Out here, there was no chance of being caught anymore. He pulled off the invisibility cloak and looked back at the castle. As always, it towered over him majestically, giving off a regal sense of mystery. But the feeling of safety he had always thought it possessed was slipping away fast this year.
He turned back to Hagrid's hut and went to knock on the door. He knew that if he was caught sneaking around this late, he'd be as good as expelled, especially if Umbridge found out. But he couldn't take it anymore—he had to get in and talk to his friend. There was so much going on now, what with the OWLs and Snape determined to teach him Occlumency, not to mention that horrible hag, Umbridge, basically ruining Hogwarts.
He needed to sit with someone and voice all his fears, and for some reason, he thought that as great as Ron and Hermione were, they just wouldn't do it. Ron would only agree miserably and make him feel worse, and Hermione would tell him to make the best of the situation and lecture him to pieces. Then she'd tell him to get back to studying. Only Hagrid, he felt, could really make him feel better about all of this.
He pounded on the door twice, but there was no response. The lights were on, he noticed, so Hagrid wasn't asleep. Cautiously, he knocked again, a little harder, but nothing responded. Feeling anxious, Harry tried the doorknob. Had Hagrid been fired in the night and removed from the grounds? It swung open easily, and Harry came in. The house was empty, which sent a shiver of fear racing down Harry's spine. Fang, too, was gone. That slightly eased his fears. If Hagrid had taken Fang, then there hadn't been a problem like when he had to go to Azkaban briefly in his second year. Fang had remained in the hut, whining and crying the whole time.
Also, if Hagrid had been fired, he thought he would have taken a few more of his belongings, too. Which meant one thing. Hagrid was probably in the Forbidden Forest.
As if those were the magic words, a low and sad whistle began to emerge from the trees. Harry darted out the back door, feeling slightly guilty about breaking into his friend's house. He tugged the cloak over his head and resolved to knock on the door once Hagrid got back inside the house.
Then he saw Hagrid.
He had a big black eye and multiple bloody scratches on his face, and Hagrid was holding his left arm gingerly by his right. Also, he was limping and staggering as he emerged from the trees. Fang was right beside him, whimpering at his owner.
Harry had to know what could do this to Hagrid. Hagrid was literally a half giant, so what was it that had beat him up so easily? He faced the tree line. Nothing in there, or so he had thought, hated Hagrid. He doubted his friend would tell him, and if he were Hagrid, he wouldn't want to be seen all bloody and beaten up.
Harry began to hurry towards the trees. As he passed Hagrid, Fang let out a short bark and Harry sucked in his breath, sure to be caught, but Hagrid payed no attention.
He jogged through the trees, trying to figure out which way Hagrid had gone, but he wasn't much for tracking. Hagrid didn't leave big footprints like people did on the crime shows Dudley loved to watch on the telly. Within a few minutes, Harry quickly realized that he was hopelessly lost.
The familiar outline of a thestral loomed into view. Harry tensed. Something about these creatures reminded him far too much of death. A foal hobbled over to him and nudged him in the side. Cautiously, he patted it on the head.
"So they like you, too," came a voice from behind him. Harry spun around and came face to face with Nico di Angelo, who he had last seen being stunned by Lupin in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place three months ago. The thestral started from his sudden movement and trotted back to its mother. Nico had approached him absolutely silently, and Harry was totally shocked. He had thought he was still under the cloak. When he glanced down, he realized the hood had come down during his trek through the trees, and it had brushed back over his shoulders. He pulled it off and hung it over his arm. "Interesting cloak," Nico said. "Can I see?"
Hesitantly, Harry turned the cloak over to Nico, who held it up and wrapped it around himself. He grinned in delight.
"My dad has a hat like this," he added to Harry, handing it back to him. Harry clutched the cloak to his chest protectively. Had he really thought Nico was going to steal it? Now he felt foolish and paranoid.
"Really," Harry managed, still a bit shocked to see Nico here. Truthfully, he hadn't really listened to what Nico had said, but now it was beginning to strike him as odd. And how had Nico gotten into Hogwarts? Muggles couldn't just walk right in, and there was no Apparating on campus, even if you were a highly powerful wizard. "What are you doing here?"
Nico shrugged and wandered back towards the thestrals. "I could sense the death that surrounds these guys. They absolutely reek of death, actually. I've always been drawn towards that, so when I felt it, I thought I'd check it out. Then I just shadow traveled here."
Harry wasn't sure if that was a really amazing ability or just plain creepy.
Nico suddenly was next to him again, and Harry realized he had briefly disappeared and reappeared next to him. "Actually, you're reeking death, too," he said, sounding puzzled. "But you seem very alive, at the same time." He studied Harry like he was a bug, and Harry shifted his feet uncomfortably.
"What exactly does that mean?" Harry asked anxiously. He wondered if it had anything to do with the strange bond between him and Voldemort.
Nico nodded, like he had an epiphany. "You've just got a bit of death attached to you. In fact, I'd say it's lodged in your face." He jabbed a bony white finger into his scar, and Harry winced. Voldemort himself had done just that last spring after he returned from the dead. Nico and Voldemort had the same frail, cold hands. It was strange and a little disturbing.
Harry smacked his hand away and put a worried hand over the scar. "That's not normal," he told the boy. "Don't touch my face. I don't like the scar."
"Yes, you wouldn't, would you?" Nico said, and Harry wondered what exactly he could tell about him by looking at the scar. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to be Harry Potter, would you?"
Harry started. How had a Muggle found out about him? Then again, judging by the way he 'shadow traveled', as he called it, this boy was about as Muggle as him. "Yes, why?" he asked.
"Oh, no reason," Nico said, smiling in a frightening way. Harry quickly stepped away from the boy. He slipped his hand towards his pocket until he could feel the comforting touch of his wand. "You know, you have a lot of death in your future," he went on to say. Harry was beginning to regret ever coming into the trees. This was perhaps even more unsettling of a conversation than the one he had with Voldemort.
"So does everyone," Harry said, determined not to tell Nico anything about him and Voldemort's future battle that would inevitably happen one of these days.
"I'm not talking about that. It's soon," he said. "But don't worry, it's not yours."
Harry had had enough. This conversation was beyond disturbing. "So basically, you're telling me that I'm going to watch my friends die soon," he said.
Nico shook his head. "I don't know who will die. But I sense the lives of people around you beginning to dwindle. The Fates are pulling their threads tight. Of course, it could be someone you don't like, so there's always that." Then Nico let out a massive yawn. "Gods, I'm tired tonight."
Harry watched as Nico transformed before his eyes from a creepy, death obsessed, moody teenager to a sleepy kid, who staggered on his feet and let his eyelids droop. "Do you need somewhere to sleep?" he offered, against his better judgment.
He started walking away from Harry, and he kicked around some leaves into a sloppy pile. "I was thinking right here," he told him, pointing at the lump of rotting plants.
"Are you serious? The forest is one of the most dangerous places to sleep. They have giant spiders and centaurs and who knows what else," Harry cried as the boy began to flop down on the ground. "You won't wake up if you sleep out here!"
Nico heaved a huge sigh. "Well, I don't see anywhere else to sleep."
"What about a castle?" Harry suggested, pointing at the tallest tower of Hogwarts that was barely visible through the trees.
And that was how he found the two of them huddled under the cloak, hurrying back through the secret passage that let them out right next to the Griffyndor commons. Harry yanked the cloak off and glanced up at the Fat Lady, who was snoring peacefully in her frame. Nico studied her, raising an eyebrow.
"That's quite a sight," he said, looking at Harry.
Suddenly, a ghost surged out of nowhere. It was the Fat Friar, Harry realized, and the Friar chortled with delight. "Students out after hours," he said, a teasing tone to his voice. "I'll let it slide this once, but if it happens again I'll have no choice but to..."
There wasn't much color left in the ghost's face, but what was there drained away as the Friar's gaze fell on Nico. Nico glanced away awkwardly.
"My lord," he said, flinging himself to the ground. Harry gaped. He had never seen a ghost act like this before. The ghost was actually bowing and scraping at Nico's feet.
"Stupid ghost," Nico muttered, and the Friar raised his head, terrified. "Just get out of here already." A crack opened in the floor and the Friar was sucked through, his mouth in an 'O' of horror. "Well, that thing's been banished, you don't have to worry about it ratting you out anymore." Nico said this so matter of factly that Harry had a hard time believing he had just seen it. A ghost had just disappeared in terror! He had seen a lot of weird stuff since discovering he was a wizard, but this definitely ranked among the strangest. The crack sealed itself back up.
Harry dropped the cloak and began feeling the ground, but it was like the fissure had never been there. "What did you do that for?" he asked. "That's the Hufflepuff house ghost! They'll notice it's gone for sure!"
Nico rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Nobody can escape death for long. Eventually, it will catch up with you. Daedalus got away with it for a few thousand years, but in the end even he died."
Harry didn't know who Daedalus was, but he didn't like the idea of Voldemort terrorizing innocent people for a few thousand years.
"Alright, you seem like the kind of kid who'll get into trouble soon," Nico added, digging in his pockets for something. "That death thing you'll be dealing with in the future will probably require some more help from me. So take this." He handed Harry a golden coin that had what looked like an ancient Greek temple stamped on one side. "It'll help you get in contact with me. Just make a rainbow somehow and throw it through, then say—and be polite—'O Goddess, please accept my offering'. Then say 'Show me Nico di Angelo' and you can talk to me. Just keep it safe for now."
Harry got the feeling Nico was about to leave. He glanced up at him. "Aren't you staying for a the night?"
Nico shook his head, folding his arms. "I hate it when ghosts act like that. There's no way I am sleeping in a building infested with them. I'm just going to sleep in my cabin. By the way, what is up with this place? It's like something is trying to keep me from shadow traveling here."
"Hogwarts has the strongest defenses anywhere you'll find in the magical world," Harry explained, wondering if Nico had accidentally stranded himself in the castle.
He shrugged. "Whatever." It was then that Harry realized he had his cloak draped over one of his thin arms. Harry reached out a hand to snatch away the cloak, but Nico was too fast. He vanished where he stood, seeming to melt into Harry's long shadow.
Then Harry was left in the hallway, with nothing but a gold coin in his hands, his invisibility cloak stolen. He seethed to himself quietly. How could he have trusted Nico like that? The kid had clearly proven himself to be a nutter at Grimmauld Place. It would have followed that his insanity had only gotten worse as the months dragged on. And now he had taken the cloak, his most useful tool and his dad's last gift to him.
Uneasily, Harry looked back at the place where Nico had stood. If Nico could travel in and out of Hogwarts as he pleased, he must have gotten a lot more powerful than the last time he'd been around. The thought of Nico popping in anywhere he wanted to go, invisible and completely mad was extremely unsettling.
Behind him, someone barked, "Potter! Out after hours?" He jumped and spun around. Professor Snape was standing almost directly behind him, and he wondered how he had snuck up so quietly. "That's fifty points from Griffyndor. And another week of detention with Professor Umbridge."
"You can't tell her I was out," he said, somewhat desperately. "I'll be expelled." He realized that maybe Snape didn't exactly care about whether or not he was still at Hogwarts. Still, as a member of the Order, maybe he would help.
His lip curled, like he relished the idea, but he said in a disappointed voice, "She'll think you've merely been spreading more lies about the Dark Lord returning. I think she'll believe that story readily enough."
Harry burned with hatred as he realized that Snape knew exactly what he had been doing as detentions for Umbridge. "Thank you, sir," he choked out, before slipping inside the common room.
Miserably, he sank into a fluffy arm chair and examined his hand, which was only mostly healed by now. By the dim light of the fire he could still read the message she had forced him to scrawl into his own flesh for hours. He gritted his teeth. It still stung. Harry stuffed it into his pocket to keep it out of his sight.
"Harry," a sudden voice said, and Harry glanced up, shocked. No one else was around. "In the fire."
Harry peered down and saw Sirius's grinning face. "It's you!" he cried. "I have to tell you something. Nico was just here!"
As he relayed the whole story to Sirius, his easy smile began to fade until his face was almost frightened. When he added how Nico had stolen the cloak, Sirius scowled. "If you see Nico again, don't go near him. And don't call him with that coin, either. He gave me one, as well."
Harry nodded. Sirius looked just as disturbed by the whole situation as he did. Neither of them relished the thought of facing Nico. On that grim note, Sirius yanked his head back out of the fire and Harry was left staring into the flames broodingly.
A/N: I am SO SORRY that this took so long to post! I accidentally crashed the computer. I really didn't get any chance to write until yesterday, and the computer wasn't fixed until today.
Related to the story, I wondered if it was really a good idea to send Nico to Hogwarts after reading so many fics where PJO characters came to Hogwarts, and I really want to make this one different. But I think it is important to the plot line, for reasons that will eventually come into play later, so I'm keeping it. Also, I thought about taking out meeting the strangers in McDonalds as well, but I think that it shows how Nico has progressed with his trust issues, so it stays as well.
I only have two more weeks before I go to camp for a month, and I'm hoping to finish before then. Please review! Hopefully I'll post a new chapter within two or three days!