I'm baaaaaaaack! I don't have much to say but please, please review.

Chapter 22

Piper

As I woke up in the morning after the first meeting, my mind filled with warm memories: Hermione's face turning red trying (in vain) to lift the weight, Anthony Goldstein finally successfully finding a sword fit for him, Terry Boot shooting a bulls-eye. Then I thought about Cho and Harry. Those two were soooo crushing on each other. Trust me, a daughter of Aphrodite knows her love stories.

Over the course of the next few lessons, everybody in our D.A. thing found a weapon for them. Sure, some people just didn't go well with anything, but we found the one best for them. Neville finally ended up with a spear, even though he still stabbed into random tables sometimes.

As our group became more advanced, the Room of Requirement expanded. The extra part was practically a mini Camp Half-Blood. Of course, it was just the arena, archery range, and random scarecrows scattered all over the place. There were also racks filled with just the right amount of weapons. Wow, the Room of Requirement is a really suiting name for this place. And because of the expanding, we didn't need to use the demigod training room.

Turns out Hermione is a little better with a knife than sword, just like Annabeth. Huh, maybe smart people used daggers better? But then again, I wasn't all that smart, but I used my knife fine. The only problem were the stupid images. Helpful, yes, but also very, very annoying. I mean, who would want to wake up and start cleaning their weapon, and then see a big, ugly face on it?

Anyway, the D.A. I would sometimes look over to see Harry's lessons. I grinned in pride, even though I wasn't the one who taught them. Neville had improved drastically much. He was now able to do successful disarming spells without hitting somebody about 5 feet away from his target. Of course, Thalia and Frank's aiming lessons probably helped as well.

Cho Chang and her friend had both gotten better, though Marietta still looked like she was being dragged. They used bow and arrows, along with a large amount of other wizards. I think they're probably better at archery because that is a long-ranged weapon, just like a wand.

Ron could do stunning spells easily, and was constantly boasting about stunning Harry once. I wouldn't talk, seeing that he was trying to hit Neville, who was nowhere near Harry. Ron's weapon was a Roman sword, or spatha, the same type Hazel's using. Unfortunately, he still had trouble trying to stab the spatha into a scarecrow, as he always drops it.

Parvati Patil had made such a good Reductor Curse that she blasted a table to dust, Colin Creevey mastered the impediment jinx on the third meeting, and much more. It's a wonder anybody could improve that much in such a short time, but it's also a wonder Harry's such a great teacher.

These feelings of secrecy and support kept us all (more Harry than the others) sustained during Umbridge's horrible, horrible lessons. Instead of reading Wilbert Slinkhard's book, we would daydream about D.A. until the class ended. Of course, Umbridge's intention wasn't actually to make us read the books, but to make us learn nothing. Therefore, she didn't care if we weren't paying attention.

Also, with all three of the Quidditch team practices, it was hard to make a set meeting time. But Annabeth told us it was just as well, since it'd be hard for stalker people to find a pattern since there were none.

Hermione had thought of a really awesome way to tell D.A. members the time of the next lesson. She had introduced it to us at the end of the fourth meeting.

Without us even knowing, she had made these fake Galleons. She told us how it worked. "You see these numbers around the coin? Well, these are usually just a serial number, but on the fake coins, it will be the time and date of the next meeting when Harry changes his because I put a Protean Charm on it."

Awkward silence. Hermione looked at the blank faces around her.

"Um, I just thought it would be a good way to, uh...you know, because it would be very casual to just have a coin in your pocket. But, er, if you don't want to use it..."

I snorted. Of course we'd want to use it! I'm pretty good at reading emotions, and right now I'm reading a lot of awe coming from the wizards as well as Annabeth.

"You can do a Protean Charm?" Terry Boot asked.

Hermione blinked. "Um, yes?"

Annabeth put her hands on Hermione's shoulder. Hermione looked startled. "What?"

"Hermione," Annabeth said gently. "The Protean Charm is a N.E.W.T. leveled spell. It's really, really hard for witches to accomplish it now."

"Oh..." Hermione said. "Maybe it is."

Jason laughed, putting his arms around me. "Yes, it is!" he said. "Hermione, you're amazing! How come you're not in Ravenclaw?"

Hermione brightened up. "Well, the hat did consider it. But I think it thought I was more brave than smart, so I ended up in Gryffindor. So, we were talking about the coins?"

She held out the basket. "Are we using them, or not?"

I sighed exaggeratedly. "Hermione! These are awesome, of course we're using them!"

And with that, everybody went up and took one. They all rolled it in their fingers in awe.

"You know, this isn't the best type of coin," said Jason, grinning. "I might try to get my weapon out of it."

Percy grinned, remembering how Jason's weapons came from the flip of his coin. "Well, hopefully not. At emergency times, we wouldn't want you to end up with a fake Galleon in your hands."

After the lesson, I took out my knife and smiled. Good old Katoptris, not going to show me any more-wait a sec, was that a drakon? No, it couldn't be! Ugh, more stupid Greek monsters? Can't they just give it a rest? Okay, no, even though Gaea is sleeping, she's still sending those stupid things! Hopefully, it'll attack after the quest because...well, I don't really know. But seriously? A drakon? No, no, no! I guess I must've looked pale, because Jason wrapped his arms around my shoulder.

"What's up, Pipes?" he asked. I showed my dagger to him. He blinked. "What?"

I took it back. Ah, the image had disappeared. "It was another image."

Jason frowned. "Of what? Please tell me it's us together after 20 years."

"Afraid not. It was a drakon."

He suddenly looked alert. "What? We have to tell the others! This is absurd! Can't we have some peace and quiet?"

"We're demigods," I reminded him. "Which means no, we can't have sone peace and quiet. At least, not when we're on a quest."

He sighed in defeat, realizing I was right. We caught up to our friends, telling them about the vision. Percy groaned. "Even I haven't defeated a drakon before! Clarisse did, though."

Woah...Clarisse had defeated a drakon? That's really impressive! I didn't know that before. "How?" I asked. "What happened-"

"No!" Annabeth cried. "Don't talk about it. Please?"

Jason looked confused. "What? Why?"

Nico put his hands on Jason's shoulder. It looked like it was glowing. Jason's face fell. "Oh."

Percy frowned. "What suddenly gave you that...realization?"

Nico turned to him. "My father told me about how I can send my death radiation thing. I can let others sense death as well."

Percy looked amazed. "What? But Silena's death was, like, two years ago!"

Nico shrugged. "No idea. It just works."

Oh...right, that's how Silena died! Now I remember Lacy telling me. Apparently Clarisse and Selina were best friends, and then Silena went to Camp Half-Blood to get Ares cabin to help the demigods in the first Titan War. But Silena knew Clarisse was too stubborn, so she pretended to be Clarisse and led her "siblings" to battle. Silena died fighting the drakon. The end. And she most certainly wasn't a spy or anything. Nope nope nope, most certainly not.

Anyway, Will Solace nodded. "Got that. Now, can we please stop talking about death? I think we're all still recovering from the war, which has lost us more friends than we...preferred."

We all tried to look anywhere but each other. Jason pecked me on the cheek. "Hey, Pipes...aren't we talking about the drakon?"

Leo suddenly made a giant horn sound. We jumped.

"Gods of Olympus, Valdez!" Thalia shouted. "What was that?"

Hazel frowned. "Leo, please don't tell me you brought the horn from the Argo ll here."

"No, no, no!" Leo said. "I made a copy! The original is a little too big to fit in my belt. I mean, it's awesome and all, but the thing I put in should at least be small enough to throw, right?"

Frank raised his eyebrows. "Throw? What do you mean, throw?"

"You know...I can throw those flammin-hot hammers, right?"

Frank frowned. "Uh...sure."

"But I had to make a model-"

"Boys!" Hazel interrupted. "Enough!"

"Thank you, Hazel," I said calmly. "Okay, the drakon. Usually when an image appears in Katoptis, it happens a bit later. Like on the quest for the Athena Parthenos, I saw the image of the giants way before we met them. I'm not so sure about this, though."

Annabeth nodded. "Right. So, let's talk about something else, now."

Another awkward silence.

Will spoke up. "I have a feeling something is more serious than it seems. About Voldemort."

Thalia nodded. "You know how we're honorary members in the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Sure!" Percy replied. "Wait...what?"

"The Order of the Phoenix, kelp head!" Thalia said impatiently. "You were probably daydreaming."

Percy looked confused. "Okay, maybe I was daydreaming or something...but what is the Order of the Phoenix?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Seaweed brain, were you even awake half the time we were in Grimmauld Place? Apparently that's the headquarters. The Order is a group or something that fights Voldemort. But it's only for overage wizards. You, me, Hazel, Thalia, and Nico are officially in because of our, ah, actual age. The others are honorary because they're underage in the wizarding world."

Percy nodded. "So, basically the team cheer is, 'boom boom Voldemort'?"

"Something like that," Nico said absentmindedly. "Not exactly, but that's the general idea. Will, what were you saying?"

"Well, the other members of the Order told us about a certain weapon," Will continued. "And the thing is, I just might know, in general, what it is."

"Harry isn't here, right?" Annabeth asked. "I'm not sure he'd appreciate whatever this thing is."

"No, he isn't," Percy said. "He's gone back to the castle. Which we're at."

Sure enough, we were standing in front of the Fat Lady's portrait.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," I said. The Fat Lady yawned, nodded, and swung open.

We got in the common room and plunked ourselves on the sofas. Jason sat with me. I cuddled into him, and Thalia clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

"Piper, Jason, what is this? The girl I asked to join the hunt, dating my little brother?" She gave my boyfriend a glare, daring Jason to contradict her. Thalia gave him a call-me-younger-and-I'll-shoot-your-head-just-like-this-barbie look. Oh, and did I mention she was wearing her Death to Barbie t-shirt? Well, she was wearing her Death to Barbie t-shirt.

Percy looked up from Annabeth's hair (at last)."But you are-"

At that split second, he made the right choice. He dived off the sofa, avoiding the arrow shot at his head. "Thalia, you know you could've killed me, right?"

Thalia smirked. "Yes, and I know you were fully prepared to dodge when you made that comment. Remember that time I caught your leg when you teased me about being younger? And about getting knocked on the head with my own pinecone?"

Percy winced. No. No, he had most certainly not forgotten it. "Hey, but it was seriously funny!" he argued. "And plus, however much you are strong-"

"Stop interrupting!" Will Solace called. Yeah, he had a way with sounds. Even words. We shut up and turned to him.

He patted Nico's head. Nico scowled at him but snuggled in. "I think Harry's part of a prophecy. And the other part is Lord Voldemort."

Ah...that would explain everything (note sarcasm). But what was the prophecy?

Annabeth nodded slowly. "Yeah. Do you think it has to do with the weapon?"

Will shrugged. "You're the brainiac. I have no idea."

Annabeth shrugged. "Will, how did you know about this prophecy?"

Solace rolled his eyes. "Well, I am the son of Apollo, after all. Yesterday he sent me a dream message. He had to shout against the wind, and I heard something like 'Harry Potter, prophecy, Voldemort, and don't tell wizards."

Percy sighed. "So...basically: this prophecy is about him. We don't know what this prophecy is about. And we can't tell him that there even is a prophecy about him. Isn't that a little cruel?"

I laughed. "No, not compared to Annabeth, who kept you waiting for...three years? Four?"

"Four."

Leo whistled. "That's harsh, man. So why'd you keep it a secret?"

Percy raised his eyebrows. "A child of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds. And see the world in endless sleep, the hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. A single choice to end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze. Now do you know why?"

Jason practically choked. "A single choice to end his days? The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap? That couldn't have been you, Percy."

I pinched him under my arm to shut him up. Couldn't he see tears were coming out of Annabeth and Thalia's eyes? And how solemn and miserable Percy looked?

"Luke..." Nico murmured. "Died for such a great cause. Hey, didn't we tell you the story?"

I shrugged. "Parts of it, maybe. But I think we were too busy almost dying."

"Okay...so, um, are we going to sleep now?" Annabeth asked, looking at Percy, who had already started snoring. "Because this seaweed brain is going in the mode quite a bit earlier."

I nodded. "Let's go."

She dragged Percy up. His eyes popped open. "What? Where? Who- oh. Are we going to sleep now?"

"Seaweed brain..." Annabeth muttered. "Idiot. Seriously, you'd make my idiots of the twenty-first century list!"

"Hey!" Percy protested. "Just because you're smart doesn't mean we're all stupid!"

"Actually," Annabeth muttered. "Yes it does."

"Excuse me?" I interrupted. "Were we not about to go to sleep?"

The other demigods mumbled in agreement. Percy pulled Annabeth into a kiss, then flopped down onto their bed.

I kissed Jason, but went to my own bed. I fell asleep hoping for a peaceful night with no nightmares.

And I guess this is the time Morpheus goes, Hahahahaha NO.

Yeah, yeah, stuff. As I said, get used to me updating slower.

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Ta!