Hermione went out to the pool, that Percy was predictably sitting on the bottom of.
She tried using the same trick as she had the first day there, trying to coax the water into spitting Percy out. This time Percy was prepared though, and being far superior than her at controlling the water, Hermione ended up being pulled down by a large hand shaped wave.
He manipulated currents into bring her down in front of him, where she sat, glaring at him, her hair dancing in the water.
"Speak" was all she said.
He opened and closed his mouth several times.
"I, - look, I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this. This whole situation is completely insane, and I guess I'm not handling it very well."
She sighed. "Well, neither am I, I guess. I mean, I knew about you. Nico told me about you and Tyson, so it's not like I was unprepared, but you were never actually real in my head. When I was younger, you were always a sort of fantasy, like having an invisible best friend or something."
He chuckled at that.
"When I was a kid, I sometimes dreamt I had a baby sister. Most times, when demigods dream, the dreams mean something. Back then, I didn't know that they might mean something. I just dreamt I had a sister, and thought 'cool'. Later, when I found out about the dreams, I thought, that maybe it was a fluke. Then, I my mom had a baby girl a couple of years ago, and I thought that she was it, and now I find out, that I had a sister all along. How insane is that?" He whispered.
Hermione crawled over and sat beside him, putting her head on his shoulder.
"My best friend actually looks incredibly much like you. I wonder if there's something subconscious going on there."
"I saw. He's kinda handsome" He grinned, and she swatted at his stomach.
"Yeah, well, he's taken, and his girlfriend gets jealous" She teased.
Percy realized, they were having their first moment, teasing each other in the way that only siblings can. He hoped there would be more to come. It was surprisingly nice.
"And I'm sorry about Nico too. As I said, I'm not handling this very well."
"Don't worry about it. Nico gave me some perspective, that made me think. Each of us are shaped from our experiences, and it affects the way we are around people. You saw him at his worst, and that's just how it stayed, because there was never rest. I can feel it in myself. When I'm with him, I forget all the stuff that's happened in the last five years, and for that, I act differently. I'm sure I would have been acting differently, had I stayed in Britain." She said, scratching her forearm.
"What happened?" He asked gently.
"It's a dangerous world we live in, Percy. Here, we are attacked by Monsters, Giants and Primordial Gods. I can understand that. They don't follow the same moral code or have the kind of empathy that comes with being human." She reflected.
"It's what humans do to each other, that scares me the most, to be honest. The wizarding world just came out of its own war. I fought. Humans against humans. It was despicable. Children were slaughtered, innocent people imprisoned or tortured, simply for being born. I was deemed unworthy, because I wasn't born into a wizarding family. Me and Harry, and for a while, our other friend, Ron, were on the run for about a year, preparing to take down their leader, who had made an attempt at becoming immortal. We finally took him down a little more than a month ago."
"But what else happened? I'm not a stranger to combat or hardship, but I can tell there's more." He said, pointing at where her had was scratching her arm.
Hermione sighed and rolled up her sleeve, revealing the big half-healed wound, spelling MUDBLOOD in big angry letters.
"I was tortured." She whispered. "We got caught, and they needed information. I've never been so scared in my entire life. I've never told anyone, not even Nico. I was so scared of losing control. If I had started shaking the earth, the manor we were in would have collapsed. They had Ron and Harry in the basement, they would have been buried. I was so scared" She started sobbing, and Percy put his arm around her, comforting her at the bottom of the pool, where her tears could mix with the rest of the water.
…
Being an Oracle did not make one omniscient. Rachel Dare knew this. But generally, she got the large plotlines, and this was not your regular 'Oops, I didn't know it was your birthday'-situation.
She had been rather grumpy to come back from vacation, to find Camp Half-blood abandoned, with a note stuck to her cave, telling her to come to San Francisco. It was times like these, it was more a blessing than a curse, having a rich dad. That didn't happen often. She supposed she should cherish the moment, but at this point, annoyance won out.
Imagine her confusion though, when she walked into the kitchen of the House of Ten, and came face to face with a curly haired girl, screaming, being tickled by none other than a laughing Nico di Angelo, who was covered in what looked like strawberry smoothie.
When he spun the girl around to face him and kissed her enthusiastically, Rachel was so confused, she could only stand and stare in morbid fascination.
Percy came up behind her, an empty glass in his hand, cringing at the sight.
"Ugh, I know, right" he said. "Nico, knock it off, stop molesting my sister!" Nico reluctantly released Hermione, and they turned in the direction of the voice
"Alright! What in Hades is going on, and Who. Are. You?" Rachel growled, narrowing her eyes at Hermione, supremely pissed off at being out of the loop.
Hermione only smiled widely, strawberry smoothie in her hair.
"You must be Rachel! I'm Hermione, Percy's sister!" She stretched her hand towards Rachel, who shook it on reflex, getting her hand sticky with strawberry.
"I saw your artwork on the walls, they're amazing, really." Hermione continued, while Rachel stood, staring at her with an open mouth, wiping her hands on her shorts.
"She doesn't look like you." She told Percy
"Neither does Tyson." Percy quipped.
She looked at him incredulously.
…
After the situation was explained to her, Rachel was still perplexed.
She didn't understand, how she could have missed this, but usually there were points to prophecies and their time of arrival.
Seeing Nico with Hermione made her happy though. He had been the most broken boy she had ever seen, but the normally broody guy was now looking happy and carefree. An expression she had never seen in him before.
Percy was also looking to be enjoying the situation, albeit very tentatively. She supposed he was still getting used to the situation, she knew that he sometimes didn't accept change very well.
The other half-bloods seemed to have adopted Hermione, in some situations, it seemed as if she had always been there. She was especially happy to see the bond she seemed to have formed with Calypso.
Calypso was often a bit of an outsider, simply because she hadn't been through the war with Gaia with the others. Surviving horrors like that, bound people together, which was why the house she was standing in had been built.
Rachel herself hadn't been part of Argo II, which this house was basically a continuation of, but she had always been the outsider, and she had been happy with that, but Calypso, not so much. It must have been horrible, to spend hundreds of years in isolation, only to be freed, to live the life as an outsider.
Now she watched, as Hermione and Calypso were speaking excitedly about a plant called moonlace, and its properties, she couldn't help but think, that maybe Hermione had been a piece of the puzzle, that had been missing. She had brought a balance, she hadn't seen the group needed.
…
That evening, the group sat down for dinner. They were so many at that time, that Hermione had to conjure extra chairs and expand the table. Will had brought his boyfriend, Joseph, taking their count to fourteen.
Rachel gasped harshly and went rigid in her seat. Her eyes glowing bright green. When she spoke, her voice sounded otherworldly, like they had come to expect from the oracle
"The Lord of All, from heaven will fall,
When the Shaking Earth will make the call
The Heart of the Sun will shatter in pieces
Until the foreign curse releases
The lonely isle will feel the power
The need will come for Apollo's flower
A love that will not need nipped in the bud
A fruit in crimson, the color of blood"
Jason sat, his jaw clenching and unclenching during the prophecy.
"Well, that sounded cheerful" Leo quipped.
Will sat, contemplating his father's role in the events that were about to unfold. Things didn't sound good for the God of the Sun.
Please leave me a review. You know, I would love that :)