"Come on, Nico." Harry groaned. He grabbed hold of Nico's wrist, and lifted his had a bit higher, making a point to raise his wand's tip a bit too. "There. No- don't drop your wand, just make that impression. Flick it upward. Yep."
Nico glared in annoyance. He would never, ever, ever, get the hang of the Patronus Charm, and he knew it. The theory was simple enough. He made a point to memorize it. Nico wasn't that bad at charms either, and the wand movements were actually very easy with a little concentration, but somehow, he never managed to get it right. Never. He'd grasped what happy memories he could- memories of Camp, of that Christmas, of finding Hazel, and sometimes, even memories of Bianca when he got desperate. But none of it worked- he just couldn't conjur a patronus-not even a visible wisp of silvery smoke.
And that made him mad. Very, very mad. Madder than the news that'd gotten yesterday from camp, telling him C. Half-Blood had been attacked by two more strange creatures yet again. Angrier than learning that the fact that Travis and Conner's prank-gone-wrong Poetry Fiasco had him suffering up to that day. The teachers had pretty much gotten used to that fact, and had quickly learnt that no spell could help Nico speak without a rhyming scheme in his words, while his classmates seemed to find his situation very amusing. Fueling his anger further Professor Snape was taking advantage of Nico's case, constantly drawing points from Gryffindor for Nico's 'cheek' and 'irresponsibility'. Nico had to agree with Snape on the latter- he wasn't responsible for talking the way he did, but he knew the word meant another thing in the Potion Master's dictionary. To worsen things by 50 shades of Pink, Doll-o-Piss Dumbwitch, (as some of the students had taken to calling her behind her back now) gave him that evil look and sick, oddly satisfied smile in the hallways, as if she was brutally picturing his death in her mind, which Nico reminded himself, she probably was. He still didn't attend Defense, which no one really pestered him about, in fact, they seemed to envy him about it. In his free time, Nico spent most of his time in the library, trying, to no avail, to find out something that would help him with the new monster attacks. Then there was Briana, a girl whom Nico had grown to know, but suspect even more. Oddly, and as if Fate had been planning it, something would surface as soon as he had the chance ad presence of mind to bring it up to Hermione, who seemed to know something. His poetry-curse wasn't helping, either. Nor were his IM, which needed a lot of water to on the other side to be received (AKA, the canoe lake) which was usually inhabited by Percy and Jason, who very always sparring there, making Nico wondering if they bunked at the canoe lake or something. It was really annoying how OCD (Obsessive Competitive Disorder) they were about their fights, and he could only zombie-grab them so many times without them coming to expect it.
Harry scratched his head uncomfortably, and Nico noticed that he was still glaring, though none of what happened to him the last few days was really his fault, so he stopped.
Huffing in irritation, Nico raised his wand and muttered, "Expecto Patronum!" Nothing at all emerged from his wand, and he muttered, barely enough for Harry to hear 'Alecto is a bum' which Alecto wouldn't really be pleased to hear, but she could thank Travis and Conner for that.
"Um, how about trying to get your emotions in order?" Harry suggested. Nico frowned at him, annoyed, tired, and not even sure he understood what Harry had just said. Thankfully, the latter seemed to pick up on this, and he said, "Try thinking what makes you happy most- then what makes you scared most. You know- figure out what makes you sad, or what gets you impulsive. Categorize your emotions about ordeals, and the it's supposed to be easier to sort out."
Worth a try, Nico thought, nodding at Harry, and not really willing to speak since he would end up rhyming it with something he probably wouldn't like. He could force his words into something more sensible if he made enough of an effort, but he was too exhausted and annoyed to really care to try anything.
Nico thought. What scared him most?
Vegetables. Dentists. Anything with a low level of sugar, caffeine, and anything that wasn't McDonalds food- practically anything that was healthy. Wrongly labelled mythomagic cards. Clowns.
On the more serious note, though, there were other things that honestly freaked his out.
One of them was obviously watching someone he loved get hurt. On the more person level, though, there was alway that place- Tartarus. Nico had gone through it alone, and to that day, memories of it sent shivers down his getting out of there, he'd been silently tormented by the thoughts of getting back there once again, but he had gotten through it. He had decided a long time ago that fearing something would only make things worse, and he had gotten over it in a fair amount of time. But thinking about the helplessness of his situation at that time still made his feel unsettled and disturbed, like he could do something about it, so he quickly dismissed the thoughts.
It depressed him more than anything to be rejected by everyone, which he has managed to hide pretty well. Nico was human. Well, half human, technically, but those were just causalities that all demigods put aside. The fact was, he wanted to be accepted and welcomed like everyone else, ad it still irked him how long it had taken him to be able to.
The hardest thing had come- what made Nico happy?
He thought hard, thinking nothing would surface, but then, an image rose in his mind. He saw Percy and Jason teasing each other after being pranked by Travis and Conner, with Piper following them, making sure to miss an 'eye-roll' moment. He saw Will in the infirmary with the puking Ares and Apollo kids making him unsure where to turn his head and who to tend to. He visualized, in his mind, Lou Ellen's face when she realized that her Cabin smelled like dung after getting back from wherever she was. He saw a pink-haired Leo, who was helping all the campers light their torches aflame as the majority of both camps (Jupiter and Half-Blood) where rioting on the Stolls, led by none other than the orange-and-red faced Reyna and Annabeth leading them. He saw himself snuggled up beside Hazel, watching the Man In The Iron Mask as they drained their Roman hot-chocolate beverages. All at once, he felt a furious wave of protectiveness sweep over him. He would travel to the pits of Tartarus again, he would fight ever magical, Greek, and Roman monster ever seen, and he would do a dozen times in a row if meant his family would be safe. And that's when Nico realized, that it didn't matter what he lost.What mattered was what he had, and what he would do to make sure it wasn't lost.
Barely aware of what he was doing, Nico raised his wand, with a ferocious kind of determination burning inside him, strengthening him to the core. "Expecto Patronum!" he yelled, drawing every eye in the Room of Requirement onto him. But he didn't notice, right then. All he saw was the blindingly bright light that swept across the room, causing almost everyone to shield them and look away. Even the charm he was under seemed to be shocked into non-rhyming.
As soon as this had been done, every single head in the room was directly snapped towards the sort of the light. A shimmering, unnaturally bright Patronus floated. It seemed strangely drew to Harry, and Ron and Hermione, who were standing close to each other, and Nico thought he knew why. The trio were friends of his, too. Not officially part of the family, since that was a place especially reserved for people who'd been beside him in the most difficult of times, but maybe, and just maybe, they would get close enough someday.
Nico took the first direct look at his Patronus. It had been glowing too bright to see its form a few moments ago, but as it headed toward Nico then, he could make it out vaguely, but more clearly as it approached its owner.
Nico's Patronus was a wolf. It floated to him, placing itself ext to him like a strangely cute bodyguard, and looking very,very, protective.
"A wolf," Hermione breathed in disbelief. "And not just that, Nico. It looks strangely like...like a pack alpha, don't you think?"
"Oh, it's a pack alpha, all right!" muttered someone from the back of the crowd.
"It's corporeal! I can tell it is! How did you manage to pull that off?" Another voice said.
Harry was beaming at Nico, looking extremely proud, the way Chiron might have looked at someone if they had done something to please him to a large extent.
Nico reached to touch his Patronus, and he found that he could. The silver wolf leaned in to his touch. Feeling its hair felt like moving his fingers through strangely solid-liquid-is light, which was weird since most of Nico's powers involved darkness, but that did not mean the silvery-white patronus was not a welcome addition to his magical life.
The wolf regarded everyone in the room with its sparkling eyes, then turned to Nico again, realizing it wasn't really needed since there were no dark forces in the room. It looked around once more just to confirm, then gently disappeared, turning into silver wisps of light that quickly faded into the air.
Nico smiled, turning toward them.
"Good job!" said Hermione, elbowing him as Ron gave him two thumbs-up. "Would you like to start your demonstration, now, by the way?" she said, glancing at her watch. "It's almost time to leave."
"Oh, that- almost forgot I said I'd do it. All right." Nico said. He waited. And waited. Then..."Hey- hey, I think I'm not rhyming anymore!" he could help but grin at that.
Harry ad Ron were snorting, but Hermione looked genuinely pleased at the news.
Nico frowned, having thought of something. "Where am I supposed to-" something rumbled deep inside the strange core of existence of the Room of Requirement. a huge mahogany box that was attacked to a wall fell out of nowhere. DA members curiously approached.
"There are swords in here!" called Angelina Johnson, warily picking up a long, sparkly combat sword.
"Well, duh." said George Weasley, pulling out a sword, too, at the same time as his brother did. "I heard Ronnikins, Harry, and Hermione talking about it. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, what with the entire rhyming-thing and all, but it looks like he was."
"He's going to, what, train us in combat?" sneered Zacarias Smith.
"Nico's school was mainly combat." said Harry coolly. "I know because Professor Dumbledore told me." Or more like, Sirius told him, but he wasn't going to tell his DA mates that it was okay to have Nico give them a demostration because his convicted murderer godfather had told him it was.
"We'll be useless without our wands, so we managed to convince Nico to give us a few basics. There aren't only swords in there, besides." Hermione muttered, leaning over the box. "There's pretty much everything- daggers, small spears, and even staffs. That's good- it means you'll just have to grab anything you find." Hermione turned to give Nico an approving look.
Nico's face colored slightly. He was actually used to sparring in training sessions and whatnot to give new demigods the idea, but that didn't mean it would be easier teaching a crowd of wizards who didn't know the tiniest midge about combat.
"A short demonstration." Nico agreed silently. "Just considering the fact that you may not always have your wands with you. So...well, my school was prepared for worst-case scearios and we're pretty high up on defense standards, and I just thought I'd share some of that stuff since...well, you know." he ended with a shrug.
"That's a great idea!" Fred said, grinning. "Cravis and Tonner forgot to mention you can duel, but we'll check into later."
"Who're Cravis and Tonner?" said someone.
Five minutes later, they were all armed with their weapons of choice. Nico took another sword, since he couldn't really think what to answer if someone asked him why he had a sword with him, and since a single scratch of Stygian Iron could drain out a victim's life force.
"All right," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "I'll need someone to volunteer- no, it won't be a real duel or anything, just the basics. So, anyone..want to try?"
Several reluctant hands rose into the air. In the end, Nico chose to demonstrate with the help of Katie Bell, just because he couldn't exactly think straight. Katie held her sword tightly as she stepped toward Nico.
"Okay," Nico sighed. "I'm going to try to gently disarm you with this- you try to block me. I won't be giving you any guidance for this part, but we'll talk about it after this. Ready?"
Katie nodded, gripping her wand tightly, her lips pursed. It turned out Katie was a good fighter-not that it was a real fight- and she could have done a lot better with a few more practice sessions, but she was reluctant to hurt Nico since she didn't know the level of his skill, and it possibly didn't help that he was about two years younger than her, and painfully short, even for his age. Nico, to his credit, also didn't let too much of his skill show. He wanted to be fairly good, not really good. It wasn't like he was going to teach them how to duel for real- just enough to keep them going in case they lost their wands somehow. Besides, he also felt slightly possessive over the demigod fighting techniques. Wizards didn't want demigods using their magic in front of their own kin- and likewise, Nico didn't feel like showing off. It wasn't that he thought anything bad would come out of it, he just didn't think it was a good idea. He was used to holding back before his true strength show, which always caught the enemy by surprise.
In a matter of two minutes, and only that long because Katie was fairly good at defense maneuvers, her sword clattered to the floor. All the eyes at the room of requirement turned to him with strong curiosity and impressed expressions.
"You held your sword too tightly," Nico told her. "I mean, considering it's your first time dueling...is it? Oh, okay. Considering it's your first time, you've been good with the defense. Most people take offense immediately, and that's always the wrong move. But whatever you're going to go for, you need to have a relaxed grip." Nico picked Katie's sword of the ground ad handed it to her. "There...keep your grip firm, but relaxed. It won't jump out of your hand, you know? Well, it will, if someone disarmed you but...Anyway, holding onto it too tight will make your hand movements sluggish and slow. Relaxing your grip will making switching sides easier when you need to. And when you're going for offense, you held your sword too high. It gives your enemy ope opportunity to attack you and harm you when you least expect it if you keep on repeating that- it gets predictable, even if you do it accidentally or out of impulse, but that doesn't change the fact that your pattern with be recognized. Dodging can only keep you on the ground for so long, too. You've got to take offense more often."
Katie nodded, giving Nico an admiring smile. "Nice job, Nico." she added, winking.
Nico taught them a few more basic techniques- how to block a blow without giving your opponent time maneuver-attack you, causing you to faulty make a defensive block, only to be surprised and distracted by their trick, how to take on offense without lacking the essential defense postures and how to disarm your opponent if need be. By the end of it, he'd dueled with almost everyone in the DA. Neville especially, seemed to be taking Nico's advises to heart and really trying with them, very much surprising Nico with his slices that cut air apart and his agility in moving it and maintaining a tight, but not too firm hold, though he was a bit on the defensive rather than offensive. They were just dividing into groups later, practicing their new dueling tips with their friends, and the sounds of clattering ad the clashing of metal against metal was quite distracting, that Nico almost couldn't notice Harry's alarmed look.
He blew his whistle loudly. "EVERYONE, GO, GO, GO! THREE AT A TIME- SOMEONE RATTED US OUT!"
First of all, thank you all so, so, so much for helping me get here! I seriously love you guys! 211 reviews? Wow. Really, I wasn't expecting this much. You can be certain another chapter will be up sometime soon! Thank you all for this great support! (GRANDMA JUST GAVE ME 200 EGYPTIAN POUNDS CAUSE SHE SAID SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO GET ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY! YAAAY!) Imagine how many McFlurrys I can buy with that? So, to show you how awesome you are, I've decided to give a big chunk of foreshadowing out... or, more like indirect spoilers.
SPOILER ALERT THAT ISN'T REALLY A SPOILER ALERT SINCE IT'S TECHNICALLY NOT A SPOILER.
1) Tskia has a lot behind him. You'll find out around year 6 or 7...
2) I'm thinking about having two character deaths in year 6. I'm not sure about the second one, but I'm bored, and unless that changes, which I sincerely doubt it will, rest assured that I'll most probably kill off two of my characters. Or...maybe not. I'm really too bipolar. I might kill them off in book 7, or maybe never at all, but I'm really not one for cheesy happily-ever-afters. Or maybe I am. I'm thinkig of killing three now.
3) A little bit about Nico will spill in this book, but not the entire he-is-a-demigod-son-of-Hades crap, just enough, really. The entire truth will come out by the middle or ed of book 6.
4) Demigod appearances will continue- it's Nico-centric, yes, but it won't be ALL Nico. It's supposed to be a fairly measured cross-over, so different characters will be showing up throughout the series, although none are going to enroll in Hogwarts as far as my imagination goes- that part of the story is for Nico and Nico alone. Be sure to hear from Percy and Jason and several others during year 6, and I just had this awesome idea a few weeks ago for Leo in year after repeatedly listening to Burning up by Jonas Brothers (Actually, Alex Goot cover) and decided that... well, in the Harry Potter universe, there are only two known ways to destroy horcruxes, but who said anything about the demigod world?
5) Lou-Ellen and Pallismera won't be as big a presence as they were in this year during year 6- I feel like we've had too much of them.
6) Harry's summer is not too bad, sixth year...
THANK YOU, AGAIN, FOR BEING AWESOME, ALL OF YOU!
LOVE,
AMBS (P.S, I hope you liked Nico's Patronus- it just seems right. Maybe a small piece of credit should go to one of my reviewers for giving me that inspiration, though, so thank you)