JGS39: So true. I always hated her. As for Snape, you have to understand my little mental cannon: I always imagined that in Ancient Runes, or at least the advanced classes, one of their side things was learning other old languages. Since we never really see the class in the books, it is entirely possible. Congratulations on your new account, by the way (although, I suppose it's not very new as of now.)

Annonimous4862: Thank you!

cream_the_rabbit_77: Thank you. I apologize for the missing words. I began this story when I was either eleven or twelve and had no patience to proof read. I realize it's not an excuse, but I have (hopefully) improved a lot since then.

guest: No, although I have a couple of friends who are.

Guest: Haha, so true! Glad you like it.

amy_cahill_57: Okay

Nico_Chessed_i_Pizza_Angelo: One should take into account the age difference. Had the both been, say, thirteen, I think they could have been great friends.

The Silver Lillies: Thank you so much!

Don't worry, folks. I'm not dead. I've just been ridiculously busy. I'm actually writing an original story of my own that I hope to get published, so my updating may be a bit slow. Hopefully not THIS slow! The fact that this chapter was roughly twice as long as most of mine in this fix makes me feel a little better. Sorry for the long wait and thank you for your patience.

In all of the time Annabeth had known him, she had only seen Luke cry twice. The first time had been when he thought that she had been killed by a cyclops. The other had been the night after his confrontation with his father. Annabeth remembered the scene with vivid clarity.

It had been late night. The only light visible was from the stars and glowing celestial bronze of the demigods' weapons. They were near one of their hideouts alongside a small stream. It'd been Thalia's turn to keep watch, but she was unable to keep her eyes open for more than thirty seconds. Luke had dutifully taken over for her. Annabeth found herself unable to sleep, so the then-seven-year-oldcrawled out of the tent, careful not to wake Thalia, and into the open. There she found a surprising scene: Luke, his back to her, sobbing quietly.

For a while, Annabeth just sat there, dumbfounded. She waiting several minutes until her friend's weeping had reduced to barely audible sniffles.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Do you have a boo-boo?"
Luke turned to face her. His eyes were red. "Yeah," he wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. "Yeah, I'm fine. No boo-boos, see?" he held up both his hands and shook them slightly so that it appeared as if they were vibrating. "Jazz hands!" he said with a goofy grin. Annabeth giggled.

"Speaking of boo-boos, how's that ankle treating you?"

Annabeth glanced down at her bandaged foot. Luke's mother had wrapped it up hours before in her house. "Are you upset about your mommy?"

Luke shrugged, immediately knowing what she was referring to. "Yeah. . . I'm sorry you had to see that. I wouldn't have taken you there unless it was an absolute emergency."

"My mommy left me when I was born." she said. "And my stepmom is mean. She made me get rid of Rex and didn't believe me about the spiders. She only likes Matthew and Bobby. Even Daddy doesn't love me anymore. I hate them!" she banged her fist on the dirt in anger. Never before had Annabeth shared her history with anyone.

Luke frowned. "Spiders?"

"I hate spiders."

"Why?"

"Don't wanna talk about it," little Annabeth grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest, making it clear that she would not discuss the matter any further.

"Okay, okay. We don't have to talk about it, come here." He beckoned the younger girl with his finger.

Annabeth crawled into her friend's lap, smiling up at him. "Are you gonna do it?" she whispered.

Luke looked at her, confused. "Do what?"

"Are you going to fight the dragon apple monster?"

It took the older boy a moment to understand. "Oh!" Luke laughed. Annabeth liked when her friend laughed. It made him look like a kid. Luke was too serious. "You should smile," she said. "Then you'll be happier."

Luke's grin faded and he looked all stern and grown up once again. "Go to sleep, Annabeth. You'll need your energy for tomorrow."

"But I'm not tired! I want to stay up and fight monsters with you!" she looked up at him with her large, gray saucers.

Luke only sighed, not saying anything. The two sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of chirping crickets and cicada in the distance. Eventually, she broke the silence. "Thalia thinks you should do it. Fight the dragon, I mean. And so do I; it's what your father said."

Luke made a growling noise from the back of his throat. He picked up a small stone and skipped it angrily across the river. The two could just make out the rock sinking in the dim light. "Why should I do what my father says? It's not like I owe him anything. Especially after how well he took care of me and Mom." He threw another stone and watched it skip.

"Seven. Eight. Nine," Annabeth counted aloud the times the rock skipped. "Wow, nine times! I wanna try!" she grabbed a stone and shakily got to her feet. Luke tried to guide her, but she pushed him away, insisting that she wanted to do it herself. Annabeth threw the stone and watched excitedly. to her disappointment, it only skipped twice before sinking.

"You'll get better," he assured her.

Annabeth sat down. "I don't like this game."

Like shrugged. "Suit yourself, spoilsport." He threw another like a Frisbee and watched in satisfaction as it skipped a total of eleven times. "Anyway," he said, picking up another. "It's not like I owe him anything. Hell, I don't even care about him."

"Yes you do."

Luke scowled again. "Did Thalia tell you that?"

"Nope." The girl did not need to elaborate any further. The smug smile on Annabeth's face spoke for her. She knew she was right.

Luke sighed. "Look, would I like my dad to come visit every now and then? Yes! Would I appreciate a little acknowledgement? Maybe even a bit of appreciation? Sure! But we both know that's never gonna happen."

Annabeth bit her lip thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why you should do it. Maybe if you fight the dragon, he'll see how awesome you really are. Because you are awesome."

Luke smiled again. This time it was not a forced half-smile, but a full out grin. He hugged Annabeth. "Thanks. I needed that. You're awesome too."

She smirked. "I know."

Luke laughed. He put his arm around her in an affectionate gesture, stroking her curly blonde hair. In the distance, the sunrise was visible through the thick foliage. "You know what? I don't care what he thinks. I have a new family now. Who needs them? From now on, the only ones who matter are you and Thalia."

Annabeth looked up. "Promise?"

"Yeah," there were tears in his eyes once again. Annabeth wasn't sure if they were of sadness or joy. "Yeah, I promise."

That had been four years ago, and, to her, knowledge, Luke had not shed a tear since that night. He had lived up to his promise, taking on a fatherly role, acting as the main provider for the trio. Grover had found them a short while later and had nearly reached camp when Thalia died. Even then, Luke did not cry.

Annabeth had found him in the Big House on the night they arrived. His back was to her and he stared at the fire place. Even without turning, he knew instantly that she was there. "Promise me something, will you, Annabeth?" his voice was hollow in sound, as if he no longer had any tears left to cry.

Annabeth nodded vigorously in response, trying to hold back her own tears.

"If there. . ." he swallowed. "If there ever comes a time when it's either you or me . . . save yourself, okay?"

"Alright."

"You mean though, right? I - I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Okay, Luke, I promise." Annabeth swore to herself at that moment should such an event occur, she'd find a way to save both of them.

Now, as she surveyed her friend crying in front of Thalia's pine, Annabeth was distraught. Her heart went out to Luke and she wanted to run up and comfort him. But it was no use; he would not see her, anyway. It was a dream. The first dream she had had about Camp Half-Blood in while.

"I wish you were here, Thalia," he whispered. "I need to talk to you now more than ever. You see, I'm about to do something huge. Something that might even be considered evil. But I need to do it. I think it's the only way. Nobody else understands. I tried to tell Annabeth but I couldn't." He stopped and began to cry. "I just couldn't!"

Aleron Vaisey lay on his canopy bed, wide awake. It was not the first time the Slytherin had been having difficulty sleeping. In fact, for weeks, months even, it had happened so often that it had become like a regular occurrence. Urquhart had taken note of this, too, commenting on how his appearance was now strikingly similar to that of an inferi.

In a way, Vaisey sort of liked the quiet hours. They gave him time to think, although this was not always a good thing. Lately, Aleron had been having a lot on his mind, some things he did not want to think about but found them oozing into his consciousness on sleep deprived-nights such as that one.

Vaisey stared at the page in his book. A man with a scraggly beard and tiny, beady eyes that moved back and forth in an eerie manner, sat in a simple, wooden chair. His expression was stoical and unreadable, like that of a corpse. Vaisey shuddered in spite of himself. He glanced at the picture's caption. Grigori Rasputin, 1912.

Annabeth had recently guilted him into taking History of Magic seriously. Out of all of her requests, this one seemed to befuddle Vaisey the most. Professor Binns was, arguably, the most incompetent teacher the school ever had. Besides, who wanted to learn about the past? It was the present they were living in.

Still, the Ravenclaw had been persistent, stating that people needed to learn history as not to repeat its mistakes. What mistakes? Vaisey had made the mistake of voicing this question aloud, to which Annabeth responded with a forty minute lecture about tragic chain events. A lot of what she said revolved around the two "World Wars". Vaisey had confessed that he did not really know what they were (why should he? The wizard world had been busy with Grindelwald at the time,) and everything went downhill from there.

Annabeth had decided to partner up with Aleron for her History of Magic project on Rasputin and the Russian Revolution, which was why Vaisey was staring at a picture of the crazed man at two o'clock in the morning.

She spoke of her mixed feelings about the tsar and his family. About how the Jews were persecuted, how there had been many starving peasants in Russia and how Nicholas II had taken over the army which he knew next to nothing about.

At first, he had failed to understand the significance of this man and why he had such a big impact. Okay, so he led to the death of one muggle family, so what? Not that killing muggles was good or anything, he hastened to add, but why did it matter so much? Muggle families were killed all the time and most people, magical or not, didn't seem to give a damn, which is why there had only been two World Wars (although Annabeth claimed it was really the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that set off the war) Annabeth had described it as being similar to the assassination of the Minister of Magic, and Vaisey had replied that would be just fine by him.

"Stop it," she had said. "This isn't funny. You, of all people, should be sensitive to the death of a child!"

That had struck a nerve and had noticeably upset the boy. Still, it was effective and he worked the rest of the afternoon without a fuss.

Vaisey looked again in the book. On the next page was another photograph. This one, unlike the picture of Rasputin, did not move. That was became it was taken by a muggle camera, he realized. The photo was of five children, four girls in fancy white dresses, all appearing to be somewhere in their teens, and a boy who look considerably younger. The children were all squinting, as if the sun was in their eyes. The caption said: (From left to right): Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia, and Tzarevich Alexei Romanov, 1916.

Yawning, Aleron put the book down. He would see more of it tomorrow. Turning over in bed, he closed his eyes and rested his head on the pillow. He was not the only one to do so. Annabeth snapped out of her dream as well. And up in the Gryffindor dorm, a boy named Harry Potter, for the third time that week, woke up with a start.

Yes, I realize this chapter was a bit slow. I need some time to pass by so that I can line up the major events with the Harry Potter books. As usual, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism is welcome.

Harry Potter Fact: There was an outbreak of lice among the case of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Random Fact: Sir James Matthew (J.M.) Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, was ambidextrous, infertile, and coined the name "Wendy."

To all you Americans, happy Thanksgiving, to everybody else . . .er, happy Wednesday (or Thursday, depending on where you live in the world.)