Disclaimer: I don't own HP or PJO.
AN-1: Hogwarts has started for SOS in the coming chapters, so kinda excited about this one here. Next update is most probably for TIC or Ascension, for those who follow either one or both of them.
AN-2: I have a P*T*R*N, which you can join to read the NEXT FOUR CHAPTERS right now, just follow the link on the profile.
"Hesti-what in the name of Chaos happened?!" Chiron gasped, his welcoming smile evaporating away to leave behind a face blanched with horror as he saw the beaten and burnt body in her arms, recognizing it as Harry straight away, "Hades! We need to get him to the Apollo cabin right away!"
"They won't be able to heal him," Hestia shook her head, her irises glowing a brilliant golden as she hid the happenings of the Big House from everyone's view, her lips pursing together in displeasure as thunder boomed in the sky above. Shaking her head to dispel her thoughts, she walked forwards and glared at the couches, transfiguring them into the softest bed imaginable within a moment as she lowered Harry upon it. Healing wasn't amongst her domains, but as a goddess, she could do enough to delay Harry's death for a while. Splaying her hands open over his prone, pale body, her face twisted in a grimace at the sight of the burns and blisters covering him, his ruined eye, and the black veins visible across his body, the patches of skin around them slowly rotting.
"Then who shall, Lady Hestia?" Chiron gasped, coming forwards to look down at the young demigod as he took the flagon of nectar and poured a drop over the burns, almost jumping back at the violent hiss that came as the golden drop met the blackened flesh, "Do you think we should submerge him in water?"
"We don't know the degree of the Thalassa's healing he has inherited," she shook her head, waving her hand over his body, creating a golden dome over it as she used a measure of her domain over the Hearth and the Home to provide some nourishment to Harry's devastated body, grimacing as she felt the way it was utterly battered to the last bone. Turning towards Chiron, she took in his grim countenance before she looked back at the demigod she had come to view as her own child, "No…Harry needs Apollo's intervention if he is to survive."
"Why would he do so?" Chiron asked, his eyes snapping to the darkened sky outside, the worry and confusion in his tone echoing in the otherwise silent Big House, "and even if he has a reason to do so, how is he going to avoid the breaking of the Ancient Laws? We never know how the Styx or the Fates themselves might enact their retribution!"
She scowled at the words spoken by her brother, realizing them to be true. Even if she convinced her nephew to heal his brother—which Hestia fully believed that she could—there was no telling how and when the result of breaking the Ancient Laws would strike at them. And there was a very real possibility of all of it just coming down on Harry's head rather than going to her or Apollo.
"There is a way this can be avoided," Apollo's voice echoed around them as a bright pillar of golden-white light appeared before her, and Hestia looked on calmly as the brightness from the very Sun faded away to reveal the smiling form of her nephew. His eyes flicked between her and the immortal centaur in the room as he greeted them both, respect and adoration in his tone "Aunt Hestia, Chiron."
"Lord Apollo," the centaur lowered his head in respect, raising it once he heard the God of Medicine hum in response, "Won't your father take umbrage at your presence here?"
"He is rather busy right now to do so," Apollo smiled in response, his eyes turning towards Hestia for a moment, a knowing glint present in them before he chuckled and waved his hand, "But that is neither here nor there. So…what do we have here?"
"He was sent to Florida," Hestia mumbled as she saw Apollo peer down at Harry's prone body, his hands behind his back. The Sun God stopped and looked up at her for a moment at that, tilting his head curiously as he waved his hand over the barrier she had created over Harry's body. His hand glowed golden, and so did the shield over the dying demigod as Apollo straightened and conjured a goblet of wine in his hand. Besides him, Hestia glanced at the goblet, her eyes tightening for a moment before she continued, "There he fought with a Thunderbird and one of the giant centipedes that inhabit those lands."
"Nasty," he grimaced, frowning at the burnt socket of Harry's eyes, as well as the poison that was spreading through his body, "He didn't know about them I presume? Those insects have a weird makeup of their venom, which seems to burn through magicals faster, feeding upon the mystical energy present inside them and strengthening themselves with it like a parasite…and Harry went ahead to practically bathe in that creature's blood too. That along with the Thunderbird's lightning burning his body, and his own overuse of the divinity has messed him up real bad."
"Can you heal him?"
"Of course, I can," he scoffed, waving his hand dismissively before he paced his hand below his chin and looked down at the dying boy speculatively, "But I can't do it…too much direct interference—even now I can feel the Ancient Laws pressing down on me, warning me to not even lay a finger on Harry. And Father will definitely realize it—and there is no telling what he will do as the Lord of Justice."
"Then what shall we do?" Chiron muttered, closing his eyes and cursing his own inadequacy in the healing arts as the sight of Harry's destroyed face flashed through his mind, "Can Lord Asclepi-"
"No, I'd rather keep him away from this," Apollo shook his head, vanishing the wine in his hand as he peered down at the demigod, "Besides, he is practically a slave to my Father ever since he has reformed. There is no doubt that the word of this will reach him before the task is even complete. He will gladly open up his mind to hi-wait…Hmm, yeah, I may have an idea."
"It is supposed to be my holiday Chiron," Aldrick grunted as he walked inside the Big House, ushering Abigail inside as he closed the door behind him, grunting at the lightning that flashed through the seemingly clear sky above him, "This is an ungodly hour to keep me awake, especially with the continuous night duty that you have saddled me with."
"That is quite enough Aldrick," Apollo spoke pleasantly, but with a firmness that belied his smile as he turned around in the chair, his toga replaced by a crisp white shirt and blue pants as he stood up. Chiron sighed as he saw the way both the demigods almost jerked back, their eyes wide and disbelieving before they dropped to their knees, their fists by their hearts. As Aldrick opened his mouth to initiate the traditional vows, Apollo waved his hand and rolled his eyes, a small smile on his face, "Stop with that nonsense Aldrick, Abigail. My children need not ever kneel before me, especially not when I am the one who has summoned them for…let's say a quest."
"A quest?" Abigail's eyes brightened up, and the Sun God smiled at her lovingly, once again cursing the paranoia and the sheer fucking assholery of his father that prevented them from interacting with their children—or at least, those that actually wanted to, "What do we have to do, Lord Apoll-"
"Father," he cut her off, shaking his head and raising a palm, "Call me Father, dear daughter…I get a rare enough chance to be called that as it is, so don't deprive me of the joy it brings me. Now, while I would love to spend this evening talking with you my dear, but unfortunately, we are a bit short on time."
"What do we need to do, Father?" Aldrick asked, his sky blue eyes shining with determination and hope both as he stood up, a vambrace materializing on his right forearm, "Is it a monster hunt? Or an artifact retrieva-"
"Nothing like that, no," he shook his head, beckoning them forward with a finger as the smile on his face disappeared. Nodding his head in the direction of the open door to his right, Apollo continued, "I want you to heal a certain someone."
"Who are you talking about Father?" Abigail asked as he walked towards the door at the nod from him, and Aldrick paused as he saw her stiffen right as she looked into the room, a sharp, horrified gasp leaving her the next moment, "Is-Is that Harry?!"
"And he is in dire need of your help," Apollo said, walking towards the bed. He waved his hand to the side, and a table of medicinal equipment and salves and nectar appeared, "Everything you need is on this table, and under no circumstances are you allowed to fail this quest. Harry needs to be stabilized and the poison flushed out of his body as soon as possible. I understand that this is sudden and quite a tall task, but know this, Abigail, Aldrick…I am just a prayer away."
The barrier around his body dissolved away into tiny little sparks of light, and she gasped as the full extent of his injuries was revealed to her eyes. She gagged at the smell of rot and burnt flesh that permeated the room in seconds, and her eyes watered as she saw the black lines that had spread through most of his body. As someone who had been his friend ever since his first day, and seen him take down a Hydra…it was horrifying to see him like this.
Just what in the name of Hades had Harry fought?!
Gulping a little, Abigail jumped in her place as she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning around, she saw the somber face of her brother staring down at her. "We don't have the time to freeze Abigail," he muttered softly, his blue eyes, so like her own firm yet understanding, "I understand how you are feeling, but we need to act fast. His vitals are falling, and the rot is spreading through his blood to his organs. Remove the burnt skin and apply the salve to the flesh beneath, while I work on the poison. Got it?"
"Ye-Yes Aldrick," she nodded, blinking the tears in her eyes away as she gulped again, feeling the dull ache in the back of her throat as she buried the sob threatening to leave her mouth, "D-Do you think we need a blood transfusion?"
"Yes we do," he mumbled, looking down at the cuts and scrapes covering the young demigod's body, "This is going to be a long night."
Nodding at his words, she mumbled a prayer to her father and got to work, grabbing the edges of the flaked, blackened skin and peeling it off his body piece by piece, grimacing a the sight of the raw, blistered flesh and the pungent, thick liquid that flowed from them. She cleaned the wounds, applying salves and dabbing at them with nectar as she bandaged his arm first, her body working almost mechanically as she performed the procedures she had performed a dozen times—and being one of the few healers from the Apollo cabin, she had been amongst the ones who had treated Harry after the Hydra attack.
On the other side of the bed, she could see Aldrick continue his own work. Incisions were made into his elbow and leg to drain out his blood, while the blood bags replenished it instantly. He poured the droughts and potions down his throat—and she saw how he grimaced every time at the sight of the empty eye socket that stared back at them every time they looked at Harry's face.
After about an hour of this, Harry was almost completely covered in bandages, with only his face left to clean and cover. As she wondered whether they were going to heal his eyes—or was he going to get a prosthetic one from the Hephaestus cabin, she heard Aldrick curse loudly.
"What happened?" she asked, looking up at her brother, her eyes widening at his deathly pale face's frustrated yet terrified expression. Her own heart started to beat faster as she looked at the partially-black blood in the bag hanging on his left…the blood which was supposed to be a fresh supply. She reached over and placed a hand on the tube connecting the bag to his body, the powers of healing she had inherited going to work even as she spoke, "What happened to the bloo-the poison?!"
"It contaminates every bag of blood I attach to his body!" Aldrick growled out, grabbing at his hair in frustration as he brought over a new bag, "This is the third one so far! And each time, the poison spreads through the blood before it can be flushed out completely or the fresh blood enters his body!
She gasped, feeling and seeing the truth of her brother's words as she sensed the absolutely fatal amounts of toxins in Harry's blood somehow, magically spread through the fresh blood. The poison seemed to practically consume the clean blood, spreading and infecting it faster than anything she had seen before—except for the time Harry had been bitten by the Hydra, but even then, it was a close contest.
Unknown to both of them, it was a two-fold result of the magical nature of the poison, as well as Harry's own constitution. Being a demigod of magical birth, Harry's blood and body, were quite different compared to the others around him, differences that weren't visible physically to anyone…but had a very drastic effect on his physiology. The effects of the various toxins found in magical creatures over the world were mostly the same for everyone, whether they be non-magical, demigods, or pure wizards.
However…Harry was a mixture of two of them, and he had ventured into the deep wild of the magical world without any protection against the poisons of the creatures that dwelled there. As such, his own magic was turning against him, feeding and strengthening the poison of the centipede, and unvaccinated against such things, his own body was powerless to stop it.
At the same time, the demigods had no anti-venom for the creature that had poisoned Harry, and neither had Apollo provided them with that specific cure when he had summoned the medical table. With the venom spreading through every bag of blood Aldrick had attached until now, and his vitals no closer to rising up than they had been when they had first come in, she felt a mountain of despair crush down on her soul.
Harry was going to die.
Her best friend, her hero, her Harry was going to die…and she was powerless to stop it.
A desperate plea rose in her heart as her eyes watered, her palm coming to rest atop his chest and feeling the gradually slowing heart beating within. She prayed to her Father as the ache in her throat returned, a sob breaking out past her lips as she felt the tears slide down her cheeks, her eyes fixated upon the burnt face that stared up at the ceiling. Ahead of her, Aldrick too looked down at the dying demigod grimly, realizing that there was nothing he could do to prevent Thanatos from taking Harry.
His eyes rose up to see his little sister as she dropped to her knees, her muffled sobs breaking his heart even more as she clutched at the motionless fingers that had always held her hand. He didn't have much interaction with the Son of Zeus, only knowing him ever since he came back in the talons of an eagle after Michael was killed. It was then that he had first begun to notice the guy—as had everyone, kinda hard not to with the brat being found to be the forbidden child the King of Gods had sired.
Over the years, he had talked to the boy only a dozen times or so, but he knew that he and Abigail were always joined at the hip whenever the boy was in the Camp. And his crass tongue aside, Aldrick knew him to be a good man at his heart, finding lost demigods and leading them to the camp, and not lording over his status as what amounted to basically the Prince of Demigods.
And today, he had been given a chance to save the guy who had saved two of his brothers.
Aldrick knew he wasn't going to cry. He was too old, too experienced, and too used to death for that shit, but it didn't mean he wasn't desperate to save Harry. And not just because it was a quest given by his Father, or because his slight affinity for the domain of prophecy was practically making his head burst right now.
But also because he knew that Abigail would shatter if anything happened to Harry.
And thus they prayed. brother and sister, son and daughter…both of them prayed to Apollo harder and more desperately than they had ever prayed before.
'Father…I ne-no, we need your help and guidance Father. I have tried every antivenom, every cure I could possibly try, and yet this poison simply spreads faster and faster with each moment.' Apollo stilled as he heard Aldrick's voice, looking in the direction of the Camp as the paper before him was signed, 'The potions have failed, and the blood is getting contaminated each and every time I try to change it…I don't know how to save him Father…I can't save Harr-'
'FATHER!' his son's voice in his head was completely lost beneath the scream that came from Abigail, his daughter's cry so full of despair and anguish that it tore at his heart—and even more so because he had deliberately made her a part of this…this farce. 'Save Harry Dad! I don't care what I have to do, but I can't watch him die Dad! You can't let him die, not like Michael did! Please Dad, I'll do anything for th-this, but please save him!'
"Thank you for that, Michael," he muttered, turning away from the singer before him as he vanished the paper back to his palace on Olympus, startling the guards and people all around him—and sending Michael Jackson falling over his ass, "But I shall be taking my leave now."
He disappeared from the backstage room, already feeling the mist go to work, altering and changing the memories of those around him. Appearing back in the Big House, he raised a hand to silence the question that was no doubt coming from Chiron, his blue eyes emitting a faint white glow as he walked towards the room in which his children were, "Later Chiron, for now, prepare me a cup of tea—the one with the rose petals and the cardamoms."
Humming once at the "Yes, my Lord" that came from the immortal centaur, Apollo paused for a moment at the door, taking in the sight of his daughter crying as she knelt by the bed, her hand clutching at the lifeless one of his younger brother desperately. Aldrick stood at her side, his hand on her shoulder, and Apollo could see the way his son was trying to bite back his own frustration and sadness, his shoulders tense and his fist clenched. He cursed himself mentally for putting them through such a thing, making them experience crushing guilt and grief even though he had known this to be the outcome from the very start.
All so that his children would have to pray to him.
Because Chaos forbid they interfere with the mortals like only the King of Gods could do.
"Sleep my child," Apollo whispered as he neared Aldrick, sending the teenager into slumber instantly as he floated him out into the living room. Abigail jumped at the sudden noise, and just as she started to turn around, he laid a hand on her shoulder, stilling her for a moment as he looked at the even more worsened state of Harry's body, "Your prayers will be answered Abigail, Harry Potter shall live."
He sent her to sleep too, cradling her head on his shoulder as he stood up, holding her in his arms. "Now let's get this over with," Apollo sighed, placing his hand on Harry's chest and staring at black veins branching out all over his body, his blood completely poisoned beyond curing, and his organs shutting down rapidly as they rotted from the inside. It was a hopeless case, and there was nothing in this world that could save Harry and bring him back from the cold fingers of Thanatos that Apollo could feel closing in on the boy…
But then again, it was the work of Gods to give hope in hopeless situations, wasn't it?
A golden white glow began to emanate from his palm, and the light seemed to flow over the almost dead demigod, covering and soaking through the bandages that he was wrapped in. He hummed a melody of his own creation, feeling the poison and the rot inside Harry's body wither away in the face of his power as he felt each and every cell come alive once again. On the surface, the bandages burned away from the demigod's skin, and Apollo watched silently as the burnt and blistered flesh beneath started regenerating—white lights dancing along the wounds and soaking the room in a comfortable warmth as if it were from a winter Sun.
Harry's face too, began to heal rapidly as Apollo focused on the destroyed eyes, burning away the poison that had damaged his remaining eye, while white light shone out from the hole beside it as he regrew the other one. His features once more returned to their unblemished state as the acid and lightning burns faded away to reveal the pale skin beneath, his hair growing back along with his right ear and teeth. Apollo grunted as he felt the last vestiges of the centipedes' venom vanish from Harry's veins, his blood once again beginning to flow as he healed his almost destroyed heart.
"Well then, my work here is done," Apollo smiled, removing his hand from Harry's chest as he felt the boy take a slow, shuddering breath, his heartbeat growing stronger by the minute as every injury and scar on his body was erased by his power. The God of the Sun grinned down at the demigod, placing his sleeping daughter atop Harry as the demigod blearily opened his eyes, conjuring a set of pajamas over the boy as he did so, "Enjoy the rant that is coming, little brother. And remember, don't hunt deer when you are in forests."