Once more we return to the main character of this strange and wild tale, for in this chapter we get to see what Harry, Artemis, and the Hunt have been up to.
On with the show.
Somewhere in Parque Nacional Bahuaja Sonene, South America, July 17th 1996.
The humidity crawled up their backs like a sticky, all consuming feeling that clung to their skin and caused a river of sweat to slide down their backs. They, forty in total, were hidden around the clearing that broke for a small waterfall coming down from the steep and sweeping hills that led up to the Andes mountains. Their scents masked as they waited patiently for their prey they had been tracking for the last day or so to show themselves. They had a run in with the monsters not even two days ago to the north, the initial ambush had been bloody as they killed eight of them in quick succession. One of their numbers had been injured in his impatience to chase down the monsters, but he was back at camp resting and healing in his tent.
The snap of a branch alerted the hunters to their prey, their hunt was simple yet exhilarating. They were to thin the numbers of the pride till they were more manageable for the local magical government, which their leader had accepted happily. The hunters waited with bated breaths with arrows notched but unpulled as the first of the prey entered the clearing.
The Chimaera's that enter the clearing were, like all their kind, massive. Standing a meter and a half at the shoulder and closer to two meters at the tips of their ears and each weighing close to a ton of raw fury. The heads of the Chimaera's were that of a lion, most males had a main of thick coarse hair that was as thick and tough as Celestial Bronze to help protect their throats from attacks, while the females had none. The bodies of the beasts were wrapped in snake like scales that reflected a rainbow of dark colors when the sun hit them just right. The bodies of the Chimaera's ended at the feet in got like hooves for climbing over rocky terrain from the land they were native from, and a serpentine-like tail that extended as long as their bodies and ending in spear and hook like points. They were a marvel of beastial might and that wasn't even touching upon their ability to breath fire or the poison in the tips of their tails.
They were more than a worthy hunt for Artemis and her hunters, the only thing that soured this hunt was the fact that they were mixing work with what should be a time of celebration. It had been only two weeks since the death of Atalanta, and in those two weeks the Hunt had fallen into mourning for their sister. But now the mourning was over for all but one, and the Hunt before them was dedicated in their fallen sisters name.
"Pull," Artemis orders her hunters and the symphony of her hunters pulling back their notched arrows as one was like music to her ears with the crescendo of a soft click of a rifle. "Hold," she whispers softly as the pride of eighteen Chimaera counting the cubs began to move toward the watering hole that was the waterfall. "Hold," she whispers once more.
The pride had splintered after the first ambush and the Hunters were currently after the larger, more dangerous pride because one among them was a bit of a rarity. Even divine and magical creatures could not escape the mundane mutations found in some normal wildlife and in this case, Melanism. One of the male Chimaera's coat and scales were as black as night, giving the beast a majestic look and Artemis wanted it rather badly, for she already had the coat of an Albino one she had come across some eight hundred years ago.
The largest of the females approaches the watering hole and gives the life-giving liquid a tentative sniff as Artemis smiles. As the beast begins to lap up the water, the smaller cubs begin to drink from the water as well as the rest standing guard over their children. But Artemis was not here for the cubs, she was here to cull a large portion of the pride but leave the cubs and a few of the older ones alive to live in balance with the mortals, that was all.
As Artemis raises her hand to give the signal to her hunters to release their arrows, the heads of the older Chimaera's all snap to the West.
"No," Artemis thinks to herself as her own head snaps in that direction, much to the confusion of her hunters.
The Chimaera's begin to circle around their cubs in a protective formation.
"No, no, no," Artemis thinks as her jaw clenches at the sound of something moving rapidly through the jungle.
The largest male roars before bracing itself, flames dancing in its maw.
"Do not tell me he left the camp grounds when I had specifically told him not to," Artemis thinks as her anger becomes evident on her face right before all hell breaks loose…again!
From the underbrush of the rainforest a blur burst forth, shredding all manner of Flora as it moved at paranatural speeds that most in the hunt couldn't even follow. The largest male tries to release a gout of flames as soon as the blur bursts from the jungle, but it was for nought as a pair of dragonhide boots slam into its face with a sickening crack caving in its skull. The fire in the Chimaera's maw is swallowed and mixes with the natural gasses in the throat sack of the beast, setting it to explode out the back half of the Chimaera. The blur leaps through the flames and carnage, slowing down enough to show itself, dressed in simple blue jeans, boots, and his steel color jacket while armed with his crimson red spear and his torso wrapped in white bandages was the son of Artemis, the Heir to the Hunt.
Harry Potter had arrived in the middle of his divine mother's ambush to spread his unique brand of chaos.
Artemis facepalms before cursing under her breath at the sight of her son.
"He's at it again, My Lady," Artemis' lieutenant, Zoë Nightshade says, voicing her own aggravation over the boy as she frowns at the sight below them.
Harry, armed with only his spear and a mad smile, lands in the middle of the pride, his eyes matching Artemis' own amber cat eyes lit with the utter and unfettered joy of the Hunt. The Chimaera's that remain all turn to look at Harry as he lands in a crouch, his spear at the ready, ignorant that their fates were already sealed. The largest female roars at Harry, raising his whip-like barbed tail dripping with poison as fire gathered in its maw. But Harry, in the state he was in, cared nothing for the show of aggression as he charged forward, spear pulled back and aimed to skewer the largest female.
Half mad with the Hunt as Harry was at the moment he had lost sight of anything outside his next kill.
But before his spear could drive through the roof of the Chimaera's mouth, a silver arrow deflects the blow away from the beast from Artemis' own bow.
"Fire at will!" Cries Artemis with an angry growl. "Try not to hit my fool of a son, the largest female, and the cubs!" She orders before a resound BLAM could be heard as one of the smaller males falls to Sophie's rifle and arrows begin to rain down on the Chimaera's.
Harry twists himself with the momentum of where Artemis' arrow had deflected his spear, using the butt of his spear to smash into the face of another Chimaera as it pounced at him. He leaps back from his spin and swings his spear down, the serrated and barbed blade meets the neck of the beast and passes through it like it wasn't even there. His wild eyes scan the clearing as arrows begin to rain down on his prey, he charges forward through the falling projectiles to meet another Chimaera head on. Harry ducks under the lash of its tail before hopping up and spinning in midair to lash out with his spear, carving down the side of the beast before he finishes his spin by cutting through the armored tail.
The Chimaera that Harry wounds freezes as black veins begin to crawl across its form. As they weave together and intersect, the body of the Chimaera begins to break down and collapse upon itself until the slow crawling effect of The Promised End delivers the beast to a final death.
As Harry twists and spins, pivoting and juking around tail swipes, fire, and fangs, the bandages across his torso begin to blossom red with blood. But Harry pays no mind to the pain across his chest and his stomach, merely smiling as he skewers another of the Chimaera and enjoying the rush of the Hunt in his veins.
"That fucking idiot!" Phoebe screams as she sees the blood soaking through the bandages she had painstakingly wrapped around her brother's torso. She notches another arrow before, with her anger behind, she lets loose an arrow of solar fire that sinks into the eye of one of the beasts. "He tore open his wounds!" She yells as she watches Harry dance and deflect the attacks from the Chimaera around him.
Artemis grits her teeth as she watches Harry continue his foolish and selfish actions. His spear came down on the head of one of the Chimaera's head and split it like a log of wood. This wasn't the first time Harry had disobeyed an order from her during the Hunt, and she had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. Her eyes track him as dances and slashes through Chimaera after Chimaera, cutting them down with ease and bringing them to their end. The arrows of her hunters put most out of their misery that beset their bodies after Harry had wounded the beasts with his spear until, after the largest female and the cubs fled, there was only one of the beasts left.
The large male with the black coat.
Harry turns to it, a wicked smile on his face as his eyes shimmered with the hunt. "Harry Potter! Don't you dare!" Artemis yells as she watches her son level his spear at the beast.
"Gaé-" Harry calls out, igniting the ancient curse held within the spear, the spectral thorns tear through Harry's arm opening those wounds fresh again. Phoebe just about screams at Harry's actions as Artemis begins to panic, her eyes searching for another target, any other target, for the curse. "-Bolg!" He roars as Artemis fails and watches in horror as the spear sinks into the beautiful hide of the Chimaera.
"No!" Artemis yells as she watches helplessly as the Chimaera and its hide are torn asunder by the Curse of Dún Scaith. "Domains damn that woman! Right to the end of time!" She thinks to herself, knowing that the Witch-Queen of Dún Scaith was laughing at her somewhere.
"Zoë!" Artemis snaps in anger and bitter disappointment, causing her oldest friend to turn to her. "Go collect Harry, I need to have words with him," she says with a growl as her lieutenant simply nods her head and leaps into the clearing. Zoë is followed by a few of her sisters, arrows notched and ready, but otherwise relaxed as they look over the carnage in the clearing and the boy who caused it.
Harry stood in the middle of the clearing covered in the carnage and aftermath of his hunt taking deep even breaths as he looked blankly forward, seeming lost to the world around him.
"Harry," Zoë says softly, causing him to whirl around to face her, his eyes sharp and eager for another fight. But before he could do anything else, before Artemis' hunters could raise their bows, Zoë had moved. Her steps were quick and in a burst of speed she had stepped into the range of Harry's spear and with a picture perfect right hook, Harry fell to the ground unconscious. Zoë sighs and frowns down at the little brother she never wanted but had come to love, worry dancing in her eyes. "Foolish boy, you never listen to anyone," she says sadly.
The Hunters of Artemis campground, Peru, South America, July 18th 12:28 am.
Harry Potter.
"Harry! Please, I-I didn't tell him anything! Please let me explain," Delphini says, tears running down her cheek as she beg Harry to listen, for her to explain. But Harry didn't want to listen, he didn't care, anger boiled in his stomach as red rage took over his vision.
"Why!? So you can just lie again! So you can go tell your dad all about how you fooled poor dumb Harry Potter!" He had screamed back, his biggest flaw taking him over as the Hunt roared in his veins, aching for blood, to be fed.
Harry tossed in his bed, a cold sweat crawling across his body as he turned over again and again. Unable to escape his own mind.
"No-OOOOOOOOOO!" Delphini's words morph and twist, changing in pitch and tone as Atalanta charges at him. Her arms outstretched, her eyes filled with a wild desperation as the Monsters cackled madly just behind her. Harry feels Atalanta hit him and all of a sudden he is flying backwards away from…
Harry had awoken in the first aid tent hours before, his body sore and his right arm unresponsive. He had pushed himself up to a sitting position only to have a bedpan slam across the back of his head and a screaming Phoebe just inches from his face.
"You fool! You absolute idiot! I told you! I told you not to use your spear! I told you to rest! Now look at you, I had to waste supplies to stem the bleeding after you reopened your wounds! You. Foolish. Boy!" Phoebe had yelled at him, the last three words highlighted by the ding of the aluminum bedpan hitting his head.
"Just give me some Ambrosia and Nectar and I'll be fine," Harry told her as he rubbed the back of his head. It wasn't even close to any real damage the enraged healer could do to him if she really wanted too.
"No," Phoebe says sternly as she crosses her arms and leveled a glare at him. "I gave you some the other day after doing the same foolish thing. You will get no more until after we are done here and start moving back to the States, I refuse to watch leap into death feet first and undo all my hard work to keep you alive," she told him, her blue eyes stormy with anger before hitting him on the head with the bedpan one more time.
"Ow, damnit! What happened to the Hippocratic oath, bloody hell," Harry said, rubbing the spot where Phoebe had hit him.
"Unfortunately for you I never studied under Hippocrates and never took his dumb oath, now get out of my infirmary," she said while pointing to the exit.
Harry scowled but stood up from the cot, Phoebe was mad at him but not mad enough to help him put his arm in a sling. After checking his pockets and arm he had turned back to Phoebe, scowl still on his face. "Where the hell are my spears?" He asked the medic of the Hunt.
"Lady Artemis took them while you were asleep, go talk to her if you want them back," Phoebe told him as she stripped the bed of the sheets. Harry had cursed before turning to leave, only to pause when Phoebe spoke again, this time in a much more gentle voice. "Harry, I know it hurts. Losing a sister is never easy, even for someone my age but it doesn't mean you have to suffer alone or-" she tried to tell him, but Harry snaps at her, cutting off her words.
"I'm fine, Phoebe," Harry said angrily before the front door in his mind slams shut again as he throws open the curtain to the medical tent and stores out.
"Sirius!" Harry screams, his arms outstretched to somehow grab his godfather, to somehow pull him with him. Sirius doesn't say a word nor show any signs of pain even with the barbed spears piercing his legs, all he does is smile as the flames consume him leaving nought but ash behind. Shock, pain, disbelief, and denial stab through Harry's heart, not wanting it to be true, not wanting them to be gone. His back hits a wall and he slides down, his breath leaving his lungs as he looks upon the unmoving form of Atalanta.
"Please no! Atalanta get up! Atalanta!" Harry screams as he reaches for her, only for the door to the cupboard, his cupboard to snap shut.
"You'll be here forever!" Uncle Vernon screams (always screaming) as the vent on the door of the cupboard slides shut.
"No one left to care about the freak! And why is that I wonder?" Aunt Petunia's snide voice mocks him from beyond the door.
"It's because-" a new voice says, high and hissing in the dark as red serpentine-like eyes open and glow in the dark of his cupboard. "-he's killed them all. His mother and father died to protect a worthless little freak, and their replacements to him died pointlessly because he didn't couldn't kill me," the Monster says, his pale face showing in the dark, looming over Harry with a mocking grin. "Poor, pathetic, boy. Who else are you going to let die for you," the monster says with a dark chuckle.
"I can't wait to find out,"
The monster throws his head back as he laughs, high and cruel as the memories of Sirius and Atalanta play in Harry's mind on repeat. He feels them then, cold arms encircling him, trying to comfort him in the dark of his cupboard.
"No," Harry whispers as the arms pause.
"Stop!" Harry snaps as he tries and pushes them away, but they fight against him, trying once more to hold him.
"I said stop! Get out of my-"
A gasp passes across his lips as Harry shoots up in his bed, pain lancing up his arm as the raw grief he feels over takes his heart and mind. He grits his teeth to cut off the sob trying to escape his chest and he squeezes his eyes shut. -Slam- -Slam- -Slam- goes the front door as he tosses each of the rabbits out into the snow with the others. As his mind clears and the feelings die away to nothing but thumping and hopping of the small prey animals, he feels himself empty of emotion as a burning void of nothing sets uncomfortably in his chest.
Harry sighs and rubs his face with his good hand before tossing his blanket off of him and over both Brittany and Sophie's sleeping forms. Harry looks over to his sisters for a long moment before getting out of his bed and pulling on his jacket, glasses, and boots over his pajamas. Hedwig hoots from the corner, the concern in that one sound was enough to stop Harry at the exit of his tent.
"It's okay girl, I'm just going on a short walk. I'll be back," Harry says, his voice coming out flat and emotionless even to him and unaware that Hedwig wasn't the only one who watched him leave.
Harry steps outside of his tent and into the campgrounds of the Hunters of Artemis, a light drizzle falling from the overcast skies above but it doesn't bother Harry much as he walks through the campgrounds. He was trying and failing to clear his mind of -Slam- of the memories of -Slam- what happened only a few weeks ago and his failure, how he had gotten -Slam- them killed.
How he had gotten his friends hurt.
How -Slam- the last meeting with -Slam- her went.
He could feel the lukewarm rain on his neck as he kept looking at the ground as he walked to the bounds of the campground. He quickly found himself on the border of camp and found a place to sit. Harry looks out into the darkness of the rainforest with a blank face and dull eyes, the memories playing on a loop of things he'd rather not remember haunt him even in the waking world. Sirius' death, Atalanta's death, the Formorians being freed, learning that Voldemort had Mantled thanks to the blood he stole from Harry, and his time with the Dursleys. He didn't know why the last one would play out for him, he had thought he put those years behind them, to forget about them and to let them go. But the more he thought about the last few weeks, the more of the years he had spent with them would be brought forward in his mind. It was like he was on a slide that he couldn't stop or slow down on, just constantly spiraling into his own memories of what happened in Number 4 Privet Drive.
And he just couldn't stop, no matter how much the front door slammed shut in his mind.
So lost in his thoughts, Harry didn't hear someone walking up behind him and calling out his name over the soft pitter-patter of the rain.
"Harry," Artemis says softly, sounding concerned more than angry with him. After she had taken his weapons, she had basically grounded him to his tent for the remainder of the hunt. "Harry, what are you doing out here?" She asks, but Harry doesn't answer, too deep in his own thoughts. Artemis sighs before walking up to Harry and placing a hand on his shoulder before gently shaking him.
Finally, Harry has a reaction as he turns to look up into Artemis worried eyes. "Did you not hear me?" She asks as she sees the surprise in his eyes.
"Oh, ah, no." Harry says quietly before turning to look back into the dark. "Sorry," he says softly.
Artemis frowns at her son's reaction. "I'm not chastising you, Harry. I'm-" she pauses, unsure what to say or what to do. "I'm just worried," she offers and is unsurprised when Harry shrugs off her hand before speaking.
"I'm fine," he says, his voice coming out dead and hollow and filled with a bitter bone deep weariness.
Artemis' lips press into a fine line, not buying what her son told her for a moment. "You should be asleep," she tells him before sliding her hand back into her jacket pocket.
"I'm not tired," Harry quickly answers.
"When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?" Artemis questions only for Harry to shrug. He honestly didn't know, it was before Mag Turied, that was for sure. But in the last few weeks his sleep had been sporadic, lasting only for an hour or two before he could stand the nightmares and the terrors that laid behind his eyes. "Harry, I'm sure I don't need to tell you but sleep is important and it has been obvious that you haven't been getting any, even Sophie is sleeping more than you," she points out, but still all Harry does is shrug.
Artemis moves to kneel down in front of her son, to look him in the eyes and all she could see in his emerald eyes was a hollow dead look that echoed a deep pain. "Was this what they looked like when he was younger? When that house had taken everything from him?" Artemis thinks to herself, a pain twisting in her chest with a want, a need to help him, to help Harry, to help her son. She hated this look in Harry's eyes, it was a sight she never wanted to see, where his eyes no longer sparkled with happiness.
"Harry," Artemis tries once more, her voice dripping with desperation to reach out to him, to have him listen, to let her help. "I can not help you if you don't talk to me, please Harry. Please, talk to me," she asks once more, reaching up to place one of her hands on his cheek.
Harry looks into Artemis' ancient eyes, eyes filled with desperation and pain, of the want and need to do something she didn't know how to do. Harry's lip trembles and his mouth opens, the words on the tip of his tongue and the images haunting his mind come fresh with stinging, scaring pain and he wants to tell her. But he could feel the burning tears gather in the corners of his eyes…
-Slam- goes the front door.
Uncle Vernon always hated when he cried.
Harry turns away from Artemis' hand, looking toward the ground. "I'm fine," he says without looking back.
The sigh that escapes Artemis is so filled with frustration and pain that Harry almost looks back at her when she stands.
"Fine," Artemis says quietly, allowing Harry to let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to bother him about it anymore. "We do this the hard way," she says, causing Harry to snap back to look at her confused as he watches her raise her hand. "Sleep," Artemis says with the full force and authority of the Goddess of the Hunt before snapping her fingers. Harry's eyes roll back into his head before his body tilts backwards and sleep overtakes his mind.
Artemis swiftly reaches out and takes Harry's now unconscious form into her arms. "Fool," she whispers softly and sadly as she picks up her son with little difficulty.
"Is he gonna be okay?" A voice asks from the darkness, Artemis isn't surprised by who it is, she was the one who had come to her the last two weeks to inform her that Harry wasn't sleeping. Artemis smiles at the concern in her hunter's voice over Harry but still, she answers the girl honestly.
"I don't know, Sophie. He has been through a lot in such a short amount of time, I was hoping he would open up to one of you, but he seems to be pushing all of us away," Artemis admits to the mad hunter softly as she adjusts Harry in her arms before turning to Sophie with a sad smile. "I am hoping Cecilia can help him like she had done last time," she says, watching as Sophie crosses her arms over her chest. A worried look on Sophie's face as she looks at Harry in Artemis' arms.
"Well," Sophie says with a sigh. "At least he'll get some sleep like this. I…know what a lack of sleep can do to the mind, especially one in a fragile state," she says with a frown and a look that spoke of her own experience in the matter, the dark bags under her own eyes showing the truth of her words.
"Would you like me to…" Artemis says, trailing off as she offers Sophie something unspoken. But the mad hunter merely shakes her head before speaking with a said smile.
"Thank you, My Lady, but no thank you. I know mine will pass sooner or later and I'll crash out somewhere down the line, I'm just worried about Harry," Sophie admits as she and Artemis begin to walk back towards the Hunters camp and Harry's tent. "He's been acting a bit crazy, -well, crazier than normal I mean," she says after pausing to consider who she was talking about.
Artemis says nothing more as they walk back to Harry's tent. She doesn't even try to correct Sophie because her mad hunter was right, Harry has been recklessly throwing himself into hunt after hunt in an attempt to bury his feelings under the rapture and bloodlust of the Hunt. That scared Artemis deeply, Harry was never one to listen to the warning about drawing on too much of the Hunt at once and now he was doing it nonstop in an attempt to kill the grief he felt over the deaths of Atalanta and Sirius.
An event, no matter what Artemis or Harry's sister would say, he blamed himself for.
Artemis once more found herself lost on what to do with Harry and how to help him, and that was a pain she couldn't put into words.
The Hunters Campground, July 19th 1996, 12:30 pm.
Phoebe has been true to her word and other than standard treatment, Harry was given nothing to help him heal faster so he could get back to the Hunt faster. But even if she did, Artemis had put her foot down and refused to let Harry come on any more hunts until he was fully healed and rested. She was still angry with Harry over what had happened during the first two ambushes and how he went out of control and not only endangered the Hunt but had gotten himself hurt with his own "foolish actions".
So, Harry was sequestered in his tent as Artemis and his sisters finished culling a majority of the pride of Chimaera's. They had returned to the camp an hour or so ago carrying trophies aplenty and began preparing for the celebration tonight for a successful hunt before breaking down camp the next morning to head back to the States. Harry had been kept away from any of the logistical planning for where they were headed to next, which was fine with him, he was out of his depth when it came to where was what in the states.
Harry was currently sitting on the floor in his tent, looking off into space, lost in his own mind and memories of what he could have done that night. Going over the what ifs and maybes, spiraling deeper into himself as his arm still lays in the sling, useless just like him.
He's pulled from his musing by a tapping at his tent door. "Harry, are you decent?" The voice of Zoë calls out in question.
"Yeah," Harry says back in a flat, emotionless tone, not bothering to look over at the entrance to his tent as the flaps part and Zoë steps inside. The lieutenant of Artemis takes one look at Harry and holds back a sigh, she knew the tone of voice from her little brother all too well by now, as well as the lost look on his face. He was thinking about that night again, she knew the look well, it was a look of regret. Zoë had spent many sleepless nights over her millenia's long life with the same look on her face as she thought of the day Herakles came to the garden.
It hurt even more seeing that same look on Harry's face.
She walks over to the edge of Harry's bed and sits down next to him, looking at the floor with her lips pressed into a thin line as she considers how to start.
"Harry," Zoë says softly. "I know- I understand what you are going through, we all do. And it's okay to feel what you are feeling, it's okay to not be okay, but you can't keep bottling it up and burying it under the Hunt. You need to learn to let yourself feel," Zoë tries as she turns to look at Harry. In the past two weeks, she had not seen him cry once over Atalanta's and Sirius' death's. Not ever when he had lit the pyre that held Atalanta's body. Only a cold, blank look sitting on his face while his pupils were split like a cats, and for the last two weeks they had not changed.
"I'm fine, Zoë," Harry says in the same hollow voice that cuts Zoë deeper than any blade as Harry's only good hand was balled into a fist. Zoë was sure it was because of Harry's great respect and love for her that kept his hand from striking her. But, honestly, she would prefer that then this cold emotionless shell wearing her little brother's face.
"Harry, you can talk to-" Zoë tries once more but Harry swiftly cuts her off.
"Is there something you want, Zoë?" Harry says with more heat in his tone than she had heard from him outside of a hunt in weeks. For a brief moment the fire in his eyes returned, bringing back the boy she had fought so much with, laughed with, joked with and teased. In that moment Zoë hoped for him to return, to scream, to cry, to throw a fist, to do anything to show he still had that fire in him.
But Harry blinks, and that fire is gone once more.
Zoë holds back a sigh before standing back up and withdrawing her hand, knowing she would try once more to wake that boy later. "Lady Artemis wishes to speak to you about what we will be doing next," Zoë says, not wishing to give away that her Lady was planning to split away from the Hunt for a few days with Harry to bring him to the local magic school for a visit.
She watches as Harry huffs before standing. "Alright, I'll go talk to her," he says in that same dead voice that he unknowingly hurt Zoë so much with. Zoë watches him leave his tent before she lets go of her sigh and rubs her face before turning to the wisest in the room.
"What are we going to do with him, Hedwig?" Zoë asks sadly as the Owl hoots back just as sad, not having an answer for the lieutenant.
Harry marches across the campground to the beat of a slamming door in his mind, his eyes firmly locked onto the ground. He didn't want to deal with this, he didn't want to see the hurt and worry in Zoë's eyes because He. Was. Fine. But he hates to see that pain in both Artemis and Zoë's eyes, in the eyes of all his sisters who looked at him.
He didn't want to hurt them like he was- -Slam-
Harry sighs before looking up at Artemis' tent with a frown, he didn't want to go in to talk to his mother. All Harry wanted to do was go on a hunt so he could feel joy and happiness once more, lost deep in the chase.
Ka-ka-BOOOOOOOOOM!
The hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood straight up as the sound of thunder shook him to his bones as lightning flashed just behind him where he stood. Harry turns to see what had just happened, surprised that the lightning had struck the earth and not one of the many trees that intersected the Hunters Campground. Harry blinks as he comes face to face with something he hadn't expected; a man.
He stood tall and proud with his shoulders straight and his hands slipped into the pockets of his immaculate and pressed pinstripe gray and blue suit. His long, dark, and curly hair was septed back and fell to his shoulders as a neatly trimmed but long beard sat on his face. The man's gray eyes moved and shifted like the storm clouds above as they turned to look down at Harry with a frown. The man slips one hand out of his pockets, the man's fingers crackle with electricity and the last thing Harry hears before a small jolt of that power jumped from the man's fingers to his chest was the scream of his mother.
"Father! Don't!" Followed by a boom and blackness as Harry was thrown from his feet and across the campground, remembering no more.
Chapter done!
Wooooo, boy is Harry chugging down that triple XL grande depresso. One of the things in The Half-Blood Prince I hated the most was just how quickly Harry got over Sirius' death because that is not how that works.
In this chapter, we see Harry using Occlumancy to block out things he'd rather not feel or deal with and refusing to actually deal with his issues. We also see a few members of the Hunters and Artemis trying to help Harry, trying to get him to talk, but as always he is being stubborn.
But don't worry, the whole first part is about Harry dealing with his issues and finally facing his trauma with a…little divine help.
Kingsaxcul, out!