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Chapter Text

Harry Potter is a nobody, and he will probably continue to be a nobody for the rest of his life.

He fades into the background in his own house, though he’ll never call it his home. His aunt and uncle had taken him in and ‘raised’ him with his cousin Dudley after his drunkard, druggie parents had driven headfirst into a tree, but Harry personally wishes that they had just gone and dropped him off at an orphanage, since they clearly don’t like or love him in any capacity. His clothes are all Dudley’s old ones, his toys are Dudley’s victims of his tantrums, and his room is the small cupboard underneath the staircase. As a baby and toddler, it wasn’t that big of an issue. He could fully stand in there, and when he went to sleep, he could stretch out as much as he wanted to. But as he grew, the space around him became smaller snd smaller. He has to sleep in a ball most nights, and he can’t sit up too quickly, otherwise he’ll knock his head on the sloping ceiling.

Each of his relatives hold some sort of vendetta against him, as if he had personally offended them in the past. Uncle Vernon is the worst, in his opinion. Apparently, it was his idea for Harry’s room to be the cupboard under the stairs, which he insists that Harry should be eternally grateful for. He isn’t physical most of the time, but he has gotten a couple of bad bruises that hurt badly every time anything brushed against it. His voice is his main weapon; the fact that his deafening rants about his ‘whore mother’ and ‘good-for-nothing father’ haven’t ruptured Harry’s eardrums is simply a miracle.

Dudley is practically a younger version of his father, and so he naturally hates Harry with a passion. He’s always out for blood, figuratively or literally, since him and his buddies have made it a game to catch him and beat him into a pulp. The only good thing is that when it’s just Dudley, Harry runs away, and fast — he’s always been a fast runner, and the small chance he had at staking a place in the school was cross-country, until the Dursleys talked to the teacher and forbid him to do it. It’s the opposite for Dudley, who’s about as smart as he is quick (and he is neither). Harry takes a small amount of joy in insulting Dudley in such a clever way that the boy can’t even tell, but only a small amount, since Harry being happy is like a personal failure to the Dursleys — they must keep him as downtrodden as possible.

The only anomaly is his Aunt Petunia. She’s still a rather bitter and mean woman, and she was clearly jealous of Harry’s mother for some reason. It doesn’t explain why she liked to skirt around Harry like she’s scared of him. Nobody in Harry’s life would defend him — in fact, most people would applaud her and her family for keeping him on a leash. Harry doesn’t know if it’s his dark grey eyes that unnerve her, or if the sharp, bony corners of his body that she helped create haunt her somehow. He’s not scary — no grown woman in her right mind would be afraid of a just-below-five-foot child with broken glasses that are bound together with tons of tape. Not that he’s complaining, anyway. Sometimes, that fear earns him an extra slice of toast in the mornings, bumping the total up to two (while Dudley gets four slices, plus eggs and bacon), or less chores than usual.

Harry can handle all of that; he’s been handling it since he was unluckily dropped on their doorstep. The one thing he can barely stand — the one thing that might just make him snap — is when they ignore him. He already knows nobody cares about him. He already knows that if he disappeared, nobody would even notice. But do they have to rub it in? Must they wipe his entire existence from their photo walls, and walk by him like he doesn’t even matter?

He knows he’s a nobody. He doesn’t need anyone to keep telling him that.

Of course, as much as he hates it, it opens up opportunities for him, opportunities he’d never get if they always breathed down his throat. The Dursleys barely notice if he comes back late after school, since they just assume it takes him a long time to get back. It means he can spend that time walking in a park, breathing in the fresh, cool air after sitting in some stuffy classroom for hours.

Speaking of school — in many ways, it’s the same old story as what he experiences at the Dursleys, but really, it tends to be worse. His school is just like Number 4 Privet Drive, if there were forty Dudleys and ten Uncle Vernons, where the rest of the kids in his year treat him like garbage and the teachers turn a blind eye. His curly hair is uneven from the amount of times that people have stuck gum into his hair, and he has to cut it out with scissors. The teachers seem to think he’s the devil reincarnated, and they believe whatever lies they’ve been fed by his aunt and uncle, and his previous schools.

He has a lot of previous schools.

It all started in Year Three, when he was kicked out after ‘that little psychopath electrocuted Timmy White’, according to their teacher, who never liked him anyway. What really happened was that Timmy was being his horrible self as usual, pulling harshly at Harry’s matted hair (imagine the pain) while they were meant to be playing in the playground, just after a bout of rain. All Harry knows is that he was just so angry, and then Timmy stepped into a puddle. How was he meant to know that Timmy would be electrocuted? He was fine, anyway — a little dazed, maybe. Still, he cried and blamed him, and so Harry was swiftly removed from that school.

Then there’s that incident that happened in Year Four, when he supposedly exploded the school bus during a field trip. It was a wonder he was even allowed to go, but it was free, and his relatives would have him out of their hair for a few more hours. They were at a museum — some kids weren’t letting him leave the bus, and he was irritated because he actually wanted to see what was in the museum, and then the bus just… fell apart, in a rather violent way. Just because they found him standing in the middle of the wreckage with his bullies sprawled around him does not mean he caused the bus to explode.

And then there was Year Five, where he was asked to leave after the year ended after he blew up the science lab during a Physics practical experiment while trying to connect the wires. He didn’t do anything, honest. It was just that he would pick up the battery to move it, then the circuit would just go haywire, catching on fire. The odd thing was he never got shocked — he would just feel an odd buzzing in his body, as if it had almost fallen asleep. It actually did the opposite of that, though, since he had never been more alert. Somehow, this meant that he must have done it on purpose, and though it was his second last year of primary school, he was taken out just a month before the end of the school year.

These odd things that he couldn’t possibly have caused, but somehow did, aren’t the only strange things about Harry Potter. He swears that he’ll see women with one donkey leg and one metal leg if he squints hard enough, or a really big lorry will become a huge beast for a fraction of a second. Plus, these figures always seem to be following him, if from a distance. He’s never brought it up to anyone, because it seems like nobody else sees these weird happenings anyway, and he’s not dumb enough to give people even more proof of him being the resident ‘weird kid’. He just moves on, pretending like he isn’t going crazy, because why else would he see these things?

Another nail in the coffin is when he tries to read, and the letters on the page look like they swim around and do little flips like those teenage guys on skateboards do. No matter what, no matter the method his teachers tried to get his to understand letters and words and phonics and all that other stuff, it never stuck. How people read for fun, Harry will never know.

Now, here he is, in Year Six. He had told himself during the summer (when he was trapped inside his cupboard) that this year will be different, since Dudley would be all the way in Surrey Primary while Harry would go to Stonewall, the only primary school that would even consider taking him in. Sure, Stonewall’s an intimidating place, where all the teachers who clearly never wanted to be around children look down at you in disgust, but Harry was sure that the Dursley’s influence wouldn’t reach him here. Clearly he was mistaken, since Uncle Vernon reached his teachers first, telling them that he was a delinquent. Someone not meant to be trusted.

Even until now, he tries to change their minds by staying in the background and not letting anyone rile him up (and only touching his electrical circuits with his shirt sleeves over his hands), but it’s no use. His teachers still glare at him in suspicion, especially his PE teacher, Mr Alberti, who really should not be a PE teacher at all with the way his potbelly is spilling out underneath his shirt.

The man hates him beyond all comprehension and reason. Of all the detentions Harry has ever gotten (of which there are many), Mr Alberti has given him the most by far, for anything you can imagine — for dribbling a ball incorrectly, for being ‘unsportsmanlike’ for giving up after the entire class gangs up on him for dodgeball, and for ‘loitering’ around his own cubby — what does that even mean? He always sides with the other kids on everything, even if it obviously isn’t his fault.

And so, because Harry is the unluckiest kid in the world, he ends up with Mr Alberti while everyone else in his year is on a field trip, probably pretending to take notes but really just using it as a holiday.

They’re at the zoo, and while Harry isn’t especially fond of animals, he would’ve still liked to go to see the birds, especially since that means he wouldn’t be here, running laps in the gym while Mr Alberti shouts at him to run faster. However, his relatives didn’t sign his permission slip simply out of spite, though they told the school they didn’t want Harry ‘sullying the school’s prestigious image’ — prestigious is not the right word, at all, since everyone in the area hates Stonewall students. Still, the administration heartily agreed, so he’s stuck at school, being punished as if it’s his fault that his relatives didn’t sign the stupid form.

Harry’s panting hard by his eighth lap, and his shoe gets caught in a small gap in the tile, causing him to stumble. He uses it as a quick stop to catch his breath, but he’s sent sprinting again by Mr Alberti. “Run, Potter! No stopping!”

He can feel the sweat on his face and in his hair, and he scratches his scalp. Apparently, Mr Alberti doesn’t like that, either, and he shouts again, his harsh voice echoing off the whitewashed walls. “Run! Run, Potter, and feel my wrath!”

Harry snorts. He already is feeling his wrath — what an odd way to phrase it. Harry keeps going.

“Run! Run!” Mr. Alberti keeps screeching, and this time, Harry’s not even sure what he’s done wrong. “Run, Potter, and then you will die!”

…What?

Harry comes to a stop. He turns, just in time to see a winged something fly over him, talons outstretched.

He screams, and ducks.

The creature’s claws only tear through air, and it screeches. Harry looks around for Mr. Alberti, hoping that the man will find enough compassion in him to not let him get eaten by this thing, but the man is gone.

Did he seriously run away? That’s what Harry thinks at first, but then the creature shrieks again as it goes in for another dive, and Harry realizes that Mr. Alberti had no way to leave the gym.

Meaning that Mr. Alberti is the winged creature.

Harry flattens himself on the floor before the Mr. Alberti-slash-horrifying-monster can grab him, then he dashes to the doors of the gym, desperate to grab his bag and book it. But before he can get across the room, the ‘Mr. Alberti’ thing swoops past him, stationing itself in front of the doors, his only exit. He eyes the sharp talons of the thing and winces — all he has to defend himself is the footballs in a container, set out for the Year Elevens, and his own bitten fingernails.

The winged creature takes a step forward, and Harry goes scrambling back.

“Little hero,” he — it — hisses, taking another step. Harry does too, but finds himself backed up against a very solid wall. “You have hidden for too long, but now I have found you!” It bares its teeth, and Harry is dismayed to find that they are very, very sharp.

“He — hero?” Harry asks. “I’m — I’m no hero.” Heroes are brave and kind and worthy, and definitely not a tiny little boy with clothes that swamp him and glasses so thick the world is practically a blur without them.

Heroes would not sit down while being bullied. They’d stand up for what’s right instead of sitting there and taking the punches.

A hero is not a nobody, and that is exactly what Harry Potter is.

So what is so significant about him that this creature seems to think otherwise?

“But you are, Potter,” it says, flapping its wings, which ruffles Harry’s hair even from across the gym. “I smelt you, godling, and now I will eat you!”

At its last words, it lunges, and Harry barely manages to throw himself out of the way before the beast shoots at him, missing and crashing into the bricks in the wall. The impact creates a decently-sized crater — the field is actually visible through a small hole — but the creature itself still seems to be alive, this time more angry and out for blood.

Harry immediately makes a beeline for the door, planning to run and run until he collapses. The door keeps getting closer, but all of a sudden, he’s blown off his feet and thrown into a side wall. Luckily, he doesn’t hear a snap, but his arm hurts like hell. He slides down the wall, holding his injured arm tightly.

“A shame, halfblood,” the creature says, not finding it a shame at all. “The gods are already weak, but once you perish, they will fall apart! Killing you is the ultimate blow to the gods!”

Harry has no idea what the monster is talking about, but through all the panic and pain and confusion, he thinks one thought to himself: I will not die today.

He isn’t sure where this sudden self-confidence appears from, but he isn’t going to question it. He manages to push himself up into a standing position using the wall, and he scans his general area for weapons. The footballs are only a few meters away, and if he can get them…

Weirdly, Harry feels in his element in this fight. He’s not lying down and taking it, but he’s pushing back.

Maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter can be somebody. If he doesn’t die, that is.

He dives for the balls, just barely being missed by Mr. Alberti’s lunge as claws tear through the back of his shirt. A ball comes into contact with his hands, and he throws it as hard as he can into the creature’s face, from right there on the ground. It squawks, but Harry doesn’t give it a chance to attack before he throws another. He grabs two more and runs once more to the doors, ready to get his bag and bolt.

“You will not escape, Potter!” The thing screams, and Harry throws a ball in the general direction of the voice. A thump echoes through the gym — he missed. Still, it enrages the creature, and it goes in for the kill one last time.

Harry can hear it cutting through the air behind him, and will bet all the money he has (thirteen pounds and twenty-six pence, stuffed underneath the mattress in his cupboard) that its talons are out, ready to be driven into his back. He doesn’t plan to let that happen.

One last duck, and it goes speeding above him, and straight into the gym doors, which buckle and break apart from the tremendous force. Harry, still holding a ball, doesn’t hesitate to dart for the open door before the Mr. Alberti-thing recovers. His bag sits on the bench closest to the door between him and his freedom, and he thanks his lucky stars that there’s nobody else there to throw his bag into the trash can or lock it inside their own locker, because Harry would probably be dead.

In a second, his bag is swinging on his shoulder as he pulls the door open, only to come face-to-face with not only his shocked-looking Maths teacher, but both the Deputy Headmistress and the Headmaster. Harry, still locked in panic mode, tries to push past them and escape, but he’s dragged back by his collar.

“Potter,” the Headmaster barks, pointing at the twisted doors and the large crater in the wall — or a hole, since the flying creature must have used it as its escape. “Explain.”

The good news is that the weird, winged creature is gone, and that Harry is no longer in mortal danger.

The bad news? Harry can’t explain a thing — and he’s still holding a football. Even worse, his arm is starting to hurt again. He sighs, and resigns himself to his ultimately inevitable fate.

***

Really, he should have a chair reserved in the Headmaster’s office just for him.

He can’t even begin to count the amount of times he’s been sent to this very room by teachers fed-up with his constant disruption in class, but he can’t get them to understand that his body just doesn’t know how to sit still, not like the other kids do. Even now, he’s tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, desperate to stand up and pace.

But pacing is left to the adults, or in this case, the Headmaster.

“Do you know the damage you have cost us, Potter?” The man asks harshly, stomping up and down the length of the office. Harry doesn’t know, so he keeps quiet, but this also seems to aggravate him. “Stonewall graciously offers you a place in our school, and you repay us by destroying the gym doors and blasting a hole through the wall?” His face is as red as a tomato, turning a darker shade of crimson as he lets go of the steam he’s been holding.

“No other school would take you! You have been expelled from over five schools! We thought we could change you, stomp that insolence out of you, but you’ll clearly always be a troublemaker!”

Harry stays quiet. He stares at a knot in the Headmaster’s wooden desk, barely paying attention.

“I will call your guardians, and you will go home, and you will never set foot in Stonewall again!” He slams his hand on the desk at the end of his sentence, and it jolts Harry to life.

“Sir, it wasn’t my fault! It was Mr Alberti — he tried to attack me —”

“Who is this ‘Mr Alberti?’” The Headmaster looks confused, but then he scowls. “Some imaginary friend of yours? Trying to push the blame onto someone else?”

What? “Mr Alberti as in the PE teacher!”

The Headmaster laughs. It isn’t a nice one. “Oh, Potter, I’ve caught you in your lies now, haven’t I? The PE teacher, Mr Norrigan, went with the other students on the field trip!”

Harry can’t speak. All he can do is blink blankly at the Headmaster. He has no idea who this ‘Mr Norrigan’ is, nor why the Headmaster suddenly believes that he’s the PE teacher.

“Nothing to say, Potter?” The Headmaster has what Harry can only describe as a hungry look on his face. He hopes that he doesn’t also turn into a student-attacking monster, because Harry’s so tired that he might just let him finish the job Mr Alberti started. “Well, sit there, and I will call your guardians.” He picks up the office phone next to him and dials a number. He doesn’t even have to flip through the school’s phone book to find his house phone number — he has it memorized.

“Hello? Is this the Dursley residence?” A beat where Aunt Petunia must speak, and then the Headmaster continues. “Yes, this is Stonewall Secondary. I’m calling concerning your ward, Harry Potter… I’m sorry to say, he’s been expelled. He majorly damaged school property… yes, he must leave immediately… Oh, you don’t have a car? Of course, he can go home the normal way.” That, of course, is a lie. The Dursleys do have a car, but Harry barely ever gets to be inside.

Their conversation continues. “Alright, I will send him on his way. Thank you, Mrs Dursley, and I’m very sorry about this news.” With the way the man is practically grinning with delight, Harry guesses that he’s not actually all that sorry.

“Potter, do you have everything of yours in that bag?” Harry nods. In the bag, he has his school books and stationery for that day and the three pounds he needs to take a bus home. “Perfect,” the Headmaster says. “You will be leaving immediately.” He points to the door. “Go!”

Harry wastes no time leaving the school. Stonewall was torture, and he tells himself that it’s a good thing that he’s leaving, but really, he knows better.

There’s always somewhere worse to go.

***

The bus is rather empty. It is the middle of the day, so most people are at work or school, so the only people in the bus with Harry are two teenage boys who must be skipping class, a woman holding a long shopping list, and three elderly women who are knitting. One holds the spool of yarn, another knits what looks to be a very large sock, and another holds a pair of scissors. For some reason, instead of focusing on their creation, they seem to be content staring right at him.

Harry tries to ignore them all for the most part, opting instead to look out the window and watch as he moves closer to his doom, away from the city and towards the suburbs, where his aunt is lying in wait, probably itching to throw him into his cupboard as soon as possible. But for some reason, he can’t help looking back at the three old ladies every once in a while, and he can’t shake the fact that they seem to always be looking at him, no matter how unassuming he thinks himself to be. In reality they’re probably only judging him for not being at school, since he’s still wearing his PE kit — it’s a good thing the slashes in the back aren’t visible, otherwise he’d be a lot more noticeable. Still, he tries to avoid their gaze, he truly does, but at one point, he makes eye contact with the last lady, the one with the scissors, and it’s like something beyond his control is keeping him from looking away. Her eyes finally turn from his to the scissors in her hands, and Harry watches as she cuts a piece of string.

Harry doesn’t know why, but it makes him uneasy. He hugs his bag closer to his chest. Managing to rip his gaze away from the women, he goes back to looking out the window, his dread multiplying in his roiling stomach as he watches the trees flash by.

***

His knocks rattle the front door. “Aunt Petunia? Are you there?” It doesn’t take long for Aunt Petunia’s head to peek round the slightly open door, scowling.

“What were you thinking, boy?” She asks, pulling him inside roughly by the sleeve. “Getting expelled from Stonewall? The only school that accepted you?” Just before she closes the door, she glances around the street to checking for any nosy neighbors (news flash, they’re all just as nosy as her). She’s about to go into a rant about how lazy and unappreciative he is, he’s sure, but she pauses, looking him up and down.

Harry looks down too. He still has his gym kit on, not that he would recognize it — his shirt’s got huge tears through them, the ones that were blocked from sight on the bus or he would’ve gotten a lot more weird stares, not just the ones from those old, creepy ladies. His legs are also covered in some dust from the barely-mopped gym floor, painting him a drab grey. Looking back up at Aunt Petunia, he expects to be treated to a lecture on how he never presents himself well any second, but instead of anger in her eyes, he sees fear, apprehension. That isn’t necessarily weird in itself, but instead of seeming scared of him, she looks scared for him.

“What happened?” Her voice is faint, but firm. “Don’t lie, boy. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Harry considers lying anyway, since she would never believe him. She’d just accuse him of being a troublemaker, and then she’d storm off to enroll him in some other low-caliber school. But there’s something in her expression that tells him that no matter what he said, no matter how far-fetched, she would listen.

“My PE teacher turned into a flying… something and tried to kill me in the gym,” he says in a rush, as if saying it quickly will make his Aunt more likely to believe him. He waits for the inevitable accusation that he’s lying, but it never comes.

Looking up again, Aunt Petunia has gone paler than Harry’s ever seen before. She stands stock-still, and Harry bets that if he pushes her just now, she’d keel over just like a tree. It’s an odd thing to see his Aunt Petunia so frozen in shock that she barely moves a muscle. She always seems to be moving.

After a few seconds, Harry’s a little bored of just standing in the hall, so he tries to makes his way past her, but she suddenly grabs his arm, pulling him to her.

She’s almost never physical, and against his will, Harry shrinks away from her.

She doesn’t notice. “Pack that bag full of clothes. Leave enough space for some food.” With that, she pivots on her heel and marches up the stairs, and leaves Harry to stare after her in shock. Is she seriously sending him away, just because he was attacked? Fine by me, Harry thinks, and he goes to his cupboard to remove the school books from his backpack, replacing them with his worn-out, stretched clothes. He doesn’t even need to budget to make room for food, because he just doesn’t have that many things to wear. He debates changing out of his gym uniform, since there are still huge slashes through his shirt, and so he decides to, putting on a pair of jeans and one of the smallest shirts he owns — which isn’t saying much, since it still goes halfway down his thighs. He digs around underneath his thin mattress, unearthing the thirteen pounds he had hidden, and stuffs the notes into the bag after his clothes.

Aunt Petunia comes back down the stairs, holding... money? He hadn’t expected to get any more. She thrusts it at him, and when he doesn’t immediately take it, she shakes them. “Take them! I’m already taking this from your Uncle, I don’t need him to catch us in the act.”

Harry’s brain short-circuits. “You — what?”

“Take it!”

Harry does, stuffing the notes inside the bag.

“You’ve packed? There’s space for food?”

“Yes, but —”

Aunt Petunia just walks into the kitchen. Harry, still desperate for answers, follows her. “Are you going to tell me anything?” She ignores him and just busies herself by putting toast in the toaster and some leftovers from the day before. “Why are you ignoring me? Hello?”

“Be patient!” She snaps, and Harry steps back. She composes herself. “I’ll tell you what you need to know in a second, alright?”

Harry has so many questions, the first of them being what the hell is going on? Still, he heeds her words and sits down at the dining table. After about five minutes, his Aunt presents him with a Tupperware container filled with three slices of toast and some of the leftover chicken from the night before, and oddly enough, a knife. He looks up at her, eyes questioning.

“From what I know, you’ll need it.” He takes the knife, but not the food container.

Harry’s still hesitant to take it — he’s never had this much food in front of him that’s for him — but she pushes it across the table and into his crossed arms. He encloses the box in his arms, just in case she tries to take it back.

Aunt Petunia sits at the table, and is quiet for a few seconds. She clears her throat. “This is about your parents.”

Harry just stares at her, too shocked to even speak. She never talks about his parents, even though his mother is her own sister. If she had somehow managed to wipe all knowledge of them existing from her brain, Harry wouldn’t be surprised.

“Your mother — she used to — er — sleep around.” She sniffs. “Disgusting habit, in my opinion. But one day, she met this man. They spent the holidays together, and afterwards, she was pregnant.”

“With me,” Harry realizes.

“Yes.” She looks him up and down before continuing. “But this man — he wasn’t a normal person. He was —” It’s as if her throat closed up, stopping her from talking any more.

“He was what?” Harry knows the bare minimum about his mum — her name was Lily, and she had red hair and green eyes, eyes he didn’t share. But his dad? He didn’t even know his name.

“That man — your father — was a god.”

Harry blinks, waiting for Aunt Petunia to say that she was joking, but Aunt Petunia never jokes. So, he opts to stare at her like she’s crazy.

“Stop looking at me like that!” She snaps. “I am telling the truth. Do you know anything about Greek mythology, boy?”

Harry, mystified, shakes his head.

“Of course,” she mutters. “Well. The Ancient Greeks used to worship all sorts of gods, but mostly twelve — the Olympians. They are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Hephaestus, Hestia, Hermes, Aphrodite and Demeter. There are many other gods, but they are the main ones. Just like in Greek mythology, the Gods often came down to Earth and had children with mortals. Those children are known as demigods.”

“Is — is this a joke?” Harry asks, because there is literally no other way this could be happening. Wait, there’s another way, actually. “Or a dream?”

“Was that monster that attacked you a joke or a dream?” She asks harshly. Harry shakes his head. “The Gods exist, Harry. And you are a demigod — half mortal, half god.”

Harry’s quiet for a long time. Aunt Petunia surely must be crazy, but deep in his heart, he somehow knows what she says is true. When he speaks, he asks his most important question.

“Which god is my dad?”

Aunt Petunia snorts. “You think I know, boy? I don’t want to involve myself any more in that world that telling you this information, so that you can go.”

“Where?” He asks. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“To Heathrow.”

“In London?”

“Yes, where else?” She snaps. “When you get there, you need to go up to the person manning the last bag check-in to the left, and give him this.” She places what seems to be a large golden coin on the table. “He’ll know what to do with you then.”

Harry takes it. “How will I get there? Are you driving me?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said about not wanting to get involved?” She sneers. “Take the bus, the tube, anything that gets you there. And I’d get there quick. More monsters may be on your tail.”

Harry sits for a second, trying to internalize everything he’s just been told. His father is a god. He’s a demigod.

Is this the kind of break he’s been waiting for? He’s always wanted an escape, a way to break free from his usually horrible life. Still, as he takes in all this new information, he knows this isn’t really what he wanted.

Guess you don’t always get what you want. Harry’s known that his whole life.

He takes the Tupperware container, stuffs it, the money, the gold coin and the knife into his bag, and walks out the front door without a glance back.

***

He’s back on a bus, though this time, without the creepy old ladies. He had stopped at one of those donation bins since he would definitely freeze to death in his thin shirt at night. He took a black beanie and a red coat. Maybe it wasn’t the best color choice, but it was the thing that fit him the best, so here he was. Pulling his beanie farther down his head and pushing his glasses up with a finger, he goes back to looking out the window.

Surrey, thankfully, isn’t far from London. He’ll have to get off a few buses because of their routes, but hopefully, he’ll be safe.

From his spot in the back of the bus, he scans the bus once more. A man holding a briefcase, some old man who really shouldn’t be smoking in a bus, a woman tying up her blonde hair. No old ladies in sight.

He places his head on his backpack. Sleep comes for him fairly quickly, but his dreams are anything but pleasant.

***

A flash of blinding lightning, then the rain pours.

And it pours, and it pours.

“Return the bolt to me!” A distorted voice cries, and Harry can’t see because of the lightning.

Then there’s a second voice, responding to the first’s accusations: “I don’t have it!” More water falls on the world.

Bright light and cold water clash in the air, and the impact shakes Harry to his bones.

“...by the Summer Solstice!” The first voice booms, and in a great flash bright than Harry’s ever seen before, burning the layers of his eyes and skin away, Harry awakens, scared and shivering.

***

“...get out, kid, you hear?”

Harry opens his eyes to the grumpy-looking bus driver, staring down at him in annoyance. “I’ve got a tight schedule. You’re going to London, yeah?” At Harry’s nod, he goes on. “Well, get off, then! I’m meant to be turning back to Surrey.”

He stomps back to the front of the bus, and Harry dashes onto the sidewalk as the man promptly closes the doors behind him and drives off.

Harry walks along the sidewalk, checking the street names. He seems to have been dropped in a neighborhood somewhere, but whether he’s still in Surrey or if he’s now in Greater London, he doesn’t know. His solution is to just keep walking until he finds another bus stop.

He walks for a while.

He starts to get hungry, but he holds off. He doesn’t have much food, and besides, he’s lasted longer without food before. His legs do get tired, though, and just when he thought he’d collapse, he finds a bus stop. He sits on the benches, giving a huge sigh in relief. The bus appears after about ten minutes, and after forking over four pounds to the driver, he’s off to the closest station of the London Underground — he is in Greater London after all.

This bus is a more populated, probably because it’s nearing the late afternoon and people are coming back from school and work. He tries to stay away from the students, since he’s never had a good interaction with one, from his own school or from elsewhere. Instead, he squeezes himself into the back, trying to make himself as small as possible so that he isn’t noticed.

Unfortunately, a woman comes to sit across the aisle from him, and turns to him. She has big brown eyes and brown hair streaked with grey. She’s meaning to seem nice, Harry can tell, but there’s something off about her that he just can’t pinpoint.

“Hi, dear,” she says in a soft voice that puts all of Harry’s hairs on edge. “Are you lost?”

He shakes his head and mutters “No,” before turning away from her, self-consciously pulling down his beanie.

“Are you sure?” She continues. Harry rapidly nods his head. Still, she doesn’t seem deterred. “Have you lost anything?”

He turns back to her before he even really thinks about it, looking at her oddly. “No, I haven’t lost anything, alright? I don’t want to talk to you.” He turns back around.

“Well, you see, my master’s lost something of his,” she says amicably, and Harry’s eyes widen. “He just wants to talk to you, to see if you have it. This isn’t going to be painful.” Harry’s not fooled. He hears the unspoken message: this isn’t going to be painful, unless you make me make it painful.

Somehow, Harry knows just what to do. In two seconds flat, he has his knife out and pointed at the woman, who no longer looks much like a woman, but rather, a weird, humanoid bird. Not exactly like Mr Alberti, but close. Somehow, nobody around them is reacting to this woman-bird hybrid, but instead acting as if she didn’t exist.

“Stay away,” he pants, voice shaky. “”Leave me alone.”

She frowns, though no sadness reaches her eyes. “I guess you must learn the hard way.”

She lunges for him, and Harry swings the knife on instinct. It only grazes her arm, but she hisses, and goes again. At the last second, Harry drops off his seat to let her hit the window.

Screams are now ringing through the air, and the driver, startled, sharply turns the wheel.

The bus is swerving, and Harry’s wedged in between two seats while a monster is about to kidnap or possibly kill him.

Then, the bus totals.

His bag is almost thrown away into the chaos, but he manages to grab it at the last second — his beanie isn’t so lucky. As the bus turns, he hits his head hard on the wall since he’s still stuck between the seats, but people have gone flying throughout the bus. He thinks he hears more than one sick crack. Thankfully, the bird-woman is also pulled away from him, and he manages to wiggle out from between the seats and stand up dizzily.

He hears the bloodcurdling screams of the people on the bus, the innocent people who don’t deserve to be hurt because he just happens to be there, and feels anger. This monster endangered them all.

She now stands at the other end of the totaled bus, slowly making her way towards him.

“You’ve chosen the hard way, hero.” A whip materializes in her hands from nowhere. She cracks it, and the snap nearly bursts Harry’s eardrums. “My master will have you!”

The whip lashes out at his ankle, wrapping around it. He’s yanked hard off his feet and dragged up to her, the ground/roof of the bus grating on his back and his ankle now aching. His arm also begins to act up again. He can still see the fearful faces of the bus-goers, crouched behind upside-down seats, and he still feels that anger, that pull. His knife is still clutched in one hand, his bag in the other.

He’s not normally an angry person. In fact, considering how badly he’s been treated his whole life, it’s a wonder that he isn’t. But looking up at this creature, this creature that nearly killed not only him but everyone on this bus, he feels that unfamiliar anger. It pulls on him, just begging him to use it.

And he does.

With a cry, he springs up and stabs his knife through her stomach. She obviously hadn’t expected that. She didn’t drop to the ground like he expected, but instead faded into golden dust which fell onto his hair and shoulders.

He’s panting, and his ankle is throbbing and most likely swollen. His right hand is still wrapped around his knife.

His knife, which has sparks jumping all over it. It’s electric.

At first, he thinks when did Aunt Petunia get an electric knife? But then, something tells him that it isn’t the knife that can do this.

It’s him.

He realizes that there’s a loud silence around him, and he looks around to see everyone in the bus staring fearfully at him. He’s kind of annoyed — didn’t they see him save their lives? Then again, they didn’t seem to see the bird-woman at first, either.

In that moment, the best thing he can think to do is run. It’s more of a pained jog, but he still manages to get out of the busted doors and disappear into the night.

***

His ankle is definitely more messed up than he thought.

The longer he limps around, the worse it gets, until he can barely put any pressure on it. He’s been walking for hours, and dusk is starting to set in.

He wants to kick something. He’s supposed to have made it to Heathrow by now! Instead, he’s stuck wandering around this random street with closed shops lining both sides. Just when he isn’t sure if he can go on any longer, he hears a roar in one of the alleyways, followed by a scream.

He’s barely able to stand, and his hunger levels have gone through the roof since he hasn’t had a chance to sit and eat, but he can’t let someone else get killed when he’s so close to them. Forgetting about his ankle, he rushes into the alleyway to find a huge beast towering over a girl who looks to be around his age. She’s pressed against a wall, clearly trying to make herself as small as possible. Her eyes are wide and scared.

“Hey!” He calls out, and both the girl and the beast turn to look at him. He dimly notes that the girl’s eyes are a kaleidoscope of colors, but that is overshadowed by the fact that the beast has only one large eye.

It lumbers over to him, and he immediately knows that he won’t be able to kill it with just a kitchen knife, no matter how electrified it is. What he needs to do is grab the girl and run. Just before it gets close to him, he dives to the side, then quickly gets behind it. Ignoring its earth-shaking roar, he runs up to the girl. This close, he can see that her skin is a bit darker than his, and her hair is wildly curly and frizzy, as if she’s been rolling around on the ground. He pulls on her arm and tries to tug her out of the alley before the monster can keep up, but it’s like she’s stuck to the wall.

“Come on!” He mutters, but she isn’t moving, just staring up at the beast. It finally gets its bearings after his little trick, and corners them.

It looks like they’re about to die. Fortunately, Harry doesn’t feel like dying today.

He finally manages to pull the girl from the wall. He wraps her in his arms and flattens them against the side walls of the alley, trying to take up as little space as possible. The girl finally seems to come to herself, and she supports herself on her own two feet. Her swirling eyes meet his stormy ones, and he jerks his head. She nods.

Then, they run.

The monster, caught by surprise, almost manages to grab Harry, but when it touches him, a spark runs up his arm and into the monster’s, making it jerk back in pain. They turn the corner and continue to run.

“Come on!” He shouts to the girl again as she starts to fall behind. But then, he hears something.

“Hermione, honey!” A man’s voice floats out of the alley they just ran from. “Hermione, I’m here!” Harry’s eyes widen. Did they leave someone there and not notice? He turns back to the alley and is about to run back, when the girl grabs his arm, shaking her head. It takes him a second to realize that tears are falling from her eyes.

“Let go! We’ve left someone there!” Her grip is strong, a lot stronger than he would have expected. The girl doesn’t speak, only closes her eyes and shakes her head again.

But then, the voice changes. “Harry, darling,” it says, and he stiffens. He swears he’s never heard that voice in his life, but his brain disagrees. It sounds like airy living rooms and warm hugs.

It sounds like home. Home isn’t a word Harry uses often.

“Harry, baby,” it says. “Harry, it’s Mummy. Mummy’s here.”

Despite himself, his eyes begin to water. He tries to pull his arm from the girl’s grasp, but she won’t let go.

“Stop!” He tells her, tugging with all his might. “What’s wrong with you? That’s my mum! That’s my mum!”

“It isn’t,” she whispers, and he notices it’s the first time she’s spoken. “It isn’t her.”

“How do you know?” He cries, and tears are running down his face now. “You haven’t met her.”

“I haven’t,” she agrees, “but it’s the Cyclops. It’s trying to mess with us.”

“The what? Look, I don’t care if you don’t want to go back, but I am —”

“No!” Her eyes are desperate. “You can’t. Cyclops can mimic the voices of the people you love! If you go back, you’ll be eaten!”

He looks at her, then at the alley, then back at her. “But — my mum — that man —”

“It isn’t them.” Her eyes bore into his, and he notes that she’s slightly taller than him. “It isn’t. If you go back, you’ll die.”

Something about her voice makes his brain go a little fuzzy. Maybe she’s right, going back there seems like a bad idea… Unconsciously, he takes a few steps back, away from the girl and the alleyway.

His mind clears, and with the mind-fog leaves his strength. He wants to ask what he just did to her, but instead, he collapses against the nearest wall. His adrenaline has faded out of him, only leaving him with an ankle he definitely can’t walk on for a while and a pounding headache from banging his head against the wall of the bus. He slides down the brick wall, unable to support himself any longer, but the girl catches him before he drops completely to the ground. His vision is blurry, even though he’s sure he still has his glasses on (how they haven’t been lost, he’ll never know), but he can still see the swirl of colours that is this girl’s eyes.

“Your name is Harry?” She asks, sitting next to him. She fishes around her in her pocket.

“How… how do you know my name?” He wipes his eyes hastily, but his vision doesn’t clear. The blurriness isn’t his tears after all, but his blinding headache.

She looks at him oddly, but then shakes her head. “The Cyclops said it.”

“Oh.” He’s struggling to keep his eyes open, but he watches her finally pull out what looks like a square of butterscotch. She breaks off a bit and hands it to him. “Thanks. You’re Hermione, then?”

“Yes, Hermione Granger,” she says. “Named after a Greek princess, you know.” She eyes the piece of butterscotch that’s still in his hands. “Well, eat it, won’t you?”

He eats it, and it’s like a river of energy flows through his body. The sharp spikes in his ankles fade into a dull ache, and his sight returns as his headache gradually fades. The butterscotch tastes exactly like this one lemony-flavoured ice lolly he had been given by a girl who had wanted to be friends with him in Year Three, before Dudley drove her away. “Woah.” He turns to the girl — Hermione, eyes wide. “What is this stuff?”

“Ambrosia,” she says, a rather pleased expression on her face. “Food of the gods.”

“It tastes great! Do you have any more?”

“You can’t have any.” She shifts to face him. “Any more, and you’ll burn up. And… well…” she fidgets with her hands, suddenly nervous. Harry’s hit by the impression that this isn’t a feeling Hermione has often. “It would be unfortunate if the person who saved me immediately died from an ambrosia overdose. Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem,” he says. “So, you’re a demigod, too?”

She nods. “I’m a daughter of Aphrodite. I was rather excited when I was little, you know. I mean, living in a world where the Greek gods exist sounds fascinating on paper, doesn’t it? And so does being the child of a god, at first, until monsters start to attack you. I was really very miffed when a monster attacked me for the first time, because, well, I had all these ideas in my head about how amazing it would be to live in such a world! I’ve been learning about Greek mythology my whole life, really, so I knew a lot about it, but, well, here we are, sitting in a random street after almost being killed.” She lets out a long breath after that, as if she isn’t even winded.

Harry blinks a few times before his brain properly catches up with what she said. “You’ve known about this your whole life? Your parent taught you? Not Aphrodite — your dad?”

“Well, pretty much. My dad…” she trails off, before regaining her previous energy, though Harry could tell it was a little fabricated. “My dad’s a dentist, you see, and I guess he just thought it was important for me to know about the world I’m a part of.” She looks down, unable to keep up her happy facade. “He must’ve been preparing me, I realize.”

Harry can’t help but feel like he’s overstepping, since he really only met Hermione a minute ago. But he feels like he has to ask. “Was — was that your dad back there? What happened to him?”

Her brow furrows and her eyes harden. “None of your business,” she says firmly, in that same tone from before. “Don’t ask me again.”

Once again, Harry feels that fog taking over his brain, telling him to drop it, that he should leave it alone. “I’m sorry,” he says breathlessly, not even really knowing he’s said it. “I won’t ask again.”

He regains full consciousness just in time to see Hermione’s eyes widen and fill with remorse. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Didn’t mean to what?” He scans his memory, but the past few moments seem oddly blank. “What did you do? Is that what you did before? When you told me not to go back to the alley?”

“I didn’t mean it on purpose,” she apologizes. “It just — happened.” At Harry’s blank stare, she elaborates. “It happens sometimes. I’m trying to control it. I say something a little too forcefully to someone, and then they just… agree. No matter what I say, they agree. I did it on accident, I promise,” She drops her head into her crossed arms. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice muffled.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

At that moment, Hermione’s stomach grumbles, loudly. She curls into herself even more, but Harry’s reminded of the food inside his bag. “Are you hungry?”

Hermione peeks up at him as he rummages in his bag, her dense curls framing her face. “A little,” she whispers.

He brings out the toast and chicken Aunt Petunia had packed for him. It’s cold now, but as Harry hands a slice of toast to Hermione, she doesn’t seem to care as she wolfs it down. Harry eats his own piece a little slower.

“Thanks,” Hermione says quietly. “Again.”

“No problem, again.” He closes the lid, not missing Hermione’s longing expression, even in the dim moonlight. “I think that’ll be all for now, though. Don’t want us to run out of food later.”

“Us?” She questions. “Later?”

“What? You think I’d just leave after all this?” Harry gets a horrible thought just then, but he pushes through and says it aloud. “I mean — if you don’t want me here, I’ll —”

“No!” Hermione holds out her hands. “That’s not what I meant. I mean… I thought you would leave.”

“No way,” he says. “We’re together now.” He smiles at her, and she gives a small smile back.

***

Turns out, monsters really seem to like them.

“I think we need better weapons than just my knife and your weird mind-control powers,” Harry says, flopping to the ground, feeling spent after fighting and then running away from some odd monsters with their faces on their chests. The upside — they were quite polite, even when telling you they’re going to kill you.

After two weeks of nothing but fighting monster after monster, they had soon run out of money and food. A few days ago, they had to resort to stealing two sandwiches and some bottles of water from a local restaurant. They felt horrible, but at least the sandwiches were good. That was days ago, though, and the going isn’t getting much better. In fact, it’s probably getting worse.

Hermione, equally as tired, sits down next to him. It turns out her powers do have some sort of limit, a limit that is being reached a lot more often now that Harry’s with her. “Where would we even get any? Tesco?”

“As if they’d sell a sword or something to two ten-year-olds.”

“Firstly, I’m eleven. Secondly, I don’t think they sell swords at Tesco. Thirdly, it’s not like we have any money anyway.”

Harry sighs. “I know. It’s just — why do all these monsters hate us so much?”

Hermione sighs. “I wish I knew, too. Then maybe we could prevent it.”

The two of them are slowly trying to make their way across Greater London, slowly because the amount of monsters they meet exponentially grows with each mile they travel. Those few days, they had already been attacked by a weird grain-zombie thing, two empousai, and an honest-to-god (to the gods?) hellhound.

“I don’t think you realize how bad this is, Harry,” Hermione had said after they had successfully killed the hellhound. “For hellhounds to appear, they have to be summoned up from the Underworld by Hades. What could we have done to anger him?” She looked to the sky, as if the answer would simply drop onto the ground in front of her, but she clearly gleaned no answer from the clouds. “This is bad,” she had repeated again, but they kept going.

Harry had told her about Heathrow as soon as they woke up the day after they met. Hermione gained a look of determination on her face, an expression Harry would quickly become acquainted with, since she made it every time she used her mind-control powers.

“As a daughter of Aphrodite,” she had told him, “you know, the goddess of love, I can speak French, and its probably why I can do the whole ‘mind-control’ thing.”

“French?” Harry had asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Language of love, I guess.” Hermione had shrugged. “It’ll be useful if I ever go to France.”

Now, Harry accepts the piece of ambrosia offered from Hermione. “We should be saving this more,” he says, still stuffing it in his mouth to taste the lemon ice lolly and feel the rush of energy enter his veins.

“Yeah, we should,” Hermione agrees, but eats her piece as well. They look at each other then. “Keep going?” Hermione asks.

“Keep going,” Harry says. They nod at each other, and Hermione picks up Harry’s bag. Harry holds his knife tightly in his hands, and they walk on.

***

It’s only three days later when they meet the last member of their unfortunate trio.

They had managed to steal some food (read: candy) from a corner store since they hadn’t eaten anything in a long while, and though they felt bad, they didn’t feel bad enough to starve instead. They sat on the curb of a street a little ways away, snacking happily on Oreos and sour rainbow belts.

“This is such a bad combination,” Harry says. He takes another rainbow belt anyway.

“So unhealthy,” Hermione agrees. They continue to eat.

Harry had since learned from the day before that Hermione also had issues reading after they both struggled to read a cursive sign over a building. After trying and failing, Harry asked Hermione what it said, when, to his immense surprise, she just shrugged.

“I have dyslexia,” she had said. “I’m not very good at reading.”

Harry gapes at her. “But — I thought you had read a whole bunch of books about Greek mythology!”

“No, my dad — he read them for me.” She turned away, and Harry knew the conversation was over. She always shuts him down when her father’s brought up, and he’d learned not to pry, unless he wanted her to turn her mind-control powers on him.

In the present, Harry and Hermione are just standing up after their ‘meal’ when suddenly, a blur appears out of nowhere, running straight into them. Both of them fall backward, and they look up to see a very tall redheaded boy looking down at them. “Sorry,” he says, first glaring down at them before looking around, putting his arm over his eyes to block the sun. He doesn’t sound very sorry at all. This is when they notice the long wooden staff-looking stick in his hand.

“What’s with the stick?” Harry asks, trying to subtly scoot away. He’s seen way too many monsters disguise themselves as human to trust this kid.

“Oh, this?” He looks down at it, as if he hadn’t noticed it before. “Doesn’t matter. Mind your own business.” With that, he stalks away, not looking back at them at all. Harry trails him with his gaze, an annoyingly possible thought coming into his mind.

“How rude!” Hermione exclaims. “Ugh, I hate boys like that.”

“Trust me, I do too. It’s just…” Harry looks down the street the boy had just walked down. “I don’t know. He seemed weird. Like us, kind of weird.”

Hermione’s face crumples. “You think he’s a demigod.”

Harry nods. “I can’t really explain it. He seemed alone…” he trails off, looking pointedly at Hermione.

She groans once she gets it. “You want to follow him? Can’t we just leave him be?”

“Come on, Hermione. He’s our age! We can’t leave him out here alone. What if he’s attacked?”

“He seemed to be just fine with that stick…” she mutters.

“Hermione!”

“Fine.”

They run in the direction of the boy, trying to catch up, but he’s fast. They don’t know if he knows that they’re following him, but they don’t give up. Soon, he finally stops. Just as they reach him, he turns and points his staff (that Harry now can tell is sharpened at the end) at them, glowering hard. If looks could kill, they’d be dead a hundred times over.

“Were you following me?” He asks. He doesn’t even seem tired, though Harry and Hermione are almost doubled over from their sprint.

“Look —” Harry tries, but all he gets is a sharp point at his neck.

“Tell me. Were you following me?”

Harry swallows. “Yes,” he admits.

“Why?” The boy asks harshly. Harry swears he sees the staff shake a little, and he recognises that fear. It’s the fear of never being able to fully turn your back, to never be able to sleep deep into the night without worrying about the monsters just waiting around each corner to kill you.

He really shouldn’t be sure, but he is, somehow. This kid is a demigod.

“Because,” he says cautiously, because for all his certainty he still has a staff at his neck, “we know what you are, and the danger you’re in.”

“What I am?”

“A demigod,” Hermione chimes in, but it was obviously the wrong thing to say.

“A demigod?” He asks incredulously. “Are you alright? Were you dropped on your head as a baby?”

“Seriously?” Hermione asks. “You won’t even listen —”

“Of course I won’t!” He exclaims, then snorts. “A demigod. Look, tell me why you’re really following me.”

Harry decides to try again before he skewers Hermione like a marshmallow. “We understand you, more than you might think.”

The boy sneers. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Harry takes a bold step forward, despite the stick being turning back to him and Hermione’s fervent shakes of the head. “Let me guess. You can’t pay attention in school, because you can’t sit still. Every time you try to read, it’s like the words float off the page.”

“Shut up.” The boy bares his teeth.

Harry ignores him. “Maybe you’ve seen things that by all laws of nature shouldn’t be real, but you know you’ve seen them. People think you’re a troublemaker, so you’ve gotten expelled countless times, but it’s just because you’re different. A freak, maybe. A weirdo.”

The pointed end of the staff shakes at his throat, and he knows he’s made it through to him. He takes another step.

“And maybe, there are things you can do, things that you feel, that just aren’t normal. Normal kids can’t do them, so you’re isolated. Nobody wants to be around you, nobody wants to touch you, ‘cause that’s what you are — a nobody.”

In the silence that follows, Hermione stares at him like he’s crazy, and the boy shakily holds his stick at his throat for another second before letting his arm fall to his side. “How — how did you —”

“Like I said, we understand.” Harry gestures to himself and Hermione as he speaks. “How else would we know?”

“But — demigods? Like, children of God? I thought everyone was a child of God, or something like that.”

“Not that God,” Hermione interrupts, rolling her eyes. “Greek gods. You know — Zeus, Poseidon, Hades? Those ones?”

The boy shrugs, looking defensive. “They ring a bell, I guess.”

“We’re those kinds of demigods,” Hermione says, trying as hard as possible to let some of her power slip into her voice, but not too much to where the boy would become suspicious. Harry could tell from her focused expression. “And we survive better in a group, trust me.”

He furrows his brow. “I mean, I have been attacked by some weird things, but I can make short work of them with this.” He brings his arms up to display his staff.

“But you won’t have to be alone. And if we stick together,” Harry interjects, “we can fight monsters off as a group.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on,” Harry says. “You know you want to. Besides, we have a plan to get somewhere safe.”

“Safe?” He says it like he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

“Yeah, Heathrow.”

“The airport?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “If we can get there, we’ll be safe. Don’t you want that?”

He considers for a moment, looking down at his wooden stick. Then: “Fine.” He sticks a hand out. “Ron. Ron Weasley.”

Harry takes it. “Harry Potter,” he gestures to Hermione with his head, “and Hermione Granger.”

Ron and Hermione only glare at each other. Harry sighs inwardly.

“What were you running from, by the way?” Harry asks, remembering how hurried Ron seemed to be earlier.

“Oh, er,” he mumbles, turning red. “It’s stupid.”

“I’m sure it isn’t that bad,” Harry says.

“I was running from this huge badger.” His face turns as red as his hair. “It doesn’t sound tough, but it was, alright?”

Harry and Hermione stare at him. It was hard to imagine Ron ever being intimidated by anything, looking at his considerable size for a ten-year-old. He has way more muscles than any Year Six Harry’s ever seen, and he towers over both him and Hermione — she only just came up to his shoulder.

“I would’ve fought it, promise, but I didn’t want to attract attention.” He shakes his head, scowling. “I swear, whenever I fight a monster in public, I always get looked at like I’m the problem, and not whatever’s trying to kill me.”

“I get it,” Harry says. It’s honestly a wonder that he and Hermione aren’t wanted by the London Police by now. He jerks his head at Ron in a nod and he gets one back. Then, Ron goes back to glowering at Hermione, who doesn’t back down at all. Instead, she crosses her arms, and glares straight back.

This will be fun, won’t it?

***

“We’re almost there,” Hermione says as they creep along a dimly lit street. The sun had set not long ago, but now the only light source they have is the distance streetlamps that didn’t seem to extend down this road.

“You’ve said that, like, a million times, ‘Mione,” Ron says, gripping tight to his staff.

“Don’t call me ‘Mione!” Hermione hisses. Oddly, her voice lacks any sort of her mind-altering power. “It’s Hermione.”

“Of course, whatever you say, lovebird…”

Maybe it was a bad idea to tell Ron that Hermione is a daughter of Aphrodite, since he will not stop teasing her about it. They keep bickering and arguing, and it’s enough to drive Harry insane.

“Please!” Harry says, interrupting them. “Can we not do this right now? Save your arguments for when we get to Heathrow.” Both Hermione and Ron mutter some sort of apology, and they keep going.

Until they run into the hellhounds. Hermione’s the one who notices them first.

“There’s a hellhound right behind us,” Hermione says. “And it’s coming fast.”

They speed up, only to be cut off by another one. Now, they’ve been closed in on both sides, with nowhere else to go.

“What is up with all these hellhounds coming after us?” Harry wonders aloud, but Ron talks over him.

“Okay, I’ll take the one in front. You guys take the back one, got it?” Before they can even respond, Ron jumps into battle with the hellhound. It can bite and trample, but Ron can do so much more. They watch as Ron fights like he’s dancing, the long wooden staff acting both as a weapon and a defence.

“Stop staring and start fighting!” Ron calls, and Harry and Hermione break out of their little trance just as the hellhound behind them finally catches up.

Harry pulls out his knife, and focuses on sending sparks down its hilt and into the blade. He holds it securely in his grip as Hermione makes her standard ‘I’m focusing’ face.

“Hellhound!” She shouts, the power in her voice holding onto the creature. “Stop!”

It partially obeys, and only slows down. Still, it gives Harry an opportunity to get closer to it without getting his head bitten off, and he manages to stab it in the leg, sending fields of electricity all over its form. It convulses, then disintegrates into gold dust.

“Ugh, I hate dogs,” Harry says, thinking of both the hellhounds and his Aunt Marge’s bulldog, Ripper. Honestly, that dog could have also been a hellhound, and it wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest.

“They aren’t that bad, really,” Ron says, appearing behind them, clearly finished with his own monster. “Just have to find the right one.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll take your word for...” Harry’s eyes widen as he stares above Ron’s head. He hears Hermione’s sharp intake of breath behind him.

“What?” Ron asks (more like demands), but when none of them can answer, he looks up himself.

Above him glows a red spear, floating just over his head.

“What is that?” He asks, trying to poke at it with his own wooden spear, and scowling when it just phases through.

“I think,” Hermione says, in a calm but brittle voice, “that it’s your dad.”

Now Ron’s gaping too. “But — who is it?”

“Can’t you tell?” Harry wishes Hermione would stop being so blunt, but that’s like asking her not to be Hermione. “It’s Ares, god of war. You must have impressed him with your fighting.”

All Ron says is “Cool.”

The symbol fades away, leaving no trace of its presence, but after that, Ron gains a new confidence that he didn’t have before, one that can only be obtained from having proof that your godly parent acknowledges that you exist.

Harry hasn’t yet experienced this privilege, and he knows that his friends know it, too. He avoids their pitying looks, disregards their comforting touches.

It makes sense, in a way. Hermione Granger, daughter of Aphrodite, Ronald Weasley, son of Ares.

Harry Potter? No one. Nobody at all.

***

They finally make it to Heathrow after hours of fighting random monsters that insist on coming their way, and while they make it through with hardly a scratch, they still receive weird looks, probably because they’re three preteens that have no adult with them, and with barely any luggage except for Harry’s backpack, which Ron now carries.

“I think we’ll need to use your mind-control thing,” Harry tells Hermione after some random lady who was thankfully just a lady and not a monster asked them if they knew where their parents were. “People will pay way too much attention to us.” Sure enough, adults who are worried about them keep coming up to them in droves, slowing them down a little. Thankfully, with just a dash of Hermione’s power, they’re warded off.

“Thank the gods for your voice-magic,” Harry says, face still smarting after some grandma pinched his cheeks. He glares at Ron, who’s still snickering.

“Thank my mother,” Hermione says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“By the way, lovebird —” Ron starts.

“— Hermione —”

“How did you know Aphrodite was your mum?”

“She claimed me. I was too young to remember, but my...” her face crumples a little. “It happened when I was younger.”

“That’s not what you were going to —”

Harry puts a hand on Ron’s arm. “Don’t push it.”

“Sorry,” Ron says reluctantly. “But what do you mean, claimed?”

“To be called a child of a certain god, you have to be claimed,” Hermione says, once again talking rapidly. “Even if you have suspicions, you can’t just call yourself the child of any god until they actually claim you.” She looks at Harry intensely for a second or two, and he fidgets under her gaze. He knows he’s unclaimed — no need to rub it in. She turns away after a while too long. “If you get claimed, that is.”

“If?” Harry asks. He hadn’t heard that before — they were probably to busy fighting for their lives to go into any detail about the gods. “What, they might not claim you? That’s not very fair.” That fear opens up a great hole in his chest, dragging him down into oblivion. He prays that his parent cares enough about him to claim him, but with his track record, it’s pretty unlikely.

Hermione looks apologetic. “The gods are busy, you know. They don’t... feel the same way we do, so I guess it’s fair for them.” She and Ron share a look.

“Let’s go,” Harry says abruptly, going straight towards the baggage check-in. Hermione and Ron follow after sharing another glance between them.

“There!” Hermione says, pointing. “The last one to the left. Pull out the coin!”

As Ron looks around for the coin, Hermione and Harry approach the desk.

“Hello,” the man says in a falsely bright voice as he brushes his blond hair away from his face. “Any bags to —”

He cuts himself off as Ron places the gold coin on the desk. He looks at the three of them in confusion. “All three of you?”

They nod.

“That’s new...”

Before any of them can question what he means, he waves them closer. “Well, come on, then,” he says, then walks through a door to his left. Ron, Harry and Hermione jump over the conveyor belt used for luggage to follow him.

“Alright,” the man says, gesturing to a small room with sparse chairs. “Wait here. I’ll be back for you shortly, then you’ll be set to go.” He leaves.

Ron turns to Harry and Hermione. “So,” He says, his voice hard. “Did you two ever consider that we’d be leaving the country?”

Harry puts up his hands. “Look, all my aunt told me was that I had to get here. I didn’t know we’d be actually going anywhere.”

Both him and Ron turn to Hermione, who’s surprisingly silent. She sits there, fidgeting with the edges of her frayed shirt. She avoids eye contact with them both.

“Hermione?” Harry asks. “Did you know?”

She stays silent, curling into herself ever so slightly.

“You did, didn’t you?” Ron says harshly. “You knew, and you didn’t say a word? Why?” He’s gathering steam now, and soon enough, he’s practically shouting. Harry wants to tell him to stop since Hermione is retreating further and further into herself, but he can’t get a word in edgewise. “Don’t you realise some of us have lives here? Just because you don’t —”

“Stop!” She finally cries, and both Ron and Harry freeze. Literally — her voice is so full of her power that they have no choice but to listen. She takes a few moments to catch her breath. Harry wishes she’d hurry — he needs to blink, bad. “I — I mean — you can move now.”

Harry blinks rapidly, trying to keep the tears that formed from falling. Even Ron looks a little uncomfortable, but it may have just been the fact that Harry starts to glare at him.

“You’re right,” Hermione says, looking out the window, avoiding both their looks. “I don’t have anything here. I shouldn’t have kept it to myself. I — I’m sorry. For the mind-control stuff, too.”

Ron stays silent for a bit, face red. “It’s my fault, Hermione.” Harry’s surprised, since he never calls her Hermione. He can be courteous, after all. “I shouldn’t have said it. Or — shouted it, I guess.” He also turns to look out the window, and so nobody is looking at each other.

“The monsters I was running from,” he blurts out. “They were only part of the reason I came with you two. It’s just — well, my mum told me… my dad isn’t my real dad.” He sits back, as if he can distance himself from that truth. “I was mad. So I ran. I’m pretty far from where I was — I lived in Dover — and, well, I can’t really criticise you, not when I have nothing to go back to either.” Ron’s blinking suspiciously fast, but the rest of his face is blank. “I just — I miss my brothers and sister. And my parents, I guess. Even if my dad isn’t my real one.”

Silence. Then, in the smallest voice Harry’s ever heard Hermione use, she says “I miss my dad, too.”

They’re quiet for a while, giving Hermione time, and after a few minutes, she begins to speak in a low tone. “It only happened a week or so before I met Harry. I was coming back from school since I walked there and back, and everything was fine. He made dinner, and we ate. We laughed. But then…” Tears flow from her eyes like a leaky tap. “It all happened so fast. This monster just… broke through the window. He tried to get me out the door, to fight it off himself, but I just froze. I couldn’t fight, and I couldn’t run away. If I had done either —” her face crumples, and she begins to cry in earnest — “I — I could have saved him. He wouldn’t be — dead.”

Harry stares at Hermione with not only sympathy, but a new understanding of her. Sure, she’s brash and brutally honest, but really, she’s a scared girl at heart, just as scared as the rest of them are.

“There isn’t much here left for any of us — I mean, I know my aunt and uncle don’t miss me,” Harry says, breaking the fragile silence. “Wherever we’re going — it has to be better, right?”

They all look around, and Harry knows they know the rules as well as he does.

There is always, always somewhere worse to go.

The man from earlier pops his head around the doorframe. His smile falters a little as he notices the tears flowing from every single child’s eyes. “Demigods? We’re ready for you.” His head then disappears from the doorway.

“Demigods,” Ron mutters. “I’ll never be used to hearing that, even with all the monsters.” They all stand and follow the man out of the room, into the unknown.

***

Chapter Text

Harry’s never been on a plane before. In fact, other than Uncle Vernon, when he travels to Paris or Brussels for some meeting concerning his drill company, none of his relatives have either. Maybe it’s a good thing, really — he knows that his Uncle would never spring for less than Business class for his family, while leaving Harry to rot in the smelly, overcrowded Economy section without a bit of remorse. He can say it’s smelly, because that’s where he, Ron and Hermione are right now — stuffed next to the toilets at the back of a completely full plane that’s bound for New York City. It’s only been an hour since the plane set off for JFK, and Harry’s already convinced that traveling by plane is overrated. He can’t help but stare out the window, though, and imagine the cold wind blowing over his face as he rushes through the air, letting the clouds wet his face and hair. But then, he looks down at the never-ending ocean beneath them, and feels a sense of strong uneasiness.

He never learnt to swim. Surprisingly, it wasn’t for the Dursley’s lack of teaching him — it was a requirement for a lot of local primary schools that he had to at least be able to doggy paddle, and the Dursleys would never pass up at opportunity to be rid of Harry. The thing was, he just... couldn’t learn. There was something inside of him, something that blocked him from ever placing any trust in the water, and still blocks him today. Even now, he feels that deep fear as he looks upon the endless waves.

Ron, who’s next to him, seems to share none of Harry’s inner conflict as he plays some number game on his screen against Hermione in the aisle seat, loudly cursing her name whenever pulls ahead in points. “Ugh, Hermione! You know I’m horrible at maths!”

“I know,” she says, taking a sip from the apple juice in front of her. “That’s why I chose the game.”

When the same flight attendant in London first brought them drinks and snacks, they had tried to respectfully decline, since their money level had been at a steady zero for days. He — or Ollie, as it had said on his name tag — had waved their concerns off, saying that it was all complementary.

“Sponsored by the GODSS,” he had said. “You’re lucky you have a plane now. I remember when the GODSS used a boat! It took forever.”

“The Gods?” Harry had asked, still a little hung up on that fact. “They sponsor all this?” It had sounded wrong. From all of the stories Hermione told them, the gods were practically background characters who almost never gave help when it was needed.

“No, the GODSS, with two s’s,” Ollie says. “The Global Olympian Demigod Security Service. It’s been running for millennia, helping demigods who were born in a country other than the one in which the gods had settled in.”
“And the gods settled in... America?” Hermione had asked, confused. “Why? How come they didn’t stay in Greece?”

“They move with Western civilization,” he had explained. “They started in Greece, but then they moved to the Roman Empire, then to the UK for a short time, then to Italy for the Renaissance, and then, after a while, they moved to the USA.”

“And this whole GODSS thing,” Ron had said, already starting on his salted peanuts, “you said it’s been around for millennia, right? But you said you remembered when it was a boat! And you don’t look very old.”

“Ron...” Hermione had groaned, practically facepalming.

“What? It’s a decent question!”

“It is, demigods,” Ollie had said. “I am immortal, and I have been since signing up for this job. It’s important that someone is always prepared to transfer demigods across the globe. And besides, the training period?” He had shuddered, as if remembering something he’d much rather forget. “It was long — ten years. And brutal. Way too many things can happen to demigods in the sky, especially if Zeus is in a bad mood.” He had looked outside the window, seeming slightly mystified. “It’s odd... we haven’t had such a smooth flight in decades...” he had gazed at them all like he had been trying to deduce a particularly difficult puzzle, but he had soon given up, going back to his normal, smiley face. “Well, enjoy the snacks! I have others to serve now.” He had walked away into the back after that.

That had been around half an hour ago, and Ron has since finished his own snacks, so he’s trying to steal Harry’s. Harry doesn’t mind — he isn’t much of a fan of peanuts anyway, and he’s just fine sipping on his sprite.

It’s odd — they’ve been running for nearly two weeks, just trying to live, and now they could actually relax? Even now, Harry feels the pull of sleep but resists, not wanting to spill his drink on himself. To him, it’s such a weird feeling, seeing Ron play a video game probably too enthusiastically with Hermione, when just a day before, they had been fighting monsters. It makes him think — they’re only eleven (though Harry stubbornly remains at ten), and they’ve been through more near-death experiences than most adults.

He finishes his drink with that rather morose thought, and finally lets sleep claim him, the sound of the wind outside calming him.

***

He’s deep under the sea.

All around him is darkness, and he can’t breathe. He can’t. His lungs burn, and he burns, to get just a sliver of oxygen, so he can breathe.

His vision blurs, and just when he’s about to sink to the bottom of the ocean floor, he surfaces. Oxygen graces his lungs.

Around him is the endless sea, his prison. Above is the sky, his freedom.

A plane passes overhead.

“You’re lucky, Harry Potter,” a voice echoes in his head, rattling his brain. “Very lucky. You will not be so if you ever step into my domain. I have warned you.”

With that, a whirlpool forms around him, pulling him down, down, down...

***

Harry awakens with a panting gasp, his lungs suddenly full of air. He still feels like he’s underwater, but hands on his arms tell him he’s not.

“Harry? Are you alright?” Hermione asks, brow furrowed and concern swirling in her multicolored eyes.

“Y... yeah,” he says, still breathing heavily. “Bad... dream.”

Ron pats him on the back. It sends Harry looking for air again. “Oh, sorry, mate. I was just going to say — you aren’t the only one.”

“Yeah,” Hermione agrees, and it’s such a rare moment that Hermione and Ron agree on something that Harry tries to commit it to memory. “Demigod dreams are almost always bad, but they usually tell you something.” Her concern turns to curiosity. “What did your dream say?”

“Not much,” Harry admits, shifting to be more comfortable. “I was just... in the ocean.” He shudders, remembering the feeling of drowning. “I couldn’t breathe, and I almost drowned, but then I was at the surface. I saw a plane — our plane, I think — and then this voice said that I’ve been lucky.” He snorts. “Yeah, right. But... he said, if I ever stepped foot in his domain, I wouldn’t be lucky anymore.”

“And... you were in the water?” Hermione looks alarmed now. “Not the sky, not in the plane?”

Harry shakes his head. “I think whoever it was wanted me to be scared. It doesn’t matter anyway — I won’t go into the water if I can help it.” He looks out the window, surprised to see how dark it is. “How long was I asleep?”

“Don’t know,” Ron says, shrugging and yawning. “‘Mione and I fell asleep about an hour after you.”

Harry sits back in his seat, looking out at nothing. He doesn’t know how long he does this, but he’s interrupted by Ollie, who arrives at their row with three hot sandwiches.

“Good, you’re awake,” he says, placing the sandwiches on their trays, along with some water. “We’ll be touching down soon. Don’t go anywhere, alright? Wait for me to come and get you.” He leaves then.

Until he laid eyes on his sandwich, Harry didn’t realize how much he’s been longing for some hot food. They’d been living on stolen food for practically the whole time they had been running, and even the food Aunt Petunia packed had been cold when he and Hermione first ate. They devour their sandwiches like children possessed, and in less than five minutes, all three have finished.

“That’s was amazing,” Ron says, leaning back.

Both Harry and Hermione nod in agreement, and Harry’s ready to fall back asleep when he sees brightness at the corner of his vision. He turns to the window to see an amazingly large network of lights underneath them, shining bright in the dark sky.

“Woah,” he says, eyes wide. Ron and Hermione push against him so that they can see for themselves.

“Wicked,” Ron says.

“That must be New York!” Hermione exclaims, squirming in excitement.

Sure enough, the captain uses the intercom to announce their arrival in New York City, and as they begin to land, Harry’s eyes are fixed on the window, letting all the lights blind him.

Maybe this is better than what they left.

Five minutes later, the landing is smooth, and while everyone around them stands to get their bags, they stay seated. Hermione’s practically jumping with excitement, and since pretty much everything Hermione does goads Ron into an argument, they quickly start bickering about some nonsense Harry can’t be bothered to understand.

“Really, Ron? I mean —”

“Ugh, ‘Mione, calm down —”

“I am very calm —”

“Yeah, and my hair isn’t red —”

They continue at it for a while, until everyone else is off the plane and Ollie appears at their side. “Ready to go, demigods?”

They stand, and Harry shoulders their backpack, which is pretty much empty besides Harry’s knife, and maybe a t-shirt or two. Harry didn’t have that many clothes to begin with, but he had shared them with Ron and Hermione, so they were all dressed in oversized clothes. Even for Ron, the clothes fit badly. Ron picks his spear up from underneath the seats in front of them — Hermione had nearly exhausted herself while using her mind-control power trying to get it through security.

“Follow me,” Ollie says, and instead of leading them to the exit of the plane, he brings them to the back. In front of them stands a door, and Ollie busies himself opening each lock — of which there are many. After a few minutes of waiting, he finally finishes, and whispers to the door. Harry can’t make out what he said exactly, but to him, the end sounded like “... to the gods.”

The door opens without a single creak, and Ollie pulls them inside.

Ron and Hermione’s eyes widen, and Harry’s sure that his does too. On all four walls of this room hang all sorts of weapons, all the same shade of copper. On one wall hangs a beautiful longsword with an engraved hilt, and on another wall is an old-fashioned gun, the bullets displayed underneath it also made of the same material as everything else.

“What is this place?” Ron asks. His eyes shine like he’s a child in the toy aisle of a supermarket. “Can we touch them?”

“Of course!” Ollie says. “You can each take a weapon, courtesy of the GODSS.”

“But what are these made of?” Hermione asks, taking in their soft glow.

“Celestial bronze,” Ollie explains. “It’s one of the easier way to kill monsters.”

Ron looks like he’s about to explode from happiness, but Harry and Hermione stay back. Harry likes his knife, and he isn’t sure if his whole electric-knife thing will work with any of these. Hermione looks completely lost, considering she doesn’t have a weapon at all. Harry remembers when he tried to teach her how to use his knife just in case she needed to — it was a complete disaster. Harry managed to disarm her without a single weapon.

Luckily for them, Ron seems to be an expert on these kinds of things — must be a by-product of being a child of Ares. He’s already chosen a spear that can contract into a small bronze cylinder, and so without warning, he pulls Harry next to him. “You want a knife still, yeah?”

“I — I guess so,” Harry says.

“Hmm.” Ron does a walk around of the armory, occasionally picking up some knife-like weapons and weighing them in his hands. He does this multiple times, putting them back on the wall when he’s done analyzing them. Finally, he grabs not one but two daggers, pressing them into Harry’s hands.

“But I though we could only take one,” Harry says, trying to hand one back to Ron.

“Oh, those daggers come together,” Ollie says. “It’s like a bow and arrow — they can work fine on their own if you’re a fan of blunt force trauma and pinning something to a wall, but to get the best effects, you need to use them together.”

Harry holds them both in his hands, focusing. Except, he barely even has to — sparks jump across the blades with barely even a thought. With his knife, he had to concentrate until they appeared.

At his display, Ollie’s eyes widened. “That makes a lot of sense,” he murmurs, but before Harry can ask what makes sense, Hermione cries out as she’s dragged to a corner of the armory by Ron.

“I want you to try this bow and arrow,” he says, pulling it down and handing it to her. Unlike everything else, the bow seems to be a mixture of celestial bronze and wood, which made it more flexible. Hermione looks at him like he’s crazy, but he doesn’t budge, and so Hermione nocks the arrow.

“How does it feel?” Ron asks. “Too heavy? Too light?”

“It... it feels nice,” Hermione says, clearly shocked. “But... I’ve never shot at arrow before. What I’m bad at it?”

“Wait a second,” Ollie says, and leaves for a few seconds. When he returns, he’s holding an apple. “Here,” He says, and places it on top of his head. They all stare at him.

“Well, go ahead and shoot!”

“What?” Hermione exclaims. “What if I hit you?”

“I’ll be fine, I’ll just eat some ambrosia,” he says, waving away her concerns. “Go on, then.”

Hermione still looks scared, but she listens to him, aiming her arrow at the apple. He pulls the string back, and releases. The arrow pins the apple to the wall behind him.

“Woah,” she says, staring at the apple.

“Nice!” Ron slaps her on the back, and Harry notices he does it a lot more gently with her than he does with him. Unfair. Ollie gives her a thumbs-up. They should really get him and Ron together again sometime, since they both love weapons a lot more than what’s healthy.

“It’s nice, really nice,” Hermione says, “But, surely, I can’t carry this huge thing everywhere...” she trails off, turning the bow this way and that, trying to find anything to hide it. “Here!” She says, and presses a small button right in the middle of the wooden bow. It shrinks, smaller than the palm of her hand. “It’s a hair clip.” She immediately slides the new clip into her hair, pinning the mass in place. When she pulls it back out, it immediately grows into her bow.

“That’s amazing!” Ron cries. “And the arrows?” He takes the rest of the arrows from the wall and puts them into Hermione’s hands after she puts the clip back into place. She inspects them, but they seem to be regular, celestial bronze arrows.

“I don’t think they shrink,” she says. I’ll just have to keep them in our bag for now.” She drops them all in the backpack.

“Now that we’re all set,” Ollie says, “I can bring you out of the plane. My colleague will be there to take you out of the airport.” He hands Hermione some containers of airplane food, fifty dollars, and three golden coins, and she puts them in the backpack. Then, he pulls a little bag of what Harry recognizes as ambrosia and tosses it to Harry, who catches it. “The food, money and drachmas are from the GODSS, but the ambrosia’s from me. Take care, will you?”

Harry nods resolutely. “We will.”

Ollie smiles. “Good. Come this way, demigods.”

They are now led to a door of the plane, where a young woman with shoulder length black hair waits. Her name tag reads ‘Emily’. Her brown eyes rove over all three of them, stopping at Harry’s grey eyes. “These are the demigods?” Her accent is distinctly American, and she is distinctly unimpressed. Harry’s not sure what she was expecting — a group of buff teenagers?

“Yes! Thanks, Em, you’re amazing,” Ollie says enthusiastically, ushering them off the plane. “Bye!” Em just rolls her eyes and beckons them along the path into the airport.

“Okay, kids, I’m telling you everything now, so don’t forget, alright?” They all nod. “Good. I’m taking you straight to the nearest exit of JFK, where your escort to camp waits. I’ll deal with all the nosy people. On the way to camp, don’t take any detours, any breaks, anything. If you do, you’ll probably die. Got it?”

They all stare at her, wide-eyed.

“Well?”

“Yeah,” Harry quickly says. “We’ve got it.”

Em nods, and continues walking at a brisk pace. Ron can just barely keep up, but Harry and Hermione have to jog.

“She doesn’t like to speak much, does she?” Harry mutters to Hermione, who giggles.

“I heard that, you two!” Em calls, and they immediately sober, run-walking along like they’re going to a funeral.

They continue to walk in silence until they reach security. “Place your items on the —” is all the security guard gets out before Em gets in his face. She’s half a head shorter than him, but his eyes drift out of focus as soon as Em snaps her fingers. “You’ve already checked us, alright? We’re just a rushed flight attendant and three Unaccompanied Minors.” He nods, eyes still blank, but once she snaps again, they refocus.

“Oh, uh, go right through, then,” the guard says, moving out of the way. Em barely mutters a ‘thanks’ before she pushes past him.

Hermione furrows her brows — Harry knows they won’t last long before Hermione goes on some sort of rant — he knows way too much about the gods’ escapades from the weeks he’s spent with her — and sure enough, Hermione begins speaking at light-speed. “What was that? How did you do that? I mean, I’ve never had to snap to do that before, but —”

“I was manipulating the Mist. It’s a requirement to work for the GODSS,” Em explains, cutting across her. She moves on, like any of them understood what she just said. “And what do you mean, you don’t have to snap when you do it?”

“The Mist?” Hermione mutters, and Em sighs, but Hermione answers her question. “Well, if I just try hard enough, I can convince people to do things. I’ve never needed to snap.”

Em stops and looks at her for a second, considering. “I would’ve pegged you as a daughter of Athena,” she says slowly, “the way you won’t stop asking questions.” She turns to Hermione fully. “What you can do, it’s called charmspeak. It’s different to manipulating the Mist — while manipulating the Mist only changes what people see, charmspeak can change what people do. You’re pretty lucky — I hear charmspeak is a rare gift for children of Aphrodite.”

Hermione preens at the praise. Ron rolls his eyes.

“But — what is mist?” Harry asks, still curious.

“Not mist, the Mist, with a capital M,” Em says, and continues walking. “It’s the veil that separates mortals from the divine world. Did Ollie seriously not tell you any of this?”

They all shake their heads.

“Not surprised,” she mutters, though for the first time, her lips quirk up — the only emotion she’s shown this whole time. “He was probably busy with the weapons. Over a hundred years, and he still can’t do this job right.”

“A hundred years?” Ron blurts. “I mean, he said he was immortal, but —”

“It also means we don’t age. Ollie joined the GODSS around the same time I did. We were in the same training class.” She shakes her head, somehow walking faster. “How he passed the final test, I’ll never know.”

“Hey!” Ron says, glaring. “Ollie was really helpful! He gave us —” Hermione cuts him off via a hand to the shoulder, a knowing look in her eyes. Harry isn’t really sure what she knows, since all he knows is that Em might have more about her than just her stern face.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she says, turning away from them. “Come on. I don’t want to leave your escort waiting.”

They’re silent for the rest of their walk, though it’s mostly due to the fact that they can barely catch their breath. Em looks unaffected — must be due to the decades she’s spent walking these halls, bringing demigods from all kinds of different place to the camp she mentioned.

Harry’s never been to a camp — go ahead and add that to the long list of things he hasn’t done. The only thing different this time is that the Dursleys had genuinely considered it after Year Four. Weirdly enough, it was his Aunt Petunia that petitioned for him to stay home, when usually, she’d jump at the chance to not be around him. His Uncle Vernon had actually been willing to pay to send him to some military camp, but his Aunt refused, and so he never went. He’s quite thankful for it, though at the time he had wanted to go, just to escape them. If he had gone, he would probably be a very different kid to how he is now.

He takes this time to look around. JFK is a huge place, the kind of place where he could easily spend hours in. Stores line the walkways, and their neon lights call out to them, beckoning them in. If they’d had more time and more money, he would’ve loved to look around more, but there’s no way that he’d ever try to ditch Em, not only because she’d probably hunt him down, but because he’d immediately get lost in this vast maze.

Next to him, Ron grips their bag tight. It’s a wonder it hasn’t gotten lost, really, with all the things it’s been through since Harry left the Dursleys. Ron’s also looking around in poorly-concealed wonder, but also with a note of something else on his face, something that Hermione on the opposite side of him has too. In fact, her eyes are shiny with unshed tears.

They probably miss their parents. Harry looks away.

They make it out of the commercial section of the airport. Since they had no luggage, they skip the baggage claim. This is where Em turns to them.

“We’re about to leave the building,” she says, face as bored and impassive as ever. “Since Ollie decided to tell you absolutely nothing, I’ll do it. Your escort is a satyr. Know what that is?”

“Oh!” Hermione exclaims, like they’re in class. “A half man, half goat.” Ron looks surprised, but Harry can only imagine which half is which.

“I wouldn’t call them that if I were you,” Em responds. “But, anyway, he’ll be taking you to Long Island. That’s where Camp Half-blood is. Once you’re there, you’re safe.”

“You’ve been there?” Harry asks.

Em nods. “Of course. Before I joined the GODSS, that’s where I lived. I’m a demigod, too.”

“Who’s your godly parent?” Hermione inquires, but she earns a uncharacteristically fierce glare from Em.

“One thing you should learn — don’t go around asking people that. Not everyone is claimed.”

“Oh — I’m —” She looks guiltily at Harry, who turns away.

“Sorry, I’m sure.” Em sighs. “It’s fine. You just have to be careful with those kinds of things. You never know if it’s someone’s sore spot.” She squints outside into the night. “Well, we need to get you out. Airports are generally protected from monsters, but we shouldn’t push our luck.”

They walk out the automatic doors, and into the night.

“Er,” Hermione says. “There’s no one here.”

“I can see that,” Em says, not to be mean, but just to tell the truth. “Where is he? Nigel!”

Harry isn’t sure what he expected of this Nigel, but one thing is for sure — he didn’t expect Nigel to pop up from a bush, twigs and leaves stuck in his wavy black hair, and he definitely didn’t expect him to look like an eleven-year-old kid. From the waist up, anyway. From the waist down, his legs were furry and goat-like.

His blue eyes are wide as he regards Em, who sighs. “Why were you in the bushes?” She asks, sounding like she had truly stopped questioning Nigel’s actions a long time ago. Hermione has been starting to sound like that more and more with Harry and Ron.

“Sorry,” Nigel says, brushing the debris from his hair unsuccessfully. “I didn’t know you’d be here yet.”

Em shakes her head, clearly tired. “Anyway. Take care of them, alright?” She stares unblinkingly at him, and he quivers underneath her gaze. “Get them to camp.”

“I will, Em,” he says, but at her continued stare, he reluctantly adds the rest of her name. “…mily.”

She turns to face the three of them one last time. There’s something inscrutable in her gaze, like she’s trying to commit them to memory. “Good luck, you three.” With one last nod, she’s gone.

“Emily scares me,” Nigel says, shuddering as he stares in the direction she left in. “Anyway, I’m your escort to Camp Half-Blood. It’s around a two day’s walk from here —”

“Why are you taking us there?” Ron interrupts.

“Ron!” Hermione elbows him in the side, and though he glowers at her, she ignores him. “What he meant to say is, we didn’t expect you to be so, er… young.”

Nigel blushes, his chubby cheeks burning red. “Well, really, I’m twenty-two.” At the three’s surprised faces, he rushes to explain. “Satyrs age half as fast as humans.”

“Can you drive?” Ron questions, “so that we don’t have to trek all the way there?”

Nigel’s face somehow turns an even deeper red. “I can’t. I’m too… small.”

It’s true. Despite being twenty-two and looking eleven, Nigel is even smaller than Harry, and that’s saying something. Harry doubts he’d be able to reach the steering wheel and the gas pedal at the same time.

“Okay,” Harry says. “So we have to walk. We’ve been doing that for weeks.” He looks at Ron and Hermione, and feels confidence seep into his body. They should be fine.

***

They are not fine.

Within the first three hours of them leaving the airport, their group is attacked by more monsters than Harry’s probably ever seen in his life.

First, they are immediately ambushed by a pack of zombies - or vrykolakai, as Nigel insists. He’s the first to notice the horrid smell of rotting corpses, and he freezes. “Something’s coming.”

The three demigods pause. “Normal something or monster something?” Harry asks, already moving to take his daggers from the bag.

Nigel’s practically gagging. “Monster something,” he croaks. “Definitely monsters.”

They tighten into a circle, each facing outwards and aiming their weapons into the night. It takes them a while before they smell the fetid stench of death too, but they push through, unwilling to be weakened. The first zombie comes out of nowhere and flings itself at Ron, but luckily, he’s faster. With one swing of his bronze spear, its torso is separated from its legs, and it disintegrates into golden dust.

“Oh,” Nigel says, like he just had a thought he’d forgotten to mention. “Don’t get scratched. You’ll become one of them.”

They all arrive in a group, one huge crowd of the dead. On Harry’s left, Hermione shoots arrow after arrow into the horde, even managing to pin one in the eye. “Sorry,” she winces under her breath, already nocking another arrow. On his right, Ron moves elegantly with his spear, stabbing some zombies in the midsection and bringing the shaft down on the heads of others. He is by far the best fighter out of them all, and Harry would hate to know what would happen if he ever has to fight against him.

The biggest surprise is Nigel. Sure, he may not be as good an attacker as Ron, and yeah, Harry was a little annoyed when he pulled out panpipes, but once he begins to play (it sounds like a band that Aunt Petunia had sneered at when it came on the radio — Nirvana?), the vrykolakai get confused and start running into each other.

Out of all of them, Harry is the most in danger of getting scratched since his weapons are the shortest, and so he has to put in the extra effort to dodge their outstretched claws. He feints and weaves through them, having a few close calls, but once the last zombie explodes, he doesn’t have a single scratch.

Nigel looks worried, even though the danger is over — for now. “We need to get going,” he says, wringing his hands. “If we’re being attacked this early… we need to get to camp, fast.”

They manage to walk for about thirty minutes before two bird-women land in front of them. Harry feels like giving up then and there — can’t they get any peace?

“Three demigods…” one hisses.

“And a satyr…” the other says. “We will eat well tonight, won’t we, sister?”

“I think so, sister!” They dive at their group, wings spread wide and claws sharp.

It’s a good thing they hadn’t put away their weapons, or they’d most likely be dead. Ron manages to hold one off with his spear, and Hermione constantly rains arrows on the other.

“Nigel,” Harry says, eying them warily, “what are these things?”

“Keres,” he says, a lot less confident that he was with the zombies. “Spirits of famine, and disease.” Oh, that makes more sense — of course satyrs would be afraid of them. “And what I said for the vrykolakai also applies here.” He squeaks as one of the Keres dives towards him, but he ducks at the last second, barely avoiding their claws.

Harry actually did groan this time. “What’s up with monsters and having scratches that could kill us?”

Finally, they make a breakthrough when Ron cuts off the wing of the Keres he’s fighting, which doesn’t actually ground her, but instead makes her able to only move in a circle. Harry feels both a laugh bubbling up, and a weird kind of pity. Gods, he needs to sleep. “Curse you, heroes!” She cries, her face only visible half of the time. “Curse you!” Ron puts her out of her misery with a quick stab in the chest.

Now, they all focus on the other Keres, who’s been enraged by the death of her sister. “You will pay, god-spawn!” She dives straight towards Harry, who ducks — it reminds him a little too much of Mr Alberti, who, from Hermione’s description, was probably a harpy.

“Heir of the gods, I’ll start with you!” Harry almost gets impaled by the Keres’ claws, since he has no idea who she’s talking about. It’s only when Nigel barrels into him and tackles him to the ground that he realizes that she had been aiming at him.

“Heir of the gods...?” He whispers to himself. Unlike Hermione and Ron, he’s unclaimed, and in accordance with the rest of his life, that’s probably how he’ll stay. So how can this random Keres say something like that, like he’s something special? He’s probably the kid of some minor god who has more important things to do than pay attention to him, anyway.

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on that, as she swoops low again. Harry grips his daggers, letting electricity jump from his hands to his blades, and he swings. His left-hand dagger implants itself into the monster’s arm, and she screeches. Taking the opportunity, he swings his other one into her chest, and she poofs into dust. His daggers clatter to the ground.

Harry stands to collect them, but then notices that everyone is staring at him. “What is it?”

“That’s why,” Nigel whispers. “Your smell must be incredible...”

“Sorry? I mean, we haven’t exactly been able to shower —”

“No, not that,” Nigel says, the look on his face suggesting that he’s thinking hard. “Demigods have a certain smell that attracts monsters. The more powerful you are...” he looks up at Harry, who looks away in discomfort, “the more you smell, and the more monsters you attract. Especially once you realize who you are, which god is your parent.”

Nigel, Hermione and Ron look at each other, then back at Harry. “Why are you all staring at me? Have something you want to say?” He asks, exasperated. “I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but I’m not that powerful.” When nobody backs down, he gets defensive. “What about Hermione, and her whole charmspeak thing? That seems pretty powerful to me.”

Hermione only shakes her head. “Let’s keep going.”

Harry is still supremely confused, but since nobody seems to want to answer his questions, he keeps his mouth shut and his hands wrapped around his daggers.

For the next few hours, they manage to get some sort of peace, though really, Harry’s not sure if they can really call it that if Hermione and Ron argue every ten minutes. They’re at least able to sit down and eat quickly, and though the food tastes like the stale air of an airplane, they are in no position to complain. Twenty minutes later, they’re up and going again, and Nigel takes this time to tell them more about Camp Half-Blood.

“It’s pretty much the only safe haven for half-bloods,” he says, chomping on the aluminum foil that covered their food. “There’s a barrier to keep monsters out, but some campers let some in so that they can practice.”

“Practice?” Hermione says, disgusted. “Why let them in if they can be kept out?”

“Well, it’s useful if you go on a quest,” Nigel responds, then blanches. “It can get bad outside of camp.”

They soon learn that Nigel hates talking about any kind of death, and if they press him on the matter, he will most likely puke up the foil he ate before. Still, he likes to speak at length and in great detail, which helps them picture the camp better.

“Each Olympian has their own cabin,” he says. “They’re arranged in a U-shape, right in the middle of camp. The Zeus cabin, the first one —”

Hermione tilts her head to the side, considering, and cuts across him. “Where do the unclaimed go? Do they have their own cabin?”

Nigel blushes at the interruption, but shakes his head. “They stay in the Hermes cabin. It’s always pretty crowded in there. Not enough beds. People sleep —”

“And if they’re the kid of a minor god?”

“...still in the Hermes cabin, as far as I know. Anyway —”

“How is that fair?” Hermione more demands than asks. “If that cabin is overcrowded, surely they can build an unclaimed cabin? Or a ‘minor gods’ cabin?”

Nigel’s eyes are widening by the minute — no doubt Hermione is reminding him of Em. “Hermione, I don’t know why it’s like that! I wasn’t there when they built it!” His arms are partially raised in a symbol of acquiescence.

“Right,” Hermione says, calming. “Sorry. It’s just — demigods don’t tend to get the best luck, do they?”

Nigel shakes his head, a sad look in his eyes.

Harry takes in the information he’s just learned. Even once they get to camp, Hermione and Ron will already be treated better than him, sleeping in their own beds with their half-siblings while Harry will probably be napping on the floor.

Some things don’t change, do they?

***

Hermione collapses on a flat rock, uncaring that the rising sun has warmed it to the point of burning her skin.

“Hermione!” Harry says, moving to pull her up. “We need to go. We can’t stop!”

“Can’t we?” Hermione asks, breathing deeply. “I can’t — I can’t take this anymore. It’s been a day, and we’ve been attacked six times!”

Harry has to admit it’s true. Along with the zombies and the Keres, they’ve had to fight more empousai, who were stubbornly resistance to Hermione’s charmspeak, they ran from a Cyclops who couldn’t really see that well, and they’d shot down a rogue harpy who had almost managed to drag Nigel away and into the sky — a lot of their ambrosia was spent healing his wounds. On top of that, they had tried to fight some weird disease-clouds that had only managed to give Ron a bad cold. Now, they’re tired, dirty, and discouraged, but Hermione knows as well as Harry does that stopping means death.

“It’ll happen more if we stay here!” Harry says, trying to keep his voice level. “We can’t stop. We’ll die!”

“Maybe we should just die then,” she bites out, face bitter like she had just eaten a lemon. “What, we’ve come to a different country just to try to be safe? When it turns out that people can just let monsters into that camp that can kill you anyway?” She looks away, tears gathering in her eyes. “Ron said it himself — I have nothing left. Why should being in New York change that?”

At first, Harry had been unconsciously nodding — her charmspeak was doing a number on his brain. But as she continues, more emotion flows into her words, washing out the charmspeak and allowing Harry to clear his mind. He sits on one side of Hermione, and is unsurprised to see Ron, red-faced and sniffling, drop onto her other side.

“I know you didn’t just say that, ‘Mione,” Ron says, glaring at her with watery eyes in an oddly… concerned way. Only Ron can make worried look angry. “You are not a quitter!”

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps, but sighs. “I’m just — tired. I can’t rest, I can barely lie down…” She sits up — an improvement. However, tears fall down her face — less of an improvement. “I — I miss my dad. He’d make this better, somehow.” Pulling her knees to her chest, she wraps her arms around herself.

Ron still looks angry, but Harry thinks he can read him better now. He seems like he wants to comfort Hermione, but the only things holding him back are his reputation and his cold. To reinforce that, he sneezes at least five times in a row. “I miss my mum and dad too,” he says instead. “It’s not the same, I get that, but — you aren’t alone, you — you know?”

Harry tries to scoot away quietly. He feels like he’s intruding on something private, something not meant for him to see. Despite the fact that his parents are just as dead as Hermione’s dad, he can’t really relate. He doesn’t know what they were like, not like Hermione knows her dad. Plus, there’s the fact that they at least know who their godly parent is. There isn’t anything he can say to make her feel better. That responsibility possibly unfortunately falls on Ron’s shoulders — possibly, because he seems to be doing well so far, in between all the coughing and sniffling.

While he waits, Harry pulls out his daggers and watches the blue sparks run up and down the blades. Contrary to popular belief, he isn’t stupid — he’s been left out too many times not to know when it’s happening once again. All three of them, Nigel, Hermione and Ron, seem to know or at least suspect something about him, and he has to trust that they aren’t telling him for his own safety.

He doesn’t know if he could take the betrayal if they weren’t.

“Are — are you alright?” Nigel’s voice spooks Harry, who nearly drives one of his daggers into his chest.

“Sorry.” He drops his arms to his sides. “I’m fine.”

Nigel’s silent, and Harry thinks he’s let it go until he speaks again. His cheeks are redder than tomatoes. “You know, we aren’t going to leave you.”

“I never thought that,” Harry says, avoiding Nigel’s gaze.

“Satyrs can sense emotions,” he says. “I could just tell you were feeling down.” When Harry says nothing, he looks around for something to say himself. “You’ve been with these guys since the beginning, right? They aren’t gonna leave you now. I won’t, either.”

Harry takes a deep breath, trying to internalize what Nigel had just said. They were his friends, they wouldn’t leave him. They’re in this together, until the end.

He turns back to Nigel and gives a small smile. “Thanks.”

Nigel, still red, smiles back. Harry notices he’s missing a tooth.

Maybe Ron and Hermione aren’t his only friends.

Hermione stops crying after a while, looking shame-faced at Harry and Nigel. “I’m sorry,” she says, eye still a little bright. “I’m slowing us down, and Harry, you were right, we don’t have the time —”

Harry waves her off, slipping the daggers back in the bag. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” he says, and it’s true. They wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did if they weren’t friends.

They keep on walking. The winds wraps around them like a coat.

***

“Not long now,” Nigel says, panting as they climb yet another hill. “I can tell.”

“I’d hope so,” Ron mutters, somehow having enough energy to scowl and cross his arms, even though he’s still sick. “Otherwise we would’ve followed you all this way for nothing.”

Nigel flushes, and Hermione means to tell Ron off, but all she can do is weakly swat him on his forearm. Harry isn’t doing much better — none of the schools he went to particularly cared about their students being in shape, and he’s paying the price for that now.

“Really,” Nigel says, pointing into the vague distance, obscured by the darkness that surrounds them. They were only travelling by the light of the moon now. “It’s just past these hills!”

“Why… why do there… have to be so… many?” Harry pants, clutching the stitch in his side. “Was… a nice, flat road… too much?”

“They don’t want to draw too much attention to the camp,” Nigel says, like he’s been asked that question before. “Even with the Mist, mortals might question why there’s a long road leading out to nowhere. Besides…” he looks down, clearly fighting with himself. Something in him wins out, and he continues. “It would make it easier for monsters to follow us.”

At the mention of monsters, Harry’s back straightens. He isn’t sure why, but for the past hour or so, they hadn’t encountered a single monster. Maybe they should have been more wary, but they had just been happy to not have to fight for their lives for once.

Still, Harry tightens his grip on his daggers. Better safe than sorry.

They trek over another hill, and light catches their eyes. In the distance, separated from them by a forest, they see dozens of small glows, and if he squints, Harry can see a big building, partially swathed in shadow.

“There,” Nigel says, and Harry can hear the smile on his face. “There’s Camp Half-Blood.” He turns to them in the dark, the moonlight throwing his face into a slightly creepy light. “We just need to go past those trees, then —” He freezes.

“Then what?” Hermione asks. He doesn’t answer, for a while, but when he does, he strikes fear into all three of them.

“Oh no.”

A deafening roar sounds from somewhere behind them, and they don’t hesitate to swing around, weapons gripped tightly in their hands. Hermione’s hair clip grows to her bow in her hands, an arrow almost immediately nocked. Ron, still sniffling, holds the tip of his spear in the direction of the noise, ready to strike. Harry barely has to think about it, and blue light illuminates his daggers as electricity dances across them. Nigel stands frozen for a second, before bringing his panpipes to his lips with shaking hands.

Another roar sounds.

And another.

And another.

The four huddle into a circle, each of them facing outwards. “Nigel?” Harry’s voice shakes, but thankfully, nobody mentions it. They have bigger things to deal with right now. “What are they?”

Nigel’s quiet for a second, his trembling breath loud in Harry’s ear. “Manticores.”

Harry tries to remember what a manticore is, but before he can, something pounces at them. They manage to scatter before any of them get pinned. Still, it’s like a spell is broken, and the other two manticores soon join the fray. Once he sees them, Harry wonders how he could have ever forgotten what they look like — face of a human, body of a lion, tail of a scorpion, except if scorpions could shoot poisonous darts.

Harry can barely keep track of his friends as he parries the manticore’s advances. He knows that Nigel is fighting the same beast as him with his music, but in the darkness, he’s completely lost Ron and Hermione. He can’t spare much thought for them, though, as he fights for his own life. His daggers sink into the monster’s flesh, but it keeps going as if it isn’t even wounded. The electricity makes it slower, thankfully, allowing Harry to continue stabbing it, but he has to keep dodging the poisonous spikes it flings at him.

Finally, after a well-placed stab and a burst of electric energy, it goes down, fading into dust before it hits the ground. Harry turns, looking for his friends, only to see Ron get swatted like a fly into a tree by a manticore’s tail. He hits it hard, and doesn’t get up.

“Ron!” Harry hears Hermione shout, and she runs towards him — even though she has a bit of a limp. The third manticore she had been fighting follows close behind. Harry tries to follow, but he’s blocked by another manticore, its disturbingly human-like face snarling at him. He dodges its attack, and seeing Nigel there with him, waves him off.

“Harry —” Nigel starts, but Harry shakes his head.

He isn’t letting anything take his first, his best friends from him. “Go! Get them into camp!”

Nigel has a conflicted look on his face, but after seeing the determination that must have been on Harry’s, he backs up, running fast to get to Ron and Hermione.

As he fights the manticore on him, Harry catches glimpses of his friends, who are slowly inching to the border of camp. Nigel drags Ron through the trees.

Harry slashes at his own beast with his right hand, and it doesn’t even notice.

Hermione fires arrow after arrow at the second manticore, but she quickly runs out.

Harry sticks his other dagger into its leg, but he has to dodge its tail, and he loses his grip on that knife in the process. Pain flares in his leg as a claw gouges a deep line into it.

The other manticore tries to pounce on them, but before it can hit its mark, it crashes into some invisible barrier. Nigel collapses, bringing Ron down with him.

Harry pushes his manticore’s face away with his empty hand, trying to slash at it in any place he can.

The other manticore, pride wounded, turns to a better target — him.

Harry knows he can’t fight two manticores at once, and especially not with only one dagger and an injured leg. He knows he’s dead. Still, he tries to stab the manticore in front of him in the face, but he misses, instead nearly getting trampled. He backs up quickly, using his tiny amount of leverage to sprint to the border of Camp Half-Blood, and he gets so close — another twenty seconds, and he would’ve been safe. Instead, he hears Hermione’s scream of “Harry!” and instinctively drops to the ground, letting one of the manticore — the one with his dagger still embedded in its leg — jump over him, blocking his path. He wants to back up, but he knows that the other manticore is right behind him. He can hear Nigel and Hermione’s screams, but only distantly, as if they’re being channelled through a badly wired radio.

The feeling grows in his chest, that pull he felt in that totalled bus from a million years ago, but this time, it’s stronger, so much stronger. The feeling encompasses him, fills him up, and just when he feels like he can’t take any more, he bursts.

Lighting comes from the sky, and crashes into a tree near him. It’s engulfed in flames — the manticores run, not wanting to get burnt, and Harry similarly knows what happens with fire and trees, but his body doesn’t feel like cooperating — the lightning had taken all his energy. He takes one staggering step, another, then falls to his knees, unable to stand any longer. Meanwhile, the fire has spread around him, the bright oranges and reds invading his vision until it’s all he can sense. The acrid smoke burns his lungs, and he coughs, trying to get it out, only to allow more in.

“Harry!” He hears, and it takes him a while to place it as Hermione’s voice, high and scared. She’s crossed back over the barrier, running straight for him, slowed down by her limp.

The fire is spreading fast, and Harry can tell that if Hermione comes to his aid, they’ll both be stuck here, waiting for the fire to consume them. He can’t let that happen. He just can’t. Hermione is so much more than him. So is Ron, and Nigel. He can’t let that girl who he met in that tiny London alleyway come to an end like this. He refuses.

He knows what to do, and the pull returns, less strong than before, but still enough. He flings out a hand, and it’s like a wall of air hits Hermione and pushes, sending her flying back over the barrier. That takes even more out of him, an he falls onto his front.

The orange is all he sees now, and the smoke is thick in his throat. He coughs, and coughs, but it won’t go away.

He feels light-headed. He knows he’s breathing his last.

I’m sorry, he thinks, to nobody in particular. He feels he has a lot to be sorry for. Sorry that Hermione lost her father. Sorry that Ron left everything to run away with them to a different country.

Sorry that he became friends with them, only to leave them in the end.

No way, he had said to Hermione the day they had met. We’re together now.

Harry doesn’t make many promises, but he realizes now that he hates to break them.

He rolls onto his back, wanting to see something that isn’t the blaze around him before he dies. He had been hoping for the stars, but instead, he gets what seems to be a huge grey-black symbol of something hanging over the place he lay. It takes a minute for his smoke-clogged brain to understand what it is, but once he does, it hits him with more force than those manticores ever could.

It’s in the shape of a lightning bolt. Zeus.

Harry’s eyes roll up into the back of his head, and he slumps against the forest floor, out cold as the fire rages on around him.

***

A boom echoes.

“It was your son!” A voice roars, and another rises to meet it.

“My son has nothing to do with this!” The room is blurry, a swirl of colors and lights. Two giants are barely visible, and they seem to be sitting on the finest of thrones. One is atop a grey-black throne made of steel lightning bolts, the other atop one made of the oldest and grandest seashells, formed over millions of years. “And are you in any position to accuse him, Zeus?”

Zeus bellows his rage. “Keep your hands away from my son, Poseidon!”

Poseidon snarls. “I will, if you stay away from mine!”

Another boom shakes the room to its ancient foundations.

The hazy sights blurs together even more, and the roaring increasing in volume and intensity until it reaches its crescendo. No thoughts are allowed to permeate it, no air is allowed to be taken in, and it suffocates and strangles until it’s unbearable. Until he can’t take another second under the torture.

Harry wakes with a loud gasp, panting as if he had never tasted air before this very moment.

***

“...waking up!”

Harry blinks open his eyes. The world around him is white and blurry — he’s probably in heaven, or something like that. He tries to raise his hand to wipe his face, but it causes a searing pain all down that arm.

If he’s in heaven, why does he hurt so badly?

“Don’t move!” Someone says frantically. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

The person bends over him, but he can only make out their auburn hair and tanned skin. He tries to ask “Where am I?”, but all that escapes his mouth is a loud groan.

The memory of the last time he was awake is still fresh in his mind, and he remembers nearly every detail. The manticores, Ron being knocked out, the fire he started, him being claimed by Zeus.

He still isn’t sure if his delirious mind made that last one up or not.

It goes against all laws of nature. The sky is blue, grass is green and Harry Potter will never amount to anything.

And yet, here he is, a child of the king of the gods.

“Yeah, I get it, man,” someone else says, startling him, and from their voice Harry guesses they’re a girl. “Wait a sec, I guess you can’t see very well...” After a few seconds of sounds like she’s rummaging through something, she pulls out a sliver object Harry guesses are his glasses.

She slips them onto his face, and everything comes into focus. He can see the girl clearly now — her brown-slash-red hair falls in ringlets around her face, ending at her chin. Her eyes are a golden-brown color, her irises seeming to glow in the bright light. Next to her stands a guy, with the same eyes but instead with regular brown hair that looks just as golden as their eyes in the sun.

“Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, Harry Potter!” She smiles down at him. “I’m Millie, daughter of Apollo. This is my brother, Liam. How are you feeling?”

Harry blinks. He doesn’t feel up to talking just yet, but he hopes she gets the message: he feels terrible, like he was run over by a flaming lorry.

Millie winces. Liam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sorry. Dumb question.” Leaning away, she pulls out a square of ambrosia from a bowl on a nearby table. “Here.”

Since he can’t raise his arms, she has to feed the piece to him, and Harry’s sure that his blush is so powerful, it’s lighting up the room. Millie rolls her eyes and laughs. “It’s fine. I’ve had to feed people all the time. In fact, this girl, Ruby, pissed off Liam here. He shot arrows at her arms, and she could only speak in haikus for days! And there was this other time…”

Though she finds it funny, Harry isn’t really in the mood to laugh, and Liam, judging by the grimace on his face, agrees. The ambrosia returns some of his faculties, at least, including the ability to raise his head without a piercing headache. What he sees nearly makes him pass out again.

His right arm is a mess of bloody bandages, and he can see ugly-looking burns underneath them. His left arm is better, with only a few surface burns. His torso and legs are also wrapped up, but they don’t seem to be as bad as his arm.

“The fire — my friends —” Is all he can ask, cutting through her babble. He needs to know his friends are fine, that they didn’t run into the blaze trying to save him.

“It’s been put out,” Millie reassures him. “ Your friends are fine, don’t worry. Though, I’d worry about the dryads if I were you. They’re mad.”

Harry’s poised to ask what exactly dryads are and whether or not he should be scared of them, but Liam comes to his throat’s rescue. “Wood nymphs — they live in trees. I would steer clear of the forest once you get out of here.”

“But, I mean, the dryads aren’t that bad. My friend Jasmine’s a dryad and —”

“I think we should leave Harry to rest, Millie,” Liam says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He looks like he needs to sleep.”

“But we didn’t ask him about —”

“Millie.”

“Oh, fine, of course.” She huffs, but waves to Harry as she stands, bounding over to the door. “Bye, Harry!”

“If you need anything,” Liam adds, “ring that bell on the table. You will use it if you need to, will you?”

Harry turns and sees a tiny bell. Yeah, he definitely won’t be using that. He doesn’t want to be calling anyone like they’re a servant.

“What did you need to ask me about?” He says instead of agreeing with Liam. He definitely notices, but he clearly decides not to bring it up.

He hesitates before answering, though. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just Millie being overexcited, as usual.” Now he’s the one avoiding the question.

Harry can’t exactly call him out on it, so he resolves to laying his head back on the pillow, still exhausted. It isn’t long before he falls asleep again.

***

After many cycles of dreaming weird dreams and waking up and falling asleep again, Harry is finally allowed to leave the infirmary, sent away with a compression sleeve specially made just for him.

“I have a Hephaestus friend, Beckendorf,” Millie had said, chatting away as she replaced Harry’s bloody bandages. Harry had been trying not to cry out, but it had been a close thing. “He’ll make it perfectly! He could recreate your dagger, down to the finest details! You know, about Beckendorf —”

Out of everything, the loss of his dagger is what hurts the most. Both of them had become like a part of him, an extension of his power. Both Mille and Liam had recounted their side of the night they arrived, which turned out to now be five days ago — they were gathered around the campfire, playing music, when people began to hear screams. They assumed it was some campers getting caught by the cleaning harpies (after his experience with harpies, Harry plans to stay firmly in his cabin the whole night), but after lightning came down and started the fire, they had re-evaluated.

They got buckets and filled them with water and other materials that put out fires, and when they got to the border, they ran into Ron, Hermione and Nigel. Ron was stirring but still heavily out of it, Nigel was exhausted, and Hermione was hysterical. Nobody really panicked until Hermione tearfully brought up that Harry was still somewhere in the inferno. Lots of people thought he was a lost cause, but they tried anyway, if only to be able to honor him properly.

When they put out the fire, they found him burnt, unconscious, and laying underneath Zeus’ symbol. Only one dagger lay in his slack grasp. The manticore must have run away with it.

Now, he stands outside the building called the Big House, hesitant to move any further, not just because he never got a tour and so doesn’t know his way around, but because he can just anticipate the stares he’ll get.

He knows that kids of Zeus are powerful. They always made the best kings, generals, leaders. He isn’t tying to be the leader of Camp Half-Blood or anything, but he isn’t sure if the other campers know that.

He’s saved from making a decision when both Hermione and Ron run up to him, Hermione practically jumping onto him in a hug.

“Oh, Harry,” she says, hugging him tighter. “I’m so glad you’re finally out of the infirmary!” His arm twinges a little at the pressure, but Harry doesn’t say anything, unwilling to end the hug so quickly.

Ron, not one to display such excessive actions such as hugs, just nods and claps him on the back, thankfully not too hard this time.

Harry’s about to ask how they’d been since he hadn’t seen them since the fight with the manticores when Hermione speaks, voice suddenly cold and powerful. “Slap yourself.”

Harry’s less injured arm rises and he strikes himself across the cheek. “Ouch! Hermione, what —”

“That’s what you get for being such an idiot!” Hermione, having gotten over her delight at seeing Harry, is now furious. Even Ron’s glaring at him a little harder than usual. Harry hopes he won’t run him through with his spear or anything. “Fighting those manticores all on your own — not letting me help —”

“I’m not going to apologize,” Harry says, confident. “I won’t. I couldn’t let you guys die, alright?”

“So you decided that it should be you instead?” Ron speaks instead of Hermione this time, his eyes somehow reflecting literal fire. Must be a child of Ares thing. “When we could have helped you —”

“We? Ron, you were knocked out!”

“Regardless,” Hermione says, raising her voice, “you can’t just decide things like that, Harry.” He realizes her eyes are shiny with tears, and suddenly he feels shame drop onto him like a brick. “When you pushed me back... I thought... I thought...”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Harry says softly. “I just wanted to save you guys.”

Hermione doesn’t say anything, but hugs him again.

Ron stares at him, looking kind of shell-shocked. “Zeus, huh?”

Harry, suddenly uncomfortable, worms his way out of Hermione’s embrace. “Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. I had just assumed I was the kid of the god of electricity, or something. Not — not Zeus.” He catches Hermione and Ron sharing a significant look, and he can’t keep quiet any longer. “Why do you guys keep doing that? Is there something I’m missing?”

“Well,” Hermione starts, “we already kind of assumed Zeus was your dad.”

“What — aren’t you the one who said that we shouldn’t assume?”

“Well, mate,” Ron says, “there’s a difference between assuming and knowing. We just knew. It was pretty obvious.”

“Not to me! And you didn’t say anything?” His anger is increasing by the second. They’re meant to be his friends, and they were keeping something this big from him? The air around them began to smell distinctly of ozone. “You knew, and you didn’t say a word?”

“Harry, it would’ve been dangerous! We would’ve died!” Hermione’s eyes are wide and frantic — she’s probably scared that Harry will bring lightning down on both her and Ron. “If you knew, we wouldn’t have made it a few feet out of the airport! You remember what Nigel said, don’t you? That you smell more when you know who you’re godly parent is?”

Harry does remember, and just then, he feels horrible about his anger. The ozonic smells fades into the wind. “I do — sorry.” He rubs his face, mostly just to hide himself from them both. “Where is Nigel, anyway?”

“Last I heard, he went to take a long nap,” Ron says. “He probably won’t want to leave camp for a long time. He’ll come over and see you soon, he said.”

After that, they’re all calm enough to tell him more about camp.

“I can practice with my spear all I want.” Ron smiles, and while it isn’t a look seen on his face often, it isn’t really out of place. “And my brothers and sisters are brilliant.”

Hermione gives Ron a look. “Brilliant is not the word I’d use...” She turns to Harry. “Anyway. They have a small library in the Big House — the building you were in — and it’s amazing! And, I met this really nice girl who’s always there, her name is Annabeth, she’s a daughter of Athena, and we got to talking about —”

“Maybe we should actually give him a tour first before boring him to death,” Ron mutters.

Hermione turns from Harry, her eyes narrowing. Ron would be stupid not to be scared of Hermione Granger. “Don’t make me tell you to slap yourself too, Ronald.”

Ron wisely shuts up after that.

They walk through the camp, and Harry suddenly feels like he doesn’t have enough eyes to take everything in. On his right, campers in bright orange tees are aiming at targets with bows and arrows. He already knows Hermione’s been here without her having to tell him. On his left, two people fight more expertly that probably even Ron — a boy with black hair and an ugly-looking scar on his cheek, and a rather strong-looking girl, her curly hair tied up out of her smirking face.

“That’s my sister, Clarisse,” Ron says, pointing at her. “She’s great at using her spear. I’ll have to get her to teach me sometimes.”

Harry, personally, does not really want to be anywhere near her. “And the boy?”

“Oh, Luke,” Hermione says. “Annabeth told me all about him! He’s the best swordsman at camp.”

Harry nods along, even as a pit forms in his stomach. They’ve been here for less than a week, and they’ve already made friends.

What does that say for him? Will they find other, better friends? Were they only ever friends because they were the only people who knew what the others went through? Harry doesn’t want to think about it.

Lucky (?) for him, as he’s brought out of his thoughts when something small and hard hits him in the back of the head. “Ow!” He cries, rubbing the spot. “Ron, what did you —”

“It wasn’t me,” Ron quickly defends.

“Then who could it have —” Harry’s cut off by another tiny object hitting him, in the chest this time. He can clearly see it’s an acorn. “What —”

“Oh,” Hermione says, realization washing over her. She gives an apologetic smile to Harry. “The dryads.”

Another acorn is thrown at him, then another, then a pine cone, until things are being chucked at him from every direction. He cowers under his raised hands, trying to stop the seeds from hitting his face or glasses. “Please!” He cries. “I’m sorry!” Their attack doesn’t let up one bit , and his friends — the traitors — have taken refuge behind a tall tree, laughing at his predicament. At least Hermione looks a little sorry. Ron is boldly laughing out loud. If Harry can figure out his powers well enough, then Ron will have some electric shocks in his future.

Harry has to run down the path and away from the forest to escape the attack, and Hermione and Ron are right behind him. Once they catch up, they continue making their way towards the cabins, laughing about the event (Ron and Hermione) and sulking (Harry). But there’s something odd — Harry begins to notice the stares and whispers as they come across more and more campers, all with that bright orange shirt. “Er, Hermione?” He asks, a little unsettled by all the eyes on him. “Why is everyone staring?”

She sighs, and pulls both him and Ron underneath a tree, the shade hiding them. “Okay,” she says, steeling herself.

That doesn’t sound too good.

“Kids of Zeus… they aren’t really supposed to exist.” She says, rubbing her elbows with her hands. “The Big Three — Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades — made a pact around the end of World War II, not to have any more children. I’m not sure about Poseidon and Hades, but Zeus… well, he obviously didn’t follow the rules.”

Harry thinks back to his weird dream, and thinks that maybe, Poseidon didn’t obey the pact either. He now knows that Poseidon’s the one who threatened him. It was kind of useless to do, anyway, since Harry will never willingly go to the beach, ever. But, if what he saw was right, Zeus had done the same as Poseidon.

Harry hopes that this kid of Poseidon already lives around the camp, and not in another country. If they flew, it would get deadly, fast.

Woe betide that son of Poseidon. If there’s any hope to be had, he’ll need as much of it as he can get.

“What are you guys doing here?”

They all jump at the voice, Harry nearly tumbling backwards onto his hurt arm. They emerge from the shadows under the tree, and face a girl. She looks to be about their age, and she has a similar skin color to Hermione, except that she has braids while Hermione keeps her hair open. She doesn’t look mad, really, more irritated, with the way she’s crossing her arms and tapping her foot on the ground. Her eyes, grey and intelligent, look over them all, and Harry’s reminded a little of Em.

“Annabeth!” Hermione exclaims. “It’s great to see you. These are my friends, the ones I was telling you about Ron, and Harry.”

“Hi, Hermione,” Annabeth says, still analyzing both Harry and Ron. After a while, she gets bored of Ron and moves on to Harry, but once her eyes land on him, they harden.

“So you’re the son of Zeus,” she says, voice sounding light but dangerous. “Huh.”

“Er, yeah?” Harry blinks. Why does she look so annoyed?

As if his words incensed her even further, her eyes narrow into a glare. “Don’t think that just because you’re Zeus’ kid that you’re some kind of hotshot. You’re still a little kid.”

“W — what?” Harry is seriously confused now, not in the least since Annabeth couldn’t be any older than twelve. “I never said —”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes, ignoring the three’s baffled looks. “Chiron and Mr. D want to talk to you in the Big House.” With that, she stalks away in the direction of the fight between Luke and Clarisse.

“She’s never acted like that before,” Hermione says, eyes wide. “She was so nice...”

“It’s fine, I’m used to people like her,” Harry says, waving her words away. “So, we need to go back to the Big House?”

“Guess so,” Ron says, a little sulkily. “We didn’t even get to show you the cabins.”

“We’ll show him later, Ron.”

“Well, yeah, I just meant —”

Harry shakes his head and speeds up back the way they came. Noting that he’s a lot farther ahead than them, they run to catch up, their argument over in the blink of an eye. Now that they have a purpose and aren’t meandering around anymore, they arrive a lot quicker. This time, once they get there, Harry sees a middle-aged man with a Diet Coke in his hand, standing next to —

Harry has to rub his eyes, and even afterwards, it’s still there.

The man (man?) in front of him is half-horse. He smiles slightly at Harry’s incredulousness.

“Harry, come in,” the man-horse says, gesturing for Harry to pass him and enter the house. At Hermione and Ron’s frantic hand flapping in that general direction, Harry goes in.

The living room he enters is quite normal, though Harry isn’t sure what he was expecting. He perches himself on a comfortable brown chair just as the man-horse and the regular man walk in.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Harry Potter,” the man-horse says.

“Hmph,” the regular man grunts. He takes a sip of his Diet Coke.

“My name is Chiron,” says the man-horse, completely ignoring him. “I am the activities director at Camp Half-Blood.”

“Nice to meet you,” Harry squeaks.

Chiron smiles, but says nothing about his fear. “This is Mr. D.”

“Nice to meet you, Harold,” Mr. D says, not even looking at him.

“Er, it’s Harry.”

“Whatever.”

“Anyway, Harry,” Chiron goes on, “We wanted to check in on you, and to tell you a few things. Firstly, how’s your arm?”

Harry holds up his bandaged and compressed arm. “Fine, for now,” he says, wiggling his fingers.

“Good, good. And have you had a tour yet?”

“Well, Hermione and Ron were giving me one when I was told I had to come here,” Harry explains. “I haven’t seen the cabins or anything yet, just some of the training places.”

“We’ll have to fix that soon,” Chiron says, contemplative. “I can ask Annabeth to give you a proper one tomorrow, if you’d like.”

“Erm.” Harry isn’t in the practice of speaking his mind in front of adult, and even though Chiron is half-horse, he still feels a little disrespectful. “I don’t mind having it tomorrow, but maybe not with Annabeth, please?”

Chiron frowns. “Why not? Have you met her yet?”

“I have,” Harry confirms, still feeling uncomfortable. This is usually the point where whatever adult he’s talking to tells him to keep quiet and suck it up. “She — she didn’t like me. She acted like I think I’m a ‘hotshot’ because I’m Zeus’ kid.”

Mr. D snorts — thanks, Harry thinks — but Chiron looks both disappointed and thoughtful. “I suppose I should tell you... though I’m not sure if it’s my story to tell...” he debates with himself for a few more seconds, until he seemingly reaches a decision. “Annabeth is set against you for probably one reason,” he starts. “I’ll spare you many of the details — that’s for Annabeth herself to tell you — but she arrived at camp five years ago, with friends named Luke, Grover, and Thalia.”

Harry guesses Luke is the boy he saw fighting Clarisse, but he has no idea who the other two are.

Chiron continues. “When they arrived at camp, they were being chased by monsters — Cyclopes. Grover was their satyr protector, and he managed to get them close to the border, but the Cyclopes were overwhelming them. In order to let Luke, Annabeth and Grover reach camp safely, Thalia volunteered to hold them back while they ran — much like yourself.”

Harry hears that, and is forced to think of the fire that surrounded him as his friends got to safety.

“It was too much for her, and she was gravely injured. But, as she lay dying, Zeus took pity on her, and turned her into a pine tree, and its power is what protects Camp Half-Blood from outside enemies.”

“Zeus... turned her into a pine tree?” He knows the gods did weird things, but that’s really odd. “But — why? Why did he take pity on her?”

Chiron looks him straight in the eyes, and Harry can’t seem to look away. “Thalia was a daughter of Zeus.”

Harry blinks, then blinks again. Then again, for good measure. “I had... a sister?”

“Yes.” Chiron breaks the eye contact and bows his head. “It’s a shame you never got to meet her, as I feel you two would have had a strong connection right away. But I tell you this so you can understand what Annabeth feels, even if she goes about her feelings the wrong way. You and Thalia are very similar, even without your relation as half-siblings. What you did the night you arrived... it reminded Annabeth of Thalia, and now, she may feel that Zeus has tried to replace her with you.”

“But —”

“I know, it isn’t true. But since she can’t take out her anger on Zeus, she has decided to take it out on you.”

“I just got here.” Harry kicks at the old-looking rug below his feet. “I haven’t even done anything.”

“That is where you’re wrong,” Chiron says, pacing across the room as well as a horse can. “I’ve met many children of Zeus over the years, Harry. You aren’t the first, and you most certainly won’t be the last. But, Harry Potter, you will most likely be the only one to ever start a forest fire before even stepping foot on Camp ground.” He chuckles. “Annabeth always notices the newcomers, and she couldn’t have not noticed you.”

“Yeah, but not exactly in a good way,” Harry mutters.

Chiron nods, and sighs. “I will talk to her,” he says, and unlike all the empty promises Harry’s received over the years when he’s reported a bully, these words sound genuine. Harry nods back, a little embarrassed that he’s even said anything. Still, he’s glad that something might be done, since he doesn’t really want to deal with bullies in the one place where people seem to accept him.

Is it weird that he’s already begun to think of Camp Half-Blood as his new home, even if he’s only been here (conscious) for one day? Maybe it’s best if you don’t answer that question.

Chiron glances over at Mr. D, who actually fell asleep during their conversation. “Dionysus,” He says, loud enough for the man to awaken with a jerk.

“What?” He rubs his eyes and stretches. Then he notices Harry. “Oh, it’s Harold.”

“...Harry.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I was going to ask if you had anything to say to Harry,” Chiron explains, looking upon him with no small amount of amusement.

“Hmm...” he murmurs, looking intently at him. Harry’s sure that he’s going to bust out some philosophical and deep question that will send him soul-searching just by the intensity of his gaze, but he’s a little annoyed when he asks, “Could you get me another Coke? This one’s empty.”

“What?” Harry’s about to stand up and leave right now, but the name Chiron called Mr. D — Dionysus — finally rings a bell. “Wait — you’re Dionysus! Why are you even drinking Coke?”

“Trust me, I know who I am,” he says, clearly grumpy. “Zeus thought it would be a funny joke to restrict my alcohol intake.” He holds up the empty can of Diet Coke. “I can’t even have regular Coke.”

Zeus — your father, Harry’s mind supplies. He’s still reeling from that revelation, that he’s actually a lot more important that he could ever know. It means he’s still hesitant to call Zeus his dad — when Harry thinks of his dad, he still thinks of the faceless man his mother died in a car crash with. To his mind, he’s still an orphan, even if his dad his really thousands of years old.

“Harry, any questions?” Chiron asks, maybe noticing his far-off expression.

“No,” Harry says automatically. Maybe it’s his injury catching up with him, but he can suddenly feel exhaustion clawing at him like an angry cat (and he’s seen Mrs. Figg’s cats — he knows what that feels like). “I just want to sleep, I think.”

“Of course,” Chiron says, smiling. Mr. D just murmurs something that sounds like ‘finally’ and ambles out. Harry isn’t particularly sad to see him go. “Shall I call Ron and Hermione to take you to your cabin?”

Harry nods, and he follows Chiron out of the living room and onto the porch of the Big House, only to find Ron and Hermione standing right at the door. “You guys are still here?” He asks, bewildered.

Ron’s beet-red, and Hermione’s skin tone is really to dark to tell, but Harry’s sure he can hazard a guess. “We wanted to be here when you left,” Hermione explains, cowering slightly under Chiron’s gaze. “I hope that’s okay —”

“It’s perfectly fine, Hermione,” Chiron says. “In fact, I was going to look for you, so that you two could take Harry here to his cabin.”

Both Ron and Hermione’s eyes jump to Harry. “Let’s go, then,” Ron says, dragging them both along.

Before they can get too far, Harry turns and calls back to Chiron. “Thank you!” Chiron nods, just before his view is obscured as they turn a corner.

***

“It’s a little... much.”

Ron snorts, but says nothing else.

They’re standing in front of the Zeus cabin, gazing upon its features. It isn’t ugly, not in any way, but there’s just so much going on. The walls are this black marble, and the pillars around the door are gold. Directly above the doorway, there’s a bust of Zeus, staring down on anyone who dares to enter.

“Maybe it’s better inside,” Hermione says, but Harry, reasonably, has doubts about that. Still, they push open the door, and — yeah, Hermione was wrong. Somehow it’s even more grandiose inside, with towering columns that must have been made with solid silver and gold, and a state-of-the-art bed with a fancy silver frame that sits right underneath another statue of Zeus. The ceiling, however, is the most flamboyant thing in the room, and also Harry’s favorite — it’s a moving picture of a stormy sky, lightning gracing it every so often. Harry’s always liked thunderstorms, and while he was fine with sitting inside and watching them, he felt an itching to be in them, one with the clouds and the forks of lightning. This is probably as close as he’ll get (especially since Hermione says camp never gets so much as a drizzle), but he’ll take it.

Harry involuntarily yawns. Ron and Hermione look at each other, then start to turn towards the door. “We’ll come and see you tomorrow,” Hermione promises, smiling at him. “We’ll get you for breakfast.”

“The food here is brilliant,” Ron adds, looking a little wistful. “You don’t know anything like it.”

Harry nods, his head feeling a little fuzzy. He barely registers the door closing behind him friends as he climbs into bed, too tired to even feel all that disturbed about the bust of Zeus hanging above him.

His head touches the pillow, and he’s gone. He dreams, but this time, they’re all good.

***