Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries

Epilogue

After Beckendorf flew in on Blackjack, startling Ron and I half to death, nothing was the same.

So, so many campers died. Beckendorf being the first of those horrible days, my other friends falling soon after. There was Silena, face burned off. There was Michael and most of the other Apollo campers, dead on that bridge, leaving Will alone. Their faces blurred together into a mass of dead horror. Terry Boot, Ethan Nakamura, camper after camper, death after death. Demigods on both sides of the war, torn apart due to the absence of their parents.

Liam. Seeing the condition in which Luke and Liam were raised had been a terrible blow, especially after all that had happened. The blurred eyes of their unrecognizing mother had burned a hole in my heart.

Getting Nico to take me to the underworld to both get my mother's blessing and to dip me in the River Styx had been terrifying, especially when the boy betrayed him. We'd been planning on my receiving the Curse of Achilles since the Battle of the Labyrinth, and I really regretted not letting any of my friends in on it — I'd been much too scared to tell them the truth of the plan, usually diverting their questions to confuse and terrorize Ron.

And then came that horrible war. The first time I'd really spoken to Draco since hearing that horrible prophecy beyond teary, short conversations was spent in bloodshed. But Draco stayed by my side, determined, until ultimately even he was injured, nearly losing his life at the end of Ethan's blade, sacrificing himself for me.

So, so many people got hurt. The Order of the Phoenix all came to help. The image of Lupin, lying on the concrete, blood draining from his head, was horrible, even after we were able to revive him. The sight of Fred sobbing as a monster choked his twin was heartbreaking. Hearing Molly scream as she lost sight of Arthur after an explosion had torn me to shreds.

Then, the Death Eaters arrived. It happened while I was fighting Hyperion on the bridge. On the other side of Manhattan, where a few campers were searching for a missing daughter of Hermes, the Death Eaters made their appearance. Voldemort himself wasn't there, and I didn't have much of them to deal with, but reportedly it was rough. Wand against sword wasn't an even fight.

Seamus, the senior-most camper there besides Neville, had ordered the others to flee once it was clear things weren't working out. Dolohov, robes sadly changed back to black, had led the charge, killing any demigod in sight.

It was him and Neville against the torturer of our kind.

Seamus told Neville to help one of the fallen campers, the young girl they'd been looking for, and had went head to head against Dolohov. During their fight, he proved himself more adept than anyone had thought him capable of — he'd always been good at causing explosions. Water from a burst fire hydrant, Earth in the form of asphalt. His own blood. The petal of a blooming flower. And, fished from a bag the Stolls had stolen from a candy shop, a single blue Jelly-bean. The mishmash of items Seamus had stomped on over the puddle made little sense to the people around him — it seemed so out of place. But to Seamus, who had paid more attention in Potions than anyone thought, was creating something powerful. Instead of swiping at Dolohov, he struck downward, sword skittering across the asphalt, making sparks fly. Heat was all it took to activate the simple but reactive potion, with Seamus right by it.

The bridge blew up almost immediately — I'd heard the explosion, and had felt sick at the sight of smoke rising beyond the buildings.

I'm not sure how many of the Death Eaters had escaped. A lot of them Disapparated, including Dolohov, but a lot of them were killed in the explosion. Seamus would have been, too, if not for the barrier of vines Neville had erupted in front of him. That being said, he didn't get out of it uninjured.

A day, maybe two, later, a helicopter flew into demigod airspace, the mortal pilot quickly falling unconscious Much to my horror, it was Ron. Draco managed to get inside the helicopter by means of flying horse before it could crash, and my friend stepped out, pale and saying that I wasn't the hero. I'll admit, it initially hurt, but something flashed across Draco's strained face.

After giving Pandora's pithos to Hestia and not opening it like Prometheus hoped, my friends and I journeyed to Olympus. Kronos did the same. Cut off from the majority of our allies, it was Grover, Draco, and I against the Titan wearing Liam's body.

Draco figured it out, then, what Ron had meant when saying I wasn't the hero. After urging Liam to regain control of his body, I had to make the decision of whether to trust Liam to make the final blow, or to attempt to do it myself.

Apparently, I made the right choice. I trusted in Draco's trust of Liam, and the cursed blade reaped the hero's soul.

We'd won the war, even if, after burning all those funeral shrouds, it didn't feel like it.

Before everything could settle, though, Ron approached the husk that was the Oracle of Delphi. He'd chosen to take on that spirit. Unlike May Castellan, though, he succeeded in becoming the Oracle, the first male ever to do so, due to Hades having damaged the spirit when forcing it to stay in the old Oracle's body.

And he uttered his first ever prophecy;

"Seven Half-Bloods shall answer the call,
To storm or fire, the world must fall.
An oath to keep with a final breath,
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."

I had survived, where so many others hadn't.

It was only after dipping into the lake with Draco that I felt like maybe things would be all right.

Dumbledore, whom I hand't spoken to since the start of the war, approached me the very next day.

"What happened to your hand?" I asked him, though I wanted nothing more than to rest.

He held out the shriveled remains of his wand hand, "Oh, just an old man's mistake again. I will tell you soon. But I have a favor to ask."

Who needed a break, anyway?

And here we are, the end of the line! It shouldn't be too long before I start posting the next book. I'm not sure if I'll post five chapters the first day, because the chapters are longer than they were at the start of the previous five books. I think I'll post three on next Saturday. Also this epilogue didn't save the first time I wrote it, so I wrote it again, then the original popped back up out of nowhere. Not cool, Wattpad, not cool.

Anyway, I hope you guys have had a good time with this book! I do hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. See you Saturday! Love ya!