When Myths Meet Magic || 1 || a Harry Potter-Percy Jackson crossover

1|| Harry

At the early sound of a nearby car alarm going off, Harry Potter threw off his blanket and blinked as his bleary eyes adjusted to the morning darkness through his glasses. The sun hadn't risen yet, but that didn't matter. What better time than to pace in apprehension than five in the morning?

The minutes trickled by and so did his patience. Harry turned to the trunk gleaming by his door and, for the ninth time that week, sifted through its contents.

"Robes, check," he muttered, not bothering to look at the list contained in that letter. It was ingrained in his memory anyway. "Cauldron, check. Spellbooks, check. Parchment and ink, check. Quill, check. Wand—" the word still sent thrills through him. "Wand, check." With a snap, the heavy trunk closed. Then Harry hesitated and frowned. "Did I have my cauldron?" He reopened it.

>>>•O•<<<

It was like they hit every possible stop in all of Europe during the drive to King's Cross. Finally, the Dursley's nearly threw him out of the car, trunk and owl following suit, before tailing it out as fast as the accelerator could handle.

With difficulty, Harry straightened up the heavy trunk and looked around at the platforms, then at his ticket. Platforms, ticket. Platforms, ticket. There was no mistaking the Platform 9 3/4 inked in big, bold, standard font, but there was also no mistaking the solid brick wall between platforms nine and ten.

Maybe it was a magic wall, like the one at Diagon Alley? Harry tried to remember which brick Hagrid had tapped with his umbrella. Three up, two from the left? If he had to tap every brick in the station, he would.

"...packed with Muggles, of course..."

Harry jumped slightly and whirled around. The speaker was a woman, rather plump and characteristically motherly, speaking to four boys and a girl, all with flaming red hair. Between the beaten trunks each boy pushed was an owl.

Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them like a stray dog, painfully conscious of the fact that he was observing their every movement and hoped none of them looked his way. Baffled, he watched as the eldest boy wheeled his cart around and pushed it straight forward, walking briskly, then he was gone, then the second, then the third. All vanished into thin air.

But how?

"Excuse me," Harry said to the woman. She glanced over at him and smiled.

"Oh, hello dear. First time at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah," Harry stammered. "The thing is— I— I don't know how—"

"How to get on the platform?" She asked kindly. "No need to worry. All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop, and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Go on now, before Ron."

She nodded like a veteran in the art of running into walls. Harry turned and faced the barrier, his cart in front of him. Hedwig hooted, as if saying, "are you actually going to run straight into this brick wall Harry you nitwit you're going to kill us both."

Ignoring Hedwig, Harry began to walk towards the barrier. People jostled him from side to side. He walked faster. Then he broke into a run. The wall came closer and closer. Every pounding step drove deeper the fear of splattering all over King's Cross station... then suddenly, the people around him seemed to disappear.

Instead of a wall, the red object in front of him was a steam train, puffing merrily as families clamored around the windows and children ran between legs. On the side, gold lettering spelled out The Hogwarts Express.

No matter where he looked, Harry spotted fascinating things. Owls swooped low to head, a toad hopped between people's feet, small flashes of brown stuck to the windows as if the dirt was alive, a particular cluster of kids swarmed a giant tarantula.

Harry wriggled through the crowd, apologizing profusely as his trunk decided to become a wrestling star to everyone around him. Suddenly identical images appeared on either side of him— two of the four red haired boys from earlier.

"Need help?" said the boy on the right, steadying Harry's trunk as it lurched to the side.

"Thanks," Harry replied gratefully. After some struggle ("what's in here, a boggart?" grunted the left boy), they heaved the trunk out of the way.

"Thanks," said Harry again, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. The left twin stared at Harry's sweaty face, ignoring his extreme unathleticism and instead nudging the right twin.

"Blimey. Is that... Are you—?"

"He is. Aren't you?"

"What?" said Harry.

"Harry Potter," they said in unison, pointing at the lightning shaped scar.

"Oh," said Harry, for lack of anything else to say. He could feel heat creeping back up his neck. "Well, um—"

"Fred? George? Where are you?"

Identical flickers of panic crossed the twins' faces. "Coming Mum!" they shouted in unison, darting out of the open door.

Slinking to the back of the train, Harry slid into an empty compartment, pressing his face against the window, eager to see more of the wizarding world. He turned his head to the left and strained to see down the line, when he spotted four young-looking kids coming from around the corner, where there was an unusual lack of traffic. Two boys, both with jet black hair, and two girls, apparently bickering with the boys. Aside from them, the left side was empty. Then, to the right, he spotted the kind woman who had pointed him in the right direction. She was talking very sternly to the twins who had helped him earlier. "Toilet seat," she seemed to be saying. Harry shook his head. I must be hallucinating, he thought idly as he strained to glimpse anything new, perhaps a dragon or a unicorn.

A squeal reached his ears through the slightly open window, and Harry's gaze drew back to the red haired family. The little girl from before was standing closest to the train, eagerly pointing in his direction. Harry attempted to dodge out of sight, even though he knew they had already seen him. The attention was unnerving. Back St. Grogory's Primary School, Dudley had made sure that Harry was never popular. Any attention he got was solely negative.

Harry waited for the squealing to stop, which it did abruptly as the train blew steam and began to chug along the tracks. He sent one last glance to London and the faces, smiling and teary, as they bid the train goodbye.