Third-Person PoV: The Demigod's Dorm Rooms
His fingers nearly slipped as he tugged one last time onto the last stitch on her body, she grunted as the thread was tied off and a hiss left her lips which soon melted into a hum of contentment as nectar spilt onto the sealed wound.
"Try not to re-open it." She nodded at him as she clumsily stood up, fetching her spear that was discarded on the floor when she staggered in a couple of minutes ago.
"I'll try my best but it's chaos out there, thanks." She dashed out of the door, favouring her left side as she raced down the hill, it turns out she didn't even need to be careful about reopening her stitches since she'd soon be swallowing a Drachma and on her way to Hades. He moved towards the sink to wash the crimson off his hands, he didn't know when the next body would come to him, warm or cold. The demigod dried his hands just as he heard the thudding of feet against the ground, he focused his powers on the demigods approaching to know what he needed to heal as soon as they arrived.
A wound to the abdomen, most likely from a Hellhound and it was relatively deep, he didn't know how far away they were when they were injured but he doubted that even if he sutured their wounds and gave them some ambrosia and nectar they'd survive. He speed-walked past some of his siblings, two of them nodded at him as they slung their arrows and bows across their backs and a dagger strapped onto their thighs as they headed out to the battlefield with a first aid kit in their hands, to fetch a sterilized needle and more water to cleanse the wound.
A boy nearly tripped over into the infirmary, practically falling over the demigod he was carrying, blood leaked through their ripped clothing starting to drip onto the floor which was starting to get caked in dirt and dried blood.
"Please! I need a medic!" Tears and snot were smeared across his face, the boy leaning heavily on him hummed in a hazy acknowledgement.
"The bed over there is free, lay him down quickly." He pointed over to a bed that's sheets were stripped a new sheet of paper was placed over it.
They dragged the injured demigod over to the bed and hoisted them up, shoving them more in the centre, he recognized the boy in the bed, he was from Cabin 6.
"I-I'm gonna head back to the battlefield, hang in there. It's going to be alright." His voice cracked at the end, he sniffled and gave the son of Athena a squeeze on his hands.
"M'kay." He gave him one last lingering look before they rushed out the door, picking up the sword that he only just noticed resting outside the door. He picked up his clean supplies and rushed over to his new patient.
"I'm going to clean your wounds first and then I'll close your wounds, I'll warn you though I might be a bit rough as I need to get this done as quickly as possible." A weak smile greeted his lips as he took a pair of scissors and cut at his shirt, not waiting for a response. The shirt was discarded into a bin next to the bed, he opened the drawer in the cabinet beside him to take out a fresh cloth and began to disinfect the two deep lesions. The blonde let out a weak ground of pain, tilting his head to the left, he spied some tears that leaked from his foggy, grey eyes.
He pulled on a new pair of gloves, quickly using a needle driver to pick up a pre-threaded sterilized needle with thread, he drew the first wound back with tissue forceps to see how deep the wound went. The abdominal aorta was ruptured, he needed to do this quick. He wasted no time in, inserting the needle in the skin, ensuring that it wouldn't go below the fat, his mind seemed to drift as he went through the familiar method of suturing a wound. His patient squirmed and cried in pain.
"Will..." His voice was croaky, the son of Apollo hummed in acknowledgement as he went to finish off the first gash. "Thank you..." He stilled, probably too tired to even react to the pain now.
"Don't thank me yet, I haven't finished yet Oliver." He set about doing the second one, tying off each one as the skin closed, it was satisfying to watch a gaping wound close up and then the skin bring itself back together.
"I'm just going to put some nectar on the wounds to speed up the healing and then we're done." Will smiled up at Oliver, reaching for the nectar that rested on top of the cabinet, only he was met with frigid eyes.
It wasn't the usual storm that you could see in a child of Athena's eyes, sometimes he swears that you could see the swirl of their thoughts in their eyes as they looked in the distance or as if they were gazing straight through your soul.
It was the cold gaze of the dead.
He was too late.
With trembling hands Will reached for a drachma, forcing open Oliver's mouth he slid it under his tongue and shut his mouth again, blood smeared on his eyelids and he closed them shut.
He stood to gather the corpse into his arms bridal style into the room next door, where his body could lay with the rest till the battle was won. Hopefully. Will gently brought him down to the ground.
"Your welcome Oliver, rest well."
He entered the infirmary again and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, taking a moment to collect himself. He moved towards the sink to wash the crimson off his hands, he didn't know when the next body would come to him, warm or cold.
"Will?" His blue eyes moved to rest on the face of the son of Hades, his dark eyes were frowning in concern. "You've been washing your hands for five minutes, you're gonna end up scratching the skin off if you don't stop."
Will followed his troubled gaze to where his hands were rubbed raw, they were wrinkled and starting to get small scratches on them. He let loose a nervous chuckle as he turned off the tap and dried them with a towel. "My bad, I was just caught up is all." Nico hummed at him, his eyes lingered on him for a few moments before he went to get finished getting dressed in his all-black clothes.
"You still planning to meet with Potter and the other two today?" The son of Hades called from the room they shared, a new aviator jacket rested on the two single beds that they had pushed together.
"Yeah, we might get more insight on the enemy since those three appear to be at the centre of their war. And I will say that I'm a bit concerned though, Harry looked a bit too underfed for my liking, like someone else I know." Will jabbed a finger at Nico's ribs when he passed him to change out of his pyjamas.
"I'd like to see you go to Ta- below the Underworld and get trapped in a jar with only five seeds to eat and try to get back onto a normal diet." He snarked.
"I know Neeks, I know. Reminds me that I should do a check-up on Annabeth and Percy to see how their stomachs and lungs are as well, they're still designing the inhalers for the three of you at camp. Hopefully, they should have finished them by Christmas." The blond pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans as he mused in his thoughts. It reminded him of a lot of things that he had left to be done with the rest of camp in his sibling's hands. Yet he still had much to do here on this special 'quest': he was still going about ensuring that the demigods here were on the long road to recovery, having to mentally assess the Hogwarts students that he'll be doing therapy with, then there was the issue of having to start therapy sessions seeing as they all know how essential they will be in the Wizard's incoming war, not to mention the constant worry of the damage that Tartarus has done to his boyfriend and the engaged couple. There was still a lot to unravel, they had barely scraped the surface of what had even happened, none of them could even say the name, but that was the first step that he was determined to take with them, his only hope is that the hardship wouldn't have too many mental, emotional and physical effects.
"Thank fuck, cause I need to keep reminding myself that I'm just injured not unfit."
"Let's hope that it's a temporary injury and not permanent." Will smiled at him, forcing his feet into a pair of converses. He gathered a folder from the dresser along with a pencil case stuffing them into a tote bag that he slung onto his shoulder. "Let's go get some food in us then." He met Nico at the door and they walked down the corridor that held the demigod's rooms, they entered the common room to find Clovis half asleep on the couch with parchment, pens, and a notepad sprawled in front of him on the coffee table.
"Good morning Clovis! Sleep well?"
The son of Hypnos snorted and turned a half-dazed look to Will. "You're really gonna ask the son of Hypnos how he slept? Really?" Will laughed at him. "But I slept fine, it would just be nice to not be able to sleep anywhere, anytime right now when I'm trying to get some homework done and out of the way." He grumbled, face slamming onto the table, and a few snores began to escape him.
"Well, that backfired."
"No shit, I'm pretty sure that someone will bring some food up for him. Knowing Rachel she's probably coming back to get art supplies to paint some scenery." He mused as they made their way to the exit of their common room. Nico trudged into the Gryffindor Common room with Will trailing after him, the few Wizards and Witches that were still lingering around shuffled away from the gloomy boy, parting like a sea of black, red, and gold.
"Will, Nico! Good morning, how are you?" Ginny marched up to them, she was wearing a faded, red hoodie, an indistinguishable logo, with a set of shabby jeans and scuffed trainers. Hermione was walking behind, a saddlebag slung over her shoulder, she had dressed in a red short-sleeved polo neck and a red, black, and white plaid skirt that pleated out to her knees. Her shins were covered in knee-high black socks and dark brown shoes with a slight heel.
"Apart from being mentally ill and waking up twice last night from a nightmare, I'm a bit tired but I'll get through the day." Nico shrugged at the two girls, they shifted a bit at his response and looked at him weirdly. The demigods had quickly begun to understand that when someone asks if 'Are you okay?' when they greet you in the UK they don't really mean it. And of course, for some reason, Nico, Clarisse, and Thalia took great pleasure in making the other students and the occasional professor uncomfortable when they start talking briefly about their mental health.
"Wait you woke up last night? Why didn't you wake me up?" Will crossed his arms and looked down at the shorter male, his brows knitted together and his lips tilted downwards.
"Cause you needed the sleep, I'm not going to bother you with my problems sunshine." Will opened his mouth to respond but a pointed look from the ravenette told him that it wasn't a conversation to have at the current moment.
Hermione cleared her throat and turned her brown eyes to meet his blue. "So, you wanted to see me at six right Will?"
"Yeah, just meet me in here and I'll take you to where we'll have the meeting?"
"Would it be rude of me to ask what this meeting will be about?"
"Not really, it's more or less to help with what's to come. For this year and the next." He leaned in closer so that the two Gryffindors could hear. "Whether the rest of your community accepts it or not there is definitely a war coming and we want to make sure you're prepared."
"Prepare for it? We-well what about me? I know that I can-"
"Quiet Ginny." Will hissed. "I plan to see you tomorrow at 12 if you can make it. I'm more or less just having sessions with students that we know have accepted the situation and we believe will be on the... side that has better morals and ethics."
Ginny and Hermione stared at the blond, it was blank to the mortal eye but the eyes of a demigod were observant and picked up on details that took longer for mortals to understand. They were disgusted and somewhat betrayed by his words, a heavy sigh escaped his lips, and a hand came to run through his shaggy head.
"What Will means is that to defeat your enemy you must understand them, if you know their intentions and motives how else will you overcome them? Ok, so He wants to rule the world and kill all muggles. But what else? You need to know as much as you can about them, like who would He turn to for power and influence, look back to the first war so that you have an understanding of his past methods and allies as he might turn to those again. Besides some of their morals are understandable." He held up a hand as a scowl decorated Hermione's face, her nose scrunched up and her mouth slightly open showing her overbite.
"Wanting to preserve some customs that have importance to your culture is important, that my people can sympathize with, being wary of muggles and they fear that they will resort to the same methods they did in the past is logical. But slaughtering them is not. While on the 'light side' there are things that we disagree with, your treatment of magical creatures is disgusting, I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason that our family refuses an alliance is due to the laws against those who aren't human. Some of our relatives aren't even human, it would betray their trust to know that we align ourselves with associates that look beneath those who aren't human. The world is grey in nature. There is no such thing as light or dark, it's just a scale of grey that may at times seem so light you could dare call it white or so dark that it seems black."
"He makes sense though." They jumped at the voice behind them, Nico looked around to see that he had attracted a crowd of the few people that were in the Gryffindor Common Room. Lee Jordan stood behind Nico, his dark dreadlocks pulled up into a ponytail. "The world is definitely grey, I'd say on the darker side. A lot of the people in power in both the Muggle and Wizarding World are some of the greediest and most inhuman people out there." He sniffed like he had smelt something gone off in the fridge.
"But why is he talking like something is about to happen here."
"We wouldn't be here if there wasn't." Nico grabbed Will's arm, dragging them to the door, deciding to leave the conversation that they had prepared to stew over.
They walked down the corridors, they were empty, and only the occasional glimpse of a ghost could be seen. They'd vanish through a wall as soon as their silver eyes locked with Nico's. "They have the naivety of a child." Nico scoffed.
"That is true, even in the mortal world by their age they realize that the real world beyond our childish fantasy has many wrongs in the right and rights in the wrong. No side is better than the other most of the time, it's all about weighing your options and seeing what side is better overall, after all, we all tend to choose the lesser of two evils." Nico hummed in agreement and they continued their journey in silence.
The Gods weren't perfect. Some had gotten better from what was told of them from Ancient Greece, but they certainly weren't perfect. Perhaps it was a human thing to believe that gods and goddesses were unflawed. But they were just like any other human except that they were immortal and powerful, free from the consequences that mortals would have to face, breaking a promise on the Styx was a prime example. Yet there were still drawbacks of immortality, you can get arrogant, believing that you're untouchable, and your sympathy and empathy for mortals fade till they become nothing but insects walking around you. Kronos was a perfect example of why immortality wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Alive yet never whole.
Still, until the gods were proved to be inadequate to watch over the mortals and another group showed that they were better, then the demigods would stand behind them. They wouldn't support all the choices they would make, but just ensure that they wouldn't be removed from their seats of power.
The Demigod's Common Room, After Breakfast...
Harry walked in cautiously after Will, he glanced around the Royal's Common Room. He didn't understand why they would need a Common Room just for themselves when they could easily use the Hogwarts one, and mingle more with the other students. Clovis was snoozing on his pile of homework, it seemed to be half done like he had fallen asleep halfway through.
"Don't worry about Clovis, his magic makes him sleep a lot." Will waved a hand in the air as he directed him towards another set of couches by the window, they sat across from each other and Will took out a blue folder from the tote bag he carried and placed it onto the coffee table that was settled between them.
"W-what is his magic exactly?" He glanced again at the snoozing demigod and he wondered if that position was even comfortable to sleep in.
"Sleep and dreams. He and his siblings tend to randomly fall asleep if it wasn't then I would definitely interfere." He chuckled and his blue eyes twinkled in amusement, a thoughtful look crossed his face as he sent a lighting look at the other blond. "I wonder if them being asleep all the time helps to make their magic more powerful..."
The Gryffindor caught some movement to his left, he peered out the window to see Nico being dragged by Percy and Thalia into the Forbidden Forest. Jason, Hazel and Katie trailed behind them, seeming to be conversing as they disappeared into the branches of darkness. "Why are they going into the Forbidden Forest?! Don't they know how dangerous it is?" He hadn't noticed when he had moved to press his hands to the window but he felt a hand rest on his shoulder.
"Thalia and Percy dragged him off before we came to the Great Hall, something about 'Cousin bonding'. Don't worry they'll be fine, they sound just like the woods at home and we have games in there every Friday and no one has died in a while. Besides the Centaurs respect us because one of our mentors back home is a centaur. Let's get started on our session." Will clapped his hands and steered Harry towards the couch again, his statement did nothing to quell the concern that rested in Harry's gut.
Will flipped open the folder and took out some papers that were already clipped onto a board. "How have you honestly been feeling this year Harry?"
"Like how I'm feeling or what's been going on?"
"Both, won't deny that I'm troubled that you haven't had any therapy sessions from your first year."
The air stilled as Harry shuffled about on the couch, his gaze fell to his hands, he wrung them, they already felt wet with sweat. Why was he so apprehensive? It's not like he was about to spill all the trauma he's felt since the night his parent's died to a complete stranger.
"...I've been feeling angry. I-I don't know whether it's just years of built-up frustrations or that I don't know anything about what's going on when Voldemort is after me. Like yeah, I'm still a child but I've stopped being one for years now."
"Is the Order not telling you anything?"
"Mmmm. It's annoying, as soon as I stepped foot in Hogwarts he's been after my life, it's not like that's going to suddenly change now that he's alive."
"That's true. I understand your frustrations though. In the first war, our parents refused to acknowledge the fact that He was back a bit too late into the conflict."
"Really? Do you think the same might happen with us?"
"Possibly, your Minister is stupid, even if Voldemort wasn't back there's clearly something happening in the shadows. Is your anger present all the time or is it just easier to get snap than usual?"
"It's just easier for me to snap, I keep snapping at my friends and I don't want to lose anymore."
"Maybe some daily meditation could help, how about we go through some of them now?"
If you're traumatized or mentally unwell please get some therapy kids, (although my old therapist did say that therapy isn't for everyone)
I don't know how to do write about good therapy for a traumatized 14/15 year old without sounding like those annoying therapists so please excuse me