When Moody dismissed us, we left the classroom and a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices: "Did you see it twitch?" "—and when he killed it — just like that!"
They were talking about the lesson as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but I hadn't found it very entertaining. It seemed Harry and Hermione hadn't liked it much, either.
"Hurry up," Hermione said tensely to us.
"Not the ruddy library again?" said Ron.
"No," I said, pointing up a side passage. "Neville."
Neville was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse. I took a deep breath and walked up to him, gently placing my hand on his shoulder to let him know I was there.
"Hey, Neville," I said softly.
Neville looked around.
"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm — I'm starving, aren't you?"
"Neville, are you all right?" said Hermione.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner — I mean lesson — what's for eating?"
Ron gave Harry a startled look.
"Neville, what—?"
But an odd clunking noise sounded behind us, and we turned to see Professor Moody limping toward us. All four of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.
"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on... we can have a cup of tea..."
Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.
"You all right, are you, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry, almost defiantly.
"McKeon?"
"Fine."
Moody's blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Harry and I. Then he said, "You've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No point pretending..."
Maybe not, but I felt like there should've been some kind of warning. Even if Harry and I were okay, other students could've been traumatized by it.
Such as Neville, who'd already had to disembowel a bunch of dead toads.
"Well... come on, Longbottom," Moody said. "I've got some books that might interest you."
Neville looked pleadingly at Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I.
"We were just about to go down for dinner, professor," I said, trying to intervene. Neville gave me a relieved and grateful look.
"Won't take long at all, McKeon," Moody said. "Come on, Longbottom."
Neville had no choice but to allow himself to be steered away, one of Moody's gnarled hands on his shoulder.
"What was that about?" said Ron, watching Neville and Moody turn the corner.
"I don't know," said Hermione, looking pensive.
"Some lesson, though, eh?" said Ron as we set off for the Great Hall. "Fred and George were right, weren't they? He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right —"
"Shut up," I snapped, glaring at him.
Ron fell silent and didn't speak again until we reached the Great Hall, when he said he supposed we'd better make a start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, since they would take hours. I'd completely forgotten about the assignment, which meant I wouldn't get to I-M Luke tonight.
Hermione and I didn't join in with Harry and Ron's conversation during dinner. Hermione ate furiously fast, and then left for the library again. Once we'd finished eating, Harry, Ron, and I walked back to Gryffindor Tower.
"Wouldn't Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we'd seen the curses?" Harry asked as they approached the Fat Lady.
"Yeah, probably," I said. "And I'm half hoping they do. Dumbledore's constantly hiring dangerous teachers. Quirrel tried to kill Harry, Lockhart tried to Obliviate you both, Lupin, while not intentionally, could've killed us — and Sirius — and now we have Moody, who likes to physically abuse and traumatize students."
"I think the abuse and trauma thing is taking it a bit far," Ron said.
"He tortured and killed a spider right in front of us, Ron," I said. "But hey, at least we know what the worst is, don't we?"
"Dumbledore's always done things his way," Ron said. "And Moody's been getting in trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first and asks questions later — look at his dustbins. Balderdash."
The Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the entrance hole, and we climbed into the Gryffindor common room, which was crowded and noisy.
"Shall we get our Divination stuff, then?" said Harry.
"I s'pose," Ron groaned.
We went up to our respective dormitories to fetch our books and charts. As I went into the girls' dormitory, I saw Lavender and Parvati trying to get Jab to give them better nicknames. He still refused to call Lavender anything but "Curly" and ignored Parvati's requests to call her various flattering names.
"You get what you get, Lavender," I said, causing her to slump in disappointment.
"I'm still holding out for 'Jewel,' " Parvati said hopefully, waving some of her jewelry around. I shrugged and headed downstairs to do Divination homework. I found Harry and Ron talking to Neville.
"... reading this book Professor Moody lent me," Neville was saying. He held up the book: Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.
"Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I'm really good at Herbology," Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Harry had rarely heard there before. "He thought I'd like this."
Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up. Neville rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Lupin would've done, and my respect for Moody increased a bit. Sure, he was paranoid and I didn't like his teaching methods, but he wasn't a complete jerk.
Harry, Ron, and I took our copies of Unfogging the Future to a table and set to work on our predictions for the coming month. An hour later, we'd made pretty much no progress, but you couldn't really tell since our table was littered with bits of parchment that had sums and symbols scribbled on.
"I haven't got a clue what this lot's supposed to mean," Harry said, staring down at a long list of calculations.
"You know," said Ron, whose hair was on end because of all the times he had run his fingers through it in frustration, "I think it's back to the old Divination standby."
"What — make it up?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Ron, sweeping the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping his pen into some ink, and starting to write. "Next Monday," he said as he scribbled, "I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter." He looked up at Harry and I. "You know her — just put in loads of misery, she'll lap it up."
"Right," said Harry, crumpling up his first attempt and lobbing it over the heads of a group of chattering first years into the fire. "Okay... on Monday, I will be in danger of — er — burns."
"Yeah, you will be," I said darkly, "we're seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Um, for me on Monday... I will... ah, trip and fall down the stairs because of a disagreement between Neptune and Jupiter." I smirked to myself. "Yeah, that sounds right. Ron, your turn."
"Okay, Tuesday, I'll... erm... "
"Lose a treasured possession," said Harry, who was flicking through Unfogging the Future for ideas.
"Good one," said Ron, copying it down. "Because of... erm... Mercury. Why don't you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?"
"Yeah... cool..." said Harry, scribbling it down, "because..."
"You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend," I muttered. "and you shall fail to save what matters most in the end."
Harry and Ron looked up and frowned at me.
"What'd you just say?" Ron asked.
"Um..." I tried to focus on what Ron was saying, but my mind was fogging up. Green smoke clouded my vision.
Two boys sat on a rock, watching the sunset and drinking Coke from a can. One of them was Percy, scratched up and weary-looking, but cheerful nonetheless. The other was an older Luke, that wicked scar marring his face.
I was surprised to see this. In most of my visions, they'd been fighting.
After a while Luke said, "You miss being on a quest?"
"With monsters attacking me every three feet?" Percy snorted. "Are you kidding?"
Luke raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I miss it," Percy admitted. "You?"
A shadow passed over Luke's face.
I was used to hearing from the girls at camp how good-looking Luke was, but at the moment, he looked weary, and angry, and not at all handsome. His blond hair was gray in the sunlight. The scar on his face looked deeper than usual. I could imagine him as an old man.
"I've lived at Half-Blood Hill year-round since I was fourteen," he told Percy. "Ever since Thalia... well, you know. I trained, and trained, and trained. I never got to be a normal teenager, out there in the real world. Then they threw me one quest, and when I came back, it was like, 'Okay, ride's over. Have a nice life.'"
He crumpled his Coke can and threw into the creek, which really shocked me. One of the first things you learn at Camp Half-Blood is: Don't litter. You'll hear from the nymphs and the naiads. They'll get even. You'll crawl into bed one night and find your sheets filled with centipedes and mud.
"The heck with laurel wreaths," Luke said. "I'm not going to end up like those dusty trophies in the Big House attic."
"You make it sound like you're leaving," Percy said nervously.
Luke gave me a twisted smile. "Oh, I'm leaving, all right, Percy. I brought you down here to say goodbye."
He snapped his fingers. A small fire burned a hole in the ground at Percy's feet. Out crawled something glistening black, about the size of my hand.
A pit scorpion.
Percy started to go for his pen.
"I wouldn't," Luke cautioned. "Pit scorpions can jump up to fifteen feet. Its stinger can pierce right through your clothes. You'll be dead in sixty seconds."
"Luke, what—"
Then something seemed to dawn on Percy. His expression was full of realization.
You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, a raspy voice echoed in my mind.
"You," Percy said.
Luke stood calmly and brushed off his jeans. The scorpion paid him no attention. It kept its beady black eyes on Percy, clamping its pincers as it crawled onto his shoe.
"I saw a lot out there in the world, Percy," Luke said. "Didn't you feel it-the darkness gathering, the monsters growing stronger? Didn't you realize how useless it all is? All the heroics — being pawns of the gods. They should've been overthrown thousands of years ago, but they've hung on, thanks to us half-bloods."
I couldn't believe this was happening. This was how it all happened.
"Luke... you're talking about our parents," Percy said.
He laughed. "That's supposed to make me love them? Their precious 'Western civilization' is a disease, Percy. It's killing the world. The only way to stop it is to burn it to the ground, start over with something more honest."
"You're as crazy as Ares," Percy growled.
Luke's eyes flashed. "Ares is a fool. He never realized the true master he was serving. If I had time, Percy, I could explain. But I'm afraid you won't live that long."
The scorpion crawled onto Percy's pants leg.
"Kronos," Percy said. "That's who you serve."
The air got colder.
"You should be careful with names," Luke warned.
"Kronos got you to steal the master bolt and the helm. He spoke to you in your dreams."
Luke's eye twitched. "He spoke to you, too, Percy. You should've listened."
"He's brainwashing you, Luke."
"You're wrong. He showed me that my talents are being wasted. You know what my quest was two years ago, Percy? My father, Hermes, wanted me to steal a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides and return it to Olympus. After all the training I'd done, that was the best he could think up."
"That's not an easy quest," I said. "Hercules did it."
"Exactly," Luke said. "Where's the glory in repeating what others have done? All the gods know how to do is replay their past. My heart wasn't in it. The dragon in the garden gave me this—" he pointed angrily at his scar, "— and when I came back, all I got was pity. I wanted to pull Olympus down stone by stone right then, but I bided my time. I began to dream of Kronos. He convinced me to steal something worthwhile, something no hero had ever had the courage to take. When we went on that winter-solstice field trip, while the other campers were asleep, I snuck into the throne room and took Zeus's master bolt right from his chair. Hades' helm of darkness, too. You wouldn't believe how easy it was. The Olympians are so arrogant; they never dreamed someone would dare steal from them. Their security is horrible. I was halfway across New Jersey before I heard the storms rumbling, and I knew they'd discovered my theft."
"So why didn't you bring the items to Kronos?" Percy asked. He sounded like he was trying to keep his voice level.
Luke's smile wavered. "I... I got overconfident. Zeus sent out his sons and daughters to find the stolen bolt — Artemis, Apollo, my father, Hermes. But it was Ares who caught me. I could have beaten him, but I wasn't careful enough. He disarmed me, took the items of power, threatened to return them to Olympus and burn me alive. Then Kronos's voice came to me and told me what to say. I put the idea in Ares's head about a great war between the gods. I said all he had to do was hide the items away for a while and watch the others fight. Ares got a wicked gleam in his eyes. I knew he was hooked. He let me go, and I returned to Olympus before anyone noticed my absence." Luke drew his new sword. He ran his thumb down the flat of the blade, as if he were hypnotized by its beauty. "Afterward, the Lord of the Titans... h-he punished me with nightmares. I swore not to fail again. Back at Camp Half-Blood, in my dreams, I was told that a second hero would arrive, one who could be tricked into taking the bolt and the helm the rest of the way-from Ares down to Tartarus."
"You summoned the hellhound, that night in the forest."
"We had to make Chiron think the camp wasn't safe for you, so he would start you on your quest. We had to confirm his fears that Hades was after you. And it worked."
"The flying shoes were cursed," Percy said. "They were sup-posed to drag me and the backpack into Tartarus."
"And they would have, if you'd been wearing them. But you gave them to the satyr, which wasn't part of the plan. Grover messes up everything he touches. He even confused the curse."
Luke looked down at the scorpion, which was now sitting on Percy's thigh. "You should have died in Tartarus, Percy. But don't worry, I'll leave you with my little friend to set things right."
"Thalia gave her life to save you," Percy said, gritting my teeth. "And this is how you repay her?"
"Don't speak of Thalia!" he shouted. "The gods let her die! That's one of the many things they will pay for."
"You're being used, Luke. You and Ares both. Don't listen to Kronos."
"I've been used?" Luke's voice turned shrill. "Look at yourself. What has your dad ever done for you? Kronos will rise. You've only delayed his plans. He will cast the Olympians into Tartarus and drive humanity back to their caves. All except the strongest — the ones who serve him."
"Call off the bug," Percy said. "If you're so strong, fight me yourself"
Luke smiled. "Nice try, Percy. But I'm not Ares. You can't bait me. My lord is waiting, and he's got plenty of quests for me to undertake."
"Luke — "
"Goodbye, Percy. There is a new Golden Age coming. You won't be part of it."
He slashed his sword in an arc and disappeared in a ripple of darkness.
The green smoke cleared, and I was back in the Common Room with Harry and Ron staring at me.
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~~~~Kingfisher~~~~