THE REPAIRED ALARM CLOCK RANG AT SIX O'CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING. Hyacinth turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.
"Oh my sweet baby! I promise to take you far away ftom them!" Lily coos.
She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Her heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall towards the front door - "AARRGH!" Hyacinth leapt into the air - she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"DAM!"
"SHIT!"
The three boys, Astro, Leo and Perseus shouted.
"That man is desperate." Euphemia Pottet says coldly.
Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Hyacinth realised that the big squashy something had been her uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Hyacinth didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. He shouted at Hyacinth for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea.
"She is not your fucking servant." Apollo growls menacingly, sending shivers through many's spine.
"Even I can't growl like this." SIrius sulks.
Hyacinth shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, and by the time she got back, the post had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Hyacinth could see three letters addressed in green ink. "I want -" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes.
"Hmfp! I will curse him with even more ugliness." Aphrodite states, her eyes glowing with anger.
"How can someone hurt such cutie like this?"
She pouted.
Apollo calms down at the sight of
such cute pout from his lover.
Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box. "See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "If they can't deliver them they'll just give up." "I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."
"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruit cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
"You are right, we are so much better than you." James states firmly.
"And richer-" Sirius reminds everyone.
"Send some money." Astro smirks.
On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Hyacinth. As they couldn't go through the letter-box they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet. Uncle Vernon stayed at home again.
After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed & 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as he worked, and jumped at small noises.
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Hyacinth found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living-room window.
"Never underestimate those letters." Lily sweats drops.
"I agree." Remus chuckles.
While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food mixer. "Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Hyacinth in amazement.
"Her KINDS." Euphemia smiles.
"Not biological my family- those are
not our kinds." Sirius grined.
"Touché." Narcissa mutters.
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. "No post on Sundays," he reminded them happily as he spread marmalade on his news papers, "no damn letters today -" Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head.
"The man only want peace-" Annabeth laughs.
Perseus smiles watching his girlfriend laughs so freely.
Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Hyacinth leapt into the air trying to catch one - "Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Hyacinth around the waist and threw her into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut.
They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor. "That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"
"That man is mental."
"Couldn't say it better."
He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding towards the motorway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, video and computer in his sports bag.
"Is it me or I am living for their death?" Nico shrugs.
"Us too!" His friends grins.
They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turning and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake 'em off ... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.
They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programmes he'd wanted to see and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.
Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Hyacinth shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Hyacinth stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering.
They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.
"Scuse me, but is one of you Miss H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:
Miss H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
"Not gonna lie but I would be acting like him too-" Grover points out.
"Just give her, her Gods dam letter!" Percy sighs frustrate.
Astro nods.
Hyacinth made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared. "I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining-room.
"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car and off they went again.
The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge and at the top of a multi-storey car park. "Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.
"Oh shit-" Hades raises a brow.
"He is madder than you." Persephone murmurs.
"No one is madder than me!" Hades frowns.
"Apollo-" "Okay, I get it."
Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast,
locked them all inside the car and disappeared. It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car.
Dudley snivelled. "It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television." Monday.
This reminded Hyacinth of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Hyacinth's eleventh birthday.
"Aww, she almost forget her own birthday." Aphrodite and Euphelia
coos at her from their seats.
Apollo smiles, which didn't last ling as the narator continues.
Of course, her birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat-hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.
"Kill him." Annabeth tells Percy.
"I was planning on it."
Still, you weren't eleven every day. Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carryinga long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought. "Found the perfect place!" he said.
"Come on! Everyone out!"
It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out to sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there. "Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together.
"HE IS INSANE!?" Narcissa gasped in disbelief, ignoring the glare Lucius
gave her.
"I should drown him." Amphrite crossed her arms with an angry Hecate.
"That ugly bastard!" Sirius growls and James clenches his hand.
"And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowing boat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them. "I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"
It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.
"I will be very happy to torture him." Nyx murmurs. "Me too, mother." Hypnos yawned.
The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls and the fireplacewas damp and empty. There were only two rooms. Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a packet of crisps each and four bananas.
He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp packets just smoked and shrivelled up. "Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.
"Just die already."
He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver post. Hyacinth privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all. As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows.
Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door and Hyacinth was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
Lily close her eyes, trying to not tears up. She will make sure her sister- non biological sister and her husband pay for this.
"I-it g-getting h-hot ...and s-shaky..here." The Demigods looks at Will who sheaks his head and points at his father and Zephyrus.
Both Gods are pissed and it worry many other Gods and Goddess along side Witches and wizards.
The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Hyacinth couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight.
The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Hyacinth qhe'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all.
Five minutes to go. Hyacinth heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go.
"Poor baby." Hestia mutters, ignoring the stupidity of Hera.
"I will throw a party for her-" Euphemia interupped her husband.
"Thousand of parties."
"As you wish wife." Fleamont smiles.
Hera was jealous of their affection toward each other.
Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds ... twenty ... ten - nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -three - two - one -
"Happy birthday to myself." She muttered softly, drawing in the sand gently.
Apollo sighs, he didn't want her to be so miserable and it was his fault- Hyacinthus would still be alive if Apollo was more cautious around him.
"ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ, ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇss." The voice told her softly, she felt an air of ease around her. She smiles and took out
one of the letters she had took.
"I love that person." Hemera, daughter of Nyx states sweetly.
"Me too, Hemera." Astraea giggles.
"Wait a minutes- how did she retrieve one of the letter?" Rabastan asked confused.
"Earlier when letters were flying in the house- there were 5 seconds for her to take one that was on the floor and 2 second to hide it somewhere thanks to the direction of the wind."
Zephyrus says while crossed his arms- tilting his head as he runs his hand through his silver blonde hair. (It was not mention how he look like so)
"Okay." Those who didn't understand nodded.
When she jumped to catch the letter, there were 5 second for her to catch
one that was down and to hide it.
"sʟʏ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇss." The voice told her, with a dark chuckle. "I learn from the best!" Hyacinth whispered then she gasped.
"I wonder who is this man?" Piper mutters curiously.
BOOM.
The whole shack shivered and Hyacinth sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.
"Ugg! Who the hell would travel the sea to go there-" Percy frowns at Clarisse.
Clarisse makes a 'Oh' sound.