"What happened in your third year?"
The seven were sitting by the lake, notes spread around. Percy had suggested studying for the exams by the lake, which they all agreed too. No one else was there, the majority of Hogwarts indoors, in the library or the common rooms. Hermione was still slightly embarrassed about how she acted, but got over it as no one really wanted to linger on it.
"Ah. That year," Percy said mysteriously. "This is when Nico comes in."
"Oh gods, no," Nico groaned, face in his hands.
"So, Thalia, Annabeth, and I were called for help by Grover, our friend from our first quest. He was at Nico and... Bianca's school, and he was trying to bring them to Camp Half-Blood. They didn't know they were half bloods yet." Percy started.
"Bianca?" Hermione asked. Nico's expression turned void of emotion.
"She's my sister. She's moved on to a new life," he said.
"Oh," said Hermione in a small voice.
"So, there's this monster that kidnaps them. I can't find Annabeth or Thalia, so I follow them. The monster attacks me— turns out it's a manticore— and Annabeth, Thalia, and Grover come help. While we're attacking, the hunters of Artemis appear and help us. They wound the manticore, and he tries to escape, but Annabeth tackles him."
At this, Harry and Ron looked at Annabeth like she's crazy.
"They go over the edge of the cliff and disappear. Like, they vanish. Teleported, or something." Thalia said.
"I don't remember much. I got knocked out when we hit the rocks," Annabeth said to their questioning looks.
"So, the Hunters of Artemis— an immortal group of maidens that serve Lady Artemis for eternity— save us and interrogate us," Percy continued. "Lady Artemis herself talks to me, then summons Bianca. Bianca chooses to join the hunters, then Artemis goes off to hunt a monster with unbelievable power, leaving Zoë Nightshade, the leader, in charge. Nico, Thalia, the hunters, and I hitch a ride with Apollo on the sun, and Thalia—" Percy was cut off by a sudden electrocution.
"We arrive in Camp Half-Blood," Thalia said shortly. Nico and Percy are failing to contain their laughter, recalling Thalia's attempt to drive. "Mr. D said Annabeth could be alive, but he and Chiron refuse to let Percy and I rescue Annabeth, which makes us mad."
Annabeth glared at the sky. "Really, Dionysus?" She muttered.
"So after a not-so-friendly friendly game of Capture the flag with the hunters, Thalia and I have a... small argument. Thalia electrocuted me and I almost dumped the entire river on Thalia. Unfortunately, we didn't get to finish," Percy said, with a playful glare at Thalia.
"The Oracle gave us a prophecy. It went like this: Five shall go west to the goddess in chains, One shall be lost in the land without rain, The bane of Olympus shows the trail, Campers and Hunters combined prevail, The Titan's curse must one withstand, And one shall perish by a parent's hand."
Hermione gaped. "That's terrible! So the people who went on the quest basically had a death sentence! One shall be lost in the land without rain, one shall perish by a parent's hand. Why would someone kill their kid?"
"So, I get a vision about Annabeth. I'll let her take over this part." Percy said, looking at Annabeth.
Annabeth winced, remembering the memory. "When I regain consciousness, I'm in a cave or something. I see Luke—"
"the traitor," Harry remembered from the previous stories of their quests. Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia scowled.
"Yes him. So I see him holding the sky, and he begs me to help him. I do, because I don't think I registered he was evil at that point. Then he walks away, and I'm trapped under the sky." Annabeth shuddered. "It felt like my bones were melting."
"Yeah. I dreamed about that. So then I eavesdrop and find out one of the quest members, Phoebe— by the way it was voted for Thalia, Grover, Zoë, Bianca, and another huntress named Phoebe to go on the quest— got hurt and can't continue. Oh, also the quest was to save Lady Artemis, who got captured while hunting the OP monster.
"I follow them on Blackjack, my pegasus, when they arrive at a museum. There, I sneak in on the manticore into a private room, where he, Luke, and this guy called the General are talking. They confirm Annabeth is alive and raise two sets of skeletons— skeleton kitties and skeleton warriors. The kitties are killed because they're not wanted, and the warriors are given a piece of hunters clothing to sniff out. Sort of like bloodhounds. Except they grab my jacket instead and then they started hunting me." Percy said, scanning the twelve uses of dragon blood.
"Then Percy comes to us— Zoë wasn't happy— when the Nemean Lion attacked." said Thalia.
Hermione gasped at this and began spouting a bunch of facts about the lion. Harry and Ron had given up on studying and were listening wide-eyed, notes slowly being blown away from the breeze.
"Percy killed the lion with some space food, and we accept Percy as the fifth member of the quest. Percy gets this awesome bullet-proof indestructible lion coat from the lion, by the way. We take a few trains and share a fire with Apollo, homeless style, then we end up in New Mexico. Grover passes out from the presence of Pan, the god of the wild, and believes he sent the wild pig that takes us to the next stop. Before the pig comes though, we're attacked by the skeleton warriors that have sniffed out Percy. They reassemble when we cut them, but Bianca manages to kill them. At the time, we didn't know she was a child of Hades, so we were shocked on how she could destroy them."
As Thalia explained, the void of Nico's blank expression began to crumble as he looked more and more depressed at Bianca's heroism.
"So, after that battle, we ride the pig to Gila Claw, Arizona, where Ares and Aphrodite talk to me at this— I think it was a taco place? I don't remember. Anyways, they leave and we head around the junkyard of the gods. We're in the middle of the desert, so the junkyard's pretty big because there's nothing stopping it from expanding." Percy paused at this, and Ron's face paled.
"One shall be lost in the land without rain," He recited nervously. Percy nodded grimly.
"Yeah. So Zoë tells us to not touch anything, but Bianca tries to sneak a mythomagic figure for Nico. Even then, she was constantly thinking about you." Percy glanced at Nico, who was staring at his hands. "When Bianca stole the figure, she awoke Talos, a robot built by Hephaestus. We were trying to kill it when Bianca figures out how to defeat it. She manages to get through a small hole in the robot's foot, and—" Percy stopped. Nico was still staring at his hands, his face sad.
"It's okay, Perce. You can go on," He said. Percy hesitated, then continued.
"Bianca managed to control it from the inside. She manages to destroy it, but when it fell, it hit some cables. And, well, metal conducts electricity, so..." he didn't need to finish. Harry, Hermione, and Ron were staring at them, speechless.
"Nico, I'm sorry," Harry said softly. "I know what it's like to lose family."
Nico shook his head and wiped his face clean of emotions once again. "It's okay. She achieved Elysium and chose rebirth. She's happy now."
"So," Thalia continued uncertainly. "Then we grab a truck from the yard and drive to a river, where we canoe to the Hoover Dam."
"That was a dam good ride," Percy said, then cracked up next to Thalia.
"Yeah, the dam snack bar was great too." They burst out into laughter, and Harry shot a questioning glance at Annabeth who just shrugged blankly.
"Inside joke," Thalia choked. "Anyways..."
"I get lost from the others, and I hear a cow in the river." Percy picked up the story. "It's Bessie, my fish cow that I saved before we left for the quest. After I find her, the skeletons attack. I escape on an elevator, then hide. Then I hear a noise and I think it's a skeleton, but it was a mortal. Or a muggle. Whichever you go by. But I didn't know it was a mortal, so I try to cut her in half. She scolds me, then distracts the skeleton so I can get away. Her name's Rachel, by the way. She's kind of important now."
"Then we hitch a ride on angel statues to San Francisco, where we wrestle with this 'old man of the sea'. He tells us that Bessie is actually the OP monster Artemis is seeking, then disappears. The manticore comes and tries to convince me to sacrifice Bessie to get unlimited power." Thalia said shamefully, remembering her hesitation.
"Let me get this straight. Bessie, the sea cow, has unlimited power?" Ron asked incredulously.
"Yep" Thalia said. "So then we iris-message Dionysus—"
"Iris message?"
"We'll show you after." Thalia waved her hand dismissively. "Dionysus picks up and saves us from the manticore. Then Grover volunteers to take Bessie back to Camp, and Percy sacrifices his lion coat to ensure a safe journey."
Percy took a deep breath and stretched, his spine cracking. "We go to Annabeth's house— we're in San Francisco, by the way— and and Annabeth's dad lends us a car to drive up to Mount Tam."
Annabeth's eyes shone in appreciation. "He did that?"
"Yep," Percy said happily. "Except Kronos exploded the car with a lightning bolt and Thalia got really mad because she thought it was Zeus. You know, because of the prophecy— One shall perish by a parent's hand. We walk the rest of the way up, where Zoë meets her sisters and gets poisoned by the guardian dragon, Ladon. We climb up to the place where Atlas is holding the sky, except Artemis had taken Annabeth's burden for her." Percy grimaced, remembering the next part.
"The second to last line of the prophecy— The titan's curse one must withstand, referred to me. I was supposed to hold the sky up. So Artemis transfers the burden to me, and let me tell you, it was one of the most painful things I'd ever experienced. I felt like I was turning into acid while exploding into flames."
Annabeth nodded. "During this, I was gagged by Atlas and held captive."
"I battled Luke, and pushed him into the chasm." Thalia glared at the ground. "Then the last line of the prophecy came into play. Atlas, he threw Zoë against the rocks on the edge. Artemis kicks Atlas back under the sky, and he's trapped again. Except his deed was done. Artemis turned Zoë into a constellation, as a reminder of her services."
"Wait. So, Zoë was Atlas' daughter?" Harry asked.
"Yep. Then we travel back to Olympus via pegasus. Thalia chooses to become Artemis' lieutenant in place of Zoë, removing herself as a candidate for the Great Prophecy."
"It's almost done," Percy promised the trio. "We return to Camp Half-Blood. I go to the dining pavilion, where I meet a very, very upset Nico."
Nico flinched, a smirk toying at his lips. "Sorry about the crack, by the way."
"Yeah. So Nico hated me for a year because I promised to keep Bianca safe. Then four skeleton warriors show up, but Nico cracks the dining pavilion in half and sweeps them away. Then he runs off into the woods. That was when I knew Nico was a child of Hades."
The demigods turned back to their astronomy notes.
The wizards were speechless.
"You— you did all that? When you were thirteen?" Harry finally stuttered.
"Oh, actually I was fifteen and 364 days then. I literally will always be one day away from turning sixteen," Thalia said.
"Triggers my OCD like hell," Annabeth muttered.
"So... Iris-messaging. What's that?" Hermione asked curiously. Percy grinned and pulled out the leather pouch of money. He waved his wand and a rainbow appeared, then he threw a drachma into it.
"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Harry Potter at Hogwarts," He chanted. The image shimmered, then revealed Harry looking stunned at the vapor image that just appeared in front of him. Percy swiped it away.
"Yeah. That's Iris-messaging. Or IM-ing, if you don't want to say the whole name."
Ron stood up. "That's it. I'm officially going insane. I think my head is going to explode. You guys are crazy," He announced. "I'm going to bed to try to process everything now." He folded his notes and headed into the castle.
Harry shook his head. "You guys are so heroic. I'm definitely never going to be that good," He said, cleaning up the scattered notes. Percy pulled one out of the water and dried it off.
"You'll see, Harry." Annabeth said. Harry followed Ron into the castle.
Hermione looked down. "I'm sorry I was so harsh when you were telling the truth, last week," she said. "I live off logic. The gods were always myths to me."
Thalia smiled gently. "It's okay. I remember how stubborn... Bianca was."
Hermione shook her head. "I acted on impulse. It was foolish of me." She gathered up her stuff (a great deal more than Harry and Ron) and walked back to the castle.
The demigods sat in silence for a while, reflecting on the old days.
"Huh. I never though about it this way, but if we didn't defeat Kronos, the wizarding world wouldn't exist in the in future." Annabeth said, staring at Hogwarts. Percy nodded.
"Let's just hope we can save this world too," he said.