I find my people
PIPER: Why describe all of this point of views events in a long, 1000+ word chapter when I can just sum up everything that happened in a simple sentence?
Annabeth Chase is a badass.
Sure, I wasn't initially a part of her plan. But she adjusted accordingly. It was fantastic to see her plan in action.
"Who's outmatched now?" Annabeth smirked. "Alright guys, go!"
We all sprung into action. Jason raised in arms in front of him, causing Natalie to levitate off the ground.
"Stop!" Natalie shouted. Jason hesitated, but he had something stuffed in his ears. Her voice didn't have complete power over him.
Leo was next. He raised a small wall of flames around Natalie. The wall wasn't large enough to hurt her, only there as an intimidation of sorts.
Percy raised a wand towards Natalie.
"No! You can't do this—don't do this." Natalie commanded. She used more power this time. Percy hesitated just enough for the spell to miss her. Leo's flames died. Jason lowered her to the ground.
"Go back to the school, Natalie!" I commanded. My power didn't work on Natalie, just how Natalie's didn't work well on me.
"No," she shouted. "I'm not letting you all win!"
She glanced at Frank who was still unconscious on the ground.
"He doesn't love you, Natalie!" I insisted. "I know that hurts, but you can't take it out on his friends! That isn't right."
"What do you know?" She shouted.
She stared at my friends as if deciding which one to harm.
"It's her fault!" She pointed to Hazel. "Getting in his head, messing with his emotions!"
"If I may interject, you're forcing people to do things with your voice. You're messing with people's emotions."
"Shut up!" She commanded, using even more force in her tone than before. I'll admit, she was powerful. Even with her ears blocked, Hazel still obeyed.
"Give us our wands." Annabeth commanded. Even if she didn't have the ability to control people, she was still intimidating. I wouldn't have hesitated to listen to her. Apparently, Natalie had a death wish. She stood her ground.
"No, I won't do it."
Magnus stepped forward. He did what Annabeth later explained to me was called the peace of Frey, one of his abilities. It caused those in the perimeter to drop their weapons. Percy dropped his wand. The wands of my friends fell from Natalie's pocket. They all ran forward and grabbed them.
Natalie was kneeling beside Frank. All wands were pointed at her. Thalia, Alex, and Reyna stood in a battle ready stance. Magnus brought out a sword.
"Touch him and we'll hex you to oblivion."
She was about to give a command...but that's when Grover returned with an army of centaurs and satyrs.
"Ah!" Natalie shrieked.
"Yep, she's the one." Grover said.
"You disturb our woods." The centaur who I presumed to be their leader stepped forward.
"You bring these people here against their will, hoping the creatures of our forest will disturb them. However, you are the one who has disturbed us. And for that, you must leave." The old centaur spoke.
It was hard to give vocal commands to a group of angry centaurs. They weren't in the mood to listen. Natalie didn't give a last command that night.
Natalie sprinted out of the forbidden forest back to the school grounds as the herd chased after her. Grover stayed back admiring his work.
I observed the group of my friends, scanning everyone for injuries. Nico had been the only one not to wake up. He had been slumped against a tree that entire battle, not looking well. The second worst was Jason, who had been tied to a poison oak tree. Other than that, the battle was honestly pretty anticlimactic. I know that's exactly what you're thinking: wow, all that buildup and she was simply chased away? Boring.
We'll get to the fun part soon. That battle right there was only a warm up for what was to come.
"We need to get to the room of requirement," Annabeth explained. Her silver dress was torn and covered in twigs and dirt from the forest. "They're coming with us. We can trust them." She pointed to the exchange students.
"I'll help with Nico," Magnus offered. He assisted Will in carrying him. Nico looked even paler than usual.
"Once Nico wakes up, him and I have some news for you. Natalie Pierce was only a minor inconvenience compared to what we have to face."
"What we have to face?" Harry asked. "Don't say it...I know what you're going to say."
Annabeth and Harry came to a silent agreement.
"The man in black in a villain gone week, immortality is what he will seek..." Harry whispered. "Voldemort has something to do with all of this."
"Voldewhat?" Grover asked.
"Voldemort," Harry said darkly. "An enemy of my world."
"You'd think as a villain he'd at least have a cooler name." Grover mumbled. Thalia elbowed him.
We headed to the room of requirement.
***
On the way, we ran into Natalie. She was sat in the halls with her head in her hands. I didn't feel anger seeing her, I only felt pity.
"You all head, Frank and I will stay back." I insisted. The others left, Hazel shooting her a nasty glare before leaving.
Frank and I took a seat beside Natalie Pierce. She sighed as she saw us.
"Here to gloat? You won. I'm over my crush. You're free, Zhang." Natalie said sharply.
"You're a child of Aphrodite," I said. "I am too, right?"
Natalie nodded.
"I'm a demigod. My mum is Aphrodite, and my dad happened to be a pureblood wizard. That's why my charmspeak is so powerful, I have magic on both sides of my life," she paused. "I can't answer questions about your life if that's why you're here. I'm not involved."
"You aren't involved. Why did you target us then?"
She sighed.
"I didn't intend on kidnapping you all, honestly. I only meant to scare Hazel. As a child of Aphrodite, I could practically feel the romantic history her and Frank have together in your old lives. I wanted to just shake her up a bit. I'd never hurt anybody, really. I was in over my head."
I nodded. Frank was blushing hardcore at the mention of Hazel.
"I can tell you all that you're demigods. I've known you didn't belong here from the moment you stepped into Hogwarts. I know my memories have been altered to believe you've all gone here your whole lives, but mine is slowly fading. I know you guys have only been here for a few weeks, and you all are figuring that out too."
Natalie was powerful, she had said. That could explain how she was fading out of that trance, or whatever it was.
"You're all powerful demigods. You don't belong at Hogwarts." She concluded.
"But how do you assume we're powerful?" I asked.
Natalie laughed.
"Because you all have Percy Jackson among you. That's my cue to back away. We've heard about the American demigod wars from here," she stood. "I probably shouldn't get involved, I can't tell you more. I don't want the gods on my tail."
"Wait—one more thing." I said.
"What is it?"
I smiled, half-heartedly.
"I knew there was a nice person in there somewhere, Natalie. As one daughter of Aphrodite to another, I can tell you that next time you have a crush on a guy, just tell him. Holding it back, kidnapping his friends, threatening him, that will only complicate things."
Frank nodded in agreement.
Natalie laughed lightly.
"Thanks, Piper. Though I don't think you're from any demigod camp around here, I think if you were, you and I could have made quite a team."
She faced the great hall.
"I should head back to the dance, I'll take the microphone and charmspeak that little stage incident out of their minds. Sorry about that, Frank. I kind of humiliated both of us up there earlier."
He shrugged.
"Hey, accidental kidnapping happens. Life's too short to hold a grudge."
She smiled and headed off to the dance.
We headed towards the room of requirement.
***
We all took our seats. The exchange students split up. Reyna sat with Jason, Hazel, and the unconscious Frank. Thalia took a seat with Grover, Percy, and Annabeth—who sat beside Magnus, and where there's a Magnus, there's an Alex. This left Leo and I on our own.
We all took our seats. Reyna sat with Jason, Hazel, and Frank. Thalia and Grover took a seat with Percy. Annabeth sat beside them having a serious discussion with Magnus while Alex listened in, looking bored. This left Harry, Will, Leo, and I who hovered over Nico, debating what to do.
"When Percy and I were dancing, Nico pulled me aside and said he needed to talk." Annabeth explained. She took a break from her discussion with Magnus, she looked quite annoyed at him. "Nico showed me another power discovered, spirits were drawn to him, Cedric Diggory appeared. He spoke to Nico and I, warning us. He said he saw that we were in danger. He said when you get the sign, we need to act. If we didn't, Hogwarts would be in great danger. He said that Voldemort has found a way to—but he was cut off. Nico couldn't hold his form long enough. Nico collapsed." Annabeth summarized.
Harry's eyes went dark at the mention of Cedric's name.
"You didn't mention this earlier?"
"Uh, did you forget we were tied to trees trying to plot how to take care of the Natalie situation? One thing at a time, Harry." I said.
Harry glared at me.
"Don't you two start arguing," Leo complained. "It's annoying, man. I just want to be done with this! First Natalie, now Voldemort? And above all, we still don't know how to get all of our memories back."
"That's the problem," Thalia spoke up. "We can all safely assume one of the gods, likely Hera, did this to you. But the gods have silenced themselves ever since. Something is wrong. We can only assume that we have to fight a battle for them before you're all bright back."
Annabeth spoke up.
"We theorize that Hera did this little experiement--moving us to the magical world—as a form of entertainment of sorts. Hecate, the goddess of magic, was angry with her for messing with her side of things. Hecate tried to fight back...but what if Voldemort got to her? Hazel's been having visions of a woman we assume is Hecate trapped in a cage, calling on her for help. If Hecate is trapped she's likely being held hostage by Voldemort. What does he want most in the world? Immortality. What do the gods have? Just that. He's trying to find a way for her to make him immortal. She's refusing, so he's torturing her. That has to be what Cedric is warning us about. If we wait too much longer, Hecate may grow too weak and give him what he wants. But if we wait, Voldemort can grow even weaker. Cedric said to wait for he sign. That's when we can be sure to act."
"How will we know where to go?" I asked.
"One of us will have a vision," Harry insisted. "I'm sure of it. The second that happens, there can be no more waiting. We have to share every vision we have the second we have it. That way we'll know when to act."
Jason glanced at me from across the room. I tried my best to avoid eye contact. He was trying to guilt me into sharing my previous night's vision with the group, the one I had described to him at the ball.
"Something to share with the class, Miss McClean?" Leo asked in his best impression of Professor Snape. It was a bit of an inside joke of ours. Whenever he'd catch Leo and I chuckling at something, he'd say that in a very bored tone.
"Fine. I had an important vision last night. It isn't our sign, but it does answer some of our questions."
I summarized the vision, starting with how the goddess had captured Percy and Annabeth expecting us to follow, and ending with how she described being happy to finally have all of the seven together again for whatever it was she was planning.
"The lines in the prophecy: light and dark listen in, not part of the plan. That's referring to Will and Nico. They weren't initially part of the plan, they had just so happened to be nearby. They were sent with us as well."
This confused Annabeth.
"That's interesting. Nico is famous in the wizarding world for being the new "Harry Potter." In other words, his parents were mysteriously killed while Nico left unharmed. Those were real people who died."
"Not Nico's parents," Thalia interjected. "Trust me."
"That was the final sign of Hecate," Annabeth continued. "That was the final torch left at a mysterious scene. Those poor muggles were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hera and Hecate must have been having some sort of final argument. That's when Voldemort must have showed up, curious about the sudden scenes of devastation not caused by him. I'm sure that he wanted to join forces. The gods denied him, this angered him. I'm sure that's what happened. Voldemort would do whatever it took to get a power on his side, not caring if a few muggle lives were tossed aside."
"That...makes sense. Though, there are still a few holes in all of this."
"When our memories are restored, we'll figure this out." Jason insisted.
Tonight was too much. I'd only wanted to have a good night at the ball. I guess that was too much to ask. Then again, some good had come out of it. Jason and I had kissed, that was a decent part of the night.
"I still can't believe you didn't tell me you were here." Annabeth swatted Magnus' arm. "I also can't believe you're American."
"Well, believe it Annabeth. You are too."
Annabeth buried her face in her hands.
"As if this week couldn't get any worse." She sighed. "I'm American!"
Harry faced me.
"Perhaps you could wake Nico up?" He suggested.
"I'm not sure. I've used my charmspeak a lot tonight...I'll still give it a shot."
I knelt beside Nico. Magnus and Will's examination had concluded that he, in fact, still had a pulse. After examining everybody else's injuries however, Will was hesitant to heal Nico since he had already used so much. After Magnus' peace of Frey demonstration, it was risky to ask him to heal Nico as well. I had to step up.
After a few minutes, it was starting to work. All I had to do was continuously whisper things like, "wake up, no, seriously. Wake up!" Whether it was because of my voice or it it was just good timing, I didn't know. But Nico began to stir in his sleep.
Will ran over and knelt beside him.
"Sit up, slowly," he told Nico. "No more power use for you, not unless you really need to."
"It's kind of difficult to ignore a ghost calling your name." Nico argued, his voice hoarse.
"I do it to Peeves every day in the Hogwarts halls! Cedric can be an exception of course, but if something like this happens again you need to be cautious." Will argued. The two continued to bicker as Nico sat up.
On the other side of the room, Annabeth continued to lecture her cousin, Leo harassed Reyna with questions about a girl called Calypso, Percy and Jason were in a rather serious looking discussion with Thalia and Grover about what it meant to be Greek or Roman, and Alex and Frank were comparing their ability to shape-shift while Hazel filled Frank in on what he had missed when unconscious. It was a strange sight to see the moment when strangers became friends and I was witnessing it before me. Those exchange students whom we hadn't trusted only days ago were now a part of our pack.
I sat beside Nico and Will, listening to their bickering. Sure, we had a lot to figure out. There were a lot of questions that we still had, more mysteries unsolved. But as I watched the naturalness of this group, I couldn't help but notice something. Even without our proper memories, we all knew each other. We argued like siblings, we had a natural need to share things with one another...and I knew the love we had was authentic. We worked well together. Whatever we had to face now didn't scare me as much. Whether it be Voldemort, or a force even more powerful, I didn't doubt that this group could come out victorious.