Chapter 22

Harry's Point of View

We were moved out of cabin eleven that evening and put straight into cabin 3. It was dusty, and eerily empty in the blue cabin. It was made of rough sea stone and decorated with embedded coral and seashells. A large bronze trident hung over the door. It had a curious salty smell, like sea-air. The inside was walls made of abalone. Otherwise the cabin was bare, with just six bunks with silken sheets to take up the space.

We lay on our side, eyes shut against the darkness and let the tears begin to fall, slowly and quietly. We were alone here. Our friends were behind in England with our family. Poseidon… Poseidon wasn't our father.

'Harry.' Percy tried to smile at me. 'Relax. You're strung tighter than a bow. What're you thinking of that's got you so uptight?'

I sighed. 'Sorry, Percy. I just… I don't want to believe it all. James is our father. He might not have always been around for us, but at least he was physically there. Poseidon… He's a god. I just… I can't…'

I struggled to put my feelings into words. Percy nodded in understanding.

'He doesn't feel real, just yet, does he? Hopefully… maybe when or if we meet him it might feel more real.'

Feeling slightly better, I relaxed a little, enough to get to sleep.

We dreamed of the beach again. The horse and eagle were still fighting, desperately lashing out at anything they could to hurt one another. This time we tried to run towards them, to pull the eagle off of the horse and stop them once and for all. The sand seemed to tug at our feet as we ran, making each step harder than the last. The stormy wind battered us back too, and thunder boomed ominously, but no lighting flashed in the dark sky.

Still running towards the animals, we tripped over a clump of grass, and fell through the sand into a different vision. We just saw a glimpse of a lightning bolt, crackling with electricity and lighting up a small dark cave before the image was gone, and we were suddenly at Hogwarts.

We were sitting in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, though the ghost was no-where in sight. From one of the cubicles we could hear a girl sobbing, and the shifting of her feet on the floor. The door opened and a tall boy walked in, looking about the age of sixteen. He had fine facial features, with the same aristocratic look about him that the Malfoy's had. His hair was dark and neat, much like his uniform. Clear green eyes flittered round the room curiously. They skipped over us before resting on the locked cubicle door. Shrugging, the boy turned to the sink.

$Open.$ The boy hissed in a familiar language, apparently to the sink. We gave him a strange look.

'Why is he talking to a sink?' Percy laughed nervously. This boy, whoever he was giving of scary vibes, and we didn't like that.

The cubical door creaked open an inch behind us, but we ignored it, watching in shock as the sinks slowly moved apart, the top floating off it. A large snake waited inside, it's hide a sickly green and its eyes… they looked an almost sulphuric yellow, and had a freezing power. I felt positively sure that, had this not have been a dream, we would have dropped dead after looking into that gaze. We shivered.

A sickly thud echoed round the room, originating from the cubical behind us, where the crying girl had been. A triumphant smirk lit up the other boy's face, and we shivered, forcing ourselves to look round.

We saw the pale hand first. Limp, as if she was unconscious. They we saw the rest of her, from where she had fallen out of the cubical. Her messy black hair covered her face, but I had a strange sense of certainty that she wore glasses, and her round face was patterned with freckles. Myrtle. Moaning Myrtle. The poor, poor girl…

Suddenly, a loud booming noise chased the dream away as it woke us. We sat up, fear making our heart pump faster. Eventually the sound faded away, replaced by the steady patter of heavy rain drops hitting the cabin roof. The thunder boomed again, rumbling right the way through us, and shaking us up even more. Percy moaned, hiding behind me and putting his hands mentally over his ears.

I winced. Percy hated thunderstorms. He could cope with them when he was around other people, but alone with me…

The first time we had been in a thunderstorm was shortly after Christmas when we had been six. It was the first Christmas we had spent without our family and Percy had been beyond upset. We both had. Most of the day had been spent curled up on our bed crying and reading and feeling sorry for ourselves. The house elves had brought us Christmas Dinner and Christmas pudding, but we hadn't eaten.

Percy had started to cry harder at the sight of the Christmas pudding. He and Charles had always fought over the last slice, and they couldn't do that anymore. The harder Percy had cried the harder the rain started to fall. Then the thunder had boomed and by Merlin had it scared Percy. Sad and scared… I didn't know what to do, how to comfort the twin of my soul, and I felt so helpless.

Then, all of a sudden the door burst open. Percy whimpered and huddled us further under our covers. I didn't fight him, pulling the duvet over our head.

The raining noise grew louder for a moment then the door slammed shut. I heard a snort from above our head, and a familiar female voice spoke up.

"Scared of a bit of rain, newbie?"

I pulled the overs off our head and glared at Clarisse. "None of your business, Princess."

Clarisse laughed. "Maybe not then. Common, it's mid-morning already, you missed breakfast. Chiron sent me to see why you haven't appeared yet."

"Urk! School just finished, I didn't think we'd have to be up so early!" I complained. Then, a thought hit me as I recalled one of the numerous facts Annabeth had recited to us on the tour yesterday. "I swear Annabeth told us that it only rained here if you wanted it to. Why would you want a thunderstorm?"

"We didn't." Clarisse scowled at us. "Apparently the big man didn't like you."

'Huh?' Percy tilted his head to one side, his eyes drowsy with sleep. 'Who doesn't like us?'

I laughed. 'I presume she meant Zeus. He doesn't get along very well with his brothers, according to myth.'

'Oh.' Percy nodded. 'Stupid god.'

I laughed, with only resulted in us receiving an even deeper scowl from Clarisse.

"What's so funny, prissy?"

"Oh, just a passing thought. Sorry about the weather though. Should we go see Chiron now?"

Clarisse nodded. "Might be a good idea. He's in the white house. And you're talking in the plural again!"

We only vaguely acknowledged Clarisse's passing remark as we pulled on a pair of trousers under the duvet and put on a shirt and hoodie and shoes before running out the door. The grassy field outside was almost bog of mud. The sticky mud soaked into our trousers but the rain didn't seem to soak us. It was like we could decide whether or not we wanted to get wet. Brilliant! I'd like to see Peeves try to water bomb us now!

Chiron was waiting for us under the porch at the white house, standing calmly in the dry. He smiled when he saw us coming, and beckoned us inside.

"Nice weather, huh?" Percy joked. "Looks like England's following us wherever we go."

Chiron smiled, but otherwise didn't react to his joke. "Indeed. On a more serious note however, we need to talk to you about exactly why Zeus is so angry at your existence. And it's more than the usual sibling rivalry I'm afraid to say."

We paled. "Following the line of serious conversations, we wanted to talk to you too."

Chiron nodded and led us into a games room, the centre of the room taken up by a large table-tennis table. A couple of seats lined the walls of the room. Chiron motioned for us to sit in one. We did as he bid, trying to force down all the worried gnawing at our minds.

"Well, I suppose our story really begins a long time ago." Chiron said. "The gods received a prophecy that a demigod child of the big three would have the power to potentially destroy Olympus. Understandably, they weren't too happy about this. So, the three made a pact. No more demigod children. And it worked – for a long time it did. But then Zeus found a pretty young mortal. Their daughter, Thalia, died just before she reached camp, killed by an army of monster's sent Hades."

"Thalia…" We breathed. "The girl in the pine tree?"

Chiron nodded. "Yes. But, as you can imagine, since his daughter couldn't survive, Zeus isn't that pleased that you are allowed to. But that isn't the only reason behind why he hates you so much."

We swallowed nervously. "Of course not. Why would our luck only expand to one reason why a major god might hates us?"

Chiron ignored us. "At the winter solstice, Zeus' master bolt was stolen during our visit to Olympus. Zeus of course, blamed his brother Poseidon, accusing him of making a demigod steal it for him. Zeus gave Poseidon till the summer solstice to return it. After you were claimed yesterday, there was a meeting at Olympus. Mr D said that Zeus ordered Poseidon to return the bolt, or he would obliterate you and your family."

We paled, pulling our legs up to our chest to make ourself a smaller target. 'No! But the solstice is barely a week away! It's the fourteenth today!'

'Well. If Poseidon won't return the bolt, then we'll just have to find it and return it ourself.' Percy said, resolved. 'I'm not letting them hurt Charles or James or Lily.'

'Right!' I agreed as we turned back to Chiron. "How can we stop him?"

Chiron frowned at us. "Percy, do you even know what you're asking?"

"Yes." We stuck our chin out stubbornly. "We're asking how to save our family."

A proud glint entered the old centaur's eyes as he looked at us. A frown momentarily crossed his face before clearing replaced by curiosity. "That something you wanted to talk to me about. Is it anything to do with you talking in plural?"

We winced. "…Yes?"

We sat in silence for a moment before Percy and I realised Chiron was waiting for us to speak more. Percy sighed, rubbing our eyes. "So, you know how we're wizards?"

The white centaur nodded. We sighed again.

"Well. That's not quite all we are. Our world call us twin souls, two souls living in one body."

Chiron actually grinned. "I guessed as much. I haven't met one of you in years. I believe the last one of your kind I met was about three centuries ago!"

We snapped our head up. "You've met our kind before?"

"Of course." Chiron chuckled. "I'm well over two millennia old, how couldn't I have? Twin souls used to crop up every few years or so in demigod-magic-folk. I haven't seen any since the gods were in England though. That was a long time ago… So Percy, what else are you called?"

"Harry." I grinned. "Harry James Potter was the name we were born under. That's why we didn't expect you to know Percy's name."

"Indeed." Chiron stopped smiling. "So, you two. What are you going to do now?"

"Find that bolt and save our family. Zeus has no right to bring them into this. Merlin, he doesn't even any right to bring us into it, the egotistical –"

Loud thunder cut us off before we could finish that sentence. Percy shrunk into me, away from the noise. Chiron shook his head disapprovingly. "Don't annoy the gods. They aren't like your fellow wizards or demigods. They will kill you."

"Sorry." I looked down at our feet. "But back to the topic of that bolt… any idea where we might find it?"

"If I knew that, Harry, then I would have already retrieved it." Chiron pointed out. "But to start… I suggest you go talk to the Oracle."