Chapter 24

Harry's Point of View

We watched the countryside blur into a mess of green with curiosity as Argus drove ever closer to the city. Annabeth huffed as she looked at us – our nose was all but pressed up against the window as we watched.

"Really, Seaweed Brain?" The blonde girl snorted. "You'd think you'd never been inside a car before."

"We haven't." I sent the girl a frown. "Our world doesn't use them. Well, unless their on Political missions to the muggle Government."

With those few words we turned back to the window. We had slowed down as we reached the city and the blur of green countryside had melted into the shapes of grey buildings, colourful flashing signs and people. We found ourselves staring at the various food restaurants – McDonalds seemed to pop up a lot – and every kid in the back of his parent's car, every billboard and every shopping mall. It seemed so foreign to the tidier, smaller streets that we wizards preferred. Everything was just a jumble of colours and people and noise.

I can guess what you're thinking – we've visited our muggle cousins before – so why haven't we seen all this before? We don't actually leave the Dursley's house when we visit them. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia are far too concerned with appearances and are constantly worrying that we'll say something strange, or do a 'freaky thing' if they let us outside. Muggles!

Annabeth huffed again. "You're so weird."

We looked at her, hurt. "What? We bet you'd behave similarly if you visited our world. Besides, why do you hate us so much?"

"I don't hate you. It's just…" Annabeth fiddled with her invisibility cap, "we're not supposed to get along, ok? Our parents are rivals."

We narrowed our eyes at her, the now old argument springing up again. "Well, we don't see how that can be, given your parents have never met ours."

"You are the son of the sea god!" Annabeth snapped. She sighed, and her eyes softened slightly. "You're going to have to accept that sometime."

"James might not have been the best father for us, but at least he was around when we grew up. Poseidon might have donated some of his genes to us, but he is not our father."

Thunder rumbled ominously in the background, and Annabeth flashed us a sad smile. "You don't have a great home-life do you?"

Our barriers snapped up. "That's none of your business!"

Argus caught our eye and winked at us. We offered a small smile in return. We liked Argus, we had decided. He wasn't a man of many words, but he had come across as the type who was fiercely protective of those he cared about. I mean, just look at the myths of him and Hera!

"Believe it or not, most kids at camp didn't have a good home life either. I mean, I ran away from home when I was seven." Annabeth's voice was hesitant, as if she didn't really want to talk about it, but she didn't stop. "I met Luke and… and Thalia, and we formed our own little family."

We snorted, but didn't turn to look at our new travelling companion. "Yeah, no offence, but I think your life was a bit different than mine. You didn't have a famous brother thrown into the spotlight while you were all but forgotten in the shadows. You don't have to deal with only being allowed a half-relationship with him because you were sorted into the wrong house! You don't have to watch him and wonder if he will actually live to use the grades he gets in his exams, because you don't have a psychopathic Dark Lord threatening to return and destroy your entire world!"

When we finally did turn to look at the blond, her eyes were wet with unshed tears. "You're right, I don't," Annabeth admitted, "but my point is – we have all been through something similar. Admittedly some more than others, but you're not alone, here. We are your family, and we look after our own."

Before anything more could be said, Argus stopped the van, and signalled that this was where he had to leave us. Climbing out, I looked for any land mark to indicate where we might be. There was a Greyhound Station a little way up the road, but otherwise we could have been anywhere. Annabeth grabbed our hand, and led us inside.

"Where do we need to go, Seaweed brain?" She asked. "Any idea from your Prophecy?"

"You shall go west, and face the god who has turned." We quoted, "You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned."

"The god who has turned…" Annabeth mused. "Well, the only god I know for sure lies west is Hades in Los Angeles."

We chatted quietly to one another as we waited for the bus. Annabeth asked us about Hogwarts and we asked her about camp. We talked about our families and friends, and the kind of hobbies we enjoyed. And eventually, our conversation faded away into a companionable silence, as we just sat there, enjoying each other's company.

'She's like us.' Percy told me randomly. I gave him a strange look.

'What do you mean, she's like us? I mean, yeah, she's a demigod but…'

'No, no, no.' Percy interrupted. 'I mean she's like us – a twin soul. Watch her. Annabeth is in control almost all the time, but she still gets distracted rather easily, and she gets these distant looks, as if someone's chatting in her ear when she's doing something. And then when she said your name – she just seemed to blank out.'

As Percy spoke it all seemed to just click in our head. There were times when Annabeth would just shift, her eyes taking on a dreamy tinge as she looked at the world. If you looked closely, her eyes would look more silver when that happened, not the clear grey that her cabin mates' always had.

I thought back to that dream we had a while ago – the first time we had seen her. She had come across as a much more distracted character, noticing nothing but yet everything going on around her. Her voice had been both dreamy and confident, as if there were two personalities trying to speak through it.

"Why didn't you tell us?" We asked suddenly, breaking the silence. Annabeth gave us a startled look.

"Tell you what?"

"That you're like us."

Annabeth looked down at her feet, frowning. When she looked up, her eyes were that strange silver-grey. It was so beautiful…

I shook my head to clear it. Annabeth smile distantly at us.

"Hello Harry Potter. Percy Potter."

"Hi?" We frowned back at her. She laughed.

"I'm Luna, Annabeth's other half. I distract her a lot, so I try and leave her alone as much as I can…" Annabeth blinked, but didn't look overly upset.

"No!" I exclaimed. "Don't you get lonely doing that? As if you're not quite complete?"

"Sometimes." Luna nodded. "But its fine, I usually just listen to the Nargles when she's busy."

Then Luna frowned, and her eyes abruptly cleared. "Sorry! Luna can be a bit…"

"A bit what?" I frowned. Luna was nice! "Annabeth, Luna is your other half. Stop blocking her out. You'll never reach your best potential if you don't. Besides, personally, we'd be lost without each other. You don't realise how much you're hurting yourself by pushing her away."

Annabeth scowled. "Our stepmother didn't want to accept that she existed. She used to hit me whenever Luna started ranting on about one creature or another. I mean, at first she just passed it off as childish nonsense, but later…"

Annabeth shook her head. "No. It's better this way. With Luna it's just too hard to fit in. I love her, don't get me wrong, but… I mean, look at you two! You were ignored for years because of who you were."

We flinched, our eyes hardening as we threw up our barriers. We gave her a hard glare. "Well at least we can accept who and what we are. Until you can do that you are lying to everyone – including yourself."

The previously comfortable silence was gone, replaced by a crackling anger. Eventually it became almost too much to bear, so we stood up and started pacing back and forth fuming silently. How could she just block out her other half? I wouldn't be able to last half an hour ignoring Percy, let alone for an entire day! I mean, I could understand why she was scared of not being accepted. If nobody else would understand that we could, but still… Being different wasn't always a bad thing, and at some point in her life she would just have to accept that.

A soft hand on out shoulder paused out pacing. Our head snapped up to meet Annabeth's eyes. She looked upset and guilty, unshed tears welling up in her eyes. Suddenly all our anger faded away and we pulled her in for a hug.

"I just… we used to be really close, and then people started to stop accepting us. And… it hurt, you know? So I started blocking her out. I guess it did still hurt – but in a different way and… I miss her!" Annabeth cried quietly into our shoulder. I patted her on the head.

"Shhh." Percy whispered. "It's fine. Just… stop fighting her, yeah? And if people back at camp can't accept you for who you really are, then they aren't anyone to be called friend, are they? Besides, I'd say you could probably commit murder and still be Luke's little sister. In fact, I don't doubt he already suspects it. We used to dream of you two at camp, you know. You aren't going to get rid of that boy that easily. Especially since you both lost… well."

Luckily the bus arrived before we could say anything else. We shouldered our pack and grabbed Annabeth's too before climbing onto the large vehicle.

The bus journey was blissfully uneventful. Annabeth, Luna, Percy and I all chatted about the gods' politics as well as fighting techniques and other day-to-day gossip. Annabeth also told us about Celestial Bronze and its properties that allowed it to kill monsters. Thoroughly interested, we asked about our gold knife. Annabeth and Luna looked delighted as they explained the myth about Chrysaor and his golden blade.

The bus stopped at another station, and we had to get off. Night was closing in on us, and we were hungry and tired. The next bus to where we wanted to go didn't leave until the morning, so we resigned ourselves to a sleepless night. Wandering around a bit, we came across a strange little place.

"Aunty Em's Garden Emporium." I read for Percy and Annabeth's benefit. Luna wasn't dyslexic, but she didn't often help Annabeth with reading, so that left it me. We could smell chips cooking from inside, and by popular vote decided to investigate. Percy was far too excited by the prospect of food to really pay attention to his surroundings, but the further into the shop we went, the more foreboding I felt.

'Percy.' I hissed. 'Look at the statues.'

'Huh?' Percy faltered, making Annabeth pause too.

"What is it?"

"The statues." I waved a hand at them. "Look at them. You'd think you'd want happy statues, wouldn't you? So why do they all look so terrified, so scary? Something isn't right here."

"Ignore them." Annabeth laughed. "Maybe it's just a bad sculpture. You'd be amazed at what artwork some people create nowadays."

"Maybe…" I couldn't throw off the feeling of unease however. I slipped to the back of our mind, letting Percy take complete control while I just watched and took in all the small little details that the others were missing.

When we reached the source of the food smell, we were met by the sight of a woman dressed in a long dress and a veil covering half her face. She smiled at us, greeting us warmly enough and sitting us down with some food to eat, but I still couldn't get rid of the feeling something was wrong here.

"Ah, Percy." The woman smiled at us. "Don't you look so handsome – you have your father's eyes you know."

We flinched. I became suddenly aware of a low hissing noise in the background, something that could easily be dismissed as hissing oil in the pan, yet I knew couldn't be…

"How do you know our name?" We snapped. "And we got our eyes from our mother, actually. James has hazel eyes."

The woman's smile faltered. "Oh. You look like someone I used to know… Is Percy your name too? I could have sworn my nephew looked exactly like you…"

The words were lies, I could almost smell them, but Percy just seemed to accept them. His consciousness seemed to have a warm fuzziness to it. I almost cursed.

'Percy! Oi, Percy, snap out of it!' I begged. 'Please. Something's wrong, can't you see that?'

"Now, you two lovely children. Would you mind me taking a photo of you for my next sculpture? You look like such lovely children."

Annabeth and Percy agreed willingly enough, more than happy to help a kind lady. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't distract Percy or steal control from him. It was only when the woman started to lift her veil that I realised exactly who she was. I curse and all but yanked Percy aside, clamping our eyes shut and pushing Annabeth to the ground she groaned.

"Percy, what the Hades?"

"Well excuse me if you want to be turned into a rock by Medusa."

The lady hissed in laughter. "Such a clever boy, and you broke my spell as well. Just who are you exactly?"

"Names have power." I snapped back, keeping our eyes locked firmly on Annabeth. I could hear Percy whimpering in the back of our mind, apologising over and over again. I flashed him a grin.

'Percy, it's fine. She bewitched you or something.'

I slowly moved my hand into our jacket pocket where we had put Riptide. I winked at Annabeth. "You alright, wise-girl?"

She let out a shaky laugh. "I think I'm alright."

Nodding, I raised our voice to talk to Medusa again, aware of her moving closer to us. "You going to let us go, or do we have to kill you?"

"As if you could kill me, foolish demigod."

I pulled the pen out of our pocket. Before I could uncap it, however, the clatter of hooves distracted us. Our head snapped up. To our surprise it was Grover, his face pale as he quickly looked at the ground after glimpsing Medusa's snakey hair.

"Oh Zeus." The satyr whimpered. "Not good, this is so not good."

"Grover?" Annabeth gasped, her voice shrill with a hint of fear. "What are you doing here?"

"Let's ask questions later, yeah?" I recommended, uncapping Riptide and jumping to our feet, swinging wildly at Medusa with our eyes tightly shut. The monster leapt back, hissing at the sight of our blade.

Percy, recovered from his shock, nudged me aside. 'Budge up, Bro. You're little use here. Can you use our magic to give us an idea of what things look like?'

'Sure thing!' I grinned. I summoned a blindfold with our magic first, then I reached out with our magic, using it like an echo system, feeling it reflect back as it bounced off of things. Percy immediately swung into motion as soon as he could 'see' what he was doing. He turned us to face the monster head on, ignoring Annabeth's and Grover's shocked gasps. Percy swung Riptide, sheering of the bronze claws that Medusa was trying to slice us up with.

"Hades, woman. You really do need to get a manicure at some point. Claws were so last millennia." Percy joked, earning him a weak chuckle from Grover. I couldn't keep track of Percy as he ducked slashed and hacked at Medusa. Finally, however, he got a lucky swing and Riptide passed through Medusa's neck like a knife through butter. We heard a wet thud and a dull hiss before everything grew silent once more. We transfigured Medusa's veil into a sack and put her head into it before removing the blindfold.

Medusa's body had turned into the now familiar yellow monster dust, although her head remained as a spoil of war. We recapped Riptide before dusting off our hands and turning to face our stunned companions.

"You can open your eyes now." We grinned. Annabeth and Grover looked at us incredulously.

"What was that?"

Our grin widened. "That, my dear friends, was magic. We sent out waves of magic. They would bounce of things and reflect back to us, giving us a clear image of what was around us without needing to use our eyes. Useful, huh? No sense of colour though. Just shapes."

"Cool!" Grover smiled at us then nodded at the sack. "What are you going to do with that?"

I frowned, then Percy whispered an idea to me and our grin returned. We headed back into the shop and looked in the till. There were several boxes, some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express and quite a few galleons in the till. We put Medusa's head in a box and placed a couple of galleons in a pouch before addressing the box to:

Zeus

Mount Olympus

600th Floor,

Empire State Building

With best wishes,

PERCY AND HARRY POTTER

"He's not going to like that." Grover warned. "He's going to think you're impertinent."

"Well maybe we are." We flashed the satyr a smile. "Besides, he hates us anyway."

There was a sound like the ding of a cash register, then the package floated off the table before disappearing with a pop.

"So." Annabeth turned to face Grover after rolling her eyes at us. "Why are you here again?"

Grover blushed. "Well. Um. Dionysus kindamademefollowyouandmakesurethatyouweresafe."

"Ok. Repeat that a little slower." I requested.

"Dionysus kind of make me follow you guys and make sure that you were safe." Grover blushed an even deeper red.

"Meddling gods." I muttered. "Still. At least he cares."

A cackling laugh made us all spin around. All three of the Furies were standing in the doorway. The one from Green Park grinned at us.

"Oh Dionysus seems to have an odd attachment to Twin souls. Something to do with two personalities driving your kind mad or something."

We slipped our hand into our pocket, curling our fist around Riptide. "Look, I'm not sure exactly what you want us to confess to but-"

"Oh no," the Fury interrupted, "our Master sends his apologies about that. In fact, he insists that he we fetch you to meet him in person. He wants… a favour… from you. If that isn't too much to ask."

We nodded, ignoring Annabeth and Grover's mutters of disapproval.

"Well, if Percy's going then so are we. We're his quest partners." Annabeth declared, daring the Furies to suggest otherwise. They nodded, as if expecting that. The Fury I had fought before grabbed me, and the other two grabbed Annabeth and Grover. The shadows seemed to bend towards us, and then suddenly we were travelling at high speed through a very dark tunnel. Strange howls filled the air as things brushed past us.

Finally, however, we came out in a large hall, and were thrown to the floor in front of a large throne, upon which sat a man dressed in a black toga. His eyes were as black as the shadows we had just past though, and they seemed to gleam as they passed over us. We could practically see the light of our souls reflect in the dark orbs.

"Greetings, Demigods and Satyr." The god boomed. "I am Lord Hades. Welcome to the Underworld."