Chapter 26

Harry's Point of View

After Percy's recklessly Gryffindor fight with Ares, we had some more planning to do. We still had the majority of the money that camp had lent us, so it wasn't so much the cost as to how and which way we needed to get back to New York. We only had four days! Add in stops to eat, sleep and other delays (aka monster attacks) then it appeared to be that all the fates were against us.

Eventually we decided to spend what was left of the day arranging preparations to travel for tomorrow. Annabeth was all for getting a taxi as far as we could, then arranging something else when it came to that.

"We need to consider the now. If a taxi can get us half way back, then brilliant! I say we deal with our problems as we come to them. The fates only know we can't predict them."

Percy had, unsurprisingly, agreed whole-heartedly. I figured it made sense, but it wasn't exactly what I would have done. It there was a train, or bus, that could have taken us all the way back to New York then that would have been much better. Still, I concluded, Annabeth and Luna know the country much better than we do so… Who was I to suggest anything otherwise?

Percy laughed at me. 'Cheer up, misery guts! It'll be fun. Besides – when have Lily or James ever let us do anything this exciting? James even banned us from entering the Forest!'

'True.' I grumbled. 'But I still can't help thinking that this is just asking for trouble.'

Percy laughed. 'Life like you're going to die tomorrow – isn't that the saying? Loosen up! I mean, really? Just how badly can this actually go wrong?'

Famous last words if ever I'd heard them.

Not an hour later, when we were searching for a taxi company, we ran into trouble. It started when a gang of school boys cornered us in an alley. Being the hopeless fool that he is, Percy swung Riptide, forgetting that it can't harm mortals. The blade simply misted through the older boy, surprising the gang for a couple of seconds.

In that couple of seconds, we decided to dash for it, sprinting down the dark damp alley, dodging the garbage and dark sludge that littered the pavement. The end of the alley was another small street, the tall buildings reaching up to block out the sky, creating a twilight setting. A man from up the street hailed to us, then herded us into his store.

'Crusty's Waterbed Place.' I muttered to Percy. 'I have a bad feeling about this.'

Percy gulped nervously. 'You had to say it didn't you? So do I.'

The tall sales man stood a good seven feet tall, and dressed as if it was still the seventies. No joke, I don't think I'll ever be able to burn that image out of my brain. Anyway, Crusty decided to show us round some.

"Now, this here is our unique massage mattress – care to give it ago?"

Grover volunteered happily, jumping into the large comfortable looking bed. He all but bleated in delight as the massage started. Crusty suddenly got a distant glint to his eye, as he guided Annabeth over to another bed, pushing her back onto it.

"Do me a favour Darling and try this one over here. Might fit..."

Annabeth hesitantly laid down, and I saw her eyes mist over. Good. Luna noticed things differently to the rest of us. If something was wrong…

As she laid down you could Luna didn't quite fit the bed, which you'd think would be expected since she wasn't yet fully grown.

"Hm… so inconsiderate these people. Never the perfect height! No matter how many times I make beds for people six feet tall, they're always too big or too small!" The man mumbled to himself. Then he suddenly snapped his fingers. "Ergo!"

Long vine-like ropes wrapped around Annabeth/Luna's and Grover's wrists and ankles, tying them down to the beds. Crusty sighed, as if he had been greatly wronged.

"Not cool!" Grover yelped. His voice shook from the massager, but I could still hear the fear in it. On the other hand, Luna wasn't panicking. She just fixed those misty grey eyes on us and smiled. I gritted our teeth. We were going to get them out!

"Crusty…" I mused. "You wouldn't by any chance be associated with one Procrustes, famous bandit of Greece?"

The man puffed out his chest. "Why, that would be myself. Procrustes is such a hard name to say though, so I shortened it to something the customers might prefer."

We nodded, as if agreeing with him. "Crusty is a good name. Wasn't the Stretcher another of your titles? Our Mythology is a little rusty, but…"

The man nodded enthusiastically.

"And the workmanship on these beds… absolutely marvellous!" We complimented him, running a hand over the carved wood.

The ropes were starting to stretch our friends now, and even Luna let out a small whimper. We turned to Crusty with pleading eyes. "I'm sorry to point this out, good sir. Your methods of straightening out size issues are perfectly sensible, but… Well. We haven't yet stopped growing, you see. Currently we might be too small for fit your beds, but come a few years… If you stretch Luna and Grover too much now, they'll never fit your beds."

Crusty nodded, considering our reasoning. "Well, I could just sort that our then."

"So. How do you sort out people who are too small?"

An almost feral grin crept over the sale-man's face. He walked over to the desk, and pulled out a huge double-bladed brass axe. "Simple. I just centre them as best as possible and lob off the excess."

We gulped. 'That can't be pretty.'

'No…'

"…indeed. That's brilliant!" We had to apply all my acting skills to come across as truly agreeing with the monster that stood before us. Then we spotted one of his waterbeds, and quickly read the sign next to it.

We walked over to the bed. "And this one really has dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion? Even on a big guy like you? No waves whatsoever?"

Crusty nodded enthusiastically again. "Guaranteed."

"No way."

"Way."

"Show us!"

Crusty sat down on the bed, patting the mattress. "See?"

We moved quickly, snapping our fingers. "Ergo!"

Move ropes moved to lash Crusty securely to the mattress. Ignoring the man's pleas for mercy, we ordered the ropes to centre him perfectly before drawing Riptide. If he was human than our blade wouldn't so much as scratch him. If he was as we suspected a monster… Well. The head hanging off the top of the bed would start rolling. Steeling our nerves, we brought Riptide down on his neck. The man burst into yellow dust, hopefully to remain that way for a while.

We quickly cut Luna and Grover loose, and they sat up, sending us glares and rubbing their limbs.

"Take your time!" Grover grumbled. We smirked, looking up at him.

"You know we do believe you may have grown…"

"Not funny dude!" Grover complained, but a few seconds later he was laughing right along with us and Luna. We missed Annabeth's return but we certainly didn't miss the sharp slap to the face that she gave us.

"Stupid Seaweed Brain!" She shook her head. "You had us worried… well, me at least. I genuinely though you were going to abandon us!"

We brushed aside the hurt and embraced Annabeth in a warm hug. Percy murmured gently in her ear, "We're not going anywhere. Harry's a snake though, so manipulation is sort of his thing. We don't kill mortals though."

It took us another hour to find the taxi company we had been originally looking for before we got side-tracked. The man had given us a rather sceptical look before he swiped the card Annabeth had given him – it was the green plastic card the Casino had given us.

'What's she doing?' Percy asked. 'That can't be worth anything!'

'Actually…' I replied, watching at the screen flashed infinity signs. 'Casino cards, when accepted, can be worth a lot.'

'How do you know that!' Percy grumbled.

I smirked. 'Simple. The guy at the desk told us when he gave us the cards.'

Percy huffed and blocked me out, sulking that I, yet again, knew more than him. I chuckled, knowing he wouldn't sulk long. Percy never did. Sometimes I wondered if he could even hold a grudge for longer than five minutes.

Much to our surprise, the taxi man offered to drive us to our destination immediately. The furthest that he was willing to drive was Denver, but hey. We were willing to take whatever we could get. It would get us at least a third of the way home.

The journey was long, but passed quickly in a flurry of conversations and jokes and general gossip. Grover confessed that he wanted to become a Seeker and find Pan, the Lost God of the wild, patron to satyrs. Annabeth told us that she wanted to become an architect. Luna wished to become a journalist. We had to think a lot before we could answer. In the end, we decided that while I probably wanted to become an Unspeakable in the Ministry, working on creating spells, translating ancient texts and investigating the rare anomalies in Magic, Percy wanted something more active, such as becoming an Auror, or the DADA professor at Hogwarts.

"Just probably? You aren't yet sure?" Luna asked.

We looked down at our feet. "The Dark Lord still haunts our world. And even if our brother is destined to defeat him, we can't help by feel that we might not survive this war. So we are pretty sure that that's what we want to do, it's merely a matter of surviving long enough to see it become true."

Grover and Annabeth and Luna shared a sorrowful look, glancing at us with guilt in their eyes. "We have a prophecy too. It talks about a demigod of the eldest gods reaching sixteen with the choice to preserve or destroy Olympus. That's why Zeus was so quick to point fingers when he heard of you. If you don't reach sixteen…"

"Then the prophecy won't happen yet." We sighed. "Oh course it gets worst."

We were, for the second time today, met by a sharp slap from our blond friends. "Don't you dare talk like that Potter! You're not allowed to talk like that, you hear me… us? You promised you weren't going anywhere."

Green met steel as we looked up into their eyes. A fierce fire was burning deeply within them. Grover placed a hand on our shoulder.

"I'm not going to let you die, you hear me? I'm not going to let another one…" Grover trailed off, his warm brown eyes tearing up.

Something clicked then. "Were you the satyr that was tasked with bringing Thalia to camp?"

Annabeth and Luna had vaguely mentioned the Satyr sent to collect them when she told us about her mini family that she had chosen. You can't choose your blood relatives, they say, but you can choose your friends. We had thought like that once. Then we realised just how much we had misjudged our situation, and had learnt not to take family lightly.

Grover nodded, a few tears slipping unbidden down his cheeks. As we were sitting in the middle of our companions, we pulled him in for a hug.

"Hey! It's not all that bad. I mean, she's not actually dead!" We soothed him. Grover's head snapped up suddenly, his brown eyes staring into ours as he searched for a lie.

"What do you mean she's not dead?" He asked miserably. "Zeus turned her body into a tree."

We shook our head. "What are you talking about? If Thalia was dead, then that pine tree wouldn't be alive. She's in a kind of status sleep. I imagine she'd have fully healed by now. You just need to find a way to wake her up."

When the taxi finally stopped we were all half asleep. The clock was ticking ever closer to 1am, and we were more than ready to find somewhere to sleep. The taxi driver smiled kindly at us, indicating the inn outside.

"It's a good place to rest your heads, I've been there many times with my own children. I hope you three get home safe. Good luck with your journey."

We all mumbled drowsy thank-yous before falling out of the taxi and checking into the inn. It was a homely place, with clean white beds and a wooden wardrobe. The cream walls were lined with various paintings and the smell of wood smoke from the small fire filled the room. The otherwise wooden floor had a thick light blue rug on it. It sent a wave of nostalgia through us and, for the first time since leaving Potter Manor, we felt slightly homesick.

However tonight no amount of homesickness or worries of the eminent war was going to put us off our sleep. Within minutes of curling up in the warm bed we fell into Hypnos' sweet embrace, drifting gently into the land of dreams.

Tonight our brain was working overtime. The first scene we dreamt of was of Potter Manor. Lily, James and Charles were in the dining hall, eating dinner with Remus, Sirius and the Weasley's. The Longbottoms were there as well, we noticed, Augusta having her say in the local affairs. Suddenly, the rather peaceful dinner was interrupted by a sudden flash and a boom of thunder. We were thrown backwards into a wall, and by the time the dust cleared again the ancient house was on fire. Everyone who had been at the table was unconscious, except Charles, who was blearily looking round. He stared at everyone with shock, then his eyes met ours.

Your fault. These deaths are on you.

In the dream Charles mouthed the words. A shiver ran though we and we wanted to scream. We're sorry! We didn't mean to! We swear, we tried our best!

Then the scene shifted and moved, and we were at Hogwarts. While the shape of the corridors were familiar, the paintings all seemed different and there were random places were old suits of armour or statues that we didn't have dwelled. We guessed this much have been years ago.

A flicker of black caught our attention up ahead. It was a boy. We crept closer, recognising the boy from a dream we had a while ago. The Parselmouth. He entered the girls' bathroom, and crept closer to the sinks. A sudden voice pulled him to a sudden stop.

"What are you doing here? This is the girls' bathroom. You're not a girl, are you? Tom Riddle?"

The boy spun round to face the ghost of Myrtle. She smirked at the older boy.

"If you don't leave, I'll tell Dumbledore. I'm sure he'd be fascinated to know you came here. Especially since it's out of bounds to students."

The boy's green eyes lit up with a sudden fire. He glared at the ghost, and raised his wand menacingly. The ghost flinched back, holding her hand out in front of her body as if to protect herself from whatever was to come.

"You dare threaten me? You filthy little mud-blood!"

A red curse flew from Riddle's wand, and hit the ghost. She fell back with a cry and the boy smirked. We simply started in amazement. It wasn't supposed to be possible to hit a ghost with a spell. Just exactly who was this boy?

Alas, before the question could be answered we were rushed on into a new vision. We were on Olympus, the large temple still blindingly white. Poseidon and Zeus were fighting again, the skies reflecting ever blow and cutting insult as thunder boomed and rain fell in heavy sheets as the wind blew it around.

"My son is innocent! You had no right, no right to threaten either him or his family!" Poseidon was shouting. "Besides, Lily and James Potter are wizards, under the protection of the Titan Hecate. You would incur her wrath as well? You are asking for war, brother, and it'll be your fault when it comes."

"You dare question what I am doing? I remind you that I am your king and you will bow to me!"

"King? You are truly arrogant, Zeus, if you still believe you are in the best position to sit in that thrown."

Then the two brothers began fighting again, trident against sword in a violent game of death. Poseidon split the first blood, grazing his young sibling's cheek. With a furious roar Zeus cut Poseidon's arm, but the calmer sea god merely grinned, disarming the sky god with a single sweep of his Trident.

"You have till the summer solstice to apologise and take back your threats!" Poseidon warned.

Zeus sneered. "And you have till the solstice to see my bolt returned!"

Ares spoke up now, his normally gruff voice slightly smaller as he risked incurring the anger of both his father and his uncle. "Perseus is faring well. He had already located the bolt and is returning home by land. He is not so stupid as to enter your realm, father."

"Ah yes." Zeus narrowed his eyes at his son. "I heard about your little meeting with the sea spawn. Did he not challenge you to a fight then beat you?"

"The duel was on his terms." Ares sulked. "It wasn't all my fault."

Poseidon grinned. "Of course. He is in Slytherin after all. Watch out nephew, round my son. He knows his way round more than just physical fights. Cunning it a good trade, when used wisely, as I'm sure you'll acknowledge, Hermes."

The messenger agreed with a grin. "That it is, Lord Poseidon, that it is."

"Harry! Percy! Dude! You guys need to wake up!"

Our eyes snapped open and we jumped out of bed, Riptide at the ready when a hand roughly shook us awake. Annabeth and Luna looked at us with sparkling grey eyes.

"I'm glad we don't often room with you. How did your dorm-mates survive the year?" She laughed. We shook our head, recapping Riptide."

"Simple. They learned not to tickle the sleeping dragon."

Percy chuckled at our private joke, while Grover and Annabeth and Luna rolled their eyes.

"Never mind that now. It's almost eight. We need to move out and hit the road ASAP." Grover pointed out. "Come on, let's go exploring!"