Chapter 36

Percy Point of View

I am mortified to say that Draco won the race to the castle, even if it was because he tripped us from behind. As a demigod, we should have been aware of our surroundings and Harry at least, as a Slytherin, should have seen it coming. But still, here we are, lying face down in the mud as Draco sped by.

Snarling, leaped up and bolted after our friend, sprinting as fast as our legs could carry us. Despite our morning jogs and daily workout routine, we were stamina runners, and couldn't reach great speeds. Seriously. Even the naiads could beat us. It's humiliating!

Charles shoved us, laughing. "He got you there, brother!"

We shook our head. "Next time, Draco. Just you wait. We'll get you next time."

"Su-re you will." Draco drawled, although he did look slightly scared by the look we shot him. Grinning triumphantly, as if it were we, not Draco, who had won the race (and we hadn't just fallen flat on our face), we raised our head and strode into the castle with Draco scurrying to keep up.

We headed up to transfiguration next with Professor McGonagall. We were starting to transform living creatures into inanimate objects this years, and Harry was buzzing with excitement. Personally, I didn't care much for transfiguration, so I just sat and passively watched, occasionally being distracted by the mouse that was scurrying around on our table, a few wards preventing it from running away.

The transfiguration classroom was rather impressive, to be honest. It was a rather large room, with tiered seating, so that those at the back of the classroom could still easily see our Professor at the front. Considering that the class consisted of no more than about twenty students, there was only three rows of seats anyway. A large window lay behind Professor McGonagall's desk, with a view of the Quidditch pitch, often leaving us distracted by flying lessons, or a few of older years playing a game in one of their frees. From the walls hung multiple cages containing various birds and other animals.

It was a different room to the one that we had been taught in last year, which suggested there was probably a different room for each year, with different equipment with in it. Made sense, I supposed.

"Today class, we shall be turning animals into water goblets." McGonagall spoke up. "Your homework over the summer was to memorise the wand movements and words of the spell."

My attention was drawn back to the front as Harry gently poked me to stop my mind wandering off, and so that he could fully concentrate as well. I regained full attention just at the large tropical bird Professor McGonagall had up the front began to shrink into a goblet, it's black and white colouring bleaching out into clear crystal.

'Ok, that was pretty cool.' I commented.

'Yeah.' Harry grinned. 'Transfiguration is useful, didn't you realise that last year?'

'Well…' I trailed off. 'I wasn't paying that much attention last year. I mean, preforming the spells was fun, but the theory was repetitive and boring. We knew it all anyway.'

"Mr Potter?" McGonagall was standing right next to us. "Perhaps you would care to practise the spell, just as the rest of your classmates are?"

"Oh." Harry blushed. "Sorry Professor. We got a bit distracted."

Clearing our throat, Harry gripped his wand, flawlessly preforming the spell work. Well… It wasn't completely flawless. Unlike the clear crystal goblet that Professor McGonagall had created Harry's was made from an obsidian black crystal.

"Interesting." Professor McGonagall mused, picking up the goblet. "Did you clearly picture the goblet?"

"Yes, although I was finding it hard to picture the clarity of the crystal." Harry admitted.

'Budge over, let me try!'

I took out my wand, and cancelled Harry's spell before copying is previous action, and this time the goblet's black cleared to a soft emerald colour.

"Oh." I pouted. "It didn't work."

Professor McGonagall chuckled. "I think the perhaps the pair of you disrupt the other's mental image, causing it to distort slightly, which results in the different material being created."

Harry nodded, frowning slightly at this. "We'll try better." He promised.

"Try better? Mr Potter, it wasn't necessarily a clear crystal goblet I asked you to create, was it? Transfiguration, like most magic, isn't exact. The results vary from person to person. You two are unique and so your magic reacts differently, it is to be expected."

We nodded, but we weren't convinced.

"One thing I did notice, however, was your hand lit up round your wand as you cast your spells –"

We blushed faintly, glancing down at the silver Celtic knot decorating our palms. "You heard about the unicorn last year?"

Our Professor nodded, glancing curiously at our palms.

"Well, the blood seems to have soaked into our skin. It constantly changes shape, but it glows when we use magic – typically the left hand for Percy and the right for me, much like our wands." Harry admitted. "It seems 'willingly given' unicorn blood has properties that are, as yet, undiscovered."

"How come nobody saw this last year?"

"Oh… We used a glamour charm, because Gra- Hermione noticed and we didn't want to have to keep explaining. However we were stung by a pit scorpion last summer, and the glamour shattered, and now refuses to be replaced." Harry explained.

Draco poked us from the other side. "Sorry to butt it, but could you show it to me again?"

Professor McGonagall smiled at us before walking off, claiming that we 'had the situation in hand.' Harry performed the spell once more for Draco, turning my goblet back into a mouse before turning it into his obsidian goblet once more. Draco picked it up shortly after that, having picked up on a small but vital flaw in his wand movements.

Transfiguration finished just before lunch, and so we all but ran off down to the Great Hall to eat. About ten minutes into lunch Marcus Flint announced that he would try out the second years for the Quidditch team – should any of us wish to join (here he had his sights firmly on Draco and us) – this afternoon, because we had the afternoon off due to our Astronomy lesson this evening, when the rest of the trials would occur.

I decided I'd lock myself firmly in a tiny corner of our mind, but encouraged Harry to go ahead.

'Percy, you hate flying!'

'So? You love it! We perfected the art of meditation of the summer, remember? I'll just… meditate while you fly. Hopefully that should help some.' I assured him.

'Are you sure you're sure?'

'Yes!' I laughed. 'Now, go grab a broom and get up there, stop dawdling.'

Harry flashed me a grin before starting after Draco.

"Are you going to apply?" He asked.

"Of course! I was debating Seeker, but you're better than me at that. Besides, who would miss the Potter twins battling it out on a broom? I'll aim for Chaser instead. Do you have your broom?" Draco mused.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course. Percy refused to let me leave it. Apparently I need to take a bigger interest in sports rather than books."

They laughed at that, heading down to the Slytherin Common Room to go grab their brooms. The passageways to the dungeons were well lit, but the flickering touches couldn't keep the cool damp air from reaching us. Harry and I shivered, and Harry cast a slight warming charm on our clothes discretely. Draco had suggested last year that we get clothes spelled to keep a comfortable temperature, but we hadn't wanted to bother our parents with extra expenses, especially since Charles didn't need them.

By the time we had eventually reached the pitch, there was half an hour left of lunch. As it turned out, there was just Harry, Draco, Daphne Greengrass and Theodore who wanted to trial. Considering that in our year there were no more than about 10 Slytherins, it wasn't exactly a bad turn out.

When Harry kicked off into the air, I steeled myself. Almost immediately the air seemed to all but start spitting static at me. I mean, I knew it couldn't be literally, otherwise Harry would be feeling it, but all the same…

I mentally shook myself. No. These were exactly the thoughts that I was supposed to be ignoring! I squeezed myself back into my tiny corner of our mind and began to slowly let my thoughts stop, so that I could view Harry's try-out like a spectator would – also like watching a movie.

Harry's enjoyment flooded our bond, and I found myself grinning as he darted after the snitch, easily dodging and rolling to avoid the bludgers and nimbly avoiding the other players in the air. Flint had recruited the team's beaters – a pair of strongly built 6th years – to send the bludgers flying at us, and put us off our game. In what seemed like minutes, Harry had a complacent golden snitch lying in his hand, proudly showing it to Marcus. Terrance, last year's seeker, scowled at us.

"Flint, you can't actually be considering recruiting them. For Merlin's sake, Potter's a second year! The other teams will eat them up for breakfast! You need an older, more experience player to keep a cool head to locate the snitch while keeping out of the Chasers' way and avoid the bludgers." Terrance complained, his eyes cold as they narrowed on us.

I shivered. If Harry didn't get a place on the team, then Terrance would act like a stuck up brat for weeks, belittling us. If Harry did earn his place as seeker, then Terrance would personally ensure our life was living hell. Hard choice.

Marcus laughed at his team-mates indignation. "Were you watching Harry or not? You literally just described him. Besides, it not like I'm just going to boot you off the team to be replaced with fresh blood. You two will swap it out, taking it turns being on the bench."

Harry grinned enthusiastically at this, but Flint added in a tone of warning; "However, that decision might change depending on this afternoon's trials, and whether or not I see you two arguing. A divided team is one doomed to fail. And I won't let that happen."

This last bit seemed to be aimed more at Terrance than Harry, but Harry nodded seriously anyway, his smile never dropped.

"I'll do my best Marcus!"

"You see that you do." Flint grinned. "You know that Percy can't fly at all though, right? The spells on your clothes will pick up on it, and turn them Gryffindor colours."

"I don't think that'll be a problem." Harry frowned slightly. "Percy's terrified of flying. He's fine when I'm in control – he can block it out or something – but he would never take to the air when personally in control."

Flint nodded, concern on his face. "He'll be ok, though, when you're flying? I don't mean to be too insensitive, but he won't interfere with your concentration, will he?"

"I would never!" I exclaimed, moving out of my little corner. Then I blushed. "I meditate, to get rid of the sensation. It feels like I'm going to be struck by lightning, when I'm up there, like every little air current is against me. But when I meditate… Harry is completely in control, and I am just a small part of his consciousness, watching as if though Harry's eyes, but not feeling anything more than his euphoria, if that makes sense."

"I can't feel anything from Percy except from small waves of calm emotions." Harry added. "So yes, no problems there."

Flint nodded again. "Alright then. Might as well investigate our young Chaser's next."

Draco got his place on the team. We grinned in mutual happiness, chatting happily about making the team. Theo looked a bit upset though, so we soon shut up in favour of cheering him up.

"Come on now, Theo. There's always next year. This is the first year they allow us to try-out, and most of the time people don't make the team till at least third year. Besides, I hear the keeper and our other Chaser will be off the team next year – they want to focus on the NEWTs." Draco offered, flashing our friend a smile.

"We'll train with you." Harry suggested. "If a Chaser is what you want, then I'm sure that Draco can pass on tips of the teams strategies onto you, and then come the summer we're always short at home to have enough people for two seven-aside proper teams. I'm sure the Weasleys would love a bit of house Rivalry to add spice to the Games too. Especially Bill and Charlie, given they don't get any of that anymore."

Theo slowly started to cheer up. "Don't you have camp in the summer though?"

"Well, we'll might be back for our birthday, and if not Lily and James had decreed that they must have at least the last two weeks with us. So they'll be plenty of times for games." We laughed. "Who knows, we might even be able to bring some friends back from camp. Some of the children of Hecate we know would love to come play a game of proper Quidditch. From what we saw, they play some strange version back at camp where there's only two or three players on either side – depending on whether they can get other Campers involved – and they have one set of three posts and swap at shooting."

"How is that Quidditch?" Draco scoffed.

"They have to watch out for the Snitch at the same time." Harry clarified. "We offered to play, but then Chiron mentioned how our favourite uncle might just throw a lightning bolt at us for that, especially since we kindly returned his to him"

"Harry?" Our head snapped up to meet Annabeth's sharp eyes bored into us from where she was standing in our way. She shot shifty looks at Draco and Theo. "Are you talking about camp?"

"Um." We ducked our head, blushing slightly at her scolding tone. "Yes? They know everything, its fine."

"Um, no, that's not fine." Annabeth snapped. "You can't just go talking about it to anybody!"

"Luna!" We cast her a hurt look, only just remembering not to call her Annabeth while Theo was nearby. "They aren't just 'anybody', they're our friends. Besides, Camp knows about Hogwarts!"

Annabeth sighed, her eyes softening with apology. "Sorry. It's just…"

"Camp is you're home and you were just protecting it." I finished with a small smile. "It's fine. I get it."

Theo smiled disarmingly at the young Ravenclaw. "So, Luna. I see you know Slytherin's knew seeker."

"Seeker?" Annabeth's eyes narrowed, homing in on us again. "Are you mad? The gods only know what Zeus would do it –"

"Hey." Harry cut in gently. "It's fine, ok? I've been flying numerous times last year and this summer. Provided Percy isn't in control, nothing goes badly wrong."

Luna shook their head, Annabeth's clear eyes misting over as she took over. "That's because you are the embodiment of your magic, like me."

"Whoa." Theo took a step back. "Did she just…?"

"Shhh!" Draco cuffed his ear lightly. "I want to listen."

Luna smiled. "Ah yes, Slytherin's new chaser too. We met before, if I recall. Annabeth really doesn't have a very fond opinion of you, you know."

"That's hardly my fault!" Draco blushed faintly.

We laughed and shook our head. "You guys should go on down to the Dungeons. We'll meet you there?"

Draco nodded, taking our broom from us. Theo winked at us, as if suggesting we were dating Annabeth and Luna or something.

"Have fun!"

We rolled our eyes, and watched as our two friends disappeared off down the corridor, chatting quietly to themselves.

"How did you know Draco was our new Chaser?" We asked curiously.

Luna smiled mysteriously before cryptically replying; "The Nargles told me."

We just shook our heads, accepting her answer.

"We got an Iris Message from Leo a couple of days back." I said, with a small smile. "We only received his letter requesting to as he sent it. Unfortunately we were in the common room at the time."

Luna chuckled. "Typical Leo. Annabeth isn't impressed though."

I shook our head. "No, I can't see her being. Still. He wanted to talk to you two as well, so… What do you say about a return message?"

Luna grinned, and I could see Annabeth warming to the idea. Her earlier anger hadn't been real anger, anyway. She had just be nervous and worried.

"Can we now?" She begged. Harry and I smiled.

"Why not? We have an hour before dinner. We have astronomy after that, but we had plenty of time now."

We grabbed Annabeth and Luna's hand, and took them towards the abandoned girl's toilets, where Myrtle dwelled. Annabeth gave us a shocked look as we took them inside.

"Really? We didn't have you down as a peeking tom." She stated dryly.

"Peeking?" A dry laugh came from one of the stalls. "What would the Potters be peeking at? Nobody comes here anymore. Not for fifty years now…"

A low wail could be heard before we caught sight of Myrtle. We smiled warmly at her.

"Hey Myrtle. Do you mind if we use your bathroom to message a friend?" We asked politely. The ghost cocked her head at us.

"You're from Magical Blood. You should know muggle devices don't work at Hogwarts." The ghost smiled prettily back. When she wasn't moaning, Myrtle could be really nice actually.

Annabeth and Luna shook their head. "No, not using a muggle device. Just some old forgotten magic. It's quite safe, we promise!"

"Alright… can I watch?"

Easily agreeing to Myrtle's terms, Annabeth and Luna turned on a tap. A quick bit of water manipulation, and a simple Lumos spell and we had a rainbow working. We pulled a drachma from our pocket, tossing it into the rainbow.

"Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept our offering and show us Leo Valdez, at Camp Half-Blood." We intoned, and watched with excitement as an image formed in the rainbow.

Leo Valdez was in the middle of combat training with Clarisse when the image formed. Clarisse actually flinched back in surprise when she spotted us.

"You!" She hissed at us. We shrugged.

"Us. Hey there, flame-boy, how's it going?"

"Harry, Percy! Annabeth, Luna!" Leo grinned excitedly. Then he giggled. "Oh my gods. You actually have to wear dresses to school?"

We sighed, rubbing our forehead, but luckily Luna got there first. "They're called robes, actually. Everyone wears them. Oh, but you should see the headmaster's. Absolutely horrific. He has less fashion sense than Clarisse here – no offense. But even you know that camouflage goes with stuff, and luminous green and yellow are not colours to be worn together."

Clarisse pulled a face, but smiled at her old friend. "It's been strange without you here. You've been at Camp longer than anyone – unless you count the turn-coat, and we are not counting him anymore – and now you're gone too for school. How do you stand reading with your dyslexia?"

We chatted for a while, Myrtle floating around the image curiously every now and again, until we cast a tempus spell, and discovered dinner was half over already. We cursed.

"Sorry guys, we got to go. Dinner's almost over and we've got a lesson after that!"

"Bye! Stay safe!" Leo grinned.

"Or not." Clarisse grumbled good-naturedly. "Bye Annie."

"We'll talk again soon." Annabeth and Luna promised, swiping a hand through the message.

Shouting a farewell to Myrtle, we sprinted to the Great Hall, and quietly sat down at our separate tables. Luckily, amongst the hubbub of students come and leaving as they wished, we weren't that obviously late.

Draco gave us a look, demanding to know what we did. A small nod promised him details, and he grinned, distracting Theo from interrogating us, and we laughed along with Blaise as Draco joked about one of the Gryffindors – Seamus' – attempt to turn water into rum earlier. The poor boy had a tendency to blow things up when his spells went wrong, and this occasion had been no different.

'Draco's a good friend.' Harry said softly to me. I smiled.

'He definitely can read us, and cares about our reactions, much better than most.' I agreed.

We smiled at the pure-blood who we considered an honouree brother and sighed. We weren't sure exactly why, but we had a bad feeling about tonight's astronomy lesson.