Chapter 40

Percy's Point of View

Lockhart's lesson was as much of a joke as we'd all been expecting. When we arrived he was standing proudly behind his desk, where a large rattling object hidden beneath a large lilac cloth stood. Lockhart was almost too happy, not even bothering to send us more than a tiny glare as we entered the classroom. I pouted mentally to Harry.

'He's no fun when he doesn't get annoyed at us.'

Harry laughed. 'You're such a child.'

We sat down at the front of the classroom, abandoning our usual place at the back of the classroom for a better vantage point to hit Lockhart with colour changes charms. Lockhart did narrow his eyes at us for that, much to my amusement, but still didn't react beyond that.

"Today, class, I have something special for you!" Lockhart announced with glee after the last stragglers had sat down. "As you know, it is my duty to prepare you for some of the foulest creatures to walk this Earth. I must ask you not to be alarmed however, and to stay calm. No harm shall befall you for as long as I am within this room with you."

Blaise grinned triumphantly while Lockhart was posturing heroically at the front of the room. He cautiously drew his wand and moved it discretely in as he cast his spell. The class burst out laughing as Lockhart's gold and pink robes turned an obnoxiously bright luminous orange.

Lockhart looked down at his robes in a sort of petrified horror, his eyes sweeping the room desperately to find the culprit. His eyes eventually came to land on us, and narrowed dangerously.

"Detention Potter!" He snapped out. "My office at seven!"

Exclamations of protest sounded from all the way round the room. We were surprised to hear Gryffindor voices mixed in with the Slytherin's.

"Sir, you can't do that!"

"Where's your proof?"

"It obviously wasn't Potter, he's in enough trouble with Professor Snape as it is!"

The last protest came from Pansy, who shut her mouth quickly, and flashed us an apologetic look as everyone turned to stare at her. The Slytherin's gazes were accusative, the Gryffindor's curious. Lockhart all but pounced on her.

"And why might that be, Miss Parkinson?"

"Sir, I believe you'll find that is between our godfather and ourself. Now, if you don't mind, we'd like to hear your terms for our detention." We said in a dead voice, warning Lockhart off. It was true Severus wasn't impressed with us for breaking the House rules, but to say we were in trouble with him was a bit far… Unless he was annoyed with us for some other reason. No! We shook ourself.

'We haven't done anything to annoy Severus have we?' I asked Harry.

He shook his head. 'Not that I'm aware of.'

Lockhart shook himself. "Godfather huh? Well, that explains some things… You're in detention for casting spells on a teacher without permission."

We glared. "It wasn't us. Our wands are, and have been since we entered your classroom, sheathed in our wand holsters."

We pulled back our sleeves to momentarily reveal the beautifully carved leather holsters that held our wands. Lockhart shook his head.

"I'll talk with you later. You're interrupting my lesson! Now, as I was saying, I have something special for you today."

Lockhart whipped the lilac cloth off the rattling object to reveal a cage of small malicious looking blue fairies.

"Indeed." Lockhart said dramatically. "Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"

The room burst out laughing again, drawing a frown from Lockhart.

"Cornish Pixies? They're hardly dangerous, are they?" Charles gasped out through his laughter.

Lockhart looked thoroughly annoyed – so annoyed, in fact – that he failed to notice Draco had changed his robes to a Slytherin green. "Let's see what you make of them then!"

Lockhart opened the cage's door, letting the pesky pixies out. They attacked almost everything in sight, throwing paper at us students and throwing Lockhart's paintings out of the windows, and even lifted a squirming Longbottom up to be hung by his robes on the chandelier. Ink splattered the walls, and the air grew thick with flying books, ink pots and bags.

Most of our classmates fled from the mischievous little devils shortly after the pixies started hitting them with their own books, Draco, Blaise and Theo among them. Charles and Ron weren't doing a bad job and fending off the little blue creatures, but they clearly had no idea what they were really doing.

We turned to glare at Lockhart, raising an eyebrow at him questioningly. "You're the teacher here. Stop quivering under the desk and teach us then!"

Lockhart paled further at our demand, but brandished his wand. "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"

We groaned at his so called 'spell' and sneered as the 'Professor' retreated to his office. We both grabbed our wands, pointing them at the flying miscreants and yelled "Immobulus!"

The air seemed to freeze and the pixies froze in mid-air, before falling to the floor like stones. A simple 'accio' charm later, and they were safely locked up in their cage once more. Hermione gave us a curious look.

"That spell is in the fourth year textbooks."

We grinned, flashing her our teeth in a mocking imitation of Lockhart. "Simply amazing, aren't we?"

Hermione scowled. "Don't mock our Professor. He is a great man."

We rolled our eyes, but couldn't be bothered to argue with her. We abandoned our brother and his friends, deciding to wander down to the dungeons early to ask our godfather about what Pansy meant. The other Slytherins gave us wary looks, which grew slightly hostile as we neared, and walked past, their common room.

Professor Snape didn't see as pleased to see us as we had expected when we had knocked on his classroom door.

"Come in!"

I grinned at our godfather's exasperated voice which would have sent almost any other student fleeing from his foul mood.

"Hi Professor!" We greeted him cheerfully, not expecting the glare we received from him.

"Potter…" He drawled. "I had higher hopes from you than this. Surely one night in Gryffindor wasn't enough to turn your colours."

We frowned, our mood plummeting. Pansy was right, Severus was angry at us. I shivered and hid behind Harry, who flashed me a brief sense of his amusement of the 'bravely lion' hiding behind the 'cowardly snake'.

"What do you mean, sir?" Harry asked, sticking to the formalities we upheld with our other school teachers. "We didn't do anything!"

"So you mean to tell me that it wasn't you who tripped the alarm on my storeroom last night? Because that alarm is set to recognise both Draco and you two as family." Severus said, a hint of betrayal in his voice. We frowned at him.

"Sev- Professor! Every time we've made a potion outside your lessons we've asked you, even if it was to help our housemates get back a teacher. Why would we stop asking now?" Harry reasoned. "Could it not have been our brother? As – for the most part – identical twins, Charles and we had very similar auras, which could have confused your alarm. It's one of the reasons we had as much access to rooms round Potter Manor as we did when we were younger. When our parents decided to open up a room to Charles – such as the gym with all its weapons – we managed to gain access as well."

Severus tilted his head. "Indeed? Well, in any other circumstances I wouldn't have believed you would steal from me. Find out why – and if – your brother has stolen the ingredients for a polyjuice potion and I will believe you."

"The polyjuice potion?" Harry and I were horrified. "Sir, if that potion goes wrong..."

"I know." Severus looked frustrated. "But without proof there is nothing I can do about it."

"Well, we might as well make use of our time in Gryffindor then, mightn't we?" We grinned.

Our godfather send us a grateful look, and pulled us into a hug. And even though he didn't say the words, Severus' embrace seemed to scream his apology to us.

I couldn't have been more grateful for the day to have finished. Considering that Lockhart had failed to specify exactly why, and provide proof for his accusations, we decided that his detention could be overlooked without further punishment. If the teacher brought it up next lesson, we would take the matter to one of our heads of houses, or the headmaster himself.

The rumour mill had been working overtime, we noticed, having had almost twenty four hours to build up. The most popular murmurings were about who the 'Heir' was. Popular choices were both Charles and ourself, or Draco in our year. Of course, each year had its own candidates, but Charles and we seemed to pop up in rumours through the entire school. Charles was picked upon because he was already famous, and therefore was doing it for more attention and fame (as if he wanted or need any more!) whereas we were being chosen because, as the brother to the Boy-Who-Lived, it was obvious that we would be jealous enough to petrify someone's cat and threaten the entire school to gain an inkling of the attention Charles got on a daily basis.

Determined to get away from it all, we slipped down to the lake. In hind-sight, perhaps disappearing off the grid for several hours after a threatening message had been written on the wall in blood the night before wasn't the best of ideas, but we need to get away from the school for a while. And since the Slytherin common room was out of bounds, we decided to get even closer to the water that we felt so at home in.

As per usual, we stripped out of our robes and trousers before plunging into the icy lake. Despite the freezing waters, the lake seemed just the right temperature to us. We squinted into the darkness, trying to make out shapes in the murky shadows. The sun was already setting at up on the surface, and the lake was by no means a light place by day, so trying to see anything now…

'Young lords!' The joyful voice of the Giant Squid ran through our head. 'You're back!'

'Hi!' I grinned at our good friend. 'Sorry we haven't been down in a while. School's been busy…'

We swam deeper into the lake with the Squid, talking to him about how we found out about our godly heritage and our quest over the summer. After a while, the warm green glow of the merfolk's village came into sight. The merfolk started to bare their teeth at us before catching sight of our face, and recognising us as friends.

:: Young lords. :: The familiar voice of our favourite mermaid princess rang out behind us. We spun around just in time to be hit by the playful mermaid, sending us tumbling head over tails – quite literally in Nerissa's case.

:: News from the salt waters are you have discovered your heritage. :: Nerissa grinned. :: Did you see you father? Is Lord Poseidon nice? I've only ever heard you father speak at the yearly merfolk gatherings. ::

:: He's… Well. We only met him at the end of our quest. :: We admitted. :: He wasn't a bad guy, I guess. We were only an unexpected factor that wasn't exactly welcome. ::

We sighed. :: It's not all that bad really. Poseidon is a fair leader. Which was to be expected, I suppose, considering he's had years of experience. ::

Nerissa smiled. :: And you will prove his 'unexpected and not exactly welcome' sons something to be proud of, or my name is Nerissa! But, come, father wants a word with you. ::

We swam in silence, watched from above by the Squid. King Irvin was waiting for us as usual.

'He always knows, doesn't he? Do you think he has spies in the Lake so that he knows everything?' I asked Harry.

Harry laughed. 'Well, he probably just speaks to the creatures of the lake. He and the Giant Squid seem to be good friends.'

:: Blest of Pan, welcome. :: Irvin smiled at us.

:: Pan… As in, Greek god of the wild? Why would he bless us? ::

:: Why did Hecate bless you? You are special, boys. More so than you will ever know. Though, I do believe Pan's blessing might have been due to a lost bet with Poseidon some years ago – I doubt either of them really remember. It was a good fifty odd years ago know… more, even, since your siblings have been few and far between over the last few centuries. I believe Amphitrite has been settling your father down. ::

We smiled at the thought. :: You wished to see us? ::

:: Yes! Danger stirs in that school of yours. ::

Before Irvin could finish telling us his, a familiar female voice cut him off.

"Harry! Percy! Here you are. Draco said you'd be here."

"Myrtle? What are you doing down here?" We flashed the King an apologetic look, turning to face the ghost. She tugged on her hair, and shifted uncomfortably.

"The headmaster is looking for you two… You missed dinner and everyone was getting worried, what with the message from last night and all… Well. Everyone but those Slytherin friends of yours."

We sighed regretfully, and turned back to King Irvin. :: It seems our time is cut short. May we speak again soon? ::

:: Of course, my young Lords. Take care, and beware Chamber of Secrets.; it's not just a myth, you know… ::

We hugged Nerissa goodbye before making our way back up to the surface with the Giant Squid and Myrtle. A grumpy and cold Professor McGonagall was waiting by our clothes, and bustled us back into the castle quickly, banning us from leaving the common room for the rest of the night. We let her poke us a bit, checking we were alright and not harmed before leaving her at the Fat Lady's portrait and heading inside.

It wasn't until we were safely in bed that we realised we had totally forgotten to talk to Myrtle...