Chapter 49

Harry's Point of View

We were woken up the first Monday of the Holidays by a heavy flying object landing on top of us and an exciting high pitched voice yelling our names extremely loudly in our ears. "Harry! Percy! Wake up!"

Percy moaned, trying to curl into ourself away from the noise and pull our covers over his head. However, the little fiery imp on top of us wasn't having it. "Come on! You invited me over, didn't you? You honestly can't expect me not to want to see everything this small, wet country has to offer, can you?"

"Leo... We love you, but not at six in the morning..." Percy groaned. "Well... actually, Harry might, but I don't. Wake me up at some more godly time in the morning."

"Technically, the sun has risen, so Apollo has named this a more godly time in the morning, since he's up and driving his chariot." Leo pointed out, entirely far too coherent for such an hour in the holidays. Especially for him. It was like, what, one in the morning back at Camp? What is this boy on?

"Leo... What time did you get here?"

"Um... about ten yesterday afternoon which was... three o'clock here?" Leo grinned as we peered at him over the top of our covers.

"Did the house-elves give you coffee?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Leo! What have Annabeth, Luna and we talked to you about concerning drinking coffee?""Only drink it when I really need to stay awake." Leo grinned angelically. "Your little elves offered it, and it was too good to pass up, so... I wanted to stay up for you guys!"

"Leo!" We whined. "We are so having words with the elves about giving you coffee. Only in the mornings, and even then only if you're practically dead!"

Leo laughed, but I could no longer find the effort to be annoyed at him. Percy was right - I probably would have woken up in half an hour anyway so it was no real loss for me. Percy on the other hand... well, he's lost about another 3 hours on uninterrupted sleep, but since I could hear him softly snoring again already, I knew that it wouldn't interrupt his day to much. Me on the other hand... I now had to singlehandedly entertain a hyperactive Leo for three hours until Percy woke up and could help.

"Breakfast?" I offered with a small sigh, levering our body out of bed after shoving Leo off us. Leo grinned (again – though to be honest, I don't think he has actually stopped grinning since he woke us up).

"I thought you'd never offer!" Leo exclaimed, his eyes sparkling. I chuckled, then paused, wondering what the fastest route to the kitchen was. Of course, our little passageways through the ceiling were definitely the fastest, but if we showed them to Leo, there was the risk of our friend attempting to navigate them himself and getting lost... No. That wouldn't do. Besides, Percy would kill me if I showed them to someone without him.

Grabbing Leo's hand, we headed out the door, ignoring the small hiss of greeting from the little snakes we had painted on our door after realising that we could talk to them last year. James and Lily had offered us a new room, after we had complained that we had run out of wall space to paint. Of course the entire wing of the manor was technically ours, as we were the only other child in the house other than Charles, but it was still James' manor, so... Anyway, long story short we had set to work decorating the doorway with as many Slytherin symbols as possibly, just to put our mark on the Manor. Let it never be said ever again that there was never a Potter in Slytherin!

Leo gave us an odd look at our faint smile. "What you thinking about now?"

"Look." We spun around, indicating our door, which was a pretty shade of emerald green, standing out starkly from white walls of the hall way. On this particular floor there were three other rooms – each with a name printed in gold lettering on the door. They were also decorated in the bright reds and golds of Gryffindor. Our names, however, were in silver, and our door was adorned with multiple silver snakes. In permanent paint, of course.

It was tradition to leave a child's room untouched after they left it. So our wing of the House was full of our ancestor's rooms. We had investigated them once, trying to imagine what kind of people they might have been before tracking down their portraits in the family gallery.

"We made our mark as the first Slytherin in the family for generations – if ever!" I announced proudly."I thought Percy was a Gryffindor though?" Leo looked confused. "Besides, what's so important about being a Slytherin?"

"Just prejudice." I shrugged. "The saying goes that 'there was never a witch or wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin.' Complete poppycock of course, but there it is. And then Gryffindors and Slytherins are age old enemies, so it makes us different. Uncle Sirius – Charles' godfather – is from a notoriously dark family that have always been a part of Slytherin or Ravenclaw. By being sorted into Gryffindor, Sirius marked himself as different, and not one of them. He's very proud of that."

Leo opened his mouth in a silent 'oh'. We smiled at him, then gently tugged his sleeve, pulling his through the corridors down to the kitchen. We recognised a few of the elves in the kitchen as they worked to cleaned and sorted out the food so that Lily could set to work when she came down to make breakfast. Lily didn't always cook our meals, but she certainly liked to when she could.

"Young master! Harry-sir!" The elves chirped, abandoning their tasks to crowd round us. We beamed down at them.

"Tippy! Nandy!" I exclaimed, noticing the two young elves that had always taken care to make sure we were cared for during the time our parents forgot about us... I still didn't really know what to think of that. Percy, in one of his few moments of genuine intellect, was convinced it was as much our fault as theirs. Probably the reason why he had been more open than I about forgiving them.

"What can us bes doing for young master Harry, and young master Harry's friend?" Tippy asked, her eyes bright with the idea of being given a task to do. I chuckled.

"Could we have breakfast please?"

Nandy pulled her ears and looked up at me with wide apologetic eyes. "We bes sorry, young master Harry, sir, but Lady Lily said yous must be eating as a family, sirs. At seven-thirty."

"Hey! Hey!" I gently clasped her hands before Nandy could start twisting her ears in punishment as failure for being able to complete our task. "That's fine. Could we have two cups of hot cocoa then instead?"

Nandy brightened, and she and Tippy set to work heating the milk and climbing on each other's shoulders to reach the high self that Lily hid the hot chocolate powder on. Leo and I sat on the small island table in the centre of the kitchen, watching the elves work in perfect synchronisation. They was no more than eight of them altogether, so they were the perfect collaborating team after years of working together.

As we sat drinking our hot cocoa, I did request the elves not feed Leo any more caffeinated drinks, for the sake of the entire house's sanity. The elves giggled slightly at that request, mumbling something about him being a hyperactive little fire-imp when on coffee. Leo blushed at that, and I giggled too.

At seven thirty Lily ventured downstairs. We watched in amusement as it took her a few minutes of walking round us to actually notice us. She jumped half a foot in the air when Leo finally opened his mouth to say good morning. She had her wand in our faces a second later. We both swapped looks, then simultaneously put up our hands.

"Don't shot, don't shot!" We chorused.

"Oh dear Merlin Harry! Don't scare me like that!" Lily gasped, putting away her wand. She then turned to smile at Leo. "Hello. You must be Leo. I'm Lily, Harry and Percy's mother."

"Hello, Mrs Potter." Leo smiled. Lily grimaced.

"I'm not that old! Please, call me Lily."

"Yes Lily." Leo looked slightly awkward at the request, but obeyed all the same. I grinned.

"Is Dad not up yet? James is such a lazy-bones!"

Lily sighed, exasperated. "If you can get him up, be my guest to try."

Leo and I exchanged an evil look, then sprinted off to our parents' room. James was snoring lightly when we crept in. Silently, I levitated the water from the bathroom, letting it hover over the entire bed. Leo's hair was dancing with flames already at the idea of what was to come.I let the water fall, and James jumped up with a high pitched yelp. Seconds later Leo had flames dancing around him, though he was careful not to burn him. Screaming even more now, James ran for the shower, dousing himself once more. Giggling, Leo and I high fived. Percy woke up again at that point, took a minute to assess the situation then pouted.

'Harry!' He moaned. 'You had fun without me again!'

'Stop sleeping then!' I mock moaned back at him. Percy giggled slightly at that.

"Come on Dad!" Percy called. "Breakfast!"

"You mean you soaked me, then set me on fire to tell me that?" James shot us an injured look. "Meanies! How did you summon fire anyway?"

Leo stepped forward, his hair still smoking. "Hello, sir."

"Leo, right?" James frowned. "Weren't you supposed to get here at ten last night?"

Leo looked at us, and we burst into laughter, realising what had happed. "Dad, you set it at ten o'clock, but didn't specify that to be British time. Leo arrived here at three this morning."James offered Leo a sheepish half-smile.

"Ops. Sorry."

Leo just laughed. Then Lily yelled at us to all get ourselves downstairs and we jumped, then quickly got moving. Percy and I dried the bed while James quickly changed before we all but sprinted downstairs. Lily was a demon when she was angry.Leo, after originally looking at us like we were mad, seemed to understand after seeing our mother's disapproving stare when we entered the kitchen. He hid half-behind us, but we could hardly blame him.

"About time you got up!" Lily rebuked James before swinging round on us. "And if our bed is wet..."

"It's dry! It's dry!" I yelped, ducking the wooden spoon she pointed in our direction. "We weren't going to make that mistake again. We cleaned up, promise!"

"Hump." Lily returned to the happy morning mood she had been in earlier when she had first entered the kitchen. "Well, pancakes are by the stove. Help yourselves boys! And guests first!"

"Yes Lily!" James and we saluted Lily, courteously bowing and gesturing Leo first, who pompously stuck his nose in the air, to go and collect his breakfast. We all broke out laughing a few seconds later, and Lily shook her head in amusement at our antics. Now all we were missing was a hyperactive Charles celebrating the start of the holidays!

We sobered at the thought of Charles staying at school. We may not always get along, but we did miss our brother when he wasn't with us. Percy sent me an image of Charles running round Hogwarts, throwing paint balls or confetti into the air as he did last Christmas at home, with an exasperated Professor McGonagall chasing after him and I burst into laughter.

"Hey dad, we don't suppose Charles requested any paintballs or confetti from you in any of his recent letters, did he?" We asked, grinning as James' face turned from confused, to understanding, to full out beaming.

"No, but he did request a pack of fireworks and a large box of Christmas banners!"

Lily groaned at the thought of receiving another letter home from her son's head of house, while James and we cracked up, Leo looking between us in confusion. We shared the story, and soon Leo had the mischievous smile that we had come to associate with a trouble-making invention building in his mind on his face. We had a strange mix of positive anticipation and dread at that look.

Leo flashed us an 'I'll-tell-you-later' look and we nodded in understanding. Looked like we'd have a long day ahead if we were to keep up with Leo, who was still slightly high on caffeine.

Sure enough, the remainder of the day was spend persuading James to transfigure the objects of one of the basement rooms into a workshop for Leo (which took a lot of reassurances that Leo was in fact a son of Hephaestus) and then helping Leo sketch out his ideas (adding a few of our own) and recruiting James (and Sirius when he arrived later that afternoon) in order to spell the creation as Leo worked on it to give it magical properties as well, if the machine was to work in a school saturated with magic. After all, the strong electromagnetic fields that our magic creates practically fry any electrical devices around them, unless those devices were specifically charmed (while made) to counteract the effects of the fields. Or at least that's what Beckendorf told us last time we attempted to go find Leo in their workshop last summer.

Anyway, then end result was this really quite cool remote controlled robot that could shoot fireworks at a set target. Percy and I didn't even have to confer to decide that if Leo let us keep it and we could keep it away from Lily long enough to smuggle it back to school then we would set Lockhart as a target. The fireworks weren't dangerous or deadly of course! The robot had a source of powder that it would heat up so it glowed different colours then be projected at a certain target, where it would hover in the air for several minutes, and colour the target (victim) such colours.

After a few minutes pleading with Leo (he didn't take long to persuade after the word 'teacher' was mentioned) and James (we had Sirius' full backing at this point) we had permission and assistance in hiding and smuggling our new toy to school come January. Lockhart wouldn't know what hit him!

That evening, after dinner, we took Leo out into the woods behind the house. The fairies and nymphs flocked to meet up with us again, and some fire-sprites came out to settle in Leo's smoking hair at one point to. We showed Leo where the weeping willows stood by a little bubbling broke in a small clearing, and where the unicorn herds came to settle in winter. The local centaur herd came galloping past at one point too, and Leo watched them a bit shocked after discovering that they were just as serious as Chiron, much unlike their more rowdy cousins the Party Ponies.

Our old friends the werewolf pack were in the woods as well. It took us a short while to persuade Leo not to draw his knife around them, and explain that they were magical creatures, not the mythological ones found in the US. Still, considering that Liekos and his pack were just as wary of Leo as he was of them, we couldn't exactly blame either of them for it.

When it fell dark Sirius and James came looking for us, and we pointed out the glowing fungi and lichen, along with the pretty winter flowers that would only ever flower at night.

"You should be careful in the woods at this time." James told us disapprovingly. "The centaur herds said a local werewolf pack have been moving through the area."

"Who, the Liekos pack? They're perfectly friendly. Most werewolf packs are actually, once you acknowledge that their species are just stupid dangerous beasts, but intelligent caring people. Surely you learnt that from Uncle Moony!" Percy said off hand. "Besides, we've known the Liekos pack since we were six. They wouldn't harm us, would they Leo?"

"They were perfectly nice people." Leo admitted.

Sirius looked dumbstruck, then burst out laughing. "True little adventurers you were back then. Always running off someplace new. You stayed away at full moons, right?"

"As if the naiads or forest nymphs, let alone the fairies or unicorns would let us near a pack of wolves on full moon. The trees wouldn't let us in either. They keep us out when the woods are unsafe." I told them.Leo walked silently beside us, deep in though. I wondered if he remembered how the trees seemed to have bended their branches away from the paths we took though the woods, as if someone had partially broken them so that they grew in different directions. On the days when danger lurked within them the trees bended their branches back into shape, blocking everyone out, and keeping the dangers within.

James huffed, lecturing us for a few minutes more before eventually giving up, knowing from all the lectures he'd attempted to give us last year that while I might listen to a few of his points, Percy would disregard them altogether as soon as something more interesting came along. He didn't mention it to Lily either, so we manage to escape her wrath for that evening at least.

All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty good Yuletide holiday.

Hey! I'm back :D Enjoy! I hope any others of you who had exams did well :)