Harry, Ron, Hermione, Will, Nico, and Hazel walked towards the Transfiguration classroom as a group, chatting with each other about their lessons yesterday and walked through the open doorway to be met with a serious looking woman dressed in dark green robes.

Wisps of grey hair emerged from under her stereotypical pointed hat, adding to her aged complexion. She pointed towards the seats for each of the students, not bothering to separate the new found friends.

Behind Will and Nico sat Hermione with Harry while Ron was stranded across the room, at the very front row, all alone at his desk. Part way through the lesson Nico's ears perked up to overhear a conversation between his two new friends about what he realized was an escaped convict that was after Harry.

From what he could piece together the crazed man was named Sirius Black, had been imprisoned for the murder of Harry's parents and was looking for him. Nico assumed he wasn't hunting down the boy to hug and kiss him.

Nico whispered the information he had gathered to Will (in Greek to confuse eavesdroppers) while working on transforming a mouse into a goblet. They both silently agreed they should keep an eye out for the guy just in case.

~-~-~-~-~-~

In Defense Against The Dark Arts, the class was met with a strange locked chest that was moving, an unnerving sight that showed the lesson would not be as calm as Transfiguration had been. Nico immediately recognized the aura surrounding it as a Boggart, the feeling of dread becoming worse and built up in the pit of his stomach.

Boggarts are a particularly terrifying creature for Demigods as it takes the forms of your worst fears with only a few spells wizards can use to get rid of it while an imperial gold or celestial bronze weapon could cause it to burst into the weird golden dust.

Luckily, Dumbledore was one step ahead of everyone and had already ordered Lupin to keep the new exchange students away from the creature due to something the headmaster never explained to the man, leaving him very confused.

Lupin acted on his own by keeping Harry away as well as the exchange students, it was by chance that Hermione accidentally didn't take part from the class running out of time. He had assumed Harry knew why he didn't face the Boggart, if not Hermione would explain it to him.

Curiosity got the better of the teacher. Lupin ended up asking Nico, Will, and Hazel to stay behind to ask questions. They did as they were asked and couldn't help but feel worried at what they might be asked.

The three of them stood in front of the tall man and stayed silent as Lupin asked: "Why did Dumbledore not let you near the Boggart?"

Thinking back to the nightmare he had been forced through in the early hours of the morning, Nico's eyes glazed over. He could still feel the hands trying to drag him down into the darkness, the monster pretending to be Bianca blaming him for her death, the ice cold chains shackling his wrists trapping him. No escape. No hope. Only death.

In the real world, Nico shifted uncomfortably and his eyes flickered down to the cold stone floor beneath him, Hazel slipped her hand into his and gave it a small squeeze. Will looked over at his boyfriend, instinctively becoming protective of Nico, and cleared his throat to address the waiting teacher.

"America has its own dark-wizards and we've clashed with most of them because of our families. We'd rather not talk about any of it though, let alone force the other students to witness any of it." Will blocked out the memories of everything his broken eyes had witnessed.

He had seen campers, some as young as eight, die from fatal wounds. He had seen so much death. He had seen the pain in the eyes of a child that was struggling stay alive just because they were the love child between a mortal and a god.

Will left the classroom with the others, leaving Professor Lupin in shock and a hell of a lot more questions than answers.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Nico didn't feel like talking for the rest of the day, his mind always returning to memories he'd always found difficult to shake off. Once they took hold, they weren't going to let go that easily. When lunch rolled around, Will took him into an abandoned classroom to get away from the noise of the corridors.

The medic pulled the smaller teen into a hug, Nico's head against his chest and arms around his waist. Will then tangled his right hand into the dark brown mop of hair below his chin and sadly shut his eyelids as he heard Nico start to cry.

The Seven were aware that Nico had suffered during the war but only Will, Hazel and Reyna had been trusted with the worst of his nightmares seeing as he knew he could trust them the most. They'd seen him at his worst, best and most vulnerable, just like Nico had for them countless times.

It's never a good thing to say that Will had comforted Nico when similar situations came around and the usually sunny son of Apollo had lost count of the many times this had happened. Most of the time Will steered Hazel away at those times to stop her seeing Nico so destroyed and desperate for someone-anyone-to mend him, if it was even possible at that point.

Gulping back his sobs Nico managed to mutter "I just want to go back home. For once I want to stay out of the twisted games the gods make and to stop them from hurting me over and over again."

Will knew where he was coming from, it was a thought he often found going through his mind especially when trying to save the half-bloods that would turn up in the Camps Infirmary. But, for now, they'd have to play the stupid game and try their hardest to stop the threats in the Forbidden Forest.

They could only hope in the future they'd be able to break out of that dam cycle.

A/N

[PUBLISHED 26/07/2019]

Hello!

Yet again I'm going out today (a hospital visit) so I wanted to get this chapter out early before I forgot.

What did you think about this week's chapter? Do you think I will ever stop being mean to Nico? (nah) What do you think will happen next?

As always, the art at the top is mine (I actually replaced the old crappy one from a few months ago and completed this one over the last few days) and I'm pretty proud of it.

Thank you for reading and I'll see you all next Friday! :)