Sword and Charm.

The heat was thick as slime. The t-shirt was sticky at the jagged ridge of Percy's chest. Sweat accumulated in the slightly longer locks of hair, folded behind the ears. Technically, Percy shouldn't have been driving, because he was still a week away from his sixteenth birthday.

However, his mother and stepfather, Paul, had taken him and Harry to a private stretch of beach on the South Shore, so Paul had lent him his Prius for a spin. oh, it was worth it.

With a stupid smile on his face he watched the way Harry bounced his knuckles on his knee. He pursed his lips tightly, trying to hide his surprise. The intrigue in his green eyes was genuine.

He held out his arm and Percy followed the direction the slender finger was pointing, a small frown on his forehead.  Everything about Harry was extremely small. The hands, the fingers and blunt nails. 

The curve behind the elbow grazed the door. His collarbones were, however, the most delicate and terrible thing that the son of Poseidon could examine. It was white and white as snow. The rolled-up t-shirts hung around him like heavy, flaking wrappers, hanging down to his collarbones. 

Hollow bird bones filled Percy's eyes whenever the necklines of his clothes were too loose they slipped along the roundness of the shoulder. «Pull over here.» They parked on a promontory overlooking the Atlantic. Harry had gathered his legs up on the seat, pressing his knees against his chest. He sat still with his eyes glued to the windshield. 

It was clear that he hadn't seen much of the world. The microexpressions collected with difficulty all the typically childish enthusiasm, slowly opening like a package to be unwrapped.

The sea has always been one of Percy's favorite places. That day was particularly beautiful, a shimmering green and smooth as glass; pure - exactly like Harry's eyes. It seemed like his father was keeping it calm just for them.

Never a patient person, Percy broke the silence. «So-,» there was something recently stuck between his throat and intestines, some kind of devouring worm. «When will you return to Britain?».

Calmly, Harry tore his eyes away from the windshield. The thin shoulders jerked back slightly.  He looked briefly at his bony knees. Then, he curled his fingers together. Inhaled sharply through his nose and lifted his chin. 

The teeth had caught a soft spot on the pink lip. He stared at Percy, as if he had just decided to engage in battle with him. 

«School starts again on September 1st, so I think we-»; he twisted his mouth, as if he had swallowed a lemon with all the peel. «-I have less than twenty days.» Correction was not needed.

A curl of annoyance seemed to bend around Percy's heart and tighten; strong. Harry had this tendency to self-exclude. His belongings remained crumpled in the protective shell of his skull.

Yet his attitude, at times, seemed to move in the opposite direction. It would take flight and Harry would snatch it back, gripping the rebellious creature's scruff between his tiny fingertips. 

Before long, the annoyingly know-it-all little and british figure had become a subtle corolla ever present at the edge of Percy's mind. 

In every training pill, in every derelict Andromeda-like ship, in every crevice of stifling heat, Harry was there. A way to kill time, he said. Percy didn't understand a thing.

Why was Harry able to see through the Mist with disarming skill?; why was he on Long Island if he hated every second of it?; Why did he have a bird?; Why did he have eyelashes longer than any girl’s?

Percy cleared his throat loudly and rotated his torso fully, pushing his thigh into the seat. «When will you come back?»; he planted a sterile, terse look right in Harry's face. It wasn't a if.

Something swung behind the boy's flat expression, but remained stuck in the narrow windpipe. Percy wanted to punch him in the gut and pull it out. «Me-, it's not exactly-», he fumbled with words. 

He did it often. It wasn't about uncertainty. It was more like he didn't give straight answers. He piled up the scattered words in his mouth and just then he elaborated them slowly, in an excessively filtered mixture.

The aforementioned eyelashes touched the thin cheeks like charcoal. «It wasn't my decision to come here, in the first place», he argued finally, a small wrinkle on his forehead. «I don't think there will be an opportunity to return.»

«What, a prophecy says you're going to die soon or something?»; the teasing question escaped Percy's teeth before he could bite the truth and swallow it, sharp and coiled like a hiss under a hedge.

Harry's mouth twitched and softened into a circular grimace; his dark eyebrows wavered on his pale forehead, among handfuls of black hair.  His fingers curled between his thigh and the seat. «Wh-».

Percy didn't dwell on the reaction unfolding before him. Harry wasn't used to his outbursts. But he wasn't done. He had been trying to push away unpleasant thoughts about Harry's departure for days. 

They were now pressing against the base of his throat. «If you don't have the opportunity, create it»; a kind of electric thrust squeezed his body into circular bundles. «You don't want to stay with that uncle and aunt of yours, right?; they don't even care if you're dead or alive.»

He winced and clenched his jaw, flexing his fists nervously on his thighs. Low blow; said like that, sounded terribly bad. He had involuntarily leaned into Harry in the heat of the moment.

The space between them had shrunk. The manual transmission pressed against Percy's knee. Harry had his heels tucked under his legs, sitting towards Percy. His whole face did that thing. 

A brick white replaced his expression, smooth as a conch shell. He thrust his chin high with a certain haughtiness, almost arrogance, - an emotion at odds with him, but strangely his.

«Well, thank you,» he said. The British accent made the syllables terribly liquid, almost suspended in the air. He rolled the words venomously slowly.  Cold. Like, at the level of the Adriatic Ocean. 

Luckily, Percy was the son of Poseidon. «I care about you» he continued, as if the peak of coldness had not affected him «And I care that you stay alive, especially after having noticed the troubles that you-»; 

Harry clicked his tongue. «Hey,» he complained, «I'm not the one looking for trouble, it's them coming to me.» He pouted his lip and crossed his arms over his chest, whiny enough to no longer be icy. 

«No, Harry-» Percy snorted assertively. «And I know this because I don't look for trouble, but they come to me. You decidedly look for them.» C’mon, he had literally pleaded with Percy to attack ships together. 

«I lived before I met you,» Harry sucked the inside of his cheek. «I'll continue to survive,» he shrugged. «I don't exactly care whether anyone, like my uncle and aunt, wants me to or not. I’d be dead already»

He was determined. In that incomprehensible way of his, that is. He didn't seem to have a goal, or some personal desire, or random emotion, driving him. He was just like: «Okay, let’s live, that’s what humans do».

«And anyway-» Harry added, snapping Percy out of his reverie. «You know that I go to a boarding school, I have friends,» he stumbled over the word, as if he wanted to swallow it. «And they need me.»

Percy was tempted to palm his hands against his temples. He folded his tongue back on the roof of his mouth, disgusted. «I haven't heard you talk about them once,» he replied quickly. «So I think I'm worth a little more than them, if you allow me.»

«Ron didn't-» Ron? What was even a Ron?; 

Harry pressed his lips together.  «I am trying to say, they have had a lot to think about, Percy.» The truth was that he hadn't told Percy about Ron and Hermione for a reason. Thinking about them made him suffer.

And he was extremely frustrated. The last letter Hermione had sent him was burned into the walls of his skull.

“We can't say much about You-Know-Who, of course. We were advised not to write anything important in case the letters get lost. We have a lot to do but I can't explain the details to you. There's a lot going on, we'll tell you everything when we see each other.”

But when would they see each other? Nobody seemed to bother to indicate a specific date. Hermione had scribbled “I hope we'll see each other soon." at the bottom of his birthday card, but how soon was soon? 

As far as Harry could tell from the vague allusions in their letters, Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's house. He could hardly bear the thought of those two having fun at the Burrow when he was stuck in a whole different country. 

In fact, he was so angry with them that he had thrown away without opening the two boxes of Honeydukes chocolates they had sent him for his birthday. He regretted it later, after the wilted salad that Aunt Petunia had offered for dinner that evening.

And what was keeping Ron and Hermione so busy? Why wasn't he, Harry, busy? Hadn't he proven himself capable of dealing with many more things than them? Had everyone forgotten what he had done? 

Wasn't he the one who entered the cemetery, witnessed Cedric's murder, was tied to that tombstone and risked being killed?

His shoulders shuddered. A pool covered in gravelly ice bubbled in the pit of his stomach. Percy tilted his head and Harry hastily looked away, running his fingers nervously over his knuckles.

Forget about it, Harry told himself firmly for the hundredth time. It was bad enough to keep revisiting the cemetery in nightmares without dwelling on those thoughts even in waking hours.

Wasn’t it the reason he was following Percy around like a puppy?; just to not think for a while, move his body. And if he had to attack ships for that, well, no complaints. It was better than the emptiness in his heart.

«Harry-», Percy said in a strange tone, distant from him. It was something between reproachful and exasperated. He gave him a kind of pat, two fingers under the chin - hard enough to make him lift his head quickly.

Percy's fingers were thick and stiff. He had calluses so deep they cracked his palms. Harry was pretty sure it had something to do with his Sword. Yet the touch was never brutal or unpleasant.

It was always warm, engaging and instinctive. Casual, also. It rubbed Harry's much softer skin pleasantly, leaving shivers all over him that spread from the center of his soul to all his physical body. He swallowed.

Harry curled his fingers together in his lap. Dark, dark, dark. Percy's eyes were such a deep green that when he looked at them he felt like he was walking on grass, but could fall off a cliff at any moment.

The tanned hand remained suspended in mid-air, under Harry's chin but not actually touching him. He was incredibly close. The elbow pushed into the back of the seat. Percy tilted his head, a frown on his smooth features. 

His hair tickled the scar on Harry's forehead, as he leaned in a bit. 

«Hey, boss,» said a voice inside Percy's head. He jerked backwards, dragging himself awkwardly away. His head nearly hit Harry's; a semi-divine head butt couldn't have been pleasant. «Nice car!».

The pegasus Blackjack was an old friend of his, so Percy tried not to show himself too annoyed by the interruption. «Blackjack-» he sighed, looking at the animal through the windshield. «What are you-».

Then he saw who was riding Blackjack and knew that his day was about to become even more complicated. «Hey, Percy!» Charles Beckendorf, group leader of the house of Hephaestus, would send the most monsters crying into their mother's skirts. 

He was big and big, with a mass of muscles resulting from all the summers spent in the forge, he was two years older than Percy, so like four more than Harry, and was one of the best blacksmiths and armorers in the camp. He built some really ingenious mechanical contraptions. 

A month earlier he had installed a Greek fire bomb in the bathroom of a large bus which was carrying a bunch of monsters around the country. The explosion had eliminated an entire legion of Kronos' evil henchmen as soon as the first one harpy had flushed the toilet.

Beckendorf was in combat gear. He wore a breastplate and a helmet bronze war jacket, with black camouflage trousers and a sword strapped to his belt. He carried the bag of explosives over his shoulder. 

«Is it time?» Percy asked. He nodded grimly. A lump rose in his throat. He knew that moment would come. They had been planning it for weeks, but they had always hoped that it wouldn't arrive. 

Harry remained still, practically motionless, exactly where Percy had left him.  His pink lips were slightly parted and his eyes glassy. Hearing that, he blinked slowly and looked up at Beckendorf. «Hi».

«Oh, hey. Harry»; Beckendorf didn't seem surprised. Percy opened the car door with a click. He walked around the vehicle. «I'm happy to see you. I think all three of us can go straight-».

Percy had just finished examining the craters Blackjack's hooves had left in the hood when he spoke. «Wait, what?»; he shook his head, almost tripping over a stone. «Harry isn't coming with us.»

Harry raised an eyebrow. Somehow he had materialized at her side. His black glasses reflected the harsh sunlight. He crossed his arms defensively. «Of course I'm coming, I remember the plan better than you» he crooned.

No, of course, not. And sure, Harry was Mister not-looking-for-trouble. Beckendorf scrunched up his face in a strange grimace, and not because the sun was hurting his eyes, «Percy, in all the exercises we did, Harry was with us. I think it would be a bit unbalanced if now-».

«Beckendorf, Harry is a mortal.» Percy groaned, pointing out what was absurdly obvious to him. Harry's shoes rubbed against the slippery ground of the promontory. He looked at him as if he had three heads.

Harry had no idea that Percy was a demigod. And, actually, Percy didn't even know what explanation Harry had given himself for those expeditions, perhaps none. Oh, Gods, it would have been even worse to know he jumped in that stuff with strangers without asking.

Percy needed a talk to him about stranger danger; Harry didn’t have parents, from what he knew, so it would have made sense. Was he just too innocent?; Was Percy contaminating him? 

He hadn't asked a single question, merely following him around and brushing off his antics with a raised eyebrow. «Yeah, no-» Beckendorf tilted his head, looking down at them from Blackjack's back.

«There's no way he's totally normal.»

Percy choked on his own saliva. Harry breathed heavily through his nose, as if he was as offended by the insinuation as he was accustomed to it. «I have to send a message to Paul and my mother.»

Well, maybe Percy wasn’t contaminating him. Maybe it was the opposite.

Percy had a last image of the Prius, gleaming in the sun, waiting for Paul to pick it up, while Blackjack was drawing circles higher and higher in the air, carrying him, Harry and Beckendorf into the sky. 

Night had already fallen when they reached the ship. Princess Andromeda shimmered on the horizon, a huge cruise ship illuminated by yellow and white. From afar you could have mistaken it for any ship from tourism, rather than the Titan Lord's headquarters. 

Then, getting closer, you noticed the large figurehead, a dark-haired girl dressed in a chiton Greek and in chains, with her face distorted by horror, as if she could smell the stench of all the monsters she was forced to transport. 

Percy’s guts twisted. He had almost died twice on the Princess Andromeda. Now it was heading straight for New York. «Do you both know what to do?»; Beckendorf shouted over the wind, maybe worried about what harry had said earlier. Percy confirmed with a nod. 

He felt, rather than saw, Harry's cheek move against his shoulder blade as he nodded too. They had done some exercises in the docks of New Jersey, using abandoned ships as a target. Percy knew they had little time available. 

But he also knew it was their best chance to stop Kronos' invasion before it even began. «Blackjack,» he said, «deposit us on the lower deck aft.»

«Under orders, boss,» he replied. «Man, I hate that ship.»  

«Don't wait for us,» Percy ordered. «But, boss-»; «Trust me,» he insisted. «We'll get out of this on our own.» Blackjack folded his wings and swooped down like a black comet. The wind whistled in Percy's ears. 

He saw monsters patrolling the upper decks - dracaenae, hellhounds, giants, and the humanoid sea demons known as telchines - but they sped by so fast that none of them raised the alarm. 

They fell on the stern of the ship and Blackjack spread his wings, landing lightly on the inferior deck. «Good luck, boss,» Blackjack said. «Don't let yourself be reduced to horse meatballs!».

He sailed away into the night. Percy took the pen out of his pocket, removed the hood and Riptide stretched out to its full length: ninety centimeters of deadly celestial bronze that glimmered in the darkness.

Beckendorf, instead, took out a slip of paper. A photograph. He stared at it in the dim light: it was the face smiling Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite. «We'll be able to get back to camp,» Percy promised. 

Harry, who was feeling his trouser pocket, raised an eyebrow, but did not question the camp. For a second, Percy saw the worry in Beckendorf’s eyes. 

Then his usual smile boldly reappeared. «You bet,»Beckendorf said. «Let's blow up Crono again into a million pieces.» Harry swallowed. It could have been an allegory but, in his experience, it was never an allegory.

Beckendorf led the way. They followed a narrow corridor to the stairs of service. They went downstairs making as little noise as possible. Two floors below, the voices of the telchines began to fade.

Finally they arrived in front of a metal hatch. Beckendorf mimed with his lips: «Engine room.» It was locked, but he took some pliers out of his bag and broke the lock as if it were made of butter.

Inside, a row of yellow turbines the size of silos hummed and seethed wheat. Pressure gauges and computer terminals lined the opposite wall. A telchines was bent over a console, but he was so busy with his work that he didn't rush to them. He was about five feet tall, with shiny, black fur, a seal and short, stubby legs. 

He had the head of a Doberman, but the clawed hands were almost human. He growled and muttered as he tapped the keyboard. Percy took a step forward and he tensed, probably smelling something awry.

He tried to throw himself at a big red alarm button, so Percy blocked him on the way to. The monster hissed and lunged at him, but a single swing from Riptide was enough to pulverize it. «One down,» Beckendorf exclaimed.

«Down with the other five thousand!». Harry, if nothing else, seemed finally surprised.  Which made Percy a bit proud. 

His large green eyes had carefully followed the decomposition of the telchines and were now slightly out of focus.

Yet, when Beckendorf passed him a jar of thick, green liquid, Harry woke up from the numbness and caught it on point: Greek fire, one of the most dangerous magical substances in the world. 

Then, Beckendorf threw him another tool fundamental of all semi-divine heroes: duct tape. «Attach it to the console,» he told Harry. «I think about the turbines.» The boy nodded. Great resilience.

And they started working. The room was humid and hot, and within a few minutes, they were drenched in sweat. The ship continued to proceed without haste. Being the son of Poseidon, Percy had a perfect sense of direction at sea. 

He was able to say that they were at 40.19 degrees north latitude and 71.90 degrees west longitude, and going at a speed of eighteen knots, which meant the ship would arrive in New York Harbor by dawn. It was their only chance to stop it.

Harry had just fixed the second jar of Greek fire on the control panels when they heard a loud stomp on metal steps. The creatures - so many of them - were coming down the stairs that they could still hear them even over the roar of the engines. 

It wasn't a good sign. Harry straightened his back, flexing his fingers in his trouser pocket. Percy looked Beckendorf in the eyes. «How much time do we need?».

«Too much.» He tapped his watch, which was their detonator distance. «I still have to connect the receiver and trigger the charges. Ten more minutes minimum, but probably even more».

Judging by the sound of their footsteps, they had about ten seconds. «I'll distract them,» Percy concluded. «See you two at the agreed meeting point. Wish me good luck.»

«Percy;» Beckendorf looked at him as if he wanted to argue. The original plan was to go in and go out without being seen. But now they were forced to improvise. «Good luck», he said, in the end.

Harry looked from one to the other, pushing something sharp beyond his placid nonchalance. «Absolutely not;» he said, twisting his mouth as if he were totally confused by the turn of events. «That’s stupid, Mr I-am-not-looking-for-trouble-you-are».

«Now, that’s long; and Har-»; Percy started to say, but the boy cut him off abruptly. «Do you just need that green stuff to explode?». He inspected the bottles of Greek fire attached to the components of the engine room.

«Yes, Harry-», Beckendorf interjected in a conciliatory tone. «But to connect the detonator and the charges we need time-».

Harry shook his head, pushing his teeth into his lip. «It's no use.» Percy and Beckendorf exchanged a look; as if they thought he had gone mad. «You don't worry, just go on and get away as planned.»

Percy's nervous system couldn't tolerate something like that. The voices and footsteps outside were getting louder. They wouldn't have had time now anyway. «Just,» he repeated with a twitching eye.

«Percy,» Beckendorf and Harry said, this time in unison. «We don't have time, if he says he can do it, I believe him,» Beckendorf continued. Percy opened and closed his mouth several times. «Why would he lie?».

«I promise, small thing, if you die you will have me on your conscience because-», Beckendorf made up for the silence that had been created. He grabbed Percy's arm and literally dragged him out the door with the sheer strength of his muscles. 

«Percy will kill me» he banged the door, while Percy was still struggling in his death grip. Harry inhaled, before rushing out with them, his feet tapping. The monsters were approaching.

Half a dozen telchines lumbered down the stairs. Percy mowed them down with Riptide without even giving them time to whimper. Yet, they seemed endless. Harry took the opportunity to take his wand out of his pocket.

Warmth invaded him like a vaguely accusatory welcome back as he squeezed the cylinder between his fingers for the first time in days. 

They made their way, among the crowd of monsters; Percy tugged at Harry like a rag doll, moving him at will to avoid the blows. He pressed a hand to the back of his neck, benting him forward. 

A spear passed by Harry, inches from his head. Percy grabbed his wrist and, with Beckendorf at their heels, they jumped off the ship, towards the water, thirty meters below. They heard a dark rumbling inside the ship. 

The monsters were screaming after them. Supported afloat by Percy's body wrapped around him - the muscle of his chest against his side -, he raised an arm above the surface of the water. He pointed his wand at the boat. 

He stared at the spot where he knew the door of the engine room was at. Closed his eyes, flexing his free hand on his thigh, under the water, and breathed, doing what he could do better. The accumulation of energy in the palms was welcomed by the wooden cylinder. «Bombarda Maxima».

His chest tightened and expanded.

An arrow hit his shoulder, but he felt almost no pain. Magic sang in his blood. «Down», Percy shouted pressing Harry’s head against his strangely warm chest, almost under the water. He ordered the currents to carry them far away, as far away as possible, one hundred, two hundred meters. 

Even at that distance, the explosion shook the world. Harry felt a burn on the nape. Princess Andromeda leapt into the air from all sides, a gigantic fireball of green flames that became confused with the night sky, consuming everything. Then he fainted, falling as an anchor towards the bottom of the sea in Percy’s arms, together with Beckendorf not so far.