Percy’s string stretches off over the ocean and is woven with an oddly bright green, like the picture of a poisonous snake Percy sees at the zoo. He asks his mom where the string goes when he’s little, and Percy learns he shouldn’t expect to meet his soulmate any time soon. She has no answer about the green threads, and he learns not to ask about them from his classmates’ and teachers’ reaction to his question. Gabe firmly reinforces not asking about the mysterious color, and Percy develops the habit of rubbing the resulting scar when he thinks about his soulmate.
(Harry wonders about the gold shimmer his red string has in the light, but the Dursleys are especially vicious when he asks questions about his string. Harry stays silent and wonders, hopes.)
(Hermione and Ron have no answers for him when he hesitantly asks after a few months. Not even Hermione’s and Pince’s combined efforts to find and read all of the books of the soul strings (supposedly for an extra credit project - Harry thinks he and Ron really have rubbed off on Hermione) tell Harry what he wants to know. He pushes it to the back of his mind after a while, too busy with worries about Quirrell and school to research anything other than Nicolas Flamel. He never really pursues it again.)
Annabeth’s string turns gray when Luke invites Kronos into himself and fades until she can only see the very beginning of it hanging off her pinky finger when squinting and searching for it. Percy holds her while she mourns her loss and helps her re-orient herself in combat without the familiar weight of the string and the expected flash of color that only she could see. Annabeth, an experienced warrior and tactician, doesn’t take long to adjust, though he knows it hurts her. She puts all of her anger and hurt into winning the war. The brief flash of her red string on Olympus haunts her dreams, but Luke’s sacrifice returned the string to its gray state.
(Harry’s string looks to be coated with gold when he wakes up one morning. He ignores the extra weight and figured that his soulmate is definitely alive if the string is more vibrant than ever. It fades after a few months, and at least Harry doesn’t have to worry about a mostly gold string and the final task of the Triwizard tournament. Honestly, Harry’s string has looked a little different, almost fraying somehow, since he escaped the graveyard. There’s been the occasional string out of the weave here and there ever since the whole basilisk incident, but nothing like this. Harry doesn’t focus on that because he can’t afford to focus and work about it until the war’s over.)
The green and red of Percy’s string are slowly turning gray, and the string shivers weakly now and again. It always pulsed fairly regularly before, another thing Percy could never ask about, and he is left to assume that his soulmate is dying torturously slowly. His fork drops to his plate when his hand drastically lightens, and he runs blindly to the lake. Percy curls into a ball at the bottom and rubs the familiar odd knot attaching the string to the base of his middle finger, telling himself that his soulmate is still alive somewhere, even if his cord is only half as thick as it was. It eventually recovers a little, but Percy isn’t exactly relieved, instead more terrified of what could cause that effect on a soul string.
(The dementors appear to somehow freeze his odd cord too. Harry didn’t notice that in his third year and wishes he hadn’t noticed it during the attack in Little Whinging. The cord thaws out and appears fine after a while, and Harry forgets to tell his friends about the strange happening in his anger at them and his worry over being put on trial.)
Annabeth dives into the lake after it’s clear Percy isn’t resurfacing anytime soon one afternoon after sword practice. He brings her to him in an air bubble because he has no desire to move but a friend sounds like a good thing to have right now. She takes a look at his face and wraps him in her arms as shivers of an almost foreign emotion - fear - wrack his body. Percy kisses her then in a moment of weakness, desperate to forget about his dying soulmate. Annabeth accepts the kiss and distracts him with chaste kisses when he looks like he’s going to start hating himself again. She’s appreciated his support and help, and she’s liked him as more than a friend since he bathed in the Styx. She just didn’t think he liked her that way.
(Harry gets a sudden bad feeling in potions class and nearly ruins his potion. He manages to save it before it explodes, and Snape swoops away looking angry at the loss of an opportunity to take away even more house points. Harry wonders privately if Snape has ever loved anyone and feels sorry for him for the barest moment before he loses points for daydreaming. Any empathy quickly evaporates and turns back into dislike.)
The kiss never should have happened. Percy knows this, but he doesn’t have long to figure out how to somehow tell Annabeth he shouldn’t have kissed her without horribly offending her before Hera appears in his cabin. Percy doesn’t think about anything for a long time after that, and when he wakes, he’s too busy trying to survive to worry much about the frail, odd thread attached the his finger. In his dreams, the string is stronger and pulses to the rhythm of someone’s heartbeat, but Percy has long since figured out how to tell the difference between prophetic demigod dreams and idle fantasies.
(Harry’s string goes somehow dark, some inner light gone but not grayed, for eight months. He stares at it when he can in between detentions. It’s only when the string returns to normal that Harry realizes the shimmer had been nearly nonexistent.)
Percy doesn’t start whatever relationship he had with Annabeth back up again when he finally sees her in the Roman camp. He knows she’s confused and hurt, so Percy tries his best to gently explain to her that he loves her as a friend and nothing more. Their friendship isn’t the same after that, though both of them are glad to have the other with them in Tartarus. Percy tries his best not to let the stronger color of the rope and the increased length before it fades to nothing, both signs of a closer distance to his soulmate, distract him during battles in the Ancient Lands. He spends time in his cabin on the ship trying to remember the different angles his string had been at in New York and the various countries in Europe he’s been to. Percy figures out through extensive string tracking and mapping while on the Argo II that his soulmate is somewhere in France or England.
(Harry is almost too busy in his meetings with Dumbledore to notice the gradual shifting of the angle of his soul string. He only notices how much stronger it’s become when the cord abruptly stretches tight and points almost straight down. Hermione had no explanation for him, so Harry’s left to just wait again, hoping that it will go back to what it was. Eventually it does, but only for a few hours before his soulmate is abruptly back at the same angle and distance as during their childhoods. Harry has so many questions. No one can Apparate the distance his soulmate just jumped, and international Portkeys aren’t that fast. That’s if he disregards that his soulmate was impossibly deep underground for a little while.)
The war with Gaea has only been over for a few days when Percys’s string takes another drastic turn for the worse. He keeps an eye on it while helping clean up and heal the land, camp, and campers from the damage the second war caused them. Camp Jupiter, destroyed by a few rampaging monsters when they found it empty, calls on him to clean up and redirect the Little Tiber once the worst of the damage at Camp Half-Blood is taken care of, and Percy gladly goes, trying out a new mode of transport: mist. Luckily, the city is still protected, and the Romans have always been gifted builders of their Camp. The congratulatory meeting with the gods after this war goes even worse than the meeting after the first one, but at least Percy hit Zeus with some hard enough truths to distract him from blaming Apollo for all of their problems. Apollo is grateful enough to bless both camps’ healers to be a little more powerful. His first attempt of just healing all the wounds counted as too much direct influence, so Apollo had to leave his gratitude at that.
(Harry watches with confusion as his soulmate quickly goes almost as far as he’s seen the string stretch before returning to normal. A few weeks later, the string angles up oddly high though the overall direction doesn’t change much. Harry focuses on his string, which is slowly regaining the color Harry hadn’t realized it had lost, whenever he feels particularly down about Ron leaving them or the few successes they’ve had finding Horcruxes. He holds on even tighter to the hope provided by the string as the light fades from Dobby’s eyes.)
All Percy really wants to do is follow the string in the absence of any Great Prophecies. He knows his own mental and emotional state well enough to know that he needs to heal first though, so Percy focuses on that and mastering mist travel to more easily find his soulmate when he starts sleeping again and isn’t so on edge. Percy focuses on the little color left and knows he doesn’t have much time to find his One, but knows too that his healing can’t be rushed and trying to force it will ultimately hurt, not help. He’s goofing around on the lake with his friends when Percy feels the cord snap.
(Everything is white. Why is it white? Where is his soul string?!)
Percy raises a shaking hand to stare at as the lake slowly ices over. His friends are stuck in place by the ice but unable to walk to him in case the ice breaks. Leo - who’d finally returned to camp with his soulmate, Calypso - slowly melts the ice while she paddles desperately towards Percy. They have to be careful of the wooden sides of the boats, and the lake is freezing faster than Leo can melt the little patch in front of them, but they have to try. Snow, impossible snow, starts drifting down during the middle of summer as Percy stares at the loose, colorless thread on his finger. The shaking abruptly stops as his string tightens suddenly, gaining color, width, and an undeniable warmth. Percy is too busy staring at the little flames racing up the healthy string to notice the gentle warm rain or the relieved faces of his friends as they pull their canoes up next to his.
(Harry wakes up warm, but at least his cord’s fine. It soon warms up to his temperature, and Harry focuses on taking care of Voldemort so he can finally search out his soulmate and be as happy as Ron and Hermione - who finally acted on their string - are.)
Percy’s about as healed as he’s going to get for the time being. He has physically recovered, and the remnants of the mental and emotional damage - which are still plentiful - will take time, trust, and maybe a soulmate to heal. The absence of green in the string makes Percy think that whatever has been happening in his soulmate’s life to cause the gray is no longer a problem, almost like his very soul was marked for whatever he had to go through. He doesn’t really know how to feel about that, caught between worry, fear, and a desperately strong hope. The string has only gotten warmer, and seems somehow to be thicker and more vibrant every time Percy checks. Percy grabs a backpack, stuffs some clothes, weapons, drachma, and ambrosia in it, and travels to the edge of the sea. His friends hug him and threaten all sorts of things if he doesn’t return. Percy just smiles, not in the habit of making promises he might not be able to keep despite his best intentions, and dissolves into mist in the rough direction his string points.
(The gold shimmer on Harry’s cord is stronger than ever, and the cord itself thickens abruptly. Harry thinks that might mean his soulmate is close by, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up, what with the craziness his soul string has been exhibiting the past few years. Even if he wants to go search, Harry is jumping through so many Ministry hoops to keep himself and anyone else who was technically on the wrong side of the law from being arrested. Winning the war apparently wasn’t enough proof for this newest Minister that he isn’t a hardened evildoer, despite the public outcry against their trials. He does get to stay at Hogwarts and help rebuild his home while not at the Ministry, though, so not everything is bad.)
Percy spends a long time just pinging around from place to place. He sees a lot of gorgeous coasts before starting to curve around Great Britain, the place he’s finally figured out his soulmate currently resides in. Unfortunately, his soulmate doesn’t appear to live on the coast, so Percy’s going to have to try his luck inland and hope not to terrify any kids by large areas of water. He eventually works his way into a large large with oddly dark waters. This lake’s naiads are unwelcoming and try to kill him despite his attempts at making peace with them, and the mermaids - which are twisted almost unrecognizably from any others he’s seen before - aren’t much better. It’s only when Percy finds a giant squid in the lake, the only creature who is actually friendly, that he realizes that someone experimented on this lake and then tried to cover it up with some form of Mist that Percy actually has a hard time seeing through. Giant squids live in saltwater, and he ran into an odd creature that called itself a grindylow that complained about how salty the water was. Percy isn’t sure what he was going to do, but he sure is going to do something.
(Harry stops by a newly refurbished Diagon Alley - finished before Hogwarts because the populace needs supplies and an economy to recover - before he Apparates back to Hogwarts. The first thing he notices as he walks through the gates is that his soulmate appears to be very close by. He follows his string to the Black Lake, of all places, and stares with no small amount of confusion at the dark water. No one appears to be in there. Harry sits on the shore and waits, despite the fact that no one’s come up for breath in the past five minutes while he’s been walking past it and paying attention and that Hermione and Ron are surely a little concerned with his prolonged absence by now.)
Percy eventually decides to pray to his father. The lake needs to become either freshwater or saltwater, and a large percentage of the lake’s inhabitants will need to be relocated for that to happen. Apparently, his dad is both bored and still feeling guilty about all Percy’s had to go through because of him - rightly so! - so he appears immediately after Percy finishes his prayer. Poseidon tours the lake quickly and decides, after seeing everything, that the lake should be returned to its previous state of being a crystal-clear freshwater lake inhabited by the native species of the area, for the health of not just the species inhabiting the body of water but also the ecosystems dependent on it. The lake falls under Poseidon’s jurisdiction as King of the Seas too, so the god won’t even get in too much trouble for actually showing up for his son. Poseidon clears the lake of the saltwater creatures living in it, promises to make sure they recover fully and don’t harm anything else while they do, and hugs Percy tightly while he restores the lake to its long-lost clear and natural state.
(Harry watches with great mystification as the lake abruptly begins to ripple, a tentacle flailing out of the water before disappearing mid-struggle. He’s even more confused when the color changes imperceptibly at first before suddenly becoming completely clear. The water is still shockingly cold when Harry tests it, but it’s no longer a murky, terrifying black. He thinks to himself that the Second Task way back in fourth year would have been much less terrifying if the lake had looked like this. He also wonders if his soulmate, under the water for 23 minutes and counting, somehow had something to do with this.)
Poseidon lets go of Percy in the now sun-dappled waters and promises to check up on the lake every once and a while to make sure nothing like this happens again. He hugs Percy again, and Percy swears he could hear a faint apology and a promise to always listen to his prayers before Percy is once again alone in the lake. There are still the naiads, now much less terrifying, and whatever species originally lived in the lake, but Percy doesn’t want to talk to any of them right now. For the first time in the past hour, Percy glances down at his string. To his utter shock, the string actually looks the thickest and most vibrant it’s been ever. He swims towards its source, hoping that his soulmate is actually nearby, and that it’s not just a trick of the light.
(Harry is debating going inside. It’s been almost forty minutes, and he’s tired from dealing with all of the Ministry’s garbage. He jolts into full awareness, drops the stick he’s been doodling with, and stares down at his hand while his soul string visibility lengthens. If this keeps up, his soulmate is going to appear any second now! Harry jumps to his feet, checks that he doesn’t look too atrocious - thank goodness he was already wearing a suit! (he’d refused to wear formal robes as a way of representing his Muggle side while dealing almost exclusively with pure bloods) - and stares at the water with anticipation. At least he’s finally gotten contacts so he won’t be meeting his soulmate with those clunky glasses on.)
Percy speeds through the lake, almost there, almost there, and looks through the water to see someone, a young man, dressed in a suit and holding milk, of all things. His string leads straight to that man, and Percy impossibly speeds up, pushing away the self-conscious thought that he’s just dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He can see that his soulmate is gorgeously tanned with unruly curly black hair, and startling green eyes are staring at him with no small amount of curiosity. His full lips are slightly parted, and Percy can’t help the instant attraction he feels. He pushes that down, focusing instead on finally meeting his soulmate. Percy bursts out of the water, making sure that none of it lands on his soulmate and extends his hand to his soulmate with a smile.
(Harry has absolutely no clue how his soulmate is swimming so fast. He’s almost a blur, but Harry can’t deny that his soul string leads directly to the other. His soulmate, from the little he can tell, is handsome and very fit. When he shoots out of the water, Harry thinks for a second that his soulmate, though clad in jeans and a T-shirt, looks like a Greek god. His heart almost stops with that too-attractive smile and the touch of his soulmate’s strong hand, a pleasant tingle buzzing under his skin as they touch for the first time.)
“I’m Percy Jackson,” Percy announces. His soulmate doesn’t look like he recognizes Percy’s somewhat infamous name, yet he looks curious instead of freaked out at the sight of someone just appearing from underwater at a speed that can only be inhumanly possible. His skin tingles with warmth and power where his soulmate’s hand is touching his own.
“Harry Potter,” Harry replies, looking for any sign of recognition while he accepts the handshake. He finds none, and Harry is immensely relieved. He might have to explain a lot of things to his ridiculously attractive soulmate, but at least Percy won’t already have any positive or negative opinions of him. They stand in awkward silence for a long, long moment before Harry asks, “Do you want to come inside? We can talk there.” He’ll ask about the lake thing once they know more about each other than simply the other’s name.
“Sure!” Percy says, looking over at where Harry is pointing. “Aren’t those … ruins?” His voice fades into silence as a large battle-worn castle slowly reveals itself. He wonders if this was how his soulmate died, but Percy isn’t going to just ask without knowing anything about his soulmate. “Never mind, I see the castle. Lead the way!”
Percy shifts his grip on Harry’s hand, determined not to let go, and follows a now very curious Harry up to the castle. Harry thought his soulmate had magic when he first saw him, but Percy had seen the ruins at first. Still, he wasn’t fully a Muggle, because the Muggle-specific illusion broke shortly after Harry invited him to go in with him and Percy took a good look at Hogwarts.
They are almost all the way to the makeshift doors before Percy asks, “What is this place?” He didn’t realize anyone lived in castles besides royalty, or that such a place would be attacked in such a grandiose way as to leave battle scars like these on the stone walls (not that Percy can talk - the devastation of both camps was just that: devastating in how complete the destruction had been).
“Welcome … to Hogwarts,” Harry says dramatically, obviously proud of the place.
Percy tries to hold in his laughter, but a snicker still escapes. “Hog…warts?”
Harry’s smiling now too. “Don’t ask why it’s named the way it is because I frankly have no clue.” He lays his free hand flat on the heavily warded makeshift doors long enough for their magic to recognize his and creak open on their own. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry sees both of Percy’s eyebrows rise high on his forehead. “So yeah, welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
“You’re not a third camp, are you?” Percy asked.
“Camp? What do you mean?” Harry asked.
Percy didn’t have time to respond before two people who looked to be around his and Harry’s age rushed out of somewhere deeper in the building before stopping abruptly, staring at their still-joined hands. Percy was going to leave it to Harry to see if he wanted to keep holding his hand or not in front of these people, people he obviously knew if the expression on his face was anything to go by.
“Harry, where have you been? We were worried that you’d been found by the Death Eaters,” the girl with curly hair asked.
“Mate, who’s this? I thought you’d just gone out for milk?” the redheaded boy asked.
“Hermione, Ron, this is my soulmate, Percy.”