Magical Demigods

One of the Ravenclaws, Terry Boot, asked Dawn at some point during first year why she hung out with Nico when he was incredibly creepy. She'd simply said 'because I can' and left Boot to his own devices.

She thought about the question one night when she lay awake after a dream she'd had where she had witnessed Nico raising the dead.

Why did she spend time with him?

Maybe it was because he never expected her to want to talk of her family like many others in her year did. Maybe it was because he didn't care about what she said, and was always willing to listen to her and talk about the subject, eager to learn more. 

Maybe it was because she knew.

She knew when Hermione and her met Nico, Ron, Draco and Harry that Nico was the strongest one there. He radiated power like she radiated warmth. He looked like he had once had a darker skin tone, that he used to be happy, but something in him had changed, and he was no longer that same boy.

His power contradicted hers. Whilst Dawn's powers were about warmth, healing, life, Nico's powers were the exact opposite. His entire being gave off an air of decay, darkness and death.

She knew then and there that he was a son of Hades. She knew it. He had a certain smell about him that practically screamed it.

She brought it up that one day because, well, curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back. Was that the full saying? She was pretty sure that it was.

Her being around Nico most of the time was born from how light needed darkness to exist, how life needed death and healing needed sickness. She was fairly certain that her half siblings would agree to her speculations.

Dawn was barely surprised to hear that Kronos had been brought back. She'd seen it well before it happened.

True to his word, Nico took Dawn to Camp Half-Blood, where she met her half siblings and was claimed almost instantly. Nico made sure that she was settled in well before he went to find ways to beat Kronos. Dawn let him, praying to Hermes for him to be safe.

Dawn found that she fitted right in at camp, and actually bonded with the others in the Apollo cabin. Will, Kayla and Austin specifically.

Seeing Michael die... Seeing the others die... It hurt her. She tried to find Michael's body with Kayla and Austin, but they had no luck.

She didn't get to mourn until after they returned to camp, where the nature spirits took care of the injured so that the four of them could mourn.

She was so, so, so happy to see Nico alive. She'd ran straight to him and hugged him. She couldn't bare the thought of him dying up on Olympus.

Now, she was here, staring out at Long Island Sound, and feeling weird.

They were just in the middle of a war, why was everything so normal?

Will sat next to her on the dock and handed her an ice cream.

"Didn't know what you would want, so I went with a basic choice," he said. Dawn took it with a small thank you.

"Kayla and Austin managed to chase you out of the infirmary, then?" Dawn asked, opening her ice cream. Will sighed, opening his own ice cream.

"Chiron too. He told me that I need to take care of myself or else I'll be banned from the infirmary." Dawn smiled at that. As far as she knew, Will had been a healer since he'd got there. Now that he was cabin counsellor, he had been working himself to the ground.

"He's right, you know," she said softly, looking at Will. He was looking out over the water, a sad look on his face. Dawn saw, for a brief moment, a blue trail around him. His emotions.

"I'm the head of the cabin, now. I can't afford to slack off," he protested. Dawn sighed, then moved so that she was leaning her head on his shoulder. She ate her ice cream, not wanting it to melt and have a sticky residue on her hands. 

"You don't have to stress so much, Will. We're all children, you're a child. You don't need to work your ass off, you know." Will hummed in response. The trail appeared again, a mixture of blue and yellow.

Like his hair and eyes, a part of her thought.

Shut up, said the other half.

"You should know by now that I'm a bit of a mother hen, Will. I'll mother hen you if I need to. Kal and Austin will probably back me up." She poked her brother's side, making him squawk.

"Hey!" He pouted. "I'm the cabin leader."

"A very stupid one at that," Dawn mused. She smirked and stood up, rubbish in hand, and ran off. Will followed her, chasing her through the camp. She cackled as she managed to throw her rubbish away without being caught.

She saw Nico not too far from her, and went went over to him.

"Nico!" She said. She stood behind him.

"Dawn?" Nico asked, clearly confused.

"Save me from him," Dawn simply said as Will came up to them, slowing down and stopping.

"Please tell her I'm not stupid," Will asked Nico. Her friend just raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" He asked.

"I said that I'd mother hen him if he doesn't take it easy, and the he said that he's the cabin leader," Dawn explained.

"What else did you say?" Nico asked her, looking back at her.

"She called me stupid!" Will said.

It was then that she saw it. As she watched Nico and Will interact, she saw faint, pink lines coming from both boys and reaching to the other. Dawn had to control her facial muscles to not show her surprise.

But she was. Because she saw those lines on people that had some sort of attraction to each other. Those who made a whole, like how humans were described as being before Zeus split them in half and doomed them to walk the earth trying to find the other half of themselves.

She remembered her assessment when she had confirmed that Nico was Hades's son.

Light and dark, life and death, and healing and disease need each other to survive.

Dawn was pretty sure that she'd seen Will give some sort of being hayfever in a dream once, when he screamed and let the darkness that was definitely inside of him out.

She wondered if he could give people cancer, too.

Probably, seeing as Apollo was the god of plauges as well as healing.

"I'd say that you have your moments," Nico commented. Dawn snorted at the offended look that stretched across Will's face.

"I'm the best healer this camp has!" Will exclaimed. "I'm not stupid if I'm a good healer!"

"Still got your moments of stupidity," Nico said, the look on his face on of faint amusement. It even showed on the trail that appeared around him.

"Don't worry, Will, you're still my big brother," Dawn assured the blonde. Will sighed, a smile stretching on his face.

"I'll always be your big brother, even when I'm dead," he said.

"Exactly!” Dawn chirped.

"You guys are so..." Nico started.

"Sunny?" Dawn suggested. Nico snorted at that.

"Yeah. Sunny."

"We are children of Apollo, mi amigo," Dawn reminded him. She looped her arm through Nico's and Will's. She led them around the camp. She'd see this come to fruition. That was the promise of a Hufflepuff.

And Hufflepuffs were bloody determined.

She wouldn't tell them about it. Nope. Love didn't quite work like that. The two of them had to realize it on their own.

This'll be fun and annoying at the exact same time, she thought. 

She started to work on it that summer. Pulling Will out of the infirmary to hang out with Nico, or encouraging them to spend time together alone. The more she did it, the more that Nico and Will hung out together of their own accord.

Despite this, though, despite how happy Nico was just by being around her or Will, Dawn noticed how the other campers were begining to treat Nico.

They jumped when he appeared behind them, and she'd heard her friend be asked 'why are you still here?' one too many times to be good for his mental health.

She went to Will about it.

The infirmary was quiet when she entered, and Dawn found herself looking for Will in the supply cupboard. He would go in every week to see what they needed, so she wasn't surprised to see him there.

"Will, we need to talk about something," she said. Will looked up at her from the clipboard that held a list of the supplies they used.

"What is it?" Will asked. He went back to what he was doing, but Dawn knew she had his attention.

"It's about Nico."

"He hasn't hurt himself, has he?" Will asked, his scent taking on a pink colour and an exasperated fondness in his voice.

"No, but the other campers... They've been asking him why he's still here. It's taking a toll on him." Dawn watched as Will's scent became concerned.

"That's not good," he muttered. Dawn nodded.

"I'm worried about him." Will put the clipboard down and faced Dawn, pen twirling in his fingers.

"The only thing that we can do is show him that people do want him here. Even if we're the only ones."

"Do you think that doing that could help people warm up to him, even just a small bit? I mean, they're probably a bit freaked out by him being a son of Hades..." Dawn frowned at that. "Hades is an important god though. He's like, an opposite to Dad. The good things in life can't exist without the bad. Yin and Yang."

"You have a point there," Will agreed. "Hades has to make sure that the Underworld runs as smoothly as possible." The two of them went silent after that.

Dawn thought about it. Why should anyone be scared of Nico? Yeah, he was prickly, but he was like a cat that had been living on the streets for as long as it could remember. That prickly exterior was really just protecting someone who wanted love and to be accepted, but didn't know how, who was used to pushing people away and would do it if they hurt him.

"At least we've got school to look forward to. Most people there don't really care about Nico, and the ones who do are our friends. That'll be some relief from all of this,"Dawn murmured. Will hummed in response.

"That's good." They went silent again.

"So, we'll do anything we can to make him see that he's loved and appreciated?" Dawn asked. She watched in amusement as her brother's scent became embarrassed. 

"Yes. We will." It was said with some level of finality. Dawn couldn't help but smile.

"Knew I could count on you," she said. She turned and left, waving goodbye to her brother as she went to find Nico again.

She found him outside the newly constructed Hades cabin.

"Nico!" Dawn called out. She went up to him and wrapped him in a hug. She felt him laugh slightly.

"Hey, Dawn. How are you?" He asked.

"I'm good, you?" Nico shrugged.

"I'm alright." His scent was proving that he was.

"That's good. Let's go get some ice cream," she decided, pulling Nico along with her.

"Wait- Dawn!" Nico said. Laughter bubbled from his throat. Dawn felt a creature inside of her preening with pride at having done that.

"Come on, slowpoke!" She teased, a smile on her face and laughter pouring from her body.

She didn't care if she got weird stares for dragging the son of Hades around while he laughed. She just wanted to give him something to cling to in the future, a few good days to remember with a fond glint in his eyes.

Again, Hufflepuffs were notorious for being determined.