Chapter 1
//HARRY//
Voldemort's cold, soulless eyes smirked at me for what seemed to be the last time. There, on the ground, I had fallen, struggling to rise, helpless, yet I knew I never would stand on my feet again. His wand was raised, the curse about to leave his lips, and he was taking it all in. No more time for games, but he could savor the time (it could have been no longer than five seconds) of my demise for just that. Five seconds, five seconds that seemed to me a millennium.
I glanced around the Great Hall one last time, searching for the faces of my family and my friends, to give them a comforting look, to show them I was okay. To savor their faces and emotions one last time. Ron, Hermione. My two closest friends. Ginny. One day, I had planned to marry her. Hagrid. I would miss him terribly. Minerva, Flitwick. It seemed everything they had taught me must have been in vain. The Weasleys. My first true family. Draco and the rest of the Slytherins. In the face of death, even our rivalry seemed like more of a childish joke.
And as my eyes came back around to Voldemort's cruel face, I saw everything for what it really was. I was the leader of these poor people, and they were lost. Lost, with nowhere to go. If I went, it would be their sanity, health, and safety to go next. And I realized what Voldemort was. He wasn't a human anymore. Humans have humane feelings, those like love and mercy and pity. Voldemort proved over and over again that he lacked these. There was no way to beat what he was. Suddenly, in the eyes of death, I lost my hope.
I straightened to my full height and turned to the watching crowd to utter the second last phrase of my life. "I MAY BE DEAD, BUT THE BATTLE IS NOT!" trying, in some way, to tell them to keep fighting, though I knew there was no hope left. The Boy Who Lived had faced his end, and so would the Wizarding World. Then I looked Voldemort in his cold, dead, eyes that shone with a kind of excited fury once more and uttered one more thing before his wand came down and he let forth a screech that caused absolute silence and darkness:
"Do your worst."
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
~
//PERCY//
Annabeth dashed towards me in the sun, hair flying and arms stretched out, holding a white envelope in one hand, screeching in inaudible tones. She jumped into my arms and I picked her up and spun her around, 360 degrees. I put her back down, chuckling.
"Annabeth," I laughed, "sure, I like being spontaneous as much as the next guy, but what was that about?"
"I GOT ACCEPTED!" she shouted shrilly, jumping up and down. It took me a moment to register what she said, and another moment to register what she meant.
"What-Oh. Well, gods Annabeth, that's wonderful!"
She frowned. "You don't seem too happy."
"Well, I mean, of course I'm not. You're leaving. But it's important you and it's important overall, so there's no way I'm gonna argue with that."
And she smiled a dazzling smile. "Thank you," she whispered, intertwining our arms and pecking me on the lips. "It is going to be hard, but I'll spend every second of the summer here, and winter, spring, and Easter break, and-". I kissed her again.
"Okay. Don't you have a class you're supposed to be teaching at the moment, Mrs. Harvard studen?"
"Oh schist! Ancient Greek..," and with that she dashed off to the new 'classroom' where such lessons took place. I watched her run off with amusement and an amazing euphoric feeling, knowing I got to date that amazing girl, and things were finally at peace.
That's when Leo dashed out of his workshop screaming, "FIRE!"
//ROSE//
Three miles to go. Three miles to go. You can do it, Rose Weasley. You're so close. I struggled the past ten miles I had been walking, and now things began to get really hard. Upon entering New York City I was relieved to find passerby's stares less disgusted or surprised and more people looking like me wandering about, but realized these people weren't going to doll out help or kindness. No one was going to point me in the right direction. Like always, I had to do it myself.
Traveling was made easier with maps, though. I found that New York garbage cans had a healthy supply or old newspapers and food, among other things. I was lucky enough to chance upon a map that would lead me in the right direction. Two miles now. This has been hard, but you're so close.
//LEO//
Okay, so APPARENTLY screaming out "FIRE!" in a workshop full of very flammable demigods as a joke is a very bad idea. Who knew?
Anyways, after rubbing my cheek and glancing in the mirror to see how noticeable the red hand print one of my siblings had given me was (it was very noticeable, if you wanted to know), I headed off to wander around camp for a bit. I figured it wasn't quite safe to enter the Hephaestus cabin at the moment, fearful of another slapping, so I tried to find Jason and Piper. That's when I noticed the brown shape struggling up the hill.
"Chiron-!" was my first instinct. But something stopped me. I kinda felt the camp soldiers wouldn't be too kind to this mystery creature, especially if Clarisse became aware. So I maneuvered around camp, trying to find a discreet way to the hill. If this thing turned out to be dangerous, then yes, I would take full blame for not alerting the camp's army, but I knew somehow that doing that would be wrong. This thing wasn't harmless. In fact, it looked weak. Very weak. Like it might collapse at any moment. For some reason, I began to sprint as fast as I could.
It's gonna die if no one helps it, I thought.
I reached Thalia's pine, breathing heavily, and stopped. I had begun to over think. Maybe this thing was very dangerous. Maybe it wasn't, and trying to stop it from doing whatever it was trying to do could kill it.
I made a decision. I would wait.
The thing climbed the hill steadily yet slowly, making incredible progress. A few of the new kids hanging around near me took notice of it as it came nearer, and not knowing what to do, they turned to the all powerful, super awesome, world saving, death escaping demigod for help. Percy. Just kidding. I had this burden on my shoulders, and guess what? I had no idea what I was doing either. Yay.
And then the thing arrived at the camp borders. And it passed. And though just a minute ago I had been tense, waiting for this to happen, not knowing what to do, instinct kicked in. I raised my arm, as in a 'stop' motion, and my hand lit ablaze.
"Stop," I ordered, staring death at the thing a few feet before me. It did. And the hunched over girl dressed in brown cotton rags which I had mistaken for a monster raised her head to show her beautiful, pleading brown eyes and uttered a barely audible phrase:
"Please don't hurt me."
//PERCY//
As soon as I heard news of the foreign girl dressed in rags that had entered the camp alone, I made my way to the Big House as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, things weren't as I had expected.
Once there, I found Chiron, Rachel, and Leo gathered around Nico and the girl sitting across from each other on two couches. a coffee table in the middle, Nico grasping the girl's hands, eyes closed in what seemed to be thought.
Maybe, just maybe, I was ready to crack a joke. Maybe. But as soon as I saw the worry lines on Chiron's face stretched as far as they could go, and Rachel biting her lip in anxiety, and Leo not trying to make someone laugh, well... You know. I stopped. This wasn't the time.
My arrival went unnoticed until Nico sighed and dropped her hands, mussing his own hair in frustration. "Nothing. Not a drop of godly blood in her." The son of Hades looked up to find me standing there, watching. "Oh, what's up, Percy."
After receiving greetings from those in the room (except for the foreign girl, who looked at me oddly) I plopped down on the couch next to Nico. "What's going on?"
Chiron sighed and wiped his face. "We have a visitor, as I'm sure you've heard."
I looked at the girl sitting across from Nico. She had beautiful chocolate brown eyes and a pale, freckly face. She was small and scrawny, with a gap between her two front teeth and her bushy, fiery red hair tied back in a shoddy ponytail. She was probably around fifteen years old, and was still looking at me like someone trying to remember a name to go with the face.
"Hi," I grinned at her, offering a hand to shake. "I'm Percy Jackson."
She cautiously watched me extend my hand and still looked at me curiously before taking the offered appendage.
"Are you sure your last name isn't Potter?" she asked in a British accent, which shocked me.
"Uhh, uhm.. Pretty sure. I mean, I've been told it's Jackson, but, I dunno."
The girl laughed. "Rose Weasley," she said with that accent. "I'm sorry, it's just, you look very much like a man I, uhm, I've seen before. I never knew him personally, just pictures, but he has those same striking green eyes, maybe a bit brighter, with that jet black, messy hair. You look remarkably similar, you just need round glasses and a red scar." She laughed again.
"What happened to him?" a new voice asked. I turned to find Annabeth leaning against the open door frame, her golden blonde hair blowing in the wind and glowing in the sun. The room grew silent.
"There was a war..." Rose whispered. "But, erm, that's not important. Well, it is, actually. It's why I came. And yes, I know I'm not a demigod, or whatever you call it. I'm a witch, and I traveled alone from Great Britain for help."
"Great Britain?!" Leo yelped. "All the way- never mind. Continue."
Chiron then cleared his throat. "If I may speak with you, Rose..."
"Oh, of course, of course. Right. You seem to be the leader of this camp, if I am correct? Yes, it is best we talk. I have much to say."
We left them in the Big House where they were, and the several times I passed that room's window during the day, I found Chiron's face stressed, his brow furrowed, or him walking around almost angrily. This situation clouded my mind all day, and a few things came to mind. I know I wasn't there when she met the centaur, but she didn't seem at all fazed or shocked that he was one. A centaur, that is. Two, A WITCH? WhAAT? Three... Who is...Harry Potter?
The minutes ticked by slowly until word had spread round the camp of how the mysterious stranger from another world who arrived in rags with mystic powers was locked away with Chiron for painful hours and signaled the beginning of another war. At least, that was the only rumor that was remotely close to the truth. I've also heard of the way she came in riding a rabid drakon and speaking in foreign tongues before dragging a lifeless Chiron out of camp proudly. Or how her spaceship could flash twelve different colors. Ooo-kay. Sure.
But these wild tales resulted in seven heroic demigods huddling themselves in the Poseidon cabin, discussing their ideas.
"She seems a little off," Nico noted. "She wasn't a demigod, and she definitely wasn't a mortal, so, what does that leave us? Maybe her tale actually is true, maybe she is a witch."
"It's highly unlikely. Maybe she's just a mortal with the gift of sight. Rachel could enter Camp Half Blood, right? Maybe she'd just gone mad. Maybe the gods are interfering," Annabeth reasoned.
"Oh, they definitely are. Their meddling is the cause of all our problems," Piper said plainly, shifting on her boyfriend's lap. The blonde frowned at her quizzically.
"For some reason," he said, still frowning in confusion, "I don't think that's it." Piper looked at him, surprised.
"I agree with Jason," I said. I got some weird looks but ignored them. "This girl seems really off. Kinda powerful. Like no one's controlling her, like she has nothing to lose, like she's maybe already lost it all. And she doesn't care what worlds she upsets in the process of doing whatever she's doing, like there's more at stake. Like otherworldly beings, including gods, have no control over what she's doing. No effect."
Leo interrupted the confused looks I was getting, especially the one from Annabeth (which plainly read, by the way, 'Seaweed Brain! That was actually very intuitive.') I grinned at the beautiful blond sitting next to me and she snuggled closer. But back to Leo. "Ditto."
The door swung open to reveal Annabeth's half brother, Malcolm, standing there in striped button up pjs. "Um, Chiron needs to see you guys..."
Okay, so then, and yes, at this very moment, yeah, I know it's weird, and no, I don't know why I have a cuckoo clock in my cabin, but midnight came and twelve 'cuckoos' emerged from the grinning bird below the clock. And that was the beginning of the day that ruined the next few years of my life.