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halothenthehorns · 5 months

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Chapter 7: WE MEET THE GOD WITH TWO FACES

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! For everyone else, here is an extra chapter this week to celebrate this mundane Thursday!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Will was whistling cheerfully to himself as he flipped to the next chapter like he wasn't about to read of the most evil place right beneath his camp. Nico had spent immeasurable hours down there feeling so alone and wishing for Percy's company and the stupid jokes he'd crack and the great, protective warrior he was to help him.

Looking back on the running, terror, broken bones and constant isolation left him unsurprised how different he was from those around him in retrospect. His first friend had been a ghost who deceived him.

It was a nice thought for a moment as Will read the chapter title, that at least as he remembered the stenches and adrenaline rushes of his own in to vivid detail to come right along with Percy, at least he'd come out with friends now.

Alex's eyes were alight at once with whom Percy was set to meet next. "If I could vote for you to kill a god, it'll be this one!"

"Alex, no," Magnus said in vain once more.

"Where's the downside?" He demanded. "Nobody would ever get stabbed in the back again, the worst of cowardly moves!"

"That's not how that works, in the slightest," Thalia sadly corrected. "Just because you killed Zeus doesn't mean lightning wouldn't flash through the sky and storms wouldn't come." Though she suspected it was happening above at just the hypothesis being put in the world.

Percy got an amused look in place as he imagined Zeus in his chair spitting out his drink and glancing around suspiciously.

"Poo," Alex huffed. It was actually a bit worrisome a two-face god was going to get one over on Percy instead, as nice as he was. He swore right then if this god resembled Quintus for one second he'd have to face facts on that answer.

We made it a hundred feet before we were hopelessly lost.

"Life goals. I can't make it down the block half the time without forgetting where I'm going some days," Jason said sardonically.

"It's a maze," Thalia rolled her eyes, "and Percy! It's a miracle he didn't get lost turning around."

"Your faith in me is instilling," but Percy's voice was nothing but accepting facts.

The tunnel looked nothing like the one Annabeth and I had stumbled into before. Now it was round like a sewer,

"If you actually run into a ninja turtle, I will take back every crack I ever said about you," Alex promised.

"Eh, depends on which one," Magnus mock agreed.

I shined a light through one of the portholes out of curiosity,

"Your soul animal is officially a cat Percy," Will chuckled.

"I still say it's seaweed," Thalia scoffed.

but I couldn't see anything. It opened into infinite darkness.

I thought I heard voices on the other side, but it may have been just the cold wind.

"Already understanding why Chris lost his mind down there," Jason muttered.

Annabeth tried her best to guide us. She had this idea that we should stick to the left wall.

"If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course."

"Good in theory," Nico was already shaking his head though, "not an execution that can be followed." Which she already knew from her studying, mildly annoying him why she thought she was smarter than this place already.

Unfortunately, as soon as she said that, the left wall disappeared. We found ourselves in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out, and no idea how we'd gotten there.

Magnus made a very loud, awkward laugh that died quickly at this place literally mocking them in the face. It wasn't funny, but he wasn't screaming in terror, so this was better, right?

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover said nervously.

"Just turn around," Annabeth said.

"If there is a brick wall behind you I will have no choice but to really laugh," Alex promised.

We each turned toward a different tunnel. It was ridiculous. None of us could decide which way led back to camp.

"Trippy, I actually like that answer better," Alex still laughed any ways.

"At least somebody does," Percy sighed.

"Left walls are mean," Tyson said.

"Tyson, still holding strong with the best lines in these," Jason applauded, and they couldn't decide how much sarcasm was in that.

"Which way now?"

Annabeth swept her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. As far as I could tell, they were identical. "That way," she said.

"No consensus huh?" Thalia chuckled. "No voting, not even a flip of a coin?"

"Annabeth was our compass," Percy shrugged without surprise.

"I'm going to encase you in a magnet one of these days so you have to figure something out for yourself," Thalia mock threatened.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So...you're guessing."

"Just come on," she said.

"See, exactly the plan I would have had. Bring the magnet on!" Percy laughed.

"Only you," Thalia shook her head at these two.

The tunnel she'd chosen narrowed quickly. The walls turned to gray cement, and the ceiling got so low that pretty soon we were hunching over. Tyson was forced to crawl.

"Poor guy," Will frowned, "I bet he was carrying all the heavy stuff too."

"If he could have smashed his way to the surface I wouldn't blame him," Percy agreed.

Grover's hyperventilating was the loudest noise in the maze. "I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet?"

"Thalia, your kid wants you," Percy smirked.

"On the weekends he's still yours," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"We started this quest on a Thursday!"

"I'm taking an extended vacation," she said with an unamused air, this joke had officially gone to a level that wasn't funny as images of her mom came to mind.

"We've been down here maybe five minutes," Annabeth told him.

"It's been longer than that," Grover insisted.

"I actually believe him on that, considering it was a few minutes to you but hours last time," Will nodded.

"And time means very little down there," Nico needlessly reminded.

"And a magical satyr thing that knows the time of the day too probably," Magnus rolled his eyes.

"And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!"

"I bet he got lost too," Percy said in something close to sympathy.

We kept shuffling forward. Just when I was sure the tunnel would get so narrow it would squish us, it opened into a huge room. I shined my light around the walls and said, "Whoa."

"The good kind or the bad kind?" Magnus already had a pit in his stomach no matter the answer, with Percy one could easily mean the other.

"The mildly impressive kind," Percy shrugged with a small grin.

The whole room was covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but I could still make out the colors—red, blue, green, gold. The frieze showed the Olympian gods at a feast. There was my dad, Poseidon, with his trident, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus was partying with satyrs, and Hermes was flying through the air on his winged sandals. The pictures were beautiful, but they weren't very accurate. I'd seen the gods. Dionysus was not that handsome, and Hermes's nose wasn't that big.

"Yeah, but like," Will was shaking with suppressed laughter, "if you knew the gods were real, you wouldn't question how they wanted to be painted."

"I can't draw, I wouldn't know," Percy rolled his eyes. Even if he tried doodling stick figures, he wouldn't exactly be doing his best to care.

Jason didn't hear them, there was a low buzzing in his ears. Something about the way that was described, something he'd been absently wondering but didn't know how to put into words until this moment. That sounded Roman. Should he know this labyrinth existed? He was certain he'd never been in, but finally, at this moment, he had the tiniest bit of a guess wondering if he'd ever tried to find this place.

In the middle of the room was a three-tiered fountain. It looked like it hadn't held water in a long time.

"That was the part you said whoa too, another fountain," Alex smirked.

"Guilty, I still felt bad about mine," Percy grinned.

"What is this place?" I muttered. "It looks—"

"Roman," Annabeth said. "Those mosaics area about two thousand years old."

"It must be exhausting knowing everything," Nico huffed.

"Probably," Will said innocently. The Athena cabin was the worst about asking for help, but when he saw one to many sleepless nights on them, he was a tad guilty about slipping something into their meals and blaming it on Travis and Connor's pranks.

"But how can they be Roman?" I wasn't that great on ancient history, but I was pretty sure the Roman Empire never made it as far as Long Island.

"And you think the Greeks did?" Magnus asked in concern. The whole point of these odd books was their never ending migration here and how that mingled in.

"I didn't think they brought souvenirs from the Roman Empire that toppled them," Percy rolled his eyes while Jason looked like he was swallowing his teeth one by one in consternation.

Thalia cleared her throat sharply to keep them moving fast when she saw.

"The Labyrinth is a patchwork," Annabeth said. "I told you, it's always expanding, adding pieces. It's the only work of architecture that grows by itself."

"I wish those words to never be spoken in that order again," Magnus groaned.

"That is so cool!" Alex yelped.

"Or those," Magnus huffed, it never meant anything good in this lot.

"Like, like Daedalus really built a second layer into the earth that's as alive as this planet!"

"Man was a mad genius," Percy agreed with a kind of awesome dread as he pictured someone in a white lab coat with lightning crackling screaming about it being alive over the whole planet.

"You make it sound like it's alive."

A groaning noise echoed from the tunnel in front of us.

"Does anybody speak labyrinth?" Will asked with mildly less cheer than usual, he didn't at all like the idea of being underground. "Maybe it's trying to tell you which way to go."

"I wish we could ask the labyrinth if they prefer he or she pronouns," Alex tapped his chin in thought. "I know most people depict the earth as feminine, but that gets into a long line of stereotypical depictions of nurturing and-"

Alex was only one part taking the mickey and one part serious, so he laughed it off and shelved that for later as Will politely cleared his throat to keep going over an answer they couldn't get anyways.

"Let's not talk about it being alive," Grover whimpered. "Please?"

"All right," Annabeth said. "Forward."

"Down the hall with the bad sounds?" Tyson said. Even he looked nervous.

"Yeah," Annabeth said. "The architecture is getting older. That's a good sign. Daedalus's workshop would be in the oldest part."

"And because she said that, I'm guessing it's going to remodel itself in twenty feet to look like a stainless steel lab." Jason frowned.

"I just hope there's not a monkey in there playing on the computer, I do not want to walk into an alternate dimension by accident," Percy wasn't sure he'd have the heart to fight cute animals if they were the dominant species.

That made sense.

"I'm glad it did to you," Magnus muttered, now personally trying not to imagine Daedalus packing up a phone booth and carrying his workshop around to never be found no matter what logic was used.

But soon the maze was toying with us—we went fifty feet and the tunnel turned back to cement, with brass pipes running down the sides. The walls were spray-painted with graffiti. A neon tagger sign read MOZ RULZ.

"I'm thinking this is not Roman," I said helpfully.

"You never know, I bet some ancient Roman could have gone by the name of Moz and been way ahead of time on, um, pipework," Will snickered.

Nico couldn't really find the humor in it, Will would have to really try to make him laugh about anything to do with this place, but it was a tad amusing to see Thalia roll her eyes at someone other than Percy.

Annabeth took a deep breath, then forged ahead.

"I've found the best way is to ignore him too," Thalia mock agreed as if Annabeth were her to commiserate with.

Her cousin was, and he didn't bother to muffle a snort.

Every few feet the tunnels twisted and turned and branched off. The floor beneath us changed from cement to mud to bricks and back again. There was no sense to any of it. We stumbled into a wine cellar—a bunch of dusty bottles in wooden racks—like we were walking through somebody's basement, only there was no exit above us, just more tunnels leading on.

"Jeez, I'm getting claustrophobic just hearing about this," Alex tugged at the collar of his shirt.

"Can't exactly go outside and stretch our legs in the sun too," Magnus agreed with an uneasy twitch. This room was by no means unbearable or small, but he'd never thought he'd have to associate constant common amenities with entrapment. And that group had it even worse down there.

Alex clearly wasn't going to let that keep him down though as he bounced back and asked, "please tell me you nabbed one of those! I can't even imagine the vintage on a long-lost bottle of wine!"

"I bet it was a cellar only Dionysus uses," Percy shook his head quickly. "Do you want to find out what would happen if we disturbed one of those cobwebs?"

Alex looked very much like he was contemplating that answer, and Thalia sighed once again at what a bad influence all of these idiots were on each other.

Later the ceiling turned to wooden planks, and I could hear voices above us and the creaking of footsteps, as if we were walking under some kind of bar. It was reassuring to hear people, but then again, we couldn't get to them. We were stuck down here with no way out.

"You're telling me if Tyson really wanted to he couldn't smash a house down?" Alex scoffed.

"Not a hundred percent sure," Percy admitted, "the labyrinth might fight him, turn into something even he couldn't break and shrink on us. Do you want to make the sentient maze mad?"

Alex didn't seem as concerned at the implications of that as Percy would have hoped, but then, he really should have known better by now.

Then we found our first skeleton.

It was the first dead body Percy had ever seen, and it didn't look like those fake skeletons for a Halloween decoration. He'd been killing monsters for years now, and yet he never thought of the mess they left behind as their form of a soulless husk. He rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully, his mind flickering to his mother and her clear sight. What she saw through the dust. She probably would have shielded his eyes from this, but it made his head and stomach groan in symbiotic pain to imagine her down there.

He was dressed in white clothes, like some kind of uniform. A wooden crate of glass bottles sat next to him.

"A milkman," Annabeth said.

"Those guys actually existed?" Nico asked in surprise. "I thought that was a weird gag in cartoons."

"It was a real job," Thalia nodded.

"When the fridge was invented, they went out of business," Magnus added helpfully.

"Huh, learn something new every day," Nico said with a surprised smile.

"What?" I asked.

"They used to deliver milk."

"Yeah, I know what they are,

"Which kind of concerns me how much Annabeth thinks of you," Thalia told him with sympathy.

"She never knew with me after I told her I thought my TV just wasn't big enough to see some old cartoon character's faces," Percy shrugged.

but...that was when my mom was little, like a million years ago. What's he doing here?"

"Some people wander in by mistake," Annabeth said.

"Those poor mortals," Magnus said with sorrow. He couldn't imagine how many little kids had fallen down there and never made it out. Maybe a few horror novels of things beneath the surface of the earth had been inspired by getting a peak down there, like the Labyrinth itself had enticed a kid with a clown and red balloon.

"Some come exploring on purpose and never make it back. A long time ago, the Cretans sent people in here as human sacrifices."

"And yet sadly, we've let cretin fall off the insult radar," Alex shook his head as if taking personal responsibility for this.

"Something I hope you won't bring back with historic accuracy," Magnus muttered.

Grover gulped. "He's been down here a long time." He pointed to the skeleton's bottles, which were coated with white dust. The skeleton's fingers were clawing at the brick wall, like he had died trying to get out.

"Well I hardly thought he was casually walking around chugging milk," Jason winced in disgust for getting details.

"Only bones," Tyson said. "Don't worry, goat boy. The milkman is dead."

"The milkman doesn't bother me," Grover said.

"Dead bodies still bother me," Magnus offered in case anybody had been in doubt about this.

"I guess this is one of the side effects to falling asleep every night singing Circle of Life," Percy shrugged.

"It's the smell. Monsters. Can't you smell it?"

Tyson nodded. "Lots of monsters. But underground smells like that. Monsters and dead milk people."

"Oh, good," Grover whimpered. "I thought maybe I was wrong."

"I can't think of a good instance of being happy to be wrong about smelling something," Alex nodded. "Usually it's food and I'm entirely upset I was wrong my senses lied to me."

"You smell smoke and think your house is on fire but your mom's just a bad cook," Thalia said with a way to twisted smile for that to just be a joke.

"Point to Thalia!" Alex chuckled all the same.

"We have to get deeper into the maze," Annabeth said. "There has to be a way to the center."

"I'm guessing taking a shovel and just digging won't work?" Nico rolled his eyes at her still trying to apply logic to any of this.

"The shovel would melt eventually," Will helpfully reminded.

"We could give her a spare shovel, gosh Will, be more creative," Percy snickered.

"I'm going to dump you in a volcano head first," Thalia sighed at them.

She led us to the right, then the left, through a corridor of stainless steel like some kind of air shaft, and we arrived back in the Roman tile room with the fountain.

"Oh, so it even circles around! That's much worse than being lost forever in a maze of endless rooms!" Magnus's voice was choking up by the end as he tried not to sound hysterical.

"It had added some decoration," Percy didn't soothe him one bit with the uneasy frown he spoke with.

This time, we weren't alone.

What I noticed first were his faces. Both of them.

Nico tried his hardest to swallow the lump of jealousy and hurt in his throat. Percy hadn't been in there but a few hours and he got a visit from a god already? He'd been in there for weeks before he'd found Minos and gotten any handle on what to do. Afraid to sleep, starving, only surviving on water that bled from the walls from gods knew where as the ghosts whispered which way to go to get further down...

He told himself he should be grateful instead. He wasn't the child of the prophecy, nobody had cared what happened to him. He'd made his own way out eventually without anybody's help, not even Minos had been there every step of the way.

They jutted out from either side of his head, staring over his shoulders, so his head was much wider than it should've been, kind of like a hammerhead shark's looking straight at him, all I saw were two overlapping ears and mirror-image sideburns.

Magnus was poking the middle of his forehead to make sure his head hadn't actually fallen apart at that newly brain-melting image.

"Not going to lie, when it said god of two faces, I didn't think it was going to be literal," Alex sounded grudgingly admirable of choosing to look like that. "I was picturing, like, two totally different faces melted together. Like the Batman villain."

"I have a feeling the two would still get along," Percy already had that now familiar look on his face like they should brace themselves for him to make a life long enemy.

He was dressed like a New York City doorman: a long black overcoat, shiny shoes, and a black top-hat that somehow managed to stay on his double-wide head.

"Classy," Will said in admiration.

"Never trust a man in a top hat," Alex scoffed.

"Now there's a story I'm sure," Magnus grinned.

"Don't get me started on Abe Lincoln," he agreed with distant eyes and a scowl at the ceiling.

"Well, Annabeth?" said his left face. "Hurry up!"

"Don't mind him," said the right face. "He's terribly rude. Right this way, miss."

Annabeth's jaw dropped. "Uh...I don't..."

Tyson frowned. "That funny man has two faces."

Jason scratched awkwardly at his nose before stage whispering, "has anybody ever come up with a polite way to scold kids for doing that?"

"Um, let them be curious but make sure they're polite questions?" Thalia offered.

"I'm not putting Tyson in time out if he offends this guy," Percy rolled his eyes.

"The funny man has ears, you know!" the left face scolded. "Now come along, miss."

"No, no," the right face said. "This way, miss. Talk to me, please."

"I need to know real quick if you can sign a different conversation than you say out loud?" Percy asked Magnus.

"I suppose if you can have two conversations at once it's possible, but not typical," he shook his head.

"Yeah, good to know, I got no better answer than chopping this guy in half to shut him up," Percy scowled, already wishing to uncap his sword to stop this guy focusing solely on Annabeth.

The two-faced man regarded Annabeth as best he could out of the corners of his eyes. It was impossible to look at him straight on without focusing on one side or the other. And suddenly I realized that's what he was asking—he wanted Annabeth to choose.

Behind him were two exits, blocked by wooden doors with huge iron locks. They hadn't been there our first time through the room. The two-faced doorman held a silver key, which he kept passing from his left hand to his right hand. I wondered if this was a different room completely, but the frieze of the gods looked exactly the same.

Behind us, the doorway we'd come through had disappeared, replaced by more mosaics. We wouldn't be going back the way we came.

"The exits are closed," Annabeth said.

"Duh!" the man's left face said.

"Where do they lead?" she asked.

"One probably leads the way you wish to go," the right face said encouragingly. "The other leads to certain death."

"I—I know who you are," Annabeth said.

"Oh, you're a smart one!" The left face sneered. "But do you know which way to choose? I don't have all day."

"Why are you trying to confuse me?" Annabeth asked.

"He's, um, not," Nico looked from the book to the others in concern if he was missing something. "He's pointing out the obvious as of right now. Does Annabeth find that confusing?"

Percy gave him the very exasperated sigh of a teacher explaining the obvious. "Just because she accepted the responsibility of something didn't mean she was okay with every layer of it." He knew that feeling all to well from all this big bad prophecy talk.

Nico looked at Percy with interest for how he'd unintentionally put that. He doubted Percy knew that's how he felt about what he'd said the other night, but it was another kind of relief to hear it put into words.

The right face smiled. "You're in charge now, my dear. All the decisions are on your shoulders. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I—"

"We know you, Annabeth," the left face said. "We know what you wrestle with every day. We know your indecision. You will have to make your choice sooner or later. And the choice may kill you."

I didn't know what they were talking about, but it sounded like it was about more than a choice between doors.

The color drained out of Annabeth's face. "No...I don't—"

"Leave her alone," I said.

"That honestly took a page more than I thought it would," Will told him.

"I'm not fool enough to think Annabeth can't handle her own fights," but Percy looked plenty agitated enough to try right then with or without her approval.

"Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm your best friend," the right face said.

"I'm your worst enemy," the left face said.

"I'm Janus," both faces said in harmony. "God of Doorways.

"There's a god of doorways now?" Magnus asked, making the sign for door just to be sure. "What, did the Greeks have to stop and ask his permission and the owner before they entered?"

"He's not Greek!" Jason shouted at the top of his lungs like somebody had finally called on his name in class. He was more jazzed than if somebody had pumped him full of ambrosia...and yet so confused they might have put a Greek puzzle book in front of him for all the sense this made. "What the heck is a Roman god doing down there?"

"He's, ah, more symbolic than literal," Thalia was still watching Jason with mild concern as she tried to go on. "Let Will finish."

Beginnings. Endings. Choices."

"I guess that makes sense," Magnus agreed, though he still knew next time he walked down the block he'd get a twitch wondering about blood sacrifices and a crazy two-faced god throwing a key around following him. Gods forbid what someone was expected to do when a tree was cut down to make a door. Were you supposed to be making nice with Pan or the god you were using the wood for in that case?!

"I'll see you soon enough, Perseus Jackson," said the right face. "But for now it's Annabeth's turn." He laughed giddily. "Such fun!"

"We complete each other like two sides of a door," Percy grumbled, not looking remotely impressed that, for once, a god had the same reaction to seeing both of them.

"Shut up!" his left face said. "This is serious. One bad choice can ruin your whole life. It can kill you and all of your friends. But no pressure, Annabeth. Choose!"

Jason had a bad feeling he'd had his own reunion with this God too, maybe not so literal and in person, but the intense feeling circling the room of nobody disagreeing with that felt personal.

With a sudden chill, I remembered the words of the prophecy: the child of Athena's final stand.

"Don't do it," I said.

"I'm afraid she has to," the right face said cheerfully.

Annabeth moistened her lips. "I—I chose—"

Before she could point to a door, a brilliant light flooded the room.

Magnus instinctively didn't like that. He worried Hearth would get hurt and freak out, the light being too bright and temporarily blinding him, and he only usually saw Blitz at night, so he might have to step up real quick with no clue how if whatever this was ever found them.

Janus raised his hands to either side of his head to cover his eyes. When the light died, a woman was standing at the fountain.

She was tall and graceful with long hair the color of chocolate, braided in plaits with gold ribbons. She wore a simple white dress, but when she moved, the fabric shimmered with colors like oil on water.

"Are we meeting Iris?" Alex asked with immediate interest. He really hoped the rainbow goddess was cool. One of them had to be, right?

The disappointed sigh Thalia gave was an answer before she even said, "not even close."

"Janus," she said, "are we causing trouble again?"

"N-no, milady!" Janus's right face stammered.

"Yes!" the left face said.

"At least now I know which face I like better," Jason said as if this had been a serious concern.

"I still don't like any part of him," Percy huffed, he'd never like anyone who had hassled Annabeth.

"Shut up!" the right face said.

"Excuse me?" the woman asked.

"Not you, milady! I was talking to myself."

"I see," the lady said. "You know very well your visit is premature. The girl's time has not yet come. So I give you a choice: leave these heroes to me, or I shall turn you into a door and break you down."

"What kind of door?" the left face asked.

Alex gave an involuntary laugh like he'd been punched. And he was so sure he'd hate this god, yet that had been the first question to come to his mind too.

"Shut up!" the right face said.

"Because French doors are nice," the left face mused. "Lots of natural light."

"Shut up!" the right face wailed. "Not you, milady! Of course I'll leave. I was just having a bit of fun. Doing my job. Offering choices."

"Causing indecision," the woman corrected. "Now be gone!"

The left face muttered, "Party pooper," then he raised his silver key, inserted it into the air, and disappeared.

"Do I have to begrudgingly thank a god now?" Percy groaned. Apollo and Artemis had proved they weren't all bad, but he wasn't getting a good feeling from this one.

It wasn't very comforting Thalia didn't answer, but her scowl only grew.

The woman turned toward us, and fear closed around my heart. Her eyes shined with power. Leave these heroes to me. That didn't sound good. For a second, I almost wished we could've taken our chances with Janus. But then the woman smiled.

There had been something in that smile that reminded him of his mother. The kind of smile she'd given Gabe when she promised him meatloaf.

"You must be hungry," she said. "Sit with me and talk."

She waved her hand, and the old Roman fountain began to flow. Jets of clear water sprayed into the air. A marble table appeared, laden with platters of sandwiches and pitchers of lemonade.

"Who...who are you?" I asked.

"I am Hera." The woman smiled. "Queen of Heaven."

"I didn't know God was married," Magnus rolled his eyes. "No, wait, is she the goddess of nuns?"

"Stop trying to mix religions, it's more of a headache then we're already hearing," Nico groaned.

"Wrong heaven," Percy snorted, knowing full well Magnus had known that, but revenge was sweet.

"She obviously uses that title because she doesn't think much of herself," Alex agreed casually, while the others all twitched uneasily once more. They'd never quite get used to these guys being so flippant about how they addressed the gods, whether they were in the room or not.

I'd seen Hera once before at a Council of the Gods, but I hadn't paid much attention to her. At the time I'd been surrounded by a bunch of other gods who were debating whether or not to kill me.

"The real question is, do you remember if she was one of those to vote yes or no?" Nico asked with all the presumption in his voice of the answer.

Percy had to really think about it for a moment, and then shrugged and gave in, "no, not really. I remember who abstained though, so she fell into a lumpy category."

"She was lumped into a-" Magnus began, but he stopped with his own exasperated sigh as he realized Percy wasn't listening and back to humming a song that sounded suspiciously like something Jesse McCartney would sing.

I didn't remember her looking so normal. Of course, gods are usually twenty feet tall when they're on Olympus, so that makes them look a lot less normal. But now, Hera looked like a regular mom.

"Plus that whole they can change their appearance at whim thing," Will shrugged, he still wasn't over his dad, the homeless god Fred.

She served us sandwiches and poured lemonade.

"Grover, dear," she said, "use your napkin. Don't eat it."

"Excuse her, I live for that multi-purpose life," Alex scoffed.

"Yes, ma'am," Grover said.

"Tyson, you're wasting away. Would you like another peanut butter sandwich?"

Tyson stifled a belch. "Yes, nice lady."

"Queen Hera," Annabeth said. "I can't believe it. What are you doing in the Labyrinth?"

Hera smiled. She flicked one finger and Annabeth's hair combed itself. All the dirt and grime disappeared from her face.

"Gods, does she tuck your pockets in too and fuss about your weight?" Will's laugh was indulgent while Thalia looked like she was sucking on a lemon. More grateful by the moment this goddess would never give her faux motherly affection any more than her bio mom had.

"I came to see you, naturally," the goddess said.

Grover and I exchanged nervous looks. Usually when the gods come looking for you, it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. It's because they want something.

"I hope Athena has a little gold star waiting for you somewhere out there," Magnus told him cheerfully. "You do deserve it for moments like this."

"Stating the obvious?" Percy snorted.

"Not saying that out loud," Thalia scoffed.

Still, that didn't keep me from chowing down on turkey-and-Swiss sandwiches and chips and lemonade. I hadn't realized how hungry I was.

"And, now I'm hungry," Will huffed.

"I can usually tell how long when we've been at this when my butts gone numb," Magnus nodded.

"Food has been mentioned pretty frequently in the last few chapters," Percy agreed as he eyed the door to the rooms.

"We might as well take a snack break before anything to horrible in this Labyrinth does show up," Thalia agreed, and there was no more argument after that as they all took five. Before Hera could announce what she was there for, before the first monster showed up, before they realized how lost they were.

Will and Nico stepped back into the room where they'd set up their card game that indeed had not been disturbed one bit. They sat carefully on the bed, as far apart as normal on that couch, and split a plate of multiple different sandwiches with fruit-loops sprinkled on top, because the power of subliminal messaging had honestly left them craving exactly that.

Nico was clearly eating with reluctance, but he also didn't protest his half of the meal while Will found a way to talk about anything other than the Labyrinth for those moments. He talked about silly songs he wrote sporadically and his favorite color being orange and that time his sister Kayla had set the stables on fire while Nico watched with ever growing fondness for just being around him.

When they settled back down now prepared for the worst, Nico took the extra goofy minute Alex used to stretch and flex around like he was about to embark on the quest himself to share one last smile with Will when he opened the book up again whistling to find his place once more.

Tyson was inhaling one peanut butter sandwich after another, and Grover was loving the lemonade, crunching the Styrofoam cup like an ice-cream cone.

"All you're missing from that meal is bananas," Magnus grinned, he'd just housed five. He'd been taking full advantage of fresh fruit without a bruise on it here.

"I didn't think—" Annabeth faltered. "Well, I didn't think you liked heroes."

Hera smiled indulgently. "Because of that little spat I had with Hercules? Honestly, I got so much bad press because of one disagreement."

"A very large disagreement that caused multiple murders and is the most popular myth for a few reasons," Thalia muttered, not exactly Hera's biggest fan herself. It was a miracle she wasn't in the same boat as Hercules...and this goddess was definitely in her top five contenders of who might take Jason away to do gods knew what with all these years before Oceanus plopped him in here.

"Didn't you try to kill him, like, a lot of times?" Annabeth asked.

Hera waved her hand dismissively. "Water under the bridge, my dear.

"Is that bridge also on fire and broken in several places?" Thalia asked wearily.

"I didn't think to ask," Percy admitted, but he also didn't doubt it. He'd have to hear it from Hercules before he believed it, and even then, he'd still suspect something was up. Those stories were Not Pleasant, and even if they'd gotten lost in translation over time and they'd heard the wrong side of them, somebody had done something to make it all infamous.

His mind flickered to Zoe, and that snack of his tried to make a comeback. His instincts were still to distrust Hera, and Zoe had made him never wish to take Hercules's side without hearing every fact about what really happened, so this felt like a war he hoped to all the gods he'd never be in the middle of.

Besides, he was one of my loving husband's children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I'll admit it. But Zeus and I have had some excellent marriage counseling sessions since then. We've aired our feelings and come to an understanding

"I'm kind of wishing in this instance they'd taken the twenty-first-century approach and gotten a divorce though," Will sighed even if he knew that would never happen. Goddess of marriage and all that, gods forbid she ever admit she was wrong and should be in a real long term loving relationship, but man would it save a lot of demigods a lot of grief.

—especially after that last little incident."

"You mean when he sired Thalia?"

"Sired?" Thalia snorted fantastically. "What am I, a horse?"

"Just be grateful you came to mind at all," Percy chuckled, "I'm sure there are other much more famous kids of Zeus I could name instead. Like me!"

"How dare you," she sniffed, pressing her hand against her heart with wide blue eyes.

I guessed, but immediately wished I hadn't. As soon as I said the name of our friend, the half-blood daughter of Zeus, Hera's eyes turned toward me frostily.

"Percy Jackson, isn't it? One of Poseidon's...children." I got the feeling she was thinking of another word besides children.

"Sires," Magnus chuckled.

"Abominations?" Alex snorted.

"Minions," Thalia smirked.

"Disasters," Jason grinned.

Percy considered for a moment before shrugging and not denying any of those.

"As I recall, I voted to let you live at the winter solstice. I hope I voted correctly."

"Which does show some proof to her claim she doesn't hate all of us on principle," Will happily agreed.

"I'm sure she's still plenty selective about it," Nico said sullenly. He doubted if he'd been up for vote any god would have voted to let him live.

Will heard that in his voice, the reluctance, the edge of fear. He wanted to protest no god would dare vote against Nico after he'd helped save Olympus, but he could hardly argue that now. He stubbornly kept reading with the knowledge that he would.

She turned back to Annabeth with a sunny smile. "At any rate, I certainly bear you no ill will, my girl.

"I'm glad she sees that," Magnus said with a hint of relief, here finally was a god none of them were going to start on bad terms for merely existing. "A virgin goddess didn't technically have kids so she has no reason to dislike them."

"Loopholes for the win," but Percy only gave a halfhearted cheer. He had a bad feeling technicalities hadn't made his life easier much longer.

I appreciate the difficulty of your quest. Especially when you have troublemakers like Janus to deal with."

Annabeth lowered her gaze. "Why was he here? He was driving me crazy."

"Trying to," Hera agreed.

"Isn't Dionysus the god of the crazy people?" Magnus asked with a quiver of unease. "Does he have a deal with Janus to add to his list?" He clearly hadn't grasped from Jason's ever increasing gasping there was a significant difference at all, they wouldn't be making deals like that about anything.

"Just because he can turn people crazy doesn't mean he's responsible for all of them," but Will didn't sound so sure. Mr. D was supposed to be out here keeping an eye on these minor gods, and it seemed strange it hadn't been him to pop in and intervene...but would he even know this god existed? He knew the myths where his dad accepted the sun from Helios, the existence of other gods wasn't too world shattering in that regards, but not exactly at the same time like this was so casually being shown.

Alex, Magnus, and Jason sat right there though. So plainly Not Greek even before Rachel had confirmed it. A Roman god casually popping up wasn't the wildest thing he'd heard over the past few days.

"You must understand, the minor gods like Janus have always been frustrated by the small parts they play in the universe. Some, I fear, have little love for Olympus, and could easily be swayed to support the rise of my father."

"Your father?" I said. "Oh, right."

I'd forgotten that Kronos was Hera's dad, too, along with being the father to Zeus, Poseidon, and all the eldest Olympians. I guess that made Kronos my grandfather, but that thought was so weird I put it out of my mind.

"And I wish it would stop coming back!" Percy groaned, looking likely to rip his ear off if people didn't quit trying to name every branch of his family tree!

"We must watch the minor gods," Hera said. "Janus. Hecate. Morpheus. They give lip service to Olympus, and yet—"

"That's where Dionysus went," I remembered. "He was checking on the minor gods."

"Indeed." Hera stared at the fading mosaics of the Olympians.

"I will never get over the sheer audacity of you interrupting them," Will admitted.

"And yet here I sit, audaciting away," Percy shrugged. Magnus looked in physical pain that's not how that word worked.

"You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things. They stop looking at the big picture and start being selfish. But I'm the goddess of marriage, you see. I'm used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind."

"What are your goals?" Annabeth asked.

"The perfect question at this time," Jason nodded without surprise.

"It's like she should be leading this quest or something," Percy nodded very seriously in agreement.

She smiled. "To keep my family, the Olympians, together, of course.

"Sounds like, the right answer," Alex said suspiciously, but then, he seemed automatically suspicious of everything.

At the moment, the best way I can do that is by helping you. Zeus does not allow me to interfere much, I am afraid. But once every century or so, for a quest I care deeply about, he allows me to grant a wish."

"A wish?"

"If you don't say world peace I'm going to have to revoke my friendship card with you," Magnus said. "That's like, The obvious answer!" He pulled out an imaginary card from his pocket and waved it around threateningly.

"Um, I'm pretty sure it has to be a wish she could do?" Percy said with a nervous smile like he thought he was serious. "I don't think the gods can actually do that without taking away free will, or something."

"Hmph, passable," Magnus agreed, stuffing the imaginary card back in his pocket.

"Besides, it would be Annabeth to ask," Alex reminded him in exasperation. "I have high hopes she'll come up with something good." His tone was almost threatening, like Annabeth better live up to those expectations. They weren't sure what would happen if she didn't.

"Before you ask it, let me give you some advice, which I can do for free.

"The day we can't give free advice is the day I lose faith in everything," Will said with an awkward smile.

"I'll make a mental list of how not to start the apocalypse," Nico grinned.

I know you seek Daedalus. His Labyrinth is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

"Well that's, the opposite of encouraging," Magnus frowned.

"I'm sure it wouldn't help if she cheered and promised she wouldn't be any real help," Percy huffed.

But if you want to know his fate, I would visit my son Hephaestus at his forge. Daedalus was a great inventor, a mortal after Hephaestus's heart. There has never been a mortal Hephaestus admired more. If anyone would have kept up with Daedalus and could tell you his fate, it is Hephaestus."

Magnus blushed neon red as an awkward question came to mind.

Alex had no such reserves as she spat out an imaginary drink and shouted, "Wait, did Hephaestus and Daedalus do it? Or does she mean Daedalus is a child of Hephaestus? Or both?"

"A male god can have a child with a male mortal in the same way as Athena has brain children," Thalia agreed, grateful her answer surprised Magnus enough his gray eyes looked likely to never stop blinking at the implication. Alex was still staring at her for the other part of that question, weirdly as unphased by the answer as he was by everything that went on in here, but gratefully didn't pursue Thalia for more except for a strange smile.

"But how do we get there?" Annabeth asked. "That's my wish. I want a way to navigate the Labyrinth."

Alex and Jason both groaned at Annabeth.

"She did something I'd tell you was to impulsive," Jason huffed. "She could have asked a lot more questions!"

"And she should have been a lot more specific! Like asking for that string thing in her hand!" Alex huffed.

Percy didn't much like them criticizing her when she wasn't here, and he was still far more worried about Janus trying to terrify her than whatever Hera had done to let himself be distracted arguing with them.

"Cut her some slack guys, she's stressed up to her ears and won't always make the most rational decision every moment," Thalia did anyways with plenty of robustness.

Hera looked disappointed.

"Because she should have asked for world peace," Alex muttered under his breath to agree with Magnus, which he at least snickered in surprise over.

"So be it. You wish for something, however, that you have already been given."

"Oh come on," all seven of them yelped in surprise at that. In what world had that answer been laid out?! Now this goddess was just messing with them and calling it help!

"I don't understand."

"The means is already within your grasp." She looked at me. "Percy knows the answer."

"I do?" Percy managed to say at the same time as the book.

"He does?" The others all asked dubiously.

"You wouldn't hold out on that kind of information on Annabeth though," Magnus scoffed at once. "Let alone heard it and not, um, mentally, reported it?" Why was it suddenly so weird to describe what they were listening to?

"Glad you don't all think I'm keeping a hidden secret copy up here," Percy said with only a touch of relief as he tapped his temple. He kind of wished someone would call him an idiot again and get to the answer faster. Even Thalia looked dubious though why Hera thought he'd already been given the answer. The only link she could draw was their brief conversation that Rachel could see through the mist last winter, and even then, Percy yet had knowledge that was Ariadne's true ability, so she called bull on Hera's 'help' too.

"But that's not fair," Annabeth said. "You're not telling me what it is!"

"There is nothing stopping her from just, saying it! Make it clear as freaking day down there," Will agreed, looking personally hurt Hera seemed to be going out of her way to make this difficult after she'd just offered endless help.

Nico's touch of jealousy vanished at least. Turns out even if a god had cared enough to try helping him out of there, it probably wouldn't have done him any more good.

Hera shook her head. "Getting something and having the wits to use it...those are two different things. I'm sure your mother Athena would agree."

"Oh great, so the best advice we got out of this is be cryptic, thanks," Jason groaned with his hand pressed against his stomach like he was going to be sick.

He was sick. Of these Greek gods never making any sense. Why would Juno act like she'd done anything of value right now?!

The room rumbled like distant thunder. Hera stood. "That would be my cue. Zeus grows impatient. Think on what I have said, Annabeth. Seek out Hephaestus. You will have to pass through the ranch, I imagine.

Alex's mind flashed back to that Triple G Ranch that had been mentioned that apparently supplied scorpions Quintus had seemed so fond of. He didn't really believe in coincidences.

But keep going.

Nico's heart quivered at that possibility. If Percy had never shown up, gods knew what could have happened. Maybe he would have murdered Daedalus, who knew what Geryon would have done to him.

But then, why had Percy shown up there? This seemed like actual useful advice he couldn't imagine them ignoring for any reason.

And use all the means at your disposal, however common they may seem."

"Is a toothbrush going to come in handy on this quest?" Percy grouched. "Is she saying we should start tossing our extra pair of socks around to get results!"

"Not exactly advice I thought a motherly goddess would give," Magnus agreed with his disdain. He'd hoped a godly symbolic representation of marriage would have been a little more, loving. Aphrodite hadn't fit the right bill either. How was it possible none of these gods seemed more maternal with all the kids and family they had running around?

She pointed toward the two doors and they melted away, revealing twin corridors, open and dark. "One last thing, Annabeth. I have postponed your day of choice, I have not prevented it. Soon, as Janus said, you will have to make a decision. Farewell!"

She waved a hand and turned into white smoke.

Percy scowled and fought the urge to kick his chair in frustration. He'd probably kick it through the wall and cause all of his friend's death. That thought was the only thing restraining him, but he still cussed a few choice words he knew Hera would at least want to escape from.

So did the food, just as Tyson chomped down on a sandwich that turned to mist in his mouth.

"Now that was just rude," Alex looked ready to go and personally make him another sandwich just to make up for that.

"I bet you guys are under Detroit or something, can't have anything there unless it's nailed down," Thalia said in something of a mild mannered tone just because she didn't like seeing everybody stressed out and scowling under her care.

Percy gave her a begrudging laugh and a reluctant smile. "At least I didn't come away from this one with another immortal enemy?"

"There's the bright side!" Will agreed cheerfully.

The fountain trickled to a stop. The mosaic walls dimmed and turned grungy and faded again. The room was no longer any place you'd want to have a picnic.

Annabeth stamped her foot. "What sort of help was that? 'Here, have a sandwich. Make a wish. Oops, I can't help you!' Poof!"

"Poof," Tyson agreed sadly, looking at his empty plate.

"Sounds like you made a wish with a genie," Magnus frowned.

"And it was just one wish! You guys need a contract or a lawyer or something next time you run into one of them," Jason agreed.

"Now if she'd offered us three wishes, I bet at least you'd stop complaining," Percy laughed at him.

"I'm withholding judgment," Jason shrugged.

"Well," Grover sighed, "she said Percy knows the answer. That's something."

They all looked at me.

"But I don't," I said. "I don't know what she was talking about."

Annabeth sighed. "All right. Then we'll just keep going."

"Which way?" I asked. I really wanted to ask what Hera had meant about the choice Annabeth needed to make. But then Grove and Tyson both tensed. They stood up together like they'd rehearsed it. "Left," they both said.

Alex looked very torn now if he wanted to go down the right side just to get a peak of what had made Grover and Tyson agree on something. Magnus gripped his hands together, trying not to imagine Alex's hand in his as they ran for their life.

Annabeth frowned. "How can you be sure?"

"Because something is coming from the right," Grover said.

"Something big," Tyson agreed. "In a hurry."

"Left is sounding pretty good," I decided. Together we plunged into the dark corridor.

"Finished," Will said in a sing-song voice like they weren't about to start running for their life. Good for him, he knew they were all alive.

Jason exchanged an uneasy look with Thalia and Percy before he could get up and get the book. There really weren't enough breaks in the world from this to cover how much time they felt like they needed to process before the next awful thing leapt out of the shadows.

#pjo #reading the books #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #alex fierro #Magnus Chase #nico di angelo #percabeth #fierrochase #solangelo #will solace #battle of the labyrinth #HDYSG

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bruhstation · 1 year

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Hi i love your casa tidmouth!!! I saw the ask about james pairing and wondered if there any pairing for diesel, oliver or lady? Also happy holidays!!!

thank you very much!!! ALSO HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR AHHHHHH I'M SO SO SORRY FOR ANSWERING THIS LATE.... I WANTED TO ANSWER THIS ASK AS DETAILED AS POSSIBLE SO 🙏🙏🙏

I also apologize if some parts don't really sound very shippy because I thought it'd be a good chance to showcase some bits of lore character relationships in general... ANYWAYS!!!! HAVE FUN READING

diesel:

you could say that diesel's currently not interested in anyone, at least in a romantic sense. diesel used to have a small crush on mavis but no longer did after she told him she's a lesbian. now they're just... besties? frenemies? diesel and mavis gets into trouble together, except diesel's the one who incites it (arry and bert just follows) and mavis just happens to be there. diesel gets himself into trouble because of his schemes while mavis (begrudgingly) gets him out of it, though she usually also gets the short end of the stick alongside diesel. mavis also thought that diesel is constantly up to no good, though this is mostly because mavis just wants to live a simple life with as little problems as possible (literally impossible because she lives in so-freaking-dor)

however in act 2, mavis started to feel suspicious about diesel with how he always disappears somewhere at nights. even though they're both affiliated with the dieselworks (since they both drive diesel engines), she suspected that diesel might've been getting himself involved with d10 lately and is now genuinely siding with someone threatening instead of just being mildly inconveniencing. she's now conflicted between wanting to confront diesel in order to protect the person she cares about, or avert her eyes and live in blissful ignorance.

not shippy, but worth mentioning: diesel and duck started off as great enemies at the start of the story. before the events of casa tidmouth, after thinking duck wanted to leave him for dead (he was still new to sodor and has no idea people rarely die in sodor's railways), diesel spread horrific rumours about duck's family, which triggered the start of his axe-crazy tendencies (he's incredibly desperate to make his family proud. you know the drill). neither of them expressed guilt -- they do feel it -- for their actions towards one another because of how stubborn they are. they also have really different worldviews; diesel wanted progress, while duck wanted to stick with the old ways.

their backgrounds were really similar, too. both of their families were incredibly traditional, but while duck followed them like a dog, diesel rejected them. they could've respected each other or even become friends, if only their stubborness didn't blind them. perhaps things could change in act 2...?

speaking of act 2, diesel teamed up with d10 and got pretty close to him, partly because he realized d10's power is now heavily relying on the competence of his minions (and they're really not) and partly because they both share the same worldviews about progress. he's basically his right hand man, doing all the convincing and talking while d10 is having this big internal crisis going on. you could say it's also his curiosity taking place, since he wonders what the "most menacing man in all of sodor" will do once he hits rock bottom. diesel also convinced percy to join the workers of dieselworks when he was at his lowest, saying "I know a man who would respect your ambitions."

in addition, diesel is still coming into terms with his identity because of his huge catholic guilt. this fucking guy

‎

oliver:

even though he's usually no-nonsense and avoids conflict and island mysteries at any cost, oliver has a huge soft spot for douglas. they first met around 5 years ago when oliver was lost in a forest in bumfuck nowhere, being the victim of time and space displacement alongside a young man called toad -- who barely said a word -- and having lost a lot of his memories. he lived inside his rusty engine with toad for years in solitude. after a few years had passed, he met douglas, who ended up there as well (he assumed that he's the same as him) and bonded with him over the days he was stuck there.

with douglas' presence, oliver felt much less alone. and vice versa. toad also got along with douglas, which made oliver felt relieved. oliver initially didn't have much motivation to get himself out of the situation (toad didn't express much either and only wanted to stick with oliver) and nearly gave up, but after meeting douglas and listening to his stories about missing his brother and wanting to go back home, oliver regained his motivation to keep on trying. he also set his thoughts of finding whoever's responsible aside for the sake of douglas and toad.

after the three of them were rescued by duck and donald and nursed back to health, oliver intended to take his leave, still a bit bent on finding whoever's responsible for his lost memories and broken engine. but then sir topham hatt suggested that he could work for the northwestern railways ("who knows? it could help you find what you're looking for, mr. swindon.")

the next day, douglas expressed gratitude to oliver for saving his life and accompanying him throughout the days he was lost in a forest. oliver instead shot back with a smile, "actually, douglas, you're the one who saved me. even though I still remember nothing about my past, I now remember what I was fighting for. myself, and my engine."

fun fact: you know oliver jr., oliver's tamagotchi? douglas was the one who gifted it to him. since the first generation of tamagotchis die easily if not given care 24/7, douglas went all the way to the steamworks and convinced victor (doctor, engineer, guy with at least 3 phds) to modify it and make it practically immortal. oliver received this gift extremely happily, though he sometimes wonders if something is different with his tamagotchi (douglas just said that he probably got the most special ultra rare yadda yadda version).

oliver and douglas are also one of the more "normal" pair in all of casa tidmouth (2x3x4 have communication issues thus can only pine over each other, 8x9 are... uh... murderhusbands, mavis is oblivious to lady's true identity, lady and d10 have similar twisted views on humanity, etc).

‎

lady:

even though nobody (aside from thomas and percy) knows about lady being the island's goddess, almost every single woman in casa tidmouth likes her. mavis, emily, rosie, belle, daisy, etc... they all collectively thought "haha wow weird silly woman is pretty". she's way too oblivious and thought that it's just some quirk humans have, though. HOWEVER, she's really close with mavis, who showed lady around the quarry when she first arrived in sodor. mavis also wanted to "shield" lady from all the general weirdness around sodor, assuming that she's originally from outside the island. on the other hand, lady's optimism started to make mavis relax more from her coworker diesel's antics. also mavis thinks she's kinda hahah hey girl

in act 2, after news of missing railway workers came out, mavis tried to convince lady to leave the island. she felt like lady knows a lot more than she looks, but she's not taking any risks to have the person she holds dear get involved. lady just felt really guilty, but (after going through character progression and developing more "human" emotions like happiness, guilt, melancholy, "selfish" motivations, yadda yadda) she has a feeling that if she revealed her true identity, it's not going to end smoothly.

I've also mentioned something about lady and d10 being really close in a qpp type of way had their circumstances been different. they're both people who find it really hard to connect to others; the former being a goddess with different perceptions on morality and the latter being a guy who has low empathy and a whole lot of personality disorders. here's the post explaining their relationship

#casa tidmouth #casa tidmouth act 2 #ttte diesel #ttte diesel 10 #ttte percy #ttte oliver #ttte douglas #ttte lady #ttte mavis #asks #anonymous #PHEWWWW THAT'S A LOT!!!!!#lore time.... LORE TIME #posting this at the kuala lumpur airport. gonna go home lol #hope you enjoy 🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧#10x11 #mavisxlady #lady+diesel 10

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lottiebagley · 3 years

Text

Snow covered courtyards- Oliver Wood

When he'd asked her to the ball he'd been certain she would say no. They'd been friends for a while but never particularly close, simply in the same year and house and therefore knew each other through mutual friends.

He'd always thought she was kind of unattainable, she seemed to always look perfect, she was smart and funny and kind and top of her classes. He never knew why but she always avoided Oliver a little, he spent nights laid in bed listening to Percy's snoring and racking his brains for any reason she might avoid him, an insult from years ago, a history between him and one of her friends but nothing quite came to mind.

It wasn't until a few weeks before the ball that he realised that maybe the reason she avoided him was because she wasn't quite as unattainable as he'd thought. He'd laughed at first when his best friend shrugged that she probably just had a crush on him, mouthful of cereal and a slightly bemused look on his face.

After that conversation he slowly allowed his brain to convince himself she just might like him back. After all why else would she blush when he catches her eye? why would she go to every quidditch game no matter how awful the weather? why would she giggle a little with her friends when he passes?

And so, Oliver Wood let a little spark of hope light in his heart and he began to plan how he would ask her to the ball.

He thought about asking her after they won a quidditch match when he was high on adrenaline but he didn't like the idea of being muddy and sweaty and with the fucking Weasley twins, their relentless teasing playing in his mind before it even happened.

Next he thought about making some production out of it in the great hall like he'd seen a few other people do, but he knew she'd hate being the centre of the entire school's attention.

He contemplated asking her at a party, figuring some liquid courage might make the prospect of asking his dream girl on a date a little easier, but didn't want her to think it was some drunk decision.

He settled on approaching her with a bouquet of flowers and just asking it, after all, he knew he was a good looking guy and most people found him charming if not a little intense. What he didn't think about though was that most people didn't make his heart beat too fast, his hands go clammy, and his words come out a stuttering mess.

Oliver announced to his friends one morning that today was the day he'd ask her out, they'd grinned widely, given him a pep talk, mocked him a little for his nerves and sent him on his way and Oliver had every intention to ask her out.

It was then that Oliver learnt the age old lesson.

Girls travel in packs.

No matter how hard he tried she was surrounded. Between classes, at meals, in the common room, christ even on her way to the bathroom. Whenever he saw her she'd have a gaggle of girls with her all of which would eye him with curiosity and smirks when he attempted to approach.

It took Oliver a further three days of attempting to catch her alone, his friends seeming to find the entire situation funnier by the hour, before it had happened. He'd caught a glimpse of her with Cedric.

Oliver Wood hated Cedric Diggory, hated that he was so often compared to him, hated that he had swoopy hair that made girls swoon, hated that he too was a good quidditch player. His newest reason though to despise the boy who showed him nothing but kindness was that he didn't clam up around her. He talked to her with ease and made her laugh.

If he'd done a little digging, Oliver would have easily found Cedric was a family friend and she viewed him like a brother. Through exasperated mutual friends sick of both their pining he'd have probably also learnt she had a massive crush on Oliver and had turned down multiple boys in the hopes Oliver would ask her to the ball.

He didn't dig though. Instead he scowled in the direction of Cedric and her, they were laughing by the quidditch pitch as the Hufflepuff practice ended and the Gryffindor's arrived for their own. She had been on her way to the greenhouses to grab a book she'd accidentally left there when Cedric had jogged over, unknown to Oliver actually asking if the Gryffindor had plucked up the nerve to ask her out. She had brushed her friend off, thinking it would be a miracle for Oliver Wood to fancy her back.

"Hurry up Wood, she's a good one, she'll get swept up all too soon," Fred smirks as he passes Oliver on his way into the changing rooms.

And with Fred's words in his mind Oliver grabs the bouquet of flowers from the office and marches towards her, Cedric spotting him coming and quickly taking his leave.

"Hi," He calls, cursing himself for not thinking to say her name when she doesn't even turn around, not used to him approaching her, "Hi-Y/N,"

She turns then, still clad in her uniform, hair blowing in the light wind and a small smile on her face.

"Oliver-uh-hey," She blushes a little as she falls over her words

"You're a really hard girl to get on her own," He comments. Fucking christ why does he sound like a stalker? The question spins in his mind but she seems to not think anything of the comment, instead blushing a little

"Oh- my friends and I are kinda inseperable," She shrugs lightly, not wanting an awkward silence so instead opting to ramble "They only aren't here now cause they are busy. Meg's at detention, Ali's with her boyfriend and Katie's tutoring some second year in potions. I'd have waited for one of them to be with me because honestly I kind of hate walking alone- not cause I'm weird or un-independent or any thing, I just, well I get a little anxious and feel like people are staring at me and-" She silences herself, suddenly coming to her senses and realising how crazy she's making herself sound. "Sorry,"

"Don't be. I think it's cute when you ramble," He admits, blushing as red as his quidditch robes when he realises what he's said.

"Did you need something or have I just embarrassed myself over a polite hello?" She questions, he chuckles a little making her feel mildly less uncomfortable.

"I was actually wondering if you wanted to go to the ball?" He questions. He feels a weight off his shoulder's once the question has been asked. Like suddenly even if she says no at least he could tell himself he tried.

"With you?" She questions, she realises she probably sounds more idiotic by the second but can't quite convince herself to believe her long term crush would actually ask her out.

"Uh-yeah," He's taken aback by the question and feels stupid for even thinking she'd consider it and suddenly the even if she says no bullshit is just that, because shit if the girl in front of him with wide eyes and a nervous smile doesn't say yes he thinks his heart might break in his chest.

"Like a date?"

"I was hoping,"

"I'd love that,"

Oliver feels like the luckiest person on earth. Watching as she blushes a little, but her smile is wide and god if he doesn't want to kiss her right there.

"Great,"

"Good,"

"Cool,"

"Yeah,"

Neither of them is quite sure what comes next and the interaction seems to run even more awkward. "You'll pick her up!" Oliver rolls his eyes at the sound of George Weasley, although thankful for the prompt, she blushes, peering behind him to see the entire Gryffindor quidditch team watching them.

"I'll pick you up," He confirms

"Right," She nods

"At 7? Outside your dorm?"

"Sounds good,"

"Okay," He grins brightly, still thinking this entire thing is his mind playing some cruel tricks on him.

"So you should go, your team awaits," She reminds, he nods, partly wanting the interaction over before he can make even more of a fool out of himself or ruin something before it even has a chance to start and partly wanting to live in this moment of pure joy for the rest of his life.

"Right, so I'll uh- see you at the ball- and- uhm- around before obviously," He stutters a little

"Great, I'll see you in both those places," She confirms, realising only after she's spoken how idiotic she sounds.

"The flowers Wood! Christ you're bad at this!" Fred shouts

"Always thought he had game," Harry comments

"We all did kid," George agrees.

"Sorry about them," Oliver apologises

"It's okay," She smiles gently, waiting patiently as he stands staring wondering why her eyes are flickering from him, to his team to his hands and-

"Oh right, these are for you," He confirms, passing the bouquet over and grinning when she blushes a little

"Thanks Oli,"

"Any time," He nods

When she pulls open her dorm door Oliver is certain time stops.

She looks like an angel, her makeup perfect, hair flowing in curls with a small section pinned back as to see her face clearly, Oliver is certain nothing else has ever looked as beautiful. She's dressed in a golden gown that shimmers in the light and makes her look like a princess.

"You- I mean- it- you look beautiful," He stammers over his words and his face goes redder by the second but she smiles at him

"Thank you Oli," She smiles up at him and when their eyes meet both of them feel their hearts hammering in their chests.

"You ready?" He questions, she nods, smiling when he grabs her arm in his and they walk together to the hall.

The hall looks like something out of a fairytale. Seeming to glow an ice white, lined with glittering trees and a glance at the ceiling showing a sky full of stars that gleamed in the air.

"You want to dance?" Oliver questions, eyes falling to the already slightly crowded dance floor, the students dancing to the waltz that plays.

"Think you might loose a foot if we try," She admits, glancing at the girls who swirl around the floor effortlessly and feeling a little self conscious she can't do the same.

"It'd be worth it," He grins, pulling her along with him.

"Hey Oli?"

"Yeah?" He questions as they come to the edge of the dance floor

"These heels are really high. Please don't let me fall,"

"I've got you," He assures, smiling when he notices her physically loosen the panic in her eyes dissipating.

It takes them a few stumbles and a couple of toe treads but eventually they pick up the dance. He watches with a grin as she stares at her feet in focus and with time, and a few glasses of the punch Fred and George spiked, she relaxes, feeling at ease in his arms and becoming more comfortable with the slightly confusing dancing.

Oliver whispers commentary about the ball that makes her laugh and he loves the way she talks with such excitement that he can't help but follow along with every word. He's pretty sure in that moment he could die happy and she's almost certain this is the best night of her life.

As the minutes tick into hours they become more and more comfortable with each other, sure there's still an awkward teenagers with crushes layer to the conversation, but they learn they have a lot in common and find it easy to make small talk that they both actually enjoy.

"Do you wanna go get some air?" She questions at around 11, the dancing has changed from formal waltzing to jumping around to the band who'd been hired for the event and they were both hot and a little sticky from the crowd.

He nods in confirmation and smiles to himself when she immediately takes his hand in hers to pull him along behind her, she seems to have no idea he'd follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked.

She takes him to a small moonlit, snow covered, empty courtyard.

"Anyone would think you wanted to get me alone," He teases lightly, she blushes a little but playfully shoves him

"Maybe I did," She shrugs, he grins cockily "Or maybe it was a little crowded in there and I'm a polite date who didn't want to just abandon you," She isn't quite sure where her newfound confidence around Oliver is coming from

"I'm going to go with the first option," He grins, she laughs a little before shivering at the cold December breeze that wraps around them. He's quick to shrug of his black formal jacket, wrapping it around her shoulders and blushing when she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek in thanks.

"You wanna dance?" She questions, he laughs a little at the idea of leaving a ball to go and dance but nods.

Her arms wrap around his neck as his circle her waist, he hums gently and she smiles a she glances up at him. Oliver Wood looks like a god in the moonlight and she thanks her lucky stars that it's her who got to be in that moment with him.

They dance slowly, eventually pulling each other closer. She laughs when he twirls her under his arm and he grins when her hands begin to brush through the ends of his hair.

"Tell me something," She speaks quietly, his arms pulling her even closer.

"What do you wanna know?"

"Anything about you," She decides, he takes a deep breath, figuring now's probably the best moment he'll ever get to tell her this.

"I've had a crush on you since first year,"

"You have?" She sounds shocked and he can't help but laugh at the idea of her not realising he's practically head over heels for her

"I have," He confirms with a grin

"Why'd you never say anything?" She questions. Her heart feels like it's beating a million miles a minute and she's almost certain he can feel it

"You kinda avoided me," he shrugs

"Yeah I did," She laughs

"Why'd you do that?"

"I was scared to make a fool out of myself," She admits

"Yeah I get that," He nods

"You do? You always seem so- I don't know- at ease,"

"Around everyone but you I kinda am," He shrugs, she blushes a little at that. "You wanna know something else?" He questions.

They're still swaying a little but there's not much movement at their feet, instead the entire thing looks like a loving embrace and she figured to an extent it kind of was.

"Sure,"

"All night I've thinking about if I were to try and kiss you. If you'd kiss back or you'd pull away and laugh in my face and I'd have made a fool of myself," His words leave her breathless and his charming grin only makes it better

"There's only one way to know for sure," She whispers.

His lips crash to hers in the moonlit courtyard, the snow falling around them. It's slow and gentle. Holding years of emotion and there's no need to rush, in that moment they both know they have forever to hold each other this close. It's a little toothy from both their wide grins but as his hands cup her cheeks she's sure nothing has ever been as perfect as this moment and the boy she's sharing it with.

MASTERLIST

#harry potter fanfiction #Harry Potter #harry potter masterlist #oliver wood #oliver wood x reader #oliver wood x y/n #oliver wood imagine

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melancholic-pigeon · 2 years

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I reread The Staff of Hermes and had a realization.

Like, I've talked before about how I worry I'm misremembering everything and misinterpreting large chunks, and I mostly found myself going "Oh RIIIIIGHT, that's why I read it that way!!"

...But I actually did misremember and misinterpret large chunks of Annabeth, specifically.

I think I've been a little unfair to her, actually.

I had a bad experience with an Annabeth stan who ruined the character and the ship for me for a very long time, which I'm not going to air the details of because it doesn't matter: the important thing is that they were mean, manipulative, aggressive, jealous, nasty and entitled, and I think part of me saw some of the person in the character and I blew a bunch of shit out of proportion because I had a personal agenda.

To go back to staff of hermes:

I remembered Annabeth getting pissed at Percy and giving him the silent treatment because he forgot it was their first monthiversary and the pizza picnic wasn't good enough for her.

This is what actually happened:

She was mildly upset that he made a promise he forgot about and failed to follow through on, and two seconds later she clarified that the pizza date was good enough for her, she just wanted to know if he'd remembered he promised her something and he didn't.

She then got pissed, not because of the picnic, but because he wanted to abandon the picnic to go fight a giant. And immediately afterwards, she provides him with verbal reassurance and communicates (!!) that she just doesn't want him to make promises he might not follow through on.

This...is a completely reasonable, justified, appropriate response on her part, not the tantrum I remembered.

I realized, too, I think part of the problem is that she and Percy have different love languages. Her primary love language is verbal affirmation; his is gifts. He brings her coral and gets her favorite pizza; she tells him to his face in words how she feels about him. I think she sometimes gets insecure when he doesn't say it, because it makes her nervous about where she stands with him, and she really does not like emotional uncertainty.

You can see this in Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian, too. Her insecurity makes her lash out, which is not cool, but as soon as she's official with Percy— as soon as she knows he picked her— she completely stops being weird to Rachel!

Like— does she have issues? Absolutely! Do I think their issues sometimes compound on each other? Very much so! I would like to see them in counseling!

But I'm really glad I did the reread, because it's given me a lot of food for thought. A lot of her behavior that used to drive me nuts struck me this time around as "not a great reaction, but a very understandable one, considering she's a deeply traumatized teenage girl with severe abandonment issues and RSD".

#please feel free to caption this #pigeon metas #you can barely keep up but you're learning a lot about coffee #pythia rereads the source material

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seattlesea · 3 years

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Why Solangelo Isn’t A Good Ship (Sorry)

The amount of love I see for Solangelo is honestly kind of surprising???

1. It was only for publicity. The House of Hades- which is when Nico came out as gay- came out late 2013, and the spike for LGBTQ+ supporters and allies was mid-2013, and there was absolutely no foreshadowing or even hints to Nico being gay beforehand. Riordan only confirmed Nico gay to avoid backlash. And in The Blood of Olympus, Nico is openly gay to the readers, Reyna, and Jason, then comes out to Percy and Annabeth afterwards. Then he’s introduced to Will and- in the very next book they’re seen in- they’re in a loving relationship. It’s as if Riordan didn’t believe that having Nico come out as gay was good enough but had to give him a boyfriend to ‘validate’ or ‘confirm’ his sexuality like so many assholes ask LGBTQ+ people to do.

2. It happened way too fast. Will and Nico meet for the very first time and start dating within only five months. What? Not only is that too fast for normal people to actually get into a legit, real relationship that isn’t something out of a cliche high school movie, but Nico came out as gay after being scared to for years, just started slipping out of his isolated and depressive state, literally had to learn how to socialize after being alone for 3+ years, just came out of a war and even Tartarus with truck loads of PTSD that would take years to fully recover from, and just started gaining a family and friends and had to learn how to accept help and comfort from others. Tell me- how many soldiers who just came back from war are concerned about getting a boyfriend/girlfriend/datefriend? Nico’s story in BoO should’ve been about his recovery, not getting a boyfriend. I mean, he met Will for the first time and immediately started liking him, and they didn’t have any meaningful conversations whatsoever. All they did was bicker. Even in The Tower of Nero, they didn’t show any actual mutual understanding of or true affection towards each other. They didn’t talk about anything deeper than the shallow end of a pool, about each other, or even how they got to be in a relationship. They were just kind of there, reminding the readers that ‘Hey, I’m Rick Riordan and I added a gay couple to the main cast! I’m great!’

3. It was too fast for the readers. People often forget that the speed of relationships in books aren’t only about canon, but what the readers see as well, cause what good is a relationship if the fans didn’t see any of it? That’s not going to help us like it, it’s just going to confuse and annoy us. We want to see how the relationship formed, grew, and developed from a platonic friendship, acquaintance, or ally into a mutual romantic liking. If we don’t see that, the relationship is just boring and dull. Seeing the development of the relationship is what helps the readers gain a true connection and emotional bond to it. If we don’t get that, the relationship is as good as a blank page. And it’s not only that, but it’s also flat-out bad and lazy writing. Will and Nico met for the first time in BoO, talked like twice and only bickered and argued (as if that’s the start of a super healthy relationship), then in The Hidden Oracle, they’re suddenly a loving couple? What?

4. The mental illness problem. I’m sure most of you know of the disgusting and ableist stereotype that the struggle and trauma of people with mental illnesses (especially depression, anxiety, and PTSD) magically wash away after they meet their romantic partner, right? Like the teenage girl who’s having a panic attack in school, gets noticed by her crush, and is all of a sudden fine cause he touches her hand and they make eye contact? Or the girl who’s super insecure about herself but gains confidence after her boyfriend compliments her? Or the person with depression magically gets happy again after getting a partner? The same thing happened with Solangelo. At the end of The Blood of Olympus, Nico isn’t yet fully happy, but has gained the things that can make him so- a family, friends, acceptance, support, love, etc. But, after talking to Will (who’s a doctor, may I add) for the first time, all of Nico’s negative thoughts, anxiety, sadness, depression, etc. vanished and all his thoughts were replaced with ‘Will this’ and ‘Will that’. And in ToA- only five months after the war with Gaea- Nico is perfectly fine? As if all that pain and trauma could wash away in only five months? And this isn’t the first time this has happened in HoO. The same thing happened with Leo- he struggled with anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc. but after he met Calypso all those internal struggles magically washed away and he was happy only after getting a girlfriend, so it’s obvious Riordan isn’t exactly avoiding this hurtful stereotype.

5. It ruined their characters. Before meeting Will, Nico had a lot going for his character, a development that didn’t need to be completed with a love interest. He was realistic, relatable, and overall one of the best written characters in HoO, and his trauma and struggles were actually really well-written. But, after he met Will, the entirety of his character was ‘Will Solace’s boyfriend’. That’s all Riordan wrote about after he and Will communicated for the first time. Nico didn’t even talk to Reyna, Hazel, Percy (besides telling him he had a crush on him, which- again- is just another part of his love life), etc., and the only time he did talk to someone else (Jason), all he thought about was Will and how he was ‘disappointed’ that it wasn’t him. All of Nico’s character arc, struggles, relatability, and everything else Riordan worked up to his character was destroyed to make room for his love life. As for Will, he was actually quite a cool character- driving around Manhattan on a motorcycle, fighting in the Battle of Manhattan, protecting Camp Half-Blood, sewing Paolo’s severed leg back together, healing Annabeth’s poison knife wound, etc., plus all the cool powers he must’ve had as a son of Apollo. Even his personality was interesting- extremely caring, too dedicated, intelligent, calm, patient, etc., and I was really hoping to see him at his full potential in HoO. But Riordan ditched all the potential Will had for ‘Nico di Angelo’s boyfriend’. Even their personalities were washed away for cute pet names and teasing.

6. The fandom ruined their characters. This was really annoying. At first I mildly disliked Solangelo, but after the fandom’s take on it, I couldn’t stand it. The fans completely destroyed Will and Nico. I mean- is there any post about Will that doesn’t involve Nico in it at one point or another? And there are barely any posts about Nico that doesn’t involve Will or some other male character like Jason or Percy or that doesn’t mention his sexuality. I get that they’re dating, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely dependent on each other now. Another problem is their personalities. The fandom portrays them extremely inaccurately. Will isn’t a super upbeat, cheerful, bright, outgoing, happy-go-lucky guy. He’s actually a serious and determined hard-worker who just cares a lot about people. Just because he’s the son of the sun god and has blond hair and blue eyes doesn’t mean he’s the definition of ‘happiness’. As for Nico, the fandom just gave him a whole new personality as well. I mean- Nico swooning or blushing cause Will called him ‘Sweetheart’ or some other cliche pet name? What? Since when? Solangelo was bad on its own, but the fandom just ruined it completely.

7. Y’all only like it cause it’s gay. Sorry to be the one to say this, but if the majority of you hate Jiper after reading a whole series on them where they actually talked to each other besides about their physical health because it happened ‘too fast’ (which, I agree, it did) but love Solangelo after barely two paragraphs? Why aren’t any of you guys complaining that that went too fast? The reason is pretty obvious. This is a problem most fandoms have- they only like ships (especially canon ships) no matter how unrealistic, unhealthy, or toxic it is because it’s gay. If Nico was straight and Will was a girl but everything else went exactly the same, y’all would’ve hated on it in a heartbeat, but because it’s two guys... yay Solangelo???

I’m gonna get cancelled-

#solangelo #heroes of olympus #percy jackson #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo isn't that great #stop acting like it is #just cause its gay #ship

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secretkeeper13 · 3 years

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Flirt- bonus chapter

I was overwhelmed by the positive response to this story! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read and leave such lovely comments. I truly appreciate it!

As soon as I finished writing this fic, I wanted to write Harry’s reaction to hearing the story of poor Criag’s misadventures in trying to flirt with Ginny. I hope you enjoy this bit of (very dialogue heavy) fluff as much as I enjoyed writing it. Bonus chapter also on Ao3!

He flopped onto the bed, completely exhausted from the day. Well, really, from James, who was now (thankfully) sleeping in his cot after a mildly disastrous bath time in which he’d managed to get soapy water all over Harry’s shirt, trousers, and the entire bathroom floor, causing Harry to slip in his haste to grab his wand to do a drying charm. And then bedtime, when James climbed out of his cot three times before finally, blissfully falling asleep.

In the stillness, he heard the door to the study close softly, the creak of the stairs, and footsteps approaching the doorway of their bedroom. He looked up as she crossed the room and sat on the other side of their bed.

“James wear you out today?” she asked, with a knowing smile.

“Yes, I’m exhausted,” he groaned. “I feel like I’ve been through one of Oliver Wood’s training sessions. I don’t know how you do it, honestly.”

She grinned. “You chase dark wizards for a living, but five hours alone with our toddler did you in?”

He smiled sheepishly. “It isn’t like when he was a baby, and you could turn your back for a second to do something and he’d still be in the same place. He’s so bloody fast now. I told you about the incident with the toilet. Not to mention the climbing- I pulled him off the third shelf in the scullery not a half hour after you left!”

She laughed. “He probably just wanted a biscuit. Caught him at it last week, found him on the second shelf holding the biscuit tin. I moved it up higher, but I guess that didn’t work.”

Harry shook his head. “How do you even use the loo? I was afraid to leave him alone for a second.”

She laughed again. “I haven’t used the loo alone during the day for the past couple weeks.”

“He’s not a baby anymore, really,” he said wistfully, thinking of their once tiny newborn, who was now saying words, toddling about, and causing all sorts of mischief.

“No, he isn’t.”

Harry sighed. “Did you get your article finished?”

“Yes, all done and sent to my editor in time for tomorrow’s paper. It practically wrote itself thanks to the Magpie’s seeker. Not every day someone catches the snitch in under a half hour in his first game.”

“I can’t wait to read it.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks for bringing James up to Hogsmeade after. I’m glad we got to see Neville.”

“Me too,” he said, and then he grinned up at her. “Speaking of, now do I get to hear the story of how a bloke fresh out of Hogwarts ended up buying you a drink?”

She laughed. “I knew you’d ask again.”

He’d asked as soon as they’d walked away from the bar, of course, his curiosity getting the better of him, as always. But she’d simply raised an eyebrow and mouthed, “Later” in response to his murmured, “What was that?”

“Well?”

“Hmmm, you’re very interested in this story,” she teased, running her hand lightly down his chest and sliding closer to him on the bed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous of my new friend Craig.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Hardly. The poor boy looked like he wanted to die. I just want to know what you did to him.”

“And why do you think I’m responsible?” she said feigning innocence, giving him that wide-eyed, playful look that still made his heart beat faster.

“Well, I’d like to think I know you pretty well after nearly a decade of being with you,” he replied dryly.

She laughed. “Alright. Well, if you must know, I was at the bar, minding my own, when my new friend came up and introduced himself to me,” she said, her eyes glinting with mischief.

“That’s bold.” He looked at her shrewdly. “And did you introduce yourself to him?”

She smirked. “I told him it was a pleasure to meet him.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I knew it.”

“What, I should’ve said, ‘Hello Craig, I’m Ginny Potter; yes, the one married to Harry Potter. Oh, he’ll be here momentarily. Yes, please make a scene and ask for a photo so the whole pub is in a frenzy by the time he arrives with our son’?”

“Alright, you’ve made your point,” he said, chuckling harder.

“Anyhow, it was clear he didn’t recognize me, so I decided to just... let it play out. Be a good sport, but not encourage him too much. And if I got a little amusement from it along the way, well, that was just a bonus.”

“How were you sure he didn’t recognize you?” he said, thinking darkly of all the unwelcome advances he’d fielded over the years, despite the entire wizarding world’s knowledge of he and Ginny’s relationship.

She snorted. “Harry, he asked me, very earnestly, if I followed Quidditch, and then followed that up by asking which team I supported.”

He cringed, but laughed. “Merlin. Poor bloke.”

“That’s not even the best part.”

“No?”

“Oh no,” she said, her tone becoming increasingly dramatic (a trait which he found adorable and endearing). “The best part was when he unknowingly was slagging off Percy to me.”

“Come again?” Harry spluttered.

“I’d love to later, but I’d like to finish my story now, thank you.”

“Gin.” He was laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking. “You know, one day, that joke won’t be funny anymore.”

“And yet, you’re still laughing.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Percy?”

“Right, so after I mentioned that I’d recently had a career change, he told me all about his friend, who apparently took a job right out of Hogwarts in the Ministry in the Transportation Department. And his boss, the Deputy Head was, and I quote, ‘a real stickler,’ who was impossible to work for so much so that he changed jobs.”

He laughed in earnest. “And what did you say?”

“I told him I knew the type.”

Harry roared with laughter. “How did you keep a straight face?” he gasped.

“With great difficulty. So, then the barmaid showed up, and he offered to buy me a drink. I tried to politely decline, but he insisted, and the barmaid was getting annoyed, so I just went with it. I started to let him down gently after that, but then you showed up with James before I could tell him.”

“Poor Craig,” he said, shaking his head, still chuckling.

“He was very sweet.”

“I’m glad you bought him a round, the kid deserved it after that.”

“Oh, you’re team Craig, are you?”

He laughed. “Yes. I hope he finds a girl his own age though, instead of chatting up my wife.”

She took his hand and then paused for a moment, playing with their intertwined fingers. She looked down at him through her lashes.

“You know,” she said, her tone softer and more thoughtful. “It was refreshing, honestly. I don’t think someone who didn’t already know who I was has approached me in years. And it was flattering. I mean, he thought I was his age.”

Harry swallowed. He hated that being with him made her life harder. He hated that she’d had to give up any semblance of ever having a private life or anonymity by marrying him. As if she knew what he was thinking (and she probably did, he thought), she reached down and gently stroked his cheek. He closed his eyes at her touch, and when he opened them again, he spoke.

“I’m not sure why you’re surprised a bloke would want to chat you up. You’re beautiful, Gin, in more ways than one.”

She leaned down and gave him a swift kiss, then sat back up, and smiled at him, still holding his hand.

“It made my day, really. To feel like I’ve got it back after being pregnant and having James.”

“You can’t get back something you never lost.”

She beamed at him and shook her head. “Harry Potter. That was a line.”

“Well, I’ve got to keep up with Craig.”

She laughed, then leaned down to kiss him again. He deepened the kiss, pulling her on top of him and running his hands through her long, silky hair.

After a moment, she pulled back and reached for the hem of her shirt. “You sure you aren’t too tired for this?” she teased.

“I may not be eighteen anymore like your new friend, but I’ll manage, trust me,” he said, looking up at her, his eyes dark.

“Well, I’m glad you aren’t eighteen anymore,” she said as she pulled her shirt over her head and he groaned appreciatively. “Because this will last a lot longer then.”

He laughed, and that was the last either of them thought of Craig that evening.

#hinny fanfic #hinny #harry is a good husband #team craig #hinny banter

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whenihaveyouromione · 3 years

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When I Have You - Chapter 22

Read on Fanfiction.net or ao3 if you’d prefer!

Follow this story’s Instagram account whenihaveyou.romione

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Chapter 22

“I can’t believe I lived eleven years of my life without magic.” Harry smirked as he stared out the window of Ron and Hermione’s flat, watching the stragglers of the day making their way back home from Diagon Alley.

Despite the music raging, the lights flashing, and the ridiculous raucous that was coming from above, the people on the street below seemed not to notice. In fact, they would hear no sound at all.

“I mean, how great is this? Throwing a party and you don’t even upset the neighbours?”

“Yeah, well, lucky for us,” Ron said, glancing around at the small room filled with more people than Ron had ever anticipated. Having a few close friends over had turned into half of their year turning up, word of mouth spreading rapidly. It had been unexpected, though a pleasant surprise. Some of these people Ron hadn’t seen in over a year, having not caught up with them at the memorial service a few months prior.

There was Seamus, Dean and Neville by the kitchen, Butterbeers in hand, laughing at something Seamus had just said.

Beside them was Lavender, apparently her first big outing since the war. She was looking around very nervously at everyone, always touching her face, which was horribly scarred. Lavender, Ron had heard, had refused to come unless Parvati did, and Parvati had told Padma about it, who had invited her Ravenclaw buddies.

Neville had been invited, who was somehow in contact with the Hufflepuffs, so they’d all shown up, too. Then there was George and Percy, who’d brought Audrey along (who seemed very much at home being surrounded by a bunch of wizards and not at all put out by it), and even a few faces Ron didn’t recognise.

“Remind me to put some damn good privacy charms around this place afterwards,” Ron said to Harry, watching a tall, slightly older man skulk around the edge of the partiers.

Harry snorted into his half-drunk Butterbeer. “You’ll need some Ministry-level ones after this.”

“Well, at least everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.” Ron scanned the crowd, unable to stop himself from smiling. It was good to see everyone again, even if most of them he’d spent seven years never speaking to. It reminded him of the old times.

“There you are!”

Ron spun to find Hermione striding towards him. She was very pink in the face, her hair — which she had attempted to slick back — had slipped in parts, the curls escaping the magic. But she was wearing a large smile as she flung her arms around Ron’s neck and drew him into a deep kiss.

Her breath smelled of Firewhisky, and Ron suspected she may have helped herself to a few too many glasses of the potent drink that was being passed around freely.

He chuckled against her mouth, to which she pulled away, frowning. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ron said, stifling a grin. He looked over her shoulder to where Harry had been standing with him by the window, but discovered that his friend had snuck away and was now talking to Dean, probably about Auror training.

He looked back at Hermione, whose cheeks had turned from pink to red. Her hair had slipped out even more, and Merlin, she was beautiful, even in a drunken state.

“You’re smiling,” Hermione said, her frown deepening. “Do I amuse you?”

“Yes, a little,” Ron said. “Found the Firewhisky, did you?”

“George was pouring everyone some glasses. I thought —”

Ron could no longer contain the laugh that had been desperate to escape ever since she’d kissed him in a manner that a sober Hermione never would have in the vicinity of so many people.

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“I’m not!”

“You are,” Ron said. “And it’s fantastic. Kiss me like that again. I liked it.” He set aside his own drink, wrapping her in his arms, but she pulled away, looking up at him with an offended look.

Ron grinned, and he guided her over to where Harry and Dean were talking.

“... Ron, Neville and I are doing a lot of work with Patronuses at the moment,” Harry was saying to Dean. “It’s the second year of training. So don’t worry too much. Neville didn’t master the talking Patronus until a few weeks back.”

The words seemed to ease Dean’s concern. He nodded, waving to Ron and Hermione as they joined him. A moment later, Ginny came over too, clutching a Butterbeer. Everyone was going to wake up with headaches in the morning, Ron thought.

“Excited about your NEWT results?” Dean asked, looking between Hermione and Ginny. “I hear they’ll be out soon…”

“Why do you think Hermione has had far too many Firewhiskies?” Ginny said, grinning.

“I’m not drunk!” Hermione said, though as she spoke, she somehow managed to stumble on her own feet and clutched Ron for support.

Ron, Harry and Ginny stifled laughs, while Dean looked at her, slightly taken aback.

“But now that you’ve reminded me… Dean, I think I might find George and see if he’s got anymore…” And she pushed her way through the crowd towards Ron’s brother.

Ron shook his head, watching her in amazement. He couldn’t contain the grin on his face, as thoughts wandered into his head — thoughts that he had so desperately tried to push aside for the year and a bit he’d been with her, but ones that had always lingered, threatening to burst through at any moment.

If he could love her like this, drunk and stumbling her way through a party, then he could love her always. Forever. No matter what.

I want to marry her.

He refrained from laughing when she crashed into Ernie MacMillan.

“Excuse me?”

Ron turned away from Hermione, and back to the others. They were all staring at him, eyes wide. “What?” he asked, looking between their bewildered expressions.

“What do you mean, what?” Harry said. “‘I want to marry her.’ Explain yourself.”

Ron opened his mouth, feeling heat creep up his neck and onto his ears. “I, er, I said that out loud, did I?”

“Yep,” Harry, Ginny and Dean all said together.

Ron flushed. “Well, I don’t mean now,” he said. “I just mean… one day.” He glanced over his shoulder again, where Hermione was talking to George and Lee, appearing much happier to be in their presence than she had ever been before.

“What a romantic,” Ginny said, her voice reeking of sarcasm. “She gets drunk for the first time in her life, and you decide you want to marry her.”

“Yeah, well, don’t go telling her that,” Ron said. “I don’t want her thinking…”

“No need, mate,” Harry said, who had had the clearest view of Hermione still across the room, apart from Ron. “Pretty sure she heard you.”

“It’s too noisy in here,” Ron said. “She can’t have.”

Harry shrugged, and Ron once again looked over at Hermione. She cast Ron a bright smile, which he returned. She couldn’t have heard him from all the way across there. He hoped not, at least. He didn’t want her thinking he was planning anything so soon into their relationship.

“Who do you think will be the next to get married?” Ginny asked.

“Ron and Hermione,” Harry said with a wry smile at Ron.

Ron went very red.

“Nah,” Ginny said. She scanned the room. “Percy and Audrey look fairly cosy over there, don’t they? And Audrey doesn’t look at all bothered by the whole magic business. In fact, I think they’re the perfect couple. She’s as pompous as he is.”

“What?” Ron said. “Audrey?” He followed his sister’s gaze. He’d met Audrey a few times now, and not at all gotten that impression.

“Well, yes. Have you heard her rambling on about how her ‘boyfriend leads a department’ or ‘her boyfriend did really well in his exams’. She’ll tell anyone who’ll listen. Doesn’t matter that she doesn’t understand half of what she’s talking about. The fact that he’s successful is what attracts her. He could have been You-Know-Who’s right hand man and she’d be proud of the fact that he got promoted so highly.”

Ron stared at Ginny for a moment, amazed that she seemed to find fault in all of her brothers’ girlfriends. “So, what’s wrong with Hermione then? Go on, tell me.”

“What are you talking about?” Ginny asked.

“Well, you take issue with Fleur, and now Audrey, so what’s wrong with Hermione?”

“Nothing,” Ginny said. “And I never said I didn’t like Audrey. Didn’t I just say they’re a perfect match? It’ll be a competition between you and Percy, though. Who will be the first to grow a pair and ask their respective girlfriends to marry them?”

Ron opened his mouth to argue, to ensure anyone who would listen that he was not planning to do that anytime soon, but Harry jumped in before he had the chance.

“And what about me?” Harry asked, looking at Ginny with a rather amused expression.

“Oh, I know you’ve got a pair,” Ginny said mildly. “And I know you’ll use them when the time comes.” She smiled to herself.

Ron balked at her, and Dean looked rather bemused at the casual exchange. Harry opened his mouth but didn’t respond, apparently not expecting that response.

“Well, if you must know,” Dean said, breaking the silence, “Seamus and Lavender are engaged.” He indicated behind him to where Lavender stood beside Seamus, still looking rather terrified. She spotted everyone looking at her and turned away.

“You know, I think that’s sweet,” Ginny said. “The fact that he’s stood by her after everything that happened. Good for them.”

Ron had to agree with Ginny, but more on the fact that Seamus had stayed with Lavender, even after her attack. She’d always been alright looking, but now, a lot of her prettiness was covered with scars. There was barely a patch on her face that didn’t have some kind of reminder of her injury.

Ron hated himself for thinking it, but if they’d still been together when she was attacked, he was fairly confident he would not have done the same. He drifted his eyes to Hermione, who was now speaking to Padma Patil. Although, if it had been Hermione who had been attacked… well, his feelings for her and his feelings for Lavender had always been very, very different. If it had been Hermione, he didn’t think one thousand scars across her face could have changed the fact that he’d fallen helplessly in love with her.

He supposed that was how Seamus felt, too.

Ron left the small group, having just spotted Hermione heading toward the bathroom. She appeared rather unsteady.

“You alright?” he asked, catching her arm. She was very flushed in the cheeks now.

“Yep,” Hermione said, beaming. “Perfectly fine. Perfectly happy. Great party, isn’t it?”

And it was then Ron decided that even if she had heard what he’d said, she wasn’t going to remember it anyway.

“It’s not bad,” Ron said, catching her as she swayed against him, “but maybe you should sit down. And no more Firewhisky for you, either. Since when do you like that stuff?” He guided her to the sofa, as two people Ron didn’t know the names of hopped up before Hermione collapsed on top of them.

“I think I’ve failed all my NEWTs,” Hermione said vaguely. “I’ll be jobless, and… and NEWT-less —” she giggled in a very unHermione-like way. “NEWT-less…”

“Apparently that’s why you drink,” Ron said, sitting down beside her. He Summoned a glass of cool water and passed it to her. “I’ll remember that for the future,” he said as she took a deep drink from the glass.

When she’d finished it, she looked at Ron with a slightly more sober expression. She smiled. “You know what?”

“Yeah?” Ron said, his thoughts running away from him again as she stared at him with her astray hair and pink cheeks. I do want to marry her. One day. Merlin, I really do.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at Firewhisky again after tonight. My mouth is numb from it.”

Ron grinned, and then laughed. “Yeah, well, you did drink an awful lot of it. And for the record, you’re not going to fail your NEWTs. And also for the record, I will never let you forget this. You, drinking too much Firewhisky… I’ll remember this forever.”

Hermione scowled.

“I’ll make sure you never forget it either,” he added, drawing her towards him so that he could kiss her. He could taste the burn of the Firewhisky on her lips, and it had never tasted better.

…

Two days after the party, Ron woke to sunlight blaring through the drawn window. It was one thing he hated about this place — the sun rose far too early and glared right at him at some ungodly hour in which he was forced to get up.

It had been most unpleasant the day before, where he (and Hermione, which Ron was still laughing about) had been attempting to sleep off a horrible hangover. Hermione, more so than Ron.

She had felt dreadful when she’d woken, groaning as the humming of the crowd below grew noisier the later it got. Shops began opening around nine on Sundays, but that had been far too early for her. She hadn’t even been able to get out of bed until Ron had gone to the apothecary and bought her a Pepper-Up potion, which she’d downed in one hit.

Ron had spent the day laughing at her every time she complained, which had resulted in her not speaking to him for most of the evening and night.

“Morning,” Ron said as he yawned and rolled over to kiss Hermione, only to find her not there. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. It was a Monday, and he’d have to get to training in an hour or two, but she had nothing to do.

Curious as to what, apart from the glaring light, had dragged her out of bed so early, he stumbled from the room and into the tiny living space, finding her sitting at the little kitchen table.

“Morning,” he said, coming over to kiss the top of her bushy head. “What’s got you up so early?” But the answer was laying in front of him the moment he asked it. Sitting on the table in front of her, spread out, were five official envelopes, all addressed to Hermione, with the Ministry symbol in the corner.

Hermione was staring at them, white-faced, her hands clasped together in her lap.

“Oh,” Ron said, “Your NEWT results have come.”

Hermione didn’t even look at him, but gave a short nod, her face very pale.

“Hermione,” Ron said, “why haven’t you opened them? You’re not seriously worried that you’ve failed, are you?”

Hermione said nothing.

“If you’d failed, you wouldn’t have these.” He indicated the four thinner envelopes as he took the other seat at the table.

This time, Hermione looked up at him, looking terrified. “What are those other ones?” she whispered. “I was just expecting one, but then the owl also had these…”

Ron chuckled. “They’re job offers, Hermione,” he said.

“What?”

“Well, the Ministry is aware of everyone’s results before you receive them, you see. They go through them and highlight who might be suited for particular jobs. The jobs aren’t always at the Ministry, either. Then, they send you offers along with your results.” He studied the envelopes for a moment, before smiling at her. “Four’s impressive. Percy only got two.”

This didn’t seem to ease her nerves at all. If possible, she looked even paler.

“Oh, come on,” Ron said, picking up the most formal of the five envelopes.

“You do it!” Hermione said. “I don’t think I can bear it.”

Shrugging, Ron tore open the results to Hermione’s NEWTs, and for a moment, considered telling her she’d failed everything, but thought better of it when he saw how anxious she appeared.

“An Outstanding in every damned thing,” he said, laying the parchment in front of her. “I could have told you that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did.” He beamed. “You are honestly the smartest person I know.”

Relief flooded Hermione’s face as she read through her results. Her face grew some colour back in it, and a smile played at the corner of her mouth.

“Now, let’s see who wants the most brilliant witch to ever grace this world to work for them.” Ron opened the first envelope and read it. He snorted.

“What?” Hermione asked, snatching the letter from him.

“You’re not going to waste your talents working at the Menagerie,” Ron told her. “That’s actually insulting to send you that. I hope they’re not all like that.”

The next three were all Ministry offers — one in Magical Law, one in the Magical Creatures department and the third in the Magical Transportation department.

“Honestly, you’d be great in all of them,” Ron said, “but I’d say no to the transportation one. Percy would be your boss.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Hermione reasoned. “He’s a lot better now, and seeing a familiar face…”

She looked at the other two letters, her eyes darting between them. “Oh, there’s so much to think about. I never saw myself in Law, and Magical Creatures would be of interest, but…”

“You don’t have to decide now,” Ron said, and he tapped the letters with his wand. They folded neatly into a pile.

“Where’d you learn that spell?” Hermione asked.

“Training,” Ron said. “Well, kind of. Was more of a tip from one of the Aurors. Said it saved some time with the paperwork.”

“You’ll have to teach me it,” Hermione said, smiling slightly.

“Coffee?” Ron asked, waving his wand again to set the kettle on the stove and then a third time to light the stove.

“There’s no water in there, Ron,” Hermione said with amusement.

“Oh, right.” He got up from his chair and filled the kettle with water.

“I wonder how Ginny and Luna went,” Hermione said as Ron returned to the table. “Maybe I should Floo them and see —”

“Later,” Ron said, grabbing her arm to keep her in her seat. “Let’s have breakfast together. What do you want? Toast? I can make some eggs if you want.”

“Toast is fine,” Hermione said. “And I can make it.” She got up and made her way over to the bench. She took out some bread.

“At the party the other night, Luna said she didn’t think she’d take any job that resulted in a desk,” Hermione said as she began to prepare the bread for toasting.

“Well, that’s Luna, isn’t it?” Ron said. “What do you think she’ll do? Go searching for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?”

“Well… yes,” Hermione said. “She mentioned something like that… honestly, that’s very —”

“Luna,” Ron said. “She’ll never change.” He grinned. “So, you remember that conversation, do you? I would have thought the whole night would have been a blank. It seemed to be yesterday.”

“Well, things are coming back to me,” Hermione said in a very matter-of-fact way. “In fact, I think I remember most of what was said to me, or… about me.”

Ron froze. She had her back to him, but her voice had changed as she said the last part. He’d been quite comfortable in thinking that she hadn’t heard a single word of his slip of the tongue that night. That, worst case scenario, she had been too far away. The last thing he wanted was to have to explain to her that he hadn’t meant right now. Just one day.

“Right…” he said slowly. “Well… everyone was really drunk, so whatever you heard, you probably shouldn’t take it seriously.”

“So, you don’t want to marry me, then?” Hermione turned around to face him, and to Ron’s surprise, she was smiling.

“Of course I do!” Ron replied, and he could have kicked himself with how quickly he’d said it. His stupid brain couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to hesitate on the matter. “But not right now!” he added hastily. Now that just sounded insulting. He grimaced.

Hermione didn’t say anything, but continued to watch him with a smile on her face.

Ron sighed, realising he had no choice but to address it now. “Listen, Hermione… I didn’t even realise I said it. It was a thought that popped into my head in the moment, and I accidentally spoke it out loud. I daresay the drinks loosened my tongue a little. I was hoping you hadn’t heard.”

“It was a nice thing to hear,” Hermione said. “I liked hearing it.”

Ron stared at her, rather taken aback by how easily she was taking this. He’d expected her to start listing all the reasons why they shouldn’t rush into it, why they should wait. Her cheerful silence caught him off guard.

“You really want to get married to me?” Hermione said after a moment.

“Yes,” Ron replied. “I do. Of course I do. If I get married, I want it to be to you. I love you. But… er… you don’t mean now, do you? Because I’d like to be able to do it properly. You know, ask you... with a ring and everything, and I simply cannot afford to get you a nice one right now…” He flushed. Why did his mouth have to speak?

Hermione looked as if she was trying to fight back a laugh. “I don’t mean now,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. But it’s nice to know you’re thinking about it. I’d like to marry you, too. One day.”

“Oh… well, that’s good to know,” Ron said, not quite believing what he was hearing. Were they really talking about getting married?

“What else do you see in the future?” Hermione asked, retaking her seat and staring at him intently.

“What do you mean?” Ron asked. “Like, with us? Our future… together? Well…” He thought about it for but a second, and suddenly an extremely clear picture flashed into his mind. It was as if it had always been there, but suppressed, not daring to be thought until the timing was right. And now, apparently, was the right time. “I can see us in a house that we own together. Not this tiny flat forever. I see us getting married. I see us… maybe we’ll have kids, too. One day. Two or three, or however many you want. Just not seven. I see us being pretty happy together, if you'll tolerate me for that long, and… well, I guess…"

"What?" Hermione asked, sounding as if he'd paused in the middle of an immensely captivating story.

"Er…" Ron looked away, unsure on whether he should continue or not. Just how far did she want him to go?

"I'm not going to freak out," Hermione said, as if reading his mind. "I promise."

Still not entirely convinced, Ron averted his eyes to the toast, which had begun smoking because Hermione had been distracted. Smiling slightly, he said, "Well, I guess I'll be taking care of the cooking if you can't even handle toast."

Hermione looked to where he was staring and jumped to her feet, swearing as she ran to get the now burnt toast. Muttering to herself, she tossed the toast in the bin and turned back to look at Ron, her eyes questioning.

"You really see us having children… and… and all that?"

Ron shrugged. "One day, I guess. If you want."

"I do want that," Hermione said quickly. "One day." She smiled.

"A long way away," Ron emphasised, for he could not picture himself with a child right now, or in the near future.

Hermione's smile widened, and she nodded. "Yes," she agreed, "many, many years away."

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mka1098 · 3 years

Text

I Ask For Your Hand In Marriage

Part 4 - I'm really tired guys I'm sorry

“You’re really annoying.” That was the first thing Percy heard when he woke up. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes; Annabeth had collapsed at the foot of his bed.

“Wow. You’re loving.” he said sarcastically. She groaned into his bedsheets. “No really. You suck.” Annabeth continued. Percy made an offended noise and reached for one of the pillows next to him to throw at her.

“I had to plan your meeting with the next princess and it was so freaking hard.” Annabeth said, swatting the pillow away. She sat up and sighed, looking back at him with an annoyed look. “Why didn’t you just pick Hazel. She was sweet and our kingdoms would have been so powerful together; you know that your dad was hoping for you to marry her right?” She said.

Percy frowned. “She was nice, I’ll say that’s for sure but it just wasn’t right.” He told her. Annabeth huffed.

“I guess that makes sense.” She said begrudgingly. “Plus-” Percy said with a grin. “-she likes one of the animal caretakers in her kingdom. I told her to go for it.” He added. Annabeth's expression softened.

“Did she?” She asked. “I hope.” Percy replied. A small soft and sweet smile made its way onto Annabeth's face. “That’s very sweet of you. Real love should never be thrown out for sake of power or kingdom politics.” She admitted.

Percy nodded but his mind began to wander. Hazel seemed so genuinely sure that he and Annabeth were something. They weren’t, that was for sure but would he rebel against the good of the kingdom just to marry her? Sure, Hazel wasn’t the first born royal so she didn’t have to worry about that part but say Percy did. Though his parents hadn’t ever explicitly told him, Percy knew that he had to produce the next heir to rule. If, if, he and Annabeth were to be something and his parents wanted him to marry a royal princess, would he rebel or would he listen? After all, he had a duty to the people and was the only son.

“If by the end of this you don’t find a wife, I’m going to end you myself.” Annabeth said, snapping Percy out of his thoughts.

“Huh? What?” He said with a playful smirk.

She rolled her eyes and shoved Percy over. “It’s so much work! And the ball, jesus christ I’m going to be buried in work by the time the ball planning comes. Pick a nice one.” She said, looking at him with an intense glare. “I’m not dealing with a bridezilla when the wedding comes around.” That made Percy sputter and his eyes go wide. Sure, wife meant marriage but he didn’t realize everyone was thinking so far ahead and to the wedding itself just yet!

“Wedding?” He cried out. Annabeth raised a brow at him as if to say, are you stupid?

“Yes. Wedding. What you do to legally have a wife.” She said, mocking him playfully. Percy rolled his eyes.

“Wow, thanks for telling me what a wedding is; I didn’t know what it was before.”

“Of course, how could we expect something else?”

Percy frowned at her deeply as she snickered to herself. “I’m tired; you’re annoying. I wanna sleep.” He said, leaning back into his pillows and covers. Annabeth scoffed and threw the pillow back at his face.

“Well me too but I have work to do.” She said.

Percy lifted his hand lazily. “Skip it all.” He told her. Annabeth gave a sharp laugh.

“No, because you are my work. And you’re putting more work on me because you’re an idiot who can’t choose a freaking queen.” She said.

Percy frowned at her. “I can choose a queen.” He defended himself. Annabeth rolled her eyes playfully.

“Tell that to my emails and schedules. DO you know how condescending all of the other royal advisors are? I mean, I know I’m young; you all can stop reminding me.” She complained.

Percy scowled, mentally noting to be extremely passive aggressive with the advisors in the future. “I can though.” Percy continued. “You can do all the queen stuff till I get a girlfriend. You already know what to do; it’s basically what you do now.” Percy said. Annabeth smacked him in the head.

“No. I already told you why we can do that.” She said strictly, still Percy pouted at her. “I think it’s a great idea!” He said.

She looked at him blankly. “Your subjects will beg to differ.” She said drily

With a roll of his eyes, Percy grabbed her arm and pulled her now next to him, only he was under the covers with a ratty old tee shirt and fleece PJ pants while Annabeth wore an olive green jumpsuit. “Nap time.” He announced like a child. She rolled her eyes but snuggled into the cover’s surface.

“But really, you need to think about your future queen or else all my hard work is for nothing.”

“Nap time!”

“Percy…”

“Nap.”

Annabeth looked at him with scolding eyes. Percy pouted. “Oh come on, you know the only person I’ve ever even thought about doing the queen and other stuff while I rule is you. Give me a break!” He cried out.

Annabeth scoffed and sat up, much to his dismay. “You’re not even listening to me.” She said, and tugged on his hair; Percy yelped and batted her hands away.

“Yes, I am!” Percy pouted. Annabeth shook her head. “No you aren’t.” SHe let out a long-suffering sigh.

“I am not allowed to be your queen even take over some of her roles. You have got to get that out of your kelp-filled head.” She tugged on Percy’s hair, shaking her own head of golden locks as Percy shireked.

In total honesty, her words made him feel, deflate, in fact. He didn’t really know why though, it wasn't he didn’t know that. Annabeth had practically beaten it over his head that she couldn’t help him with those duties; it didn’t stop him from relying on her for them and mildly preferring it. Really though, she was his best friend, it would make sense for them to work on ruling an entire kingdom together.

“You’re not listening to me again.” Annabeth’s laughing voice cut through his thoughts. She smiled at him softly.

“As much as I appreciate you thinking I can do all that stuff and as much as I know I’ll do well ruling. I can’t.” Percy nodded. He knew that.

“You need to get up though, for real. And changed.” Annabeth announced, getting off the bed and standing next to the foot of it, much to Percy’s displeasure. He tried reaching for her arms to pull her back into the comforter again but she stepped back and out of his arm’s span.

“Come back!” He whined. Annabeth reached forward with an arm, grabbed his outstretched one and pulled him to the ground in one smooth quick motion.

Percy cried out as he hit the ground, hard and fast. “Get ready for the day.” Annabeth snorted, turning around and walking away. Percy smiled from the ground, spotting her silently shaking shoulders and knew that she was trying hard not to burst out laughing. He apperaticed that she always pushed him to do things, even when he didn’t want to but did it out of love.

Perhaps that one of the reasons Hazel wasn’t right for him or as a queen of his kingdom. Percy liked to have fun, Annabeth could attest for that. He perhaps needed something that wasn’t so nice and would push him to do his best. After all, that was what Annabeth did. He needed a person like Annabeth as his queen. (In his personal opinion he needed Annabeth as queen or at least royal caretaker for the rest of his life). After all, she was one of the few people in his life that lamented that he wasn’t lazy, just unfocused.

“Get off the floor, seaweed brain.”

“Ooh harsh.”

“I mean it!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

#percabeth fanfiction #percabeth #annabeth chase x percy jackson #percy jackson fanfiction #percy jackson #fanfiction #annabeth chase

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gaeilgeoirgay · 3 years

Text

Whumptober Day Five- Betrayal

Ao3 Link

Percy sits slumped in his chair as his fellow counsellors discuss the revelation that they have a spy in their midst. He supposes they should’ve expected something like this to happen- after all dozens of demigods have defected physically to Luke’s side and it was really only a matter of time before someone agreed to spy for him- but he had never wanted to think the worst of the demigods who had remained in camp.

:readmore:

They had never thought to confirm the loyalties of those who stayed and it had cost them so much. Percy runs through dozens of missions in his head, including this one, where things went wrong and people got hurt and the Titans had information they shouldn’t have had. It could probably all be traced back to the spy and if they had just checked, so many lives could’ve been saved.

He thinks back to the Labyrinth and Luke’s obsession with finding Ariadne’s String. He had wondered at the time how Luke knew there was a Labyrinth entrance in Camp Halfblood and had dismissed it eventually, thinking that Luke had simply found the entrance while he was still at camp.

Now, Percy wonders if the spy had told Luke exactly where he should look for the entrance. Ariadne’s String allowed Luke to navigate the maze without going insane, but it didn’t tell him where the openings in it were.

Castor, Lee, all of the demigods and nature spirits who had died during the Battle of the Labyrinth. And now, Beckendorf, dead trying to give Percy an escape. It all lies on the spy’s shoulders and even though he’s seen enough violence to last a lifetime, Percy wishes he could see the spy hurt in the way they had hurt the rest of them.

One thing is nagging him though. Not everyone in camp knew about his and Beckendorf’s mission. They knew the two of them were going on one but the exact details were kept between the counsellors. The other campers didn’t even know that it was the Princess Andromeda they were targeting. That could only mean that either someone has a way of magically eavesdropping on them, like Annabeth’s Yankee cap, or that… that one of the counsellors is the spy.

Percy tunes back in to hear the other counsellors arguing about that exact scenario. He glances around to see where everyone stands on the topic and is pretty unsurprised to see Clarisse and Michael at each other’s throats. He catches Silena’s eye and notices it filling with tears. He winces and is about to yell at the others to stop when Silena does it herself.

“Charlie is dead and all you can do is argue about everything!” She shouts, banging the table so hard that the mug in front of her sloshes dangerously. They all subside, the argument fizzling out. Percy frowns at the table, now that he can hear himself think and contemplates the matter of their spy.

“Silena’s right, we shouldn’t argue, but we still need to deal with this. Mine and Beck’s mission was classified- the people in this room should’ve been the only ones to know so either one of us is the traitor or someone has a way of listening in on our meetings. Michael, your dad is the God of Truth, right? Did any of your siblings inherit that aspect? We could use that to question everyone or one of the Aphrodite cabin can use their charmspeak. That should probably be a last resort though..” Percy says, the first thing he’s offered to the meeting so far other than an explanation of how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.

He notices Silena’s face twist until it smooths back into grief. Huh. That’s strange. It must have been disgust for the spy or something. Silena has the most reason to hate them right now, after all.

The rest of the table looks mildly surprised and he raises an eyebrow. “I do have good ideas occasionally, there’s no reason to be shocked.” He says defensively and they shake themselves out of it.

“Right. Uh, Michael, let us know if any of your siblings can do that for us. We shouldn’t tell everyone that we’re looking for a spy though, otherwise they could run before we could catch them and figure out what they told Kronos. And yeah, charmspeak wouldn’t be great, they usually tell you what you want to hear right?” Malcom says, breaking the slightly awkward silence. Silena nods, still sniffling slightly.

Michael leans back in his chair, a look of consideration on his pointy face. “I think one can, actually. Grace, she’s fifteen. She can always tell when someone’s lying, and what they’re lying about. I think one of the Hermes boys can detect lies too, Connor, Travis?” He says and Travis frowns. “Yeah, Joseph. He can only recognise a lie though, not the contents. Like if he asked your favourite colours and you said red and purple but you actually hate purple, he wouldn’t know which part was the lie.” He explains.

“Alright, then. We’ll ask Grace and if we get a suspect, we can get Joseph to confirm or have a charmspeaker check them. I think we should start with ourselves, because if we can rule out the counsellors, it’ll be easier to organise the rest of camp. We can be the test run.” Annabeth says decisively and there’s a chorus of agreement.

Michael leaves to go get Grace and the counsellors sit in silence for a moment before Katie breaks it. “I can’t stand thinking that there’s a traitor in camp. It was so awful when Luke betrayed us and I wish we didn’t have to go through it again. At least when other demigods defected to Kronos’ side, we knew who they were. But this, not knowing who to trust, I hate it. It’s caused so many deaths.” She says sadly, shaking her head.

Silena gives a tiny sob and Percy’s heart twists. “Silena, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been able to get us both out and I didn’t.” He apologises, watching her mournfully. “Charlie wanted you to make it off that ship. We can’t win this war without you fulfilling the prophecy and he knew that. Even without the prophecy, he still would’ve wanted you to survive. You were his friend, Percy.” She says and Percy sighs.

“Still, I am sorry, Lena, and if there’s anything I can do for you….” He says, trailing off at the end. Silena stands up and comes around to his side of the table. He rises to meet her and she envelopes him in a hug.

“Oh, Percy, it’s not your fault. You don’t have to apologise. I do though.” She says and Percy frowns, taken aback. “Silena, why would you have to-“ He starts to say before he’s cut off by the feeling of a sharp blade stabbing him in the back.

Percy gasps, pain slamming into him like a hellhound, and Silena smiles at him. He hears shouts from around them but he can’t hear what they’re saying. Everything is blocked out by the pain but he dimly feels blood dripping from his mouth and he knows that’s not a good sign.

He tries to ask Silena why she did it but he can’t speak. She answers anyways, pulling a bracelet from her pocket. There’s a scythe on it and he can’t remember why that’s important. Oh. It’s Kronos’ symbol. Silena is the spy.

She’s still holding him and he attempts to pull away from her grip but his limbs won’t cooperate. Silena lowers him gently to the ground before she yanks her knife from his back. More blood pours from the wound and his vision wavers, pain screaming through him.

“This wasn’t the original plan, but then you got my Charlie killed. Luke promised he wouldn’t kill him but you were too important for Charlie to let you die and save himself. This is your fault, Jackson. Tell Charlie I said hello and that I’ll join him in Elysium soon.” Silena whispers in his ear as an enraged Clarisse hauls her to her feet.

Blonde hair fills his eyesight as Annabeth drops to her knees beside him. She pulls out a baggie of ambrosia and holds it to his bloodied lips. “Come on Seaweed Brain, you know I can’t let you die. Eat the ambrosia, please.” She commands and he wants to tell her he’ll be okay but he still can’t speak and it’s getting dark.

Percy feels himself drifting into unconsciousness, but he can’t, he can’t, Annabeth said he wasn’t allowed. He opens his mouth for the ambrosia but he doesn’t think it will be enough, it hurts so much. Annabeth is crying and he tries to tell her not to cry for him. It doesn’t work and he fades into blissful oblivion, the pain receding as his world goes black.

#whumptober2021 #no.5 #betrayal #percy jackson #stabbing #blood #silena beauregard #pjo #fanfiction

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riptideau · 3 years

Text

[AU Opener]

[Opener for Demigod AU (Percy Jackson style)!]

[Reblogs are welcome!]

“Come on, Martin! The aquarium closes at four!”

“I’m coming, let me find the passes!” Martin dug into the depths of his backpack as his ten year old brother grew more frantic. He glanced up to the clock on the wall- crap. It’s 2:37! This realization made him dig quicker, before suddenly flipping his bag upside down, shaking out all of his week’s homework onto the floor. Leaping from the edge of his bed, he knelt down and threw papers aside.. nada. “I thought they were right-...” He himself was beginning to grow upset, where the heck were the passes?!

He leapt to his feet, racing to their desk as Chris sat impatiently on the top bunk. He went through every drawer, bag, and cabinet in their room, even under the bed and between the mattresses.. all coming back empty handed. He let slip a heavy sigh, at this rate, the aquarium would be closed before he even found them...

His eyes slowly lifted to Chris, but as soon as he saw his little brother’s brown eyes beginning to tear up, the older brother became invigorated. They will find those passes. He forced a light smile, a determined one at that.

“Help me look through the house, they have to be here somewhere.”

Thankfully, that smile was at least a little calming, as Chris returned a worried smile to him before nodding and descending the ladder. They then searched the house, Chris taking up the kitchen while Martin carefully searched the living room. Once more, every drawer, under the couch, behind the tv even, and, as much as he hated to do it... even Mom’s purse. And for nothing, they weren’t in there either. He carefully put everything back where he found it. No dice... well. Yes dice, but wrong dice (He’d found some lost dice from an introductory game of DnD a friend had given to him and his brother. He made a note to ask Kyle if he wanted them back).

“I FOUND THEM!” Chris’s excited shout sounded from the kitchen before he darted out, laminated red cards in hand. Martin took them quickly, glancing over them to check that they were the right ones- “Yes!!” He couldn’t hold his excitement back anymore, he dared a glance at the clock- 2:44! They still had time! “Let’s go! Race ya to the door!” He pocketed the passes, before racing towards the door, Chris hot on his heels. Lucky for the little guy, Martin remembered to leave a note in case Mom got off work early to see them missing. Went to the aquarium!

And then they were off, grabbing their bikes and racing, as siblings do, down the road on that misty day. They tore through puddles, and while Chris’s clumsiness got his pants soaked to the knees, Martin knew how to slide right through the puddles, barely a speck on him. He’d always had this close connection with water, as much as Chris mildly envied his older brother’s skill in maneuvering mud holes, he couldn’t help but silently admit he was impressed that even with puddles as wide as a car, Martin still glided through them.

In fact, he had slipped into ‘the zone’. Glancing back after periods of time to be sure his brother was keeping up, Martin was more engrossed in thoughts of what creatures may be out in the aquarium! Belugas, blue tangs, clown fish, maybe even a shark! He hadn’t realized he’d been pedaling faster- and only stopped to a coast when Chris really began struggling to keep up.

The closer they got to the aquarium, the more it felt to tug on him, even after they arrived and checked in, he found himself making a beeline towards the closest tank. The water seemed to feel as if pulling him in, though he fought against it and stood straight, oh how he wished he could swim with the creatures. Just by merely watching them, their behaviors, how they interacted with others, he pieced together conversations in his head, relationships and alike. He could almost hear them.

“Let’s go look at the sharks!” Chris nudged his older brother, abruptly snapping him from his awe before running off in the direction of the shark tank observation room.

“Chris, wait!” Martin spun on a heel and chased after him, nearly tripping over fallen weighted posts with rope stretched between, not realizing they were supposed to be standing.

As soon as he stepped into the room, he felt a sense of unease. Something wasn’t quite right... a trepidation nearly smacked him right in the face as his brother stood a little too close to the glass...

His stomach twisted when he saw the cracks in it.

“Chris...”

His brother looked up just in time for a great white to race by the glass, startling the both of them as it curved to make another circle of the tank, a tiny splintering sound coming from the glass. The shark paused on the opposite side of the tank, eyeing that splintering glass as it ever so slowly began to leak.

Chris backed up next to Martin, whom was watching that shark like a hawk... it was hungry.. and tired of the shredded up garbage- he wouldn’t repeat what the shark seemed to be thinking by mouth, especially not in front of Chris.

“We should tell the staf-”

As if on queue, the great white raced full speed ahead towards them, glass finally shattering under the pressure of massive water displacement by an angry white. Martin pulled his brother close, and as much as he willed his legs to run, he was frozen, a fearful hand held out towards the incoming surge of water, glass, and whatever that great white shark had in mind for them...

But none of it ever came? They had braced themselves for a flood and blood, but yet they remained dry... with the great white swaying in the edge of that water wall that had formed a mere two feet from his hand. Chris dared a look from his brother’s chest first, staring to the shark for a second before seeming to look above him.

“W.. what’s that..?”

Martin’s eyes shot up, a glowing blue sphere was hovering over his head, with a dark blue fork-like symbol in the center... a trident? He stared up at this sphere for a moment before it suddenly faded, with just enough time for him to pull Chris- and himself- out of the way of the shark tail fin that had whipped around to smack them.

The shark spun around to make another attack, but slowed to a stop once more, looking past the brothers.

“Akheilos.”

The brothers whipped around in terror, dreading the lecture they were about to get- would they loose their aquarium pass for this?!

A short haired woman stood there, in about as casual clothing as they wore, with boot cut jeans, long sleeve shirt and turquoise tipped hair. She.. didn’t seem angry? She instead slowly began clapping with a sincere smile on her face.

“Bravo, Son of Poseidon. Fourteen years old and already facing off with the great Akheilos?” She laughed respectfully.

“Anyways, we should be going. The shatter caused quite a ruckus, people will be here any minute.”

“W-we can’t just leave them like this!” Chris spoke up, which was unusual, as Martin slowly nodded. That wall of water never dropped, stood firm. It knew its boundary and it would not pass it. The woman frowned for a moment, as if thinking, then nodded. “Fair enough. If you can hold the wall for a little bit longer, I’ll go drain the tank a little. Below the glass, at least.”

Martin slowly nodded, before realizing he hadn’t been paying attention to the water wall. The shark simply stared him down, now hesitant to attack now that the woman was there... was she his trainer?

Stay... He found himself thinking, willing the wall to remain still and standing, though the more he thought, the more it swayed, sunk, or lurched. He quickly learned the trick was to not stress about making it stand, but to simply- go with the flow? He slowly relaxed his mental pressure on the wall, smaller sharks seeming tempted to explore, he kept seeing flicks of tails beyond the lower ledge of the window, but they were intimidated by the great white.. Akheilos?

You are out of your league, Son of Poseidon. You are in my domain. Martin tensed as the deep voice whispered, glancing to Chris, whom stared straight at the beast with no reaction, then back. You are lucky, that is all. I do not feel like fighting a God again.

Akheilos... Martin dug in his memory for the name, it did sound familiar.

The water suddenly began to recoil into the tank, pulling the shark backwards with it.

We will meet again. It will not be pretty, Son of Poseidon.

“Aaaaand, now.” the woman was back, just as the shark’s head sunk below the ledge of the tank. The two brothers turned to her in a shocked silence.

She smiled. “My name is Tortigua. I am a satyr from Camp Half Blood and- ... I have a lot to fill you in on, don’t I?”

#au opener #wild kratts demigod au #wild kratts #pjo based and inspired #blue writes 🐉#chapter 1

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lottiebagley · 3 years

Text

You belong with me- Oliver Wood

You're on the phone with your girlfriend She's upset, she's going off about something that you said 'Cause she doesn't get your humour like I do.

"She's infuriating," Oliver complains, throwing the quaffle just a little too hard at his best friend. She was a chaser and the pair often did drills even when practice was long over, it helped Oli calm down and being utterly enamoured with the boy she happily stayed behind, wanting to be around him.

"She's your girlfriend Oli," She reminds, tossing the quaffle back and smirking when in his distracted state he almost doesn't catch it

"I know that, and I really do like her. It's just hard, we don't have much in common," He admits with a sigh.

"But she's beautiful and..." she trails off, no matter how supportive she tries to be she doesn't really have any more positives to say about his girlfriend Harriet. Harriet was truly beautiful, the year above and a Ravenclaw. She had longs legs and perfect skin and golden curls.

Other than that she was kind of a bitch.

She knew she was beautiful and it was the only personality she really had. She was rude and harsh, often make snide remarks and overall a typical bitchy mean girl. If she didn't like someone she wasn't secret about it and as her boyfriends best friend who just so happened to be a girl, the Gryffindor was becoming the victim of most of this.

Oliver, of course, would never have stood for this, he simply didn't know. It was little comments that went over his head and remarks when he wasn't around, it was looks he was too busy to notice and it was slowly but surely pushing her further and further away.

"She just doesn't ever take anything as a joke,"

"She's just got a different sense of humour than you Oli, don't worry, with time you will grow and adapt to each others humour," she tries her hardest to smile and Oliver seems not to notice how upset she is. He nods sending her a smile that melts her heart feel like it's squeezing in her chest.

"You're right, you always are. I'm going to go find her and see if she wants to study. D'ya wanna come?"

"No. Thanks. I should go and find George, I promised I'd help him with some potions homework," she excuses herself far too quickly, turning on her heel and heading up towards the castle without him despite the fact they're both going. Leaving Oliver wondering why he feels so jealous that she is spending her evening with their teammate that she was undeniably close with.

I'm in the room, it's a typical Tuesday night. I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like. And she'll never know your story like I do.

"You okay?" it's George's voice that seems to almost wake her up as she sits, pushing cereal around a bowl with her spoon.

"Do you think he notices?" she questions, George lets out a sigh, looking down the table at where Oliver is eating breakfast and chatting with Harriet, his eyes trained on her smile.

"He's stupid,"

"Y'know we haven't had breakfast together in three weeks. Lunch and dinner never mattered, we always ate with our group of friends. But breakfast, every morning since first year we got breakfast together and no one else comes, it's just us," She speaks in a tone that makes it clear to the ginger boy in front of her, the only one who knows of her feelings for her best friend, that her heart is slowly breaking.

"I'm sure he notices," George sighs, giving her shoulder a rub

"I don't know if that's better or worse," The girl admits, watching subtly as Oliver presses a kiss to his girlfriend's lips. "I'm going to class, I'll see you around George," she announces, standing from her seat and leaving towards her first class of the day even though it doesn't start for another 45 minutes. A feeling like she could be sick just sat the thought of him and her.

She doesn't know that Oliver immediately notices her leaving, to him it feels like the whole room feels a little colder, a little darker, like the sun itself just disappeared. He was almost used to the feeling, it meant she had gone. He looks up, noticing the bowl of cereal he had watched her pour 5 minutes before was untouched, grabbing an apple and throwing it into his bag to give her second period when he knew she'd be starving. His concern for only getting worse when she never shows to the lesson.

But she wears short skirts I wear T-shirts She's cheer captain And I'm on the bleachers Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.

Oliver wasn't expecting her to show to practice that night, she hadn't eaten breakfast, she hadn't shown to any classes that he shared with her and she wasn't at lunch. He assumed she was ill, planning on checking on her after practise, he'd been busy with Harriet all day and hadn't had a chance to run to her dorm. So, he's mildly confused as she approaches the pitch, dressed in her quidditch robes and chatting happily to Angelina who was walking by her side.

"Hey love," he greets with a smile

"That is most definitely not me," Angelina smirks, slipping away to give the pair a moment of peace and privacy.

"Where were you all day?" he questions

"I just wasn't feeling great," she shrugs, in reality she had been avoiding classes shared with Oliver, the thought of him and Harriet a little too much to bare. She'd only come to practise because she thought she might get a minute alone with her best friend, desperate for his company, feeling further from him than she ever had before.

A quick glance around told her she wouldn't get this. Harriet is sat with her friends, dressed in a skimpy top and short skirt and clearly trying not to freeze. A dark and dirty glare aimed at the girl talking to her boyfriend. Making the girl feel uncomfortable and want to leave and be with anyone other than Oliver, after all she would never hear the end of it if she was with him too long.

"So, are you feeling better?" he questions gently, reaching a hand out to see if she feels warm. He tries to ignore the pang of hurt in his chest when she ducks away from his touch, shooting him a tight lipped smile.

"I feel fine now, so no need to go easy on me or anything," she informs attempting to make a joke but he can tell something is wrong with her, he just has no idea that it is him. She's walking away in the direction of Harry who is calling her over before he can question her any further.

The hour long practice feels off to Oliver. She plays well but she hardly looks at him. Only speaks to him when spoken to and only about quidditch. That would be fine if it was how she was with everyone, perhaps having a bad day or just tired but with every other player on the team she's her normal charming self.

His plan to catch her after practice is shoved aside when Harriet comes over and by the time Oliver can ask her to give him a minute before they go to his captain's office, his best friend is walking with the twins back up to the castle. With a sigh, Oliver decides to drop the whole thing, maybe tomorrow would be back to normal.

If you could see That I'm the one Who understands you. Been here all along. So, why can't you see You belong with me, You belong with me.

It kind of does fall back to normal. He watches her eat breakfast with their friend group and she's smiling and laughing, enjoying her waffles. He enters the Charms class room to see her talking happily with the Hufflepuff girl who sits behind them. Maybe it really was just an off day.

The slither of hope drops when her entire vibe changes as he drops into the seat next to her. There's no friendly hug good morning. There's no questions about how he slept and his day so far. A simple 'Hi Oli' before she's suddenly more interested in a Charms textbook than he's ever seen her before. Throughout the day and their shared classes he slowly manages to get through to her. From no chitchat to talks of quidditch to more personal chatter to their normal selves. Joking and laughing and utterly invested in the other.

She almost feels like this whole weird phase is over and everything is going to go back to normal, but when normally they would go and hang out with their friends in the common room after dinner he is heading to take Harriet to the astronomy tower and she's once again reminded that her best friend is slowly slipping away from her. That one normal day isn't going to replace the 4 months he's been drifting further and further away.

Oliver feels like his chest is on fire when he returns to the common room. She is no longer surrounded by their friend group. Instead she is sat with George, her head on his shoulder as he reads quietly to her by the fireplace. It wasn't long ago that it would be Oliver she would fall asleep in's arms and force to read to her, she would claim that she just loved his accent to guilt trip him into doing it and he would do it every time just to see her bright grin.

He tries to convince himself that the raging jealousy in his chest isn't that George and her may like each other. No. The jealousy he feels is because his best friend is doing best friend things, their things specifically, with someone other than him. He had Harriet. He was happy with Harriet. It just didn't help that the person she always seemed to be around now was tall and funny and good at quidditch and kind. It didn't help that they shared so many qualities because it made him feel like she could find a new Oliver and he knew he could never find someone who even compared to her. That is why he is jealous, he forces himself to say it in his head a few times to convince himself.

In reality nothing was going on between George and the girl. They had always been close friends, Oliver just never noticed how much time they spent together cause he was usually there too.

Walk in the streets with you in your worn-out jeans I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be. Laughing on a park bench thinking to myself, "Hey, isn't this easy?"

When word reached Oliver, through Percy Weasley of all people, which only rubbed salt in the wound, that she had gone on a date with Christian Ward, a boy from the year above, he couldn't help the spark of jealousy. He wondered why she hadn't even bothered to tell him, until he realised that they barely even saw each other anymore aside from in class.

So, when he saw her sat alone in the courtyard, nose in a book and enjoying the quiet he couldn't help himself from going over. He was only there because he was supposed to be meeting Harriet there but she was nowhere to be seen so he figured he had a minute.

"Hey angel," He doesn't quite understand why it hurts so much that she doesn't look up. Before now, if he called a pet name across a busy hall she would always look up, knowing it was meant for her, he supposed it was because recently they hadn't been and it hurt to know that the habit had been dropped from her life so quickly. Yes. That's what hurt. Not that he knew it was his fault. Not the thought of the first few times she would have turned around with that beautiful smile ready to greet him only to see his arms wrapped around someone else.

"Hey, I'm talking to you," he speaks gently, nudging her knee with his as he sits down next to her. He wonders why she springs away from his touch, not knowing about the threats and comments his own girlfriend had made towards her.

"Hi Oli," her smile doesn't reach her eyes

"What are you reading?"

"Little women," she shrugs with a small smile

"I've seen you read that book a thousand times and I have been forced to read it to you at least twenty," he teases

"It's a classic!" she defends. He knew the real reason it was a favourite of hers was that her and her sister used to read it together when they were kids. "Besides, you're attempt at doing voices was pretty incredible," she smirks, he laughs at the memory, speaking in a high pitched girly voice. He'd been trying to cheer her up after a hard day and he'd never heard her laugh as hard.

"I can't help being so masculine," he defends through a chuckle, thinking when she giggles that he couldn't remember the last time he was the reason behind her laughter. "So, heard you went out with Christian?" he question casually

"How'd you hear about that?" she asks, tilting her head to the side in curiosity making Oliver's heart melt.

"Percy," he shrugs. He doesn't say that Percy had told him when he was purposely pissing the prefect off, more as a way to get him to shut up than as friendly gossip. He also didn't feel like sharing that it had immediately worked.

"I forgot they do prefect rounds together," she comments

"How was it?" he questions

"Awful," she admits, he gives her a look of pity as she continues "He was just so stiff and the whole thing was awkward and it just felt so hard to talk to him," she admits. She doesn't add that it was the opposite of when she spent time with Oliver and everything felt so natural.

"When it's the right lad it'll be good and you will feel so at ease from that first moment that you will just know," Oliver comforts

"Is that what it's like with Harriet?" she questions. He feels uncomfortable. When he had offered that advice his mind hadn't been on Harriet, it had been on her, on how natural it was with her. It shouldn't have been, they were best friend but they were nothing more and he needed to remember that.

"It could be, in the future," he settles for his response even though it's a lie. "Listen, angel, I know that recently I-" he's cut off by a sickly sweet voice.

"Baby, are you ready?" Harriet is calling from across the courtyard. He sighs, wanting to talk to his best friend and apologise for how shit of a best friend he had been recently.

"Go, it's fine. We can talk whenever," the girl assures. Oliver nods, giving her a smile and walking off to his girlfriend, stealing one last look at the girl on the bench, the setting sun creating a golden glow that made her seem so angelic he could have melted on the spot.

And you've got a smile That could light up this whole town. I haven't seen it in a while Since she brought you down. You say you're fine I know you better than that. Hey, what you doing with a girl like that?

"Is it just me or does Oli seem off recently?" she ponders the question to Ally and Josh, their friend groups only couple. Ally was her closest friend besides Oliver and had her suspicions the girl may be head over heels for the boy.

"How so?" Josh asks, looking up from the open potions text book in front of him

"Just quiet and I don't know how to explain it just not himself," she shrugs

"He's been normal with me," Josh shrugs, thinking for a second "A little quiet I guess but normal on a whole,"

"Right," she nods, so it really was just her.

"You are stupid Josh," Ally comments, laughing when he jokingly grabs his chest like she just stabbed him "He has been completely off, he barely cracks jokes anymore and he's stopped being stupidly cocky, he practices quidditch less and he is never smiling. Like ever,"

"Do you think it's about Harriet?" she asks the question timidly, what if everyone else thought they were a happy couple and it was just her undeniable jealousy.

"Nah, no one is depressed because they are dating a girl that fit. I mean have you se-" He cuts himself off when Ally shoot him a pointed look "Like me I would never be depressed over a girl because you, my love, are so incredibly beautiful," he clearly misread the look that screamed shut up, not realising Ally was trying to silence him because she could see her friend sinking slowly into herself.

"Maybe it's about how he is never with his best friend anymore," Ally smiles gently

"What do you mean?"

"Just that you guys have kind of drifted a little, that's probably what's getting him down," Ally explains.

It was true, they barely spoke anymore and although the girl cared so much for Oliver she was more than a little annoyed. What started with a small distance was becoming a great gaping hole and he barely bothered to notice it. He'd slowly began to drop her, sitting with different friends in classes, speeding away from practice rather than staying late with her, not showing up for their Tuesday evening study sessions, not talking to her between classes, their best friend breakfasts, as Oliver used to call them with a stupidly wide grin, were a thing of ancient history.

She was annoyed. Annoyed that there was no doubt in her mind Harriet told him to distance himself from her. Annoyed that having been best friends for 6 years he was so ready to just toss her aside.

"That was his choice," The girl snaps, letting out a sigh "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I've got to go, I have practice," she explains, standing up and grabbing her quidditch kit bag from the ground.

She wears high heels, I wear sneakers. She's cheer captain, And I'm on the bleachers. Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.

"Hey! Wait up!" Oli's voice is calling and she knows it's directed at her. Straight after practice he had retired into his captain office and so she had taken her time in the locker room, not in a rush to escape the area for once as Harriet was no where in sight so she finally took the time to tidy her locker up a little. The twins had offered to wait but she insisted she was fine. Leaving her the only person here, the only person he could be talking to.

"Hi," she speaks quietly, a layer of nerves that she had never felt around the boy in front of her. Every single bone in her body wanted to ask him to hold her. Life without him felt so much harder and she was tired. she needed him but she felt like she couldn't even ask anymore.

"You were great out there," he praises

"Oh, thanks. I've been a little off my game recently, sorry about that,"

"Hey, you have always played exceptionally well. I'd have said something if I thought you weren't"

"You don't really say anything to me anymore Oliver," he cringes a little, she hadn't called him Oliver ever. Not when he blew a potion up in her face and left her with a large burn there for a month. Not when he threw a quaffle too hard at her and knocked her unconscious. Not when they were so angry at each other they were both screaming. The distance between them had never been so clear.

"Look, I know that I have been a really, really, shit best friend. Recently, I haven't prioritised us and I should, I always should, because you are the person I trust the most on this planet and I know this isn't ever going to make up for the last 6 months. I know nothing I can say will make all of it go away but I miss you, I really miss you, and I hate not having you around and please, please just come back to me," He almost looks like he's going to cry and without a second thought she flings her arms around him, he lets out a sigh of relief, feeling every muscle in his body relax for the first time in months as he wraps his arms around her, holding her head to his chest and breathing in her scent.

After a minute or two she lets go, pulling away from him again.

"So, do you wanna do some extra practice?" he questions with a grin, she beams, ready to nod and finally spend some time with her best friend.

But then she notices it. The door swings open and he tenses up, a look of pure horror on his face, spinning around as quick as possible only relaxing when he sees Harry in the door way.

"Sorry to interrupt, I forgot my school bag," He informs, grabbing the bag from the bench and leaving again.

A tense silence fills the room. Oliver turns back round, maybe she didn't notice. Maybe she wouldn't be mad.

"You thought it was Harriet?"

"Angel-"

"No. No you thought it was Harriet and I saw the look in your eyes. You were terrified she would see you talking to me. It's the same look as when she walks into the great hall and you were with our friend group even if you've ignored me the whole time. It's the reason I can under perform at practice and you say nothing cause she's watching, and don't lie cause George and I threw a practice just to see what happened and you shouted at him but me, nothing,"

"Of course you were doing it with him," he regrets the comment the minute he says it when she scoffs.

"I would forgive you for a lot Oliver. I really would, but I refuse to be your dirty little secret," She turns on her heel and storms away, leaving the boy staring after her and wondering how he would ever repair this.

If you could see That I'm the one Who understands you, Been here all along. So, why can't you see You belong with me.

Oliver's hand hammers on her dorm door, he hadn't seen her over the weekend, he assumed she was avoiding him, but with the news he just heard nothing was stopping him from speaking to her.

"One minute!" she calls out. Oliver ignores the way his heart swells at the sound of her voice.

She pulls the door open, clearly fresh from a shower, her hair still damp and only clad in a large tshirt and some sports shorts.

"What do you want?" She demands, arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. He pushes past her into the dorm, closing the door behind him.

"You quit the quidditch team," He tries to remain calm, not wanting to scream at her

"I did," she nods

"You didn't just quit, you broke protocol and went straight to the head of house rather than speaking to your captain,"

"Yeah, well my captain looks like he's been hit by a truck whenever he's seen in my general vicinity in public," she retorts

"Why the fuck would you quit the team?" He's furious, more at the fact he was loosing her than actually at her

"Because I can't be around you!" she shouts, unable to keep her temper down

"What are you talking about?" he questions, his heart sinking in his chest

"It kills me! Being around you physically hurts. Just seeing you creates this pain in my chest like I can't breathe. Seeing you so fine without me kills me Oliver! You were supposed to be my best friend and now you don't even look at me. You left me. I can't breathe because I don't have you anymore and you just seem so fine and it hurts, it really hurts!" She has tears streaming down her face as she shouts but she doesn't seem to care, he'd seen her in a worse state.

"What makes you think I'm so fine?" he demands

"If you weren't fine. If you felt even half as shit as I do then you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't ignore me."

"I have a girlfriend and I am trying to make it work and she doesn't like the way we are together. I'm saving my relationship you would do the same!"

"No! When I date a boy if he questions us for a second, if he asks me to distance myself from you I drop him. I drop him because I don't ever drop you. I couldn't do to you what you have done to me," Oliver's heart hurts because he knows that she's right. What he has done is the complete wrong thing.

"Rejoin the quidditch team. You love playing quidditch. Please, please don't let me ruin that for you,"

"I love quidditch, it's fun and exciting and it makes me feel free. But I only ever joined the team because you asked me to try out with you. I love quidditch because it was time we spent together,"

"You are making a mistake,"

"I can't be there. I can't be around you anymore because it hurts me too much. So, captain, respectfully I quit the team, if you are wondering I think you should put Katie Bell on in my place, she's you best alternate by a mile and she works hard. Now, please leave me alone,"

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor. All this time how could you not know, baby? You belong with me, You belong with me.

"I hate Oliver Wood," Fred grumbles, dropping into the seat next to the girl in the common room. She's sat in her workout clothes, planning on going for a jog but had got distracted by her a conversation with Ally who returned to her essay at Fred's arrival.

"Why?" she questions, turning to the ginger boy who is covered in mud and slightly sweaty, clearly fresh from his quidditch practice.

"He's even worse now you're gone. He made us do fitness drills for 45 minutes, I'm sorry what sane person asks someone to do burpees and run laps for 45 minutes. And he's so aggressive, I mean shouts at everyone. All the time. Seriously, poor Harry's glasses fell off and you'd think the boy murdered Oliver's mother. He's in a foul mood," Fred complains.

She can't help but feel a little bad, she knew Oliver like the back of her hand. If he was upset rather than processing it he would simply try to ignore it. He would take his anger out on others.

"Chin up, he'll get better," she smiles, patting Fred's shoulder before leaving the common room.

She exits the castle into the warm evening, summer truly beginning. She starts jogging her usual route and if she had thought for even a second she wouldn't have. She would have turned left in the direction of the greenhouses and not right, in the direction of the quidditch pitch. She could have guessed he would be there, if he was as frustrated as Fred claimed it's the only place he would be.

She sees him and her heart breaks a little. He's alone. Beating a bludger around, something he doesn't need to practice, as he never needs to do it, but often does when he wants to relieve some anger.

He sees her, jogging the route they've ran together a hundred times. Her hair thrown back and her sports shorts poking out of the baggy t-shirt she is wearing. Distracted looking at her and not thinking about the bludger racing towards him.

"Oli, duck!" she shouts, he reacts quickly, plummeting to the ground at her demand, hearing the whizz of a bludger snipping past him, it would have hit him in the head if she hadn't warned him. He lets out a sigh, looking up to thank her to see she's turned around and is sprinting off towards the castle. He could cry, watching his best friend so desperate to escape his company.

Oh, I remember you driving to my house In the middle of the night. I'm the one who makes you laugh When you know you're 'bout to cry. I know your favourite songs, And you tell me about your dreams. Think I know where you belong, Think I know it's with me.

It's two weeks later when they next see each other. Oliver knocks on the door to the 6th year girls dorms, cringing a little when it's pulled open by Ally.

"What do you want?" Ally demands, closing the door behind her so the girl can't hear.

"Is she here?"

"No. Your precious girlfriend is in her own dorm,"

"You know that's not who I mean," Oliver sighs, it's only then that Ally notices his eyes look a little red and puffy.

"Fine, but if she tells you to leave you do so instantly," Ally sighs, feeling bad and knowing they both wanted each other back. Oliver nods and pushes through the door as Ally leaves.

"Who was it?" The girl questions, not turning around from her desk

"Uh, me," he's nervous. She turns around an angry look on her face but softens when she immediately notices that he is on the brink of tears.

"Oli, what happened?" she questions, standing from her desk and approaching him tentatively, leaving a respectful distance between them.

"Well," he sighs, "I had a fight with Harriet. She always said she didn't like us being friends and all and I should have stopped her right there, but, it's just that I really thought I liked her and I didn't want to ruin it and she never actually spoke badly of you. But then today she started talking about you and she was so rude and I just, I couldn't handle it, so I snapped and shouted at her and, well, I don't think I have a girlfriend anymore,"

She sighs, not really sure what to say. Yes, he had defended her but now he was crying over loosing Harriet.

"Look, Oli, don't get too upset. Go and apologise and she'll be stupid not to take you back,"

"I'm not upset, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in nearly 7 months,"

"Then why are you crying?" She asks, sitting down on her bed and patting the spot next to her. He sits immediately.

"Because I hate myself. I treated the most important person in my life like absolute shit and now I'm running back to you and it's not fair on you. I hate that I hurt you, god I'd kill someone for hurting you as badly as I did,"

"It's okay," she sighs, reaching out to grab his slightly trembling hand. He uses his other hand to roughly wipe his tears from his cheeks.

"No. No it's not. Shout at me or slap me or ignore me," he demands

"Honestly Oli, I just want my best friend back," she admits.

"I'm still you best friend?" he questions timidly

"You're stuck with me Wood," she grins

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he admits, opening his arms out and unable to stop himself from smiling when she climbs into them.

"If anyone asks-"

"You didn't cry," she finishes, he laughs at how well she knows him. "Wouldn't want anyone questioning how strong and manly you are," she teases

Can't you see That I'm the one Who understands you? Been here all along. So, why can't you see You belong with me.

They lay on her bed. Oliver on his side to face her and her head turned to look at him properly, catching up on everything they missed in each other's lives.

"So, what's going on with you and George?" Oliver questions

"What are you talking about?"

"You guys are dating now," he shrugs, trying not to seem jealous. She bursts out laughing, making Oliver look at her in confusion.

"Where in the world did you get that?"

"Fred told me after practice," he seems truly baffled, only getting more confused when she laughed more.

"We aren't dating. Fred was annoyed at all the fitness drills and was trying to piss you off as revenge,"

"So you guys aren't even like seeing each other?"

"Oli, he is two years younger than us, obviously I am not seeing George," she laughs a little and he realises the relief he feels is because he is utterly and completely in love with his best friend. The realisation hitting him like a truck.

"About practice, you going to come back because we need you at this game against Slytherin on Saturday or we will lose?"

"I'd be honoured," she grins.

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor. All this time how could you not know, baby? You belong with me, You belong with me. You belong with me.

Oliver has his arm wrapped around his best friend's shoulder, two weeks later when he sees Harriet for the first time since the break up. He immediately tenses when he hears her let out a snicker.

"It's embarrassing really that she took him back," Harriet speaks snidely to her friends.

"What did you just say?" Oliver demands, spinning around to face her.

"Leave it Oli," the girl attempts to pull her best friend away but he doesn't listen.

"She is pathetic. You were so whipped you dropped your own best friend and the minute we break up she just takes you back into her life like nothing happened,"

"Well, if she's pathetic what does that make you given that you were so jealous of her," Oliver snaps, his voice low.

"If you think for a second I was jealous of her than you're fucking stupid,"

"Harriet, the whole school knows you were,"

"Why would I ever be jealous of that?" she questions, her eyes looking the girl up and down

"Because she is 10 times the person you will ever be. Because she is kind and funny and smart and beautiful. Because you can't hold a fucking candle to her!" Oliver shouts, aware of the crowd watching them.

"She is pathetic and desperate,"

Oliver doesn't react in the way she expects. She expects him to shout an insult and storm away tugging her along with him.

Instead he pulls her flush against his chest and slams his lips to her. He kisses hard, pulling her impossibly close to him and putting every ounce of love he feels for her into it. She kisses back, melting at his touch and certain if it wasn't for his hands holding her up her legs would give way.

She pulls away breathless and vaguely hears the Weasley twins starting out some loud chants and cheers but her entire mind is focused on Oliver.

"An interesting way to get her to shut up,"

"Well, I've been meaning to kiss you for a while so I figured two birds one stone,"

"So it wasn't just to get her to shut up?" she questions, seemingly insecure and shy.

"No, it was more because I've been in love with you for years and I never realised" he grins

"What a happy coincidence that I'm in love with you too," she smiles

"How could you not be?" he teases, smirking when she wraps her arms round his neck and tugs him down so his lips are on hers once more.

Have you ever thought just maybe You belong with me? You belong with me.

Masterlist

#harry potter #oliver wood #oliver wood x reader #oliver wood x y/n #gryffidnor #quidditch #hogwarts

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winryofresembool · 3 years

Text

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 21

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Calypso and Annabeth have an important encounter

A/N: Sorry for the lateness! It’s time for some Annabeth action. Just a fair warning, since next Friday is the Christmas day and the Friday after that the New Year, I am not sure when I'm going to be able to post again. Be prepared for at least one week's break, possibly even two. But don't worry because more is definitely coming.

I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!!

Calypso is the bolded text and Hazel the regular in the texting part.

Words: 2300+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

…

Getting Leo to talk to her again was a huge weight off of Calypso’s shoulders, but there was still more to be done. Annabeth still kept to herself during the history lectures and Calypso didn’t want to force her to talk; she felt Annabeth should be the one to initiate it. From what Calypso had heard, Piper had tried to talk to her earlier, but so far Calypso hadn’t noticed any significant changes in Annabeth’s behavior. When she walked into the lecture hall that day, she noticed the blonde girl on the opposite side of the room, focused on her book. Letting a small sigh out of her mouth, she went to her usual seat pretty far from Annabeth.

Since the lecture wouldn’t start for a few more minutes, Calypso decided to use the time by checking her phone. When she opened her WhatsApp, she considered for a moment to whom she should text. Her first instinct told her she should contact Leo, but she imagined he was probably busy going to his own lecture at that moment, so she ended up scrolling through her other contacts instead. Noticing that Hazel seemed to be online, she started typing to her.

10:05: Hi, Hazel

10:05: Hi there! Was just thinking about you!

10:06: You were? How come?

10:06: Frank just texted me that on his morning jog near the campus today he had run into someone he had apparently recently met somewhere (he didn’t tell me where exactly).

10:07: and they had talked for a while.

10:07: At some point Frank mentioned the guy’s first name was Leo. I’m pretty sure it was /the/ Leo!!

10:08: How can you be so sure? I’m sure there are plenty of Leos around this campus. It’s not a rare name.

10:09: no but hear me out. The description matches with what you’ve told me. He said he’s a mechanic with a dog and when I asked Frank what he looked like, he said ‘dark hair, scrawny, eyes look like there’s some mischief going on in that head of his all the time but he’s not actually that bad when you talk to him’

10:09: I admit that does sound like the Leo I know

10:09: I told you! What a small world it is, apparently the boys we’re interested in know each other!

10:10: Still feels so weird when you put it that directly. You’re the only one who knows so far. So please, if you somehow happen to see him as well, don’t say anything.

10:10: Alright, I won’t. But what are /you/ waiting for? If he’s anything like the boys in our art class I’m sure he’s all over you by now.

10:10: Hazel!

10:11: Sorry, sorry. But you did talk to him after that… situation you had?

10:11: I did. We’re good now. Thanks for the advice the other day, by the way. It did help.

10:12: Ha, so you’re saying I gave you good advice. Could that mean that maybe you should also reread what I just said a moment ago?

10:12: Sorry, I gotta go. Something came up. TTYL!

10:13: Calypso!!

10:13: That’s so rude :P

Calypso hadn’t lied, though. She had noticed someone sneaking from the other side of the hall to the seat behind her, and that someone happened to be her friend to whom she hadn’t properly spoken for several weeks now. Trying to stay on her seat as neutrally as possible, still watching her now dark phone screen, she waited for Annabeth to start the conversation.

There was a tap on her shoulder. “Cal…” she finally heard Annabeth’s familiar voice say.

“Yeah?” Calypso asked tentatively, slowly turning on her seat to see the speaker.

“I think we should talk,” Annabeth stated, sounding more like her usual self.

“Um, sure,” Calypso answered but didn’t have time to say more when the professor stopped her, starting the lecture. “After this class, OK?”

“Right.” Annabeth nodded. Then she turned her focus to the professor, but Calypso noticed that not for long. She started doodling something into her notebook and was tapping on the floor with her foot, a habit that Calypso had noticed was very familiar to Leo, especially when he was nervous. Sometimes it was so easy to forget that Annabeth also had dyslexia and ADHD like him. The information seemed to come to her so naturally… but before the Percy incident, Annabeth had revealed that especially when she had been younger she usually had had to read the textbooks at least 5 times before she had finally absorbed what she had read. Later on, with the help of a teacher that actually understood her learning disability, she had learned some other methods that seemed to help her. One side of Calypso thought that it was relieving to see Annabeth show signs of weakness because usually she seemed so good at everything she did that it was mildly intimidating.

Soon Calypso realized that she herself had trouble focusing on what the professor was explaining while thinking about what she should tell Annabeth after the class. What could she say that she already hadn’t in the previous time? That she absolutely hated Annabeth’s boyfriend’s guts? That her flatmate made her feel weird things when they were in the same room so there was absolutely no need to be jealous?

Once the lecture was over, Calypso packed her things and gestured to Annabeth that they should have their conversation outside the lecture hall. They were walking silently until most of their fellow students had split into their own directions and found a quiet spot by the windows. There were some armchairs spread around the corridor to make it seem more comfortable and the girls sat down on two of them.

“I take it you may have changed your mind about me,” Calypso said directly once she had settled on her seat, feeling there was no need to tiptoe around the topic.

“I… yeah,” Annabeth started, and for a brief moment Calypso thought she showed a tiny bit of fragility. Suddenly she realized that maybe Annabeth wasn’t being her usual confident self, because she wasn’t that great at dealing with her feelings. Things like maths, chemistry and physics were simple to her because there were certain rules that needed to be applied. But the human mind was harder to read, Calypso knew that much. “Sometimes I think there are two different Annabeths: one that is very protective and jealous when it comes to the people she cares about, and then there’s the rational Annabeth who tries to yell to the other one that she is being ridiculous. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

Calypso shook her head. “No, I think I can understand why it bothered you. I hate keeping things from you, but I promised to myself… I mean, it is safer to not get you guys involved.”

“But… why? What could happen?” Annabeth asked, folding her arms.

“I’m not going to go to details but my father… I’m sure you have figured out by now that he is not a nice guy. When he doesn’t like someone, or someone tries to get into his way… Good things don’t usually follow that. And I mean it. There is a very good reason why I moved this far from my previous home. To be honest, I would have liked to go all the way to Greece but that just wasn’t possible.”

“So you’re saying that your father is what you’re afraid of? And he could get us - I mean your friends - into trouble if you shared too much information with us?” Annabeth collected the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Basically, yes. But please, don’t ask more. I may already have said too much,” Calypso said worriedly.

“Don’t worry. My lips are definitely sealed,” Annabeth reassured her.

“Thanks.” Calypso hesitated a bit. “Um, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” Annabeth nodded.

Calypso shifted a bit on her seat, trying to get more comfortable. “If I’m honest, I was not expecting you to forgive me that whole Percy thing that easily. What changed your mind?”

“Well, let me just tell you that you have some very good friends who managed to persuade me.” Annabeth gave her a playful smile.

“Huh? Who?” Calypso knew that Piper had talked to Annabeth but she didn’t know there were others as well.

“First of all, Percy convinced me that there was absolutely no reason to be jealous. I’m not going to tell you how he did it, but he can be pretty sweet when he wants to. Besides, between you and me: Seaweed Brain just can’t lie to me. I can read him like a book.” Annabeth’s smile only widened as she said that.

“OK.” Calypso didn’t think she wanted to hear more about that topic.

“But that wasn’t all. Piper also talked to me,” Annabeth added.

“What did she say?” Calypso asked curiously.

Annabeth’s eyes started sparkling mischievously. “A lot of things,” she started, “but she reminded me of some events that happened before Percy’s arrival that evening.”

“I don’t understand you now,” Calypso pretended to be stupid even though she was already guessing where Annabeth was going with her statement. “What events?”

“I don’t know…” Annabeth tapped her fingers against her forehead. “I think hugging, cupcake sharing and flirty bickering was involved. Keyword: think. I guess the people involved know more about that than I do.”

“That was… that was just us being friendly!” Calypso rushed to deny. “And what was so flirty about our bickering? We do that all the time and I’m not trying to…”

“Relax, Cal,” Annabeth stopped her. “It just kind of reminded me of me and Percy. But if you say so…”

Calypso groaned slightly. “Fine, you won. Again. Maybe… I may be starting to like him. But that doesn’t mean anything. He probably doesn’t like me back. And it wouldn’t work out for various reasons. I… When I moved here, I really thought I could just forget about everything that happened in my past and start to live my life. But it turns out that my past is still following me and stopping me from forming functional relationships. Besides… none of my former relationships worked. I may have been a kid back then but I made some bad decisions and it wrecked my self confidence. I don’t want to get hurt again and I also don’t want to hurt Leo. He has a very good heart, despite his weirdnesses…”

“Calypso, I know from my own experiences that ghosts of your past can be hard to fight. I have had plenty of family issues of my own in the past and they have probably influenced my later decisions, I admit that. But you seem to have taken an attitude that you have to deal with it alone. But you don’t. Let us help you. Maybe I can’t speak for all of us but I know I’m not afraid of your father. It is always possible to fight if you just come up with a good strategy.”

“This is probably a weird comment but that sounded like something I’d imagine the goddess Athena say. Are you sure you’re not her? Or related?” Calypso attempted to joke.

“Last time I checked, all of us were regular people,” Annabeth chuckled. “I admit I’m probably not quite as advanced in the greek mythology as you are although I have studied some of it, of course. But your question reminded me of this book series I read as a kid: Peter Johnson and the Olympians. The characters in it were children of Greek gods and I always wished that I’d be like one of the main characters who was a daughter of Athena.”

“Ooh, I read that series too!” Calypso said enthusiastically. “It was kind of cute although now that I know more about history and Greek mythology, not all the characters are quite like I picture them in my head. But I appreciate the effort to make the mythology more known to young readers.”

“Right! I agree.” Annabeth nodded before realizing they had gotten pretty far from the original topic. “Sorry, we got a bit sidetracked here. I seriously do hope that you’ll let us help if needed. I myself am gonna try to be more patient and let you do it on your own terms, though.”

“Thanks, Annabeth. Um, about that Leo part, though…” Calypso felt her cheeks heat again and she wanted to curse her silly mind for reacting like that every time she thought about her flatmate. “Would you please be kind and keep it between us? I just really am not ready to deal with that yet…”

“Fine. I’ll let it be. For now. But maybe think about it. Who knows, you could be surprised by what might happen…” Annabeth said mysteriously.

“What do you mean?” Calypso frowned.

“Like I said, there are people who are ready to help you carry your burden even though you’re too absorbed by your issues to notice that. That’s all.”

“O-kay,” Calypso said suspiciously, wondering what Annabeth’s statement implied.

“You should know that one of the people who talked with me was Leo. He said he had noticed that you were feeling pretty down since the… incident and that you seemed to blame yourself for everything. And that you also felt very bad about not being honest. That’s what really opened my eyes and made me decide that I need to get over my grudge that doesn’t even make sense. I got what I wanted, didn’t I? Logically thinking, you should be the one who’s mad at me.”

“That Leo…” Calypso was so focused on that part for a moment that it took her a while to register what else Annabeth had said. “Um, sorry. To be honest, I think the Calypso from a couple of years ago would have been mad. But my priorities have changed and I also realized that Percy is way happier with you.”

“I’m glad you’re not holding a grudge, though,” Annabeth said.

“Life’s too short for that,” Calypso shrugged.

“I guess so. So, we’re friends, right?”

“Right,” Calypso confirmed, giving Annabeth a genuine smile. Some hope had risen in her heart again and she made a mental note to thank a certain mechanic later at home.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au

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ploppythespaceship · 4 years

Text

So I watched the Artemis Fowl movie...

Usually I make a list of good things and bad things in my reviews, but in this I literally do not have one good thing to say. Artemis Fowl fails as an adaptation, and it fails as a movie. It’s almost incomprehensible how terrible this film is -- Percy Jackson looks competent by comparison. So instead of my list, I’m gonna just talk about why it sucked.

The Plot

The movie combines the plots of the first two books in the series, with a few elements from later books tossed in for good measure. In the first book, Artemis learns of the existence of fairies and takes one hostage -- Captain Holly Short -- in order to extort them. In the second book, Artemis’s father has been captured, prompting Artemis to team up with Holly to rescue him.

The problem with combining these two is that they are fundamentally different stories. The latter relies greatly on the former to be well set up. Additionally, both are rather busy stories that need time and focus to do them well. The tension of Artemis holding Holly captive works because it lasts for a significant portion of the book. The development of Artemis teaming up with Holly works because they have hated each other for over a book now. This does not happen in the film. Everything is rushed, leading to a jumbled mess that barely makes any sense.

Artemis’s father is captured by Opal Koboi (a villain from the later books who does little to nothing in this film), who demands that Artemis give her something called the Aculos (a mcguffin that the movie made up). Artemis then captures Holly, and demands the Aculos as ransom. But when the fairies have no interest in giving him this ransom, Artemis teams up with Holly. Because it turns out her father, Beechwood, stole the Aculos years ago, and Artemis’s father knew Beechwood. The fairies send in a dwarf named Mulch to break in, and he locates the Aculos in the Fowl Manor. Mulch then teams up with Artemis, and there’s a long sequence where everyone fights a troll. Once that’s done, Holly uses the Aculos to rescue Artemis’s father. The end.

If you’re thinking that this plot makes no sense, that’s because it doesn’t. Information is presented at the strangest times, making things impossible to follow. Not to mention that character allegiances are constantly shifting for no discernible reason. There is no reason for Holly to trust Artemis, or vice versa -- yet they declare themselves “forever friends” before the end of the film. I can’t even tell you why Mulch sticks around, he just does.

The movie is also terribly paced. Despite only being ninety minutes long, it feels like it drags on for an eternity. Alternating between Artemis and Holly in the opening creates a distinct lack of tension, making it impossible to stay invested in any one thing for too long. Topping the whole thing off is the movie’s framing device -- the story is narrated by Mulch, as part of an interrogation that’s never properly explained. This setup feels so unnecessary, and it’s actually jarring every time we cut back to Mulch growling his exposition at the camera.

The Characters & Actors

I cannot think of one character that has not been butchered by the writing, the acting, or both. All of them are terrible. And across the board, the acting isn’t terribly good.

Artemis Fowl

The titular character gets it the worst of everyone. In the book, he’s a criminal mastermind. He’s cold, calculating, and eerie. He behaves so much like an adult that it unsettles people. He isn’t at all interested in typical child things, instead focusing on his own lofty goals. He’s an utter genius, learning the existence of fairies all on his own and coming up with the plan to capture one himself. Though he’s sympathetic in his own way, he’s also not presented as a terribly good person. As a protagonist, he’s almost unlikable -- it’s not until later books that he learns to have friends and become a better person.

But in the movie, Artemis is about as generic a fantasy film protagonist as you can get. He’s a more or less happy child who adores his father. He likes surfing and skateboarding. He doesn’t learn about fairies on his own -- his father tells him about them. And while he’s shown to be intelligent, it’s nowhere near the genius level he should be at. He’s so watered down and uninteresting that he’s unrecognizable as the same character. Even accepting that this isn’t the book character, he’s just boring to watch. There’s nothing interesting or compelling about this random kid. Ferdia Shaw’s performance doesn’t help -- while I’ve certainly seen worse child actors, I’ve also seen far, far better.

It’s worth mentioning that some of the best moments in the books are when something rattles Artemis so badly that the walls come down and he acts like a scared little kid. These moments work because they’re rare. This movie tosses them at you left and right. I don’t know who this kid is, but it ain’t Artemis Fowl.

Holly Short

In the books, Holly is an adult woman working an adult job -- she’s a police officer. She’s also described as having medium dark skin, with the phrases “olive” and “nut brown” being used most often. So the decision to cast a fourteen year old white actress... it boggles the mind. In fairness, Lara McDonnell did a decently good job in the role. But there wasn’t much role to do a good job with. Holly is a very bland character, with all of her drive and fire from the book simply gone. There’s also a backstory tossed in about her father, Beechwood Short, which is implemented in the strangest way and only comes up when it’s strictly relevant.

Domovoi Butler

Oh, Butler. Artemis’s bodyguard slash best friend slash pseudo father figure. A tremendously important character in the books who is barely in the movie at all. His role is so cut down that it’s absurd. I guess Nonso Anonzie was doing a fine job, but he was hardly there enough for me to tell. All indication that this man is a tremendously important figure in Artemis’s life is simply gone.

Edited to add: I didn’t initially think of anything wrong with Butler being a black man for the movie, but after seeing some complaints from others... yeah I think making a character from a family that’s been servants to a rich white family for generations now into a black man is uhhhhhhhhhh. It’s questionable.

Juliet Butler

Butler’s niece, Juliet, is in the movie so little that I kept forgetting she was there. Which is a damn shame, because I actually really liked Tamara Smart from The Worst Witch already and thought she was an excellent choice for Juliet. In the book, Juliet is the only other child around, and about the only kid that Artemis will remotely consider an equal. She’s great to balance him out and keep him more grounded. In the movie? Eh. She has a handful of lines.

Mulch Diggums

As far as being accurate to the book, Mulch is probably the closest. Though the decision to make a dwarf character not actually short boggles the mind... my main complaint is that Josh Gad likes to improvise his way through scenes, and his style of comedy is pretty grating. It gets old, fast. Throw in the fact that he’s also growling all of his lines to sound different, and you have a character that’s nearly unwatchable.

Julius Root

Speaking of growling all your lines! Commander Root is played by Dame Judi Dench in this movie, changing the character’s gender. I really don’t mind that, and the characterization is largely unchanged. What I do mind is Dench’s delivery. All of her lines are growled in such a low rumble that it sounds like she’s been smoking for eighty years. It becomes impossible to take anything she says or does seriously when she’s speaking like that. Josh Gad even pokes fun at it in a scene with the two of them, saying that they sound like “hippos with a throat infection” -- the only line to get a chuckle out of me.

Artemis Fowl, Sr.

To round it off, we have Colin Farrell as Artemis’s father. And... he’s here, I guess. Farrell mostly sounds bored in all of his scenes and it’s incredibly easy to forget about him.

Angeline Fowl

But wait! A fan of the book may ask. What about Artemis’s mother? How did the movie do her? Surely they didn’t forget Artemis’s mother! And my friends, I regret to inform you that the movie did, in fact, forget Artemis’s mother. She isn’t present, nor is she even mentioned. A major part of the books, a major force to drive Artemis’s character, just... gone. Lovely.

The Production Design

The best word I can think of is uninspired. Most things are serviceable, but unimpressive, leading to the film looking very generic. I was especially disappointed with the look of the fairy underground. A combination of magic and technology has a lot of potential to look visually interesting. Instead, the fairy police just look like the E.L.F.S. from The Santa Clause. And once you’ve seen it, you’ll never unsee it. So you’re welcome.

Additionally, the action scenes tend to be poorly shot and edited. Everything is extremely fast paced with a freely floating camera -- this makes things nearly impossible to follow. Several times I said out loud “what just happened?” because I legitimately could not tell where things were in relation to each other, and who was attacking, who was being attacked, etc. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of action scenes, but the few that do exist are pretty bad.

There are also several sequences of Mulch unhinging his jaw to burrow through the ground. In the book, it’s mildly amusing, but it doesn’t at all translate to film. It’s horrifying in every sense. The CG looks rubbery and fake, and Josh Gad’s performance doesn’t at all sell it. If there were any change from the books I would actually welcome, it’s this one. There are plenty of other ways he could dig. But nope. They stuck to that one. For some reason.

In Conclusion

This is easily the worst book to film adaptation I have ever seen. Please don’t watch it unless you’re a fan of the book and want a laugh.

#personal #reviews #artemis fowl #artemis fowl series #artemis fowl movie

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