Chapter 14

                                    

                                          
Percy's Pov
                          
      My dream began the same way most of my flashbacks did-with scenes of carnage from the battle. But now it was more than that  it seemed that the longer I looked at the see of corpses before me, the more people I recognized-people that didn't die in this battle.
                          
     There was Ethan-reminding me of how I couldn't save him, how I didn't try hard enough. And Beckendorf-he could have survived, it should have been me. There was Luke, that dagger I knew so well plunged into his shoulder. Zoë, limp on the ground. If only I was there. If only I was more. I could've helped them. Why didn't I except the offer from the gods the first time? I could've saved them. I could have helped them kill the giants. Every decision I'd ever made was a horrible one.
                          
     Gradually the scene began to shift, morphing into a place that I'd never been before and yet knew by heart-Hogwarts castle. I was in the Great Hall, but there were no tables in sight. It was the end of another battle-one that was yet to come. I know of the Battle of Hogwarts, of course, but this was different. These wizards had sword wounds as well as evidence of having been cursed. I also knew that this was yet to happen because the people who lay dead on the floor before me were currently alive. There were Harry, Ron, and Hermoine. And Dumbledore and Mrs. Weasley. All of the Weasleys were there actually. Everyone I'd met in the wizarding world so far, and some people I hadn't-dead on the floor at my feet. 
                          
     As I gazed around, tears rolling down my face, I looked over and saw one figure still standing. I would have been excited, but I realized all too soon the one thing that ruined this-the figure was me. Once again I stood with the corpses of everyone I knew surrounding me. I could see that strange blue light slowly retreating from my eyes, and as the light faded, I realized that what I was looking at weren't eyes anymore. They were vast oceans of pain, as though some sort of invisible dam had burst, and I had been paralyzed from the sadness. I stood frozen, facing the bodies but clearly zoned out. My eyes were glazed over, and slowly the sadness faded from them and a crude smile crept onto my face. The me that was having this dream suddenly realized with intense certainty that these people hadn't been killed by some evil creep that was probably somehow related to me. I had killed them. This was all my doing. That blue light, that power-it had been too much. It had corrupted me, had caused me to kill all these innocent people. 
                          
     No. There deaths were always my fault. Just like the deaths of all those half bloods. The only difference was that now someone else could look at me and see how horrible of a person I was. 
                          
     I continued to sit there, just staring at the figure in front of me, when suddenly I jolted awake, wide-eyed and looking around. I was sure someone must have seen me, but both my senses and my powers told me that I was alone. I looked at the window, and it looked like it was about 4:00 am, so I figured I'd get up-not wanting to go back to sleep unless I really had to. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but I'd been approached by both hestia and hermes in two separate dreams prior to my meeting with the gods. They both wanted to give me their gifts, but hermes was too busy to make it to Olympus and hestia preferred to give her my blessing in private. Besides, she was going to be really busy trying to keep the gods from killing each other during the meeting. Hermes gave me the ability to move with extreme stealth, which had already proved useful, as well as the ability to know when I was being pickpocketed and the ability to stop it. 
                          
     Hestia's gift, however, was different than that of all the other gods'. I'd liked hers the best, although I'd never say that out loud, but I may be biased because she's my favorite goddess. She hadn't just given me an ability, she'd given me something infinitely more valuable. A friend. She had talked to me, asked me how I was, and I'd answered honestly. She was like a second mother to me, always had been, and right then she was exactly what I'd needed. Anyways, she'd given me a few things to go along with that. The ability to enchant plates so that they worked like a cross of the ones at the two camps-whatever food you were in the mood for, whether you knew it or not, would magically appear on the plates. She'd also given me the ability to simply make any food at will, in case I didn't want enchanted plates lying around. She gave me the ability to calm a person down, but I wasn't much good at that yet because I had to be calm in order for it to work. Finally, she gave me a small charm that I kept around my neck on a mist-coated chain. It was beautiful, intricately engraved with her emblem in rubies and gold. But the best part of it was the back. It was engraved with a message: ποτέ μην χάνεις την ελπίδα-never lose hope.