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.
Anyway, I thought that maybe now would be a good time to try out some of these gifts, so I summoned some gold from the earth and formed it into a plate. I paused, unsure what to do, but then reached up and touched my necklace. The charm glowed with a warmth that slowly spread through my body to the plate in my hands. It glowed for a moment, then faded, but I could immediately tell that something was different. The plate now hummed with the same kind of modest power that I always felt around the goddess, and suddenly a blue chocolate chip cookie popped up in the center of the plate. Percy gasped and dropped the plate in surprise, not sure what to feel. He didn't know why he did it, but he slowly knelt down and picked up the cookie with shaking fingers, nibbling on the end of it hesitantly before stuffing the entire thing in his mouth. A quiet sight of happiness escaped his lips, and he made a mental note to make a generous sacrifice to hestia later.
Harry's Pov
Harry walked down the stairs later that morning to find Percy already sitting at the table ready to go. That was strange. Harry had assumed that Percy would resist going to Hogwarts because it would make it harder for him to hide his secret identity, and yet here he was. He seemed to actually be anxious to get going, but it was probably just that he wanted to start the next stage of his scheme. It took Harry a moment to realize that there was a bird sitting next to Percy at the table and sharing some of his food, which not only was all blue but seemed to be sitting on a solid gold plate. Neither of them seemed to be that hungry, but that didn't seem to matter, as they were staring at each other so intently you would think they were communicating.
"Why," Harry asked, confused. "Is there a bird on the table?"
"Oh," Percy sounded surprised, as though he'd forgotten that this wasn't an everyday occurrence. "This is Delta. I let her out for a while to get some fresh air, but she just got back. I'll put her back in her cage in a minute."
"Okay..." Harry responded slowly. He supposed this would be normal, except that that bird was definitely not an owl. He'd never heard of other birds acting that way. Percy seemed to know what he was thinking, but he didn't say anything-only nodded as though he was satisfied and turned back to 'Delta'. Harry would have thought about it more, but he needed to get ready. They were going to Hogwarts today, and they couldn't miss the train-That hadn't ended well.
Percy's Pov
By the time that everyone was ready to go, I'd just been sitting around 'talking' to Delta for hours. The problem was that we didn't really have that much to talk about. I mean, I couldn't really tell her about my old life without risking a flashback and she'd spent her life just looking for me, so there wasn't much there. And so other than that all we could really talk about was the boring present or the looming future, neither of which were very conversational. I told her that I had a night terrors last night, but I didn't get into specifics for fear of a flashback even though I had a feeling she already knew. When we finally did get to go, we both sighed in relief, tired of trying to play mental checkers and chess-especially since she was so much better than me at both. I rose and lifted up her cage-We'd both agreed that it would be best if she stayed there until we could get some privacy, and she certainly wasn't complaining. We all loaded into the (magically expanding) car, and drove to King's Cross. We arrived at the station and the others began hurriedly running through the wall to Platform 9 3/4, I followed, worried about hurting Delta, but we passed through as though there were no wall there at all-which there wasn't, but there was enough Mist that it might've fooled me if I'd only just glanced at it.
The gateway opened up to a new platform where the Hogwarts Express sat in all its glory, ready to take this year's students to Hogwarts. We boarded the train and put away a our luggage, then went to find an empty compartment. I would've sat by myself, but apparently there weren't enough compartments for that, so we had to sit together. Honestly though, it might've been worth it to see the look on Harry's face when he realized that they'd be within 3 feet of each other for 8 hours straight. Speaking of which, I was kinda freaking out over the idea of having to sit still for so long. I couldn't sleep (obviously), and 'talking' to Delta had proved to be pretty boring, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
However, I apparently didn't need to worry about that, because as soon as the door closed, it became clear that the Perfection Squad had already made plans for the whole ride. They immediately put on serious faces, probably trying to look intimidating, and began interrogating me.
"Where're you from?"
"America"
"Be more specific."
"Dude, you were literally at my house. I've lived there forever."
"What's that thing on your arm?"
"Oh, this? It's called a tattoo. Is that just a muggle thing, Ron?"
"But what's it of?"
"That," I smiled. "Is for me to know, and you to forget you ever wondered."
"Where'd you get that bird?"
"I was sitting outside and it sat down next to me."
The questions probably would've continued on for the entire ride, but at some point the door to the compartment swung open and a guy who immediately gave me an Octavian vibe strode in.
"You must be the new kid. Word is you're a pretty good wizard. The name's Malfoy, by the way. Draco Malfoy."
"Malfoy..." I recalled that name from a list of Pureblood families, "You're a Pureblood?"
"Of course." Draco responded, as though that were obvious. "Purebloods are the only real wizards. I mean, I guess half-bloods sort of count, but not really."
"You know, you remind me of someone I used to know. He's dead now."
Draco stepped backwards in shock and slowly retreated out of the compartment before running off with his two thugs without closing the door. I stuck my head out the door and yelled down the hallway, waving happily, "Nice to meet you." "Not," I whispered quietly to myself, smiling. I turned around to see Harry, Ron and Hermoine all looking like they were trying to be koi fish. "Close your mouths," I warned them, "You'll catch flies."
2071 words! I'm so sorry for, like, never updating, but I promised that I would eventually finish this story, and I will. I'm sorry to delay the Sorting Ceremony again because I love it and I'm pretty sure I know what to do for it, but there're just so many details that I wanted to put in for beforehand-this is always my favorite part of these stories. Comment what you want his house to be-I'm open to suggestions. Also, I thought it was important to let you know that when I write the stuff that Draco says and the depressing stuff from Percy's Pov, that's not the way that I look at things, it's just the way that I imagine someone in this situation might look at things. This one only took me 3 hours, so I guess I'm doing better!