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Percy nodded, trying to look calm even though his heart was still thumping. "Right... so? Are you going to kick me out of Hogwarts, Professor?" he asked again, just to be sure.
"No, Mr. Jackson, I believe you can stay for now," the old wizard chuckled, the serious tension in the room finally breaking completely.
"Although, I must warn you, do try to keep on Professor Snape's good side, if that's at all possible. The man, despite his... usual manner, actually respects your talents, even if he would rather swallow his own tongue than admit it. It wouldn't do to irk him any more than you already have."
Percy thought about Snape's sour face and constant glares. "No promises on that one, Professor," he said with a small, tired grin. "But I'll try my best. Maybe."
"Good," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling again. "Then please, Mr. Jackson, it is getting very late. You should get some rest."
Percy didn't waste a single second. He practically jumped out of the chair, mumbled a quick "Goodnight, Professor," and walked as fast as he could out of the round office.
The moment the heavy oak door closed behind him, he leaned against the cool stone wall of the corridor and let out a huge gasp of air he didn't even realize he'd been holding.
He started to sweat, his hands feeling clammy as the stress and adrenaline from that intense confrontation finally got to him.
He had never felt anything quite like that before in his entire life. Talking to Dumbledore when he was serious like that… it was like facing a force of nature, powerful and unmovable.
It was almost like facing down the Titan Iapetus all over again, that same feeling of being small and outmatched by immense, ancient power.
Percy had never had to think so fast on his feet, trying to avoid direct questions that would make him reveal too much dangerous information about who he really was.
He'd been protecting himself, trying not to sound desperate or scared, all while Dumbledore was probing and testing him.
It felt like getting into a mental wrestling match with Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategy, and barely managing to not get pinned.
Percy knew, with a sudden, cold certainty, that he had to be much more careful from now on. He couldn't let another mistake like the water incident in the Great Hall happen again.
He needed to get better control of his powers, to not let his anger get the best of him. Never again did he want a reason to be called into that office, to face that knowing, powerful gaze from the Headmaster.
Percy didn't know it yet, not really, but he was already walking down a path to becoming a very important, a key player, in the brewing storm in the wizarding world. And for the very first time, in that office, he had just met the real Albus Dumbledore not just the kind, eccentric old Headmaster, but the powerful leader, the seasoned general.
….
The week after that eventful day went by surprisingly quickly. The days, for Percy, were often spent pulling small, harmless pranks on unsuspecting students (and sometimes teachers, if he could get away with it), just to keep things interesting.
The nights, however, were for him and Fleur. They would sneak out of their dorms after everyone was asleep and meet up in his hidden room, 'The Forest,' high up in the castle.
Fleur spent a lot of time there with Percy now, and surprisingly, not all of it was spent making out, though there was definitely plenty of that too.
Fleur really took to using the secret room as her own quiet space as well. Percy, seeing how much she liked it, even gave her a small corner on one side, conjuring up a pretty, folding screen to put between their areas for her privacy when she wanted it. He liked sharing his secret place with her.
Fleur, being very smart, had figured out the clue for the second task from the golden egg a few days after Christmas.
She was hard at work in her corner of the room, researching and trying to solve what it meant.
She sometimes asked Percy if he had anything prepared for the task, if he knew what it was going to be. But he always just replied with a mysterious smile, "It's a secret. You'll see."
Percy also, being a good friend, gave Harry a big clue on how to solve his own golden egg. He figured it was only fair, especially since he had warned Harry about the dragons in the first task.
Percy even offered to brew Harry a special potion to help him deal with the cold waters of the Black Lake, which he guessed would be involved. Harry was really, really grateful for that offer.
There was one thing during that week that surprised Percy though: the letters he received. One was from the Veela cheerleaders from Beauxbatons, and the other was from his aunt, Hecate.
The letter from the cheerleaders was quite simple and sweet. They wrote about how sorry they were that he got slandered so badly in that awful newspaper article, and they all said that Fleur was a very lucky girl to have him.
Amanda, the head cheerleader, even included a little handwritten note at the very end that read, 'If you two don't work out for some crazy reason, Percy Jackson, I'm never letting you out of my sight again, got that? ;)' Reading that made Percy feel both a little concerned (Amanda could be pretty intense) and, he had to admit, a little bit happy and flattered too.
Chanel, the Veela he'd briefly dated before Fleur, had stopped writing to him personally. Percy still sent her private, friendly letters from time to time, just checking in, but she didn't reply back with her own messages anymore.
She only ever spoke through the common letter the cheerleaders all signed together. Percy felt bad that their short relationship had turned out the way it did, ending so awkwardly.
But he honestly didn't know what else he could do about it now. He hoped she was okay.
The second letter, however, the one from Hecate… well, that was a whole other story entirely. It was written on thick, ancient-looking parchment in sharp, elegant handwriting.
[To Percy Jackson,]
[Son of the Sea, my favorite pain-in-the-backside nephew,]
[I write to you now not as your loving and sometimes overly caring aunt (though I am that too), but as the powerful Goddess of Magic you know me to be. I have attached, for your perusal, a copy of several rather nasty, but very effective, curses one can cast on deserving people. They are of ancient Greek origin, naturally, and no wizard, no matter how skilled, can do a damn thing about them once they take hold. There are three of them. Pick one, and teach that bottom-feeding, gossip-mongering bitch Rita Skeeter not to fuck around with you or yours. And if you don't do it, Percy, I swear on the River Styx, I will. And I promise you, I won't be as soft or as merciful as I know you probably will be.]
[Signed, with both love and a thirst for vengeance,]
[Hecate,]
[Goddess of Magic, Mistress of the Crossroads, and your slightly annoyed Aunt.]
[P.S. I heard about your new girlfriend… the Veela. Told you so. 'Not attracted to Veelas,' my divine ass. You owe me five drachmas.]
And just like she promised, attached to the letter were detailed instructions for three very old, very potent rituals to cast a long-lasting, truly horrible curse.
These weren't the kind of quick curses you shoot out of a wand in a duel. These were the kind you use to cast a lingering plague on someone's entire family line for generations.
One curse would slowly turn Rita Skeeter into a hideous hag, covering her body with painful, weeping blisters and open sores that would never heal.
Another one would magically flip her entire digestive tract around, making her eat food through one end and… well, defecate through the other, opposite end.
The third, and maybe the weirdest, would make her completely and utterly irresistible to all birds, causing them to constantly assault her in any way possible dive-bombing her, stealing her food, nesting in her hair, pooping on her head. Non-stop. Forever.
Percy really, really hated that woman, Rita Skeeter, for what she did. But even he didn't want to make her life thatpermanently miserable.
He wasn't that cruel. So, he obviously chose the third option, the bird one. It seemed the least physically horrifying, and honestly, kind of funny in a dark way.
He got the ritual components ready in his secret room. He would only have to meet Rita face-to-face one more time to finish the curse, by speaking a short incantation in Ancient Greek.
That would probably be during the second task, when she was sure to be around, sniffing for more gossip.
Percy wrote back to Hecate right away, thanking her for the… options… and informing her that he had made his choice, so she didn't have to go completely crazy on Rita herself.
To say that Hecate was a little disappointed that he didn't pick the innards-flipping curse was an understatement. She replied with a short note saying, 'Fine. Birds it is. But you're no fun, Percy.'
Soon, the quiet days of the Christmas holidays flew by, and it was time for school to reopen properly. Percy really didn't like the fact that classes were starting up again. He'd gotten used to his free schedule.
But hey, what was a demigod supposed to do about it? It wasn't like he could just, say, plant a bunch of super-powerful stink bombs in all the classrooms, forcing them to delay the reopening of school for another day…
…wait a minute. That was actually a brilliant idea.
Boom! Kaboom! Pfffft! (Those were the sounds of dungbombs and other smelly concoctions going off.)
And just like that, classes were delayed for another full day.
The entire castle reeked. And since Percy had cleverly borrowed Harry's Invisibility Cloak for his little bit of late-night mischief, no one could definitively prove it was him who did it.
But if you simply looked at the massive, unholy, shit-eating grin on his face all morning, you would have had a pretty good idea who to thank (or blame).
"I still can't believe you actually did that," Juan whispered to Percy as they all sat down for lunch in the still slightly smelly Great Hall. Hannah and Susan were trying very hard not to giggle.
"I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, my friend," Percy replied with a perfectly innocent smile, taking a large bite out of his chicken sandwich.
"W'at 'ave I gotten myzelf into?" Fleur groaned dramatically, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. She leaned her head on Percy's shoulder.
"Did you 'ave to put one in every single clazzroom? And t'e library? T'e caztle still zmellz like hippogriff poop mixed with old zocks!"
Percy just shrugged, still looking completely innocent. "I really don't know what you're talking about, chérie. Maybe it was Peeves the poltergeist? He likes that sort of thing." He winked at her when no one else was looking.
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If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters you could take a visit on my patreon Or check it out.
http://patreon.com/SageOf016