Intertwined || Percabeth Hogwarts AU

Chapter 3

"Hey, wait!"

He turned around and confusion marred his expression when he realized it came from Annabeth. She jogged up to him and stopped only a foot away. There was a flash of hesitancy in her expression before she spoke.

"Do you wanna be friends?" She asked, giving him a small smile.

He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

That pensive look on her face returned and she bit her lip. "I thought, maybe we could be friends."

Percy jerked his head to the door and they began to walk side by side. "I mean, sure, but what brought this on?"

"I dunno, I had a lot of fun dueling with you. You're a really good wizard."

"Yeah, right," Percy scoffed. "You just destroyed me."

"No, I'm serious, Percy. You put up a really good fight," Annabeth comforted.

"Not good enough," he pouted causing her to laugh. "I didn't even hit you once."

"You'll just have to try harder next time," she teased, enjoying the look on his face. "I've been around magic all my life. Don't worry you'll get there."

They talked every day after that.

◆ ◆ ◆

Percy let out a tired sigh as he left Professor Artemis' room.

Detention with her was hell. She made him reorganize all of her ungraded assignments (that he had a sneaking suspicion she messed up on purpose), clean every single desk in her classroom — forty of them, and then the floors, too, until she deemed it perfect. Manually, she ordered. Everything could've been done with a simple flick of his wand, but no.

All for simply talking during her lecture. There was definitely something about him being male that caused her to deem this as punishment. He was sure of it.

Percy shook his head and made his way to the common room. His stomach rumbled, but he had to ignore it. Dinner had ended over an hour ago. But he would have had to do this again from the beginning tomorrow night if he didn't finish today. A cruel woman, she was.

Rubbing his eyes, he hopped on to the moving staircase and trudged up to Gryffindor Tower.

"Lunartic—" The password fell short on his lips, seeing his best friend standing next to the Fat Lady. "Annabeth? What are you doing here?"

She was in her casual sleep clothes, cotton shorts and a loose T-shirt, her honey blonde hair tumbled down behind her back in riotous curls. Princess curls, he thought with a small smile.

"Percy!" She surged forward and wrapped a hand around his arm. "I was waiting for you after I saw you were still in detention, but nevermind that. Come on!"

She took his hand in hers and dragged him back along the corridor.

"Where are we going?" Percy asked, staring at their laced fingers. She never held his hand before. "It's almost curfew."

She looked back at him with raised eyebrows. "You haven't eaten anything, right?"

"I mean, yeah, but dinner's over," he said, but she kept pulling him along. "It's all right, Wise Girl. I have some snacks in my dorm."

But Annabeth heard none of it and continued walking. She led him down through six floors and started down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. It was ghastly empty since most students were probably in their commonrooms or in bed, like he wanted to be.

"Annabeth," he whined. "Where are we going? I'm tired. My feet are killing me."

"You'll see in a minute, you big baby," she said, laughing.

She turned left at the bottom of the staircase and hurried toward the small stone arched door on the left side of the room. Percy had never been through here before. He followed Annabeth down a flight of stone steps and was surprised to end up in a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches, and decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food.

"Who the heck spends so much time painting fruit?" Percy muttered to himself. There were literally hundreds of them.

They walked through the corridor until she abruptly stopped, causing him to stumble right into her. "Watch it, idiot," Annabeth chided lightly as he apologized. "Anyway, look at this."

She pointed to the painting in front of her. It showed a gigantic silver fruit bowl.

Percy stared blankly at it and then her. "You dragged me halfway across the castle to look at a bowl of fruit? Am I supposed to eat it, or something?"

She laughed and pulled him closer to the painting until they stood directly in front of it. Stretching her arm out, she tickled the green pear, and Percy scrunched his eyebrows when it began to squirm and chuckle before suddenly turning into a large green door handle.

Annabeth smirked at him and seized the handle, pulling the door open and tugging Percy along so they could step inside.

He had one brief glimpse of an enormous, high-ceilinged room, large as the Great Hall above it, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end, when something small hurtled toward him from the middle of the room, squealing, "Students! Students!"

Percy blinked as he took in the little creature's appearance. It was a house elf, he knew that, but he'd never seen one in person before. The elf beamed up at him, his enormous, blue, tennis-ball-shaped eyes brimming with happiness. He had a pencil-shaped nose, batlike ears, and long fingers and feet, dressed in a white cloth.

"Um, hello," Percy said. "Nice to meet you?"

The elf beamed again, or more correctly, he never stopped beaming, as he introduced himself.

"My name is Stonks, sir!" The elf held out its long, bony fingers for a handshake. "Stonks wants to know your names, too!"

"I'm Percy," he said, shaking his hand with a small smile. Stonks was harmless. "And this is Annabeth."

Annabeth smiled brightly at the elf. "Hi, Stonks!"

Stonks led them through the kitchen between four long wooden tables. These tables were positioned exactly like the ones in the Great Hall. The house elves were the ones who cooked all the food, he realized.

As they walked, at least a hundred little elves were standing around the kitchen, beaming, bowing, and curtsying as Stonks led them. They were all wearing the same uniform.

"Would sir and madam Percy and Annabeth care for a cup of tea or a bite?" Stonks squeaked out.

Annabeth laughed and agreed before he could say a word. He watched as she smiled and talked with all the little elves that had taken to surround them. Percy was suddenly very glad she wasn't looking at him anymore. She'd probably call him a sap, but he couldn't help it. He was touched. And a little flushed.

She never let go of his hand.