An Unlikely Duo 2: The Chamber of Secrets

Today is just not Nico's day(Part 1)

Nico was doomed.

He was truly, utterly doomed.

It was 3:00 PM. And he still hadn't figured out a valid excuse to get himself out of detention.

He knew perfectly well that by Hogwarts standards, getting one night of detention for insulting a teacher was an extremely light punishment, and that trying to get out of it would not work in his favor. The reasonable part of him argued that he could just skip detention and suffer through a worse punishment later, but when the 'worse punishment' could involve taking a stroll through the Forbidden Forest, he'd rather not get in trouble for missing detention. The Forbidden Forest meant monsters, and he was this close to blowing his secret as it was. It was a miracle nobody (read: Artemis and/or Hermione) had figured it out yet...

Nico frantically paced around the empty dorm room. He had to shadow travel to California within the next fifteen minutes if he wanted to get some rest before... whatever his dad was planning. Shadow Travelling always left him exhausted, and travelling from Scotland all the way to the States would probably leave him unconscious for at least a day, under normal circumstances. Right now, he was depending on unicorn draught(a miraculous substance the Romans had introduced to him on one of his visits), luck(aka Tyche), and the fact that his dad would probably want him to show up on time(and mostly conscious). Oh, and a granola bar.

The odds were not in his favor.

He grabbed his bag and hastily chucked out the books, stuffing a canteen of unicorn draught , a flask of nectar, a small zip-lock bag full of ambrosia, the granola bar and a few clean T-Shirts into it instead. Call him a heavy packer, but his trips to New Rome were rarely ever quick and hassle-free. He'd learnt the hard way to always pack a change of clothes. His eyes quickly scanned the room for anything else that could be of use, but what he did see was definitely NOT useful. At all.

"Where are you going?" Artemis Fowl asked, tapping his foot impatiently.

Nico nearly jumped out of his skin, "Don't sneak up on people like that!" he chided, taking a shaky breath, "I might have chopped you in half!"

Artemis ignored him, "Where are you going?" he repeated, "We have detention with Professor Snape in an hour."

"Just going for a little walk to... the lake." Nico said as smoothly as he could. He forced himself to meet Artemis' eyes, "I thought I'd get started on that Charms homework."

Artemis rolled his eyes at him in that terribly condescending way that made Nico want to smack that smug expression right off his face, "Don't be ridiculous. All of your books are lying on your bed. The only things in that bag are," he paused, peering into the bag, "Lemon squares, drinks, a granola bar and fresh T-Shirts." he said, crossing his arms.

"Right." Nico said, nodding slowly, "You.. got me. I'm actually going to..." Nico's eyes darted around frantically, "Have a picnic. By the lake. And go swimming."

Artemis raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, "You're going to have a picnic. By yourself. Next to the lake. And you're going swimming. In September. You. The one who's deathly afraid of water."

"Uh..... yes?" he said, although it came out a lot less confidently than Nico had hoped.

"Spare me theatrics." Artemis scoffed, "Where are you really going? You've packed a change of clothes, so you're obviously not planning on coming back any time soon. Or at least, you'll be there over night."

Nico groaned, abandoning all pretenses, "Ugh, fine! You win!" he grumbled, "I'm not going to the lake."

"So where are you going?" Artemis asked testily.