Intertwined || Percabeth Hogwarts AU

Chapter 78

The Astronomy tower's perch was easily one of the most scenic spots in the castle.

A lot of students who knew about it tried to keep it on the down low because it made for a great date night location, but since then, the uptight Prefects—like Octavian, Drew, Jason, and Phoebe—had been keeping a closer watch on the entrance. That never stopped Percy and Annabeth from disillusioning themselves and sneaking past them though.

Like tonight, they were splayed out on a blanket and having a midnight picnic. Bathed in the moonlight and an entire galaxy that stretched out in every possible direction, with stars twinkling like diamonds splayed across a layer of black velvet.

Whenever the two of them didn't have much time to spend together throughout the busy school week, they'd sneak out one night after curfew and find each other then. A ritual of sorts. In today's ritual, they were in their sleep clothes and Annabeth was lying on her side, her head propped up in her hand, mirroring Percy who was in the same position, and sharing the sandwiches and fruit Stonks had prepared for them.

"—and so I was thinking about implementing a custom layer, or layers, over the hexagonal coil pattern already embedded in our wands. And if I can get it to work, then maybe we can create transmutation circles with just our magic!" Annabeth rambled off, popping another nutella dipped strawberry into her mouth. "It'll be at a small scale at first, of course, but think of all the new possibilities we could unlock for ourselves."

"Wow, Annabeth, this is... monumental. A whole new form of magic," Percy murmured, running his hand along her hip and waist. "My girlfriend's a genius."

Reverent and sweet.

She scoffed and smiled at him. "No, but seriously. Professor Daedalus said in theory it could work. The whole idea is pretty basic, but it hasn't been done before since alchemy is an obscure subject. And you need potions a lot of the time."

"Potions can't really be used on the fly," Percy agreed. "But it's not basic by any means. If you can somehow... I dunno, work the potion you need into a first base transmutation circle, then it's definitely plausible. I'm not sure how you're supposed to do that, though."

"Yeah, it's all conjecture, really," Annabeth sighed. "Maybe one day it'll be possible."

"You should've taken NEWT Potions with me then. It's just me and Reyna and a bunch of nerdy Ravenclaws in my period."

She laughed. "I'm good. Alchemy uses all basic potions so I don't need anything more. For now anyway."

"Mm."

"I wish you would've taken the class with me though, Percy. You know more about runes than me, I know more about alchemy, and we're both phenomenal at creation magic. If we combine all that and work together, we could create something..."

"Extraordinary?"

"Extraordinary!"

They shared a little laugh.

"We'll have to do that," Percy said. "Maybe when we're working, we can come back to this as our side project."

"Oh, definitely."

Annabeth continued to ramble out her ideas, gesturing avidly with her free hand.

Alchemy was such a broad topic, and it completely threw her for a loop that so much of it was left unexplored. She and Percy had learned a few years ago about Nicholas Flamel who was probably the most versed in the subject, having created and developed the Philosopher's Stone, and from it the Elixir of Life. Immortality was hard to imagine, but it seemed even immortality eventually ended.