QUEST WITHOUT HARRY

Chapter 4 : My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet trousers. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo – lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mum... know each other?"

Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you." So that's why she got me from Hogwarts.

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."

"Um... what are you, exactly?" Trust me, I know, there are other creatures living with us, even I slept at Defence Against Dark Arts last year, I know, there are Centaurs, no I don't know, my friend is not human, then what is he?

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!" I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh.

Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat. "Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like... Mr Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs Dodds a myth?"

"So you admit there was a Mrs Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

Come on Bro, I know, who I am, I am a witch in process, but am I wrong? I don't want another monster.

"Who I – wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment.

"Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. That thing which follow us is something from wizarding world, I regret not having wand. But something told my Mum knows this will happen, that's why she insist me, not taking wand with us, maybe, she doesn't want to show as witches, to wherever we are going.