A Fire Burns Within Me Version 2

The Tournament

Previously:

"She somehow figured out how to use magic." Frank said, deadpanned. "This is the only spell she's really tried, but she's gotten...very good at it."

Estelle giggled, looking up at Zoë with the proudest smile on her face. Without looking, she waved a hand at poor Frank who immediately turned blue. "Do you think Percy will like it?"

Slowly, a smile crept on Zoë's face. "I think he will love it."

"What has happened?" The breathless voice of Minerva McGonagall. She came running, wand out. Though, she put it away as she saw no threat.

With a simple touch on the shoulder, Frank turned the same shade of green as McGonagall's robes.

The professor's eyes widened, her mouth dropping open.

My eyes took forever to open. They were sealed shut with superglue or something. They had to be. I was only wide awake for probably two minutes, but it felt like hours. My body was also not responding like it used to. Sluggish, sore, and equally heavy as my eyelids.

How long was I out?

The last thing I remember...Oh, yeah, the Harry Potter characters walking us into Hogwarts. Then...I passed out because...my birthday had arrived. But I only remember up to the battle in Manhattan right outside Olympus. Normally, the last of my dreams is Annabeth's torture in Tartarus. It's like she wanted me to remember her pains the most, so she saved those for last.

I groaned as my body's soreness overpowered my confusion. "What the Hades happened?" I muttered aloud.

I was on a bed. That much I could tell. I also smelled food nearby, which definitely helped waking up my senses.

As my eyes finally blinked open, the first thing I saw was a portrait on the opposite wall. The frame contained a very old man that looked extremely familiar. Something about the eyes past the long, barely kept white beard.

"From what I can tell, you became unconscious because of some curse," The very old man said. "They had to give you a... Dreamless Sleep potion?"

I rose an eyebrow. Dreamless sleep? "Really?"

"What I couldn't figure out—because no one talked to me except that sweet young girl—was how you were cursed, or where you are from. The way the older two spoke, it seemed as though you came from an entirely different world..." The old man trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face.

I watched him with half-hearted expectation, though the longer I waited, the more I came to understand why exactly only Estelle would speak to him and why he'd only gleaned that bit of information just by listening in.

"So, do you know where everyone went?" I finally asked.

No answer. The man was tapping his chin thoughtfully, and staring somewhere off to the right.

I rolled my eyes, and proceeded to attempt leaving the bed. 'Attempt' being the operative word, as my body still hadn't woken up like my mind had. It refused to respond to the simplest of commands like sliding my legs off the side of the bed.

I fell back on the bed in frustration, hitting my head on the headboard on the way down. Groaning, I turned my head side to side, as even raising my hands to my head was too much effort.

"You wake up in the two minutes it takes me to go to the bathroom, and you've already hurt yourself?"

Frank came into the room through a small door to my left. He was wiping his hands dry on the cargo shorts he wore with a painfully relieved smile on his face.