The Heart of a Child

Chapter Seven

Wind blew her tousled, red locks as she ran ahead of her friends as always, giggling in delight to herself as her blue-tinted skin glistened under the hot sun. She looked over her shoulder for a moment to make sure her friends were following and in that moment she ran into something and tumbled to the ground with a yelp.

"Fuck!" The redhead yelled and rubbed the back of her head as she  quickly climbed back to her feet clumsily and stumbled as she finally got up. She held out her hand to the ravenette sitting on the ground looking confused as to how she got there, "Sorry 'bout that. You okay?"

The ravenette gently took the offered hand and replied, "Yeah. I'm sorry too. I should have been watching where I was going."

"Not your fault... *gasp*... She's just problematic." A girl with curly hair appeared huffing and puffing beside the red-head.

"Yeah. I fail at life pretty hard. You new here? I'm Riley Krum! Nice to meet ya!" The bubbly girl rambled a little before stumbling and falling over just to be caught by two sets of hands and continuing, "See? I fall just by standing still! Like, what even?! Grrr!"

"Um... Okay. I'm Aster Magicae. You wouldn't happen to know a Victor Krum would you?" Aster responded.

"Oh, totes magoats, man. He's my bro! Like literally, he's my brother. Isn't that awesome?! He's the best, isn't he?!" Just as Riley finished her sentence, she jumped out of the twin brunet boys' hands that had been holding her.

"It's my cutie patooties!" She squealed and glomped Leo and Percy in giant hugs.

"I'm Kadyn Reyes-Fox, that nut's best friend." The blonde girl gestured to the other female snuggling the two black-haired boys.

"Erm. Are they going to be alright?" Aster asked looking uncertainly at the pile of trouble-makers on the ground.

"Oh, they'll be fine in a moment when Riles let's them go." Kadyn assured the other female, "Why were you wondering about Victor?"

"Oh. I went to Hogwarts and competed against him in the TriWizard tournament is all." Aster said offhandedly.

"But there were no Asters competing against him in th... Wait. Are you Harry Potter?" Kadyn asked, her gaze calculating all of the possibilities. Four competitors. Hogwarts champions missing. Black hair, green eyes. Harry Potter.

"Yes..."

"But you're a girl."

"I can change between male and female."

"How... Never mind. Do not change back into a male while you're around Riley." The blonde warned the other girl(boy?).

"Why?" The child of Magic looked at her confused.

"She will treat you like that if you are small and adorable in male form." Kadyn gestured at her friend still cuddling the reluctant teen boys in her hold. Aster's eyes widened in horror and he quickly turned back to the calm female and asked quietly about the medical tent* and scurried away.

Aster entered the big, white tent and looked around cautiously.

"Can I help you?" A deep voice boomed from a door on the side that Aster hadn't noticed (A/N: CONSTANT VIGILANCE! I'm sorry. I had to.) Aster spun and saw the source was an extremely handsome blonde man.

"Em... Yeah. I actually was wondering if I could talk to Chiron?" Aster blushed, her head dipping in hopes of hiding it.

"Oh. You would have to go to the Big House to do tha-" The man's sentence was cut off as Malcolm burst into the room uncharacteristically.

"There you are! You had us worried you had gotten lost or something, Aster. I mean, Kadyn told us you had come here, but we didn't know if you might have gotten disappeared or you ran into Clarisse or, even worse, Harmonie." Malcolm said looking worried before realizing Will was there, still staring intensely at the ravenette, "Oh, hey, Will. Thanks for looking after Aster. We gotta go talk to Chiron now." The curly-haired boy wrapped his arm around the smallest being in the room.

Malcolm waved at Will as he steered Aster from the infirmary. The duo made their way toward a big, pale blue house that rose from the bottom of the biggest hill at Camp Half-Blood and overlooked the strawberry fields. They made their way up to it, the rest of the group, including Kadyn, Riley, and the two, lanky brunet boys clinging to the red-head (which seemed to be the only reason that she wasn't clinging to the two black-haired demigods among their group). They all waved as the two came up to them and Chiron came out, an eternally grumpy Mr. D trailing after him.

"Ah, a new child. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, young one." Chiron greeted with a warm smile.

"Hey, Chiron. Well, um, Aster isn't really here for camp you see, Aster is the son, er, daughter?, of Magic and accidentally turned into his/her female form and can't seem to change back. We were wondering if you could help?" Chiron rubbed his chin as he took in the information and slowly nodded to himself.

"Have you tried talking to your mother, child?"  Chiron asked skeptically and sighed as Aster shook her head.

"No. Maybe I could give that a go..." Aster said more to himself and nodded before adding, "Thanks, Chiron. I'm heading back to the treehouse now. Please allow me some peace for the moment." Aster turned and left the large group who stared at each other then shrugged before everyone left to go about their own business.

* I've given up on the Big House. Rick Riordan's logic for that being the main place for medical care was extremely illogical. I understand that there is ambrosia and nectar, but come on, these are demigods. They naturally attract trouble. It's not like they all have unending reserves of the stuff, there needs to be a source and the Big House just doesn't cut it for me, so I'm taking this from the movies, even though I hate them with a passion.

Word Count: 969

Translations: None

Tags/Warnings: See first chapter. Me swearing it up as Riley.

Disclaimer: I fail at all of life. Do you honestly think I could own PJO or HP? No. I can't. I would fuck it up with my Slash obsession.

Dedicated to: AnimeBook's

Request: Congratulate me on making it to my fifteenth year of life as of May 16, 2016 and surviving 30 HOURS of Driver's Ed.

A/N:

HEEEYYY!!!! So, It was my B-day on Monday and I had wanted to update then, but I got super busy. Sorry. I had a burst of inspiration, though, so be happy. I hope you all enjoyed the dialogue. I'm sorry I didn't reach the usual 1,000 word quota again, but I honestly couldn't write anymore as I felt Magic and Aster's convo should be saved for next chappie. 

I wanted to explain Aster's change of character. So, I wanted to show the difference between Aster as a male and a female, his female counterpart being more open to people and kinda bossy.

Also, thanks to everyone who sent in an OC. Many hugs and kisses to you. No more characters, though, please. I have enough and am eager to write them in and introduce them.

I'm sorry about how short Will's part was and that Nico has not come in yet.

I hope you enjoyed Riley. She's basically me as a character in my own story. I'm excited to write more of her, though be assured, this story will never stray from being focussed solely on Harry/Aster.

I hope your week is filled with smiles and laughs,

ARK