Percy Jackson || The Hogwarts Champion

1|| Percy

Percy looked back and forth between his dinner and the Goblet of Fire. Food, Goblet. Food, Goblet. He chose food. The blue steak won.

Obviously.

"And the Durmstrang Champion is..." Percy listened to Dumbledore as he chewed. "Viktor Krum!"

Applause rang through the hall as everyone cheered for the famous Quidditch player.

Percy scooped some peppermint humbugs on his plate.

Dumbledore waited for the noise to die down before plucking unfolding the piece of paper that fluttered from the goblet. "The Beauxbatons champion is..." all the French students held their breaths. "Fleur Delacour!"

Clap clap, went the students.

Nom nom, went Percy.

"The Hogwarts champion is..." you could cut through the tension with a steak knife. If Percy wasn't using said steak knife. The steak was really tough. Percy sawed at it some more.

Then he registered the silence. "Seaweed Brain," Annabeth jabbed at his ribs. "Your name got called!"

Percy looked around and saw everyone staring at him. "Me?" He asked through his mouthful of steak.

"Percy Jackson, please come up here."

Percy quickly swallowed and walked up. He could hear several angry mutters, along with several not-so-subtle angry yelling.

"He's underage!" someone blatantly shouted.

He reached the door to where the champions turned in, then hesitated. He wanted to hear how Dumbledore was going to handle the situation.

"Settle down, now!" Dumbledore called over the angry buzzing. With some difficulty, they quieted down. "Now, I cannot say how Percy's name got into the Goblet, but I assure you..." he trailed off as the Goblet's flames turned scarlet again, spewing out another paper. Dumbledore reached out and snatched it from the air as it fluttered down.

There was a silence as everyone craned their necks as if to peer at the tiny scrap of paper. Then the old headmaster read out, "Harry Potter."

>>>•O•<<<

"I didn't put my name into that goblet!" Harry roared as Percy slipped into the boys dormitory that night. He could see the shadows of two boys against the wall, looking awfully distorted in the flickering candle light.

"Yeah, sure!" Ron snapped back. "Only you said this morning that you'd've done it last night and no one would've seen you! And what, did you feel like I wasn't good enough for you? That maybe you'd just tell Perfect Percy Jackson how to do it too? I know you were in it together, I'm not stupid you know!"

"Well then you're doing a really great impression of it!" Harry all but screamed.

"You'll want to go to bed, Harry. I expect you'll want to be up for a photo-call or something."

Percy hadn't moved from the doorway as Ron yanked his curtains shut, sealing him away from them.

He didn't know Ron felt so strongly against him. They were always friends, even if they did annoy each other an awful lot.

Percy slowly slipped past Harry, who had pulled his own curtains around himself, and fell into bed. When Dumbledore told them to put their names in, he hadn't thought that the goblet would actually choose him.

"That's what I get for signing up for a quest without asking for details," Percy muttered to himself as he waved his wand, flicking the lights off.

>>>•O•<<<

The first task, while a good two weeks away, seemed to zip closer faster than Blackjack on a donut high. Harry had firmly stuck to Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia while Jason and Nico tried to take Ron's mind off things. Hermione constantly hopped between the groups, trying to get Harry and Ron to talk to each other, but to no prevail. The weighing of the wands came and passed, and still nothing.

"It's honestly like trying to get a cat and a goldfish to get along," Hermione had once complained to Percy and Annabeth when the girls were desperately trying to get Percy better at spells. (Percy, being the distracted, ADHD boy he was, had said he would use his wand for the tasks. "Dumbledore didn't say you had to use a wand!" Nico had pointed out angrily. "I would've chosen my sword!" "Well, not much you can do about it now, can you?" asked a very disgruntled Percy.)

Hogsmeade wasn't much better, group-wise at least. Harry refused to walk out in the open, settling for the invisibility cloak until Percy convinced him to use his hat— "it's smaller and more convenient and doesn't get tangled in bushes".

"Oh, come on," Hermione complained as they walked to the small village. "No one's going to bother you here."

At the same time, Annabeth whispered, "Hide!" and jammed her own hat on Percy's head. Rita skeeter strolled by with her photograph friend, both talking in muted tones to each other.

"See what I mean?" The area where Harry was walking complained.

"It's fine. Let's go to Three Broomsticks," Thalia suggested.

"Get me a Butterbeer." Harry lowered his voice as they entered the crowded pub.

"Hey, look it's Hagrid," Annabeth said, waving as the friendly half giant began to make his way over to their table.

"And he's brought a friend," Thalia observed. Moody was clomping through, his eye whizzing in his skull.

"What's that, now?" The grizzled teacher asked curiously.

"What's what?" Percy asked.

"What's that Potter's wearing? Not an invisiblity cloak."

They all glanced at each other.

"It's an enchanted hat," Annabeth said. "Same properties of an invisibility cloak."

"Fascinating." Moody's eye focused on the empty spot.

"Percy, Harry," Hagrid muttered, leaning in. "Meet me at me cabin, midnight. Bring yer cloak and whatever that thing is yer wearing righ' now."

"Why do you think he wanted to meet with us?" Percy mumbled to Harry as Hagrid gave one last wink and walked away, Moody clomping after him.

"Dunno," Harry replied. "Only one way to find out, is there?"

>>>•O•<<<

"I was not expecting this," Percy whispered as they crouched behind the shrubbery (even though there was no point in crouching— they were both invisible).

"Dragons?" Harry murmured in an awed tone. Then the awe was replaced by fear. "Dragons?" He repeated.

"Okay, alright," Percy muttered. "Do we have to kill it? Because there's no way I can do that with a wand."

"At least you've got your fancy Neptune powers," Harry complained under his breath.

"Poseidon," Percy corrected him.

"I can't do anything!"

"You can... er..." Percy hesitated. "You can... play Quidditch really well?"

He couldn't see him, but Percy got the impression that Harry was rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, that's helpful." There was a rustle of cloak on bushes. "It's almost one. Let's go back."