Young and Old, Back and Bold

Chapter 19

Will sighed as he sat beside the small cot. The young camper was nursing a broken ankle, having fallen from the rock wall after a scream had scared him enough to lose his grip. "You'll be fine. I'll give you some more ambrosia soon and you'll be good to go."

"But I broke it!" he argued. "I...I don't want to go back to the rock wall. I can't climb it with a broken ankle."

"It won't be broken in an hour." Will got the chart and flipped through it, his mind somewhere else instead of where it should be. Nico... Was he really alive? Why hadn't they told him more about the situation? They're talking to him now, Piper had said. He's alive. Why was that all she had known?

"Will!" the kid's cry of pain broke him out of his thoughts. "It hurts!"

"Yeah, your ankle's gonna hurt." Will signed the chart before setting in on the table. Chiron had thought it'd be a good idea to keep track of the patients, to see which ones got injured more often. They needed more help than the others, more specialized training. They needed to be looked out for. "Just sit back and relax until you can have more-"

His words stopped as his eyes caught on to what was happening before him. When he saw that boy coughing up blood, when he looked into those pained eyes, it finally clicked. He finally saw what he should have seen hours before.

"Internal bleeding." he jumped to his feet, grabbed some nectar. "We're gonna have to risk more. Open up."

"But-"

"Open up!"

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Nico laid his head on the wooden table, having sat with the Gryffindors at dinner to fill his brother in. So far, all he had gotten was warnings about Snape and a man named Nicolas Flammel. Even Harry didn't seem surprised at the fact that the Greek gods were real.

"It makes sense." Hermione had stated, their voices low so that no others could overhear the conversation. She sat with a large book set out in front of her. "No wonder you were in exactly the right place for Ron's family to find you."

"But we still don't know why I'm here." Nico picked at his food in distaste. "Why would the gods send me here? Why would they give me to the Weasley's?"

"Whatever the case, don't tell mum," Ron warned. "She'll go bloody insane about it."

"I know, I wasn't planning on it." Nico looked to Hermione. "Do you know anything else about Hades that they didn't tell me?"

"He's seen as the evil one in mythology," she admitted. "He rules over the Underworld and the tortured souls that stay there. But get this. It was his brothers that stuck him with that job to begin with. They tricked him into getting the Underworld when they were splitting everything up."

Nico glanced over at Ron, who hadn't stopped filling his mouth. "Well...if it's right, then you see why the gods hate me."

"They probably don't hate you." Ron offered. "They probably don't like that you're a wizard, too."

Hermione and Nico shared a look. "That's actually a good idea," Hermione voiced. "It would make sense why they never wanted you to know about that side of your powers."

Nico stabbed at his chicken in a sudden rush of fury. "They're idiots."

"They're not ones you should insult." Hermione corrected, glancing toward the sky nervously. "If they are up there, they're probably listening."

Nico flung his fork on the table. "Then they can hear me tell them to fuck off."

"Nico!" Hermione hissed. "That's dangerous." She looked to Harry and Ron, the boys having erupted into laughter. "It isn't funny!"

"He got his language from Fred and George, that's for sure." Ron commented.

"Just... Let's drop it." Nico went to stand up but Ron grabbed him, forcing him to stay in his seat. "What?"

"We forgot to tell you." Ron looked to Harry. "Harry, tell him what you saw. About Snape."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Snape is a perfectly good-"

"He tried getting passed that three headed dog." Harry explained. "On Halloween night, I saw the blood on his leg. That's why he's limping."

Nico sighed. "That could be from-... Halloween night? When the troll got in?"

"The troll was a distraction." Hermione told him. "While the teachers were distracted with the troll, Snape tried to go get what the dog is guarding."

"He could do that at any time the teachers are sleeping." Nico reasoned. "Why would he cause so much of a disturbance as to let a troll in? He must have known that they would need him to help get rid of it."

"We can't understand that until we know what Fluffy's guarding." Hermione leaned in closer. "Hagrid said that whatever it is, it's between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flammel. We've been trying to look him up, but so far, we haven't found anything."

"Nicolas Flammel..." Nico shrugged. "Never heard of him. And I doubt he's as important as whatever gods are messing with me."

"We're just telling you to be careful of Snape." Ron inputted. "They say he likes you. Don't know how."

"Because I respect my teachers." Nico ran a hand through his hair. "Fine, fine. I'll watch out for him and tell you if I hear anything about Nicolas Flammel. Deal?"

Ron looked to Nico as he stood up. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Nico nodded. "Yeah, yeah." He stuffed his hands in his pockets before walking off, eyeing Snape as he did so. "I'm alright," he whispered to himself. "I'm alright."

He couldn't focus on the gods. Not when his world, the wizarding world, was brewing with trouble.