Always Protect

Chapter 22

Luke stood in front of the big house. He hadn't visited Percy yet since the younger boy woke up due to it being his job to corral his mischievous siblings. Annabeth said that the last surviving Potter had not gotten up or eaten in the two days since he woke other than to go to the washroom.

Taking a deep breath, the blonde boy walked into the building and to the room where his young friend was staying.

"Percy, hey bud."

The only response he got was a slight shift of the pile of blankets on the bed and a pair of ocean eyes peeking out at him. Luke smiled softly.

"How are you feeling?"

Percy looked down, eyes shining, before he shifted once more, finally sitting up in the bed. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying on and off for the past few days. Despite the glint of unshed tears hiding in them, he felt that he wasn't able to cry anymore.

"I-I don't know." Percy choked out, voice cracking a bit. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do without my brother."

Luke nodded solemnly, moving to sit facing the younger boy on the bed.

"I know what you mean. When I was a baby, my mother was cursed, making it hard for her to take care of me. A few years before I started at Hogwarts I ran away. While I was on the run, I met two girls, one of them was Annabeth. They became my family, my sisters. Eventually we made it here but right before we reached the barrier, the other girl stopped, determined to fend off the monsters while we got to safety. I wanted to help her or convince her that we could make it here together but there was no time and the one leading us to the camp had an injured his leg. She didn't make it to camp." Luke told his story with a hollow voice, gaze locked on the knitted blanket yet still unseeing.

Percy frowned at him.

"How do you do it? Get through your days knowing she's gone?"

Luke swallowed thickly and took a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Well as bad as it sounds, it gets better with time. And I had Annabeth to worry about so that helped me get out of my own head. The biggest thing however, is that I promised myself that I would train, train as hard as I could so that one day I would be able to avenge her, my best friend."

The son of Poseidon saw a hard, dark glint in Luke's blue eyes but he was honestly just relieved that he'd been given something he could do rather than more platitudes as Annabeth had given.

<><><>

After talking for a little while longer, Luke went and sat on the front porch of the big house while Percy took a shower and got into the change of clothes that had been waiting for him since the first day. While Luke was waiting, observing the campers running and training in the different areas, Percy stood in front of the mirror.

He had been supplied with shorts and a T-shirt. He hadn't worn clothes like this around others since he was maybe about five years old. After that scars had started appearing on his arms and legs. Even when swimming with Harry a few days earlier (wow, had it already been a few days?) he'd worn a long-sleeved swim shirt and pants. At least at Hogwarts he could use glamours, it was the first thing he'd taught himself when he got a chance to find the library.

Now looking in the mirror, red lines, white lines, and all the shades in between marred his limbs, each colour marking how old the scar was.

Feeling tears of fear and embarrassment fighting to the surface, Percy resolutely pushed them down. He wasn't about stoop so low as to cry about something so trivial as his appearance when he'd just lost his brother. With that thought in mind, the last Potter squared his shoulders, resigned himself to the reactions of others, and walked out of the washroom.

Luke turned at the light footsteps of his friend and couldn't stop himself from gasping slightly. He knew that Harry and his brother had been taken in by the transfiguration professor and that there had to have been a reason for that but Percy was just so small. Seeing the collection of scars decorating the 11, soon to be 12, year old's limbs sent a feeling of just wrong through the blonde. Thankfully, he was able to rein in his expression quickly.

"Ready to see the camp?" He asked, standing and motioning away from the building Percy had been staying in.

The smaller boy blinked at the small reaction but nodded quickly.

"Yeah, I'll probably need more of an explanation while you're at it though."

Luke chuckled and shook his head before leading him further into the camp.

"So I'm sure that Annabeth already told you about the gods existing?"

"Yeah, my dad is Poseidon."

Luke tried to ignore how his heart decided to stop beating for an instance.

A half-blood of the eldest gods...

"How do you know?"

"I took an inheritance test before going to Hogwarts. Three names showed up for parents."

Luke nodded, telling himself mentally that it could always be someone else.

"Well my father is Hermes. God of thieves, travellers, messengers, and a bunch of other boring things. Here at camp, each of the twelve olympians have a cabin where their children reside. Now you'll find that there are no other children of the big three here as they made a pact at the end of World War Two that they wouldn't have any more children as they were too powerful."

Percy laughed bitterly.

"Well if I'm so powerful then why couldn't I save my brother?"

The older boy sighed and put a comforting hand on Percy's shoulder.

"Come on, I'll show you your cabin."

<><><>

Percy was surprised by the amount of faces he recognized from Hogwarts. Clarisse, unfortunately, was one of them. On the bright side, he was walking with the fourteen year old Slytherin so she sneered but didn't do anything else.

After showing him all the different activities, swordplay, lava spewing climbing wall, archery ranges, etc. he passed him over to his dorm mate, Castor because he had to bring his siblings to the arena.

"I'm a son of Dionysus. One of the only two currently around. Usually kids get claimed in some big dramatic way with their godly parent's symbol appearing above their heads. Problem is, my dad was sent down to be a supervisor here as punishment for chasing some nymph that was off limits so when Pollux and I arrived he just pointed, said 'these two are mine' and went about his day."

Percy winced at the description. The god of wine sounded like a stereotypical deadbeat dad.

"Pollux, your twin, he's in Ravenclaw, right?"

Castor looked around quickly before replying in a low voice.

"Yeah but, here's the thing. I'm sure you've seen a fair amount of familiar faces by now. Issue is, not everyone here goes to Hogwarts. Those who don't go, don't know so it's all hush hush. It's the same at school, not everyone from Hogwarts comes here. Got it?"

Percy took a deep breath to try and center himself. So he couldn't talk openly about school at camp or camp at school, and the only place he would've been able to speak with absolute freedom would've been McGonagall Castle. Of course now his brother was gone and he had no idea what had happened to Aunt Minerva so who could say if he would ever return there. Shaking those thoughts away, the last Potter took one last cleansing breath before turning to his fellow Hufflepuff. His fellow demigod.

"Yeah, got it."