Demigods at Hogwarts | the rescue mission ✔

38| Demigod Dreams 2

Everything in this chapter happens while Percy is dreaming. I just wanted to talk about Nico because I recently re-read The Blood of Olympus and realized how utterly awesome he is. I haven't done much on Nico in this book either, so that's how this chapter came up.

I also have loads of ideas for the last chapters of this book. I'll try to write as much as I can but I can predict there'll be a bit more than 50 chapters in this book.

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Nico's POV

"I'm going to sleep," I announced gloomily as I got up from my seat. It was dinnertime, but none of us had bothered to go down for dinner. Telling a crowd of people that I was Death Boy was probably one of the most embarrassing things I had ever done. I didn't want to think about how everyone would stare the following day. At me, especially. I mean, everyone would want to be friends with Piper or Percy. Who wouldn't want to be friends with Beauty Queen and Aquaman? But the son of the death god?

That was some bad mojo.

I trudged upstairs, tripped over a heap of dirty laundry, and collapsed onto my bed. I slowly turned to the direction of Percy's bed and regretted it instantly. The son of the sea god was curled up in a ball, sound asleep. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest--he looked more peaceful than I had seen him in weeks. I forced myself to look away, my eyes burning.

Because maybe, maybe I had lingering feelings for him. Feelings that never quite went away, even when I had started liking Will Solace.

'Forget it, he has Annabeth,' I thought to myself. 'you're his friend, and that's more than you ever asked for.' It had been humiliating--being forced to tell the truth by Cupid. And ultimately, the humiliation had made it easier to get over Percy Jackson. But the way he had accepted the ugly truth and continued treating me like a human somehow made me love him even more.

Sighing, I pulled my covers over my head and fell into a deep sleep.

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I was standing in a meadow with long, grey grass that brushed against my knees. The sky was a gloomy grey colour, and all around me were ghosts, glassy-eyed and wandering.

Not ghosts, I reminded myself. Just lost souls.

I had somehow dreamed myself to my father's realm—the Fields of Asphodel.

My throat tightened, my heart beating faster as I took in my surroundings. I had always been comfortable in the Underworld—my world—but all that had changed since Tartarus. I grimaced. I had trained myself, with the help of the Roman praetor Reyna, to banish all thoughts of the land of the dead. So why was I here?

"Nico."

Startled, I spun around. My father was walking towards me, the bident in his hand glowing red. He had to be 50 feet tall. I gulped, taking a step backwards. He looked more intimidating than ever, and the fact that he was towering over me didn't help. I knew a lot of demigods who were terrified of their godly parents, and I considered myself as one of them--even though I had seen Hades way more times than most campers had seen their parents.

"Father," I managed to choke as Hades shrank until he was only a few centimetres taller than me. There was something in his eyes that bothered me. Something wasn't right.

"We don't have much time," He muttered, glancing around anxiously as if someone was going to jump out and attack us. "I've been watching over your quest. All the gods have. And I need to warn you, son." He stared at me dead in the eye, a look of worry on his face. I had never seen him this concerned before. And it unnerved me.

"What?" I asked, frowning. I didn't like where this was going. Gods were seldom worried about anything. And when they did, it had to be something that threatened their existence.

Hades sighed and was about to say something when lightning flashed across the sky. My eyes widened in shock. There was no weather in the Underworld. I turned to my father, who looked equally alarmed. Then he threw his arms around me and pulled me into a hug. I stumbled backwards, my muscles paralyzed. The last thing I wanted was for him to touch me.

"Beware of the girl with the green eyes," he murmured into my ear, his fingernails digging into my skin. Then he let me go and dissolved into a million black specks, sinking into the mud seconds before lightning struck right where he had just been standing.