Demigods at Hogwarts | the rescue mission ✔

39| Back to December

This chapter is going to be written in Piper's POV because this story just got #6 in that tag!!!

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Piper's POV

We were all woken up by Percy's frantic shouts.

It had to be around midnight--the sky was dark and the moon hung above the clouds, giving us just enough light to see each other's faces clear enough. I silently cursed, wondering why the girl dormitories weren't separate from the boys.

But everything changed when I saw Percy's expression.

I guessed that he had just fallen off his bed--he was sitting on the ground, his face chalk-white and his breathing laboured. He looked like he was in pain. I stared, frozen in time, as I watched everyone clamber out of their beds.

I couldn't bring myself to move. I was Piper Mclean, daughter of Aphrodite and the first one to be there when her friends needed help. So why wasn't I using my charmspeak to calm Percy down?

Suddenly, the dormitory melted away into nothing and I was falling--tumbling through the air. The sides of the Grand Canyon racing past like a film on fast-forward. I let out a scream, my heart pounded in my chest as I caught flashes of the blue sky above me. Then I felt a pair of hands--strong, firm, steady hands--on my waist and I looked up. Jason was grinning at me, his blue eyes displaying no fear at all. "You're gonna be fine. I've got you," he whispered into my ear as the wind died. I looked down--we were floating in mid-air, a hundred feet above the river.

And then the scene changed. I was running through the hallways of Hogwarts, hot tears running down my cheeks. I pushed past crowds of students wearing flamboyant dresses and suits, sipping bubbly liquid from wine glasses, leaning on each other and laughing. I didn't want to look back--I didn't dare to look back. I shivered--it was freezing cold. What had I been thinking, wearing a sleeveless dress to a ball in December?

I had been an idiot to go to the ball at all.

I was halfway up the stairs to our private dormitory when I heard footsteps behind me. Noah, his face twisted in anger, was running up the stairs. He grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled me towards him, his icy cold hand clamped against my mouth. There was no one remotely near us, no one to save me. He steered me into our dormitory, shutting the door firmly behind him.

"Piper!"

I blinked as reality flooded back in. Percy was lying on the ground, gasping for breath. My friends were all crowded around him. Hazel was staring at me, both annoyed and concerned. "Piper, will you please come help."

My eyes widened. Why couldn't I have chosen a better time to space out? I jumped out of bed and sat down next to Percy. "Take a deep breath," I said quietly, trying to sound calm. I could hear the shakiness in my voice. What was wrong with me? "Just breathe," I repeated, firmly this time. Percy gasped, then kneeled over as he vomited all over my lap. His face regained some colour and he managed to stand up, looking completely mortified.

"Oh my gods, Piper, I am so sorry," he said shakily, his hands raised in a surrender pose. "It was an accident, I-"

"It's fine," I interrupted, cutting him off. The last thing I needed was Percy on his knees apologizing to me. I just wanted to be alone. Wordlessly, I stumbled towards the bathroom. Quickly taking off my bile-covered clothes and throwing them in the sink, I turned on the shower. It wasn't until I couldn't hear anything over the running water did I manage to relax.

Noah Adams. Noah Adams. I couldn't get the sound of his name out of my mind. And what he had did to me that night, in the dormitory without anyone watching, sent surges of pain through my body.

How could I have been so vulnerable? Why didn't I fight back? I was a freakin daughter of the love goddess, and I had been taken advantage of so easily. Maybe I was really just a useless demigod, a kid who knew nothing about fighting monsters, much less protecting herself. Stepping out of the shower, I dried myself down with a towel and stared at myself in the mirror.

My brown hair was tangled in knots and my kaleidoscope eyes were dull. My body was far from perfect, and I couldn't seem to see beautiful. I felt a pang of sadness in my chest. I now knew why I had never been taken seriously, even before being claimed by Aphrodite. There was nothing special about me--I didn't have Annabeth's determined gray gaze, Percy's good looks, Leo's playful expression or Jason's firmness. I was just Piper.

A mistake the gods made. Hardly a Hero of Olympus. Unworthy of a prophecy.

Leaning on the sink, I let out the tears I had been holding in for a while now.