Percy Jackson and the Hound of Hogwarts [Book 3]

35) The Stolen Chariot

As a demigod, you can only really hope for a normal time. You're never that lucky.

I could be considered unlucky, even for demigod standards.

Most of the time, when a monster attacks, it's just me. I'm powerful, and my scent is strong. So when I had heard noises outside of my window one morning, I wasn't surprised.

I was surprised, however, to see Clarisse fighting a flock of birds. Maybe even more surprisingly, is that I had gone out to help her.

So when I walked into our house after helping Clarisse steak back her father's war chariot and fight of Phobos and Deimos, her immortal half-brothers, Luke was sitting on the couch with a look of exasperation on his face. I wasn't surprised about that.

"Where have you been?" Luke groaned. "It's Christmas Eve, Percy. And why do you look so exhausted?"

I shrugged, "I told Howie I was going to help Clarisse fight of a bunch of murderous birds. Did he not tell you?"

"Percy, Clarisse isn't here. She's in America."

"She was in America," I corrected. "She's probably somewhere over the Atlantic right now. But earlier, she was outside of our house, fighting birds."

Luke blinked, frowning, "Well, what took you so long?"

I groaned, flopping onto the couch beside him, "The birds were sent by her brothers, Phobos and Deimos, yeah? The were playing a prank on her. She was supposed to drive around Ares's car, but they stole it. I just helped her get it back."

Luke frowned, looking down, "So you went on an unsanctioned quest, pretty much."

"Eh," I shrugged. "It wasn't that big of a deal."

Luke pouted, "Could you just not have some scary adventure for, like, three minutes, please?"

I grinned up at Luke, "Two minutes at best."

He promptly shoved me off of the couch.

***

The next morning I was woken up by Hayden and Holly jumping on my bed.

"Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwake—"

"I'm awake, I'm awake, please stop jumping," I groaned out, looking up at them. They both grinned at me then ran out of the room.

I walked downstairs, tripping over Harper as he tried to walk out of his room.

"Why is it always me, Percy?" Harper looked at me with exasperation, having caught me before I hit the ground. "Why?"

"You're the most hittable," I shrugged, then stood and ran downstairs before he hit me.

Christmas with the Edwards family is the best kind of Christmas.

We all sat around the Christmas tree, smiling happily as we talked to each other. Luke sat beside me, an arm wrapped around my shoulder as he talked to Hope.

If Luke had never taken me in, I would have spent my Christmas at Hogwarts. If I hadn't been a wizard, I would have spent my time at Gabe's.

This kind of happiness was something I could never have asked for. I had my family all around me, and that had been the second of many great Christmases to come.

We opened our presents happily. From Luke, I had gotten a new skateboard. I'd gotten a book from Hermione about Egyptian mythology, and Ron and Harry has both sent me a bunch of candy. Hagrid had sent me some weird fudge stuff that I had to put in the microwave, and Mrs. Weasley had sent me one of her Weasley sweaters. This one was black with a sea-green trident in the center.

I had gotten plenty of presents, but quite possibly the best present I had gotten that day was Draco sneaking into my bedroom with Giulianna Valdez in tow.

Giulianna was descended from Hades. A legacy. Her grandfather had been a son of Hades. Strangely enough, she had been very powerful for a legacy.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, looking confused.

Draco just grinned, "It's a surprise. Come on, where's the nearest McDonalds?"

***

After getting a lot of Happy Meals, I found myself sitting beside a freshly dug hole, feeling very confused.

Giulianna was dumping all of the food into the hole, Draco had a stupid grin on his face, and soon enough, the both of them began to pray. They wouldn't tell me what to pray for, or who to, soI just sat there, not understanding.

"Let the dead rise again," she murmured, pouring coke into the hole. "Let then rise and take this offering. Let them remember." She began to pour the food into the hole, then began chanting in Greek. There was a lot of stuff about the dead and memories and returning from the grave.

A weird brown watery thing started filling the grave, and soon enough, ghosts were appearing. Giulianna had risen the dead with coke and cheeseburgers.

She looked around, looking a little anxious. She was pale and looked exhausted, and there were only a few ghosts around.

One of the ghosts stepped forward, and Giulianna let it drink from the hole.

I recognized her immediately.

She looked just like me, though her eyes and hair were a different color. She was older than me, and a lot darker, but she had a wide smile on her face and tears glistening in her eyes as she looked at me.

The best present I had gotten that Christmas, was the chance to see my mom again.

Yesterday was weird. The power went out pretty early into the day. Uh. Apparently our cats ran into the basement and climbed into the wall. I don't think that happened because the hole into the wall was really small. Like cats can squeeze but I don't think they could squeeze that much. Anyway, they asked me to go down and find them, and it took me a while, but I only found one of them. It was sitting out in the driveway, which was why it took me so long. I noticed it was freaking out a little bit, so I went to go investigate, when I realized I heard something moving in the leaves. I shined my light on it, and I'm pretty sure it was a snakes. Now I'm not really scared of snakes, but I'm not stupid. I'm not just gonna approach some unknown kind of snake when it's dark and cold and all that stuff. We got the cat to come with me and J brought it to its shed. Skip to this morning, the missing cat was found. In the shed. I have no clue where the other cat is at the moment, probably on the trailer, but it's all good. Uh. I know some other stuff happened but I can't think. Me and Emblem played Among Us. Uh. Uhh we moved our date for our CBA test. Monday and Tuesday for the Gmetrix, and we'll figure out the Word Certification thing later probably. I've got a friend coming over a couple of days next week. My sisters lost my scissors. I want my scissors back. I started thinking about writing something (it will most likely never see the light of day). It's set in the PJO world, but like after everything that happened. Like the characters are all older and lead lives and stuff. It's about one of the younger demigods, and his big adventures and stuff. It's a good idea in theory, I'm just not really sure how to carry it out. I've also got to read F451 for the stuff I need to do today, but I just don't want to... eh.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a fantastic Friday (I didn't even mean to make them start with the same letter this time), and I will see you on Sunday. Love ya!