The Spellbound Myth

15. Tested Theories

"Guys, look ..." he said, gesturing to his body, waving his arms around, "I'm fine. Really. See?"

Percy Jackson was not fine. 

Not in the slightest. 

But he wouldn't dare tell that to the concerned faces of his friends. 

Although as he looked at them peering down at him, with their eyes wide, and skin slightly pale, they were not convinced. 

"But you were shaking in your sleep. I swear, you looked like you were terrified." Spoke up Harry in reply. "I reckon it was a good thing we woke you up, otherwise you could have had a heart attack."

"It was just a nightmare, honest." 

It was not just a nightmare.

Not in the slightest. 

Even as he lied to their face, he could feel the sweat rolling down his forehead and falling into his eyes, as well as hear his panting breath. 

Neither looked convinced. But a flash of apology and understanding flickered across emerald eyes. 

"Mate you were practically screaming, look just tell us and we can help..." Ron stopped what he was saying quite suddenly, eyes trained on a Harry Potter, shaking his head slightly.

Percy just looked at Harry thankfully, nodding slightly in respect to his fellow classmate. A small smile adorned Harry's face in reply, a smattering of red painting his cheeks. He was not used to anybody thanking him. 

Ron still wasn't content to just leave it, however, "Where'd you even go?" but thankfully he knew to leave the dream alone. 

Percy's restless tapping ceased. He had been anticipating questions like this of course, but as he made abundantly clear last night, he didn't have a clue how to answer it. 

He settled on his default setting, avoidance. 

"What do you mean?" He asked, hopefully showing more confusion to that question than he actually had. After all, he knew exactly what they meant. 

It didn't work.

Ron stared at him as though he was thick, before he scoffed and said, "What do you mean, what do I mean? Mate you fell like a hundred feet, got whisked off to the infirmary, only to disappear for three and a half days, to then show up in our dorm, completely healed and definitely not the mangled mess we saw as you splattered onto the ground!"

Percy was at a loss of words. And he never was. He always had something to say. Just ask his old school teachers. Or any authority figure, ever. 

The main thing that stuck out to him, by quite a large margin too, was that he was completely healed. Of course he knew that from the lack of pain, but the fact that Ron decided to include it told him it was utterly abnormal for him to be so. 

"Guys, what do you know about rain?" was the only thing he could think of to say. 

He didn't know why his mouth had just spurted that out, but it was something that was nagging him yesterday. Just how did he feel energised when in water?

The two of them just stared at him as though his nightmare had short circuited his brain. 

Percy's blush reached down to his neck. 

"Guys I swear I'm not insane..." he smiled at them, as if to prove his point, "... just humor me."

"The blokes gone mad mate. We should get Pomfrey up here or something." Ron said, trying to whisper to Harry, but probably speaking loud enough to wake up his snoring twin brothers two floors above.