Daughter of Poseidon, the Girl Who Lived

8 Beads, pearls and daddy issues

Apparently I had been wrong about my parentage. Turns out it was my mum, not my dad, who was my godly parent. Athena, to be exact.

Annabeth led me to Cabin 6 to leave some of my stuff. I didn't have any stuff with me from Hogwarts except my broom. Hey! Where was my broom?

"What happened to my Nimbus 2001?"

"Your what?" Annabeth looked puzzled.

"His broomstick." Harriet explained. "It is of the model 'Nimbus 2001' the latest of racing brooms. Severus took care of it. Lucky, because Chiron almost stepped on it by accident. You can ask him for it at lunch."

"Okay..."

I felt stupid. Mum told me I was an affair baby and I just assumed she was the one having that affair. I sat down on an empty bed Annabeth assigned to me. This cabin looked like a workshop and a library combined, with the beds more or less squeezed together in a corner. What was Athena, or 'mother', the goddess of again? Wisdom. And also strategy, if I remembered Harriet's presentation of the cabins correctly. She seemed to know most of what there is to know about the Greek gods. For how long had she been going here for the summer? Who was her godly parent? My first thought was Aphrodite, but from what I had understood, her godly parent was her father. Besides if Harriet was a child of Aphrodite, Hades would have been her cousin, not her uncle. I felt like I've lost my train of thought.

Annabeth was making a bed that I assumed was hers and Harriet stood leaned against the wall, restlessly fidgeting with a seashell that was attached to a necklace around her neck.

"Hey! What's that?"

She met my gaze.

"My necklace you mean?"

She pulled out the leather strand to give me a clear view of the necklace. The shell was accompanied by seven clay beads in different colors and about a dozen green oyster pearls.

"Camp Half Blood gives them to the campers at the end of summer. Annabeth has one as well."

I turned to Annabeth who showed me hers. It had more clay beads than Harriet's and no seashell or pearls. It instead had a ring of some kind that you usually put on a finger, and a red coral pendant.

"You get a new bead every year, they're painted with the biggest event of that summer." She explained to me.

I turned back to Harriet who was again fidgeting with that seashell.

"And what about the sea pearls?"

"They're in case I forget how old I am," she said sarcastically and counted the pearls. "Now look! It seems like I'm twelve years old!"

Then she got a more serious tone.

"They're birthday gifts. My dad gives me a new one every year on my birthday. The seashell is for emergency calls to him. He gave it to me when Percy took me with him on a quest for the first time. 'If you ever need me to come I don't want you to climb up to Olympus and risk your life to contact me.' Percy had pulled that stunt during the Battle of New York, he sat on our father's throne, a god would kill you if you did that, literally. Percy was lucky our dad bothered to check who had the audacity to be that disrespectful. It worked, but Dad didn't want us to ever try that again, so he gave us one each of these. I actually think he was a bit afraid of what could've happened..."

She spoke with a tone she had never used in front me before when she talked about her father. She sounded dreamy and almost longing, but also tired, and with an underlying tone of sadness.

How often did you meet your godly parent as a demigod? Harriet sounded like she was talking about a stranger she desperately wished she could get to know.

Daddy issues was something I could actually relate to. My father, Lucius Malfoy, mostly spent his time at the Ministry of Magic trying to wrap the Minister around his finger and strengthening his influence over decisions in progress. Mostly by flashing some of the family fortune, hinting that he might plan on donating some to St. Mungo's or a department that could benefit from some extra money and then proceed to tell the minister something about his opinion on the matter. Everything to keep up the high status of the Malfoy name.

Sometimes he would take me to quidditch games or something, but I was pretty sure he mostly wanted to keep up the picture perfect happy family image.

It was Narcissa who actually raised me. She was the one who taught me to read (even though I still wasn't good with that), count and play the piano.

Even though I was never really close to my father I, like the little naïve boy I now felt like, still wanted him to be proud of me. I studied hard to learn everything I needed to, even though reading was a nightmare. I would read every book my parents found suitable for a young pure blooded wizard and never once complained about the letters melting together all the time. At Hogwarts I practiced my spells and potions until they were basically perfect.

But it was never enough. Every time I made an achievement father would point at a small and for everyone else invisible error and tell me to do better next time. When he found out I wasn't the top of my class, but a mud blooded Hermione Granger, he practically told me to try harder and press myself even further until I was better than her.

And I tried to do as he said, because to him, second best will never be good enough. Especially if the best is a muggle born.

Yet I still respected and worshiped him like he was a flawless god.

Coming to Camp Half Blood had now opened up a new way to see him. Lucius Malfoy; the man who leaves his son for his wife to raise. The man who cares more about his appearance than the wellbeing of his family.

The man who fathered me by going off to cheat on his saint of a wife with some Ancient Greek goddess.

I had never ever questioned my father's actions in any way before that day. It was overwhelming. You can definitely see why I can be considered having daddy issues.

How was it for Harriet I wondered. She was famous in the wizarding world. She was The Girl Who Lived, daughter to the late war heroes James and Lily Potter.

But that image was as true as my father's. What was her real story behind the image?