Heroes at Hogwarts

thirty-one | phantom pains and big ideas

percy

Percy finally understood when veterans complained about their missing limbs hurting, or Jason whining about how sometimes in the middle of the night it still felt like he was being stabbed.

He was never going to tease Jason again.

He was woken up two times in a row that night by a ghost of a spike impaling him. He jolted straight up with a strangled yell, only to find no more pain. In fact, it was all healed up. Just a jagged scar remained, thanks to Will's amazing healing skills- which have improved since he was eleven- and his ability to heal in water.

He kind of wished he'd never invited all of them out there to meet the dryads in the first place, but he was so excited. For months he'd been convinced none lived here in wizard territory, then two nights ago he was out patrolling with Reyna and they'd run into none other than pine dryads playing cards in a clearing. The cards, made out of leaves, fluttered to the ground as they all tried to hide, but Reyna and Percy had managed to coax them out.

"It's okay," they said, "we're demigods. A son of Poseidon and a daughter of Bellona."

The plants had slowly shown themselves. Even after patrol ended, the two demigods had stayed out chatting with them. Who knew plants were so underappreciated in the wizarding world? Turns out even the mandrakes have a spirit; which Percy was sure he wouldn't want to meet.

Now, he lay in the infirmary bed for the zillionth hour since the attack. He was restless, bored, and extremely tired all in one. Half of him wanted to sneak out and go to the lake, the other half wanted to take a nap. He wasn't sure which one to go with.

Annabeth had come by at lunch, her free period, dinner, and after dinner. The others had visited then too. During those visits, he heard about how Harry had seen everything. Percy felt really bad. He hadn't wanted the younger boy to see any of that, especially not him getting attacked.

Percy knew everyone was worried about him, and not just with him getting impaled. Jason was taking sideways glances at him, worried he might disappear. Nico was always frowning, which wasn't unusual, but now he was frowning at Percy, which was. Rachel always carried her hairbrush with her nowadays. Even Annabeth wasn't telling Percy everything. He knew something was going on, they just wouldn't tell him what. He figured they'd all gotten together without him to discuss the hydra attack. By the looks on their faces, it wasn't a good omen to get attacked with fire and stabbed through the stomach with a tail spike.

Huh, who would've guessed.

He threw the covers off, having made up his mind. He groaned as he moved. Sure, he felt completely fine, but the area was still incredibly sore. Moving hurt, but not as bad as it did before he'd been splashed. He'd decided to head down to the lake, though. Pomfrey could yell at him when he got back, he needed out of these white walls.

It was hard for him to get down the halls without alerting Flitch, but years of being a demigod had trained him to be stealthy.

Come to think of it, Percy's quests never had really involved stealth. Percy bumped into a set of armor, which slammed into the ground, and he took off running (which hurt, bad. Not moving for a full day had its downsides.). He could tell Flitch was coming up the corridor, so he hurried around the corner. As soon as he was out of sight, and at the doors, he slowed down. Then he pushed the doors open slightly and slipped into the night.

As soon as he reached the lake, he stepped into it. The water felt great against his feet. He sighed, the feeling warmed his core. The aching of the wound was still there, but much less prominent.