a/n: sooo, University is a total bitch! I did not plan to be absent for such a long time, and I apologise. I won't be gone for that long again, trust me. I don't like not writing. (And, I've already written the concept for the next 3 chapters, so it'll be fine.)

Special thanks to my friend, whose nickname just happens to be Harry Potter, for doing the algebra in this chapter (for I am a total wreck in anything relating to mathematics.) If there are any mistakes, blame him. (Nah, I'm kidding. Blame me. I published it, after all, totally trusting him blindly and all that.)

OMG AND GUYS my birthday is tomorrow! I'm getting old! *cries, and rereads HP for the thousandth time for comfort*

A special note from my BETA: "this chapter doesn't have much action, but hold on, because the next one will blow your brains up"

Chapter 26

Well... This isn't Fun

There comes a time in everyone's life when everything you've ever been through flashes in front of your eyes. Your hurts, your happy moments, and of course all the mistakes – regardless whether that mistake was not calling the girl you'd gone on one date with, or not having taken the chance to save someone who died.

Most people think that that moment of sudden clarity is during your last moments before you die.

Harry Potter, however, knew better.

He had stood in front of death, knowing deep in his heart that he might actually die in the next second, staring down at the tip of Voldemort's wand a couple of months ago.

He had never expected to come back to Hogwarts in that moment.

He had said goodbye to Ron and Hermione in his mind, he had accepted that the last words he'd ever hear someone say were the jibes from the death eaters standing by.

Harry Potter had lived through those moments – those precious seconds before you think you're going to die, where supposedly your life flashes before your eyes.

The latter, however, had not happened.

In such a moment, standing eye to eye with death on the other side, you don't think of anything at all. Your mind is blank – maybe for the first time in forever – and you can't do anything but either act on instinct or stand still and brace yourself for impact.

So when Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fell down a pit after stepping through what was supposedly the exit instead of leaving the labyrinth – what they had expected – and Harry had suddenly seen the image every other time he'd blindly jumped into something which resulted into something like plummeting to his death flashing in front of his eyes as a memory, he wasn't afraid anymore.

Percy, however, had no such comfort.

"AAAAAaaaaAAAA! HOLY MOTHER OF ZEUS –"

"Percy, shut up!" Harry roared, his voice just loud enough to be heard above the wind screaming in their ears, "You're not exactly helping me concentrate!"

"I DON'T LIKE FALLING!"

"No shit!" Harry yelled back, "Who the Merlin does?"

Instead of answering, Percy just started yelling incoherent words again.

(Greek words that sounded a lot like curses, actually, and Harry would've asked about it if he weren't in a hurry to find his wand in his pocket to save their lives.)

"Merlin –" Harry cursed, partly thankful that the pit they were falling into was this deep (and, well, also partly not.) "Where in the name of Circe is my wand –"

"POTTER!" Percy shrieked next to him, and suddenly a strong hand in the dark found his. Percy's hand was clammy and shaking – but for a second Harry didn't feel as if they were plummeting to their death. (For some reason, Percy's strength made him feel grounded. Hermione would probably have a dozen theories about that.) "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"I'm trying, you GIT!" Harry yelled back, clutching Percy's hand as tightly as Percy was holding his.

And then, finally, finally, finally Harry felt the familiar hardness of his magic wand tucked in his sweater's pocket. He grinned, fully knowing no one could see, pointed his wand at what he supposed was Percy and himself, and yelled; "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"

He braced himself for the familiar feel of a cushion saving you from your fall – and instead, nothing happened.

They kept falling through the darkness.

"Okay," Harry said, and this time, his mind went blank. That was the only spell he had up his sleeve to save them from the fall. "We're dead."

"Vlacas!" Percy cursed. "Where's Annabeth with a genius plan when you need her?"

Harry laughed – but stopped doing so fast enough.

Because he was getting scared.

They had been falling for 30 seconds now, and the only place Harry knew for sure to be that deep, were the pits hiding all over the labyrinth – the pits leading only to Tartarus.

And however brave Harry deemed himself to be, he did not fancy falling down to Tartarus hand in hand with the son of Poseidon, thanks very much.

They had been falling for so long, that Harry could swear the air was heating up around them, as if they were falling into a fire – a fire that should've made it brighter than it currently was. If that didn't confirm Harry's fears of them falling down to the actual pits of hell, he didn't know what would.

"Wait a second," Percy suddenly said, his voice at a normal tone instead of his terrified shrieking from before, "this is a well."

"Well, it's better than the alternative." Harry wasn't really focussing on Percy now, trying to list every single spell he'd ever covered in class in his head. Would Reducto work? No, wait, that might only get this entire thing to fall on them, too. "There was this bucket above us when we fell down, I think."

"Yes!" Percy yelled, "Ron even joked about it –"

"- about why the exit would need a 'nargle-infected' bucket, yes, I remember."

Immobulus? Harry thought, no, that won't work, we'd be too heavy…

"Harry," Percy said in a calm voice, "I need you to brace yourself."

Wingardium Leviosa? He almost snorted out loud. Just because that worked on a troll's bat didn't mean it would –

"NOW!" Percy suddenly shrieked, and Harry's breathing stopped.

Literally.

Not because he was scared – he was – but because from out of nowhere a big splash of water seemed to hit him in the face, ice-cold and mercilessly wet, and everything went black.

When Harry resurfaced again, he noticed two things.

One, he was wet to the bone, his fringe clinging to his forehead and his jeans sticking uncomfortably to his frame. Even his boxers felt wet – reminding him all the more of the fact that he hadn't gone to the toilet for what felt like days.

Second, he was lying on a stone-hard floor.

I'm not falling anymore.

He immediately jerked up to his feet when that thought occurred, and he looked around him, not surprised to see that it was too dark to actually see a thing further away from him than the tip of his nose. He grabbed his wand – thanking the gods that he still had it – and called a soft, "Lumos."

"Morning, sleepyhead." Percy was grinning at him from the dark.

Unlike Harry, Percy looked as if he hadn't touched water in days. His hair was as wavy and dry as it had always been, and his clothes looked so warm and puffy Harry had to restrain himself from jumping into Percy's arms to use him as a towel.

"Morning," Harry replied, and turned the wand away from him to look around. They were sitting at what looked like a tiny edge of a small pond, no more than ten feet across, with black water mirroring himself stretched out in front of them. Around the edge of the pond was a round wall of ancient-looking bricks, surrounding them, towering above them so high it was impossible to see the top.

If Harry didn't know any better, this had to be the bottom of a –

"Well." Percy said, and he laughed when Harry almost slipped on his feet on his sudden turn. "I was right when we were falling, it was a well. Don't bother screaming up, though, they're far too high up to hear us, and there are no ropes of any kind to help us pull ourselves out of this." Percy's grin turned into a grimace. "Don't worry, I checked."

Harry fell down again on his bum, and restrained himself from crying out in frustration. "We were so close! So close – we could even see the exit!"

"I know, dude." Percy sighed deeply. "The Labyrinth is a bitch."

"No kidding."

They sat in silence for a while – probably with equal profanities echoing through their minds aimed at the so-called all-knowing Greek gods that fated them with such bad luck.

Percy was glaring at the water as if it had personally offended him, his eyebrows knotted together, and his lips turned upwards. After a few days – or a week? Harry had no concept of time anymore after the labyrinth – he'd grown familiar with Percy's expressions. This one, his brooding face, could mean two things. Either he was going to pass out from weariness of his powers, or he was about to go all Poseidon's son and slash the entire well to bits with his blade.

And there was only one reason why he looked that way, and it wasn't because they'd fallen down a well with no way out.

It was because they'd fallen in without Annabeth, and if there was one thing Percy couldn't cope with, it was being separated with her.

"Er, Perce?" Harry tried carefully, "is… is there any way to communicate with the others? A mobile phone?"

Percy snorted, and he turned to Harry with an amused expression on his features. "Annabeth has a cell, back at Camp – but normally, demigods aren't allowed to have one. Every time a demigod uses a cell phone it sends up a figurative flare, as if you're setting off fireworks to let monsters now that, hey! I'm here! Please eat me!"

"Oh." Harry cleared his throat, and shifted on his spot. Every wet spot was itching, which meant that everything was itching. The wound on his leg from the bite of the telekhine, however, burned. (Meanwhile, Percy looked exactly like he had on the day they met at Camp Half-Blood. It was both admirable and infuriating.) "But you're half-gods. Surely you have some sort of communication?"

"We have Iris-Messaging," Percy shrugged.

A few seconds passed.

Then, suddenly, with such a sudden movement that Harry recoiled and almost dropped his wand, Percy hit himself on his forehead. "Iris-Messaging!" he yelled, and he slammed his forehead again. "Harry, you're a genius!" He kicked his leg up and grabbed a golden coin from his pocket, flicking it into the air for Harry to catch.

The coin was heavier than Harry'd expected, and slightly bigger than a Galleon. It wasn't as shiny, though, and the coin looked as if it was thousands of years old. (It probably was.) "Uh, thanks," Harry said at last, and looked back at Percy. "But you don't need to pay me."

Percy laughed. "No, but we do need to pay the goddess. I'm going to create a tiny stream of water in the air, and you need to point your fancy flashlight –"

"It's a wand, not a flashlight," Harry interrupted him, but was ignored.

"- at it to create a rainbow, okay? When you do so, you toss in the drachma –"

"The what?"

"The drachma." Percy pointed at the coin in Harry's hand, and grinned. "It's the Greek currency. Or, well, the ancient Greek one. Anyway, you toss in the coin, and say these words: "oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering."'

Harry stared at him, wondering if he should laugh or not.

"You're serious," he finally managed when Percy just kept staring at him. "You want me to actually say those words."

Percy quirked a brow. "Yes?"

"You want me to toss a golden coin into a stream of water," Harry went on, his tone flat, "and say that to the goddess of rainbows."

"Says the boy who can make things explode by shouting in Latin."

Harry laughed. He supposed that after everything that had happened, he shouldn't have been surprised by this odd ritual. "Excellent point."

So they did what Percy had said.

Percy conjured a tiny stream of water, a tiny rainbow appeared because of Harry's Lumos, Harry threw in the drachma – and it disappeared into thin air, which was so weird that Harry might've gasped in shock if he wasn't used to magic – and repeated the sentence Percy had told him earlier, feeling like a total moron.

For a second Percy said nothing, just staring at the rainbow as if he was carved out of stone. Then, at Harry's gentle nudge, he croaked; "Show me Annabeth Chase."

The water before them rippled, shimmered – and suddenly, they were staring down at their friends. It was so weird, and it looked as if they were staring at an old, bad quality video of their friends, the colours blending together and the audio slightly muffled by the sound of the rushing water.

At first Annabeth didn't notice them. She was yelling instructions to Ron and Grover, who were both trying to tie a rope to the hook above the well, trying not to fall in as they did so. The bucket itself was lying forgotten behind them. Hermione was holding her wand high up in the air, muttering incantations under her breath, and the rope Ron and Grover were holding was getting longer and thicker as she did so.

Then, as if someone had tapped her shoulder, Annabeth turned around, and her eyes widened comically. "Percy!"

Grover dropped the rope in surprise, and Ron almost lost his balance, but kept himself from falling by using Grover to straighten himself up again.

"Hi," Percy said drily, and grinned from ear to ear. "Still alive, obviously."

"I don't whether to kiss you or kill you right now," Annabeth grumbled, her face as red as Ron's hair. "How did you –"

"It's a well," Percy said as a form of explanation. "The water saved us from flattening at the bottom like pancakes."

"Gods, Percy." She sighed deeply, running a hand through her thick and kind-of filthy hair. (Percy was still smiling at her water-y image as if she looked like the epitome of beauty.) "I thought for a second that it was a pit to –"

"Yeah." Percy's smile turned into a grimace. "Me too."

"Well." Annabeth sighed. "Thank the gods it's not. We're going to get you out of there, don't worry. Hermione's conjuring up some rope for us to climb – I'm going to go down, with Grover – and we'll get you up. How long did the fall take?"

"Forty seconds, give or take," Harry chirped up.

Annabeth jumped, as if she hadn't expected to see him sitting there, too. "Harry! Hi! Sorry, I…"

"It's fine." He grinned. "It was Percy you were worried about, and that's only logical."

She frowned. "No, I –"

He waved at her. "Seriously, it's fine. And we'll wait down here, then, we'll live."

Yeah," Percy said, "We won't go anywhere, I promise."

That brought a laugh out of Annabeth. "With the labyrinth, I don't trust that. But fine. Just hold on tight, we're coming. Forty seconds is deep, though…" she frowned, and looked behind her, as if Hermione held all the answers, and then turned back again quickly – as if they'd caught her in the act. "I'm not sure how deep you were falling since I don't know the speed nor angle of your fall –"

Harry and Percy shared a look, both smirking. Trust Annabeth to make something as horrifying as that fall mathematic.

"- but judging by the way you guys fell, and the time it took you to get down there, I'm guessing it was a little over 6300 feet, taking the average speed commonly used... I'm just going with the terminal velocity times, well, time here, and I don't have a calculator on me…"

Harry laughed. "I'd be worried if you had."

"How fast were you falling?" She continued, as if he hadn't said anything.

Percy shrugged. "I dunno, Chase. I was a bit too preoccupied screaming for our lives to really focus on our speed and angle."

"Fair enough," she said, rolling her eyes. "Oh, and Percy," she added, "please get Harry out of those clothes before he gets hypothermia. If Harry dies before we get down there, you have Sirius Black's rage to face, and I'm sure you won't get off with just a slap in the face this time." She winked at them then, and waved her hand through the image – and instantly the message turned back into a rainbow.

Percy wasted no time to turn on Harry, his grin so wide it looked as if it might break his face in two, his green eyes shining malevolently. "She's right, Potter. Let's get you out of those clothes."

Harry groaned. "That sounded so wrong."

"What, you homophobic or something?" Percy batted his eyelashes at him, his smile never wavering. "Don't tell me you don't want a piece of this!" He even swayed his lips a little, his hands gripping his tights in a way that should've been seductive if Harry hadn't been totally grossed out.

Never, ever, in his entire life had Harry blushed so hard. "No! I'm not – you're not –"

Then, just as sudden as Percy had got his 'sexy' mode on, it flipped back to normal, and he bent forward and laughed, his voice echoing throughout the well. "Oh my gods," he breathed between hiccups, clutching his thighs now for an entire different reason, "you should see your face –"

Harry was sure he was radiating heat. (Maybe they could bake an egg off his face now, he was rather hungry. If only they had eggs. Or a chicken to lay one for them.) "Shut up."

Percy hiccupped once more, wiped away a tear, and then pointed at Harry's clothes. "All jokes aside, though, you do need to undress yourself. You're going to freeze to death like that."

Harry shrugged. "I'm not. I've had this before once or twice –" he'd once fallen into a pond during a day out at primary school, and Uncle Vernon, surprise, surprise, hadn't bothered to change his clothes after shoving him into his cupboard – "and I didn't die or anything." He gestured to himself, grinning. "Case and point."

Percy's smile died. "Uh, mate? That's seriously not okay. People have died from this before."

"I'll be fine." He clutched his own chest, ignoring the need to shiver. "It'll dry on its own."

"Yes," Percy said slowly, "and that might take days. This is basic first-aid, Harry, how come you don't know this?"

Harry couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled from his chest – even to him it sounded shrill and empty. "My family isn't exactly the type of people to teach me first-aid. Their form of therapy was shoving me in my cupboard and hoping I didn't cry out too loudly to wake the neighbours."

He'd blurted it out before he could stop himself – and now he wished he could jump in the pond again and hopefully drown in the process. Percy's expression…. It seemed as if the other boy had frozen, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wider than they should've been.

This always happened whenever he told too much of his childhood to someone.

(Like the time he'd accidentally told Hermione about his worst Christmas present – old and used toothpicks – she'd burst into tears and he had ended up comforting her, not quite knowing why or how he ended up there in the first place, vowing to himself to never end up in that situation ever again. Or like the time he joked about having spiders as friends when he didn't have any human ones when he grew up to Ron. Ron had looked at him as if he'd grown a second head, and had spent the following two hours either grumbling incoherent words of encouragement or patting Harry awkwardly on his back.)

"Er," Harry cleared his throat when Percy continued to not say anything. "I'm going to undress, then."

That seemed to jerk Percy awake, and he sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, mate," he said softly, and he smiled apologetically in Harry's direction. "I didn't know. Well, you did kind of insinuate it when you, er…"

"Hugged you?" Harry grinned. "It's fine. It's no big deal."

"It is, though." Percy frowned, and played with a loose fray in his bright-orange t-shirt. (It was obvious that Percy was feeling the awkward tension in the air, but at least he wasn't making jokes about gnomes like Ron had done once.) "Have you ever spoken to someone about it?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Have you?"

The other boy laughed, the sound entirely different as his laugh from before. "Fair point. I did fix my problem, though. Or, well, my mom did."

"Really?" Harry immediately quirked up. "How? Did someone take you in? Did someone notice and called the police? Did your friends help you out? Did –"

"Hades, Harry," Percy's eyes widened, and he quickly grabbed Harry's arm to stop him from rising in his agitation. The spot where Percy's hand was holding him instantly dried up, and Harry probably would've asked him about it if his mind wasn't so preoccupied. "Calm down! It's not a… well," he grinned, and pulled his hand back. "The way it was solved… it was more of an unorthodox way of doing it, so to speak."

"What did you do to him?"

Percy's grin turned darker, and Harry shivered for an entire different reason than the coldness. "My mom petrified him, using the severed head of Medusa."

Harry just stared at him. "What?"

"Yeah." Percy shrugged. "On my first quest I'd ended up beheading Medusa – long story – and I'd sent it to the gods to kind of… well, to give them the finger." He laughed harshly. "I wasn't really an obedient kid, as you might imagine. After the quest, my father had given me back the head, and I'd given it to my mother… so she could fix it. And she did. He's a very nice statue now," Percy's grin was turning more sinister with the second, "I go visit him once every while."

If Harry didn't really like Percy, and considered him his friend, he would be scared shitless right now.

The way he talked about killing another human being – as if it was the most amazing thing that had happened to him – it was electrifyingly frightening.

On the other hand, though…

How many times hadn't he imagined what he would like to have had happened to Uncle Vernon? He by no means would ever have gone through with those thoughts – because no matter what happened, Vernon was human, and he was never going to kill someone, that was Voldemort's job – but he still thought them.

The fact that Percy – technically, Percy's mom – had gone through with those thoughts, shouldn't change how Harry felt about the boy.

So he smiled, regardless of how he felt, and nudged Percy playfully. "You don't have that head lying around anymore, do you?"

Percy laughed. "Sadly, no. I don't know what my mom did with it – probably gave it back to the gods."

Silence fell again, and Harry quickly averted his eyes from Percy to look at the water. So far, it hadn't been as awkward as it could've been. (Maybe that was because Percy knew what it was like to accidentally slip up?) Still, he didn't want to look back at his friend again to see pity reflected in his eyes.

"Well, then," Percy suddenly said, and Harry's head jerked back so fast his neck cracked. "Time to get naked."

Harry laughed, and relaxed for what felt like for the first time in hours. "Never have those words been so welcome."

Percy grinned slowly. "I take that as a compliment."

"Believe me, mate," Harry said, pulling his sticky and probably even smelly sweatshirt over his head, "you should."

Dun, dun, dun. The end!

Next chapter: Ginny's POV! Exploding things! Angst! Bloodshed!

I DON'T SHIP PERCY/HARRY. I mean, I would definitely be interested in some headcanons from you guys, but nah. Not in this no-romance fic. Bromance is definitely the aim for me here. (Don't y'all wanna give Harry a big hug too, though? Poor guy.)

Before I answer some of you anonymous folk, a heartfelt and deep thank you to all you kind people who reviewed on the last chapter! It made me so happy, and made the stress for my first exams so much more bearable! A special note to StellaTheReviewer, for being the 400th to leave a review. (You gotta slack a bit, love, if you want to give someone else a chance.)

Without further ado;

Lthien Iriss: Hi Violet :) Thanks! I really liked writing about the boggart, too, the wizarding world was nice for a chance. I hoped Percy's fear wasn't too out of character, so that's so nice of you to say so. Haha, we all know Nico is special, don't we? (And if there are still people who don't know, they'll definitely know so after the next chapter… *ominous laughter*) And, well, Harry has never really been that loving of couples in general, has he? But don't worry, I ship Percabeth to bits so that won't be the last you'll see of them! Love, x

Guest: You're welcome! I do it with pleasure.