Since it's the PJO renaissance at the moment, I decided to update this fic. Everything in this is 100% self-indulgent and written expressly for me to reread ten million times when I'm sad. Have fun, y'all.

Eleanor Shacklebolt had gone missing along with another boy from first year. It took several minutes of calming down a distraught Magnus Shacklebolt for him to explain what had happened. His cousin had disappeared from her room last night, the other boy from the halls on the way to breakfast.

"You missed that, by the way," Magnus said to Teddy and Nico.

Teddy's hair turned bright red as he disentangled himself from where he was laying on the couch with Nico the night before. His chest still felt warm from where Nico's head had been and he blushed again at the thought that this was the position one of his coworkers had to find him in. Of course it was.

Nico stood. "You should take me to Eleanor's room. I don't have a class for another few hours, I can help."

Magnus set his jaw. "No chance. There's an emergency meeting with McGonagall in a few minutes. If she lets you, then sure, but I can't give you clearance to enter the girls' dormitories and I can't see how you can help. You're not even a wizard."

Teddy tensed and looked at Nico, who had clenched his hands into fists.

"Fine," Nico managed. "I'll see you at that meeting." Then, "I'm sorry about your cousin.

Magnus sighed. "Yeah. Me too."

He left and the tension in the air broke. Teddy grabbed Nico's forearm and turned so he was facing him, worry evident on his face.

"What was that all about?" Teddy asked.

"I hate this," Nico muttered. "I'm never taken seriously here."

He could feel Nico slipping away from him. The closeness they'd had last night had evaporated in the cold light of morning and the reality of their current situation. Teddy felt like he was constantly fighting a losing battle; every time he managed to gain an inch of ground, Nico rebuffed him and he lost two more.

"Don't worry about Magnus; he's a known grump, he doesn't like anyone." Teddy reached for Nico's hand and he immediately knew it was a bad decision.

Nico pulled his hand back as if he'd been scalded and looked at Teddy with an inscrutable expression. "We can't do this. People are missing, and I- I'm not even supposed to be here."

"Nico," Teddy said. He clenched his jaw.

"You don't understand, this happens every time," Nico said.

"What are you talking about?" Teddy furrowed his brow.

Nico looked panicked and headed for the door, grabbing his jacket on his way out. "I have to go."

Class was tense and lunch was even worse. Nico was in a downright foul mood that he couldn't rectify. One thing kept running through his mind: this was his fault. Wherever he went, there was death and destruction. He wasn't a good luck charm, he was unluck. He was death.

But he found himself in McGonagall's office later that day, bursting in on what he assumed must have been a meeting to locate the two new missing students alongside their efforts to search for Prudence Greengrass. Because Nico di Angelo was never very good at controlling himself and because Nico di Angelo had a hunch

"Show me where they were last seen," Nico said as he approached McGonagall's desk.

"How very kind of you to join us, Mr di Angelo," McGonagall said over her glasses. "Please, involve yourself where you are not wanted."

"You told me to teach here so I could help," Nico said. "This is me helping."

"Unless you know where the three children are off the top of your head, I do not see how your skill set would be useful here," McGonagall's voice was firm.

Nico leaned over the table, ignoring the team of Aurors sitting and looking at him in astonishment. "You've spoken to Chiron, you know what my specific set of...skills are."

McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

"Besides," He pushed off from the table with a newfound rush of confidence. "They're not dead."

"How do you know that?" Magnus asked.

Nico turned to face him sharply. "The Headmistress obviously hasn't told you much about what I can do."

Magnus grumbled, but otherwise remained silent. He eyed Nico warily.

Nico faced McGonagall again, his expression darkening. "You know I can help. I can go looking."

After a moment she said, "Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

Nico grimaced. "Positive. But I can't go until later tonight. Camp has use of my Hellhound for most of the day."

McGonagall raised her other eyebrow.

Nico shrugged. "Training exercises."

Willow looked between Nico and McGonagall. "Excuse me- a Hellhound?"

Magnus Shacklebolt gives them their mission orders after Nico is able to secure Mrs. O'Leary from camp, something that involved innumerous Iris messages and far too many cheerful faces who had missed you very much Nico how are you Nico we'd love to see you back at camp Nico

Even with the modifications he'd made to the Hades cabin, he still wouldn't step within ten miles of camp anymore. But he missed the quests, as much as he might claim he used to hate them, and without Will there to do their usual pre-quest ritual he decided to take those rites upon himself. Even though it made no sense. Even though it made that space where his heart used to be clench around the nothingness.

He sat on the edge of the astronomy tower, a cigarette dangling from his lips. If he held his hand out to one side, he could almost feel Will sitting there next to him, but he didn't dare. He wanted it to be real. He needed it to be real.

Instead, someone else sat down next to him as the sun dipped below the horizon.

"Thought I'd find you here." Neville Longbottom pulled a pipe out of his jacket pocket and placed it between his lips. "This is usually where the sixth years go to smoke, but I'd heard they'd all been scared off. Something about the new professor inching in on their territory."

"Sorry," Nico muttered, barely registering Neville's presence next to him. "I'll find somewhere else."

"Nah," he said with a long exhale. "This is grand. Now it's even easier to catch them when they're about to sneak out. Sort of a one and done, you know? And we save them from the horrors of smoking."

Nico cast a side-long glance at Neville, who was lighting the contents of his pipe with his wand. He liked the unhurried manner of the herbology professor; he wished the others could treat him that way. But he was growing bored with Neville's increasing familiarity; with everyone's, to be perfectly frank. Nico, for all intents and purposes, was unknowable.

"You missed dinner," Neville said. "I would have brought you some, but I had the vague notion that you wouldn't have wanted it anyway.

"Can't eat before a quest," he replied as he looked off into the horizon.

"Quest?" Neville shook his head and chuckled. "You are a funny one."

"Mission- whatever." He drew his knees up to his chest, his cigarette going cold even though he continued to smoke it down to the filter.

Neville hummed in response, but didn't push further and let the time pass as they both smoked in silence.

The wind blew straight through Nico, but he didn't feel it, even when he let the tension go from his limbs and his legs dangle over the edge of the stone that ringed the tower and felt the emptiness beneath the soles of his boots.

"We used to go to the tallest place we could find and sit there the night before a quest was about to start," Nico said. His voice felt odd in his own mouth, his chest tight. "He liked to say it was tempting fate." He gestured into the waning light. "See if Zeus smites us, I don't care."

Smoke filled the air in slow, lazy puffs. Neville waited. "Who?"

It felt like his ribs were cracking again, but the sting of the cold helped numb him with every breath.

"Uh, my boyfriend." A laugh found its way through his lungs. "My- I guess, ex-boyfriend now. He always had these grand ideas about life. Defying the gods was right up there. I was brave but- not that brave. And neither was he; he only liked to do shit like that when it came to little things. Zeus didn't- Zeus didn't care if we sat on the roof of a cabin to look at the stars. He didn't care if we lived or died."

Neville looked at him, his pipe between two set lips that betrayed a rather stony expression. "He sounds interesting, your boyfriend."

The momentary rush of feeling left Nico as soon as he took another breath. He nodded. "Yeah, he was." He swallowed. "We buried him on a hill. Well, not really. We burned him first. I- I chose to bury him."

He didn't want Neville's pity and he braced himself for what was going to come next, fingers digging into the aging stone. Any variation on an apology would send Nico's mood plummeting, as if it hadn't already hit rock bottom.

"From what I know of you to be true," Neville began, stuffing his pipe with more of whatever herb he had chosen to smoke. "You would not have chosen anyone less than exemplary with whom to share your life."

He lifted his head to look at Neville, who only glanced at him with somewhat distant, watery fondness in return. He made a move as if he were about to place a hand on Nico's shoulder but thought better of it, settling against the stone instead.

"He must have been strong," Neville said. "To shoulder your sadness."

Nico's lip quivered and he pressed them together to prevent it from happening again. His throat felt thick. "He was. But not enough."

"The way I see it-" Neville lowered his arm. "-Strength doesn't really determine whether you live or die, just if you win or lose. He won you, you won him. That is a life worthy of being lived." He paused. "When did it happen?"

Nico fished out another cigarette and lit it, thinking on Neville's cryptic words. "Last year. I used to keep a count of everyone who died but- it became too much. I only remember two now. Anniversary is coming up in around a month. My birthday, too, if you were thinking of getting me anything."

Neville hummed around the stem of his pipe for a moment before clouding the air with smoke, the sweet and acrid scents intermingling. "What do you get the man who has everything?"

That earned him a chuckle. "A pair of socks?"

He raised an eyebrow teasingly. "You do always look one full gust away from freezing in place, di Angelo."

Nico waved Neville off. "Come on, who are you? My sister?"

He shrugged. "I have been told I have a very feminine spirit."

They both dissolved into laughter. The minutes stretched before them as their smoke began to dwindle.

"Come," Neville clapped him on the shoulder. "We have other things to occupy our minds with. Like getting you a proper jacket for once. It's freezing out here."

Nico stood and rolled his eyes but said nothing, stamping out the evidence that either of them were there. "Let's just hope this goes smoothly."

"It's a mission at Hogwarts," Neville says with a humourless smile. "Nothing ever goes wrong."