A/N: Sorry for the long wait guys but 2016 had been a very trying year for me so it took me quite awhile to finish this. I'll be busy the next couple of weeks to settle some RL stuff but I'll see if I can squeeze out some time to update this and my other stories. Thanks to all those who were kind enough to review, favourite/follow this story, I really appreciate it! Also, Im posting this at 4.20am so if there're any mistakes in grammar and the like, feel free to point it out. God knows I cant beta my works properly.
Disclaimer: I no own.
Strange C10:
A tanned torso was revealed as Percy changed out of his uniform to more the more comfortable sweatpants and t-shirt. What caught Draco's attention however were the scars that littered the back of his best friend.
"Percy…" Draco started, not knowing how to voice his thoughts. The fact that someone had left scars on his best friend's body made him see red. He had absolutely no qualms about marching off right now to find the bastard responsible for this travesty and spelling him with a crucio or two and maybe some –
"Drake?"
Percy's voice snapped Draco out of his self-induced haze of hatred and vengeance. Concerned ocean-green eyes looked at him as grey ones took in the shirt hanging from his right hand and the unclothed torso in front of him, which was almost as bad as Percy's back. White upon white had criss-crossed along his body, so faint that they were practically invisible but here in the low lighting of the dormitory, those white lines were stark against tanned skin.
Slowly, Percy seemed to realise where Draco's eyes were currently focussed on. Immediately, Percy gave a strained smirk and teased, "Like what you see?" even as he hastily pulled on the shirt he had grabbed five minutes ago.
"What happened?" Draco asked, dimly aware of how his voice had gotten to that low timbre he only used when he got very, very pissed off, unaware due to the roaring in his ears and the complete and utter fury that had practically consumed his mind.
The wide-eyed look he got from his friend would have been comical if not for the fact that he was not answering the question!
Taking a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves, Draco asked again, despite Percy gaining that awkward I-don't-wanna-talk-about-it look he sometimes got when Draco had pushed too far and too hard about his past.
"What. Happened. Percy."
Said teen just shuffled awkwardly on his feet, a hand coming up to scratch the back of his head before he sheepishly answered, "I can be quite clumsy sometimes, you know me." Then he had the gall to meet Draco's grey eyes as if he wasn't telling the biggest bullshit story of his life. The Slytherin had seen Percy move before and it was anything but clumsy, not with the fluid grace the teen walked with normally down the halls, the inexplicably fast reflexes and sharp eyes. Percy was trained, as a fighter or something else. No one moved that fluidly naturally.
As it stood though, Percy didn't seem willing to budge, judging by the mirthless smile on his lips but Draco didn't want to just let go, not when something so willing to hurt his best friend could still be out there.
The blond opened his mouth to continue but was beaten by Percy.
"Drop it Draco. Please."
And somehow, he couldn't do it. Not when the black-haired teen was saying it in that tone, as if he was on the verge of breaking. As if one more word on this would tear him apart in ways Draco wouldn't want to imagine.
So he gave in.
"Okay, but you'll be telling me one day." Draco declared pompously.
The air tensed before Percy broke out in laughter, relaxing the atmosphere between them. Grateful eyes peered up at him before Percy nodded, "Yeah, I will. Eventually."
-0-
Half an hour later, Hufflepuff students started to trickle back into the common room so Draco decided it was high time to leave.
"Remember Jackson, It's not over yet. We will be having words about this."
Percy just nodded and saw him off from the entrance. It had been an eventful day and all the son of Poseidon wanted to do was sleep. He thanked the gods that his Archille's curse had been lifted if not he would've already collapsed. Multiple times.
Yawning, he headed back to his dormitory and drifted off into oblivion.
-0-
The next day was less eventful, even if Draco was sticking to him more than usual. Thankfully they didn't share most classes if not Percy was sure he would have suffocated under the blond's mollycoddling. Classes were progressing quite well, even if Percy sometimes struggled to keep up due to the rushed cramming session he had to do in order to enrol into fifth year on time. It helped that magic was such a fascinating subject and Percy, who at one point in his year years – when Smelly Gabe was still alive – wished he could just make the man disappear found the subjects he studied now to be very, very useful.
Even with the crazy DADA teacher who basically refused to actually teach anything useful, Percy still didn't have many problems at Hogwarts. Umbridge basically had it out for anyone even remotely connected to Harry Potter and people who believed the story he spouted the year before. Percy didn't actually have an opinion on the bloke but considering that Hermione was a friend…Percy, however, knew to keep his head down and not attract attention especially if he wanted to do a bit of his own research into magic.
Umbridge, who saw that he was friends with the Malfoy heir, had also been wary of provoking the teen lest she brought the wrath of the blond down on herself.
Life continued on peacefully. Well, as peacefully as anyone could be while having their cousin in their head could be. Having Nico inside him was to say the least, strange, and sometimes downright embarrassing, especially when Percy had one of those dreams. While they were totally natural, having someone else view them was not. It was humiliating. And killed any and all hormone-induces sex drive when going through puberty again.
This continued on until Percy got his very first dream. Yes, as in that kind of dream, the demigod kind, which, for the record, totally sucked ass.
Annabeth was sitting at the edge of the water on the beach at Long Island, staring forlornly at the water, chin on her knees with her hugging her shins.
"We'll find you Percy, I promise. You and Nico."
Percy gazed at her, missing her, trying to memorise her visage when her head suddenly whipped towards him, eyes starring unerringly at his direction. This was a dream wasn't it? She shouldn't even know I'm here.
Her grey eyes started to glow eerily and her voice started to echo around even as her mouth moved noiselessly.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him.. born as the seventh month dies…" Slowly Annabeth's face was overlapping with another's. The face vaguely reminded him of the Divination professor but Percy didn't know her well enough to tell. The voice continued to echo, even though it didn't sound like Annabeth anymore. Rather, it took on a rather croaky quality and continued, "and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"
Familiar green smoke suddenly started to fog up the place and out of the corner of his eye, Percy caught a glimpse of red hair before green enveloped his vision and he knew no more.
The son of Poseidon woke with a gasp, and amidst the sound of his pounding heart were the frantic cries of one Nico Di Angelo.
'Percy! Percy! Get a hold of yourself! Percy!'
It took a while before the older teen could calm himself down enough to pay attention to his younger cousin.
'Nico?' Percy ventured tentatively, still a bit shaken by his dream.
'Percy? Oh thank Hades. I thought I lost you for a moment there. Do you know what happened?' Nico enquired worriedly. 'You were dreaming but I couldn't see anything. It was dark like Underworld dark and your mind was trashing around and I could hear some weird voice and-' he cut himself off, slightly embarrassed at his ramblings.
'Then you woke up.' He finished a bit lamely.
'I- I had a dream. Can I- can I tell you later? I don't really want to talk about it now' Percy said, his heart starting to pound as he thought about the strange dream. It wasn't particularly scary, but something in it, ominously, sent a distinct chill up his spine. It felt like something that had come from Tartarus, and Percy still had nightmares of that place.
What could have given off such a presence?