The Winter Solstice Camp Meeting.

Chapter Rating: General Audiences

Content Warning: None

Word Count: 3527

And, our weekly Monday postings begin again! I posted late at night today to give stragglers the chance to read Friday's chapter, but I'll be posting in the mornings starting next week, I promise.

And all the characters are owned by JK Rowling, or Rick Riordan.

Credits at the end.

____________________ANNABETH____________________

"Oh my gods," Will half-whispered, half-mumbled to himself. "Oh my gods..."

"Where could he be?" Hazel turned to Frank with tears in her eyes. "What did she do to him?"

"I'm going to kill her," Jason vowed. "I don't care if she's immortal, I am going to kill that--"

"Heroes!" Chiron called the meeting back to attention. "I agree that this--news--is unsettling, but losing our heads will not fix the situation."

The winter solstice meeting had convened, but whatever Chiron had wanted to discuss fell to the side. Percy had recounted his dream of Hades, Persephone, and Hecate, and, in the process, delivered the news about Nico's disappearance and the impending war.

Annabeth stayed stoic during the entire recount. All she could think about was how stupid she'd acted, how arrogant and emotional she'd been. She knew Nico had evil controlling his actions, knew something had whispered in his ear since at least the second week they'd arrived at Hogwarts. Nico resembled Riddle in nature, sure, but he'd never acted like Riddle before.

Before Hogwarts, anyway.

Instead of realizing something was off--like a child of Athena should--she buried her suspicions down and down, so as not to confront an uncomfortable truth. Her fatal flaw again; hubris told her that her gut instinct--Nico was acting like Riddle--was correct, rather than searching for a less obvious answer. She could've identified the situation before it escalated, or, at the very least, talked to Nico about what was going on. If he didn't realize the danger of the voice in his head, he'd tell Annabeth upfront. If he did but didn't care, Annabeth would've been able to alert Chiron, who could've warned Hades and the other gods.

No; instead Annabeth operated with arrogance--chose to operate with arrogance--and allowed Hecate to destroy the mortal world to get her spot on the Olympic Council. She, like everyone else, had played into the goddess's hands.

"Lou Ellen," Chiron continued, "has your mother clued you in on anything that might help us delay or stop the war?"

"I..." Lou Ellen looked startled; her face was a ghostly white. "Yes, I... but, I never thought... I never..."

The realism of the situation overwhelmed her. She broke into sobs, shaking and holding her arms. Will put his arm around her, and she buried her face into his shoulder.

"It's okay, Lou," he said, though his voice sounded distant. "You didn't know; none of us knew."

After a moment, Lou got ahold of herself. She spoke into Will's shoulder. "It wasn't supposed to be like this... it was meant to be a blessing..." she began, her voice shaking. "Mom started appearing to me in dreams more and more often during the Second Giant War..."

She took another deep breath, shutting her eyes. She pushed Will's arm away and faced the group again. When she continued, her voice was still weak, but she no longer sounded in danger of breaking down.

"She never asked me about Nico. She said she wanted updates on camp; my half-brother, Alabaster, had found a way to lead the children of Hecate to peace. He was the rallying point for a lot of us in Kronos's army--Mom kept me in the Wizarding World during the war, but I still heard stories about him. We all admired him, even if he refused to come to Camp Half-Blood."

"Why not?" Thalia asked. "The gods forgave the demigods who supported Kronos."

"The dishonor of surrender," Reyna answered her. "For most of Hecate's children, they followed Alabaster--and Saturn--without thought. When the gods offered them a home, they took it. But Alabaster--a leader, a commander--forgiveness was unconditional surrender. Humiliation."

"But, 'lead the children of Hecate to peace?' " Frank asked. "What does that mean?"

"It's a kind of curse," Lou Ellen explained. "Since Hecate began siring children, we all tended to rally behind a powerful half-sibling. When someone got too powerful and challenged that status quo--someone died. Mom instructed Alabaster to find some way to break the cycle near the beginning of Gaea's awakening. He found it."

"Mom told me to keep things a secret until everything worked out. She said she'd figured out a way to make herself an Olympian, and Alabaster to turn her realm into a haven for us. Instead of staying at Camp, a place for demigods when she herself is a Titan, we'd have our own place to live and learn, the space and safety to work and improve our powers until the natural-born sorcerers were no stronger than the rest of us. It's what we've always wanted; I kept my mouth shut, and vowed to do so until Mom told me otherwise."

"But you must've known about the quest!" Percy accused her. "Why didn't you say anything then? If we knew Hecate planned to become an Olympian, we could've stopped this before it started!"

"After you left, we spread the news, but not the details," Piper told him, her voice bitter with hindsight. "We knew Hades wanted to keep things quiet, so we just said you'd taken a quest. We didn't say where, or what for."

"I mentioned the quest to her for the first time a few weeks ago," Will added, his voice still empty. "She didn't even know where you guys were, much less what you were doing."

Oh...

"Our conversation in the Big House," Annabeth realized. "You were trying to figure out what we were doing."

"Yeah," Lou confirmed.

"So this was all a ploy," Hazel remarked, enraged. "Hecate just wanted my brother in her realm to do whatever she did to him."

"Lou," Chiron addressed her. "Have you any idea--"

"No!" Lou protested, desperate and angry and tired of accusations. "If I knew what spell she put Nico under--it could be a thousand I know of, and Mom has more than just that in her arsenal."

"But why would the Oracle give me a prophecy for a fake quest?" Rachel asked. "The spirit shouldn't have responded to Nico's question if everything was a ruse. If Hecate didn't want Riddle's horcruxes--"

"What?!" Lou cried in alarm. "You're hunting Riddle's horcruxes?!"

"Please tell me that isn't part of Hecate's plan," Percy groaned. "How could killing Riddle help her get to Olympus?"

"It won't," Lou explained, her voice now frantic. "It's for us. She doesn't want Riddle dead, she'd never let him die!"

"Why not?" Annabeth asked. "He's a murderer; he's killed countless of her followers."

"The curse; she'd never kill her descendant when her children already kill so many of them."

"Her what?!" Leo yelled. "Riddle's--"

"Yeah," Percy confirmed. "Salazar Slytherin's descendant, right? Great times a million grandchild with Merlin? She's Morgan le Fey, isn't she?"

Lou nodded. Annabeth's head was reeling, but she forced herself to process the new information. She couldn't lose her mind to shock or any other emotion now, not after last time. Not after how it got her into this mess in the first place.

"What's she planning on doing, then?" Annabeth asked. "Why have us hunt horcruxes if she has no intention of killing--or letting anyone else kill--Riddle?"

"For us," Lou repeated. "To save us. She wants my half-siblings and me to live and work in the Wizarding World, but if things were as simple as giving us space, she'd have done it centuries ago. We need someone to rally behind, someone closer in match to her than any of us. Someone no one could ever challenge. Alabaster's too weak in his power, and not ruthless enough to do what it takes to scare us into peace. She wants Riddle to take over the Wizarding World, to become our probationary officer alongside our leader. She needs the horcruxes because you can't turn a mortal immortal without their full soul in their body. When you destroy a horcrux, it kills the piece of the soul, but if you use magic--"

"--it pieces itself back together," Annabeth finished in a whisper, confronting the unimaginable truth. "That's why Hecate put it into Nico's brain to hide the horcruxes instead of destroying them. She needs them."

"We're all dead," Jason whispered. "Hecate knows where the horcruxes are... she has Nico di Angelo... we've got no way getting him to Hades before the deadline..."

"I am so sorry," Lou sobbed, hot tears falling down her cheeks.

The entire room erupted into terror again. As Chiron struggled to quell the chaos, Annabeth--finally, thank Athena--got an idea. She met Rachel's eye, and--thank Olympus--she knew what Annabeth wanted. By the time Chiron calmed everyone down, they were ready.

"We're not doomed," Annabeth began, standing up and assuming an authoritative air. "We've got this all wrong. The quest was never about Riddle; it was about Hecate. Which means that--and Rachel can confirm this--the prophecy was never about the horcrux hunt. It was about stopping the war."

"Confirmed," Rachel chirped, standing as well.

"Chiron?" Annabeth asked. Chiron nodded and backed up, letting Annabeth and Rachel take the head of the table.

"The answers are in the prophecy," Rachel said. "Under normal circumstances, I advise against heroes predicting and planning based on Delphi's predictions, but we know more than enough to untangle the riddle now. The Fates always give us a choice: whether or not to save the world. We just need to know how. I'll repeat the prophecy, for those of you who never heard it, or forgot the exact wording:

Three demigods shall travel to the followers of Hecate...

The monster inside lets the dark one blood see...

On the brink of destruction, Poseidon and Athena unite...

The father of blackness has a great insight...

The friend is an enemy,

The enemy a friend...

Against a weak but powerful army,

The child must reveal his true self in the end..."

"Thank you, Rachel," Annabeth continued. "Now, let's unpack this. The first line is obvious; Percy, Nico, and I went to the Wizarding World, to the followers of Hecate. But the rest of the prophecy is not what it seems. Forget everything we guessed back in August, if you recall that conversation. We were all wrong."

Annabeth waited for each person to acknowledge her words. Then, she nodded to Rachel, to repeat the next line.

"The monster inside shall let the dark one blood see."

"The 'monster' was Hecate, and the 'dark one' Hades. Hecate was inside his head; through manipulation and scare tactics, she controlled his thoughts and actions in a way second only to the Imperius curse, or other forms of outright possession. Because of this, Persephone bled. Hecate--in Hades' head--set the situation up so Persephone would reach the point of death."

"On the brink of destruction, Poseidon and Athena unite."

"Percy and I thought that meant us, but it doesn't. Poseidon refers to Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy, and son of Poseidon. He killed the giants that lived on his island, then named his new kingdom "Britain" after himself, then built Trinovantum, or "New Troy" on the banks of the River Thames--what would become the City of London. That's why Britain conquered a fourth of the world by the seas; their leaders were descendants of Poseidon. And, we all know that George Washington was a son of Athena.

"This line refers not to Percy and me, but to America and Britain. Specifically, the demigod and Wizarding worlds. On the brink of destruction--the last days before Hades' deadline--we have to unite against Hecate."

"How?" Jason asked. "The Wizarding World won't believe that the gods exist; they're not going to follow a bunch of high schoolers."

"We don't need the entire Wizarding World to believe us," Rachel answered. "Nor do we need to tell them all. The Fates send blessings in threes--and, based on Percy and Annabeth's stories, they already sent us help."

"No." Percy got a dark look in his eyes. "Harry and his friends can't be trusted. Harry's probably the motivation Nico needed to run off! He's been bullying and torturing the kid since September!"

"Nico mentioned that Hades said that Harry might help on you guys's quest," Leo pointed out. "Sure, the death dude had no idea about Hecate's plot, but he still might've been onto something."

"They still wouldn't believe us," Percy protested.

"That's why the Fates gave us the second set of three," Annabeth said. "Nico, Blaise, and Hestia. They're friends; even if they don't believe us about the gods, they'll want to help Nico if he's in trouble. They'll convince Harry, Ron, and Hermione to listen."

"Don't destroy the world over a grudge, man," Jason warned him. "Nothing's worth that."

Percy sat in silence until he fixed his eyes on Hazel's face. The grief in her eyes seemed to convince him to let go of his loyalty to Nico enough to say, "Fine. But I'm not happy about this."

Annabeth allowed herself a deep breath. It was working.

"The father of blackness has a great insight," Rachel prompted.

"Hades, again," Annabeth said. "But, this time, it's the future. Percy said Hades doesn't realize Hecate's plot; we need to tell him in a way that he can't refute. He won't want to admit he's made a mistake in defending his family."

"Nico has to tell him," Hazel supplied. "He's doing this for my brother; if Nico tells him what Hecate's done, it'll be enough of a wake-up call for him to find another way to save my step-mom."

No one wanted to address the elephant in the room, so Rachel moved on.

"The friend is an enemy; the enemy a friend."

"Hecate's our enemy, even though Hades trusted her."

"Could Riddle be our friend somehow?" Reyna asked. "He might not want to assume a dictatorship role--"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Frank said. "Nico told Hazel and me about Riddle. He's a power-hungry, charismatic leader who plans on never dying. There's no way he'd turn down Hecate's offer."

"Besides," Rachel added, "Couplets in prophecies often refer to two equals, not an equal and inferior."

"It's Hades."

Annabeth followed the voice with everyone else to... Will.

"What?" Hazel asked. "How could Pluto--"

"He doesn't care about the mortal world or Olympus right now. He's in love with Persephone. He just lost her, he's going to do everything in his power to save her, even if that means getting involved in a war he knows is futile. Love... makes you do stupid things."

Make that two elephants in the room.

Rachel interrupted Annabeth's thoughts with the final line. "Against a weak but powerful army, the child must reveal his true self in the end."

"It was never Riddle," Annabeth announced, trying to draw attention away from Will. "It was Hades. Will's right; Hades is our foe. We can try and tell him what's going on, but he won't listen to us. He'll tear the world down trying to get his wife back. His army of the dead will be stronger than anything we've seen, but it comes from that weakness Percy noticed in his dream. We were wrong; the army isn't weak to us, it's deadly from a sense of weakness.

"We always knew 'the child' was Nico. Even he knew it. Whatever his 'true self' is, its reveal to his father's army will somehow convince Hades to stand down. Maybe he'll find a way to save Persephone, maybe not, but either way we're going to need him to stop this war."

"That's our choice," Rachel concluded. "Whether we search for Nico, or let him come to us. One leads to the destruction of Hecate's plot, the other to the destruction of the world as we know it."

"How is that a choice?!" Hazel cried. "We need Nico!"

"We can't," Lou Ellen shot her down. "My mom has a million hiding places in a dozen worlds. We can't access half of them, and even if we searched the rest, it would take millennia. It's not worth sending search parties when the probability of finding him is so small, and we'll need trained manpower at the camps to try and stop Hades' forces from destroying the mortal world."

"Then don't send everyone," Will declared. "Send me."

Everyone was silent for a moment, debating if they should address elephant number two. Lou Ellen decided to start the conversation. "Will... what's going on with you?"

"It has to be me," Will said, ignoring Lou Ellen. "Guys, we all know the fatal flaw in this plan--"

Elephant number two side steps for elephant number one.

"Hecate's a master manipulator and sorceress. Nico might not want to help us; he might be possessed or brainwashed or otherwise convinced into helping Hecate get her spot on Olympus, even if it means the destruction of everything. If I find him and he's possessed, I can heal him with my own magic. If he's brainwashed; I know enough mortal medicine to get through to him. If he's in his right mind, but still won't help... he'll listen to me. And, only me. Because... he's in love with me."

Everyone stared at Will in utter shock. Not about Nico's feelings--everyone had been placing bets on when the two would stop dancing around each other for ages-- but, there was one way Will would say that. And, with the implication of that new information, it made a lot more sense why Will would act so distant.

"He told you so before he left," Annabeth said, with gentle words. "You knew something was up, but you didn't say anything, and now he's gone. You blame yourself for not speaking up."

Will let out a quiet, harsh scoff. "I'm the reason he's gone. We... kind of had a thing, starting just before the quest. He wanted to keep things quiet for a bit, until he'd be ok with rumors and things... he came into my cabin around dinner on the eighteenth, the day before he ran off. He tried to break up with me... kept saying he had to... 'I'm sorry Will, I can't do this anymore, it's too much...' "

Will paused and let out another harsh and breathy laugh.

"I asked him why... I knew something was wrong, but I was so caught up in my own godsdamn head I didn't care... I should've known how much of a cry for help this was, but I didn't care... and he said--he said, 'I love you. I need you to know that. I love you and I'd sacrifice the world for you. But, I have to go, and I can't take this with me.'

"I just stared at him, this stupid, dead, indifferent stare when he'd just told me what I'd wanted to hear since I met him at the Battle of Manhattan. I stood in the shadows, watching him for weeks as he built that stupid Hades' Cabin, trying to get the nerve to talk to him. I got so angry at myself when he left that when he came back, I convinced myself he'd made that 'no camp likes me' thing up--and told him so, to his face--so I'd have someone else to blame. I spent a year trying to get him to look at me as more than a friend, and he'd just told me what I could only hope for, and I just stared at him...