The night was moonless.
Harry fetched the cloak from his own trunk. Percy carried the diving notes while Hermione checked their supplies. Ron had brought food because nobody else had remembered that part.
They walked down the wet path together. Percy kept track of the return route while listening for changes in the lake.
The shoreline was deserted. The lake, black as ink, rippled softly.
"Alright," Harry said, pulling off the cloak. "We're clear."
Percy stepped forward, wand already drawn. "Everyone ready?"
Ron swallowed audibly. "Define ready."
"Ready to test the entry and return," Hermione said. "If the charm narrows, we leave."
"Stay inside the clear space," Percy said. "We tested the extension in the shallows. Tell me before moving if its edge changes."
He closed his eyes. Focused.
The magic came easier now.
"Glacien Vade."
The space around them cleared. Percy watched the boundary while the others entered the lake beside him.
Water held against the dome instead of reaching their faces. Percy counted all three friends before taking another step.
"The light reaches farther than I expected," Hermione said. "Keep the shore in view."
"More like a nightmare," Ron muttered, eyeing a school of glowing, sharp-finned fish that darted past.
Loose stones and old boat chains lay among the weeds. Percy gave a passing grindylow room rather than testing whether it wanted company.
Then the ground dropped away.
He stopped where the lakebed dropped into a trench. A door stood in the rock below, close to the shape he had seen in the image.
Not just any door.
Sea creatures surrounded the pale door. Percy recognized a hippocampus, but not the marks beside it.
"This is it," he whispered.
Hermione compared the marks with her copy. "Some resemble the old coastal script. This may describe who is admitted. We should not treat the first reading as certain."
"Mark?" Harry asked.
Percy held his hand near the surface. Its light changed before he touched it.
The marks brightened when his fingers reached the door. It felt like a response to the connection at the seal, though he could not tell whether it served the same purpose.
With a soft grinding noise, it swung inward.
Revealing darkness.
Their light reached a descending tunnel. Percy could feel water outside its sides, but air filled the space ahead.
Ron hesitated. "This is a terrible idea."
"Then say what would make it a better one," Percy said. They agreed to keep the way out in view while checking the first room.
They stepped through.
The tunnel was colder than the lake. Percy told the others when the pull grew stronger instead of following it without explanation.
Then they entered the first chamber.
Columns surrounded a shallow basin. Black liquid moved inside it without reflecting their wands. Percy stopped beyond reach of its rim.
Hermione bent beside it. "This… isn't water."
Percy stepped closer, and the basin stirred.
A woman's voice came from the basin. Percy looked for a speaker and found only moving liquid.
"Heir of sea and sky… the tide returns."
The room trembled.
Symbols flared on the walls. The basin's black liquid began to rise, shaping itself into something alive.
The liquid rose into a human outline. White eyes turned toward Percy, and he kept his wand still.
And smiled.
"You are not ready," it said. "But you are chosen."
The floor cracked beneath their feet. Water exploded upward.
And everything went black.
Percy woke to silence.
His head hurt when he woke. He listened for the others before opening his eyes properly. Nothing answered.
He blinked slowly. The light above him shimmered through rippling water, casting moving shadows over the ceiling of smooth stone.
Where was he?
He sat up.
He lay on a stone platform beside shallow pools. Air filled the room, but water moved above the ceiling. Percy checked his arms and legs before trying to stand.
To his right, Hermione stirred.
She groaned softly, rubbing her temples. "Wha… what happened?"
"The basin reacted," Percy said. "I remember the water coming up. I do not remember reaching this room."
Hermione pushed herself upright, eyes scanning the room in a mix of wonder and wariness. "Where are Ron and Harry?"
Two archways led out. Percy checked both with his light. He could see neither Harry nor Ron.
"They were right next to us," he muttered. "They couldn't have gone far."
Metal struck stone beyond the left archway. Both turned toward the sound.
Hermione leapt to her feet. "That could be them."
Together, they hurried through the passage.
A thin layer of water covered the corridor. Percy watched its direction while Hermione checked the openings ahead.
At last, the corridor opened into a round chamber, different from the first.
Ron sat against an altar surrounded by carved sea creatures. He raised one hand when they called his name.
"Ron!" Hermione cried, rushing to his side.
He blinked up blearily. "Oh, good, it's you. I was afraid I'd be stuck in a cave full of squid monsters."
Percy looked around. "Where's Harry?"
Ron frowned. "He was here when I woke up. Then… I heard a voice. He went through that passage—" He pointed to a darker hallway on the far side. "He said he thought someone was calling him."
Percy's stomach turned.
Hermione bit her lip. "Do you think—?"
"Something called him away," Percy said. "We need to find him before deciding why."
Before anyone could respond, the ground beneath their feet rumbled. A low vibration traveled through the stone—something was moving, something large. And close.
Then they heard Harry.
Not his voice, but a scream.
Cut off.
They followed the passage Ron indicated. Percy watched the water ahead while Hermione called for Harry.
After what felt like a mile, they burst into another chamber.
It was a shrine. Massive, circular, and hollow. In its center, floating above a pedestal of obsidian, was Harry.
Suspended.
Dark water held Harry's arms and legs. Four carvings surrounded the pedestal, each marked for one of the great oceans. Percy searched for a way to release him without tightening the bindings.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted.
Percy stepped forward, wand raised, but a blast of water surged out and threw him back. He slammed into the wall, breath knocked from his lungs.
Ron caught Percy when he tried to stand too quickly. Percy accepted the help instead of pretending the wall had not hurt.
"It pushed me back when I approached Harry," Percy said. "Keep clear while we look for what caused that."
Hermione moved the light toward the marks. Several matched a pattern now visible on Percy's forearm. He had not noticed when it appeared.
"It recognizes your pattern," Hermione said. "That may give us a route to interrupt it. It does not make the next step safe."
Percy approached more slowly. He raised his marked arm and watched the response before reaching toward the pedestal.
The chamber lit up.
Magic flared.
The tendrils of water shrieked as if in pain, and then everything went white.
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Interlude~
Hi guys, just forcing this into the middle of the chapter to tell you that i'm back! I just finished some exams and took a break from writing for a short while. But now, I'm back! Yeah! YEAA! YEAAAAAAAA-
Anyways, I will try to update weekly again but that may be a little hard, so expect a absolutely inconsistent update schedule OWO. Also, the next part was originally supposed to be another chapter but I wanted to give y'all more story :P
Welp, back to the story!
End of interlude~
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Harry had learned that magic could hurt without leaving a visible wound. He had not expected to learn it inside a room beneath the lake.
A familiar voice had drawn him down the passage. The chamber caught him before he could call Ron. Now he could not locate the direction from which he had entered.
He could breathe without finding air and move a hand without feeling his body follow. He counted those sensations rather than accepting the room's account of where he was.
Then… the visions began.
A cracking sky, rent (A/N: Rended?)open by lightning that struck not from the heavens, but from the seas below. Ships shattered like toys on a bathtub. He saw towering waves with faces. Faces twisted in rage and sorrow. A city underwater, gold-domed and silent, its people frozen in time like statues of coral and pearl.
Then came the voice.
"You are not the one. Yet you are marked by prophecy."
Harry turned instinctively, but there was no direction here.
"You have walked paths of death and shadow. But others walk alongside you. Sons of old gods and hidden heirs."
Something long moved beyond the pictures. Harry could see only part of its body, and the pressure in his head grew as it passed.
"He must choose. The heir of Poseidon. He must awaken what sleeps."
"You cannot stop what is rising. Only delay it."
Then, faster, the visions shifted again.
An older Percy stood beside the shrine holding the trident. Harry saw himself nearby, surrounded by people and creatures he could not identify.
"You are bound together. Fire and water. The Boy Who Lived. The Son of the Sea."
Harry compared that older face with the friend he knew tonight. A picture was not a promise, however strongly the room wanted it to feel like one.
"What does it mean?" he tried to shout, but no sound came. Only a rush of bubbles. The light overhead dimmed. The pressure built again.
The bindings tightened. His scar hurt differently from the brief pain near Quirrell. He could not tell whether that meant another source or another use of the same connection.
The speaker wanted him to accept it as older and stronger than anything he knew.
Harry had not agreed to be tested here. He wanted someone outside the room to hear what it was claiming.
"If he fails... if he turns away from who he is… the ocean will reclaim the land. And magic itself will drown."
The words sank into him like ice.
Then—
A blinding light tore through the chamber.
The chains shattered.
Harry struck the floor and coughed. He put both palms against the stone until he could take a steady breath.
"Harry!" Percy's voice. Real. Panicked.
He turned.
All three friends were there. Percy held his wand, but he was looking at Harry rather than at the pedestal.
"You—" Harry tried to speak, but his throat was raw. "You opened it."
"It responded to the mark," Percy said. "I stopped when the bindings changed. Can you stand?"
Harry slowly got to his feet. "It showed me something. About you. About what's coming."
"Tell us once you can breathe properly," Percy said. He stayed close while Harry tested his feet.
"What is it?" Hermione whispered. "What's rising?"
The shrine groaned. A panel opened beneath the pedestal, showing a small black orb in a fitted recess. Percy lifted it with cloth from Hermione's bag after checking that no binding had returned around Harry. Water began moving against the outer wall.
Hermione checked the orb's marks against the opened panel.
"We interrupted something," she said. "We have not established what that changed."
Ron looked at the entrance. "Then let us find a way out while we can still discuss it."
To Be Continued ~~~
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Where will our intrepid explorers go next? find out in the next epis- I mean chapter of Pjo x HP!