Percy woke to the smell of potions. For a moment he expected water above him. Then he recognized the hospital-wing ceiling and tried to sit up before his body objected.
The hospital wing.
He settled back and checked the other beds first.
Harry slept with one arm bandaged. Hermione had paper on her lap but was watching Percy now, and Ron's treated leg rested on a cushion rather than at a useful angle for snoring.
"Finally," Hermione said sharply without looking up. "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to spend a week sleeping like Ron."
Percy groaned and rubbed his temples. "Feels like I have been asleep for a week." His throat was dry; even talking hurt.
"Two days," Hermione said. She put down the papers. "Pomfrey said you needed the rest. I wanted to hear you complain before deciding you were all right."
Percy tried to remember the return in order. "The Eye stayed contained? The others got out?"
"All four of us," Hermione said. "The coastal team confirmed the enclosure. They have not called the whole structure repaired."
Harry's fingers tightened around his blanket. When he woke, he checked the room before looking at the next bed.
"Harry?" Percy asked carefully.
For a moment, Harry didn't answer. His gaze darted around the room, then fixed on Percy with an intensity that made the son of Poseidon uneasy. "It's not over," Harry whispered hoarsely.
Ron, woken by the sound, grumbled. "Of course it's not. Nothing's ever over. Voldemort's still out there, isn't he?"
"When we were near the Eye, something noticed me," Harry said. "I keep getting the same pressure while I sleep. I do not know how much of the picture it sends belongs to this room."
The room fell into uneasy silence.
Percy looked at the spilled pitcher beside him. He had moved that water in his sleep, and wishing the temple had given him better control did not change the evidence on the floor.
Before he could speak, the heavy oak doors creaked open.
Dumbledore entered.
Dumbledore entered quietly and asked Pomfrey whether all four could attend to a short discussion. She allowed it after making him agree what short meant.
He conjured a chair with a wave of his wand and sat beside Percy's bed. "I imagine you all have questions. Allow me to provide what answers I can."
Hermione leaned forward at once, parchment forgotten. "Professor, the language in the shrine, the runes, they weren't just decorative. They were instructions. Warnings. I can still remember them as if they've been branded into my mind. It's like the temple wanted me to carry them out."
Dumbledore examined the copied page. "We need to understand the imprint before asking you to use it. Being given knowledge without choosing the process is not automatically a kindness."
Hermione put the quill down for a moment. The words kept coming, but she no longer had to pretend that made her pleased.
"And what about Harry?" Ron burst out, unable to contain himself. "He's been muttering about visions and monsters under the sea. What's that supposed to mean?"
"The Eye appears to admit contact across a boundary," Dumbledore said. "Harry's existing connection may give that contact another route. We should not ask him to produce more pain to prove it."
Harry swallowed hard, throat tight. "It saw me."
"You were reached," Dumbledore said. "That does not make you responsible for answering."
"I move water before I finish deciding to," Percy said. "Sometimes I hear the sea where there should only be a cup. I would like to stop pretending that is an improvement."
Dumbledore asked him to describe an ordinary movement and an unwanted one. Percy could not always tell them apart. The headmaster wrote that down instead of supplying a name Percy would have to accept.
"What do I do when I cannot tell?" Percy asked.
"Stop the exercise and get help," Dumbledore said. "Control can be learned. Exhausting yourself to demonstrate it is not the same work."
Hermione raised her hand like they were in class. "Professor, what exactly was the Eye? Who built the temple? There must be records somewhere—"
"The records may help," Dumbledore said. "Copy what arrives, but stop when it begins asking you to complete a sequence. We will compare it while you are rested."
Hermione nodded fiercely and began scribbling at once.
Ron groaned, pulling the blankets over his head. "Brilliant. More homework, even when we're half-dead."
Despite the heaviness of the conversation, Percy cracked a small grin. "Better get used to it, Ron. She won't let you sleep until she's written an entire encyclopedia."
Ron complained about homework and Hermione threatened to make him copy the notes. Percy smiled at the exchange. He had missed an argument whose worst outcome was more writing.
The sound in his head remained. He told Pomfrey when the conversation ended.
That night, he counted his own breaths while the water pressed at his attention. He could still hear Ron turning over, and used that ordinary sound to keep the room in place.
Beside him, Harry stirred restlessly, murmuring in his sleep. Snatches of words spilled from his lips: "rising… shadows… coming…"
Percy did not decide Harry's dream was a prediction merely because it sounded familiar. He woke him when the words became distressed.
They gave Pomfrey the account before trying to sleep again.
On a later night, after he had been allowed to get up, Percy found that he could hear water from farther along the hospital corridor.
It was supposed to be curfew, but he couldn't stay in the hospital wing forever. The restless ocean inside him kept tugging him awake, urging him to move, to do something (#relatable). So he found himself wandering the corridors, the stone floors cold beneath his bare feet, torches flickering as though stirred by an unseen breeze.
The small disturbances were easier to identify while he was standing near them. That did not explain who or what caused them.
A tapestry moved in still air. Armor shifted beside an empty doorway, and a voice faded when Percy tried to locate the speaker. He recorded the corridor in his head instead of following it at once.
When he pressed his palm against the stone wall, he nearly yanked it back in shock. It was damp.
The damp wall made the sea sound stronger. Percy took his hand away.
He stumbled back, chest heaving, when a familiar voice cut through the quiet.
"Percy?"
Harry stepped out of the shadows, wand raised cautiously. His face was pale, eyes shadowed from nights of bad sleep. "What are you doing out here?"
Percy swallowed. "Could ask you the same thing."
Harry lowered his wand, but the tension in his shoulders never left. "Dreams," he said shortly. "Or visions. Whatever they are, they won't stop. Every night it's the same. The sea, the Eye, something pressing against it from the other side. And a voice, whispering…" His words trailed off, as if saying them aloud made them too real.
Percy described the damp stone. Harry looked at it himself, which was more useful than either of them having to decide the entire explanation alone.
"Something's wrong with this castle," Harry added after a long pause. "Can't you feel it?"
Percy nodded grimly. "Like it's… leaking."
They returned together and told Pomfrey the route before leaving the discussion for morning.
Hermione arrived at breakfast with a new comparison of the records. Percy made room for the pages before she could put them beside the food.
"The channels are linked," she said. "I found the section explaining how strain moves between them."
Ron groaned, half-asleep over his porridge. "Brilliant. It's barely dawn and already she's solving ancient mysteries."
"We already know there are several structures," Hermione said. "This describes the order of their connections. It is not a list of separate monsters."
Percy put down his fork. "Then a change at one can reach the others?"
Hermione showed the repeated marks. "The Eye belongs to the network. If one route stops carrying its share, another may take more pressure."
Harry's face went pale. "And when it cracked open…"
"Exactly," Hermione said. "The others may be under strain now too. If one fails, the rest might follow. It's like a dam with cracks spreading across it. Once too many give way—"
Ron looked from one repeated shape to another. "So fixing the nearest one may not tell us what happened farther along."
Ron finally sat up, alarm cutting through his grogginess. "So we're talking about more collapsing temples? More evil ocean nightmares? Fantastic."
Pumpkin juice rose in Percy's cup while he listened. He caught the cup with his hand and put it farther from the pages.
Hermione's sharp eyes caught it. "Percy… has that been happening a lot?"
"Define a lot," Percy muttered.
Hermione moved the dry notes without reaching for his wrist. "We should stop discussing the pattern over liquid until we know whether it is causing that response."
Percy was grateful she had changed the conditions instead of asking him to stop being himself.
Dumbledore had outside reports by afternoon. The Pensieve stood on a clear table, but nobody proposed putting the dream into it until they knew whether that would create another route.
He showed them reports of unusual tides, storms, and coastal disappearances. "These accounts were taken separately. Some may be related to the changes you described."
Percy's gut tightened. "The seals."
"The timing gives us a question to investigate," Dumbledore said. "It does not justify assigning the whole disturbance to the four people who reported it first."
Ron looked visibly relieved by that sentence.
Finally Harry asked, voice quiet, "What do we do?"
Dumbledore described the next work: supervised control exercises for Percy, comparison rather than recital for Hermione, and help interrupting the foreign pressure for Harry. Ron would keep an outside record when the others could not reliably describe their own responses.
"No one continues an exercise just because the previous attempt worked," he added. "Tell us when that becomes difficult to remember."
Percy admitted that stopping felt like failing even when he could see why it was necessary. Saying it here was less embarrassing than discovering it in another flooded room.
The next disturbance arrived when they returned to the tower.
The floor moved enough to rattle a table. Blue showed in the torches, and the fire gave a sharp hiss. Percy stopped near the door.
Ron leapt to his feet. "Tell me that was just me."
"It wasn't," Hermione whispered, eyes wide.
The portrait opened without a password. Hermione put her notes down before approaching it.
Water sounded beyond the opening.
The rush of waves.
Percy knew that sound from real places. Hearing it inside the corridor made him look for Harry and Ron before examining where it came from.
He stepped forward, instinct overriding hesitation. "Stay back."
A narrow stream entered the corridor and curved around Percy's feet. He stayed on the dry stone rather than following its direction.
Hermione grabbed his arm. "Percy, don't—"
The invitation reached him anyway. He told Hermione what it was trying to make him want.
Harry's scar burned. He staggered, clutching his head. "It's connected," he gasped. "The seals, they're bleeding through. Something's testing the cracks."
Salt reached the air although the visible water looked clear.
Percy wanted to force it back. He also remembered how often a stronger response had given the structure something else to use. He held his hands still while Ron went for a professor.
He had loved water for most of his life. Being unable to trust this small part of it frightened him more than he wanted the others to see.
To be continued...
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I read the reviews again and dissatisfied ppl (no offence) can see that I added in a little powers again.