Chapter One (conclusion)
Harry dreamed of fire.
The common room's warmth melted into flickering shadows, green light swallowing the edges of the dream. A high, cruel laugh echoed in his ears, the same one that haunted his memories of that night long ago. He tossed in his bed, sheets twisting around his legs.
And yet—through the fear—there was something else.
A hand on his shoulder. Not in the dream, but in the feeling of the dream. Steady, grounding, calm as the sea. Harry couldn't explain it, but he knew it wasn't his own imagination. Someone was watching over him.
When he woke, breathless and damp with sweat, Percy Jackson was already awake across the dorm, sitting by the window. His silhouette was dark against the starlight, but his sea-green eyes caught the faintest gleam of the moon. He turned his head slightly, and for a moment Harry thought he was looking directly at him.
Then Harry blinked, and Percy looked away.
In the Slytherin Dungeon
Artemis lay on her bed in the girls' dormitory, still as stone. Around her, the other Slytherin fourth-years whispered and laughed, trying to make sense of the new arrival in their midst.
"Do you think she's related to anyone important?"
"She walks like she owns the place."
"No—like she doesn't even care about the place."
Artemis closed her eyes. She cared only for one thing here: Percy. The rest were shadows, distractions, mortals playing at significance. Still, she smiled faintly to herself. Their envy was amusing. It meant they had already understood the truth—that none of them would ever reach her.
In the Ravenclaw Tower
Athena had already earned silence from her dormmates. She lay with a book in her hands, though her eyes weren't moving across the words. Her thoughts turned inward.
Knowledge hummed in these walls. Centuries of it, layered in wards and bricks. She could feel it, like threads strung taut, humming under her fingertips. And yet the knowledge was incomplete. It lacked perspective. Mortal magic stretched far, but it was narrow, brittle.
She would learn from it, yes. But she would never be bound by it.
Athena closed the book, whispering to herself: "The game has begun."
The Trio
Time bent that night. Only for a moment, only for them.
In that frozen bubble Percy created, Artemis and Athena stood with him, the three of them gathered in the quiet space between seconds. Their hands found each other instinctively, the bond older than the stones around them.
"They already envy us," Artemis said softly. Her silver eyes gleamed, reflecting moonlight that wasn't there.
"They should," Athena replied, her tone sharp but affectionate. "They envy what they can never hold."
Percy's smile was tired, but warm. "Let them whisper. Let them glare. It changes nothing. We're here for Harry. He's the one that matters."
Artemis touched his cheek with her fingertips. "And if Voldemort senses us?"
"He already does," Percy said. His voice carried a certainty that chilled the air. "And he fears us. That's enough for now."
They leaned into each other, three hearts in sync. When the moment ended, time lurched forward again, and no one in Hogwarts knew what had passed.
The Dark Forest
Voldemort dreamed too.
Or perhaps it was not a dream.
He saw their faces, though shrouded by flame and mist. The boy with sea-green eyes, whose very presence cracked the edges of fate. The silver-eyed girl who held death in her gaze. The grey-eyed goddess who weighed him and found him wanting.
He hissed aloud in his thin, cracked voice, echoing through the forest. "You should not exist here. You should not touch this world. And yet you dare."
His fear was sharp, real. He despised it. He promised himself it would not last. But in the hollow of his soul, where even his Horcruxes could not fill the emptiness, the fear clung.
The trio had arrived. His plans had changed.
Back in the Common Room
Morning came.
Whispers swept through the castle faster than the owls in the rafters. The first-years recounted their Sorting, older students dissected every detail of the Feast, and Percy, Artemis, and Athena's names—though no one quite knew them yet—were on every tongue.
"They're not normal."
"They're too perfect."
"They're together, I swear it."
"I hate him."
"I want to be him."
By breakfast, the jealousy was simmering in every corner of the Hall.
Harry ate in silence, sneaking glances at Percy down the table. The older boy spoke little, his gaze calm, his posture relaxed. But when Artemis glanced across from Slytherin and Athena smiled faintly from Ravenclaw, Harry saw the threads again—the invisible bond that tied them.
Harry didn't understand it. But he felt the weight of it.
And he knew, deep down, that Hogwarts would never be the same.