Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Thirty

Ash,

This is going to sound stupid, but I need to tell someone.

I woke up from this weird dream and my scar hurt. Last time that happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward?

I'm writing to Sirius about it, too. Hopefully it's nothing bad.

Harry

P.S. Ron's parents have asked if you wanted to come with us to the Quidditch World Cup with us on Monday. They said you're welcome to stay at the Burrow for the rest of the summer.

I rushed to find some paper and a pen to respond. If I wasn't the only one having strange dreams, something was wrong.

I wrote kind of sloppily, but if I was able to read it, I figured Harry could, too.

Dear Harry,

I'm going to try to find out about your scar. Chiron, my guardian, should have some books on magical healing. But I'm going to need more info from you, too. Could you tell me about your dream maybe?

I've been having a lot of strange dreams, too, and it's making me nervous. Hopefully I can find some answers.

Sincerely, Ash

P.S. I would LOVE to come with you to the World Cup! I'm flying to Britain next week. I was going to stay with Grandma'am, but I can just pick up Jab and Floo over if that's okay with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

I sent it off with Hedwig, who'd waited for me to finish the letter. I usually waited for Annabeth to arrive, because she absolutely adored the owls my friends sent (and strange exotic birds Sirius sent). But this was uber-important, so she'd have to wait for the next one.

I walked out of the Apollo cabin and headed for the archery range. My shot was pretty much perfect, but I didn't really have anything else to do.

Dan was already leading archery class when I got there. He had only three students, and one of them was Luke. I realized I'd never seen him shoot before. I watched him for a few minutes.

It was easy to tell that archery wasn't one of his strengths. His stance was off, and when he drew back an arrow to shoot, he didn't really stop to aim properly.

Dan was busy trying to "help" one of the other archers, a daughter of Aphrodite, so he wasn't paying attention. The other archer was doing pretty well on his own, so it came down to me to help Luke. I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention (I'd learned from experience that not making my presence known around people on the archery range could be dangerous.

Luke turned around and grinned when he saw me.

"Just who I needed," he said. "Your brother's a bit... uh, busy."

I glanced over at Dan, who was turning up the charm by giving the Aphrodite girl a dazzling smile.

"Bleh," I said, pretending to gag. "It's disgusting enough seeing it happen with strangers, but when it's your own brother, it's, like, ten times weirder."

Luke snickered. I liked it when he laughed at something I said, and the two of us could definitely have used some laughter after everything that had happened, so I decided to take it a step further.

"Hey, Dan?" I shouted at my brother.

"Yeah?" He replied, looking slightly annoyed.

"You think you could take that somewhere else? We're supposed to be channeling our inner Apollo, not our inner Cupid."