An Unexpected Return (Book Two In The Prince Of Darkness Trilogy)

The Beginnings of an Army

A/N: Who will do the disclaimer this time? *drumroll*

Ginny: Me!
Me: Nice. *Smiles mysteriously*
Ginny: What?
Me: Nothing....
Ginny: The wizarding world belongs to J.K Rowling and the Percy Jackson Universe belongs to Rick Riordan.
Me: You know it's scary how much the Fourth Wall is pushed during these things. But I hope you people enjoyed this tiny amount of foreshadowing.

Enjoy the Chapter!

***Nico's P.O.V***

Standing, in front of a decent sized crowd of students, I could feel my insides twist, and swallowed down a bout of nervousness. Will sent me a sly smile and Harry nodded encouragingly. I looked towards the crowd and started to speak.

"I expect you're wondering while you're all here." There was a scattering of nods and whispers. "Does anyone here know anything about Greek Mythology?" A few people put their hands up and I smiled wryly. "Well it's all real. Will," I gestured to my boyfriend "And I are demigods - half mortal and half Greek god. I am a son of Hades, god of the Underworld and Will is the son of Apollo, god of the Sun and a lot of other things like Medicine and Music. We had a prophecy about an upcoming war-"

"Aren't prophecies a load of rubbish?" Our eyes darkened and I could feel the shadows in the room about to be bent to my will.

"Real ones aren't. The ones from the Oracle of Delphi always come around, no matter what you try to do. They dictate who dies, who lives, who walks out of a battle scarred. They're not something to joke around with." Will cut in before I was about to strangle the student.

"Now, the prophecy said that we would be against Eris. Anyone know who that is?" There was some shaking of heads and shrugs before a voice piped up at the back.

"Isn't she the Greek goddess of Strife and Discord?" A Ravenclaw girl asked. She was wearing what looked to be radishes hanging from her ears and corks looped onto a string around her neck.

"Yes. What's your name?"

"Luna Lovegood."

"Well as Luna just said, Eris is the goddess of Strife and Discord. This means she will try to spread it wherever she can. We have other assumptions, but we'll be focusing on how you can defend yourself as well as fight in the coming battle." He looked towards me.

"We'll be starting off with hand to hand combat, then moving on to some simple weaponry for today. Any questions?" There were none. Yet. "Well then," I continued, "Pair up. We're going to teach you how to punch first."

Twenty minutes later and the wizards had been taught 2 types of punches and a block. A small smile worked it's way onto my face as they practiced, and I had hope that we could defeat Eris. Will walked over to me and we discussed the next step slightly away from the group. I started first, putting my idea across quickly.

"I think we should start using weapons right now. At least matching them up." He nodded along with what I was saying.

"I agree. Perhaps afterwards we can try combining the two if we have time."

"Good idea, would you like to stop them? There are some Stygian Iron swords there and I don't want anyone to have their soul sucked out." He raised an eyebrow and I threw my hands up in the air. "Dad makes me do all the extra paperwork!" He laughed and raised his voice to catch the attention of the wizards.

"Good job on punching so far, now we will be moving into weapons! Organise yourself into two lines and Nico and I will match you with one!" Excited chattering followed and the students got themselves into two lines as we made our way other to the wall full of weapons. There was a sharp intake of breath from Will as he took in the vast expanse of weaponry. "You really outdid yourself here Neeks."

"It's this room, it's incredible. But let's get started." He walked over to one line and started handing out weapons,  checking to see if they were balanced and what would suit each wizard. I began doing the same, testing out swords, daggers, spears, maces, bows and slightly more abstract weapons, like staffs. I made mental list of who had what weapon, which I would wrote down later so Will and I could work out possible formations and strategy. Dumbledore had also asked to be kept up to date on our progress.

We began training them, Will taking those with bows and spears, whilst I took those with swords, daggers and maces. People with staffs were split between us. We decided on this due to our own strengths and weapons with similarities to our own in technique and design. We mixed up the pairs regularly, and found that some of the students were naturals. A bit rough around the edges, but they had talent. One red-haired fifth year witch in particular. She attacked her opponent with a new-found skill, and liked to trick them with feints. I wondered if she was a distant legacy of Hermes. I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Her opponent, a sixth year Hufflepuff who seemed too cocky for his own good, had no chance. I walked nearer to her, and gave her (and her suffering partner) some advice. "What are your names?"

"Ginny Weasley."

"Zacharias Smith."

"Zach, learn not to underestimate your opponent. Ginny, when you feint, keep your gaze in front of you, or in the direction you feint in. If I look carefully I can see your eyes glance towards where you're actually going at the last second. An experienced fighter could use this against you." She nodded determinedly and they started to fight again. Zacharias did a slightly better job this time, his sword striking a few hits. Ginny, I thought to myself, could be deadly with some more training. Will was teaching Luna how to wield her staff, and I could see some other students helping each other out with what little they knew. I smiled slightly to myself the pairs were swapped around again.

The students of Hogwarts may not have been used to fighting without a wand, but I knew better. We had the beginnings of an army.

A/N: Another chapter! Whoop whoop! I managed to get a full 1000 words without any trouble due to a tip I saw during an extensive browse of Pinterest (whilst spamming the repeat button on a couple of animatics. There will be some links to a couple of my favourites). Write in 200 word stints. It gives you a more achievable goal, and you can see when you write that you make progress a lot quicker.

Question of the Chapter: What weapons do you think your favourite Harry Potter characters would use?

If you enjoyed this, comment and vote! If you would like to read more of my stuff (and get notifications as to when I publish stuff) follow me!

Links to Animatics:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wNqneoesKvw

And

https://m.youtube.com/WATCH?v=NBE4V3xf6l

They are safe links, so enjoy them! And until next time,

~HouserOfStories