A/N - I'm really on a writing spree lately. Enjoy the frequent updates while it lasts. I can't believe I forgot to say this last chapter, but Jirachi At Sundown from ff.net is my awesome beta reader, starting last chapter.

"blah blah"- Speaking Greek

"blah blah"- Speaking Amestrian

'blah blah'- Thinking

*<*<*>*>* - Begin/end flashback

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Percy Jackson. Good thing too, or they wouldn't be nearly as good as they are now. They belong to J.K. Rowling, Hiromu Arakawa, and Rick Riordan. Just to be safe, I also don't own the song 'This is War' by Thirty Seconds to Mars.

Percy

"What do you think Professor Elric's doing?"

     Percy turned his head to look at Ron, feeling the dry, dead grass pull on his hair. Ron nodded to the right, where Professor Elric was pacing agitatedly in front of a tree.

"Maybe he's enjoying the nice weather like the rest of us," Thalia suggested from her spot next to Nico.

"Then why is he pacing?" Ron pointed out.

     Harry shrugged. No one offered any other answer. They were all outside enjoying a rare break from the rain, and even Percy was feeling relaxed. That was something that didn't happen often. Percy closed his eyes and enjoyed the warm heat of the sun on his face. A thumping noise caused him to open his eyes, seeking for the source of the disturbance.

     The sound of fast-paced chattering drew his gaze to where Professor Elric had been pacing. He had been joined by Professor McGonagall and a blonde girl that he didn't recall seeing before. She seemed to be talking enthusiastically to Professor Elric.

"When did they get here?" Percy wondered aloud, pushing himself up from the ground.

"Portkey," announced Ron, who had been watching the whole time.

"Who is that?" Harry asked, shading his eyes as he looked.

     The girl was slightly taller than Professor Elric, and was definitely a muggle, judging from her clothing. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung down to her waist and swung back and forth as she whipped her head around, taking in the sights. As Percy watched, she and Professor Elric walked into the castle.

     Ron jumped to his feet, a mischievous grin on his face. He narrowly missed stepping on Percy's hand, which Percy had pulled away just in time.

"Ron, what are you doing?" Hermione asked, exasperation seeping into her tone.

Ron looked down at her accusingly. "Don't you want to find out who that is?"

Hermione's eyebrows twitched, but she didn't deny it. "That doesn't matter. You would be intruding. Besides, you don't even know where they're going."

"We can at least check the classroom," Ron persisted.

"Yeah," Percy jumped in eagerly. "I'm getting bored anyway."

"Honestly Percy," Thalia chided, rolling her eyes. "Sometimes you really don't act like you're sev–thirteen."

"Whatever," Percy said, ignoring Thalia's slip up. He got to his feet and turned to Hermione. "C'mon Hermione."

"Excuse me?" Hermione looked up from her book, narrowing her eyes. "Why do you think I'm coming?"

"Because if they are there, we need an excuse for why we came," Percy explained. "You're the one most likely to visit a teacher."

     Before Hermione could protest any more, Ron grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "You guys stay here. We'll be right back." With that, Ron and Percy trekked towards the castle, pulling Hermione along with them.

     After getting turned around more than once (letting Percy lead was a bad idea) the three stopped outside of Professor Elric's classroom. If he was being honest, Percy wasn't just curious. Granted, that was part of the reason, but he also wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to learn more about Professor Elric.

Ron and Percy looked to Hermione. "You knock," Percy said. "You're our reason for being here."

Hermione huffed and stepped past them, muttering "boys, honestly." She knocked firmly on the door, straightening up as she did so.

     There was a scrambling sound on the other side of the door, followed by a cry of "Winry!" Then the door swung open to reveal the blonde girl. She turned back to Professor Elric, who was hastily pulling his jacket on to cover his metal limbs. Percy noticed for the first time that the girl was holding a wrench.

'Oh,' he realized. 'She must be the one who takes care of Professor Elric's metal arm.'

"This is Winry," Professor Elric said, stepping forward.

     He pointed to each of the students in turn and said something that Percy didn't understand. He only caught their names, so he figured he was introducing them. It was then that he realized that neither foreigner had a translation spell.

"Did you need something?" Professor Elric's speech was more strongly accented and slower than usual, but he seemed to be handling English fairly well.

"Oh, we–I mean–" Hermione shuffled her feet, nervously trying to formulate a reasonable excuse. "We wanted to ask–it doesn't really–well, we can ask tomorrow–or we can come back later I guess–sorry, we didn't mean to interrupt you!"

Percy held back a smirk. Of course they had meant to interrupt them.

"Uh...right. Ok." Professor Elric looked a bit confused, but covered it quickly. "So if that's all you needed, then you can get going now–"

     He was ushering them towards the door when Winry interrupted. Percy couldn't understand any of what she was saying, but it sounded like she was scolding him for something. He protested, and she rolled her eyes and said something else, crossing her arms.

"You seem a lot like Annabeth." It was out of Percy's mouth before he knew what he was saying.

     Winry and Professor Elric stopped and turned towards him, confusion showing clearly on their faces. Percy realized that maybe he should stop talking, but he had meant it. The way Winry was scolding Professor Elric, and rolling her eyes like he was a moron reminded Percy so much of Annabeth rolling her eyes at him. 'Seaweed Brain.'

"Not just because you're both blonde though," Percy continued. "I mean, there is that, though Annabeth's hair is curly. And she has grey eyes, not blue. Not that blue eyes aren't pretty, I just prefer grey. But you seem like you have a similar personality. And you seem smart. Probably not as smart as Annabeth, but that's hard to do."

     Percy realized that he was rambling about his girlfriend to four people who didn't know her at all, but he hadn't talked about her in so long that when the opportunity arose, he had pounced on it. Hermione and Ron were giving him weird and slightly concerned looks. Professor Elric and Winry just looked confused. The latter hesitantly said something that sounded like a question.

"Oh right, you can't understand me," Percy remembered.

"Right, we'll be going now!" Hermione seized his arm and pulled him towards the door. "It was nice meeting you Winry, and we'll see you in class Professor." She marched them out of the classroom and down the hall, only stopping when they were several corridors away.

"Why did I ever agree to that!" Hermione groaned.

"Because you were bored and had nothing better to do, not to mention you love sticking your nose in other people's business as much as the rest of us?" Percy offered with a smirk.

"I don't know why I ever listen to you." Hermione turned on her heel and marched off, her robes swishing behind her.

~o~O~o~

"The next Hogsmeade weekend is coming up," Percy commented to Thalia as they sat in the Library. "Have you thought any more about what we should do?"

Thalia set her quill down, but kept her eyes on the essay she was writing. "Yeah, I have. I'm thinking only one of us should go; two at most. We don't want to risk Alex spotting us any more than we have to, but one of us needs to keep an eye on Harry."

"So who's going to go?" Nico asked from Thalia's left. "And how are we going to explain to Harry why two of us are staying behind?"

"That's what I haven't figured out yet," Thalia sighed.

"You should definitely be the one to go," Nico volunteered. "You can manipulate the mist better than me or Percy, so you're less likely to be spotted."

Percy nodded in agreement. "Nico and I will hide out on the grounds until you've left."

     When Percy said 'hide out on the grounds' he really meant 'hide out in the lake' which obviously didn't work too well for Nico. Percy had no doubts that Nico could make himself scarce, so he had no qualms about sinking down to converse with the aquatic life and leaving Nico to do Hades knew what on the surface.

     He was surprised to find Nico waiting for him at the edge of the lake when he surfaced an hour later. He vaguely wondered how long he had been there, but brushed the thought aside.

"Hey. How're the grinndylows doing?" Nico asked dryly.

"Quite well, as a matter of fact," Percy replied haughtily as he climbed onto the shore. "Though I'm still getting used to the differences between magical creatures and mythical creatures."

"Yeah, same here, but with magic and myths in general." Nico lowered himself to sit on the lake shore. "It's weird. They're almost identical in some ways, and completely different in others. I do like not being attacked by monsters around every corner though."

"Now we have a bunch of new creatures that can kill us," Percy said cheerily as he sat next to Nico. He sobered as he looked over the lake, pangs of homesickness finding him again. "Monsters aside, I really miss it. Our side of the world, I mean. The mythical side."

Nico was silent as he pulled his knees up to his chest. "Yeah," he admitted quietly. "I really do miss it." He tried to keep his voice even, but Percy noted the hint of longing that escaped. "I bet you really miss Annabeth," Nico said, turning to Percy with a teasing smile. "I'm surprised you've stayed sane without her around to keep you in line."

Percy laughed, but there was a melancholiness to it. "You and me both. I still have to find something to bring back to her."

"It has to be something intelligent," Nico warned. "Something that she can learn about."

"I have no idea what to get her," Percy groaned. "Maybe I should just bring her a book or something." He paused, considering. "Too bad the library doesn't have any books in ancient Greek."

"How about a book of magical creatures, one with more diagrams and pictures than words?" Nico suggested. "She's probably like to look for magical creatures now that she knows they exist."

"Yeah, good idea," Percy approved. "Then we'll have something to remember this by." He frowned into the lake. "I hate that we won't ever be able to come back here."

Nico nodded in agreement. "I'm going to miss the magical side of the world, and everyone here."

     Percy looked up at the majestic castle, the sweeping grounds, and the lake that he had come to know and love. "I'll miss it too," he replied sadly. "We've known this whole time that we can't stay, but that doesn't make it easier to know that we'll have to leave eventually, and we won't be coming back."

"Just like it isn't going to be easy to sit by and let everything happen," Nico added grimly. "When we started this mission, and Chiron told us that it would be hard to watch everything happen, I didn't really believe him. I thought that because we knew the costs, and we knew that it would be alright in the end, it would be easy." Nico's voice wavered. "But now that we're here, and we're their friends, I almost feel like I'm betraying them by not saying anything."

     Percy's thoughts were unwillingly drawn to all of the horrible things he knew would happen to his friends. Some of them would die, and they would all go through terrible, life-changing experiences. And he knew all about it. He knew that in a little over a year, Voldemort would return, Cedric Diggory would die, and things would only get worse from there.

"I know, Nico." Percy stood up, his thirteen-year-old face showing pain that didn't belong even on a seventeen-year-old. "But like you said, it all turns out all right in the end. So we need to stop Alex, and keep it that way."

~o~O~o~

     When Thalia, Ron, Hermione, and Harry returned, they all wore serious expressions, and Hermione and Ron would glance over at Harry with worried expressions. Thalia nodded discreetly at them, and Percy breathed a sigh of relief. Everything had gone as it was supposed to.

     The risk was gone now; they had made it past the most dangerous Hogsmeade weekend. Harry would be gloomy for a few days, but Christmas was next week, and his spirits would pick back up after that. Percy pretended to listen as Hermione explained what they had overheard in Hogsmeade, though he already knew what had happened.

     He nodded sympathetically along with Nico, but the three demigods were smiling internally as they thought of what Sirius Black was actually like. Percy wanted so badly to set everything right, to make Harry happy; but he knew he couldn't. He knew that there was an order to this; that everything would turn out fine in the end.

'Everything will turn out fine. We made it past the Hogsmeade weekend; now there's no real danger for weeks.'

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Anger. Real, judgment-clouding, rampaging anger. What a feeling.

As your jaw clenches in rage, you never know if it will be the last time. As you let loose a terrifying cry from your lungs, you never know if it will be the last time. So as you battle within the feelings of fury and vexation; cherish them. For you never know if it will be the last time.