Previously:

"There has been a break out," Dumbledore said, not bothering to sugar coat it. "I was only just able to hear about it before the Daily Prophet. By this time tomorrow, everyone would have heard about it.

"Who is missing?" Tonks spoke up for the first time during that meeting.

"Bellatrix Lestrange, her husband and a good part of the Death Eaters in there," Dumbledore answered. "Including," he turned his eyes to me "Dolores Umbridge."

My cup of water exploded.

Hey everyone! This is the first official chapter I have written since I have been back from my mission. Any others before were all written before I left so I had some going while I was gone.

Let's get to it, shall we?

Everything in me was begging me to hunt her down before she had a chance to hurt my family anymore than she already has. Every fiber of my being was aching to hold nothing back. The only thing keeping me from going anywhere was Penny gripping my arm and all the stares I had from letting my cup explode.

"You alright, there, Percy?" Tonks asked after an extended amount of silence.

I looked at my hands, a few pieces of glass managed to find their way in my palm and I had blood streaks running down my hand onto the table. The pain was nothing compared to things I have felt before so I was numb to this. However, I didn't trust myself to speak as Penny tsked and started dabbing at my hand with a handkerchief Dumbledore handed her. I nodded.

"As I was saying, Bellatrix and Umbridge are among those that have escaped Azkaban and we have reason to assume that the former Ministry official is now in league with Voldemort. We-"

"Is everyone going to ignore the fact that Professor Weasley's water exploded and now he's bleeding?" Leo interrupted.

I froze and kept my eyes on my hand, watching Penny do her thing. Molly just sighed. "He has quite a grip, doesn't he? And believe me, Leo, dear, if he would let me fuss, I would be fussing about this." She looked over at me, my lips twitching into a small smile as she continued, "Miss Penny is doing enough fussing for the two of us."

Looking over at Leo, I happened to catch Bill's shocked face from across the table. Leaning over the worn wood to whisper to me as Dumbledore continued talking, he said, "I'm impressed, Percy, how did you do it?"

Now fully smiling, I muttered, "I'll tell you later."

Bill glanced over at Penny, who was looking a little too smug for her own good, he nodded, snickering.

"..For now, I believe it necessary for Mr. Potter to have some lessons in Occlumency," Dumbledore was saying. He looked around the table. "Are there any objections?"

"This would help with the dreams he's having?" Sirius asked.

"Yes."

There were no objections but someone did have a question.

"Will the dementors be coming to the school again?" Remus was the one to speak up.

"I would not allow it," Dumbledore's voice bordered on dangerous. "Although I do not have any say in whether or not they send them to Hogsmead."

I didn't know how to feel about that. I have yet to encounter a real dementor (the one in the maze during the Tournament doesn't count) and from the descriptions of them from books, Penny and Harry, I did not want to.

"Marvelous, now concerning the reason for our other visitors from America," Dumbledore continued, the twinkle in his eye somehow growing. "Miss Thalia and Mr Nico, would you mind taking over?"

Thalia and Nico sat a little straighter in their seats and nodded. "We unfortunately, are unable to share everything at this time but we are searching for a friend of ours named Perseus Jackson," Thalia started. "He goes by Percy."

"He went missing almost a year and a half ago and we have reason to believe he is here in the British Wizarding community," Nico continued, looking around the table at everyone.

I resisted the urge to duck my head a little. I really should have picked a different name. In order to fight it off somewhat effectively, I tried to gently hold my injured hand with my uninjured one and look at the demigods with interest and concern. It probably looked more like a pained grimace but hopefully it didn't look like guilt. Which is what I was feeling at the moment. I was done hiding my real personality but my past life? No.

"We thought that by going to Hogwarts, we would be able to find him until we realized he's too old to be going to school now," Thalia went on. "He should be around 20ish. He has dark hair, blue-green eyes and would have a nice tan."

"What's he like?" Penny asked, leaning forward to see down the long table.

"He's a self sacrificing idiot," Clarisse stated flatly.

"Clarisse!" Hazel protested.

"It's true!"

Now Frank sighed. "It is," he confirmed with  a shake of his head. "It's got him in trouble for a number of reasons, trying to save one of us from one tragic fate or another."

"He's a fantastic teacher," Leo pitched in, looking down and the table. One of the only times I saw him so still.

"He's a good prankster and prank-ee," Conner threw in, lightening the mood a little.

"Percy is very caring," Nico added. "He'll take you under his wing if he sees you by yourself. At our camp, he made sure there was a place for everyone."

"He could figure out things about you that nobody knows and keep it a secret while at the same time help you out with it," Travis said. "His gut instinct is normally right."

"Normally?" Grover snorted. "Always."

"He sounds amazing," Penny breathed, tightening her hand on my arm. It was cutting off my circulation. Also, what was she getting at?

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The way these demigods described Percy was everything and more of what I've seen in him when his guard was down. I wish it was more often. Sometimes I want to just blurt it out so he didn't have to hide. He hates it and it is actually hurting him a little.

Just like my grip on his arm.

I quickly let go as I realized why he was tapping my hand and sent him an apologetic smile.

He waved it off and tried subtly wiping at a tear. A warm feeling took over and I realized that he was slowly realizing that they do care for him.

"He is," the one with the feather in her hair, I think Piper, agreed.

"As amazing as he is," The blond with blue eyes started, "he's also managed to put his foot in his mouth plenty of times."

"The amount of messes he gets into because he can't keep his mouth shut is astonishing," Thalia agreed with a laugh.

"He's made many enemies," Hazel said sadly.

"Which is why we need to find him fast," Nico said, getting them all back on track. "Who knows what Percy's got himself into now."

"If you don't mind my asking," Sirius spoke up now, "Do you know how he went missing? Or why?"

I heard Percy take a slow, deep breath at that. Now was the moment of truth.

The demeanor of the demigods changed at Sirius' question. Gone was the amusement and sad smiles. Instead, they stopped making eye contact. Grover let out a mournful bleat and eyed the table in front of him. A few others looked to be mentally beating themselves up as well, including Leo and Frank. Thalia and Nico seemed to have mastered the art of hiding their feelings.

Travis and Conner looked at each other and sighed. "It was because of us," Travis started hesitantly. "We just got out of a...difficult year and things were finally starting to calm down."

"I wasn't around camp very often," Grover said, "but when I was I was busy with my new job. I didn't have time to hang out with him as usual anymore and eventually..."

"It was more than that," Thalia said. "He was busy too, leading the camp." She shifted in her seat restlessly and looked up at everyone again. "It was more than just being busy. Some sort of curse caused us to just...forget our most beloved hero."

"I didn't even know who he was!" Grover exclaimed then got quiet, "my best friend since we were 12 and I didn't know his name."

Thalia set her hand comfortingly on his shoulder. "I wasn't at camp as often as Grover so it didn't have as much of an impact on me. At most I knew him as if we'd known each other for that first summer when we'd met." She clarified. I felt Percy jerk in shock. "But over the course of the few months it took for the forgetting to happen, I noticed that the atmosphere at camp got more lax in training. The war was over, camp was safe again, it was growing, they didn't practice their skills as diligently and forgot more than just Percy."

Percy and I learned forward. This was new.

"We forgot how to fight," Clarisse growled. "It was just a game to us." She scoffed as if the thought was ridiculous. "Training correctly is a matter of life and death for us. If any of us had left camp boarders in that time, we would have been eaten alive. we got too complacent."

"Is it some kind of military camp?" Remus asked.

There was a pause.

"Something like that," Thalia agreed eventually.

"You're kids!" The werewolf protested.

"I'm actually ancient compared to others of our kind," Jason said. "Percy too. If he's still ali-"

"Grace, if you finish that sentence, I'll have your tongue for breakfast," Clarisse growled out.

"What are you going to do when you find him?" Arthur asked.

"Bring him home," Thalia said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He doesn't belong here, he belongs with his family."

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"I sense conflict." Penny said as she walked into the room I was borrowing in Grimmauld. Poseidon, Triton and Tyson all went home once Christmas was over. Good riddance I say.

Just kidding, don't tell Tyson I said that.

"Oh?" I asked, too busy studying the floor as I walked. "What makes you say that?"

"You're pacing, shaking your head and pretending to fight monsters."

I froze, hand inches away from some imaginary monster. Quickly I put my hand down and behind my back. "I'm fine."

Penny sighed, sat on my bed and sent me a look that said, 'tell me'.

I didn't answer right away, thinking back on the meeting we just had. "There's actually no logical thing wrong with telling them who I am," I started in a low voice. "They truly regret it and it seems like this curse only enhanced the busy feeling we all had only it was directed at me specifically for some reason."

Letting the silence go on for a minute, I sat heavily on the bed next to Penny, looking intently at my hands. My fingers twisted the ring from Tyson on my finger.

"I miss them, Penny," I whispered, dropping my head in my hands. "It's been so long. They all seem so much the same but so different."

Penny hemmed. "They learned from this curse," she said. "They know what to do differently and they're working on that. But you're different too."

My eyes turned to look at her. What was she talking about? I couldn't have changed that much in the...almost 2 years I've been gone...right?

"I didn't really know the real you before," Penny continued, her honey-hazel eyes searching mine with a feeling behind them I didn't know how to identify. "But I think you've let your real self loose more often than you think. You're able to let loose because the people here didn't know who you were before."

Sighing, I hid my face in my hands again. She had a point.

"So what now?" Penny nudged my arm with hers.

I let out a groan in frustration. "I don't know!" I lept from my seat. "I want to tell them all the truth but at the same time, if I do, the Weasleys will hate me and the demigods will make me go back. It'll be so much easier for my brothers to let me go." I had been pacing during the whole thing but now I stopped and looked at this girl that had come to mean so much to me. "Penny...I don't want to leave," I finished with a broken whisper.

"Percy," Penny sighed, standing to take my hands in hers. "You don't have to leave once you reveal your identity to them. Your brothers wont hate you. It's going to be okay."

"No, Penny-"

"Yes, Percy-"

"No, Penny, listen," despite my self, I let out a laugh. "Didn't you listen at the meeting today? Bill hates me already and Thalia said I don't belong here."

Penny bit her lip. "But you do." She protested weakly.

"I know," I whispered with a lopsided grin. "I love it here and I still have a lot to do to help Hecate out in this wonderful world of hers. I want to see this through; keep my promise." (Did I use that ';' right? Those and comas are my weakness.)

"If we explain, they'd be okay not taking you home, right?" Penny asked. "Maybe even help?"

"Honestly, it's not really them I'm worried about," I told her. I can fight them off, they'd be fine. "I'm worried about my brothers and sister hating me so much they'll want me to leave. It would have been so much easier to explain if the demigods weren't here. Now that they are, they'll see and easy way to get rid of me once they find out I've been lying to them this whole time."

"Percy, stop that," Penny said firmly. She frowned at me, as if she could see where my mind was going. she brought her hands up to pull my head down to touch hers. "They will understand, you can give them their memories and explain away from the demigods. They will understand, they're your family."

"I was a horrible brother to them," I protested.

"You don't have to do it right away," Penny said confidently, pulling her face away. "Show them the Percy I've come to know and love."

I sighed in resignation. With a smile, I said, "Thanks, Pen."

Her brilliant smile lit the dark room. "Of course, Perce."

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"Are you sure, Percy?"

"Arthur!" Molly slapped her husband's arm. "If he decides it's time, it's time. It's his choice!"

"But Percy, you'll be telling them everything by doing this. The Greek world you're from, your real looks, everything." Arthur said.

"Thanks dad, I'm well aware of that," I said sarcastically. I'd decided to tell them the plan before I carried it out so they knew what I was doing. "Trust me, I've thought about this.  Besides, I won't be telling them right away. I want them to know the real me before they know everything."

We were sitting at the kitchen table in Sirius' place. It was the early morning a couple days after Christmas and everyone was still asleep. Poseidon and my brothers had gone home to Atlantis already after Triton had had a suspicious talk with the Weasley twins. I had asked Molly and Arthur to have a talk last night and they suggested the morning.

School doesn't start up again until the beginning of next week so we weren't in a rush to head back although they'd planned for today sometime. I think Molly said it was to keep the rumors to a minimum.

"That's a good idea, Percy," Molly said, sounding impressed.

"Thanks," I preened. "It was Penny's." Isn't my girlfriend smart?

"Of course," Arthur said, laughing.

"Now that that is settled, was there anything else, Percy, dear?" Molly asked.

I shook my head.

"Wonderful," she said. "I am going to go wake them up so we can get going-do you have your lesson plans ready for Monday, Percy?"

"Yes, Mum," I sighed like a child who was asked about his homework.

"Good job, dear," Molly gave me one of those bone-crushing hugs I've grown so fond of and hurried off up stairs to wake her children.

We all learned the hard way not to wake up the campers after the twins almost got murdered by an angry Clarisse.

A few minutes later, I heard the unmistakable laughter coming from the twins and I nervously shifted in my seat. That sound never bodes well.

A clammer of footsteps came to a sudden halt at the kitchen door. I whirled around to see two disappointed and nervous red heads.

"Percy?" George said nervously.

"What are you doing here?" Fred continued just as nervously.

"Boys, what did you do?" Arthur asked sternly.

"We thought Percy was still sleeping so we-"

"FRED! GEORGE!"

That was Penny.