Nico comes to terms with his actions during the fight. Harry, Ron, and Hermione continue their search for Lares.

Chapter Rating: Mature

Content Warning: Self Harm

Word Count: 3250

And all the characters are owned by JK Rowling, or Rick Riordan.

Nico ran all the way back to the dorms. Once he got to the entrance, it took him a second to get the password to leave his lips due to the dryness of his throat. Finally, he muttered "parselmouth" and entered. He was alone in the greenish light of the common room. Immediately Nico fell to his knees. He felt so weak. He was exhausted and drained. Even the task of summoning a simple fly from the shadows seemed like too great of a task for him to accomplish. All he wanted to do at this point was collapse onto the ground like a dead weight.

I'm not a monster, I'm not a monster, I'm not a monster.

Why did Harry have to goad him? Why did Nico have to sense Harry's shadow on the ground? Why did he have to respond the way he did? A multitude of emotions churned in Nico's head. He was angry at Harry and disgusted at himself. The situation seemed hopeless, and it didn't help that the burning need for pain was screaming through all of those muddled feelings. His ambrosia and towel were back by his bed. He felt so weak he could barely move, it felt as if his emotions were attacking him, pounding at his skull like a loud, clanging bell.

Nico resisted the urge for about a minute until he couldn't think about anything else anymore. He needed the sweet feel of the blade, the glorious pain that took his problems away, the peace in the minutes after he cut. It was too tempting. He knelt in the corner by the fire, so even if someone left their room, he would be concealed by the shadows. Nico took off his cloak, took out his blade, and bit his lip. It felt weird kneeling down on the cold ground instead of his towel.

One. Two. Three.

After he'd thought the word sixty about ten times, he pulled his cloak back on. The fabric was dark enough to hide the fact that blood was still seeping from the wound. He walked back to his dorm slowly, trying not to be distracted by the sheer bliss of his work; at that moment, every voice in his head silenced and every problem he'd ever faced faded away. When he reached his bed, he dug for the ambrosia, rolled up his sleeves, and smeared some of the godly food on his cuts. It closed, leaving a small, red line like Nico's deeper cuts sometimes did. He had about seven in total. Not too many, considering how long he'd cut. The ambrosia did its job well.

Not wanting to go to bed yet, Nico fished around until he found his stash of drachma. He walked from where he sat in his dorm, careful not to wake up Malfoy or his cronies on his journey back to the Slytherin common room. He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It made a rainbow easier than a sink did. How Nico managed to make one from the sink on the Hogwarts Express, he'd never know.

"Will Solace," Nico uttered. "Camp Half-Blood."

The vision opened, and Will was walking back to his cabin after dinner. It looked around eight pm back at camp. No campfires at camp during the year. He was glad since the I.M. would be in front of the entire camp had there been one going on. Will noticed the shimmering figure of Nico behind him and turned and smiled. "Hey, Neeks! Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"I did something bad, Will. Really bad." Nico's voice cracked. While the cutting had taken away some of his pain, now that the wound was healed up, his head was clear. Normally the feeling lasted longer, much longer, but this time his cutting hadn't had the full effect. Nico needed to talk to someone.

"What happened?" Will asked. Nico told him everything. How he'd left his bed after lights-out to search for the horcrux in the wall. How Harry had found him. The fight that had followed. Harry's vow to expose him as a Death Eater, whatever that was. By the end, Will's face had turned pale.

"Nico, are you ok?" he asked. "Did Harry hurt you, or--"

"He was too busy trying to defend himself from my magic," Nico admitted guiltily. "I even wanted to use my sword against him."

"You shouldn't have fought him, but it wasn't your fault. Harry goaded you into a fight." Will reassured him.

"Not my fault?! Will, I tried to kill him!"

"You never even drew your sword, and you know that."

"But I could've killed him with the shadows," Nico argued back, mostly playing devil's advocate.

He knew he wouldn't have killed Harry. Because of his sister's death, Nico knew the pain of losing a loved one and had vowed never to inflict that pain upon someone else's family. While still in the Labyrinth, he had sworn to never take an innocent life. Sure, he had injured demigods in the Battle of Manhattan, but never killed them, only the monsters, which he knew would reform from Tartarus eventually. It wasn't the kind of thing that would make pacifists bow down to him, but it was something to keep him sane. As though somehow, by killing only the monsters, he was prevented from acting like the monster he was.

"You wouldn't have. You're not that kind of person." Will's reply was aligned with Nico's current train of thought. But self-doubt bubbled back up again.

I'm just the kind of person who radiates death and cuts himself for fun.

"Now go to bed. Doctor's orders. You look like crap."

"It's Friday night. I can sleep in," Nico sighed, rolling his eyes. "You aren't actually a doctor. You can't tell me what to do. Show me a Ph.D., then I'll believe you. But, you don't have one. So you can't boss me around."

Will pretended to look hurt. "Yes I can." Nico couldn't stop himself from smiling. "Just go to bed. Dream about me, if you want."

Nico laughed. "Always, Solace. Goodnight." Will waved the mist away, and Nico walked over to turn off the shower.

I love you, Will.

Nico froze.

What? I don't love him. It's been, like, a week since our first kiss.

But you've had a crush on him for a year. Admit it. You love him.

No, I don't. Shut up.

Nico walked back to his bed, trying to clear his head. He grabbed his iPod and hovered over his playlist from Will, thumb hanging over the play button. He was tempted to say 'screw it' and start it up, but he decided otherwise. Nico set his iPod on shuffle nonchalantly, laying back as the song "I Hope You Dance" began to play. He couldn't help but smile. It was his sister's favorite song. To think that'd be the first one to play as Nico drifted off to sleep.

"Harry, I did it! I'm in! I'm Keeper!" Ron shouted, rushing over to Harry.

"What? Oh--brilliant!" Harry replied, trying to smile naturally. His heart was racing, and his hand pounded with pain as blood seeped from the fresh cuts. He replayed the fight with di Angelo in his mind over and over. He'd been so close to death...

"Have a butterbeer." Ron gave him a bottle forcefully. Harry took it slowly, like he was in a dream. "I can't believe it--where's Hermione gone?"

"She's sleeping on the couches," Jackson pointed her out as he walked over to them. Harry's heart began to race from fear. Did Jackson know about his cousin's dark magic? Did he use dark magic too? "And I made the team too. As--how did Angelina put it?--a backup, in case someone from the team is sick or something."

"Like a bench player," Ron explained happily. "Percy was amazing! For his first time on a broom, he's a natural!" Harry wondered if Ron would've had that kind of tone around Jackson if he knew what di Angelo had done to Harry.

"Come on, Ron, Percy. Let's see if Oliver's old robes fit one of you," Katie Bell called. "We can take off his name and put yours on instead."

Ron and Jackson followed Katie. Angelina walked up to Harry, making him jump. He was still on edge from the fight with di Angelo. "Sorry I was a bit short with you earlier, Potter," Angelina said suddenly. "It's stressful, this managing lark, you know, I'm starting to think I was a bit hard on Wood sometimes." She was watching Ron over the rim of her butterbeer with a frown. "Look, I know he's your best mate, but he's not fabulous. I think with a bit of training he'll be all right, though. He comes from a family of good Quidditch players. I'm banking on him turning out to have a bit more talent than he showed today, to be honest. Vicky Frobisher and Geoffrey Hooper both flew better this evening, but Hooper's a real whiner, he's always moaning about something or other, and Vicky's involved in all sorts of societies, she admitted herself that if training clashed with her Charm Club she'd put Charms first. Anyway, we're having a practice session at 2 o'clock on Sunday, so just make sure you're there this time. And do me a favor and help Ron as much as you can?" She glanced back at Ron and Jackson, who were talking enthusiastically with Katie, Fred, and George about something. "Percy, too. He's talented but has so little experience. Seemed a bit uncomfortable in the air, like he was going to get blasted out of the sky or something. Just help them out, ok?"

Harry nodded, though he was a bit hesitant because it meant spending more time with someone who he suspected was a dark wizard. After all, his cousin had all but announced his own loyalties to Harry only minutes ago. He needed to talk to someone about what di Angelo had done, and now that it looked like Ron was buddy-buddy with Percy Jackson, he couldn't go up to him for help. So, he sat next to Hermione, who woke up with a jerk as he put his bag down.

"Oh, Harry, it's you... good about Ron, isn't it?" she said tiredly. "I'm just so-- so-- so tired." A yawn interrupted her. "I was up until one o'clock making more hats. They're disappearing like mad!" Harry looked around. Woolly hats were strewn all over the common room.

"Hermione, I need to talk to you about di Angelo. But you can't tell Ron, now that he's friends with Jackson, of all people," He spoke low enough so no one but Hermione could hear. There was a bite in his voice, cold as a winter wind.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"I ran into him on my way back from detention with Umbridge."

Hermione's eyes became the size of saucers. "You did? But he shouldn't have been out of his common room!"

"I know, it's why I went to investigate. Yet he somehow found me. We got into a fight, and he was able to bewitch the shadows to hold me while he practically put his sword to my neck. He's using dark magic."

Hermione gasped. "He was?!"

"And here's the worst of it: he wasn't using a wand. It was wandless magic, Hermione. He'd need to be really powerful to do something like that."

"I can't even do wandless magic," Hermione whispered, terror crossing her face. "This is really bad, Harry. You should tell someone!"

"Who?" Harry asked. "No one would believe me."

"Dumbledore!" Hermione exclaimed. "Go to Dumbledore!"

"He approved Jackson, Chase, and di Angelo to come here in the first place. He wouldn't have done that unless he looked into them, which means he trusts them. Who's he going to believe, Hermione? His own gut instinct or some fifteen-year-old?"

Plus he hasn't talked to me in months.

"Then write Sirius! He'll believe you!"

Harry shook his head. "He can't do anything. None of the Order can. We'll have to deal with di Angelo ourselves."

"Well, we can do some more research on Lares tomorrow," Hermione promised. "Once we know what di Angelo's hiding, we can find proof and expose him."

Harry nodded, approving of the plan. That was when Ron noticed the two of them all alone and walked over, ushering them back to the party. But Harry didn't really feel like celebrating.

Even though Ron had become friends with Percy Jackson, he still decided to help Harry and Hermione expose di Angelo as a Death Eater.

"Maybe Percy doesn't know about di Angelo," Ron said as they walked to the library. "Maybe di Angelo's like Sirius, the outlier of the family."

"Maybe," Hermione offered, though she wasn't sure if she believed that. One look at Harry's face and she knew he didn't. Sure, Jackson seemed plenty nice and interested in learning about the British wizards, but it was so rare that a Death Eater child came from a non-Death Eater family. Kids generally copied what their parents thought, and if their parents thought of Muggle-borns, like herself, as mudbloods, so did the kids. It was that simple.

They reached the library and began a long day of looking through books. Just like all the other times, they couldn't find any mention of Lares in any kind of history or magical theory book, even in the chapters that mentioned important ghosts. Desperate, Hermione gave the name to Madam Pince, but she didn't know it, and couldn't think of any book that would mention ghosts that Hermione or her friends hadn't already looked through.

It was when Hermione was looking through A Recent History of American Magic when Ron exclaimed: "Hey, look here!" Hermione and Harry hurried over to him, and he pointed to a single sentence in his book, A Wizard's Guide to Medieval Times.

Hermione read the sentence out loud. "'In England, worshipers of Lares died out in the early dark ages, about the 5th century C.E., as wizards switched from Roman practices to Christian, favoring Jesus Christ over the past polytheistic gods and goddesses.' That means..." Hermione's mind was racing a hundred miles an hour. She ran back to Madam Pince and asked "Can I have a book on Greco-Roman mythology?" Madam Pince walked over to a bookshelf in the east wing of the library, giving her a thick encyclopedia. "Thanks!" She ran back over to Harry and Ron, turning the pages until the found the section on Roman spirits. "There!" She began to read.

Domestic Gods. Lares. Penates.

Lares were the departed spirits of ancestors who watched over their descents, and were worshiped as tutelary gods in every mansion, as such termed Lares Familiares. The whole city being the dwelling of the Roman people, who might be regarded as forming one great family, had its Lares Praestites, whose appearance and festival, celebrated on the first of May, (Kal. Mai.) are described in the Fasti of Ovid (V. 129 seqq.). In the like manner there were groups of Lares Publici, worshipped as Lares Rurales, Lares Compitales, Lares Viales, Lares Permarini, etc.

Penates were deities selected by each family as its special protectors, and were worshipped along with the Lares in the Penetralia of each mansion, that is, as the Focus or hearth, which was the centre of the dwelling, and therefore the spot most remote from the outer world. The term Penates is frequently used to denote all the Gods worshipped at the domestic hearth, and in this sense comprehends the Lares, who must not, however, be considered identical with the Penates, when the latter term is used in its restricted sense.

As there were Public Lares so there were Public Penates. Amidst the obscurity and contradictions which surrounded the statements of ancient writers on this subject, we are led to the conclusion that the Penates Populi Romani, were worshipped under the form of two youthful writers who, in later times at least, were regarded identical with Castor and Pollux, and were believed to have some connection with the mysterious Dii Cabiri of Samothrace. They are generally represented on horseback bearing long spears, which conical caps on their heads, whence they are called by Catulus, Fratres Pileati.

Hermione looked up first, seeing Harry and Ron with confused expressions on their faces.

"Can you just translate that to English, Hermione?" Ron asked. Hermione sighed with frustration. Didn't they realize what this new information meant?

"It means," she began, "that di Angelo's dad isn't just obsessed with ghosts. It means he's obsessed with warriors." Harry's and Ron's eyes grew wide with shock. "This says that Lares and Penates, a kind of Lar, were household spirits. Certain dead people regarded as gods who protect the household at any cost. If di Angelo's father is a Death Eater, and Voldemort--" Ron flinched "--knew about Lares, especially one connected to one of his followers--"

"--he'd have an army of unbeatable ghosts," Harry finished. Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Better than Inferi," she added. "This isn't good."

"Not good?" Ron asked harshly. "That's the understatement of the century, Hermione. Merlin's beard..." They sat there for a while, the open book on the table, speechless and gaping at the new information. "We need to tell the Order about this."

"How?" Hermione asked. "We can't put something like this in a letter. We don't know if they're being intercepted anymore." Suddenly, a terrifying thought popped into Hermione's head. "That's why di Angelo's at Hogwarts. Not only could he be giving inside information to Voldemort--"

"Would you stop saying his name, Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, but Hermione ignored him.

"Not only could he be giving inside information to Voldemort, but he could be doing research on the ghosts too, see if they're any kind of match for Lares. That might be why he was out of bed last night. He was taking advantage of the empty castle to study the ghosts."

There was a long silence while Harry and Ron let that sink in. "If that's the case," Harry said, "We'll have to expose di Angelo. Once everyone knows who he is and that he's hiding this, they'll have to expel him, and he won't be able to do any more damage." Hermione and Ron both nodded. They knew it was that desperate. "And I know exactly who to ask."

"You want my help, Potter?" Malfoy asked.

Harry grit his teeth. The smugness on Malfoy's face made him want to turn around and forget the whole stupid idea, but his hatred of Voldemort and di Angelo outweighed his hatred of Malfoy.

"You hate di Angelo. I hate di Angelo. Why not get him expelled together?" Harry did his best to keep his voice level.

"I agree, Hogwarts would be a better place without him. But what reason would you have for wanting the filthy muggle-lover out?"

He ignored the jab at muggles Malfoy had thrown in there. "He's dangerous," Harry explained. Malfoy's expression darkening. "He threatened me on the train for no reason. Isn't that good enough?"

"I suppose. I have the perfect plan," Malfoy whispered. "If you're not too scared to break the rules, that is, Potter." He explained it to Harry. It seemed downright evil, but then again, so was di Angelo. Malfoy extended his hand, and after a second Harry took it. There was no going back.