Percy sat frozen, the mysterious letter in his hand, his heart thudding in his ears. The words jumped off the page:
"You are not the only heir.
The seal was just the beginning."
He read it over and over.
Each time, the room seemed smaller, the shadows deeper, the silence heavier.
He finally shoved the parchment under his pillow and glanced around the room. Harry turned over and stirred. Ron snored quietly. Hermione muttered something about potions and turned over in her bed.
They had no clue.
And Percy wasn't sure if he should tell them. Not yet.
The following day was cloudy and chilly, the sky over Hogwarts heavy with thick clouds. Rain pounded monotonously on the windows while the students trudged to class. Percy walked through the corridors in a daze, the letter's words still resonating in his head.
He'd attempted to examine the handwriting, the ribbon, even the parchment itself. It wasn't any ordinary Hogwarts stuff. Whoever had sent it had made a special effort to stay under the radar.
During lunch, Percy hardly touched his food.
"You okay, mate?" Ron asked, mouth half-full of mashed potatoes.
"Yeah," Percy replied distractedly. "Just exhausted."
"You always say that," Hermione said, her eyes narrowing.
Harry stared at him, concerned. "Is this something about the dream you mentioned? The whispering again?"
Percy paused. He'd told them things in fragments, strange dreams, feeling as though someone was watching, the impression of something waiting. But he'd never told them anything about the chamber, the seal, or what Dumbledore believed he was tied to, something ancient and evil.
"I don't know," Percy said at last. "I just have a lot on my mind."
"Want to go to the library after class?" Hermione asked. "Might help to research dream interpretation. Or magical heritage. There could be—"
A deafening screech cut through the Great Hall.
There was a turning of heads to watch a barn owl swooping down rapidly, holding an envelope firmly in its talons, official-looking.
It dropped the envelope into Percy's lap.
More heads turned his way.
He examined the envelope. It was not like the midnight letter, it was official Hogwarts, stamped with the crest of the school.
With a sense of dread, Percy opened it.
Mr. Jackson,
You must report at once to Headmaster Dumbledore's office. This is an emergency. Use the password: "Starflower."
No signature.
No explanation.
Just urgency.
Dumbledore's office was uncharacteristically quiet. Fawkes the phoenix gave a single chirp as Percy came in, but otherwise there was only the sound of the rain on the high windows.
Dumbledore stood by a shelf, reading an old, dusty book.
"You received the letter, then," he said without turning around.
Percy nodded. "What's going on?"
The headmaster turned slowly, the book held above him. "We found evidence of a second magical presence beneath the school last night. At the seal. You were right."
Percy's mouth was dry. "There's another one?"
Dumbledore nodded gravely. "We've established it. Second presence. Not yours. Strong. Familiar in pattern, but older, somehow. Like it had been disturbed after lying dormant."
Percy moved forward a step. "What does that mean?"
"Meaning," a new voice from the shadows added, "someone else has the blood."
Percy turned around. A woman stepped out of the darkness, tall and hooded, face hidden largely in the shadows. Her voice was low, but carried with it an ancient cadence, almost lyrical, almost threatening.
Dumbledore did not restrain her.
"Who is she?" Percy asked warily.
The woman pulled back her hood.
She looked. maybe twenty. Eyes molten gold. Hair as black as midnight.
"My name is Nyx," she said. "And I am the other heir."
No one stirred for a moment.
Percy's eyes blazed at her, his heart racing.
"How, how is that possible?"
"We were born of two different bloodlines," Nyx said. "But the source is the same. A blood oath was sworn centuries ago, joining our magic with the seal. You carry one half of it. I carry the other."
"Why now?" Percy growled. "Why are you here now?"
Nyx's eyes flicked to Dumbledore. "Because the seal is cracking. You can feel it, can't you? The dreams. The pull. The thrum of magic in the stone."
Percy nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"And I'm here to warn you," she said. "If the seal fully breaks, what's underneath won't merely destroy Hogwarts. It'll destroy everything."
Dumbledore spoke quietly. "Which is why we must move now. Together."
Nyx crossed her arms. "Then we'll need to go deeper. Into the old foundations. The parts of Hogwarts no one has dared touch for centuries."
Percy felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"There's a second seal," she said. "Hidden even from the founders. And it's cracking."
Percy's breath caught in his throat. A second seal. Another heir. A deeper danger.
Nyx stepped toward the center of the office, her gold-flecked eyes never leaving Percy's. Her presence radiated a kind of ancient magic, not overpowering, but deep and old, like stone carved by time.
"How do I know I can trust you?" Percy asked, narrowing his eyes.
Nyx gave a small, humorless smile. "You don't. But that's not what matters right now."
Dumbledore spoke, his voice calm but weighted. "We have precious little time, Percy. The presence beneath the school, whatever it is, has begun to stir. Magical barriers flicker. Wards established before even my time have started… decaying."
Nyx nodded. "The original seal was a lock. But the second was a prison."
Percy felt the weight of the words settle in his chest. "A prison for what?"
She didn't hesitate. "Something the founders couldn't kill. Only bind."
The room fell silent.
Fawkes let out a mournful trill, his feathers ruffling.
"We have to find the second seal," Percy said finally. "Where do we start?"
Nyx reached into her cloak and pulled out a worn, folded map. When she laid it out on Dumbledore's desk, Percy saw it was no ordinary map. The parchment shimmered with spells, rooms rearranged themselves, staircases moved, tunnels breathed in and out like lungs.
"This is the Precursor's Map," Nyx said. "It doesn't show Hogwarts as it is, it shows Hogwarts as it was, when the foundations were still raw. Before the castle became a school."
Percy leaned in, scanning the parchment. Toward the bottom corner, there was a section labeled The Forgotten Depths, a web of tunnels and chambers he had never seen on the Marauder's Map or in any history book.
Nyx traced her finger along a spiraling path. "We start here. Beneath the original Founders' Chamber. We'll need someone skilled with enchantments and ancient languages. And someone good at not dying."
"I know just the people," Percy said with a half-smirk.
That night, beneath the cover of darkness and an invisibility cloak borrowed from Harry, Percy, Nyx, and Hermione slipped through the halls. Ron and Harry trailed behind, Ron muttering about the idiocy of wandering into cursed tunnels without proper sleep.
"I should've stayed in bed," he grumbled, "or at least demanded snacks."
"Shhh," Hermione hissed. "This is far more important than your stomach."
They reached the statue of Godric Gryffindor at the far end of a forgotten corridor. Nyx pressed a small, rune-marked medallion into the lion's paw. The statue groaned and shifted, revealing a staircase spiraling downward into darkness.
As they descended, the air grew colder, damper. The stone underfoot was no longer clean-cut marble, it was rough, jagged, and old.
Torchlight flickered to life without a touch.
"This is insane," Harry whispered. "What if we're walking right into a trap?"
"We probably are," Percy said grimly. "But we don't have a choice."
At the bottom of the stairs, the corridor opened into a massive cavern. The walls pulsed faintly with ancient runes, and in the center stood a pedestal, cracked and overgrown with thick, dark roots. It hummed with raw magic—uncontained, volatile.
"The second seal," Nyx breathed.
But before they could approach, the chamber trembled. The roots recoiled, as if sensing them.
From the shadows, a voice hissed. Low. Familiar.
"I warned you once, Perseus. And now you bring… others."
A figure stepped out of the darkness.
Tall. Hooded. Eyes gleaming with hate.
Percy's heart froze. He recognized the voice.
The man from his dreams.
From the mirror.
The one who called him child of the blood.
"You…" Percy said, stepping back.
Nyx's face paled. "No. It can't be."
The man smirked beneath his hood. "The prison is cracking. And your blood will finish the job."
With a wave of his hand, the chamber exploded in light.
And everything went dark.
Light flickered out in an instant, overwhelmed by darkness so thick, it felt a physical presence closing in around them. Percy took a step back, his hand flying to his wand.
"Lumos!" he shouted.
His wand tip erupted, casting a narrow shaft of silver light. Shadows danced around him abnormally, darting along the stone walls like insects.
Hermione clutched Harry's arm. "He's using umbral magic, it's ancient. Hard to break."
"Yea, well, so is this," Ron snarled, his wand blazing in a big sweep. "Expulso!"
The curse burst out into a thundering boom, shoving the darkness aside for a moment. The hooded one had disappeared.
Or at least Percy thought so, until he heard a chilling voice behind him.
"You are brave, Perseus… but you are not ready."
A bolt of dark magic sent Percy crashing across the room. He struck the wall, spinning head, ringing ears.
"Percy!" Harry shouted, running towards him.
Nyx intercepted the dark-attacker shadow before he could lash out again. Her cloak wrapped around her, and her palms glowed with a pale white light, ancient magic, drawn from the core of the earth.
"You'll not take him," she said to him, her voice like a bell.
The figure laughed, his voice low and acrid. "You were ever so proud, Nyx. So convinced your path was the right one. But you shared the same failing the Founders did."
He raised a hand. The roots around the pedestal jerked and twisted, slamming into the ground, forcing Hermione and Ron to dodge. Cracks rippled outward, revealing a hidden passage beneath the cavern floor—glowing with a sickly red light.
The man looked at Percy, eyes glowing faintly beneath the hood.
"When the seal breaks, you'll remember. You'll remember everything."
He vanished into the blackness of the crack with a whirl of his cloak.
The moment he was out of sight, the oppressive darkness thinned. Percy coughed once more and sat up, clutching his ribs.
Hermione knelt beside him, searching for damage. "He hit you hard. Are you—"
"I'm fine," said Percy, though his head was throbbing and his chest ached. "Did you hear what he said?
Harry nodded gravely. "He wants you to remember something. Something about what you are."
Nyx was already kneeling on the ground beside the pedestal. The roots had receded slightly, showing the second seal—a slender stone disk embedded in the ground, inscribed with ancient runes. It was aglow with dark crimson light.
"This seal is weaker than I feared," she ground out. "It's hanging on for now, but he's accelerating its decay.".
Who was he?" Ron demanded. "He knew Percy. Spoke like he's been following him around for years."
Nyx stood there in stunned silence for a moment before she replied. "That… was Acheron. One of the last living Darkbloods."
"The what-now?" Harry asked.
Nyx stood up slowly. "A spell of darkness from long ago before Voldemort. They were bloodline believers, ancient power, and unleashing the magic that is locked in the ground. The Founders placed the seals to imprison the last of the Primordials, a being older than magic. Acheron and his ilk… they want to unleash it."
Percy's head spun. "And he wants me to do that?
Nyx nodded. "Not just you. He called you 'child of the blood.' That binds you to the original binding through your family. You may be the key, one way or another."
Ron fixed his eyes on the crack in the floor. "So, what? We chase him into that creepy underworld pit and fight him?
Nyx shook her head. "Not yet. If we leave now, we risk breaking the seal completely. We must seal it first, to give us time."
Hermione edged forward to the seal. "Can it be?"
"Yes," said Nyx. "But it requires sacrifice. Blood and memory."
She regarded Percy. "It has to be you."
Percy sensed the vibration of magic under him and the distant call of something enormous, lying in wait in the depths. He went forward, pounding heart, and fell to his knees beside the seal.
"I'll do it."
Nyx's hand rested on his shoulder, her eyes gentle for a moment. "You're braver than you know, Perseus Jackson."
As she started to chant in an old language, light started to dance around them. The air became thick, the cavern shaking with every word.
And then...
From far below the seal… something stirred.
Something old.
And awakened.
To Be Continued... Next week!
Chapters are getting longer, stay tuned!
By the way I'll be uploading on sundays starting today onwards!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
READ MORE!!!! ADD TO LIBRARY!!!! STONE ME!
Add the book to your library to get the next and subsequent chapters :)
Have some ideas about my story? Comment it and let me know. (constructive criticism/praise only!) NO TROLLS!