The Son of Storms

Ichor.

The blood of Immortals.

Golden and a little more viscous than blood, it was not the lifeblood of gods, but rather their essence itself. When an immortal was drained of ichor to the last drop in their physical forms…their death was assured in the metaphysical.

In the thousands of years the Olympian Council had seen upon Gaea…they had never seen an Immortal fade of sheer damage their very essence had taken. Gods didn’t have souls like the mortals. Their flesh and blood were too enriched with energy to die of physical injuries. Even Kronos, after being cut to thousands of pieces had survived in the pits of Tartarus, just like his father before the Titan King had.

One simply couldn’t kill an Immortal physically and expect him to fade.

But yet, as the head of the King of gods was bashed against his own throne’s armrest, again and again, Hestia was forced to revise that thought. Especially because every droplet of ichor coming out of her youngest brother was being absorbed by his assailant, the golden blood sparking with her brother’s divinity as it sank into the skin of the demigod pulping Zeus’ brains.

Besides her, Hades and Poseidon stood with stoic expressions, their auras flaring dangerously in a warning to anyone who might want to interrupt the happenings. Poseidon looked ready to skewer Ares, a trident in hand, while Hades looked all too happy to keep Athena’s face down on the ground.

Her sisters stood a few meters away, their faces ashen with horror as they witnessed Zeus’ state—Hera, in particular, looked like she was scared for her husband, but cheering for his attacker too. Behind them, the youngest of Zeus’ Olympian children watched with fright and no small amount of shock as their all-powerful father was reduced to whimpers and broken coughs.

Artemis had tried to rush to her father’s defense when all of this had started, Athena being just a step behind her half-sister…when Poseidon adn Hades had decided to teach the second-generation Olympians a lesson on why they were counted amongst the Big Three. Now, with her bow broken into pieces and her face almost shattered under Hades’ fist, Hestia almost worried for her niece. Almost.

After all, Artemis’ actions from years ago certainly played a part in today’s events. And then, her eyes glided over to Hephaestus, for he was too someone who had a share in the atrocity Zeus had committed. But now, the Forge god was looking at the state of his father with an expressionless look, his hand itching the handle of his warhammer tightly as his eyes flicked between Zeus and his executioner.  While certainly better than Ares…Hestia knew that Hephaestus was neither as good, nor as big a victim as he was usually seen by the mortals.

Sure, Hera did throw him off the mountain, but as a god with major domains, Hephaestus easily could have changed his body if he so desired. He wasn’t the god of the maimed, tortured, and crippled. His body didn’t have an innate connection with those domains, so the body he kept was obviously something he chose. Not like Zeus’ eyes were normally electric blue and his beard usually looked like a particularly bad thundercloud.

Not like how Hades looked apathetic to everything—much like the dead were—or even not like Aphrodite, who despite however many orgies she may have led in a single run, never looked anything less than her perfect self.

On the topic of the love goddess, Hestia turned towards the daughter of Ouranos…and sighed at what she saw. Utterly unconcerned with how her boyfriend had been laid out in a single strike from Poseidon, or how Zeus was being brutalized, Aphrodite only had the eyes for the black-haired man turning Zeus’ face to a pulp.

She sighed at the flush that had traveled down all the way to Aphrodite’s toes, and the sheer hunger in her glowing eyes. She was not on bad terms with the love goddess, in fact, after Hades, it was Aphrodite she got along the most with. But…her wantonness was certainly concerning, especially because if the dem-god accepted her advances, then her nephews might very well fade at his hands as well.

By the Void, she hoped Ares and Hephaestus wouldn’t be so foolish as to invite his wrath…though, equalling the magnitude of the folly and blunder Zeus had committed was something she was sure would remain unequaled for a long time, if any would ever equal it.

Deceiving your brother’s paramour and making his child half your own was something only Zeus was capa-had been capable off.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was five years old when Harry realized that there was really something freakish about him. Aunt Petunia had taken Dudley to the school’s swimming pool, and Mrs. Fig had been away…so she had been forced to take him along too.

It was there that for the first time Harry thought, maybe his relatives were a little freakish too. Because in the twelve boys there had been on the edge of the pool, no one was as fat and chubby as Dudley, whose belly had already started to pour over his sides…and no one was as skinny as him, as he probably had shown almost all of his bones that day.

His escalating obvious malnourishment aside, when Harry had stepped into the pool—more like Dudley and Piers had pushed him—he had felt…warm. Warmer than he had ever remembered being, which was frankly speaking, not a high bar considering the baggy clothes and the tattered blanket he had.

The pool water was supposed to be cold. It was cold. But yet, as he felt water touch his skin, all Harry could feel was the comforting warmth the likes of which he sometimes felt in his dreams. It had taken him barely more than a minute before he was already copying the motions of the instructor, and swimming across the width of the pool without any problems.

Every single parent, and even the instructor had praised him…but the murder in the eye sof Aunt Petunia and the jealousy in Dudley’s eyes had what he had seen.

However, in that single hour, it was not the thought of the impending scolding—and maybe even a beating—he was sure to get once Uncle Vernon reached home. No…it was the fact that he was not even getting remotely tired that had stunned him.

Thanks to his insufficient diet, he had always been a weak child, getting tired easily and having just a skeleton for a body. But that day? That day his skeleton of a body had swum continuously for two minutes, and his arms hadn’t felt like they were going to fall of any moment!

That day, Harry had realized, that he was freakish, and his freakishness somehow involved that swimming pool.

However, he never got to enjoy that pool again. Uncle Vernon made sure of it.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

23 December 1984

“-re speaking right from the hospital, Charles. It has just been confirmed that Beryl Grace, a rising superstar in Hollywood has just given birth to a baby girl. However, despite the good wishes and congratulations being sent to the mother, she is already being trolled by several of her fans for having a baby despite being unwed.”

“Thank You, Dav-”

“Bloody insane the lot of them!” Vernon grumbled as he switched the television off, biting into the roasted chicken savagely, “All unwanted rejects we left behind, and look how good that decision was. A superstar in Hollywood and yet goes on to have a bastard.”

“I am fucking sure his father was one too, eh Vernon?” Marge cackled at her own words, Vernon and Petunia laughing right after her as Harry served a second helping of the chicken to them. “Though, given that his mother was a whore, not too surprising she got knocked up in the school and had a bastard. Who was the boy’s father? Some sailor right…hmph, seems like it is true after all. A sailor always knows where to find whore.”

“Too right,” his uncle grumbled in response, “and even then she was not satisfied, Blasted bitch had to go and get herself blown up along with her new husband, and this bastard was left at our doorstep.”

“Should have thrown him,” she sneered, chucking the bone in her hand at his head, “At least he would have not been a burden on your finances and home. Tell me, Vernon, is he still an ungrateful little brat?”

The wine glass in Marge’s hand exploded at that, and Harry barely controlled the liquid in the bottle and the remaining two glasses. Ignoring the shrikes of his aunt and uncle, and the smug words of Marge about her strong grip, Harry clutched the kitchen platform with all of his grip, feeling the water inside the whale house rumble and swirl with fury.

In that moment, Harry felt angry at himself. More so than he had ever felt for his relatives even. Here he was, six years old, with an unexplainable control over water, the ability to somehow crack light bulbs…but he was still here. Working like a slave for his family, and then getting beat up by Vernon and Dudley for it.

Gods, how easy it would be to just go full Darth Vader on his family and just will the water in their bodies to freeze them while he ran away from Privet Drive…but he couldn’t do that. As sad and as bad as it was, he didn’t know that first thing about living in the streets, except for the fact that little kids like him shouldn’t be there all alone.

But would- “FREAK! Get over here and clean this mess!”

Of course.

Taking a cloth, Harry started to wipe away the wine from the table and floor, hearing the brother-sister duo continue to insult his mother and father both. They talked about his birth father having the good sense to throw his mother after using her for a night, about how his step-father must have been a dunce and a fool to marry his mother even though she got knocked up by another man.

They talked about how his birth father must have seen what a good-for-nothing freak he and his mother were, and that is why he left them for good.

They never saw the neon blue glow start to come from his eyes as he glared down at the floor…and neither did they feel their hair stand on the end as thunder started to rumble in the clouds above.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Lord Hades,” a winged shadow said as it appeared in the Lord of the Dead’s throne room, foul glowing balls in the palm of its hand, “The Celtics just sent four souls to me, they were killed in Surrey, London.”

“Why would Arawn do so?” he arched an eyebrow, looking down at the four souls. Three adults, one child…all staunch Christians, and therefore they fell under the dominion of the Celtic god of Death instead of Hel’s, “They are not Greeks.”

“But they were killed by one,” Thanatos replied as he stood up, his wings disappearing with wisps of darkness. “Thunder fell from the sky on their house, and they all were burned to ashes along with the two houses in their vicinity.”

“What did they do to incur Zeus’ wrath?” Hades chuckled, summoning the man’s soul to his hand as he examined his life, “Did the man fuck someone my brother had his sights on?”

“It was not the King of Olympians that did this, My Lord,” came the slow, quiet response, and it took Hades a moment to parse through what the god of Death had said, “It was a child of six years that called down the thunderbolt.”

The whole Underworld shook strongly a moment later, and even the Elysium felt the wrath of Hades as his eyes turned into the darkest pits of black imaginable. The souls suffering in his robe screamed more loudly than ever as his fingers tightened over Vernon’s soul, and with a shrill scream of maddening agony, the Dursley was forever lost to the folds of Hades’ personal dungeon.

“What in the name of Chaos did you just say, Thanatos?”

“The child…seems to be the son of the lord of the Skies, My Lord. However,” Thanatos flicked his palm and brought up an image of a skinny, emerald eyes child, “He is not depicting the usual features of the children of the Lord of Olympus—the blue eyes and the aquiline nose, along with the constant presence of avians around them. Therefore, it is also likely that is a progeny of your other brother.”

“That is quite possible,” Hades muttered as he reigned in his power, the Underworld calming down instantly as the Earthquake that had almost devastated Los Angeles stopped. “Poseidon’s kids are as mercurial as they come, and he does have power over storms. It wouldn’t be impossible for a child of his to use that facet of his powers.”

“Shall we depart then, My Lord?” a female voice asked, the large, winged woman hanging upside down on the ceiling of the room, “It would be an honor to bring the child of the Sea in front of you.”

“No.” he intoned, smiling slightly as the shadows in the hall lengthened, “Poseidon has never done wrong by my children, and I will not do the same. He broke the Oath to have this child, so the Fates will punish him in due time by themselves. Why get myself involved when I can just watch Poseidon’s spawn suffer and dance to the tunes of his father’s folly? Let the boy live..for when he dies, I will have all Eternity to have my fun.”

“And when the KIng comes to know of this?”

“Then we shall see how much of my brother his spawn has inherited,” Hades laughed, conjuring a goblet of ale and raising it in Thanatos’ direction, “After all, we both know how…stubborn and tenacious the Peverells were, Ignotus even more so.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, that is my chocolate!”

That was all Harry heard before someone punched him in the back of his head. Falling on his face with a shout, he cried out as his chin met the pavement, and the chocolate slipped from his grasp.

Tears welled up in his eyes from the burning sensation and the pain in his chin, and he turned on his back so that he could look at the boy who had punched him. Clothes with holes, unkempt hair adn smudges on his cheeks, the boy looked like he had just climbed out fo a gutter—which was not far away from his state, Harry realized.

Brown eyes glared at him fiercely as the boy kneeled down to pick up the chocolate, clutching it protectively to his chest as he stood up. “I saw it first! It is mine! Go find yours somewhere else!”

“But I didn’t find anything in the bin today!” he protested, rubbing his scrapped chin as he stood up, “Can’t you share it with me? Please, I will give you back a bar of chocolate when I find one again!”

“Get away from me,” the boy cried out, backing away, “I will not give this to you, so go away before I fuck you up!”

“What does that mean?” Harry stopped, his eyebrows scrunched up as looked at the chocolate and then at the mouth of the alley, wondering if he could grab the thing and make a run for it.

“I don’t know,” the boy replied, taking a backstep yet again as he too looked at the exit, “But I heard some man say it to a woman before he pushed her against the wall and she started to scream while he choked her, so I will fuck you up! Then you will never try to take my chocolate!”

With that, the boy turned around and ran away swiftly, Harry following after him a moment later with a surprised “Hey!”. But the punch to his head, and the barely reduced malnourishment came back to haunt him once again, as Harry could scarcely take a step after a few dozen meters. His chest burning with exhaustion as his breaths came in short gasps, Harry glared at the back of the boy moving farther and farther away from him with each passing second.

His stomach cold with hunger, and his feet in pain due to the running, he felt anger burn inside him as once again, someone took away his food and left him hungry. With a shout, Harry kicked the pavement, wishing with all of his might for that chocolate to come back to him—Dudley also did the same everytime! Whenever Harry had found something lying around in the house, a leftover piece of chicken, some candies…he always took them all!

However, before the tears in his eyes could drop, he felt something appear in his hands. Something familiar. Not wanting to believe it, especially after what had happened a week ago in Surrey, Harry still couldn’t control his eyes from wandering down to his right hand…where that chocolate—which had just been snatched from him—was there as if it had never left his hands.

31 July 1986

“Another year done,” Harry mumbled to himself as he sat on the wooden deck of an old ship rotting away on the Western shoreline of Britain, “Eight years old now, with four murders and God knows how many steals.”

“Well, I have seen many demigods kill humans well before they are of age, but eight is certainly a rare number.”

“What the hell?!” Harry shouted as he turned around, his right palm lightning up with pale blue flames while his left started to crackle with electricity, “Wh-What are you?”

“Me?” the horned, goat-legged, coat-wearing thing in front of him chuckled, waving a perfectly normal hand at him, “I am a Satyr. Gaphrus, they call me. I am…a spirit you can say, and I guide demigods to Camp Half Blood so they can learn how to kill and remain safe.”

“A Demigod?” Harry frowned, his hands still not lowering as he flicked his eyes over the ‘Satyr’, “Is that what I am? Son of a god?”

“You are quite readily believing my words,” Gaphrus frowned, “Usually I have to summon some flowers or spend a lot of time to make orphan kids believe me.”

“I have never seen anyone with powers like mine,” he shrugged in response, snuffing out the flames and the lightning in his hands before bringing them back, “Therefore, I must be different than the rest of the people. And my aunt and uncle always said that I am a freak.”

“I always told Chiron you need to find them young,” the thi-satyr muttered as he walked up to him, looking t him up adn down while Harry did the same, “Well, child, you are a demigod. That means one of your parents was a Greek god and therefore, you are going to come with me to a place called Camp-Half Blood.”

‘Don’t tell him about your father Harry,’ a soft voice suddenly whispered in his head, making him jump in his place as he wildly looked around, ‘Don’t panic. I am not going to hurt you child, but you must not speak of your birth father until you reach the safety of Camp Half Blood.’

“What is your name, child?” the satyr’s voice broke him out of his panic, and Harry looked at him warily, wondering why he was the only one able to hear the lady’s voice.

“Harry,” he answered, dispelling the flames and lightning for good this time, “Harry Potter.”

“Well, Harry Potter” the satyr smirked as he snapped his fingers, and his horns and goat legs disappeared in place of normal human features, “Let’s get you to the camp, now shall we?”