The Son of Storms 23

Ares didn’t remember the last time he had come to the Underworld very much. A side effect of the mess of chaotic, poisonous energies that made up the Hell of the Universe. It required a certain skill at manipulation of the eddies of time and space, and one’s own energy to avoid the effects this had on an immortal’s mind. Kicking a loose stone out of his path, he glared up at the castle in the distance, the imposing structure seeming no closer than it had been when he had started…hours ago.

By Chaos, in Hell, it could have been days and he would not have noticed. He didn’t really mind the walking. Time and energy held no meaning for him, and neither did the ghastly scenes playing out around him in the trenches and fields of the afterlife. What mattered to him however, were the little giggles he could hear over the screams and cries of the damned, and his orange eyes glowered ominously at the shadow that passed by the cliff to his right.

With the Underworld messing with his head, the last thing he needed was Hades’s bitches tailing him, giggling like insipid little daughters of Aphrodite. As if reading his thoughts, the dark figure cackled and swooped down in front of him, perching on a greying tree with her talons, dark, feathered wings spread wide behind her naked, pale back.

“Greetings, God of War, Lord Ares,” Megaera’s sweet, honeyed voice echoed around them, the realm shuddering at the tone of one of its most powerful inhabitants. Dark blue eyes stared at him, set in a thin, arguably beautiful face. Her skin was bleached, and dark hair fell to her waist in waves, covering the sides of her breasts. A whip dangled at her hip, below which a skirt made of some man’s skin and bones covered her demonic legs.

Glancing at the blood that covered her front, Ares met her eyes and nodded, “Greetings, Old One.”

“What bringeth thee to the Underworld, War-God?”

“Matters that are to be discussed with your king, and no one else,” he answered just as quickly, his words clipped and short against the amused ones of the Fury.

Megaera’s talons scraped the bark as she shifted, wings stretched wide to drink the stale air of the pit. Her gaze lingered on Ares with a mixture of hunger and mockery, her voice curling from her lips like a poison-laced caress as she fingered the scaled whip. “Say, War-God—dost thou walk these wastes for thyself? Or comest thou as thy Father’s hound, bearing his words into my master’s hall?”

Ares’s eyes narrowed. The Underworld’s fumes pressed against his mind, whispering mandess, yet his answer came as sharp as the edge of his sword. “I do not carry his voice. I am here for my own matters, and if I am to be a cur, then you are certainly no better than a gnat beneath my paw.”

Her smile widened, beautiful and cruel all at once. “Bold words for one so young,” her teeth gleamed in the shadowed light, impossibly white and sharp, “Yet take heed of the realm wherein thou standest. ’Tis not Olympus, where arrogance may strut unchallenged.”

She leapt lightly from her perch, landing before him with unnatural grace. The ground blackened where her talons touched, and in her eyes, Ares saw the souls confined to eternal torment. Her whip coiled like a living thing at her side, though she made no move to draw it. Instead, she leaned forward, cold blue flames burning in her gaze as a mocking smile split through her pale lips. “Hearken unto me. Hades suffereth not presumption from those who deem themselves his equal. Thy battles have filled his halls with enough soldiers to choke Lethe itself, and he hath not forgotten thy last trespass. Walk warily, child—for even thou mayst find the gates barred should thy tongue overstep its station.”

The world seemed to lean in with her words, her voice echoing with the very fabric of this dark, endless world. The distant wailing of souls dimmed to a susurrus, and the black castle on the horizon flickered like a mirage, as if Hades himself took notice of her words and agreed with the Fury. Ares was by no means weak, either in mind or in body, but as he looked at the looming edifice in the distance, never nearer no matter how many steps he had taken…for a heartbeat, even he felt the weight of her warning pressing down on his chest.

Megaera’s voice softened, though her laughter slithered beneath it more deeply. She walked forward, hips swaying, and raised a pale, manicured hand near his chest, stopping just shy of touch. “And if the walking wearieth thee, War-God, why not humble thyself? Call upon the Lord of this place. Entreat him to shorten thy path. Beg him, mayhap, to spare thee the indignity of treading across his wastes.”

Ares’s lips curled, but no answer came. The silence between them was enough—though his fingers twitched once, and his sword called for him to decapitate this nuisance. To show her why he was feared across realms and dimensions.

The Fury tilted her head, satisfied, a knowing glint in her eyes as her gaze travelled to his sword. Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she dissolved into the dark, her feathers scattering like smoke across the trench. The echo of her laughter lingered, a mocking chorus twined with the cries of the damned as the shadows retreated, ever watching.

Ares stood alone once more, the weight of the Underworld heavy on his shoulders. He exhaled slowly, grounding himself against the press of insanity, banishing the coiling, darkening whispers from his mind. Then he set his gaze forward again, where the fortress still loomed impossibly far, its jagged towers wavering in the gloom and darkening the already lightless horizon, a promise and a threat both.

Megaera’s words, though mocking and irritating, held weight. It would be easy, to pray to Hades…to ask for entrance.

To beg.

But he was Ares.

Time, distance, mandess—none of it mattered before him. His boots struck the path with renewed force, each step a vow that no Fury, no King, no realm would decide his pace.

The castle might have been an eternity away, but with each stride, the God of War made clear to the Underworld that even the eternal meant nothing to him.

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

“What glee do you take from this, my beloved?”

“None save for the irritation on his face,” Hades answered as Persephone leaned back into his chest, and he kissed the back of her head, breathing in the fragrance of cypress. The pink flower that decorated his wife’s elaborate braid had been grown in her personal gardens, as he felt her warmth chase away some of that eternal cold inside his soul, Hades let his hand loosen on her hips, feeling her soft fingers clasp over his hands.

“He is being awfully reasonable, though,” she pointed out, and he sent his agreement to her mentally—however grudging it was. Reasonable was an apt term for it, considering the last time his foolish nephew had come to his world, it had been with a war-cry on his lips and blood on his sword, demanding a demigod to be resurrected so that he might exact his own price from the soul.

Impudence.

For the dead were his. His to command, his to judge, his to rule over. That had been the pact between the Brothers three at the dawn of the new Universe. And this child had the gall to renege on the pact older than his birth?!

Hades was not one to get angry or emotional, but that incident had been enough to make him wroth. Enough that instead of his legions or the Furies, it had been him who had personally greeted Ares with a swat of his hand and a kick to his jaw, sending him to his knees—and then to Olympus proper, bent and beaten.

“Allow him entrance, beloved,” she whispered, a dress of summer and grass shifting on her sublime skin, and Hades felt his soul stir at the sight offered by the cut of the bodice, his wife enjoying it too with the way she was leaning back. Her finger traced the ring on his right hand, voice dropping low, “Let him see your court, let him see the Ruler of the Underworld. You have bent him before, now let him bow before you of his own volition. He is here for something he must need…why not see just how much he is willing to part with for it?”

“There is nothing I would want from one such as him,” he scoffed at the very thought, looking past the walls and the infinity that stretched between him and Ares, where even now, the War-God walked through the grey expanses stubbornly, his orange eyes glaring at anything and everything. He could keep Ares away from his abode endlessly. Make it so that the distance between them never shrank by even an inch…but then again, he knew the headstrong god well. 

Ares would walk and walk without a pause, and then, when it would become apparent that Hades had no intention of granting him an audience, he would force a confrontation between them. The Underworld was already reeling from the effects of his rage a few years ago, and he couldn’t risk damaging the liminal boundaries between the worlds anymore. As it was, he could feel the power of Adnyeus’ servant distorting those said borders. 

“Very well,” he sighed, eyes shutting for a moment before they opened up again, a trickle of his power rising through his being as he looked at Ares and the vast distance before them again. His desire moved through the Underworld itself, and the realm obeyed. The distance between his palace and Ares instantly vanished into nothingness, hundreds of miles of space folding in upon itself as Hell itself obeyed its Master’s will.

Persephone rose from his lap gracefully, the wrinkles in her dress smoothening out on their own as she took the throne on his right, taking her position as the Queen of Hades. His eyes peered at Ares as the shadows in the throne room trembled, snaking underneath braziers that burned with unraveling, white-yellow flames, and the War-God appeared at the gates of his castle. The imposing doors to his house swung inwards silently, and Hades watched Ares take the step inside, the burning, angry, yet disciplined presence of the Olympian acting as a buffer against the insanity and darkness of the Underworld.

A minute later, Ares appeared before them. Unlike the last time, he was without his armor and helm, and as his eyes shifted to the sword on his hips, Hades watched the weapon vanish away.

Wise. 

“Greetings, Ruler of the Dead and the Underworld, Lord Hades,” Ares lowered his head, bending at his waist by a smidgen. His smirk widened a fraction at that, and Hades rested his face against his feet and he crossed one leg over the other, “Greetings, Queen of the Underworld and Bringer of Spring, Lady Persephone.”

“Greetings to you, Ares.”

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

This, this was what he hated about Hades. His oldest uncle by blood he may be, but by Chaos was he an insufferable, smug bastard. Not to say that his own father or Poseidon were polite, respectable diplomats by any means. But they were blunt about their opinions, caustic in a way that was familiar to him, because he was much the same—with much more style, of course.

Hades though…had that sweetness to his voice. That peculiar, irritating politeness; the severe, clear enunciation of each syllable which screamed that ‘I am better than you’, better than anything even Athena could ever do. This casual overconfidence in his posture, the surety in his power, the cold detachment that made him grit his teeth every time he had to deal with the Ruler of the Dead.

Yet, that power and intelligence was something Ares respected. Where in the damned Pit did Persephone gain this attitude? As far as Ares was aware—and he was older than her—all she had done was spread her legs for Hades and gotten worshipped as the bringer of Spring only because Demeter fell into slumber one time.

“What brings you to the Underworld, brother,” his half-sister began, and a Queen she may have been, but Ares was the son of the Queen of Olympus and the whole Universe. No amount of posturing was going to bring the regality born of blood and soul, and Ares conveyed that perfectly as he slowly turned his eyes towards her, his boredness and lack of respect clear in his eyes.

“A few days ago, one of my demigods went rogue,” he paused for a mome-

“A happening of every now and then, from what I understand,” Persephone pounced in instantly, smiling sweetly as she looked at him, “It was only twenty-seven years ago that one of your daughters went rogue, wasn’t it?”

“Demigods sometimes cannot handle the reality, nor the power our blood grants them,” he answered back, not letting the politeness of his tone take away the bite of his words, for he may have come to Hades’ realm as august, but he was an Olympian. A Royal in his own right, and not one by marriage if that was what crawling up inside Persephone’s ass. Turning to Hades, he nodded at the Elder God, “You know this better than I do.”

“Quite so,” Hades answered, voice not changing in the slightest as he straightened, waving a hand towards him, and Ares felt a throne materialise behind him. As he took a seat on the exact replica of his throne on Olympus, he felt satisfaction surge through him for reminding Hades of his biggest mistake, the one which had led to his children being forbidden from the Demigod’s residence. “Have a seat, Ares. It does not behoove a guest of mine to keep standing.”

Subtle. As if Hades wasn’t the one making him walk for hours on the end just to remind him whose realm he was in.

“Thank you, Uncle,” he nodded, acknowledging the familial relation now that the pleasantries were over, and barbs had been exchanged for the moment—even Athena would have noted the restraint he showed in that moment.. Meeting Hades’s dark, amused eyes, Ares snapped his fingers and conjured a projection of the fight that had happened in Lancaster, “Carlos turned rogue and murdered two demigods in his party, before absconding with one of my weapons. Harry Potter, the demigod born of fathe-”

“Ah yes, the demigod born of Zeus,” Hades whispered, leaning back in his seat, and forthe first time since he had appeared in the Underworld, Ares felt his instincts—honed from countless battles and wars—whisper to him. The shadows around him, even under him trembled for a moment at the clear displeasure in Hades’s mind, before it all settled down and his Uncle continued, “Then again, it happens every few decades. Continue.”

“I tasked him with killing Carlos and recovering my weapon,” he spoke up, “He tracked him down and they fought, however, Carlos escaped.”

“Fascinating, your son must be especially powerful if he has escaped Father’s latest demigod. I heard he is a wizard as well, from the land of Celts,” Persephone commented, eye starting at the moment when Ares had madethe boy’s self-control snap, and thunder had descended on Lancaster, “Potter..hmm, I think I remember them from the days we were in Europe.”

Ares inclined his head, acknowledging Persephone’s words without granting her the satisfaction of a reply. His gaze flicked back to the projection, the images reshaping at his command—Carlos staggering, blood spilling, and then, without warning, the mortal melting into shadow itself. His form stretched and collapsed, drawn away into the dark like smoke whipped into the void.

“And then he was gone,” Ares said, his voice clipped. “No gate, no spell of Hermes, not even the residue of Hecate’s tricks. He vanished into the dark itself. The dagger in his hands was responsible for the portal.”

The image flickered out as Carlos vanished into the pool of darkness, and the sword of Zeus’s son cut through his arm over his elbow, separating limb from body. At the same time, he summoned the dagger to his palm, keeping it afloat and letting Hades see it clearly. The dagger’s glyphs writhed, and the braziers guttered, shadows straining toward it as if thirsty. Silence stretched in the wake of the moment, and Ares removed the projection from their sight as he felt Hades’s power reach out, gently clasping around the dagger and prying it from his grip..

Hades’s eyes lingered on him, cold and unreadable, before he turned towards the weapons and floated it closer to himself, “So…Do the halls of Olympus lay this at my feet? Does the Council whisper that their brother of the Pit meddles with your demigods?”

Ares’s mouth twitched, but his voice was level, polite, deliberate. “No. I have said already—I am here on my own. I speak not for my Father, nor for the Council.”

“And you, Ares?” Hades leaned forward, shadows curling around the arms of his throne, ”Do you, personally, accuse me?”

The God of War met his uncle’s gaze without flinching. “I do not, but I found this,” Ares said, nodding at the weapon. His voice was still calm, though iron weighed every word. “It was what allowed him to make that rift, transporting him through energies not even Hermes could pinpoint. None of Olympus could name its metal, nor trace its forging, and neither can Hephaestus or I divine anything about this. But when I hold it here, in your hall, I see something move in your eyes.”

The blade’s shadow stretched long across the floor, bending unnaturally toward Hades’s throne.

“Tell me, Uncle,” Ares said quietly. “Do you recognise this?”

For a long moment, Hades said nothing. His eyes lingered on the blade, his face carved from stone, unreadable save for the faintest tightening at the corner of his mouth. Persephone watched too, her head tilted, her expression almost amused.

At last, Hades leaned back in his throne, the shadows retreating with the movement. “No,” he said, the word clear, deliberate. “I do not recognise it. Whatever stirs in your imagination is of no concern to me. If such a thing was forged, it was done so beyond my dominion.”

Ares’s eyes narrowed. “You answer quickly, Uncle. Too quickly.”

“Then scour my realm, if you wish it,” Hades’s voice did not waver, his answer coming just as briskly as his comment, gaslight narrowing of his eyes all the indication the Dread God gave of his emotions on the matter as he waved a hand, “Let the matter be settled in truth rather than suspicion. Megaera!”

The Fury stepped from the shadows at once, her talons clicking against the floor, wings folding in close. She inclined her head towards her master, before her baleful blue eyes met his unamused ones, and the Old One licked her lips—mouth curling in a smile too sharp to be pleasant.

“She will guide you,” Hades continued, “Search every pit and prison if it eases your mind. If the weapon has a twin or a trail, it will be found. And if not—then you will leave my halls satisfied that your uncle had no hand in this.”

“A fair option, brother mine,” Persephone added, looking at Megaera’s silent, smiling form before turning towards him, “Your suspicions—baseless though they are, warrant seriousness. The Underworld is yours to peruse.”

“No,” Ares considered her, the dagger still resting on his palm. The silence stretched, iron-heavy, before he shook his head once. “I have not come to trail after your Furies like a petitioner. I came only to place the truth before you, and to give you a warning.”

His orange eyes fixed on Hades, and for a heartbeat, even the braziers 

seemed to dim as Hades’s eyes sharpened just a tad at his words, the cold in the air intensifying. “If you are hiding knowledge, if pride blinds you while such weapons and powers slip free into the world, then it will not only Olympus that suffers. Do not let your ego jeopardise us all.”The dagger vanished from his hand in a wisp of smoke. Ares rose from the conjured throne, gave a short, precise bow to Persephone, and a smaller one to Hades.

Then, with no further word, he turned on his heel and strode from the chamber, his footsteps echoing in the silence he left behind. As his footsteps faded, the shadows along the floor stretched after him, as though the realm itself considered his warning.

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

The next morning dawned too quickly for his sore and tired body. Groaning as he heard Fred excitedly jump around in the dorm, Harry created a silencing ward around himself. Dropping his wand back onto the covers, the young wizard let out a tired groan into the pillow as he felt the softness of the quilt on his back and legs, feeling the burn from the hunt and all of the walking he had done.

Unfortunately, a silencing ward could not stop Jordan from pulling back the curtains and letting the sunlight hit his face. “Rise and shine Potter,” the third prankster in the dormitory called out, climbing past teh ward onto his bed and shaking him, “You can’t miss the special breakfast on the menu today!”

“I have no interest in seeing what prank you have cooked up for the school, lemme sleep,” he muttered, voice muffled by the pillow. With a lazy flick of his fingers, the silencing ward shifted, and Jordan gave a yelp as an invisible push banished him clean off the mattress. The boy landed in an undignified heap on the dormitory floor, groaning.

Harry sat up just long enough to tug the curtains closed again, the room dimming back into blessed shadow.

Fred’s laugh barked out first, followed quickly by George’s. “Lucky git,” Fred said with mock solemnity. “On our first day, he didn’t bother with gentleness.”

“Straight into the wall,” George confirmed, rubbing an invisible bruise on his shoulder. “Still hurts when it rains.”

Jordan muttered something unflattering under his breath, but even he managed a grin as he climbed up from the floor. The three of them lingered for a few moments, but when Harry rolled onto his side and pulled the quilt tighter around him, the twins shared a knowing glance. A beat later, the door shut behind them, their voices fading down the staircase.

The dormitory was quiet again. Harry let out a slow breath, sinking deeper into the mattress. For another hour—perhaps two—he lay there, drifting in and out of half-sleep, exhaustion dragging at his limbs. The silence was almost kind.

Eventually, he forced himself up, dressed without hurry, and stepped out into the corridors. The morning light through the high windows stabbed at his tired eyes, but he moved on autopilot, following the familiar route down to the Great Hall.

Halfway there, a glimpse through one of the long, arched windows caught him and his feet slowed. Outside, beyond the grounds, Hagrid’s hut squatted at the edge of the forest. Even from this distance Harry could see the sprawled shapes, chitin glinting dark in the light—carcasses of the spiders he had felled. He could see some big ones there too, but none that approached hte size of the mated pair he had killed, Mosag and Aragog’s hulking forms absent from his vision.

He pressed his hand against the stone sill, eyes narrowing.

Movement drew his eyes deeper into the trees. Hagrid’s massive figure emerged from the shadow of the forest, staggering under the burden of more corpses slung across his shoulders. His head was bowed, his broad frame shaking—under the weight or sobs, Harry didn’t know. Dumbledore stood nearby, burning the spiders swiftly even as vultures and birds of prey swarmed the sky above in dozens, circling above the Forbidden Forest and many even diving at Hagrid’s little garden.

Harry looked away, yet despite himself, he couldn’t forget the sight throughout the day. He turned into the Great Hall without another glance, his face composed, but the weight of causing Hagrid discomfort pressed down on his thoughts throughout the day.

Afternoon came and went quickly, and the entire student body was talking about the Acromantula colony that had been discovered in the Forest. Current gossip was that Dumbledore and Hagrid had walked into the forest at night to kill the invasive species, and were about to buy Nimbus 2000s for the flying class from the silk they were about to sell. Snorting as he heard that line, Harry shook his head at McGonagall’s questioning glance, and continued his practical work, wand arcing perfectly through the air to change the color of the parrot’s tail feathers.

This was the School cared about today. Hell, no one had even given a thought to prank Fred and George had tried to pull on the Hufflepuffs. 

In the back of his mind, though, Harry couldn’t help but wonder…what would have the scene looked like if it had been Dumbledore who had gone out to hunt the spiders. For one, he would not have slipped in teh mud a dozen times, he thought with a sigh, looking down at his clean and dry shoes. 

The second? Probably Mosag and Aragog might have shat in their nest and vacated politely at the sight of the old wizard. The creatures had given him enough evidence that they were intelligent, and no chance they didn’t know about the strongest wizard in the world.

It would have taken Dumbledore zero effort, and probably a single flick of his wand to clear every Acromantula…which begged the question of, why didn’t the Headmaster do it before? The Acromatulas were nto native to this ecosystem, and the signs of them being an invasive species were all over the forest, even for his relatively untrained eyes.

‘Probably because he is a better friend to Hagrid than I am.’ he thought with a mental laugh, shaking his head to clear the memory of Hagrid dragging corpses from teh treeline, ‘Or maybe it was interference with the Wild One’s domain? He doesn’t seem like a guy to let something like murderous, bear size spiders go unchecked in his own backyard.’

Thankfully, the Charms class after that was work enough to keep his mind off the subject of the Acromantulas, and by the time Potions was over, it was time for dinner again. However, within moments of arriving in the Great Hall with the laughing trio of the Weasley Twins and Jordan, McGonagall came by their bench, causing everyone in the Great Hall to look at them.

“Mr. Potter,”  she looked at him, a frown on her face, before her eyes flicked to his plate, “Have you finished your dinner?”

“Just about professor,” he answered, chewing the last piece of his chicken and standing up from the bench as the rest of the students gave them curious glances, “How may I be of help?”

“The Headmaster requests your presence in his office, Mr. Potter,” she nodded towards the doors, “If you will follow me?”

“Certainly, Professor,” Harry said, following after her. Once they were outside the Great Hall, he looked McGonagall’s back and asked the question he probably already knew the answer to, “May I ask what I am being summoned for?”

“That is something the Headmaster wishes to talk to you directly about,” she answered, and that was the end of that. Within moments, they were standing before the familiar twin gargoyles, and as McGonagall pressed her palm against the air between the statues, the stone structures parted to reveal the staircase going up towards Dumbledore’s office. Taking a step to the left, she gave him a considering glance before gesturing towards the steps, “Go on then, Mr. Potter. This is a conversation supposed to be between you two.”

“Any words of advice Professor?” he asked, feeling his instinct warn him as he stared at the dimly lit stairs, before looking at McGonagall’s severe expression.

“The Headmaster wasn’t in the best of moods, Mr. Potter,” she sighed, before patting his shoulder and walking off, “Be honest Mr. Potter, that is all I can offer you.”

Harry nodded once, more to himself than to McGonagall’s retreating back. His hand brushed the rail of the moving staircase as it spiraled upward, stone groaning faintly beneath his shoes. The climb was short, but each step seemed heavier than the last, the weight of the day and the promise of what awaited pressing down on him.

The oaken door at the top swung open of its own accord. Warm light spilled from within, the scent of parchment and ink sharp in his nose. It reminded of the first time had had been summoned to this very office, on his first day when he had cast that banisher.

Inside, the chamber was silent save for the crackle of the fireplace. Dumbledore sat behind his great carved desk, silver instruments on the side tables ticking and whirring softly. On his right, Fawkes rested upon his perch, feathers glowing faintly in the lamplight, his black eyes fixed on Harry with unnerving clarity.

But it was the Headmaster’s face that caught Harry’s full attention. Gone was the usual twinkle of mischief or patience in his eyes. Instead, his gaze was cool, his mouth set in a stern line, and his long fingers steepled together upon the desk.

Harry stepped inside, the door shutting behind him with a final click, leaving him alone under the weight of Dumbledore’s silence.

“Take a seat, Mr. Potter.”