To Dance on the Stars

Fifteen years later, all the Gods of Olympus, together with their Celestial Knights, were called together by the God Hades, to hear news that he claimed was important. Included in the near-summons were the Gold and Silver Celestial Knights of the absentee Goddess Pallas Athena.

Not all the Gods chose to attend. The Gods of the Celts and the Norse chose not to attend, each sending only a token representative to hear the deliberations of the Gods of Olympus. The Gods of Egypt, the Orient and the Americas did not make even that concession, remaining unrepresented.

Hades stood before the assembly, and felt that He could be pardoned a small gloat. He had found the way to deny Athena Her power. Of course, He didn't have access to it, yet, but still, one step at a time. He had all the time in the universe - and now, Athene did not.

"So, why have You called Us all here, My brother?" Zeus, the chief of the Gods, asked lazily.

Hades returned to Himself with a start. "Why, a matter that concerns Us all, My lord and brother," He replied unctuously.

"So get on with it," Apollo called, fishing a lone grape out of the bowl that balanced precariously on the arm of His chaise-longue. He reached over and fed it to His twin Artemis, the only woman He had ever remained constant to. "Exactly what is it that the Lord of *Darkness* has discovered that affects Us all?"

Hades rolled His eyes at the pair of permanent teenagers that were the God of the Sun and Goddess of the Moon. "As You all know, it has been fifteen years since Athena left Us-"

"And good riddance," Aphrodite replied from Her corner. "Permanent virgin, always scowling. If anybody needed to just loosen up and have a good shag, it was Pallas Athena."

"I did volunteer, Mother," Eros piped up irreverently, "but You wanted Me to take care of Psyche." He promptly gave His wife a mind-blowing kiss that had more than one God squirming at the blast of sensuality. Aphrodite scowled. She didn't like remembering the way She had told Her son to destroy Psyche, only to watch Him fall in love with and then marry the girl. There were undoubtedly worse daughters-in-law... even if She couldn't think of any offhand.

Hades ignored the interplay between the Goddess of Beauty and the God of Love and continued, "And that means that She is coming close to Her awakening."

"You mean Miss Sourface is coming back?" Dionysus flung His cup away in a dramatic gesture. Wine spilled from it as it spun end over end and finally hit the ground in front of the podium Hades was standing on. "She's going to be stalking around the edges of My orgies, lecturing Me on licentious behaviour?"

Ariadne elbowed Him. "'Licentious behaviour'?" She asked innocently. "Whatever does that mean?"

The God of Alcohol, Loud Music and Really Wild Parties looked down at His significant other with a wild grin. "Let Me show You," He purred, and proceeded to, with Her enthusiastic cooperation.

Hades coughed, ignoring the spectacle that Dionysus and Ariadne were enthusiastically performing in the audience, and tried to recapture the gravity he had attempted to project. "However, there may be a problem."

"My oh-so-proper niece has learnt to dance the tango?" Poseidon murmured, openly bored.

"I have reason to believe that an impostor may try to seize Her power!" Hades shouted.

That made everyone (except Ariadne and Dionysus, who were beyond caring about anything except each other at this stage) stop and look at Him.

"Steal Her Power?" Zeus thundered. "Who would steal My beloved daughter's throne?"

"This girl," Hades declared, and gestured. A life-sized, three-dimensional illusion of Hermione Granger appeared on the dais beside him. She was neither very tall nor especially imposing. Her face, while charming, could never be called classically beautiful, she was neither buxom nor boyish, and her mid-brown hair was, to put it kindly, rather disordered. She most definitely did not look like a Goddess.

"As you know, Athena wanted to be born as a-" Hades could not repress a shudder, "-mortal. Without any powers or abilities, beyond an ordinary human. This girl is a witch. Therefore, by very definition, she cannot be Athena. And yet - I have it on very good authority that she will present her claim to be our lost Goddess."

Finally, finally, He had everyone's attention. Well, everyone except the pair of fornicating weasels in the fourth row, but what could You expect of the God of Orgies and the Goddess of Pleasure?

"Also," he continued, while he had everyone's attention, "she is English. This means that she lives in the land that has traditionally been held by Our... respected counterparts among the Tuatha de Danaan and the Aesir and Vanir. And while We are now at peace, this was not always so. It is not wise, to place oneself in the hands of those who may not be entirely friendly - and if there is one thing My niece ever was, it is wise. We are the Greek Gods - Athena is undoubtedly in Greece. This... British girl is not and cannot be Athena!"

"No!"

"No!"

"No!"

Hearing the calls, Hades smiled grimly. He had done it. Even Athena's Celestial Knights were nodding and grimly studying the image of Her incarnation.

She was alone, trapped in a mortal body with no more power than any other mortal, and so, so easy to dispose of at His leisure.

He would enjoy despoiling and destroying the little bitch.

Hermione ran along the corridor between the library and Gryffindor Tower, muttering imprecations at herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. "Only a quarter to curfew, what was I thinking?"

"I wouldn't know, but then that's hardly new."

In one swift, practised movement, Hermione stopped dead, drew her wand, and spun around, falling into a defensive stance. "Who are you? Voldemort? I'm not the one you're looking for."

The man watching her smiled. It was not an expression that made her relax her guard. "Voldemort? No, I am not my loyal Knight, although it's pleasant to think he is obeying his orders so well," the stranger mused. "But You are the one I was looking for, dear niece."

Her wand did not waver. "You are not my uncle."

He laughed at that. "Oh, this is too rich," he finally gasped out. "I knew I had moved early, but I didn't think You hadn't even remembered yet!"

She frowned.

At that, the stranger frowned. "Well, My revenge's no fun if You don't know what I'm talking about."

"Then you may always leave," Hermione replied. Her legs were starting to ache from being held in position.

"And some things definitely don't change," he muttered. "Well then, dear niece: Remember!"

Hermione blinked as she felt something like a swirl of wind about her, and then -

- Light and knowledge and wisdom and war, faces, ten lifetimes of them -

- Arguments and passion and balancing, ever balancing, justice on one hand and war on the other, sometimes twins and sometimes opposites -

- Loneliness, ever loneliness, till the creation -

- Five faces born of Her desire to not be alone again, five won through, seeing Her as a goal, five chosen through affection built through childhood after childhood -

- Withdrawing further and further as the cult of the Sacrificed God grew in power and numbers, until almost nothing was left of the old ways, as men changed in ways almost beyond understanding -

- Watching as the Sacrificed God's cult drifted further away from the people, hollowed out from within by its own hypocrisy, unable to reach out to the people struggling for truth -

- Recognizing the chance, and taking it -

- And Athena fell to her knees, gasping with the enormity of Her true self. She was Hermione, was Athena, was so much....

"You will never return."

"What?" She looked up at Hades, seeing His undisguised sneer.

"All the Gods of Olympus know of Hermione Granger - as an impostor! You will never, never return, dear niece, to Your beloved home!"

She drew in a deep, ragged breath. "My Knights -"

"- Are also convinced!" Hades laughed again, a cruel, bitter laugh full of venom. "You have no allies, neither God nor Knight to stand at Your side!" He took a step towards her, and another. "I'm going to enjoy this...."

She held up her hand, almost absently watching how very still it seemed. And Hades stopped.

He did try to advance, but it was as if He was a fly stuck in honey. All His struggles brought him no closer to the small teenager half-flopped on her heels, her robes a black twill sea around her pale face and delicate hand. She looked as if one good solid blow would break her neck, but He could no more advance against those too-old, too-wise amber eyes than He could wrest control of the sea from His next-eldest brother.

"Go now." And He cursed inwardly at the power in those two words. "Go now and do not return here, Hades." She rose to Her feet, and the girl who had been but a mortal a moment before was now every one of Her inches a Goddess. "You are not welcome here!"

Cursing, Her enemy fled, and Athena subsided. Standing in the corridor, she buried her face in her hands and tried to think through the tsunami of memories swamping her.

She was Athena. She was Hermione. She was a Goddess. She was a human. She was a mortal. She was anything but. She was... alone.

Hades didn't lie. He didn't see the point, when a pointed truth could be as or more devastating. If He said He had turned Olympus and her Knights against her, then He had.

She began to tremble. The other Gods' enmity, she could endure. But her Knights... if only she had her Knights, she could prove her identity, throw it in their teeth that she was Athene, be all her self and more. Her Gold and Silver Knights, immortal guardians, had remained in her palace in Olympus. Oh, stupid, stupid, she should've realized that their location was too well-known to avoid attack. And her Bronze Knights had been reborn with her - as mortal as she, now. And far, far more vulnerable, because they couldn't even know what they were until she found and awoke them, much less defend themselves.

That thought stilled her trembling. In each life, the Bronze Knights didn't know who or what they were until she woke them. And neither did Hades.

Which meant that she did have her Knights. Always provided that she found and got to them first.

That realization cleared the stage of her mind, lifting the curtain to reveal a short, nasty question, which was, 'Okay, how?'

For the first time in any of her incarnations, Hermione Athena had absolutely no answers. And she did not like the feeling.

Casting her mind back, she tried to recall how she had contacted her Knights before. The trouble was, she never had. Always, she had been born to a group of her own worshippers, brought up in one of her temples, and after telling the priestesses what to look for, her Knights had been brought to her. She had no idea how to search for herself.

Still, it couldn't hurt to test the bonds to her Knights, could it? It might give her a clue on where to start looking.

The bonds were pale, thin things - unacknowledged but real, and she rejoiced at feeling them still there. Gripping them gently, she gave them a firm, gentle 'tug'. "Come to me...." she whispered. "I need you, please, come to me...."

Most resisted her gentle summons, but one answered, growing deeper and thicker as the Knight on the other end subconsciously accepted and responded to her plea. She felt a shock as the thread became a cord and then a rope, thickening by the breath. Such an effect could only be caused by proximity, which meant that the Knight who had heard her had to be in the castle, which meant they had to be a witch or wizard, too.

Footsteps pounded along the flagstones and Hermione felt her eyes widen as she watched her Knight turn the corner. "Hermione," he said, breathing heavily. "What's wrong?"

Hermione stared at Harry Potter for one long second, and then walked up and hugged him.

Harry didn't know what was going on. He'd been coming back from Quidditch practice when he had the sudden feeling that he was needed. Fearing another attack by Voldemort, he'd run to the spot - to find one of his two best friends standing there, looking like she was in shock. Hermione was not a touchy-feely person - whatever had happened, it couldn't be good. Hugging her back, he murmured, "Come back to the Common Room and tell me about it, 'kay?"