Translated from Ancient Greek by Alannah Right, Head Librarian of the Great Library of Salem, Salem Witches' Institute.

Text in italics is assumed to have been spoken in Ancient Greek at the time of events happening

Text in bold are spells

Text in inverted commas are thoughts

Janet here again, so after the happy ending Alice left us with not much happened for the rest of summer, so I'll skip to the beginning of the school term, or rather the annual trip to Diagon Alley. Diagon Alley, as mentioned before, is not the nicest place in the world, it stinks, it is dark, it is crowded, it is noisy it always looks like it is going to fall over and there are squibs lying in the gutter of every back alley. This year it was different, it stank, it was dark, but it was not crowded, nor was it noisy, nor were the squibs lying in the gutters of every back alley, it was scared, and when somewhere with the highest density of wizards in the world is scared, it means you should also be scared. The reason behind the fear was a poster which was plastered in every window, it was a wanted poster for Sirius Black, a mass murderer who had ratted out Harry's parents to Voldemort and then killed their friend and some muggles, any magician or squib we asked was willing to tell us that story in hushed tones, as though they may draw his ire just by telling his story, he had just escaped from Azkaban, which makes him the first person to ever succeed. This means Black was probably armed, probably dangerous and probably very clever, not the best combination.

"I wonder what this Black guy is like," my half-brother Drake said as we saw the same poster of Black, he was either laughing or screaming, the picture was not very clear, even when it moved. Drake, like myself, was a child of the goddess Hecate, meaning he would be more powerful than almost every other magician in the world one day, as long as he tried. He had not really changed much since the previous year, except he looked tired, like he had been losing sleep, he had also filled out a bit, thanks to more time practising swordsmanship, and he was now an inch taller than my other friend John.

John was a typical son of Athena, he was tall, strong and handsome, and that had not changed since the previous September, he was dressed in long sleeved grey jumper over a red shirt and blue jeans.

Alice was the fourth member of our little group as we wended our merry way through the paranoid streets of magical London, she had been my best friend since we were eight, she was a daughter of Iris, meaning she had a perchance for bright clothing, which she toned down in magical London, toned down being relative. Alice wore a sickly bright green jumper over a bright sky blue trousers and red shoes, needless to say, she drew a few strange looks as we walked through the streets. She had also grown since the last September, making the height gap between us even more pronounced.

I had grown slightly, meaning I was now taller than the average twelve year old as I came up on my fourteenth birthday, which was not embarrassing at all (sarcasm is sarcasm). After the disaster on Saint Valentine's day the previous year I had to concede that I was pretty, although, I refused to accept when Alice called me beautiful, in my mind that is a label for someone much older and prettier than me. I was dressed in a purple shirt, brown trousers, brown shoes and had put a bow in my long blond hair, after losing a bet with Alice I had to wear that bow all year.

"He's probably violent, insane and dangerous, so just like our old friend Luke," John said as he considered a sweet shop.

"Too soon," Drake said cringing, Drake had been the closest to Luke out of the three of us, Luke was, in case you forgot, a demigod turned renegade who was currently on a cruise ship somewhere trying to resurrect a titan and destroy Western Civilisation.

"True," John said as we turned a corner and bumped into our friends, Hermione, Ron and Harry, John literally bumped into Hermione, knocking a pile of books out her hands, I quickly cast a spell, preventing them from landing in a puddle.

"Holy Hades Hermione, got enough books?" Alice asked.

Hermione, who had recovered her books from floating inches from the ground, ignored her and turned to me, "not that I'm not grateful, but won't you get in trouble for..." I cut her off with a smile.

"No-one saw, they can't prove it, and I didn't use my wand so they can't trace it. So why so many books?" I asked, this time Hermione did answer.

"Well, most of these aren't actually for school, I decided recently to learn Ancient Greek, these are so I can teach myself, also, I got some books on mythology."

I laughed, Hermione glared, "Hermione, if you wanted to learn Ancient Greek, you could of asked me, or Alice, or gone to Professor Babbling, she runs extra courses on Ancient Greek, and Ancient Runes classes start this year the first language taught is Ancient Greek."

Hermione blushed, "I didn't think of that, anyway, we just got Ron's wand fixed, and now we were just heading off to Flourish and Blotts."

"Didn't you just come from there?" Drake asked.

"Hmm, no, these are from the new book shop, what was it called? Crete of Books? Colossus Knowledge? The Acropolis in the Square? It had some dreadful pun like that in the name, all the books are either teach yourself books for dead languages, or are written in dead languages."

We all looked at each other, that sounded interesting, "where is that?"

"Next to the frog merchant and the gnome remover," Hermione pointed in the direction of the other end of the street they were on. I looked around, Alice, Ron and Harry had all wandered off together, "I'd better go, it was nice bumping into you," she ran after them.

"Shall we go after them, or go see the new bookshop?" I asked.

"Bookshop," Drake said, whilst John just shrugged.