It was the summer between Harry, Hermione, and Ron's fourth and fifth years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Dumbledore has just learned of the horrible fate of Leo Valdez. Since no magic can bring back the dead, he knows that if he doesn't interfere, Leo would die. This would be a disaster, since Dumbledore stupidly bragged to the Daily Prophet that he can keep any half-blood under his protection from being killed. And Leo is under his protection.
Dumbledore is now in a dire situation. He has handpicked seven of his best-and worst-students to send to 2016.
How the Mark of Athena really happened…and how the muggles-er, mortals-reacted.
Let us join these seven companions, who are disguised as muggles and ready to go to Camp Half-Blood in the guise of demigods.
Chapter the First: In Which the Reader Learns About the Importance of Dramatic Entrances
Professor Dumbledore was seriously regretting his decision to invite the seven into his office. Harry was fine, yes. But Fred and George Weasley were eagerly experimenting with one of Dumbledore's contraptions (this particular contraption, if handled wrong, could explode while turning the offender into a parakeet). Neville Longbottom had knocked over a jar of Veriteserum, and was reciting his offenses (which mostly involved making his grandmother angry) in a monotone while attempting to pick the Veritiserum up. Hermione Granger was conversing eagerly with one of the portraits, while Ron Weasley had an argument with Phineas Nigellus. Meanwhile, Seamus Finnigan had set his hair ablaze, and was sticking his head into the Pensieve to quench it.
Dumbledore stroked Fawkes thoughtfully. Perhaps some good would come out of these seven characters. But then again, (he shuddered inwardly as Fred or George snapped off a piece of his contraption) perhaps not.
"May I have your attention, please?" he asked.
Harry and Hermione quickly faced him. Ron made a final rude gesture at Phineus and turned towards Dumbledore as well. Fred (or George) quickly stuck the broken piece into his pocket and the twins stepped away from the contraption.
Dumbledore pulled Seamus out of the Pensieve and gave Neville the antidote for Veritiserum. Realizing that he had precious few seconds before his ADHD students lost interest, he quickly began to explain.
"Obviously, you all know of your mission. You are to go forward in time to 2016, to Camp Half-Blood in New York, which in turn is in America."
"I'm pure-blood," said Ron.
Hermione gave a sigh of exasperation. "It means that you're half Greek god, have muggle-I mean, mortal."
'Exactly, Miss Granger. Ten points to Gryffindor. As you know, you were selected because of the wizarding Prophecy of the Seven. You are to inform them that you belong to this prophecy, emitting the term 'wizarding', and explain that you must accompany the demigod seven on their mission.
'You are to pretend to be from Camp Demigod in England. Under no circumstances are you to reveal that you are witches and wizards. It could mean the exposure of our kind. You will instead pretend to be half-bloods. I have assigned you all to different cabins, with the help of some of the other staff. Professor Snape strongly advocated to put Mr. Potter in Aphrodite's cabin, which I refused."
"Then what cabins are we going to be in?" Harry asked nervously.
"Snape and I agreed that Ickle Ronniekins should be in Aphrodite, as Harry's replacement," Fred said.
"Shut up," said Ron.
Professor Dumbledore glanced at his pocket-watch. "We don't have much time. They'll be here quite soon."
"Who's they?" Ron asked.
"No matter. Your ride. Anyways. Mr. Finnigan, you shall be in Hephaestus cabin. Hephaestus is the god of blacksmiths and fire."
Seamus looked pleased under his scorched hair.
"Mr. Longbottom, you will be in Demeter."
"The plant goddess?" George interrupted, feeling that this was a bit insulting.
"Mr. Longbottom is one of the best Herbology students we've ever seen. He would be perfect for Demeter."
Neville went pink.
"Fred and George, you are going to be in Hermes cabin. Hermes is the god of pranksters, thieves, and pretty much everything else up your ally."
Fred and George cracked identical evil grins.
"Miss Granger, you are in Athena, goddess of knowledge."
Hermione looked immensely pleased.
"Ron, you are going to be in Poseidon cabin."
"Poison cabin?" said Ron.
"Poseidon. God of water. And finally, Mr. Potter. You'll be in Zeus. He's the lord of the sky."
"No fair," said Ron. Dumbledore ignored him.
"Do you think that you can remember that?"
The group nodded.
"I want your wands on you at all times, but only use them when you can use nothing else. You will be arriving a week before the Argo II leaves for Camp Jupiter, so you'll have a bit of time to train with traditional weapons. Most of your cabins come with powers: do not try to show off. If you need to use one of these 'powers,' conceal your wand and use a spell. You'll figure out what powers you are supposed to have as time progresses. Do I make myself clear?"
The group nodded.
"Good," said Dumbledore. "Any questions?"
Fred raised his hand. "Do we have to do this?"
"It is not required, of course," said Dumbledore. "But if you do, you will all receive 300 points to Gryffindor apiece, have an excellent adventure on your resume, and also be free from any detentions. No detentions, ever again."
Fred and George stared at Dumbledore with awestruck faces. Obviously, they considered this a better reward than having been made kings of the universe.
Suddenly, from the upper floor of the office, they heard a loud thud. It sounded like Peeves had knocked over a bookshelf.
"Ah," said Dumbledore. "They're here."
The seven companions rushed upstairs to see the source of the commotion. When they saw it, they stopped dead. A telephone booth was standing in the middle of Dumbledore's library, and two teenaged boys were coming out of it, looking impressed.
"Excellent!" the taller one said. He had messy dark hair and a red jacket.
"Most triumphant," the other agreed. His hair was curly and blonde, and he wore a light purple flannel shirt.
"Hi?" said Harry.
"How's it going, wizard dudes?" the two said together. Fred and George stared.
"Who…?"
"What…?"
"When…?"
"Where…?"
"Why…?"
"I am Bill S. Preston, Esquire," said the blonde boy.
"And I am Ted Theodore Logan," said the other.
"And together, we are: Wyld Stalyons!" they shouted, doing air guitars.
"Pleased to meet you, Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan," Fred and George chorused. "I'm Fred Weasley, and this is my brother George," Fred added. "This is Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, who is not our brother, Neville Longbottom, and Seamus Finnigan."
"I am your brother," said Ron, glaring.
Fred and George ignored him.
"Alright!" said Dumbledore, eager to speed the group on their way. "Bill, Ted, please take these wizards straight to Camp Half-Blood with no extraneous stops along the way?"
"Sounds good, Mr. Wizard Dude!" Bill and Ted chorused. "Right this way, if you please! Step into our phone booth! Now, someone dial 75482499-that'd be you, I guess, Miss Granger-and close the doors, Seamus!"
The phone booth's doors swung shut, and it fell into time.
Dumbledore sighed with relief and went to go fix up his office.
-Camp Half Blood: May 5th, 2016-
Jason Grace and Leo Valdez were practicing throwing spears. Jason's spear landed perfectly in the center of the target. Leo's spear flew madly off course and narrowly avoided Jason's face.
"Watch it!" Jason said irritably, but Leo wasn't listening.
"Jason, look!" he shouted, pointing at the sky. Jason turned towards where Leo was pointing with a sigh. His eyes widened.
Giant clouds were rolling over Camp Half Blood. As they watched, the clouds sealed over the whole valley. A heavy wind began blowing. Leo's spear skittered over the rocks.
"What's going on?" Leo shouted.
"I don't know!" Jason bellowed back. "Did you make someone mad again?"
"NO!" Leo shouted back. "The last thing I did was knock over that giant statue of Aphrodite, two months ago!"
Jason smirked, remembering how Leo had looked like a duck for a month.
"Back to the problem!" Leo yelled, anxious to get away from this dangerous conversation. Jason willed the clouds to dissipate. Nothing happened-in fact, they got thicker. Lighting began to crackle above them. "STOP THAT!" Leo called.
"I'M NOT DOING IT!" Jason shouted. Campers ran into the arena, staring with horror at the red electricity flashing in the sky.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?" Piper shouted.
Suddenly, a hole opened in the clouds. A huge box fell out of it, and landed loudly in front of Jason and Leo.
Jason drew his sword. Leo grabbed a hammer. They stepped back slowly, as the door of the telephone booth (for that was what the box was) opened.
"Doctor Who!" shouted Leo.
"I don't think that's…Doctor who?"
"What's with the rock music?" Piper demanded, as Bricklin's Walk Away rang through the arena.
Two boys stepped out. Since I have already described them, you will have guessed these characters to be:
"Hello, Camp Half Blood!" the boys shouted. "Weapon wielding teenagers! Adult dude over there! Babes!"
Annabeth looked like she wanted to slap them.
"I am Bill, and this is my esteemed colleague Ted," said Bill. "And we have the greatest honor of introducing you to the most bodacious exchange students from Camp Demigod, England edition!"
Seven teenagers stepped out, some looking a bit shy. Two identical red-headed boys took the lead.
"We're Fred and George Weasley, sons of Hermes," the two said in unison.
"I'm Ron Weasley, son of….um…."
"Poseidon," the bushy-haired girl whispered to him.
"Poseidon," Ron confirmed. Jason and Piper shared a confused look.
"I'm Hermione Granger, daughter of Athena," said Hermione.
"Neville Longbottom, son of…Demeter," Neville muttered.
A black haired, green-eyed bespectacled boy stepped up. Annabeth nearly fainted. She ran over to the boy and punched him in the face, breaking his glasses. He fell to the ground.
The boy stumbled to his feet, holding his glasses and looking angry. Ron charged Annabeth. Hermione and Neville held him back with difficulty, though Hermione was looking angry herself.
"Who do you think you are?" demanded Hermione.
"I thought you were dead!" Annabeth screamed at the confused boy-a boy who she was sure was Percy Jackson.
The boy stared at her.
"Where have you been? Why are you wearing glasses? Who did this to you?" she pointed at the boy's odd lightning-shaped scar. "Was it Zeus?"
"Have we met?" said the boy-with a distinctly British accent, while flattening his bangs. He didn't like people staring at his scar.
Annabeth stumbled back in horror. "Who are you?"
The boy straightened up. "Harry Potter. Son of Zeus."
"Oh, Hades," Annabeth muttered. "I'm so sorry. You just look exactly like someone else-I…"
Harry squinted at her through his broken glasses. "Um…okay."
"Got any Spellotape?" said Ron.
Hermione elbowed him.
"Er-ducky tape?"
Leo pulled out some tape and handed it to Ron, who bandaged Harry's glasses.
"Sorry," said Annabeth again. "Get back to your introductions."
And she melted into the crowd.
"Okay," said the last. "I'm Seamus Finnigan, son of Heffy-estus."
"Hephaeustus," Hermione hissed.
"Hephaestus," Seamus said quickly.
The half-bloods of the crowd stared awkwardly at the group of British 'demigods'. Finally, amid the silence, Chiron the centaur galloped up.
"Most excellent!" Bill said.
"A horse dude!" said Ted.
"I am Chiron, the centaur," said Chiron pointedly.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. The Centaur!" Bill and Ted chorused.
"Are you two demigods?" Mr. The Centaur asked Bill and Ted.
Bill and Ted shrugged. "Sure, dude!"
"Who's your godly parent?" Chiron asked.
Bill and Ted looked at each other and shrugged. "Missy-I mean Mom," said Bill.
"She does look pretty godly," Ted agreed. "My dad is Captain Logan."
The demigods stared in confusion.
Bill and Ted left the half-bloods of America and England staring and climbed into their phone booth. "Catch you later, esteemed half-god dudes, babes, and Mr. The Centaur!"
The phone booth vanished into the ground.
"That was weird," Jason said, which Leo felt summed it up pretty well.
"So, what are you seven here for?" Chiron asked our seven wizards.
"To answer the call, dude!" Seamus said, then groaned. Obviously, the twenty minutes he had spent with Bill and Ted was twenty minutes too long.
"Huh?" said Annabeth.
"The prophecy," said Harry, like this should be obvious.
"You know," said Fred. "Seven wiz-half bloods should answer the call/to storm or the Fat Friar the world must fall/an oath to keep with a final bread/and hoes with bare arms at the doors of dead."
"That's not how it goes," said Hermione bossily.
"You recite it then, if you're so smart," Ron teased.
"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call/to storm or fire the world must fall/an oath to keep with a final breath/and foes bear arms to the doors of death," said Hermione, sounding as usual like she had swallowed the textbook.
"So I got it right," said Fred innocently.
Hermione sighed. The campers seemed unsure how to proceed.
Finally, Leo Valdez broke the tension. He pranced up to Seamus Finnigan and shook his hand. "Son of Hephaestus? You're my brother then! I'm Leo Valdez!"
Annabeth pushed past Leo. "So, if you all are here to answer the call, then…what about us? We're supposed to answer the call!"
"Er," said Harry, who hadn't planned on this. "We'll answer the call with you guys."
"But there's only supposed to be seven!" said Annabeth, who wasn't about to let these British demigods steal her quest.
"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call," agreed Hermione. "That doesn't mean that just seven have to go on the quest. Weren't you going to pick up random half-bloods and take a chaperone anyways?"
"How'd you know that?" asked Annabeth.
Hermione winced inwardly and hid her book bag, which contained all of the Heroes of Olympus stories. Fortunately, Fred and George put their arms around her shoulders. "Hermione's amazing mental powers, of course! She can see into the deepest depths of your soul!"
"What?" said Annabeth.
"Um…" said Hermione. "Yes. That's exactly right. It's really rare, but I thought at least one camper would be able to do it in America. Can't children of Athena do that here?"
"What?" said Annabeth.
"That's weird," said Ron.
Fred and George laughed, and the tension broke. The campers swarmed around the British demigods, talking and grinning. Annabeth hung back. "Why can't I read minds?"
At the first available moment, Hermione grabbed Fred and George by their ears and dragged them away from the group.
"What was that for?" demanded Fred.
"Read minds?" Hermione hissed. "Fred, they don't do that here! I don't know legimency. We're going to get exposed!"
"Oops," said George, with a grin. "You'll figure it out."
"Be more careful," she muttered, and went to join Ron.
"I have a brother?" Harry was saying in amazement to Leo.
"Yeah. This is Jason Grace. Son of Jupiter, who is the-"
"Roman form of Zeus," said Hermione.
"Spoken like a true daughter of Athena," said Annabeth.
Leo shrugged, wondering if Hermione was single. Then again, from the way she was looking at Ron…
"So what are these supposed to do?" Ron asked, poking at Jason's cell phone.
"It's a telephone," said Jason.
Ron's smile melted off his face, to be replaced with a look of horror. "Take it back!"
"Are you okay?" said Jason, who was not feeling too confident about these new half-bloods.
"It's a really long story," said Harry, punching Ron lightly. "But these are so small! And they've got, like, no cord! That's so weird!"
"Are you guys from a different era or something?" said Jason seriously. "Cause we've got a few people…"
"We're from the future!" said Ron cheerfully. He started humming the theme from Back to the Future and skipped over to the bonfire. "This is so cool! What sort of spell did you put on this?"
"I'm getting a weird feeling about these guys," said Jason.
"What's Facebook?" Fred was asking Piper. "I want one!"
"Okay, everyone," said Chiron. "Time for afternoon training. We'll be working in the arena today. Come on."
"One sec!" Fred shouted. "Done with my Facebook page-woah, guys! Four billion friends already! Am I popular in 2015 or something?"
"No fair!" said George. "Three and a half billion friends."
"Ah, cheer up, Ickle Georgiekins," said Ron.
"Burn!" Fred shouted.
"You're just getting us back for that?" said George. "We said that, like, five years ago."
"Let's go, Ickle Georgiekins," said Ron, and the wizards ran to join the demigods at the arena.
"Are you sure about this?" said Neville nervously, lifting a sword.
"Don't worry about it," said Jason. "I'm sure you'll be grateful for this training in the future."
"When am I going to need a sword?" Neville asked.
"Well…on this quest for starters. And who knows when else? You may need to kill a giant snake in the future or something."
"That'll happen," said Seamus.
"Okay," said Jason. "So you've all got weapons? And…didn't you use weapons in England?"
"We mostly used our powers in England," said Hermione calmly.
"We usually killed the monsters with things like sticks," said Ron. Hermione glared at him.
"So you've all got weapons?" Jason asked again.
Seamus held up his flaming spear, which would both extinguish its flames and turn into a pepper spray canister at the push of a button. Fred and George grinned behind hammers. Hermione had equipped herself with two daggers. Ron had a golden sword, and Harry the same in silver.
"Can I just say something?" Ron volunteered. "This is a bad idea."
"What makes you say that?" asked Leo.
"My hair!" Seamus shouted, grabbing his head. He had accidentally touched his spear to his head. He stuck his head into a spring.
"Clearly not flame retardant," said Leo.
Seamus sat up quickly, his hair smoking. "Am I…supposed to be?"
"Um-well, some Hephaestus campers have fire powers."
"Like Leo," said Jason.
"But it's really rare," said Leo, shooting Jason a look.
"Oh!" said Seamus. "Because I totally have fire powers. I'm just not immune to fire, which is why I don't usually hold fire."
"It hurts his hands," Harry agreed.
"He screams a lot," Ron put in cheerfully.
Leo blinked. "Ookay. So I'm not the only person in the world with fire powers?"
Harry grinned, thinking of the thousands of witches and wizards out there who could perform fire spells. "Apparently not."
"That's disappointing," said Leo. "Here I thought I was something special."
"You are. Trust me," Jason said. "There is no one like you in the world."
After a particularly rough training, the group proceeded to dinner. Neville had fared surprisingly well with the sword, but Harry and Ron had the real talent. Harry had succeeded in disarming Jason twenty minutes in, and Ron had done even better. Fred and George were also uncommonly talented, due to their beater training. Hermione, meanwhile, was simply awful with her knives. She hated harming anyone.
"I have to sit alone?" Ron demanded. "But-but what about the rest of my House?"
"Here we call them cabins," said Jason. "And your brother has been kidnapped, his memories wiped, and sent to a different camp. We're going to retrieve him in a week."
Ron turned to Harry. "Was it Percy? Please tell me that Percy's been kidnapped. And do we have to rescue him?"
"You-you know Percy?" Annabeth nearly shrieked.
"Yeah," said Ron. "Unfortunately. Prat that he is."
"Percy is not a prat!" Annabeth shouted.
"Are you Penelope Clearwater Two?" asked Ron.
"Who's Penelope Clearwater?" Annabeth demanded.
"His girlfriend. Idiot. Why someone would want to be with Mr. Bighead Boy…"
"But I'm his girlfriend!"
"I would advise you to break up with him," said Fred with an angry look on his face. He followed this statement by calling Percy a rude name.
"Guys…" Harry started, getting a bad feeling.
"Don't you dare call Percy Jackson that, you disgusting-"
Ron's angry look was replaced with horror. "Percy…Jackson? Not Percy Weasley?"
"Oooohhh," said Fred.