Percy Jackson woke up on the morning of August 20 to find the normal "vacate-the-premises-or-be-eaten-by-harpies" letter under his door, as it was the last day of summer for many campers at Camp Half Blood. Clothes would be packed into suitcases, goodbyes among friends and enemies would be said, and parents would be waiting at the foot of the hill for their children to come down ready for school to start. Not all the campers would be going home though, and those who were staying helped their friends pack or lounged around lazily in the sun.
Percy was just coming back from breakfast ready to pack his things when another camper, one of the Apollo kids came over to him.
"Chiron wants to see you in the big house right now," he said before detouring off to join some other Apollo kids at archery, where they were practicing shooting moving targets. The order was so vague that Percy couldn't tell whether he was in trouble or not, so it was with great uncertainty that he turned towards the big house and walked through its door. He found Chiron waiting for him at the ping pong table which was normal reserved for one of Mr. D's card games or the cabin leader meetings. At the moment it was occupied by 9 other campers, a potpourri of people from different cabins. Sitting closest to Chiron was one of Percy's closest friends, Annabeth Chase from the Athena cabin. The other campers seated around were pretty random. Connor and Travis Stoll from Hermes cabin, Clarisse from Ares cabin, Katie Gardener from Demeter cabin, Silena Beauregard from Aphrodite cabin, Charlie Beckendorf from Hephaestus, Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, and Thalia Grace, Hunter of Artemis and daughter of Zeus, were all gathered around the table talking quietly.
When Percy entered the room, Chiron beckoned him to take a seat and hushed the gather crowd. "We are all here now and I will now begin." He cleared his throat and continued, "I was contacted by an acquaintance of mine who goes by the name of Albus Dumbledore." Clarisse muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "stupid name for a stupid person", while many other campers laughed quietly.
"He is the head master of a school in London called Hogwarts and he has requested I send some of my campers over for the school year to help with some *ahem* problems. I have selected you 10 to attended Hogwarts this semester and have notified him."
Percy opened his mouth to tell Chiron he was going home to go to school when Chiron hushed him. "If you were planning to go home for school I have notified you parent and received their permission. Now for the details of this mission, as you may call it"
As he finished the word "it", 10 owls flew through the open window and dropped thick manila envelopes in front of each of the campers, leaving through the same window they had come through. Each of the 10 people looked in disbelief at the envelope in front of them as Chiron continued.
"Those envelopes contain your school supplies lists and important information about the school. As you may have noticed, the letters were delivered by owls. This is because Hogwarts is a school for children born of Hecate's half bloods, or children whose parent or parents are a child of Hecate. In this modern day world, you would call them "wizards" and witches". Hogwarts is one of many schools created for training these children and I have known the head master for a good while now. I am convinced he would not ask for the god's help if it were not needed. Other than some very basic information and training, I cannot tell you anything more about the situation, as it will be explained to you at Hogwarts."
The gathered campers sat in silence while Chiron talked, which was pretty rare considering the particular group he had assembled (silence and sitting still for more than 5 minutes equals bad things with ADD and ADHD kids). He explained the schedule until September 1, the day Hogwarts started and the day they would be expected on the train. They were to have their trunks packed and ready on the 27 of August which was when they would be flying, by pegasi of course, to London, England. They would spend their time there shopping for their other school supplies in a place called Diagon Alley and spending their nights at a bar called the Leaky Cauldron. They would board the Hogwarts Express at 10 o'clock from platform 9 ¾ and would be off at 11 o'clock. If anyone asked, the campers were to say they were transfer students from another school across the country.
After confirming that all the campers knew what was going on, Chiron asked if there were any questions. Annabeth raised her hand, of course.
"If this is a school of magic, done with spells, how are we going to do anything?"
Chiron nodded his head, "All of you are the children of a god and therefore related to Hecate. You should be able to perform magic as well as, if not better, than the other students."
Clarisse finally spoke up, "Are we going to take weapons?" She looked eager with this question, which surprised no one.
Chiron sighed. "It would make me feel better knowing you all had some sort of protection from monsters, but I'm not sure if the creatures out there are affected by celestial bronze like our well known monsters here. You will all be allowed to take your swords, knifes, and magic items, as long as you can disguise them well."
There were no more questions after that and the assembly was dismissed. Percy went back to his cabin and started packing, even though he didn't have to. He took his time and was still packing when Annabeth came by to talk to him.
"Have you looked at your letter yet?"
"No." Percy had completely forgotten about the letter after the meeting. He fished it out from under a pile of clothes that needed to be put in a suit case and opened the envelope. It contained a list of supplies they would have to pick up, a long list of books they would need, and an already signed permission form to go to some place called Hogsmeade.
Annabeth watched his face as he read through the list of school supplies. Being dyslexic, it took him a good 15 minutes to read the whole list.
"What school allows you to have a cat, toad, or owl as a pet during the year? What school requires you to wear a pointed hat for that matter?"
"I asked myself the same thing. I was also wondering about these books too. There are no books on this list that have anything to do with the normal subjects like math or English. This is going to be a very odd school year." The bell rang to signal dinner was ready and campers filled out to go to the dinning pavilion. The evening sky was a purple-blue color, pink-orange where the sun was setting. In a single filled line, campers walked up to the always burning sacrificial fire and offered their many prayers to the gods with an offering of rib roast and potatoes. Percy finally made his way up and scraped his portion into the flames, praying to Poseidon.
"Let this school work out better than the others and hope I don't get expelled in the first quarter." He finished his prayer and turned back to his table, where he sat and finished his dinner by himself.