a/n: rewritten dec 7, 2013
Chapter 2 – Options
Grover Underwood scrambled down from the steps of the Big House before tripping on his nose. He stood, dusted his shirt, and began again.
Some Apollo kids who were playing volleyball barely shed a glance at the flustered satyr. Juniper, who was sitting near one of the trees at the pavilion while brushing her hair, spotted her boyfriend and skipped to him, smiling.
"Grover," she greeted. "Why are you in a rush? Want to hang for a while?"
"Uh, sorry," he apologized. "Not now. D'you know where Percy and everyone are?"
Juniper nodded and pointed at the Poseidon cabin. "They've been there for a while, doing gods knows what. What do you need them for? It's not anything bad, right?"
"No! It's nothing bad. Kind of—sort of," he slipped up. "Although that prophecy Rachel spouted last time gave me the creeps, it's nothing about that. It's actually—well, I'll tell you when we're there."
The pair headed towards the cabins, busying themselves with holding hands and quick catch-ups on how they were doing so far. Half-way across, they had almost forgotten where to go before Juniper tugged Grover in the right direction.
By the time they reached their destination, they were flushed and giggly. Grover grasped the door knob and walked in with Juniper tagging behind, without knocking. What they saw wasn't a surprise, as it was the same as it had been the majority of the summer.
Annabeth Chase was thoroughly reading an architecture book in Greek, while sitting comfortably on Percy's lap. Said boy was tugging on Annabeth's golden curls and looking over her shoulders. Grover could bet his flute he wasn't reading the book.
Nico was perched on Percy's bed as he dug through a box of what looked like pieces of burnt playing cards and occasionally shot dirty looks at the pair. Grover didn't want to know, though he saw Juniper purse her lips. Paper cards were made from trees, after all.
It was Percy who noticed them first.
"Hey, G-man!" he piped. "Juniper, too."
Annabeth looked up from her book and gave a small smile. Nico jumped up.
"Grover! Did you know Percy's an idiot?"
A resounding chorus of agreements followed his question. Percy looked affronted.
"Why?" Grover asked before Percy could say anything.
Nico rolled his eyes. "Percy set fire to my playing cards from Vegas and then soaked them with his water powers."
Ignoring Percy's indignant "It was an accident!", the satyr raised an eyebrow.
"And why did he just so happen to do that?"
Annabeth was the one to answer for him. "He was jealous that Nico got the last pudding cup during lunch."
Grover snorted. "So he resorted to violence?"
"No," Percy defended. "It was an accident, I swear!"
His girlfriend rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she addressed Grover. "Did you come here for something?"
Percy snickered. "Going to invite us to your future wedding in the woods?"
Juniper coughed and her greenish skin blushed darker. Before ignoring him, Grover picked up a nearby pillow and threw it at his general direction.
"It's a little complicated," Grover said, "But I think I've got the gist of it."
"Gist of what?"
"Annabeth," he said, "you know your sister? Luna?"
"Lovegood?" Annabeth asked.
"Yeah, well, I overheard her IM with Chiron and Mr. D. I think she's being allowed to tell her quote friends unquote about us. Camp. Everything," said Grover. "Can you believe that?"
Percy blanched. "Friends? Uh, demigod—"
"Nope," the satyr corrected. "Human, I'm guessing."
"That's impossible," said Nico. "They're mortals—they're not allowed at camp."
"Who's Luna?" Juniper asked.
"Right," Grover answered. "You don't know her. She's a daughter of Athena. A bit ditsy for an Athena, though. Travis and Connor calls her Loony Luna."
"Luna's intentions are good," Annabeth clarified. "She's about two years older than me. She's British and goes to this boarding school in somewhere in Scotland. She was with us during the war, you know."
"Okay, yeah, British Luna," said Percy. "But revealing the whole big secret thing? And Chiron's letting her?"
Grover shrugged. "From the sound of it. One thing that really churned my butter, was what I heard after the IM, when Chiron spoke to Mr. D. He said—"
A sudden thump filled the room when Nico dropped his box and picked it up as he muttered a curse.
"—the gods are allowing it."
"So how does it feel to be an official Hogwarts alumnus? I wouldn't know," said Harry.
Hermione glared. "I've told you—you still could have finished school with me. All of us could have graduated together!"
Ron snorted from his side of the couch.
The Golden Trio plus their unofficial spinoffs—Luna, Ginny, and Neville—were currently lounging in the Weasley living room, doing absolutely next to nothing.
"Merlin, I'm almost wishing for some evil butt to kick," Ginny said, leaning on Harry's shoulders.
"I don't," Ron replied, carelessly twirling a strand of Hermione's hair. If she was bothered, she didn't say so. "I've had enough evil butt kicking to last a lifetime."
"Agreed," said Harry as he yawned.
On the other couch, Luna was reading the Quibbler magazine, upside-down. She didn't wear any shoes, and no one intended to tell her to put them back on for reasons undelivered.
"Then what should we do? If my gran knew I was wasting the rest of my summer on a sofa, she'd beat me with her purse," Neville said. He was tinkering with his small plant he brought along.
"Is it the same purse Professor Snape displayed in your class long ago?" Luna asked, still reading her magazine. "I remember overhearing when I was in 2nd year."
Neville turned red. "It was a boggart."
Respectively, Ron burst out laughing and Harry smiled at the memory. Hermione rolled her eyes, but there was a small smile tugging at her lips.
Then they remembered he was dead.
Ginny frowned, trying to remember. "When was that?"
Harry answered. "Third year Defense with Re—Professor Lupin."
Silence in the room was deafening, and Harry closed his eyes in order to block memories out.
"That must've been fun," Ginny said with a weak smile. "All we did was discuss the elasticity of a flubberworm. Well, we did get to throw them from across the room."
"Oh, yes. It was a combined class with Ravenclaws. Didn't yours land on Colin Creevey's hair?" Luna added.
Neville and Ron laughed, though not as loudly as before. Ginny nodded, but not very enthusiastically.
Harry looked out the window and couldn't help but think that every conversation they had led to a dead person.
Luna examined her close friends' expressions and decided this was the right moment to drop the bomb.
"Let's go on a trip," Luna informed them.
All were silent for a moment before realizing it was Luna who spoke, and not any of them.
"Where, Luna?" Hermione asked, straightening up from her position with Ron. There was a quaint disappointment shown on his face.
"America," Luna replied, unfazed. "Summer camp."
Ginny jerked out of Harry's grasp and got up from the couch. "America? Are we going by plane?"
Harry blinked. "I don't have a passport."
"What's that?" asked Ginny.
"I'm fine with it," Hermione said. "Only, aren't we a little old to be going to summer camp?"
Luna giggled. "Age is but a number."
"Are you talking about a muggle camp?" asked Ron. "Are you mad?"
"Ron!"
"No, but he's right—a bit," Neville interrupted. "There's only so much a bunch of wizarding teenagers can do before slipping up completely in a confined space with other kids."
"Oh," said Luna. "We are very smart, therefore I've nothing to fear."
"Well," Ron said, resigned, "Can we still bring our wands?"
"If you'd like."
"Wait," Harry said. "We're really going?"
"I'd like to," Ginny said, stretching her arms.
The group buzzed excitedly, planning things out. As they came onto the topic of transportation, someone suggested Apparating, another suggested flying on Threstals ("I am not riding one of those again," someone said. "It was bloody cold."), someone suggested riding a charmed car—which was immediately declined by Ron and Harry—and at last, someone even popped the idea of riding a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, yet funnily, it wasn't Luna.
Ron brought up the last question. "When do we leave?"
"Sometime next weekend," Hermione replied. "That's good for my schedule."
"What should we do until then?" asked Ginny.
Everyone lapsed into comfortable silence again, something near lethargic.
"Who wants to play Wizard's Chess with me?" Ron broke in, ignoring the groaning going around the room. It was going to be a long week.
The Poseidon cabin was silent—which was strange by itself, considering that even though there was only one living resident, the place seemed to always be packed with other people.
Nico ignored his playing cards and stared at Grover. Grover preferred his stare be transferred someplace else, seeing as the eyes of a child of Hades could most likely send you to an impending doomsday.
"What?" Percy asked, incredulous. "Why would they allow random mortals to know about us? Does that make sense? 'Cause this isn't making sense."
Annabeth rolled her grey eyes. "Yes, Percy, it doesn't. But the gods probably have a reason. Athena always has—"
"Yeah, 'Athena always has a plan'", Nico mimicked. "But why should we care? Haven't mortals—besides Rachel and stuff—known this stuff before? You know, without the sight-through-Mist thingy?"
Heads turned to Annabeth. She was here the longest, after all.
The girl in question shook her head, causing her blond curls to bounce. "No. Not that I know of. And why should it? I mean, that's the main reason why we have a border shield; to prevent mortals from wandering in."
"I just wanted to tell you guys that." Grover sat down on one of the many empty bunks. "Haven't you noticed last year—before the war began—that Luna was kinda down-in-the-dumps?"
"Sorry," said Annabeth. "I have a lot of half-siblings, and she wasn't exactly on my priority list last year."
"Yeah, well, she was acting really weird, like, weirder than before, weird," Grover continued. "I can read emotions, right? And it was like hers was off the charts. Something must have happened before she came to camp or something."
"We don't usually ask about life outside camp," Annabeth said, though they could tell her mind was turning with possibilities.
"We'll find out anyway," Percy said. "If what you heard was right. Things are going to get a little more complicated if Chiron's allowing mortals to know about Camp on a daily basis."
"Oh, well," he shrugged. "I guess I'll just ask her when she comes back. She did promise me some kind of bug-repelling earring. Wouldn't I look good with an earring?"
"No," they all said in unison.
Thalia felt something was off from the moment she let go of the bow.
At the time, her Hunters practiced their aim and were just about to wrap up their business in the area. As head of the Hunters, the daughter of Zeus was able to hear leaked information at Artemis' hand, even if the last time they've heard from their goddess was two weeks ago. Artemis had offhandedly mentioned something about a conversion of roads—but that could have meant anything.
Her intel was vague, sure, but she would have ignored it completely if she didn't feel it in her; something was about to happen. And the demigods were going to be sucked into it.
She remembered Artemis explaining the agenda for the next few months. Search for Lycaon. Find out why the gods plan to close all contact with demigods. Figure out why monsters are forming back way too fast... There was too much things to deal with in the future—now there was something else being planned? When Thalia finally had the nerve to ask Artemis what was happening, the goddess replied in the most unsuspecting way she could ever imagine; she laughed.
See for yourself, Artemis had said. This reaction somewhat soothed Thalia's worries—if it was a matter Artemis could freely laugh about, then it shouldn't be a big deal, right?
The black-haired girl shot her last arrow and retreated with her Hunters into the tent to sleep for the night.
It was, predictably, a bullseye.
Nico shifted. Not that he didn't feel a little guilty sneaking around down in the Underworld, but it was such a frenzy that he was sure no one would notice him.
Spirits flew about everywhere and he could hear Thanatos sighing with impatience already. Well, that was what he got for never letting him touch his fancy iPad.
Yet, he did feel guilty for leaving Camp at such a time, with the information Grover had gave them during the day.
It wasn't his complete fault; he had just heard the news from one of Furies about his sister. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he couldn't help it. She was gone. Bianca was gone, choosing rebirth over him.
Why was she always such an overachiever?
It was an accident and a coincidence that he had stumbled over Hazel. His other sister, his second chance.
Whilst shadow travelling, he tightened his hold on his "new" sister, and suddenly he felt something else coming up to haunt him, not anything about the Romans.
"Magic," He muttered under his breath. "There's near nothing else that would surprise me anymore."
