Disclaimer: I own none of the rights to either Artemis Fowl or Harry Potter and I am making no money off of this venture. Artemis would be highly disappointed, but we can't all be criminal masterminds.

Time line: During Harry Potter 5, and about a month after Artemis and the lost Colony.

Due to several reviews this chapter has been completly re-edited to hopefully eliminate several spelling and grammatical errors as well as to keep some people more in character. However, if you are still seeing mistakes in this document, tell me but also keep in mind that I'm unsing Canadian/UK English. So, if you learned how to spell in the US or using their system you might notice some irregularities. Thank you.

Enjoy. The next chapter is coming in a few minutes, and my delay will be explained there.

Chapter 2: Setting the Stage

"Is something the matter, Artemis?"

Artemis was quiet after Dumbledore had left. Too quiet, in Butler's opinion. He was only this quiet when he was deeply troubled by something.

Artemis frowned. "It is disturbing, Butler."

"What is disturbing? The fact that there is yet another megalomaniac out there hell bent on world domination, and that you will somehow manage to get involved with whatever his plot may be?"

Artemis raised en eyebrow. "Lovely how you automatically assume that I'm going to get into trouble."

"You have a gift, sir."

Artemis rolled his eyes. "Whatever that may be, it's beside the point." He tapped his finger on the arm of the chair. "No, what is disturbing me is that there is an entire magical civilization out there and I didn't know about it! However, I suppose that I can take some conciliation that Foaly doesn't know about it either. Or I believe that he doesn't. I must check that. While speaking with the professor, I came to the conclusion that he doesn't know about the fairy realm underneath our feet. These two civilizations are completely ignorant of one another. I can only assume that it is because the wizards are somehow able to block Foaly's technology, and thus ours as well. I love discovering something that the fairies haven't."

"You didn't discover it Artemis, the man walked right up to you front door."

"Details, Butler, details. But, there is a slight problem. I have a plan for this school but I will need the fairies' assistance to carry it out. Also, this school will be so much more interesting if I have a potential way to exploit the students. I am under no illusions; not all of the students will like me. In fact, some may greatly resent me. Having their technology on my side will help to even the playing field. Fairies are so convenient in that way. However, I can't just tell Foaly. He is overly paranoid. He would suspect something, and then the game would be up. No, I need to be subtle, even more than usual. I need to have them send Holly to Hogwarts without them realising what I intend."

"Artemis," Butler sighed, "you'd never be able to convince Holly to help you harm a being. You wouldn't be able to ask her either. For that you may pretend otherwise, you are her friend, and you would not ask her to do something so against her nature."

"Yes, I know that. However," said Artemis, smirking, "I have no compunctions against asking Mulch. In fact, he'd be eager to help. Seeing as how he's been involved with me in the past, they are sure to send him with Holly to spy on this school, and they will send her to scope things out. She is with Recon, after all. Now, I must go and plant some seeds of curiosity."

Butler rolled his eyes. Oh, the woes and pleasures of a child genius. They were enough to make lesser men go insane. Thank goodness that he wasn't a lesser man.

Artemis turned on his computer and waited impatiently for the correct channels to load so that he could contact Holly, Mulch, and of course Foaly. He needed to see the centaur's face when he dropped his hints. It was so much easier to see whether not he was successful with his insinuations if he could see the face of the one whom he was trying to influence. At last, Holly's face appeared on the monitor.

"Artemis? What is it? You're not in trouble again are you?"

Artemis looked annoyed. "Why does everyone assume that I'm in trouble?"

"Because you almost constantly are, and Butler usually has to bail you out, which means that you call me in to save Butler."

"How droll. Things aren't always that bad. Occasionally we do talk for other reasons."

"Occasionally."

"Oh, by the way Holly, could you please get Foaly on the line? I came across a curiosity recently that might intrigue him. However, I don't seem to have his number."

Holly raised an eyebrow. "So, not another dastardly plot?"

Artemis looked offended.

"My plots are not dastardly. And no, that's not it. It was a rather obscure reference, but I believe that Foaly might know something about it."

There was silence on the other end of the line while Holly looked at him skeptically. "And why, if you are so interested in this, did you call me? If you really wanted Foaly's number, you would've just hacked into our system. I know that you've done it before."

Artemis smiled innocently. "That's not polite. Mother has been strict about politeness and morals lately.

Also, it is something that might catch your attention as well."

Holly sighed, "I never thought I'd see the day when you finally develop morals. Alright, just wait a moment, his line's usually busy around this time. I think it's when he calls Cabaline." Holly turned around and punched several codes into a device off-screen, connecting Foaly into their conversation. There were a few seconds of static before Artemis's screen suddenly split to show both Holly and Foaly in their different locations. "So, human, what's up? Come to admire my genius?"

"No, surprisingly. But I do have a question; have either of you ever heard of Hogwarts?"

Foaly snorted. "Why would I have anything to do with a hog's warts? Are you sure you're all right, mud boy? Time travel can mess up the head you know. You should see some of the demons that we've had to relocate. I mean really, tearing up humans seems to be their version of 'in vogue'."

"Yeah Artemis, I have to agree with Foaly. I never thought that you'd go in for the Mulch Diggums brand of humour. He loves warts. I thought you said that this was serious."

Artemis sighed. "Not hog warts. Hogwarts. It's apparently a school that teaches magic to young witches and wizards, so I assumed that you would know about it. I came across a reference to it in a very arcane text."

"Who in their right mind names a school after a hog's warts?"

"I don't know. Their motto also happens to be 'never tickle a sleeping dragon'. Anyway, that is beside the point. I suppose if you've never heard of it then it doesn't exist. After all, you can't really hide anything magical from the fairy scanners. It would have been interesting if there were humans with magic out there though."

"Humans don't have magic, mudboy. Believe me, if they did, I would know. My surveillance network is top of the line, as good as I can make it. Your technology is no where near where ours is. And besides, if one human has magic, then you can be certain that a bunch do. With the technology that I've developed, it would be impossible for someone to hide a whole community of magical humans."

"Just like it would be impossible to hide a whole community of magical creatures?"

"Yes, exact- oh very funny."

Artemis smiled. He loved outwitting the centaur. "Ah well, it was an interesting theory."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Do you know how much trouble you usually cause with your theories, Artemis?"

"Trouble? I thought that he was the new commander of the LEP."

Foaly snickered. "Good one, mud boy."

"Thank you. Well, I must be going. My parents and the twins will be back soon."

"See the next the time our civilization's in danger."

"Oh for goodness sake Foaly. We do talk on other occasions."

"Really, Holly? When?"

"Whenever I need to get to Mulch or Doodah out of jail again. For 'reformed' criminals turned private investigators, they get thrown in jail surprisingly often."

With that, they both disappeared from the screen. Artemis smiled. It had been there, at then end. Foaly was curious. He would be looking through Artemis' computer network very soon, and hopefully he would find the bait. Problem one had been dealt with.

Artemis sat back in his chair and started to contemplate his second problem; what on, or under, the earth he was going to tell his parents.

Foaly looked at the screen where Artemis had just been. Something was not right. He knew Artemis well, and that boy had been testing them. Something was going on, and he meant to find out what. With the ease of long practice, Foaly hacked into the Fowl security system. He started systematically looking through all of Artemis's files: security, projects, wireless networks, core computer software, anything and everything that might hide some secret. He paid special attention the program he found that allowed Artemis's security cameras to capture energy fields. That was a little bit of tech that he would be borrowing from Artemis. All is fair in the hacker's world after all. Finally, after downloading the program, he saw some recent scans taken with the device. What he saw astounded him. For once, even he was speechless. He quickly went back through the security files until he found the tapes of what he had originally assumed was an eccentric human. This time, he watched the whole file. A feeling of dread at the implications spread through Foaly. He hadn't felt this since his best friend had disappeared into a time tunnel; while that had been bad, this, he decided, was worse.

He needed to tell Holly.

Commander Trouble Kelp looked at the two friends in front of him in disbelief. "You're not serious about this, are you? This is a joke, Foaly, right?"

Foaly didn't smile. "Unfortunately not. I have access to Artemis's security network. He was acting oddly during our conversation, so I decided to do little investigating. When I found these files, I'll admit that I didn't believe them. It's just too absurd. Humans having magic is like dwarves having table manners. So I immediately verified the authenticity with my own equipment. These weren't doctored. They're real."

Trouble groaned. This was not good. "How come we didn't know about this?"

"Well," said Foaly, glancing at his sheets, "according to what I've found they vanished from regular human society around the same time we did. A lot of records of that time were lost, on both sides. It's possible that we just assumed they all died during the battles."

Trouble rubbed his temples. "But why haven't we found them since then?"

"Artemis had a theory on that linked to the files. Apparently electronic devices don't work at this school because of the high magical energy output. That actually is true. The amount of energy that would be released into the air from an entire school would be more than enough to send our devices haywire, or shut them down completely. I do have a chip that prevents that, but because I didn't think that humans had magic, I've never bothered equipping it to any of our long range satellites. And as for why I'm not picking up signals from them, it's because technologically speaking they're even farther behind us than the regular humans. I'm talking like the literal stone age. Parchment, quills, oil lamps, the whole medieval bit."

Trouble sighed. This was more trouble than he frankly wanted to deal with. Oh well, he had come up through Recon, so he would deal with this the Recon way, also known as the Julius Root way. Julius Root had a special way for dealing with anything that involved Artemis Fowl and the possible discovery of the Fairies.

"Right," said Trouble turning towards the so far quiet member of the group, "Holly, you deal with it."

"What?" Said Holly, jolted out of her temporary reverie. She had spaced out the moment that the implications of Foaly's statement had sunk in, and had not been paying complete attention. There was something about this that was bugging her.

"You deal with it." Trouble reiterated. "Consider it your re-initiation into Recon. I suppose that throwing you back into the field like this when you've only been back for a month is a bit hasty, but the circumstances require it. When the time comes, you will follow Artemis to this- what did you say it was Foaly? Some sort of school for magical humans?"

Foaly nodded the affirmative.

"Right, this school. Let's see if we can't get Mulch to go along with you as a private contractor. You two work surprising well together. Once you're at the school, signal us with your location so that Mulch can tunnel up and meet you. The two of you could set up a base somewhere, and relay any and all information that you find of interest to Foaly back down here. When we have the proper information is when we'll decide what to do. We'll keep this hushed up until then; just call it another Fowl incident or something."

Holly looked at him. "Okay Trouble, and while I'm doing that do you want me to go search for the easter bunny too?"

"Excellent idea Holly, add that to your list of assignments."

"I was joking."

"So was I, about the easter bunny anyway. Listen Holly," he said looking right at her, "you, along with Mulch Diggums and Foaly are the leading authority on Artemis Fowl. We need to know what he's getting involved with, and how that will affect us. Like it or not, you're the elf for the job."

Holly looked troubled. There was something simply not right about the situation. It was all too easy somehow.

"Foaly," she asked, "was there any extra security on Artemis's computer?"

Foaly frowned. "No, not really."

"The files weren't encrypted?"

"Nope."

"There was nothing to hide this from us?"

"None."

Holly started pacing.

"We found this too easily, and that bothers me. Nothing about an Artemis Fowl situation is ever easy. For one, he's a genius. He wanted us to find that file. But why? Does he want us there? Does he want us to stay away? No to mention, how did get magic? He told me that it had all been used up by the time stream." She faced the two males. "If he was lying about that then who knows what else he's been lying about?"

Trouble looked troubled. "While your concerns are valid, Holly, this is information that we need. If I ask Foaly to keep hacking into Artemis' computer system, he will eventually realise that we're there, and might feed us doctored information. We need the real thing. Also, you are right in thinking that this information might be doctored; if so, then it's your job to find out the truth. What does Artemis want? You're a Recon officer, Holly. One of the best; the best currently active. Even if you didn't have the history that you do with Artemis, I would be sending you on this mission. You know what information is important and what's not. You know which questions to ask."

Holly considered all of this. She did know that was better than most of the other officers. She'd even beaten Julius Root's flight record. Of course, wings had evolved since then thanks to Foaly, but still, it was something to be proud of. However, as with Root is was just good protocol to get in one more complaint. It wasn't like Trouble would be exactly bothered by it either, as long as she took the mission.

"Do I at least get backup from someone other than Mulch and Doodah? Their handy, I'll give them that, but they lack, finesse so to speak."

Trouble smirked, considering this. "You will have Foaly for technical support down here. However, if Artemis finds out that you're there, and he probably will knowing that mudboy, he can help you. Other than that, do not attempt to make any contact unless directed. We don't need anymore humans nosing into our business. One is too many as it is."

"And I can outfit you with my latest and greatest gadgets," said Foaly happily. "Just wait until you see what I've done with the suits since you left. It's enough to even make a goblin cry from sheer awe."

He saw the amused looks exchanged by the two officers.

"What?"

"Nothing, Foaly, nothing. Captain Short, those are your orders. It said on the recording that Artemis leaves on the first of September, correct?"

Holly nodded. "That's what the guy in the robes said."

"Then prepare yourself, and be ready to leave when he does. You have about a month to get your things in order. The both of you are dismissed."

As they exited the room, Holly turned to Foaly and said, "this is going to be another one of those missions, isn't it?"

"Holly, you're being sent undercover to observe a magic school. And Artemis Fowl is going to be there. It's always one of those missions if Artemis Fowl is involved. That kid gets into more trouble than Trouble. Or Mulch. And that dwarf gets into some pretty interesting situations. Like while you were away he got stuck upside down in a barrel of rubber while chasing a sprite arsonist with a hatred for dwarves who caused one of their sacred tunnels to collapse or something. We had to send a squad to go fish him out because apparently Doodah was too busy laughing to help him."

"Okay... those two need a babysitter." Holly sighed. "So I guess I'd better bring along extra acorns. Who knows what the landscape will be like? I don't want to be caught dry again, even with your tech. The thought of magical humans is rather frightening. Why do I have to be the leading authority on Artemis Fowl?"

"Well, you see he kidnapped you while you were performing the ritual after you were caught above ground with next to zero magic in your tank, good thinking about bringing the acorns by the way, and a rampaging troll on the loose. I think that's the official story. Oh, and there's how he helped you put down the goblin rebellion, and you saved his dad, and then there was that thing with the cube, not to mention that little problem with Opal, and then there was that whole thing where the two of you brought Hybras out of Limbo and ended up missing for three years."

"Thanks Foaly, you're a real friend," said Holly, drawing out the first word for sarcastic effect.

"Just doing my job, as a humble, modest, and exceedingly good looking- Hey!" he yelled as Holly's fist connected with his side. "That hurt!"

"Well, you deserved it. Without me around to supervise you children these last few years, you've gotten annoying. Mulch is even worse."

"Mulch was always annoying."

"Yeah, but as soon as he started spending time with you he got worse. The two of are enough to drive normal people insane."

The two friends continued to argue all the way back through the station, on their way to inform Diggums and Day Private Investigators of the potential military contract.

A/N Hope you like it! Please Review.