Wow, 12 reviews in the first chapter! Everybody, THANK YOU. You all get cookies! (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
As for some answers to the reviews:
Son of Zeus0001 ~ I like your Olympian Metal/cuts spells idea, so it will be introduced in this chapter. More uses later on. I did take quite a while on your second idea before I decided not to after thinking about a scenario where they might need two weapons instead of one. But it was an excellent idea! Maybe you should try your own luck at HP/PJO crosses.
Guest ~ all titles might be a bit overboard for the wizards. Instead, I think it might be a good idea to let them know of their titles maybe after the Sorting so they don't go O.O again that day. There'll be plenty of O.O's coming from the wizards though!
PercabethFanatic123 ~ I'm going to assume 'stiffeners' was a mistake and it's really 'students' because otherwise I'm lost. There will be *four* Hogwarts demigods but during the course of this fanfic they'll all show their demigod side more because that's the more powerful side (Gods VS Wizards... the latter will lose). But that'll be all the Hogwarts demigods, and I'll try not to let them have super-major parts in the story. As for the flashbacks and nightmares about Tartarus - on it :)
Just a side note: I'll only respond to reviews that have suggestions and not ones that go 'update'. Cheers!
Disclaimer: If I was RR, I would not be planning to go to the bookstore immediately after school on October 8th to pick up HoH. On the other hand, if I was JKR I wouldn't even be going to the bookstore to pick up HoH. Will that do?
Chapter Two
Nico
If Chiron thought we had reacted to the name 'Voldemort', well, our reaction to 'Hogwarts' was a million times stronger.
Leo, the Stolls and Percy were all ROFL (rolling-on-the-floor-laughing), Will had collapsed on the doorframe and was gasping for breath, and I was doubled over clutching my side. (Contrary to what Thalia says, I am not emo). Annabeth was desperately trying to regain her breath, while Katie and Lou were pounding the floor with their fists as they laughed. Even Clarisse, who barely showed emotion, was chortling like crazy. The only person with even a semblance of restraint was Piper – I guess it was the Aphrodite perfection thing – and even she had a wild grin on her face. But seriously, who named their almighty wizard school after pig's skin disease?
After about ten minutes of all of us cracking up, we managed to calm somewhat. At least, we managed to calm until Leo asked Chiron if Hogwarts had a sister school, and whether or not it was named something ridiculous like Pimplypigs. That just sent us into uncontrollable laughter again. This time even the girls ditched attempts at dignified restraint and joined us guys ROFLing. I was pretty sure I was going to die of laughter.
Piper finally managed to regain enough control to charmspeak us into stopping, although every few seconds Leo and the Stolls released chuckles. I had to breathe deeply and think of everything other than pigs before I managed to calm down, even under the charmspeak.
"Thank you, Piper," said Chiron. "And as for your question, Leo, Hogwarts does not have a sister school. It is the only one of its kind in Britain, and the nearest magical school after it is Beauxbatons, in France."
"Ou est Beauxbatons?" asked Piper. "Et qui est le principal?" My French was just enough to guess that she was asking where Beauxbatons was, and who was the principal. And I'd only guessed that because I reckoned 'principal' was the same in English and French.
"Beauty Queen, you're speaking in French again," sighed Leo. "Switch back, please."
Piper blushed. "I was?"
"Yes, dear," answered Chiron. "As for your question, Beauxbatons located in southern France. Like Hogwarts, it is Unplottable, so it cannot be mapped. The current principal is Madame Olympe Maxime." Piper shrugged.
"Oh, and Nico, I do believe that you've heard of Voldemort." Chiron must have seen the baffled look on my face, because he added, "He used to be called Tom Riddle."
My smile vanished instantly. Seeing my expression, Annabeth pressed on about Riddle, and when I started to speak, everybody leaned forward slightly.
"Riddle was this mortal who killed thousands of people years and years ago. Father hasn't stopped ranting about the paperwork ever since. The pile is enormous; almost enough to fill the shrine of Artemis that was blown apart and recreated after the Titan War. And as if that wasn't enough, Riddle had the nerve to split his soul into a bazillion pieces, so he effectively couldn't die. Thanatos was furious about that. We have one piece of his soul in custody, but we can't judge him unless we have the whole thing. He'd go to Punishment either way, but that's just the law of the Underworld. He also went on to name his followers Death Eaters. Thanatos was understandably upset over that."
Percy made a face. "Look, I know Thanatos is a really buff Cupid and all, but why in the name of Zeus would anyone want to eat him?"
Clarisse rolled her eyes. "Prissy, it's called symbolism. Duh." At the incredulous looks she was getting, she snapped, "I don't spend all my time fighting, you know."
I snorted. "Actually, you'd be surprised at what some of the nymphs in the Underworld would do to catch his attention …yeah, well, Father and Thanatos haven't stopped being angry over them ever since. The 'Death Eaters' in custody are all somewhere in the Fields of Punishment. Just imagine Sisyphus' and Tantalus' punishment combined, and multiply it by a hundred. That's what those guys have. And I think they deserved it. It wasn't just He-Who-Needs-To-Wash-His-Pants who was murdering, the Death Eaters were as well. The Furies think they were let off too lightly." I grimaced. "You should have seen the day Rosier or whatever was being judged. They complained that he should be sent to Tartarus." The room seemed to grow quieter at that. I knew why; it was almost taboo now to mention Tartarus, because of mine, Percy's and Annabeth's…experiences. We still had the occasional flashback, but thankfully they had become rarer (like once-in-a-month rare instead of five-times-a-night rare)
Annabeth grimaced. "That's some punishment." The room stayed quiet.
Chiron cleared his throat. "I think that's about it, now why don't you go and enlighten Malcolm and Chris?" We dutifully left the Big House for our cabins.
Later that day, Malcolm and Chris had to be brought to the infirmary to be treated for laughter.
A week later, we were all ready to leave. The week had been surprisingly peaceful. During that time, Leo had readied the Argo, I had contacted my father about the quest-that-is-not-a-quest, Athena had completely destroyed Ares in Capture-The-Flag, and the last members had arrived.
After Thalia, Frank, Jason and Hazel arrived, Chiron called all of us to the Big House again. We were formally debriefed. Jason, Frank, Hazel and Thalia almost died of laughter at the word 'Hogwarts', and Leo announced that it would take the upgraded Argo (now dubbed Argo III) two days to get to England, or three if you counted the time difference. We set the time of departure to two in the afternoon, so we'd arrive at about seven in the evening on September 1st.
The only really new thing was Chiron asking Lou to be the leader, which she accepted. I wasn't really very surprised – Lou was the only one of us that could do magic naturally, and I highly doubted the Seven wanted to lead a quest anytime soon (in fact, I think they would have been quite happy with 'never'). When Lou accepted, I saw all members of the Seven sigh with relief, and I didn't really blame them. Oh, and Chiron added that our weapons, like ourselves, could absorb magic. His exact words were 'Celestial Bronze cuts through spells, Imperial Gold deflects spells, and Stygian Iron absorbs spells'. He also added that he didn't think we'd need to really use this information, though, since we could deflect/absorb spells. Yeah.
A few hours before we were meant to leave (we had all woke really early and packed, we were that excited), Hecate appeared with our wands.
"Your parents selected these wands," she explained. "There seems to be a good deal of symbolism attached to them."
Hecate was proven true as soon as Thalia received her wand. It was… pine, with the feather of an eagle. From the look on her face, Thalia wasn't very amused. The rest of us, however, were all laughing our heads off. Pine, her tree, with a symbol of her father. That was definitely symbolic all right.
In the end, the wands we received were:
Jason – oak and a spark from the Master Bolt (*shudders at reminder*)
Thalia – pine and eagle feather
Percy – willow and mermaid hair
Katie – beech and an ear of wheat from Demeter's sacred cornfields (Somehow, I wasn't very surprised. Come on. This is Demeter we're talking about. I'm just shocked it wasn't 'beech and flake of Special K cereal'.)
Clarisse – ash and Stymphalian feather. (Makes sense, those birds are her dad's pets)
Frank – walnut and wild boar tooth
Annabeth – olive and owl feather (SURPRISE!)
Malcolm – cypress and snake scale (I didn't expect that, though)
Will – laurel and a ray from the Sun
Leo – eucalypt and a cinder from Hephaestus' forge
Piper – mahogany and a drop of Aphrodite's perfume (Piper didn't look too amused by the perfume part)
Connor – cedar and hawk feather
Travis – elm and hare pelt
Chris – birch and cat-eye
Hazel – hazel and Thestral hair
Me – poplar and pomegranate seed from Persephone's garden.
Oh the coincidences.
I didn't get to learn about Lou's wand, because Hecate took her a few metres away for a private chat. None of us were stupid enough to go eavesdrop on a goddess, so none of us knew what they were saying. Either way, Hecate vanished afterwards and Lou came back to us.
We didn't get the chance to ask either, because just then Leo – who was the only person not to be staring at their wand or at Lou and had already gone up to the Argo – announced, "Twenty minutes until takeoff. Please board the Argo and confirm that your belongings are present."
Twenty minutes later, after we had confirmed and re-confirmed that everything and everyone was present, with the entire of Camp Half-Blood watching us, Leo pulled on the lever, the sails snapped to their full length, and the Argo shot into the azure blue sky.
And that's Chapter Two. What do you guys think? Please review ~ always open to suggestions!
~Olympusseriesisawesome