(I should have said before, The Lost Hero hasn't happened yet.)

Nine reviews! Normally it takes weeks to get this much interest! I'm so flattered by all your comments, especially on the way I write, you guys are amazing!

Cookie05, LizaCobbler and obsessivegirl73: Thank you so much!

Peridot15: argh, please don't cry, No way is this a oneshot! my draft stands at 13k+, but needs serious editing

Howlingatthemoon: Thanks! I hope this chapter convinces you to put this on alert!

Konekoko: Thank you! I'll try not to disappoint!

yarra: I'll keep that in mind! If this story stays popular, who knows?

and a thanks to the anon reviews and the people who put this on alert, its great to know what people think.

The door swung open and a tall, black haired woman in green robes looked down at them. She looked as stern as the goddess Athena, and Nico knew that crossing this woman would be a very foolish thing to do.

"The first years, Professor McGonagall" Hagrid said. He didn't really need to introduce them, it was perfectly obvious who they were.

"Thank you Hagrid, I will take them from here."

They proceeded to an antechamber where the witch explained about the houses. Nico was fairly convinced that he wouldn't feel at home here, just like Camp had never really appealed to him. He was too solitary. The house points were made to be a really big deal, but he couldn't bring himself to care about a petty school championship. The mention of a test for the Sorting had Nico groaning. He wasn't nervous, though most of the others were, but being treated like a lab rat in front of the whole school didn't have much appeal.

Nico looked up when he heard screams. Turning around he saw twenty or so ghosts coming through the wall, they ignored the students and seemed to be arguing amongst each other about a Poltergeist. He wondered how so many had escaped the Underworld, and considered sending them to the judges immediately. But doing so would blow his cover, he had to remain inconspicuous. Nico hadn't seen spectres so well intergrated in the mortal realm. The shades in America only spoke to him, and most of the time he got mobbed with their constant moaning. These phantoms seemed civilised. Side effect of living with mortals? Or being wizards?

The ghosts had finally noticed them, and the monk was looking at them kindly when one of the pearly white figures gasped. He went pale (for a ghost) and pointed a shaking finger at Nico. To the ghost's undying shame, while he quivered, his head wobbled, and very nearly fell off. Nico raised an eyebrow, while the students made room for him.

"Sir Nicholas, isn't it? What are you doing here?" He made the tone of his voice an accusation and a threat simultaneously. So much for blending in.

"My Lord, I'm...sorry, I meant to..."

"Return? It's a bit late for apologises now, your entire family is waiting for you in Elysium, yet you waste your afterlife here." Nico was quite annoyed that he'd only been at the school two minutes and he'd already managed to make himself a freak. His father had told him about a few runaways, this one was easy to recognise, the "Nearly Headless" part was unmistakable.

"Am I not allowed a second chance, sir?" the ghost pleaded.

"We shall see." Nico replied cryptically. Despite being the Ghost King, he couldn't promise anything. He had divine authority over Hades' realm and subjects, yes, but the ghost's punishment was for the judges and his father to decide.

The phantom understood that this was the end of the discussion, but still looked shaken. The other ghosts bowed to Nico, who waved them off irritably. None of the other students spoke. It was just as well, because Nico was now in a very foul mood.

The Professor had heard the end of the discussion and was examining him with her sharp eyes. Nico held her gaze defiantly, forcing her to look away first.

They entered the Great Hall and were the subject of stares from the entire school. The ghosts still bowed to the Son of Hades as he walked past. He wondered absently if the fish behaved like this to Percy, and whether this explained why he was uncomfortable in aquariums. The hall was grand enough, in Nico's view. It wasn't like Olympus or his father's palace, but it had a certain charm. The ceiling was quite impressive, and would allow Nico to check on the gods' mood. There were whispers about Harry Potter, and some of the students were theorising that the ghosts were bowing to him, not Nico. This lightened the demigod's mood a bit, the less he stood out, the better he would progress on this quest, and he wasn't comfortable being the centre of attention. They had reached the front, and Professor McGonagall had placed a hat on top of a four legged stool. Nico wondered about the rabbit out of the hat trick, but then this was a school for those blessed by Hecate, lame conjuring tricks were beneath her.

Suddenly the hat began to sing.

The song about the houses didn't enlighten Nico further about which House he'd be in. Hades, though harsh, was always just and fair, Nico was a hero, so he was brave and daring. Then again he was also smart...and cunning. Would he use any means to get what he wanted? He had planned to kill to have his sister returned.

"DI ANGELO, NICO!"

He went to sit on the stool, and felt the hat on his head.

"Well this it unexpected... A son of Hades has never graced our presence before, yes I know of the Greek Gods, but don't worry; your secret is safe...hmm, where to put you...dear me you have been through a lot..." Nico was angry at the hat's tone and immediately tried to block it from seeing his mind. The hat yelped in pain.

"Apologises, but I must sort you into the house which is most fitting..."

"I don't care, anywhere will do!" Nico snarled mentally. The hat dithered and Nico was losing his patience. This sorting was taking by far the longest and the students were beginning to mutter.

"SLYTHERIN" The hat yelled suddenly, taking Nico by surprise. He had hoped to be in Gryffindor, as a hero would be, but he guessed that his family's undeserved rep had, once again, made him be classed as evil.

The table didn't cheer like they had for the others and he sent them his best death glare so they knew not to mess with him. He thought he saw Potter and Weasley look upset at the hat's choice and he felt a bit better. They obviously didn't think he was a bad person.

They ended up in Gryffindor, and Nico was stuck with Weasel face. He was tempted to just call him that, instead of Malfoy, or Draco but, unlike him, the pale brat looked like he belonged, and Nico wasn't stupid enough to attack him when he was surrounded by his friends. He reconsidered his nickname, it had just occurred to him that Weasel face and Ron Weasley might cause confusion about who the barb was intended for. Rat face would also work, but Nico felt that that could be seen as an insult to Scabbers. He wondered what sort of parents named their son after the drakon. There wasn't much likeness, from what Nico could see, this boy was yellow through and through.

Nico looked up at the teachers. He noticed that his gut twisted when he looked at the teacher in the purple turban, similar to when he had finally met Daedalus, and like the way he felt when he looked at Harry's scar. It was something that should be dead, but wasn't. The one next to him was glaring at Harry with his face filled with hate. Professor McGonagall was staring at him along with Dumbledore.

He ignored them as best he could as he filled his plate with everything he could reach. The sweets hadn't truly sated his hunger, not to mention he had to offer a portion in sacrifice. He thanked the gods that he'd remembered to tuck the bottle of flames into his robes as he whispered his father's name, dropping his offering into the jar to be burnt. The other kids were staring again, and Malfoy curled his lip into a sneer. Just then, a timid ghost approached Nico, who sighed and told the entity to get lost before it could speak. It bowed reverently and departed. The rest of dinner went without incident, but his new "family" never spoke to him. He perked up when he learnt that the Forbidden Forest and the third floor were out of bounds, the Forest could be a place that he could meet up with Percy or Thalia or Annabeth...and the third floor, prime spot for the mystery object to be hidden. His Dad hadn't been kidding about security; the third floor of a school didn't strike him as a very secure location.

At the end of the feast they made their way to the dormitory, going downstairs to the dungeons. Nico was quite happy with the common room, very green and most importantly, dark, just like his cabin. Shadow travelling would be easy in this part of the castle. Not that Nico tried it, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Nico's first morning was eventful; he had just finished throwing one of his eggs and a slice of bacon into the jar when an Iris Message popped up across the table from him.

"Hey Death Boy!" Percy said by way of greeting. He looked exhausted, and Nico realised with a pang that it was the middle of the night back home; Percy had stayed up late so that he could catch him before lessons. Malfoy looked around and his eyes widened at the shimmering screen. It had caught the attention of several other pupils, but they paid him no mind. Obviously in a school of magic, weird was considered normal.

"Hello, Seaweed Brain" Nico replied, amused. He knew that the blond was listening in, but if the conversation got risky, he would start speaking Ancient Greek. See how Draco would take that

"I heard about you going to this school in England? What's it like?"

"How'd you...Oh, right, the merman."

"Yeah, Dad was quite annoyed at you for that, Nico! You know he'd capsize you for intruding!"

"I gave him a drachma!" Nico protested

"That's the point! You give the same fare to Charon when you die! Dad felt he was a bit more important than some lowly ferryman. But he also knew we owed you one for last year so he let it go, Oh and Rachel's angry you didn't consult her before leaving. Man, that girl can be scary!"

"..."

"Anyway, you ok?"

"I not a child! You don't need to check on me!" Nico relented and added "yeah it's cool, we've got Astronomy every Wednesday, which I'm totally gonna ace..."

"You'd better, or Annabeth'll have your head" Nico laughed at that.

"Tell her I said hey."

"Sure" there was an awkward pause, Nico didn't have much to say and Percy was too tired to make small talk. "Well... I gotta go, English test tomorrow, and I haven't read the book. See you for the Winter Solstice!"

Percy broke the connection, yawning, and Nico was left with the stares of his fellow pupils once again. He could hear the word traitor being hissed, but couldn't understand why. He ate the rest of his food in silence, brooding. The IM probably caused more harm than good, but the likelihood of Nico integrating into the Slytherin (or even Hogwarts) community had been slim from the start. This blending in was proving harder than he anticipated, something about him just meant he stuck out like a sore thumb all the time. He pondered whether he should contact Rachel and ask for a prophecy, but then thought against it. He didn't know how easy it would be to find a rainbow and be alone in this place. Besides, he would go see her at Christmas and ask then, if he needed to.

He met Peeves the poltergeist not long after that, on his way to his first lesson. He was harassing Ron and Harry, the Granger girl was there too, but the boys seemed to be the prime target.

"What is the meaning of this, Peeves!" Nico yelled, causing almost everyone in the vicinity to turn and watch the small (but a bit older than) eleven year old take on the resident ghoul. Nico wasn't sure why he was interfering; it wasn't as if he knew the other two very well. He was just in a bad mood from all the staring and whispers.

"Oooh, my Lord, please forgive ickle Peevsie, he was just having fun with the little first years, he didn't mean no harm..."

"I should send you directly to the Fields" Nico mused and was satisfied by the pesky ghost's reaction

"Nooooo! Please my dear boy, I'll be good, I'll be nice, don't send me back there! Please!"

"Be nice to my friends and I'll consider it" Nico bargained, "But if I hear anything..."

"No, no you won't your highness, not a peep from dear old Peevsie..."

"Then get out of my sight" Nico ordered, and Peeves vanished.

There was utter silence in the antechamber. Nico gave his best Son of Hades Glare to everyone present and the students began to move on, leaving just him, Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked, she sounded afraid.

"Ghost Whisperer" Nico stated, bored. Technically he was king, but pompous wasn't the look he was going for.

"That was bloody brilliant! Ron said, earning him a thin smile from the dark haired Slytherin.

"Tell me if he gets too troublesome, won't you? I hate poltergeists." They gave ghosts a bad name, honestly, people wouldn't be so scared of the dead if the some spectres just accepted they had passed on and didn't try to share their suffering.

"You can't just order ghosts around, they're dead!" Hermione protested. She was still looking at Nico as if he'd sprouted fangs and horns

"It runs in the family." Nico deadpanned, and nodding to Harry, made to leave.

"Wait!" Harry called. Nico turned, raising an eyebrow.

"So, friends?" Harry asked.

"Don't get on my bad side," Nico warned before giving an impish grin "But yeah, friends."

The week went on, and the students began to get accustomed to Nico's peculiarities. They still avoided him like the plague, but the staring had stopped. Nico normally turned to the ghosts for help, so the other pupils didn't feel bad about leaving him alone. Malfoy would still try and find ways of insulting him, but Nico always came up with excellent put downs that made the younger boy look like a fool. Added to that, Peeves seemed to view himself as Nico's avenger, and would make life a misery for anyone who spoke ill of his charge, so Malfoy was constantly being harassed. Nico, being Hades' son, refused to call him off because of Malfoy had tried to steal his bottle of green flames. To add to his mood, Nico hadn't had time to truly search for the object that his father had sent him to find, as the teachers gave them such a mountain of homework and always kept sharp eyes on them "to make sure they never got lost". Nico huffed. Harry and Ron'd still managed it on their way to Transfiguration.

He received an invite to go to Hagrid's on Friday with Harry and was pleased that he had found a someone who didn't care that he was in Slytherin. He was also interested in the scar on Harry's forehead, as it transpired that he'd got it when the curse that should have killed him rebounded, killing Voldemort. Nico wasn't satisfied that this was the whole story, but it did sort of make sense. Harry should have died, so now he felt wrong to Nico in the sense that he was still living. What got under Nico's skin was the fact that Harry himself wasn't the problem, it was the scar, nothing more.

Charms and Astronomy were the only lessons that Nico felt comfortable taking. Quirrell still repulsed him, Transfiguration reminded him too much of the time he was turned into a dandelion by his step-mum, Herbology made him wish that he wasn't on such bad terms with Demeter, and a History of Magic was so mind numbingly dull that Nico was sure that the teacher was a child of Morpheus, god of sleep. They were going to learn about Greek magicians only in third year, for now they were stuck looking at Norse warlocks.

But by far the worst was Potions.

The Potions Master started by quizzing Potter on things that Nico (and most of the class) had no clue about, although the Granger girl seemed very eager to show off her knowledge.

By the third question, Nico had had enough.

"Look, we came here to learn this stuff, what would be the point of teaching us if we knew it all already?"

The hooked nosed teacher spun around. His eyes widened when he saw that one of his own pupils was talking back to him.

"Detention, Mr di Angelo."

Nico didn't reply, but gave the teacher his trademark glare, holding eye contact until the teacher was forced to look away. Snape, clearly perturbed by the student's gaze, turned back to Potter, but, it was noticed, didn't interrogate him with such heat.

Nico shadow travelled out of the dungeons after Snape had fixed his detention. He had it light, just cleaning and sorting out the store cupboard. In a way, the detention was useful, it gave him an excuse to be out of bed late, and he could easily get to the third floor with the cover of darkness. He was glad that he could move around so freely, he'd heard Hermione say that apparating (shadow travel without shadows – wizards only) wasn't possible within Hogwarts. Nico hadn't considered that shadow travel would be impossible, he'd only found out later. Besides, shadow travel worked wherever there were shadows, he had seen no reason why Hogwarts would have shadows any different from normal ones. Then again, he hadn't tried to travel from inside the castle to outside the school boundaries yet; but his quest was here, he didn't need to.

He walked out of the forest where he had appeared just in time to see Harry knock on Hagrid's door. He heard the baby hellhound growl while Hagrid tried to subdue it. Once the door was open, the dog took one look at Nico and went as docile as a puppy (which it was, despite its size). Nico petted it as it whined affectionately. The other three raised their eyebrows at him, but Nico just smirked.

"Hagrid, this is Ron... and Nico"

Hagrid looked surprised that Harry would be friends with a Slytherin, and impressed but slightly worried when they recounted what he had done to Peeves. The topic moved swiftly on to the Potions lesson, and the two Gryffindors complained half-heartedly about favouritism as he told them what he got as a detention. Nico couldn't really argue, from that one lesson it was clear that Snape was about as biased as old man Tmolus judging the music contest between Pan and Apollo (an Olympian versus God of the wild? who'd you want as a mortal enemy?) Then they discussed the break in at Gringotts again, and Nico noticed the way Hagrid looked unsettled about this topic. He found out later from Harry that Hagrid had emptied a vault that same day as the break in, saying that the contents would be safer at Hogwarts. That made the grubby package that Harry had seen was now the prime suspect in his quest. He felt slightly cheated that what he sought couldn't be a bit more impressive.

Well I hope it lived up to expectations, I'm really thrilled by the response this is getting, but i'm kinda even more nervous...

Don't hate me too much for putting him in Slytherin, the way I think about it, Nico's powers would be construed as "dark magic" at Hogwarts, no matter how heroically he used them.

please please keep the reviews coming in!

Swiss

ps yellow is a colour associated with cowardness