Chapter Three:

We Discuss Wizards

Grover

I sat on the sofa in the Big House with Annabeth and Thalia, chewing on a Ping Pong ball. Well, I was chewing a Ping Pong ball. Thalia sat fiddling with her bracelet. Annabeth stared at the carpet, looking out of it, though I knew her brain was actually buzzing at a million miles an hour. Where were the other two? If they didn't get here within the next five minutes, I would probably start eating the sofa.

Luckily, my wish was granted sooner than that. First, Nico DiAngelo melted out of the shadows behind a door, looking as deathly as ever. I suppressed a shudder. Awesomely powerful as he might be, the dude still freaked me out. "Hey," he said. We three nodded. Then, from outside, I heard the beating of massive wings and the thud of hooves hitting the ground. Annabeth snapped out of her reverie, stood up, and ran to the door, throwing it open.

"Percy!" she cried, throwing her arms around my best friend who was standing in the doorway.

"Hey, Wise Girl," he said, hugging her back. "'Sup, G-man?", he said, nodding in my direction.

"Oh gods, Percy, I can't believe it." Annabeth said as she pulled away.

"Where's Chiron? He said to meet here," Percy said warily.

"I'm right here," said a voice. Chiron was standing behind Percy in his true form.

"Chiron! Everyone's here!" Thalia burst out. "Now you have to tell us. What in Hades is going on here? I thought Kronos was defeated! Now you're telling us we have another quest?" She sounded mad.

"Patience, child. I promised that I would explain everything once everyone had arrived. Now everyone has arrived, so I will." Chiron reverted back to his wheelchair. "Excuse me, Percy," he said. "You'll need to move into the room if I am going to be able to enter."

Percy did, going to sit on a sofa next to Nico.

"So, heroes, I presume you know something of why you are here." Chiron said once he had settled in in front of us.

"Because of this," said Percy, holding out a letter. It was the same letter I had received, addressed to Percy at his apartment in Manhattan. "Okay, this is seriously weirding me out. I wake up this morning after having an absolutely nuts dream, to find this on my dresser. There are wizards? Why haven't we heard of this before?"

"As I said, Percy, please be patient. I will explain everything. First of all, may I double-check that everyone indeed received the letter?" Chiron studied all of us; I think he was checking to make sure we all still had all our marbles. You know, after experiencing horrible trauma and all that jazz.

We all held up our identical envelopes.

"What the..." Nico said in disbelief. "Actually, what I wanna know is how someone managed to deliver this to me in the Underworld!"

Chiron began to explain. "First of all, I understand how utterly exhausted you all are, and I am sorry to call you back so soon. You will be pleased to know, however, that you won't actually need to go anywhere for a little while. I called you here today because, as you might have read, we have a deadline to meet."

"Uh, yeah," Thalia butted in. "Who sends a letter and expects a reply on the same day?"

"I understand your resentment, Thalia," Chiron continued. "However, I am inclined to forgive the wizards. You see, they are currently in the midst of a terrible war, one which has many similarities to the one we so recently fought.

"About six weeks ago, I received a call from my dear friend Albus Dumbledore, who is the headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"That's where our letters came from." Annabeth said, fascinated.

"Yes. Where to begin? First of all, there is something you should be aware of: wizards and witches exist."

"What, do they ride around on brooms and wear pointy hats?" Percy asked mockingly.

"Well, actually, they do," Chiron continued. Percy gaped at him, along with everyone else in the room.

Chiron moved on. "For more than a thousand years, colonies of these magical people have been living in secret around the globe. They are technically mortals, in that they have no inherent godly connections, but they are what you might call, ah...enhanced mortals."

"You mean like Rachel?" Annabeth asked.

"More than that. Witches and wizards have the ability to perform deeds of magic."

"So...more like descendants of Hecate," Annabeth pressed.

"Yes. We aren't sure of the exact origins, but it is one of our strongest theories is that the progenitors of wizardkind did have some connection to the goddess of magic. Now, however, the magical ability is simply in their blood. Hogwarts, the school I am sending you to, is a boarding school where young witches and wizards go to hone their magical abilities and become fully-fledged members of the wizarding world.

"For the past several decades, the wizarding world has been plagued by fear of an evil wizard named Lord Voldemort. Sixteen years ago, he set out to murder a certain family, the Potters. Lily and James were both killed, but when Voldemort attempted to do the same to the Potters' young son Harry, the curse miraculously backfired. The boy survived, and Voldemort was vanquished for a time. Many believed Voldemort to be dead. This was not true, and my friend Albus knew this. Voldemort had simply been reduced to something less than human, through some act of Dark Magic.

"And then, two years ago, Voldemort rose again."

"Two years ago! That's close to when Kronos completed his resurrection!" Annabeth was sitting at the edge of her seat. "Hm...they both were resurrected from a state close to death. Is that why they need our help, Chiron?" I was amazed at her deduction.

"That is it exactly. Yes. Professor Dumbledore was doing...research earlier this summer and realized the Titan lord and this Lord Voldemort were quite similar. Well, apart from Kronos being a Titan and Voldemort being technically human..." Chiron's voice trailed off for a moment.

"Albus didn't want to go into too many details, 'my theories are alas only theories, at the moment,' he told me. But he asked me to spread the word as soon as we had a moment. And now, we do."

"Okay, so what, exactly, are we doing?" Thalia questioned.

"Well. Your task will be to attend Hogwarts as students for the duration of this school year. I chose you five, whom I consider to to be my most capable campers, to act as scouts. You will be at the school undercover, though a select few of the staff will know the truth of who you really are. You must work hard to gather as much information as you can regarding Voldemort, his schemes, and the magical world in general. In addition, you shall serve as extra protection against the dark forces at work. I daresay you are capable of that.

"Now, first things first: do you accept this quest? I must send word to Professor Dumbledore at once."

The four demigods nodded their consent almost immediately. Hero genes... I thought with a sigh. In the end, I also agreed, a bit more reluctantly, maybe, but I didn't want to be the only one left out.

"Well, that's settled. Hm, I know it said to owl, but we seem to have a shortage of owls, so this will have to do."

Chiron turned on the mist machine that was sitting on the table and tossed in one golden drachma. "O goddess, accept our offering. Show me Albus Dumbledore."

An image appeared in the mist of an old man sitting at a desk in what looked like some sort of study, facing us. The man had a long white beard, and was wearing the weirdest combination of clothes. He wore long robes the color of lilacs, an honest-to-goodess pointy hat in the same color as his robes, and glasses shaped like half-moons. Interesting guy. Did all wizards dress like this? He had a book open on the desk in front of him, and he was totally engrossed in reading it. One of his hands, I noticed with a gasp, was blackened and shriveled.

Chiron cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Albus." The man at the desk looked up and smiled.

"Chiron!" he exclaimed. I noticed that Dumbledore had bright blue eyes behind his glasses, lighter in color than Thalia's. "How good to see you, my dear friend. And these must be the demigods." He sounded disconcertingly cheerful, considering the current situation, and, you know, his hand.

"And a satyr," I mumbled, holding up a hoof.

"Why, of course. So, these five are my exchange students?"

"Yes," Chiron replied. "I'm sending this Iris-message to you as our confirmation, since we don't have an owl."

"Excellent. I am absolutely looking forward to your arrival here at Hogwarts. I will tell you more when you arrive. But for now, goodbye." Dumbledore waved and smiled, his eyes twinkling. Chiron shut off the machine and the connection.

"Well, then, heroes, I suppose that is all, for now."

"Excuse me, one more thing." Percy cut in. "This morning, before I found my letter, I had a dream. Like, a really weird dream, even by my standards..." He recounted his dream. Infiltrate where? I thought. Plus, the dude in the chair with the snake and his creepy little minion just about made me lose my composure.

But Chiron only nodded. "Hm. That is quite interesting. I have no doubt in my mind that it has a connection to this task. But I'm afraid even I don't quite know what that is, yet. For now, we must take this task one step at a time.

"Anyways, you all will likely be pleased to note that we do not have to leave quite yet. Term starts on September 1st, so I'd like to see you back here by August 30th . That should give us enough time to get things...settled before you begin your stay at Hogwarts. Goodbye for now, and I'd recommend taking it easy for the next two weeks.

A/N: So, Chapter Three! I just want to say, thank you so much for all the support you've given me so far! And, as always, please REVIEW!