Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot and I can confirm I'm not making any money.
Gossip, Gossip, Gossip
RONS P.O.V.
"Any questions?" Asked Frank, nobody answered – either people were too scared, or the representatives had explained everything perfectly. All the demigods nodded, returning to their table. I saw Percy slip his arms around Annabeth and mutter something softly so that only she could hear it. She laughed and replied that sounded strangely like Seaweed Brain, and kissed him in the cheek. Effectively dashing the hopes of every single guy and girl in the hall.
There was a commotion outside the hall. The doors slammed open, again. A guy that looked around his 50s came in, sporting a hat, a coaching whistle, and a bat on his hands. He shouted "Let's kick some wizarding butt!" he looked around, and when he finally sighted the demigods he said, "Frank Zhang, the godfather of my child, tell me you aren't glad to see me chaperone the campers?"
He called up to Mrs. McGonagall "Hello there my name is Coach Hedge, sorry I'm late – had some trouble getting here, um," He paused, thinking, "oh yeah, Chiron sent me to chaperon, apparently he's in the first vacation he has had in a millennia or something, anyways if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry!" And with that the walked off, leaving a very stunned Mrs. McGonagall opening and closing her mouth, this was the first time I've ever seen the stern teach loose her composure and it was hilarious.
"What do you think he coaches?" I asked, causing some people to laugh.
"Probably over-attachment to violence or something," replied Ginny. "Did you see that bat?"
"What do you think?" said Dean excitedly.
"Of what?" answered Neville, a little bit dumbly.
"Of the demigods!" gushed Parvati. "I can totally believe they're half god, I mean did you see the Harry look a like? They are so attractive!"
"Hey! I resent that!" said Harry, his pride obviously hurt.
"Don't worry Harry, I dig the glasses and the scar better," teased Ginny "and didn't you hear that Leo guy? Scrawny is the new brawny!"
"God, I need to have a t-shirt that says that," said Harry.
"Didn't you hear them, Harry?" asked Seamus. "It's gods now"
"Guys we aren't getting to the most important part!" said Hermione. Everybody except me looked at her confusedly, I knew what she was getting at.
"Who's going to represent us," I clarified; Hermione shot me a surprised look – obviously not used to me answering with the correct answer. Dessert appeared, and with it my happiness.
"Well, Harry Hermione and Ron are obviously going to be part of it," said Neville.
We blushed, until an idea came up to me. "But wait, do you think that there's going to have to be at least one representative from each House?"
"Not Slytherin!" groaned Ginny.
As if on cue Mrs. McGonagall stood up instantly capturing the attention of every person in the room. "Students of Hogwarts, you might have been wondering who's going to represent Hogwarts in this tournament," this caused the demigods to start examining the room. "As there are four Houses, after dinner tonight, I want each House in their common room to come up with a list of five representatives they would like to see compete. We as teachers will then pick who we see fit to be our competitors." She paused, and to make sure everybody got it, "yes there will be at least one representative from each house."
Many people groaned, looking towards Slytherin. I looked over at Malfoy who seemed to be watching the pale guy with the skull ring on his fingers over at the demigod table. When he glanced up and saw me watching him he blushed. I frowned, what the hell was going on?
Mrs. McGonagall stood up, preparing to dismiss us, "The tournament is not only a chance to compete, but also to make friends. So don't be afraid to go over to the demigods talk to them. Each House will give the Head Boy and Girl their lists; they would then give it to me. The rules will be announced tomorrow at breakfast, along with the ten competitors. Welcome back to Hogwarts, both the wizards and the demigods. Let's have fun!" She finished. We stood up and left for our common rooms.
Once we got to the Gryffindor common room Harry performed a spell to put all the furniture in a circle, so all the members of the Gryffindor House would be looking at each other when we decided who was going to represent us.
Harry started, "So, why don't we split into years and then each individual year group can bring up their lists?"
"That would take too long, Harry," Hermione said, "I, for one, am exhausted and I want to go to sleep."
"Everybody shout out who you want to be our representative, Hermione can write them down and then we can vote at then," said Ginny.
Everybody nodded, I started by saying "I nominate Harry Potter." Harry looked at me, and nodded
"I nominate Ronald Weasley." Harry replied, and I felt pride shoot through me.
A first year said, "I nominate Neville." Everybody looked at him; he blushed and said, "Well, he did decapitate that snake."
Harry laughed, "That he did, good nomination mate." The first year, if possible, turned even redder.
The names went on and on, and on. There were candidates from each year. In the end, after a lot of discussion we settled on six people.
Ron
George
Harry
Hermione
Ginny
Neville
I know that there were only supposed to be five candidates, but I think Mrs. McGonagall will let this one slide. Harry and Hermione grabbed our list, muttering about going to the dungeon to collect Slytherin's. When they came back they asked me if I wanted to come with them to meet the demigods. Apparently as they were the Heads of the school McGonagall had told them to go make sure everything was comfortable. What was even more surprising was George nervously asking if he could come with us.
"Apparently Hogwarts first started as a school the founders hosted many guest," Hermione informed us. "To attract more students or something, the point is that there are about 200 rooms in a section of Hogwarts no student has ever been too. Besides the teacher's rooms."
"I've been there, you're talking about the deserted rooms right?" asked George "I've been there when me and Fred were exploring the school." He broke off with a pained expression. I clapped my brother in the back; familiar with a fraction of the grief he was feeling.
With George leading the way we made it to the demigods rooms in about half of the time we would have made it in our own. We arrived to a very richly furnished common room with many staircases leading up to various rooms. The scene in front of us made us stop in our tracks, we had arrived to chaos.
In a corner there were a group of around eight kids with grey eyes quizzing each other in college level topics. The older kid was fifteen. Mean looking demigods were shouting bloody murder at each other over who cheated and who won in their card game – while Clarisse sat there with her eyes closed, as if enjoying the noise. Girls that looked like the popular, pretty girls at school were shouting at the Stoll brothers over something that sounded that they had stolen all their makeup or something. George left us to join them. To add noise to the already deafening roar there were very muscular girls and guys making very high-tech looking gadgets.
We looked over at the fireplace where a couple of teenagers were sitting; we headed over and Harry started talking.
"Um, hey guys, my name is, uh, Harry Potter" he started. "Sorry for interrupting it's just that we came over to check if everything was comfortable?" He made it sound like a question.
"Everything is fine, thanks for everything guys!" Hazel said she frowned at the sitting arrangements, "guys move over, make place for the wizards!"
When we were sat comfortably Hermione introduced us, "Hi! My name is Hermione, that's Harry, and Ron." She said, pointing at each of us in turn. "Oh yeah, and the redhead over there is George." We all turned to see George and the Stolls in a deep conversation. I frowned; ever since Fred's death my brother hasn't exactly been 'social'.
"So, tell us about yourselves," invited Annabeth. "And also, can you tell us about your war? We're very curious."
We nodded; I started with the story, "So basically there was this super evil wizard named Voldemort who was trying to make the wizarding race 'purer' - "
"When anybody talks about making the race into something better it always ends bad, doesn't it?" asked Percy. Annabeth looked at him in surprise.
"Um, yeah I guess it does, so anyways," I continued. "When Harry was small Voldemort tried to kill him with the killing curse, but Harry survived. The curse rebounded on Voldemort evaporating him. But Harry survived; a one year old ended the war and survived the killing curse, which was technically impossible. He was labeled 'the boy who lived' and 'the chosen one'." The demigods looked at Harry with admiration in their eyes.
Hermione took it from there, "when Harry came to Hogwarts, however, Voldemort started to regain power and eventually came back. After a few years filled with pain, suffering, and fear Harry beat Voldemort, again, and ended the war, again." She paused "That was about three months ago, we're still getting used to peace."
The demigods nodded and Piper asked, "how did Harry get involved when he was so young in a war? Was it like a family feud or something?"
"There was this one prophecy," started Harry in a defeated tone.
"Oh no way, you had a prophecy too?" Percy asked.
"Uh, yeah" said Harry.
"No way I hate those! I had two of them and they seriously ruined my life!" complained Percy.
"Right?" Harry said excitedly.
"Dude I can't believe you were part of a prophecy too!" Percy reached over and did one of the weird fist-bump-hand-shake-hand-slap things us guys do. They laughed, obviously an inside joke between famous heroes.
"So what about you guys?"
"No" Percy said, looking at Annabeth who had opened her mouth to speak.
"Percy come on!" Annabeth said, "What are you? Self-conscious?"
"No" Percy shouted, his voice going an octave higher.
"Yes" said Frank at the same time. When Percy looked at him, obviously hurt, Frank continued, "I'm sorry Perce! Besides it's not like Annabeth told me to answer like this or anything."
"Go on Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said forcefully, while glaring daggers at Frank who was rapidly losing courage. Percy huffed a sigh of exasperation.
"My name is Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon god of the sea and earthquakes. Slayer of the Minotaur; retriever of Zeus's lightning bolt; slayer of Medusa; retriever of the Golden Fleece; momentary holder of the sky; survivor of Daedalus' labyrinth; holder of the Achilles curse; savior of Olympus in the war against Kronos; slayer of the giant Polybotes; momentary praetor of New Rome; survivor of Tartarus; and savior of Olympus in the war against Gaia," finished Percy, obviously embarrassed.
"He's also liked by Artemis," Leo said, "who hates men."
"And Dionysus," Connor Stoll continued, joining in with the conversation, "who hates heroes."
"And Hades," finished Travis, "who dislikes humans." The demigods started laughing at the comments but us wizards didn't. Maybe because we didn't actually know these three gods and goddess, but maybe because we were too in awe of Percy to actually form a coherent thought.
"Wow," I said, George, Harry, and Hermione nodded along with me.
"See Annabeth! This is why I didn't want to tell them," Percy complained. "They are intimidated or something." He looked at us, "look most of these accomplishments were done with Annabeth here and my friend Grover – it wasn't just all me."
"Just like you Perce to try to sound less impressive that you actually are," commented the pale guy with the skull ring on his finger. "Anyways, my name is Nico and there is no way I'm saying my title after that one so let's move on shall we?" Everybody nodded.
"Who's going to represent Hogwarts in the tournament?" asked Jason.
"Well obviously the Golden Trio over here," answered George. We looked up at that nickname.
"We asked people to stop calling us that!" I frowned, while George stuck out his tongue at me. That made me frown even harder, how did he change so much since the train ride? The Stolls started laughing at the nickname, muttering about how they should call Percy, Annabeth and a guy named Grover that.
"The bad thing is that there has to be one representative from each House, so that means that a person from Slytherin is going to be in our group," complained Harry.
"Why are they so bad," said a musical voice. Everybody started in surprise at the newcomer's voice. A pretty girl blushed. Correction: she wasn't pretty, she was beautiful – and she wasn't even trying to be beautiful she just was. She had a caramel colored braid and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She started talking, "I'm Calypso, by the way. Sorry I'm late I was planting some moonlace in my balcony." Percy looked up at the plant's name and smiled.
"You know that the moonlace is still blooming like crazy in my balcony, right?" Percy asked, and Calypso nodded smiling slightly. She looked around and furrowed her eyebrows when she saw that there was no available seating space.
"Come over here babe," teased Leo, patting his lap. She laughed and went to sit down, when she passed through the circle the scent of cinnamon reached our ears. She kissed Leo's cheek and whispered something in his ears, making Leo smirk.
"So, um, what's wrong with Slytherin?" asked Frank.
"Almost all of the dark wizards have come out of Slytherin, ever," I said.
"They are pretty douchey," confirmed Harry, I nodded.
"The problem is that they take one of the main traits of their House which is cunning and use it to the wrong reasons," confirmed Hermione.
"But Malfoy has been, uh, nice to me after the war," said Harry. We all nodded, we had
seen it in action.
"Who's Malfoy?" Asked Nico.
"He's a blonde guy with silver eyes in Slytherin," Hermione continued, "he used to torment Harry, Ron, and me all the way through our six years at Hogwarts. He was even responsible for killing Dumbledore, one of the greatest men and wizards ever and our old headmaster. He chose the dark side, but was pardoned in the trials. Ever since he's been transformed into an actual human being."
"That's Draco Malfoy in a nutshell." I confirmed. Nico nodded and muttered something under his breath that sounded like "I noticed him" while blushing slightly.
Hermione looked at the watch in the wall, when she saw the time she gave a strangled sound. She stood up and said something that sounded like, I'm sorry but we need to go – it's really late and we have a busy day tomorrow. We all said our goodbyes (Harry and Percy laughing about a thing or another), and left. We had to drag George after us; apparently he was discussing a matter of life and death with the Stolls.
A/N: Sorry for such a bad chapter end! I made it a little bit longer this time. Anyways if you guys have any ideas over pranks the Stolls can do, or maybe an event for the tournament that you want to see happen just tell me in the reviews and I'll make it happen! Thanks for everything, and keep enjoying!
