6

Piper

When Piper woke up, she was surrounded by boys.

It wasn't quite a big surprise, because she was the daughter of Aphrodite. But waking up in a strange place with boys sighing and looking at her wasn't exactly Piper's way of beginning the day. Or continuing the day. Now that she thought of it, how long was she out?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a short, chubby kid in a school uniform yelling: "She's awake!" The call was followed by gasps and even more boys surrounding Piper. It was beginning to scare Piper, when suddenly the air became filled with ozone and it began thundering. A familiar voice said: "I'm sorry guys, but she's mine." Piper gave a little scream of joy, as she knew whose voice it was. She sat up and said happily: "Jason!"

The crowd parted, whispering things like "Did you see that?" and "Who is that?". But Piper didn't care about that. She jumped out of her bed and threw her arms around Jason. He laughed and hugged her. "Glad to see you're alright, Piper." he said. Ditto, Piper thought.

They stood there for a few more seconds, then another familiar voice called: "Hey Jason, are you going to tell us that thing you were talking about or should we give you two some more time alone?"

Piper looked to see who said it, and ,no surprise, Leo did. He and everyone else stood near a big wooden door waiting for them. Leo had a big grin on his face. Piper felt her face turning red, and pulled free from Jason. She and Jason walked to the group, where Hazel was giggling and Leo still grinning.

When they were with the rest, Piper again turned to Jason and asked: "You were going to tell them something, huh? And where's Annabeth?" Percy folded his arms and agreed: "Yeah, where's Annabeth?"

Jason shrugged and said: "She left with a girl, who has really weird powers, by the way. She pointed a stick at a cup and it flew straight into her hand! It didn't look like she was using powers like we the ones we have." Coach Hedge grumbled and then mumbled: "How dare that… girl take Annabeth." He straightened his T-shirt and looked around. Piper had a bad feeling about it, but she should see what he was planning to do first.

Coach Hedge finally seemed to have spotted something. It was a stick like the ones people support broken legs with, except the stick was broken, not the leg. The coach felt the wood, sniffed and said: "Yep, this'll do." Then he left the hall, running with the stick behind his head like a baseball bat. With a shock Piper realized what he was planning to do: find Annabeth and give everyone in his way a good beating. But it was too late to reason with him, so Piper ran after him. "Come on!" she yelled to her friends, accidently using charmspeak, so everyone in the room followed her out the door.

Piper ran and ran after coach Hedge, not knowing where she was going. She wondered how someone so short could run so fast. And not get lost in this huge place. Maybe he sniffed his way to Annabeth, she didn't know. Piper barely managed to dodge mobs of kids in school uniforms carrying heavy books and bags. She was now getting really curious about what this place was. Looked like some kind of school.

At some point, Hazel managed to catch up with her. Panting, Hazel asked: "What *gasp* are you *wheeze* doing, Piper?" Piper answered: "Making sure coach *pant* doesn't hurt anyone!"

At last, the coach seemed to have reached his destination: a great hall with five big tables filled with food and children, teens and grown-ups sitting at them. She heard coach Hedge shout: "Hey! Leave her alone, you cupcake!" and saw him swinging his stick behind the back of a red-headed boy, ready to strike. Thinking fast, she used the most powerful charmspeak she had to reach the coach's ears. She screamed: "STOP!"

Her charmspeak was so powerful everyone froze, as if time stood still. It was beautiful in a creepy way. Then the magic stopped working and everyone looked at her, confused. Piper wanted to turn invisible, before someone asked-

"Who are you?"

7

Annabeth

Annabeth's mind was blown.

Here she was, sitting at the Gryffindor House table, surrounded by witches and wizards in training with a bad guy of their own, Lord I'm-too-scared-to-say-his-name, who liked killing a bit too much. And a Ministry of Magic managing everything the wizarding world did on international scale. Somehow she had missed out on all that. And the wizards had somehow managed to not discover demigods, since Harry, Ron and Hermione were now gawking at here like she was some kind of rare animal in the zoo.

Then coach Hedge burst in the Great Hall and attempted to hit Ron with a heavy-looking stick, but Piper's charmspeak prevented it. Annabeth's mind went blank for a few seconds when Piper spoke, but then the charmspeak stopped working and she looked at Piper, who looked like she wanted to turn invisible really badly.

Dumbledore, the old man with the very long white beard, stood up and asked Piper: "Who are you?" Piper looked at her feet and tried to say something, but then the others –Percy, Jason, Leo, Hazel and Frank- stormed in and knocked her over. They landed on top of each other and after she recovered from the shock, Piper said with a high voice: "Guys… I can't… Breathe!" Everyone wriggled and tried to get off Piper. After a few seconds they managed and the Hogwarts students couldn't stop laughing.

But Dumbledore quickly silenced them. He sighed, then said: "I don't like to repeat myself, but who are you? I recognize you from the shipwreck last evening, but that's all."

Annabeth could hear them gulping, and knew they didn't really know how to explain. So Annabeth rolled her eyes, stood up and walked to them to help them out. When she stood next to Percy, she winked to him in a way that said, it's okay, I got this. He smiled and Annabeth got the feeling he was again really grateful to have her help him out.

Annabeth stepped forward and spread her hands while saying: "We are the crew of the Argo ll, the ship that, apparently, crashed yesterday. I'm Annabeth. These are Percy, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Jason and Frank. They came running in here because I think coach Hedge, the guy with the stick," –she gave him an accusatory look- "thought someone had kidnapped me or something. The others ran after him to stop him before he smashed Ron's head." She gestured at Ron. "And to quote you, sir, 'that's all.'" Annabeth saw Dumbledore stroke his beard thoughtfully and hoped she didn't say anything wrong.

At last, Dumbledore stopped stroking his beard thoughtfully and said: "Well, if you really don't mean any harm, I suppose we could as well offer you breakfast."

Annabeth smiled and said: "Thank you. I've already had breakfast, but some extra wouldn't hurt, right guys?"

Annabeth led her friends to the place where Harry, Ron and Hermione had been sitting all this time and explained to them where they were. A bit shorter than her new friends did, but it would have to do.

While her friends were eating, Harry asked Annabeth: "Hey, Annabeth, before we were interrupted, you said to be the daughter of a goddess. Could you explain that?"

Annabeth nodded. "Of course. Don't know why I should keep it a secret, as I've already said it. You, know, like magic and wizards and witches, demigods are real. I don't know if you know what they are, but they're the children of a god or goddess and a human. I'm the daughter of the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena. All my friends are demigods too. And they all have their own power. For example, Piper used charmspeak –the ability to make someone do whatever you want for a few seconds- to stop coach Hedge from hurting you, Ron."

Hermione frowned and said: "Wow. That's… so odd. That we never knew of your existence, and vice versa, I guess. But why did you come here with that ship?"

"We were on our way to defeat-"

The ground shook. It started storming in the ceiling and students screamed. Before the High Table, dust and leaved swirled around in a miniature tornado, before taking the shape of a woman in a green flowing dress with a serene smile and closed eyes. When she'd fully taken form, the storming and shaking stopped and the scared students looked at the unexpected visitor.

Annabeth gasped.

"Her."