Thank you all for reading this, I love waking up to a ton of emails telling me that you guys enjoyed it, it makes my day :)
Disclaimer: I am a 16 year old girl. I do not own anything, including the song "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé, or "Let it Go" from Frozen for that matter.
On with the story!
Hermione
I was sitting in the girl's room reading my Potions textbook for the next year when they arrived. Mrs. Weasley had informed us that we would be taking in some American Exchange students, all of which would be in mine, Harry and Ron's year. They were staying here because until the school year started, because they had nowhere else to stay. We had three extra beds set up in the girls room and five in the boys room for their arrival, one of which I had used to store all of my books. I knew that I would have to move them once they got here, but that was the least of my worries.
We haven't been allowed to contact Harry all summer. I only went home for about a week before I came here. We had asked several times if we could write to him, but each time it was too dangerous to risk it. I wondered what Harry was thinking, not being able to talk to anyone or know anything that was going on. I doubt he knew that the entire world thought he was lying about You-Know-Who.
As I sat on my bed I heard the unmistakable pounding of Ron's footsteps coming up the stairs. Sighing, I closed my book, knowing that when Ron ran like that I wasn't going to get much more reading in.
Just as I set the book down the door burst open to reveal a panting Ron who looked overly excited.
"The exchange kids are here, come on!" Ron told me with a huge grin plastered on his face. Suddenly much more interested than I was a second ago, I jumped out of my bed and followed him down the man flights of stairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, almost everybody was standing in the living room, including the eight new kids.
I was almost surprised by their appearance. They looked like your average kids, but they seemed off in a way. I don't know what set it off, but they looked older than 15. It might have been the sad look in all of their eyes, like they had just come home from war. It was the same look Harry had last year when he had arrived at the house a few days ago.
"Hermione! Come down here dear, we all introduced ourselves already. I want you to meet our new guests." Mrs. Weasley told me, beckoning me with her hand. I walked down the stairs as all of the new kids eyed me and I suddenly grew a strong interest in the floor boards.
"This is Hermione Granger." Mrs. Weasley told the eight kids that stood in front of me.
"Hi." I told them. I tried to look pleased, but I was cautious around them. I felt like these were the kind of kids that I didn't want on my bad side.
"It's nice to meet you Hermione." The boy with blond hair and a small scar on his lip said with an American accent. For an American, he was very good looking. He was tall and I could tell that underneath his t shirt he was very well built.
"Why don't all of you introduce- wait where are Fred and George?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking around the room. A second later, the twins apparated inside the room, laughing hysterically.
"You rang." One of the twins said to their mother. I could never tell those two apart, no matter how hard I tried.
"Just because you can use magic now does not mean you can use it for every little thing!" Mrs. Weasley yelled, her face turning red. The boys just laughed in response.
"Relax mother you'll blow your top off, which I'm sure dad would enjoy very much." One of them said to her, and he had to quickly duck from Mrs. Weasley's hand. I noticed one of them caught sight of the eight new kids standing in the center of the room.
"Are these the Americans?" The twin asked, pointing at them.
"Yep, we're from the land of burgers, pizza and freedom." The Hispanic boy said with a grin on his face. He was wearing white t-shirt with an army jacket and work boots. I got a feeling like he would be getting along with Fred and George just fine.
The twins laughed at his response, and exchanged a glance between each other.
"Alright, introduce yourselves you two." Their mother told them.
"Well I'm George and this is Fred." George said, pointing to his brother.
"Or I could be George and he could be Fred." Fred said, pointing to his brother.
"You'll never know." They said in unison, crossing their arms with a smirk on their face.
"Enough you two, why don't you introduce all tell us your names." Mrs. Weasley said, turning toward the new kids.
The boy with shaggy black hair and green eyes that reminded me a lot of Harry went first.
"Well, I'll go first. Hi, I'm Percy Jackson." Percy said. I immediately looked toward the Weasleys, all of which had tensed up. Percy was a name that no one even dared to bring up in the house. Mrs. Weasley looked like she was trying to hold back tears.
"Did I do something wrong?" Percy asked, noticing the sudden change in all of our attitudes.
"No, no of course not dear, you just have the same name as…why don't you go next dear." Mrs. Weasley said, changing the subject. Percy didn't say another word as Mrs. Weasley pointed to the blonde girl who looked like she could kill you with her bare hands.
"Hi, my name is Annabeth Chase, thank you all for taking us in." Annabeth said, her hand finding Percy's. Percy leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead. He looked up and eyed the room, as if daring us to say anything.
"Well alright, and may I say that you two are adorable." Mrs. Weasley said with a loving grin. Annabeth and Percy turned red at her comment, and looked in every direction but Mrs. Weasleys eyes.
After a few seconds of silence, the girl in the back spoke up. I have to admit, she was stunning. Even with her choppy haircut and baggy clothes.
"Hi, I'm Piper McLean." Piper said, waving at us. I thought I recognized her last name from some movie actor, but I wasn't sure.
"Hey." Ron said dreamily, eyeing her up and down like he was under some spell. I looked back and realized that every teenage boy was eyeing her the same way. I hit Ron on the arm, which got a small reaction out of him before he directed his attention back to Piper.
I was going to say something but the blonde boy who spoke to me earlier beat me to it. He stepped in front of Piper and quickly spoke.
"I'm Jason Grace, Piper's boyfriend." Jason said. And to prove his point, he leaned into her and start to snog her in front of everyone. Ginny and I couldn't help but laugh at the defeated look on the three boy's faces. When he pulled away he glared angrily at each one of them.
The room filled with awkward tension before the Asian boy in the back spoke up.
"I'm Frank Zhang, and I just want to point out that I'm not actually American." Frank said.
"You sound like you are." Ron said.
"Honestly Ronald, have you ever heard of Canada." I told him. Frank looked at me and smiled.
"Oh, sorry Frank." Ron said, growing pink in the ears.
"Not a problem." He replied.
"Well I'm Leo Valdez. Bad boy supreme. And I am also not dating any of them." He said, then proceeded to sing "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé. I tried to contain myself at first, but I only lasted a few seconds. I laughed into my hand as I watched him attempt to perform the dance from the music video. All of his friends started laughed along with me, but everybody else just stared at him like he had two heads.
"What?" Fred asked, staring at him. Leo stopped and stared back at Fred.
"Oh come on, tell me you've heard of Beyoncé." Leo asked us, looking around. I was the only one who nodded yes.
"Seriously, only Hermione?" Leo asked again.
"Man, just let it go." Jason told him. Leo eyes widened to the size of saucers as his smile grew even bigger. Every single one of the eight's heads snapped to Jason as his eyes widened in horror as he realized what he had just said.
"LET IT GO! LET IT GO! CAN'T HOLD IT BACK ANYMOOOOOORE!" Leo sang at the top of his lungs, stretching his arms out and dancing around the room. All of the new kids groaned, except for Percy, who just laughed. I heard one of them mutter, "Here we go again."
"HERE I STAND IN THE LIGHT OF DAAAAAYYYY!" Percy sang with Leo, joining in. They threw their arms around each other as their friends started to beg them to stop.
"LET THE STORM RAGE OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!" They screamed together, throwing their heads up to the ceiling. Even though most of us didn't know what was going on, we were all laughing at Leo and Percy's sudden outburst into song and his friend's efforts to get them to stop.
"The cold never bothered me anyway." They said together, taking a bow. Some of us clapped when they were done, but Fred and George clapped the loudest.
"Don't encourage them." Jason sighed. Percy and Leo laughed together at his response.
"Were you two by any chance raised by muggles?" George asked, still laughing.
"We all were." Percy told him.
"Well that was definitely something, I must say, but let's let the others introduce themselves before we start singing again shall we?" Mrs. Weasley asked, the two boys apologized and headed back to their spots in the circle. Percy received a playful slap on the arm from Annabeth. He faked pain as he looked to Annabeth with a hurt expression, before she pushed him away, laughing to herself.
"Well I'm Hazel Levesque and I really can't top that." She said, blushing a bit. I noticed her accent was more southern than the rest, showing that she grew up away from all of them.
"I'm Nico." The last boy said. He was dressed in all black, with a leather jacket and a skull t-shirt underneath. He hadn't said anything until now, and he gave me a horrible feeling. Not the feeling that I should be scared of him, even though I still was, it felt like he had been through a lot in his life, I could tell just by reading his expression.
"It's very nice to meet you dear. Well, welcome all of you. I know the place is a bit grim, but I assure you that Hogwarts is simply magnificent. We were all just about to have dinner, would you care to join us?" Mrs. Weasley asked. They looked around at us, looking like they were trying to take it all in. I didn't know what there was to take in, 6 red heads, two scruffy men in their 30s and a girl with bushy hair. Though they acted like it was the best sight in the world.
"Yeah we'd love that." Piper said, smiling.
Percy
Diner with the Order was fantastic. Not only was Mrs. Weasley a great cook, like Dumbledore had promised, she was also one of the nicest women I have ever met. She gave us much food as we asked for, and it was all amazing. We sat and talked with them for at least an hour, Fred and George sharing embarrassing stories about Ron and Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley sharing embarrassing stories about them in return.
They asked about our pasts, where we grew up and what school that we went to before. We told them that we went to the school Dumbledore had told us to tell him, and the rest was mostly lies. I felt bad about lying to them, because had taken us in, gave us a place to sleep and feed us, but we didn't have a choice.
At the end of the dinner we offered to help clean up, but Mrs. Weasley said that we didn't have to. Then our dishes proceeded to rise off of the tables and float into the kitchen.
Floating dishes, okay, that's fine. Completely and totally normal. I thought to myself. I learned a while ago that if you don't question the things that happened in in the wizard world, then it wouldn't be as surprising.
"Hey have you guys ever played Quidditch?" Ron asked us.
"No we haven't, but a lot of us want to learn, we have our own brooms." Jason said.
"That's great we can teach you!" Ron exclaimed, looking very excited.
"No we can't, what do you think the muggles would say if they saw a bunch of kids flying on a broomstick?" Fred asked Ron. I saw the excitement die down in his eyes, I could tell that he really enjoyed that sport.
"Hey why don't we show them around upstairs?" Ginny asked. They all nodded in agreement, so we started to stand up to follow them.
"Wait, can you all stay down here for a second, we want to have a word with you." Sirius Black said. I was a little weary of that man after he introduced himself earlier. He seemed more Sirius than the others. (Sorry, I had to.)
"Okay, what's wrong?" Hermione asked. Sirius just shook his head.
"Not you, our guests." Sirius told her. She blushed a bit, but her eyebrows pursed together in suspicion. I was going to have to be careful of that girl, she seemed onto us the moment she walked down those stairs, and she knew that something was up.
She didn't say anything as she walked out of the room, followed by the others. Once they were gone, we were left in the alone in the room with the members of the Order.
"How are you all adjusting to Britain?" Sirius asked, trying to make us feel more comfortable. The attempt failed miserably, because the whole awkward tension feeling from before fell over the room again.
"Uh, we're doing fine." I told him, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, looking around the room.
"Listen, Dumbledore told us why you were all here, to protect Harry while he's in school since we can't do it ourselves." Sirius told us, sitting down in the chair folding his hands together while looking at all of us.
"That's right." Jason spoke for us, putting his arms around Piper's waist.
"Now tell me, and please answer me truthfully, have any of you protected anything in your life?" Sirius asked.
Oh you know, only the world. Twice. I thought to myself.
"Yes we have." I answered him. He eyed us suspiciously.
"Well what makes you all so special, why did he have to take eight kids from America instead of just taking some that already went to school with Harry?" He asked us. We all exchanged glances, knowing that we couldn't tell the truth.
"We can't tell you." Leo told him. I would have gone with saying that we were Ninjas or something, but that worked to.
"Why not? He is my god son, some of the only family I have left. I should have the right to know." Sirius begged, looking desperate this time. I suddenly felt bad for him, he was just looking out for him.
"Dumbledore said that you would find out eventually, but now just wasn't the right time." Annabeth told Sirius, trying to make things better.
"None of you are going to tell us are you?" Mr. Weasley asked after a few seconds of silence. We all just stared at him with blank expressions, which was a good enough answer for him.
"All right, no point in fighting. What we really wanted to say was that something has risen that will be a problem." Sirius told us with sad eyes. We all stood straight up, giving him our full and undivided attention.
"What problem?" Hazel asked instantly.
"Harry is currently living with his aunt and uncle across town, and today he was attacked by two dementors. He was forced to use magic to ward them off, but that is against the law. He was expelled from Hogwarts, but the ruling was temporarily over turned. There will be a trial, but if he is found guilty, he will be expelled without a second thought. More members of the order will be picking him up tomorrow night, and they will be staying here with us." Sirius told us. A pit dropped in my stomach. I wasn't to upset about not going to Hogwarts, but I was worried how we were going to make it look like nothing when we dropped out of Hogwarts just as Harry had.
"I guess we will have to wait and see if he is found innocent." Frank sighed. I sighed along with him, and so did the rest of the group, because we were all thinking the same thing. Was changing into to 15 year olds really for nothing?
"Go join the other kids dears, they are all waiting for you upstairs." Mrs. Weasley told us, basically pushing us out the door.
We shuffled up the stairs to find the four kids at the top. They all looked startled as the saw us, and Fred was shoving something inside his pocket.
"You guys okay?" Piper asked, and they all nodded in unison.
"Yeah we're fine, hey why don't we get to bed it's getting late." Ron said, hurrying off to his room. We all looked at each other, knowing they did something that they didn't want us to know about. We all agreed through glances that we wouldn't ask about it.
"Alright let's go." Frank said, giving Hazel a kiss before following Ron down the hallway. Jason and I did the same thing before walking with Fred and George to our bedroom.
It was smaller than the room that we had in Scotland, but I didn't care. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor was 5 times better than sleeping in the depths of Tartarus.
We started to get changed into our pajamas, when I heard George speak behind me.
"Bloody Hell mate, what happened to your back?" He asked, staring at me with wide eyes. Fred and Ron looked and immediately started to stare just like George.
I gave them a pass, being a half blood doesn't make your skin desirable to look at. Throughout the years, especially in that short time in Tartarus, I had gotten many scars. My back happened to look like someone came at it with an axe, which happened a few times.
"I fell in a wood chipper." I told them without thinking, not bothering to look back at them. I quickly pulled one of my camp T-shirts on. It no longer read Camp Half-Blood though, Dumbledore had taken the time to charm all of our shirts so they would read something completely different. This one happened to have a name of a random charity on the front and said the word "VOLUNTEER" on the back.
"What's a wood chipper?" Ron asked. I just sighed, it was amazing how much these kids didn't know.
"It's a…never mind." I tried to explain, before giving up. We all sat down on our beds, though we didn't lay down.
"So what house do you think you're going to be sorted into?" Ron asked, trying to start up a conversation.
"What are we going to be sorted into?" Leo asked in confusion. Ron laughed and looked at us to see if he was joking, but our confused glares gave him his answer.
"Come on, tell me that you have heard of the four houses." Ron asked, looking around us. We all shook our heads no.
"There isn't a lot of talk of Hogwarts back home." Jason said.
"Are you serious? Well when you get to Hogwarts, the sorting hat will sort you into one of the four houses, where you will live, sleep, and spend most of your time. Your sorted based on your personalities. The smart ones go into Ravenclaw, the brave go into Gryffindor, which is the house that we are all in. The loyal and kind hearted go into Hufflepuff and the cunning go into Slytherin." Ron told us.
I felt like a brick had hit me over the head.
"Smart, Loyal, Brave and Cunning." That's what the prophecy had said. I suddenly realized what that line of the prophecy had meant. It was probably how Chiron knew that we were supposed to come here.
"Hello, Earth to Americans!" Fred yelled, waving his arm to get our attention.
I snapped out of my state of shock and said "What?!" Like the smooth criminal I am.
"Are you guys okay, you all just blanked out for a few seconds." Fred told us, which told me that we all got the message.
"Dude we're all exhausted." Leo said, making up a lie to cover up for our sudden epiphany.
"But, it's only eight at night." Ron told us.
"Yeah but it's like 4 am where I'm from." Jason said, rubbing his eyes and laying down. I knew for a fact that he was full of horse crap, but I played along.
"Yeah, I'm going to bed." I said, adding a fake yawn for special effect. The four of us said our goodnights, and the brothers decided to go to bed as well. Right before they turned off the light, I caught a glimpse of what Fred had shoved in his pocket before, it must have fallen out when he threw his pants casually aside.
I must have seen it wrong, because it looked like a pair of severed human ears.
AND AFTER FOUR CHAPTERS, THE PLOT ACTUALLY MOVES FORWARD A BIT!
Wow two chapter in 24 hours. Jus don't expect this to happen all the time, I just really wanted to post this today to say happy birthday to two people who have changed my life dramatically.
So, even though I'm an hour late, HAPPY 34TH BRITHDAY TO THE ONE AND ONLY HARRY POTTER AND MAMA ROWLING!
(PS if you could check out the HP fic called Lillian and Rose and the Forbidden Expedition by HPletterPJform, It's really good.)