~Anaia's pov~

'I'm going to lose my mind here!'

The Slytherins have been whispering since I got here and it was driving me crazy. They keep walking up to me and asking questions and I can't answer them. I follow the crowd of green-clad children to the Great Hall, trying my hardest to hide. As I near the hall, I can hear the whispers getting louder and louder, but no one else seems to notice.

'Oh gods, I'm going insane!'

I sat down and started eating cereal because that's what I always do. I've only ever eaten cereal for breakfast for as long as I can remember, even before I learned that Demeter was my mom. It's a little weird having my mom be the goddess of cereal but most things about me are a little weird. Suddenly, the whispers start up again and I look up to none other than Harry Potter himself. Last night, I had decided I should learn a bit about my cousin and read some stuff. It's odd that he's considered a hero for something he probably can't even remember.

Looking at my time table, I realize I have Double Potions with the Gryffindors today. I quickly finish my cereal and start walking to the potions classroom. I could proudly say that I learned the layout of the school earlier than most first years simply because I hate being lost. It makes me feel helpless and who wants to be a helpless demigod?

I had turned twelve two days ago and my father had sent me a little charm. It was the number 12 and I put it on my bracelet, replacing the 11 that I had gotten last year. It was a little tradition my father started when I turned four. I have all my past charms in a little box in dorm.

'I should ask Professor Flitwick for a charm to protect my box.' As I was thinking this the class started to fill up. I could see Harry with the redhead and smiled when they waved. Snape took role before launching into his speech about the glories of potions. I drifted off, staring at the torches that lined the walls.

"Potter!" I shot up like a bullet. It took me a few seconds to realize he was looking at Harry. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hermione's hand shot up in the air.

"I don't know, sir."

"Tut, tut-fame clearly isn't everything." Snape's lips curled into a sneer. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

I could tell Harry had no idea what to say. Draco and his bodyguards were shaking with laughter.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape was enjoying this far too much. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Hermione stood up and I couldn't help it, I started laughing. It was impossible not to at this point.

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"

"Sit down," the bat snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of the Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment as I placed mine down. I had been writing the entire time he was talking. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

As the lesson went on, Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching us weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Draco, who he seemed to like.

Then there was screaming. One of the little Gryffindors, Neville I think, somehow managed to melt a cauldron. Most of us didn't even think before we started standing on our stools. The potion was spreading across the floor while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville looked absolutely miserable as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him to the hospital wing," Snape spat at another Gryffindor. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.

"You - Potter - why didn't you tell him not to and the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point from Gryffindor."

Harry looked like he was going to protest but Ron kicked him.

An hour later, potions was over and I watched all the Gryffindors leave the dungeons before heading to the library with Hermione. The two of us had become pretty good friends and spent most of our free time in the library. Though I have a hard time reading English, a side effect of being a demigod, I loved being in the library.

"So what do we have to do today," I ask as I sit down with the book I've been trying to get through for almost two weeks.

"Not much," she says before looking at my book. "Still reading that?"

"Yep. It's getting easier but it's still infuriatingly hard." We stay there reading and studying until Hermione's next class. After she leaves, I go outside to find a secluded spot to train in. I couldn't very well explain to a normal child that I'm training to fight monsters, so I just train in hiding.

~3rd person pov~

Harry, Ron, Anaia, and Malfoy all stared at the notice pinned their common rooms. Harry was hating his life. Ron and Draco were disgusted by the thought of having Gryffindors and Slytherins together in flying lessons. Anaia was fiddling with her flower crown and praying to every god she knew that this wouldn't end in disaster.

At breakfast, Malfoy sauntered over to the Gryffindor table and snatched a small red ball out of Neville's hand. Harry and Ron immediately jumped to their feet, ready to defend Neville, but McGonagall spotted them and was there in a flash.

"What's going on?"

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.

"Just looking," he said, and sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. The Slytherins were already there, so we're twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground.

The teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Quickly, they all found a broom and some (mostly Gryffindors) were looking at the old brooms with distrust.

"Stick your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"Up!" everyone shouted.

Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione Granger's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Anaia's slowly rose before settling itself in her outstretched hand. She didn't even want to question why it behaved like that. She just hoped Zeus was in a good mood today.

Madam Hooch showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. The shock on Malfoy's face when she told him he'd been doing it wrong for years was priceless.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a couple meters, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - one - two -"

As always, Neville had to be the one to fuck up. He pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle. Harry saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and WHAM - a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his wrist. She helped him to his feet before turning to the rest of the class.

"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

~Anaia's pov~

No sooner were they out of earshot than Draco burst into laughter.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" he said, earning laughter from most of the Slytherins, excluding me.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a horridly annoying Slytherin girl. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

'Oh my fucking gods what is wrong with these first years?'

"Look!" said Draco, darting forward and snatching something off the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

"Give that here, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. All the rest of the nosy little first years stopped talking to watch.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find - how about - up a tree?"

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Draco had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. For someone who boasts so much about stuff he can't actually do, it was nice to see he could actually fly well. He hovered level with the top branches of an oak tree and called, "Come get it, Potter!"

And I shit you not, Harry grabbed his broom.

I went to stand by Hermione, who was muttering about how much of an idiot Harry is. I couldn't help but agree despite the fact that he was a natural in the air. You couldn't even tell that it was his first time flying.

Everyone gasped as Harry shot towards Draco, who barely got out of the way in time. People started clapping, then suddenly Draco threw the ball into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry dived for the ball. People screamed and Ron looked excited and terrified at the same time. Right before he hit the ground, he caught it, just in time to pull broom straight, and toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

"HARRY POTTER!" That was the sound of imminent death. "Never - in all my time at Hogwarts -"

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "- how dare you - might have broken your neck -"

"It wasn't his fault, Professor -"

"Be quiet, Miss Patil -"

"But Malfoy -"

"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

We all watched Harry trail behind McGonagall, like a prisoner on his way to execution. Draco and his goons looked just a little too smug.

"There. Now we've got one less idiot ruining Hogwarts' reputation."