A/N: the answer for the last chapter was F, of course the twins would have swapped jumpers that's what makes them so great. Anyway, this chapter is for Black Gryphon101 with cookies here for:

Engimatic Person (They were in cones, but Thalia had hers and Percy's she gave it to him when he arrived)

Kat Callen

Therna Blakheart

Now, on with the chapter.


Nico's PoV

I was just looking around aimlessly while we were eating our ice creams when my eyes unconsciously locked onto the strong magical aura that was coming towards us. Realising that it was Hecate, I let my eyes focus instead of sliding away, but what I saw in her arms made me choke on my treat. Somewhere off to my left, I heard Thalia curse a little, but I was more focused on what our chaperone was carrying.

I could plainly see the wild grin on her face as she rushed towards us, her arms wrapped around 4 balls of… fluff (what the Hades was she doing with them?) with another one perched on her shoulder. As she got closer however, I could hear them squeaking slightly, that must have been what surprised Thalia earlier seeing as she had the best hearing out of all of us. Still, no matter how much the 4 of us studied the strange fur balls, none of us had an answer to what they were when she stopped dead in front of our little group. Then, my curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to ask.

"Um… He- I mean, professor Hex, what are they?"

I regretted those words as soon as I saw the more than slightly insane light in the goddesses eyes flare up. I had only run into Hecate twice before now, but it was enough to let me know that she was the most childish deity there seemed to be, and her idea of 'normal' was more than a little off centre. Still, they couldn't be all that dangerous could they? Her arms tightened slightly around the squeaking furby things before she answered.

"Pigmy Puffs, aren't they sweet?"

I'm pretty sure that I wasn't alone in throwing a concerned look at her for this, but, before we could protest, she had shoved one of the balls into each of her hands then started petting the one on her shoulder which began making a contented chirping sound.

Still completely gob smacked I glanced down at the little black thing that was now sniffing my arms from where it sat in my left hand, humming a little as it bounced up and down. Okay, it was soft, and it was kind of cute, but why did we have these? Catching our confused glances between each other, Hecate sighed happily and made her own ice cream appear out of thin air which she then began feeding to her… puff thingy.

"Oh, come on, Hogwarts allows you to take a pet with you so I thought it would be nice for you all to have different pets to the normal owls or cats, anyway, these little guys can be really useful… well, then can now that I've finished with them anyway."

Yes, that was very reassuring. Not only were we going to be the laughing stock of the school with these things, but they were also genetically modified experiments of a lunatic with magic. Perfect. Apparently however, I was the only one to think that as Annabeth actually had to tear her eyes away from the glowing silver puffle in her hand to ask the question that we were all thinking, before going back to adoring her new pet.

"What do you mean 'now that your done with them?' And how are they useful?"

Oh no, it looked like Hecate had been wanting someone to ask that… please just kill me now.

"Well, I just tweaked their nature a little bit, gave them some new colours and stuff, oh, and they can sense monsters that are near by and help you find each other if you ever get separated. That, and tell them what time you want to get up and they make amazing alarm clocks! Oh, by the way, you may want to give them names, Thalia and Annabeth, yours are guys where as Nico and Percy have girls."

With that, she walked off, leaving us to follow hurriedly in her wake, still, as we all but ran after her, I couldn't help but glance at the bouncing ball of fluff in my hand every 5 seconds as it tried to reach my other hand. In the end, I gave up and let it eat the rest of my ice cream to keep it quiet and, after that, it was content to sit as a small patch of warmth on my shoulder. In fact, it was so quiet that I was beginning to think that it had fallen asleep as we entered the cauldron shop, then the apochraphy.

We were just leaving this shop, our arms weighed down with bags full of potion ingredients when I remembered what our guide had said about naming the little creatures. It was then that my eyes fell on the shelf of poisons just to the left of the door I was just walking out off. Grinning slightly, I pet the puff thing on what I thought was its head and whispered across to it.

"How about the name Pavetta, make you sound cute and deadly."

She started humming again which I guess was her way of saying she approved and I hurried off after the others just as they entered into what must have been a book shop judging from the display out front. As we walked in however, it was only to find it much more crowded than I had anticipated, there was a long line seemingly made up entirely of middle aged women, heading right from the back of the shop up to here, all of whom were jostling around the book selves and chattering nervously amongst themselves. For a moment, I was more than a little surprised and almost walked into Annabeth as she had stopped dead in her tracks, but then I saw a large banner that said something about a book signing so I guess that explained it all.

Moving my eyes from the cue however, I finally found out what had stopped the daughter of Athena short and nearly laughed at the longing expression on her face as she gazed dreamily around the store which was stocked, floor to ceiling, with rows and rows of books. I suppose this was her kind of paradise, though the others were faring little better. Taking in the shocked expressions on my cousins' faces, I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle my sniggers, though this place was pretty cool, what with all the books on dark arts and hexes I could see from between the robes of the gathered crowd. Checking to see that Hecate was completely occupied by checking our book lists, I quietly slipped away to examine one of the piles more closely. I was just flipping through the pages of 'Dark Wizards through out History' when I heard a slightly familiar voice.

"Oh, you're one of the ones from out side Gringotts earlier right? I don't remember catching your name."

I snapped the book shut quickly and looked up into the grey eyes of that pale, weasel faced kid from earlier. Standing behind him was a man that must have been his father, who was looking at the title of the book in my hands with a slight smirk on his face. Gods did I want to punch him, but, deciding that it was better to keep that particular opinion to myself, I merely stuck my hand out to the brat and put on my most bored voice to answer.

"Nico Di'Angelo, and you are?"

I noticed him flinch slightly when he felt my ice cold skin and had to fight to keep a grin off of my face while he answered, his thin, nasily voice was beginning to hurt my ears.

"Draco Malfoy, I'm a second year at Hogwarts."

I nodded at this, and started looking around to see if any of the others could come and rescue me from the mini dragon wannabe, but they were all distracted with their own interests and I was left to deal with this stupid situation on my own. Suddenly, something the boy said clicked in my head and I remembered Annabeth saying something about it earlier.

"Oh, that means we are going to be in the same year then, I think, I'm still not too sure about the British age thing when it comes to school."

He smirked slightly at my words and was about to make what I was sure was going to be an incredibly irritating and petulant comment when he stopped short, glaring at something over my shoulder, his little eyes narrowing to near slits. Intrigued and silently congratulating who ever it was who made this moron so irritated, I turned to see a skinny boy with black hair and glasses get pulled to the front of the crowd by the guy we had run into earlier. Wow, this really was a small world.

I looked back to see if I could get an explanation from the guy behind me, but he was just glaring at the boy up front and muttering under his breath so fast that it was hard to make out more than the odd word, though I am fairly sure that I heard the words 'Perfect Potter' and 'Fawning Imbeciles.' At first I didn't understand what was going on (the little guy hopping around with his camera and purple smoke really wasn't help in that aspect) but then I remembered one of dad's rants about this kid named Harry Potter that just wouldn't die… that and some guy named Tom Riddle.

Actually interested now, I poked Draco in the ribs, making him jump but turn around to face me, his eyes finally left the two people at the front and focused on my face. Trying not to give away my sudden attentiveness, I worked to keep my apathetic tone as I asked him if that boy was Harry Potter, though I guess I wasn't doing too good of a job as his face darkened quite considerably.

"Yes, why did you want to know anyway, do you want to go fawn over him too?"

Wow, someone was really having some issues with a certain green monster, though I don't think it will be very tactful to mention that fact to him. Instead, I settled for inspecting the runt of a kid that was up in clear view, not even trying to hide the thoughtfulness in my voice this time.

"Nope, I just thought… from hearing my father's rants about how much he hates him, that he would be a little more, I don't know… Impressive?"

Completely shocking me out of my contemplation of Harry, Draco suddenly cracked up laughing before clapping me on the shoulder mumbling something that sounded like 'I knew I liked you' while his dad was fighting a grin as he shushed us.

"Obviously from your accent young Nico, you are not from around here, but, just some quick advise, it would not do well for people to hear you speaking ill of the Potter boy around here. He is loved for being the downfall of one of the strongest dark wizards of the age so you must watch your language, no matter what you may think of him… privately."

After this however, I seemed to have become the pale kid's best friend from the way he started prattling on to me about menial matters and I was almost glad when I saw Thalia approaching with a murderous look in her eyes. Almost being the operative word there.

"We were wondering where you disappeared off to zombie boy, Professor Hex was spouting some nonsense about you being swallowed up by a giant black dog thing and the bloody kelp head was actually believing her. Come on, we're leaving, now!"

With that, I barely had time to shoot an apologetic look back at a rather shocked Malfoy family before my cousin dragged me bodily from the shop, Pavetta squeaking happily on my shoulder. When she finally let me stand on my own feet, I stood there glaring at Thalia, but I made a mental note to thank her later, if I was ever in the mood I mean. I think, when we get to that school, I have found someone else that I want to avoid as much as possible.


A/N: There you have the new chapter, I hope you liked it. Anyway, this chapter's question is:

What was Aunt Marge's favourite bull dog called?