Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Or Pokémon- also, I looked it up. The first Pokémon game in the US was in 1998.

Edited by Mellie Erdmann.

Chapter 10: Halloween

The rest of September passed by in a blur. On the first day of October, a Tuesday, Percy saw Draco sneaking up the stairs after dinner. Ron was busy talking to Sean and Dean (presumably yet another football vs. Quidditch debate) while Hermione was reading a book, so Percy followed Draco alone.

But at the base of the stairs he found Neville clutching his toad Trevor. Curiously he asked, "Where are you going, Potter?"

"Draco is up to something, and I want to make sure that-" Percy began, but then Hermione questioned from behind them, "What are you two doing?"

Neville began to explain he was asking 'Harry Potter' that very question, so Percy dashed up the stairs. He ignored their calls of 'wait up' and hurried upward just in time to see Draco disappear through the entrance to the third floor. Jumping over the trick step, Percy kept going up. He paused in the doorway, Neville and Hermione catching up to him.

"Where's Malfoy?" demanded Hermione. She had been cold towards the Slytherin ever since the flying lesson incident. Neville pointed. "There. He's heading towards the Charms corridor."

The trio followed Malfoy at a distance until he stopped at the door at the end of the corridor. He kept rattling the doorknob and pressing his weight against it. Hermione frowned. "Wait… this is the Charms corridor on the third floor. And that's the left…"

"Malfoy wants to suffer a painful death?" Neville frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

With a shrug Percy approached the blonde boy. "Hey, Draco. What's up?"

Draco just looked awkward before sneering at him. "None of your business, Potter."

"You aren't supposed to go through this door," pointed Hermione, walking up to the two boys. Neville hovered by the doorway for another thirty seconds before hurrying over to join the cluster.

"Go away," snapped Draco. From the other side of the door came a rumbling growl.

Neville paled. "Something… alive is on the other side of that door. Something big."

Draco got out his wand and tapped it on the handle. "The stupid door is locked."

"Really, Malfoy, the unlocking spell is Alohomora, I mean it's not that hard unless you're trying to do wordless magic but that's very advanced-"

Hermione's lecture was cut short by Draco pointing his wand at the brass doorknob and stating clearly, "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and Draco swung the door open as another growl nearly shook the floor. All four sucked in their breath. On the other side was a huge black-furred dog, one so huge that it could barely fit between the floor and ceiling. Even worse, it had three heads, all with drooling mouths full of sharp teeth. Very quietly Neville shut the door just as the heads noticed their presence and the six eyes lit up with eagerness.

"Why would there be a Cerberus in Hogwarts?" wondered Draco.

Interested, Hermione asked, "Why was it standing on a trapdoor?"

"Why was it in Hogwarts?" squeaked out Neville, leaning against the wall.

Percy ruffled his perpetually messy hair. He had a bad feeling about this. "Is there anywhere safer to keep something than Gringotts?"

"Hogwarts," chorused all three. Percy knocked sharply on the door, eliciting a frustrated growl from the dog's heads, replying, "Something fishy is going on here. Probably something involving that attempted theft this summer at Gringotts…"

"Oh!" went Hermione, her eyes widening. "That's it! The vault's owner knew someone was going to try to steal it-"

"So the vault was emptied and whatever it was brought here for safekeeping. The Cerberus is a guard dog…" Neville finished, clutching Trevor to his chest. Flushed, he wondered, "But what could it be?"

"No idea," Draco shrugged, clearly discomforted.

"Look, we need to go study in the library with Ron, Harry," Hermione commented. Percy looked over at Neville and Draco.

"Do you two want to join us? We can do homework and figure out the mystery of the Cerberus. That is, as long as you remain civil, Draco."

Draco looked torn, but finally nodded. "At least she's not stupid like Crabbe and Goyle."

Hermione looked somewhere between offended and amused at Draco's comment. In the end she just muttered a locking spell on the door.

Neville smiled and nodded weakly, still traumatized from the giant three-headed dog. "I'd like that."

So the four made their way to the library, where Ron was at their usual table, flipping idly through the Potions textbook. Hermione dumped her bag of books on the table.

"We made a truce with Draco after he inadvertently helped us realize what's going on with the attempted Gringotts break-in."

Ron glowered at the pale-haired boy. "As long as he doesn't insult my family or you, Hermione, I guess I won't hex him."

Draco just sneered at him as he sat down opposite the redhead. Hermione sat down next to Ron while Neville took the seat on Ron's other side. That left Percy with the seats on either side of Draco, so he went with the one to the right.

"So what is with the Gringotts break-in?" asked Ron.

Hermione explained, "The vault's owner knew there'd be a successful break-in eventually so he had the item taken out before that could happen and it is now somewhere past the forbidden corridor on the third floor, guarded by a Cerberus."

"Wait… a Cerberus?" blinked Ron. "Aren't those giant three-headed dogs?"

Neville nodded, putting Trevor on the table. He gulped, "It was scary."

Draco snorted and rolled his eyes at the obviousness of Neville's comment, so Percy gave him a warning glare. After a few minutes of theorizing of what the item could be that it was so valuable to multiple wizards, the five got down to their homework.

For the next several days their study group met after dinner until Ron persuaded Hermione that next Friday they should go out to do their homework in the Quidditch bleachers to watch the Gryffindor team practice. As there were two Gryffindors, a Hufflepuff who liked the Weasleys, and a Slytherin who thought it would be a prime opportunity to snark, Hermione was severely outnumbered.

So as the sun lowered in the sky the quintet of first-years made their way out to the Quidditch field. As they did their History essays, Percy watched the seven swoop around on their brooms. Casually he commented, "I still don't get the big deal about Quidditch."

Ron groaned and shook his head disappointedly at Percy while Draco looked at him affronted.

"It's the greatest sport of all time!"

"Please, hacky sack is a better game. Heck, even Pokémon is a better game," Percy scoffed. The other four just looked at him funny. Even Hermione, which made Percy realize to his horror that Pokémon might not exist yet. The cornerstone of Percy's pop culture… gone. Time travel sucked when you were going back in time.

"It's a Muggle thing… whatever. I still don't get the roles of the players," Percy grumbled.

Neville looked bemused. "It's not that hard to understand, Harry. There's the Keeper, the Seeker, two Beaters, and three Chasers."

"Yeah, but what do they do?" grumbled Percy. Ron shook his head sadly, his eyes on his older brothers playing out on the field. "We kept trying to explain it to you, but you kept going off out of boredom."

Draco shook his head at Percy. Folding his arms across his chest, Percy defended himself. "I can't believe there are four balls in the game. Isn't one enough?"

"But they all serve different purposes," an exasperated Draco told Percy. "The Quaffle is used to score points through the three hoops guarded by the Keeper. But they're thrown by the Chasers."

"The hoops look like the bubble making wands Muggle kids like to play with," observed Hermione airily as she did her Charms homework. Looking at the closer trio of fifty-foot-tall hoops Percy had to laugh, "You're right, Hermione! How could I have missed it!"

"Bubble making wands?" Draco echoed in confusion. An angry Ron told him, "Sticks Muggle kids use to blow bubbles with some solution. Dad told me about them."

"Oh. Of course."

Ron gave the blonde boy a death glare before turning back to Percy. "Anyway, Harry, the two Bludgers zoom around trying to knock the players off their brooms. The Beaters have short, squat bats to use to keep the Bludgers away from their team's players and towards the opposing team's members."

"And then there's the Snitch," Draco interrupted. "The Seeker has to be the fastest player on the team, because the Snitch is a small, fast ball. Catching it results in ending the game and a one-hundred fifty points to the catcher's team. But if the other team's players are good enough, they can still win."

"Whatever. It's confusing and I don't like flying," Percy grumbled. Neville nodded his fervent agreement.

Draco gave Percy an odd look. "What about that day, Potter?"

"Not stopping bullying is worse," Percy shrugged, finishing his History essay.

Draco looked over at Neville. "By the way, sorry for stealing your Remembrall. I guess you can't help but be clumsy."

"Yeah. Whenever I mess up in Herbology, Hannah tells me funny stories she heard from the older students about someone named Tonks," Neville smiled. "Apparently she's really clumsy too."

"She can come to your study group if you invite her," offered Hermione. "It'd be nice to not be the only girl in the group."

"I could do a gender reversal spell on Ron if you want," Draco offered in apparent seriousness.

Ron slugged him in the arm. "Not funny, you prat!"

"I thought it was funny," Neville commented, earning himself a glare from Ron. Hermione was biting down on her lower lip hard, clearly trying not to laugh. Percy just watched the three girls swoop around with the red ball, the twins bash at the two black balls, Oliver guard the three hoops, and Percival fly around in search of a ball so small Percy couldn't see it anywhere.

"I'd want to be Keeper," Ron commented dreamily as he doodled on his History essay parchment. "You get to guard the hoops and you don't have to be a particularly fancy flyer to be good in the position."

"I'd want to be Seeker," Draco commented wishfully. "You get to zoom around and be the most well-known member of the team."

Ron made a face at Draco but apparently couldn't argue with that. Brightly Percy commented, "So Percival is a great Quidditch player if he got to be Seeker?"

Eying the redhead swoop around Draco conceded, "I guess he doesn't stink at being a Seeker."

Considering how a month ago Draco viewed all Weasleys as utter blood traitors, Percy would accept the viewpoint change for the time being.

"I like watching Quidditch," Neville acknowledged. "But I'm not much for flying… my family confirmed I had magic when my great-uncle Algie dropped me out a window and I bounced down the road. He got me a toad as a result."

Draco snorted. "I bet your parents loved that."

Neville just looked uncomfortable and asked Hermione about a question for his Potions homework. Percy split his attention three ways: a third on the practicing Gryffindor Quidditch team, a third on his homework, and a third on Ron and Draco arguing fiercely about the various professional Quidditch teams.

The five continued to meet after dinner to do their homework together and discuss their days, with no one inviting anyone else. The classes were starting to get really interesting now that the basic groundwork had been laid out. Ron, Hermione, and Draco liked to get into three-way debates that left Neville and Percy scooting over to the next table. The first time Draco sided with Hermione (against Ron when he claimed Potions was stupid) Percy felt was a huge step forward in Draco not viewing non-purebloods as trash.

On Halloween morning, Percy woke up to the smell of baking pumpkin that made his stomach growl loudly. This amused Catalina, the snake sleepily commenting, "To you pumpkin isss like ratsss?"

"No…" replied Percy as he did his black and yellow tie. Maybe the British stuffiness was rubbing off on him, but he thought he looked pretty spiffy in a tie. Or at least Harry did, anyway. In Charms class Professor Flitwick announced that they were going to learn how to make objects fly. First they split into pairs; Harry went over to the Slytherin side to team up with Draco, earning him a smile from the pale-haired boy although the other Hufflepuffs and Slytherins looked horrified. Nearby Crabbe and Goyle looked moments away from hexing the both of them.

"I haven't hung out with them much this month, Potter," Draco confided as they practiced the wrist flicking required for the spell. "They think I'm going soft and turning into a blood traitor… maybe I am but… but it's not that bad, really. You all are smarter than them, especially Granger. I'd rather hang out with a brilliant Muggleborn than two moronic purebloods."

Since Draco seemed to be talking more to himself than to Percy, Percy only nodded quietly.

"Remember, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing," the professor squeaked out the top of his stack of books. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words correctly is very important as well: never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 'f' instead of 's' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

Both Draco and Percy struggled with the spell even though they were only using it on a feather. Across the room, Justin and Ernie were struggling as well although Hannah and Megan looked like they were getting the hang of it. Crabbe and Goyle were more interested in snacking on some Chocolate Frogs they had snuck into class, although one hopped off and through a window.

"Windgardium Leviosa!" Draco tried again, swishing dramatically. With a wicked grin at Draco Percy tried, "Windgardium Leviofa!"

Nothing happened to their disappointment. By the end of the class they had each gotten it up a few inches but that was all. Daphne Greengrass had gotten it up a foot or so, earning Slytherin three points from Flitwick.

The rest of the day passed quietly until Percy went down to the Great Hall for dinner, which had been decorated for Halloween. Thousands of bats flew around or perched on the walls and ceiling. Jack-o-lanterns were the lighting, the candles flickering. Then Percy saw the big bowls of candy scattered on the tables. There were lots of wizarding candy, including a lot of blue candy. Candy, blue candy in particular, had always made Percy think of his mom. Now he realized he hadn't seen her in months, and might never see her again.

Fighting back tears, Percy ran from the Great Hall and hid himself in the nearest bathroom he found, careless of if it was a boys' bathroom or a girls'. He curled in a ball and took deep breaths, trying not to cry.

He would see his mom again. He would. He had to. She was his mom. Besides, as fun as Hogwarts was, he couldn't stay in the wizarding world forever. He had to get home, to his own world and family. And once he knew of the wizarding world, Percy was sure Harry would gladly take his place as one of its greatest living heroes. But right now, he just wished they had never switched. He missed his mom, he missed Grover, and he missed the Big Apple in general.

Then he started to smell something odd. Looking around, Percy realized he was in a girl's bathroom. Maybe they smelled weird and he was just hadn't noticed before due to his bout of homesickness. But as the smell got worse, Percy started to worry that the Cerberus wasn't the only monster within Hogwarts. It smelled like old socks and something really nasty.

Then a twelve-foot-tall biped stomped its way into the bathroom. It had dull gray skin, a lumpy rock-like body, and a small bald head. Its legs were thick and ended in flat, clawed feet. And the creature was holding a huge club that must have come from a tree trunk. Its long ears waggled as it noticed Percy.

He yelped in shock, reaching for his wand. The creature headed towards him, its club knocking the sinks off the walls as it went. Pale, Percy got to his feet and pointed his wand warily at the creature.

"Potter!" commented Draco as he, Ron, and Hermione dashed into the bathroom. "What are you doing here?"

Percy wiped at the few stray tears on his cheeks. He then snapped, "Not really the time, Draco!"

"I agree," replied Ron, throwing a tap at the lumbering creature. That made the creature pause and turn on the trio. It started for Ron, its club raised high. Hermione let out a squeak and turned pale, but she held her ground.

Dashing over to the far wall, Draco grabbed a broken chunk of metal pipe and threw it at the creature, distracting it from Ron and Hermione.

"Mudblood!" Draco shouted loudly, getting out his wand. Hermione mumbled, "I suppose it wouldn't surprise me if troll blood had the consistency of mud."

"Oh, it's a troll," Percy got out. First a Cerberus and now a troll. What was next, a Manticore? Then he eyed the broken off sinks, which were slowly leaking water. That gave him an idea and he shouted at Draco, "Get away from the sinks!"

"What sinks?" he quipped, but he dashed away from the troll that was approaching him. To protect his 'fri-enemy' Ron cried out, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The club flew up and out of the troll's hand, turning slowly over before dropping with a disgusting crack onto the troll's shoulder, clearly breaking or dislocating it. The troll let out a roar of pain.

His stomach tugging at him, as if wanting the power within him to be released, Percy let out a scream in reply. Water gushed out of the pipes, ramming the troll into the wall. The creature collapsed down, motionless. Hermione inched towards it. Quietly she asked, "Is it dead?"

"I think it's breathing," Ron replied, eying the troll dubiously. Draco commented, "Nice spell work… Ronald."

"I had a good partner," Ron blushed, glancing over at Hermione. Draco had followed his gaze and acknowledged, "She is a pretty good witch… for a Muggleborn."

Hermione teased, "And you're pretty reasonable for an elite pureblood."

"Thanks, guys," sighed Percy, sitting down since his knees were weak. Percival and Neville dashed in, followed by Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a whimper, and sat down quickly on a toilet. Not wanting to be like the timid DADA teacher, Percy got to his feet despite his exhaustion. Snape bent over the troll, wand at ready.

Percival looked like he wanted to say something, but instead looked over at a white-lipped, furious-looking Professor McGonagall. Neville just stood behind the Gryffindor prefect, staring wide-eyed at the troll.

Her voice icy, Professor McGonagall demanded of the four, "What on Earth were you thinking?"

"Professor?" came Percival's voice. "Malfoy, Granger, Longbottom, and my brother Ron noticed Potter's absence and wanted to make sure that he was all right."

The aforementioned first-years nodded in confirmation. Draco said, "We sent Neville to get Percival but we headed off to make sure he was okay. We heard him yelp when the troll came in here so…"

"So we went after him and kept the troll from squishing him. Besides, he hadn't been there for the feast so he didn't know about the troll," Ron finished. Percy commented dryly, "True enough there but I did help, you know. I wasn't a damsel in distress."

Hermione had to giggle, albeit nervously, at that.

Snape stood up, his eyes dark. "Well, it did cause Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor to fight together rather than against one another. Nonetheless, it was quite foolish."

"Um, I for one I am glad they came, otherwise I'd probably be troll jam by now," Percy commented, leaning against the wall. Snape turned those dark eyes on him.

"What exactly were you doing in the girls' bathroom in the first place, Potter?'

After a long moment, Percy confessed, "I… I suddenly just got homesick right before the feast. I kind of freaked and hid in the first place I found, which was here."

"Halloween is the anniversary of the elder Potters' deaths," muttered Draco. That made Percy feel a little worse about his deception, but whatever kept his cover. He hadn't heard good things about the elder Malfoy from Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley was a pretty easy-going guy. Instead he changed the subject.

"So… are troll attacks common here or something?"

"No," snapped Professor McGonagall. "When I find out who let in this troll…"

Percy was suddenly very grateful he hadn't even known what a troll was until ten minutes ago, and the other first-years looked as if they were thinking along the same lines. Curtly Snape stated, "I suppose since they were successful and had good intentions, they should get off lightly. Minus five points for each of them, sans Longbottom?"

"I think that's fair enough," agreed Professor McGonagall. Infuriated Percy pointed out, "So I'm losing points because I got freaked out and hid and got attacked by a troll and they're getting in trouble for saving my hide?"

The three Professors thought it over. Finally Professor McGonagall conceded, "We will discuss it with Professors Sprout and Flitwick. Now, all of you head to your dorms now."

Meekly the students exited the bathroom, Percival clamping a hand on his baby brother's shoulder. Before heading off to the Slytherin dorm Draco held out a hand towards Ron.

"I meant it- nice spell work, Ronald."

"My friends call me Ron," he told the other boy, shaking his hand. Draco nodded and broke off the handshake to leave. Percival muttered, "Great, in addition to a group Howler from Mum now I have to worry you'll get a Howler from Dad about befriending Malfoy."

"He's not too bad anymore," Ron shrugged. Hermione nodded, saying, "And Draco was right- nice spell work, Ron."

Ron just blushed to Percy's amusement. Neville shook his head tiredly. "What did I get myself into by becoming friends you guys?"

In the end they all just gained a point after the professors' discussion as a chilly and dreary November began. Still, the five of them were officially friends after fighting a troll. Well, not Neville, but they knew if someone hadn't needed to get back-up he would have been there. Besides, Neville was difficult to dislike.

Here's a scary thought… I don't think until he saw their headstones Harry knew his parents died on Halloween. O.o