DISCLAIMER: Percy Jackson and Harry Potter characters don't belong to me. They belong to Rick Riordan and J. K. Rowling.

Author's note: I'm reading the Kane Chronicles for the first time. They're really good! I hadn't really wanted to read them at first, because...well, I don't really know. But I recommend them.

Yes, I'll be writing other stories. I thought I'd take my account one story at a time, because I'd get distracted with a new one very easily.

Last minute note: My internet shut down again. I would've posted on Wednesday. I checked my laptop literally ten minutes ago, and it was working again. So, I took advantage of this small amount of time I get to enjoy with my WiFi.

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^Ginny (Bet you didn't expect that. Yeah, Ginny's a part of the plot now.)

Ginny didn't know what to think as she followed Fred and George to the Hog's Head. She'd vaguely registered the fact that a group of twenty-seven kids all going in the same direction would look suspicious, but Hogsmeade was uncharacteristically empty around them.

She was right behind the two Americans, Percy and Nico. She'd seen them a lot in the common room, and outside next to the lake, talking. She knew that something was up with them, but that didn't give her the right to get all suspicious. Ron, Harry, and Hermione were already doing that for her.

Hand-in-hand with Michael Corner, she walked into the pub. The bartender's eyes widened at the prospect of having so many people in his bar. She understood why; the place was small and run down and creaky. She didn't get why anyone would want to come in here; maybe they just wanted some peace and quiet.

Fred ordered twenty-seven butterbeers, and then yelled at all of us to pay up. Ginny dug around her pocket and passed the money to the Americans, so that they could pass is forward. The older one—Percy—stared at the coin for a second, and then gave it to the person in front of him.

"Yeah, I don't have any—er—money," Percy muttered, taking Michael's coin and passing it forward, too. He looked like he was about to turn and yell to Fred—probably to cancel his order—but Ginny dug out another coin, and so did Michael.

"There's one for each of you," she said to him, and Percy held up his hand, ready to decline. "No," Ginny interrupted. "Pass it forward."

Percy sighed and thanked Ginny.

They all got settled around a table. Harry wasn't looking very happy, and Hermione was looking slightly guilty and very nervous.

Ginny's eyes drifted away from the table, and she observed the rest of the pub. There were only a few other people. Nothing looked suspicious, so she turned her attention back to Hermione. She somehow knew that Harry was not going to be giving the introduction speech. He seemed in a pretty bad mood and for some reason was blushing furiously. Everyone else, though, was staring at Harry.

"Er," Hermione said, her voice an octave higher than usual. "Well—er—hi."

Ginny internally snorted at the amazing introduction. All eyes turned to Hermione instead, though a lot of people kept turning back to look at Harry.

"We...erm...well, you know why you're here. Erm...well, Harry here had the idea—I mean"—Ginny smiled as Harry threw Hermione a sharp look—"I had the idea—that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts—and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish Umbridge is doing with us, because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts—"

"Hear, hear," Anthony Goldstein interrupted, and Hermione's face brightened a considerable amount.

"—well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands," she continued. After a slight pause and a sideways glance at Harry, she kept talking. "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but the real spells—"

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too though, I bet?" Ginny's boyfriend said, grinning.

"Of course I do," said Hermione as though that was obvious (which it totally was). "But I want more than that, I want to be properly trained in Defense because...because..." Hermione took a deep breath before rushing on, "Because Lord Voldemort's back."

She couldn't help it—Ginny cringed at the name. But looking around the table, she thought everyone's reactions were ridiculous. Marietta Edgecombe managed to slop butterbeer down her front. Yet all of them looked eagerly at Harry. Ginny felt a rush of anger, but before she could say anything, Hermione said, "Well...that's the plan anyway. If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to—"

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" asked Zacharias Smith, the jerk Hufflepuff Quidditch player.

Ginny half-way zoned out to study Harry's face. He was looking angrier and angrier by the second. She wished she could do something about it. Harry's temper always seemed to be bubbling under the surface these days, but whatever Zacharias was saying seemed to be causing it to boil over.

Her attention instantly snapped back to the conversation when Harry spoke for the first time.

"It's okay, Hermione." He paused, looking around at everyone. His harsh gaze settled on Zacharias Smith as he said, "What makes me say You-Know-Who's back? I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you don't believe him, you don't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

Ginny's gaze traveled around the table. She noticed that Nico was smiling faintly, and Percy was studying Harry intently. It was sort of weird, because she had never seen Percy sit still. His fingers or feet were always tapping, or his eyes traveling around him at a fast rate. But now, his arms were crossed and his sea-green eyes were completely still.

She was jerked out of her thoughts when Zacharias continued to talk. "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and the you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know—"

Ginny glared at him, but nobody noticed, because both Percy and Harry's tempers rose at the same time. Harry said roughly, "If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you." At the same time, Percy said angrily, "It's not fair to ask him of that! Living through something like that the first time is hard enough—"

They both stopped talking when they realized everyone was staring at Percy. The American shifted in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with all of the attention. He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, pressing himself against the back as if you want to sink right into it. His friend shot him a small glare, and Percy grimaced.

"How would you know?" Zacharias asked rather rudely.

Percy raised his eyebrows at him, but said nothing except, "I don't. I'm just...inferring."

Ginny didn't really believe it, but it looked like the others were somewhat convinced. Only Harry was still staring curiously at Percy.

The only good thing that came out of Percy's outburst: It awkwardly ended the previous conversation, so nobody was really arguing anymore (although Zacharias Smith was still glaring at Harry).

Hermione cleared her throat. "So...as I was saying, if you want to learn Defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet, and where we're going to—"

"Is it true that you can produce a Patronus?" Susan Bones interrupted.

Ginny smiled as some people started muttering to each other.

"Yeah," Harry said, his voice sounding slightly defensive.

She moved her head to look at Michael, but something else caught her eye. Percy and Nico were looking confused, and Nico was scribbling something down on a piece of paper with a regular pen, not a quill.

"A corporeal Patronus?" Susan continued.

"Er—you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" Harry asked.

They were interrupted when Nico snorted loudly and shoved Percy's shoulder. Everyone looked over to them again.

Percy looked up as Nico folded his paper. "Don't mind us," Percy said. "Just two stupid Americans making stupid jokes about fast-food restaurants or something."

Everyone at the table laughed.

"So..." said Hermione again. "We all know Harry's pretty qualified to—"

"Yeah," a Ravenclaw sixth year said. "Between all of the tasks in the Triwizard Tournament last year, fighting the dementors this year, and the Stone, Basilisk—"

Harry's face was getting red and there was a strange look in his eyes as his head snapped up.

Unfortunately, Ginny recognized it. Was there something going on between him and that Ravenclaw?

I don't care, Ginny thought sternly. So what if Harry had a girlfriend?

"Look," Harry said in a strangled sort of voice. He cleared his throat. "I don't want to...to sound like I'm being modest or anything—"

"But you are," Percy interrupted. "And I get it. Now, aren't we supposed to be—"

"Yes," said Hermione. "Yes. Erm...so, we're all in agreement that we want Harry to teach us?"

Nobody objected. Not even Zacharias Smith.

"Good...now, the first thing we should do is decide how often we meet. It would be stupid to meet less than once a week—"

"Wait," Angelina Johnson said, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No," Ms. Ravenclaw Sixth Year said, "nor with ours."

"Nor ours," added Zacharias Smith.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," Hermione said irritably. "But you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters—"

Ginny zoned out as Ernie Macmillan started to say something. Usually, when he started talking, he wouldn't stop for a breath for five minutes straight. Her mind wandered over to Percy and Nico. They did seem kind of suspicious, but she didn't want to go poking around or anything. Just little hints that she'd picked up gave her reason to be curious.

The way Percy had sounded so understanding when he pretty much told Zacharias Smith to back off. Nico used regular pens, and as far as Ginny knew, everyone in the wizarding world still used quills and parchment.

Ginny looked back at Hermione, a little late. She had no idea what was going on, unfortunately, but Hermione and Luna were arguing about something.

"Hem, hem," she said, speaking for the first time since sitting down. Quite a few people looked around in alarm, and then laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and get Defense lessons?"

"Yes," Hermione said abruptly, "yes, we were, you're right..."

"Well, once a week sounds cool," Lee Jordan said.

"As long as—"

"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," Hermione said tersely. "The other thing to decide is where we're going to meet..."

Silence. Ginny didn't really know where they could meet for something like this without getting caught easily. The library? No. Hogsmeade? No. Ginny knew there were a hundred secret rooms and passageways at Hogwarts, but she didn't know where any of them were, or how to make them work. If anyone knew that, it would be Fred and George.

"Library?" Katie Bell suggested timidly.

"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," Harry said.

"Erm...an unused classroom?" said Dean.

Harry made a face as Ron said, "Yeah, McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard..." Ron trailed off.

After a few moments of quiet, Hermione said, "Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere. We'll send a message round when we've got a time and place for the first meeting."

She dug around in her bag for a second, and then pulled out parchment and a quill. She seemed embarrassed and hesitant. After taking a deep breath, she said, "I-I think everyone should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge—or anybody else—what we're up to."

Ginny was more than eager to write her name proudly on the list, and she watched as Fred happily took the quill and scribbled his name down. But she noticed that a lot of people didn't look very cheerful about this.

She decided to ignore it. Ginny took the list from Fred, wrote her name down, and passed it to Michael. He signed it and then handed it to George, who tried to hand it to Zacharias Smith. Ginny ignored him as he burst out about it and stood up, leaving with Michael at her side.

After thinking for a few moments, Ginny said to Michael, "Have you noticed anything odd about the Americans?"

"Other than their sense of humor and their accents? Not really. Though it is weird that they were a week late to school."

Ginny nodded. "Yeah, it is."

But she wouldn't snoop. For now.

0o0o0o0o0

^Percy

Percy walked out of the Hog's Head, feeling embarrassed.

And, unfortunately, they'd have to go to the library and find out what all of these things were. Nico had added quite a few things to the list.

"What do you think?" Nico asked.

"I dunno," said Percy hesitantly.

"You and Harry are a lot alike," Nico said nonchalantly.

Percy furrowed his brows. "You mean...we look alike, or..."

"Well, you do kind of look alike, but that's not what I'm talking about. You're both too modest, loyal, selfless...typical superhero traits. You're both somewhat reluctant leaders."

Percy pressed his lips together and rubbed the back of his neck. He tried to find some way to respond to that, but he failed.

"Well, I guess we're going to the library, huh?" Nico said, changing the subject. "We've got some work to do."

Yes, they did.

But, for some reason, Percy was reluctant. Something was prickling at the back of his neck, and he had a bad feeling.

And usually, Percy's bad feelings ended up getting him in trouble.

He followed Nico uneasily back to the castle.

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Author's note: The scenes from the actual book will get more and more different as the story goes on. Percy and Nico will get more involved, and the Golden Trio will get more nosy.

Review! They're appreciated.