A/N: Right. Sorry for the wait, but now I'm back for all those who asked for a reason for Annabeth to be put in Slytherin, look at the Author's Note at the beginning of the last chapter (Or if you can't be bothered, remember that her fatal flaw is Hubris which is immense arrogance and ambition) and that should explain it to you, for now however, this chapter is for: Velocity Drew Warren with cookies here for:

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Now, on with the story!

Nico's PoV:

The last one in our little group to be sorted was, obviously, Percy and, being the kelp head he is, he just had to trip up when he was going to the hat didn't he? All around me I heard the other members of my new house snickering at the clumsiness he displayed but I shot a look at Annabeth and she just rolled her eyes at me, pulling a face that made me clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.

For a while, after putting on the hat, Percy just sat there in silence, though he seemed to be fidgeting on the stool, not that I can blame him really, after all he is not the only one of us to have ADHD, but the whole sorting thing was beginning to drag on for longer normal. Finally, the tear near the brim of the hat opened up and shouted out "Hufflepuff" really loudly. Beside me, I heard Draco snort at the house name making me feel more than a little defensive of my cousin. From the tone of Annabeth's voice I could tell that she was just as annoyed about it as me.

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Her tone was the sharp one she normally reserved for ordering around troupes on the battle field, but it seemed like we had found someone it had no effect on because Draco just shook his head grinning slightly.

"Oh, nothing but the fact that that house if for losers, if I was him, I would quit right here and now, but I guess some people have to end up in there and he probably isn't any better than the rest of them."

Okay, now he sounded like how some the Ares kids did when they decided it would be a good idea to pick on me for being a child of Hades at camp… well how they sounded until the last battle where I proved about as useful as their entire cabin on my own. Still, I really hated it when people took that kind of tone when talking about my friends and family.

"Hey, Percy is my cousin, leave off!"

That seemed to bring the little prick up short as he turned to give me a disbelieving look.

"Oh you poor thing, at least you get away from him now and, just in case, you better not tell anyone else that, it isn't the sort of thing to be proud of."

Okay now it was my turn to send the brat a death glare and I know for a fact that he was actually affected by me as his pale face lost all of the colour it had previously held and he turned to stare up at the headmaster who seemed to be giving a well practiced start of term speech.

"… and finally, I would like to remind some of our older students that the forest on the west of the grounds is forbidden and anyone found entering there without permission will receive a suitable punishment." Was it just me or was he looking down at the Gryffindor table as he said that? " Now, I believe that is all… dig in!"

The second he said this, the empty plates in front of us filled with so many different courses that I couldn't help but stare in wonder as everyone else bar Annabeth reached across to get started. Looking up I saw panic cross her face as she looked around desperately for something and I picked up on the problem almost instantly, there was no where to make a sacrifice! Looking around uneasily, I wondered if it would be weird if we suddenly summed a pot of Greek fire, but before we had to panic for too long, Hecate decided to drift down to our table.

"Don't worry little cousins, the counsel came up with a solution for that."

At the sound of the ancient Greek, both of our heads snapped to her and we instantly switched to the language ourselves, ignoring the weird looks we were getting from the people around us in favour of talking to the goddess. In the end, it was Annabeth who answered.

"What is the solution my Lady?"

Our chaperone grimaced slightly at the use of the title, she had never been one for formalities, but she overlooked it for once which surprised me a bit.

"You are to act like you would at a normal school, send up your thanks to the gods in your mind, but there is no need to sacrifice anything, that would just blow your cover."

We both nodded at this, turning back to our food with murmured 'thank you's , but apparently she wasn't done there.

"Oh, and to make sure that you don't get rusty before the final battle, you must attend training in the empty classroom at the very bottom of the dungeons for an hour after class everyday. Now, enjoy your meal."

With this she drifted off to the Gryffindor table and we started loading up our plates with food trying to ignore the curious looks we were receiving, but apparently Draco had never been told that it was rude to pry into other people's business and he was soon prattling on again.

"What was that? I thought you spoke English in America not that strange language, and why did she hide what she was saying anyway? What was it?"

I rolled my eyes across the table at the daughter of wisdom and turned back to my pork chop, signalling for her to explain, anyway, a lie would be much more convincing coming from her than me, she actually had the motivation to think up a good excuse not punch the guy in the face.

"Oh, that was nothing, its just the language of the ancients that we are taught at school. Professor Hex was just telling us that we had an extra hour of lessons than you guys did and that, if we were late, she would feed us to the giant squid in the lake."

With that she turned back to her food and I tried to stop myself from laughing by taking a drink from the goblet in front of me.

"Ah well, sucks to be you I guess."

Thankfully, Draco left it at that and turned around to the other side so that he could hold a conversation with one of his friend leaving us free to eat in peace, something we set about quite happily, after all, the food here was really good.

After everyone had eaten all that they could manage, and the last parts of the magically appearing food has disappeared from the plates in front of us, the headmaster stood up and said a few words to us before sending us all off to bed, something that sounded like a really good idea around about now. Standing with the rest of the table, I drifted to the back with Annabeth as we followed them back into the entrance hall and past a rather ornate staircase.

"So, what do you think of this place?"

I asked her as we were lead through a low door and into a downwards sloping corridor made out of bleak grey stone. I had to say, this place was beginning to feel more and more like my room in dad's palace, which only served to make me sleepier.

"I think the castle is amazing, the architecture is simply amazing, I mean, did you even see the ceiling in the great hall? But otherwise, it isn't much different to back home, with the assorted tables and sleeping areas…"

She trailed off at this and, to my horror, it looked like this girl who was walking in front of us had been listening in and she turned to comment on Annabeth's statement. When I saw her face however, I couldn't help but think that there were some things better at home. Back at camp, all the girls you saw were either really pretty, or they were an Ares kid and didn't really count as a girl… anyway, this girl had a face like a pug and a naisly voice to match.

"Really, what is it like back in America? Oh, my name's Pansy by the way, Pansy Parkinson."

She held out her hand to us and we uncomfortably shook it in the end I remembered that she had asked a question and so I answered the best I could with my sleep fogged brain.

"Oh, its like this but its set up as more of an outside thing with the only buildings being the 12 dorms."

She looked a little shocked at this, as though she could quite picture it, but then she tilted her head to one side further emphasising her resemblance to a dog, only this time, it was a stupid and confused one.

"But what about when it rains, don't you still have to have your lessons or are they called off?"

Neither of us really thinking about what we were doing thanks to the drowsiness that jet lag, good food and a safe castle brought about, we both cracked up like we would at camp if one of the new campers asked us that question, but we soon stopped when we saw the strange look on her face. Coughing awkwardly to hide her embarrassment, Annabeth was the one who answered.

"Oh, sorry, that was just a reflex reaction. You see, we have some pretty powerful enchantments around our school so it only rains if we want it to. You see, we don't really have a problem with the weather thanks to that."

The Pansy girl seemed to accept that answer without too much more pushing and she soon went back to quizzing us about anything and everything to do with our school, thankfully, it seemed that Annabeth's over the top paranoia about being discovered was actually pretty helpful in this situation. We were just beginning to explain the different "divisions" in our special school when she stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall, grabbing our arms to make sure we didn't walk past it. Because of our long conversation, it seemed like we had lagged behind the others quite a way so I thought we were just stopping to wait for one of the ones behind us to catch up, but, to our surprise, she turned to face the wall as though it was completely normal.

"Parsletongue"

As she said this, the wall creaked open reviling quite a comfortable room that was already crowded by students in black and green robes. After stepping through the recently opened hole in the wall, she turned to grin at our shocked faces.

"What, you guys don't have anything like this back home?"

This snapped us out of our shock and we soon followed her inside, sinking down into some of the emerald armchairs that were over by the back wall. Surprisingly, they were actually pretty comfortable and I felt myself sinking deeper into the softness before I answered.

"Nope, the dorms are pretty obvious for everyone to see, it's a test of our skill you see. Every year we have to put defences around it to keep out intruders." She seemed about to laugh at that, but I sent her a dark grin that soon killed it in her throat. "You shouldn't laugh, we are pretty good at protecting our homes, like with Annabeth's dorm, you would have to have a death wish if you wanted to get into there without permission."

Annabeth just laughed t the reminder of the last Hermes kid who had tried it, but half way through the chuckle turned into a yawn and Pansy sent a small grin across at us.

"Come on, I bet you're tired, dorms are this way!"

A/N: and there you have it, I hope you enjoyed the new chapter, though I think that was more of a filler than anything else… oh well, on the request of a certain reviewer, I will alternate between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson Trivia between chapters so, this question is:

Which famous brother of Percy's took on the minotaur in the labyrinth?