At first everything was just blurs and murmurs. Then, it all got sharper, more defined. Maddy could hear panicked speech, all overlapping with each other, and six people standing over here; Bella, Elliot, a soaking wet Harry, Hermione and Ron and, for some reason, Percy Jackson.

"Maddy!" Hermione and Bella exclaimed tearfully, the both of them hugging the daughter of Hades tightly.

Maddy coughed and spluttered out, "Hermione! Bella! Let go!"

"Sorry," Hermione said, withdrawing from the hug.

"Yeah..." Bella added bashfully.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked.

"What happened?" Ron added.

"I'm fine... and all I have to say about what happened is my uncle's a dick," there was a sharp rumble, "and speaking of my uncle, Percy, what the Hades are you doing here? I tried to get in contact with you this morning and it didn't work. Annabeth's going ballistic."

"I can explain that later," Percy said surprisingly sharply. "What were you doing in such a huge body of water?"

"It was completely against my will, you know how much I hate water. Did you pull me out?"

"Sort of?"

"What do you mean, 'sort of?'" Maddy asked.

"Well, you kinda summoned like a dozen skeletons when you were in the lake, they couldn't get out themselves, but I managed to clear away the water," Percy explained. "Which means that your entire school watched you get carried out of the lake by a bunch of skeletons and me wandlessly moving water and then extracting water from your lungs."

Maddy stared at Percy for a minute before slowly saying, "...Fuuuuck..."

"Yep," Bella nodded. "By the way your going to have to explain to Dumbledore and someone in the DMLE that isn't your mum what happened and how it happened. And I know this won't be a very popular decision, but do you want to go to Azkaban for performing dark magic or let the wizarding world know about the existence of gods?"

"Well, there's got to be some other way to explain than dark magic or the truth," Maddy said.

"Nothing that works in the wizarding world," Hermione said, "wandless magic isn't taught until seventh year and I don't even think it's possible to do magic as strong as necromancy without a wand and yours wasn't in your hand."

"Yeah, you need a wand for necromancy," Elliot confirmed. "And they'll probably check your wand for which spells you've casted and then probably use occlumency to see what it really was as a last resort or precaution, I'm not really sure if they do it every time or not, so do with that information what you will."

"So, basically there's no way for me to get around this?"

"Yup."

"I knew I should have just cut off my legs... So anyways, how did you do, Harry?"

"Er, I don't know... scores haven't been announced yet, they're waiting to speak with you," Harry replied.

"Oh, goody, Percy, help me stand up, I should just get this over with," Maddy held out her arms and Percy hoisted her up onto her feet.

"You should take it slow, Maddy," Hermione said.

"Nah," Maddy decided.

"What are you going to do?" Ron asked. "The DMLE member won't get here for another ten minutes at least."

"Well, I can tell the judges to just give me all zeros because I don't give a damn."

"Ah, miss Mender, I see you are up again."

Maddy turned around to see Dumbledore standing behind her.

"Uh, yeah. Hello, professor," she said awkwardly.

"You should have a quick check in with Madam Pomfrey, as should you three," Dumbledore added to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"Okay, will do, Professor," Bella said quickly and steered Maddy in the direction of where Madam Pomfrey was placed, looking at a few cuts that Fleur, who was worriedly glancing over at the group around Maddy, had received.

Madam Pomfrey gave the Maddy, Ron, Harry and Hermione a potion to keep them from getting a cold or any other sickness from the coldness of the lake, she was also going to wrap them up, but found them to be dry (most likely thanks to Percy).

"Hermione," Fleur said. "You have a water beetle in your hair. I'll get it." She plucked a small thing out of Hermione's hair and flicked it away.

"Thank you, Fleur," she beamed.

Dumbledore was crouching at the water's edge, deep in conversation with what seemed to be the chief merperson, a particularly wild and ferocious looking female. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above water; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish.

Eventually a faintly familiar woman walked over to him and waited until he was finished with his conversation. When he did finish the two of them had a quick conversation and then Maddy was suddenly being led up to Dumbledore's office with Dumbledore, the Ministry woman -who had introduced herself as Nereida Bloom, who had been there in Maddy's second year for the inspection of the Chamber of Secrets- and Ludo Bagman.

"Cockroach cluster," Dumbledore said when they reached the stone gargoyle statue that lead up to his office.

Dumbledore sat behind his desk once they got into the office, Ms Bloom stood behind his desk while Mr Bagman sat in one of the two chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk beside Maddy.

"So, Miss Mender," Ms Bloom began, "I understand that you, er, performed an advanced form of skeletal necromancy."

"I guess..." Maddy said slowly. "I didn't do it on purpose, though. I was unconscious when it happened. Also, um, the lake tried to kill me... like actually kill me, the lake physically tried to drown me. I just feel like that's just an important piece of information for this."

"It... tried to drown you?" Mr Bagman asked. "You know what, we'll come back to that when we've finished with the necromancy stuff."

"I believe we should begin with an inspection of her wand," Ms Bloom said stiffly.

"Come now, Nereida," Mr Bagman interjected, "at least give her a chance to explain herself."

"No, it's fine, go ahead and see my wand, no necromancy spells on there..." Maddy held out her wand and then added under her breath, "which is the tip of the iceberg of confusing and uncomfortable exposition."

"Prior Incantato!" Ms Bloom waved Maddy's wand and a bubble formed around her head.

"See?"

"There's one more spell we can use. Carmina Gloria."

A colourful burst emerged from to tip of Maddy's lightly coloured wand. The burst unfurled laid itself out straight across the room, there were knots in it every few inches. Ms Bloom tapped on the ten most recent spells, all of them after the cluster of Bubblehead Charms were just very simple, everyday spells.

"Wandless magic is near impossible for a fourteen year old..." Ms Bloom said thoughtfully. "And based on your not particularly great performance of the Bubblehead Charm, it popped multiple times if what I've heard is true."

"Yeah, but I'm blaming the lake for that," Maddy replied. "I'm not great at magic, but yeah, that wasn't exactly magic that let me do the skeleton raising thing..."

"It wasn't magic?" Mr Bagman sat forward interested.

"Elaborate, Miss Mender," Ms Bloom demanded, looking incredibly interested, while Dumbledore looked interested too, there was also a layer of semi-understanding.

"So, I don't really know how to do this lightly, I've never been very good at explaining or revealing stuff, so instead of just slowly working into the information like what most people do I'm just going to say it," Maddy paused and took in a deep breath. "And I am saying it now..." Instead of actually saying it she just awkwardly sat. "And I'm actually not saying it... you could just ask my mom instead, she knows, I bet she's better at this than I am."

"Your mother is away on a business trip, besides she isn't allowed in here for the time being seeing as she is biased and could steer the decision in an untrue way," Ms Bloom said.

"That seems... kind of unrealistic... I've only met her like twice..."

"Just get to it, Miss Mender."

"Okay, this time I will say it. I'll just say it now. Now is the time for admitting to things... I'm still not... saying it..." Maddy sighed anxiously. "Okay, gods. It's gods. Greek gods. My dad is Hades, god of the Underworld and Poseidon tried to kill me in that lake because of the huge rivalry between my dad and my two uncles. It's just bad, very bad, also I don't even know how to swim and that didn't help. It's a very big lake and I've said a lot now very quickly and I'm going to leave right now!"

Maddy stood up to leave but Dumbledore said, "Maddy, sit back down." He didn't seem surprised or disbelieving like the others and his eyes were even sparkling the way they did on occasion when he was amused or happy.

She slowly returned to her seat.

Mr Bagman look shocked, while Ms Bloom looked entirely disbelieving.

"Is here any way you could prove this?"

"Hmm, well, let's see, Professor, you could say how mediocre I am everything involving magic and provide my grades, then I could use some of my powers without my wand and if that's not enough, I guess I could try to take you guys to the Underworld? It'd be hard and exhausting and you all would slowly get your souls sucked out of you while down there but sleep can fix that. Or maybe I could try to call up my dad... Yeah, that's probably the easiest, though it might now work... I need my wand for that, though."

Ms Bloom handed Maddy's wand back to her and the daughter of Hades waved her wand and said, "Sanctum." A rainbow shot out of the end.

"Okay, I don't have any money on me, I need a galleon."

Dumbledore handed her one and she tossed it into the rainbow and said, "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offer, show me Hades."

The rainbow shimmered and then revealed a dark room where a pale man was sitting a chair, looking horribly annoyed.

"Maddy," Hades sad. "What is it? I'm busy."

"So, hi father," Maddy said awkwardly, "I have made a terrible mistake."


The interrogation was finally finished at least an hour later and Maddy was sitting with the others -sans Percy who had side-along apparated to wherever it was that he said he needed to be at- near the lake while waiting to hear the results of the task.

Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows...

"Fleur Delacour demonstrated excellent use of the Bubblehead Charm, she was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal, and did excellently in getting away from them and retrieving her hostage, managing to get complete the task in just under an hour. We award her forty-eight points."

There was lots of applause and Hermione and Fleur shared a tight congratulatory embrace.

"Nice job, Fleur," Harry said.

"Sounds like you did excellently," Bella cheered.

"Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points." Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior.

"Maddy Mender used the Bubblehead Charm as well, however, due to some personal issues, she was unable to complete the task, we have awarded her twenty-one points."

"I said you need to give me zero!" Maddy exclaimed through spattered clapping.

"Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect," Bagman continued. "He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own. Most of the judges," and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very nasty look, "feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However... Mr Potter's score is forty-five points."

"Harry, what did you do?" Maddy asked. "You tried to save everyone? Why?"

"He was being thick," Ron said.

"Well, it doesn't matter because he's in first place now!" Bella screamed, jumping up and down excitedly.

"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."

The task was finally over, and while Maddy was positive that the third task would be worse than the other two, she was glad for a break and actually shocked that she had gotten out of the lake alive.


A few days after the second task, Maddy and Elliot walked over to the Gryffindor table to see Harry, Ron and Hermione were reading over a letter.

"What's that?" Elliot asked as they sat down.

"Letter from Sirius," Ron said.

"What's it about?" Maddy asked.

"He wants to meet us," Harry said.

"Hey, where is everyone?" Maddy asked, suddenly realising that the previously crowded Gryffindor table was much emptier than before and everyone that was left were sitting away from them.

"That's weird," Hermione said.

"I'll be right back," Bella said and walked over to the closest group of people, she shortly returned with a slightly crumpled newspaper after wrestling with a boy for it. "Okay, one of us needs to take out a subscription to this rag because look at the front page."

Ancient Magics Revealed

The underwhelming Hogwarts champion, Maddy Mender, has revealed that she is not so mediocre after all, writes Rita Skeeter. During the second task of the Triwizard Tournament young Maddy revealed that she is skilled at necromancy a gift from her father, not a powerful dark wizard but an ancient being. Hades, Greek god of the Underworld.

Miss Mender revealed this information herself, and even introduced her father to Professor Dumbledore and two Ministry officials, Ludo Bagman, the head of the Department of Sports, and Nereida Bloom, a higher up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Here there was an image of Maddy, Dumbledore, Bagman and Bloom standing in front of the Iris Message that Maddy had brought up to speak with her father.

The method of communication shown above is unknown, however it is known that the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, is involved with it as Miss Mender chanted "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offer, show me Hades."

I myself attempted to have a one-on-one interview with this god and upon doing so Hades was revealed to be aggressive, angry and hateful and, according to several of her housemates, Miss Mender has all of these traits, she has repeatedly hurt her housemates and outwardly hates them.

"She once hospitalised me," says one Slytherin who wished to remain unnamed and this person is not alone. Almost everyone of her year in her house has come through with this claim. So the question is, when will Miss Mender follow in her father's footsteps and take it to the next level? Or has she already taken a life out if this world?

"Oh my gods," Maddy groaned. "How did she know! She wasn't there! Also, this is seriously wrong. I have never hospitalised anyone and my dad doesn't normally kill people. He's too busy for it, he doesn't want to have to deal with more dead people!"

"Calm down, Maddy, we know," Ron said. "I bet Malfoy and his gang were just being complete prats and making all of it up."

"No doubt about it," Elliot said, looking over a different part of the newspaper. "Oh, Hermione, there's an article about you in here too."

Harry Potter's Secret Heartache

A boy like no other, perhaps - yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.

Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wixen that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Fleur Delacour, the granddaughter of world renowned Veela Lacianne Delacour, Miss Granger has been toying with both champion's affections. Delacour, who is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, has already invited her to visit her in France over the summer holidays, and insists that she has "never felt this way about any other girl."

However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate people's interest.

"She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it."

Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims. In the meantime, Harry Potters well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate.

"You got slammed, 'Mione!" Bella laughed.

"What kind of newspaper is this?" Maddy asked.

"I told you!" Ron hissed at Hermione as she stared down at the article. "I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of - of scarlet woman!"

Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter. "Scarlet woman?" she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked around at Ron.

"It's what my mum calls them," Ron muttered, his ears going red.

"If that's the best Rita can do, she's losing her touch," said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw the Daily Prophet onto the empty chair beside her. "What a pile of old rubbish. Although, I do wonder how she knew that Fleur had invited me to France and how she knew about your dad."

"Nevermind that right now," Elliot said, peering at her watch, "we've got to get to Potions."

They discussed the possibilities of how Rita Skeeter could have overheard both conversations during Potions in hushed whispers.

"Maybe you guys were bugged with voice and video recorders," Harry suggested.

"No," Hermione sighed exasperatedly, "how many times, you can't use electronics inside the Hogwarts grounds."

"But what about Maddy's muggle music thing?" Ron asked.

"I told you, a kid of Hecate gave it to me as a gift and made it run off of magic," Maddy replied.

"Maybe she knows a kid of Trivia!" Bella exclaimed quietly.

"No, it can't be-" Hermione began.

"Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is. Miss Granger," said an icy voice right behind them, and all three of them jumped, "I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points each from your respective houses."

Snape had glided over to their desk while they were talking.

"Ah... reading newspapers under the table as well?" Snape added, snatching up the copy of the Daily Prophet that Hermione had held on her lap for reference. "A further ten points... oh but of course..." Snape's black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter's article. "Potter and Mender have to keep up with their press cuttings..."

The dungeon rang with the Slytherins' laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape's thin mouth. He then proceeded to read the article out loud.

"'Harry Potter's Secret Heartache'... dear, dear. Potter, what's ailing you now? 'A boy like no other, perhaps...'" Snape was pausing at the end of every sentence to allow the Slytherins a hearty laugh. The article sounded ten times worse when read by Snape. Even Hermione was blushing scarlet now.

"'... Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate.' How very touching," sneered Snape, rolling up the
magazine to continued gales of laughter from the Slytherins. "Well, I think I had better separate the three of you, so you can keep your minds on your potions rather than on your tangled love lives. Weasley, you stay here. Miss Granger, over there, beside Miss Parkinson. Potter - that table in front of my desk. Move. Now. Ah, you too, Nevra?" Snape asked, spotting the clipping of the Daily Prophet that contained Maddy's story.

Snape grabbed it and, instead of reading it out loud since it didn't really contain anything embarrassing he just went right into it. "I guess you three have got to be separated as well to keep you from discussing this poorly written article. Nevra, with Miss Bulstrode, de la Mare, behind Mr Nott, Mender, in front of Mr Malfoy."

They begrudgingly moved to their new spots, Maddy was two seats behind Harry and extremely far from everyone else, other than Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

As she violently worked on her work, Maddy was faintly aware of Snape threatening Harry with a truth telling potion. Which she was sure was illegal. Teachers couldn't threaten their students, right?

There was a knock on the dungeon door.

"Enter," said Snape in his usual voice.

The class looked around as the door opened. Professor Karkaroff came in. Everyone watched him as he walked up toward Snape's desk. He was twisting his finger around his goatee and looking agitated.

"We need to talk," said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist.

"I'll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff," Snape muttered, but Karkaroff
interrupted him.

"I want to talk now, while you can't slip off, Severus. You've been avoiding me."

"After the lesson," Snape snapped.

Maddy waited and just before the class ended Maddy intentionality dropped one of her empty phials and ducked under the desk, making herself disappeared into the shadows for the sake of listening in.

Once all the students were all gone, Maddy leaned over into the walkway to watch the conversation. In front of her Harry was being a moron and just brushing up a dropped flask of something and not even meeting an attempt at hiding.

"What's so urgent?" Snape hissed at Karkaroff.

"This," said Karkaroff, and Maddy saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on
his inner forearm.

"Well?" said Karkaroff, still making every effort not to move his lips. "Do you see? It's never been this clear, not since-"

"Put it away!" snarled Snape, his black eyes sweeping the classroom.

"But you must have noticed-" Karkaroff began in an agitated voice.

"We can talk later, Karkaroff!" spat Snape. "Potter! What are you doing?"

"Clearing up my armadillo bile, Professor," said Harry innocently, straightening
up and showing Snape the sodden rag he was holding.

Karkaroff turned on his heel and strode out of the dungeon. He looked both worried and angry.

"Mender!" Snape suddenly snapped in her direction, she remained still. "I know your in here too!" Maddy huffed, revealed herself and stood up. As she packed up her things Snape nastily sneered, "Next time you try that you might want to hide your belongings as well."

"Thank you, professor, I will take your advice to heart!" Maddy said quickly as she dashed out of the room, closely followed by Harry.

"Where were you two?" Ron asked when they caught up to him, Hermione and Bella.

"Listening in on Snape and Karkaroff," Maddy shrugged. "We can explain later."

"Maddy! Harry!" Hermione exclaimed condescendingly.

"Where's Elliot?" Harry asked.

"No clue," Bella shrugged. "We didn't see her leave Snape's classroo-"

"You two suck at hiding!" Elliot exclaimed as she walked up to them. "Harry, did you even try? Maddy, why would leave your things there in plain sights? You are both morons."

"Oh jeez, thanks, El, people are really going after my intellect today." Maddy rolled her eyes. "First Rita Skeeter, now you. I bet Malfoy will throw a rock at me with that pleasant reminder carved into it at me next."

Maddy was left alone in the castle at noon, she still didn't have her Hogsmeade permission slip signed, though she supposed she could get it signed now since everyone knew about gods, Dumbledore probably already knew, the way he reacted and he was really old, he had probably had other demigods he taught that hadn't been good at hiding their secret.


"Snape and Karkaroff are Death Eaters," Elliot said when she walked into the Slytherin common room that night.

"What?" Maddy asked.

"Karkaroff was showing Snape his dark mark tattoo that all Death Eaters get on their forearm, he wouldn't show that to a non Death Eater."

"Okay, what did you guys and Sirius talk about?"

"Oh mostly some boring stuff, I didn't really pay attention because I already knew it, you can ask the others in the morning. Other than that it was 'someone's definitely out for you because of your names being in the Goblet of Fire.'"

"That last one's pretty obvious," Maddy shrugged. "Well, goodnight, I'm tired."

"Night."


"We were mostly seeing if Snape was a Death Eater until Elliot decided to finally tell us," Ron said the next morning.

"Snuffles also asked us about you being a demigod," Bella added.

"Snuffles?" Maddy asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, we're supposed to call him that now."

"There was some interesting stuff about Crouch too," Ron added. "He apparently sent his son to Azkaban."

"And he was completely happy about it," Harry added.

"Wow. That's ruthless." Maddy commented.

"D'you want to go to the kitchens with us so we can get some food for Snuffles?" Hermione asked after breakfast.

"Hmmm..."

"We'll also be asking Percy is he knows what's up with Crouch," Ron added.

"Eh, nah. I think I'll just hang out. I want to enjoy not almost dying by sleeping some more."