The next day, exams were announced. It took all of Nico's strength to not slam his head against his desk. Dominic didn't fight the temptation.

"Mr. Cook, please refrain from hurting yourself in my class." McGonagall swept by, making sure the desk was okay before going back to the front of the room. "The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education. The exams will, therefore, take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

Nico couldn't stop himself from snorting this time. Yeah, right.

"Is something funny, Mr. Weasley?" she asked, her eyes now glued to him.

Nico held his hands up in surrender. "Nope, sorry, ma'am."

She stared at him for another minute before continuing on with her explanation. "Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible. And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."

"What if the answer to that, is like, nothing?" Dominic asked weakly, causing a few laughs throughout the room. McGonagall looked like she didn't know what to do with him.

"Mr. Cook, do you need me to take points from your house?" she asked. "Hufflepuff can surely live without another ten or so points, which seems so little compared to what you've lost throughout the year."

Nico whistled, sitting back with his hands behind his head. Collectively, they both lost their house another 30 points that day.

But it didn't matter. Nobody in Hufflepuff seemed to care much about the House Cup, knowing they'd never win it. It seemed that Slytherin and Gryffindor were always ahead, too ahead, and acting out in class was just needed sometimes.

That weekend, Nico brought with them to camp as many books on Hogwarts that he could carry. With Hermoine down, he was the only one left willing to do research. And now, he was looking for any clue on what wizarding monster could be petrifying his peers.

They arrived on Friday night, appearing in the middle of the dark Hades cabin. Nico dumped his things onto his bed as Dominic looked around, the demigod-wizard still unused to his new role of living.

"Who decorated your cabin?" Dominic asked, opening the curtains of one of the windows to reveal the stupid face of none other than Percy Jackson. After a yelp of surprise and a jump of shock, Dominic watched as Nico stormed out of the cabin.

"Why were you spying on my cabin, Jackson?!" he heard. "Why are you even at camp! Why were you at my window like a fucking stalker?! Why...why... Ugh! You're so infuriating!"

Dominic looked out the window to find Percy standing there with a grin as if he didn't regret anything. "I found out what time you usually get here and was checking to see if you were back or not."

"You couldn't even see in the window!" Nico's hands were flying about in gestures. With his anger, all his accents tangled up and mixed, making his words almost illegible. "So what were you doing?! Listening?!"

"Well, yeah!" Percy retorted. "How else was I supposed to see if you were back?!"

"Knock on the door!" Nico gestured to the large door that stood at the front of the Hades cabin. "Gods, you call yourself an adult?!"

"Um..." Dominic peeked his head out of the window. "This is Percy Jackson? The Percy Jackson? This is the guy you had a crush on?"

"You aren't any better," Nico retorted. "Allyson barely comes out of her dorm nowadays, let alone talks to you."

"Uh...you guys? You're making a scene." Annabeth was suddenly at their sides, drawing their attention to the crowd of demigods. She flicked Percy in the forehead before hugging Nico. "It's good to see you."

"Yeah, same." Nico didn't hug back but that wasn't unexpected. If anything, Annabeth was just happy that he allowed her to hug him at all. "What are you two doing at camp?"

"Visiting." she looked at Dominic's head, still poking out of the Hades cabin's window. "You're Dominic Cook? Nico's wizard friend that ended up being a son of Apollo?"

Dominic glanced at Nico before climbing out of the window. Once his feet were on the grass, his robes were clearly visible, marking him as a definite wizard. "Yeah, nice to meet you."

"Likewise." she shook his hand and studied him. "Why didn't you use the door?"

"Annie, you'll find that he's like Percy. There's not much going on in that head of his." Nico looked back to Percy. "And you, don't ever stalk my cabin again."

Percy held his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine." He lowered his hands. "But it's good to see you, Nico."

Nico huffed in agreement. "I come every weekend. It's you two who have been staying away."

Annabeth and Percy shared a look that didn't go unnoticed.

"What?" Nico asked. "Something's going on...so you are here for a reason, aren't you?"

Dominic leaned against the cabin. "I think I know what it is-"

Annabeth's hand clamped over his mouth. "I've heard about what they call you, 'psychic'. So don't you dare say what you're thinking."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Um... Look, I've got enough to worry about over at Hogwarts. So if there's something wrong then maybe you should just spill it before-"

"Nothing's wrong." Annabeth let Dominic go. "Not here, at least. You said something's wrong at Hogwarts?"

"Changing the subject, I get it," Nico grumbled. "But I do need your daughter of Athena smarts. So I'll let it slide for now."

"Great." Annabeth led Nico to the door. "Let's go inside and you can tell me all about it."

Dominic followed close behind, and not long after so did Percy. As they all came together under the dark roof, Dominic closed the door and grabbed his bag. "Nico, I'm changing and then hitting up the sword arena."

Nico nodded as he started to sort the books he had brought. "Some are in Greek and Italian but most are in English. I stole them from the library before coming here."

Percy sat next to his girlfriend on the floor as Dominic went about his own thing. "So...are the books magic if they came from Hogwarts?"

Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. "Again, you call yourself an adult?"

"Ignore him," Annabeth started to look over the books. "What did you grab these for? What's going on?"

"Some students, a ghost, and a cat have been petrified," Nico explained. "We don't know what caused it. But whatever is attacking was born in the castle, in the Chamber of Secrets."

"The chamber was made by Salazar Slytherin," Dominic piped up, pulling a shirt onto his bare chest. "He was one of the founders of Hogwarts. Hated anyone that wasn't pureblood."

"Pureblood?" Percy asked. "That sounds...racist."

"Prejudiced, but sure, think of it like that." Nico shed his robes, his green veins now visible along the neckline of his shirt. "He was against anyone that wasn't born from a line of wizards. And he made the chamber and apparently the monster. But we don't know what the monster is."

"What does the legend say about who can open the chamber?" Annabeth asked.

"The Heir of Slytherin." Nico's eyes followed Dominic as he left the cabin, now dressed in muggle workout clothes. He kept quiet until the door was closed again. "And please, don't go talking about this around camp. People aren't supposed to know much-"

"We know." Annabeth grabbed one of the books. "What year was Hogwarts founded?"

"It's in there, somewhere." Nico retrieved his wand from his robes and quickly changed the book into Ancient Greek. "There, you'll be able to read it better."

Annabeth quickly scanned through the pages as Percy gaped at the example of magic. "So the Heir of Slytherin must be back at Hogwarts...Ah, here it is. 990."

Percy whistled. "Wow."

"Yeah, it's not good. That means it would be nearly impossible to trace his blood down to a modern-day wizard." Annabeth looked to Nico. "And I'm sure you've already realized that."

Nico nodded. "I gave up on trying to find out who it could be. Especially after..." He stopped when he remembered the dreams of Tom. Tom Riddle... Voldemort. "Nevermind, that's not important."

"Come on..." Percy groaned. "We see you for the first time in forever and you have green eyes and golden fucking freckles and you act like nothing even changed so I didn't want to ask about it but now you're keeping secrets-"

"Oh, you don't know...I forgot." Nico looked down at his dandelion. "Um...Persephone blessed me. My powers were like killing me. And she was allowed to because I'm on a quest and it's not just because."

Annabeth reached over and touched the dandelion. "Nico...so you're on good terms with her?"

Nico shrugged. "Dad likes me so she likes me. But anyway, back to Hogwarts. That's more important."

"More important? You have a dandelion in your shoulder!" Percy looked to Annabeth. "That's insane, right?"

"Percy. You can control water. A hat turns me invisible. It's not that big of a thing." Annabeth patted Percy's shoulder. "So, Nico, you're trying to find out what the monster is?"

Nico nodded. "That's why I brought books with me this time. But we haven't been able to find out, not even Hermoine. She was close but then...but then she got petrified, too."

"Petrified... It only petrified, didn't kill?" Annabeth asked. "It seems odd."

"It killed fifty years ago, the last time it was opened." Nico started to look through another book. "Come on, Percy. Grab a book and help."

Percy shook his head before standing up. "No way. I'm gonna go train with Dominic. He had the right idea about getting away from this as fast as possible."

Nico sighed but let him go. "Annabeth, your boyfriend is a child."

"Tell me about it." Annabeth waited until the door was shut behind Percy's retreating form before talking. "How many people at camp know about wizards?"

"You, me, Dom, Will...uh...Chiron..." Nico shrugged. "Not many. And I was told to keep it hushed up. So we should keep all of this stuff in here."

"Definitely." Annabeth hummed as she flipped through the book. She looked...different, but Nico couldn't quite place why. "What happened fifty years ago? How was the monster stopped?"

"The attacks were blamed on an innocent. The attacker must have graduated that year or deemed it too risky to start it up again." Nico sat back against the wall. "This is too much, Annie. I thought...after I got my memories back, I was still thankful I got to go to school instead of being annoyed by it. Even though it was a quest, I thought of it as peaceful. But now something's attacking these kids and I can't figure out how to stop it."

"You're being too hard on yourself." Annabeth set the book down. "And besides, you're only thirteen years old. You aren't meant to have the weight of the world on your shoulders."

"I've been through two wars, I'm not an innocent kid." Nico looked at her again as something nagged at the back of his mind. What was it...? "But let's set this aside for a minute. What are you and Percy doing here at camp?"

Annabeth tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had gotten older, more mature. Dark circles under her eyes showed that Nico wasn't the only one still suffering from Tartarus nightmares.

"I should wait for Percy..." she sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. Especially because that friend of yours probably already knows. But you can't tell anyone else."

"I promise I won't," Nico assured her.

A hand moved to her stomach, and that's when it finally clicked. Instead of feeling two souls whenever he was around Harry, he was feeling two souls around Annabeth. But the extra one wasn't evil in the least.

"You're pregnant!" he announced, standing up. "I knew something was off with you!"

Annabeth chuckled. "Keep it down, Nico. I didn't expect you to get so excited."

Nico sat down again, not bothering to hide his large grin. "I can feel their life force."

Annabeth blinked before smiling. "You're serious?"

Nico nodded. "Congratulations, Annabeth."

"Thank you, Nico."