Wizards XXVI

Harry ducked. Neville's sword went flying over his head, missing him by a hair. He was just about to retaliate when Neville reversed his strike and sent the double-edged blade straight through his neck. He and Neville both jumped. Two weeks was not long enough to get used to that.

"Dead!" Percy Jackson announced. "Nice work, Neville."

Neville grinned, his face turning red. "Thanks, Percy."

Percy turned to Harry. "Harry, you were looking at Neville's sword the whole time. If you do that the only thing you're going to be able to do is react. Look at your opponent's torso, if they have one, the muscle movements will tell you what they're going to do before they move."

Harry nodded. He'd taught something similar to the DA, only he'd told them to look at their opponent's wand arm.

Hermione handed him and Neville bottles of water as they stepped back into the sidelines. Harry nodded his thanks and drank half of his bottle in one go.

"You know, I actually think we're getting better at this," Ron said with disbelief. "Charlie will be so jealous."

"Won't he?" Ginny agreed, watching as Luna dodged a sword swipe from Hermione before retaliating with an attempt at severing her legs at the knees.

Charlie Weasley had always been the knights and dragons type. Since there was zero chance of him ever becoming a knight he had instead chosen to become the closest he could to a dragon. He was going to be very jealous of his two youngest siblings.

"You're dead, Luna," Percy said.

Luna and Hermione both stopped and stared at him with surprise. "What?" Hermione asked.

Percy tilted his head towards Luna. "You hit her jugular vein and carotid artery," he said, before muttering something in Ancient Greek.

Hermione blinked. "I did?" she asked, surprised both that that had happened and that Percy knew where and what the jugular and carotid were.

There had to be some reason that his wife called him a 'seaweed brain'.

"You did," Luna said with a smile. "By now I would be bleeding out."

That was a comforting thought.

"Okay, that's it for today, guys," Percy announced after three more bouts. "Tomorrow you start monster fighting, be ready."

"Hermione, is this really necessary?" Ron asked, eyeing the cabin in front of them nervously.

"Yes, it is," Hermione said fiercely. "Since Annabeth won't let us into her cabin, Nico is our best bet."

"Why can't we just learn with the rest of our group?" Ron complained.

Hermione sniffed. "I want us to be prepared."

Harry ignored his best friends' and knocked on the door to the Hades cabin. It immediately flew open to reveal Sapphire standing on the other side with her arms crossed.

"It's about time," she said. "How long were you guys going to stand there?"

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other. Sapphire rolled her eyes.

"Never mind. Do you need help with something? Have the Ares kids been bothering you? Because I am really not the best person to ask to deal with that, there'd be way too much blood spilled."

"Is Nico here?" Hermione asked without missing a beat. "We want to ask him about tomorrow's lessons."

Sapphire sighed. "You just missed him. He's in Calgary."

"He's what?" Ron asked.

"In Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He went to the Calgary Stampede with...some friends."

"What?" Ron asked with his bottom jaw nearly touching the ground.

Sapphire sighed again. "Not important. He's not here. Can I help you?"

"Maybe…" Hermione said slowly.

"Definitely," Harry said.

Sapphire nodded. "You'd better come in then. Mind the weapons."

Harry took two steps and tripped over a spear shaft. He somehow managed to bring a round shield leaning against the wall by the door with him. Both he and the shield made a lot of noise when they hit the floor.

"I told you to mind the weapons," Sapphire complained.

"Sorry," Harry groaned as Hermione and Ron helped him to his feet.

He rubbed the spot where the metal shield had hit his head and squinted around the floor, trying to find his glasses. Sapphire picked them up from where they'd landed beside a black dagger and handed them to him.

"It's okay, nothing's broken. Even your glasses are fine."

Harry put on his miraculously unbroken glasses and blinked. The cabin was absolutely covered with weapons. The only moderately free floor space was a fifty centimetre wide line going from the door to the back of the cabin, and even that had that one spear encroaching on it.

"It looks like your weapons shed exploded in here," Harry said.

Sapphire laughed. "It does, doesn't it? It's not all mine. Some of its Nico's and Malcolm had a few things he asked me to return too."

"How many is a few?" Hermione wanted to know, looking around the cabin.

"That depends," Sapphire said. "Are we counting each throwing star as its own thing?"

On an upper bunk, Sapphire's cat stretched and meowed.

Sapphire shook her head. "Jay's right, we're getting off topic. What did you guys want to ask?"

Of course, there was no way they could immediately get back on topic after that.

"You can talk to cats?!" Ron exclaimed.

Sapphire looked up from the knife she was studying to roll her eyes. "Anyone can talk to a cat; it's getting them to talk back that's the real trick. Jay was a gift from my father, and I know you hate being called that, Jay, but what else can we call it?"

The cat, Jay, rolled its eyes and turned around.

"See? Now he's not talking to me," Sapphire grumbled. "I know none of us got any sleep last night, but still. Grumpy cat."

"Percy said we're starting monster fighting tomorrow," Harry said. "We wanted to know what we might be doing."

"Hermione wanted to know what you might be doing," Sapphire corrected while she tested a bow string.

Hermione opened her mouth to protest the assumption but closed it with a frown when she realized she really couldn't complain. It was true after all.

Sapphire put the bow and a quiver of arrows on the opposite side of the room from where she had picked them up before going back and starting an inspection of another knife. "Monster fighting…If it were me I'd start you guys off with giants and dragons, stuff that's similar to what you're going to have to deal with thanks to Voldemort."

Ron winched.

"Giants and dragons?" Hermione asked.

Sapphire nodded. "Group assault techniques, weak spots, that sort of stuff. We've got about a dozen different types of giants and dragons, not counting any hybrids or mutants, so that'll take a while. Then Manticore, Sphynx, whatever else we have that you guys have a copy of. Think of it as third year Defense Against the Dark Arts with swords."

Sapphire held up a sword. "Does this look warped to you?"

"We're going to learn to fight basilisks?" Harry asked. He wondered if a demigod would have been able to kill the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets without getting hurt like he had. Maybe, maybe not. They would have actually known what to do with Gryffindor's sword though.

"Probably," Sapphire mused, "though the best thing to do with those little beasts is to run away. Honestly, poisonous and fire breathing? Whoever created them just did not know when to stop."

"What?" Harry, Ron and Hermione said.

"I don't think we're talking about the same basilisk," Hermione added.

"No," Sapphire agreed. "What you think of as a basilisk is what we would call a drakon. Big old poisonous serpent with a petrifying gaze, yes?"

"Yes," the three of them said.

"Either way, basilisks, not nice," Sapphire said.

All three wizards had to agree.

Sapphire frowned at the spear that had tripped Harry. "Huh, you know what I just realized."

They didn't.

"If Percy's got you fighting monsters, he must think you're ready for Capture the Flag."