Chapter 54

Hazel

While Harry stayed and chatted with the Order, probably about making sure that bossy little girl kept them in the loop, we left to prepare for what we just knew would be the first time in many years the Camp defeated the Hunters. We left the study and entered the dining room and were surprised to find Artemis there.

"Your plan is sound Miss LeVesque, however, Jennifer will not be participating." She said bluntly.

"Why not?" I asked. Safety depended upon Calypso. She was crucial to the plan.

"Because we send heros to intervene. Jennifer has been indulged so far, but you must continue to the final battle without direct intervention of the gods. She may rejoin you then if necessary, and only if necessary. This you should have foreseen."

"Oh. Yeah. I mean, I don't see the problem, but if that is your order."

"It is not mine, I am merely the messenger, the order is of the three brothers. Hermes asked that I deliver it as the hunt is to winter here. Heros and humans must solve their problems else they become dependant upon us for everything. We cannot make them stronger by letting them grow weak."

"Am I called to return?" Jennifer asked, almost weeping.

"No child. You may stay, inspire and advise, but you shall not take part in quests as a member. Miss McLean will take your place on this quest."

"What's this all about then?" Ron asked.

"As this inner circle has already met myself, and many of them Athena and Poseidon, you may confess yourself should you choose. However none may mention it again, any more than you may mention myself, Hecate, Athena or Poseidon or any of the rest of the pantheon."

"Uh, what if we do?"

"Well Mr Weasley, either Zeus will strike you dead, or everyone will think you are a raving lunatic. Hope for the latter. As to your quest, the item you seek is in the lowest level of Gringotts, the vault has no name or identification, but you will know it as it is guarded by a elderly dragon and curses. Given the short notice that will substitute for the role Jennifer would have played. "

With that she turned and left, and as she passed through the door a blinding flash of light shown through it.

"That... I saw that when you went to get medical stuff and Harry's dream thing... you're one of them? Dumbledore always thought you were Hecate incog.. uh.. in disguise. He was right wasn't he?" Ron asked.

"No. He was wrong. I'm not Hecate, or Athena or Aphrodite as the Professor imagined. I am the daughter of Atlas, and the grand daughter of the one you know as Bob, who's name is Iapetus. My name is Calypso, and I am the goddess of... nothing. I'm a goddess without an assignment at the moment and without a seat of power in Olympus. I am a muse, a nymph, my role is to inspire. But everything else you know about me is true. I am adopted by Poseidon, and I am in love, very much in love, with Leo. I ask that you keep all this in confidence. Prior to meeting you I spent the last several thousand years alone on an island and should word of my true nature leak I would almost certainly be sent there again. Death would be preferable."

"That is not going to happen, is it guys?" Leo looked at us sternly as we all agreed to keep Jennifer/Calypso's secret.

"So a pantheon is a collection of gods and goddesses then? I heard you referred to as a member early and meant to ask you about it... uh, no reason to now I guess." Neville said.

"Would Zeus really strike us down?" Hermione asked.

"Very probably. You know the problem faced by the confirmation of magic to the muggles? Confirmation of the gods would be infinitely worse. It would be worth the death of a few to prevent it, so I beg that you keep this information to yourself. I do not wish for those I have grown so fond of to be among those few."

"So, uh, you really can kill with a thought?" Ginny asked.

"There is a difference between having the ability to do something and the will to do it." Calypso replied.

"I'll take that as a yes." Neville said, to which Calypso only smiled.

"This complicates our burglary plan." I said to the group.

"Ya think?" Jason grinned.

"Not helping!" I smiled. "Lets talk about this. I was figuring that Jennifer, can I just call you Calypso when its just us? That has bugged me for months."

"It would be better to continue with Jennifer lest someone else hear my name and ask why."

"You're right of course." I replied. "Anyway, I figured you to get us in and out. Oh and blow any locks Leo couldn't crack. Okay, we can't just teleport in."

"This is probably why the gods want us to solve our own problems. We shouldn't use Jennifer for everything, just emergencies. Call on her like we might our parents." Percy said.

"Yeah, but, well, some parents have been really forthcoming of late. Our English friends probably don't understand this, but you should know, most of us have seen our godly parent once or twice in our lives. I have seen my father once since the 1940's, and only a couple of times before then. So when Poseidon, Athena, Hecate, Aphrodite and all start showing up for tea and quidditch matches, giving us boats and all that, well, it has made this quest rather easy in that sense. Usually transport and locating the target are stuff we have to deal with. Percy, Frank and I had to find our way to Alaska in a rowboat for instance. Here, well, its been served up. Anyway, we need to pick the team. Now normally a quest has three members."

"We have five just from Hogwarts." Ron said firmly.

"Yes. True. But each team member needs a reason to be there. Harry will pick out the cup once we are close, Leo will crack the vault. We will need some security should a fight break out, and we have to figure how to get there and back."

"Hazel, if we were in Diagon Ally, could you sense the tunnels and chambers of Gringotts beneath us?" Annabeth asked me.

"Yes, I mean, I felt them last time we were there, but I didn't make an effort to map them out."

"Okay, so we should go there, have a butter beer and you get us a map or target to where to go to, then we apparate since we can't teleport." Annabeth smiled, proud at her solution.

"There will be magical protections, as Percy will tell you, you can't apparate through them." Ginny volunteered.

"Darn. Well, we may have to get them to lead us to our vaults and some sneak away then, maybe a few come invisibly."

"It has protections against that, thief's downfall, it washes away any invisibility or concealment charms." Hermione said.

"How do you know that?" Ron asked.

"I read it in 'History of Gringotts' back in first year when Harry said the vault that had been burgled had been visited by Hagrid."

"Putting that aside for a moment, who is going?" Ginny demanded.

"I was just trying to figure that out" I said. "Leo, for the lock itself, Harry to identify and isolate the horcrux, Piper because Artemis said so, me, Percy"

"Why you?" Ginny asked.

"As Annabeth said, I can sense tunnels and underground cavities, plus gold and precious metals, its a child of Hades thing." I replied. "If Percy is going, then Annabeth is, and all four of you want to go, so that's uh"

"Ten, eleven with Jason. Way too many." Annabeth said.

"Says who?" Neville asked.

"Traditionally quests are three. The one last year with seven was an anomaly as we were chosen by the gods."

"Yes, but where is that written? Is there some reason why only three should go?" Neville pressed.

"Well, its not written anywhere, its just, well the more you have the more chance there is of getting caught and the smaller the group the faster and more discretely you can move."

"With that group, why would we care if we got caught? We could just shoot our way out." Ron said, with the English all nodding their agreement. There was a certain logic to it I suppose but still it seemed unwieldy to me. "I, well, we can talk about it more when we figure out how to get in and out. I just can't help but think we need to shave it down some."

"No. You need to add one more." Nico said as he arrived at last from the meeting.

"No! Bullshit! You can't be serious!" Will shouted.

"Its the only way. Apparating won't work, and the gods have cut off our teleportation. Besides, its only a few hundred yards underground in any event. Should be easy."

"Shadow travel?" Percy asked. "Yes, that might work, but how do we know it can go through protection spells?"

"I can try it at Hogwarts first, then by myself at Gringotts once Hazel gives me a target. If I can get there okay, then I come back, get everyone and we go. Simple enough."

"What is shadow travel?" Harry asked.

"Its something some children of Hades can do. I can't really, but Nico can. All the shadows of the world are under his domain and he can enter them and travel the connections between them until he gets where he wants to go. And he can take people and objects with him, its just..." I said before Will interrupted.

"Its just that it nearly killed him the last time he did it."

"It did not, and there I was jumping across oceans and countries with a huge ass statue. This is a couple of football fields, tops. Lighten up!"

"I don't like it" Will stated bluntly. "I've seen you laying around transparent for days, the rest of these folks haven't."

"Ahem" Reyna grunted.

"Okay, well most them haven't."

"The point is it worked and I'm here now. If we can move a statute halfway around the world we can go into a bank vault a few hundred feet underground without problems."

"Do you guys want some time to talk?"

"Shut up Rachel!" Nico yelled to Will's laughter.

"Okay, but if he tries this, I'm going."

"Well what the heck, thirteen is as small as eleven I guess." Hazel said. "Lets plan on Sunday. Gringotts is closed then so there shouldn't be many actual guards. Nico, you want to try going through or around, or... whatever it is you do, to the protections tomorrow at Hogwarts?"

"Sure. I'll try to leap from Bob's to Gryffindor tower. Hermione, why don't you find that book and see what else we might run into."

"I can do that."

"If you die, I'm going to kill you." Will said, only half kidding.

It was then that Harry caught up with us, and stammered a confirmation that he was to make sure I kept the Order in the loop. I sensed something else had been discussed, something Harry and Dumbledore were keeping from us, but I also decided that they must have their reasons. I trusted them, and if I had not, then a lot of people would have probably died.

Within the hour we were faced off against the hunters as twilight began to fall. Chiron announced the rules, which there aren't many. We were to try not to kill each other, but full on weapons were allowed. The first team to deliver their opponents and their own flag to the judge's stand would be declared the winner. Judges would be himself, Lady Artemis, Lady Jennifer and Oracle Rachel, as well as Professor Dumbledore. The rest of the Order also sat at the judge's table as did Ollivander, who had rarely left the Leodis during our break.

The game started just as expected, and developed as we had assumed it would. The Gryffindor Quidditch team attacked on brooms and led most of the Hunters that were guarding their flag away, while our defenses held strong against Thalia and her chosen attackers. Once the chase ensued for Harry and his air cavalry, Percy and Frank led a frontal assault on the Hunters flag and overwhelmed their defenses, then Piper, Annabeth and I swooped in from the flank and seized the Hunter's flag.

That is when things got sideways. Harry and the Gryffindor crew, or some of it, returned with Hunters still trying to hit them with arrows. The arrows bounced off their protection spells fortunately or they would have all been pin cushions.

"NO! We have this! Go back and help defend the flag!" Percy shouted, just as Ron unfurled a Union Jack and Harry hit Piper with a disarming spell that both brought him her wand, and the Hunter's flag.

"Nobody cheats at Quidditch!" Ron shouted as they flew away, now being chased by both the Hunters arrows and America House's curses.

We chased them back to the judge's station where Harry and Ron were met by Neville, Ginny and Hermione who was carrying the American flag.

"Have any trouble?" Harry asked.

"No, we just told them that Percy had sent us to move it before the Hunters could seize it." Neville replied.

"Lady Artemis, Lord Chiron, Professor Dumbledore, Lady Jennifer and, uh, Rachel, we, the students of Hogwarts, ask that you declare us the winners of this contest. We have captured the flags of our opponents and delivered them to the review stand as required by the rules. Unlike the American quidditch team, we did not cheat." Harry said as we all giggled.

"The game is ended. Well done students of Hogwarts!" Chiron announced.

"What? They were on our team!" Percy shouted.

"Apparently, they were not." Artemis smiled.

Percy just stared. His perfect plan had been thwarted by Harry, all because he had admitted to cheating at Quidditch. And there was nothing he could do about it.

"That's okay Potter. You gotta sleep sometime." He grinned. "Congratulations. A well executed asymetrical attack. Thoroughly treacherous and without honor..."

"Says the man that cheats at Quidditch" Ron interrupted with a laugh.

"Me? I've never played Quidditch. Shocked! Shocked I am that you would so accuse me!" Percy replied with a laugh, a laugh that hid the angst and disgust that another year of not beating the Hunters had come and gone.