Woo hoo! I'm back! Let's see what happens now! If you haven't guessed, I'm a little more a Percy Jackson stan than a Potterhead, so if some details are off, please tell me in the reviews and I'll try to fix them ASAP. Also I'm really bad at writing Annabeth's POV so bear with me if she's a little OOC. Also, I just realized she went to Berkeley for college, I think, not New Rome, but whatever lol

To answer the question of 'Guest', I'm updating rIgHt NoW...I'll try to update every week and a half or so, but it might be faster or slower depending on my school and stuff. (Also this chapter is going to be a little shorter since I had less time to write it).

Chapter 2: Annabeth's POV

Percy was taking a long time changing into his robes. I guessed there was some kind of soundproofing on the compartment doors, because I couldn't hear anything that was going on outside. He could have been being killed by a flock of angry harpies and I wouldn't have known.

Not that I was too worried. I had pulled up some blueprints of Hogwarts on Daedalus's laptop (not the original one obviously, since that one was lost in...the Dark Lands, but Leo had somehow managed to upload some kind of magic flash drive using his Archimedes sphere.); apparently Daedalus had known about the school long before our quest was issued. I wasn't surprised.

I had been studying the blueprints...when I told Percy the architecture was amazing, I wasn't lying; the castle truly was a work of art, with its moving staircases and such, but the more I looked, the more I felt there was something...off about them. On the seventh floor, on one of the left hand hallways, there was a room marked as the 'Come and Go Room', but I couldn't discern what it was supposed to be for...sometimes the room just disappeared from the map, or it pulsed in and out of sight like it didn't want to be there.

I zoomed in more on the computer, trying to find out the school's secrets. What if this had something to do with our 'crossroads'?

I knew Percy, the Seaweed-Brain, thought that Hecate was just like Hera, manipulative and horrible (if you're reading this, Hera, I hate you, you cow). And to some extent, he was right, because she was manipulative and horrible the way all gods and goddesses were, but Hecate was also...well, not exactly honorable, but more principled, I guess. She might try and trick you, but once you made a choice, she wouldn't go back on her promises.

I looked out the window of the compartment, just a glance to see if Percy was coming back any time soon. I was surprised to see him standing there right outside in the hallway, still wearing his Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Really? Gods, why was he so slow?

I stood up from the seat, tucking the duplicate laptop into my suitcase before I stepped outside.

"Oh, Percy, don't worry about Rey. She's really quite nice once you get to know her, but a little off in the head if you know what I mean. She probably just didn't recognize you from school," There was a girl with bushy brown hair, about our age, talking to Percy. It looked like she hadn't noticed me yet. I wondered who Rey was, but I figured I would probably meet her soon, so I didn't ask.

"Hi," I said.

"Oh, hello," said the girl. "I'm Hermione. You must be Percy's girlfriend?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm Annabeth Chase, dau—" I was about to say daughter of Athena, but I realized that would be a wrong thing to say. I held out my hand to shake, and Hermione took it.

We eyed each other warily for a moment. I could tell Hermione was intelligent, and probably read a lot, based on all the ink stains on her fingers, but she held herself in a more relaxed way; this girl was not a fighter. But they use wands, I reminded myself not to judge a book by its cover. Hermione seemed to be studying me in the same way.

"So…" I heard Percy say awkwardly. I turned in his direction; he looked like he was watching a bomb explode in slow motion.

"I'm gonna go change," he said, pecking me on the cheek before walking (rather quickly) down the hallway of the train.

"So," I said conversationally, turning back to Hermione. "Have you been at Hogwarts a long time?"

I meant it as an innocent question, but Hermione seemed to take it seriously. "Well, I'm a Muggle-born, you see," she paused here, looking at me carefully as if to see how I would react.

I smiled, a sort of 'I'm-a-harmless-dumb-blonde' smile I developed in college. I knew, of course, from research in the Athena cabin that there were people in the wizarding world that cared about so-called 'blood status', but I certainly didn't, and if I did, I wouldn't want her to know.

"And," Hermione continued, satisfied. "Ron, Harry Potter, and I have all been here since we were first years. Voldemort...he is on the rise, you know, and is targeting Harry, he's a Gryffindor, too, because, well, you know. I think Ilvermorny has the same four house system, right? Except they're…" she counted on her fingers, rapidly changing the subject. "Thunderbird, Horned Serpent, Pukwudgie, and...Wampus. I think. I'll show you around the school once we get there; it'll probably only be another—oh, here we are now! Hogsmeade Station," Hermione glanced out the window, and I could tell it was like returning home for her. The train had stopped, suddenly, and Hermione seemed to have finished speaking to me.

I, however, had come to several conclusions. One, Hermione had said 'Harry Potter', instead of just 'Harry', his first name, or a casual nickname like 'Ron'. That meant I was expected to recognize the name...Harry Potter. I vaguely remembered reading something about 'the Boy Who Lived', or something like that, but it was stuck in the back of my mind. Two, she said Voldemort loudly and boldly, like she was being defiant just by saying the name. Voldemort was also known as the Dark Lord to the Wizarding World about fifteen, twenty years ago, and according to my research, some people were still denying he was back. Hermione, though, seemed to believe it. Interesting…

The train slowed to a stop.

I stood up from where I was leaning against the wall. "I'm going to go get Percy," I said.

Hermione nodded. "I'm going to get Ron and Railey back from the prefect's carriage...Harry should be back from his meeting with Professor Slughorn by now, I suppose. We'll meet you at the thestrals." She wrinkled her nose at the mention of Slughorn, and I wondered who that was. I also had no idea what thestrals were.

I wasn't used to having so many unknowns in my life. Even during our quest to stop Gaea, I at least knew what I was facing. Now, even after a few months of research with my fellow Athena kids, there was so much I didn't know about this world, and it unsettled me.

I bid Hermione farewell for now and went to get Percy.

When I found Percy in the patterned hallway of the Hogwarts Express, he had a dazed, awed expression on his face along with his wizards' robes. "The toilets flush by magic," Percy said wonderingly.

That was so far out of what I was expecting to hear that I just stood there blinking for a second. Percy, unfortunately, mistook my bemusement for interest. "That's weird, right? Magically flushing toilets? It's like they teleported—"

Gag. I grimaced. "Stop, just...stop. We're actually here now, Seaweed Brain," I told him. I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward our compartment so we could get our stuff.

"Where do we go now?" Percy asked once he got his suitcase and I got mine, along with the duplicate Daedalus laptop. I needed to take another look at those blueprints later on. I would show Percy, but he probably wouldn't be interested.

"Let's just follow everybody else," I said. I saw a tall, thin guy with white-blond hair and green robes step out of a compartment with a smug look on his face, shaking his foot out as he exited the train.

I was pretty sure green robes meant that guy was a Slytherin, another house from Hogwarts. From what I'd read, Slytherin's were the most ambitious, cunning group at the school, and were vicious rivals of the Gryffindors. I decided we should probably steer clear.

On the way Percy told me about his encounter with Hermione, a redhead named Ron, and a girl named Railey.

Finally, we got off the train and were able to fully take in the sight of Hogwarts. Of course we'd seen it from far away, but up close, it was even more magnificent. Farther up, I saw a lake on the grounds of the school and a forest like the one back at Camp-Halfblood. I wondered if there were any naiads in there or if they were scared off by the magic that was so other. My fingers, interlocked safely with Percy's, itched to pull out my bronze dagger, even though I no longer had it.

When I looked up at the castle again, I couldn't help but look for the mysterious seventh floor, but I couldn't even find where the floors were, much less count any of them.

I saw a man that must have been at least seven feet tall with a big black beard waving at some of the kids coming off the train. "First years, first years over 'ere, to me!"

"We're supposed to look for thestrals," I told Percy.

He nodded, looking like he wanted to make a snarky comment but couldn't come up with anything insulting to say about the place.

Finally, I caught sight of a line of black carriages being pulled by what looked like shiny skeletal horses, equally black. They looked like the same nightmarish creatures that might have pulled one of Hades' chariots, but people were piling onto the carriages without any fear, chattering with their friends as if they were getting on a school bus instead of a wagon pulled by zombie horses.

"I guess that's it," said Percy, looking towards the carriages.

We walked along the path until we reached one of the carriages. "Hermione said she and her friends would catch up to us here," I said.

"Well, should we wait for them or just get on?"

"I don—"

"There you guys are!" I heard a girl's voice behind me. She had an American accent, unlike Hermione, but it was more Boston then Long Island.

I turned to see a girl with rainbow hair and braces smiling at us widely. "Hey, Railey," Percy said slowly. He sounded wary, and I looked between him and the girl, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Railey was smiling wider than ever, but once Percy greeted her, it didn't look quite so genuine. "Oh, I'm so sorry about earlier. I probably wasn't thinking straight. Maybe I got a stray Confundus Charm in the head, huh?" she giggled.

"Who are you?" asked a boy behind her, interrupting her to address me. Railey shot him an irritated look. The boy had orange hair and a mass of freckles on his face. I hadn't noticed him before, but now that he spoke, he was impossible to miss, standing next to Hermione, who was immersed in a book, not speaking. This must be Ron, the guy Percy told me about earlier.

"I'm Annabeth Chase," I said. I didn't make the same mistake as earlier about Athena.

Ron glanced down at mine and Percy's interlocked hands and wrinkled his nose. I decided I didn't like him much.

"Hey, those horse dudes are really weird," Percy said, trying to dissipate the tension gathering between us like storm clouds. I narrowed my eyes.

Instead of being appeased like he intended, both Ron and Railey seemed shocked.

"You can see those?" Railey blurted. Her eyes were wide. She looked like an earthquake had rocked her world and she was waiting for the impact to hit everybody else. Ron looked surprised, but not as much.

"Um, yes?" Percy said, puzzled. He gestured at the carriages. "They're right there?"

A foreboding feeling was gathering in my gut. Usually I wasn't one to act on 'instinct', but this was impossible to ignore. "Why, can you not see them?" I asked.

That was the wrong thing to say. Ron cocked his head to the side, confused, and Railey's expression turned guarded, like she had had a suspicion about me and Percy and what I just said confirmed it. I sensed Percy reaching discreetly for his sword Riptide in his pocket with his other hand.

Just at that moment, Hermione looked up from her book to explain. The tension lessened, but didn't disappear. "Those are thestrals," she said, pointing at the carriages. Her pointing seemed kind of skewed, though, like she was just guessing at where they were and was just pointing in their general direction. She continued, slower this time. "Only people who have, erm, witnessed death can see them," The feeling in my stomach sank like a stone. It was clear to me that none of the others, Hermione, Ron, or Railey, could see them.

I glanced at Percy. I knew he was thinking back to Bob and Damasen and the countless other friends we had witnessed the death of, and I tightened my grip on his hand.

"How come you didn't know about them?" asked Railey suspiciously.

Even Hermione looked like she was waiting for the answer to this, so I acted on a guess, based on Railey's expression when she saw the horses and Hermione's relative nonchalance.

"Well, you know that there aren't any wild thestrals in the US, so it makes sense that we wouldn't have known everything about them." I said, trying to make my voice sound matter-of-fact instead of how I was really feeling, nervous that our lies would be exposed.

"Yeah, the only domesticated ones have to be approved by MACUSA, anyway," Percy chimed in. I looked at him, surprised. Not because he knew about MACUSA, the magical government of the US, but because he had actually said what he knew aloud. After the whole ending-the-world-with-a-nose-bleed thing, my Seaweed Brain's self esteem had dropped like a rock, even if he wouldn't admit it. I smiled to myself at his improvement.

Hermione and Ron nodded, and so did Railey, but hesitantly, like she still didn't quite trust us. Even though she was only fourteen or so, I had a feeling this rainbow-haired girl was going to be a lot of trouble for us.

On the carriage, Hermione and Ron seemed to be having a silent argument about something, while Railey sat, swinging her legs off the side of the carriage. I didn't want to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help it. Besides, it could be important in...whatever our quest actually was.

I was only able to catch a couple of words. "...Harry...train...late…gone ahead...what?" I got the gist of it though. Obviously their beloved friend Harry Potter hadn't made it out of the bus.

I had assumed he was just on a different carriage, but apparently his disappearance was worrying his friends, too.

I turned to Percy and tapped his shoulder. "Harry's not here," I whispered.

"Hairy? You mean there's a spider? Where?" Percy looked down at the seat, hand poised to smack any offending arachnid.

I rolled my eyes, though I was secretly touched that he would defend me from a spider at a moment's notice. "No, Seaweed Brain," I said. "Harry Potter. Hermione and Ron's friend?" I told him about the article on the Boy Who Lived that I read, and how I thought he might be someone important to our quest.

As he processed the information, I got to thinking. It wasn't much, but an idea was forming in my mind. Gryffindor had a strong rivalry with Slytherin, right? Harry Potter was a Gryffindor, and that Slytherin boy, the blond one who walked out of the train compartment earlier; did I imagine the smug look on his face?

"Hermione," I said, interrupting their mini-argument.

"Yes?" she asked, bushy hair bobbing.

"I saw a boy on the train...he was a Slytherin, I think, with whitish-blond hair? Do you know him?"

Hermione wrinkled her nose, and Ron's face twisted like he had eaten a bad meal. "Malfoy," he said. "Yeah, you could say we know him," And they were enemies. Hmm... The inkling in my mind was forming into an actual coherent thought.

I turned and saw Percy looking at me thoughtfully, with a half-smile on his face, like he knew my mind was up to some deducting. I smiled, some heat rushing to my face.

Ron sighed loudly, and I rolled my eyes, turning back to the conversation. Hermione had slapped him in the arm, and he was now rubbing it, scowling. I smirked, then returned to seriousness. "I think...that your friend Harry is still on the train, and it's because of that Malfoy boy," I told them how I'd gotten to my conclusion, and Ron's fists balled angrily. Meanwhile Percy was looking at me in amazement, grinning.

"We've got to go back!" Ron exclaimed, his face and ears red.

"Don't be stupid," Percy, Hermione, and Railey said in unison.

"Think about it," said Percy. "It's not like you can get the horse dudes to stop," he reasoned. "And this hairy dude is probably already on his way up, there's no point going back to get him," he sounded certain about the thestrals not stopping. Maybe since the thestrals were kind of like horses, he could communicate with them like he did to other horses?

"Alright," Ron grumbled.

Finally, the carriages clattered to a stop. One by one people hopped off them and filed into the castle. Despite all our preparations, I couldn't help but feel a little bit nervous. This was it; we were here! I saw friends talking excitedly and laughing, like they were returning home. I knew for some of them, coming to Hogwarts was exactly like coming home, but to me it was like stepping foot in an alien environment.

The first place we went to in the castle was the 'Great Hall', where apparently we'd be having dinner. When I first saw it, I gasped in sheer wonder.

"Whoa," said Railey. "This is nothing like Ilvermorny."

I didn't know what Ilvermorny looked like, but I couldn't imagine it could compare to this. It was a long hall with four tables laid out, each with a banner hanging over head announcing what House it sat.

Gryffindor. A gold lion rearing its head on a crimson background like blood.

Ravenclaw. A bronze eagle flapping its wings in front of a royal blue crest.

Slytherin. A silver serpent coiled on an expanse of emerald green.

Hufflepuff. A black badger snarling on a gold-yellow background.

Each long table had steaming plates of food laid out, and streams and streams of kids were taking their seats at their respective spots. The candles were floating in the air, like there were wind spirits holding them up.

But all this wasn't the most amazing part. It was the ceiling, which wasn't a ceiling. It seemed to show the sky, a rich expanse of black velvet with glittering stars. I wondered how they had managed to make it look that way, and what spells and charms were necessary to do it.

Could the Hecate kids at camp do this to the dining pavilion? Could I have designed something so beautiful as this when I was redesigning Olympus? The maybes were swimming in my head like fish. Only Percy's hand in mine kept me from drifting off into oblivion.

"What do you do when it rains?" asked Percy, ever the voice of...something. "Does it just rain all over your food?"

I laughed, having been brought back down to Earth, or wherever this was.

We sat down at the Gryffindor table, where Ron was immediately assaulted by two twin brothers that looked exactly alike. We were just joking around when there was a voice at the head table, where the teachers sat. One man in the center, with a long white beard and a stereotypical wizards' hat had stood up.

"Welcome, welcome!" The hall went silent.

"Dumbledore," Ron whispered.

Okay, I promise Harry will appear in the next chapter. Did you like it?

-SharpAsCrystalz