Disclaimer!

These characters do not belong to me nor do I make any money off this story. I am merely writing Fan Fiction. The characters belong to their respective author. I hope you enjoy Joining Forces.

Hermione POV:

Upon noticing the bull thing in front of us, Annabeth had frozen for a few moments, her brows slightly rising for a second before she charged forward. "Great timing," Harry praised. "I get that the thing's really daunting and all, but we should focus and help Perc..." His voice trailed off when the bull suddenly chose to change it's course of action fiercely swinging it's head towards Annabeth.

"Wow," Ron spoke up. "It's now like two galleons and a niffler,"

"Uh..." Annabeth only made out a single noise at Ron's quip as she dodged to the side, the bull alternating between her and Percy at a quick pace. From her robes, she soon pulled out a...sword?! Dashing to the side, her hand was gripped on the hilt as she moved with fluidity. On the other end, Percy coordinated with her distracting or obstructing the bull from time to time. Although most of us were initially surprised at the sudden appearance of a weapon that she seemed to pull out randomly, we quickly recovered, aiding them as well. Still, that didn't stop us from asking questions. "A sword!" Ron exclaimed. "Where'd you get that from?"

Percy grinned. "Doesn't it look cool though? Who cares where it's from?"

"Uh," I spoke up. "That's an important detail."

"Let's talk about it later," Annabeth replied, she had managed to get on top of the bull partly and was trying to get the rest of herself on it. The bull continued to buck around, sometimes swinging that way or giving out a grunt, making her task as difficult as possible. The rest of us each cast different spells or charged forward and distracted the bull in our own way, attempting to confuse it and contract it's area so it would become more steady. We succeeded. Soon later with several stabs from Annabeth's sword the bull had finally stopped moving. "That's good," Percy said, looking at the bull which had slowly started to dissipate. The body seemed to be melting in a way only not like an ice cube into a puddle, but rather turning into a clump of yellow dust that slowly drifted away. Racking my brain for the books I've read in my past, I furrowed my brow. What on earth was happening?

Harry and Ron were in a similar state while Percy seemed to be in awe as he stated. "Wow! It looks like it's flying away! I never thought a mechanical bull thing would turn into dust, I guess it's different from other creatures,"

"I don't think I've ever seen a machine turn into dust," I said.

"I don't think normal machines do whatever that did," Annabeth replied. "It was a weird scenario."

"And your sword?"

"I got it just now conveniently. My Uncle has been dabbling in a lot of distinctive things lately. It's what I was doing before I came, he has been trying to get into contact with me lately. I received his message today,"

"Did that attach to an owl or...?" Ron continued to look at the sword, seeming to contemplate if he wanted to get one of his own. "How did you even get that out of your clothes?"

"Shrinking charm," Annabeth said, murmuring it a couple of times on the sword before it shrunk and she was able to easily pocket it. "It would look a little strange if an owl was carrying a sword to Hogwarts. I earlier just enlarged it so it could actually be of great use,"

You were really good at using it," Harry said. "Was swordplay another subject at CHB? It's really peculiar that you're so familiar. Although, it would be a unique class, but it's really strange for a wizarding school to have so much focus on a subject like this."

"It's a specialized school," Percy explained. "We had a brief introduction, but still focused more on other more regular aspects of combat,"

"It seems like an incredibly specialized school," Ron said. "You mentioned before that the HB of CHB stood for Half-Blood so you only accept half-bloods rather than any muggle-borns or purebloods."

"We don't make the rules, just follow them," Annabeth said. "Before you continue to ask questions how about I ask you all one - what on earth happened?!"

"Bellatrix was here," I explained. "She seemed a bit tired, but the greater problem was that all our spells didn't work at all. Not in the way like the magical resistance those creatures that came to Hogwarts had, but rather all of our spells just didn't work. They still were fired, but basically disappeared after. And then that thing accompanied with a hellhound which hopped onto Bellatrix causing both of them to just disappear. And that's where we're at now,"

"Oh yeah," Harry turned to Percy. "Now that bull situation is finished, do you know anything about what happened? Like with both the bull and if so, the hellhound,"

"Well," Percy took a brief pause as if searching his memory on what to say before answering. "I have heard about an ability hellhound have which allows them to travel around and bring people with them,"

"Like some sort of shadow-apparition!" Ron suddenly exclaimed. "Remember that Bellatrix had to first cast the wand-lighting spell before the hellhound jumped over? She hadn't used to spell before because the moon already gave us enough light to see each other, but perhaps not necessarily to shadow-apparate! Does it work like that?"

"I guess so?" Percy answered. "As for the bull..."

"Colchis bull!" I suddenly recounted. "In Greek Mythology, the Colchis bull were used by Jason to plow a field. They're made of bronze, can breathe fire, and have really hot skin,"

"Wow, impressive. How much do you know about Greek mythology?" Annabeth questioned.

"Just some bits and pieces I read in my free time for research. I mainly read about the monsters and creatures of Greek Mythology. Since many examples came from stories with greek heroes like Jason and Hercules, I read a bit about them too. However, they still weren't my main focus since it was the monsters that were attacking Hogwarts. It's not like Hercules, or Jason, or any Greek demi-god hero is going to come to Hogwarts,"

"Oh yeah, definitely not," Percy agreed.

"But if it's like that then why didn't it have any of those attributes?" Ron wondered. "Just like how that hellhound was tiny compared to the average sizes that Hagrid told us about, that bull didn't have hot skin nor did it breathe fire. I think the only thing that matched up was that it was made of bronze,"

"I'm not sure either,"

"Well, then you can find out for yourselves!" Suddenly, Bellatrix appeared from the behind several trees accompanied with the hellhound from before as well as...two more colchis bulls. This time, they were a size or two bigger than the one before and their skin gave off some sort of radiation. I guess both of these had the incredibly hot skin attribute. However, it was obvious that she was also somewhat surprised at the lack of colchis bull in the area. Tracing her eyes to the extra person here from when she left, Bellatrix gave an eerie smile. "Oh, I thought my associate was wrong in telling me to bring another two. Said I might have trouble with only one like that, who knew he was actually right! Well done, well done. Coming here really hasn't dampened your abilities at all, still able to thrust a sword there or shoot an arrow there. And boom! Another is dead!" She gave a large cackle that could still be heard over the two colchis bull's charging stomps. "I like this sort of style. Knowing who should be hunted, and never hesitating to kill,"

Have a magnificent day! Again, the next chapter will be the same day next week!

natureandreading - Thank you!