2002, Richmond, Virginia (Thalia Really Doesn't Like Being Weak, Even With Luke)
Luke and Thalia eventually made it back to the base, two and a half hours after Thalia first left, it was still light out, so they weren't in any danger of a night-time monster ambush. Annie was almost crying with worry, and as soon as Thalia and Luke opened the door, the seven year old ran to Thalia and nearly tackled her in a hug. It took some effort, with no help whatsoever from Luke, for Thalia to manoeuvre herself out of the doorway and onto a beanbag chair, with Annie basically stuck right next to her the entire time, only shifting out of the hug to latch on to Thalia's hand, refusing to let go of it, gripping it like a lifeline.
Thalia realised then just how much of a stupid idea it was to charge off alone without telling anyone. Annie curled up in her lap and refused to move, effectively trapping Thalia. Well she guessed that she definitely wasn't going to be allowed anywhere alone if the seven-year old had anything to say about it.
Thalia could hear Luke putting the donuts into one of the empty cupboards, and the clink-clang of different cooking pans being moved around, but she didn't turn to look back, focussing entirely on stroking Annie's hair and reassuring the girl that, yes she was alive and fine, and no she wasn't going anywhere. She would've felt bad about Luke having to put their latest haul away, but she was the one that made it possible, really. She had Annie to comfort as well, and Thalia specifically didn't think about the fact that the only reason Annie needed comforting was due to her anyway.
A few minutes later, Luke trudged back into the lounge with a book, Annie looked up and immediately left Thalia's side to grab it, only to then sit herself on the older girl's lap. Luke just smirked at her, he knew that Thalia preferred to be up and about, and that forcing her to sit still was the worst thing he could do to her. They'd both pre-planned it so that it would be impossible for her to move.
Well she'd get her revenge later.
It was a few hours later when Annie had finally decided that Thalia had been punished enough and she was now just flicking through the interesting pictures. Thalia now knew more than she ever wanted to about Greek architecture. She didn't know whether to be proud or horrified that Annie could read such a boring book despite the dyslexia all three of them had. Whilst helping Annie stumble through some of the more complex words (not that Thalia was much better, but they struggled through it together) Luke had been suspiciously quiet, Thalia knew that a quiet Luke usually was the sign of an idiotic idea or brooding over something. She really wanted to go up and shake him, but Annie was still on her. The younger girl was staring at a large picture taking up an entire page.
"Thalia?" Annie looked up at the older girl, her hand on a picture of some temple.
""Yeah?" Thalia answered in the same tone, making the younger girl giggle. If it wasn't for all the monsters, or lack of food, then Thalia mused she would actually really enjoy all of this.
"Did Zeus really look like this?" Annie pointed to the picture which was an artists impression of Zeus she guessed.
"Erm, kinda, his beard was longer though, and his hair was really curly, and brown not black." Thalia had to think back a few years when Jason was born, Zeus really wasn't all that similar to the artists impression, not really.
"How did they get it wrong? The Greeks were closer to the gods than we are." Annie seemed very put out by this.
"Well, maybe." Thalia struggled to think of a reason, history was never anything that interested her, but now she regretted it, with Annie looking to her and Luke for all the answers, "Ah, yeah, the Greeks didn't really paint much, or that well. And it was later in Florence and Leonardo da Vinci that made paintings much more realistic." Or at least that was what she vaguely remembered from her weird fifth-grade art teacher who was really pompous.
Annie made a considering noise, and finally hopped off her position on Thalia's lap, and went to store the book near her own owl-themed bed. Thalia looked at her, and thought, a daughter of Athena, son of Hermes and daughter of Zeus. They made a great team. She was so busy thinking about her new family that Luke nudging her shoulder as he sunk onto another beanbag chair completely surprised her.
"Dinner's in a few minutes, it's tomato soup." Luke was particularly proud when he found that the monsters had a store cabinet with a lot of tinned foods. He and Thalia had no idea how that came about, but it was still really useful. He also, after trail and much error, figured out how to work the stove that Harry had put in - it needed an actual fire to be lit, but heated up just as fast as a modern stove. Luke wondered if Harry was linked to Hestia in any way, but Thalia was convinced that is was something to do with the dawn and people eating around that time. But their ideas about Harry didn't matter, there was food to be eaten.
Whatever god of monsters, or donut stores, that decided to put in tinned food in the Monster Donut Stores, Thalia mentally thanked them.
The soup was good, but even better was the knock at the door as soon as the three demigods had finished it.
2002, Woolworth Building, MACUSA, Auror Headquarters
Harry was so happy he could do a jig.
Well, not quite that happy, he still had some dignity to maintain as a British Ministry representative. After being pulled off the latest patrol with Jesse, he wondered if his luck was finally turning.
The Greek delegation finally arrived, according to Chief Williams' terse memo. Harry made his way to the Chief's Office, meeting up with Jesse in the Atrium. Usually they would grab a coffee (or gillywater in Harry's case) before they met up with Chief Williams, but the memo sounded urgent, and Harry knew that the Chief was already annoyed at him. And Harry hadn't helped matters by leaving Jesse standing at the entrance to MACUSA after he got an urgent call from Luke and had to immediately apparate away. Jesse was only pacified once Harry returned and offered to get him a 'proper' firewhisky from Romania, apparently something about dragon-fire being involved in brewing made it so much better.
In an act of great pragmatism, both Aurors skipped their pre-meeting drinks and headed straight to the Office, which was already occupied by the Chief and the delegation.
The Greek Ministry (or Hellenic Council as they preferred to be called) were made up of 2 witches and 1 wizard. The senior witch, named Hermione funnily enough, was the Council's Ambassador to MACUSA, and the other two were Demitris (a senior Creature Wrangler with the Greek Ministry) and Eleni, a relatively young witch who was apparently also an Ambassador and had experience in the creature department.
"Right, now the introduction's are over, let's get to work." Chief Williams took charge
Turing around, the chief moved to one of the chairs set up around the table that Harry didn't notice before. On the table was a map of the US with red pins dotted, Harry guessed they showed where any creature attack was, along with many more blue pins that were spread out almost randomly. Sharing a confused glance with Jesse, Harry made his way over to the seat that was indicated for hm, between Eleni and Jesse.
"The red pins are locations where we have seen a creature, or have captured one." Williams nodded to Jesse at that, he was involved in both creature captures, Harry was on the sidelines where the Chimera was taken. "The blue pins are areas where we think creatures have been, we can't detect any magic but the destruction is similar to the level that the creatures have caused."
Demitris immediately looked at the pins, leaning over and began counting and mumbling. Hermione looked over at Harry, his confusion must have shown, and said
"Oh don't worry, he's just checking the patterns, some creatures that you've spotted do attack in particular ways." As she said this, Harry glanced up at the board that had taken up residence in the Chief's office showing images of all the creatures they had seen. Harry had never seen a Pensive used like that, but apparently it could be used to drag out pictures, even if they were very blurry.
It took a few minutes, during which Harry and Eleni made some small talk, and Jesse and Chief Williams were discussing some other case.
Apparently Eleni was 21 and was promoted rather quickly through the ranks to become an Ambassador.
"But in a year or so I think I will be moving on, gaining some more experience, you know?" Eleni said this with a grin on her face. Throughout the entire meeting she had not been able to take her eyes off Harry for long. It was only due to the sheer amount of 'fans' that he would get accosted by (and were usually driven off by Ginny or Ron) that he recognised it. She was half in love with the legend of the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was rubbish at dealing with 'fans' like this, he was about to say something when a cough grabbed everyone's attention.
"Yes, well, everyone, erm." Demetris stuttered a little, seeing every eye in the room turn to him as one wasn't the (easiest) experience. "So there are a number of blue pins that do correspond with what we have observed to be hydra and some smaller troll attacks, so we can change them if you want?" This last part was directed at Chief Williams
"Maybe a different colour so we know what we think is there, what we know is there, and what we have no idea about." This came from Jesse
"Yes Captain that sounds like an idea, but the blue pins are not something we have no idea about." Clearly the Chief was annoyed that one of his Aurors was so blase. "But something we have not directly observed." With a wave of his wand, most of the blue pins turned green, except the groups that Demitris had indicated.
Most of the pins were still blue, but now the green pins, which outnumbered the red, made the board look a little less random. The blue pins were still everywhere either in random clusters or spread out regardless of their environment, all of the green pins were in specific groups, or on similar terrain, and the red pins were dotted in cities throughout the US. Another wave of the Chief's wand and the pinned map replaced many drawings and notes already on the board. Now everyone could see the map clearly without crowding the table.
"Looks a little more organised, but there is still a worrying amount of activity on the coasts that we haven't covered." Hermione mused.
She was right, most of the blue and green pins were scattered throughout the US, but there was still a worrying amount of blue pins in the most populous states, especially around New York and California.
"Hmm, the green pins are out of the way mostly, we can worry about them last, it's the red and blue in the cities that are gonna bite us in the ass." Jesse was staring intently at the pins around Philadelphia. Harry remembered the other Auror saying his sister and kids lived there.
There were two red and seven blue pins around the city, and five more blue dotted around Pennsylvania.
Chief Williams noticed this to, and put a comforting arm on the man's shoulder. Giving the two a semblance of privacy, Harry turned and saw Eleni looking intently at him.
"What do you think we should do Harry?" she wondered aloud. This got the attention of most of the room, but unlike with Demetris, not everyone turned to look, Demitris was looking over the map muttering, and Jesse was still focussing on Philadelphia. Harry looked at the map as well to clear his thoughts.
"It's definitely the cities which are the bigger concern, if we focus on coastal city patrols and try to eliminate the creatures from those areas first, we should be able to move to the in land and rural states." The Auror Office had gone with a similar tactic in Germany, closing the net around a dark wizard city by city, it had worked very well then, but needed a lot of wizards and time.
"But we don't know if they're more a threat to muggles or wizards." Eleni spoke up, blushing when Harry turned to look back at her. "I mean, if the creatures are threatening wizards more, we should deal with them first, the muggles will come later."
Harry was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, but her brushing off of muggles reminded him uncomfortably of some of the attitudes the Ministry was trying to change, unsuccessfully, but Hermione beat him to it.
"Thanks Eleni, but I think Auror Potter is correct, the cities pose the biggest risk to both wizards and muggles, and if Chief Williams agrees, we should clear them out first." Harry got the feeling that this Hermione, much like 'his' Hermione, was more a stickler for rules, and wasn't too keen on the youngest members in the room being so casual.
The rest of the meeting was spent deciding which cities to systematically check through first, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia and San Diego were decided on first for a sweep, with Chief Williams sending a memo to his Canadian and Mexican equivalents. Even MACUSA's obscenely large Auror Office wasn't large enough to work through the four most populous coastal cities in the US without some help.
It was gone 6pm before Harry got out of the office, and turning down Jesse's offer of a drink, and Eleni's more insistent offer of exploring New York, Harry decided to get back to Richmond, Thalia was still injured after all.
