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Percy had a good time last night, he had gotten to speak with Reyna, appoint someone to take over in his duties of Centurion while he was gone, and get his Legionnaires extra exercises. All in one long Iris Message.

Now though, was a different story. He really regretted staying up so late, even it was worth it to see Reyna. He was struggling to drag himself out of bed.

At first he tried to fall back asleep, but whoever built his homely cottage had a skylight right over his bed and it would shine light into his face in the morning. He found himself cursing them many a time.

After a lot of struggling he had finally been able to drag himself to the kitchen. The kitchen tiles were cold and not entirely comfortable, he wished he had worn his slippers. He decided he would probably get them out of his closet the next day, as long as nobody, especially Reyna, saw them, they would tease him mercilessly for the little pink bunnies.

He looked over to his coffee machine and debated if he should have a cup, but didn't feel like going through the effort of making it. Instead he would go for a swim, being a son of Poseidon, it should make him feel like he'd had a quintuple espresso.

He made a quick breakfast of eggs and toast to hold him over until... second breakfast, huh he kind of sounded like a hobbit. Hobbit or not he still ate his first breakfast, after all it was the most important meal of the day.

He changed out of his pajamas and into a plain black under armor shirt and swim trunks witch coral designs, he put on his worn sandals and grabbed his blue beach towel.

He didn't need his towel, but it was in case someone wanted to know how he would dry off. Although they would probably first ask why he was swimming in the cold water in the first place. He walked out of his house carefully locking the door behind him, he saw those sneaky looks of those redheaded twins, and if anyone else was anywhere near as troublesome as they seemed... Yes, this was the safest option.

Dew on the grass made it sparkle in the light, and with the lake and forest in the background it was a beautiful view, but not one for Percy, he preferred the beauty of the coral reefs and deep oceans more. He dropped of his towel, shirt, and sandals on the edge of the lake and dived in, eager to explore, if it was big enough to contain a giant squid it had to have some secrets.

Had he been a normal human he would have needed to go up and breathe by now, but he was a son of the sea, the water was his home. He could stay down here forever, and never need air.

Percy was swimming as fast as an Olympic swimmer, although he never went to real competitions, that would be unfair and he would take away someone's extremely hard work. He knew they had to work much harder than he did to be able to go that fast and he would feel bad.

He even could've gone even faster by using his powers, but he wanted to enjoy his exploration of the lake. He didn't get to relax and go for a swim often anymore and he wanted to enjoy it.

Eventually he found a small mermen village, he didn't know how they got there, but he decided to check it out, it wasn't everyday you see freshwater mermen.

~0~

As it turned out the town of merpeople was actually invited to the lake and traveled to it by magic, Dumbledore had invited them to stay in the lake if they keep any nasty creatures out of it. At the moment they were fighting a rather annoying invasive species of kelp that would tangle up its victim and drown them.

It wasn't dangerous to anyone who could naturally breathe underwater, but anyone who was using a spell to breathe underwater might panic and accidentally lose control of their spell and drown.

He offered them aid in the bottles of Greek fire he still had left over from destroying the spider nest. Greek fire could burn in almost any environment and it might make their job easier They just needed to make sure to keep a close eye on the fires and only use it in small amounts.

He spoke to them for a couple more minutes before leaving, learning a bit about there culture and this Triwizard Tournament they help with, they were extremely proud of it.

Returning to his house he passed the giant squid, he didn't need to be fed for another two weeks, because of his slow metabolism. But Percy still asked him how he was and offered a treat he had. Of course the squid took it.

He also ran into some species of fish he had never seen before and started a chat with them, it wasn't about anything important but it was nice.

Finally up at the surface he returned to his house to prepare for breakfast, purposefully willing himself to be wet. Not because he didn't want anyone to be suspicious he wasn't wet, but because he wanted to enjoy the water on his skin for just a bit longer.

All the while completely unaware of the three pairs of eyes watching in the library tower.

~0~

Percy knew something was up, it was only a couple days into school but something fishy was going on. The new Dark Arts teacher was up to something.

When he had heard rumors that the Ministry was paying off the press in order to bash Harry Potter's claims of Voldemort's return he wasn't surprised. If it came out he really was rising there would be mass panic, and that didn't help anyone.

Yet when he heard that they sent in Umbridge who refused to teach the students anything he was confused, he had met many people like Fudge, they were not the type to ignore threats to their power. In fact Fudge and the Greek equivalent of Jupiter, Zeus, were very similar, and Zeus wasn't one to sit around while there was a threat to his power.

From a first glance it would seem he was a fool and the gods didn't do anything during both wars, but that was true. It was all a trick, one to fool their enemies. During those times the gods were finding allies, establishing agents into the enemy armies, and managing the financing, all behind the scenes.

After all, money is the most important part of a war.

That's why he found himself outside the door of one Dolores Umbridge. He brought his hand and rapped on the door, he heard a muffled 'Come in' from inside.

He walked in to see the woman sitting straight up with her legs crossed and hands on her lap behind her desk, she was wearing the same coat that she had worn on the first day of school.

She seemed to be expecting someone else and was confused when he walked, she didn't let that show in her voice though as she offered him a firm handshake and seat across from her.

"Groundskeeper Jackson? It's a pleasure to meet you." She sat down in her pink heart shaped seat as he sat down in a leather plain leather one across from her.

"Professor Umbridge." He exchanged formalities with her.

"Before you tell me whatever you mean to say may I interest you in a cup of tea?" Percy nodded and she poured some tea from a tea pot into a cup on her desk, she pushed the sugar and cup of tea over to him.

"Alright then, now why have you come to my office?"

Percy stirred some sugar in his tea and spoke, "I want to know what's going on."

"I don't believe I understand what you mean by that." She said with an artificial sweetness.

"The minister isn't going to just ignore rumors of a dark wizard returning, no matter who said it, this type of thing HAS happened before. Yet here you are, teaching an incomplete education purposely, I want to know why."

She took a drink of tea and smiled. "Incomplete education? I don't believe I know what you are talking about."

"Cut the crap, I know there is something more going on here." With that he rolled up his sleeve and showed her his SPQR 'tattoo' complete with the trident and lines of service. She gaped at his arm.

"Y-y-you-your one of them." She seemed shocked , it seemed she understood what it meant. Which wasn't a surprise, anyone of her rank should be entitled to some of those bigger secrets.

"Yes, and some of the higher-ups want to know what's going on."

She composed herself and started speaking normally, her annoyingly sweet voice gone, "The ministry sent me here to see if Potter was lying, but from what I can tell, he isn't. We knew we could give the students the best Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher and they still wouldn't learn as well if they were learning it themselves. If we were to hire more than one professor for each class, as we would need to really get it to stick, people might start questioning why. Then they might see the connection between rumors of he-who-shall-not-be-named and this 'improvement' and start panicking."

She took a sip of her tea and continued, "We also knew that if we could get them to teach themselves we could eliminate both of these problems, so we've decided to give them and awful education in an attempt to force this."

Percy interrupted here. "Is it working?"

"Yes, there is talk among the students of forming their own group to train, I believe this 'Golden Trio' is planning on forming something."

Percy nodded filing away all this information. "What of the ministry?"

"The ministry is trying to weed out all of the Death Eaters in its ranks right now, some of them are very high up in the chain of command and we can't just fire them. We are also preparing the resources for an all-out war, although it is slower than it could be because we have to do it behind the backs of any of the informants." Umbridge stopped here.

Percy took a moment to process everything, then continued on with his questions.

"What do you do? No simple politician can just become the right hand of the Minister. You have to have some special skill." Percy was just curious at this point, it wasn't actually important in the bigger picture.

"I'm the Ministry's best assassin." Umbridge smiled a bit at this, although it wasn't a friendly smile. Then again none of her smiles were 'friendly'.

Percy nodded curiosity satisfied, but before he left though he asked her to schedule him a meeting with the Minister, this had changed a lot.

~0~

Harry and his friends were in the library, trying to find anything on their new Groundskeeper. So far they had no luck.

Ron, who never had much patience for these types of things, was sitting by window having given up. He wasn't the only one who was frustrated though, Harry was bloody tired from their night activities and wanted to get back to his warm bed. Hermione was the only one who wasn't about to give up, she knew SPQR from somewhere but she couldn't think of wherever that was.

"Rome!" Harry stopped searching through his book and looked over to Hermione, Ron also gave her a strange look from his spot at the window.

"What?" Harry didn't know what Rome had to do with anything, maybe Hermione was more tired than she let on.

"SPQR, it's from Rome, I got a t-shirt with SPQR on it when my family went to Rome for a vacation. I found it in a tourist shop."

Harry thought on this for a moment so it meant nothing? "What does it stand for?"

Hermione seemed to think for a moment, "I don't remember how to say it in Latin, but it means the Senate and the People of Rome in English."

"So it's useless." This time Ron spoke, it seemed everyone had reached the same conclusion. "And we spied on him for nothing?"

"No, did you see how suspicious he was acting, he's clearly a Death Eater!" Harry still wouldn't back down on the issue, there was clearly something more going on here!

Ron just rolled his eyes and looked out the window, after a few minutes he asked Hermione something, "Hey Hermione, what's the magnifying spell you used on glass?"

Hermione told him, and he repeated the incantation, and started looking at something out the window. "What is it Ron?"

"There's some stuff on the edge of the lake, it looks like a shirt, towel, and sandals."

Hermione ran up to where Ron was sitting next to the window, "Someone is going swimming? When it is this cold?"

Ron shrugged and continued looking, after a while something broke the surface. It took them a bit to figure out who it was, Groundskeeper Jackson. They watched as he picked up his stuff and started to walk to his cottage. Bouncing theories off each other that ranged from him being a Death Eater to Merman who grew legs.

They hurriedly left the library when the breakfast bell, a large golden piece that looked like it belonged on a church, rang. Nobody wanted to miss breakfast.

Hope y'all liked what I did with the Ministry there, I wanted to make it different from other fics and the books with them actually being competent. Bit more Harry in there, in Rome they actually do have t-shirts that have SPQR on them. Yes, the Ministry knows of demigods, buts it a well kept secret, only a select few know of it. I'm not sure about the lake scene it feels a bit off at parts and I'll probably rewrite it someday, or maybe not.

Next chapter might include some shenanigans involving the Weasly twins. It will be a while though because I want to update my other story at least once before I work any more on this one.

Stay safe.