The demigods all settled into their rooms. Annabeth and Hazel were in the same room and Percy was in one with Draco and his gang. Percy put down his school bag and rummaged through his personal bag. Draco tried to sneak up behind him and see what was in his bag, but percy whirled around, wand in hand, and suck the wood under Draco's chin. "You are a nosy one aren't you." he said, poking the sick and feeling utterly ridiculous.
"I-I-" Draco stuttered but Percy cut him off, "Save it, If I catch you in my things at any point in time I will not hesitate to hurt you, and don't think I need a wand to do it." Draco whimpered and Percy let him go, going back to his things, "What could you be hiding that you would go to such lengths to hide?" Draco asked, rubbing his neck. Percy laughed bitterly, "Hiding, I wish I could do that." he thought he said it quietly but Draco heard and wisely kept his mouth shut.
Meanwhile in the girls room Annabeth and Hazel were un packing their things from their school bags, but being careful not to show anyone what was in their personal bags.
"So whatever did happen after, you know." Annabeth said, attracting a few curious glances from the others, but they quickly looked away respectfully, not everyone was a snoop.
"Well," Hazel then carefully told Annabeth everything she could of the five remaining adventures. When she got to the house of Hades she stopped, "and I'm sure you were told all about what happened from there." Annabeth laughed, "I was briefed, but not by you, so what happened?" Hazel glanced at the other girls, a few of which were pretending to do something while the eavesdropped. Hazel didn't blame them, she would have done the same, but still. She switched to ancient greek, with some difficulty considering she was roman and had only just started her greek classes, and recounted her battle at the doors.
Annabeth let out a low whistle, "The others do not do your story justice, damn girl. You are one powerful girl." She pulled Hazel into a hug.
The two of them finished unpacking and got to their uniforms. Annabeth pulled out her robe then the uniform, which she laid out on her bed piece by piece. First robes, all good. Next shirt, fine. She pulled out the skirt and nearly screamed, dropping the thing at the same time HAzel pulled hers out, looking only slightly less appalled.
"They expect us to wear those!" Annabeth shrieked like an Aphrodite camper who had just been told to wear a codfish on her head (props to you if you got that reference, I know it's not a common one). Hazel held it with two fingers away from her body while Annabeth cringed away from it as if it had a spider on it. "Well, this isn't a combat school. They hardly teach the students to defend themselves, so you wouldn't expect them to have a practical dress code for the girls." Hazel said and dropped the skirt on her bed.
"I won't wear it." Annabeth said and pulled a pair of pants out of her bag that roughly matched the skirt, "If the teachers have a problem with that they can discuss it with Chiron." Hazel nodded in agreement and did the same, finding a pair of dyed jeans with a little chain of colored gems on it. She settled on those and put her personal belongings away, silently thanking the gods that the robes were large enough to conceal her spatha.
~oOo~
The next day, after a night of dreamless sleep, a sort of thank you gift from Hypnos, they started classes. The demigods all had DADA for their first class for a double period, then potions, then care of magical creatures, and finally divination. The headmaster had apparently taken the hat's order that they be kept together seriously.
Percy was joking around with Annabeth, something about a damn, she looked lost but he was laughing his head off so the girls figured it was inside joke from sometime when she wasn't there, maybe when she had been holding up the sky? They entered the classroom where a very smug looking Chiron sat in his wheelchair at the front of the class. There was confused muttering throughout the classroom as the students took in the wheelchair bound middle aged guy who was apparently going to teach their class. Draco spoke the loudest, "Hey, how could an old guy in a wheelchair be more capable of defending himself than we are?" He asked, a little louder than the people around him to ensure the students heard him.
"To answer mister Malfoy's perfectly fair question, I am, in fact, still capable of holding a wand and casting spells. I am the exchange students archery teacher back at my academy in America." His word brought more muttering and shifting as some of the students tried to look at the demigods. "I also teach other forms of combat, but I shouldn't go into that with beginners." He added with a conspiratorial glint in his eye.
Draco scoffed, "Beginners?!" he said in outrage, "Many of us just got back from a war! We are far from beginners." Malfoy crossed his arms and Chiron motioned the demigods up to the front, where a raised platform was set up to ensure the audience a good view of the fighting. "Percy, Annabeth, if you would demonstrate a low intensity battle, I know for a fact that both of you have daggers on you, percy maybe one, Annabeth, at least six. Hazel you can do some advanced magic demonstrations next, as you are the best at it. "Hey!" Percy protest but shut up after a look from Annabeth.
The two demigods took fighting stances, armed with daggers that they had hidden in their robes that morning. They had a silent conversation with their eyes, I'm not going easy on you seaweed brain. Percy smirked, bring it on wise girl. Then they launched at each other, to fast for anyone who wasn't an ADHD demigod to follow. They did move slower than they usually did, and used less force, but they were still a frightening sight as they slashed at each other with blades flashing.
There were gasps every time it looked like one of them would gut the other, and Draco's mouth was hanging open in shock as he ate his words. Hazel just looked bored. The fight ended with percy pining Annabeth to the ground with his knee and holding his dagger to her throat with one hand and holding down her armed hand with his other. "I win wise girl." He said and got up. She scowled at him, "This time, but you know that I could beat you if Chiron hadn't told us to go low intensity." Percy shrugged, "We'll have to have a rematch, how about Athena versus Poseidon in capture the flag when we get back to camp." Annabeth smirked and punched him in the shoulder, "You're on seaweed brain."
They joined the students while Chiron spoke up once again, "As you can see, the combat program at my academy is highly advanced and not to be attempted by any of you, Annabeth here has been training since she was seven years old, that's longer than some of you have know what you are." He paused to let that sink in, looking particularly at Harry, whom Hazel hadn't noticed at first but now spotted at the back with his group, minus Ginny, who was a year below them. Hazel noticed the look of awe on all of their faces, with just a hint of suspicion.
Chiron went on, "Hazel Levesque is among our most advanced students when it comes to wandless magic," There were chuckles from percy and Annabeth and Hazel heard Annabeth mutter, "That's an understatement." Chiron glared at them and they silenced themselves, "As I was saying, she is one of our most advanced students in that field, and is also a skilled fighter in a battle scenario." Draco spoke up again, "Don't you think you and your army of skilled warriors would have been useful during the battle here?" Annabeth reached for her dagger but Percy stopped her, whispering in her ear, "He doesn't know Annabeth." she takes a deep breath and puts her hands at her sides, which somehow made her look even scarier.
Chiron responded, "We may not have been quite as affected as you were during this particular war, but don't think for a moment your's was the only war in the world." He ended the conversation there.
Chiron then motioned for Hazel to continue and she manipulated the mist to make it look like she levitated a quill off a nearby table, then set it back down. Draco was apparently unimpressed and shouted out, "That's all? I thought your best student would have more to offer." everyone knew he couldn't even manage that much, but he seemed to be feeling especially cocky that day. Hazel gave him a sweet smile, then made a chunk of gold the size of a football burst out of the ground right in front of him.
Chiron chuckled and turned to Hazel, "I suppose that concludes that, now for the lesson," he went on to explain a series of spells that only about half the class managed to pull off. Hazel made her way over to the golden trio after successfully replicating a blocking spell three times and watching Ron struggle with it while his friends succeeded at least once each.
"Hey," she said as she approached them with her wand in hand.
"Hi." Harry said while Hermione was busy explaining the spell to Ron.
"You got the spell down pretty quickly I saw." she said with a friendly smile.
"Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at magic over the years, but I'm not as good with wandless magic as you are." Hermione gave up on Ron and came over to join the conversation. "Hi Hazel," She said, stowing her wand.
"So there's this sort of reunion party in the Gryffindor commons tonight, and I was wondering if you would like to come as a sort of guest, since, you know, all that talk about the war on you end. You can bring the other two if you want, but I don't know how the others would feel about that many Slytherins in the Gryffindor commons."
Hazel glanced at the others, joking around and practicing throwing spells at each other. Then she remembered the nightmares. They would come back tonight, no doubt. The gods didn't think they owed the heroes that much, Hypnos was no exception. If he let them sleep peacefully one night it was doubtful he would let them have another the night after. They needed to be in their dorms tonight, together. Hazel figured if she invited them both Annabeth would want to stay out of it, she was not a big fan of parties, not since the 'end of the war' party, thrown by the Stolls. If she went to bed before percy and woke up screaming when Percy was nowhere near… Hazel didn't want her to go through that, it was bad enough she wouldn't be there.
"Naw, I'll go, but the others shouldn't…" Hermione looked at her funny, the suspicion in her eyes growing.
"Why not?" she asked innocently.
Hazel tried to come up with a viable explanation when Ron saved her.
"'Mione, how'd ya say it again?" he asked her
"Here." Hermione said and sounded it out, demonstrating the spell a few times for him before dragging him off to another part of the room to give him a step by step presentation.
Harry looked at Hazel curiously but didn't push the question, much to her relief. "So where is your school, I know it's in America, but where?" She eyed him carefully and considered her answer, wondering if she should mention Camp Jupiter or not. She opted to just be vague so if any of his group asked the others later they wouldn't give out contradictory information. "I can't say, I mean, it was left out of the books for a reason." He nodded as if he understood, but she could tell he didn't.
Class ended and they moved on to their next class. The rest of the day was almost uneventful, but with a demigods luck something was bound to go wrong. And so something did. They had nearly gotten through all of their classes without another surprise when the demigods entered divination.
The teacher was a kooky lady who wasn't taken very seriously by the students, and thank the gods for that. Hazel, Percy, and Annabeth were all sitting at the same table, with the golden trio right next to them. The teacher was walking by their table when she suddenly went rigid and pointed at them, "You," she croaked, "all of you." she took a rattling breath and spoke again, "Seven half bloods shall answer the call," the whole class was watching now, "to storm or fire the world must fall," the demigods eyes were wide in shock, "an oath to keep with final breath," the exchange students all looked at each other, silently agreeing that the past prophecy was nothing to worry about, "and foes bear arms to the doors of death." but she wasn't finished, "three of seven shall go to a place unknown, but be discovered by a change in tone, two worlds combined once again, will the half bloods again defend."
Her body swayed for a second then fell, but Percy caught her, just as he had with Rachel so many times before. He dragged her into a nearby empty chair and waited a moment. Her eyes flew open and caught on Percy, who knelt next to her chair with a look of concern on his face. "Wha-What happened." she said, Percy helped her to her feet and said, "You issued a prophecy." he looked back at his friends, who were shaken. "I-get back to your crystal ball, I'll be fine."
He did as he was told but as soon as he sat down he spoke in latin, which Annabeth could hold a conversation in at this point. "Another prophecy?!" Percy said in a hushed tone, Annabeth and Hazel both groaned and nodded, "I think so." Annabeth couldn't have sounded less enthusiastic. "At least this time it doesn't say any of us will die." Percy said, clearly trying to look on the bright side, "Been there, done that. No fun." Hazel said and there were half hearted laughs from all of them. "But why so soon, I mean we just got Leo back! And Calypso just got off her island. I just don't think I can handle another prophecy, those things have done nothing but ruin my life so far." Annabeth sounded a little hopeless, which was new for all of them. "You don't suppose we could switch ourselves out for Jason Piper and Leo, do you?" Percy said with just a sliver of false hope, "No, we have to see this through." Annabeth's tone was solid, certain. Everyone knew she was right. There was a collective groan and all three of them went back to work.
Unbeknownst to them Hermione was listening at the next table with her wand having cast a recording spell, which she planned to translate that evening during the party. She, Harry and Ron were all talking about the 'prophecy' in hushed tones like the rest of the class, mostly calling it a sure sign she had gone mad. But the exchange students seemed to take it differently. She hoped the recording would tell her just exactly how they took it.