"Zabini!" Ron hisses.

"Weasel," Blaise responds, inclining his head in Ron's direction. All the Slytherins and most of the others snigger and Ron flushes.

"They're Muggles! It-"

"What're you calling us, weasel?" sneers the Clara - tough-girl - that one.

"Muggles - non-magic people," Dean says.

"Well, you're just mortals-" the tough-girl begins. Something about the way she says it, like they aren't mortal, makes Harry shiver a little.

"Clarisse, chill - whoa! Help!" The dragon boy bats at his arm - Merlin, he's on fire! Harry starts forward, but the pretty girl with the kaleidoscope eyes hits his other arm and says, "Knock it off, Leo."

He grins at her, "Whatever you say, Beauty Queen."

She groans.

Everyone stands there uncomfortably for a few seconds.

Ginny claps her hands suddenly, and, pointing at the other group, who all seem to have congregated on the other side of the table, asks, "Which of you would you identify as a leader, here?"

"Percy," says the Stapler Boy, and Percy raises his eyebrows at him.

"Thanks, Grace," Grace? "but Reyna and Frank are praetors, Carter or Sadie wants in, most likely, and Clarisse doesn't think so."

The girl with the braid and Roman armour says, "Percy, you became praetor in less than a fortnight, definitely, and you weren't even there the whole time."

The girl with the streaks in her hair (Sadie?) "Barely any of them know us, ha ha ha." She scowls at her combat boots. They all turn to Clarisse.

"Prissy, you have probably. . . done the most stuff. . . y'know?"

Percy sighs, but says,"What about you lot?"

Harry, they murmur together, and so he walks through them from his place in the shadows.

He holds out his hand. "Harry Potter."

Percy's mouth twists in an attempt to hide a smile, but he takes Harry's proffered hand and shakes.

"Percy Jackson."

Thalia begins, "Percy-"

"If you bring out my full name I'll bring out yours," he says, and they glare at each other.

Grace says, "Thals. . . Percy."

Harry decides to get to it. "So, why are you here?"

This provokes a murmur among them all, as if they're not quite sure but they can think of something. Annabeth looks up and mutters something resentfully. Thalia snorts and half-smiles. The rest of them nod, though Percy's mouth twists again.

"I swear, if I had a dollar for every time you insulted-" he begins, but Grace clears his throat and nods toward them.

"We can't be sure, but. . . are there. . . any threats to you?"

Percy's question is phrased carefully, as though he doesn't want to give anything away.

Harry pauses, but it's Hermione who answers.

"There was."

The room stills.

"But right now? You're safe?"

"We think so."

Percy frowns. "Seems a little odd, even for. . ."

"Her Bovine Majesty?" Annabeth suggested.

Almost all of them muffle a laugh.

The Grace boy, stifling a laugh, says, "How you can be so smart about everything except antagonising. . ."

She looks at him.

"Jason, your sister and Percy can attest to the fact that I have never been as. . . well, accepting of her attempts to kill me as I'm sure she thinks I should be." Percy openly laughs, glancing up.

"You're so dramatic."

Thalia rolls her eyes and says, "That statue was dramatic, Seaweed Brain."

"See! Thalia, don't call him that."

Percy and Thalia are so very interesting because of the way they interact, as though they both love one another deeply and hate each other for something one of them - or maybe both - did in the past. Thalia in particular seems the type to hold a grudge.

"Who's trying to kill you?" Susan Bones demands.

"Wait. . . Leo!" Annabeth turns to the dragon boy - Leo.

"Let's not pin blame on any one person," he says warily.

She groans. "Leo, you said we were. . ."

"Demigods," Ernie Macmillan says pompously.

"Hera," Percy says.

"What?"

"That's who's trying to kill Annabeth, and it's probably her fault we're here, too," he says. Annabeth snorts, crossing her arms.

"The queen of the Greek gods," Theo Nott says, staring at her. "You've pissed off the queen of the gods? Are you kidding?"

"I wish." She stares back at him, and they seem to come to a mutual understanding.

"So are you all like the children of gods, then?" Parvati says.

"Or goddesses, yes."

"So. . . who are you?" Justin Finch-Fletchley points at Leo.

"Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. My many accomplishments include destroying her picnic table," he points to Calypso, "dying this one time, and naming a dragon Happy."

"You died?"

"On purpose!"

"What about you?" He points to the girl with streaks in her hair - Sadie, Harry thinks - who laughs.

"Every so often, Isis pops in and has tea up here." She taps her head. "I'm not Greek, so to speak."

"What about all of you?" Percy says.

"We're," Harry decides their day can't get weirder, "witches and wizards."

"How does that work?" Annabeth looks genuinely curious.

"You're way too much your mother's daughter," Percy says, laughing. "Which scares me."

"You're just scared of my mother!"

"I feel like if I do something wrong, she's going to frown down and I'll be a talking book or something like that!"

"When you had potentially your biggest screw-up to date - your nosebleed - she didn't do anything to you!"

"That was a weird day for her! My dad said she was right! And it wasn't my fault anyway!"

"Enough!" The girl with the feather in her hair - Piper, that's it - yells.

"Witches and wizards? How does that work?"

"We have wands, right," Harry pulls his out, "and we can do stuff with them," he points his wand at the pot of tea, "Wingardium Leviosa!" The teapot rises into the air, and Ron laughs at the choice of spell, probably remembering the troll.

"Wow!"

"What about you?" Justin persists with his earlier questions, and he points at Thalia.

"Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis." She rolls her eyes.

He points to Jason.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, former praetor of New Rome."

"Pontifex Maximus," a pretty girl with golden eyes says, smiling at him.

"What does that even mean?" Ron asks, and Harry can hear most people agreeing.

"Jupiter is the Roman king of the gods, god of lightning, the skies, law and order-"

"Don't forget mistresses," someone calls out, and they all laugh.

"Praetor's like an elected leader of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, which is the army of New Rome, and Pontifex Maximus is, like, the head priest. I mostly just build shrines at the moment, though. Promise I made to Kym."

"Yeah, thanks for having to convince my half-sister to save my life there," Percy says.

"OK," Ron says, "I think I have more questions now than I did before." A laugh ripples through them all. Everything seems normal - Harry still wonders why and how these people are here, but now that he's ascertained they're not a threat, he feels free to laugh along. But of course, if they aren't the threat, that only begs the question: What is?

It happens fast, faster than Harry can catch - all of the - demigods, he supposes - stop laughing and look far more serious than they have practically this whole - probably only half an hour or so. Percy turns to a guy holding a pair of pipes.

"Grover, man, did you. . . feel that?" Grover nods.

"You don't think. . ." He glances meaningfully at Percy.

Percy shakes his head, as though he's trying to convince himself of something. "No, no, no. . . we're just being paranoid, right? I mean, Leo blasted her to tiny little pieces! Almost blasted himself to tiny little pieces! There's no way."

"None," agrees Annabeth.

"It's pretty unlikely," says the girl in Roman armour.

"What's pretty unlikely? Have you guys got some all-powerful supervillain on you?" Anthony Goldstein laughs nervously.

Percy turns toward him. "I mean, it's, like, a 99% chance not. That's good, right?"

"Again?" Neville exclaims.

"What've you faced before?" Although - Sadie, Harry decides, he's almost sure - posture is relaxed, she looks just a little bit worried.

"Oh, nothing," Neville says sarcastically, "just-"

"A psychopathic mass-murderer who wanted to become immortal and take over the world?" Draco Malfoy's suggestion is phrased lightly, even casually, but when Harry glances over at him his jaw is set tightly and squeezing Hermione's hand so tightly he's leaving white marks.

"No. . . evil possessed dudes or anything?"

"Lots, but all cursed by the same guy or one of his minions."

Hermione raises her eyebrows at him.

"It's nothing," the girl with a feather in her hair says, and Harry is sure she's right, it's nothing, nothing at all. . .

Never again.

The ground jolts beneath their feet, and Harry grabs Padma's shoulder to keep his balance.

Never again.

A pretty blonde girl with braces and pigtails screams.

I will wake.

Percy and Annabeth, clinging to each other, make eye contact for the briefest of seconds and Annabeth heaves a breath.

I will destroy you all.

The ground heaves up and down, and all of them cling to the closest person, trying to find a balance. The ground stills suddenly and everyone drops to the floor. In the heavy silence left behind, the boy dressed in black gasps and whispers:

"She's back."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A/N:

Thank you all so, so much for reading, reviewing, following and favouriting this fanfic. I really appreciate it and it literally makes my day when I read a lovely review!

Blue chocolate chip cookies to whoever can guess the identity of the voice;).

SHIPS: Percy/Annabeth, Nico/Will, Jason/Piper, Frank/Hazel, Grover/Juniper (Yes, she isn't in this story, but he isn't single), Calypso/Leo, Katie/Travis, Clarisse/Chris, Carter/Zia (Zia is not in this story either, sorry), Sadie/Anubis (Also not in story), Hannah/Neville, Blaise/Luna, Draco/Hermione (At least at the start, if it's unpopular I'm prepared to change), Ginny/Harry.

OTHERS (Who I'm prepared to match up): Drew, Connor, Lacy, Padma, Terry, Theo, Daphne, Michael, Anthony, Greg Goyle, Susan, Justin, Ernie, Parvati, Seamus, Dean, Ron.

Guest reviews: Guest: Thanks for reviewing! Nyra: Here you go. Lots of blue chocolate chip cookies to you. I will try to work in Big D, but I may not be able to. Liz and Emma are unfortunately over in America, but that could change. . . maybe! I'll see how I go.

If you want to ask me any other questions, you can talk to me on tumblr cygnusblack7.

Thank you all so much! Hope you enjoy!