Guys, I know tons of you love Leo, so I shall fulfill your wishes.

Chapter 10

Leo

Well. Time to meet Umbridge up close and personally at last? I prefer an entrance not unlike, "Umbridge! Stay tune, the Supersized McShizzle is here!"

No! came another voice in my head. Leo, that's stupid!

And then there was, first sign of madness, arguing against yourself.

Yes, but I am kind of mad, right?

No, you dolt!

All right, brain, settle down. We can't have brain wars against ourselves.

So after that epic adventure, we had arrived at the so-called defense against the dark arts room.

"Uh, you sure this is the place?" asked Percy uncertainly.

I could see why he said that. Usually, when we say dark, we envision black or brown or something. But not pink. Well, this defense against the dark arts room was pink.

Preferably, it would be red. Or blue. Or just anything that's not pink.

We found ourselves seats, then put our wands on our tables. Umbridge was already waiting for us at her yet-again pink table. She had a horribly sweet smile, like she was going to torture us and think that it was as sweet as sugar. I hated her already.

"Wands away," she said in her girlish voice. "Now, does everyone have a copy of the Defensive Magical Theory?"

There was a moment where everyone grunted their answer.

"Well, I think we should try that again!" Professor Umbridge exclaimed. "Now, when I ask a yes or no question, I should like you to answer 'yes, Professor Umbridge,' or 'no, Professor Umbridge.' So, does everyone have a copy of the Defensive Magical Theory?"

"Yes, Professor Umbridge." For some reason, somebody said, "In your face, Professor Umbridge!" I think it just might've been me. Luckily, I think she was deaf to anything but compliments, so she didn't hear me.

"Excellent!" she stated. "I noticed that your defense classes are quite unstable, correct? Luckily, you will be following a ministry based course this year. Now, will everybody look at the board please?"

She flicked her extremely short wand towards the blackboard. It makes sense that her wand was so short, to match with her. You know, best buds forever!

I wouldn't be surprised if she painted her wand with cats and toads. If so, all of it would look like a big blob.

There were suddenly cursive handwriting appearing on the board. Sadly, us demigods are not suited for reading English. Even more sadly, cursive kills demigods. So basically, cursive English kills demigods and then tortures them.

Well, judging from Frank's expression, the writing wasn't interesting anyway, so I just stared blankly in front of me.

"Well, please copy it down!" called Professor Umbridge. I gave up. She strolled between us. "why are you not copying?"

"We can't read English," Annabeth supplied. "Only Greek or Latin."

She smiled her awfully sweet smile at Annabeth. "Well, that's no reason why you can't find a way to do it anyway!"

Percy looked at her, incredulous. "What do you mean?"

"Write them down, boy. Of course you can read English.

"Then, open your books and start reading the first chapter-Basics For Beginners."

I narrowed my eyes. Umbridge was Malfoy, Dionysus, and Gaea combined into one. I barely controlled my anger, the cussing was only whispered-for now.

I few moments later, I had a whole new idea for a machine. I still had no idea how to write the three points down or start reading, although I had flipped to a random page.

Then I looked over to Hermione. Her lips were shut tightly, and her hand was raised high onto the air. She was staring at Umbridge's back, staying so still that the demigods probably thought she was frozen or something. Her book had not been touched.

But no matter, Umbridge was keen to look at anywhere but Hermione. However, when almost everybody was staring at her, Umbridge turned and pretended just to notice her.

"Yes?"

"Well, I have a question about the course aims," Hermione answered.

A couple of people turned their heads to look at the board again.

Umbridge smiled again. "Well, you have not been reading? You should have known what you were supposed to do."

"No," she said impatiently. "You see, there aren't anything for using defensive spells."

Some of the students frowned and nodded. Some whispered to each other.

Umbridge giggled. "Well, I see no reason why we must use defensive spells! Surely there will not be an attack in class?"

"Wait," Ron said. "We're not going to use magic?"

"Students are not allowed to speak without raising their hands, Mr.-"

"Weasley." Ron put his hand in the air.

Umbridge turned the other direction, facing Annabeth, Hermione, and Harry, who had all raised their hands.

"Yes, an American exchange? And you are-"

"Annabeth Chase," she stated. "And isn't defense against the dark arts supposed to teach a bit about actually using defensive spells to, indeed, defend ourselves against the dar arts?"

Hermione nodded approvingly. Surely this was what she would've said.

To be honest, I wasn't paying attention to Umbridge until she started arguing, as every sentence became more sweet and more deadly.

"Are you a trained Ministry expert?" asked Toady. "Because I'm afraid you cannot question a Ministry trained expert about the way to teach. More powerful and clever wizards have made this course, so you shall do what I say to follow it."

Percy gave a snort.

"And you are-"

"Percy Jackson. When you say more powerful, do you mean more powerful than us?"

Umbridge spun her head to face another direction, which just so happened to be me.

"I don't believe that, Professor." I had to admire my own guts, really.

"Detention, Mr.-"

I snorted. "Putting me in detention without knowing my name? That's pathetic, lady! Leo Valdez!"

She glared at me. I stood my ground. Or rather, sat my ground. She turned to look at Harry, who had his hand raised in a fist.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Well, you know that it is not impossible to be attacked," said Harry hotly. "Just because you haven't doesn't mean we won't-"

"There is nothing out there to attack you, Mr. Potter!"

"Oh yeah?" asked Harry, putting his hand on his chin. "Well, what about...Lord Voldemort?"

Several people ejected gasps of shock. A girl screamed. Professor Umbridge didn't even flinch.

"10 points from Gryffindor," she trilled. "I want to make something clear.

"This. Is. A. Lie. You have been told a certain dark wizard has returned from the dead?"

Besides me, Nico flinched, but there was still a murderous expression on his face.

"He never died!" yelled Harry. "He's returned, I saw him! I spike to him! I fought him and escaped!"

"Detention, Mr. Potter!" You may join Mr. Valdez tomorrow evening, 5 o'clock. Now, kindly continue your reading."

Harry stood up. Hazel looked at him, whispering a silent, "no!"

"So according to you, Cedric Diggory died without any reason?"

Umbridge stared at him. "His death was a tragic accident," she said.

"Murder," replied Harry. "It was Murder. Murder committed by the famous killer Lord Voldemort. You know it."

At this time, every single student was staring at Harry. I could tell they were astonished, afraid, exited, and a number of other emotions.

Professor Umbridge stared at him with a blank expression, then she said, "come here, Mr. Potter, dear."

As he walked to the desk, the little pink toad scribbled something on some parchment. She sealed it with a wave of her wand, then handed it to Harry.

"Take this to Professor McGonagall."

Harry turned stiffly and started walking to the door. Percy looked at him with a sympathetic expression. "Good luck, man."

Harry nodded and exited. He didn't come back while we continued to stare at our books blankly. I realized that I was looking over one sentence for the whole time-and I did not figure out how anything was supposed to be read.

You are so dead, Umbridge, I thought. You are so dead.

When the bell finally rang, we had made up our minds that Umbridge would not get away from denying the complete truth. As we exited the room, the class events spread more quickly, it seemed, than Camp Half-Blood gossip. Also, Harry had earned himself detentions for a whole week.

"He says Cedric Diggory was murdered by You-Know-Who...

"Pur-lease."

"Who's he kidding?"

Harry rejoined us at dinner. "What I don't get," he said, "is why they believed it when Dumbledore said it last year."

Annabeth looked at her pie. "Let's go."

Ron sighed as he left his apple pie only half-eaten.

We walked up the stairs to get to Gryffindor Tower. "The thing is, Harry, I don't think they did," said Hermione grimly.

Harry frowned at her. "What?"

Annabeth sighed. "I think she means, they probably didn't believe Dumbledore either.

"Why? I thought-"

"Well," reasoned Thalia. "First of all, the only thing they heard was from you and Dumbledore. They didn't have any proof. You didn't have any proof."

"But it was true!" said Harry angrily.

Percy shrugged. "We know, but the others weren't so sure. Also, they spent their whole summer reading about how Dumbledore's going senile and you're a madman."

The rain that started this morning continued to come down.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," I told the Fat Lady. She opened up to to large common room. I settled myself right next to the fire, but since others wizards were here, I couldn't actually go in the fireplace.

"How could he have done it?" Hermione cried suddenly. I jumped. "How can Dumbledore set Umbridge on us in our O.W.L year?"

Harry sighed. "We've never had a permanent teacher, have we? Lupin was the only one who was good and not pretending to be someone else."

"And she's telling the prefects to tell her if anyone talks about You-Know-Who," said Ron bitterly. "I other words, we're her spies."

"That's what I meant!" cried Hermione. "The Ministry's interfering at Hogwarts!"

Piper sighed. "Yeah well...let's do our homework, then."

"What it is, Snape's, Binns, and Trelawney's?" asked Harry.

"Yeah, Snape's first," said Annabeth. "Might as well get it over with."

Hermione glared at Fred and George's direction. "No," she grumbled. "They've come too far. Come on, Ron."

Fred, Lee Jordan, and George were surrounded by first years, and they were handing out sweets.

"What?" asked Ron. "What's wrong with-"

"Fainting Fancies, Ron!" shrieked Hermione, as all of the first years were collapsing, like they were hit on the head with a giant hammer. Some fell out of their seats, some had slumped on the armchairs, tongues sticking out. The spectators were all laughing.

Hermione marched over, not looking over to see if Ron followed or not. Obviously, he didn't. Instead, he tried to shrink to the size of the first years. "She does it better herself," Ron murmured. "No need for me."

"That's enough!" yelled Hermione, sounding so much like Mrs. Weasley that they jumped.

"Gee, Hermione!" said Fred.

George snickered. "Yeah, this seems strong enough."

"I said you can't test them on students!"

"Yeah, but they're getting paid!" responded Fred.

"They could be made ill!"

"No, we're already tested them on ourselves. We're just seeing if everybody reacts the same to it."

Lee was feeding purple bits into every unconscious first year's mouth. "Don't worry, they're okay."

Indeed, they were all waking up. Some of them were surprised that they had fallen to the ground. Percy snickered.

"Stolls would've loved them."

"Excellent!" said George.

Hermione stormed over and grabbed the bag of sweets from his hand.

"If you don't stop it right now, I'm going to write to your mother!" she retorted. Her face was red, and she was shaking with anger.

The twins froze. "No," said Fred in a hushed voice.

"Yes, I will! You can't give these to innocent first years!"

With that, she thrust the Fainting Fancies back into their hands. I grinned. Oh, this is lovely. I'm definitely buying some of Fred and George's products. Maybe I'll be nice to Travis and Conner and save them a few.

Ron looked even more shrunken as Hermione walked back.

"Thanks for helping," said Hermione coldly. "I can't do my essay anymore, I'm going back to sleep."

She put two wool-made things on the table, then covered it with trash. "Hats for house-elves," she said happily. "Don't you dare touch them, Ronald!"

As soon as she left, Ron took the trash off. "I'm not touching the hats, I'm touching the trash."

Harry looked at Ron. Based on their behavior in Snape's lessons, it was practically impossible to do their homework without Hermione's help.

"Now what are we going to do?" asked Harry weakly. "We can't do the essay without her."

Percy grinned. "Annabeth, the honors, please.

The next few minutes were filled with Annabeth's voice, telling all of us the properties of moonstone and it's uses in potions. We wrote it in Greek.

Finally, Frank stretched and yawned. We had only finished half, but we were tired.

"Well, finish tomorrow?" asked Percy. He was practically asleep, kind of like Ron.

Annabeth smiled. "You guys have your detentions tomorrow," she said, looking at me and Harry.

Harry sighed. "She gave me detentions for the whole week," he said miserably.

Jason growled. "Umbridge is going to pay," he said. I smirked.

"Let us plan mass Umbridge-revenging tomorrow, shall we?" I asked. "It's a little late today."

Grinning wildly, we went into our demigod dorm again. Harry and Ron ran upstairs, Harry doing it a little faster to avoid Seamus.

Ready for a new day tomorrow, we accepted sleep gladly.

well now, please don't expect me to have all of them be as long as chapter 8. Now, here's another question that well change this up a bit. Do you want them to reveal their cover someday? Or somehow keep it all a secret? Please review to answer.

Good bye!