Demigods and Hogwarts

by pjhoolife

The seven, plus Thalia and Nico, are going to Hogwarts for Harry's fifth year. Voldemort is rising, and still the demigods have the troubles of the witch-toad hybrid known as Umbridge, and they, as always, have the usual Greek monsters trying to ruin their day. One wrong step could doom the wizarding world to losing Harry, their only hope. What will the demigods do?

19. Scorpion and Revealing

Hi! Sorry for the late update, but get used to it.

Disclaimer because I haven't done this in a while: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. All rights go to Rick Riordan and J. K. Rowling. I think "J" stands for Joanne, but I'm not sure.

Oh, the scorpion...I don't own that. Greek Mythology does.

Chapter 19

Percy

I woke up to the sound of pecking. I opened my eyes sleepily and looked at the window. Outside, an owl was banging it's tiny beak at the glass. I knew better than to go get myself. Owls can get a little picky. And violent. Combine those two and you get what? You get a very sad Percy and a very happy Athena.

"Annabeth!" I whispered/shouted, shaking her. "There's an owl!"

She grunted sleepily. "Get it yourself."

"Hey!" I said. "You know how it was with me and owls! They hate me!"

She sighed. "Fine." She crawled out of bed and opened the window. The owl hopped in. Annabeth's eyebrow went up as she conversed with the brown, furry ball.

"Hey Percy," she called quietly. "It's from Grover!"

"Grover!" I called in joy, not caring that I woke everybody up. "What does he have to say?"

I strolled over. It was written in English, but two people together might be enough to read it.

"Dear Percy and Annabeth," I read. "Uh...I missed you a lot...etc. cetera...oh."

Annabeth continued. "We think that trouble might be coming. As I was looking for new stuff, I saw a giant scorpion. And when I say giant, I mean humungous." She looked at me. "Oh, this is not good."

Piper came over. "Did you say a giant scorpion?"

I nodded.

She sighed heavily. "Because I dreamed about that too."

Annabeth groaned. "Great. This letter, and your dream...it's almost a sure sign we're going to see this scorpion someday."

Piper grabbed the note. "Let's see. Okay. This continues as 'we tried to kill it, or at least know more about it, but it disappeared. We found a note left behind.' Gee, what could this be?" she asked, pointing to another slip of paper folded inside Grover's letter.

I took it. It was probably the note Grover had found via Scorpion express.

It was from Gaea, the dirt face herself. It said something like, 'Oh, you demigods may have defeated me, but your troubles shall never be over.'

I balled my fist as I read, imagining Gaea's smiling face as she made this.

'I still have thousands of children or monsters to do my deeds...happy scorpion hunting! Xoxo, Gaea'

I sighed. "Hate this lady! First the war, then the giant scorpion?"

Annabeth bit her lip. "There's more where the scorpion came from. I only know of one from the myths, and it was a powerful one. It was the exact one that killed Orion. Of course, there are the regular large scorpions, like the Triple-G Ranch ones, but they're not exactly...ancient."

Nico grimaced. "Isn't Orion, like, the dude who followed us for a whole trip to be defeated by Reyna?"

"Yeah."

Nico sighed. "Because anyone who can kill Orion...let's just say, not good."

"Not good," I agreed. "Let's hope it doesn't happen today."

"You're going to jinx it," Will warned. "Don't say stuff like that."

"Hey, I'm optimistic!" I protested.

Jason folded his arms and rose his eyebrows, now looking like a expectant superman. "Did you not hear what Piper said? The last time she thought he was safe, Sciron's turtle tried to eat the ship!"

"He didn't try to eat it," Leo said. "He did eat it!"

Jason shrugged. "He didn't eat all of it."

I pulled Annabeth away from the argument about the difference between "eating something" and "trying to eat something" and "eating part of something."

"Come on, let's go to breakfast."

He pulled on our robes quickly and left Jason, Thalia, Piper, and Will still arguing. Annabeth probably thought they were being idiots, but personally, I would join them if breakfast wasn't next.

"Hey," I greeted Harry and the other wizards. "Nice- wait, what is that?"

On the bulletin board was a giant poster that covered everything, including the Quidditch things, school rules (I didn't mind that very much, we didn't follow them anyway), and the twins' tester ads (Hermione would like this).

I noticed them fast because so many people had crowded around it. We weren't exactly early-wakers.

I squinted at it. The farther my eyes travelled, the more words started floating around. In my mind, it went something like this.

"All Student Organization, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded (after this, I became angry).

'An Organic Strawberry, Tennis, Gulp, or Culb is hereby defied as a (thank goodness, I can still read the word 'a') regulation mat of three ro mroe studios.'

I squinted harder. Umbridge. How could she have found out about the defense thing? As I continued reading, my dyslexia grew. Anger does not cope well with reading English.

'Poor maddie t-'

I gave up and made Harry translate for me.

"Uh...permission to reform can be asked from Professor Umbridge...ugh, the High Inquisitor...the nerve of that woman!"

Frank came over. "And none of those group things can form without Professor Toad-sorry, Umbridge's permission."

I snickered. Nice translation, Frank. Really nice.

"Well, of course there's still the part that says that if we don't obey this educational degree we get expelled," said Annabeth. "Yeah well...we know better than to (note sarcasm)disobey the school rules that...hmm, are completely stupid, prevent us from learning anything, makes Hogwarts practically part of the Ministry, and is going to get us killed, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Sure..."

Ron looked concerned. "You think she knows?" he asked all of us. The others had finally stopped fighting about ship-eating-ah, ship try-to-eating- I mean, ship partly eating- gah, you know what I mean, and come out to join us.

Hermione slid down her slide thing that went from the girl dorms to come over. I exchanged looks with Annabeth as Hermione quickly scanned the degree.

"No, can't have," she said simply to Ron. Ron tried to protest, but Annabeth cut him off.

"No, Ron. Nobody on the list could've told her. Well, at least we can confirm it at breakfast."

Ron looked at her. "Why? How?"

Annabeth smirked, that I-know-something-you-don't smirk. "Because, we jinxed it. Anyone who spilled...let's just say, they'd have a easy time spelling "sneak" as long as they have a mirror."

I grinned. Hopefully, nobody told Umbridge. Plus, if she knew...well, we're going to do it anyway. Annabeth kissed me, then went to say hi to Fred and George.

At breakfast, I secretly cheered in joy again for my pancakes. Seriously, I haven't seen them in, like, a whole day! Imagine, 24 hours without my beautiful pancakes! What a nightmare!

Most of the people who were in the meeting yesterday tried to come over, but Annabeth waved them off.

My friends conversed in quiet voices, but I was too busy enjoying my blue treats (with extra syrup on top) to listen.

"What do you think?" Annabeth asked me suddenly.

I blinked. "Huh?"

She sighed heavily. "What do you think, seaweed brain? When should we tell them about the godly-ness?"

"Uh..."

"Yeah, I know, you weren't listening," said Leo. "But don't worry, I recorded it especially for you!"

He pulled out a recording device. "Let's see...ah yes, play!"

I heard the conversation.

Annabeth: "when should we tell them about being demigods?"

Hermione: "today?"

Annabeth: "all right, today, but when?"

Jason: "At free period."

Piper: "let's invite everyone we can trust on that list to an empty classroom, then give them the demonstrations."

Jason: "how do we know they all have the same free period as we do?"

Annabeth( I imagined she rolled her eyes): "I asked Dumbledore."

Jason: "he said yes?"

Annabeth: "I just told him we were telling some people, he made everyone have free period at the same time. And an extra long one. What do you think?"

Leo stopped it. "That's where you woke up from your daydreaming. So, what do you think?"

I shrugged. "Fine for me. What's first?"

Harry groaned. "Divination for us, free period for you."

Fred and George came over. "What are we doing about the degree?"

"Ignore it," said Harry simply.

George clapped him on the back. "Thought you'd say that."

Thalia nodded. "Hey Fred, George, can you come over at free period? Come to that room in the empty corridor. The corridor next to Transfiguration with the pegasus painting."

Fred nodded and clapped his twin on the back. "We'll be there, what for?"

Annabeth shrugged. "We just want to tell a couple of people about the godly stuff."

Harry spoke up. "Er...shall we tell Cho? I mean, I know she's trustable because of Cedric-" he winced. "But she also has many friends that aren't trustable. Like Marietta. I wish you'd tell Cho herself, but she tells loads of secrets to her friends. We need people who don't do that."

I could see Harry was pained to say that about his crush, but...well, it was true.

"Well!" Leo said after first period. "How was Divination?"

Harry and Ron sighed. "Horrid, as usual. But there's something new-Trelawney's put on probation."

That afternoon, a crowd of trustworthy people came over to hear what we wanted to say.

"Um..." I looked at Annabeth. "Do I have to do the talking?"

She sighed and punched me. "Yes, seaweed brain! You're the so-called 'leader', aren't you?"

I shrugged and turned to the trustable wizards in front of me.

"Well...uh, anyone know about Greek Myths?"

A few people nodded.

"Um...I don't think there's any way out of this, so I'll make it quick. Greek Gods are real."

Terry Boot said quizzically, "prove it."

I sighed and pulled my wand out of my pocket. Without even bothering to look, I threw it to him. He caught it and looked at me. "Why are you giving me your wand?"

I grinned. "First of all, because I think it useless-"

Cue surprised and shocked faces.

"And second, to show you I'm a demigod. A son of a Greek god. I can perform wandless "magic" because my power isn't restricted in that little stick you people all have. In fact...your wands are actually also Greek."

This Ravenclaw (I think) boy named Anthony frowned. "Seriously?"

I nodded. "Yes. Your power actually comes from Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic."

Annabeth punched me. I winced.

"Hurry up and get to the point!" she yelled. "Or do you want me to stab you in the head?"

"Uh, no, sorry. Well anyway, I'm the son of Poseidon."

Hermione, Ron, and Harry grinned in sympathy at the unbelieving wizards. Well, I can't blame them. I didn't believe in the gods when I first got to Camp.

"Oh, right, Terry." I turned to him. "You think wandless voodoo magic can prove that I'm the son of the sea god?"

He nodded.

"Well, here goes."

I lifted my hand. Over in the corner, a fountain exploded. The water flooded out. I flicked my fingers upwards, and the water rose. I could feel the water like it was a part of me.

I swept my arm in the wizards' direction, and the water rushed towards them, galloping into the shape of horses.

They watched in awe. I could even see some of them looking towards their fellow students to see if they were doing the magic by wand, but nobody was. I guess this magic might've been hard to do, even with wands. Well, demigods are more powerful than wizards. What else could I say?

"No way..." Parvati said. "How's that even possible?"

Piper smiled. "Because we're demigods. That's why we can teach you physical defense-most demigods are masters. Especially Percy. And Annabeth. I'm a daughter of Aphrodite."

Frank nodded. "I'm a son of Mars. He's the Roman form of Ares. But the thing is...I'm descended from Poseidon on my mother's side, so I also have this power."

He burst into an iguana.

A few people scrambled back. Some just looked confused. "You're an animagus?" asked Padma Patil from Ravenclaw. I have no idea how twins were sorted into different houses, but I guess the hat doesn't care too much about family. Sirius had ended up Gryffindor even though his whole family had been in Slytherin.

Padma continued. "Why would you choose an iguana, put of everything?"

Frank looked at Hazel with a look that said, "explain?"

"Well..." Hazel started. "See, Frank can actually turn into a lot of animals. Like, not just an iguana. Say...a lion?"

The crawling iguana squeaked and turned into a lion.

Now everybody scrambled back. Ron looked worried as Frank roared. "Won't they hear him?"

My beautiful, smart, wise, and- oh, you get the point-girlfriend shook her head. "No, I cast a mute charm. And yes, it'a more powerful than a lion."

Frank changed back to normal. And when I say normal, it means human.

All the wizards gave shocked looks to each other. Lee Jordan nudged Fred. "You knew this? And you didn't tell us?"

Fred shrugged. "It was their choice. I couldn't tell you if they didn't want us to."

Once everybody believed it (all thanks to the lack of Zacharias Smith), we sent them off with one warning-if you tell anybody else, friend or no, you are dead.

Hazel screamed.

I spun around and saw what she was looking at. The scorpion. The one we were warned about. The wizards haven't evacuated yet. They were standing frozen at their spots, staring in shock at the monster.

"First lesson!" I announced. "How to realize, how to fight, and how to almost die-again."

I rushed forward. I could feel Annabeth besides me and my other friends behind. Thalia shot an arrow, but it bounced off the scorpion's hard shell.

I uncapped my sword. Harry used the moment of confusion to order everybody back, then roared a protection spell.

"Thalia, aim for it's eyes!" I yelled. "Leo...hope that this scorpion fears fire."

Jason and Piper rushed to the other side of the scorpion. The creature snapped at them and caught Piper's cloak. She cursed and pulled the steaming fabric off.

"Didn't like it anyway," she grumbled. Underneath, she was wearing a t-shirt.

I thrust my hand in the scorpion-you know what, I'm tired of calling it 'the scorpion' all the time. How about...Umbridge jr.? Yeah, it's almost as bad as Umbridge.

Anyway, I thrust my hand in Umbridge jr.'s direction. The water in the empty classroom flooded out and surrounded the scorpion. It shot poison in protest. Great, we disintegrated a wall. I forced the water to turn into the shape of a giant fist and punch Umbridge jr. repeatedly.

Annabeth grinned. She mouthed, good one, and pulled her drakon bone sword out. She leaped onto the monster and stabbed into a chink of it's armor. It wailed and threw Annabeth off. She landed gracefully on two feet, then shouted to Thalia, "continue shooting there!"

Thalia nodded. Soon, more arrows started to hit the wound Annabeth had made. Nico raised his hands. The ground cracked, and a couple of undead warriors came out, brandishing wands. Since they couldn't do the spells anymore, they use the wands as sticks instead. The scorpion tried to shoot them off with poison, but the green goo just went through them. Umbridge jr. was powerful, but the amount of demigods was starting to overcome it.

Jason raised his sword to the sky. A blast of lightning fell from the sky, electrocuting Umbridge jr. Leo repeatedly shot fire balls, and I stopped my water punching to help the flames instead.

Piper jumped back as Umbridge jr.'s stinger lunged towards her, but she was just a millisecond late. The flat part of the stinger grazed her leg. She rolled away, and Jason ran towards her.

"I'm fine!" she yelled, yanking a baggie of Ambrosia out of her pocket and stuffing some in her mouth. "That part wasn't poisonous. Are you going to fight or what?"

Jason nodded and summoned another blast of lightning.

"Fire!" I yelled, pointing my almost-useless wand. A blast of hot stuff came out of the stick and fried the scorpion's stinger. The scorpion finally started to disintegrate, but by the time it finished, it would've killed us all already.

Annabeth shook me. "Use your water!" she yelled. "Protect the school!"

I nodded and made a shield around the walls. The fire hit from Leo hit the protection, but didn't go through the water.

Annabeth and I kept stabbing our swords into chinks on it's armor, Leo kept blasting fire, Hazel summoned gems and mist to keep it confused, and Nico's warriors kept bonking their sticks on the scorpion's head.

Slowly but surely, the scorpion was getting defeated. With one last slash from me, one last arrow from Thalia, Umbridge jr. went gone with the wind. And no, Aeolus, the book was not about you. Well, if only Umbridge sr. went to Aeolus too...

And with that, everybody cheered...but the scorpion really knew how to spoil a party. Dust started flying in again.

"No..." Annabeth stared at the mending Umbridge jr. "Not possible. We closed the doors of death!"

A chilling laugh went through my head. "No, dears."

We looked at each other. Will's eyes were opened wide. "Gaea?" he whispered.

I nodded grimly. The wizards (who, by the way, were still behind the protection spell like cowards) looked confused. "Gaea?" asked Hermione. "Wha-what do you mean?"

Annabeth looked at them. "Er...family issues," she said. "Go to class, wizards. This is going to get a little ugly."

She locked eyes with Jason. "The school won't work," she said. "Can you fly is down? To the lake where Percy's strongest?"

Jason nodded.

My mouth fell open. "Flying? But-"

"We have to get out!" Annabeth said. "Now!"

He pulled me to the window. Together, we jumped. Jason ran over. Immediately, we were gliding instead. He grabbed Piper's hand and they came down. The scorpion's ashes, seeing that we were going out, was following us.

Two by two, everybody came out. The scorpion had reformed as well.

"I'm going to try getting it to drown," I announced. "I don't know if that's going to work, but I'm going to try."

I lifted some of the lake up. Thinking a silent sorry for the fish (no, I didn't lift the fish up), I blasted it at Umbridge jr.

It squawked in protest. I jumped in and found where the stinger was. With one giant slash, I cut it off.

It howled. I imagined it said something like, hey! Why'd you cut off my tail?

"Hope it hurt!" I yelled. Umbridge jr. thrashed as I forced it down the waves.

"Percy!" Annabeth called. "Scorpions live in the earth! Get it as far away from the ground as possible!"

I nodded and gritted my teeth in concentration as I moved the creature to the center of the lake.

"Jason?" Annabeth asked. "Leo, Thalia? Do your shooting, now!"

Immediately, three things bounced towards the poor scorpion's head. Leo shot a white-hot ball of fire at it's eyes. Jason called a lightning bolt down, then collapsed. Yeah, he'd been using too much energy with all that flying and blasting. Piper ran to his side and started giving him ambrosia.

Thalia shot one arrow after another, each one finding it's mark. The scorpion disintegrated and tried to find its way back to the earth, but I kept the whirlpool churning, trapping him. I made sure Umbridge jr. was being a good little monster and going to Tartarus, then relaxed. Annabeth ran up to me and our lips met.

"Nice work!" she exclaimed. Then she turned to Jason. "You all right?"

He nodded weakly. "Just too much lightning." Will sighed and put his hand on Jason's forehead. He muttered a hymn, and Jason seemed more alert. "Better now!" he said. Piper smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

"Well, that's one thing solved."

Annabeth looked up and gasped. Another owl-and this one seemed familiar-was bouncing in the air, trying in vain to fly.

"Over here!" Annabeth called, holding out her hands.

Harry's owl dropped down. Annabeth caught her from the air. She examined it and then looked at me. "She's hurt!"

"Huh?" I stepped over to her. Indeed, Hedwig's wings were bent at an odd angle. Annabeth cocked her head in concentration.

"It's from Sirius!" she said, horror dawning on her face. "Do you think somebody attacked her for the letter?"

My eyes strayed to the piece of paper Hedwig was clutching. "It doesn't look like it's been opened."

Annabeth shook her head. "No, but these can be sealed perfectly by magic."

Jason petted the owl's head. "Don't worry, we'll get you to...uh, who's the Care of Magical Creatures again?"

Piper sighed. "Seriously, Jason. You take classes with a lady you don't know the name of?"

"Pretty much," Annabeth concluded. "Professor Grubbly-Plank. But don't you think we should show Harry first?"

Frank shrugged. "Probably, but he's in History of Magic."

Nico smiled. "I'll take care of that."

I smiled. More Binns-scaring, huh?

We floated ourselves back up the window with our wands, and found our way to History of Magic.

"Ah, yes..." Binns said. "Our late students. Another victory against a creature?"

Nico shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. Now Binns, I have to borrow Harry for a moment, if you please..."

Binns nodded vigorously and bowed. "Yes, Nico! Whatever you say-"

"And I say shut up," Nico growled. "I only need Harry, not those stammering words coming out of your should-be-dead mouth."

Several of the students who we revealed our identities to snickered. They knew now that Nico could control the dead, and therefore why all the ghosts here called him 'master'.

Harry came over. Annabeth pulled him out of the class's earshot, then nodded to Frank. Frank opened up his somehow magically hardened backpack and pulled the injured snowy white owl out.

Harry's eyes widened in shock. "Hedwig?" he asked. "How'd she get hurt?"

I shrugged. "No idea."

Annabeth punched me. "I think someone intercepted her. The letter was from Sirius."

Harry stared at her. "Sirius?"

Annabeth nodded. "But we saw the writing, I don't think anybody could've got anything out of it but us."

Harry took the letter from her hands. "Today, same time, same place..." he read out loud. "So, that would be the Gryffindor fire?"

"Yes, I think so," Piper said. "That's where he was last time."

"But Hedwig...somebody intercepted her? And she got hurt?"

I clapped him on the back. "Hey, no one could've known the meaning," I told him. "We should just take it to Professor Grubbly-Plank. She should be able to fix your owl's wing."

Harry nodded. Together, we walked to Professor Grubbly-Plank's office. Professor McGonagall was just coning out. "Hello," she said. "I heard of the scorpion attack. Are you ten all right?"

Annabeth said, "sure," just as Leo said, "we're never all right."

Annabeth glared at him. Leo stumbled back, just to bump into Thalia, who pushed Leo away towards a wall. He slammed into it face first.

Hazel smiled. "And that's a perfect example," she said. "Anyway, we're here to see Professor Grubbly-Plank. See, Hedwig's been injured, and she..."

Hazel looked around nervously. After seeing we were alone( or as alone as we could be with 10 demigods), she continues. "She came here from Sirius."

Minerva looked startled for a moment. "What? Did you get the letter? What did it say? And could anyone have gotten anything out of it?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. The message was really simple."

Professor McGonagall nodded grimly. "Good. But be aware, the communication systems in and out of Hogwarts are being watched."

Annabeth smiled. "We'll try our best, Professor. So, about Professor Grubbly-Plank..."

"What about me?" a voice called. I looked behind Professor McGonagall and saw the Care of Magical Creatures teacher standing in the doorway of the staffroom. "Somebody say my name?"

Annabeth took charge. "Yeah. We have an injured owl, and we were kind of wishing you could heal her."

Professor Grubbly-Plank nodded. "I think I could. Leave her with me, I'll send someone over with her when she's healed."

Annabeth nodded and bent down to say something in Hedwig's ear. I think I caught something like, "don't worry, she's not going to hurt you." Then, Hedwig was handed in.

Harry smiled. He turned to Binns's classroom just as students came flooding out.

"Harry!" Ron called. "What's up, mate?"

Harry glanced around nervously. "I'll tell you later. Malfoy's coming out."

Hermione nodded. Together, we went to dinner. There, Harry told them about Hedwig and the letter. It took a really short time, since the letter had about five words in total. And yes, I do know how to count up to five.

We finally trudged back to the Gryffindor common room, where we sat around a fire waiting for a head (which, hopefully, was connected to a neck. Which, hopefully, was connected to a body. Which, hopefully, was connected to a-ah, you know what I mean).

Kay, as I said, I'm really really really sorry for updating so late. but as I said, you should start expecting this, I'm busy.

Ta!