Um, hi. And yes, this as also kind of late. But not as late as last time. And probably not as long, either.

Chapter 20

Annabeth

We watched as Fred and George kept giving demonstrations of the skiving snackboxes while Hermione frowned disapprovingly, and Leo, Percy, and Will clapped along with the audience when they did something really cool. But nobody spoke. It was silent...until somebody did speak.

"So..." Harry said, breaking the silence. "Angelina's going mad."

Percy looked confused. "Why?"

"Because this new degree thing applied to Quidditch, too," Ron replied glumly. "And we have to ask Umbridge's permission to reform. Malfoy was practically screaming that Umbridge let Slytherin reform immediately, and that Gryffindor people's position in the ministry is not good enough to get permission for us."

I balled my fists. "That little git..."

Leo jumped up. "How do you think Malfoy would look with pink hair?"

Percy grinned at him. "Man, that's exactly what I was thinking. But I thought more on the lines of purple..."

Leo shrugged. "I can do a little bit for both."

Percy nodded. "Sure."

The conversations lessened as Sirius's time came close.

He finally arrived at about nine. He grinned at us. "Hi."

Hermione, Harry, and Ron replied all at the same time. "Hi."

Sirius nodded. "So...how's it going?"

I grinned bitterly. "Did you hear about educational degree number 24? Well-"

"Not that good," Sirius interrupted. "Yeah, I know. So, how's your little defense group coming along?"

Harry stared at him. "You know?"

"Yeah well...you do know that the less crowded it is, the easier it is to overhear, right?"

I grinned as I remembered Mundungus. He was probably listening the whole time. "Dung was the witch under the veil, right?"

Sirius nodded. "Glad you noticed. He was just keeping tabs on you, Harry."

Harry looked shocked. "What? Why do I still need to be followed?"

Sirius snorted. "Why don't you? The first thing you do out of school is illegal and certainly good enough to get you expelled."

I laughed. "Good point. So what do you think?"

Sirius shrugged. "Molly thinks you shouldn't risk getting kicked out, but-"

Ron interrupted. "You think we shouldn't do it? But you've done much worse than-"

"And when did I say it was what I thought?" Sirius said loudly. "Last time I checked, I told you it was your mother, Ron."

Ron blinked. "Oh. Right. So what do you think?"

"I think it's a great idea!" Sirius exclaimed. "I was just passing along her message, doesn't mean I agree!"

I was relieved. "Good. Because it's one of the only times I agreed with them."

Sirius grinned. "So where are you going to meet? Maybe the Shrieking Shack?"

"Wait, what's the Shrieking Shack?" Leo asked. "Is it a tool shack that shrieks when it's not polished? Because-"

Piper punched him on the arm. "I doubt it," she said. "But what is the Shrieking Shack?"

Hermione sighed. "It's the place we first met Sirius. So Lupin was a werewolf back when he was at Hogwarts, right? Dumbledore built him this place so he could hide out on the full moon, when he transformed."

Leo frowned. "Oh."

Hermione turned to the fire, where Sirius's head was still staying. "But I don't think it's going to work. The Shack is too small, we think there's going to be about forty people."

"Oh...never mind. Well, what about that place behind the giant mirror?"

Percy shrugged. "Caved in."

Will looked at him. "How'd you know?"

"Twins."

Sirius frowned. "Well...I'll keep thinking. But-wait, what?"

He cut himself off and looked to the side of the fireplace. I didn't see anything, but Sirius looked alarmed. He disappeared with a small pop.

Leo reached into the fire, but drew his hand back immediately. Something else came out of the fire, but it wasn't Sirius. It was a hand. And it was the hand that I least wanted to see. It was Umbridge's, no doubt.

I watched horrified, as Umbridge's stubby hand made grabbing motions, as if she knew Sirius had been here and she was trying to catch him.

We looked at each other. Then, without a word, we ran.

Hi, I'm a line breaker. And I like cheese. Well...I live in the fanfiction world, I don't actually know what cheese tastes like. Anyone bother tell me?

The day at Charms, we talked about the events in the day before. We were doing silencing charms on ravens and bullfrogs.

"It had to be Umbridge..." I muttered while flicking my wand to make my raven quiet without even bothering to speak the spell. "She's been reading your mail, Harry. I spoke with Hedwig in the morning. She said she saw a pair of really stubby and short fingers with weird rings on them, the same one we saw from the fire. And the same pair we see whenever we see Umbridge."

Harry clenched his teeth. "That woman...she attacked Hedwig?"

Hermione nodded grimly. "Yes, I think so as well. Harry, shouldn't you be at least trying to silence your frog?"

Harry pointed his wand. "Silencio!"

The frog continued to croak, even louder than before. I could practically see it roll it's eyes.

Percy turned to me. "I can hear it's thoughts," he whispered. "And it's thinking Harry's terrible at this stuff."

I giggled and kissed him. "Don't tell him that. And Percy, are you even trying?"

He shrugged after pulling away to look at his raven, which was cawing loudly. He pointed his wand at it, and it shut up immediately.

"Not anymore."

Hazel and Frank weren't even giving effort in silencing their bullfrogs. Their excuse was, if they keep croaking, we'd be harder to overhear. Seriously, they're worse than Percy! Instead, they were talking in low tones and sometimes kissing each other on the cheek.

Nico just sat on his chair with folded arms. His raven wasn't screaming, but he didn't do any magic to make it be quiet. Since ravens were supposedly the animals of the Underworld, he could probably control them. Hazel had told us about the raven that had talked to her before she died. Huh, no wonder she asked to trade with Percy for the frog.

Will sat next to him, twirling his wand lazily in his fingers and casually burning holes through Nico's robe and then mending them. Nico smiled at him, but if it was anyone else he would've busted out the skeletons and shadows.

Jason and Piper were also talking, Piper charmspeaking their frogs to be quiet the moment before. Hermione was the only witch who had actually done it the way Professor expected. She had flicked her wand and said the spell, whereas most of us just used our hand-me-down powers.

"Very good!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, coming to our table. "Hazel, Frank, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, why don't you try?"

Hazel and Frank gave their animals almost lazy flicks of wands, and Flitwick grinned without saying anything. Ron and Harry, however, were completely different cases. Instead of silencing his frog, Ron poked his in the eye and it escaped to the lake. Harry didn't do much better, the bullfrog just snapped at him.

"Ow!" he protested, rubbing his fingers. "Uh, sorry, Professor..."

Flitwick chuckled in his squeaky voice. "Homework, then. Practice the silencing charm."

They groaned simultaneously when Flitwick turned to look at Leo, who had, uh, somehow set his toad on fire and was trying to blast it with water from his wand, only to find out he had gotten one of Fred and George's fake ones. Percy smirked at him and sent a squirt of water to de-burn the poor frog.

The next class was not much better: Potions. Umbridge was inspecting Snape today, but I didn't notice until Snape pointed out, because we had put on a magic paint-thing on all her clothes so they were completely black (Nico and Thalia chose the colors, what do you think?). Umbridge was seriously furious because she couldn't get any evidence that it was us. We demigods are awfully good at acting innocent when we have to.

Since Umbridge's clothing were kind if similar to ours now, she blended right in with the dungeons wall. Percy said, "ohhhhhhh!" when he realized the pink...well, used-to-be-pink toad sitting on her stool.

Snape put the instructions to continuing Strengthening Solutions on the board, and we had another class of torturous Potions. Well, it was mostly torturous to Harry, who was watching Umbridge so intently that he kept adding wrong ingredients. I sighed as I realized his potion was smelling a bit like Leo when he got overexcited.

After that, Unbridge went to interview the potions master, and I just managed to complete my potions perfectly while listening. There were regular things, like the number of years he'd been teaching, and not-so-normal thins, like what he applied for first (by the way, it was Defense Against the Dark Arts).

The class ended like usual, with Harry getting zero marks again (surprise, surprise) and getting extra homework. Snape gave furious looks to Frank, Leo, Nico, Percy, and Jason like he wanted nothing better than to clear their potions up as well (they smell like stink potions, by the way), but apparently he followed Dumbledore's orders. He shouldn't treat us so badly, blah blah blah.

We stayed in the an empty classroom later, where we finally got good-ish news. Angelina finally got permission to reform the quidditch team. After that perfectly terrible day, even this bit of happy information cheered Harry and Ron up.

"Brilliant!" They said together. Harry continued. "How? Er, was Dumbledore somehow involved?"

She grinned. "I think so. I asked Professor McGonagall, and she might have told Dumbledore. So, practice today at seven, you know the first match is only three weeks away?"

Jason looked alert. "Three weeks? That's not very much!"

Angelina sighed. "Yes, that's not very much. And we still have to make up time."

After she left, Ron beaned at us. But his face fell as he looked at Jason frowning. "What?"

"Are you sure a practice today is a good idea?" I asked. "I mean, look at the rain..."

Ron looked like he was very much disappointed, but was trying to hold it in. "Well...hope it clears..."

Jason sighed. "Well, speaking as a son of Zeus, who controls the sky...I can sense a whole lot of...well, storm up there."

Thalia agreed. "I sense lightning strikes straining to get down. Oh, there's one."

A flash of lightning came down, followed by a clap of thunder. Everybody held their hands to their ears except for Will Solace. Yeah, well...loud music just isn't as effective to him.

"But I don't know about rain..." Thalia said, looking at Percy.

Percy shook his head. "Sorry, Ron. I don't think it's going to clear up. There's tons of water up there, still coming down...and I know water. It doesn't like to be restrained."

I looked at Hermione. She was frowning, but not at the rain. She was frowning at the window. "I'm just thinking..."

Harry looked at her. "About what?"

"You know...if we're doing the right thing. The defense group thing. Is it right?"

I gaped at her. She was restraining herself, thinking about this. And demigods are a bit like water-we don't like holding ourselves in. "Hermione, didn't you thing of the idea first?"

"But Sirius...after Snuffles..."

Percy held his hand up. "Wait a sec, 'Mione. Snuffles said it's a great idea, and now that you hear that, you're starting to doubt it?"

Hermione looked up at the ceiling as Peeves came in with a peashooter. He shot at us, but Jason snapped his fingers and the pea bounced back and hit his own face. Peeves cursed very, ah, colorfully and started to find better targets. As soon as he spotted Katie Bell, he started shooting peas at her. Katie stood and started to throw anything she could at Peeves, including a fake wand, which turned into a mouse as it hit him.

Hermione hesitated. "Well...you know, do you really think he's always right on judgement? Do you trust him?"

"Yes!" Harry said indignantly. "He's amazing! His advice is great!"

"Maybe he's just getting too bored," Hermione said finally. "He's trying to egg us on because he can't do anything."

We sat in silence, watching the epic battle between Katie and Peeves.

"You're like my mom," Ron said. "You're just like Sirius said."

Hermione looked down. "Your mother is great, Ron."

"Yes, but a bit overprotective. Wow, I feel bad for Katie."

I looked at them and tried not to laugh at Katie's hair, which is now black, dyed by a whole ink bottle.

I'm the line breaker. Did anybody find out what cheese tastes like? Bother to tell me?

Ron groaned as they started to get to practice, but Percy was grinning wildly. "Hey, man. Not so glum. How would you like some help? I can keep you guys dry, but I can't make to field dry. Wizards can't do that. If Malfoy's looking out the window..."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, that'd help. Can you just...make a dry path from here to the changing room, though?"

Percy thought for a moment. "Well...I hope nobody will see. Maybe Hazel can manipulate the mist so it looks like you guys are soaking wet?" he asked, looking at her hopefully. Hazel shrugged.

"Probably. I'll try."

As we followed the to the door, Percy grinned, then waved his hands to make a clear path of dryness. Ron and Harry walked in, trying to look as normal as possible.

As they reached the changing room, Percy followed, bit even bothering to make the path. I rolled my eyes and tagged along.

He grinned. "Sorry, can't make you dry."

I sighed and stuck my dragon-bone sword under his neck. "Make me dry."

"Fine!"

We watched the practice session for a bit, Percy making them dry. But the horrible weather made it practically impossible to see, so Angelina finally gave up after a few hours.

Percy went with Harry and Ron to the changing room. I waited outside, but when they came out, I could notice something was wrong.

"What?" I asked. "What's with you, Harry?"

"His scar," Percy told me. "It hurt again. And apparently it only happens when Voldemort has...uh, when he's feeling really emotional or something. Harry says this time is because he's really angry."

"Oh..."

We reached the Gryffindor common room soon. Ron and Harry weren't exactly sad because Percy had at least dried them up. We found our friends huddled around a rainbow with Chiron's head in it.

"What's up?" Ron asked. Piper gestured to the rainbow. "Chiron Iris-messaged us. We have officially gotten a quest, because we have a prophecy...and Chiron's about to explain something about it."

"Hi Chiron!" Percy said. "What's about the prophecy?"

"Um, well, you see...the prophecy wasn't made by Apollo or the oracle. It was made by Hecate, and I think she had some help from Ares...or Mars."

Frank, Hazel, and Percy groaned. "Mars?" Hazel asked. "Oh, great..."

"Well, here it is," Chiron said. "Er...yes. 10 people will go to Hogwarts to save the chosen boy from dying. And to let him kill the snake person. And save the weapon thing from Voldemort. And all shall die unless I say so."

I rolled my eyes. "Wow, so poetic. Seriously, I liked Mars's more. Go to Alaska, save Thanatos, die if you fail. Blah blah blah. But seriously, why did Hecate even bother?"

"Apollo probably forced him," Will said grimly. "Wow...I feel bad we had to hear it."

"Yeah well...it's better than mine would be, though," Percy said. "So, um...about the defense thing? I do think we're doing the right thing. It's better to get expelled than to get expelled and be clueless, right?"

"Yeah. Well, I have to do homework now," Harry said. "You guys should go to sleep. Bye."

I nodded. "See you in the morning."

We went back to our room, and Leo practically went crazy. "Bed, bed, bed!" He sang happily. "Oh, don't you just love the word?"

Nico snorted. "Yes, but not as much as Percy," he said, pointing to Percy's bed. He was already snoring and drooling away. I smiled and went over to wipe the drool away. I remember the first things I said included, "you drool in your sleep."

His drooling had become endearing after about halfway through the quest for the master bolt.

"Oh, Percy..." I muttered. "I love you so much. I love you."

And then we went to bed.

Yeah, I know, not exactly the best ending. But I couldn't really end it any way else. Please please please please review

See ya next time! And try to reach 120 reviews someday..hopefully soon.