§Annabeth§
I. Hate. Apparition. That's why when Hermione said we had accidentally come to the wrong place, and Ron reached for my hand again, I winced.
"Is there a problem?" He asked, smirking.
"No!" I said, a little too quickly. Only that I feel like my insides have been turned out. I thought, but since everyone was looking at me, I took hold of his hand without argument. Percy grasped his other hand. Next time, I'm asking Jason to fly me, I thought. But then he turned us around and we were gone. I couldn't pull away. Percy was squeezing my hand so hard that my blood circulation got cut off. I turned my head and gulped, realizing that we were now suddenly in the elevator that led to Olympus. Percy examined the relatively normal strips of buttons for each floor, and after a few seconds I could see one reading "600" appear above all of them. He pushed it, and for the third time that day my stomach was tied in a knot. I heard the Jenny girl and the supposedly famous Harry Potter whispering about something. I couldn't hear, but it sounded a lot like "muggle buggle smuggle." That girl was so naive and annoying, I thought I was going to throw up. I might have anyway, because the elevator was going as fast as ever up into the sky. Finally we reached the floor of Olympus. As the doors slid open with a ding Ginny (yes, that was it!) gasped. The construction on the vast city was still in progress, but some parts were finished, and looking quite good if I may say so myself. Which I did.
"I designed that, you know," I told them, then winced at my boasting. Percy tried to cover it up.
"Annabeth is a very skilled architect. I suppose it's safe to tell you now that she's a daughter of Athena. When Olympus was ruined a few years ago, she was assigned to planning the new look."
They stared in awe and I felt a rush of pride. "Um, well, let's go. The gods are expecting us."
We passed through the bustling streets, occasionally stopping to pull the others' attention away from the displays outside shops, and periodically another satyr, centaur, or giggling nymph. At one point or another Coach Hedge must have gotten distracted by a weapons pawn shop or something, because when I turned around he wasn't there. Now we'd lost our chaperone- if you could call a violent, crazy old satyr a chaperone. Finally we were at the gate of the palace. I looked up at the tall golden door inscribed with Greek friezes, an original made in Hephaestus' forge. The old-fashioned, gigantic knocker was positioned at around the height of the average mortal. "Well, here we go," I said, and with that I knocked three times with the large brass knocker.
§Ginny§
Sometimes I thought my life was one big prank. From a young age, I had to deal with exploding doorbells and teddy bears that turned into spiders, then later at school, diaries with feelings and nargles in mistletoe. The point was, my life was weird before, but this was, by far, the weirdest thing that I had been through. I had had trouble believing in demigods, but after seeing Mount Olympus, I was forced to accept the truth.
When we entered the throne room, my eyes popped. Then, I said something really intelligent like, "Gah."
"'Gah' is right," said Ron, "This is bloody amazing!"
There were twelve large thrones arranged in a "U" shape, and their occupants were- to state the obvious- not human. A man that could only be the famous Zeus sat in the middle, next to an attractive middle-aged woman with dark hair and smiling eyes. Hera.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Percy kneel on the ground as if bowing. The other demigods followed suit, and when Zeus glared, us wizards also fell onto a knee. I didn't dare look any of the gods in the eye, they were so foreboding.
"King Zeus… Queen Hera...Dad…" Percy addressed them.
"Hello dears." Hera said, and we rose.
"You aren't here with that cute little mortal are you?" Asked another in a pink toga hopefully. Judging from Percy's expression, I could tell he didn't think they were talking about one of us. He started to speak, but Hera interuppted.
"Of course not, Aphrodite." she said. From the way she scowled, it was obvious she did not like that mortal.
"He was soooo charming, and he promised to return today." She said, twirling her long blond hair, and checking her reflection. "Do you think he'll show?"
"I certainly hope not." Muttered Hera menacingly.
"He reminds me of the King of Eleusis," Said another, "so humble!"
"But Demeter!" Interrupted Annabeth, "He is Lord Malum, an evil wizard!" Oh, so now we were talking about Lord Malum. Was I the only person who couldn't follow a conversation? Now that I was on track, I waited for Annabeth's mother, Athena, to reply.
"Yes, that's wonderful blossom, why don't you run along and blow up something with your fishy boyfriend?" She said, trying to seem casual but failed and looked nervous.
Annabeth clenched her fists in anger, but lucky for us, otherwise stayed calm. I understood enough that I knew it was a bad idea to anger these gods.
"What do you need help with?" asked Poseidon loudly (I could tell it was him because he was holding a trident), finally intervening the tangent. He glared at Demeter as if remembering a bad memory involving her.
Percy looked relieved. "Well, first let me introduce you to my new…um…friends. This is Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. They are mortals, but also wizards like the dude who came earlier, only they are…nice, and Lord Malum is evil. He wants to destroy everybody, and he is trying to convince you guys to help him." said Percy. I wanted to strangle him for hesitating before he said friends and nice, but I couldn't blame him after what Ron did.
"I knew there was something weird about that guy!" Exclaimed Poseidon, banging his trident for emphasis.
§Leo§
The gods were hard to convince. They had mixed feelings about Lord Malum. In the end, we got Poseidon, Hera, Athena and Artemis on our side. Not bad. Aphrodite and Demeter (and Persephone who happened to be on Mount Olympus) refused to believe that the 'sweet' man was up to any bad, and the others present didn't want to be 'dragged into mortal business'. When we asked why he had visited or if they knew where he went, Zeus looked at us scornfully and replied it was confidential.
Some of the Olympians weren't there though. Hades was down in, well, Hades, and my dad was at his forge. That's one way we were in common- as much as we tried to hide it, we just weren't comfortable around people all the time. I wondered whether he would have agreed to help us. Apparently, our situation was not considered dire enough to have a video conference that second in the throne room, so Hades and Hesphaestus were considered "undecided". Maybe I'd see if I could Iris-message him later, but for now we bowed goodbye and left the palace. We chatted on the way back to the elevator.
"Three Olympians, that's not bad," said Jason, although his face was downcast. I could imagine what it was like when your father doesn't support you. But then, when did Zeus ever care about mortals? I never thought about how tough it would be to be his son- never getting much attention. And to think I complained about being neglected.
"Yeah, but if Lord Malum has some of them, it hardly makes a difference. We will just need to gather more of us. That is, both demigods and wizards," mused Hermione. "Speaking of which, I should probably contact the Order and update them on all of this. Do any of you have your phones with you? 'Cause I doubt there's any delivery owls around."
We stared at her. "Um, demigods don't really use phones," Annabeth said, "They sort of attract monsters to us. But…" she pondered for a moment. "Leo, remember when I sent all those owls on you- was it really yesterday?"
Oh, I remembered.
"Well, maybe I can try again. Without injuring anything." She stopped and began to murmur. It might have been Greek, but she was too soft for me to hear. At first nothing happened, but then I noticed a barn owl landing on the gold telephone wire lining the street. Soon enough a few more appeared beside it. Annabeth walked towards them, now out of her trance.
Um, it would be great if one of you could do us a favor? We need to deliver a letter to someone, and it seems owls are the preferred wizard mailing service. It was only when I saw the wizard's expressions that I realized she was talking to the birds in Ancient Greek. After a few years of demigod training, I could pick up most of the language.
The smallest one stepped forward and cocked its head. Its fierce, beady brown eyes reminded me of Annabeth's gray ones, for some reason.
"We need a pen and paper," she said, now in English. Percy nodded and proceeded to a nearby vendor, and came back with a yellowed parchment and a quill. He passed them over to Hermione.
"But didn't you have a pen in your pocket….?" Hermione said. He ignored her. She shrugged and used Ron's back as a writing surface. After a while she rolled up the parchment and approached the owl cautiously. It offered its leg, and she looked around for something to tie it with. I searched my pockets and produced a piece of twine I had forgotten about. She smiled gratefully (!) and secured the letter to the owl's leg, telling it to go to something like "Grim Old Place, London". Why anyone would want to live there is beyond me. She fished around her bag and handed it a small copper coin.
The owl took off with a contented hoot, and we continued walking.
§Hermione§
Now that a letter was on the way to Kingsley explaining we had run into some new allies on the way, and we had a plan, I felt more at ease than I had since the plane. Sure, Annabeth still seemed a bit edgy towards me, but other than that I thought it was okay.
We were almost at the elevator doors at the end of a boulevard when Ron suddenly tensed. I didn't know if anyone else noticed- it was a small transition, but I had spent so much time with him I knew something was different. I reached for his hand caringly, but he turned around and punched me hard in the stomach. I stumbled back, shocked, and he took this time to pull out his wand.
"Petrificus Totalus," he bellowed, and I fell backward with a thump onto the cobblestone. It happened I was doubled over when he hit me, so now I was frozen in a sort of hunched-up position to watch Ron as he stunned everyone except Percy and Harry. Why hadn't he stun me?
He switched aim between both of them, summoning them to come to him. When the didn't, he looked outraged for a moment, but then simply said, "Imperio!" and they obeyed. They stood like soldiers while he fell to his knees and started rasping in a foreign tongue. Although I had taken Ancient Runes at school, this language was one I had never learned. Yet, when I listened closely I could compare it to Annabeth speaking to the owls earlier, in a much gentler tone, and knew it was Greek. What was happening to Ron?
"Ela, ploiarkos. Elateh, na katakta." Or at least that's what it sounded like. I knew it was no use to cry for help- I couldn't speak, but by instinct I screamed silently until my throat ached. I felt myself loosing focus, and eventually blacked out. The last thing I saw- two demigods standing obediently in front of a chanting, possessed boyfriend- was etched into my eyelids even when I couldn't remember anything else.