Chapter 3
Author's Note:
Hi everyone.
Sorry.
I know I haven't updated for ages. I haven't for any of my fanfics for a while either though, in case that can make you feel any better.
Anyway, thank you EVER so much to Thalia-Saran, WhiteWinterStar, Fleury's Apprentice70, HungarianBaron, .562, yami2703, Lukas Le Stelle, Benevolent Dreamer, Some Guy, Guest and CinderAshTree, and to all you wonderful people who favourited and/or followed this story.
.562: Thank you so much for your input, that is a very valuable idea. I'll admit I'd never thought of anything of the sort, but the whole boggart thing is intriguing. Thank you!
Yami2703: That warms my heart, thank you :)
Benevolent Dreamer: So. Nice. Of. You!
Some Guy: Yep.
*IMPORTANT NOTE*: Any outstanding issues that don't make sense within this story, please point them out to me, I'd be glad to rectify them in any way I can. I am already aware of some of them, and have a plan for most of them. But please feel free to nit pick and criticize: flames keep my feet toasty at night :)
Okay, here goes!
The demigods were shown out of Dumbledore's office after receiving a very long and complicated list of instructions to Professor McGonagall's office. Third right, second left, through the door that looks like it's part of the wall, ask permission to go past the painting on your left, duck behind the tapestry picturing Engo the Embezzled and carry on until you reach the corridor, then it's the fifth door to your left.
They carefully went down the spiral staircase (it made you dizzy if you looked at your feet too long, Percy found) and paused just outside next to the gargoyle, which had now returned to its place and was as immobile as it should be. The nine teenagers looked at each other, so overcome by recent events they barely knew what to think, let alone do or say.
"Wow." Leo said after a few moments. "Magic, huh?"
"Yeah." Annabeth said, shakily running a hand through her long curls. "That just about covers it."
"You were amazing up there." Percy told her. "I can't believe he actually-"
Annabeth slapped a hand on his mouth. She put a finger to her lips and her eyes flicked to the huge gargoyle and back. Percy remembered how it had reacted to McGonagall's voice and kept quiet.
"We should go to Professor McGonagall's office," Piper said loudly. "Professor Dumbledore said we had to set some details straight with her."
They hurriedly walked about halfway through the corridor until they reached a spot of wall vacant of portraits - who, they had discovered earlier, could communicate as well as move.
"We have to be really, really careful about what we say in public." Annabeth warned in a low voice. "The walls here literally have ears, and we never know who they might report to."
"I'll bet you anything that gargoyle repeats everything it hears to the headmaster." Thalia said grimly. Annabeth nodded, and Percy winced at how he'd very nearly blown their cover.
"I just wanted to say that you were incredible, when you told him that story," Percy mumbled, a bit sheepish. "You didn't even have to practice and you got it spot-on right. But I still can't believe he actually fell for it." he whispered. "He's the headmaster of the supposedly best school of magic in the world, surely he'd be a bit more probing with anyone who comes begging for a place out of the blue?"
"Well Annabeth was really believable, to be fair." Piper joined in. "And there shouldn't really be any reason for him to be so distrustful."
"Oh yeah, sure, nothing. Except that there's the most powerful dark wizard on the loose again. But no, he wouldn't try anything, would he?" Thalia said, rolling her eyes.
"But this is a school," Piper reasoned. "Why would he want to get inside here?"
"Because Harry Potter goes to school here." Annabeth reminded her quietly. "And if Dumbledore knows about the prophecy Chiron told us about, then there's a big chance he's fully aware of a potential attack on the school."
Piper's face fell.
"Oh yeah." she said. "I forgot about that."
"And I don't think Dumbledore really believed us anyway." Annabeth said, the corner of her mouth twitching in regret.
"What? But he totally did!" Leo exclaimed, his dark eyes widening. "We got in, didn't we? We got a place."
Annabeth fixed him with her I'm-a-daughter-of-Athena-and-you're-clearly-not stare.
"Leo, have you ever heard the phrase Keep you friends close and your enemies closer?"
Identical expressions of concern spread across Thalia and Jason's faces.
"You think he suspects us?" Jason asked, the worry clear in his voice.
"Not exactly. I think he can't have become headmaster of this school without a great deal of skill and a brain of gold. I think that his cheery old teacher act is just that: an act. I think that he's seen enough in life to see danger everywhere. I think that he's first and foremost a teacher who wouldn't compromise the safety of students - meaning us - by spurning them when they could be telling the truth. I think he knows that in these early days of Lord Voldemort's return he has to keep his options open, and in our case that would mean giving us the benefit of the doubt, or at the very least letting us stay here to keep an eye on us."
Hazel delicately massaged her brow.
"So, in essence, we're already in danger of suspicion?" she surmised.
Annabeth shrugged.
"Not any more than we were an hour ago. Remember, there's nothing he can do to prove we're impostors: Chiron can supply us with evidence that we once went to an academy named Mythomagic, and legally Dumbledore can't eavesdrop on any conversations we have with our families - which he can't do anyway, because we'll be soliciting Iris' kind services."
"Her expensive services." Leo muttered. Hazel elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow!"
"Shush." she scolded him. "She's actually very nice. A bit health-and-fitness crazy, but nice. And helpful."
"Guys, we should carry on walking a bit." Frank said nervously, glancing around. "Anyone could come by."
So they walked on some more, alternately gawping at the moving portraits, arguing with stubborn doors and arguing with each other.
"No, it's that way." Thalia said, gesturing at a large tapestry on their right with her arm. "Dumbledore said to go behind a tapestry of...of Embezzlo, or something."
"Yeah, but only after we asked permission to go past a portrait." Percy replied, eyeing the wall covered with portraits of ancient witches and wizards. Some of them looked positively medieval, whereas others had posed in front of industrial factories, clearly having thought them to be exotic sites. "So... Which one, again?"
"Guys, it's this way." Hazel called out, nodding at the portrait of a matronly witch sitting primly in an old wicker chair. "The nice lady says we can go past."
Unaware of the proper wizarding way of thanking someone, Percy awkwardly waved at the witch in the portrait and followed Piper under the thick tapestry.
"Did we just ask a portrait permission to go under a wall carpet?" Percy muttered to Annabeth in an undertone.
She smirked.
"Get used to it, Seaweed Brain. I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot more of weird stuff around here."
Once they reached the end of the hidden passage behind the tapestry, no-one cold remember which way they were supposed to go.
"This way." Piper guessed, seeing lots of doors to her right and recalling something about the 'fifth door'.
"No, it's to the left." Hazel said, already walking the other way, were there were, in fact, even more doors than on the left.
"How do you know that?" Leo grumbled. "This place is impossibly complicated, and I've worked in Bunker nine for months."
"I'm usually good at finding my way," Hazel replied absently. "I suppose it comes with the rest of my...er, skills."
She glanced nervously at the walls, but luckily any portraits were few and far apart.
"Well, in that case, I'm sticking with you, girl." Leo said, catching up and nearly gluing himself to her, ignoring Frank's scowl. "I hate getting lost."
"So do I." Percy agreed. "Ever since that Labyrinth-"
He stopped himself in time, starting to get annoyed, both at himself and at the castle. He had a nasty feeling the year was going to be long and frustrating if they couldn't say what they liked when they liked.
They found McGonagall's door within seconds, and Jason was about to knock when Nico suddenly called out. He was hanging back a little, and in the shadow of a suit of armour he looked like his old self: dark, gaunt and depressed. He beckoned to them silently.
"Before we go in there." he said. "There's something you should know."
"What? The door's gonna eat our fingers if we knock on it?" Thalia asked.
"No. Dumbledore can read minds."
Silence.
Percy wasn't sure he'd heard that right.
"Excuse me?"
"Dumbledore can read minds." Nico repeated. "He looked at me straight in the eye and... I felt him trying to read my thoughts while Annabeth was telling our, erm...back-story."
"Uh...felt him?" Piper asked uncertainly.
"Yeah, like there was suddenly someone else inside my head. He didn't say anything, but I could sense him there." He looked annoyed at their doubtful expressions. "Look," he said. "I know my own mind. Before the whole Gaea business, it was pretty much my one companion, so I know when someone's messing with it. Dumbledore can read our thoughts, I'm telling you."
"Actually," Hazel said, softly. "I do believe you, Nico. Lou Ellen told me the children of Hecate sometimes use something similar. It's not easy, and only the most powerful of her children can actually do it, but it does exist."
Leo groaned.
"Oh, great. Caretaker nearly puts us in corporal detention. Intimidating witch looks like she wants to set us lines. Headmaster suspects us. Headmaster can read minds. Just brilliant. And we've been here what, an hour?"
Nico stayed grave as Percy and Thalia smirked in spite of the truth in Leo's words.
"Just don't look him in the eye." he said seriously, and Hazel nodded in agreement.
"Eye contact is essential when trying to read someone's thoughts." she said. "If you don't meet his eye, your thoughts should be reasonably safe so long as you don't speak them aloud."
"Answers your question, though." Percy said to Annabeth. "We know he tried to verify our story." He turned to Nico. "What were you thinking about when he tried to read your mind?"
The son of Hades smirked.
"Nothing much. Only how horrible his outfit was. As soon as I felt him there, I - er...may have been slightly discourteous as I told him to leave. But I didn't think of anything demigod-ish, don't worry."
Annabeth looked worried.
"I never imagined anything like this." she said, frowning in concern. "Just to be on the safe side, if he ever questions us about our school again, just think as hard as you can of what Camp looked like after Gaea was defeated. We can't afford getting discovered that stupidly."
"Okay." Thalia said. "But we really should go in now. Likely any professors will come around the corner and ask us what we're doing. It's not like we want any other problems coming our way."
Piper snorted, and Percy shared the sentiment: demigod life wasn't about avoiding problems coming your way, demigod life was problems coming your way all the damn time.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Prof. Minerva McGonagall was supervising the last of the letter-sending when the nine American students knocked on her office door. Parchments were flying everywhere, flitting and floating in apparent chaos, but each of them knowing exactly which corner of the table to go to, which envelope to seal itself in, and which colour ink to write on itself with (green for the halfbloods, blue for the purebloods, black for the muggle-born). Hot purple wax diligently spilled itself from a charmed-hot metal bowl, followed by her needlessly-huge Hogwarts official seal pressing itself in to the soft wax. The process was long, complex, desperately in need of attention and exactly what Minerva needed - anything to distract her mind from the tortuously numerous questions erupting the more she thought about the new students. It was all to much of a bloody coincidence, excuse her French, for nine of them - nine of them - to literally pop up on their doorstep just days after Sibyll's rapture-state and doom prophecy about the fate of magic swinging in the void.
She had a mind to talk to Dumbledore about them. She had a mind to talk to Dumbledore about Sibyll. She had a mind to rant to him about that pink toad, too. She had a mind to talk to Dumbledore of just about anything so long as he did not keep her in the dark in this preposterous and thoroughly bemusing situation.
Since Sibyll's prophecy (because whatever her colleagues said, Minerva was damn well sure it was one) nothing much had happened. Well, nothing important. The toad-extraordinaire had arrived, with twelve suitcases all charmed different shades of pink. Of course, Dumbledore had welcomed her with open arms, a wide smile and a some warm words. Sometimes Minerva really could not decide if the man was an excellent actor verging on a complete hypocrite, or a man who truly believed in seeing only the best in everyone.
In any case, they were inordinately lucky that Umbridge had not yet seen the nine new arrivals. If she had... Minerva shuddered at the implications. Ministry inquiries, paperwork nightmares, auror-led investigations as to the safety of Hogwarts' borders. She could already see the newspaper article in the Daily Prophet, signed Rita bloody Skeeter. 'Hogwarts Break-In!' and 'Is Hogwarts truly safe?'
She sighed. Why did crises (Dumbledore always called them surprises, but she stood her ground on that) always happen at this time of year? First the matter of eleven year old Harry Potter's Hogwarts letters never managing to reach their recipient, then that elf's meddling with the Charring Cross portal, followed by Potter's very near shave with the Ministry after quite literally blowing his aunt up. And it hadn't stopped there, she recalled, both with fondness and grim exasperation. The Quidditch Cup fiasco, Moody's abduction the day after that (although of course they hadn't known about that then)...and a few days ago, Potter saving his cousin's life!
But he'd been cleared, so that was at least some good news. Those American students, on the other hand...
Who were they? Why were they here? How had they got here, come to that?
And, as Minerva's occasionally too-retentive mind kept tossing back at her, like a ball on those pang-pang tables those Muggles liked to play (or was it pong-pong? No. Ping-pang? Ping-pong! That was it.) - why nine of them?
Nine shall react, and nine will return...
Sometimes, Minerva hated prophecies. To be fair she'd only heard one or two in her life, but it was the principle of the things she found hard to get to grips with. Why give the inquisitive, arrogant and sometimes woefully stupid human race a glimpse of the future if it could never be a) changed, b) prevented, or c) ever, ever interpreted correctly?
It was like making a student prepare for an exam, then ambiguously predict his future performance, and then leaving them to agonize over it for days while you pushed them even harder in their studies. The student would be likely to interpret the 'prophecy' as his imminent failure and give up all effort because what would be the point, if he failed/passed regardless of what they did?
Minerva's brain was still mulling full-speed over the problem at hand. Nine shall react... Across the sea... Americans - they lived across an ocean, didn't they? There had been a whole bunch of figurative epithets in the prophecy, but Minerva recalled something about a stag. Young Potter's patronus was a stag, and she'd always known, deep down, under her belief (or perhaps hope?) that the Dark Lord had gone, that Harry would have a role in a second war against him, should there ever be one.
Could it possibly mean that the time was at hand, that Harry was going to find a way to defeat Voldemort? Could the arrival of these American teenagers be what the prophecy had warned? Were they meant to help Harry, give him some sort of secret weapon that the English wizarding world did not possess or even dream of?
Were they meant to protect the boy?
Minerva shook her head. No, she was being silly. Most of the adolescents she'd seen earlier had been two years older than Potter at the most. They were barely out of childhood themselves, and Minerva refused to believe that nine more troublemakers would be more efficient at protecting the Boy-Who-Lived that two, namely Weasley and Granger.
At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Minerva called for whoever it was to come in, expecting to see Filch come to whine at her for robbing him of his castigator's rights and privileges. Instead, a head covered in long, curly blonde hair peeked round the door. Minerva blinked.
"Excuse us, Professor." the girl said, in her foreign, slightly drawling but not unpleasant accent, "Professor Dumbledore told us to come here to sort some details out with you."
Minerva blinked again. Me? She thought.
"Me?" she said.
The girl nodded.
"Yes. We're new pupils, and Professor Dumbledore told us to come to you to straighten matters concerning student data. He didn't mention anything specific, but..." she trailed off, at a loss of what else to say. Minerva could see she had no idea of what else was to come.
The girl dithered on the threshold, clearly waiting for permission to come inside.
"Fine." Minerva said curtly, waving her in and watching as her fellow 'new students' filed in behind her. Any talking among them stopped as they entered, and they stared, wide-eyed, at the dozens of flying parchments rocketing around her office, accelerating now that the process was nearing completion. Regretfully, for it meant that the complicated task would have to wait even more (she was already late, according to Prof. Pink's rose-scented note sent and received three days ago. Funnily enough, Minerva had since found the smell of roses quite repelling) Minerva waved her wand, and all parchments froze in mid-air until she instructed them to gently float back to their respective piles.
"Well," she started to say, before pausing and waving her wand again, conjuring nine straight-backed chairs. "We might as well sit down, this is likely to take a while. Now, tell me, have you been sorted?"
They shook their heads. The one in the middle, with pointed features, curly black hair and an air about him that screamed Fred and George! at her was staring at her sleeve, where she'd slipped her wand. Minerva ignored him.
"Professor Dumbledore said we would get sorted along with the first-years." the blonde girl explained.
Minerva frowned. With the first-years? But these students were much older, some were close to being wizarding adults! She wasn't much of a pedagogue, but being sorted along with terrified eleven-year-olds sounded like somewhat of a humiliating experience, even to her. She added it to the ever-increasing list of thing she wanted to discuss with Albus.
"We'll see about that when we get to it, then." she decided. "However, to get a head-start on your schedules, it will be helpful to know your names, followed by your ages. Start from the right."
"Percy Jackson, sixteen."
"Annabeth Chase, sixteen."
"Frank Zhang, fifteen." Minerva nearly voiced a comment, but mastered her surprise. Merlin's spectacles, the boy looked seventeen!
"Hazel Levesque, fourteen."
"Leo Valdez, sixteen." said the Weasley Twin look-alike. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at something on her desk. "Does it do anything?"
Minerva considered the question, and then the object itself. It was a fine paperweight: the silver effigy of the Scottish emblem, thistles and all, coated with velvet on the bottom and charmed not to tarnish. Heavy, solid and reliable. A shared gift from Albus, Pomona and Filius six years beforehand.
"I rather think that as a paperweight, it weighs down paper, Mr. Valdez." she answered crisply.
"Oh." he sounded disappointed.
"Next." Minerva said, punctuating her statement with a decisive jot on her notes.
"Piper McLean, sixteen." the bronze-skinned girl said. Her eyes were a little unnerving. Minerva had caught sight of them earlier, and could not decide what colour they were. She put it down to Fiddleton's Fancy-Eyes Film (Glam up your eyes like a Muggle! read Witch Weekly. Not that Minerva ever read such rubbish, let alone remembered it).
"Jason Grace, sixteen."
"Thalia Grace, fi- sixteen."
"Twins, then?" Minerva asked, still scribbling on her notes. There was a very slight pause. She looked up. The blond boy, Jason, was grinning at the annoyed girl who was clearly his sister. Apart from the obvious clue of their surnames, they had the same eyes and something similar about the jawlines and the straightness of their features. On the boy, it looked right in a regal, sort of militaristic way. It gave the girl, however, a slight rough edge, one that was not unknown among some of the less, ah...delicate female Slytherin students.
"Yes." the girl said, finally. "Twins." she clearly resented the fact.
"And you?" Minerva asked the last boy, who was so pale and silent that he'd almost become part of the décor.
"Nico di Angelo, fifteen." he announced quietly. Minerva quickly looked back to her notes and noted that down too; his dark eyes were a little too intense for her comfort - they reminded her slightly of Severus Snape's.
Once the dates of birth were sorted out, it added up to this: Jackson, Chase, Valdez, McLean, Grace and Grace in sixth year; Levesque, Zhang and di Angelo in fifth year. The nine teenagers seemed pleased at the result, and the pale yet oddly dark di Angelo boy even shot a look of what appeared to be relief at Miss Levesque. She smiled back at him warmly, her golden eyes lighting up like a candle. Minerva found herself wondering why nearly all of these new pupils had such striking eyes: never in all her years of teaching had she seen such an optic cocktail.
"One last personal detail. What Blood Status are you?"
"Er...Blood Status?" Annabeth Chase asked uncertainly.
Minerva could feel the beginning of a headache coming.
"Yes." she said, rubbing her forehead and trying not to sigh. "Pure-blood? Muggle-born? Half-blood?"
"Half-blood." they chorused immediately.
"All of you?" she was surprised. Well, well. America certainly had a lot to teach to most of England's stuck-up pure-blood families. Old blood and money were all very well and good (well not really, but that wasn't her point) but there was nothing wrong with some new, fresh muggle blood from time to time. It was thanks to the Muggles that wizards hadn't died out, for Nimueh's sake. She jotted the information down and mentally scanned through what needed to be discussed before she could dismiss them.
"Has Professor Dumbledore suggested any arrangements for your dormitories?" she asked them , briskly shuffling some papers around on her desk. She hoped he had. Minerva herself really wasn't feeling up to the task of working out a way in which nine students could be accommodated without enlarging the millennia-old house dormitories.
"Yes." the Chase girl answered immediately. She rather reminded Minerva of Miss Granger, the way she always seemed to have an answer for everything. "He said that another part of the castle would be - er, modified to suit our needs."
Minerva nodded. Sensible, and typically pragmatic of Dumbledore. No doubt Filius would be taking charge of the procedures; maybe she would offer her own help in Transfiguring parts of the castle that remained stubbornly impermeable to change.
"Right, well there isn't much more now that can be decided, not while you still haven't been sorted. Classes are arranged so that different houses of the same year can take them together and alternate class partners with each subject. So you might find yourselves with Hufflepuffs in Astronomy, or with Slytherins in Potions, for example. Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts are usually with your own housemates only, though that may change now that your arrivals have upped the number of students."
"Sorry." mumbled the boy with black hair next to Miss Chase. Earlier when she'd found them with Filch in the corridor, it wasn't until Minerva looked at him properly that she realized he wasn't Harry Potter. Now that she was closer and talking to him, Minerva didn't really know why she'd mistaken them in the first place. The two boys shared the same sort of dishevelled black hair and they both had green eyes, but the similarities ended there. This boy - Jackson, if she remembered correctly - was taller, his skin was more tanned, and he carried himself a lot more confidently - much like James Potter had, actually. Harry Potter seemed timid in comparison, though Minerva knew from experience that he was capable of much more than he looked.
She waved his apology away.
"Not much either of us can do about it now, Mr. Jackson. I will, however, brief you on the rules here at Hogwarts. No doubt in America your schools will have had similar regulations, but we cannot afford, especially in theses troubled times, any slip-ups, especially if they lead to bigger problems."
And didn't she know that, she thought.
"Firstly, no magic outside of classes or common rooms. You may need to practice charms and incantations for homework, but any flying hex or 'accidental' jinx gone wrong will get you straight to your Head of House and lose you points. I need not also point out that any magic outside of the appropriate areas endangers your fellow students as well."
They nodded rather deferentially. Minerva had slipped into her teacher-mode without even realizing it - she was wont of doing so every now and again.
"Secondly, I expect every single one of you to respect students from other houses as though they were in your own. Over the years, there has always been a certain amount of rivalry between the houses, but sometimes they cross limits completely and end in pointless, harmful incidents that bear shame on our school. Such silly rivalries, competitions and gratuitous maliciousness have never been anything other than futile and detrimental to the unity of our school. The nine of you will no doubt be separated among the four houses, and I expect you to maintain any and all of the friendship ties that exist already among you."
She eyed them severely. They looked mostly bemused, but Miss Chase seemed thoughtful, and the Grace girl looked ready to roll her eyes. Minerva considered it a credit to her own presence that she did not.
"Also, as you no doubt will know by now, Hogwarts is universally recognized to be the best school of magic there is. Professor Dumbledore did you a great honour to grant you a place here, and I expect you all to work to the best of your ability and prove you are worthy of said honour. We do not usually accept foreign students among our regular pupils, unless they have lived in the United Kingdom for five years prior to their entry at Hogwarts. You will therefore occupy a somewhat privileged position, and no doubt other wizarding folk overseas will try to obtain similar placements their own children, should any talk of your situation reach them. I thus expect you to stay modest on the circumstances that brought you here, heedless of what they may be. Any boasting, abusing of your position as foreign students or pointless gossip about this will, believe me, be severely dealt with. "
She paused, wishing that she herself knew the precise workings of how and why they were here. It was all very well to order them not to talk too much about the circumstances of their presence, but in that matter they were spectacularly more informed than she was, which placed her at a distinct disadvantage. Another thing to add to her Talk-to-Albus list.
Percy Jackson and Jason Grace both had slight frowns creasing their foreheads. Jackson looked annoyed, a look Minerva was familiar with: it was the look many students sported when they were being lectured or reproached on something that had, supposedly, nothing to do with them. Jason Grace, in many ways, seemed like the polar opposite of Mr. Jackson, in looks as well as attitude so far. If anything, Minerva would have sworn he looked slightly affronted at her suggestion that he would voluntarily cause trouble. She knew better than to trust appearances, however. Distrust and good observation skills were practically job 'musts' for a Hogwarts Professor.
"Which school do you come from?" she asked before she even knew she was going to.
"Mythomagic Institute ." Percy Jackson said promptly. "We can't tell you where it is, obviously - all schools protect their location."
Minerva was surprised, and that didn't happen often.
"Yes, indeed, but... Mythomagic? I can't say I've ever heard of it. Who is your headmaster?"
"Our principal is - was - Mr. D." the Chase girl answered. Her voice was tight, all of a sudden, and Minerva sensed their was much more to all this than first met the eye. Still, she was impressed.
"Dee, you say? You don't mean a relation of John Dee, the famous alchemyst from the Elizabethan era?"
They looked at her blankly. Minerva saw an opportunity to do a tiny bit of extra teaching.
"The Muggles thought of him more as an astrologer and a so-called psychic, you know, but he was a wizard. The man was a genius. He managed to get close to Elizabeth I in the best years of her reign and remained in her favour until his death, all the while concealing his magic self from the eyes of the muggle world. Very powerful, too. Some claim he was descended from Merlin himself."
"I don't know..." Miss Chase replied, glancing at her friends. "Maybe... Mr D. was quite powerful too, he could do all sort of stuff, but he never mentioned any special ancestors."
"We weren't very close to him anyway." Jackson said. "He was our principal, we were his students, and woe betide anyone who crossed him. That's all there really is to know."
Minerva eyed him speculatively. He was being remarkably blasé and closed off about all this, which seemed odd considering Miss Chase was so eager to answer her questions as well as possible. She had a feeling she and Miss Granger would get along if they got to know each other.
"Were you all at the same school, then?" she asked, this time looking at the other side of the row, who were distinctly quieter.
Some nodded, some shrugged and some hesitated. Minerva nearly threw her hands up in the air. Why was it teenagers were never capable of giving a straight, informative answer? It wasn't as though the questions were hard. She removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Merlin knew she had better things to do than extricating information from foreign students who were inexplicably reluctant to give it to her.
"What do you mean, nod, shrug, don't know?" she asked, her eyes closed and her nostrils flaring. Her students at Hogwarts all knew that was always a sign of danger, but these students didn't. Perhaps she should demonstrate and thus warn them for the entirety of their stay, and quite possibly their entire lives.
"Well, Thalia, Jason, Leo and me-"
"Leo and I." Minerva corrected tiredly.
"Right." Piper McLean blushed a little and carried on quickly. "The four of us did go to the same school, but Thalia... Er, her story's complicated, 'cause she sort of left, and Nico only just joined-"
"And we're new, too." Frank Zhang said, gesturing at Miss Levesque and himself. "We used to go to the same school as Jason, but we recently moved to Camp - I mean, to Mythomagic." he blushed, too. Minerva could have sworn Chase shot him a look that was less than benevolent.
"Is it common for students to move between systems in America, then?" she asked, genuinely curious. If students did that in the UK, their only other option would be to go to another country, whereas the United States clearly had more than one school. It was very rare, because switching schools often involved the learning of a whole foreign language from scratch, and could be extremely harmful to their academic careers.
All nine of the students shrugged, and Minerva gave up.
"Fine, fine. You lot truly are the most uncommunicative group of pupils I have ever had the exhaustion to meet."
The Hispanic-looking boy, Valdez, grinned.
"Thank you, Professor."
"Mr. Valdez, while like any other human being I enjoy a bit of humour every now and again, I must warn you now, I am thoroughly immune to sarcasm," she informed him in a tone devoid of any emotion, courtesy of having said more or less the same thing a hundred times during her career. "And any fun, playing around, horseplay or smart-aleck remarks, never, I repeat, never occur during my lessons. That is not a warning, it is a fact."
Valdez shrank back a little (the nostrils were doing their job, Minerva noted with satisfaction) and nodded meekly, despite mumbling that he wasn't being sarcastic. Percy Jackson and Frank Zhang were casting her admiring looks, apparently in awe at her ability to make the troublemaker of their gang shut up.
"Now. I suggest you leave presently, and explore the castle while it's still empty. The feast is still in a few hours, in fact-" she looked at the grandfather's clock on her wall, "-it's in four hours' time. That leaves you plenty of opportunity to explore the castle, the library, the grounds, whatever you like so long as you stay within the boundaries. The castle of Hogwarts is, as you may have noticed, quite big, so take careful note of where you start from and where you go. It's always confusing at first because nothing ever seems to stay in one place, but one soon gets used to it. I will take you to the Great Hall and leave you to yourselves. When Professor Flitwick and I have finished your quarter arrangements, I will ask some of the portraits to send for you."
They nodded eagerly, and after vanishing the chairs they were sitting on Minerva led them down to the Great Hall, quietly wondering why they were so amazed at what they were seeing. The moving/talking portraits were always a hit, of course, but usually only with the muggle-borns, and students with at least one wizarding parent weren't often unfamiliar with things like moving staircases, enchanted objects and facilities that were sensitive to week days or phases of the moon. She asked Miss Chase about it while they were walking along a corridor, having to halt a few times so that some of the new students could pull away their friends from staring at various things.
"Oh, Hogwarts is just incredibly different to Mythomagic." the girl answered, herself apparently spellbound by the majesty of the castle's interior. "For one thing it's not a huge castle like this one, it's lots of little cabins clumped together, a bit like a village - that's why we sometimes call it Camp instead of school, 'cause it looks more like summer camp than an academic environment. Only the principal's house is big, and students don't often go in there unless there's some sort of assembly or if they're in trouble."
"Speaking of trouble," Minerva said in an undertone, "Mr. Filch will no doubt be annoyed that I robbed him of a chance to exert some sort of punishment on you and your friends. My advice is to stay away from him as much and for as long as possible."
Piper McLean made slight face of disgust. She'd joined in their conversation a couple of times to ask questions of her own.
"I was counting on that." she muttered.
It could never be said that Minerva McGonagall ever spoke ill of her colleagues, nor did she encourage any such talk, so she pretended not to hear and stared straight ahead, calling loudly for the boys to catch up.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Annabeth bit her lip as Professor McGonagall turned her back on them and wished them luck on their explorations. She didn't like their situation so far. Percy would tell her to relax and go with the flow, but she was so high-strung that she jumped every time someone spoke to her. Yes, they'd gotten in to Hogwarts, but there was so much that could go wrong at any given time - what if McGonagall went straight to Dumbledore and demanded proof for everything they'd said? What if Dumbledore himself hadn't believed them?
Actually, she knew he hadn't believed her completely, she was sure of it. He was far too blasé about the whole matter: when they entered his office he'd been courteous, but cold and business-like, yet as soon as she started to explain their situation, her lies had suddenly made him interested enough to offer them a place at his school! There was something fishy about all of this, and Annabeth didn't know what. She hated not knowing.
Percy put his arm around her.
"Aw, stop worrying, Annabeth." he said, squeezing gently. "I know you think no-one here believes us, but think about it - and not just the logical side of it, take in the moral stuff as well: Dumbledore couldn't very well reject us once he'd seen that we penetrated the boundaries, he's far too curious to let us go. And despite who we are and what we've done, to him we're just a bunch of kids. He wasn't going to send us on our way while we were away from our families and in a complete different country. You're thinking about it too much."
"But it's all so strange." she whispered "He knows something, Percy, I'm sure of it. He didn't even press us too much even he saw how vague our answers about crossing the borders."
"Maybe he's just used to students being uninformative," Percy told her. "Gods know he would be, this place is huge. How many students d'you think come here?"
"Stop trying to distract me," she muttered. "This is serious."
"And so am I." he said earnestly. "I know this is difficult, but we've all been through worse, and we're all here together."
He cupped her cheek in his hand.
"You say Dumbledore doesn't believe us, I say who cares? The man looks like he's as old as Chiron - he knows what he's doing. Chiron would've told us if the headmaster here was an enemy. The best we can do is play along: we wanted him to accept us, that's what he's doing. He wants us to think he believes us, that's what we're going to pretend. Either way, where's the problem? I mean, practically speaking we have a divine messaging system, two armies of demigods behinds us and an aeon-old centaur as our tutor. What can these medieval little people do?"
Annabeth laughed a little shakily and poked him in the ribs.
"Okay, I get it, but stop insulting our hosts, you're being rude."
"Can we go explore this place now?" Leo asked, nearly bouncing with excitement. "I wanna see everything."
"Good luck with that." Thalia muttered. "See you in three years' time."
"First things first," Annabeth said, back to business. "Our first stop is a bathroom, or an ancient stained-glass window, or anything else that can create a rainbow. We need to contact Chiron asap."
They would need evidence of their education at Mythomagic very soon, she knew. No school in the world, no even a wizarding one, would accept students without demanding some sort of identity proof. There was also the problem of wands, they didn't have any, and luggage - wasn't there any way at all they could get some of their clothes from home?
Leo bounded up the nearest staircase, flying up the stairs and examining the ledge once he reached the top, clearly intent on finding out exactly how those moving chunks of marble managed to move so silently and easily, and on an apparently completely random basis. Annabeth couldn't help but smile as he peered at the white marble handrail, his nose nearly touching the stone.
"Not a mechanism, it can't be...no noise...Magnetic attraction?"
"Leo, I hate to say this, but I don't think you'll find a logical solution to this: it's magic. All of it."
Leo looked up, frustration written on his usually merry features.
"I know," he said, "but magic has to have a source of power from somewhere. You can't have movement without stimuli, the way you can't read a book without opening it. If it moves, there's a reason. In this case it's magic, but what's the cause for magic?"
"Hecate." Hazel answered, smiling faintly. "She's the one at the origin of all this, Leo."
Leo huffed but didn't answer.
They explored for a good half-hour, marvelling at the wonders Hogwarts seemed to be entirely made of. Nearly every wall had a portrait on it, nearly every portrait had a person in it, and nearly every painted person threw a remark their way, demanding to know why they were here early, why they were wearing such strange clothes, why the girl with the ungodly short black hair was carrying a bow and quiver (that freaked them out, and they fled without answering, the old wizard in the portrait croaking at them to come back). There seemed to be no end to the twists and turns the castle offered, and every time they entered a new corridor, or they opened a door long enough to slip past, or they climbed another flight of stairs, there was no way of keeping track: as soon as they tried to mark their passage by memorizing a crooked suit of armour or leaving a mark of soot on a gargoyle's pedestal (Leo provided the sparks) the castle somehow appeared to morph and erase all traces of their presence, leaving them dumbfounded, hopelessly lost and increasingly desperate.
When this happened for the third time, Nico got so fed up he gave a sort of snarl and summoned a ball of black fire in his hand and prepared to lob it at a frustratingly non-cooperative statue. Jason stopped him, grabbing his arm quickly and lowering it.
"Careful." he said. It was enough.
Nico shot Jason a dark look and snatched his arm back, moodily turning his back on him and going to lean against the wall. He picked at the studs on a leather bracelet he had on his arm, ignoring everyone else.
Annabeth knew that if Nico was showing signs of restless impatience, his black mood would soon affect everyone else, and the last thing they wanted right now was an argument.
"Hey," she said. "It's okay. We could all do with a rest. Let's find somewhere to sit down."
They found an alcove with a couple of benches large enough for all of them to sit down. There were no paintings near them, so they were free to talk of what they liked, but Annabeth hated the feeling that someone, or something, might pop up at any moment and hear them talking. She'd read a lot of fiction among all her academic work, and sometimes there had been passages in books where the protagonist was being searched for, or even hunted. The character was always described as running or crouching, out of sight, their heart beating so loud they were sure someone would be able to hear it. But when Annabeth was the prey in similar situations - and the Fates knew how many she'd been in - her heart always felt like it was still, her body even more so. She was always as tense as Thalia's bowstring, and twice as likely to snap if something surprised her. She hated feeling hunted, even now, when she knew there wasn't really anything chasing her.
She squeezed Percy's hand tightly, trying to tell him how glad she was that he was here with her, how much she loved him and how scared she was that this would turn out badly. Her thoughts were irrational, she knew: of course it would turn out badly. When you were a demigod, it was only a matter of time.
"Hey, what do you think Muggles are?" Jason asked suddenly. "Both Dumbledore and McGonagall mentioned it a couple of times, but I have no idea what it is."
"It sounded like it's a name for a certain type of people." Hazel said, leaning her head against Frank's shoulder. "When McGonagall asked us what blood status we were - whatever that is - she said pure-blood, half-blood or muggle something."
"Muggle-born." Annabeth recalled. It was painfully obvious what Muggles were.
"They're non-magical people." Nico said unexpectedly. Usually he stayed out of a conversation as if his life depended on it. "That dead guy I saw in the underworld, the one who was a wizard, he said something about Muggles, I remember now..."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Jason said, his brow creasing slightly. "Pure-blood probably means that you're fully connected to wizards, and half-blood that only one of your parents is magical. But 'Muggle' sound a bit derogatory, doesn't it? I mean, why give people a name just because they don't have magic? And why make it sound so...simple?"
"I imagine it started as a nickname." Annabeth said, thoughtful. "In the twentieth century, when the Nazi movement began to rise, the party members weren't called the Nazis but the German Nationalist Socialists. It was only when other countries started to critically call them 'Nazis' that the name stuck, but only because they welcomed the name and glorified in its meaning."
"Typical." Thalia snorted.
"Yeah, but the Muggles didn't deliberately adopt the name," Leo said, frowning. "They don't even know about the wizarding world."
"Which means that wizards deliberately call normal people something that makes them sound childish and dumb?" Piper asked, looking disgusted.
Annabeth hesitated.
"I don't think it works quite like that." she said. "You saw Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall. They mentioned Muggles like they were perfectly part of ordinary life - I don't think they meant anything by it. Or they don't, anyway. McGonagall asked us our blood status like she was asking our ethnic origin. For all we know, it's perfectly normal information to give whenever things turn administrative."
"And we have names for people as well," Percy pointed out. "We're... you know, demigods." he whispered. "And normal humans are mortals."
"Yeah, but those names actually explain what people are." Thalia argued. " 'Demigod' is a status, not a name, and 'mortal' doesn't sound mean or patronizing, it's simply stating that they die at some point while immortals don't."
"I agree." Annabeth said. "But if we're going to fit in here, we should use the term like everyone else."
She could see by their expressions that they weren't happy with it, but it wasn't like they had any choice.
"Don't you think we'll stand out if we're all half-bloods?" Piper asked, looking anxious. "McGonagall looked surprised when we all said that."
Annabeth shrugged.
"Statistical oddity, cultural differences, extra attraction between magical and non-magical people in America, who cares? She can't exactly prove us wrong, and she doesn't have motive to."
"She could." Frank mumbled. "Prove us wrong, I mean. All she'd have to do is look up our names on the American register of wizards, if there is such a thing."
"In which case Chiron will no doubt pull some strings and get our names on there. Actually they're probably already there if it works by magic," Annabeth mused, "seeing as Hecate herself gave us these new powers. And if she's still not happy, she'll have a hard time finding parents for those of us who don't have any, and if she does find some they can tell her without doubt that their partner was, ah...special."
"Speaking of powers," Leo said, as everyone nodded at Annabeth's words, slightly reassured. "Dumbledore has a wand, and he asked us if we still had one. But we, um... don't. How does that work out?"
Annabeth hesitated and didn't answer. Hazel did.
"I think Hecate would've thought of that if it were a problem." she said. "The best thing is probably just to wait. It would've been suspicious if we all lost our wands before we came here."
"Great. So tomorrow in class we'll just be like, No, sorry Professor, I can't turn my hair purple, my wand seems to have skipped off." Leo snorted.
Annabeth was starting to get annoyed.
"Well, we can't do anything about it just now." she retorted, slightly snappishly. "What is it, Leo? We've been on quests before, and nothing ever goes according to plan - why is it so new to improvise as we go along?"
He held up his hands.
"Geez, lady." he said. "Fine. I get it. No wands, no problem. No clue about wizards, no problem. No proof for lies, no problem. I'll shut up."
Annabeth rolled her eyes and didn't push it.
They talked quietly for few more minutes, occasionally glancing down the corridor to check if anyone was coming their way - though why they were so tense, even Annabeth wasn't too sure, they hadn't seen anyone apart from Filch, McGonagall and Dumbledore so far. Finally though, they got up and started to look for a bathroom, which they decided was their best option to create a rainbow away from prying eyes. They came down a couple of floors and asked a portrait for directions to the nearest bathroom. The young and pretty witch in it gave the boys in the group a once-over and simpered at them, ignoring Annabeth's questions and batting her eyelashes at Jason especially. The son of Zeus looked uncomfortable, and Piper very deliberately put his arm around her waist, glaring at the witch, who shrugged and turned to Nico instead.
"Good den, young sir." she said, coyly. "What bringeth you here?"
Nico looked dumbfounded, and opened his mouth to answer but no sound came out. Instead his pale cheeks flushed slightly and Annabeth couldn't help but grin a little.
"Never mind who he is, I'm Leo Valdez!" Leo bubbled, predictably. He planted himself right in front of the witch and gave her his (he apparently thought) most charming smile.
"So, er...lovely witch that you are, where's the bathroom, please?" he asked.
The witch in the portrait frowned slightly.
"What speaketh thou? 'Tis no tongue of mine."
"Well, clearly it is. I mean you understand the gist of it, right?"
The witch rose a delicately painted eyebrow. Leo visibly fought the urge to roll his eyes.
"Oh, fine. Where be-eth the...er, the room to wash oneself, pray tell? If it pleases Your Grace? I mean, milady? I mean-"
The witch giggled, covering her mouth with three fingers as she laughed.
"Thou art most amusing." she said, looking at him from under her eyelashes. " 'Tis certain I am no lady. Whither dost thine companions hail from?"
"What?" Leo asked, confused. "Oh, them? All over-est the place - I mean, world." He waved a hand around impatiently. "Please, milady, answereth the damn question."
The witch looked shocked.
"Thou speaketh against the will of the Lord! Goest in hell, miscreant, I wilt not treat with thee. Begone!"
"Aw, come one! Don't be like that, I just really want to go to the bathroom!"
The witch looked positively scandalized.
"Bath room? How dareth thee speak of such matters?" she screeched. "I am no lady, 'tis true, but ye dost not gain from ye who dost not speak fair. Harken this, young brigand: I knoweth not witherto thy hails form, but 'tis a most ungodly land, verily 'tis so!"
Even Annabeth had to listen hard to understand what the witch was going on about, and Leo's mouth was slightly open in confusion.
"She says she won't help." Annabeth translated.
Leo huffed and stuck his hands in his pocket.
"Huh. Well, goest and flippeth thyself, then." he muttered, slouching back to stand next to Piper, who could barely contain her laughter.
The witch crossed her arms and stuck her nose up in to the air, looking pointedly away from all of them. Annabeth rubbed her temple. They needed to find bathroom, and fast. She made eye-contact with Nico and gave a him a pleading look. The girl had liked the look of him, maybe she still did.
The son of Hades looked pained, but he approached the painting nevertheless. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Excuse me," he said quietly. "Could you direct us to the nearest wash-room, please?"
The witch looked down on him and her crossed arms loosened slightly.
"Thou needest the washing room?" she asked, slightly suspiciously. "Dost thou need to wash thine clothes?"
"No." Nico said. He raised his hands slightly. "My hands. They're dirty."
The witch relaxed.
"Verily, thine hands needeth water." she said, smiling cheekily. "Goest down this here corridor and the room thou needest be through the second door on the right."
"Thanks a lot." Nico said, adding a strained smile for her efforts. "See you."
"Adieu, mon ami." the witch called as they walked away, Nico fastest of all. "Mayhap we wilt meet once more!"
"I sincerely hope not." Nico mumbled once they were out of earshot.
To their credit, none of his friends commented on the painted witch's soft spot for him, though once or twice Piper exchanged a look with Annabeth and grinned. They found the bathroom easily enough, but apparently the witch in the portrait needed to update her knowledge of the castle.
"It's out of order." said Percy. "You'd think it would be fixed after a two-month-long summer holiday."
"And it's for girls." Leo said, sounding revolted. Piper poked him in the ribs.
"If it's out of order then no-one will mind if boys go in." she said. "In fact no-one will mind if anyone goes in, 'cause they won't know about it."
Leo mumbled something in protest, but Piper and Annabeth dragged him inside the disused bathroom. It was a grim place, all grey and cold and dusty, which Leo wasted no time in pointing out, because how were they meant to create a rainbow in a place like this? Long summer afternoons meant that it was still brightly sunny outside, but only a pale shaft of light filtered through the dusty, cobwebbed windows. There was a very faint gurgling sound around that suggested a broken tap, and the water marks on the floor said that a few floods had happened here before.
"Nice." Percy said, looking around. "I can see why students like this place."
"I wonder why no-one bothered to fix it." Piper murmured, examining the wash sinks. "It can't be that difficult in a school of magic."
"Doesn't matter. We need to find a way to make a rainbow." Annabeth said, tying her hair up in a ponytail. She strode to one of the sinks and turned the tap, which was so rusty it screeched as soon as she twisted it. No water came out. She tried another, still no water. Annoyed, she tried another tap. No water.
"None of these are working." she announced, frustrated. "But I can hear water; where's it coming from?"
"I think it might just be the pipes." Piper said, looking at the walls. "Maybe we can use some of this broken glass? Wait, no, that's not glass," she rummaged around on the floor and carefully picked up a large shard. "It's a piece of mirror."
Annabeth relaxed.
"Great. Mirrors can create tiny rainbows. If we can find the right angle and make it bigger, we can ask Iris to-"
"Who are you?" a voice suddenly asked rudely.
UPDATE: The chapter title, Acta Est Fabula, means 'The play has been performed'.