Chapter 15 2002, Centreville (Which isn't remotely central to anything at all, Harry thinks)

It had been a few hectic days since the demigod trio had been found by Grover, the satyr that Luke didn't quite trust. And the feeling was mutual.

Well, being nearly killed would do that, Thalia guessed.

It wasn't really Luke's fault. It had been a long day, and none of them were able to relax in case another monster found them and ambushed them. That happened far too often on their journey up here, so now Luke and her always had a grip on their weapons (thank Gods Harry did something to them to stop the mortals noticing the massive bronze sword and spear that they carried).

It was already dark by the time the three had found what looked like a small abandoned apartment that still looked to be livable. It was Thalia's turn to watch for an ambush whilst Luke and Annie went inside the building (Lue and Thalia always rotated ambush-watch between them, it was too dangerous to leave Annie alone anyway). Annie and Luke didn't get too far into the apartment before Annie screamed and Thalia rushed in.

It was only when Annie screamed at that he was about to kill a kid that Thalia guessed that she and Luke had found another demigod. Thalia arrived just in time to see Luke being stopped from skewering the terrified satyr. He looked older than Luke but not by much, and he was definitely a satyr and definitely terrified.

After rushed introductions, the satyr's name was Grover apparently, and the satyr had pointed out second floor rooms that still had mattresses in them. All three demigods also found the second floor communal area (the first floor was definitely unusable, but weirdly the second floor was fine, but no homeless people were there, which Thalia found beyond weird).

Grover then started speaking to Thalia once they all sat around the remains of a table, apparently he was avoiding Luke as much as possible. The satyr barely got halfway through the explanation of Camp Half-Blood - demigods, safe place to train, run by an actual centaur, yadda yadda yadda - before Luke butted in.

"So where is it? D.C. isn't all that big, it's gotta be on the outskirts somewhere right?"

Grover just looked confused at that.

"D.C.? why would anyone think Camp is in D.C.?"

"Well Olympus is here isn't it?" This came from Thalia, who didn't like the patronizing way Grover was speaking to Luke.

The satyr actually snorted at that, and if he started actually laughing, Thalia couldn't be responsible for her actions. Eventually when he got himself under control he looked at the three demigods.

"No, no, sorry, it's just. Olympus. In D.C.!" He almost cracked up again, but managed to get himself under control. "Olympus was on the highest mountain in Ancient Greece, where would you think it would be in the US?"

"Colorado?" Luke muttered.

"Erm, it's not actually a mountain, but it's-"

"Sears Tower." Annie shouted happily, interrupting whatever Grover was going to say. Thalia had no idea what Sears Tower was, probably a tall building, she guessed.

"Erm, no." Grover looked kinda surprised at that "Uhmm… why would you think that?"

"Cos it's the tallest tower in America, apart from, y'know…"

Thalia realized what she knew was the tallest building in America no longer existed. The god's surely couldn't live in New York then.

"Erm no, it, the Gods live in an older tall tower than - "

"The Empire state!" Luke jumped in, looking incredibly pleased with himself.

"Yeah, that's it!"

Annie looked confused when she turned to Thalia to check this, but Thalia looked incredibly annoyed. Her and Luke both knew the 'ah yes, stupid kids finally got it' patronizing tone from far too many teachers. Thalia couldn't help but glare a little at Grover. Sure the gods may not be in the Capitol, but was there any need to make them sound so stupid for thinking they were in D.C.?

And if the Gods lived in New York, then surely they could do something about it? Even Thalia had heard how awful New York was just before she was born.

"So the gods only came here in the thirties then?" Luke asked, trying to distract Grover, who was now looking a bit scared of Thalia's glare.

"Wha- Erm no, no. They came in the 1800s at some point, just before the Civil War."

"They ever been in England before?" Thalia asked. Maybe that would explain Harry.

"But where were they living before the Empire State building got built?" This came from Annie, all of them were speaking over each other. Thalia was amazed that Grover could even understand their questions.

"Err, the gods were in England before they came to the US yeah, for a few centuries, and I don't know where they were before the Empire State Building got built. Maybe…erm. Gosh I dunno."

Now Luke snorted at that. Even Thalia grinned a little. Who even said 'gosh' apart from her parents? Maybe the camp was full of loads of really old people then.

Suddenly Grover turned and looked out the open window, and shuddered.

"Uhh, could you check if you locked the doors? Monsters like to hangout in D.C.."

"You mean Republicans?" Luke grinned, making Thalia and Annie both laugh.

"Could you just please lock the doors? I don't want a load of monsters pouring in once they smell us."

"Hey we showered a few days ago, we're fine." Thalia was really starting to dislike Grover.

"Yeah we don't have hairy legs like you." Annie hastened to add.

Luke didn't say anything, just glared at the satyr, which actually made Grover flinch back. Good, Thatia thought.

"Erm, could you please please check the doors? I'll explain all about monsters and how they find you when you get back."

Luke glanced at Thalia, who just nodded. If they wanted any information from the satyr, they needed to do what he said, regardless of how stupid it sounded.

It was after Luke got back that Grover began explaining Monsters - with a capital M Thalia guessed - and smells, and just why so many monsters had found Thalia when she ran away.

Thalia really wished they hadn't bumped into Grover. Ignorance really was bliss.

[Two days later]

After Thalia had mirror-messaged Harry about their updated location, and sounded fairly put-out about everything, and told him about their new traveling companion, he planned to meet them at their new 'base' after he finished his now mostly tedious paperwork at MACUSA (personally filling in expense forms was incredibly boring, and some sort of punishment, he suspected). It took him a day to find them, which only allowed brief introductions and transfers of food, as well as transfigurations on the furniture, before Harry had to leave. Now his 'active role' in MACUSA was finishing, all the papers and articles were benign written, which apparently required the Boy-Who-Lived at all of their events.

When he managed to visit them the next day - thankfully empty since most of the publicity was completed the day before, Harry found a despondent Thalia, and a worried Luke and Annie.

"Thalia, you know going off on your own isn't going to help anyone." Harry tried again to explain to the girl that going off on her own wasn't actually going to stop the monsters coming after Annie and Luke. In the back of his mind, a Hermione-like voice reminded him that he knew full well how hypocritical he sounded when he remembered of his own actions as a teenager,

If only Ron could see him now, he would definitely get a kick out of it – Harry was determined never to tell his best friend of this conversation.

The twelve year old just glared at him, she had vanished to her room to brood and hadn't moved from her spot on the bed. Before she could reply, a tiny spark flew at him from her open hand. Of course to a wizard, and a trained Auror at that, the spark was nothing, easily dispelled by his dragonhide robe before he could even get his wand. But that didn't matter to Thalia, who at once looked horrified that she accidentality hurt him and immediately jumped up from the bed.

"Oh Gods Harry I'm so so sorry."

"Hey don't worry about it, trust me I've been there, powers flaring are a pain." Wasn't that the understatement of the year. Flare ups of magic would often occur with children that didn't yet have complete control over their magic. Thalia having such control over her own abilities spoke well of her determination, or stubbornness as Luke would say. Being twelve was tough, being twelve with abilities that could seriously hurt most people around you was too hard to put into words.

That didn't seem to calm Thalia, who still looked mildly terrified at her own hand. Both of them were talking in a room away from Luke, Annie and the recently joined satyr Grover. They made an odd duo, red-robed, stern faced twenty two year old Auror who tried his best to look kind, and the black leather clad, fresh faced twelve year old runaway demigod who tried to always look brave and in control.

His reassurances didn't seem to be doing much for the demigod, so Harry pulled a trick from Ron's book, and pulled out a butterbeer.

"Come on Thalia, we both know that accidents happen, and that wasn't a big deal. How about relaxing with a butterbeer first, it'll help you think."

Grudgingly Thalia grabbed the floating tankard, which then began to fill with butterbeer - Harry still wasn't too sure what Jesse had done to the bottles or tankards, but it did make it much easier for drinking on the move.

Having accidentality discovered that Luke and Thalia had taken a liking to it - the MACUSA sanctioned food allowance was getting healthy use supporting the three demigod children - Harry tried to share various wizarding treats. Nothing could compare with Honeydukes, or Madam Rosmerta's finest, but it was good enough for the demigods.

Watching Thalia sip at the butterbeer, Harry marveled again at the ease that the demigods accepted magic. He supposed the food and drink helped in no small part there. Smiling to himself as Thalia began visibly relaxing, Harry shook his head and sighed. The kids knew he would disappear and reappear later, often laden with food, and didn't really question it. Harry wasn't too sure about introducing the rest of the wizarding world to Greek gods and demigods, especially given recent events in the muggle and wizarding worlds, but the acceptance at least on the demigod side did at least give him hope that it wouldn't be a complete disaster.

Harry had been in the room with Thalia for the past twenty minutes, trying to convince the girl that, despite the satyr's warnings about 'a big three kid' attracting more danger, Annie would be better off with Thalia. Luke, they both knew, could handle himself, and besides, Thalia told him later, she was fairly certain that someone could drop a nuke on Centreville, and Luke and cockroaches would be the only things left alive.

They both knew that it wasn't leaving Annie that was paining Thalia so much, but the possibility of leaving Luke. Harry knew that Luke would, much like Ron, understand the reasons why, but then scrap that idea and follow Thalia anyway. If Thalia was like him, then Annie was definitely Hermione and Luke was Ron.

Lost in thought, Harry didn't realize Thalia was staring at him over the rim of her drink.

"Somewhere to be?" Thalia laughed but it sounded forced. She was still trying to cover her embarrassment from shocking Harry. She did that a lot, apologizing briefly and then moving on. Harry guessed it was a demigod thing, Luke and Annie did the same, he noticed.

After a few minutes, Thalia had finished the butterbeer, Harry left his mostly untouched, thinking of the past few days. It was only a few weeks ago that he arrived in America, but now he was the protector of three children - despite how he would protest, Luke still counted in his mind - who had unique abilities that Harry had never seen before. Although Thalia's skills were more similar to what he was used to, Harry knew that for survival in the muggle world, Luke's unerring ease at pickpocketing people and managing to get away with anything short of murder, was a godsend. Almost literally in that case.

Hearing a crash, and a quick "I'm alright." from Luke and a shocked bleat from Grover, both relaxed back onto their chosen seats, and Harry began thinking about Grover and the Greek gods again.

Grover was amazed at Harry's abilities, not to subtly asking Luke if they had a minor god with them, which just caused the son of Hermes to burst out laughing much to Grover's confusion. After explaining that, no, Harry was most definitely not a god of any sort, Grover was given a brief summary of Wizarding America – Harry was reluctant to share anything about the rest of the wizarding world with the young satyr just yet – which calmed him down from the near panic the satyr had at being in the presence of a 'minor god'.

Of course the demigods didn't tell the satyr that their own reactions had been similar to his own once they saw Harry transfiguring a chair and conjuring up some food for them. Harry wanted to say that it wasn't much more than basic Auror training, but he was pleased that he could show the wonders of magic to others. But he wasn't a naive eleven year old that thought another hidden world didn't contain it's share of purebloods, bigots and danger, and he would rather wizarding Britain stay out of, they had barely recovered from their last calamity.

Of course the enjoyment of the three demigods came to an abrupt end with Grover's information. A whole new lexicon for Harry, and also partially for the three demigods.

Scents, Big Three, claiming. This sounded fairly archaic to Harry, but then again, these were the ancient Greek gods.

Once Thalia had told him what Grover had explained about 'scents' and monsters hunting a child of the 'Big Three' - the capital letters were almost audible - Harry immediately moved to reassure her that, as far as he could tell, the monsters weren't causing all the destruction because of them (it was a slightly large white lie, but one that he was more than comfortable making).

It took a few minutes, but when he next saw Thalia, Harry recognised the look she gave him. It was eerily similar to some of the DA, and apparently his own, when they thought of sacrificing themselves to help others. He'd only realised he had a look when Ron mentioned one of the other Aurors looking similar to Harry before acting as a decoy.

Grover had mentioned that Thalia's scent was much stronger than the other's, that he could 'smell' her from states away almost (that was how Luke recounted the story when Harry showed up after work, and Harry didn't know if there was exaggeration in there or not), and it didn't take an auror to figure out that Thalia was looking at heading off to 'protect' Luke and Annie.

Now usually Harry would have gotten annoyed, but let the fact that a 10 year old, human or otherwise, occasionally makes slip ups and generally wasn't the most diplomatic age, and not worried about taking the 10 year old to task. That was before Harry found out that satyrs aged around half the rate of humans, and Grover had mentioned that had turned 20 a month ago. A 20 year old scaring three kids definitely didn't sit well with him. Harry was, thankfully, a mature and experienced wizard, he did not get angry at Grover, but definitely didn't trust him - especially once he referred to Thalia as his 'mission' and didn't seem too concerned about Annie or Luke, neither of whom heard that thankfully.

Harry could read between the lines, and could tell that Grover wasn't too concerned about the other two, and even he was surprised about how angry that made him. Unfortunately Luke definitely picked up on it, and the child of Hermes didn't need another reason to dislike the satyr, but was happy for one. Luke was much less subtle about his distrust of Grover. This made Thalia and Annie much more wary of the satyr, which usually Harry would feel bad about, but honestly he didn't really care.

Grover, the twenty year old satyr that looked like a ten year old, didn't really get a pass with Harry, who was only two years older but may as well have been ten. It may have had something to do with the fact that Grover told them about another hidden world where a group of children being attacked and nearly killed numerous times for no real reason aside from inaction from 'adults'. (Harry was definitely counting millennia year old gods as adults).

If these 'gods' not only abandoned their kids, but left them completely alone knowing that monsters would and could kill them at any time, Harry thought the term 'cowards' suited them much better than 'gods'. At least Dumbledore had his reasons for various inaction, he was only human at the end of the day, and willingly constrained his own power, knowing the damage he could do, which even Harry could admit were fair enough. What excuses would actual gods pull out, he wondered.

The look on Thalia's face, according to Luke she didn't smile for days after hearing Grover's news about her scent, and prophecy, and her whole behaviour after receiving the news, made Harry feel guilty. It was times like this where Harry really understood Dumbledore's penchant for keeping secrets and dire news away from twelve year olds. He owed the late wizard an apology. Again.

It was, embarrassingly, only on the after Harry had convinced Thalia that running away again wouldn't solve anything, that Harry noticed Annie hadn't spoken a word to him since Grover showed up. When Harry mentioned about Annie not really interacting with him much, Luke, making sure that neither girl wasn't in hearing range, told him what the he thought happened.

"So we think this is part of Annie's coping mechanism. I guess it wasn't super easy for her growing up, and she knows that to beat a lot of the monsters that chase us, we need to know what they are and how to kill them, and the original myths are the best source of information on that."

"So she-"

"Yeah, since Grover turned up, and even before meeting you, she's completely buried herself in old myths for information, and even more with the old books you got us, figuring out how to fight each monster. Now with what Grover told us about scents and monsters tracking Thalia really spooked her."

Right now, according to Luke, Annie was planning their best route to Long Island, the location of Camp Half Blood, but Grover was insisting he knew a faster route, with some 'strictly non-mortal shortcuts'. Which Harry took to mean that it wasn't his business to know.

"So, what's the plan?" Harry asked, since it was obvious that the demigods wanted to move on to this camp, but from what Luke had told Harry, they'd barely made it to Centreville, being attacked virtually every night.

Grover still looked at Harry in a mix between fear and dislike, but covered it with a cough.

"S-sorry Harry, strictly demigods and Greek pantheons eyes only." No matter how often Harry tried to get Grover to explain his route, he (and Thalia and Luke) would always get the same answer. The satyr would tell them on the way there, not before.

Harry was really beginning to see why Luke disliked the satyr, but again reminded himself that he was a mature and responsible wizard, and getting annoyed at a 20 year old wouldn't help matters.

Sighing once more, Harry turned and began enchanting the pair of long coats he had bought Luke and Thalia that morning - basic temperature control, and notice-me-not charms overlayed with some defensive charms, which was more difficult than it sounded - this was the third pair of coats that he tried it on.

He guessed that as long as Thalia had the two-way mirror that he could be contacted, so if anything bad was going to happen to them he could try and help them out. It was the best he could come up with in the situation.

A/N: Apologies for the format screw up - I forgot how annoying ffn can be, should all be fixed by now

I'm putting in some timeskips to hopefully speed the story up to the PJO books - I may write a series of oneshots where I actually write about what is/was happening in various timeskips, but for now, speeding ever faster to the PJO book timeline

as always, reviews and comments/critiques always welcome