2008, Half Blood Forest, Farm Road 2.718, Long Island, New York 11954
It took much longer than Harry thought, but finally he, Ginny and the kids were making their way to the strange address Thalia had given them yesterday. Unfortunately neither adult was at their best, James decided that 4am was a fantastic time to wake up and wanted to immediately visit some 'skyscus'. Now it was barely 11am but it felt much much earlier. Teddy was frantically waving them over the crest of a hill just off the forested road, apparently 'they' were there at the bottom of it.
It took longer than he would like, but finally he and Ginny were face to face with Thalia and the camp 'directors'. A centaur (which was reassuring, since Harry immediately thought of Firenze and how he would be a good teacher in the camp), and a very overweight man who could only be described as a stereotypical American tourist. The centaur was bearded with a pure white horse's body, and wearing what Harry thought was a tweed jacket. It definitely was a fashion statement, he guessed. The overweight man, who hadn't spoken, or looked too interested in what was happening right in front of him, was wearing a leopard print Hawaiian shirt and for some reason, running shoes. Harry, who was remind of pure-bloods in the ministry acted the same with the same disaffected air, disliked him on principle,
Both adults took a moment to observe the strangely old forested area they were in. It remind Harry almost uncomfortably of the Forbidden Forest, which he supposed made sense, given the almost magical presences at the camp (he refused to think about gods and divinity in the camp where he left Thalia, Luke and Annabeth, and equate them to magic instead, he didn't know how he felt about actual gods being so human and petty)
The meeting was held between a dip in some of the hills, surrounded by unusually large trees. Both Harry and Ginny knew that this was probably to keep them from seeing anything about 'camp half blood' until they could be trusted, but it did mean that keeping Teddy from running too far in between the trees was a challenge that they could both do without.
'I will need to explain the rather dramatic events that took place here nearly seven years ago involving Thalia, Luke and Annabeth that resulted in the events .' The centaur intoned, his old human voice at odds with his relatively young centaur body. Teddy looked suitably confused, James didn't have a care in the world, dozing in Ginny's arms, thank Merlin, but Harry and his wife just looked at each other. After years of dealing with cryptic statements, at Hogwarts, the Order and lately in the ministry of magic, the adults could see the centaur was trying to put himself as some benevolent grandfatherly authority figure. It fell far short of Dumbledore, and even putting on the act annoyed Harry. Very few people were actually that wise, especially not a centaur that ran a children's summer camp, that he gathered was creaking at the seams already. Teaching and mentoring children was mostly performance anyway, as long as you appeared calm and in control the actual teaching side wasn't that difficult. A glance and Ginny, and yes she realised the act too. Being famous meant that spotting an act quickly became second nature, and made both adults instantly guarded.
Ginny was the first to respond, smiling patronisingly at the centaur.
'If you were trying to aim for mysterious, you've got a way to go before you can pull it off like Dumbledore.'
The centaur looked so confused at that point that all Harry could do was snort, that set Teddy off giggling, to the 7 year old, the fact a centaur didn't know about either Dumbledore was hilarious. Ginny was always wary of anyone trying to pull the wool over her eyes, trying it on her children just made her even more defensive.
Thalia, Harry noticed, remained quiet, nervously fiddling with a chain on her wrist where she was standing. She looked so nervous, not at all how Harry remembered the feisty young girl from five years ago, or even the spirited teenager that they had seen in the coffee shop just yesterday.
Harry glanced between the centaur and the overweight man, one, or both of them were making the demigod nervous, which added a further mark against this 'camp' that Harry was more and more regretting leaving the three children to. Not all centaurs were like Firenze after all, Bane and Ronan instantly sprang to mind, and Harry's confidence in the centaur plummeted.
"Sorry." This came from Ginny, who was now shifting James in her arms, "Do you mind if I take a seat, we've been lugging this one." she nodded down at the sleeping toddler "Around for a few hours."
"Ah, my apologies, introductions first, I am Chiron, trainer of heroes, and of course, we can show you our camp later, although perhaps later when capture the flag is on. There are events within the camp and with campers that external visitors may not be best suited for."
Now Chiron looked like he was on more familiar territory.
'It would be easy enough to sit down here though.' Harry interrupted, transfiguring five innocuous stones into seats, one at a time. The centaur looked shocked as the first chair grew in front of them, adopting a deliberately calm expression after a moment. Thalia appeared to recover first, laughing and throwing herself down onto a deep green cushioned armchair - Harry thought that was her favourite colour after all. Ginny and himself relaxed in red armchairs with a gold trim that could have been taken straight out of the Gryffindor common room, and Teddy threw himself onto his bright yellow beanbag chair. The fifth chair, which vaguely looked like a leopard print Chesterfield, was observed, but not sat on, by the overweight man. The centaur stared at each chair, not changing his calm expression, although Harry could tell he was thrown off balance. Ginny just looked at him and smirked. Yes it looked impressive now, but only he and Ginny knew how much practice they'd both had when changing furniture around in their home. At this point Harry was fairly certain he could become a reasonably skilled interior decorator.
The overweight man hadn't flinched, but he did hold his hand carefully over the Chesterfield, not quite touching it, and stood deliberately still. Harry had no idea what he was doing, but since he hadn't said anything, or even introduced himself, then Harry figured he wouldn't make the effort either. From Thalia's stories about camp, this was probably the 'Mr. D.' that ran the camp itself, but Harry wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of addressing him before a proper introduction. Petty rudeness did have its uses after all.
'Well now we are seated, perhaps once we are finished with discussions here-" Chiron tried to begin again, only to be cut off by Ginny as she shifted to get more comfortable with James in her arms.
"We've been informed of the conflict within your camp already. We are perfectly willing to help and defend children but nothing more." Ginny and Harry both knew she was being more than a little hypocritical when they'd both gone out of their way to fight against much older dark wizards at similar ages to Thalia. But, as Ginny had happily told him, being a mother now allowed her to be hypocritical when it came to children. ("All mothers become horrified at the thought of their children acting like they did when they were younger" she confidently told both him and Ron after they were confused by Lavender making a comment about one of her cousins). There was a difference, after all, between helping someone in need, and going in and fighting all their battles for them.
Chiron just nodded his head with an expression that this was his plan all along.
"Of course. The, forgive me, dangers of witches and wizards outside of the Olympic pantheon would make any god wary of inviting magical beings as… mercurial as they are." Chiron intoned gravely.
Harry actually snorted at that. It was rich coming from, what he vaguely remembered, the trainer of a dozen heroes that 'mercurial' wouldn't even cover half of their personalities. Let alone the myths he remembered that talked about the Greek gods, most of them less than flattering. Chiron didn't seem to see the irony in that statement, but that just made the joke funnier.
It was then that Harry had to voice the question on his mind ever since yesterday at the coffee shop.
"Not that it isn't great to see you again Thalia.' he nodded at the girl, "But where is Annabeth? She wasn't with you yesterday either."
"Oh, well you know how you wanted wizards and magic to be kept secret?" Thalia asked, now looking nervous again. "Well over the years, Annie thought you were just some messenger or one of my fathers minor spirits come to help, and as far as I can tell Luke eventually stopped trying to persuade her that you weren't."
"Wait". Ginny said, barely preventing herself from giggling. "Someone thinks Harry is a god?" The girl had gone bright red and resolutely was not looking Harry in the eyes at all. He would feel sorry for her embarrassment, but he was also mildly concerned that Ginny's giggling would wake up James. Harry quickly took the toddler, who thankfully was coming out of his doze slowly and naturally, and began rocking him to prevent a tantrum on waking up.
James, as expected, eventually woke up, and his wife's giggles tailed off, although there was no luck with Teddy who was happily laughing away, thinking someone believed their godfather was an actual god, his hair flashing all colours that Harry could name, and some he couldn't - Thalia seemed fascinated by it, but still rooted to the spot. Of course Teddy was used to wearing hats around muggles, but here he didn't, so everyone could see the metamorph's hair flashing through dozens of colours. Strangely enough the overweight man looked particularly interested in him, it was the only sign that he was paying attention to the conversation at all. Harry, again, was reminded of the pure-bloods who would see Teddy's metamorph abilities first, and their personality, or status as a magical being second, and comment how 'unfortunate' that with a werewolf father and half-blood mother the unique abilities of a metamorph were the only things Teddy had going for them.
Thalia now it seemed, couldn't take her eyes off the wriggling bundle in Harry's lap, and now when she spoke, she made sure to keep her voice deliberately soft.
"Well its not like we had much experience of wizards or whatever, besides it was easier for her to stay thinking that, since it gives her more faith in the gods, otherwise…." Harry guessed that Luke's fight with the Olympic pantheon had a lot more sympathisers than either director realised. Well by the sounds of the gods from the myths, Luke was justified in wanting change. But Teddy broke in with a question.
"Why does someone think Harry is a god anyhow?" Their hair flashing magenta and lime green drawing more attention to them. Harry knew this wasn't a mistake and suppressed a grin.
"I did think they called me a gog rather than a god, I thought it was just the accent at first." That nearly set Ginny off again, but James then demanded to be put down - Harry had no idea how Molly coped with doing this seven times, the toddler was impossible to keep still unless he was asleep.
James, under the watchful eye of Harry and Ginny looked around to see a centaur, a new face and finally Thalia, who was becoming his favourite person because of her chains and bangles, and toddled directly over to her and her sparkly chains. The teenager quickly obliged him by showing off a particularly bright silver chain that thankfully took up both of their attention. Harry was glad that she was not as nervous around James or Teddy - he still couldn't quite tell which of the directors made her more nervous though, which bugged him.
Thankfully this kept the toddler's attention while he and Ginny looked at Chiron. Teddy had dragged their beanbag chair over to Thalia and was busy changing their hair and watching Thalia's increasingly amazed reactions as she split her attention between occupying James and being amazed at Teddy's multicoloured hair.
"Anyway." Harry continued. "I think we were going to talk in more detail about what is going on with the Camp and the difficulties you are facing?" He let the question hang there for a second. The directors probably thought he was referencing Luke splitting off and the fight with a titan (Harry couldn't remember their name at the moment). The wizard however was more interested in the fact that, according to what Thalia had heard from Annabeth, that half bloods, even after training in the camp, were unusual if they survived past 18. Chiron was supposed to be a great trainer of heroes, according to myths, but the facts clearly pointed to something different in reality. And Mr D was even worse, if what Thalia had told him was correct.
Harry just nodded his head, waiting for the centaur to answer the implied question. It was a fairly useful tactic, getting your enemy to talk more than they perhaps wanted to.
Although by the way Chiron smirked, he knew that was what Harry was trying to do. Before the silence became too awkward, as was often the case, Ginny came to his rescue.
"If we could get an explanation of what exactly is your camp, seeing as we've had a rather trying day" nodding to indicate both James and Teddy, neither of whom thankfully noticed, both entranced by Thalia, "so we'd appreciate it if the story was somewhat summarised." Ginny was scarily good at playing the slightly clueless girl, a tactic that was refined to an artform by the Harpies at press events. Although from Chiron's expression, he again knew exactly what Ginny was doing, but decided to humour her anyway.
"Here, in Camp Half Blood, we train demigods, or commonly called half-bloods' to fight monsters and survive in the mortal world." Chiron indicated Thalia. "Thalia Grace has no doubt told you of the Olympic pantheon, the twelve greek gods from myth, are still in existence and in the United States presently. Currently some children of the gods have been manipulated and are fighting against us, at the behest of a cruel titan, to weaken the gods and overthrow what is the beacon of Western civilization as we know it."
Harry knew this from talking with Thalia yesterday, but couldn't let it go without a comment.
"Do these other children have a reason to go against their parents and family? It can't be such a trivial thing they believe they are fighting for, surely?"
At this point the overweight man spoke up, and Harry could almost hear the sneer in his words.
"The brats are fighting because they want to be immortalised in stories, much like the heroes in the original myths. I'm sure you are familiar with the childish desire to act rather than think and talk?" The pointed remark was probably intended for Harry, but it was Ginny who reacted to it anyway.
"Acting to at least try and make the world a better place, rather than sitting in a camp for days on end, yes I can see the dilemma." She sarcastically commented. This however seemed to get under the man's skin
"Many heroes are the same." The man almost spat the word hero like it was something foul, "This latest fad will vanish and we will move on as we always have, the long-term view and responsibility of such a position is inevitably lost on you."
It was either the man's overall demeanour, or the fact that he and Ginny had put up with similar comments too often about their assumed teenage pregnancy with Teddy, but Harry couldn't help himself.
"You both teach and mentor demigods, but their frequent deaths don't paint either of you in a very good light, maybe once you actually start teaching, you can lecture others on long-term responsibility."
That may have been a step too far, since the man got up from his chair and for the first time, lost the bored uninterested look he'd worn from the start, his purple eyes were narrowed at the sitting adults.
"You had best be aware, magician that the gods do not lose their senses over the petty and tediously common deaths of mere mortals. Over two thousand years we have seen this world, that perspective gives us insight. All mortals are the same in the end. Your brat over there." He said, gesturing lazily to Teddy, who was now amusing both Thalia and James by flicking through their hair colour, and trying to change their eyes to match. "Is perhaps the only thing interesting about either of you. As a shapechanger they could very well come under my domain, this is the only reason I bothered coming here."
Harry could feel something in the air change, but before he could reply, Ginny spoke up.
"Mr D, do you know where magicians and witchcraft originated?" Ginny was then standing right next to him, and sounded furious. It was one thing to threaten him or his wife, they had endured that since they were children, and were adults besides, but to even imply going after Teddy, or even James was beyond the pale.
Thalia POV
Teddy was flicking through their hair colours (having told Thalia that the he/she thing didn't really apply to metamorphs really, but 'they' worked fine) making James giggle and she felt the most content she had in a while. It was only when she looked up and saw Mr D and Harry standing basically nose-to-nose that she began to get worried.
Harry must've said something, now Ginny was right next to him, and then Thalia saw something unbelievable.
Mr D actually paused stepped back from an argument, and looked, almost worried. Thalia handed James to Teddy and stood up. If anything went down, she would protect James (not like she did Jason, her brain helpfully pointed out)
"Wha-" she was about to ask.
Chiron motioned her to be quiet, but he didn't need to, for in the next second, she could feel a sense of madness, something heavy in the air. It was like breathing in wine, she remembered the feeling often enough from her mom, that set off a whole new reaction and ohgods she was sososcared-
"You Dare question a God?!" Mr D's booming voice sounded so scary Thalia almost wanted to curl up into a ball or hide away. But she had to stay infront of the kids, she had to protect James if anything went bad.
But she could see Ginny wasn't backing down, and neither was Harry. Thalia looked at Ginny and suddenly thought of an Amazon and the legends of the warrior women. If Ginny was a demigod or a Greek, she sure as hell would've been an awesome Amazon
"I am close to becoming mildly annoyed at you that you think any Egyptian-" Mr D spoke at the same time as Ginny was trying to say something, Harry was reaching a hand into his coat.
Chiron looked worried and glanced around, like something could jump out from behind the trees and quickly called over to the group.
"Mr D, I would recommend caution, the Diadochi-"
And suddenly the heavy feeling vanished, and Thalia sucked in the fresh air deeply, which was weird because she was outdoors anyway, but it felt like she had just finished running a marathon in a sauna. She glanced next to her, Teddy apparently was unaffected by whatever Mr D just did, which she was beyond grateful for - she didn't want a single other kid to experience what she did.
"Quite right my dear centaur." Mr D turned, ignoring the adults, and glared at Thalia, who only just realised Teddy, still holding James, was right next to her like in a shield wall, like he was going to back her up whilst holding the baby James, who was giving Mr D a baby glare. She would've laughed if it didn't remind her painfully of a fantasy she used to have with her, Luke, Jason and Annie all being a family.
"Theressa, if you ever breathe-"
"I think we can move past threats, shall we continue the conversation like adults" this was from Harry now, who sounded dangerous. "I would appreciate you not threatening Teddy, James or Thalia." his hand was out of his pocket and now held a wand, as did Ginny's. Mr D barely glanced at them, but did step further away, saying nothing.
"Thalia, you must swear on the river Styx not to repeat what you hear next." Chiron asked her, halfway between her group and the adults, like he was trying to shield them.
"But you don't?" Harry questioned, looking between Mr D and Chiron
"You are pushing your luck magician." Mr D nearly spat out the next word
"Mr D…" Chiron looked worried now, and was about to say something before Ginny interrupted.
"You are supposed to be their teacher, if one of your students doesn't know about the other pantheons then doesn't that reflect poorly on you?" Mr D looked really angry at Harry's words, but as soon as he mentioned other pantheons he looked almost worried and stepped further away, muttering something.
Chiron sighed and looked at Thalia and Teddy.
"Thalia, to shorten a long and convoluted history, there are other pantheons, the Egyptian, Nordic and Welsh to name a few, not to mention tribal Native American ones. But we must keep this information here, if Luke were to find out, it doesn't bare thinking about."
Chiron didn't need to finish that sentence. Kronos had virtually all the advantages against the camp, if he knew about other pantheons or wizards, then Camp would be done for.
She sighed. Well it was great fun playing with James and Teddy, but now Harry and Ginny probably wouldn't want either of them near camp.
She tried her best not to throw sparks at either Mr D or Chiron. Why did the damn gods have to ruin everything for her!
A/N:
misunderstandings galore over here
Harry (and Ginny) can tell Chiron is putting on an act trying to be the 'wise mentor' figure (in fairness, Chiron does have dozens of ADHD superpowerful kids to watch over, plus a possible massive war, plus a prophecy about the destruction of his home/friends/family that is coming up in the next few months, so of course he is acting like everything is under control when it clearly isn't)
BUT because Harry and Ginny are used to people putting on an act around them to try and get something out of them, they are instantly wary of Chiron, even though that isn't why he is putting on an act, but they don't know that
So they decide to put on an act themselves ('good auror/bad auror' kind of thing, and act as if they know less than they do in the hope that Chiron/Mr D divulge more information) except Chiron can tell that is an act as well, but decides to humour them
so both groups are know the other is putting on an act, and are wary of each other because of it
Mr D and Chiron also know they are putting on an act about knowing less than they do, and sees that Harry is a magician (NOT a wizard, magician and wizard mean different things in this fic), and magicians are associated in PJO universe with Egyptian pantheon, and since Harry was implied to be from/associated with a Welsh pantheon whilst looking for cuneiform/assyrian tablets (from Thalia's stories to Mr D and Chiron after being de-treed) AND has a nordic rune (lighting bolt) on his forehead,
well that is 4 different pantheons right there that Harry could be associated with - and Mr D does NOT want to be the one responsible for accidentally starting a war between the Greek and Egyptian/Welsh/Norse/Assyrian pantheons whilst they are fighting their own difficult rebellion, Chiron reminds Mr D of this by mentioning the Diadochi and what multiple cultures/pantheons/wars could do to even a very powerful 'Greek' empire
so Mr D is backing down/possibly scared not because Harry is himself frightening/on par with him (that he knows of), but Harry could represent at least 4 other pantheons that the Olympians really don't want to deal with right now (as well as 2 pantheons that have reason to dislike the Greeks - see Diadochi), so best to not annoy Harry too much
and yes, Mr D's comment about Teddy was not meant maliciously, but he isn't used to talking to mortals on their level, and it is very easy to read in creepy undertones with the gods/Dionysus in the series and the myths
I may include other pantheons in this fic - it just depends on if Harry manages to step on enough toes (wizards do that, the Greeks/demigods/legacies are taught to be very careful and are limited in their areas, there is a reason there is 1 CHB and 1 Camp Jupiter when the entire USA could have multiple camps, some gods are very territorial, but Harry doesn't know this)