We go diagonally from Diagon Alley

Sorry I haven't updated, but here's a long chapter for you guys. Thanks for the 18 people following!

PERCY

"ANNABETH!" I whisper shouted for what seemed like the fiftieth time. However, this time she shuddered, and her eyes flew open.

"Percy!" She sat up and hugged me so tight I thought I would explode. Since she was sitting on my lap her head was slightly above mine. That's when I felt it. Tears. Two tears fell to my hair getting lost in the rat's nest. Annabeth rarely cried.

"Wise girl," I whispered, letting my breath tickle her ear. We just sat there until her breaths evened out and her eyes dried of tears. Getting up now I watched as she brushed her teeth, playing with the water that came out of the sink. Somehow it was harder to control than the water at camp. The world really was polluted. Sad. I let the water float just above Annabeth's head, forming it into a elaborate crown, then a star, then her name, which even in water format I couldn't read correctly, finally I formed the water into a big heart, which Annabeth hadn't noticed yet as she bent down to rinse her mouth in the sink, drying it with some paper towel. When she finally popped up, I positioned myself a kissable distance away from her and leaned in. Our lips crashed together as the usual sparks flew around my stomach every time I kissed her.

Knock,

Knock.

A sharp rap on our door shook me to reality. I looked at the door there seemed two shadows blocking the light. Ok, so whatever this was it didn't have more than two feet, unless it was somehow hiding them. A bizarre image of a pig standing on two legs popped into my mind. I looked to Annabeth who had her dagger out and took out Riptide. Standing shoulder to shoulder as we'd done many times before I grabbed the doorknob and allowed it to be twisted open with a quiet shink!

Before us stood a pale woman with golden hair and black eyes darker than a thousand midnights. She was the type of pretty you would see in old Hollywood movies; elegant, classy timeless but she had this eerie edge to her. Anybody, even mortals, could tell she was powerful and dangerous. Her skin was paper white, and she wore a dark silk dress that flowed so seamlessly it could've been made from ink. She held two torches and was accompanied by a polecat and a black Labrador.

"Lower your swords," she said firmly. I had the compelling urge to throw my sword across the room but then I remembered: charmspeak. I tried to resist using what I imagine was enough willpower to control the Lethe again. Thinking of anything besides lowering my sword, basketball, canoe racing, capture the flag. Instead of throwing my sword across the room my brain settled for lowering it one

inch, better than nothing. Beside me Annabeth hadn't moved at all, staring straight at them with her calculating eyes, her dagger drawn. The woman rolled her eyes. "The Fates sent me here to teach you," she put on a bad impression of their voices, "how to perform magic and integrate in Hogwarts. I assume you guys had plans for today, well now I am your teacher."

"Which god are you?" I asked. I know, I know assuming someone is a gods can either go great or horribly. They could be flattered or glad that you thought they were a god or offended cause they hate the gods. There was one thing I was sure of though, our 'teacher' was extremely powerful, and I doubt we could take them in a fight. Annabeth elbowed me in the back, no doubt because I just said something stupider than my ex-stepfather Smelly-Gabe's face. However, this caused her more harm to herself than me because of the whole Curse of Achilles thing.

"Percy, think have you learnt nothing from camp?" Annabeth said exasperated. I thought back to when we had to learn about all the gods and minor gods but trying to play guess the god when the only useful information you have on them is they have a pet polecat isn't exactly easy. She did have a presence only powerful magic could create, chilling, neither good nor bad…

"Hecate?" I asked and her lips formed into a thin smile.

"Yes. Now as you have now identified me let's get to business. I usually let people make their own decisions even if they are walking to their own doom but as your teacher I will have to instruct you, at 10 a.m. we will meet at Diagon Alley, see you then my trainee's." She gave us one last terse smile which to my surprise reached her eyes making them crinkle slightly and disappeared silently on the spot.

The rest of the morning was spent in silence mostly because Annabeth was too lost in thought to carry a conversation. I sat cross-legged on the ground as she tied her golden princess curls into a ponytail and scrambled around the room looking for things then I remembered: I need to do things. I stood up and began straightening my bed which made me think of my mom: her hugs, her voice- ok never mind that I wasn't trying to make myself miss my mother more than I already did. I went to the bathroom and was going to brush my teeth when I remembered I already did that. Settling to brush my hair or more so attempt to I ran the brush through my hair so many times I swear it pulled half my hair out. After that traumatising ordeal Annabeth and I went down for breakfast. I greeted Tom and got us the English breakfast to share.

"What do you think of Hecate?" I said, letting my thoughts flow into words.

"I can see it in her eyes" she said, expecting me to follow her train of thought,

"Huh?"

"False confidence, or forced coldness, probably from the fact that meddling in fate is basically screwing the person over, you'd have to stay cold if you had to let them make their own choices," she gave me a look as if to say 'duh'. I on the other hand think she has a) successfully melted my braincells for the next 16 years and b) never looked hotter- ok scratch that last thought before she kills me. I looked at a clock just floating midair above us, 9:00a.m.

"I'm going to ask someone about how to get to Diagon Alley," I said getting up out of my chair, Annabeth promptly following I walked over to the bar maintaining a good thirty centimetres away hoping I wouldn't catch a whiff of 'Deluxe ex-stepfather'. Yeah, that plan pretty much failed. I felt my hands start to quiver as soon as I smelt it. Beer.

Focus Percy, I told myself.

We are all going to die! My brain responded.

Shut up.

"Hello Tom," I said and thankfully felt Annabeth's hand slip into mine, "we were wondering where Diagon Alley is?"

"Yes, go out the back door," he said, pointing to a turquoise door that resembled a broom cupboard, "Tap the brick in the wall that is three up and two across three times with your wand." Tom then shuffled back to stacking cups on top of one another with his wand whilst also making sure that various kinds of beer were on tap. Wasting no time, I made my way to the door/broom closet as fast as I could without running.

Creak

The doorknob twisted and I heard a quiet click as the door unlatched to reveal a small walled courtyard. The walls were all about 7 feet tall and an empty dustbin stood in the corner.

"What did he say we had to do?" I asked Annabeth.

"Tap the brick that is three up and two across three times," she quoted.

"But we don't have wands?" Walking up to the wall she counted three up and two across knocking on it with her fist. Shockingly the bricks shuddered to life and began moving outwards until a large, arched doorway formed that even Tyson would be able to fit in. Beyond the archway nearly caused my ADHD brain to short-circuit or squeal in delight. There was row after row of rickety buildings almost spilling over each other. Every time something caught my attention, another thing seemed to be screaming 'look at me!' All these shops led to one point, an insanely tall, polished, white marble building that looked like a gust of wind could blow it over because of how lopsided it was. This alley was mostly I imagined should be a school supply shop for wizarding-kind. There was one shop I peered inside the window overflowing with books, another had feathers and ink bottles. No- quills, there was a shop full of bath robe things that looked really impractical. Another was full of brooms, now that one I didn't get, did wizards have a broom-fetish or what because I didn't think there was a need to buy such expensive cleaning tools. The alley itself was fairly empty, various witches and wizards huddled together in groups dotted the street, but it wasn't nearly as busy as New York. I supposed this was because it wasn't back-to-school season until about two weeks into the future. Time really was complicated. Annabeth tugging on my hand leading me somewhere shook me from my train of thoughts. Looking around I realised it was our teacher, Hecate, standing in the middle of the alleyway. This time she wore a chiton fasted to her left shoulder; her arms adorned with several golden bangles that reflected the sunlight, so they were almost blinding to look at. Her hair was let out of the tight ponytail it was in before and the golden sheet reached her back like a singular waterfall. She seemed to have tried to be more casual, but failed as her mere presence evoked an eerie chill down my spine, Hecates pure black eyes looked darker than a thousand midnights.

"My students!" she said with a strangely warm voice almost brimming with excitement.

"Sup," I said causing Annabeth to shot daggers at me with her eyes- again. She probably caught my moment of fear when I saw her eyes again because in less than a second, she changed her eyes to be white, with black irises.

ANNABETH

Gods was Percy stupid sometimes, as if saying sup' to a titaness was bad enough she had changed her own appearance due to his expression. I saw his eyes flicker slightly with fear or maybe panic. His eyes, as if normal human eyes weren't expressive enough his eyes changed with any small flicker of his emotion, unless he tried to stop them. This made him have a horrible poker face, especially when I've known him for so many years. Hecate began leading us down an alley positioned diagonally from Diagon Alley. It looked far sketchier with darker walls and a musty scent lingered through the cold, humid air. She led us further down this place until we reached number 13B Knockturn Alley, Borgin and Burkes. It took me a hot second of staring at the flaking gold words to read it but I got there in the end.

There were several trinkets and artifacts crammed into the shop, it seemed to be overflowing with these. Some were crammed into glass cabinets with 'DO NOT TOUCH' signs propped against them. There was a withered hand on display along with a large cabinet that could fit about one person inside. Behind it all was a long, wooden counter with an old looking wizard behind who was frowning deeply.

"Hello, what brings you here, boy?" He addressed Percy who was standing in front of us.

"We are here to collect some supplies," Hecate replied curtly from behind, "but we are just browsing for now." She began to look at the items balanced so carefully atop one another they might as well just fall. "Do you have any… performance enhancing objects for teaching and learning?"

"Yes, in fact it is the last one, the learner and teacher's mask. It transfers some of the teacher's knowledge to the student when they speak using the power extracted from their breath." Borgin pointed at three scarlet face masks folded on top of one another, they looked unassuming but on the underside was a hard, metal backing that resembled a cheese grater.

"Anything else?" She asked expectantly.

"Page changing glasses," he said, taking out a dusty pair of glasses with rectangle kaleidoscope lenses and white frames, "Can change the colour of the paper and writing, and can alter the user's eyesight and reading speed, good for dyslexia." My brain lit up with possibility, good for dyslexia! Gods I've wanted to read normally since, well, since I could read.

"Ok but anything related to information remembering?"

"Remembrance ink. Made of extremely diluted phoenix tears, very pricey. Only works with the matching quill." Borgin pointed to a large, glass ink bottle filled with metallic black ink. Above it was a metal quill with what looked to have runes carved on the tip.

"How much for them?"

"The masks are one of a kind made by one of our past employees, 30 galleons, glasses are very useful 20 galleons, remembrance ink, perhaps the most expensive 50 galleons but I'll drop it to 40."

"Well let's see, the masks can be easily manufactured with rune clusters so 20 galleons for the work and prototype, glasses are only useful to those who have dyslexia and are very tiring otherwise, 10 galleons at best, and remembrance ink is expensive, I'll give it to you, but it and the quill are useless without one another so 35 and include the quill as I'll be getting off your hands. So, in total 65 galleons." I had to say, she was great at bargaining.

"70."

"67."

"Fine. Would you like a box?"

"No, thanks." Hecate waved her hand over the man, and he froze toppling onto the ground. "I can't speak in front of him but here's the money the Fates gave to you." She handed a small, black drawstring pouch to me. It was surprisingly light for something that would presumably have gold in it. "From now on we will use this money, it wouldn't do good for Zeus to find out I was meddling in mortal transactions." She smiled at us and waved her hand over the man who resumed talking like nothing had happened.

"Where was I?" He thought for a moment, "Would you like a bag?"

She shook her head and took the items from his arms.

"Annabeth would you give him 67 galleons?" I nodded opening my drawstring pouch to reveal what looked like a heap of drachmas, but on further inspection the were slightly smaller and had runes carved into them instead of Ancient Greek. I started piling the onto the counter until I counted 67 and we left the shop without another word.