The Forgotten Olympian |BOOK 1| PJO X HP | Alexandra Marine

Chapter 104 - Percy - A Hearty Dinner

Alex left her place at the kitchen and rushed to Jason. She pulled him up, and with a look of worry and haste, she spoke to him and hugged him.

I turned to Annabeth. She was laughing. Along with Sirius and Harry.

"We were just trying to save a bit of time!" said Fred, hurrying forward to wrench the bread knife out of the table. "Sorry, Sirius, mate--didn't mean to--"

And that's when both Jason and Alex started laughing like hell. Mundungus, who had toppled backwards off his chair, was swearing as he got to his feet; Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from where his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.

"Boys," Arthur said, lifting the stew back into the middle of the table, "your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility now you've come of age--"

"--none of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!" Molly raged at the twins as she slammed a fresh flagon of Butterbeer onto the table, and spilling almost as much again. "Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't charm everything he met! Percy--"

She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression was suddenly wooden.

Will took a deep breath in. He took out his wand and waved it at the floor. The stew cleared away. "Perhaps let's clean up first, Molly."

"And don't worry the stew's gone," Alex added. "My brother and I made something else that we think you'll love."

I brought in the tray I had been hoping to bring in for quite a while. "We made blue Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches!"

Obviously, everything that the sandwich had was a different shade of blue. Annabeth and I had made the bread together that evening, and the rest was just a piece of cake.

"Oh, on that note," Alex said. She went to the kitchen counter and brought out a large tray. "Blue Apple Pie."

I set the sandwiches on the table, and the pie went back to the kitchen, seeing as there was space elsewhere. "It looks wonderful," Remus said, smiling.

He ladled the stew on the plates and handed them over to us. For a few minutes there was silence but for the chink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settled down to their food.  

"Why blue?" Harry asked suddenly.

Jason, Annabeth, Nico and Will smirked knowingly.

 "Long story," I replied, smiling. 

"It's a deal that we had with Percy's mom," Alex said. "We love blue food."

"But why?" Hermione asked.

"It's a really long story," Annabeth said. "It was something that Percy's mom came up with to spite Percy's stepfather."

I laughed, remembering the old days. "Smelly Gabe was so dumbfounded the rest of his life!"

"Who?" Sirius asked.

"Never you mind."

Then Molly turned to Sirius.

"I've been meaning to tell you, Sirius, there's something trapped in that writing desk in the drawing room, it keeps rattling and shaking. Of course, it could just be a boggart, but I thought we ought to ask Alastor to have a look at it before we let it out."

"Whatever you like," said Sirius indifferently.

"The curtains in there are full of doxys, too," Mrs. Weasley went on. "I thought we might try and tackle them tomorrow. "

"I look forward to it," said Sirius, his voice laced with sarcasm.

Personally, I thought that magic was extremely useless. I mean, why use sticks instead of using your hands? Sure, we demigods had only one power, but if we put that power to use, it never went wrong.... I couldn't say the same for wizards. The number of time I'd seen Jason say one syllable wrong at get his eye punched by a jack-in-the-box boxing glove was.... I'd lost count after seventy six.

Opposite Harry, Tonks was entertaining Hermione and Ginny by transforming her nose between mouthfuls. Screwing up her eyes each time with the a pained expression, her nose swelled to a beak-like protuberance that resembled Snape's, shrank to the size of a button mushroom and then sprouted a great deal of hair from each nostril. 

"Do that one like a pig snout, Tonks..."

Arthur, Bill, and Remus were having an intense discuss on about goblins.

"They're not giving anything away yet," said Bill. "I still can't work out whether or not they believe he's back. Course, they might prefer not to take sides at all. Keep out of it."

"I'm sure they'd never go over to You-Know-Who," said Arthur, shaking his head. "They've suffered losses too; remember that goblin family he murdered last time, somewhere near Nottingham?"

"I think it depends what they're offered," said Lupin. "And I'm not talking about gold. If they're offered the freedoms we've been denying them for centuries they're going to be tempted. Have you still not had any luck with Ragnok, Bill?"

"He's feeling pretty anti-wizard at the moment," said Bill, "he hasn't stopped raging about the Bagman business, he reckons the Ministry did a cover-up, those goblins never got their gold from him, you know--"

Alex's eyes were focusing on the sandwich, but I could see that her ears were keen on the conversation. Once in a while, she'd look at Annabeth, who also seemed to be listening to the conversation very keenly.

A gale of laughter from the middle of the table drowned the rest of Bill's words. Fred, George, Ron, and Mundungus were rolling around in their seats.

"...and then," choked Mundungus, tears running down his face, "and then, if you'll believe it, 'e says to me, 'e says, ''Ere, Dung, where didja get all them toads from? 'Cos some son of a Sludger's gone and nicked all mine!' And I says, 'Nicked all your toads, Will, what next? So you'll be wanting some more, then?' And if you'll believe me, lads, the gormless gargoyle buys all 'is own toads back orf me for a lot more'n what 'e paid in the first place--"

"I don't think we need to hear any more of your business dealings, thank you very much, Mundungus," said Molly sharply, as Ron slumped forwards on to the table, howling with laughter.

"Beg pardon, Molly," said Mundungus at once, wiping his eyes and winking at Harry. "But, you know, Will nicked 'em orf Warty Harris in the first place so I wasn't really doing nothing wrong--"

"I don't know where you learned about right and wrong, Mundungus, but you seem to have missed a few crucial lessons," said Molly coldly.

Fred and George buried their faces in their goblets of Butterbeer; George was hiccoughing. For some reason, Molly threw a very nasty look at Sirius before getting to her feet to go fetch the apple pie. 

As we finished dinner, the general environment turned rather calm. Arthur was leaning back in his chair, looking replete and relaxed, Tonks was yawning widely, her nose now back to normal, Remus was congratulating Alex about making the best ever blue apple pie ever, Molly and Ron were asking me for the Philly Cheesesteak sandwich recipes and Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling Butterbeer corks for him to chase. 

"Nearly time for bed, I think," said Molly with a yawn as Harry laid his spoon down, looking incredibly pleased but full.

"Not just yet, Molly," said Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."

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