Wizards in New York

Finally, an Explanation.

    *George's POV*

    We sat down around a ping pong table in the Big House as Chiron went to get something. While Fred bounced a ping pong ball on a racket, I noticed a wall of pictures in the back.

    They were all teens from the muggle world. Some might have been celebrities there, but I had no idea.

    One picture had nine teenagers in it, with their names printed above their heads. Three were the ones that had stood up in the dining hall - Hazel, Annabeth, and Percy. Percy and Annabeth held hands, and so did Hazel and some other boy, Frank. A boy with blond hair styled like Superman's named Jason had his arm around an extremely pretty girl named Piper. Another boy stood next to him, this one with black hair and dark clothing. Nico. His pinky touched the pinky of the boy next to him, a tall one with shaggy blond hair named Will.

    And there was one girl that stood alone, a little apart from the other couples. She was regally beautiful, with dark hair like chocolate braided down her back and piercing eyes. She wore full armor and a billowing purple cloak. Her face screamed, Don't come near me, or you might find yourself face down in a puddle of mud. The name written above her was Reyna, which I knew to mean queen. It was fitting.

    Despite having only seen her in a photo, I felt drawn to her.

    "George!" Fred waved a hand in front of my face, and I blinked.

    Chiron was now sitting with us, though he too gazed thoughtfully at the picture on the wall.

    "The ten heroes of Olympus," he said sadly. "They have gone through too much already. Especially Nico di Angelo."

    Fred frowned. "Ten? There's only nine people in that photo."

    Chiron turned to face us again. His eyes were filled with regret. "The tenth hero," he recalled, "was perhaps the bravest of them all. He built the ship they traveled on and kept it running the whole time. He had no one to rely on but himself, and yet he struggled through."

    He took a shaky breath. "Leo Valdez had to spend his whole life with the weight of his mother's death, caused by his own hands. And finally, he sacrificed himself to defeat the greatest enemy we have ever faced."

    I felt like I had just gotten punched in the stomach. All these years, I had thought to myself, no one goes through the kind of suffering we do. We are alone in the world. But really, these teens had been through so much worse. And I felt like I hadn't even heard half of it.

    Chiron finally broke out of his trance. "I assume you would like an explanation, then?"

    "Yes," Fred and I said in unison.

    He chuckled. "Very well. How much do you know about Greek myths?"

    I slowly turned to face my brother. Our eyes met, and wide smiles stretched across our faces.

    "Chiron," my brother said giddily, "we know every single Greek myth. We love Greek mythology!"

    "Zeus," I cut in, "Ares, the chimera, the minotaur, the Furies-"

    The centaur's eyes grew wide. "Stop!"

    I stopped talking, perplexed.

    Chiron took a deep breath. "Names have power here. Treat the names of monsters as you would the name of You-know-who."

    "Ah." Fred nodded. "So what does this place have to do with Greek mythology?"

    "Well, the Greek myths are real. And so are the Roman. The children at Camp Half-Blood are the children of the gods and mortals. They are called demigods."

    What!? My eyes bugged out. "So we're in Camp Half-Blood?"

    Chiron nodded.

    Fred leaned forward. "Wait. If you're telling us all this, then can't we tell the demigods about Hogwarts?"

    The centaur shook his head. "We have recently learned that Roman, Egyptian, and Norse demigods exist alongside the Greeks. If they find out wizards exist...there might be a riot."

    I voiced a question I had been meaning to ask for a long time. "So when can we go home?"

    Chiron winced. "That's the thing...you can't until the end of the summer. We don't have any Floo Powder, and with communications like they are, we can't just take you home. You're stuck here."

    Our jaws dropped. Stuck here? "So are we just not allowed to use magic for the whole summer?"

    "There's a way you can. See, Hecate has a cabin for her children here, and she's the goddess of magic. So if you want, we can say you were twin sons of Hecate. Or, of course, we can say you were sons of Hermes blessed by Hecate, so you can do magic."

    "The second option," we said at the same time.

    Chiron smiled. "All right, then. Let's go introduce you to the campers!"