Of Shadow And Sky

Grim Houses and Temper Tantrums

A/N: Thanks for reading guys! I welcome comments and criticizm but don't flame. Flames get deleted (If possible). Italicized dialogue and text is in Greek. I'm going to try to not make Percy either ridiculously smart or an absolute idiot. I will also try not to make Harry and Ron to be ridiculously asinine.

They'd been practicing for all of three days before Hecate appeared looking rather cross. Apparently things had gone sideways thanks to a couple of...Alex wasn't sure if she had said "dismembers" or "dementors". Regardless of what caused the upset, Hecate had appeared to tell them about the sudden change of plans.

"This is utterly ridiculous. Come here you lot. Due to extenuating circumstances I have to speed this crash course up a bit. And by that I mean I'm just going to plant the information for years one through four into your heads. Of course you'll still need to practice, but you'll at least be able to perform the spells adequately enough to not raise suspicion."

It hurt far more than she'd thought, but then again they'd just had four years of information stuffed into their heads. She really shouldn't have been surprised that she got a migraine. Once Hecate had finished, she produced another portkey. Percy looked panicked, and Alex wasn't sure if it was because of having to fly again or because he didn't have enough time to say goodbye to Annabeth.

"Wait! Can't I say good bye first?"

Hecate rolled her eyes. "Oh fine. Five minutes."

Percy mumbled, but one irritated glare from Hecate made him run to find Annabeth, and Nico shadow travelled away to gods know where. Thalia and Alex looked at each other and shrugged, opting to have a staring contest instead.

It was strange, Alex mused. Just a few days ago she was in awe of the three heroes, now she was having a staring contest - and damn if it wasn't starting to get difficult. Finally she blinked, and Thalia yelled "I win".

It was roughly ten minutes before Hecate lost her temper and essentially teleported Percy and Nico to where everyone was waiting. One angry goddess tirade later and two scared kittens were hiding in Alex's pockets. One with sea green eyes, the other with very dark brown eyes.

"Um...Lady Hecate..."

She waved the question off. "They'll turn back before sundown."

Before she could respond the portkey jerked her, Thalia, and the kittens off to London. Again, it seemed like an eternity, and Alex was worried the kittens might fall out somewhere over the Atlantic. Percy might survive, but Nico was not a fan of the sea. Finally, they landed in a jumbled heap in front of a plump, redhaired woman who looked rather startled. She looked even more baffled when two kittens tumbled out of Alex's pockets and transformed into two teenaged boys.

"Oh dear. Never travelled by portkey, have you dears? You must be the transfers from Illvermorny. I'm Molly Weasley, you'll be staying with us."

She seemed nervous. Something about their presence seemed to make her nervous. Weasley. That name sounded vaguely familiar, but it was close to Wesley. There was a Wesley in the Hephaestus cabin, so maybe that was it. The red hair probably just reminded her of Rachel.

"Thank you for hosting us, Mrs. Weasley," Percy smiled.

She seemed to get flustered for a moment before waving his thanks off and saying it was nothing. Nico hung back frowning as she tutted at how he was "just skin and bones" and wondering if they were even fed in Illvermorny. Thalia held back her giggles as everyone filed into an old, run-down looking pub.

"Follow me, dears. We're going by car."

It was such a...mundane way of doing things that we just stared blankly at her before we followed her out to a beat-up old Chevy. It looked like it would be a tight squeeze, but the car seemed to expand to fit them all comfortably. Not as mundane as she'd thought then.