Percy Jackson Arrives: Hogwarts is Doomed

Chapter 20

Hi! In honour of Harry Potter Book Night, I'm giving you a bonus chapter! Enjoy!

~*~*~*<Ginny>*~*~*~

How I missed the Hogwarts dinners. The food, the chaos, the conversations, the death threats: it's a great atmosphere.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I went down early to eat so that we could get decent seats. We were starting to tuck into our meals when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked behind me and saw Sadie. She grinned at me then asked, "mind if we sit here?" I nodded and shuffled closer to Hermione, who was on my left. Harry was opposite me and Ron her.

Sadie sat down on my right and Percy next to her. Jason sat opposite us, beside Harry, who looked up from his food angrily.
"Did you want something?" Harry asked harshly.
"A bit more room would be appreciated, if you don't mind," Prince Jason replied calmly. Harry glared then budged up slightly. "Thank you very much," Jason said with a respectful bob of his head.

"So..." I started, mostly to break the awkward silence, "Sadie, any ideas what prank we should pull?"
"Prank?" Prince Percy asked.
"We're pulling a prank on Filch, the caretaker," I explained.
"Since when?" Harry demanded.
"Since we decided to just over an hour ago," Sadie replied. I nodded.
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"Because we think Fred would have wanted us to," I told her.

She put a hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off almost immediately. I don't want people's sympathy. I'm not the only person who lost someone they loved in the war. I was so embarrassed when Sadie saw me in the bathroom. I don't know why I was even crying, I never normally. Uh, stupid hormones.

"Cl! Ny I ds ?" Ron asked with his mouth completely stuffed, which I took to mean as 'cool! Any ideas?'
"No Ron," I replied, "That's what I was asking Sadie. And please don't talk with your mouth full."

"Well, what irritates Filch the most?" Sadie asked.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and I looked at each other in sync. "Peeves."
"Who?" Sadie asked.
"The resident poltergeist of the castle. "Drives everyone crazy. I'm surprised you haven't met him yet," I explained.

"Is he that flying person in a jester's outfit that stole my pen and called me Aquaman?" Percy asked.
"Sounds about right," I replied.
"He dropped a bucket of water on my head," Prince Percy stated. Prince Jason and Sadie burst into laughter.
"B-bet that worked out well for him!" Sadie said between giggles. Prince Percy grinned.

"What's so funny?" Harry asked rather rudely.
"Inside joke," Percy explained, "you wouldn't understand it."
"Try me."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to."
"Why?"
"It takes rather a lot of explaining and I really don't feel like doing so at this moment in time."
"Huh?"
"That's posh talk for 'I can't be bothered'," Sadie interrupted.
"Well why don't you explain it then, Sadie?" Harry asked in a deadly sweet tone, the same one that Umbridge would use.
"I can't be bothered."

"Jason?" Harry turned to ask him.
"It's Prince Jason."
"Prince Jason?" Harry was sounding exasperated by now.
"As they said: 'I can't be bothered'. Is that how ordinary people our age would say it?" Jason asked innocently. I got the feeling that he knew the answer perfectly well. Harry rolled his eyes.

"You know," Prince Percy said, "I think that I am going to try speaking like a peasant. Do you think it will help us fit in better here?"
"Why do you want to fit in?" Harry asked.
"That was the whole reason for us coming here. To make friends with normal people our age. Our parents thought it would be good for us. Trust me, I would much prefer to be home than at a normal school with normal people," Percy explained.

"We are far from normal," Hermione replied, her eyebrows furrowed.
"In what way?" Prince Jason asked.
"Well, we are witches and wizards. We learn magic," she said as if she were talking to a toddler.
"We know..."
"Did you grow up around magic? Were your parent wizards or muggles?" she asked, and the three of them all tensed up.
"What are muggles?" Prince Percy asked. I got the feeling that he was choosing his words carefully. I think he already knew but wanted a proper definition before answering.
"People without magic," I told him. He nodded.

"Well, my dad had magic but my mum didn't," he said.
"So you're a half blood," Hermione said. He grinned. "And you two?" she asked Sadie and Jason.
"Same as Prince Percy. I don't think my mum had magic. My dad definitely did," Prince Jason said. Hermione nodded.

"Sadie?"
"Both my parents did magic. I found out after they died," she said.
"I'm so sorry. What happened?" Hermione asked sympathetically. Sadie definitely tensed up.
"Well... ummm..." Sadie took a deep breath, "I was six when my mum died so I don't remember very well. Also, I wasn't there. My dad just came home without her and wouldn't tell Carter and I anything. He never told us what happened, only not to talk about it. Carter went travelling the world with Dad and I lived with my grandparents in London. We saw each other two days a year, one in Winter, one in Summer. It was when I was twelve and Dad and Carter visited on Christmas Eve and Dad took us to a museum - he was always so obsessed with the Egyptians - and... something happened. I never saw him alive again."

I frowned. That choice of wording was strange: 'I never saw him alive again'. It implied that she had seen him since, but he was dead. That wasn't possible. She was also very vague about how they both died, 'something happened' doesn't really tell us much. I was about to ask her more but everybody started getting up. It was the end of dinner.

We let the three of them leave the hall before we made any attempt to stand up. When we did, as soon as we were through the huge oak doors, Hermione pulled us down an empty corridor and started talking.

"I think Prince Jason went to the camp that some of the teachers are from. He said that he went to live with his distant family, who spoke Latin and liked keeping old traditions alive," she said, "just like the people at the camp. They all, except for Sadie and Carter, seem to know the teachers that go there. Remember how Professor Levesque asked to speak with them, how Professor Zhang didn't tell them off or stop the fighting, how Professor Vast was smirking as Jason tried to make an excuse - they know each other! Why are they keeping it a secret though? What do they have to hide? And just now when we were talking to them, they were so vague! 'Something happened', I get that it's probably a sensitive situation, but she could at least give us an idea what happened! And why are they refusing to explain a joke to us, what is so funny about dropping a bucket of water on Prince Percy's head, and why would that 'not work out well' for Peeves? Who are they?"

Wow. Just wow. I guess that does make a lot of sense. But why?

"I knew that they were hiding something! They're in a league with the camp, they're the enemies! Why else would they be hiding that they know them?" Harry exclaimed.
"But that can't be all they're hiding. There has to be something bigger. Something that could actually start a war," Hermione continued.
"I think you're overthinking this. They seem perfectly nice to me," I interrupted. They all turned to look at me. "Sadie is really kind. When she saw me in the bathroom, I was really upset. Don't ask. Hormones. She could have easily made fun of me, but instead she comforted me, reminded me I wasn't alone. She actually understood how I was feeling and made me feel better. She's just your average new girl who wants to fit in at high school and is trying to make friends. You're giving them all a hard time, trying to find something where there's nothing. Seriously, do you think that six teenagers are really conspiring to destroy the world? You're picking on Gryffindors, for God's sake. There's a new Slytherin girl who knows Malfoy really well and says her whole family's been in Slytherin. Why don't you pay more attention to her? She's just as suspicious." Hermione seemed to consider this.
"I still think we should find out more about them before we dismiss them, Kori included," she said, "deal?"
"Fine," Harry and I said at the same time. Ron just shrugged. I noticed he wasn't volunteering his opinion of them much.

"Ron, what's up?" I asked.
"I don't know what to think. They seem really weird to me, but I think we've done enough saving the world for a while. Can't we just leave it and face what comes when it comes? Do we really have to find a new enemy on the first day back at school? This has to be a new record, even for us."
"Fair enough," Hermione admitted, "let's find out more before we decide what to do. We'll interrogate them tomorrow."
"That's not what I meant!"