The Golden Wand [Harry Potter/Percy Jackson]

Chapter 8: The Library

Hermione POV:

"This place is amazing," She marveled. We were walking down the aisles of shelving, just the two of us. The others had lost interest, but not her. I was beginning to like her. 

"It's one of the oldest rooms in the building, besides the Chamber of Secrets, of course," she gave me a look at that. "And no, the Chamber is not open for visits."

She smiled. Her eyes were scanning the shelving, taking it all in. I could imagine that's what I looked like on my first day at school. The thought made me laugh. 

"So where's the section on international schools? As strange as it sounds, I would love to do some reading on Goode."

"No, I get it - during my first year in school, Hogwarts was basically all I read about. I'm muggle-born, you see, so I wanted to know more about the wizarding world than any pure-blood."

"Your parents are muggles? But you're so... powerful!"

I didn't know how to take that. Was it a compliment?

"What about you? Who're your parents?" I chose my response carefully. Clearly, she had done a bit of reading about us as well - she knew who I was. 

"My dad's a muggle, my mum's a witch. She was a pure-blood - their marriage upset her family." Annabeth explained. 

I sighed. "It's a shame that some families are still like that nowadays. I'm sure you proved her family wrong; showed them that not all great wizards have to be pure bloods."

"I wouldn't know," the blonde girl looked down sadly, taking her eyes off the books for the first time. "My mum ran off as soon as I was born, back to her family. Apparently, she had a pure-blooded heart after all. She hasn't ever tried to contact me. I don't even know where she lives anymore, I can't reach out to her."

I looked away, feeling uncomfortable. Part of me wanted to comfort her, but from the looks of it I was facing a girl who was tough and self-sufficient. She probably didn't respond well to apologies and hugs. 

"Anyway, I don't think you'll need that long to read about Goode," I continued. "There's really not that much."

Annabeth looked up again, a frown on her face. We rounded the corner and headed quickly towards the International  Schools section of the library. It was stacked to the brim with books on Ilvermorny, Castelobruxo and Uagadou, but only three very small leaflets about Goode. 

"It was hard trying to research your school," I admitted. "These leaflets only talk about the theories that your school was built during the time of the Ancient Greeks, but they emphasize that they were only theories. One of the leaflets mentions something about your school specializing in elemental magic, but I have to admit that I did the rest of my research on, well, a computer. Well, technically, I owled my mum and got her to search you guys up online. She said that the Wizarding Web mentioned something about Percy Jackson - they said he was a good seeker, and that he had won a competition in your school a few years back - and of course you were mentioned, along with Jason, for being the Head Boy and Girl. Not much else to read, really."

Annabeth's frown deepened. She shoved passed me, a little too rudely for my liking, and grabbed the three leaflets from the shelf. Her eyes scanned the three of them, head shaking as she read them. 

"This is all... bullshit!" She complained when she read them. "Of course Goode was built in Ancient Greece! That's not a theory, that's a fact! Where's the legends of our famous students? Where's the stories of Heracles and Achilles and Pythagoras?"

I laughed. Was that a joke?

"Heracles and Achilles were myths... and Pythagoras lived in Greece, not North East America," I corrected her. She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what I was saying. My confusion deepened. 

"Goode was built in Greece, when it was alive and prospering. The building was magically enchanted to live forever - it moves wherever magic is most popular. During the times of Ancient Greece, the planet was still as full of wizards as it is today. Goode took these witches and wizards in, the school trained them. It produced great heroes, such as Heracles and Achilles, who admittedly weren't so good at hiding their abilities from muggles. Muggles at the time thought they were living among the Gods - seeing great heroes such as Heracles, seeing them fight against magical creatures that still exist today... they conjured up a belief system; the Greek Gods. Their muggle brains couldn't quite comprehend what they were seeing, so they claimed that there were these entities called Gods, who built the Earth and blessed them with fortune and bore powerful children that protected them from evil. Demigods, they called them. They didn't realize that these demigods were actually just witches and wizards.

"Over time, the stories of these wizards manifested into myths. Beliefs changed as wizards became better at hiding their identity. The idea of the Greek Gods were replaced by the Roman Gods, and then made into myth. Goode transported across the globe to wherever the wizarding world was thriving the most. It went from Greece to Italy to Spain to England to America. It's schooled hundreds of great wizards, the same people you know as myth; from Heracles, Archimedes and Pythagoras to Harriet Tubman and Boudica. All of them, each and every one of these legends, was taught by the greatest Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that has ever lived; my teacher, Chiron Brunner! Surely you must have heard of him. We're incredibly proud to have such a rich history, and a very cool teacher."

"This can't be true!" I denied, although she had grabbed my interest superbly. "I haven't read about any of that. No one's ever heard of you, it's not written anywhere. Besides, I know you can't be telling the truth, because everyone knows that Harriet Tubman went to Ilvermorny. And, as for your teacher, it's a great coincidence that his name is Chiron. I mean, come on... your headteacher is an overweight drunk called Mr Dionysus... would you have me believe that he's a Greek God?"

Annabeth stared at me through cold, grey eyes. They were very intimidating. 

"The Greek Gods aren't real," she pressed. "I never said that. Like I said, they were made up so that muggles could handle the idea that they walked among wizards. Mr Dionysus is just a fan of the mythology, and yes he may be drunk and overweight but his name is purely a coincidence. Well, actually, he woke up one morning and found out that he had legally changed his name on a drunken night out... his name was Kenny Miller before, but apparently when he was drunk he decided to change it to Kenny Dionysus...

"Look, that's besides the point," She looked positively furious now. "The point is that what I just said about Goode was true, there's tonnes of evidence to back it up. And it's frankly quite offensive that nothing's written about it in your library. I mean, come on. Where's the stories of the League of G-"

"Annabeth, are you still in here?" Jason arrived, jogging around the corner. He sported a pair of glasses now, which made him look more approachable than he had before. When we had first met, he had been tall and calm and untrustworthy. Now, he looked like an actual teen; uncomfortable and shy and nerdy. Much better. 

"Yeah, Jace," Annabeth smiled at his approach. 

"Come on, Chiron wants us... it's about Percy," Jason chuckled knowingly, as if this was an inside joke or a regular occurrence. 

"Couldn't even make it passed the first day, could he?" The blonde girl sighed. Her stormy eyes had begun to soften at the sound of Percy's name - were the two an item?

"You have my sister to blame for that," Jason replied. The chuckles and the inside joking between the two made me feel uncomfortable - it wasn't that I felt out of place, it was just that it reminded me of the good old days, when Ron and I could joke like that without having to act. 

"Thank you, Hermione, for showing me around," Annabeth nodded at me politely. "But I best be off."

"I'll see you around?" I asked suddenly, just before she walked passed me. I didn't know what it was about her - she had mostly been rude and flustered the entire time we had been together - but I saw a bit of her in me, and I was already beginning to like her. 

"Yeah," she nodded with a smile. I believed she meant it. "I'd like that."

Jason had already walked off, it was just the two of us now. 

"Oh, and, Hermione," she whispered now. "Don't tell anyone about Mr Miller - I mean, um, Mr Dionysus."

I laughed. 

"I won't, I promise."