The Golden Wand [Harry Potter/Percy Jackson]

Chapter 20: Annabeth Has a Hunch

Percy POV:

Mine and Annabeth's commiserations were short lived. 

Aside from the fact that we were now Minerva McGonagall's least favourite humans and that we had lost the trial, the news that we would at least be having a "Golden Party" had put us in high spirits. Annabeth wanted to invite Piper, I wanted to invite Grover, Jason would invite Leo, Hazel would invite Frank and Nico would invite Will; we couldn't wait to celebrate (and perhaps get a little tipsy) with our friends. 

We never made it to the party.

The five competitors from Goode arrived at the Argo thirty minutes before the party was set to begin. We invited our friends, shared details about the upcoming party and - to our horror - the others mocked Annabeth and I about our incident with McGonagall, which Mr D had been delighted to share the moment he was told about it. Naturally, Leo decided that he would never let us live it down. 

I was waiting above deck for the others to get ready when I overheard a conversation from outside the ship. 

"It's just insulting, really," Thalia scowled. "This school has no respect for us. Hogwarts doesn't have any competitors left either, yet we're the school full of idiots? It doesn't make sense."

"What did they say? Maybe they they were just too young to know any better?" Reyna suggested. I edged closer to the two of them so that I could hear better. 

"From the way everyone's acting around here, I don't think this is just about a couple of girls acting naive," Thalia mumbled. She looked furious. 

"Babe, calm down," Reyna shushed her. "What did they say? What happened?"

"I was in the library last night, trying to find a book about the Mirror of Erised so that I could help Jason with the trial... Anyway, as I was leaving I overheard a group of girls from Hogwarts - they were about Hazel's age - talking about the tournament. One of them said 'Well obviously Harry is going to win, he fought the Dark Lord', and then they all started arguing about which of the Hogwarts' competitors is the strongest, because all of them had a role to play in the Battle against Voldemort.

"So then they start talking about other schools - you know, how Krum is the best Quidditch player in the world, and Dima's parents are famous Aurors, and how Fleur's apparently got a brutal reputation at her school. So then one of the girls laughs and says 'poor Goode, they haven't got anyone good, have they?' and the other says 'yeah, I mean what have they done in their lives? I haven't even heard of them before.'

"I couldn't quite believe it! So I stepped forwards and said something along the lines of our school being amazing and we've done a lot and they shouldn't be disrespectful, considering all that we've been through in the last ten years-"

"-that doesn't sound like you," Reyna laughed. "What did you actually say?"

"I, um, might have called them all idiots and, um, sworn at them a couple of times..."

"Thalia!"

"... But that is besides the point! They were being really rude, okay? So I asked them: 'What do you think happened to Kronos? And who do you think defeated the League of Giants? And have you ever heard of The Aurors of Artemis, because I happen to be the leader. And Jason Grace happens to be an up-and-coming Quidditch player, whilst Annabeth Chase is the smartest Witch in the world. And three of our competitors fought Tartarus, I'll have you know...' You get the gist, I bragged a lot and spoke for ages and all they could do was stare.

"By the time I was done talking they all laughed and said I was making it all up. Worst of all, they said that the Aurors of Artemis wasn't even a real wizard division, they said that the group was a bed-time story told by aspiring Aurors! I wanted to slap them..."