Nico's POV

Dumbledore had taken care of the basilisk for them, locking it up in gods know where, and no one could say they missed it.

Overnight, Snape had finished the cure and brought Thalia back. Once I heard that news, I had a crazy vision of the daughter of Zeus making me jump off a cliff, so before the evil Thalia woke up, I ditched breakfast and rushed to Myrtle's bathroom as fast as I could.

"Dude, where you going?" Jason yelled after me, always concerned.

"Don't tell Thalia!" I shouted back.

I shoved open the door and plopped myself on the floor, trying to still my breathing. The floor was quite clean, since Myrtle flooded it so often.

"Hi Myrtle," I greeted, once I saw her float down from a dusty window.

"Hello," she cocked her head in confusion, "don't you have breakfast right about now?"

I shook my head, "I'm skipping. I just need to hide for a bit, that okay?"

The ghost shrugged, shyly hiding a tiny smile, "Fine by me."

Five whole minutes went peacefully by. I told her about the latest going ons of the castle, and she nodded with interest.

BANG!

The door flew open and a distinctive voice screamed, "DI ANGELO!"

I fell over, clutching my faint heart, and scrambled into a stall before she could see me.

I slid the lock closed as quietly as I could, and peeked through the gap beside the door.

Thalia was scanning the bathroom with keen blue eyes, and she turned to Myrtle, "Hey, have you seen this boy named Nico di Angelo? Short, pale, wears black, little bit emo but denies it?"

"No," Myrtle lied, eyes getting shifty.

Thalia scoffed, then to my horror, she stared straight at my stall, "Then why are all the shadows going in this direction?"

I was about to shadow travel outside—I didn't care how tired I'd get—but Thalia had already ripped the door open—hinges and all—and dragged me out.

"Come on, Nico!" she cried triumphantly, eyes blazing with malicious glee.

Since I had sworn on the River Styx, I was forced to follow her. "Bye Myrtle," I said sadly, knowing this was last time I'd see her.

Myrtle smirked at me, "Have fun."

Some friend.

Thalia pulled me outside. She placed her hands on her hips and smiled sweetly. "You are to address me as Your Highness whenever you speak to me."

I nodded, not wanting to call her that.

"Say something!"

"Something......Your Highness," I mumbled the last part.

"What was that?"

"' Something Your Highness.' "

"Thank you, now you're going to carry me on your back to the Great Hall."

"What?! That's not reasonable! Your Highness."

"Sure it is."

"Fine, but if you break my back, you're not ordering me around anymore, Your Highness," I said with as much sarcasm as I could.

"Deal."

Before I was even ready she leapt onto my back.

And she was heavy as all of Hades.

I nearly fell backwards and slammed her into the ground, "AH! Don't do that! Your Highness."

"Stop with the sarcasm!"

"Look, Your Highness," I said seriously, "I sometimes use sarcasm without even thinking about it, so unless you want me to get sent to Tartarus again for breaking—"

Thalia relented, "Okay. Don't use sarcasm in Your Highness then."

I managed to bend over again, and shadow-travelled to the front of the Great Hall.

"Hey! I didn't say you could shadow travel!"

"You never said I couldn't, Your Highness."

I could sense her glaring holes in my skull, "Are you seriously going to keep risking loopholes like that?"

I shrugged, causing her arms to go up and down. Now, I just needed to get one foot inside the Hall and I could let her take a tumble. The combination of shadow-travelling and carrying her was starting to make me weary.

I opened the door and came face to face with Pansy Parkinson. And I had really been hoping that nobody would see me like this.

She just looked us up and down, seemingly trying to comprehend the situation. I edged around her and almost got my foot inside when she blurted out, "What are you doing?"

I rolled my eyes at her, "What does it look like?"

"Yeah," Thalia agreed, "you should go fix your eyes, you're probably seeing double by the way you walk."

Parkinson's eyes narrowed, "I think you need to get your legs fixed, girl, you don't seem to be able to walk a step, you even need your boyfriend to give you a ride."

I let go of her and bent backwards causing Thalia to spill into the Great Hall. Seething, Thalia rolled to her feet and came out again, closing the door behind her.

She glared at me, then glared at Pansy, "He's not my boyfriend. Nobody's my boyfriend."

Pansy glared at her, "You stole my boyfriend's heart, and you tossed it away for this freak over here."

Seeing my offended expression, the Slytherin snarled, leaning even closer. "That's right, you're a freak."

I met her gaze steadily. "I'm not a mirror."

"Hey!" a new voice cried. "Don't insult her like that!" It was Draco Malfoy, and he squeezed himself through the door. I swore silently. He hadn't given Pansy the time to feel the burn of my insult.

Pansy gasped, "Drakey! You came back for me!"

She was about to throw her arms around him, but he said, "Er, no thanks."

When her pug face fell, he amended, "Not now."

Her face lit up again.

"He's your boyfriend?" Thalia said with a disgusted face, "What did you do that's so bad? Oh wait, I know, your face."

Drakey ignored that comment and said to me, "You're the freak! You walk around like you own the place, you pretend to be in love with Thalia just so you could make me jealous and-"

"What?!" I shrieked. I was shaken that even small-minded people like Draco could think I was that open-minded. "Okay, you are officially insane. Pinecone Grace isn't good enough for anyone, and I most definitely do not want a girlfriend like her. In fact, I don't even want a girlfriend. I want Wi—"

Malfoy rudely interrupted him, "Nobody cares!" And then because he felt like flaunting his stupidity, he continued, "Your family died because they couldn't bear to see you around with them! I bet your father isn't as powerful as you say he is. My family cares about me, and my father is a very Dark Wizard! I bet your dad is some Muggle freak like Weasleys! Nobody cares about you, you are just a coward who—"

Whoops, my fist slipped! Right into his face!

Malfoy gasped, stumbled backwards, and just stared at me like he couldn't imagine being punched. Then he jumped to his feet, pushing away a concerned Pansy.

He took out his wand and yelled, "Sectumsem—"

To their surprise, he cut himself off, then shut his eyes. "Forget it. I'm not using that one."

The Slytherin chose a different spell. "Stupefy!"

I dodged, knowing I didn't really have to, but if it hit me and did nothing it would be suspicious.

Enraged, Malfoy continued to wave his wand around shouting it until finally it actually hit someone. Thalia.

Malfoy let out a dignified little squeak and rushed over to her. Because we were demigods, she was unharmed.

Malfoy sighed with relief, not really caring how it happened.

He yelled the Stunning Spell at me, and this time it actually struck me in the chest. But again, nothing happened.

Malfoy stomped his foot in frustration and shoved his wand back into his pocket. He threw a punch at my cheek, and it was now a full-fledged fight with Thalia and Pansy also rolling around trying to kill each other.

Then the door opened and Percy said, "Guys, it's kinda annoying having to deal with you...two," he faltered, realizing that there were actually four people. "Interesting," he shrugged and said, "try not to kill them," and went back inside.

We stared at each other for a few seconds until we resumed the fight. At one point two Hufflepuffs came out and stared at us. One tried to calm us down while the other just lead him away saying it couldn't be helped.

Anyway, I'd already snapped one of Malfoy's fingers, gave him raccoon eyes, and probably inflicted him with a thousand bruises and scratches. Malfoy finally realized he'd lost this fight. He staggered to his feet and shot down the hallway, screaming. I casually made a shadow reach up and pull down his trousers.

He fell onto his face, and hurriedly he pulled it up again, dashing out of sight like the coward he was.

"Your boyfriend's running away," I informed Pansy.

She shoved Thalia off her, crying, "Makeup can't cover up these bruises! I hate you!" She ran off.

Thalia scoffed, grinning at me, "And they thought they could hurt us."

(Was that good? I feel like that wasn't very good. If you want me to change the fight just tell me.)

When it was all over, we calmly strolled through the Great Hall and took our seats.

Annabeth eyed us with immense disapproval, "Were you two having a fight with Pansy and Draco?"

"Yes," I admitted, unabashed.

She glanced around, "Where are they now?"

"Ran away."

"Hm," she said, like she knew I'd buried them somewhere.

"We're going to Hogsmeade later!" Leo interrupted happily. He'd apparently not heard what had transpired.  "Fred and George said there's a joke shop, but they have their own at Diagon Alley. It's called Weasley's Wizardry Wheezes, and—" he went on and on, telling me all the different kinds of products the Weasley twins sold there.

Katie screamed, then slammed down her cup, "STOLLS!" A soaked cockroach crawled out of her cup, "That's disgusting!" she grabbed a napkin and wiped her mouth. Then got a new cup and poured some herself some water and drank it.

Connor was laughing his head off, Travis looked like he was trying to laugh, and also trying not to laugh.

"You two, are idiots!" she spat at them.

As they started bickering back and forth, Annabeth said it was time to go.

Hogsmeade was cool. Like, seriously cool. Shops lined the streets, and people rushed around everywhere, and there was this happy feeling to this place.

And most importantly, it was free of the smell of schoolwork.

Percy, Leo, the Stolls, Thalia, and I went straight to Honeydukes. Annabeth reluctantly followed, muttering something about books and making sure we didn't eat too much candy.

"Look!" Leo said excitedly, "There's so many! It's like your mom's store Perce!"

He shook open a small plastic bag and filled it up without even taking time off to breathe. Then he grabbed five more and stuffed them full of lollipop-like things, chocolate frogs, and other mysterious sweets.

Inspired, we all started shoving candy into our bags. Percy went the slowest because he was picking out all the blue ones.

"Why can't you just color it blue with magic?" Annabeth asked him.

"Oh," he said, "never thought of that," and he started grabbing non-blue candy.

The shopkeeper stared at us with her mouth hanging open. We probably seemed like thieves, grabbing all the candy like that. Even Annabeth couldn't resist filling a bag.

When we were finally done, we dumped them on the counter.

The wide-eyed shopkeeper counted the bags and said, "34 galleons."

"Oh," Leo said, like it had just occurred to him that we had to pay, "umm..."

"You guys are idiots," Annabeth told us, repeating what Katie had said at dinner.

"Uh, will you take these?" I handed her some gold drachmas.

She took one and eyed it, "No, it must be galleons. What are these?"

"Drachmas," I said hesitantly, not wanting to reveal too much. "I mean, it's also gold, right?"

The shopkeeper still shook her head, "I still can't accept it, sorry."

Annabeth counted out some gold coins and gave them to her, "Here you go, 34 galleons."

She smiled, dropping them in the register. "Thank you, dear. Enjoy."

Leo threw all the candy in his satchel, but kept one bag to eat. Thalia Conjured up a bag and put all her candy inside. She shoved it at me and said, "Take this for me."

I shouldered my backpack, took her bag, and dragged it on the floor to the outside.

When I was outside, I threw it up in the sky as high as I could.

The shopkeeper stared at me like she couldn't believe I was doing this.

It landed five meters away from me—in front of Drew and Claire—and spilled open, candies scattering everywhere. 

I smirked at Thalia and said, "Oops, Your Highness."

Her face purpled with outrage, "I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO THROW IT UP IN THE AIR!!" While she was bellowing, I saw Drew quickly scoop up a few candies and shove them into her bag. Claire gave you a mischievous look, then grabbed some too.

"YOU DIDN'T TELL ME I COULDN'T THROW IT UP IN THE AIR YOUR HIGHNESS!!" I yelled back.

"ARRGH! You are just so...UGHHH!" she snatched up her bag, pointed her wand at the candy, and they all flew inside. Then she cast another spell that probably cleaned them. She didn't notice that some were missing. Muahaha.

She carried her own bag this time.

"Yay!" Percy cried suddenly. "An hour has passed and there are no monsters trying to—"

Annabeth slapped him in the back of the head, "Don't jinx it!"

Unfortunately, he had jinxed it. Two hellhounds appeared out of nowhere and were running toward us, each of them with an empousa sitting on their backs.

Claire rolled her eyes at you, "I know. Now this is just getting ridiculous."

Wizards screamed and ran into the shops. Some shot spells at them, but they were ineffective.

"There's only four," Leo said, "we can take'em easily."

Then four Cyclops came charging over to us, yelling something and waving clubs in the air. It was a miracle that they weren't hitting each other.

Leo counted them, "Well there's only—"

Annabeth kicked him in the shins, "Stop jinxing it!"

"Yes ma'am."

"Stand back!" someone yelled. "We'll take care of this!" Harry shouted.

"What?" Percy said, "No no, you have to run, we'll take care of this!"

"No! You don't understand. We can do this, I just have to find the right spell!" Hermione said.

"No, you don't understand, spells won't work on them. Just run!" Percy pushed Ron in the other direction.

"No way!" he said, "You're gonna fight them empty-handed? We want to help!"

"Just go!"

We charged into battle. Percy with Riptide, Annabeth and her drakon bone sword, Thalia with Aegis and her bow and arrows, me with my sword, Leo with a flaming Celestial Bronze hammer with pointed ends, and the Stolls with their identical bronze swords.

We defeated them easily. Hardly a surprise, but it sure was to the crowd watching us.

"You guys just...wi-with weapons and..." Ron stammered, face ashen.

"Yeah," Percy said, like that was normal, "you'll learn how soon. In two weeks I think, in Physical Combat class."

"What?" Neville looked scared. "I thought I was done using swords..."

"That was a Cyclops," Hermione said, "a Cyclops from the textbook. It's from a Greek Myth, and they aren't in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!"

Leo stared at her, "Weren't Cyclops, like, Chapter 20 or something?"

"Chapter 23," Hermione corrected automatically. "I read the whole book, and those dogs, those were hellhounds. And empousai! Straight from the textbook! How is that possible?"

"Centaurs are real," Thalia pointed out.

"Yeah...but..."

"They could have been you know, Transfiguration gone wrong," Annabeth reasoned. "I don't know how this could be possible otherwise."

"Yes, but you guys act like this is so normal! Like you've fought them before. And while fighting you, the Cyclops said something about...frying up your father?" she directed the question at Percy.

Percy shrugged, "I don't know what he was talking about either."

She eyed him suspiciously, "I'm going to the library later." She said it like it was a threat or something.

"I think we should go now," Leo said, "we uh, still haven't gone to the joke shop." We ran to Zonko's as fast as we could.

"That was very suspicious Leo, running away like that," Annabeth said, "you could have just walked away normally!"

Leo spread his hands, "Sorry, but normality is not my style."

Travis peeked through the window, "Mayday mayday! They're coming our wae!"

"Save our souls!" Connor cried, "Golden Trio and Ginny at 12 o'clock!"

"Nine-one-one!" Leo shrieked, "They're walking over. Busted in 10...9..."

"Stop it!" Annabeth snapped, "And it's 999 here. Can we Apparate?"

"Never tried," Percy said, eyeing his shoes. "It sounds unsafe."

Annabeth gave the fastest Apparating lesson known to mankind. "Just spin on your right foot and picture Honeydukes. Hold your wand. Don't let yourself get dismembered as you go."

"Got it."

We all Disapparated with a pop.

Holy Hades, this was not a good feeling.

The shopkeeper blinked, but dismissed us as overeager teenagers who were craving sweets.

Travis checked the window, "Haha! They're going in!"

Annabeth left to look at books or something like that.

Suddenly Travis handed his bag to Connor, "Wait I gotta go do something."

"What?" Connor asked.

Travis rushed out the door, and Connor set the bags down and followed him.

Travis pulled a rose out of a bush. Connor excitedly said, "Are we ripping up roses now? Are we taking the thorns and throwing them at people? Are we putting them on their chairs? Are we-"

"No Connor," Travis rolled his eyes, "Wait here okay?"

Connor obediently followed him, and Travis turned and said, "I'm serious."

"Fine fine!" Connor held up his hands and stayed where he was.

Travis went over to Lou and Katie. He gave the rose to Katie and said, "Here."

She took in from him, then threw it down and backed away wide-eyed with a scared expression like it might explode. "What did you put in it?" she demanded, "Poison? Ants?" she stared at her hands, as if to make sure they weren't turning green and scaly. "Is it going to make me insane? Make all my other flowers die? Is it that powder bomb thing that Connor threw at me last night?"

"No no," Travis said patiently and picked it up again, "it's a rose...from there," he pointed at the rose bush. Connor gave him a WHAT?!! look. Travis ignored it.

"You could have put something in it! A spider, a cockroach, a beetle! Or a candy that makes my tongue turn huge!"

"Nope," he grinned at her, "nothing's happening to me, is there? No bugs crawling out."

"Yeah so? You could have told Leo to make a mechanical flower that seems real that responds by fingerprint that activates some door in the stem for honey and super glue to spew all over my hand, and the smell of honey fills the ants inside with adrenaline making them stronger so that they can push through the flower petals, AKA trapdoors, so they can come out and eat my hand that's stuck to the flower!"

Travis scratched his head, "What? Uh, thanks for the idea, but that's not what this is. It's literally just from there." He pointed at the bush again.

She stared at him, then s l o w l y took the rose and held it two feet in front of her. When 20 seconds had passed and nothing happened, she s l o w l y pulled it closer and stared at it, "Okaaay, what's this for?"

"It's for you!"

"How sweet...anything else? No 'haha I got you'?"

"No, just, uh, will you go to the dance with me?" he smiled nervouly at her.

She stared at the flower, then at Travis, at the flower, then at Lou, who shrugged, then at Travis again. "Oh...kay?"

"YAY!!" Travis hugged her.

He skipped back to Zonko's, leaving Katie, Connor, and Lou wondering what the Hades had just happened.

Connor came in and gave Travis an odd look, then said, "The Golden Trio and Ginny saw us. And...they're coming."

We Disapparated out of there. We didn't agree on any place, and I appeared at Hog's Head.

What's with all the hogs? Hogwarts, Hog's Head, Hogsmeade, seriously? Leo and Percy were here. But unfortunately, so was Harry.

"I want answers!" Harry cried, "Why didn't our spells work—?"

"Bye!" Leo yelled. But before he could spin, Harry tackled him and they rolled on the ground and knocked over a chair. The bartender stared at us with an amused expression.

Leo pushed him off him and we Apparated out.

I had appeared in some a store with a ton of plants everywhere.

Then someone yelled, "Aha!" I saw Ron at the entrance of the shop.

Now the whole Hogsmeade visit was just a game of ditching the Golden Trio.

It was actually kind of fun. We were Apparating everywhere and scaring people when we popped out of nowhere.

When it was finally time to go, we had all managed to escape the Golden Trio and Ginny.

Harry's POV

There was a buzz in the Gryffindor common room as people chatted about their weekend visit to Hogsmeade. Then the Bell Towers signalled eleven o'clock, and students began making their way up the stairs to bed.

Everyone left except for the exchange students. Annabeth and Percy went up their dorm to do whatever couples do when they're alone.

"They obviously won't tell us anything," Hermione huffed. "And if they do, it won't be the truth. We need to spy on them."

We went up the boys' dormitories' stairs until we were out of view, then I put on my Invisibility Cloak, and Ron, Ginny, and Hermione put on Fred and George's Bodiless Cloaks, a new product of theirs that gave the wearer invisibility for half an hour.

I creeped behind Clarisse and looked over at what she was writing. She was writing in Greek, unfortunately, but it looked just like a normal letter, but there were a bunch of hearts at the bottom. It took me a while to realize they were hearts the violent Clarisse was drawing and not knives or bloody knuckes or something.

I was about to move when Nico suddenly said, "Stop trying to scare me Thalia, I know you're there...yerhighness." He said the last part so fast I could barely tell what he said.

"I'm over here idiot," Thalia said from an armchair.

Nico blinked, then looked behind him, no one visible was there. He grabbed the air in front of him, then muttered, "I swear I felt someone behind me."

"Hey that reminds me," Thalia said.

Nico shot out of his seat, and ran out the door.

Thalia gave chase and screamed, "COME BACK!!"

For some reason, what she said next came from the exchange students' dorm, "Haha!"

Thalia opened their dorm's door and dragged Nico down the stairs. Like literally dragging. His legs bumped on the stairs. Didn't they go outside? How'd they get there?

Nico seemed to have an idea, he pointed his wand at her.

Thalia opened her mouth, then closed it. She seemed to have lost her voice. She stomped on Nico's hand and walked away.

"Ouch," Nico said.

Thalia was furiously writing something on a piece of parchment. She shoved it in Nico's face.

He refused to look at it, but Thalia held him in a headlock and kept his right eye open and forced him to read the parchment on the floor.

He read it and slowly followed Thalia back to her armchair. He got down on his elbows and knees, and Thalia put her legs on his back. Nico looked like he would rather die than do this.

Leo started giggling and took out his phone to take a picture.

Nico held up his hand, and a shadow seemed to push it out of his hand and into Nico's.

"No fair!" he cried, then he reached into his satchel and took out another phone.

"Leo..." Nico warned.

"What? Okay okay chill with the murder glare bro," he put his phone back.

I went over to see what Travis and Connor were doing. They and the Weasley twins were just talking about all the pranks they had pulled.

Then the common room door opened, and Drew Getaway came in and snuck over to Leo. I noticed she was wearing Muggle clothes. And clothes that actually made sense. Not like a poncho, a scarf, and rain boots or something.

"BOO!" she screamed into Leo's ear.

"Ahh!" he jumped, and he and his chair tipped over and crashed into Drew, and they both tumbled to the ground.

"Don't do that!" Leo said, "I could have gotten a concussion or something!"

"Yeah, Madam Pomfrey fixes that really quick."

"Whatever, what are you doing here?"

"Malfoy," she grinned, "he and Professor McGonagall had a talk after Transfiguration, he was really mad, and you know what they were talking about?"

"They found out that it was him??"

"Yeah, well, it wasn't him, but they thought it was, so he can't go Hogsmeade ever again. And he has detention for a month."

"Awesome!" Leo screamed the news to the Stolls.

They shrieked and high fived each other. Even Thalia and Nico high fived.

"But I'm also here to do homework," she showed him her parchment. I crept over, but bumped into someone invisible. I knew it was Hermione because I felt her crazy bush hair.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"It's alright," Hermione replied.

Leo stared at Drew in amazement, "You actually do homework?"

"Course I do! I didn't expect you doing it either."

"I only do the Transfiguration homework. Professor McGonagall scares me..."

She snorted at him, "Of course she does. So what properties does Vanadium have in potions?"

"How should I know?"

"Search it up!"

"Okay okay, uh Muggle properties or wizard properties?"

"The former. They should give me a clue about the magical properties. I think so anyway."

"Doubt it," Leo turned on his iPhone, did a fingerprint scan, answered three multiple choice security questions, entered a 10-digit password, did a connect-the-dots passcode, and a face scan.

Then he pressed the 'Home' button for 5 seconds, but instead of Siri coming up, a giant button like that Easy Button Dudley had once before he threw it at the wall and it broke, popped up. It said, "Awesome Mode," he pressed it, did a finger scan, then a message popped up saying, "Mortal nearby! Activation cancelled!"

Leo blinked, "I'm sure I changed the settings so that this won't pop up when you're here."

He pressed the scan button, and another message popped up saying, "Two mortals directly behind you."

Leo whipped around, swiping a wide arc with his arm, nearly slapping my face before I managed to back away safely. He stared straight at me. For some reason, when I backed away into the right, his eyes seemed to follow me, as if he could sense my heat pattern.

"Guys," Leo stood up, "there's someone there." He pointed straight at me.

Drew ran straight at me, I dodged and went to the left. She ran by me, then stopped and just froze there, like she was listening.

I slowly crept towards the boy's dormitory, but she must have heard me, because she suddenly unfroze, lunged, and brushed my cloak. I freaked out, and ran for my room.

"It's Harry Potter!" Drew yelled. "It has to be! I bet his friends are with him!"

Jason ran in front of the stairs, so I changed course and ran to the common room door. I saw it open, so someone else invisible was going outside, and I ran out right when Drew ripped the cloak off me.

Here's some candy for you all! I got them at Hogsmeade ;)

🍭🍬🍫🍭🍬🍫🍭🍬🍫🍭🍬🍫🍭🍬🍫