When Myths Meet Magic || 5

21|| Thalia

When Christmas had come and passed and Leo had yet to get expelled, the normal hustle of the New Years homework flood had begun to pour in.

"Harry!" Yelped Colin as he pranced up to Harry in the Great Hall the day after break. "Harry! Harry! Harry— when's our next—"

Thalia stuck her leg out as he passed her and he tripped square on his face. Before he could scramble up to compose himself, Thalia bent down and whispered, "Shut up!"

Nodding feverishly, Colin stood silently long enough for Harry to say, "I can't. I have remedial potions."

Colin's face fell. "Oh, alright."

"Remedial potions?" Nico asked incredulously. "An extra hour with Snape?"

"Believe me," Harry emphasized, "I wouldn't go if Dumbledore wasn't making me."

"Dumbledore?" Percy said, mouth agape. "Dumbledore's making you do extra potions? Blimey, mate, how bad of a grade did Snape give you on your potion for you to deserve this?"

"It's not because—" Harry began hotly, but then took a breath and lowered his voice. "It's not because I'm bad at potions," he whispered. "It's to help me with... my dreams."

"You're learning how to block your dreams?" Annabeth asked in hopeful amazement. "How do you do that?"

Harry shrugged reluctantly. "Guess we'll find out, won't we?"

He returned from his private session with Snape with a bitter look on his face. His skin was pale and feverish and his scar was bright and dark against his skin. He rubbed his scar roughly but he seemed to be doing it unconsciously because he slapped his other hand down on the table and whispered urgently, "guys... I've just realized something..."

"What?" Nico asked, not looking up from his essay he was hastily scribbling down.

"The weapon... the thing the Order is guarding, I think it might be in the Ministry of Magic..."

"Hm—CHU!" Thalia said through a sneeze. Harry clearly did not think that a satisfactory answer.

"It's in the Department of Mysteries!" He said urgently. "It has to be! I saw that door when your dad, Ron, took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing, and it's definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him."

"Wow!" Jason said, impressed. "Being around a teacher must've rubbed off some smarts on you!"

Harry scowled. "This is serious," He said in a low voice. "Ron, d'you know what's in the Department of Mysteries? Has your dad said anything about it?"

Ron frowned. "I know they call the people who work in there 'Unspeakables,' because no one really seems to know what they do in there... weird place to hide a weapon..."

"It's not weird at all, it makes perfect sense," Annabeth said. "It's probably something top-secret the Ministry's been developing."

Still muttering about what it could possibly be, they packed up from the library and headed to the common room. Hoping for the quiet, relaxing environment and the chairs closest to the fires they had gotten used to over the holidays, they were very put off at the loud chatter and the scattered applause at Fred and George's Headless Hats.

"Maybe it's a machine gun," suggested Thalia as she, Annabeth, and Hermione trotted up to the girl's dormitories. "It would make sense, right? Because you know, there is absolutely no technology in the wizarding world, so this is probably like a revolutionary change—"

"It's not that they haven't seen a machine gun," Hermione chided. "It's that the machine guns don't work around magic. They'd go haywire and explode. And besides, a simple protego charm could easily repel the bullets, or they could freeze the carrier, or explode the gun."