Harry Potter and the Greek Gods

{30} Out with a Bang

PIPER'S POV

Despite the fact that things were most definitely not normal, we were being forced to continue as if they are.

Sure, our lives would never have been considered 'normal', but they had certainly taken a sharp turn for the weird - even for us - recently. 

I wasn't sure when exactly it had happened. It could have been when we were first sent to Hogwarts, or when we had found out about the existence of Norse and Egyptian gods, or when the Hunters had arrived at Hogwarts, or more recently when Annabeth and Hazel returned from Boston with alarming tales of kidnapping and demigod sacrifices, which hinted at an even darker new reality: Voldemort and his minions working side-by-side with an unknown, powerful deity. 

We hadn't been able to figure out who yet, as we had practically nothing to go off of. In one of our rare interactions with Chiron, he warned us to focus on the task at hand and leave the researching to him and the demigods at Camp Halfblood and Camp Jupiter.  

Of course, none of us had really listened to him, but it wasn't like we had gotten anywhere with it anyway. 

"What are you thinking about?" Jason asked, coming over to kneel beside me. 

We were at a DA meeting, practising Patronuses. I had repeatedly tried and failed to do the spell. Every good memory I thought of kept getting invaded by my worst memories. If I tried to think of my dad, I would remember the time he was kidnapped and almost killed because of me. If I tried to think of my friends, I would think of all the times we came close to dying, and so on and so forth. 

I had kind of just slunk off to the corner to calm my jittery nerves. I didn't think anyone was paying attention to me, but apparently Jason had been. 

"Just... everything that's going on. And how none of it should be happening." I admitted. 

Jason smiled at me sympathetically and was about to say something in reply when we realised that the room had grown steadily quieter. Harry was talking to a small creature - a house-elf, like Kreacher, except less grumpy - while holding him firmly in place.

I wasn't sure what they were saying, but it seemed serious. I got to my feet, tugging Jason along with me. 

Just in time for the house-elf to start howling and banging his feet on the floor. 

"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!" The elf screeched. 

Harry straightened up and looked around the room, before bellowing: 

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? RUN!"

All semblance of order vanished in that instant as everyone bolted for the door. I lost Jason in the crowd, but that wasn't my main concern. 

Luckily, I managed to escape the room and down several floors through a series of hidden passageways the Weasley twins had been kind enough to show us. I was joined by several Hufflepuffs, including Hazel, as well as Nico. I only had to assume that the others were safe. They were probably faster and better at avoiding trouble than most of the wizards. Frank probably had it the easiest, being able to shapeshift. Wait...

I slowed down, letting the Hufflepuffs speed away. Thankfully, Nico and Hazel seemed to get the message and stayed with me. 

"What is it?" Nico half-snapped. 

"Can you shadow travel within Hogwarts?" I asked, glancing behind us. 

"Within the walls, yes. Not inside from the outside or vice versa, though." Hazel answered. 

"Right, well, Hazel, get back to your common room. Nico, can you get us back to the Slytherin one?"

He nodded, exchanging a glance with his sister before she closed her eyes and vanished. Nico clasped my wrist, and a moment later I felt an eerily familiar - but still unnerving - feeling take over my body. I squeezed my eyes shut as we disappeared. 

A moment later, we reappeared outside the Slytherin common room. My stomach was doing backflips, but we had gotten away. 

"I didn't want to get spotted," Nico explained before I had even voiced my question about why we were outside the common room instead of in. 

"Makes sense. Thank you, Nico."

He nodded curtly in response. We stepped up to the wall to say the password, but a sharp voice interrupted us.

"What are you two doing out here?" 

We whirled around, finding Malfoy with Crabbe and Goyle poised on either side of him. Nico's face seemed blank, but my mind was already in action. 

"We were studying in the library and got lost on our way back. Why? What's going on?" I lied smoothly.

"You'll find out about it in the morning." Malfoy sneered, before turning away and striding back up the hallway, clearly on the prowl for more wayward DA members. 

Nico shot me a grateful look, which I figured was about as close as he got to a proper thank you. 

LEO'S POV

After the fiery destruction of the DA, the next few weeks passed irritatingly slowly, with a growing pile of unfinished homework. 

Those weeks had been very interesting weeks. Starting with Dumbledore's (supposedly very dramatic) exit, the cancelling of Harry's occlumency lessons (which I only learnt about once I found out that they had stopped), the return of Montague, who was in quite a rough shape, much to the delight of Fred and George and careers advice meetings, which the demigods were thankfully allowed to skip. Granted, not quite as exciting as the publishing of Harry's interview in the Quibbler several weeks before the end of the DA, but still quite exciting. 

"Valdez." 

I looked up from where I was fiddling with several spare wires to find the twins grinning at me. It was Fred that had spoken. 

"We have a proposition for you." George continued, "A fabulously destructive one."

"Consider me intrigued." I declared. 

"We want to go out with a bang," Fred said.

"I thought you used up all your fireworks?"

"Oh, we did, but we had something else in mind." George grinned.

"Like?"

The twins exchanged a mischievous glance. Fred was the one who spoke next, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes. 

"What do you think of an indoor swamp?"

Art by Do0dlebugdebz on DeviantArt

A/N: This was just kind of a chapter to keep the book plot moving. Also, Fred and George recruiting Leo to their Swamp Scheme is amazing and definitely what would happen.