LEO'S POV

All the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were cowering under the trapdoor leading to the Divination classroom.

"Why are you all hiding?" Jason asked with concern.

"Disaster upstairs!" Professor Trelawney wailed. "Unacceptable treatment of my crystal balls!"

"What exactly is going on?" Annabeth stared up at the trapdoor. We could hear the shattering of glass and heavy furniture getting tossed around.

Yara Zgheib from Hufflepuff stood up, seemingly the only one who didn't look afraid. "Drew Getaway and Wilby Blue are having an arguement."

That was all we needed to hear.

As we climbed the ladder to the trapdoor, I braced myself for what'd I see. I don't know what I was expecting. Everything in flames probably. Maybe the entire classroom was just ash. That would be cool.

No, I told myself, that would not be cool. If the floor's ash, the floor will fall and everyone here will suffocate. Think of the children!

Okay, maybe they weren't children, but some of them sure acted like they were. Take Percy for example.

I climbed through the trapdoor after Percy, Annabeth, and Dumbledore. And no, nothing was ash.


It wasn't as bad as I thought it was. A few tables and chairs overturned here and there. Somehow one of the chairs was completely disassembled. And half the crystal balls and teacups were shattered.

Oh, and Drew and Wilby were throwing stuff across the room at each other.

Drew picked up an entire chair, but this time it wasn't baseball, she hurled it at Wilby, but Dumbledore's Shield Charm must've still been active, because it bounced off an invisible wall.

Wilby threw one of the inkpots he had, which also bounced off.

They were yelling something about breaking promises and whose fault it was and secret trapdoors and whose fault it was and being evil and whose fault it was.

Basically a bunch of exclamation marks and capital letters. Your typical arguement between the Ares and Nike Cabin back at camp.

Dumbledore surveyed the mess, "STOP."

The two students froze. "He started it," Drew said automatically, pointing at him.

"What?!" Wilby demanded. He sounded both angry and hurt.

"Enough," Dumbledore's voice filled every inch of the room, "I trusted you two to behave."

Wilby sighed and stared dejectedly at the ground.

Dumbledore continued, "It does not matter 
who started what."

Drew had the guts to roll her eyes at him like she'd heard this ten thousand times.

Dumbledore smiled a little at her, "Perhaps you two should apologize to each—"

"No," they said at the same time.

Dumbledore stroked the bottom of his beard, "Well, at least apologize to your other classmates and Professor Trelawney."

So they both went over and opened the trapdoor. Wilby said, "I'm sorry guys" in a normal voice. Then Drew shouted, "SORRRREEEEEEEEEE!!" It contained so much sarcasm it wouldn't even count as an apology.

Dumbledore rubbed his right ear like it hurt, then he waved his wand, "Reparo."

The teacups, crystal balls, and chair fixed themselves, and all the furniture went back to their original places.

While the students nervously returned to the classroom, I asked, "Where's Draco?"

"Checking the Shrieking Shack," Annabeth responded. "Seeing if anyone's used it."

I nodded, "Good plan."

Before climbing down, Annabeth stopped Yara, "Do you mind telling me exactly what happened?"

Yara shrugged, "I didn't hear the whole thing, but I sit behind them, so I heard some. Wilby was humming something that sounded a lot like How You Get the Girl by Taylor Swift, then Drew from the table next to his snapped at him to stop. He stopped, then stared at her face for a few seconds and said, 'she's so pretty.' And of course Drew stared at him like he was crazy, then she asked who he was talking about. I didn't hear what he said because he whispered it, but the moment Drew heard the name she went ballistic."

Yara shuddered, "It was horrifying. She flipped over her table and threw everything she could find at Wilby. She kept yelling, 'Her of all people?!' Then she kicked a chair at him and told the entire class that his father's a Death Eater."

Our eyes widened. "Harsh," I winced, liking Drew less and less.

Yara nodded, "At that point Wilby got really mad. That's when everyone just froze. Something we felt...I swear it was like a god was in there or something. Like everything was going to explode. At that point we knew we had to run for it. Drew and Wilby started yelling at each other, and we all shot down the ladder. Then we heard the explosion. It sounded kind of muffled. At first I thought it was just because of the floor, but I climbed back up to check, and I saw that a really powerful Shield Charm was containing the energy from the explosion."

Dumbledore nodded, "Thank you for your explanation, Yara."

She smiled, "You're welcome, professor."

Annabeth nodded at her, "Do me a favor. Try to not let those two fight for the rest of the class. Okay?"

Yara saluted like a soldier, "Okay."

• • •

Moments later, we were back in Dumbledore's office.

"You're not going to take their memories again?" Annabeth asked.

Dumbledore shook his  head, "I think they will manage now. Drew seems to be a little...a war with herself lately. But I am sure they will manage. I do hope Drew overcomes her pride enough to apologize to poor Wilby."

He tossed his hair, "As I was saying in our earlier conversation, I have an idea about the prophecy. You may have noticed, but many, many classes are Gryffindors and Slytherins."

We nodded. "Nearly all of them," Percy remembered.

Dumbledore continued, "I had a thought that if there's truly a great threat coming, those two Houses should learn to get along. Then I realized that a broken family in need of mend could easily refer to the Hogwarts Houses."

"Makes sense," Annabeth said. "Draco told me that one contributing reason Hogwarts wasn't overrun by Death Eaters was because Horace Slughorn led an assault that included lots of Slytherin students."

"Oh yes," Dumbledore said, "but I have some bad news. If we are to have the two Houses get along, we can't have Quidditch Matches."

Most of us were crestfallen.

"Yes!" Nico pumped his fist in the air in excitement. "Now you all can't fly either!"

All of us (except Thalia and Percy) grumbled angrily at him.

Dumbledore smiled at our reactions, "I'm afraid the games cause too much tension between Houses."

"Aw come on," I whined like I did when Annabeth smashed my Valdezadrink, "it can't be that bad."

Dumbledore sighed, "I wish I could speak the same. The Gryffindors consider Slytherins as evil and cruel liars. In return, Slytherins see Gryffindors as short-tempered, conceited and arrogant rule-flouters."

I deflated a little, making myself even shorter, "I think Drew might have said something like that once."

"Exactly my point," Dumbledore said. "If I remember correctly, Drew is actually one of the most accepting of Gryffindors. That's why I made her prefect. Even Wilby does not like them much."

"So you know she's still a prefect?" I asked. "She can take away points!"

Dumbledore shrugged, "So far, she hasn't docked any, but I feel she will have her badge taken away soon if she does not stop shaking it threateningly in everyone's faces."

"She poked me in the eye when she did that," Nico complained. "So of course that made me punch it out of her hand so it hit her in the eye."

Dumbledore shifted uncomfortably, "Right. Moving on. We finished searching the dormitories yesterday. Absolutely no harmful objects were found in Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw was quite clean except for about thirty books from the Restricted Section. None were Dark books. Gryffindor was also free of Dark Objects. Another thing, Filius Flitwick has asked the two boys—Lester and Isaac—about the fireworks that happened before the necklace incident. They told her someone had given it to them as a gift, and a note assured them that they wouldn't be caught."

"Which was a lie," Piper said. "Do you have the note, sir?"

Dumbledore produced a note from the drawer. We compared the two notes. "Same handwriting," Jason commented.

"Looks like a girl's," Thalia noted. "See the 'y' is written like the cursive."

"Wilby writes his 'y's' like that," I said. "I remember from Herbology."

Thalia raised an eyebrow in surprise, "Well then."

There was a silence as we all mourned the fact of Wilby having neat handwriting.

"What House are Lester and Isaac from?" Nico asked finally.

"Ravenclaw. Surprising, because they are known for not doing their homework and skipping class."

"How do you get into Ravenclaw Tower?" I wondered.

"You have to answer a riddle," Dumbledore said "Because of that, it makes Ravenclaw Tower a fairly hard place to enter for students who haven't been here long, or aren't very studious."

We all nodded like we were studious students that have attended Hogwarts for seven years.

"One more thing. If you look at the necklace," Dumbledore put Sylvia's necklace on the table, "it's Muggle-made. See, the design that wizards use is a style from about a hundred years ago. Always very intricate and expensive to buy. But this necklace is very simple. Just a gold chain with a gem. The chain isn't even real gold. The jewel too is fake, just colored glass."

"Definitely Muggle-made," Jason said.

Dumbledore nodded (he's sure doing that a lot), "Sylvia Svee comes from a Pureblood family that has never set foot in the Muggle world. The necklace supports the theory that the person who attempted to strangle Sylvia knows Muggles and goes to the Muggle World often."

"I think it's Wilby," I said. "Like, wouldn't putting his name on the notes also throw us off? Drew accidentally told me that he can lie just as well as she can."

Annabeth frowned thoughtfully, "Yes, you told me that once, but—"

"He can't lie well when he's nervous," I said. "In Herbology today, he got really nervous when he told me that he saw Conrad when he was crazy."

Annabeth put on her I'm-thinking-deeply look. "There's one thing I don't understand. If Wilby really does have a Death Eater for a dad, I really doubt that he would buy a Muggle necklace. But again, he wouldn't act the way he does. Did his dad defect or something?"

We looked at Dumbledore for an answer. "Ahh," he said, like he was trying to avoid answering. "Wilby is a special case. See, his...his father never stayed. His mother raised him by herself."

"That makes sense," I said. "And his mom is nice?"

Dumbledore nodded, looking relieved that he didn't need to tell the full story.

"We think Drew and her sister are demigods," Annabeth put in, changing the subject. "I think Aphrodite. Do you have any ideas?"

Dumbledore shrugged, "I do not know everything. If it is indeed Aphrodite, I do not know how Drew would turn out to be so violent and have such a heavy disgust for love. I also do not know how Dawn would became so studious. Perhaps it's the way they were raised. But overall, yes, Aphrodite seems likely. I have stressed myself trying to decide who their godly parent could be, and I believe Aphrodite is certainly possible, with their color-changing eyes, but I can never be sure."

"We don't even know if it's her mom or dad," I grumbled. "She mentioned that she has both."

Dumbledore shrugged again, "Or it is possible they were just blessed. But there is another thing. You will have to reveal yourselves soon. People are getting suspicious, and Drew recently found out that there is no such thing as powering electronics with wizard magic."

"Oh," I said. I remembered telling her that when she asked how my phone works at Hogwarts.

Dumbledore smiled, "Perhaps by next week, you can—"

We were again interrupted.

Draco must have managed to guess the password for the gargoyle, because he burst inside, looking pretty freaked out.

"What is it?" we asked, jumping to our feet.

"Just got back from the Shack," Draco said, trying to catch his breath. "I heard a voice. Two, actually."

After a few moments of heavy breathing, he continued, "I was only in there for about two minutes. Nothing was disturbed. No sign anyone had been there. Then it turned bright. Really, really, bright. Daylight was streaming through the entrance, but it was nearly dinner time. No way it would be that bright. It turned so bright I couldn't even open my eyes. Then a girl began screaming outside the Shack. Not right outside, maybe ten meters away. She sounded like she was being chased, and she kept yelling, 'help me' over and over. I tried to get out, but it was still all bright and I couldn't see. Then she got farther away, until I couldn't hear her. Then the entire room went pitch black, and I couldn't see anything. It was just like the Instant Darkness Powder. I tried to use Lumos, but it didn't work. It was so dark. I had no idea that there was even a darker color than black. So I tried to climb back out, but something was blocking the entrance. Then a different voice, I think it was also female, said, 'Draco Malfoy, I know you want to know who your real father is. You want revenge on everyone who have wronged you. I can help you. All you need to do is listen to my voice at night.' "