What's that? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's an update!

Hi guys, sorry for being so long (No, I'm not dead, thanks for asking). Look at the below author's note for excuses. XD

Disclaimer: Wait, gimme a sec, *squints eyes* *channels inner demigod*, sorry, nope.

Harry

After what seemed like an eternity, Harry stumbled out of the compartment. Luna, Neville and Ginny followed after him, sighing in relief.

"Never again," Harry groaned, pausing for his friends to catch up. "Nice excuse there, Luna. Whatever it was you said, it sure got us out of their fast."

Luna smiled dreamily, though she looked pleased with herself. "Yes, well, everyone knows how contagious Croagles can be. Always getting in the way and messing with your head—you won't be able to think straight for weeks!."

Harry shifted uncomfortably and tried to change the subject.

Thankfully, Ginny came to his rescue, though she was grinning at his discomfort. "We should probably go meet up with Ron and Hermione and find a compartment."

"They're lucky," muttered Neville. "Even prefect duties would've been preferable over lunch with Slughorn."

Harry didn't say anything, but he whole-heartedly agreed.

...

"This is the last compartment in the train." Ron groaned. "Let's hope it has spare seats, or else we'll have to go to Slughorn's little party."

Behind the door, Harry could hear a group of teenagers talking. A few of them seemed to be arguing—and was that a sword he could hear? (No, it's Thalia's hunting knife.) Dismissing it as some weird spell, Harry mentally prepared himself to face Slughorn again.

Hermione huffed. "For goodness sake, just knock!" To prove her point, she rapped her knuckles sharply against the door and slid it open.

...

Harry was looking at a group of teenagers whom he'd never seen before.

They all looked fit and tanned (and admittedly, quite attractive), and seemed to be at varying ages from 13 to 19. Food littered the seats and it looked like more than a few spells had gone wrong in here. He could even spot some black powder on the ground that looked suspiciously like ashes.

What grabbed Harry's attention the most, though, were the people themselves. They all had very unusual defining attributes, even more so than his lightning scar. Besides, it looked as if these teenagers also had their fair share of scars (lots of wand accidents?).

All the eyes on him and his companions were making Harry slightly uncomfortable. He shifted his gaze from a tall boy with intimidating blue eyes, to a girl with startling grey ones, and then to a boy dressed in black, sitting in the corner.

This boy was not tanned like the rest. His complexion was unnaturally pale, and his face was gaunt. His expression was brooding, and at the moment, faintly annoyed. He looked like one of the youngest in his group, but also as if he'd seen things no one ever should.

Black hair hung in curtains over dark eyes. Despite his obvious youth, he looked older than everyone else in the compartment.

Harry's throat closed up and he couldn't stop looking at the boy. 

This boy, he reminded Harry of...Sirius. Harry made a mental note in his head to stay away from the boy. The constant reminder of his dead godfather would be painful.

"—know you! I saw you in Diagon Alley! Uh—Thalia, wasn't it?"

Jarred from his thoughts, Harry peered closely at the girl Hermione was talking to, and realised that he indeed did recognise the group from Madame Malkin's. Weren't they the exchange students from America?

"Yeah, and you're Hermione," Thalia said without enthusiasm. Harry noticed her blatant American accent.

"Right," Hermione said. "Well, this is Neville, Luna, Ginny, and Ron, my boyfriend. Oh, and, you know..." She trailed off, obviously expecting everyone to immediately recognise Harry.

She was met with nine blank stares. "No, we don't know," the Sirius look-alike said bluntly.

Ron couldn't mask his surprise. "You don't?" he asked incredulously. "Surely, every wizard and witch in the world has heard about—"

Harry stepped on his foot.

The Americans exchanged uneasy looks, when suddenly, a curly-haired boy spoke up.

"Wait, yeah, I do know!" he snapped his fingers. "You're that... Harvey Potty? No, Harry. Harry Potty?" 

Everyone stared at him in disbelief. "Uh, I remembered it from the card...?" Harry tracked his look to a ripped up chocolate frog card on the ground, singed at the edges, and felt his face heat up.

"Actually, it's Harry Potter. " Ginny snapped, her voice icy.

Harry once again felt everyone's eyes on him, and shifted uneasily.

"Well," Hermione said awkwardly. "Ah, actually, we were wondering if can we sit here for the rest of the train ride? These are the only free seats left."

The Americans eyed them warily. Some of them were reaching for their pockets, undoubtedly for their wands. 

It was the girl with grey eyes that broke the tension. "I guess, that's alright. We should probably introduce ourselves, then. I'm Annabeth." 

When no one protested, Harry found a free seat near the window and sat down, the others following suit.

Annabeth proceeded to name all her companions. "Thalia, who you already know, Jason, her brother, Percy, my boyfriend, Piper, Jason's girlfriend, Hazel and Frank, they're a couple too, Nico, and—"

"Captain Hot Stuff, Supreme Commander of the Ar—"

"Leo!" Eight annoyed teenagers were glaring at 'Leo,' and the poor boy shrunk back, hands up in surrender. Harry wondered what he had been about to say.

(So his name is Nico.)

As time went on, they found the Americans were actually quite friendly. Ginny was teaching Piper and Thalia how to cast her favourite hexes, and Jason and Ron were playing wizarding chess (for the first time in his life, Ron seemed to be losing). Harry ended up having a conversation with Annabeth and Hermione.

"So," Hermione had asked curiously, "Thalia and Piper mentioned that your school has a more physical aspect to it...?"

Annabeth, strangely enough, had shot a glare at her two friends, who had been chatting to Ginny, and proceeded to explain how they took Defense Against the Dark Arts quite seriously, and spent a lot of their day practising.

Annabeth told them that their school was called Chiron's Academy of Magic Practice, CAMP for short. True to its name, it was more like a summer camp, in the sense that they slept in cabins and didn't have a very rigid schedule. People were always leaving and coming, she'd said. 

"Wait," Harry interrupted, recalling something he remembered from Hermione's history notes. "Don't you go to Ilvermorny? I thought that was the only wizarding school in America."

Hermione nodded fervently, backing up Harry's words. "And it's very well respected, almost as well respected as Hogwarts."

Annabeth bit her lip. "No, our school is just really secretive. Besides, our school is the safest in the world for people like us."

She didn't elaborate. Harry was probably imagining it, but he could've sworn that she said us, as if she wasn't including Harry and Hermione.

Annabeth kept explaining.

Apparently, only certain people could go to their camp, because they were an Ancient Greek and Roman religious school (hence the name), and you had to have certain family connections.

Hermione leant forwards. "So you believe in the mythology? Zeus and all that?"

Annabeth frowned. "Yes..."

Hermione shrugged and explained the basic concept of Greek and Roman mythology to Harry, with Annabeth raising her eyebrows at some of them, almost as if she thought that Hermione's tales were inaccurate.

Personally, Harry thought that it was pretty far-fetched, the idea of these all-powerful deities being real, but he held his tongue. The Americans were a little strange, but things must run differently in America, and he wasn't exactly willing to share his entire life story himself.

...

Harry very quickly found out that the Americans were very restless, especially Leo. He kept tapping his fingers, fiddling with some metal, pacing around the compartment, and basically gave Harry a headache.

He had just about had enough, and was preparing to announce his annoyance when Piper caught his eye and gave him an apologetic look.

"Sorry," she said. "All of us except Frank are ADHD, Leo especially. We tend to get really restless in situations like this."

Harry nodded as if he understood (he didn't) but luckily, Annabeth came to his rescue. "ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, basically making us really impulsive and have an overactive mind. It makes us really aware in ba—uh, sports."

"Right, okay," Harry said awkwardly.

...

When they were almost at their stop, the Americans scrambled to throw the black robes over what they were already wearing, as if they were going to take it off as soon as they could, with the exception of Thalia and Nico, who refused to touch the robes. 

Hermione, always the sceptical one, questioned them on their uniform, but they merely shrugged and said that they were used to wearing pretty much whatever they wanted at camp.

...

By the time the Hogwarts Express finally pulled up, everyone had learned a bit more about each other. To Harry's surprise and immense relief, none of them had asked about their adventures of Harry's past. Even though they hardly seemed to know about Harry's feats, he was grateful they didn't pry. He'd already had four people come up to their apartment and ask for his autograph.

On the other hand, the Americans kept interrupting one another, almost as if there were something they didn't want Harry to know. Often, they would look at each other and grimace, or smile, like they were sharing some huge inside joke.

When Piper had asked how school had been like the past year, Ron had replied that they didn't attend because they were on a 'quest' to bring down Voldemort. "We went through bloody hell last year," he said, accentuating his words.

 At his statement, all the Americans had glanced amongst themselves, and most of them were looking at Percy, Annabeth and Nico. 

"Hell, huh?" Percy had said, breaking the silence. Harry had noticed how solemn he'd sounded and the deep sadness in his eyes. Harry's eyes had involuntarily wandered to where Nico was shifting in his seat, and the temperature seemed to drop by two degrees.

Sorry for such a late update, but I watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them this week...and my life is finally complete. It was like reading Percy Jackson for the first time, and I spent forever looking up fanfiction and youtube videos. <3 Newt is right up there with Leo and Nico on my list of favourite fictional characters. XD Unfortunately for me and all the other obsessed fangirls, the sequel doesn't come out till end of 2019... :(

On a further note, I'm running out of good fanfics to read. I don't read Chaos stories, and AUs are preferable. Also, I like the canon ships... if any of you guys can recommend something, that'd be great. Just one or two fanfics that you really enjoyed. :D

I've been thinking, how cool would it be if like the demigods made a circus in the future, so the mortals would be amazed by their 'tricks'. Lol. Or a circus AU. I don't think there's one of those, are there? Wouldn't that be so cool? 

(Now I really want to write one. XP I can already imagine it, Reyna would be like the ringmaster and Nico would be the disappearing magician and Leo would be like the fire breathing dude and oh! The Stolls should totally be clowns. And like Calypso and Rachel would be costume and props designing and Hazel would be horse acrobat and Frank would be like the animal tamer, really shy like Newt from Fantastic Beasts. My god, I better stop now... Would you read a circus AU if I wrote one?)

--XxFangirlxX--