A Slightly More Cheerful Nico's POV

"Time to wake up Sunshine!" someone cooed in my ear.

I dutifully ignored it. Why is someone waking me up?

The very insensitive person began shaking me back and forth.

"What?" I groaned.

"Nicooooo," he—I'm sure it's a boy now—whispered, "Nicooooo." Okay this is freaky.

"FIRE FIRE!! THERE'S A FIRE!! RUN! RUN FOR YOU LIVES! COME ON NEEKS!!" I ignored it. Just some lame attempt to wake me up. Then I smelled smoke.

I jumped out of bed, "What? Where?!" I looked around wildly.

"Well good morning sleepy head!" I saw Leo holding a ball of flames.

"Uggghh," I flopped back onto my bed. "I despise you."

"Don't make me have to kiss you!"

"NO!! Don't you dare," I jumped out of bed. "I am up I am up I am up."

"Whoa, I should use that threat more often!" Leo said cheerfully.

"What time is it?" I asked warily. I was cranky, tired, and done with Leo's schist.

Leo chirped around like a notification, "8:04, class in 56 minutes! 56 minutes for breakfast! Takes about 3 minutes to—"

"Okay okay whatever," I interrupted, sometimes he can be as annoying as Annabeth when it came to mathematics. "I'm coming."

The rest of the demigods were already eating.

Will waved at him with his fork, "Good morning boyfriend."

I blinked and rubbed my eyes, "What?"

"Nothing."

I sighed. I was seriously way too tired if my ears were this inaccurate.

"Morning Cornflakes," Thalia greeted me. Ah, my ears were working again.

"Morning Barbie," I was really proud of myself for thinking of that awesomely insulting nickname.

She scowled at me. I grinned at her.

I ate this weird looking piece of meat. It tastes like chicken.

"Hey what does this say?" I asked Frank, the only one who wasn't dyslexic. I held out the schedule for him.

He looked at it with his Asian eyes, "Potions with Professor Snape and the Slytherins."

"Aw man," Percy said, "first class in Hogwarts, and it's with the meanest teacher here."

"He is?" the Stolls asked.

"Yeah, I've heard that he's very unfair," Percy said.

Then this dude named Neville explained timidly, "He favours the Slytherins. And Slytherins and Gryffindors have never gotten along. He rarely punishes students from his own house and is totally unfair to Gryffindors. And other houses too."

"Yeah," Seamus agreed, "he takes off points for stupid reasons. And if you make one little mistake on your potion, boom, you fail."

"Sounds like Mrs. Dodds," Percy muttered.

"Snape has never been nice in his whole life," Seamus told us.

"Interesting," Clarisse said, "cool guy."

Neville and Seamus edged away from her.

Then the doors opened. The "Golden" Trio stepped in. Oh please, Piper and Leo are the only ones here that were really golden.

I said that to Jason and he laughed.

The Trio sat down at the table. Immediately Ron turned on me, "How dare you enter this school Death Eater!"

Me, Percy and Leo burst out laughing. Man, that sounds so stupid! Even after laughing about it a few times already.

"What's so funny?" Harry demanded.

"The name," Leo managed to stop giggling, "Death Eater! Like seriously? What kind of name is that?"

Percy giggled, "And who would want to eat Death?"

"And in case you're wondering, which you are, I'm not a Death Eater!" I rolled my eyes at them.

"And you are probably one too!" Harry pointed at Thalia.

She looked up from her ice cream, "Huh?"

"You're a Death Eater aren't you?" by now most of the Gryffindors were quiet, listening to the conversation.

She blinked, "What's a Death Eater?" she turned to Annabeth.

"How many times do I have to tell you guys it's Voldemort's followers! Even Percy knows that! Right Seaweed Brain?"

"Yeah, but only because you drill it into my head a hundred times whenever I ask," he replied.

Even Annabeth couldn't hide a small grin.

"If you'd listened to Chiron then you would know what a Death Eater is!" I said.

"You act like you knew! When you asked, you were like, 'They eat Thanatos? That's such an insult! Oh wait, do they eat Voldemort?'"

"You...you said You-Know-Who's name!" Ron stammered.

Percy stared at him, "So? He's not a god who'll notice if you insult him."

"People don't say his name because they're scared of him!"

Percy snorted, "As if there's anything scary about Voldemort compared—"

"Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth interrupted.

"I thought you guys fought him? And isn't he defeated? Why aren't you guys saying his name?" Leo asked.

"Um...I...uh..." Ron said.

"Ron, come on," Hermione pulled Ron and Harry away.

Hermione's POV

"Nico's the son of You-Know-Who!" Ron exclaimed.

"Ron, Voldemort's gone. You can say his name. And why would you think that?" I said.

"Last night, Piper said that they have to get us to trust them. And then Nico asked that then they can reveal who they really are. Then he said, 'Like I'm actually the son of—' then somehow he knew that we were there. Is that Dark Magic?"

"I've never heard of anything like that. Unless he did the spell that reveals human presence nonverbally."

"Hey! Malfoy's coming! Maybe they'll let something slip!" Ron said.

"Hey Thalia," Malfoy said in a flirty voice.

"Do you need something? Perhaps an extra brain? Because you certainly need one if you're going to figure out that I'm. Not. Interested!" I forced down a laugh.

"I can give you and your family all the gold and money you want. You can live in a mansion! A castle! And you'll have servants to do anything you want. Give me a chance, and you'll live like a queen!" I noticed Hazel seemed to tense at that last part.

Thalia snorted, "If I want gold, I could ask Nico or his sister. They can give me like a whole mansion full of gold." No way. There can't be that much gold in the world!

Malfoy scoffed, "I bet he told you that just to impress you," though he sounded uncertain.

Nico choked on his pumpkin juice, "This is disgusting," he wiped his mouth on a napkin, "and why would I want to impress Grace? She's totally not worth it."

"Hey!" Thalia threw an apple at him.

He caught it before it hit his face. "Too bad...Pinecone Grace."

"GENIUS!" Percy and Leo shouted.

"That's it!" Thalia got up.

"Sit down!" Piper ordered, "Stop fighting, there's a person here."

Thalia sat down. How does Piper do that?

"Prove it!" Malfoy spat, "Prove that you have gold! I'll bet you're poor just like Weasel there." Ron was practically fuming now.

Nico shrugged, then reached into his pocket. Then said to Leo, "Cause a distraction, will you? I don't want people to see this."

"With pleasure," Leo shot something into the air. An airplane flew in the air, blowing bubbles that made happy faces everywhere. Then he shot two more. I assume he got them from the Weasleys.

While everyone was staring at the bubbles and airplanes in the air, Nico pulled out gold nuggets, rubies, sapphires, gold coins, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and silver. The smallest the size of marbles, the biggest was the size of a ping pong ball.

We all gasped, "He can't be serious!" Ron whispered.

For some reason Nico grinned at Hazel. Her face flushed a little.

"Oh.My.God!" Harry gasped, "And he carries that around every day?"

Draco's mouth was wide open, "Those can't be real!"

"Believe it or not, those are real wimp, you should see his place!" Clarisse spoke up.

The newcomers grinned a little at that.

"I'll have to see for myself if these are real," Malfoy scooped up some of the jewels and Nico didn't even blink.

"Sure, take them all if you want, but those are real. And why are you taking that much? Need some more money?"

Malfoy scowled, "Course not, and I don't accept gifts from half-bloods."

"Okay, sure. Good thing too, I don't want to risk catching the Snotty Pureblood Malfoy Disease anyway."

Malfoy snarled, "On second thought, I won't take any, I don't want to catch the Poor Nico di Angelo Disease."

"Then shoo! I don't wanna catch the Braggy Spoiled Malfoy Brat Disease."

"Last time you said something else."

"Good, you know your diseases, you can go to St. Mungos to try to get rid of it then. And you also might have Bratty Whiny Baby Di-"

Malfoy went for a punch, but Nico easily caught it and punched his stomach.

"My...My father will hear about this!" he turned away.

Leo snorted, "My father'll kick his dad's booty any day."

"My dad too, waay better than yours," Nico said. Then he shoveled the jewels and gems back into his pockets.

"My dad's the best!" Percy declared.

"No mine!" Thalia argued.

Then they switched to Ancient Greek.

"Not this arguement again! You guys literally just repeat everything you said in the last arguement! Give it up!" Jason said, then he grew thoughtful, "But I think Thalia's dad's the best."

"'Course you'd think that! He's your dad!" Leo said.

"SHUT UP! Let us eat in peace will you? And my dad's the best!" Clarisse snapped.

Percy snickered, "Clarisse wants peace? And I beat your dad without even having proper training!"

"Shut up Prissy!" Then she threw a fork at his face. I gasped.

He raised his hand to block it, so it bounced off his hand, leaving 4 dots of blood. He frowned at his hand, "You made it bleed."

"Wimp."

He just smiled and continued eating. Who brushes off an injury like that like it's nothing?

Their conversation turned into normal Hogwarts conversations. We pulled our Extendable ears back.

"Their dad's are more powerful than Lucius?" Ron mouth was still open after seeing Nico's riches.

"Well it's not like he's that powerful. All it takes is one stupefy and he's down," I pointed out, "Professor Snape and Dumbledore are better than him."

"But they don't even know Draco! How would they even know his dad? They don't know his power and acted like they just know that they're more powerful!"

I shrugged, I didn't know how to reply to that. To be honest, they seem suspicious, but I don't think they're Death Eaters. They don't even know what they are! They are so nice too. And I've never seen any Death Eaters that were this beautiful and...handsome. And I trust Dumbledore. He always trusts the right people. He was the only one who thought Hagrid was innocent, and he was! He knew something was wrong with Tom Riddle, and he was right! He believed that Harry wasn't the Heir of Slytherin, he was right! He trusted Snape, and he turned out to be on our side. I'll always believe Dumbledore.

 "I believe Dumbledore," I said, "he always trusts the right people."

"But you know...he's kind of...you know...old," Ron pointed out.

Duh, of course Dumbledore was old! "That makes him wise Ron."

And Harry agreed, but he still looked a bit suspicious of the new people.

Then the post arrived. Harry didn't get anything. Ron got some chocolates. And I got a letter and some candy. I gave Harry some of my mentos and some of my jellybeans.

Suddenly there was this huge squeal, "YAY!! BLUE COOKIES!!" Heads turned and stared at Percy. He was tearing brown paper away and throwing them at his sides, covering Annabeth and Katie. He grinned widely and held up a plastic container full of blue cookies in the sky like a huge prize. Why are they blue?

Annabeth uncovered herself and crushed the paper into a pile, "Make sure you share Percy."

He made a pouty face that made a lot of girls sigh, but of course Percy didn't notice. Percy said, "Course I will, but only to you, they'll eat it all!" he pointed at Leo, Thalia, Nico, Clarisse, and the Stolls, eyes wide with horror, like people eating his cookies were his worst nightmare.

"Hey, there's another one!" Leo caught a box right when the owl dropped it. For some reason, a lot of owls started flying towards Annabeth and Percy.

He tore it up and shrieked, "BLUE CANDY!!"

He jumped off the chair and held the candies above his head. But Nico simply reached up and grabbed it, "Too short?" he sympathised. He held it above his head.

"Hey!" Leo whined.

Thalia crawled under the table and went behind Nico, then yanked his arm down.

"Wha-" Nico yelped. She pushed him down snd sat on his back.

"Oww, do you always have to do that?"

"HA HA!! LOOOSERRR!!!" she stuck her tongue at him. Then she ate a blue jellybean, "Yum, too bad you can't have any, Death Breath."

"You shouldn't eat any more of those, you weigh a ton."

"Shut up, Nikki."

By now everyone was silent and watching them. If the newcomers felt awkward, they didn't show it.

Leo yanked it out of her hands. Apparently she'd forgotten he was there.

"Hand it over Elf!" Clarisse stood in his way.

"Gah! Connor!" Leo put on the lid and threw it at Connor.

Connor then threw it at Travis, who was at the doors.

"Sweet," he zipped out the door, with Connor, Leo, Clarisse, Thalia, and Nico following in hot pursuit.

"My mom must have foreseen that this would happen, because she sent another box of them," Percy grinned and shoved a cookie into his mouth. Wow, who knew these people could be so childish?

The bell rang, time for Potions.