Harry's POV

While we were getting to breakfast, Peeves swooped above our heads and dropped ping pong balls all over the floor. Two Hufflepuffs slipped and fell on their butts.

I narrowly escaped having the same fate.

"Peeves!" Hermione yelled, "I'll tell the Bloody Baron you're misbehaving!!"

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw a ping pong ball at her, and looped around the air happily.

"Hey! Stupid ghost!" Thalia complained, as a ping pong ball hit the back of her head. She threw three back at him, but they passed right through. Thalia cursed and turned to Nico, "Get that ghost for me will you?"

"Like I would help you?" but right at that moment, about 10 ping pong balls rained down on Nico's head.

He looked up, "Hey!"

Peeves looped down the hallway, but Nico held up his hand and Peeves was vacuumed into it.

Nico took hold of the front of Peeves' robes and looked him in the eye, "Stop that, you can annoy Thalia as much as you want, but not me, got it?"

"Fine," Peeves muttered, and Nico hurled him through the wall.

"But...you can't do that to a ghost!" Hermione said.

"Hey! I asked you to help me! Not make it worse!" Thalia punched Nico's arm.

"I was just trying to be unhelpful!" Nico shot back, and he punched her arm.

They started yelling and punching each other until Percy and Annabeth managed to pry them apart.

"This is ridiculous," Annabeth muttered as she dragged her friend away, stepping around ping pong balls with ease.

Later in Charms, I saw Nico and Thalia shaking hands, like they were making a deal. They made bets all the time, so it wasn't weird.

In Transfiguration and History of Magic, Thalia and Nico didn't argue, not even once. It was so unusual, I thought I was dreaming, and I'm sure the teachers thought so too. "Thalia and Nico are acting very weird today," I said.

"No kidding," Ron said. "They didn't even come close to fighting!"

"Maybe they didn't feel like it," Hermione suggested.

"Huh," Ron said, clearly unimpressed by the suggestion.

We listened in on Thalia and Nico's conversation in front of us.

"You know Thalia," Nico said casually, "your tea leaves really did look like a corn plant."

Thalia's mouth twisted into a forced smile, "Yeah...I guess it did. It also looked a lot like a knife." It took a few seconds for my brain to comprehend what she had just said.

Leo looked at her as if she had just said, I volunteered to eat a disgusting smelly boot so that Malfoy wouldn't have to do it.

It looked like it took all of Nico's willpower to smile at Thalia, "Yeah." Under his breath he muttered, "Maybe."

They turned away and tried their best ignore each other.

Thalia tried to have a conversation with Annabeth, but she was too absorbed in Professor Binns' speech to really listen to her.

Nico's POV

When Leo, the Stolls, Thalia, Clarisse, and I had left the Great Hall to get to Herbology, Drew hurried to catch up to us.

"Just thought you should know," she looked at me, "Malfoy is totally convinced that you and Thalia are falling in love, because you're not even arguing. He was ranting about it at the Great Hall."

Leo, Travis, Connor, and Clarisse burst out laughing.

I wasn't sure if his lunch would stay down, and Thalia looked a little green.

"What?!" we shouted.

We turned on each other and yelled, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!"

"I can't believe-"

"-that was so-"

"-all your fault-"

"-if you hadn't-"

"-now Malfoy thinks-"

"-why did you-"

"-you were the one who-"

"-you said that-"

(BTW, they're not interrupting each other, they're saying differend things at the same time)

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" we yelled again.

Leo looked relieved, "Oh, I thought for sure the end of the world was coming."

When Leo and the Stolls managed to separate us, Drew said, "Care to explain what was going on?"

"We had a bet," Thalia explained.

"Ohhh," Connor said.

"Now that makes so much more sense," Travis nodded.

"So who won?" Clarisse asked.

"It was a tie, we both started the arguement at the same time," I explained.

"That must have been torture, not being able to yell at people," Clarisse shuddered. 

 "You have no idea," Thalia and I said.

 "Sometimes," Leo said. "You two are like Travis and Connor."

We glared at him.

He turned around and we continued walking to Herbology.

Leo's POV

In Potions, Professor Snape kept giving me, Nico, and the Stolls dirty looks.

"I think he's onto us," I whispered to Travis.

"Yup," he whispered back.

"What do we do?"

"I guess we could duplicate the ingredients we took and put them back?"

"That's a lot of work, maybe Lou can do a spell that will make it exactly the way it was before we stole the stuff."

"Or she can use the Mist."

"I don't think that'll work, but I'll ask her later."

I didn't notice Snape walking up to us until he spoke, "Valdez, Stolls, di Angelo, did you happen to know, my office was broken into yesterday?" The whole class turned to stare at them. Lou looked at us kind of guiltily.

"Really?" Travis said, his face free of guilt, and instead full of innocence. I guess he could do that, getting away with pranks all the time at Camp Half-Blood.

"Wow," Connor said.

It looked so real Snape actually believed them.

"Valdez, were you responsible?"

I didn't know if being the one with idea meant being responsible, so I just shook my head real innocent-like.

Snape frowned, obviously frustrated, "Di Angelo, were you the one who broke into my office?"

Unfortunately for him, Nico didn't have experience at pulling the innocent face, so he just shook his head with I was in on it written all over his face.

Snape saw it clearly, "Di Angelo," he leaned in close with a twinkle in his eyes, "great work, I had no idea anyone could accomplish such a feat."

Did you buy that? No? Oh well. Here's what really happened.

Snape saw it clearly, "Hm, Legilimency."

Uh oh, I knew what that spell did, it let Snape see Nico's memory.

Connor stood and poked Snape in the eyes.

"Connor!" Snape scowled, covering his eyes, he pointed his wand at it and muttered something. Then he put his hand down.

"Nico di Angelo, I am almost certain you were in on this, who else was with you?"

"Um what?"

Snape scowled, "I saw you and the Stolls and Lou Ellen walking down the hall towards my office! Come!"

Uh oh, I thought. We are so busted.

Nico's POV

We are in big trouble.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Snape didn't answer.

"Where are we going?!" I asked again.

Snape didn't answer.

"Hello? Hello?" Travis, Connor, and I kept saying over and over, "Hello? Are you alive?"

Finally Snape couldn't take it anymore and said, "My office, you are going to make a list of everything missing, and return everything."

"But I'm innocent!" Travis and Connor wailed.

"I bet Malfoy framed us somehow," I said.

"Save it," Snape snapped.

Connor whispered something to Lou and she nodded.

She started mouthing words, her face full of concentration.

When she stopped she mouthed, Done, at Connor.

He grinned. So I guess everything's back to normal in Snape's office.

"We're here," Snape scowled, he pointed his wand at the doorknob, then put his hand on it. There was a click, and he opened the door.

He immediately threw open a cupboard and rummaged inside, "Hm, everything's back."

"See? Told ya we didn't do it!" Travis and Connor said.

"No! You must have done something! I know you did! You reversed the theft! You made everything come back! I know at least one of you is a son or daughter of Hecate!"

"Hm, you two look like Hermes, then you are a daughter of Hecate yes?"

Lou smiled innocently, "Yes brother." (Snape's a son of Hecate)

"Don't call me that."

"Yes sir."

Snape scowled and glared at us, then he snarled, "Come! Back to class!" Yay! I figured it was because he didn't have any proof that anything was stolen. Hahaha, in yo face Snape!

When we got back, everyone was surprised. Well, except for Thalia, she looked downright disappointed.

"You guys didn't get in trouble?" she whined as I sat back down in my seat.

"Nope," I said smugly.

Thalia huffed and stared at her potion, then said, "You know how it was a tie? That bet we made."

"Yeah, are you saying you want a rematch?"

"Yes, I do."

"How about whoever loses has to follow the other's orders for a week?"

"Sure," I was surprised that she was so confident in herself, "As long as the commands are reasonable. Not anything humiliating, or anything that'll get us in trouble."

I thought for a moment, "Deal."

"Should we swear it on the River Styx?" she asked.

"Whoa, I don't know, you know that's kind of risky-"

"What? Too scaredy-waredy that you'll losey-woosey?" Thalia said, using a sickly sweet voice.

"Of course not!"

"Then let's swear it," Thalia said.

"I swear it on the River Styx," we said.

A rumble of thunder sealed the deal.