Percy was now worried about two people- Buckbeak and Harry. At least Harry was worried about Buckbeak too, and his mind wavered from Sirius Black for the time being. Unfortunately, that also meant he was off his guard.

"Check it out!" Harry said in awe as the Firebolt rolled onto his bed. Percy, who had never been fond of things that could launch him high in the air, looked at it skeptically. It seemed exactly like Harry's old Nimbus, but a lighter brown. Annabeth was as awed as Harry and Ron, but she instantly saw what the others saw (besides Harry and Ron).

"Don't!" Annabeth yelped as Harry prepared to climb out of the portrait hole for a test ride on the Firebolt. She walked over in two long strides and snatched it out of his hands.

"Hey!" Harry looked at her, stunned. "Give me my broom!"

"Oh no. Not yet. You said there wasn't a card or any indication of who gave it to you?" Annabeth said warily.

Harry swiped for it again, but Annabeth twirled it above her head expertly.

"Yeah, but last time that happened it was Dumbledore!"

"But what if it's not, this time?" Nico said.

"What do you mean?"

"We're saying that anyone could give you an unnamed parcel and now you'll always assume it's Dumbledore, when chances are it's not" Thalia said.

"Well then it might be Lupin!" Ron defended.

"If Lupin had the cash for this, he'd get himself some proper robes." Jason said.

"So who do you think it is?" Harry asked.

Hermione and the demigods didn't even have to look at each other.

"Sirius Black," they all said.

Harry gave off a harsh laugh. "Do you really think Black could just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy a broom? Get real, guys."

"Look, Harry, if it isn't Black, we'll apologize," Annabeth said. "But right now, we can't take any chances. We're your friends, we don't want to see you get killed."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he lunged for the broom, but Annabeth was faster. She thrust it towards Nico, who vanished, broom and all. Harry grasped at nothing but air.

"Annabeth!" Harry yelled, turning to the daughter of Athena. "Why?"

"Harry, you can never be too careful!" Annabeth said back. Hermione nodded from behind her.

"If you think about the facts, there's a higher chance it was Black than anyone else!" she added.

Harry looked to the spot where Nico vanished and he frowned. "I guess I'm forever stuck with the primitive log for a broom then," he said. "Thanks a lot, guys," Harry said with some venom.

"I get it, you hate us for this," Jason said, his hands up slightly in an unmistakable gesture of peace. "We're just trying to help you."

"Maybe it would be nice if you asked me first!"

"Oh, so if we said, 'hey Harry, your old broom got smashed to pieces and you just got a new one, and an upgrade at that-- do you mind if we take it away and give it to Professor McGonagall for it to be stripped down?'"

"Stripped down?" Ron asked, aghast. "It's a bloody Firebolt! AND HERMIONE GET YOUR BLOODY CAT AWAY FROM HERE!" he roared as Crookshanks, who had been crouched in one of the boxes that contained Hermione's christmas present, lunged once again for Scabbers.

>>>•O•<<<

Harry, who was angry at the demigods, and Ron, who was angry at Hermione, weren't as friendly for the next few days of break. But when term started again, Harry sought out Percy.

"Hey, Perce?" Percy looked up from the empty scroll of parchment that was supposed to hold his essay for History of Magic.

"Yeah?"

"Well, Professor Lupin's supposed to teach me how to fight a dementor," Harry said slowly. "And I was wondering... why don't they affect you as much? Could you tell me how to fight it like you?"

Percy shrugged. "I dunno," he said apologetically. "It might be because we've already faced so much fear that our fear tolerance level is super high or something. Like did you notice Thalia and Jason's boggart? Thalia was literally just a cliff and Jason's was his insane mother. I think he was just worried about turning into something like her one day. But that's not the point."

"But is there a way to fight it? Just to give me enough time to cast whatever charm Lupin's going to teach me."

Percy shrugged apologetically again. "Just... you know what's coming. Try to prepare for it. Other than that, I'm sorry, but I can't give you any more advice."

Harry sighed. "Right. Well, thanks anyways Percy."

Percy watched Harry exit the common room with the normal sinking feeling of when he let someone down.

>>>•O•<<<

Harry was indeed tense after the anti-dementor lessons with Lupin. Percy thought it would be better to teach him sword fighting than to teach a super advanced charm, but then again, Percy was a demigod, not a wizard. Hermione was constantly strained too, and swordfighting couldn't help her case. She was constantly slouched over in exhaustion, dark circles layered under her eyes so thick it looked as though someone punched her in both eyes. Often times Annabeth was the only one who could talk to Hermione without her lashing out at them sharply.

"How's she doing it?" Ron asked once. Percy looked at him curiously, as did Harry.

"How's she getting to all her classes?" He clarified. "I heard her talking to the Arithmancy teacher this morning, about yesterday's lesson. But Hermione can't've been there, she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Frank told me she's never missed a single Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of those either!"

He shook his head and stared at Hermione, as if the answer was written on her forehead.

Percy looked at her curiously with a twinge of guilt. He hadn't wondered how Hermione was doing it, even though Annabeth was in some of Hermione's classes and Hermione was in both Annabeth's and Percy's classes at the same time. He should've seen it before, the amount of work she was getting done, how late she was staying up, how several times she would fall asleep with her head in her book only to snap up again and claim she was late for seven classes at once. Magic was always his explanation for anything unusual that went on in Hogwarts.

Annabeth shared his concerns, but not about how Hermione was getting around, about how stressful Hermione's been lately.

"She and Harry both," Annabeth said quietly. "They're both under so much pressure and strain to do well, it's crushing them."

Ron, of course, was constantly preoccupied about the fate of Scabbers. "Hermione isn't locking him up in the Girl's Dorms!" He complained once.

Thalia snapped at that. "Are you kidding me, Ron? Have you seen Hermione recently? She's way too busy about all her work, and Buckbeak on top of all that. Don't give her any more reason to collapse from things to do."

Ron looked guilty about that. Percy too, he had completely forgotten about Buckbeak's execution.

Then Harry came in, still in his Quidditch practice robes, looking triumphant. In his hands was the sleek, brown Firebolt. Behind him, Annabeth slipped over to the demigods and started talking to Hermione.

Immediately, all negative thought was forgotten. The Gryffindors swarmed Harry, gaping in awe at the legendary Firebolt. Ron squirmed his way through them only to stare like the rest. Harry let Ron take it up to the boys dorms when the crowd dispersed.

"I guess there was nothing wrong with it," Jason commented quietly. Hermione and Annabeth looked at him.

"Well there might've been," Hermione said defensively. "In Ancient Runes, we're learning about how a lot of times wizards would mask their trace of magic in perfectly harmless looking objects like these, then the unlucky user would instantly be covered in the dark magic that the wizard hid in the runes. And the hard part is that a lot of the runes vanished as soon as they were cast, so then the witch, wizard, or muggle had no way of identifying it. Of course, it was extremely fun trying to figure out which objects had runes on them-- fake, of course-- and--"

But what was so fun about Ancient Runes, they never found out. Because at that precise moment, a strangled cry came from the boy's dormitories. Ron came leaping down like a redheaded gazelle, dragging bedsheets behind him.

"Look!" He screamed, thrusting the sheets in Hermione's face. Percy caught the unpleasant odor of unwashed bedsheets. But along with that odor was the smell of--

"BLOOD!" Ron was furious. "SCABBERS IS GONE, THERE'S BLOOD ON THE SHEETS! EVEN YOU CAN'T BE SO STUPID TO NOT PUT ONE AND ONE TOGETHER! AND LOOK WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR!"

Everyone peered at Ron's outthrust hand, trembling with rage. Annabeth glanced calculatingly at the prickly ginger hairs lying in his palm.

Ron's outburst along with his furious speech about how Hermione was too dumb to keep an eye on her 'bloody freaking monster' made Hermione snap too.

"Oh, for gods' sake, Ron!" She snapped, standing up. Her book went flying. "I've been trying my hardest to keep an eye on Crookshanks! I really have! Because you don't have the sense to give Scabbers the care and treatment he needs! Honestly, I've suggested over and over to have Hagrid take a look at him. But you're too wrapped up about how I should lock up Crookshanks instead to even take notice of what I'm saying!" She shook furiously. "And excuse me if I have a lot on my mind on the moment to constantly worry about your goddamn rat! You don't even look after him properly! How many times have you forgotten to feed Scabbers, or rolled over him in your sleep? You don't even care about Scabbers, you've had it in for Crookshanks the moment he landed on your cursed head!"

She stormed up angrily-- no, absolutely enraged to the Girl's dormitories. Ron stood glaring at where she disappeared before letting out a strangled groan of frustration and storming off to the boy's dorms.

All the Gryffindors in the common room watched them leave silently before breaking out into their conversations once more.

>>>•Annabeth POV•<<<

"Do you think Crookshanks ate Scabbers?" Hermione asked as she, Thalia, and Annabeth sat on Hermione's bed, trying to comfort her. They found her sitting on her bed with red eyes, Crookshanks curled up in her lap.

Thalia eyed the cat, not distastefully. "I dunno. I mean, cats usually hunt rats for play. Not for food, if it's well-fed."

Crookshanks seemed pretty well-fed to Annabeth, who discreetly poked the plump fur.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Great. Now I can tell Ron Crookshanks killed Scabbers just for fun, and his dead body is rotting away somewhere in the castle."

"Do you think Crookshanks killed Scabbers?" Annabeth asked Hermione. She was silent.

"It certainly seems that way, doesn't it?" Thalia said. "But then again, Ron always said Scabbers was thin and weak as soon as Crookshanks came near it, but in that magazine clip of the Weasleys in Egypt, Scabbers was already looking dead."

They sat quietly, thinking about it. Annabeth looked up as the rest of the Gryffindor girls came in before sliding off Hermione's bed.

"It's getting late, 'Mione," she said gently. "You should sleep. There's a Quidditch match tomorrow, if you want something to look forward to. In fact, I should get some sleep. Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw."

The last Annabeth heard before she drifted off into sleep was the sound of Crookshanks leaping lightly to the floor.

>>>•O•<<<

Annabeth slipped on her Quidditch robes before exiting from the dorms, not wanting to change in the locker rooms as always. She didn't want Katie and Angelina to react to any scars and wounds from monster attacks, as it would draw unwanted attention.

"Okay team," Wood said as he paced in front of them. "If we lose this match, we're out of the running. Just fly like we did yesterday at practice and we'll be fine." He exhaled such a long breath through his nose that Annabeth was certain he was worried they wouldn't do fine.

The takeoff was simple and normal, like any other. Annabeth watched in her peripheral vision as Harry zipped up into the air, being tailgated by the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang. But Annabeth didn't have time to watch the two seekers as she zipped for the ball that was free-falling from a Ravenclaw's hands from the bludger that aimed for his head.

She grabbed it, sensed the Ravenclaw chaser was aiming his broom at her, and hurled it directly into Angelina's waiting hands at the other end of the goalpost. The Gryffindor chaser put it neatly through the goalpost, earning several cheers from the Gryffindor section and half the Hufflepuff section.

The rest of the game zipped by as Gryffindor scored another seven times. Annabeth ducked under another bludger aimed by the Ravenclaw beater and watched as Fred intercepted it neatly, hitting it back at the beater. She swung her own baseball bat and Fred and the beater began a very intense game of tennis.

That was when Harry zipped by her, his feet brushing her ponytail as she whipped her head around to watch. Harry was diving for a tiny gold speck on the ravenclaw section when suddenly he whipped out his wand, not taking his gaze off the snitch. Annabeth flew after him, quaffle in hand towards the Ravenclaw goalposts and watched as Harry called out a charm.

"Expecto Patronum!" He bellowed, and a streak of silvery light shot out from the tip of his wand. Annabeth could barely make out the vague shape of a deer-like creature before she hurled the Quaffle as hard as she could. The red ball had barely made it into the post before Madam Hooch's whistle rang out, signaling the end of the game.

Annabeth landed, beaming at the dogpile of Gryffindors swarming Harry. Then she turned to where Harry's patronus charm had landed and gave a small start of surprise, then started jogging over. Four people stood there, Crabbe Goyle, Malfoy, and the Slytherin Quidditch captain. Malfoy got himself untangled and turned around-- only to meet the furious face of Piper.

"You bastard!" Piper yelled. Malfoy opened his mouth to respond, but never got to say anything. She was so fast, Annabeth didn't even see it coming.

In one fluid motion, Piper swung her fist upwards and contacted Malfoy's jaw in one sickening crack. Even Annabeth winced, and she wasn't on the receiving side of it. And thank the gods she wasn't.

"That's enough, Ms. McLean," Professor McGonagall said sharply. Then she turned to the wannabe dementors and her voice raised dramatically in volume. "What an unworthy trick!" she shouted. "A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor Seeker! Detention for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake!"

Piper jogged steadily over to Annabeth casually, as if nothing had happened. "Great game, Annabeth!" She said enthusiastically. Annabeth smiled back as they began making their way over to the stands where Hazel and Thalia were running over.

"Great game, Annabeth!" Hazel said just as enthusiastically as Piper. "And great punch, Piper!"

Piper grinned. "Hey, he deserved it," she said, before changing to a different topic. "I heard about Ron and Hermione."

Annabeth sighed and looked over, though she couldn't see Hermione in the crowd. Probably back at the common room already. "Yeah," she said. "Ron's still furious about Scabbers, even all he did when he talked about Scabbers was complain about how useless he was."

"Maybe we could get him an owl to make up for it," Hazel suggested, but Annabeth shook her head.

"Ron needs to get over it in his own time," she said. "He's being a nuisance about it right now. As is Harry too. Hermione's being emotional too. Teenagers," she added, a slight tone of disdain about her.

"Aren't we technically still teenagers? Like, even if we weren't back in time?" Hazel asked. Annabeth shrugged.

"I consider myself matured past the teenager phase," she said loftily.

Thalia chuckled and rolled her eyes. "Teenagers," she said in exasperation to Piper and Hazel. "They think they're so mature."

Annabeth playfully glared at Thalia.

"At least I'm not overly dramatic," She said. "I don't stub my toe and let out a wail that matches a dying empousa."

>>>•O•<<<

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"

Annabeth was up and running even before the "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" came. She sprinted down the stairs, her dagger drawn in the blink of an eye. In front of her, Thalia whipped out her own hunting knives. They both jumped the rest of the way down gracefully, standing in the regular defending position. But there was no monster.

Then Thalia lashed out and the knife flew-- right between the ears of a shaggy black dog.

Annabeth approached with caution, every muscle tensed. The dog sprang up and quickly bounded away, tail between his legs.

Thalia retrieved her knife and looked warily at the hole it made. "We need to stop making holes in the wall," she commented, gesturing to the other ones that she and Annabeth had made when practicing throwing knives. They were miniscule slits, almost impossible to see, but sooner or later someone was bound to notice.

"Who screamed?" Annabeth asked, and they both sprinted up to the boy's dormitories.

In that lengthy period of time, none of the boys had gotten organized. The lights are even off, for gods sake, Annabeth thought to herself. She flipped them on and stared at the ruined mess of Ron's bed.

"What in the name of Hades went on here?" She asked Jason, who was nearest. Jason pointed to Ron's bed.

Ron was sweating, a look of utmost terror on his face.

"Black! Sirius Black! With a knife!" He gasped, and all the Gryffindors took a step back instinctively.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?" Dean Thomas asked.

"Look at the curtains! I tell you, he was here!"

They all hurried down to the common room, even though Thalia and Annabeth insisted it was empty.

From the stairs, more boys and girls stumbled down sleepily.

"What's all this noise?" A sixth year grumbled.

"Everyone back upstairs!" Percy Weasley bellowed from the boy's dorms, though there was no need as everyone was still muttering around.

"Perce-- Siruis Black!" Ron said faintly as he grasped his brothers arm. "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"

"Nonsense!" Percy Weasley said looking startled. "You had to much to eat, Ron-- had a nightmare--"

"I'm telling you--"

"Now really! This is enough!" Professor McGonagall was back. She slammed the portrait behind her as she entered the common room and stared furiously around. "I am delighted that Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better of you!"

"I didn't authorize this!" Percy said, puffing himself indignantly. "I was telling them all to go to bed. My brother had a nightmare--"

"IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!" ron yelled. "PROFESSOR, SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!"

There was a tense silence.

"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley," Professor McGonagall said, staring. "How could he possibly have gotten through the portrait hole?"

"Ask him," Annabeth spoke up. Eyes turned to her. She pointed to the paining. "Just ask Sir Cadogan!"

Glaring suspiciously at them all, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside.

Everyone listened with bated breath.

"Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?"

"Certainly, good lady!" Sir Cadogan cried. There was a stunned silence.

"You-- you did?" Professor McGonagall asked wildly. "But-- but the password!"

"He had 'em!" The painting said proudly. "Had the whole week's, in fact! Read 'em off a little piece of paper!"

Professor McGonagall climbed back in. Her face was white as chalk.

"Which person," she said shaking, "which abysmally foolish person wrote down this week's passwords and left them lying around?"

Then, after a small squeak, Neville Longbottom ,trembling from head to fluffy-slippered toes, raised his hand slowly into the air.  

so sorry about missing the last updates, I tried to make this one longer than normal. Sorry!