Charmolypi

Chapter 89

As soon as they saw him, Tyson froze. "Pony!" he cried in total rapture.

Almost everyone attempted not to laugh, because they all had thought of it at one point.

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not ... leaving?" Her voice was shaky. Chiron was like a second father to her.

Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. "Hello, child. And Percy, my goodness. You've grown over the year!"

Percy swallowed. "Clarisse said you were ... you were ..."

"Fired." Chiron's eyes glinted with dark humor. "Ah, well, someone had to take the take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."

"That's nonsense!"

"The gods have no one but themselves to blame," as if triggered by the words, a loud clap of thunder sounded in the sky surrounding Hogwarts, followed by irregularly strong lightning. Everyone shrunk down in their seats, and some even covered their heads in fear.

"Besides himself, you mean," Percy growled. Just the thought of the camp director made the son of Poseidon angry.

"But this is crazy!" Annabeth cried. "Chiron, you couldn't have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia's tree!"

"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Percy asked. Chiron's face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boom box.

Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron's flank but was afraid to come closer. "Pony?"

Chiron sniffed. "My dear young Cyclops! I am a centaur."

"Chiron," Thea said, gaining everyone's attention. It was the first time she had spoken since they arrived at the Big House "What about the tree? What happened?"

He shook his head sadly, not being able to look the daughter of Zeus in the eye. "The poison used on Thalia's pine is something from the Underworld. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus."

"Tartarus? What-"

"The deepest pit in the underworld, home to all the monsters," Regulus cut off the young Hufflepuff before he could ask his question.

"Then we know who's responsible. Kro-" Percy was starting to say but was instantly cut off.

"Do not invoke the titan lord's name, Percy. Especially not here, not now."

"But last summer he tried to cause a civil war in Olympus! This has to be his idea. He'd get Luke to do it, that traitor."

"Perhaps," Chiron said. "But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless ..."

"How would he have prevented it? By standing guard at the tree all the time? That's preposterous! The gods can't expect him to actually do that, can they?" James protested, growing more and more annoyed with what the gods were putting their kids through on a daily basis.

"He has nothing better to do with his worthless life, so what would stop him," Walburga answered James' rhetorical questions. Most of the Gryffindors shot glares at the woman, while her husband shook his head and mumbled his head in disappointment.