The next few weeks were uneventful and tedious. The classes had upped the scale of homework assigned, but Annabeth was glad for the distraction as long as it wasn't an essay. She found small ways to interact with Harry and his friends to build their trust, like returning a dropped quill, giving advice when they were struggling in class, small stuff like that.
Percy's letters came back at a pace that was like having an actual conversation with him, like texting but on paper. She still missed seeing his face, so she was happy when Percy sent a bunch of pictures of him and their friends, from various stages of their quests and lives.
On the other hand, Annabeth was growing more and more wary of Moody. He seemed to find violence amusing, and the way he showed no emotion at all over cursing those spiders bothered her. He laughed at the effects of curses they went over in class, and he seemed to have little regard for the feelings of his students, no matter what he said.
Annabeth's wariness was only bolstered when Moody announced that he would be casting the Imperius curse on all of them.
Sure, she had been in more dangerous situations just for training at camp, but wizards weren't being actively hunted like demigods were. They didn't need specific training just so they could live another day. Wow, that was a morbid thought.
There were a number of surprised sounds and protests when Moody announced this.
"But— but you said it's illegal, Professor," Hermione stuttered, moving out of the way of a desk as it flew to the side of the room. "You said— to use it against another human was—"
"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," Moody said. "If you'd rather learn the hard way, when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely, fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."
Hermione went pink but didn't move.
Moody grunted, then started beckoning students forward into the cleared space, picking names from down the roster. The first girl called was Lavender Brown, who, after being put under the curse, ran around the room imitating a squirrel.
"Chase," Moody growled, "you next."
Steeling herself, Annabeth stepped forward. She was expecting Moody to go hard on her, make her do something embarrassing to get back at her for the ferret incident. She stood her ground and looked Moody in the eye as he cast the curse.
"Imperio."
Annabeth was surprised to find the feeling that washed over her sort of... familiar. A dampening calmness overtook her body, overshadowing her worries about the quest, her longing to see Percy and her friends, her anger at how the school treated her. Everything felt at peace, like nothing was wrong in the world, like she could stay there forever and be fine.
And that was the thought that made her realize what the feeling was reminding her of. And that was how she was able to resist.
Do the chicken dance, a voice said at the back of her head.
Excuse me? Annabeth thought. That voice was familiar, too. It was like the eidolons, whispering horrible ideas into her ear.
Do the chicken dance, the voice repeated, and hop up and down.
Annabeth felt her limbs moving, outside her control, her hands inching up to her armpits. She stopped them at her hips, resisting as much as she could against the pull.
I'm not doing that, Annabeth thought. No thanks.
Do it, the voice insisted. now!
Annabeth summoned all her willpower, turned her head slowly to look Moody in the eye, and said one word.
"No."
And just like that, the curse was broken. All her thoughts and worries came rushing back in a torrent so overwhelming that Annabeth stumbled back a step. Annabeth found she was out of breath, and sweat beaded her brow. Annabeth wiped it off, and, ignoring Moody's bewildered look, walked away from the center of the room and to her friends.
"Well, that's how you do it," Moody said grudgingly, like he was disappointed. "Everyone try to do what Chase did, and you might survive your first encounter with a dark wizard."
The class broke into hesitant applause as Annabeth walked to the back of the room and Moody called up the next person.
"How did you do that?" Vera whispered. "That was amazing."
"I have a bit of experience with... stuff like this," Annabeth said.
"If you say that they did this at your old school then I am literally going to swim there."
"No, it was somewhere else," Annabeth muttered absentmindedly.
The Lotus Hotel. That's what it was like. That sense of dreamy, almost sleepy calm over her brain... the curse had the same effect, like anything could happen and you would still be fine so long as you obeyed.
The class moved on. Most of them weren't able to throw off the curse, like Freddie, who ran around the room jumping on everything she could see, and Vera, who pulled her hair over her face and acted like a swamp monster.
The only other person in the class who could fight it off was Harry, and Moody was much more delighted about it. He put the curse on Harry a total of five times so the rest of the class could see what Harry was doing, and so that Harry could throw off the curse completely.
***
Classes continued with gusto. All the teachers were assigning more homework and classwork, until Annabeth was getting even less sleep than usual.
Professor McGonnagal was assigning a scroll every night, Professor Binns had them writing weekly essays, Professor Trelawney, the divination teacher who Annabeth thought it would be fun to introduce to Rachel Dare, had assigned a monthly dream journal, which Annabeth was not at all happy about. Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher who may or may not have been part goblin, had assigned three books to read, which with Annabeth's dyslexia only meant she was due for a headache.
Professor Snape, who taught potions and reminded Annabeth of an oily hellhound in human form, was also assigning essays every week, and was strongly hinting that he would be poisoning a select few of them in order to test their antidotes. And Hagrid had insisted that his class come down to his hut in the evenings to observe the Skrewts, which were growing rapidly and getting more and more aggressive towards Annabeth.
After a Care of Magical Creatures Lesson, during which Annabeth had pulled her dagger and almost decapitated a Skrewt that was advancing on her, earning her a detention that she managed to talk herself out of, Annabeth and her friends found that the Entrance Hall was completely clogged with people.
Annabeth, being relatively tall, could see that everyone was looking at a huge notice board near the end of the hall. She couldn't read the words, but it seemed important.
Vera stood on her tiptoes and read it out loud for Annabeth and Freddie, who was too short to see over everyone's heads.
Triwizard tournament
The delegations from Beuxbatons and Durmstrang Will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early. Students Will return their bags and books to their dormitories And assemble in front of the castle to greet our Guests before the welcoming feast.
"I completely forgot about that!" Vera said, gasping. "Annabeth, you have to enter! Imagine everyone's faces if Hogwarts had a Slytherin champion! God, I wish I could enter. This sucks."
"Calm down," Annabeth said. "Of course I'm entering."
Not like she had a choice. If Annabeth didn't enter herself, the prophecy would still find some way to get her involved, and most likely it would be complicated and involve bloodshed.
This was the easiest option, though Annabeth had been hoping to at least get a few months without a near death experience. Apparently that was just too much to ask.
"Imagine if you were chosen!" Freddie said. Even she was eager to show up the Gryfindors. "Seriously. Bragging rights forever."
"What made your classes so advanced, anyway?" Vera asked, barely concealing her jealousy as they walked into the Great Hall and over to the Slytherin table.
"Well, we didn't only focus on magic, for one thing," Annabeth said, sitting down. "I mean, it was definitely in the curriculum, but we did combat training, too, like hand to hand and blade to blade. We have a weekly game of capture the flag played with wands and swords to spice things up, and we practice making and enchanting them, too."
"Why," Vera said, "the fuck. Did you switch."
"To study the culture and history in British wizarding communities," Annabeth said, repeating the lie she had told Mrs. Weasley in Diagon Alley.
Vera rolled her eyes. "Only you would leave something like that for something like this."
"Jealous?"
"Jealous, gay, and ready to fight god," Vera said, piling some food onto her plate.
***
All anyone could talk about over the next week was the Triwizard Tournament. The students buzzed with it, the teachers mentioned it in every other sentence, even the castle was undergoing preparations.
The wood and armor was polished, the paintings scrubbed, the trophies moved to a display case in the Entrance Hall. Filch, the caretaker, ran around yelling at anyone who so much as dropped a speck of dust on the floor.
Annabeth also noticed that the owls in their tower and the cats that always seemed to be wandering around the school had been bathed, and she wondered who the poor soul was who had to wash them.
All the staircases and the banisters shined, potted flowers and floor plants had been placed on every table in the halls, and beautiful centerpieces had been added to the house tables in the Great Hall. The chandeliers were polished, the old wax was cleared out from the wall sconces, and there was a definite increase in the care of the grounds.
The teachers were even trying to clean up the students. Professors instructed students not to wear certain items of clothing or accessories, not to perform certain spells in front of the guests, and to stand straight and tall when said guests arrived, and to 'please do not show that finger to the guests, Miss Ortiz.'
Even Annabeth wasn't exempt from this. On Thursday, Annabeth was politely asked by Professor Snape to 'kindly tame that rat's nest you call hair for tomorrow at least,' to which Annabeth replied sweetly with 'as long as you tame yours.' That earned her twenty points lost to Slytherin and a detention. No regrets.
On Friday, the air was so thick with excitement that Annabeth could practically feel it sparking around her when she woke up that day.
Annabeth pushed hair out of her face and blearily sat up in her bed to see Freddie in the bed across from her, finishing up her usual double french braids. Vera was still sleeping, on her stomach and with her pillow on her back. How that happened, Annabeth had no idea.
"Oh! Annabeth!" Freddie said eagerly when she saw that Annabeth was up. "I've been meaning to ask you! Can I do your hair?"
Annabeth blinked groggily, her post-wakeup brain mush. "Huh?"
"Your hair!" Freddie repeated. "Yours is so long and curly, and mine has always been straight, and I want to see what I can do with curly hair. Plus, you'll look good for when the foreigners come. And no offense, but your hair is always a mess."
"Um..." Annabeth blinked the sleep out of her eyes. "Ok?"
Freddie pumped her fist and bounded over to Annabeth like an excited puppy, holding a full on bag of supplies.
"Woah, woah, woah," Annabeth said, holding up her hand. "Nothing crazy. No chemical products."
"Just some frizz spray and detangler and a water spritzer," Freddie promised.
Annabeth nodded, and Freddie got to work. Freddie had never worked with curly hair before, but she knew enough not to brush it dry. Instead, she dragged Annabeth to the bathroom and dipped her head under the sink to wet it. Freddie decided that while they were there, she might as well wash Annabeth's hair, so she did, then dragged her back to her bed with a towel over her shoulders before brushing through it.
After that, Freddie used her wand as a blow dryer and started styling. Annabeth blanked out for most of it, but by the end, her hair was softer than she ever remembered it being, and it was done in french braids on either side of her head that met in the back and ran down freely.
By the time all that was done, Vera had woken up and was waxing poetic about her hatred of mornings, then perked up when she remembered what was happening that day. She bounded out of her bed like it was made of hot coals and began digging through her trunk, yelling about having at least one set of unwrinkled robes.
At breakfast in the Great Hall, everyone was buzzing with talk of that evening, speculating how they would get there, what they would be like. Classes were rambunctious, too. No one would settle down in their seats, and a few teachers completely gave up on getting anything done.
When the bell rang early in potions, much to Snape's displeasure, it was basically a stampede to get out of the classroom. Annabeth and her friends ran to their dorm, followed in hot pursuit by their house-mates.
Annabeth set her bag down on her bed, but her dorm mates just threw theirs to the center of the room and bolted. As Annabeth ran after them, it was all she could do not to get trampled by the hoard of Slytherin girls pounding down the stairs.
The hoards only got worse as they reached the Entrance Hall. Everyone was scrambling to get out first, lining up in front of the huge stairs that led down into the grounds.
Freddie had been lost in the crowd, but Vera grabbed Annabeth's wrist and pulled her through, pushing people out of the way. When they reached the doors, Vera was running so fast that she almost fell, but Annabeth was able to keep them both on their feet.
After that, it was only a matter of finding their place in line and waiting for their guests to arrive.