Nico's POV
"How do they expect me to sit in a moving magic train for hours and not go completely insane?" Leo asked. While everyone else was on the seats of the compartment, Leo sat on the ground. He leaned against the compartment door, his legs stretched out and had little springs, screws, and other tiny spare parts strewn in front of him.
"What's wrong with a magic train?" Frank asked.
Leo threw his arms in the air, "It runs entirely on magic. I barely sense the machinery in this! It's all just so wrong!"
Nico sat at the end of one of the seats, closest to the window. While everybody else talked, he looked outside. There wasn't too much but he had to admit that the peaceful fields and the constant movement of the train was quiet relaxing.
He felt somebody squeeze his hand.
He turned his head to see Hazel, who was sitting beside him. "You okay?" She asked gently.
"Yea," he nodded his head, but honestly, he didn't know. He wasn't sure if any of them would be okay. Eight powerful demigods entering the wizarding world? Who knew what to expect?
A couple hours later, he and the rest of the guys left to change into their school uniforms. When they got back a few minutes later, the girls had changed as well but also had a pile small boxes and packages on their seats.
"Candy?" Percy grinned.
"Yup," Annabeth, "The cart came while you guys were away. Too bad you missed it but we got most of everything."
Jason picked up one of the boxes and lifted the lid. It looked like a piece chocolate but it leaped out of the box almost as soon as it was opened. "A chocolate frog?" Jason remarked as it landed, sticking to the window with it's webbed, chocolate feet.
The chocolate frogs were just one of the many different wizarding candies. Nico didn't have much but the rest of the time seemed to pass by much faster as they tasted and tried each one.
When the train finally stopped and everybody started to get out, Leo shoved the remaining ones into his tool belt. "No, way I'm leaving any of these behind. Even those gross jellybean ones."
They didn't know exactly where they were going when they stepped out of the train but they followed the rest of the students on the dirt road. After a bit of walking, they reached a long line of stagecoaches pulled by from a far distance, what looked like horses. However, Nico quickly sensed something different about them. Death.
As they got closer, he saw that they were winged with leathery skeletal bodies and slightly reptilian features.
"What are they?" Piper asked. Nico racked his brain but nothing he could think of fit exactly to what he was seeing. Sure, he could sense a very strong dark and deathly aura coming from them but he just wasn't sure if they were even Greek or Roman mythological creatures.
"There's something like these in Celtic mythology called kestels but..." Annabeth trailed off. "Can't be," She finished.
They were finally able to get on the carriages but had to split into two groups to fit. Jason, Piper, Frank, and Hazel went in one and Percy, Annabeth, Leo, and Nico got in the one behind them.
Ever since Nico had come out to them, it had actually become a lot less awkward.
While they sat, waiting for the rest of the students outside to get in, their carriage suddenly began to move. The horse things hadn't started walking but through their window, Nico could see that they had started to act up. As they tossed their heads back and fourth, the creatures made eye contact with Nico, causing them to get even more excited.
"Well, seems like the death horses are happy to see the son of Hades," Nico mumbled. He stepped out of the stagecoach and walked over to them. Though most living things were usually very, very reluctant towards Nico, these winged horses of death actually seemed to okay with him. More than okay. As he put his hands on their foreheads, they calmed down and nudged him passionately.
"Hey, do you know who I am? Do you even know the great powers that I'm capable of?" He quietly joked, even though he knew that they couldn't understand his exact words. As he continued to stroke them, he though about what he had just said. Not too long ago, that would have been very true. He could travel through shadows and rise the dead but now, he couldn't do any of that without completely disappearing. Doctor's orders.
He sighed. He missed his doctor sometimes.
A lot actually.
He snapped back to reality (which at this point was petting evil looking, stagecoach pulling pagasi monsters which would soon be taking them to a magical school for wizards and witches) when the carriage in front of him, which the other four demigods were in, also started to rattle. He turned around to see that the two creatures harnessed to that one had also started to act up to the sight, or scent, of Nico.
He walked over to the two and pet them until they had also calmed down.
He noticed that the crowd of students getting on had started to get smaller so he headed back to his stagecoach.
"Those are some scary My Little Ponies," Leo said when he got back in.
"Scary what's?" Nico asked, not understanding the reference.
"Never mind. The little girls in foster care, they had sharp little teeth." Leo shook his head, "Like the ones with the tiny jagged bumps when your baby teeth fall out and your new ones grow in. Scary."
After a second, he looked around and must have noticed their confused expressions because he continued, "Just saying that they will fight dirty to get the remote control for those crappy old TVs they use to have at the places I had to stay at. I wanted to watch fiery monster trucks jumping over other fiery monster trucks but nooo, they wanted to watch ponies and unicorns learning about the importance of sharing and caring. But hey, did they ever share with or even care about Leo? Ask the teeth marks that I got every time I even glanced down at the remote."
"Calm down Leo, it's going to be all right," Percy laughed, patting his knee. "Like my school counselors always said, deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Oh, and don't forget to count to ten."
They heard their names being called as they stepped out of their carriages. There were hundreds of students around them but it didn't take more than a minute to find the owner of the voice. Though it was dark, it was nearly impossible to miss the giant man walking through the crowd, bellowing their names.
Nico waited for the other demigods to get out. He gave the winged horses which had pulled his stagecoach one last pat before heading into the crowd with his friends.
After pushing and dodging their way through everybody else, they got to the man. He looked just as big up close as he did afar, if not bigger.
Once they got to him, he friendly introduced himself as Hagrid. He put the piece of paper which he had been reading their names off of into his giant worn-out trench coat. Even in the dark, behind his bushy hair and beard, Nico was still able to find his eyes which had the look of good intentions.
"Follow me," he motioned his hand. "Gotta get yeh with em' first years. They're with professor McGonagal. 'Bout 'ter get the introduction soon."
They walked behind him as he led them to the castle.
"Gods," Annabeth halted before they were about to walk through a pair of tall, wooden double doors. "Give me a second to take this all in." Nico saw Annabeth's eyes study the towers, the walls, the windows, the doors, and probably every foot of the exterior of the castle from their angle.
She nodded and they continued on.
"All of ye' will be eighth years while ye' here. Optional this year so a lot of the seventh years from last semster didn't... or couldn't... come back after graduating," Hagrid told them.
They walked through a maze of hallways and staircases until they were able to hear voices nearby. They continued following Hagrid. He led them through on last door and up one last staircase until they got to a small chamber where there was a crowd of other students, all much younger and shorter than them.
"Sorry fer the long walk," Hagrid apologized, "Probably bin easier if I jus' had yer' all go on 'em boats."
Suddenly the doors in front of them opened up and a stern looking woman in green robes and a pointy hat walked through. "Thank you, Hagrid," she said, nodding towards him.
"No problem professor McGonagal," Hagrid replied. After excusing himself, the witch took a look at the new students. Her gaze halted a second or so as her eyes met the eight demigods, obviously not fitting in with the eleven and twelve year olds (most of whom had uneasily also taken long glances at them.)
She cleared her throat and everyone in the room turned their heads back around to face her completely. "Welcome to Hogwarts" she said sternly, but also very genuinely. "You are all about to be sorted into your Houses, which, while you are here, will be like your family within Hogwarts . You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and share a House common room where you can spend your free time. Each of the four Houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, is unique in its own way and each has its own noble history.
"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in front of the rest of the school. All of you, follow me."
Walking across the Great Hall, Nico could feel hundreds of looks and stares in their direction. It didn't help that the eight of them were all much taller than the first years walking around them.
After Professor McGonagal had brought out the hat and was explaining how the sorting process was going to work, Nico suddenly noticed a very familiar feeling.
Ghosts.
He looked around the Great Hall from where he stood. He couldn't see any, but he could definitely sense them.
Even as the names started to get called and the students put into their new houses, the feeling didn't go away. It definitely wasn't just a few, there had to be more than just a couple dozen.
"Chase, Annabeth!"
Nico turned around to see Annabeth walk up to the stool. He saw her sit down and saw the hat get placed on her head.
Instead of calling out one of the Houses, what if the hat started screaming, revealing that they weren't even wizards? Or maybe the hat wouldn't even work on them at all and after waiting around for hours, they would get caught and fail their quest.
The hat made a few surprised and confused expressions but after what couldn't have been more than a minute, called out a house.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Nico let out a small sigh of relief; their secret was safe. At least for now.
Knowing that his name was going to get called soon, he waited. There was no other choice but to wait. He watched as the first years ahead of him got called up one by one, each one getting sorted into their houses.
Finally, he heard his name.
"Di Angelo, Nico!"
As he started to walk up, he began to feel the looks from everyone in the room again. The first years in front of them stepped away, each with nervous and unsure expressions.
There was a couple of seconds when he had to turn around to sit on the stool where he was facing the four tables, filled with hundreds of staring students. When the hat was put on his head, he closed his eyes. Then he heard a voice.
Well you've got a lot of walls up.
It took a second for Nico to realize that it was the hat talking in his head.
I can tell you don't like the idea of me going through your mind, but I've still got to decide which house you belong in.
The hat went quiet and Nico could almost feel it trying to work its way into his mind. Still sitting on the stool with his eyes closed, he tried to fight back. He concentrated, gripping the sides of the stool, trying to will the feeling that the hat possessed away, but it did not work.
You wouldn't make a bad Slytherin, got that feeling to you. But that's not the house you would truly belong in.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Nico opened his eyes and saw all of the students in front of him again. There was second of silence, a strong tension and feeling of unease filling the room. Even when they did start to applaud, Nico didn't feel any better. Luckily Annabeth was already at the table, the only one at the table who seemed genuinely glad about him being there. She made room and he sat down next to her. A few of the Gryffindors around him uneasily smiled and congratulated him, to which he just nodded to and avoided eye contact.
Nico watched the rest of the first years get sorted, along with the demigods. One by one, his friends walked over to his table as the Gryffindor house got called for each of them.
After professor McGongal gave the start of term notices, they began to eat. Despite the piles of food in front of them, Nico didn't feel very hungry. He listened to the others talking until he finally decided to cut in.
"Are there any ghosts at this school?"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who the demigods had mostly been talking to during the meal, looked towards him.
"Quite a few actually. Why do you ask?" Hermione replied slowly.
Nico picked up a cup of pomegranate juice (which he was surprised but glad they had,) "Just a feeling. I guess I read about them somewhere."
He hoped that he had excused the topic but instead, Ron looked around the hall. "Speaking of...Where are they? The ghosts are usually gliding around, blabbering by now." Nico shrugged, though he highly suspected that him being there had something to do with them not wanting to show.
Aside from the school song, everything seemed to be going fine until they got to their dormitory. The demigods had come up with a plan before they got to Hogwarts where Hazel would use mist to cover Jason, Percy, Frank, and her own tattoos from Camp Jupiter. Even though they realized at King's Cross Station with the katobleps that the wizards could also see through some of it like the demigods themselves, if Hazel used some strong enough (like she had done with the Physician's Cure,) it would still work. However, they also theorized that for sustaining mist that strong, she would have to be near them, or at least in the same room as them, when covering up their tattoos using her magic. This meant that in the dormitories when the boys and girls were separated, Hazel would not be able to help Jason, Percy, and Frank hide their tattoos.
Despite all of the complications, this was not the problem that Nico faced after their meal at the Great Hall. After saying their goodnights to the girls, the guys went up to the boy's dormitory. While changing into their pajamas, the three, while still acting normally, were covering their forearms; from hiding it in the t-shirt that they were holding, barely noticeably pressing it against their waist, and so on.
Nico had almost forgotten to worry about them when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. An expression of caught-off-guard surprise. He quickly turned his head to see Harry, looking at something under Jason's bed. Nico followed his gaze to see the end of a sword hilt in a bag before Jason zipped it up. All of this happened in a split second but it was enough for Nico to know that it was well over enough to spark Harry's curiosity.
Nico lay in bed later that night. While some of the guys fell asleep quickly after the day's tiring adventures, others seemed to have some trouble doing so in the excitement of the new school year. However, even they fell asleep after an hour or so, with the exception of two. Nico lay awake on his side. While not facing his direction, Nico still knew that Harry was also awake. Just because he had not done anything right after seeing the sword then, did not mean that he was going to forget about it and move on. More than likely, Harry was planning on doing a bit of digging.
Finally, he heard the blankets from Harry's bed ruffling in the silence from the opposite side of the dormitory. Nico waited a few seconds before also getting up, and was able to do so much quieter than Harry had.
"What do you think you're doing?" Nico said after standing up. He saw Harry, who was sitting at the edge of his bed, pull his feet back up and jerk his head in his direction. He called Nico's name, verifying that it was actually him.
"Yes, it's me. But let me ask you again, what do you think you're doing?" He said although he didn't mean to sound too harsh. Never mind, he did.
Harry, stumbling with his words in the startled state of his plan being very unexpectedly interrupted, made up a not-one-bit persuasive excuse about needing to get a cup of water.
"You sure about that?"
"...Yes?"
Nico didn't move from where he stood and after a few seconds, Harry seemed to get the point. He lay back down in his bed, facing sideways, and pulled the blanket up to his chest his on arm over it.
After about a minute or so, Nico was also about to go back to bed when he heard Harry's voice clearly say, "I still saw the sword."
Nico hesitated for a second but didn't say anything back. Silently he lay down, pulling his blanket up only few inches above his waist.
"Rise n' shine, Nico!"
"What?" He mumbled, rubbing his eyes and lifted up to his elbows.
"Rise n' shine," He heard Jason say again. "First day of classes."
He squinted, seeing sunlight streaming through the windows. Then he looked around to see that the boys in the dormitory were starting to get up. Nico sat up and stretched his shoulders and arms, yawning.
He ruffled his already messy hair as he looked across the room. Harry was still in bed but was just being woken up by one of his friends.
Nico remembered last night's incident and knew that he would have to talk to the other demigods about it. Nico heard the sound of something thumping and turned around, but realized that it was just Jason trying to get Percy up by pillow-whacking him.
Well it really was the first day of school.