Piper's POV
We walked into a large classroom with desks on either side and a tall desk at the front. At first I thought that there was no teacher here yet but, as I sat down in my seat between Jason and Leo, a very short man with brown hair, a moustache and glasses appeared at the top of the desk ad started sifting through piles of paper.
"Hey, Leo!" Jason whispered as he leaned over me. "You're not the shortest guy in the room any more."
I laughed and Leo pretended to scowl: "I'm not short!" He quietly stamped his foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
"Shorter than average I'm afraid." Jason grinned.
"Am not!"
"Mate, you're shorter than my girlfriend!" Percy laughed as he leaned in from Leo's other side.
"Yeah, but she's weirdly tall. And I may be short, but can Annabeth do this?"
"Leo! No!" I shouted, but it was too late. He had already raised his hand and set it alight.
"Oh my God!" I heard someone shout. "Quick, Professor Flitwick, the new students on fire!!!!" Leo seemed to suddenly realise where he was and was about to extinguish himself when he was hit by a blast of wind and water, one from either side of him.
"Oh goodness! Are you alright young man?" The teacher, Professor Flitwick asked in a squeaky voice. Leo smiled sheepishly and nodded. "Oh, I see," the Professor continued. "Now students, what I think we have just witnessed is a brilliant example of the flame-freezing charm. Is that right young man?" Leo just nodded again. "Now then, would you like to come up to the front and demonstrate so we can all see properly?"
Styx, we're so screwed. Leo won't know the proper incantation or wand movement or whatever you're meant to do. But he could hardly say he didn't know, he'd just proved that he could happily set his arm alight without damaging himself in any way. I racked my brains to see if I could think of a spell that might help. I'd flicked through a few spell books but I didn't see anything about a flame-freezing charm. Leo seemed to be having the same thoughts, he looked down our row, for help. Annabeth rolled her eyes and leaned over Percy toward Leo.
"Wave your wand in an arc above your head and say Ignis Tueri. Then point your wand at yourself and say incendio to create fire"
"No need to be shy." Professor Flitwick's voice came from the front of the class. Leo grinned at all of us and then slipped out of the row and headed towards the front. "In your own time then Mr...?"
"Valdez" Leo grinned. "Leo Valdez. Ok then, here goes. Igneous Tueri." He made an arc with his wand, then he turned his wand on himself and went up in flames as he shouted Incendio. From years of watching Leo set fire to himself, I could tell that the fire hadn't actually come from his wand but no one else seemed to notice. Of course, Leo being Leo, had to show off even further and add in some backflips and juggling fireballs (which I hope no one noticed because I'm not sure if the spell allows you to do it). Eventually, Leo let the flames die down, gave a theatrical bow and sat back down in his seat.
"Brilliant!" Flitwick clapped from the front. "Absolutely fabulous. Now, I wonder if any of the other exchange students can show us a spell or two?" None of us spoke. "Don't be shy, now. Mr Valdez has shown us fire so one of you could try..."
"Aguamenti!" Percy shouted, waving his wand in an S shape. A small trickle of water came out of his wand but before it could be classed as pathetic, he flicked his free hand under the desk, staring at the water and it grew into an enormous ball of spinning water. Moving his wand hand around dramatically, Percy quickly transformed the ball into a water horse and sent it galloping around the classroom before exploding it over our desk, soaking all of us (except of course himself and Annabeth).
Everyone laughed. Some people clapped.
"You know that we're meant to be learning real magic, not just cheating by using our powers, don't you?" Annabeth whispered to Percy.
"I guess, but I couldn't let them think Leo was cooler than me." Percy laughed back. "Anyway, I tried to start it off properly. Surely even you haven't had enough time to perfect any spells... Have you?"
Annabeth grinned. "Avis!" She said making two arches in the air with her wand. There was a bang like a gunshot and a flock of owls flew out of her wand and started circling round her head.
"Fabulous, once again!" Flitwick clapped from the front of the room. He took a pocket watch out of his waist coat, looked at it and gasped. "My goodness, the lesson's almost over. We might have time to see one more spell. Any recommendations?" He looked around at the rest of the class.
"Can you levitate a person?" A guy with brown hair and an Irish accent asked. I think I'd seen the spell for levitation somewhere but I'd never tried it, especially not on a human. But then...
"I could levitate Jason." I said, looking over at him. He looked a bit confused at first but then realised.
"Sure, why not."
"Wingardium Leviosa" doing a swish and flick motion with my wand. I couldn't tell if it actually worked or if Jason was just controlling the winds himself but he slowly rose up out of his chair, adopting a free fall stance.
Flitwick clapped from the front of the class. "Very good, very good. No homework tonight. Class dismissed." Jason lowered himself back into a chair and grinned at me. We picked up our bags and started heading out of the classroom.
"Bloody Hell!" Ron said as we passed him. "Are you all bloody geniuses because... I mean... wow!" We all laughed. And started following Harry, Ron and Hermione out of the front doors and down towards a hut by the edge of the forbidden forest
Hazel's POV
I wasn't looking forward to care of magical creatures. I didn't know much about it, but it didn't take a genius to work out that it was to do with animals; the problem was, animals hate me. I mean, horses don't mind me, but all other animals are scared of Pluto's children, and anyway, when I'm around Percy, horses won't give me a second glance, except for Arion and apparently all he ever does is swear and demand gold.
Anyway, we followed Harry, Ron and Hermione out of the castle and through the grounds. We seemed to be heading towards a smallish hut on the outskirts of the forest. By the time we arrived, there was already a small crowd of students gathered around the giant (or was he a half giant) who had been at the boats. I still felt a bit wary of anyone, basically who was taller than Frank, now that the giant war was over. But Percy, Annabeth and Frank had deemed him trustworthy for now and I wasn't going to argue with them.
"Right then class." the teacher called over the catering students. "For those of you who don't know, I'm Hagrid and I'm gonna be teachin' you Care of Magical Creatures. Now I gotta fun lesson for you lot today. I know that some of you might've already been taught about 'em, but I reckon that more of you might be able to see them now, after... well, anyway." After what? And how would people not have been able to see them before?
"Anyway!" Hagrid continued. "So we're gonna be looking at thestrals today so I'll start with a little bit about 'em. As most o' you know, you can only see thestrals if you've seen someone... well, die." No one said anything, but it suddenly all made sense. They'd just had a war which must have involved death. I'd assume that not many of them would've ever seen anyone die before that, but now...
"Right, so, anyone know how thestrals were said to 'ave been crea'ed? Yes, 'Ermione,"
"Well," Hermione answered. "The legends say that thestrals were originally created by the three most powerful greek gods: Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. It was one of the few times when they all worked together. Poseidon created there horse like form, Zeus gave them wings to fly and Hades gave them there skeletal appearance and there way of being seen. Of course, there is no way of finding out were they really came from as the greek gods are, as I mentioned earlier, just legends."
Frank laid a strong hand on Percy's shoulder to stop him from strangling Hermione. At the same time he leaned towards me, whispering: "Dii Romani tamen ..." I laughed and gave him a shove, he pretended to fall over, acting offended and was about to say something when Hagrid continued.
"Well done 'ermione. Perfect, as always. Now then, let's have a look at 'em shall we?" He put two fingers in his mouth and taxi-whistled. Nothing happened at first, but then six or seven horse like things came trotting out of the forest and stood in a line in front of us. They were beautiful. True, they may've appeared slightly creepy to some people but if you looked past there black, skeletal appearance, they seemed so gentle, misunderstood. They reminded me so much of my father, it was uncanny. I wouldn't have needed Hermione to tell me that Pluto/Hades had had a hand in making them.
"Right then." Hagrid called once the thestrals had arrived. "If you all gather around then you can 'ave a look at them. They don't bite."
The ten of us moved towards the thestral at the end of the line. He came towards us as we moved and nudged his head against Jason's shoulder.
"I think he likes you." I laughed, stretching a hand out to stroke it. It didn't flinch away from me and I smiled. The thestral made a ghostly whining call and Percy laughed. I gave him a 'what did it say?' kind of look.
"It's asking where Nico is. Apparently it was the one he was stroking at the carriages." I laughed. We parted so that Nico could move from the back of the group to the front but he just stood there looking awkward with his hands in his robe pockets. I was about to push him forwards but it turned out I didn't have to, the thestral trotted towards him. Nico slowly took a hand out of his pocket and stroked it. The thestral made another of its calls.
"Oh no you don't" Percy said and started concentrating.
"What is it?" Annabeth asked.
"That one just told the others to come and meet the 5 children of the creators, I'm telling them to go away again. It doesn't take you to work out how suspicious it would look if the thestrals just happened to totally and utterly love us." We all laughed and went back to stroking our thestral.
After what seemed like no time, the lesson was over and we all headed back up to the castle for break. We have transfiguration next, hopefully one of us will be able to pretend that we can turn Frank into a frog.
A/N
Hello again! I don't know if it shows time of publishing on here but it is currently 1:45am and I'm not tired so I saw this as a good excuse to write some more chapters (sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes caused by me being awake at this time).
Anyway, I now have a slight backlog of chapters which I'm going to save in case I get writers block so that can publish them while I'm figuring out what to write. But hopefully I can now update regularly at least once a week.
On another note. This story has now got over 800 views which I never thought would happen. So I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read this whether its one chapter or all of them.
I hope you all had a great Christmas (or festive season if you don't celebrate Christmas)
Happy Wattpading
Gellybean19