Here we have the Sequel to Puppy Dog Tales, a story in which we watch the progress while Nico Di Angelo goes to hogwarts and steals the sorceror's stone in the first installment of my multiple Nico Di Angelo crossover stories. This is the second of these stories. Nico has returned to England, four years after he left it in Puppy Dog Tales.

Enjoy.

He was back. How strange, that around him mortal life moved so sluggishly, unaware of his presence, as it would for years to come. He had never been to this particular spot before, but he knew he was in England from the smell. It wasn't bad, but it was distinctly different from the smell of the United States. The air just felt different. Nico stepped onto the sidewalk and started counting houses. There, nestled between two muggle homes, was a dank, dirty, blurry, house that had fallen into disrepair. Wait. Blurry? Nico rubbed his eyes, but it was like someone had laid a film over the house, a translucent barrier that blurred edges and obstructed vision.

Was it the scar, messing with his nerves? He wondered, and he absentmindedly felt the rough line along his cheek. No, that couldn't be it; he could see the other houses perfectly. This house in particular was different—Nico shook his head. He was so stupid; of course a magical house would have layers of magical protection. Chiron chooses him for this assignment because of his previous experience, and he can't even remember protective spells. Shrugging it off, he moved toward the house like he was trudging through a swamp. The spells delayed, but did not prevent, him from approaching the house. He finally reached the door, and drew his sword. Four years since it had tasted British air, and it seemed to remember last time's adventures. It would not get a taste of that tonight, unfortunately, but it would help him in getting through the magically enhanced door.

The Stygian Iron sucked the magic from the air, clearing it and allowing Nico to breathe easier. He slipped his sword into the doorframe and slid it down, disabling any locks it encountered. The door, now freed from its barriers, swung open with a light tap. Sword away, Nico entered the decrepit house as the sun was setting and the shadows lengthening. The foyer, majestic as it may have been in past life, was now plagued with mildew and cobwebs. The footsteps of running persons shook the ceiling, causing the ancient chandelier to quiver and dust to be shaken loose from the crown molding. A staircase at the end of the hall was clearly the chosen destination of the footsteps; two men and a woman appeared there. Wands out, they hurried down the steps, illuminating the hallway and casting eerie shadows on the portraits that decorated the walls.

The door swung shut behind Nico, provoking a herd of dust bunnies that leapt across the floor at his feet, while their cousins swirled through the air, lit by the beams of light from the wizards' wands. The aforementioned wizards where halfway down the stairs when there was a loud crack and another figure appeared at the bottom. The reasoning behind the man's choice of the less conventional method of travel was obvious, his fake leg clumped against the ground as he started towards Nico.

His face resembled that of the latter, not in shape but in décor. Scars of battles long forgotten marred his features as well, the signs of a warrior. Four years ago this would have been enough to earn Nico's respect, but nowadays that was a particularly difficult achievement that was rarely handed out. Another interesting and possibly deterring feature was the bright blue eye, so different from his dark, natural one, that was whirring in a way that made Nico feel a little nauseas. This could be a problem Nico had not foreseen; if that eye could see beyond the limits of mortal sight, then Nico's plans could be blown wide open. Until then, he would have to play it safely. He darkened his aura only slightly, letting a little extra power seep out. The man, at least, could not see his knives now.

"Who are you, boy, and how did you get here?" he demanded. Choosing indifference over ignorance, Nico responded somewhat politely, at least in his mind.

"I walked, sir, though the door." Nico gestured behind him.

"But how did you get through the wards?"

The rest of the party had made it down the stairs, and the woman had spoken before the scarred man could.

"Wards? You mean the stuff that made the house blurry?" Nico shook his head as though to clear it, "They were thick, but not impenetrable. I had enough magic in me to push through."

"Bullshit, kid. There's no way you could have gotten through our wards just with your magic," one of the other men spoke up. He had an aura about him that spoke of monster, and yet he was plainly human. Nico paused, examining him carefully. A monster hidden by the mist? No, he would have little reason to hide. He transformed, then? But into what? There was something about his drawn face, his gaunt but quick and alert eyes… A dog? No, the smell was wrong… a wolf, then? That seemed right—a werewolf. Nico had never met one, and he wasn't keen to during full moon, but the man seemed fairly harmless now. He looked back towards the man with the scars, shrugging.

"Well, that's how I thought I did it. If you have another explanation, be my guest."

The only man who had yet to speak finally did so, "How did you even know about this place?"

Nico observed him for a moment as well. His soul was interesting, incredibly so. It was as though he had died and been brought back; his soul was not as firmly attached to his body as it should have been. He also had a haunted look that suggested that whatever had tried to separate his soul from his body had not done so in a pleasant way. There was also an aura about him that suggested transformation, and Nico guessed it was some four-legged creature. What an interesting cast of characters. Returning to the question that had drawn his attention to the man in the back, Nico paused a second more to choose an appropriate answer.

"My father told me about it, said that I could find something I needed here. Two something's, actually. So I came over here to see if I could get them, but I guess that there's more going on than we realized. I guess you already found out about the objects then?"

"Objects? What do you mean?" The woman spoke again, and Nico noticed that here hair had changed from blonde to pink in the few moments she had stood there. Fascinating.

"Oh. I don't know…" Nico looked back towards the door, giving a pretense of hesitation, "I mean, Its sort of a secret, I'm not sure if he would want anyone else to know… My dad, I mean."

It had been harder to pull off the uncertain teenager approach since Nico had gotten his scar, and as he had gotten older and matured. His eyes had taken on qualities of his father's, the intensity and cruelty, and the insane madness, making innocence difficult to imitate, but he was still a fair liar. He shifted his eyes, looking over his shoulder, hoping that they bought it. He couldn't remember now how long it had been since he had actually looked over his shoulder for the advice of an adult, years, he supposed. He knew he had the woman convinced, and the werewolf, but the other man and the one with the scars didn't seem to be buying it.

"What's your name, kid?" asked Scars.

"I'm Nico," Nico said, "what about you?"

Scars grunted, but the werewolf spoke.

"My name is Remus Lupin."

"Hello, Mr. Lupin. And you?" Nico asked, gesturing to the woman.

"Tonks," she said grinning, "Where are you from, Nico? Your accent sounds American."

"That's cause it is," He said, "I live in Los Angeles and New York alternatively."

Tonks frowned, thinking for a minute, "Aren't those pretty far apart?"

Nico laughed, "yeah, different sides of the country. My dad lives in L.A., but he's really busy all the time, so I live with my cousins in New York."

"Oh, what does your Dad do?"

"He's the head of a big business, so there's lots of paperwork and a bunch of people demanding his attention constantly. Not really space for a teenager in there, unless he decides to have me do something for him. It's alright, though, my cousins are cool."

"What about your mom?" Tonks asked.

"Oh. She… she died along time ago. I was really little; I don't remember her."

Tonks looked apologetically at him,

"Sorry I brought it up. No siblings, then?"

Nico fought to maintain the charade, keep his face a neutral, blank expression.

"I had a sister. She died. I was eleven. She… she took care of me until then. I don't like to talk about it."

Now that Nico had gotten past that sentence, done what he had to do, he wouldn't talk about it again. Bianca had moved on. End of Story.

Tonks' eyes were now full of tears, and Nico knew he had won her over. That was the key- you couldn't be secretive at times like this. He had to tell them enough for them to think that he had nothing to hide, and that any secrets he kept weren't about them or kept by his choice. He had to be open about things like his past if they were to let him around the house freely, but it wasn't like he was going to spill any of the big secrets. The only one who he hadn't convinced was Scars, and Nico knew that he would be the biggest problem.

Nico wondered absently if any of the students were still around, the ones he had met when he had last been in England. He knew that Dumbledore was persistently alive and kicking, but not for long if Hades' threats actually meant anything. And the Potter boy, he was alive too, but Nico didn't know if they would run into each other. England was too big a country, but Nico had it on good information that this was Harry's godfather's house, so anything was possible. And, Nico started a little bit at the memory, that good information had also mentioned Remus Lupin. He'd never heard of Tonks, and he didn't know what the other two were known as, so he could hardly make a decision. Nico looked expectantly at Scars.

"So… what's your name?"

He paused for a second, then answered gruffly.

"I prefer to keep that to myself."

Nico nodded, officially and permanently dubbing the man "Scars" in his head, and looked at the fourth man.

"What about you?"

There was more hesitation here than anywhere else, Nico thought as he watched the man have a silent conversation with Scars and Lupin. His eyes kept flicking back and forth, and Nico was curious about the indecision over what was generally regarded to be a simple question. He held his tongue, but dearly wished to ask him if he had forgotten. Lupin gave the tiniest of nods, and the man finally spoke.

"They call me… Padfoot."

Nico's eyes widened and quickly racked his brains. He knew that name. He thought back over all of the conversations he'd had in preparation for the moment, but drew a blank. Why was that name so familiar? Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot and Prongs! That was it! Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. That ghost he had spoken to, those were the names he had given for himself and his three best friends. Remus Lupin, that was Moony, for the werewolf, Nico assumed, and Prongs had been the Ghost. Padfoot…

"Sirius Black!" Nico said out loud, "I knew I knew that name!"

They stared at him in shock, and Nico realized he had probably just blown it. He hadn't meant to blurt out the name they had all been so persistently trying to hide. However, now that his mouth was opened, it seemed to be unable to close.

"That's your name, right? So, you" he gestured to Lupin, "would be Moony, then. Why is that name such a big deal?"

"Wait." Tonks spoke up, what exactly does the name mean to you?"

Nico paused, thinking of everything he had been told about Sirius Black and narrowing it down into the finer points.

"Um… Harry Potter's godfather, one of the four marauders that sort of ran Hogwarts in the 1970's, Best Friend to James Potter, can turn into…" Oh. Now Nico remembered: he was an agimain- aminag- Animagus, that was it. He realized that he had stopped, so he kept going.

"Can turn into a giant black dog, is the last of the line of Blacks since Regulus Black died, and… I think that's it. Why? What should it mean?"

They all looked rather perplexed, and Sirius looked like his life had just been laid out in front of him, which, of course, it had.

"How do you know all of that?" Asked Lupin, astonished.

"I got it from a friend of mine, she said that she's known you for years. I asked about you before I came, because I knew I would probably be ending up at your house, and I wanted to make sure you weren't a murdering psychopath or anything."

"So we've clarified that he isn't a murdering psychopath then?" Asked Tonks, and Nico looked at her, eyebrows raised.

"Umm, he doesn't look like the murdering type… is this a frequent problem?"

"No, no of course not," Tonks said, but she looked uncomfortable.

"Oh, shut up, Tonks," Sirius said and she grinned.

Scars seemed stuck on one part of the conversation.

"Known you for years?" He asked Sirius, and his one whirling eye kept darting back to Nico.

"This friend, what was her name?" Srius asked Nico.

"Oh, well… I suppose calling her my friend was a bit of an exaggeration. She just works for my dad, really."

"Her name," Scars growled.

Nico frowned, "Um… I don't really know. Something that rolled well, like Ella or Lila or something. Lots of 'l's."

This wasn't altogether true, but claiming he had spoken to the deceased probably wasn't the best way to win them over. Better to feign memory loss, Nico decided. However, one of the names seemed to have struck Sirius.

"Was it Bella?" he asked, and Nico hesitated. He could claim that yes, it had been Bella, and run the risk of a less the friendly reception to that name, or he could keep up with the pretense of forgetfulness. The latter was safer.

"It might have been something like that. I really didn't ask her name. Bella, Lila, Leila, it really didn't matter at the time. My father told me she knew you, and I needed to know about you, so I asked and she told me, okay?"

"No," Scars said, "Not okay. This house is under a protective charm that forbids anyone who knows where it is to speak its location. How did your 'friend' say its name?"

"She didn't," Nico replied, trying to cover it up. There were lots of ways around that charm, and one of them was to be dead. Magic sort of fell off souls, this kind of magic, at least. His dad's magic was different, but that wasn't what counted right now.

"She pointed to it on a map, said it was in this general area. I landed a few blocks over, and I followed the glowing light. There's enough magic around this place, it stood out for miles, especially in a muggle neighborhood. She mentioned that too, said that there was a big secrecy issue with the whole thing, that it was headquarters, or something to that effect. I really don't care about that, I just need to find what I was looking for."

"And what was that?" Asked Sirius, cutting off various starts from the other three.

"A locket. A big gold locket." Nico wished he could slice out his tongue. He needed to tell them enough, not every detail. He tried to cover it up with a reasonable reason that his father would want a locket.

"My father said that somebody way back down the line had stolen it from him and he wanted it back. So he told me to go and find it, and here I am."

This was actually partially true. Nico had left out the enormous rant about Tom Riddle, but the wizards really didn't need to know every single reason behind his actions. He would keep the murdering business to himself, as he should have done with the pbject of his search.

"A locket." Said Sirius in disbelief. "You came all the way here for a locket?"

Nico shrugged. "My father gives the orders, I follow them. I don't question him too much, so when he said come here and find this, I just asked around about the place, and you, and came."

Scars glared at him, then looked at the others, and then back at him.

"We are going to discuss this privately. Don't move." To emphasize this, he suddenly shot a jet of red light at Nico. His reflexes were such that he could have dodged it, but he forced his muscles to lock. This was where Nico's magical training helped; he identified the spell as a stunner, intended to render the target immobile. He did a fairly good job falling back, a shocked expression locked on his face, acting as though the spell had actually done something. Clearly, they all bought it, as the other two men looked grudgingly accepting of Scars' hostile action, while the girl looked regretfully down at him.

Scars gestured to the other three and they turned away, but Nico got the distinct impression that Scars's magical eye was fixed on him. So, he kept his body locked, face in the same shocked position, looking like he was oblivious to the world. Actually, he was focusing on the whispered voices, trying to catch every word in case they tried to attack him. Their conference was brief, and soon they were coming back to Nico.

"Ennervate," Moody whispered, and Nico took that to mean that he was supposed to wake up now. He sat up, confused and groggy, and gazed at Scars. Before he had time to speak, Scars' gave him his verdict.

"We are going to contact the head of our operations and he can decide what to do with you. Until then, you are to be held here under guard." Scars decreed.

Nico agreed readily. He didn't care what the conditions were; he could lie around them if he didn't like them, but he needed to do this fast. This was looking to be a long venture, and Nico would rather be doing about a billion other things. He stood up and stumbled a little bit for show. His head really did hurt, but he could shake that off.

He followed Scars to the stone kitchen that also seemed to be a meeting room, and sat at the long wooden table. Nico was already bored, so he, in a momentary lapse of judgment, pulled out a knife, and started fiddling with it. He flipped it around and caught it deftly in his hand, smiling to himself. Suddenly a gnarled hand whipped out and caught the knife by the hilt in midair.

"Where did you get this?" Scars asked, and Nico looked up at him. He cursed his mistake while smiling, looking relaxed and casual. If he played this right, he might be able to cover it up and get his knife back. Yeah, right.

"Oh, come on." He laughed, "I had it in my belt. Its as dull as a butter knife." He drew his hand along the blade, which was dull by design. It was a throwing knife, that would do a lot of damage when hurled at its target. Bullets weren't sharp, either.

"What else do you have in your belt?" Scars asked, obviously not pleased with Nico's response, "And what did you think you needed a knife for?"

Nico raised his eyebrows. "I was walking straight into a potentially hostile environment. I wasn't about to do so unarmed. I'm not that stupid."

"No, I would imagine you're not," Scars muttered as he distractedly fingered the blade.

"I'm going to need all of your weapons."

Nico frowned. The requirement, while not unexpected, did annoy him a little. It brought back the memory of that event so long in the past, when his weapons had been confiscated after he had used them to save the lives of himself and three other students. No, Nico thought, he would never really understand the world.

This demand, however, made slightly more sense. Nico did the same as he had before; he pulled out those weapons that would always come back to him. He had acquired a few more over the years, and his armament now totaled fifteen various concealed blades. Only five, however, were tied to him: two steel, two stygian iron, and one celestial bronze. They lay out as he unsheathed them, gleaming in the candlelight. Unfortunately, Nico hadn't had the foresight to ensure that the blade Moody held was also magic. He doubted if he would ever see it again.

It made Nico tense to see them lying in the open, and he tried to keep from flinching as they were swept away. He still had his other knives, his sword and the gun. He wasn't too thrilled about having to carry the gun around; it had been his dad's idea. The 9 mm pistol was annoying to always have about him, and Nico wasn't the best shot. However, it was "the official decree of Hades, ruler of the Underworld, King of the afterlife ect, ect, that the mortal by the name of T. M. Riddle was to be executed by gunshot for crimes against the Gods including immortality attempts, death evasion, ect, ect, blah, blah, blah," or something to that effect. Hades had had to make an official decree, especially since it was an international affair that involved multiple people and an assassination attempt. Either way, Nico had earned the title of assassin and had ended up with the gun. He might have preferred a magically enhanced and therefore concealable semi-automatic shotgun, but you couldn't have everything in life. No, if there was anything Nico learned from his experiences as a Demigod, you really couldn't have anything.

Okay, Truth be told, I had no intention of posting this for another week, two at most. Then, on Saturday, November 5, 2011, I got a review. And it freaking made my day. I swear, I was so incredibly happy, I went straight to my computer and edited and added and pulled and pushed this story. Of course, I was late to my Soccer game and this wasn't posted until Sunday because I stayed up to watch Demolition Man, but its really about ten days early. I still don't know the chapter count, but probably somewhere around seven or eight, depending on where I break it off for the next story.

This Story will probably get an update once a week depending on how my schedule fluctuates. Until we meet again:

The Georgian Devil