a/n: i miss annabeth-grover-percy friendship so much! ! this is guaranteed to have a continuer. probably eh he

3 of 3 - Of Endings

(Sunday) September 20, 2009 – 7:45 PM-8:10 PM

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Teddy didn't really know what he was doing there, sitting in a cramped, messy office with Victoire, two strangers, and a satyr. They were all rapidly arguing, and Teddy didn't take the time to listen hard enough. Out of them all, he might as well be safer with the half-goat.

They were all talking—if side-eyeing and whispering discreetly could count as talking—head above Victoire and him; something about secrecies and missing directors and a person named Chiron who was off campus. They seemed distressed over the latter.

All the years of Harry cautioning Teddy about the dangers of following strangers into stranger vicinities completely slipped his mind the moment they had arrived at the strawberry farm hill. Contrary to what his eyes believed, it ended up not really being a strawberry farm.

He's never been to muggle camp before, but he figured without a reference that normal muggle camps didn't have a rock climbing facility decked out with lava or actual fighting arenas. The people looked friendly enough, but Teddy didn't get why the place was filled with so much kids. Normalcy was a foreign word even here, apparently.

It was a busy place, he could tell by just setting foot through the barrier. Victoire was all excited about it, too, and kept yapping his ears off during the ride there. Teddy still didn't have a solid opinion on Percy and Annabeth. They were pretty cool, but it was obvious they didn't trust him. Not that the feeling wasn't mutual, though. There was only so much left to believe after watching someone slice through a human-sized, guitar-playing lizard in the middle of Times Square and still expect a safe tour through the city.

The satyr's first words meeting them rang curiously high and asked something like, "Percy, please-oh-please tell me you and Annabeth didn't adopt two random suspicious-looking British kids off the streets just 'cause you were feeling lonely."

He couldn't fully understand why the two teenagers were blushing at first, and then Annabeth flicked the guy's shoulder. The trio seemed pretty close.

Teddy's ears zeroed in when he heard something he could actually reply to.

"—but don't they just think there's one-hundred and two floors?" asked the satyr that introduced himself as Grover said. "Six hundred already made the cut, but one-hundred and three is kind of stretching it."

"It's where the Secretary of Magic wanted to meet my godfather," Teddy replied easily. He didn't understand what he meant by six hundred, but that was with a lot of things they talked about.

Annabeth snapped her head towards him, as if surprised he was listening, which he supposed at one point he wasn't. "What's the Secretary of Magic?"

"You don't even know that and you're one of us?" asked Victoire, puzzled. It wasn't even near bedtime yet, but she rubbed her eyes tiredly.

"I..." Annabeth didn't look like the type to be speechless, though Percy and Grover covered for her.

"Alright, I know we said we'd show you around, but you guys look like you need a moment. It's been a long night." Percy said. "Want anything to drink?"

"Pumpkin juice," Teddy piped.

"No, thank you," Victoire said as she looked at the pictures of people in orange shirts propped up all around the office.

"Um, okay," Grover began, "By the way, do you mind staying here a little longer? I just want to wait for our—uh, friend. Chiron. He'll sort everything out for us."

Teddy was appalled. "We can't stay here forever! Harry'll be looking for us!"

"Aw, Teddy," said Victoire, "let's just stay for a little while longer! We didn't even get to play with other kids."

The boy huffed impatiently and lost control of his hair color, turning to an immediate orange similar to the color of the campers' outerwear. Everyone was caught off guard.

"Your hair—" Grover bleated halfway. "It's orange? Wasn't it just brown?"

Percy blinked before laughing and running a hand through his own hair. "Dude, that wasn't just me, right?"

"Teddy!" Victoire exclaimed. "You did it again!"

"Because you made me! You never listen to me and boss me around all the time!" His orange hair flashed blood red, and he felt his eyes grow shades darker. "Sometimes I just hate when you do that. Sometimes I just hate you."

Her tone softening, Victoire answered slowly, as if rehearsed. He could tell what she was doing, and that he was on the verge of a tantrum, but—"Teddy, you don't mean it. It's two days before the full moon, yeah? You're just getting cranky. I'm feeling it, too, but don't get angry, Teddy."

"Yeah, don't get angry, Teddy," repeated Grover, eyes glazed over.

"Don't get angry," Percy said in the same tone.

"What is wrong with you two?" Annabeth asked them, waving a hand in front of Percy's face. Something must have dawned on her, because she faced Victoire. "Did you just use charmspeak?"

Teddy didn't know what charmspeak was, but he was glad that he wasn't as affected as the other two by Victoire's veela power. Annabeth looked really angry and confused, and he figured that those were states she didn't enjoy being in.

Victoire was also right, as much as he didn't want to admit, that he was getting angry over little things because the full moon was coming soon. Seeing as every full moon all she had to do was take a calming drought and sleep, Victoire had it less rough than him; he had to do that and drink wolfsbane to subside the pain. At the very least, he was thankful he didn't transform into a werewolf, otherwise he couldn't imagine not being able to curl next to Ginny and Harry in front of the fire, drinking hot chocolate to wash away the ickyness of the potions.

"Okay," said Teddy, "Sorry about that, Vic. You can stop it now."

His best friend nodded and he could feel the release of her spell. Visually, Grover and Percy relaxed.

"Woah, okay." Percy said. "I totally had that under control."

"I hope if I say 'she's cute' I wouldn't be arrested," Grover said, stretching his back. After a moment, he added, "or castrated."

"What's castrated?" Victoire asked.

"Alright!" Annabeth clapped her hands once. "What in the Underworld was that? All of it?"

Victoire glanced back at Teddy, and he shrugged. There was no use keeping it a secret any longer. "I'm half-werewolf and metamorphmagus, and Victoire's eighth veela."

As rare as metamorphmagus and veela descendants were, there was nothing rarer than metamorphmagus and veela descendants traveling with a guy named Harry P. They'll put two and two together soon enough, thought Teddy. He's gonna be in so much trouble when they starting contacting his godfather.

But the reactions were less drastic than he predicted them to be. In fact, they were down right anti-climatic.

"Huh?" asked Grover.

"Bless you," said Percy.

"This is getting us nowhere," Annabeth said, massaging her temples. "Why don't we get them that pumpkin juice and start all over?"

Whatever Annabeth had originally thought everything was going to go, even Percy knew that it was all falling flat. Talk about mysterious children—if their weird answers didn't suffice, then their powers might have. It wasn't exactly like they weren't foreign powers, seeing as Hecate kids have changed other peoples' hair colors before and Drew Tanaka from the Aphrodite cabin rocked charmspeak.

The differences were alarming, he could admit.

Anyhow, they had given the kids two goblets from the dining pavilion to fill themselves with pumpkin juice as they waited in the office. Really, though, what average child would willingly volunteer to drink pumpkin juice? Maybe it was some unknown substitute for nectar. Like, a deadbeat substitute. Whatever it was, Teddy and Victoire looked like they were in Ogygia.

"It tastes just like the ones at Hogwarts!" Teddy exclaimed. "This magic cup is wicked."

Hogwarts. Muggle. Secretary of Magic. If Percy didn't know any better, he would have thought that these kids were just regular demigods who had plans to pull one over the Savior of Olympus. That'd be less troublesome, right?

Right. Maybe this wasn't about going to the Empire State Building anymore. He felt it was deeper than that—though most bad things start from gut feelings.

Annabeth said it'd be best to "start all over", but it wasn't like they had started anything to begin with. Percy was getting a headache. This was supposed to be a non-complicated date night for the both of them, where they watched some marquee old timey movies and ate some churros or something.

"Well," his girlfriend began. They had all gathered together in Chiron's office in the Big House and decided to work things out while waiting for the centaur to come along. "Do you two feel like sharing where you're from, and who you are?"

Okay, so beating around the bush wouldn't be an option. Teddy gave them a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"She means she wants us to tell her who we are and where we're from, dummy." Victoire told him, taking a sip of her goblet. Earlier, she had tied her silky blonde hair into a ponytail, making it seem like she and Annabeth were practically siblings.

"Guys," Grover sighed, "We're going to have to ask you to be cooperative."

Teddy frowned. "Are we in trouble? Are you gonna call Harry?"

The clock on the wall read it was a few minutes past eight o'clock. "It's getting late," Victoire noted, "are you bringing us there yet?"

Annabeth slammed her fists onto Chiron's desk and some pens in a cup rattled. Even Percy was startled. "Look, I know you're both tired and want to go home, but the least you can do for us is answer a few questions, got it?"

Victoire and Teddy nodded obediently, and for a second Percy was relieved that for once, he wasn't on the receiving side of her anger.

Teddy, whose hair was a nonchalant bright turquoise, raised his hand like he was at school. "Okay, we swear. But can we ask questions, too?"

"There's no harm."

Victoire's hand shot up in the air, mimicking her friend. "Me! I've got one!"

"Go ahead," Annabeth said, definitely warming up to the position of authority.

"I've been wondering this for a while, but why don't any of your pictures move?" she asked, pointing at the frames Chiron had on his walls. "It's like muggle pictures."

There was a sharp intake of breath by Grover. "Moving? You mean videos?"

"Pictures! Like normal moving ones," Teddy corrected.

"Okay," said Percy, leaning outwards in his seat, "Not the best joke ever. There's no such thing as moving pictures—"

"Unless they mean gifs," tried Grover.

"You're pronouncing it wrong, it's gif. Like, with j." Percy said.

"Beep, wrong." Grover said while chomping on a tin can. "No way that's right."

"Muggle," Annabeth tasted the word. "You've said that before. What is that?"

Victoire answered, "It's a non-magic person."

"A mortal. That's what you call a mortal?"

"It's easier to say," Percy admitted, "Rolls off the tongue nicely."

"Muph—muffle," Grover said, his mouth still stuffed with aluminum. He gulped. "Yeah, kind of neo-demigod slang. I'd use it."

"What is on the one-hundred and third floor of the Empire State?" asked Annabeth. She was totally eager, Percy noted.

Teddy blinked. "It's a conference center? Dunno. You Americans have different ways of organizing things. Harry's been in that meeting with the officials for hours."

"Conference center?" Grover asked. "Last time I heard, floor one-oh-three has only ever been a rooftop thing for sightseeing and stuff. I think."

"And the Secretary of Magic?" Annabeth persisted. "There are only 15 executive departments, and magic isn't one of them."

"Um," Teddy bit his lip. "I don't know. I think he's the eq—equa—"

"Equivalent?" Percy offered. He couldn't even believe that they were actually interrogating the eleven and nine year old children he had promised to help find their guardian only an hour ago. Besides their powers, they were kids.

"Yeah! Equivalent of our Minister of Magic back home!"

Because it seemed like they were going to continue on using terms like that, Percy decided to get a more straightforward answer. "And where is 'back home'?"

"Britain," Teddy answered. "More like somewhere in Scotland, if you count Hogwarts."

There it was again. He kind of understood why Annabeth blew up the first time. It was like some wild goose chase that even the kids didn't know they were leading them into.

Britain and/or Scotland also ruled out the idea of another person raising demigod kids in the United States to fight on their own. Maybe it was impossible—Camp Half-Blood was the only demigod camp in the country, after all.

"Annabeth," Victoire asked, strangely quiet. "What did Mr. Grover mean by that from before? What's a demigod?"

The surprised silence that filled the room could have made even the slightest squeak of a sneaker amplify ten times higher.

"You—"

Suddenly, as if on cue, the office door opened to reveal a frazzled-looking Chiron—in wheelchair form—and a man with bright emerald eyes toting a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. They both carried attaché cases for business and wore suits, and just by the warmth that burst inside the room, he could only guess who the man was.

"Harry!"

"Uncle Harry!"

The two kids leaped off their seats and were immediately embraced by the older man, Teddy's hair changing from turquoise to his godfather's black messy locks. Victoire looked happier and more satisfied than Percy had seen her the whole night, making her turn out to be the prettiest little thing.

"Hello, children," Chiron's deep voice filled the previously silent room. "It seems that you have met the wizards. I'm thinking there's quite a bit of explaining to do, hm?"

The man straightened up and sent Percy, Annabeth, and Grover a blinding smile. "Good evening! I'm Harry Potter, and thank you so much for taking care of these little trouble makers."