Fred and George Weasley were on the Muggle tube for the first time in their lives.

It was an altogether alien experience for them, with the faulty turnstiles and the separate cars that, disappointingly, were the exact same size that they appeared. They were being shoved around in the crowd, occasionally getting skewed glances from some of the passengers. They couldn't understand why; they'd dressed in stylish Muggle attire: hair done up with gel, jeans double-cuffed and a form fitting back tank top. Hermione had described it when she'd been telling them about an American musical called Slime, or something similar.

"When's this metal coffin stopping?" complained George.

"We have three stops left, and then we switch and get on for another two bloody stops," answered Fred glumly, gripping onto the pole so had his knuckles were turning white.

"Brilliant," sighed George.

"I'm scared to death of this thing. It's amazing there aren't more deaths because of this; whoever made this is a right tosser and wants us all to die."

"Three more stops, Fred, and then we can have our feet on solid ground."

"I can't believe this. If only mum had agreed to let us go, we'd be there by now. She thought it wasn't safe for us to go to London by Floo or by car; well now look at the state we're in! We're trapped in a metal box with hundreds of Muggles without the faintest idea of where we're going."

"Oh, the irony!"

The train squeaked and scraped to a halt, and half the people in the compartment poured out, giving the twins some breathing room. Only a few people came on; all of them were teenagers. There was a blonde girl, a boy with a goatee and curly brown hair and another boy with messy black hair and green eyes. They were obviously Muggles, because of the way they were dressed, though Fred and George found it kind of odd that the curly-haired boy's shoes were on the wrong feet… it must be a Muggle trend.

Annabeth, Grover and Percy had just walked into the London tube.

Annabeth and Percy were really nervous about navigating the subway in a foreign city and Grover hated being underground in the first place, so that made for a pretty shaky crew. Percy was nervously toying with his pen, Annabeth was tapping her foot on the floor and Grover was using all of his willpower trying not to take a bite out of Percy's t-shirt.

It was only them and about seven other people in the entire compartment, which made Annabeth relieved because they wouldn't have to fight the crowd and Percy nervous because they couldn't get lost in the crowd if someone decided to pull a knife on them – or worse, morph into a vicious demigod-killing monster. Hey, weirder things had happened to them in the past week that they'd been in London, including one of the bearskin guys morphing into a ten-foot-long snake with an Afro.

It didn't look like they had any potential mythical monsters on their hands, though. Most of the people on the train with them were obviously mortals, and weren't paying the slightest bit of attention to them. But there were two redheaded guys in their teens that looked like they'd just stepped out of Grease who were looking at them a little weirdly. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but Percy doubted that these two were headed for a costume party. They didn't look too intimidating though; in fact, they looked just as lost as they did.

Fred and George were nervously counting down the minutes until they had to switch trains. Now that most of the people had gone, it was easier for them to breathe and they could even sit down if they wanted, but neither of them dared let go of the pole for fear of falling onto the grimy compartment floor.

They were a little suspicious of the curly-haired teenager, because he'd started to nervously chew on a fork that he'd pulled out of his back pocket, but then again it could be some weird Muggle sweet they'd never heard of. Actually, it could be a good thing to add to their Skiving Snackboxes. A small grin appeared on their faces and they each made a mental note to tell the other about their brilliant idea later, assuming they made it out of the metal Muggle death machine alive.

Percy was a little suspicious of the redheaded twins, but he was strung out from their encounter with the bearskin-guy-turned-killer-snake. They were both smiling slightly, not in a very sinister way but it reminded him of the look the Stoll brothers wore when they'd just stolen something of yours. And while that's not exactly crazy-half-blood-killing-monster sinister, it can be pretty bad if what they've stolen is your only weapon.

But since he had Riptide in hand and wasn't carrying anything else that was worth stealing, he shrugged off his worries about the two ginger John Travoltas and turned to Annabeth.

"Have you ever seen Grease?"

"What?" she asked clearly distracted. She hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in ages, and it was starting to show.

"Have you ever seen Grease, the musical? You know, with John Travolta and that blonde chick…"

"Olivia Newton John," piped in Grover.

"Yeah. I know Grover's seen it. He's seen basically every bad chick flick-y musical there is to see…"

"Hey!"

"Come on, G-man. You know it's true."

"But Grease isn't bad! It's very well done! It's Grease 2 that's bad…" Percy grinned.

"You've seen Grease 2?" Grover blushed.

"Well, you know, um, to make fun of it. With some friends."

"Yeah, riiiiiiight."

"You guys are ridiculous," sighed Annabeth, smiling despite herself. "Come on, we're getting off at the next stop."

The Weasleys let out small "oh"s of recognition. Grease. That's right. The train lurched and squeeled to a halt, and they would have gone flying across the compartment but for the metal pole they were gripping onto as if their lives depended on it. The three teenagers hopped off the tube, looking very relieved. Only one of the boys cast a second glance back at them. He gave the twins a brief nod and an awkward smile before disappearing into the crowd at the platform with his friends.

"They seemed like a nice enough lot," commented George once the train started moving again.

"Yeah. Americans, it sounded like. I wonder what they're doing here."

"Did you notice that one of them was eating a fork?"

"I suppose it's some kind of Muggle sweet. Actually, I was thinking that maybe we could…"

"…make some for our Skiving Snackboxes," interrupted George.

"Jinx! That was my idea!"

"Too late now, Freddie. Come on, time to get off this thing and switch trains."