Nico I

There were six demigods on the Hogwarts Express. Two of them were girls who looked almost exactly alike. They had the same curly black hair, brown eyes and brown skin as one of the four boys. That boy was their older brother, even though technically they were all the same age of sixteen. One of the other boys was also sixteen. He was Chinese with the tanned skin that came from spending a whole summer outside. The final two boys were both nineteen and going to Hogwarts as staff assistants not students. One of them was a freckled, dark-haired, blue-eyed boy with a large nose. The other was a brown-skinned, brown-haired, hazel-eyed boy with ears whose tips sat exceptionally close to the sides of his head. They all sat in the same compartment. One of the girls spoke in Latin and the rest of them spoke in Ancient Greek but they understood each other perfectly. The other girl was holding a notebook and crossing stuff off a list with a pen as they talked. A striped cat was curled up in her lap.

"We don't have to worry about the diary because that was destroyed four years ago." the Chinese boy said. "What else is there?"

"The locket, the ring, the diadem, the cup, that gods-dammed snake and The-Boy-That-We-Hopefully-Won't-Have-To-Murder." the girl with the list replied. "Come on Ed, you've read the books as often as I have."

"I liked Percy Jackson and the Olympians way more." Ed argued. "You can't expect me to have memorized all of Voldemort's Horcruxes."

"Can we just figure out how we're going to get the things and destroy them?" the other sixteen-year-old boy asked. "It would be nice to get rid of these disguises quickly." That boy was Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades, who would be going by the name of Nico Levesque while they were at Hogwarts. The two girls were his half sisters, Hazel Levesque and Sapphire Banks, who would also be using the last name Levesque. Why? They just were. Hazel was the only one of the group who wouldn't be changing her name. The others were Ed Newton, son of Hermes, Will Solace, son of Apollo, and Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. The disguises they were wearing had been made by Mike Morgan, who was a son of Hecate and sort of possibly Ed's boyfriend.

Demigod relationships were complicated.

"Hey, just cause you're having trouble figuring out who's who…" Will elbowed Nico with a wide grin. "Lighten up di Angelo, we're going to a school for magic. What could be cooler than that?"

"Bunker Nine." Leo said.

"Bunker Four." Sapphire said at the same time as her boyfriend. They tried to glare at each other but ended up laughing instead. Nico had no idea how that had happened.

"Okay," he said after they had stopped laughing "back to how we're going to find evil soul containers hidden all over Great Britain."

"Leo and Will will look for the Room of Requirement." Sapphire decided. She looked at the two older boys. "You should have more time for that since you only have one 'class' each."

"That's the room across from the tapestry of a crazy guy trying to teach trolls ballet, right?" Leo asked. Sapphire nodded.

"I think it's on the seventh floor but I'm not sure." She looked back at her list. "For the ring Father gave us the location of the Gaunt shack. Nico, Hazel and I can go there during history class. No one will notice." Nico shook his head. He still couldn't believe that Hogwarts had a ghost for a teacher. Ghosts outside of either of the Underworlds tended to be very single-minded. He was willing to bet that Professor Binns was teaching the same unit he had been when he died.

"Ed, you sent that letter to the goblins, right?" Nico asked.

"Yup."

"Then some of us have to get into Gryffindor-

"Which shouldn't be too hard." Sapphire commented.

"-make friends with Potter-"

"That'll be harder."

"-and somehow get an invitation to 12 Grimmauld Place."

"That'll be the hardest part." Sapphire sighed. "Why did Father have to make this a quest? Why couldn't he just send one of our siblings who cannot die?" Nico and Hazel shrugged. Leo put his arm around Sapphire's shoulders.

"At least we're here to suffer with you!"

"We asked you to come, Flame Boy, you didn't have to."

"That just makes it better!"

"No PDA guys." Will said quickly. Leo and Sapphire grinned at him

They decided to leave breaking into the former nest of a Wizarding World basilisk until after they had gotten one of the Horcruxes and possibly attacking Lord Evil-Noselessness until after they had destroyed the other non-living Horcruxes. Hades had been pretty clear about them only having a year before he pulled them out so they'd have to move fast. Personally, Nico hoped to have this quest over by Christmas.

Sapphire flipped through the notebook. In addition to the list of Horcruxes, which was written in an insane mix of Ancient Greek and Latin that no one but a demigod would be able to read, its pages also held the six letters that they had gotten from Hogwarts that gave them instructions for what to do when they arrived. The instructions were the same for all the letters and they were really simple but for some reason Sapphire decided to remind them of them.

"We just have to wait in the entrance hall for Professor Sprout. She'll be bringing us into the Great Hall after the first years have been Sorted so that we can be Sorted. The staff members that Leo and Will will be working with will find them after the feast."

"Sapphire, we know that already." Ed said. "Relax a little, okay?" Sapphire, Hazel and Nico all looked at him like they thought that he was crazy. They were doing a job for Hades, it wasn't possible to relax.

"I still can't believe that the Harry Potter books show the future." Sapphire murmured as she put away the notebook.

"The author is a legacy of Apollo and Trivia." Hazel pointed out. "I can't believe that we'll have to deal with Umbridge, she sounds horrible!"

"She does get attacked by centaurs." Sapphire said. "Let's just try to stay out of her way…while being friends with Harry Potter…We're sc-"

"The snack cart's coming." Will interrupted. "Anyone hungry?" There were noises of assent from everyone. The elderly witch pushing the cart came level with the doors.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?" she asked once Will had slid the door open. Hazel smiled at her.

"Yes please ma'am." The woman stepped back with her hand over her heart.

"Why, you're Americans!"

"Canadian." Sapphire and Ed muttered. They were quiet enough that the woman didn't hear them.

"We're the exchange students ma'am." Will explained. "We're just here for this year."

"Oh, that is lovely. Do enjoy your stay."

"We hope so ma'am." Sapphire said. The woman began bustling about the cart.

"Well, let me show you what we have. I'll throw in some Bertie Bott's with whatever else you get." They ended up only buying six Chocolate Frogs, one for each of them, because having six ADHD demigods in a five by four train compartment for hours would be even worse if they were all on a sugar high.

None of them had a problem catching their chocolate when it leaped out of its package. All of them laughed when they saw the card they got.

"Circe!" Nico and Will both exclaimed through barks of laughter. "I wish I could have seen Percy as a guinea pig!"

"Medea!" Leo said incredulously. "That's someone's idea of a bad joke." Sapphire grinned apologetically and showed him that she had gotten the same card. "A very bad joke." Leo corrected.

"Nice hair though." Sapphire pointed out, indicating the witch's picture on her card.

"Lady Hecate." Hazel said. "With her polecat. Remember how stinky the ship was?" Nico nodded. Hecate's polecat had some serious intestinal problems.

"Se-Osiris." Ed said. "Definitely an Egyptian; Cleo was talking about him. Not someone you want to go up against in a magical duel."

They ate the chocolates slowly. Nico savored the taste of a food that wasn't allowed at Camp Half-Blood and was insanely expensive to buy from the Hermes cabin. Then they began playing what was basically a game of Russian roulette with the jellybeans that the woman had given them. One of them would take two beans from the box and offer them to anyone else. The other person then had to eat one of the beans. Simple. Nico nearly choked on a dirt-flavored one and no one protested when he spat a dandelion-flavored one out the window.

They threw on their wizard robes when the train began to slow down. Jay, Sapphire's cat, refused to be separated from them and stubbornly sat on Nico's head while they made their way off the train.

"Why is it always my head?" Nico asked the cat. His head had gotten covered in scratches that summer when Jay used it as a refuge to escape from a pack of wild dogs (long story). Jay just meowed at him.

When they got to the carriages they all stopped and stared at the thestrals pulling them. Ed and Sapphire had warned them about the skeletal winged horses that could only be seen by people who had seen someone die, but it was a different thing to actually see them.

"Sometimes I hate being a demigod." Will said, drawing strange looks from the students around them.

"I hear you." Leo agreed. "Let's find a carriage."

They chose a carriage at the end of the line and approached it carefully. They didn't know how the thestrals would react to them. They didn't ever think that the creatures would bow.

'Greetings, lord.' one of them said. Nico jumped.

"Did you hear that?" he asked the others.

"Hear what?" Sapphire asked in reply.

"I think the thestral talked to me. Maybe I'm just going crazy."

"Hey, that's my job!"

'Do you have any sugar cubes?' the other thestral asked.

"I don't have sugar cubes." Nico told it. "Please stand up." The thestrals rose and the demigods quickly got into the carriage, ignoring the stares that they were getting.

"Maybe we should have taken the boats." Leo joked as the vehicle pulled away from the station. Both Hazel and Sapphire turned green at the thought.

"Definitely not."

A/N: And here's chapter one. Tell me what you think (and if I messed up anywhere) so that I can write this in a way that isn't totally overdone. I probably won't post for this for a while because I want to finish writing Superboy and the Invisible Girl, which I've been working on for way too long. Wish me luck!

-Cynder2013