Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Four (Round 11).

Team: Puddlemere United

Position: Seeker

Prompt: Mythology AU and your story MUST also start and finish with the same word.

Also written for the Quidditch Pitch in Harry Potter's World.

House: Ravenclaw

Prompts: Weather: Thunder, Lightning

Genre: Friendship, Family

Non-Canon Pairings: Harry/Ron, Draco/Hermione

Quidditch Terms: Snitch, Seeker, Injuries

Quidditch Players: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy

Word Count without A/N: 2,976 (FFN)

It was an ordinary day on Olympus. The Naiads were sitting on the shore of a lake with a lot of minor gods giving them all the attention they wanted and more, the centaurs were dancing and making music, and Asclepius, the God of Medicine, was wandering around, helping people, and complaining about the lack of hygiene.

He was, of course, ignored.

The twelve Olympian Gods, the major gods of their pantheon, were sitting in a throne room, holding their bi-yearly meeting, for today was a solstice.

As always, there was a lot of arguing about things that had nothing to do with the matters they were supposed to be discussing, but as Zeus was eagerly participating himself, there was no one to punish them.

Except perhaps the disappointed looks of Hestia. No one could stand those.

Aphrodite was sitting on her lover's lap while the god in question, Ares, was grinning smugly at her husband, Hephaestus.

Poseidon and Demeter were loudly arguing about their son Arion; or more precisely about his apparent love for curse and swear words.

Hera was berating Zeus for yet another demigod child ("This is the fourth one this month! Honestly!"), Apollo was building a card house over the sleeping Dionysos, and Artemis was rolling her eyes at her younger twin's immaturity.

Athena and Hermes, meanwhile, were involved in an agitated debate themselves.

"There is no way you could survive a week in the mortal realm!" Hermes declared, crossing his arms.

Athena snorted and raised a single eyebrow. "But you can?"

"Sure! I am in the mortal world several dozen times every day for deliveries, messages, and so on. I know how it works and I know that you can't get through the world based on knowledge alone!"

"Preposterous! I'll have you know that knowledge is essential for survival. After all you need to know what you can and can't eat, which waters and paths are dangerous-"

Hermes clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'll stop you right there. When was the last time you were down there? A century ago? Because that's what it sounds like to me. The modern world is different! There a supermarkets, you know!"

Their fight had caught Apollo's attention and, after snapping the cards away into nothingness, he woke up Dionysos.

The God of Wine wasn't pleased, until the other God told him of his idea. A smile slowly grew on his face and he nodded.

Hermes and Athena were still fighting and they didn't look like they were going to stop soon.

"The way I see it," Apollo interjected, promptly receiving glares from both of them, "The only way to truly figure it out is to test it."

"What do you mean?" the two questioned, but while Athena sounded dismissive, Hermes' voice held genuine interest.

The other gods has since stopped their respective fights and were now observing the incident with growing curiosity.

"He means that you should live a mortal life and see who survives longer, who had a better life and such," Dionysos explained, grinning like a madman.

"That's… actually not that bad of an idea. Are you sure it was yours, Apollo?" Athena questioned, causing Artemis, Ares and Dionysus to break out in laughter.

"Ha ha. Yes. I am sure," Apollo replied, glaring at Athena.

"But really, this is a good idea," Hermes agreed.

"Then it is decided!" Zeus declared.

Before either could protest, Zeus raised his Thunderbolt.

Two strikes of lightning, barely half a second later a roar of thunder, and the thrones of both Hermes and Athena were empty.

Perhaps it wasn't such an ordinary day after all.

The pair was reborn to two families in England. Neither of them possessed any of their powers or remembered anything about being gods.

At least not consciously.

Athena—or Hermione as she was now called—was born to loving and doting parents and still a huge book worm. Her parents were constantly puzzled by her knowledge. How could she know all these things? How had she managed to teach herself how to read that early?

They were very proud of their girl and her numerous achievements, but they worried about her too. She had somehow developed a habit of loading her knowledge over others and, no matter how hard they tried, she wouldn't let go of it. That particular trait didn't exactly help her with her peers. They were jealous and resulted to the only thing they knew to make themselves feel better: they started bullying her. Hermione in return retreated to her books, thus learning more and starting a vicious cycle without any escape in sight. She never knew how to behave around people her age and it looked like she would never learn.

The life of Hermes—though currently we was called Harry—was slightly different. He too was born to loving parents, but he lost both of them and his uncles—not by blood, but by choice—soon after he was born. Instead he was raised by people who may have been his aunt and her family from a biological standpoint, but that didn't mean that there was any love between them.

When they refused to feed him, he sneaked to the kitchen at night and stole a few items, not once eating all of them, always keeping a small stash in the smallest part of his cupboard. When they gave him more tasks than he could possibly handle, he befriended a few garden snakes who helped him to the best of their ability, catching mice, ensuring the survival of everything Harry planted in the garden and stuff like that. When they refused to tend the injuries they caused, he went to the school nurse and told her to keep quiet as he suspected the Dursleys were bribing the officials—how else was it possible that all those who reported his situation were replaced?

Despite the countless differences in their lives, they still had one thing in common. They were invited to Hogwarts.

They met on the train when Hermione entered the compartment of Harry and Ron. The two of them had formed a fast friendship and invited Neville Longbottom to join them in their compartment after Harry managed to find his toad within a matter of seconds.

Hermione too sat down, as did Draco Malfoy a few minutes later, after Harry made it obvious how stupid it was to insult his friends and the boy had realised it and apologized, sending his goons of to who knows where when they refused to do the same.

They bonded over food, Quidditch—both Ron and Draco insisted that Harry's build and his quick reflexes were ideal to be a Seeker—and their curiosity, a trait that they all shared.

Even when they were sorted into three different houses—Neville and Ron were in Gryffindor, Hermione in Ravenclaw, and Draco and Harry were in Slytherin—they still managed to stay friends. It certainly didn't hurt that they were being rewarded for it by most of the teachers.

The five of them found out about the Philosopher's Stone by November and managed to get to it a total of seven times, before they decided to replace it with a copy and give the original back to the Flamels.

It took them until April, but they did manage to make a convincing, but ultimately useless, double.

The more Draco learned about Muggles, the less he thought himself superior. In a few areas, wizards may have more knowledge than the Muggles, but the same was true vice versa.

Harry became their House Seeker in their second year—and he was celebrated for it, as he caught every snitch without fail.

Ron got over his inferiority complex and Neville finally found confidence.

Hermione learned to acknowledge the strengths of others. It was a slow progress, but she was steadily improving, just like her popularity. She also befriended Percy Weasley—though he never became a part of their group—and got both him and his brothers to appreciate each other a bit more.

Eventually, Ron and Draco were inseparable. They had added Luna Lovegood, a lonely Raven a year younger than them, in their group, but otherwise it remained unchanged.

Their group agreed that they should keep Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue quiet, already working on a way to prove without a doubt that none of them were the heir.

They managed to figure out it was a Basilisk fairly quickly—the usage of mirrors quickly increased due to their suggestion. It wasn't until they visited the spiders—something both Ron and Hermione hated with every fiber of their being—that they found out where the entrance was located.

Then Aphrodite decided to intervene.

Harry and Ron became a thing in their late third year, much to Ginny's dismay—though she did get over her crush shortly after that.

Hermione and Draco annoyed everyone in their proximity when it took them several years to acknowledge their emotions and another to admit it to each other, but eventually they too entered a relationship.

Harry found out how Hermione managed her seemingly impossible timetable pretty quickly. As much as she tried to be sneaky, he was—and always would be—the master of the art. Even Fred and George admitted that. Their group agreed to keep it secret—even though several members were jealous and Harry briefly debated stealing it—but they made Hermione promise to also give herself more time to do homework, eat, and sleep. She only agreed after she went to ask Professor McGonagall whether or not it was allowed ("Of course it is, Miss Granger. I would have thought that would be obvious to someone with your intelligence. I hope you can forgive me for omitting it").

Despite the fact that Harry's permission slip wasn't signed, he still managed to go on every single trip with his friends. Just because a mass murderer was supposedly after him, he wasn't going to stop having fun after all. He even managed to impress the Weasley twins in the process, by using a passage they didn't know about.

He also noticed that Professor Lupin was hiding something and, once he figured that part, it wasn't actually that hard. The boggart, the monthly 'illness', the 'creature' Snape decided to teach in his one lesson with them, hell, even his bloody name suggested it. Lupin was a werewolf. Harry went to confront the man. He wasn't mad, he was curious. How did that work? Weren't werewolves dangerous—he meant during full moons of course. Lupin was surprised that the Gryffindor had put the clues together, and even more so that he wasn't afraid. Then Lupin compared Harry to his father.

Needless to say, the two of them spent a lot of time together after that revelation.

By the end of the year—a mere week after Harry had worked up the courage to ask Ron out—they were visiting Hagrid. Despite their best efforts, Buckbeak would still be executed, because the Parkinsons were a powerful family (and they had the money for bribes available).

On their way back to the castle, Ron was attacked by a huge black dog and carried away into a passage beneath a tree that threw punches at the other seven of them (Fred and George had joined their group after constantly being impressed by Harry who had "discovered the most beautiful art of Pranking").

It turned out that Sirius Black—the man who everyone had thought was after Harry—turned out to be innocent. The guilty party was Peter Pettigrew—or, as they were disgusted to find out, Ron's rat Scabbers. They—mainly Draco—managed to convince Snape to listen to the two Marauders explain the situation, Hermione remembered just in time it was a full moon, and they managed to free Sirius and imprison Pettigrew instead—they may have manipulated the minister, though.

Fourth year was a mess for them. It started out great, with the Quidditch World Cup and all, but it quickly took a turn for the worse when Pettigrew escaped during the game (and the other Death Eaters celebrated it). Harry was entered in the tournament against his wishes and most of the school didn't believe him. He was immensely thankful his friends and boyfriend did. Together, the seven of them managed to prepare Harry for all the tasks (he even managed to have a bit of fun), but they couldn't predict the end of the tournament. When Harry—only Harry, no one else—was transported to that graveyard. Harry fought as hard as he could and—even though Voldemort and a few of his goons escaped—he managed to capture a few of them. Granted, it were only three, but it was better than nothing.

The year after that was different, to say the least. Parkinson and her goons (Crabbe, Goyle and Bulstrode), were given a position of power they didn't deserve by the new—and insane—Professor. Students from all years and houses had started several groups with the intention to learn defense themselves and, eventually, it grew into one large one: the Defense Association. They had debated naming it Dumbledore's Army—the Ministry's greatest fear—but too many members didn't like the man, so it was dismissed fairly quickly.

Umbridge also tried to get them into trouble. She did manage to give them detentions, but, for some reason, Harry's skin didn't seem to scar, thus they had no proof and were dismissed and ignored by Dumbledore. Not a point in his favor.

In late January, they discovered that Harry was a prodigy at occlumency—a fact that relieved both Harry and Severus, as they didn't have to spent more time than necessary together.

They did not go to the Ministry when Harry got the vision. They checked via floo and while Kreacher told them Sirius was gone, they did not believe the elf for a second. Harry knew a lie when he saw one, so he yelled loudly to get the attention of someone else, because there had to be someone in the house. Remus came running into the room, quickly followed by Sirius himself, thus ending their worries.

It did not take Harry long to figure out that the Half-Blood Prince from Neville's potion book was Professor Snape the next. After all, they had the same handwriting. A little bit of research and Hermione stopped annoying him about not knowing where the book came from.

They spent all year trying to figure out what Pansy was doing, but they never quite managed. They found out she was doing something in the Room of Hidden Things, but that was it.

Harry got lesson about the life of Voldemort from Dumbledore. Despite promising otherwise, he told the rest of their group everything, even the twins who had already graduated. All of them were horrified to learn about the existence of horcruxes, but together they managed to form several theories—with a wide range of probability—which and how many objects Lord Voldemort had made.

The Death Eaters attacked and Dumbledore died one evening, but the DA fought hard and managed to shrink the forces.

The eight of them spent the year that should have been the seventh year for the majority of the group hunting horcruxes after Voldemort and his followers had somehow taken over the Ministry. With their different strengths and abilities, they actually managed to get on pretty well, even though Draco and the Weasleys had to get used to the food.

Once they—more precisely Harry and Ron who had left the tent to snog in privacy—found the sword of Gryffindor in a frozen lake, they knew they had allies watching them. And they finally managed to destroy the locket that was just days short of causing a huge argument.

They did break into Gringotts after they had figured out that one of the horcruxes was likely located there (due to Dean Thomas managing to send a patronus requesting help to them escape from Malfoy Manor), and even managed to get away with it and the sword of Gryffindor, once they had explained Griphook why they would need it a bit longer and swearing to hand it over once they no longer needed it. Their offer to pay him for lending it may have had something to do with it too.

The last one was located in Hogwarts and a battle—the final one—started there. They fought through the night and lost many people—Cedric Diggory, Theodore Nott, Padma Patil and Nymphadora Tonks Lupin to name a few—but in the early hours of the morning they managed to win. Barely. Many were injured and almost everyone had lost friends and/or family, but it was over after that. They could heal in times of peace.

It wasn't until years later that they regained their memories and abilities. They asked Zeus to grant their spouses immortality. He reluctantly granted it, and Draco became the God of Individuality, while Ron was named the God of Chess.

They did offer it to their friends, but Luna and Neville declined, not wanting to watch their newborn twins grow old and die. The Weasley twins debated for a while, but eventually agreed, once Hermes had mentioned his plans for them. To their delight, they were named the official Gods of Pranking.

"One thing is certain," Athena stated evening, looking her half-brother dead in the eye. "Knowledge is not the only thing you need."

Hermes smiled. "Nice to see you finally admit it."

There will be a multi chapter version of this one day.

Please tell me what you think!

~Marvelgeek42