BEFORE

(A PJO/HP CROSSOVER)

Author's Note: Disregard the time. I know Percy Jackson and Harry Potter
have different timelines but for this story I'd like to disregard it.

Before you, Grover, Camp Half-Blood, and crazy gods (YES, CRAZY. You agree with
me, right?) who were deciding whether to kill or not to kill me, there was Hermione
Granger. We were bestfriends for a short time but there are people that you just
can't forget until you do. I only remembered her now that you've asked about the
girls in my life.
I met her in fourth grade. We're both new students, her from England, me from
Nowhere, New York. She's got this bushy brown hair and large front teeth that some
kids would tease her about. She's unbearable at first. There were lots of girls who
didn't like her because unlike most kids at school, she hated it when exams were
cancelled. You might think that she's a total grade conscious, and yes, you're right.
Because if you want to go to Stanford and become a lawyer then you have no time
to think about other things. I was the only one who could stand her because I didn't
really care about what people think of her. And she liked that. She won president of
the student council because too many people were afraid of debating with her.
Hermione always believed that she's right. I wasn't even spared when I was put in
detention. She would always claim that I deserved it. You're agreeing with her?
Wow, you could be bestfriends but I don't want three moms yelling at me all the
time.
Although she'd always break the rule with me. The last time we did, I got expelled.
Because I took all the blame. I couldn't think of risking Hermione's Hardvard career
that's why.
She reads a lot, that I can recall. She read to me a lot because we couldn't read the
English alphabet without tearing our heads off right?
Well, when we turned ten, things started to change. The school year ended, and as
usual, I walked to their apartment to talk about summer plans. I kept on knocking at
their door but no answer came. I tried to peek in the small hole and there they
were, her, her parents, and somebody I couldn't see because his back was on me,
talking. It looked serious, you know, so I decided to come by tomorrow. I was about
to enter the elevator when I heard her voice calling my name. I turned around and
saw her standing on the hallway.
"I'll just come back later!" I told her and pushed the button.
"Just a minute, Perce!" She said, and then she was running to get to me.
"You should go back, Hermione. Whatever that is, they need you there."
"Y-yes. But we'll talk about our plans tomorrow, won't we?"

"Of course."
"Thank you, Perce. I'll tell you everything when the time comes." She hugged me
tightly, but the elevator opened, which made her release me. I entered.
"See you tomorrow." I said. She was still waving at me when the door closed in front
of her.
You noticed it too, didn't you? The telling-me-everything-when-the-time-comes part,
yeah? That was revealed to me few weeks after. Well, because it was too hard for
Hermione to talk about stuffs the next day. I don't know. She seemed different after
last night. Like she wanted to talk about something but didn't know how. So when I
surrendered on trying to make her talk out of it, I just told her it's getting dark, we
should probably go home, and she agreed and off we went. Sometimes we didn't
know what to talk about except what school am I going to this fall. Listen, I already
told her that I was going to Yancey Academy that fall but she kept on forgetting it.
And the following weeks? For all I knew, they were off to London. Again.
"I'm probably not coming back anymore, Percy." She told me three nights before the
flight at their kitchen.
"I understand." All I said.
"Oh Percy, if I tell you the whole story, you would probably think I'm insane, my
family's insane, the man you saw weeks ago's insane."
"You're not gonna tell me that your family's secretly involved in a Mafia, aren't you?"
I joked. She smiled for real, for the first time in weeks. "What then? We're not
supposed to keep secrets, are we?"
A long pause. "Okay, it's a boarding school. And this school, it's like they already
knew for years that I'm going in there."
A boarding school?
"You mean, they've already accepted you, even if you didn't apply?"
"Exactly. And there are other reasons but you'll find it odd."
"Try me."
She stopped for a second to think and then, "Remember that time when Shirley
McCall teased me with my hair while walking down the hall?"
"Of course, I was having the time of my life when she tripped! And fell on the
janitor's mop! And the mop handle hit her right on the foxface---"
"It was me, Percy. I did it." That stopped me from laughing and looked at her.
"What do you mean you did it?"
"I made her trip on purpose." She said, seriously.

"Well, that's reasonable---"

"And remember when we couldn't open Mr. Hendrix's office?"
"Yeah, it's locked and then all of sudden it wasnt---wait, you didn't magically open it,
did you?" She flinched a little when I said the word 'magically'.
"I did."
"But h-how. . . you're not a secret agent, are you?"
Then Hermione laughed. "What? Of course not, Perce!"
"Then what are you trying to say?"
"I-I'm... a w-witch, Percy."
"W-witch?"
"Yes. I'm going to a wizard's school this fall. In England."
"But I thought witches look like those on Wizard of Oz. You look decent to me." I
guess that's how you accept it. Even if you're wondering if you're bestfriend's going
mad or what.
"Are you joking about this right now?"
"What else would I do? Call people and tell them, 'Yo, My bestfriend's a witch! Let's
go burn her or something!"
She laughed sarcastically. "I'm really glad that I'm friends with you."
"Maybe you bewitched me into befriending you? You didn't, did you?"
"Even if I'd bewitched you, you'd come to me anyway because I'm one of the few
people in school who's good in English."
"Well, I would've come to Chester's aid," the other nerd at school, "but yeah, you're
right."
She stayed silent after that. We watched Mrs. Granger poured tea to my mom's cup
on the living room. They were talking lightly, then laughing. Mom's probably telling
another clumsy story about me. Or vice versa.
"Have you read about this school?" I asked her.
"Yeah. The man we talked to two weeks ago gave me books about Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts? That's the name?"
"Yes."
"Sounds like something about brainwashing."
"Sounds like it but I'm not sure it means like that."

I found out later that 'hogwash' doesn't mean brainwash so Hermione's right. After
that hogwash thing, the conversation went smoothly.
"Do they have courses that will make you go to Ivy Leagues?"
"I don't think so. For the first time, I've forgotten about that."
"So the school doesn't get you to Harvard. What will you do after graduation?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe I'll find out there."
"Say, how many years will it take you to finish Hogwarts?"
"Seven."
"Wow, that's a really long time."
"I know. It's kind of fascinating. I'm excited to go there."
That made me frown but I felt not entitled to do so.
"Hey, don't be sad. We'll meet again. I'll try my best to visit you next year or this
Christmas."
"But that would be costly."
"I know."
"Say, it's a magic school, right?" Hermione nodded. "So will you encounter dragons?
Like in fantasy books?"
That made her laugh. "Probably."
"Awesome! Send me one here, will you?"
"I'll try." She said, smiling.
Three days later, she and her family were on there way to Heathrow. At Yancey, I
made friends with Grover Underwood because nobody wanted to make friends with
him. I'd never heard from Hermione again.
Except from a letter perched on an owl's beak (an owl, yes, okay, don't raise your
eyebrow at me, Annabeth) on Christmas eve saying that Hogwarts is great, she met
a famous wizard kid, made two friends, and added she couldn't easily contact her
friends outside Hogwarts (and England for that matter) because owl post is taking
too long and electricity was useless because there's too much magic in the air, so
she kept on apologizing but she'll try her best, and hang on, there's a p.s. yes, she'd
seen a dragon, a baby one.
The thing was, I didn't know where I'd put Hermione's letter now. Because after one
year in Yancey, I was expelled again. And found out that I've also got a life as weird
as hers.