Chapter Text
King’s Cross smelled of coffee, wet coats and hot metal.
Percy stood beneath the departure board with a weathered leather satchel across his shoulder, Sophie’s folded umbrella hooked over one wrist and the growing suspicion that being a god had not improved his ability to understand British railway announcements. The woman speaking overhead possessed the calm authority of an oracle and the useful clarity of one underwater.
Beside him, Sophie tilted her head. Mousy-blonde hair had escaped beneath her knitted cap and gathered damp against her cheeks. “She said the Edinburgh train is delayed.”
“She said there’s been a platform alteration.” Percy shifted the satchel behind his hip as a man hurried past with two coffees and no apparent fear of death. “I think. She might’ve declared war on Peterborough.”
His wife returned from the ticket office before Sophie could decide which interpretation she preferred. In London she had chosen the name Diana because it fitted more easily into hotel registers and restaurant bookings, though both Artemis and Diana lived openly in the one face Percy knew. The permanent joining had not made either presence disappear. It had gathered them, years of different instincts and textures held together without a seam.
Today she could pass for mortal at a glance. A long rust-brown coat covered dark trousers and walking boots. Her auburn hair was pinned in a loose twist which would have lasted ten seconds in an actual hunt, and the Mist had softened true silver eyes towards grey-green. Percy’s leather satchel looked ordinary despite the impossible amount it held. Sophie’s folded umbrella drew a more careful grip than the rain required. Their promise of a civilian holiday had always been optimistic.
“Our train remains on platform five,” she said. “The alteration concerns the service before ours.”
Sophie looked up at Percy.
“I was close.”
“Peterborough has survived.” Diana moved to Sophie’s other side and checked the departure board herself. Her expression warmed without losing the older sharpness beneath it. “We have twenty-eight minutes. That is sufficient, provided neither of you discovers food.”
“We have first class,” Percy said. “They give us food.”
“That has never prevented you discovering more.”
He moved nearer as the crowd pressed around them and caught two of her fingers with his free hand. The wedding ring beneath her glove answered his with one small point of familiar warmth. Touch clarified the familiar awareness between them: the fact of her, a person beside him rather than a presence the station could swallow.
They had been married for long enough that the word wife no longer startled him every time. Only most times.
The honeymoon had begun with nine days that belonged entirely to the two of them: islands, an empty house above a winter sea, several arguments about whether walking forty miles counted as rest, and one evening in which Diana had persuaded a restaurant to let Percy cook because he could not stop watching the kitchen do something unforgivable to fish. Sophie had joined them in London for four days of her own holiday. Percy had suggested it before either of them could admit how often they had mentioned her.
Most newly married couples probably did not collect their adopted daughter halfway through their honeymoon. They probably had not needed three divine councils, two systems of law and Hestia’s personal intervention to make the adoption paperwork stop attempting to classify her as an immortal military dependent either.
Their plan for the day had been simple: three first-class seats north, fields and old towns beyond the windows, lunch they did not have to prepare, and Artemis-Diana telling them about the years in which the moving heart of Olympus had rested in Britain. Sophie had brought a notebook. Percy had brought two guidebooks and forgotten both at the hotel.
“Platform five,” Diana said.
Sophie did not move.
Her attention had fixed on a family crossing the concourse ahead of them. They wore ordinary clothes beneath open travelling cloaks, which London seemed prepared to accept as someone else’s problem. Two children pushed trolleys piled with trunks. A tawny owl blinked through the bars of a cage on top.
“They have an owl,” Sophie said.
“People do,” Percy answered.
The family reached the brick barrier dividing the signs for platforms nine and ten. The first child went through it.
The brick swallowed him cleanly. One moment the boy and his trolley were approaching solid wall; the next they were gone, followed by the owl, the trunk and one trailing end of a striped scarf. The second child vanished after him, and Percy stopped with one hand on the satchel strap.
Diana’s fingers left his. The mortal softness in her eyes thinned, though their colour held. Around them, people hurried for trains, checked tickets and dragged wheels across tile while the disappearing family passed beneath everyone’s attention.
The mother glanced behind her, gathered her youngest by the shoulder and stepped through. Brick remained.
Sophie turned slowly towards them. “Our train doesn’t have an owl.”
“That is not usually how we choose transport,” Diana said.
“It went through a wall.”
“I noticed.”
Percy resettled the satchel against his hip. “We could ask station staff.”
Both of them looked at him.
“Right. The staff who didn’t see the wall eat a family.”
Diana crossed the concourse without hurrying. Percy and Sophie followed with a few paces between them in case the threshold proved hostile. The air changed near the barrier. The Mist lay quiet, and the only water Percy felt belonged where it was: station pipes beneath the floor and old rain held in the brick. Something stranger widened the space between one footstep and the next.
Diana stopped an arm’s length from the wall. “Well?” Percy asked.
Her attention travelled along the mortar, concrete, advertisements and iron fittings. “A hidden threshold. Mortal craft, but old enough to have acquired its own habits. Concealment, redirection and passage laid together.”
Sophie edged closer. “Hecate?”
“Her realm touches every worked crossing eventually. That does not make this hers.” Diana’s gloved hand hovered over the brick. “There are forms here I recognise. Others I do not.”
Percy checked the clock. Twenty-three minutes until their reserved train carried three empty seats towards Edinburgh.
“We could still make ours.”
Sophie’s expression became the particular kind of solemn she used before asking for something she had already decided was reasonable. “We came so you could tell us about when Olympus was in Britain.”
“Yes.”
“This is secret magic in Britain.”
“Also yes.”
“It could be part of the holiday.”
Diana looked at Percy. The warmer Roman amusement reached her mouth first; the older wilderness behind it remained fixed on the unknown gate.
“We investigate together,” she said. “We do not separate. We do not draw weapons unless there is danger. If the crossing resists, we withdraw.”
Sophie’s delight broke through before she could arrange it into discipline. Percy adjusted the satchel again. “And if it leads to a cupboard?”
“Then you will finally have found somewhere appropriate to store those guidebooks you left behind.”
She rested one hand on Sophie’s shoulder. Together they walked towards the wall.
At the final moment Percy’s body prepared for impact despite everything he had survived. The brick lost its resistance without becoming less solid. Cold pressure passed across his skin. The satchel tugged once against his shoulder, the station noise folded inside out, and steam struck him in the face.
A scarlet engine waited beside a platform full of witches, wizards, trunks, cats and owls.
A sign overhead read PLATFORM NINE AND THREE-QUARTERS.
Sophie took one long breath.
“You win,” Percy said.
• • •
They had no tickets for the Hogwarts Express. This troubled no one as much as it should have.
The platform was too crowded for order but somehow possessed its own currents. Families leaned through carriage doors for final instructions. Older students called to friends through the steam. A boy chased a large toad beneath three luggage trolleys while his grandmother shouted contradictory advice. Owls complained from every direction. Percy had heard battle formations make less noise.
Their ordinary clothes drew some attention among the black robes, though far less than two adults boarding a school train ought to have earned. Diana’s presence did some of the work without becoming command; questions slid away before they fully formed.
“That is cheating,” Percy murmured as they passed the guard.
“It is a civilian disguise.”
“You made him think we belong here.”
“We do belong where our child goes.”
Sophie, walking ahead between them, tried not to smile.
The engine whistled. They climbed into the nearest carriage as doors slammed farther along the platform, and Percy stowed the satchel beneath his seat and settled Sophie beside the window with the folded umbrella across her knees before the train moved. A red-haired family ran alongside another carriage, calling last instructions through an open window. The hidden platform slid away; brick closed around the line, darkness took the glass, and then London returned in flashes of wall, roof and pale morning sky.
The compartment door opened on a tall boy in a prefect’s badge. He took in Sophie, Percy and Diana in increasingly unhappy order. “Parents don’t travel on the school train.”
“We’re not parents in the normal sense,” Percy said.
Diana’s head turned. “We are her parents.”
“I meant we’re not normal passengers. On the train. Which we didn’t know was a school train.”
The prefect had developed the expression of someone who regretted opening the door. Diana spared Percy another moment, then addressed the boy. “We crossed an unknown ward while investigating the disappearance of several children. We will present ourselves to the authority responsible at our destination.”
“The headmaster?”
“If that is the authority responsible.”
“You don’t know who the headmaster is.”
“We learned that this is a school from you.”
The prefect’s attention reached Sophie’s wool coat, ordinary jumper and complete lack of robes. “Is she a first-year?”
“Only if you count from this morning,” Percy said.
“I am not sure,” Sophie said at the same time.
The prefect closed the door and departed with the brisk steps of someone taking the problem to a higher authority.
Percy sat opposite his wife. “That went well.”
“You opened with an objection to our parenthood.”
“I panicked.”
“You have faced armies.”
“Armies don’t ask reasonable questions.”
Sophie pressed both hands to the window. Terraced houses were giving way to allotments, warehouses, small back gardens and wet fields. “Do you think they’ll make me get off?”
The change in Diana was small. Amusement left first. Beneath it, Artemis gathered around the idea of someone taking a child from their protection, and every softened edge of the civilian disguise became less convincing.
Percy leaned forward before an unknown school acquired a divine siege for following its own rules. “We get off together,” he said. “Wherever that is. Then we ask questions before anyone decides anything.”
Diana’s attention settled on him, and he held it. “Questions first.”
“Questions first,” she agreed.
Sophie nodded and returned to the window, safe enough to be curious again.
The trolley arrived before the prefect came back with reinforcements.
Percy understood very little of what the smiling witch offered, but the words chocolate, cake and pasty survived cultural boundaries. Wizarding money did not. He produced a pound coin; she produced a polite refusal. Diana passed two fingers over the coin before the witch looked again. It remained a pound beneath Percy’s thumb and became, to the woman’s eyes, whatever payment the train required.
They bought too much.
Sophie chose a Chocolate Frog. Percy assumed the name was decorative until the frog climbed out of its box and launched itself at the window. He caught it between both hands before it escaped behind the seat.
“It’s actually alive.”
“It’s chocolate,” Sophie said.
The frog kicked. “Those facts are fighting.”
He handed it to her. It sprang from her palm, landed in Diana’s lap and left one perfect brown footprint on her coat.
For half a second, the ancient goddess of the hunt stared down at prey made of confectionery.
Sophie folded over laughing while Diana caught the frog neatly behind its front legs. “This creature has made a poor decision.”
“Don’t shoot it,” Percy said.
Her silver eyes showed through the glamour for one dangerous heartbeat. “It was a joke.”
“I know.” She gave the frog back to Sophie. “I chose to let you regret it.”
Sophie bit off its head before it could attempt a second escape.
The sweets opened conversation with students who had been lingering outside their compartment. A round-faced boy came looking for a missing toad, and Sophie helped him check beneath the seats and inside the luggage rack. A girl with a cloud of brown hair asked why Sophie had no robes, whether she had bought her books and how she expected to manage classes without a wand.
“I have a bow,” Sophie said.
Percy rubbed one hand over his face. “We agreed not to lead with that.”
The girl looked from Sophie to the folded umbrella beneath the seat. “You can’t do Charms with a bow.”
“I don’t know what Charms are.”
This answer seemed to offend her sense of an ordered universe more than the bow, and she explained seven school subjects before another student called her away. Percy retained Transfiguration, Potions and the possibility that staircases might move. Sophie retained all of it.
After lunch, the train bent away from the country Percy knew.
The wheels kept the same rhythm while the landscape stopped agreeing with the route map above the compartment door. Towns thinned into woods and open hills. Cloud lowered, silver-grey across darkening green, while the rails carried them through distances that felt folded rather than crossed. Diana’s chin lifted at the same wrongness.
“Another passage?” he asked.
“Many small ones. The road persuades the country to arrive in a different order.”
“Hermes would love this.”
“Hermes would steal the train.”
“He’d return it.”
“He would return a train.”
Sophie turned from the window. “Was Olympus here when the trains started?”
Their original journey returned by another route as Diana told them about Roman Britain, not as a lecture but as pieces of ground passing beyond the glass. A flooded meadow became a road north from Londinium under rain. A stone bridge recalled auxiliaries who had dedicated a small shrine to Diana and then argued for six days about which local goddess had already owned the spring. Farther on, a line of hills drew out a hunt beyond Eboracum, where a boar large enough to overturn a cart had proved to be only a boar and therefore much harder to justify killing badly.
Artemis lived differently in the same memories. She spoke of forests that had once run without interruption where towns now gathered. She remembered moonlight across the wall the Romans built in the north, wolves moving on the far side and soldiers pretending not to leave offerings where their officers could see. Centuries later, when the heart of the West had settled more fully in Britain, she had watched smoke cover London until even the moon chariot smelled of coal.
“Did you like it here?” Sophie asked.
The answer took time.
“At times. Britain has rarely been one thing long enough to permit a simple opinion.” She touched the faint chocolate mark on her coat and decided not to clean it yet. “Its old roads are layered. Mortal, divine, conquered, abandoned, remembered wrongly and still used. This railway appears to have joined them without asking any of us.”
“Is their magic from Hecate?”
“I do not believe so.” Her certainty left room for what she had yet to learn. “Demigod power travels through divine blood. Magic belongs to these children directly, and their wands focus a gift already theirs. Their school has built with threshold craft, concealment and older night arts which Hecate would recognise. She may know their roads. She may have taught some distant ancestor. Even so, every witch and wizard who crosses them belongs first to themselves.”
Three children in the corridor made coloured sparks jump between their wands until a prefect stopped them. “So an entire hidden civilisation has been living beside everyone else,” Percy said.
“It appears so.”
“And none of Olympus noticed.”
“Some may have.”
“You mean Hecate knew and didn’t tell anybody.”
Diana allowed a small smile. Artemis would once have called it too undignified to be amusement. Marriage had made both of them less willing to lie to themselves when Percy could see.
“That,” she said, “would be consistent with Hecate.”
The train continued north towards a place none of them could name. Percy set their unused first-class tickets on the little table. Sophie added a Chocolate Frog card, a folded sweet wrapper and three pages of notes. Diana rested her hand beside his. Outside, evening settled between hills, and the windows began to hold more of their reflections than the country.
They had missed lunch service, their reserved seats and every planned sight. It was the best train ride Percy could remember.
• • •
They arrived after dark beneath a station sign reading HOGSMEADE. Students poured from the carriages in robes and scarves, dragging trunks into cold air. Lanterns moved above the crowd. Somewhere ahead, a very large man called for first-years in a voice that could have organised a battlefield.
Sophie was swept three steps away before Percy caught her hand.
“First-years this way!” the man called again. He had a beard which appeared capable of storing supplies and hands large enough to hide half his lantern when he adjusted it. His lantern found their civilian coats. “Blimey. Parents aren’t meant ter come on the Express.”
“We have recently learned that,” Diana said.
His lantern shifted to Sophie. “Late admission?”
“Unexpected admission,” Sophie answered.
“She has not been admitted,” Percy said.
“Yet,” Sophie added.
The bearded man scratched somewhere inside his beard. “Professor McGonagall’ll know what ter do. Come on, then. Name’s Hagrid.”
“Percy. This is Diana, and that’s Sophie.”
Hagrid took in the three of them and smiled with immediate, uncomplicated warmth. “First trip ter Hogwarts?”
“First time hearing the word,” Percy said.
Hagrid’s smile faltered, though the journey across the lake soon restored it.
First-years crowded into small boats while Hagrid took one at the front. The ordinary rules would have sent Percy and Diana by another route; their arrival had not supplied anyone with an ordinary choice. Hagrid put all three of them in his boat, muttered about balance and pushed away from the shore.
Cold black water carried them beneath a sky without stars. Percy felt depth, old rock and something very large moving far below with no interest in the boats. The lake knew him only as another presence touching its surface. He left it alone.
Sophie sat between them, both hands gripping the edge until the castle appeared.
It rose above the dark water in towers, windows and impossible pieces of stone, lit gold against the mountain. Wonder moved through the boats. Even children who had spent the train boasting became quiet.
Diana’s hand found Percy’s behind Sophie’s back. “You did not know of this?” he murmured.
“No.”
The admission carried attention rather than embarrassment. Percy loved her most dangerously in moments like this, when immortality did not pretend it had exhausted the world.
The doors opened into warmth, torchlight and a stone entrance hall large enough to make every wet footstep echo.
A severe woman in emerald robes waited at the top of the stairs. Her eyes found Sophie, counted the absence of robes, moved to the two adults behind her and sharpened.
“Hagrid.”
“Bit of a late one, Professor McGonagall.”
“There are no late admissions.”
“Unexpected,” Sophie corrected softly.
Professor McGonagall heard her. “Name?”
Sophie checked Percy and Diana before answering. The choice was already hers, but the glance reached for them anyway.
“Sophie Jackson.”
The name had been legal for years. It still found the unguarded place beneath Percy’s ribs every time.
McGonagall examined a roll of parchment. “You are not on my list.”
“We were unaware of the list until this train journey,” Diana said.
“And you are?”
“Diana Jackson. Her mother.”
The mortal surname sat strangely and beautifully beside the goddess’s name. She used it only when she chose the ordinary world and never because marriage had swallowed anything she had been.
“Percy Jackson,” Percy said. “Her dad. We were meant to be going to Edinburgh.”
McGonagall’s attention settled on him as if deciding whether this was intended as humour. “Hogwarts is in Scotland.”
“Then we’ve done better than I thought.”
Diana’s fingers brushed the back of his hand, a warning too light for McGonagall to see.
The Great Hall doors waited behind the professor, with hundreds of voices pressing through their seams. McGonagall allowed the sound one brief turn of her head before returning to Sophie.
“Where is your wand?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Your robes?”
“Also don’t have those.”
“School books?”
“I have a notebook.”
McGonagall closed her eyes for one controlled moment.
Sophie studied the line of first-years. “I could stand at the end and pretend I’m a new student until someone explains what’s happening.”
“Pretending usually works better if you don’t tell the professor,” Percy said.
“Considerably better,” McGonagall agreed.
“Professor,” Diana said, and the word gained the precise weight of one authority recognising another, “we followed children through a hidden threshold because we did not know what lay beyond it. We boarded the train to investigate. Our daughter wished to continue. We intend no harm to your charges or your school. We do, however, require an explanation.”
“You require an explanation.”
“Yes.”
“After entering a concealed platform and boarding a school train without permission.”
Percy had heard Artemis defend conduct before councils, kings and gods. Diana could turn an apology into a treaty without pretending innocence. The joined woman managed both instincts at once.
“The threshold concealed its authority as thoroughly as its destination,” she said. “Had there been anyone to ask, we would have asked.”
“I would have,” Percy added. “Sophie probably would’ve gone through anyway.”
“You followed me,” Sophie said.
“That’s what parents do.”
Suspicion remained in McGonagall’s face, though reluctant comprehension had begun to disturb it. “The Sorting has already begun,” she said. “You will remain at the rear of the hall. Miss Jackson will not touch a wand, accept a spell or leave your sight until the headmaster has spoken with all three of you.”
“Agreed,” Diana said.
“I’m being sorted?” Sophie asked.
“You are being kept where I can see you while I determine why the Hogwarts Express brought you here.” McGonagall gathered the remaining first-years with one sweep of her eyes. “Do not make me regret the distinction.”
She opened the doors.
The ceiling was full of stars.
Percy stopped.
Four long tables filled the hall beneath floating candles and the image of a clear night sky. The constellations caught at Percy even while stone warmth and candle smoke enclosed him. The true heavens carried a living pressure this reflection lacked, but the craft was beautiful because it let stone remain stone beneath the stars. Hundreds of faces turned towards the new arrivals.
At the far end, an old man with a silver beard sat in the centre of the staff table. His bright blue eyes moved from Sophie to Percy and rested longest on Diana.
He did not look surprised, which was more suspicious than anything else they had seen all day.
• • •
The wooden stool stood before the staff table with a patched hat upon it.
Percy had seen crowns, divine regalia and one truly awful ceremonial helmet Ares insisted was historically important. None had looked less trustworthy.
Professor McGonagall returned to the parchment. At the red-and-gold table, a thin black-haired boy in round glasses had turned halfway around with everyone else. A narrow lightning-shaped scar marked his forehead. Percy recognised the habit of children wearing someone else’s violence where strangers could study it and shifted his attention before the boy caught him doing the same.
Several listed names remained. One by one, children sat beneath the Hat and were sent to tables amid cheers. Sophie stood at the end of the line in her jumper, skirt, woollen tights and walking boots. The lack of robes made her seem younger than everyone around her; her composure worried Percy more.
At last McGonagall lowered the parchment. The old headmaster said something too quiet for Percy to hear, and her mouth tightened. “Sophie Jackson.”
The hall murmured as Sophie walked to the stool.
At the stool, Sophie finally turned back. Percy raised one hand. Diana inclined her head, permission and trust carried in the same small movement.
Sophie sat. The Hat dropped over her eyes.
Nothing happened.
Five seconds became ten. Students began whispering. The Hat’s brim shifted as if listening to something very far away.
Sophie’s hands closed around the edge of the stool. Percy made himself remain where he had agreed to stand.
The Hat spoke, but not to the hall. Its low muttering reached only broken pieces across the distance.
“...not quite... no, not mine... already sworn... yes, I see that...”
Diana had become motionless beside Percy. Questions first, he reminded her without words. Her hand opened once at her side and remained empty.
The Hat muttered for another long moment. Sophie said something inside it. The brim jerked.
“You are very certain for someone who has no idea where she is,” it said aloud.
Sophie’s muffled answer carried through the hall. “That keeps happening.”
Laughter broke across three tables. Even McGonagall’s expression threatened movement.
The Hat gathered itself.
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
The table dressed in yellow and black cheered first and questioned afterwards. Sophie pulled off the Hat, set it carefully on the stool and crossed to the space students opened for her. A round-faced older girl moved a plate aside. A boy offered Sophie his spare cup. Her grin found Percy and Diana as she sat.
Percy’s fear loosened enough to let pride through.
The headmaster rose. “Before we begin our feast,” he said, and the hall quieted by degrees, “it appears Hogwarts has acquired three guests whom no owl informed us to expect.”
Every face turned to the rear. Percy had stood before gods, senates and armies; walking between school tables in a navy jacket while several hundred children stared at him was worse.
Diana matched his pace. Their civilian coats remained fastened and their divine weapons dismissed while the school’s wards gathered questions around her with every step.
They stopped before the staff table. The headmaster’s eyes were kind; Percy had lived too long to mistake kindness for harmlessness.
“I am Albus Dumbledore,” the old man said. “Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Professor McGonagall tells me you followed several of our families through the barrier at King’s Cross.”
“Sophie noticed them,” Percy said. “We followed.”
From the Hufflepuff table, Sophie added, “They had an owl.” The reason carried perfectly through the hall.
Dumbledore considered this. “Owls have directed stranger journeys.” The black-haired professor at his right did not appear to agree.
“Your names?” Dumbledore asked.
“Percy Jackson.”
“Diana Jackson,” his wife said. Four tables, hundreds of wands, the enchanted ceiling and the children waiting inside a concealed castle made honesty the safer weapon. “Diana and Artemis. Both names are mine.”
Silence reached the farthest wall.
Professor McGonagall stared at her. A tiny professor near the end of the table leaned so far forward he nearly stood on his chair. The black-haired man’s hand disappeared into his robes.
Dumbledore’s calm endured, but it sharpened. “Those are considerable names.”
“They were considerable before I carried them.”
“You claim to be the goddess?” the black-haired professor asked. Disbelief made every word precise and unpleasant.
“I claim nothing.” Her voice remained one voice. Diana’s social warmth carried the answer into the room; Artemis’s old command prevented anyone mistaking courtesy for retreat. “I have given you my name.”
The Mist over her eyes fell away, and silver caught the floating candles. Above them, the enchanted night changed. The false moon brightened for one heartbeat, and every painted star leaned towards the woman standing beneath it.
Percy felt the school’s wards recoil, consider and hold. By the time the mortal grey-green returned, her bow remained concealed and the power had receded without threat.
Wands had risen around the staff table. Dumbledore’s remained on the wood before him.
“Please,” he said mildly. “I believe our guests have demonstrated admirable restraint, given that they boarded a train filled with children rather than announcing themselves on the platform.”
“We were trying to maintain civilian disguises,” Percy said.
“You entered a school armed,” McGonagall said.
“We enter restaurants armed.”
“Perseus.”
The intimate correction landed with enough force to close his mouth.
Dumbledore’s eyes flickered between them. “And Miss Jackson?”
“Our daughter,” Diana said.
“Adopted,” Sophie called from the Hufflepuff table. “Properly. It took ages.”
“She is a clear-sighted mortal, oath-sworn to my Hunt and protected by us,” Diana continued. “She sees the mythic world directly. Your kind of magic has never answered her, and she carries no wand.”
The small professor’s hand rose as though he had forgotten he was not a pupil. “But the Hat Sorted her.”
“The Hat is ancient,” Dumbledore said. “Ancient things occasionally answer the question they find more interesting.”
From the stool came an offended rustle. Percy addressed the headmaster. “So she isn’t actually enrolled?”
“Not yet.”
“Yet,” Sophie repeated.
“We’ll discuss that word later,” Percy said.
The headmaster’s beard concealed most of his smile. “You said you did not know this was a school.”
“We did not know this world existed,” Diana said. “Your people carry mortal magic directly. Their wands act as instruments, but the power is already theirs.”
“You can tell that by looking?” asked a round-faced witch in a patched hat at the staff table.
“By standing inside your wards. They contain threshold principles known to Hecate’s realm, though they do not answer to her as demigod power answers through descent. I would know whether her hand had formed them.”
Whispers moved through the hall at the unfamiliar name. Dumbledore folded his hands. “Our oldest histories do not trace magic to a single source. They do, however, contain crossroads, triple forms, torches and a great many doors best opened carefully.”
“Then some of your ancestors possessed manners.”
The corner of McGonagall’s mouth moved. The black-haired professor caught it and appeared personally betrayed.
“What is this place?” Percy asked. “Beyond the school part. Hidden platform, hidden train, hidden village, castle that rearranges distance. Are all witches and wizards hidden from everyone?”
Dumbledore’s explanation made the room stranger. A Ministry governed Britain’s magical people beneath laws of secrecy. Entire families of witches and wizards lived beside ordinary Britain, unseen by their neighbours; magical children received letters, wands chose them and Hogwarts taught them from eleven until seventeen. Other schools existed across the world behind traditions and protections of their own.
Percy listened with the uncomfortable awareness that Olympus had spent millennia believing itself excellent at secrets while another civilisation operated postal services, professional sport and government underneath its notice.
“Do the gods know about you?” he asked.
“That,” Dumbledore said, “may depend upon the god.”
“Hecate,” Diana said.
“Hecate,” Percy agreed.
Sophie lifted her hand at the Hufflepuff table. Dumbledore pointed to her as though they were already in class.
“We were on their honeymoon,” she said.
The hall’s attention changed completely, and Percy closed his eyes.
Diana remained composed beside him. “The first portion of our honeymoon.”
“My holiday joined it for four days,” Sophie explained. “Today we were meant to take a first-class train north and look at things.”
“We have looked at several things,” Percy said.
Laughter travelled along the tables. Professor McGonagall took off her spectacles. “You entered an unknown magical threshold and boarded a school train during your honeymoon.”
“Sophie was persuasive.”
“It had an owl,” Sophie reminded her.
Diana answered Percy with dry precision. “This defence has not improved through repetition.”
Dumbledore sat back, blue eyes bright. “It would seem that both our worlds have managed to overlook one another with remarkable dedication. Sending you away tonight would preserve that ignorance. Keeping you here, however, would require rules.”
The Great Hall waited.
“Remain as our guests for several days,” he continued. “We will show you what may safely be shown, and you may decide what can safely be shared in return. Perhaps each world will leave knowing a little more than it did this morning.”
“Questions first,” Percy said quietly.
His wife heard. The older instinct to secure every exit remained in the slight angle of her body. Years of chosen family stood beside it now.
“State them,” she said.
Dumbledore counted on his fingers. “Students and staff are not subjects for unfamiliar magic. The Forbidden Forest is not available for hunting. Your divine weapons remain dismissed unless the castle faces genuine danger. Miss Jackson waits for our discussion before she attends a class, enters a restricted area or attempts a spell.”
Sophie lowered her raised hand.
“The same courtesy returns,” Diana said. “No one tests or practises magic upon Sophie, Percy or me without asking and receiving agreement. We retain the right to summon our weapons if genuine danger arises. Your staff will answer what they can about this society, and we will answer what we can about ours while protecting those who are absent.”
The black-haired professor received the words asking and receiving agreement as if they had ruined a private plan.
Dumbledore inclined his head. “Agreed.”
“And we stay together,” Percy said. “Guest rooms, meals, tours, whatever comes next. Nobody sends Sophie to a dormitory because a hat yelled a table name.”
“Dad.”
“You followed a magic train into Scotland.”
“You followed me.”
“Exactly. My judgement is compromised.”
Hufflepuff laughed first. Dumbledore’s smile emerged fully. “Hogwarts has guest quarters. I suspect we can keep a family together without defeating the ancient magic of the Houses.”
“Can I see a class?” Sophie asked.
McGonagall replaced her spectacles. “After we determine whether you are capable of observing one without joining it.”
“I can observe.”
“You boarded the train.”
“I observed it first.”
The professor stared at her. Sophie held on for four seconds before delight broke the seriousness of her face.
The round-faced witch at the staff table laughed. “She may observe Herbology with me.”
“Pomona,” McGonagall said.
“After discussion.”
“Filius,” Dumbledore said to the tiny professor, “perhaps you and Professor Sprout can help our guests begin to understand how Hogwarts teaches what they have found.”
The black-haired professor spoke before anyone could volunteer another subject. “And if they are not what they claim?”
Percy had been waiting for someone to ask. “Then we’re three tourists who missed an expensive train, trespassed into a castle and got our daughter sorted into Hufflepuff by a talking hat.” He considered it. “Honestly, that version is still a lot.”
Diana’s fingers found his beneath the fall of her coat. This time the correction did not come.
Dumbledore raised both hands. “I believe explanations improve when nobody is hungry. Shall we attempt the feast which our unexpected admissions have delayed?”
The dishes filled with roast chicken, potatoes, vegetables, gravy and pies. Surprise rolled through the room and broke the last of its formal tension. Students turned towards food with the ruthless focus of people who had travelled all day.
Dumbledore directed Percy and Diana to the Hufflepuff table, where Sophie had kept places on either side of her.
Percy sat, found a plate in front of him and began serving Sophie before he remembered she could reach everything herself. She moved his spoon away from the carrots and towards the roast potatoes.
“I can choose.”
“You chose a wall.”
“And it worked.”
Diana took the seat on Sophie’s other side. A Hufflepuff boy passed her the gravy with both hands, unsure whether gods required ceremony. She accepted it as if he had offered a treaty between nations.
Questions began before Percy finished his first mouthful. Was Sophie truly a hunter? Did Percy fight monsters? Was Diana really Artemis? Where was her bow? Had they met dragons? Did American witches use different wands? Why did Sophie not have one? Could Percy breathe underwater? Had Diana placed the moon in the ceiling?
“No,” she said to the last question. “Whoever formed it understood the sky but not the weather.”
Several heads tipped towards the enchanted ceiling as its lack of wind became newly strange.
Percy poured pumpkin juice and discovered he liked it. Sophie traded half a treacle tart for a description of the moving staircases from the girl opposite. Diana listened to a Hufflepuff prefect explain House points with the solemn attention she gave unfamiliar law. At the staff table, Dumbledore spoke quietly with McGonagall while the black-haired professor continued watching them over a silver cup.
Across the hall, the boy with the lightning scar laughed at something a red-haired boy said. For that moment he looked only eleven. Percy left him the gift of not knowing he had been noticed.
He found the unused first-class tickets inside his coat, and they caught Sophie’s attention. “Are you upset we missed it?”
Percy laid the tickets beside his plate. They had cost enough that some part of him would remain offended until the end of time.
“I was promised lunch.”
Sophie pointed at the feast. “Fair.”
Beyond Sophie, candlelight warmed his wife’s auburn hair and found the silver beneath her mortal eyes. A smear from the Chocolate Frog remained on her coat because Sophie had put it there by laughing.
“Do you regret it?” he asked.
Her attention moved over the hall: children in four colours, wands beside plates, ghosts drifting through stone, the false clear sky and the unknown world held beneath it. Artemis measured danger while Diana measured custom; the woman who was both weighed them together and chose for herself.
“I regret wasting three first-class reservations,” she said. “I do not regret following our daughter.”
Sophie leaned against her arm. “Best honeymoon,” she declared.
“You are not supposed to grade our honeymoon,” Percy said.
“Someone should.”
Diana passed him the potatoes. “She is decisive.”
“I wonder where she got that.”
The silver in her eyes brightened. “From you, clearly.”
The reply carried Diana’s ease, Artemis’s precision and the humour they had learned together until no part of it needed separating. Percy laughed. Sophie took another potato from his plate while he was distracted.
Around them the feast continued, strange and ordinary at once. Arrangements for questions, lessons and several days of mutual discovery could wait until morning. For now, they ate at a table which had made room before it understood them.
The train they had not booked had taken them north after all.