The Forgotten Olympian |BOOK 1| PJO X HP | Alexandra Marine

Chapter 101 - Alex - Who is Percy?

A momentary silence fell into the room.

"She's right," Percy added. "You can't shout in here too much. Besides, too much noise, it's not good for... Alex's health. Her ears are extremely sensitive."

"'Harry, we're really sorry!" whispered Hermione desperately, her eyes now sparkling with tears. "You're absolutely right, Harry-- I'd be furious if it was me!"

Harry glared at her, still breathing deeply, then turned away from them again, pacing up and down. Hedwig hooted glumly from the top of the wardrobe. There was a long pause, broken only by the mournful creak of the floorboards below Harry's feet.

"What is this place, anyway?" he shot at Ron and Hermione.

"Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix," said Ron at once.

"Is anyone going to bother telling me what the Order of the Phoenix--?"

"It's a secret society," said Hermione quickly. "Dumbledore's in charge, he founded it. It's the people who fought against You-Know-Who last time."

"Who's in it?" said Harry coming to a halt with his hands in his pockets.

"Quite a few people--"

"We've met about twenty of them," said Ron, "but we think there are more." He pointed at us. "They're into it too. Dumbledore allowed them to attend a few meetings."

Harry glared at us.

"Well?" he demanded, looking from one to the other.

"Er," said Ron. "Well what?"

"Voldemort!" said Harry furiously, and both Ron and Hermione winced. "What's happening? What's he up to? Where is he? What are we doing to stop him?"

"We're not allowed to say anything until the elders step forward themselves," Annabeth said. "Besides, we're only allowed to go for a few meetings."

"Why d'you think we're here right now while there's a meeting going on down there?" Will said.

"We've told you, the Order don't let us in on their meetings," said Hermione nervously. "So we don't know the details--but we've got a general idea--" she added hastily, seeing the look on Harry's face.

"Fred and George have invented Extendable Ears, see," said Ron. "They're really useful."

Harry stared. "Extendable--?"

"Ears, yeah. Only we've had to stop using them lately because Mum found out and went berserk. Fred and George had to hide them all to stop Mum binning them. But we got a good bit of use out of them before Mum realised what was going on. We know some of the Order are following known Death Eaters, keeping tabs on them, you know--"

"--some of them are working on recruiting more people to the Order--" said Hermione.

"--and some of them are standing guard over something," said Ron. "They're always talking about guard duty."

"Couldn't have been me, could it?" said Harry sarcastically.

"Oh, yeah," said Ron, with a look of dawning comprehension.

I smiled a little. They had no idea.

Harry snorted. He walked around the room again, looking anywhere but at Ron and Hermione. "So, what have you two been doing, if you're not allowed in meetings?" he demanded. "You said you'd been busy."

"We have," said Hermione quickly. "We've been decontaminating this house, it's been empty for ages and stuff's been breeding in here. I mean, these guys cleared out most of it, but the store rooms-- AARGH!'