The Terrific Theatre

As Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked into the theatre company, they immediately regretted it. The place was a bustle with children running around crazily, and the trio was overwhelmed. They inched their way into a corner, bumping into another trio who were already huddled here.

"Oh, we're terribly sorry," apologized Hermione for the three of them. "We didn't mean to disturb you, we were just trying to get out of the mess of children."

"That's quite alright," said the boy with glasses. "We were in this corner to escape the madness too."

At this point a young girl, held by the eldest of the strangers, made a very cute cooing sound. This made all Harry, Ron, and Hermione smile, and Hermione bent down to the little girl's level.

"Well, aren't you sweet!" exclaimed Hermione, grinning at the girl. "What's your name?"

"Unny!" replied the girl. Hermione looked at the eldest girl quizzically.

"She means Sunny," explained the girl. "This is Sunny, my little sister. I'm Violet, and my brother is Klaus."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Harry. "This is Ron, and that's Hermione, and I'm-"

"He's Harry Potter, of course!" interrupted Ron, looking somewhat proud to have 'The Boy Who Lived' as a friend. "But I'm sure you know that already," he continued. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny exchanged looks.

"Well, no, we don't know him," Violet said. "I don't think we've met before. But it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Ron looked appalled.

"You mean...you don't know HARRY POTTER?! Crying out loud, he's bloody defeated Volde-"

"Ron!" hissed Harry sharply, cutting him off. "They're muggles, of course they wouldn't know! Let just try to fit in for once, alright?"

"Excuse me," said Klaus, looking quite confused, "What did you just call us? Mugs...?"

"Oh, it's just a word for people who don't go to the same school as us," explained Hermione, thinking quickly. "Think nothing of it." Klaus nodded, thinking he understood a bit more. The group fell into an  awkward silence until it was broken by Sunny.

"Creebo!"

"She sure does have a funny way of talking," commented Hermione.

"What my sister meant," added Violet hastily, "was that she was wondering if there are a lot of fun things to do at your school, like having hard things to bite. Sunny loves to bite things." Sunny grinned widely, showing her four large teeth in affirmation of Violet's last statement.

Hermione glanced at Harry and Ron, looking a bit uncomfortable about the topic. "Well, there are a lot of things to bite, I suppose. We have some stone statues in our front courtyard, which are very hard indeed. There are hard desks we use for studying...and...oh, there's a library full of hard books."

"A...library?" Klaus asked, his eyes suddenly lit up with the mention of the word.

Hermione nodded, a small smile on her face. "Yes, we have quite big library at our school since it is a boarding school. Do you like reading?"

"Oh, yes," replied Klaus, adjusting his glasses slightly. "Reading and researching are my favorite things to do."

"Mine too!" Hermione replied, starting to look almost as excited as Klaus. "What's your favorite thing to read about?"

"Well personally, I enjoy the water cycle very much," said Klaus with a smile on his face. "What about you?"

She thought for a moment. "Hmm...well, for some reason, I've always found books about World War II to be extremely interesting," Hermione said, almost shyly.

"That's a great topic. I've read some excellent books by brilliant authors on that very topic in the library."

"I read about that at the library, usually. Their selection always beats the small home library my family has. Do you have a library at home, too?" Hermione watched as Klaus' face slowly fell.

"Well," he said after a long pause, "We used to. But...it burned down with the rest of our house in the fire.

Hermione replied quietly, "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. That's not the kind of answer I was expecting."

"It's alright," said Klaus, smiling at Hermione weakly. "You didn't know." Violet nodded with him and decided to continue, looking a bit perturbed herself.

"Our house burned down a few months ago. Everything was destroyed but us."

"Wesaonsurve!" said Sunny, which meant something like, 'We are the only ones who survived!' and Violet was quick to translate.

"Oh!" exclaimed Hermione, "I'm so sorry! I truly didn't mean any disrespect." She looked at the ground sadly.

"So...you guys are orphans?" asked Ron. The three Baudelaires nodded.

"Where do you live, then?" Harry asked, quite a bit of curiosity in his voice. "Do you live with relatives?"

"Yes, for the most part," replied Violet. "We had lived with our Uncle Monty and our Aunt Josephine...that is, until they passed away." Harry, Ron, and Hermione's eyes continued to grow larger at all of their new friends' unfortunate circumstances. "Then we went to work at a lumber mill because apparently one of our relatives was running it. But we got...kicked out, I suppose you could say. Now Mr. Poe, the man who's in charge of our care, has sent us to this camp while he tries to find a new guardian for us. But the first person whose care we were under, Count...Olaf..." Violet's voice trailed off, a tad of fear in her eyes.

"That's terrible," said Harry, the corners of his mouth in a frown. "I was orphaned too, and I live with my terrible uncle, aunt, and cousin, but nothing that unfortunate has happened to me. This...Count man, is he horrible?"

Klaus took up the courage to speak about him next. "Well, it's quite obvious all he wants is our fortune. But he seems to do anything in his power to get his hands on it. He tried to marry Violet, and he follows us around wherever we go. I don't know how he does it. He was why Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine died, and why we got kicked out of the lumber mill."

Hermione gaped, somewhat indignantly. "But..doesn't anyone help you?" she asked, appalled at how terrible things could be in a muggle's life.

"Gize!" Sunny exclaimed, which Violet translated meant, 'No one knows its him because he always wears a disguise.

"How do you three know it's him then?" asked Ron, looking rather suspicious.

"We can just tell," said Violet, "the way you can tell if someone's your uncle or not. He has these terrible beady eyes that always have a familiar evil shine in them. He also has a tattoo of an eye on his ankle and a thick unibrow."

"Well, at least he doesn't have a snake nose!" Ron said with a laugh, getting glares from Harry and Hermione and confused looks from the Baudelaires.

"Never mind," sighed Ron, attempting to direct the conversation back to books.

---

"I can't believe you dragged me into this!" said Nellie, stepping into the theatre company with her platform black-leather boots. She cringed at the noise level.

"I can hear these kids over the sound of the music from my iPod!" she said, pulling out an earbud gingerly. Amy followed her inside and turned to face Dan.

"I can't believe you dragged me into this either. Remind me why we just HAVE to do this again?" Dan followed his sister and au-pair inside the building and closed the door.

"Well, to be technical, the clue we found on the music sheet led to this theatre place. But we can have fun while we're at it, right?" The two girls looked at him lamely.

"You can't be serious, Dan. I won't be able to focus on anything with all these kids. And you expect me to share living quarters with some of them?!" exclaimed Amy, looking really stressed out.

"Relax, A," said Dan. "Some of them will get cut out of the show anyways. You have to audition, after all. Plus, the rooms are just like dorm. With about 8 more people..."

"Wait. We have to audition? What if one of us gets cut?" asked Nellie.

"Of course we have to audition! It's a play. And you just better act your way into it!" came Dan's smug reply. The three of them sat on the floor, leaning on the wall, and waited for the auditions to start.

---

Katniss made sure to hold tight to Prim's hand. Too much had gone into getting them into camp, and she didn't want anything to happen to her sister or herself. She bent down and straightened Prim's frock, then stood back up, surveying her surroundings closely.

"Stay close," Katniss told her sister as she took a few hesitant steps into the room. Katniss wasn't one to be afraid of things, but she had to admit being in a new place as big as this one was pretty intimidating. She walked across the room with Prim and determined this camp probably wouldn't have very high supervision levels. She could already see people whispering in corners, lounging around on the floor, and burning off energy by running around and being as obnoxious as possible. She decided she was going try to find some kind of adult when she heard someone calling her name.

"Katniss!" What? Who could possibly recognize her here?

She looked over to see who was calling her name and she gasped. How did HE get here? She didn't even know his name. Katniss' breath caught in her throat as he started to walk over to her, a million different thoughts going through her head. What would she say to him? She didn't have any time to decide because he was next to her, looking for a response.

"You're the...bread guy," Katniss said meekly, kicking herself for not having a better response ready. She scanned the boy's face and saw a slightly dejected look.

"Well, yeah," he said, "I do work in a bread shop..."

"How do you know my name?" asked Katniss, deciding to go out and say what had been plaguing her mind ever since she saw the person.

"I don't know yours."

Katniss saw a slight tinge of red jump to his cheeks, and the gears in his head turn as he attempted to think up an excuse.

"Well, I know a lot of people," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Peeta." Katniss gave him a small glare and refused his touch him. His handshake was still met, however, but it was from Prim.

"Hi Peeta," said Prim, the tune of innocent youth still in her voice, "I'm Prim."

"It's nice to meet you, Prim," said Peeta, offering her a small smile.

"We're happy to meet you too," said Prim, speaking for both Katniss and her. "I've seen you around District 12. You saved our lives once. Thank you." Peeta was about to reply when Katniss cut him off.

"And how did you get here?" she asked. When Peeta continued to look confused, she elaborated.

"Half of our District had to donate to get Prim and I to this camp. So how did you get here?"

Peera studied his feet for a moment before mumbling out a response. "Ingotaspon..."

"What?!" asked Katniss loudly, a hue of annoyance in her voice.

"I got sponsored."

Katniss looked stunned, and replied slowly so she could try to comprehend what he had just said.

"Someone in the Capital...wanted to sponsor YOU? Out of all people?!"

Peera looked slightly hurt, but nodded.

"But you're just a bread boy!" cried Katniss, sitting down in a huff.

"Katniss, wait! You don't get it!" cried Peeta, but his protests were ignored. Prim took his hand gently, him a few feet away from Katniss, and the two of them sat and talked.

---

The first thing Oliver did when he walked into the room was hiss at Emalie, "Someone's going to find out!" Emalie just shrugged it off.

"Not if you're careful," she replied.

"Yeah, but when I'm talking they can see my teeth," Oliver paused and smiled really wide, his two fangs blatantly displayed.

"Well, then don't smile really wide," offered Dean. "If no one sees them, they won't suspect anything."

"Oh, yeah," said Oliver sarcastically, "coming from you that seems really easy."

"Hey," protested Dean, looking kind of hurt, "I had to take about fifteen baths and wear pounds of cologne to mask my smell. All you have to do is not smile." Oliver raised an eyebrow.

"Just don't pull any skin off," he said. Dean was preparing to retort when Emalie spoke.

"Um, guys? Who are they?" she said, looking to her right as a group of three people approached, looking very determined.

"...Hi?" said Oliver, looking as confused as he felt.

"Are you who I think you are?" the girl addressed Oliver. Oliver took a moment to look over them as his brain thought of an answer. The girl who had spoke to him looked really tough. Actually, they all looked really tough. She had blond hair and these...striking gray eyes. The older boy who was just slightly taller than the girl had...turquoise eyes? Oliver didn't really know what color to describe them as. They were sort of a sea-green. Oliver looked at the last boy. He looked gothic, his hair jet black and his skin really pale, and...what was up with his eyes? They were pure black, and looking at them made Oliver rather uncomfortable, like he was witnessing something sacred. What was up with them? Oliver's brain finally formulated what he thought was a safe response.

"Who do you think I am?"

"I think you're a son of Hades," said the girl. Oliver looked at Emalie and Dean.

"What?" he asked, looking very confused.

"A son of Hades...?" the younger boy asked, looking unamused that Oliver seemed to not know what he was talking about. "That'd make you my half-brother."

"Uh, sorry," said Oliver, starting to get concerned about these people's mental health. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a son of...well, Sebastian, but he's not my real dad-"

"Aha!" interrupted the girl. "So you are a demi-god!" Oliver's response was another confused look.

"Um, Annabeth," said the other boy who had been standing there watching, "maybe he actually doesn't know what we're talking about. Maybe he's not-"

"But look at him!" said the girl who was apparently called Annabeth. "Look at his skin! It's as pale as Nico's! And you said he has that aura...right Nico?"

The boy who was called Nico replied, "Yes, he definitely has that aura of death around him that the children of Hades have. And..." Nico turned to Dean, "he does too." Annabeth looked at Oliver and the other boy smugly, and Oliver lost his patience, his eyes flaring amber.

"Look, I don't know who you guys think you are, but-"

"Percy, Nico!" Annabeth shouted, staring at Oliver, "His eyes do that thing at Nico's do when he gets angry! Annabeth reached out to touch him as Oliver recoiled, barring his teeth in a hiss. Annabeth flinched exuberantly and jumped back several feet behind the guy Oliver assumed was Percy.

Oliver felt a slight emission of warmth near his left shoulder and he turned to find the pale boy, Nico, with a small dagger out. It was glowing golden, and Oliver found himself flinching and covering his eyes. He concluded it must have some type of sunlight resemblance in it.

"I don't think he's a demi-god," said Nico to Percy and Annabeth.

"Then what is he?" asked Annabeth, moving next to Percy to get a closer look at Oliver. "A monster?"

"Stop it!" shouted another voice suddenly; it was Emalie. "He's not a specimen, you can't just go poking at him however you like! Put that down!" She turned to Nico as she said her last sentence, and he looked caught off guard.

"You mean..." he asked, in a state of disbelief, "you can see this?"

"If you mean I can see your dagger that you're holding at my friend's throat, yes, yes I can! Put it down!"

"But you're a mortal!" exclaimed Percy, looking confused as well. "Can you see this?" Percy took a pen out of his pocket and clicked it. It turned into a sword.

Emalie nodded, but looked a bit unwary at all the weapons this trio was carrying.

"Maybe she's an Orani," suggested Annabeth.

"I have Sight, if that's what you mean," retorted Emalie. Annabeth was about to reply when a big, booming voice filled the entire room.

"Welcome!" said a man who was on stage holding a microphone to his mouth. "The auditions for the theatre will begin in a few minutes! A would like to ask the ladies to move to the right side of the room and line up, and the gentlemen to line up on the left side of the theatre. You may direct any questions to me, Monsieur Valjean."

And so our story begins.