Strange Teachers

Chapter 16

——Ron——

I was eating sausages and eggs for breakfast while I watched my parents talking to Hermione, Harry, and Ginny, and George a little ways down the table with Lee Jordan. It had been five days since our loved ones were invited in, and all of them seemed to be settling in well.

Just as I was serving myself some more scrambled eggs, our Heads of House stood up from their seats at the staff table to stand at the head of ours, presumably to make an announcement.

"Good morning, Gryffindors," Prof. Jackson said. "Today, we'll be Organising an optional activity for any student or guest to participate in, designed to familiarize guests with the castle, and maybe even allow students to discover new things about it."

He passed out pieces of parchment with a wave of her wand. The parchment was covered with a list of objects, some of which were trophies, specific pieces of furniture, and more general things like 'something shiny with red and blue on it'.

"We'll be sending anyone who wants to go on a scavenger hunt," his colleague continued. "In teams of four or five, you'll look for each of the items on this list. You have to prove that you've seen it, but you aren't allowed to have touched them." I didn't know how we were going to do that; it sounded pretty impossible. "You may exceptionally use magic to do this, and you are authorized to go anywhere on school grounds except for the forbidden forest. Please send one person from your team before the end of the meal to tell us who is participating."

The whole table erupted into conversation when they sat back down at the front of the hall. Everyone was forming teams for the scavenger hunt, including my Hermione.

"Okay, so George will be with Lee Jordan and some of their other friends, so we can do me, Ron, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley; then Harry, Ginny, Will, and Teddy can work together. Does that work for everyone?" We all nodded, and she stood. "Good, someone needs to come with me to tell them."

Will offered to and he and 'Mione walked up behind the short line and came back a few minutes later.

"Now that that's done, what do you say we make this a bit more competitive?" Ginny asked.

"Good idea, Gin," Harry offered his hand to shake mine. "May the best team win, mate."

"Yes, we will," 'Mione said with a smirk. "Good luck."

"You too, but we'll be the ones winning," Ginny teased back. She turned towards Harry and Will as she picked Teddy up. "C'mon, guys; strategy meeting outside." Then, my extremely competitive sister dragged her teammates away in a blur of red, black, and blond.

——Will——

I appreciated the others including me in the activity. I really did, but it wasn't much fun seeing as I kept thinking about Nico and how he'd love this place if he were here. We were currently on the seventh floor, having searched the halls for a painting in which a person was wearing neon clothing, of which there are very few, surprisingly.

On the other hand, we'd figured out how to show Percy and Annabeth proof that we'd found the things. We were going to duplicate each object and shrink it, before putting it in a bag with an undetectable extension charm on it. It was pretty genius; turns out Ginny was very—and I mean very—competitive. It probably had to do with growing up with six older brothers.

"Next item:" Harry was reading them aloud and writing down where we find them as a backup plan, all while keeping track of Teddy. "Something belonging to a former teacher. How are we supposed to find that?" We all stopped and thought for a moment.

"Ooh, I know. The Room of Requirement," Ginny said.

Harry seemed to understand, but I was still in the dark. Nonetheless, we started pacing, turning a few corners, then stopping in front of a tapestry that looked a bit like a laistrygonian giant doing—or rather trying to do—ballet.

Despite all of my questions, Ginny just paced back and forth across the wall across from the tapestry, muttering to herself. That's when Harry finally explained as a door appeared on the wall.

"It's a magical room that becomes whatever you need it to be. You just walk across that wall three times while thinking of what you need."

"How does that help us? Are we just going to wish for all of these things?"

"No," he continued. "There's a version of the Room that always appears when someone wants to get rid of rubbish. It definitely has anything that could ever be on that list in it." We walked in and I was in awe of the sheer amount of junk in the room.

"Yes," Ginny agreed, "but I had a specific thing in mind for the item belonging to a former teacher."

So, we ended up duplicating an old, annotated potions textbook that apparently had a pretty awkward history for Harry. After finding a broomstick with less than a dozen twigs, an old single sock, and a chair with three legs, we were looking for something that represents gryffindor and epically failing, so Harry started a conversation.

"What's it like being a demigod?"

"Not all it's cracked up to be. I mean, having good archery and healing skills is nice and all, but it doesn't really make up for only having a mom and being chased by monsters all of the time."

"Do your godly parents never visit you?" Ginny asked. "I got a prophetic dream from Athena earlier this year."

"Not usually," I answered, "but my dad got turned into a mortal boy as a punishment from Zeus and came to Camp for help. He got to meet my-my boyfriend Nico." Gods, I wish he were with me and not missing.

The others exchanged glances, obviously knowing about Nico's disappearance. Suddenly, Ginny looked right in front of us, at the aisle that stretched out in between two old armchairs piled with trash.

"What's that?" Faced with our quizzical looks, she continued. "On the floor—that light."

"What light, Gin?" Harry asked.

"There's like a faint glow. Can you not see it? I think we should follow it," she insisted. Then, I thought about how Rachel had navigated the Labyrinth.

"You could be clear-sighted, Ginny. It would explain the light and the prophetic dreams. Have you ever seen a monster that didn't exist in the wizarding world?"

"Now that you mention it, I saw a man once who looked sort of like a lion, but had a scorpion tail."

"We should definitely follow the trail, then," I said excitedly. This might even lead us to Nico. After all, I had wished to find him; maybe the Room had listened.

We walked in seemingly random twists and turns for over ten minutes before Ginny noticed a change in the glow.

"I can see a brighter light over there," Ginny pointed to a model pyramid about five feet tall that was mostly hidden from view by a cabinet of battered manuscripts. My hopes of finding my boyfriend lowered a bit, since he was relatively tall and probably wouldn't be hidden by the storage unit. But there was only one way to find out.

We eventually made our way around to the pyramid, only to be met with a strange sight. The cutest bear cub I'd ever seen was curled up at the base of the pyramid, not asleep, but clearly tired. Ginny immediately rushed to her knees next to it.

"Hey, little guy, you're the one I drew aren't you? Why, I wonder?"

The little furball's eyes opened and he looked straight at me. Something was so familiar and endearing about those eyes. Meanwhile, Teddy had waddled over to it and was petting its shiny black fur. The toddler's hair turned the exact same colour, a sure sign that he liked someone. 

As if I were drawn to the cub, I went to kneel near it and just stared. I thought maybe it'd do something that would help me make sense of this whole situation.

Sure enough, he did. 

— - — - —

A/N: It's technically still Saturday for a few more minutes, at least where I am. Sorry for not updating sometime before like 9pm. Anyway, thank you all so much for 4.1k reads and for all of the other things you do to support this story! I hope that you like it so far and will comment (I want to know any theories for where the story is going and whether my cliffhanger was Riordan-worthy), vote, and do other stuff!