Argh! This chapter took awhile more than usual, I know! I was so focused on a chapter for my other story! Sorry!

To Guest: Alright, I am.

To H.N. Dots: That and remember all the gods blessed him and gave him free clearance? I'm pretty sure I mentioned that.

To Me: He he, that was probably the meanest thing I've managed to do to my characters so far.

To Aphrodite child: Thanks!

To Guest (I'm seriously not sure if you are the same person...): I'm actually considering putting the whole Marauder thing in, so that Harry meets Sirius and all before the other demigods come.

To Guest (like, really really not sure): He he.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor Percy Jackson & The Olympians

—Ronald Weasley—

Interrogation time. Okay, not really interrogation, but still. I wanted to find out more about Nico, he just didn't fit into the puzzle.

"So..." I started as we went back towards the Gryffindor tower. "You're from America, Long Island, New York, right?"

He looked a little taken aback. "How did—"

"Dumbledore mentioned it at the start-of-term-feast. Remember, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded, to my relief. "Yeah. Strange, he doesn't usually say stuff like that."

Nico shrugged indifferently. "I wouldn't know. But yes, Ron, around that region."

We walked past the library, where I found Hermione having the internal struggle of either collecting more knowledge from her precious books or hanging out with her wonderful crush with the possibility of gaining knowledge that way too. I solved the problem for her.

"Why don't you do that research like you wanted and we'll see you in the common room later?" I said to her. She gave me a slightly disappointed look then nodded and went in.

Nico looked slightly more uncomfortable as we continued on in silence.

"How many cousins do you have again?" I asked finally.

"What?" he asked, catching himself. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "Curious."

I waited for his answer.

"Three." he decided. "I think. Not including deceased ones, of course."

Deceased. Some of his cousins died.

"Arachnid." I told the fat lady. You know, I always thought it's ridiculous that that painting is actually called the fat lady, even by the teachers. You'll think she had a proper name or something. It must be offensive for people to keep calling you 'the fat lady' all day.

I'm wandering. "So Nico, are both of your parents wizards?"

Nico nodded. "Yeah. They're both muggleborns."

"Really." I thought aloud. Either he was telling the truth, or this kid was a very good liar. I already had the feeling that he confounded us somewhere before, I just couldn't place my finger on it.

"Wait, how can you not know how many cousins you have?" I wondered aloud. Of course, it was possible for us Weasleys, our family tree is huge. In a way, Malfoy was right when he said that all Weasleys have red hair (obviously) and more children than we can afford.

"We have a really big family." he explained. "And then there are loads of stepbrothers and stepsisters among them too. I need to figure out which ones are first-cousins, the rest are complicated."

Apart from the stepfamilies thing, that sounded a lot like the Weasleys.

"What kind of camp do you go to anyway?" I asked. "Hermione would love it, what's it called?"

He smiled. "Chiron's Elemental Camp. Not very original. It's named after the first camp director."

Hmm. "Sounds cool. When did it start?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. None of us really paid that much attention in the theory lessons so they stopped giving them."

"Wish they'll do that for us." I chuckled.

He laughed a bit with me. "I agree."

That caught me by surprise. He was such a 'good student' that I never thought he would think that way. "Really? But isn't studies, um, really important to you?"

He looked like he wanted to burst out laughing but quickly caught himself. I kept looking pointedly at him. He finally sighed and gave me a sheepish look. "Don't tell Hermione, okay? I try, since you guys are my only friends, and I figured that as long as I seemed to take schoolwork as seriously as her then I'll be able to stick around you guys."

Interesting. Very interesting. I think that was the one actual confession out of the entire conversation.

"So why do it that way?" I pressed. "Wouldn't it be an awful lot of hassle just to hang around a couple of kids that happened to be nice to you?"

He looked a bit disappointed. "So you don't really like me around?"

"No, no, I don't particularly mind you."

Anymore. Nico really was cool to have around, especially now that I had become less affected by his glassy black eyes. Even if he was so annoyingly mysterious.

"I mean," I tried to think of how to say this. "Why go through that trouble? It should've been obvious by then that we were going to be friends with you from the start. More or less."

He shrugged uncomfortably. I waited for his answer.

"Well," he hesitated. "I was desperate to make sure we were really going to be like friends, and not just a spur-of-the-moment celebrity novelty like it was with Dean and Seamus."

I suddenly felt guilty, wondering whether I had really been as much of a friend as he acted like I was. Even Hermione seemed to have noticed that I could barely even keep at least neutral to him for long.

"And I wasn't sure," he continued awkwardly. "Since I've never really had friends before. People usually treat me differently because of my father, and not in a good way. I've never really known friendship. Once I got a taste of what it felt like when I came here, I didn't want to lose it again."

Nico was rambling. Not uncommon for us, but that meant two things. One, he was comfortable enough to speak freely around me. Two, he would probably accidentally let slip more information.

"I mean, back at camp no one really accepts me, even my cousins don't really. Well, Jason sorta does, but that's on rocky ground. Everyone else shuns me because of my father."

There it was, his father reference again. I couldn't help but wonder why they would keep hating him because of that. What kind of horrible person could his father possibly be?

Nico was staring at me in shock. With a jolt, I realized that my last thought had been spoken aloud.

"I-I mean, I, um," there wasn't really anything I could say to cover that up. "Who's your father?" I relented.

He looked worried, wringing his hands and avoiding eye contact. "I'm going to tell you the truth, which is that I can't tell you."

I studied him. "You don't want to, you're not supposed to, or you physically can't?"

Nico looked taken aback by this, as he often did whenever I spoke with him (which wasn't a lot) but immediately answered, "I'm not supposed to."

"Oh. Okay."

There was an awkward silence, despite the easy stream of talk that had been coming from him mere seconds before. We had entered our dorm room at some point, I noticed, and were now sitting opposite each other on our bunks.

I let my mind wander for awhile. Did Hermione make any progress on her research? Had she come up with yet another marvelous conclusion? More importantly, had I myself learned anything from this interrogation?

I knew vaguely where his camp was and a bit about his family, I knew the name of his camp (which I could maybe get Hermione to look up later), I knew he had been pretending to be studious in desperation to be our friend, and I knew that he wasn't used to people being nice to him. This was all provided he wasn't lying.

The silence was getting much too uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry for asking." I said after awhile. Nico looked up from his feet. "You know, about your father. That was too nosy of me."

He regarded me with interest. "Don't be." he said reassuringly. "I suppose it is rather suspicious, isn't it?"

I grinned at the way he said it. "Oh, Nico, stay here much longer and you'll lose that American accent of yours for good!"

He pouted playfully. "See here, Ronald, it'll be your fault if that may happen." he said, deliberately speaking more… British, I guess. Never really thought of the way we speak as 'British'. It was just the normal way of speaking to us.

"Don't call me Ronald." I jested back.

"Why not?" he taunted. "That's your real name, isn't it?"

"You're just jealous because I have an incredibly perfect name!" I mocked. "…Little Nicky!"

"Hey!" he flushed red. "You don't call me that either!"

"But it fits!" I cried, laughing by now. "Really!"

"No it doesn't!"

"Yes! You're so little sometimes I forget that you're already eleven!"

"I'm not little! Call me that again I'll throw you in Tartarus for all that's worth!"

I stopped laughing and he, who had also been partly in hysterics, froze as well.

"What?" I asked, more confused than anything.

He was avoiding eye contact again. The tension was back, much briefer this time, though.

"Do you trust me, Ron?" he asked hesitantly.

That was an odd question. It caught me off-guard, and I found myself struggling to find the answer myself. Did I trust Nico di Angelo? Young, scrawny, mysterious and desperate?

"I trust you as a friend," I tried to form my feelings into words, "But I don't know you well enough to trust you on really important things, if you get what I mean."

He seemed a little disappointed, but also as if he had been expecting it. "Well, it was sorta nice talking to you, Ron, you can be a really good listener."

He got up and left. My mind took awhile to process that before I jumped up and ran over to the door. The 'where are you going' died in my throat as I realized he was already gone.

I sat back down on my bunk. Thinking.

'I'll throw you in Tartarus', that was a strange threat. Where the hell was Tartarus anyway? Maybe Hermione would know.

My head almost ached. Nico was like a complex math puzzle that I, for some reason, really really wanted to solve. It was like playing a chess game with a complete stranger, not knowing if any of his moves were open or fake, whether he was pulling strings or just going with the flow.

Suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Gets judged by his father. Shunned for it. Dark clothes, dark eyes, creepy aura.

Voldermort.

So, in case you didn't get it, Ron now thinks that Nico's father is Voldermort. I know it's been done loads but that just seems like the obvious assumption he would make.

Now, it seems I need your help again. Since Professor Lupin will still be taking DADA, what should the boggarts be for Nico, Nyroc, Luna, Draco and Alabaster? Please help! I'm stuck on that one!