"Was that an impression of me, Mr Weasley?" hearing Mcgonagall's stern no-nonsense voice from behind him, just seconds after making fun of her was the stuff of nightmares that even a boggart couldn't conjure. All of them gulped and turned around towards her.

The Deputy Headmistress was carrying a tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning
heavily on a walking stick with her other. She had been injured during their Astronomy final while defending Hagrid from the Aurors and it looks like she had arrived here directly after getting discharged from St. Mungos.

"N-No, Professor. I-I wasn't!" Ron denied as he hurriedly shook his head. He would rather die than admit to the charges.

"Is that so..." McGonagall replied quietly before scrutinising Ron over her glasses for a few moments, "Nonetheless, I'll take five points from Gryffindor as a lesson, and in addition, you'll serve a detention with me for the rest of your days here. Is that understood, Mr Weasley,"

"Y-Yes, Professor—" Ron mumbled quietly but just as he was about to nod and silently accept his punishment, he suddenly remembered a pesky little detail about points... and then before he could stop and think any further, he blurted out, "But you can't do that, Professor."

Both Harry's and Hermione's heads swirled towards him and their jaws almost fell to the floor at Ron's brazenness. Their eyes looked towards him as if he had gone mad. Even McGonagall was taken aback by his reply before she raised an eyebrow and asked back, "And why not, Mr Weasley?"

"Um..." Ron hesitated briefly, while inwardly cursing his thoughtlessness. Still, he knew that he was already on the tiger's back and couldn't jump off now, so he may as well... "Because Snape—I mean, Professor Snape, Umbridge, and her Inquisitorial Squad already took all of Gryffindor's points... so we've got nothing left for you to take, Hehe."

The professor was silent for a while before turning towards Hermione, "Is that true, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor," Hermione nodded her head with a reluctant expression on her face as if wishing that she could give a different answer to her favourite professor.

'Teacher's pet,' thought Ron and Harry simultaneously.

"I see..." McGonagall replied before turning back to look at Ron and the others with such a stern look that immediately had him squirming in his seat like a naughty student even though he had the memories of an adult Sam, "I heard about all of your adventures in the Department of Mysteries from... somewhere,"

"S-Sorry, Professor,"

"No, you don't need to apologise, Miss Granger," she said while shaking her head, "While it was undeniable that what you did was stupid, reckless and brash... It can't be denied that what you did was instrumental in bringing You-Know-Who into the open, so you should be applauded for that, and I would like to reward you for that...Hmm, let's see, How about 70 points to each of you from Gryffindor, and Luna Lovegood as well... Yes, That should do it."

"Really!" Hermione replied jubilantly before her eyes widened as she realised something, "But t-that would put us right head of Slytherin for the house cup..."

"Will it? That's good then—Oh! but, I nearly forgot," McGonagall eye's suddenly turned back to Ron, "It seems I can finally take the points, Mr Weasley. So that would be 10 points from Gryffindor... Ah, but that would mean that Gryffindor would lose the cup just by five points... such a shame,"

"T-They would kill me," Ron gasped in a horrified voice as he understood what McGonogall was implying. He knew how obsessed the Gryffindors were with their house points, he remembered how many times their housemates had outcasted him and Harry because of them losing a few points, and if they knew that they lost the house cup just because of him...

"I know," McGonagall replied with a twitch of her lip before turning around and hobbling out of the hospital wing, she had only arrived to see if her lions were alright after their encounter with the Death Eater, and now that she had, she could finally retire to her room and rest.

"She—How did she even get into Gryffindor? She would fit better with the Slytherins considering her pettiness," Ron murmured with a blank look after the door had closed behind their Head of House.

"I know," Harry replied, nodding his head dumbfoundedly.

"Ron!" Hermione snapped while fiercely slapping him on his arm.

"What?!"

"Y-You! You just lost us the House Cup!"

"See, Harry!" Ron said to his friend in a scared voice, "It's already started. What am I gonna do now?"

The door to the Hospital Wing opened once again at the moment and in came the rest of their squad including Neville, Luna and Ginny.

"Why was Professor McGonagall here?" Ginny asked curiously while placing a basket of chocolate frogs beside Ron's bed.

"Professor McGonagall gave all of us points because of the DOM fight, and we were winning the House Cup, but Ron here lost us Ten points and now we're not winning," Hermione supplied very helpfully.

"YOU DID WHAT?!"

...

A few hours later, Ron was sitting on his bed all alone, fiddling with his status screen. Madam Pomfrey had kicked all the visitors out of the wing because of all the ruckus that they were creating at the end.

And because Pomfrey was quite irate with the fact that Hermione wasn't getting the rest that she should with her injury, since apparently "READING IS NOT RESTING, MISS GRANGER!" so the brightest witch of their year had been force-fed a sleep-inducing potion and was now knocked out on her bed dreaming peacefully.

Only three beds were occupied in the Hospital Wing at the moment, his own, Hermione's, and the last one was an unknown as the curtains had been drawn around it since Ron had arrived here and only Madam Pomfrey went in to check every once in a while.

Anyway, since he was all alone in the wing and bored out of his mind, he decided to mess with the system to see if he could find any kind of new function that would help him in the future, something like a way to increase his stats, or a way to level up skills or maybe a way to amass experience.

Of course, he had thought about that obvious method of improving his magic skills by casting them repeatedly, but unfortunately, you were forbidden from casting any form of magic in the Hospital Wing so he couldn't experiment with that at the moment, and was left trying to find alternate methods... which was turning out to be frustratingly fruitless at the moment.

"Ah! Damn it! You stupid system! Why are you so useless—" he let out with gritted teeth while pouring out his irritation by randomly clicking on the status screen, when unexpectedly something actually happened when he double clicked on the Charms skill, "Oh..."

[Charms Lv 5 (15%)]

1. Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (70%)

2. Lumos Lv 5 (70%)

3. Expelliarmus Lv 6 (90%)

4. Alohomora Lv 4 (80%)

5. Stupefy Lv 6 (25%)

6. Protego Lv 6 (35%)

7. Accio Lv 4 (40%)

...

..

"...so you need to double-click to open the drop-down menu for the skills..." Ron murmured while inwardly cursing himself for missing something so obvious.

And then he immediately began clicking away at all the rest of the skills, and sure enough, Transfiguration, DADA, and Potions, each of them had their own menus. While Transfiguration and DADA had their associated spells underneath them, the Potions skill had all the various Potion recipes that Ron had ever worked on under it.

But nothing showed up when he clicked on active skills like Flying and Duelling, which meant that it only worked on the various branches of magic and not simple skills.

"Well, at least, I learned something new..." Ron murmured with a satisfied expression on his face, as he knew that this new function would be a lot of help when he began levelling up his skills, even if nothing else.

"But wait! What if..."

Ron wondered aloud as his hand skipped over the Status and went towards the overhead menu with Status, Inventory, Quest, and other sections, out of which only the Status, Logs and Quest Sections were not grey.

He then tried double-clicking each of them and while unfortunately none of the greyed-out features gave any response, the Quest Section did...

[Quests]

[1. Active Quests]

[2. Quest Search]

'Ooh, this is new...'

Out of the two options underneath the Quests function, the Active Quests one was empty which made sense but when he clicked on the Quest search option, it began blinking rapidly with a blue light. And in the next moment, he felt a pulse originate from his body and cover the whole room.

The next time he blinked, Ron noticed that two exclamation marks had appeared in his vision. One was above the entrance to Madam Pomfrey's quarters and the other one was above the closed curtains around the third occupied bed.

"Ah..." Ron was shocked for a moment at the new revelation before he immediately clicked on the mark above the healer's quarters.

[Healer's Initiation (1)]

[Objective - Get the healer to agree to take you under her wings as her assistant and teach you all the intricacies involved in healing minor wounds and ailments]

[ Reward: Healing Lv 1, Exp +100]

[Requirements: Read Ten Basic Books related to Healing, Episkey Lv 6, Charms Lv 7, Potions Lv 7]

"Wow, This is quite good..." he breathed out while nodding his head. Even though he was a bit disappointed that he couldn't just get the quest right away, at least he now knew what he had to do if he wanted to become a healer. And he definitely would try to become one if he got the chance since it was a job that would definitely come in handy in the upcoming years when the war began, "Let's see what the other one is..."

[The ? Curse (1)]

[Objective - Find out who the person behind the curtain is and what curse is afflicting her.]

[Reward: Exp +10, The Curse (2)]

"So this is also a chain quest..." Ron pondered while looking at the number behind the quest title, and the reward... "The experience reward is just perfectly what I needed to level up and it doesn't seem like it would be a hard quest either... Let's go then," he immediately nodded his head and got up from his bed.

The bed with the curtain was in the middle on the opposite side and thankfully there was a window by its side so he could pretend he wanted to enjoy the sun while trying to spy. Ron took a deep breath and then nonchalantly began to wander towards the other side.

He came to stand in front of the window, out of which he could easily see the sprawling quidditch ground that was empty at the moment and the sun that was almost halfway up to the top.

He then casually stretched his hands above his head while faking a yawn and peeked at the bed from the corner of his eye. And what he saw made his eyes twitch wildly and left him unsure whether to laugh or cry.

The little girl sitting on the bed looked about 11 or 12 years old and had blond hair and blue eyes. She had an unusually pale face and looked so thin as if a strong wind could knock her over.

The girl had a quill balanced above her lips, and her hands laid behind her head as she rested against the bedrest. She had a bored look on her face and her eyes were on the ceiling instead of the homework assignment spread out in front of her— In essence, she looked like the perfect picture of a student procrastinating and daydreaming.

While Ron was reminiscing about his past and sympathising with her, the girl's eyes suddenly turned towards him and caught sight of the Gryffindor spying on her.

After being shocked for a few seconds, she hurriedly sat up straight on her bed and sent a glare his way, "What are you—"

"What are you looking at, Pipsqueak?" Ron asked irritatedly before the girl could, leaving her stunned.

"W-What?!" After the bewilderment at being called out as the victim wore off, she once again sent a glare his way while puffing her cheeks in anger, "This is my bed. What are you doing here? And what did you just call me?"

"Pipsqueak," Ron replied, selectively answering only her last question before he casually opened the curtain and went inside. He looked down to see that a chair was placed beside the bed so he took it and moved it so that it was facing the window before taking a seat on it with his legs on the windowsill.

Sam had been quite a frequent visitor of his Old Orphanage in his previous life, so he knew that the best way to deal with children was to disorient them so that they couldn't do anything other than reply.

"Y-You what are you doing? Why are sitting here?"

"What does it look like? I was bored with the view from my own bed so I came here to get some sun," he replied with a shrug as if what he was doing was completely normal and not rude at all, "You're a Slytherin, right?"

"S-So what if I am?" she asked while gripping her bedsheet tightly, "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing," Ron answered while ignoring her defensive glare at being called a snake, "Just wondered who you were since I haven't seen you before... So which year are you in, pipsqueak, First year, or Second year?"

"I am a third year," she shot back with a flushed face. It seems he had touched somewhat of a nerve by indirectly calling her short, "And don't call me a pipsqueak!"

"Well... what else am I gonna call you, you haven't told me your name yet, have you?" he replied as if it was all her fault.

"Y-You!" she was speechless for a while before reluctantly replying, "Fine! I am Astoria Greengrass—And you haven't told me your name either."

"My name's Ron." he replied shortly while skipping his last name, "But, Wait! Don't tell me, you're the little sister of the Ice Queen?"

"Ice Queen?" the little girl replied with a perplexed expression on her face.

"Daphne Greengrass. The Ice Queen of Slytherin. Aren't you, her sister?"

"I-I am... but I didn't know sis was called that," she replied with a confused look on her face, "Wait! Who else calls her that?"

"I think, everyone in our year does..." Ron replied immediately at the curious interest in the little girl's eyes, "Don't you know about, how she has an ice-cold expression on her face all the time, and the way she looks at everyone around her as if they were just unruly children... I swear people would believe her to be Sanpe's daughter if she wasn't so pretty,"

He wasn't actually making it all up as Ron had thought all of these things during their classes with the Slytherins when he was bored and talking with the other Gryffindors like Dean, Seamus and the other.

"T-This is perfect!" Astoria said with a delighted expression on her face, "I can't believe sis never told me these things," her face looked the perfect representation of a triumphant younger sibling who had finally gotten a chance to get to one-up her older sister.

Ron let her bask in her happiness for a few moments before asking the main thing, "So what happened with you... what are you in here for?"

"What?" Astoria immediately had a defensive expression on her face, "Why should I tell you?" her defensive tone suggested that she didn't want to divulge that information... but Ron couldn't abide by that for the sake of his quest.

"Hmm... I can't see anything outwardly wrong with you," Ron knew that the best way to make someone especially a child open was to make assumptions about them, "So maybe you have an internal problem... like a girl problem or something..."

"What?! W-What is a girl's problem?" Astoria asked back curiously despite herself.

"Huh. You don't even know something basic like that?" Ron replied with a tilt of his head while looking at the girl as if she was dense, "What are your parents even doing?"

"Don't talk about my parents like that!" the girl replied hotly, "And if you're going tell me, then do it otherwise, get lost."

"Fine! Fine! Calm down, I'll tell you, jeez... now I am definitely sure that you have the girl problem," he murmured the last part softly.

"What? What did you say?"

"Nothing." Ron quickly shook his head, "Anyway, if you want me to tell you something, then you need to give something in return,"

"What? Why?"

"Are you really a snake?" he asked while looking at her with a sceptical look on his face, "Isn't your house all about give and take? How can you not know that?"

"I-I know that!" she replied with a flushed face before hurriedly shaking her head, "Anyway, what do you want to know in return?"

"Hmm... Let's see, I don't think you can tell me anything useful... so why don't you just tell me about the reason you're in here?"

"W-Why do you keep wanting to know about that?"

"No reason, just curious. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Astoria was hesitant for a few moments before her curiosity won over and she replied, "Fine, it's not like it's a secret or something."

"That's good then," Ron shrugged casually before continuing, "Well, the girl problem I was talking about—Wait, How old are you again?"

"Thirteen!"

"Hmm... well that's old enough... so I guess it's fine," In the decade that Sam came from, these things stopped being taboo or something to be ashamed of so he didn't have any problem educating a kid, "Anyway, lend me your ear..." he leaned in and then began to whisper all the secrets involved in the so-called "girl problem", Why it was exclusive to girls? Why did it happen? How did it happen? And why does it happen only once a month? And why she should begin to panic if it doesn't arrive at its usual time...

Astoria's face turned progressively red as the Gryffindor whispered in her ears the taboo knowledge that she had only vaguely heard from her mother, and finally when he began talking about how to have safe se—"STOP IT! I don't wanna know that! You Pervert!"

"What? How did I become a pervert?!" Ron replied in a defensive tone, "This is just common knowledge that everyone knows about. Besides you're the one who asked me—"

"Shut up!" she replied, the colour crimson not fading from her face, "And who told you that everyone knows about it? My friends don't"

"They don't? They definitely should. It's important. In fact, I give you my permission to spread this knowledge as much as you want," he said waving his hand generously.

"No, I won't," Astoria shot back, "And besides why do you even know about it, you're a boy."

"Tch! Tch! Tch!" Ron shook his head disappointedly, "That's quite the backward thinking you have there, little girl. Everyone should know about it whether they are a boy or a girl. What if you suddenly need it and you don't know about it? That's going to be quite embarrassing, wouldn't it?'

"W-Why would you need it?"

"Well... what if I have a daughter in the future? Who would tell her about it?"

"Her mother would, obviously,"

"Well... then what if my wife died tragically sacrificing herself to save us, then what?"

"Y-You! You shut up!" the girl just couldn't believe how shameless he was.

"Fine, then, Anyway, now it's your turn..." he said while waving his hand towards her to divulge her part of the deal.

"Fine, If you want to know so much," Astoria murmured while folding her hands and looking away morosely before replying in a small tone, "I-I have something called a bloodline curse..."

[Quest Complete]

/

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