[Quest Complete]

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

[Quest Alert!]

[The Bloodline Curse(2)]

[Description: When you hate your foe so much that you want them and their descendants to suffer for a long long time... that is when you place this curse on your enemy. An ancient family placed this curse on the Greengrass line and now their youngest daughter, Astoria Greengrass suffers because of it. This curse randomly afflicts a person every third generation and is thought to be incurable. Symptoms include: a frail physique, weakened magic, weak immune system, and intolerable bursts of pain during the days around the New Moon.]

[Objective: Find information about three possible cures for the Bloodline curse.]

[Reward: Exp +150, Curse Breaker Lv 1, Stat +1 ]

'Oh, this is quite good—'

[Level Up!]

[Stat +1, Skill +1]

'And now, this is just the cherry on top, Hehe!' Ron was jumping up and down internally at the continued merry surprises and immediately commanded, 'Open Status'

[Status]

Name: Ronald Weasley (Sam)

Level: 16 (05/340)

MP: 243/243

Physique [Max.]: 6.1 + 0.9(Pending) [11]

Dexterity [Max.]: 5 [10]

Spirit [Max.]: 8.1 + 0.9(Pending) [16]

Perception [Max.]: 4 [10]

Stats: 1

Skills: 1

[Skills]

Transfiguration Lv5, Charms Lv5, Herbology Lv5, Potions Lv5, DADA Lv5, Astronomy Lv4, Flying Lv6, Dueling Lv6, Observe Lv1...

'Not only a stat point but also a Skill Point! A level-up is just awesome—' Ron was having a hard controlling his inner happiness from showing up on his face as he knew that it would be a disaster-level screw-up if he showed a delighted expression on his face immediately after the girl just told him about her terminal illness.

"Why do you look so constipated?" Asotira asked with a tilt of her head as she saw the severe frown on Ron's face as if he was having a stomach ache. Unlike the usual pity she got when people learned about her curse, he was looking at her with such a foreign expression that it baffled her... "Do you even know what it means?"

"Of course, I do." Ron retorted after taking a deep breath and smoothing his expression while mentally closing the status. It seems that he would need to learn Occlumency as soon as he could otherwise it would be tough for him to explain to people why his expression kept changing abruptly.

"Doesn't the curse just mean that every full moon, you'll turn into a bloodthirsty bunny..." he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "and then you'll appear above your sleeping enemies and drink their blood until they beg you to stop and agree to become your slave..." he finished in a grim tone and even gave a full body shudder for added effects. "...for the rest of his life."

"Wha—Who told you that ridiculous crap!" she shot back with an affronted look on her face, "Of course, I don't turn into—" she was about to tear into him when she caught sight of the mirth in his eyes and halted, "Y-You were joking?" she asked incredulously.

"No, No, I really thought that you turned into a cute little bunny every—"

"Oh, Shut up!" Astoria huffed with a pout on her face after seeing the small smirk on Ron's face. But she wasn't really angry though as it was quite a novel experience for her to not be treated like a fragile flower who could break at a single touch or worse to be looked at as if she was a scourge who could spread the curse to him and run away in fear.

"So what is this curse about... I mean what do you turn into, if not a blood-thirsty bunny," Ron asked casually while comfortably leaning back on his chair with his eyes focused on the view out the window; his entire posture screamed lazy as if he really was here just to soak in the sun.

"Well... firstly I don't turn into any animal, and for the most part, I am still just a normal girl..." she shrugged before continuing, "A normal girl who can't perform any of the more demanding magics or fly on a broom for a more than a minute... and of course, I need to stay here in Hospital Wing for a few days every single month to drink disgusting but very expensive potions so that I don't go insane from the excruciating pain that hits me around the New Moon..." she stopped before her expression abruptly changed to a bright one, "Except for all that, I am just a normal Slytherin girl."

"...Yep, that sounds exactly like every other girl out there," Ron nodded after a while before he shook his head with a sigh and tried to move on to something brighter, "But, hey, that must mean that you hate your sister, right..."

"Huh? Why would I hate my sister?" Astoria asked with an absurd look on her face.

"Oh! Come on, Your sister, "the overachiever", the one who's always in the top three of our year, the one who could've gotten the "prestigious" top spot if Hermione didn't spend half her year in the library," Ron ranted with the addition of air quotes for emphasis, "I bet someone uptight like that wouldn't be happy if you got less than satisfactory grades—"

"My sister is not uptight," Astoria interrupted with a wide-eyed angry look, "I mean, she does get a little mad when I get bad grades, and I guess she can be a little fanatical when it comes to doing homework on time, and I agree that she can be little mean if I am a bit lazy—Ok, fine, I admit that she's a little uptight, but that doesn't mean that she's a bad person," she said which made Ron roll his eyes, "No, really, she always helps me with my studies, and it is mostly because of her that I am still in the top ten of my class even though my practical skills suck."

"Wait! You're really in the top ten of your class?" Ron asked with a somewhat sceptical look on his face, "Damn... I would have never guessed from the way you were slacking when I first saw you..."

"Hey! I-I wasn't slacking," Astoria immediately responded with a flushed expression on her face, "I was just taking a b-break..." she explained but her evading eyes told Ron otherwise.

"Sure you were, and I completely believe you," Ron said with such a fake smile that it made Astoria want to punch him in the face, "Ahem, Anyway..." Ron coughed and stopped grinning after seeing the irritated look on her face, "About um this bloodline curse of yours— you don't happen to know of any cures for it, do you?"

"Of course not... Don't you think I would have already been cured if there was such a thing available," she answered before sighing and leaning back on her bed, "This is a very ancient curse that was rarely used even during the old times before it was banned, because of it's absurdly high costs, and even the old pureblood families of past hardly ever used it. And since it was so rare, there are hardly any books about it left lying around, and even if you scour the libraries of the Ancient and Noble families, you'll probably only find the way to cast this curse and not the way to cure it..."

"Ah...that's a bummer," Ron said with a disappointed look on his face, "But then... do you know why your line was cursed and which family the person who cast this curse belonged to?" He asked, hoping that it was some deranged Black ancestor who had cast this stupid curse so that at least he would have a clue as to where to start with the search for a cure otherwise he would be completely blind and would have to depend on luck to stumble upon it...

Because he knew that there was definitely a cure out there, otherwise the system wouldn't have assigned it to him as a quest.

"I think... it was about something like, 200 hundred years ago... an ancestor of mine spurred off one of her suitors and ran away from her home, and apparently her 60-year-old suitor belonging to the family of Gaunt didn't take it very well and decided to use most of his family's wealth to punish my family and take revenge for this 'outrageous' insult..."

"Ooh, talk about a petty man..."

"I know," Astoria nodded in agreement, "But don't worry, karma got them in the end as their family was declared bankrupt soon after... and now I think their family has even gone extinct... So I guess, all in all, our family got the better end of that deal..."

'But they are not completely extinct yet...' Ron didn't say it out loud as he didn't think it was appropriate to tell a child that their ancient enemy still had a descendant out there, who was not only very strong but was also pinning for world dominance.

He didn't think the little girl would take that information very well so he immediately tried to change the subject, "...So how much do these medicines of yours cost?" he asked while pointing at the bottles of potions on the table beside her bed.

"Hmm... about a thousand galleons, I think..."

"W-What?! A thousand galleons!" Ron squeaked with his eyes almost bulging out of his socket, "Damn your family must be rich..."

And wasn't that an understatement, because as far as Ron knew, their whole Weasley family, including the two oldest siblings, not long ago survived on their Father's measly salary of just 100 galleons, and now he finds out that this little girl just drank away that amount every single month... They were right when they said that 'Comparisons are a thief of joy'.

"We may not be rich for long..." Astoria darkly murmured under her breath. Even a relatively rich pureblood family like hers couldn't afford this expense every month easily. And even though her parents had never let her know anything about it, she knew that they had been under financial pressure for a long time.

"S-Say, um your Father wouldn't happen to be looking for a son-in-law, would he? And is your sister currently single or..." Ron tried to ask it in a forced casual tone but was failing badly at it.

"Wha—Haha!" Astoria burst out laughing when she comprehended what Ron was getting at, "Y-You think that you have a chance with my sister—HAHA!"

"Hey! That's very rude," Ron said in a somewhat indignant voice as he saw the girl laughing her ass off while rolling on the bed holding onto her stomach, "What's wrong with me? I'll have you know that many people think that I am quite the tall and handsome—"

"HAHAA!" It just made the girl laugh even harder.

"Hey, will you please stop—"

"What is happening here?" came an ice-cold bell-like voice from right behind Ron and along with it came the distinct sensation of a wand on his back making him shiver in his seat and raise his hands in surrender, "Um..."

"Eh! Sister! You're here..."

...

Daphne was late.

She was supposed to meet her sister more than an hour ago to take her out of the hospital wing, but she'd been so engrossed in a recent addition in the library named "The New Ancient Curse 3" that she had lost track of time, and now she was having to rush as fast as she could so that her sister didn't throw too much of a tantrum.

The hallways were mostly empty and she barely met any students along the way as most of them were either on the grounds soaking in the Sun or they were in their rooms packing their things so that they could depart immediately after the end-of-year feast.

And to be honest, Daphne was quite relieved that she didn't meet any of her housemates as she knew that there would be only one thing that they would want to discuss after the reveal on the front page of the Daily Prophet that morning and she was not ready to have that conversation yet...

Especially not so soon after the Fathers of many of her housemates got thrown into Azkaban as she didn't think it would be very healthy to tell them while their emotions were heightened that she still wanted to remain neutral regardless of last night's events...

So she had been cooped up in the library since before even the first one in her house had woken up so that she wouldn't get dragged into the lively discussion her housemates were surely having at the moment in the common room about who was going to join 'the group' and who would dare become a traitor to their crusade to kill all the so-called 'filth' of the wizarding world...

*Sigh*

There hadn't been too many times in her Hogwarts years that Daphne ever regretted not having many friends, or alliances as the Slytherins like to call it, as she did during this period... She felt that this all would have been a lot easier if she had some friends to guard her back or to take her side so that she didn't feel so... lonely.

After all, Potter had already proved that time and again that having friends was very useful. Just last night he had somehow convinced five of his fellows to go on a suicidal fight against adult Death Eaters in the Ministry...

Oh, their names hadn't been mentioned explicitly in the paper, but such was the prowess of Hogwarts rumour mill, that even before the morning paper arrived... most people had somewhat of an inkling about what the golden trio and their friends had been up to at the Ministry last night...

But alas, even if she wanted to, she knew that it was too late by now... after all, over the years she had always ignored all the offers from her housemates and her classmates to gather and mingle among like-minded people. Besides she didn't think that it would be a good conversation starter to tell them that she only wanted them so that they could be good canon fodder and take the heat off of her.

Thankfully, unlike her, Astoria was quite the happy kid and had many good friends in all the houses despite her... disadvantages.

But sadly, Daphne knew that these friendships wouldn't last very long because soon lines were going to be drawn in Hogwarts... and since most in their house were on the extreme side of how their society should be run, they would surely be forced to see things their way.

But Daphne, like her father also believed that being neutral was far safer and economically better for their family... not that they would have much of a choice in the future if things went the way that the news in the morning prophet was implying.

But in the end, she didn't care too much about it... she didn't care about the Purebloods, she didn't care about the muggles, she didn't care about the agendas or the mission from either side of the war, she didn't care that a lot of her housemates were going soon going to join the same secret group as their parents, she didn't care that most teenagers in Hogwarts were soon going to be embroiled in cruel war...

All she cared about was whether her sister and her family survived the upcoming upheaval, that's all.

She knew that the moment even a whisper of war was heard, her father would take the sisters out of Hogwarts and then out of the country without hesitation... and she agreed with him on that.

Of course, she'll be a bit sad that she wouldn't have access to the massive library of Hogwarts, or that she wouldn't get to prepare for a Mastery in Charms and Wards under Professor Flitwick, which would mean that her chances of becoming a successful Curse Breaker would become much thinner... but as long as the few people she loved were safe, she didn't care.

Finally, she reached the Hospital Wing about ten minutes later and after taking a deep breath she opened the front door.

The moment she entered, her eyes immediately went towards the only occupied bed. She could see that Granger had her eyes closed and that she was deep in sleep, probably recovering from last night's escapades, so she ignored her.

But after only taking a few steps towards her sister's bed, Daphne froze as she heard more than one voice coming out from behind the curtains.

The moment she realised that the voice was that of an older boy, Daphne immediately became alert and took out her wand... while she knew that they were quite safe inside Hogwarts and especially in the Hospital Wings...

She also knew that there were more ways to harm someone other than just the physical or magical ways.

She slowly and silently stepped closer to the curtains and just as she was about to enter, she heard her little sister's delighted laughter ringing out of the curtains... Daphne's expression became weird as Astoria sounded more joyful than she had heard in quite a while.

"Don't laugh!"

She heard the male voice say as she sneakily lifted the curtains sideway and when she saw who it was sitting on the chair beside the bed, most of the tension left her shoulders. She knew that red hair and Gryffindor were far better and easier to deal with than anyone from Slytherin, not because she thought that Gryffindor couldn't be evil if they wanted to... but because they wouldn't be too sneaky and smart about it.

While she could see that her sister was fine, Daphne still decided to be on the safe side and placed her wand on the Gryffindor's back before asking, "What is happening here?"

"Eh! Sister, you're here," Astoria said with a grin on her face as she finally stopped laughing after suddenly seeing her sister's face.

"What is Weasley doing here? Was he bothering you, Tory?" Daphne knew that Potter's red-head lackey wasn't the kind of person who was capable of doing anything wrong to children... but then again she about knew about his well-known distaste for the "Slimy Slytherins" as he called it, so she still wanted to be on the safe side.

"Hmm, let me think..." Instead of immediately helping her new friend, Astoria placed her hand under her chin and took on a thinking pose as if debating on what to answer.

"Uh...Pipsque—I mean, Astoria, this is not a joking matter," Ron gulped as he felt the distinct sensation of a wand on his back. While he knew logically that there was very little chance of the Slytherin behind him using any lethal spell on him, he also wasn't ignorant of the kind of things people here could achieve with just a piece of wood so he didn't want to take any risk, "You should quickly tell your sister and clear the misunderstanding here before..."

"But why would I do that? Weren't you very mean before, and making fun of me?" she replied in a sly tone.

But Daphne had already taken her wand off of Ron's back the moment she saw that her sister was just teasing.

"Sorry, Weasely." She nodded without a change in her expression before going to stand beside her sister's bed.

"N-No problem," Ron replied as he hurriedly got out of the chair and went to stand in front of the window before glaring at the Pipsqueak who just stuck her tongue out at him, "Um, Daphne, I was just talking with her and I didn't mean her any harm—"

"I believe you, Weasley," Daphne interrupted the Gryffindor with an indifferent expression on her face, "But I would still prefer it if you didn't talk with my sister after this."

"Oh." Ron let out with a somewhat hurt and awkward expression on his face, "You don't have to—"

"Yes, sister. Ron and I were just talking and he's—"

"Shut up, Tory," Daphne silenced her sister with a single glance before turning her ice-cold eyes towards Ron, "I am sure you understand what you and your friend's action in Ministry yesterday implies to everyone in Hogwarts... And I don't want any of my housemates to misunderstand and make it hard for my sister in Slytherin."

"I-I understand." Ron nodded his head before turning away from the green emotionless eyes of the big sister to the sad blue ones of the little one and said, "Then, I'll see you—Or I guess I won't see you...later." he said awkwardly, "Bye then." he said before leaving the Greengrass girls.

"Why did you have to be so mean, sister, he was such a funny boy and—" Ron heard from behind the once again closed curtains as he walked towards his bed.

"Shut up, Tory. And quickly pack up your things, we are leaving."

"Humph! He was completely right about you being an uptight ass."

"An uptight What?!"

Ron instantly jumped off of his bed and ran towards the bathroom... making the decision to not come out until much much later...

/