Strange Teachers

Chapter 10

A/N: from now on, anything underlined is said in Ancient Greek, which all of the demigods speak/read fluently.

——Percy——

The next few days flew by. Hazel left later that week, with a promise to update us if anything was discovered about Nico's whereabouts. So far, all anyone knew was that the Hecate cabin had sensed a disturbance in the mist somewhere in Brooklyn and Nico had gone to check it out. No one had heard from him since.

Annabeth and I spent every spare moment asking around and doing what we could to locate him, which wasn't much, considering that we were still in the UK.

Eventually, we accepted that we couldn't really do anything but wait, though, so we tried to distract ourselves with teaching as much as we could.

Tonight, my beautiful girlfriend and I were sitting side by side in our bed, grading papers, using a handy translation spell to make it easier. Just as I was reading a particularly gruesome paragraph of an essay about the unforgivable curses, Annabeth gasped suddenly. She was too busy rummaging through the jumble of books and papers on her bedside table to notice my puzzled look. Once she did, she had a small piece of paper in her hands and started explaining.

"This is where I wrote down Ginny's prophecy. Look at this line. ...one they used to call a friend. What other prophecy does that remind you of?" I thought for a second before realizing what she was getting at.

"But that's not possible, Annabeth. He's dead. It must be someone else."

"Maybe. It just seems to correlate perfectly," she admitted with sad eyes. I knew that those memories were painful for her. They were for me, too.

"Hey," I gently turned her head up so her eyes met mine, "we'll figure it out, but Luke isn't a part of it. That first prophecy was long ago."

"I know," she sighed. "I guess I just hoped..." she trailed off, not needing to say anything. We both hoped to see him again, that he'd get a second chance, that he could see how everything's changed. We hoped that for all of them. Everyone who died for the war effort, or just because they were half-bloods.

The rest of the night was spent cuddling and reliving our good memories of moments with our fallen friends.

——Ginny——

It was early October and I'd just been outside at quidditch practice. Harry and I were walking up to the common room hand in hand. As soon as we climbed through the portrait hole, we heard excited whispers and giggles coming from a gaggle of fifth year girls in front of the bulletin board.

Walking closer, I could tell why they seemed so excited. On the board, a sign proclaimed:

This year, on the 31st of October, a Halloween ball will be held.
You may come in costume and with a date.

"So, will you be my date to the ball?" Harry smiled, knowing the answer before I said it.

"Going to the ball with Harry Potter?" I joked, pretending to think about it. "I don't know..."

"Oh, really? Most girls would love to be asked to the ball by me," he joked back in a falsely cocky voice.

"Well, I'm not most girls." He chuckled at that.

"No, you certainly aren't," he said softly before leaning in and kissing me, causing my mind to go blank for one blissful second. He pulled away after what seemed like less than a second, but was probably several.

"Does that mean you'll go with me?"

"I'd love to."

——Percy——