Turning to the endearing Ariana, Ravenclaw explained patiently. "Tom mentioned some time ago that this summoning was meant to bring in a figure on the level of the age's greatest wizards, the same tier as Grindelwald and Andros. Looking across all of history, it's simply true that witches have historically occupied a weaker position in that regard."
"Witches at that particular tier are genuinely rare, as far as I know. There are figures even a level above that, though, Helga and Morgan among them."
"Of course, that doesn't rule out hidden masters who never revealed the full extent of their power."
Wizards, by nature, guarded their secrets closely; the overwhelming majority preferred to keep the true extent of their abilities hidden. Wizards as flamboyant as Grindelwald or Voldemort were the rare exception, not the rule. Without the two of them, the wider world would only have known Dumbledore was exceptionally skilled, with no real sense of just how vast the gap actually was.
Which meant history was almost certainly full of unrecorded figures who'd never once shown their true strength, men on par with the greatest wizards of their age. Even so, Ravenclaw still believed male wizards likely outnumbered female ones at that tier, a simple reflection of differing temperaments across the sexes.
Unbothered, Tom asked with genuine curiosity, "So what happens now? If you're all betting on a man, there's no real wager left to make."
Grindelwald and Andros exchanged a glance, muttering back and forth for a moment before settling on a solution:
The dividing line would be the year 1000. Before that, Andros won by default. From the year 1000 onward, roughly when Hogwarts itself was founded, the win went to Grindelwald.
Purely by timespan, Andros clearly had the better end of the deal, so Grindelwald added one more condition: the figure had to be a documented, historically recorded master of that tier. Anything obscure or unverifiable would count in Andros's favor instead.
The further back in history one looked, the murkier the records became, which thinned the pool of candidates considerably either way.
Andros agreed readily enough, and the wager settled into something genuinely balanced. Ravenclaw joined in for the fun of it too, staking her own guess that the new teacher would be a witch, with a modest, reasonable favor as the stakes.
"Tom, not joining in?" Grindelwald asked, glancing over at the boy.
Tom shook his head. "You three will be colleagues from here on, so joking around like this makes sense for you. I'm still just the student. I'll pass."
At that, all four faces softened, a warmth none of them could quite suppress.
That was, in part, exactly why they'd all come to care for Tom the way they had. Bound as they were by the learning space's power, their very existence hung entirely on the boy's whim, and yet he still treated them with genuine respect, not some performance put on for show, but something real.
Easygoing enough to joke around, and yet still careful to hold the line where it mattered. What wasn't there to like about a boy like that?
"Well... now that everything's settled, let's begin!"
Tom cupped both hands together, and golden light poured out, spilling across the space.
The learning space trembled once more. The mist at its far edges, which had vanished entirely the last time Ravenclaw appeared, now stubbornly pushed outward into the void again, stretching the boundary a fair distance further.
Andros and Grindelwald paid no attention to where the golden light was converging, their eyes fixed instead on Ravenclaw.
The Immortal Legend, determined to unravel the space's deeper secrets, had finally brought her full power to bear.
Ariana, who'd been standing beside her a moment ago, found herself pushed back behind Andros by the sheer pressure radiating off the older witch. All trace of Ravenclaw's earlier disheveled state had vanished; her long blue hair streamed and rippled with no wind to move it, each strand visible in perfect clarity, glowing with a crystalline, jewel-bright light.
Ariana's eyes practically sparkled watching her, thoroughly convinced that Ravenclaw, in this moment, looked like nothing short of a goddess descended from some other realm entirely.
Andros and Grindelwald, for their part, understood exactly what was happening: Ravenclaw was drawing on some deeply mysterious magic, and those wildly dancing, crystalline strands of hair were serving some purpose neither of them could quite perceive.
The golden light gathered and took shape within moments, and a small figure appeared on the distant horizon.
After a brief pause, it began walking toward where Tom stood.
Before long, the group could make out the new teacher's features clearly, and Ariana's eyes went wide, her mouth falling open slightly. The others wore matching looks of shock.
It really was a witch this time, and a remarkably young one at that, looking barely older than Ariana herself, certainly not yet an adult.
The girl had delicate, fine features, though her face was streaked with grime, and a golden braid hung down past her waist. She wore prisoner's garb, heavy shackles binding both her wrists and ankles, the chains clanking with every step she took.
Tom fell silent.
He was starting to notice a pattern. Aside from Andros, whose arrival had been perfectly ordinary, every other teacher so far had come with some baffling complication attached.
Ravenclaw had been a soul stitched back together from fragments. Grindelwald had been a prisoner. Ariana was underage.
And now, wonderful. An underage prisoner.
Tom drew a long breath, his vision briefly going dark. Was it really too much to ask for one normal teacher?
At last, the girl reached him, and having absorbed whatever information the space had passed along to her, offered a timid greeting.
"Dieu vous garde." God keep you.
Tom: ...
The others fell silent too.
We're wizards. And you're invoking God?
"You... it's good to meet you too. Could you tell me your name?"
Tom asked, voice weary. Had Dumbledore been present, he would have recognized the exact same worn cadence in Tom's tone as his own.
"You're too kind." The girl bowed hastily, introducing herself in heavily accented French.
"I am Jeanne d'Arc."
All three teachers present, Ravenclaw included, stared blankly. That name sounded like something out of some backwater village. Was she really meant to be one of the age's great masters?
"Jeanne, huh... wait!"
Tom nodded on reflex, then froze as realization hit him, the curse bursting out before he could stop it: "Holy shit. Joan of Arc?!"