Chapter 9: Jack's POV:

Jack is living it up in the cat den.

Although Hogwarts set a limit on the kinds of pet the students could bring, it was slightly more lax when it came to familiars. But the fact remained that the most common familiars amongst students and younger witches were owls and cats.

A lesser known fact about the school was that just as owls had an Owlery where they could rest and reside, cat familiars had their own accommodations in the form of a series of interconnected, underground cat dens. Like the rest of the school, these dens often changed their locations. Amongst those who knew of them it was yet to be decided who was responsible for their creation, whether it were the school's Imāris or the familiars themselves with their own brand of magic.

Most people wouldn't be able to say what the inside of one of those dens looked like. Jack, however, wasn't most people.

This had less to do with any special skills on Jack's part and more thanks to an acquaintance of Uncle Witherwell's, a cat familiar that answered to Bumble, who had been requested to keep an eye on Jack and check in on him every now and then.

So it was that Jack spent one particular Sunday morning sitting in a corner of a cat den and writing out letters, meanwhile Bumble slacked off his babysitting duties to presumably go gossip with the other castle cats.

For a cat den it was moderately sized and well lit, though it was hard to say where the light source came from. Cats of all ages, shapes, and colours lounged and played in the low-ceilinged room. Most of them left Jack be, though every now and then one would wander over to curiously sniff at him.

The kittens were a different matter; they didn't seem to hold much weight in the concept of personal boundaries. At that moment a kitten with white fur and orange speckles stood on his shoulder, head moving rapidly in time with his pen strokes. Jack had to write the letter on his right knee, the rest of his lap being occupied by a large, purring brown cat who had taken one look at Jack and settled down right then and there.

Dear Mum,

I hope you're doing well. Did you get the magazine clippings I sent you? I thought Mrs. Tannings would appreciate the recipes and you'd like the crosswords, so I'm sending you more. My classes are going alright. Still haven't started doing wand magic in half of them, but they make up for it with being interesting. There are lots of things the professors talk about that aren't in the text books, especially in history with Professor Thatch. But I think I've decided that I like Charms best, maybe because Professor Llyr reminds me a little of the lady three floors down who works in the big library and likes to give out ginger biscuits and advice about combating dangerous chattering books. And I really like flying classes. I think flying might be the best thing invented.

The kids in my House are loads of fun. The upperclassmen are friendly and they're almost always playing games in the common room (that's why I study in the library). It's almost like being back home again. I've made friends with the boys in my dorm and some of my classmates. I think you'd like them.

I miss you and Emma. I hope to hear from you soon. Send Emma a hug for me.

Love,

Jack

Jack sat back and read through the letter again. Detailed enough to be reassuring but otherwise appearing vague in a way that could be passed off as unintentional. It would do.

His letter to Uncle Witherwell was already written and sealed into an envelope and lay next to his knee, most of it containing questions relating to his subjects as well as some that branched off of them. If there was anyone who could be counted on to know about things that spanned across several fields, it would have to be his uncle. Beneath it were a few other letters addressed to some of Jack's friends back home whom he'd promised to stay in touch with.

With a satisfied nod, Jack quickly folded up the letter to his mother in an envelope and set it aside. Rooting inside a pencil box that was acting as a paper weight, Jack found a pencil and a stub of rubber and picked out a fresh sheet of paper. A grin tugged at his mouth as he started on his letter to Emma.

Jack went into great detail describing the pranks he'd gotten up to in the first month. They were all minor, but only for now. As soon as he found the materials he needed, he'd promised to come up with something grand.

The point of school was to learn new things, and according to Jack one of the best ways to do it was to have fun. The best part was that he'd found another kid to do it with, another first year boy who just so happened to be his dormmate. It was exciting to see who could one up the other, and Jack made sure to write all about it.

In the margins of the paper Jack sketched out drawings, some showing off the pranks he'd pulled and others added in for decoration. For Emma, reading was one thing, but words were still hard; the letters Emma sent him often ended up being mostly drawings. As far as either of them cared, their tradition of sending secret, "encoded" letters to each other had no reason to stop even if one or both of them were away from home.

Signing off with a customary little robin, Jack stuffed the letter and a packet of contraband chocolate bars he'd gotten from one of the seniors into the envelope and gathered his letters.

The brown cat tilted its head back and peered up at him. "Mrrow?"

"Yeah. I have to go now." Jack scratched behind its ears. It climbed off of his lap and gave a big, yawning stretch. Making its way across the room, the cat butted its head against a stone in the wall. The stone shifted and folded back to make a hole, which then grew until it formed a low archway just big enough for Jack to crawl through.

He stood up and dusted his trousers off. "Thank you. Tell Bumble that I've headed back to Gryffindor Tower, please?"

A small chorus of meows reached his him. Jack nodded, thanked them again, and walked down the corridor.

From what he could see, the cat den had deposited him somewhere near the Potions dungeons. The corridors were dry and warm. Every now and then a small, grated window would appear above and let in shafts of natural light.

As he rounded a corner, he saw another figure come sauntering towards him.

Jack grinned. "Hey, Sanjay."

His dormmate and fellow conspirator, Sanjay Sharma, grinned back. "Hey yourself."

"What are you doing down here?"

"Going to a date, obviously."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "That was fast."

"A detention date."

"Even better." When they crossed each other, they high fived. "Have fun!"

"Will do. See you later." Jack spun on his heel and walked backwards, waving to the other boy until he disappeared around the bend. Then he bounded up the steps to the higher levels.

The Gryffindor common room was about half full at mid-morning, with some either getting breakfast or out to see the Quidditch trials, or else still asleep. Some, like the familiar faces he saw at a table near the windows, were busy with classwork. Others were curled up on the sofas and chairs around the fire, either reading, chatting with friends, or playing board games. In a corner, someone had switched on a table top television the size of a football*. Its tall antennae crackled with sparks of magic as a group of girls clustered around and listened to a pair of speakers and their tinny voices.

As Jack wandered to the windows, he caught the sound of bickering happening between a painting and a tiny whisp of a girl with huge, blonde ringlets decorating her head.

Jack listened in. He turned to the girl. "That was rude."

The girl paused to stick her tongue out in his direction. "Nonayah biss-niss." She prattled off something else to the painting that made the mustachioed man in it storm off in a huff. Then she appeared to freeze for a moment.

She whipped around to face Jack. "Did you just answer me in Russian?"

"Did I? Huh … I guess I did." Jack shrugged. It'd been a while since he'd last spoken it and he hadn't noticed when he did. Whoops.

"How do you know Russian?"

"My family was from there, originally. I learnt some of it from my mum."

"… I see." The girl regarded Jack curiously. "You're Sanjay's friend, aren't you?"

"Looks like it." He took the hand she stuck out to him and shook it.

"The name's Sasha Koshkin. Don't get in my way and I won't get in yours."

And with that, she flounced off. From the nearest table, there came a peal of cackling laughter.

The two blonde Throston twins sat next to each other. Týr, the brother, sulked in his seat while his sister laughed. Sitting beside her was Astrid, who was hunched over her notes and scribbling them out as fast as she could go.

Without invitation, Jack scooted into the empty seat next to Týr. "What's the joke, Randi?"

"I told you already, it's Ruffnut. And why do I need a reason to laugh at this idiot?"

"It's about that flying class incident from two weeks ago." Astrid said, without looking up. "Tuffnut was complaining about his face and now here we are."

"Oh, sure! Laugh at me, why don't you!" Tuffnut threw his hands up. "I wasn't even going to do anything to those things! My poor face had to suffer and I got detention for it, too! Or what? Was I simply supposed to know that some screaming banshee was going to drop out of the sky to reign terror upon the innocents?!"

"Innocent! Ha! Serves you right, meathead!" Ruffnut went into another laughing fit. In her flailing, her hand accidentally clipped her brother's shoulder, which he loudly protested. "Who was that Slytherin girl? I wanna thank her. Jack, did you see her?"

Jack put a hand to his chin in mock thought. "Last I remember, weren't we both hanging upside down from our brooms and making faces at each other?"

"Ohhh right. True, true that."

With a resounding smack, Astrid shut her notes-book. She gathered up a few of the ones near her and pushed them in Jack's direction. "There! That's History and Potions done. Thanks for letting me borrow them. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go."

"What's the rush for? Aren't you going to stay and comfort me?" Tuffnut asked pitifully, hand cradled against his shoulder.

"The nurse healed you in seconds, you're fine. And one of the seniors promised me if me and a friend got to the pitch before practice ends then she'd let us borrow a school broom. I'm already late and there is no way I'm missing that!"

Astrid unceremoniously shoved the rest of her books into a satchel and swung it onto her shoulder. Rushing to another table, she grabbed the hand of a brown-skinned girl with pigtails. "C'mon, Eloise. Let's go!"

The two disappeared out the door. After watching them go, Ruffnut leaned forward and plucked a stray crackling caramel square (the 'crackling' part attributed to the spicy bits of cinnamon-like flecks scattered throughout the sweet that gave a fizzling, warming effect) off of Astrid's end of the table.

She pointed with it to the stack of envelopes Jack had put down. "Weren't you going to send those?"

Jack sat back and crossed his arms. "Give it a minute," was all he said.

Time ticked by. After about fifteen minutes there came a tapping on the window. The tapping revealed itself to be an enormous bird about the size of Jack's arm. Strapped to it was a large bag that had been modified for birds to carry.

The bag thunked hollowly on the table as Jack gently set the creature down. Ruffling out its glossy feathers, it fixed the other two children with a sharp look. "I'd like to introduce you both to Persephone. A friend from home works in bird postal and I asked if he could send everyone's letters and things with this girl in one go. Persephone, these two are Ruffnut and Tuffnut."

From the bag he pulled out a handful of letters and two small wrapped parcels. As Jack set about preparing strips of dried meat and a dish of water, the twins openly gaped at the bird. It wasn't until a boy tapped on Jack's shoulder that anyone noticed he'd approached.

Jack glanced up and smiled. "Hi, Norman. Do you have your letter?"

"Yeah, it's right here … thanks, Jack." The boy mumbled, shuffling awkwardly.

Jack waved him off. "It's fine, it's fine. If you need anything else, just let me know."

Norman thanked him again and wandered off. The twins watched him go.

"… Since when are you running all these errands for people?" Tuffnut asked. He tried to sneak a caramel square from his sister only to get his hand smacked. His pout was ignored, so he slid under the table, likely in search of fallen sweets.

Jack shrugged. "I like helping others."

"But you're also keeping up with the classwork." Ruffnut pointed out.

"It's not hard, 's long as you don't let it build up."

"And you're also always sneaking off to do … whatever it is you do."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Go to the library, you mean?" He busied himself securing the letters in the bag and studiously ignored Ruffnut's narrowed eyes at him.

"I'm on to you, bub. You're hiding something, I can smell it." She hissed.

"Oh, leave him alone – aha!" Tuffnut popped up with a sweet in hand, a bright purple toffee. He unwrapped it and tossed it in his mouth. "Maybe your nose is wrong and he's just off having fun instead of being a grumpy grump." He dodged the swing she aimed at him.

Once Persephone finished her snack, she hopped onto Jack's outstretched arm. She bumped her head to the side of his and he giggled, running a finger over her feathers as he went to the window. With a final parting chitter she flew away. He smiled, watching her go.

The smile felt more real than it had in a long time. There were a lot of things that were different about his life, but he still had friends to shoulder it with. He'd made friends in school, too, friends he could joke with and share with and spend his days with.

Yeah, he was having fun.

Cast List:

Sanjay Sharma: The Book of Life

Sasha Koshkin: The Book of Life

Ruffnut and Tuffnut: How to Train Your Dragon

Astrid: How to Train Your Dragon

Eloise: my OC

Persephone: my OC

Norman: Paranorman

A/N:

Shout out to anonymous commenter Eris whose review made me kick my butt into gear and finally finish editing this chapter.

Reply to elochin the lost: I see you and all the lovely comments you've left on my story, don't think I don't. Do you know how much they brighten my day? I don't know how many times I've scrolled through looking at them and reading them, but every time I do I feel this burst of joy that someone is so happy with something I'm writing. Really, they're so lovely and you're the absolute sweetest.

I'm glad that you could find something to relate to in Merida. I remember spending years of my life being such an angry little thing and it's freeing to be able to express that through her (and Rapunzel, but that'll come into play much, much later, in book 2). I'm also stoked that you're as worried about Merida and her emotional state as you are. Because you should be. (grin emoji)

For those of you who've left reviews on the other chapters, thank you all so much for them. They really mean a lot. I think I'm going to start replying to the reviews on the chapters I post from here on out.

As some of you may or may not know, I've recently gotten accepted into an . Enviro. program and this past week I've been busy with online classes. I've also started working on another project that I hope to finish by the end of November so I can start posting it in December. This story is once again going to take a bit of a back seat but not to worry! I'll still be whittling away at it whenever I can, and if all goes smoothly then there might hopefully be another update somewhere around the end of this month.

Stay safe and stay hydrated everyone!