12/11/22
As far as Jack knew he only got at least 2 hours sleep before he and possibly the rest of the tower was woken up, by someone screaming up the boy's side of the staircase, soon followed by running, and then the opening and closing of the portrait of Sir Cadogan.
Groaning Jack repositioned himself in the chair and rubbed the sand from his eyes, looking around to see what was going on seeing everyone coming back to the common room, with his dorm-mates taking the lead.
"Jack! Jack did you see him? Did you see Black?" Ron asked looking a bit shaken up by something.
"Depends which 'Black' you mean, I do know more than one after all," Jack said yawning and stretching a little. "But seeing as I was asleep and dreaming of dolphins and an island get-away I don't think I saw anything."
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming Ron?" Harry asked his friend as all eyes were turned to him, before some of the older lions came down, and some of the girls who reminded everyone they were meant to have gone to bed.
"I'm telling you I saw him!"
"Excellent, are we carrying on?" asked Fred Weasley brightly.
"Alright, that's enough, everyone back upstairs now!" Percy said coming to the front his Head Boy badge on his pyjamas.
"Perce – Sirius Black!" Ron said, faintly, trying to get his big brother to listen "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"
There was silence from everyone as Ron said this.
"Nonsense!" said Percy, looking just a little scared himself "You must have just had a bad dream Ron."
"I'm telling you –"
"Now really, enough is enough!"
Everyone turned to see Professor McGonagall, in her tartan dressing-gown and her hair in a sleeping net, come in through the portrait hole, before slamming it behind her.
"I am very delighted that Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better from you!"
"Percy is a Stick-in-the-Mud crossed over with a Bookworm, Professor," Jack spoke up still yawning "You really think he'd rile and wake everyone back up after you, a teacher, the head of Gryffindor, and the Deputy Headmistress, told us all to go to bed?"
There were a few murmurs and stifled laughs from everyone when Jack called Percy a Stick-in-the-Mud.
"Well then who did wake everyone up, Mr Frost?" Professor McGonagall asked Jack as everyone turned their attention to him.
"Well, supposedly, though there's only the word from Ron Weasley and that man in the armour in the painting there..." he nodded to the back of the portrait hole referring to Sir Cadogan "It was Sirius Black with a knife."
Professor McGonagall stared at him, and then glanced at Ron who looked a mix of startled and scared himself, but in the end refused to go with it.
"Don't be ridiculous, Frost, how could he have possibly have got through the portrait hole?"
"ASK HIM!" Ron said loudly pointing to the painting. "Ask him if he saw – "
Glaring suspiciously at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside. The whole common room listened with baited breath.
"Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?"
"Certainly, good lady!" cried Sir Cadogan.
There was stunned silence both in the common room and out.
"You – you did? But – but the password!"
"He had them, had the whole week's worth, well, I suppose they're last weeks now My Lady seeing as some of these fine students in here got me to thinking of making some new passwords which I was going to set into motion once the sun came up," the knight explained "But he had them non-the-less, read them off a little piece of paper."
There was silence, inside the common room and out.
Slowly the portrait opened again and Professor McGonagall came back in looking livid.
"Which person..." she began looking at everyone gathered there. "Which utterly foolish person, wrote down passwords to Gryffindor Tower and left them lying around for others to find?"
Just as Neville, clad in his light blue pyjamas and white bunny slippers, was about to timidly raise his hand, Jack said firmly, not bothered by others reactions:
"I did, Professor. I did it so I could pin them up on the notice board," he nodded over to the corkboard on the wall "So anyone and everyone could remember them themselves as they were so complicated and so many." he paused here, before carrying on. "I thought if they stayed in here, no non Gryffindor would see them, but my friends and I came back one evening last week and saw they were missing. That's when I suggested to him," he nodded to the back of the portrait "to quickly change the password, making it one thing, and make it easy for everyone here to remember."
There was a few nods and mumbles of agreement, especially from the younger students.
"They were only up there for about a week Professor," one of the older students added in, knowing Jack was lying but stood by him nonetheless.
"Jack was showing support and loyalty to his fellow House members," another said, hoping to get the teacher to understand why he did this.
"Be that as it may, Mr Frost," Professor McGonagall said once everyone had calmed down. "You still put everyone in this tower in danger by doing it, and not keeping track of said piece of paper."
"There was a spell on it so only Gryffindor's could read it," Jack argued "It's not my fault Sirius Black didn't follow his family's tradition and settle down in the dungeons."
This comment got a few mutters and mumbles from everyone who was amazed to her that Sirius Black – the Heir of the Ancient and Nobel House of Black – was it seemed a Gryffindor. After all: How else would he have been able to read the piece of paper?
Neville looked confused at this as he was sure he didn't make it like that nor asked someone else (most likely Hermione) to do it for him, he would never have thought of it. So why was Jack saying it did?
"Also, it was stuck up on the notice board inside the Gryffindor Common room, so only us, and our familiars/pets..." he looked over to where some cats were huddled in the corner somehow sleeping through all of this "Could see it."
Getting more annoyed that she couldn't find a proper punishment, Professor McGonagall just said "Detention, 50 points from Gryffindor, and you are banned from Hogsmeade weekends for the rest of term. Now everyone back to bed!"
With that, ignoring all the arguments the other Gryffindor's were giving her that this was too much punishment, she turned around and left, needing to tell the remaining staff members that the school needed to be searched again.
Slowly everyone went back to bed, until it was only Jack, Neville, and Annie with her terrible bed-hair, and Baby Tooth who was sleeping inside it.
"Why did you do that Jack?" Neville asked quietly after checking everyone was gone.
"I am a known trouble-maker," Jack began stretching a little before settling back into the armchair "I can take punishments, I have scars on me that are older than a few kids in this whole school, I've seen things that would make others stay awake at night because they would be too scared to sleep. The point is, I did not want one of my friends to have to serve the results of something that literally could have happened to anyone, just because of that stupid knight and is even more stupid passwords."
There was a pause before Annie asked a little sleepily "What about Elisa and your Valentine's Day Hogsmeade date?"
"Well seeing as I am banned from that village for the rest of the year, shame really I really rather like it, reminds me of home, I guess we'll have to move it any fancy place there to La Room de Require here in the castle and walk around the grounds instead."
"If she doesn't break up with you first," Annie said smiling "She won't admit to it, but she's really looking forward to your 'just-friends-date'."
"Go to bed Annie," Jack said yawning himself, "You can tell her and give me another talking to when the sun is up."
Pouting, Annie went back up to her room leaving the boys there.
"You should go back to bed too, Neville." Jack said closing his eyes to fall asleep "No more talk until the sun is up and we've all had breakfast."
This made Neville frown as he was about to ask him more questions.
Still feeling him there Jack sighed.
"Don't blame yourself, Neville," Jack said sitting up a little and scooting over inviting him to join him. "It could have happened to anyone."
"But... I put everyone in here in danger," Neville said sitting next to his friend "I put you in danger, I put Ron and the others in danger, I put Harry in danger..."
"Neville, if I tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anyone?" Jack asked calmly.
Sniffing Neville nodded.
"Sirius Black wasn't, isn't, and never will be after Harry Potter." Jack said firmly.
"But... but back then, 13 years ago he..." Neville said confused.
"The Potters switched Secret Keepers," Jack said looking into the dying fire "They thought that placing the brother-turned-best-friend of James Potter would be an obvious guess as to whom they would choose. So while they made everyone believe that, they picked someone else to be the Secret Keeper, and they were the ones to betray them. And Sirius is after them."
"So... So why was he here attacking Ron?" Neville asked taking this surprising well.
"Because after the betrayer caused one of his friends deaths, and his other friend to be sent to prison for life, he changed into his unregistered Animagus form, and went to live with a wizard family, and has been all this time."
Neville had to think about this new information.
It was obvious by what Jack said the wizard family was the Weasley's, but no one other than a Weasley had been living with them.
No human at least...
"Scabbers...?" Neville asked amazed at this. "No. No he's just a common or garden rat, isn't he?"
"A common or garden rat that has been with the family for over a decade?" Jack asked counting off all the points on his fingers "A rat that has a toe missing where Pettigrew has a finger missing? A rat that has disappeared a few days ago, when before now all he did was eat, sleep, and poop on Ron's bed and being his fat lazy self?"
Neville blinked and looked into the fire too.
"If you know all of this, Jack... why haven't you told anybody?"
"Because I'm a half-blood teenager from another country, and therefore will have no-say in the matter, or any understanding of what really happened that night 13 years ago. Not that any of-age wizards will hear me out anyway."
"My grandmother would listen," Neville said kicking his leg a little. "That is if she's not shouting at me for letting Sirius in here to let this happen in the first place."
"How about we don't tell her that part then?" Jack said smiling.
Agreeing to that, and that they can write a letter to Augusta when the sun was up, Neville finally went back up to bed.
With him gone Jack settled back down and thought of a lesson he picked up from a story he had read about a time traveling hero sent back to make sure nothing as bad as what he had lived through happened again.
'The more people who know about these things, the more likely a chance they can be prevented or fixed.'
AN Sorry this has taken so long to update, i just haven't got back to it until a few days ago.
Also, I am not sure where this (me including Neville more) is going to go, so please don't expect too much.
Anyway, hope everyone is still liking this and please review :)
