09/10/22
For the rest of the day, all Lions were in their tower celebrating their win against Ravenclaw and their one-step-closer to winning the Quidditch Cup.
After the first few hours, Fred and George slipped out and came back a while later with a few bags each of Honeydukes sweets, and a few bottles of Butterbeer.
"How did you do that?" squealed Angelina Johnson, accepting the chocolate frog she was just given.
"With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prong," Fred said in a whisper grinning.
"I hope you guys pay for these every time you do this," Jack said where he was helping himself to some pumpkin pasties.
"Oh we do, it might not be the right amount, but we always leave coins by the cash register." George said beaming innocently.
"And whose money is that you're placing there?" Jack asked curiously.
"Why ours of course, what do you think we steal it from Percy, or perhaps Harry – I mean do you know how much money he's supposed to have?" Fred answered passing some Bertie-Bott's Beans to some second years.
"Yeah we maybe tricksters, but we do know one should not steal another's money." George said, hand on heat as he did. "Even if it is just sitting in a big pile in a vault at Gringotts, not doing anything but collecting dust."
Rolling his eyes, Jack accepted a few sweets himself went over to where he saw Hermione was, in the corner, surrounded by her books and trying to read one the called 'Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles'.
"I still don't know why you picked that subject," Jack said sitting down next to her, Baby Tooth on his shoulder, causing her to jump a little.
"Because I wanted to see what Wizards thought about Muggles and how they lived." she answered.
"And all this information is coming from a non-muggle-born person, as is the teacher Professor Burbage – I've heard," Jack said rolling his eyes and sinking into his chair a little, welcoming Crookshanks into his lap.
He smiled a little to himself as he saw Hermione think about this for a bit before shaking her head and going back to reading the book, only to be interrupted again by Harry soon after.
"Did you even come to the match?" he asked sitting down next to Jack.
"Of course I did," she replied not looking up from the book "And I'm really pleased that Gryffindor won, and all, but I need to finish reading this by Monday."
"Come on, Hermione, come have some food," Harry said, looking over to see where Ron was supposedly hoping this party would get them to put their pet problems aside.
"Yeah, after all: All work and no play makes me a dull boy," Jack said smiling, getting a questioning look from Baby Tooth. "Why else do you think I try and bring fun to everything I do?"
"I can't," Hermione said, sounding she might cry any second, counting the remaining pages "I still have 122 pages to read! Anyway..." she said looking over to where Ron was "he doesn't want me to join in."
"Maybe so, but we do, don't we Harry?" Jack said getting up, Crookshanks in his arms as he blocked off Ron from her sight. "Come on, just one reasonably big plate of food – it looks like you've been skipping meals – and then you can go back to your book." he said holding out his hand.
It looked like Hermione was about to accept this offer, when Ron said loudly, "If Scabbers hadn't been eaten he could have had some of these Fudge Flies, he used to really like them."
Hermione burst into tears, gathered her things and ran up the girl's staircase still crying, Baby Tooth quickly following her, the sound of a door slamming coming a few seconds later.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Jack set the orange cat down and rounded on to Ron, thinking this time to kick him in the gronk-nuks, making the red-head fall over and the room to go silent.
"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT MANNERS RONALD WEASLEY!" Jack yelled at him, his eyes flashing blue for a second showing off how mad he was. "IT WAS A RAT! A DUMB STUPID USELESS RAT! GET OVER IT!"
Still mad, but not caring about the idiot on the floor Jack went over to the girls staircase not bothered when everyone (minus Fred, George and Ginny) was surprised to see he could climb up it.
o0o
Up in her dormitory, Hermione was curled up on her bed, with Baby trying to comfort her, her face pressed into her pillow, tears staining it, the book she had been reading downstairs on the bedside table next to her – she had been crying so much she couldn't see the words on the pages.
Not hearing the knocking on the door over her sobbing, Hermione was unaware anyone was there until she felt the bed sink down a little more, and felt a hand on her back, gently rubbing circles to calm her down.
Sniffing, Hermione looked up and over her shoulder a mix of surprise and confusion on her face when she registered it was Jack sitting there.
"You want to walk about all... this, then Brownie?" Jack asked after a minutes of silence.
"All what?" she asked sniffing and blowing her hose into a handkerchief Baby Tooth was holding out to her.
"Oh I don't know, nothing, anything, everything, something you want to get off your chest something you want to share with somebody but can't because it's a secret, you know just the usual things that make someone suddenly burst into tears and run up to their room, slam the door behind them, and then do the Disney-Princess-Dive into their pillow."
Rolling over and sitting up, hugging her knees to herself Hermione took a deep shaky breath to try and calm down.
"If you don't want to tell me, we can play 20 questions instead until I work it out," Jack said smiling at her.
Hermione shook her head and fiddled with her collar a little, a 'should I do this' look on her face.
"Hermione, I can't help you, unless you tell me what's bothering you," Jack said taking her free hand in one of his. "But if it's Ron, I've think I've already dealt with him, for now anyway."
"It's not just Ron," Hermione said quietly, sniffing a little again "Well I mean he's part of it, yes, but the main reason I'm... like this, is because of this," she said pulling out from under her collar around her neck a long gold chain going through a loop attached to a circle, with a mini hour-glass inside it, written in mini-mini writing on the circle were the words 'Tempus Fugit'.
"It's called a time-turner, McGonagall gave to me on the very first night we came back, it's how I've been getting to all my classes, and helping with Buckbeak's case, and go to the match this afternoon and..."
"I get it," Jack said gently making her stop. "But you know, if it's bothering you so much you've become this, maybe it's more trouble than it's worth."
"This coming from you?" Hermione asked raising an eyebrow at him.
"Going to ignore that, and make a suggestion," Jack said gently taking the artifact off from around Hermione's neck. "Maybe... hand this back in to McGonagall, drop some classes, that someone as smart as you doesn't need to take – like maybe Divination and Muggle Studies – catch up on some meals, some sleep, maybe get into drinking coffee in the mornings instead of orange juice, and we'll see how you feel in about a week. Sound good?"
To the side Baby Tooth was nodding her head agreeing with Jack's idea holding out her hands saying she can give the device back to the teacher now it Hermione would let her.
Thinking, Hermione reached out and to the time-turner again, feeling it in her hands, and the metaphorical weight it had over her life at the moment.
Taking a deep breath, she looked to the little fairy and was just passing it to her, when the dormitory door slammed open and the other third years came in saying how boring Professor McGonagall was.
Quickly Hermione stuffed the device under her pillow and Jack got Parvati and Lavender's attention before they started undressing themselves.
"Don't girls ever knock on doors anymore?" he asked getting off Hermione's bed, loving how they screamed and hugged themselves looking over to Jack.
"To be fair Jack, this is our – aka a girls – dormitory" Hermione said seeing Lavender and Parvati were too shocked / surprised / embarrassed to say anything.
"That's no excuse," Jack said not leaving the room just yet "What we were doing something private?" he asked, which technically they were, but the girls didn't need to know that.
"Then we would have needed to wipe their memories, or you would have gotten a detention or worse be expelled." Hermione said a small smile coming back to her face, the other girls still hugging their fully dressed bodies, shifting between Jack and Hermione as if it was a tennis match. "It's why there's an enchantment on the staircase to stop boys coming up here."
"Guess I'm special then." Jack said proudly, before turning to the two person audience "Why are you two suddenly up here anyway?"
"Pro-Professor McGonagall came to tell everyone to go to bed," Parvati said finding her voice first.
Curious, Jack looked for a clock and saw it was actually one in the morning.
"Huh, didn't think it was that late," he said shrugging and tapping his wrist where an imaginary watch would be, holding it to his ear. "Oh well, come on Baby, let's leave these girl to be by themselves. And Hermione, think over what I said, ok..."
Hermione nodded, but didn't say anything, gently petting Baby Tooth to say goodbye.
With that, boy and the fairy left heading back downstairs, as soon as he was out of the room he heard Lavender and Parvati bombarding Hermione with questions.
Rolling his eyes, Jack reached the common room and, since he was feeling the effects of Sandy's dream-sand already, got comfy in a chair instead of going up to his dormitory.