The light snow from the night before had turned into a blizzard by morning, meaning the last Herbology lesson of the year was cancelled.

"Great!" Harry said in annoyance pacing in front of the Gryffindor common room's fireplace "Now how am I meant to try and explain to Justin what actually happened at the Dueling Club?"

"Don't know," Jack said by the window wondering how the snow got so bad in just one night "But I doubt he'd have listened, or given you a chance to speak. Being how talkative he is he'd probably have given you a lecture rather than a conversation."

"I don't think you're helping Jack," Hermione, who was playing wizard chess with Ron, said before saying to Harry "If it's bothering you so much go and find him yourself."

(She was in a bit of a bad mood because she was already loosing and now one of Ron's bishops had just taken one of her knights).

For a couple of minutes Harry didn't move.

"If you want I can come too," Jack said getting up "It's getting a bit stuffy in here anyway."

Together they left through the portrait hole wondering where Justin might be.

"Well, I think he's either, in his dormitory/common room being all scared and whimpy like the idiot he is," Jack began counting his fingers "In the library doing some homework, or in the great hall stuffing his gob with food."

"Let's try the library first," Harry said cheering up a little at Jacks descriptions of Justin "Seeing as we don't know where the Hufflepuff common room is or how to get into it, and that it's closer than the hall."

The torches lit in their holders on the walls as the thick snow outside the windows was making the whole castle darker than it normally was.

As they passed Professor McGonagall's classroom they heard her speaking very loudly to one of her students.

"Mr Trench! You were supposed to turn the cushion into a badger. The cushion! Not your desk partner!"

Wanting to see this for himself, Jack took a peek though the door, almost giving himself away as he laughed at the sight of a confused and annoyed looking badger on top of one of the desks, and an even more confused classmate who's wand was still up in their hand next to it.

Jack wanted to stay there a bit longer, but Baby Tooth was tugging as his sleeve and pointing to Harry who was now at the other end of the corridor.

Sighing, Jack nodded and took off after Harry.

o0o

They got to the library and decided to split up seeing as it was a big room full of books.

As Harry went off one way, Jack went the other was and was surprised to see Elisa and her Ravenclaw friends.

He was just about to go and say hello when something they were saying caught his attention.

"So you really think Jack's a good person Elisa?" one of then asked sounding nervous.

"Yes Cindy, I do." Elisa said firmly "Now can we get back to what we're meant to be doing…"

"But Elisa he and Harry could both speak Parseltounge," another girl – this one with red hair – said.

"Technically according to Jack, he was speaking Dragonese," Elisa commented looking up over to the books where she was feeling a draft coming from "Right Jack?"

This made the other girls jump and look over as Jack came around the bookshelves, Baby Tooth on his head glaring at the other girls.

"Hey Elisa," he said blushing a little "Um… Sorry for over hearing you," 'Not sorry' he thought "But I was looking for someone else and saw you and wondered why you were in here?"

"Our last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of term was cancelled because of the weather, but we were still given work to do by Professor Kettleburn" Elisa said, being the only one who seemed brave enough to talk to him.

"Well in that case…" Jack said bowing in a princely like fashion keeping his head straight so he had eye contact and Baby wouldn't fall off "Would you like to join me to our special place and do it there instead?"

Looking around at her friends, Elisa nodded and starting packing up her thinks.

"Elisa no!" the girl with red hair said "What if this is a trick, and he's actually going to hurt you?"

"Red, I love this girl who is worthy enough to be a queen," Jack said looking to her, this statement making Elisa blush a little "Do you honestly think I would do anything to harm her on purpose?"

That shut the friends up and as Jack and Elisa were leaving, Baby flew off Jack's head, over to the other girls and blew a large (for her) raspberry at them.

Then turning her back on then and buzzing her wings at them, which as a very high insult in fairy-culture she went to join Jack.

As they reached the door to the library, they saw Harry who was looking a bit peeved about something and looked over where he was spying some Hufflepuff's who were friends of Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"Mind if we follow Harry for a bit first?" Jack asked Elisa as they left "Something tells me something not good will come from him being so upset."

Nodding they followed Harry, pausing behind a corner when they saw him talking to Hagrid.

"Second one this term. It's either foxes, or a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear," Hagrid said holding up a dead rooster "An' I need the Headmaster's permission to put a charm around the hen-coop."

"That's strange?" Jack said in a thinking voice, but shugged it off and went off towards the Room of Requirement with Elisa.

"What is, Jack?" Elisa asked wondering.

"Hagrid said that that rooster was the second one this term." said Jack "Well why? and why the roosters? Why not the hens? Or the chicks? Or any of the other animals he has?"

They were almost there when Peeves' voice screamed though the halls:

"ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! ATTACK!"

Quickly Jack and Elisa span around and ran towards the commotion, but were blocked from it by everyone who had come from the classrooms.

Professor McGonagall used her wand to gain everyone's attention telling everyone to go back to their classes.

No sooner then she had done that then the Hufflepuff's and Elisa's friends come running from the direction of the library.

"Caught in the act!" Ernie Macmillan said pointing at Harry.

"That will do Macmillan," Professor McGonagall said sharply.

"Oh Elisa are you all right?" Cindy said checking her friend over as the other girl glared at Jack.

"Cindy get off I'm fine!" Elisa said shaking her off looking over towards Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly-Headless Nick.

Nick wasn't ghostly white anymore, instead he was black and unmoving – still hovering, but unmoving.

In the air Peeves was singing loving the chaos this was getting.

'Oh Potter you rotter, oh what have you done?

You're killing off students, you think it's good fun…'

"That's enough Peeves!" McGonagall and Jack said together.

With that Peeves zoomed away backwards, with his tongue out at Harry.

Rolling his eyes, Jack watched as Professor Flitwick and Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department, carried Justin up to the hospital wing.

"Professor what about Nick?" he asked as it looked like no one seemed to know what to do with him.

"Why don't you ask Potter!" Ernie Macmillan said from where he was "Or yourself Parselmouth!"

"Ok 1, I'm not a Parselmouth," Jack said trying to stay calm and not hit this idiot "I'm a Dragon Whisperer. 2, Elisa and I were together and a floor and a bit up from here. And 3 How can I ask myself what happened if I don't know what happened?"

"That will do Frost," McGonagall said trying to keep the peace between the students "As for answering your question about Nick…" and she made a large fan appear and gave it to Ernie with instructions to waft the ghost upstairs.

Jack glared at Ernie thinking that he should have been given a little bit more of a punishment, but then thought as to how silly he looked, fanning Nick through the school.

Coming back to here and now, Professor McGonagall said "Come with me Potter. Everyone else please go to your next class."

"Professor," said Harry sounding worried "I swear I didn't –"

"This is out of my hands Potter," she said and started to lead him away.

"You think he's going to be alright?" Elisa said telling her friends she'll come along in a bit.

"Alright?" Jack asked surprised "This is Harry Potter we're talking about, Snowflake, of course he'll be alright. Although…" he said watching the Hufflepuff's leave "I'm not so sure about Ernie Macmillan."

"Just don't turn him into a human popsicle, ok?" Elisa said giving Jack a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving herself, leaving him frozen there not sure what just happened.

In the end it was Baby Tooth pricking him in the thumb that knocked him out and reminded him he still needed to get his books from Gryffindor Tower.

Quickly he ran off new questions about the strange goings at the school, on entering his head.

AN: And that's it for 2018

Don't worry! This story will continue come the new year

But for now that's it

Happy Holidays

U-D123 :)