That night, after dinner, Jack went down to the dungeons to see Snape about these detentions.
Taking a deep breath and putting on a 'I'm not doing anything bad' mask on his face he knocked on the door and waited until Snape said he could enter.
"Ah, Frost. For your first night's detention you will be relabelling all the potions and their ingredients, in the Student Store cupboard." Snape said from his desk where he was marking homework.
"As in sticking newer labels on them to replace the old ones Sir, or switching the labels around?" Jack asked just wanting to make things clear, but instead got a glare from the Snape.
"The first one you idiot." he said handing Jack a box of Muggle sticky labels and a quill and a pot of ink.
Taking them, Jack went to the cupboard and got to work (only he used his pen instead of the ink and quill).
Jack checked his watch every tenth label wondering when he would be allowed to go.
He had a feeling that Peeves won't do the prank tonight as it would be too soon.
At a quarter to ten, Snape came to check on his work.
"Hm…" he said looking at each bottle and box of ingredients. "You may go, Frost. But remember to come back tomorrow."
"Sure Professor." Jack said giving him a salute before leaving.
Making it into the Gryffindor common room, he saw Ron, Harry, and Hermione in their pajama's, Riddle's diary on a table in front of them.
"Ahh… you stayed up to see me, that is so sweet," Jack said making them jump.
"Um, not quite," Harry said biting his lip "While you were gone, I went up to the dormitory to get away from the crowd-iness of the common room…"
"And…" Jack asked already feeling like he knew where this was going.
"He found out how to work the diary and it showed him something about the last time when the Chamber of Secrets was opened," Ron said.
"And how do you work it exactly?" Jack asked in a 'disappointed older brother' voice, Baby Tooth hovering next to him.
"By writing in it…" Harry said quietly waiting for the typhoon of a lecture he was expecting from Jack about not listening to him about not writing in it.
But it didn't come. Instead Jack just asked "What did it show you?"
"Basically…" Harry said taking a deep breath "It was Hagrid who opened the Chamber 50 years ago."
"I don't believe that." Jack said right away.
"But the diary said –" Hermione began but was cut off by Jack.
"It 'said' what whatever is inside it wanted Harry to see," he said glaring at the book "Let me ask you this. Can Hagrid speak Snake or Dragon?"
"Well no, but…" Harry said having known the man the longest.
"But nothing," Jack said determined to get his point across "That message that's still on the wall outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and the story Binns told us, said only the Heir could open the Chamber. Slytherin can speak Snake right? That's why everyone so picky around Harry and me at the moment – although I actually speak Dragon but still – Therefore the Heir is most likely to be able to do that to. Meaning it couldn't have been Hagrid. You following me?"
"But Riddle caught him trying to smuggle a… a sp-spider out of the castle" Ron said shivering a little.
"Can Spiders speak snake Ronald?" Jack asked again "If this 'Monster' is anything, it has to be something in that 'family'. That's probably how Slytherin and the Heir are able to control it."
There was a moment of silence.
"Fine. You lot believe what you want and I'll believe what I want," Jack said too tired to care or set a bet on this. "I'm going to bed."
With that Jack and Baby Tooth went upstairs and looked out of the window into the grounds where he could just see Hagrid's hut next to the forest.
The next night, again Jack went to the Dungeons for his detentions.
This time he had to wash all the cauldrons from old and burnt on potions.
At first, Jack tried to make a game out of it, but feeling the glare coming from Snape, he soon chose not to.
As he cleaned them, he got to thinking just what in fact was the so called 'monster' in the Chamber was.
For, for the 300 and a bit years he had been around he couldn't think of any snake that could petrify its prey.
It was always either venom, or squeeze to death.
'But… those were non-magical snakes,' he thought as he finished the 10th cauldron 'Being a magic school, one would think it would be a magic snake right?'
'Ok, so... Ashwinder… We would know if that were the snake because if it were, it would have laid it eggs already and the school would he burnt down.' Jack began listing the magical snakes he knew.
'Occamy? No they live in India, unless someone brought them here… But still they can't petrify things, and they don't eat humans.' Jack thought as he piled up the 30th cauldron.
'Runespoor? No this snake is meant to be thousands of years old, no Runespoor could live that long. What with the left and middle head ganging up and biting off the right head when it gets a bit too critical.'
'Can't be a Sea Serpent because this is dry, well meant to be dry land' Jack thought thinking of all the rain that Britain normally gets 'But we do have the lake but if there was a Serpent in there I'm sure we'd know about it.'
Jack was so distracted with his thoughts he hadn't noticed Peeves was trying to get his attention for the last five minutes.
Getting annoyed Peeved got out his massive tiny hammer and hit Jack on the head.
"OW!" Jack yelled rubbing it and glaring at the Poltergeist.
"What is it Frost?" Snape said from his desk where he was going over his lessons for the next day.
"Um, nothing Sir, I just hit my head on the roof of the cauldron I'm currently cleaning." Jack said sounding a little embarrassed to make him think that was what happened.
Rolling his eyes and muttering how dumb kids were Snape carried on with his work while Jack turned to Peeves.
"You done it?" he whispered grinning.
"Yes indeedy!" Peeves said giving off the same grin "And don't worry he's got a blanket with a warming charm on it, and he's in the middle of the lake, and the ice is as thick as the trunk on the Tree of Beginning."
The Tree of Beginning is said to be the world's very first tree, meaning it was millions of years old.
"Oh and they're a decoy dummy in his bed in case Big-nose goes to check on them."
"Good." Jack said smiling and finishing up the last cauldron.
"Sir, I'm done, may I go now?" he asked.
Snape came over to suspect the work.
"Very well Frost, you may go, but come back tomorrow night," he said.
Nodding Jack left at a walk trying to not to seem suspicious but once he was out of the dungeons he raced up to the Gryffindor common-room and looked out the window where he saw a small lump on the ice in the middle of the lake.
Grinning, he quietly went up the girl's stairs to get Ginny to show her.
o0o
"Ginny…" Jack whispered gently shaking her "Ginny…"
Moaning Ginny woke up and was about to ask what he wanted when Jack put his finger to his mouth and told her to follow him.
Quietly Ginny got up and followed Jack down the stairs again and over to the window.
"The Prank has been set," Jack said smiling "In the morning wake up early and I'll take you to the Room of Requirement and we can watch the out play there."
"What about Fred and George?" she asked knowing they would like this "Will we show them too?"
"Show us what?" Fred's voice said behind them as they came in through the portrait hole with bags of sweets from some place called Honeydukes.
With neither Jack nor Ginny really caring about this, they waved the twins over and told them the plan.
"Oh well then we must be up early for that," George said smiling.
Nodding and setting watches, everyone went up to bed.