Author's Note: Okay, it's a short one, but I'm still trying to write by the prompts and I'm getting closer to Big Reveal Two, so in-between chapters are inevitable. Also, it's one in the morning. Again. So I hope I did well.

Day Eleven: In a Theme Park

"No, no, I keep telling you, we're going nowhere extreme until you've recovered fully!" The Doctor narrowly avoided bumping into Ianto as the man appeared right in front of him yet again.

"Oh, come on. That's not even dangerous. It's designed to be suitable for children. And plus, I'm feeling perfectly well."

The Doctor ignored him and kept putting some coordinates of God-knew-where into the console. Ianto leaned against one of the panels and gave his best smile as Jack watched from a nearby chair, rather amused by the argument since it had started. "Come on. I bet you anything you like that I'm tall enough for any ride."

"Ianto..." The Doctor started, his voice pained, then sighed. "Okay. Fine. It's not like I can stop you anyway." He started pulling at the levers again – as pointedly unhappy as he could, Jack noted – and Ianto's face lit up. With a delighted grin, he looked at Jack with eyes that clearly side, "Well come along, why don't you?" and then he was out the door before anyone could say anything.

"An amusement park," Jack commented, nearing the Doctor. "He's– well. Ianto."

The Time Lord nodded. "All the better. He's supposed to be like that. He's basically just a child; of course he'd want to have fun. Not really a child," he hurried to add when Jack's head napped up to look at him, alarmed. "He's matured because of the war and because he was considered an adult when he was mostly human, but everything he's repressed has got to go somewhere; it's got to come out. How old is he?"

"Twenty-five," Jack replied immediately. "He'll be twenty six in– about a month, I think. It depends on how you see it."

The Doctor shook his head. "He's barely lived, really. No wonder he's so full of energy," he said fondly. Jack couldn't help but notice that the Doctor had started developing some sort of fatherly protectiveness over Ianto and he dreaded the day when he would most likely get the 'you better take good care of him or so help me' conversation.

"Where are we?" Jack asked as he threw a glance over his shoulder to the screens behind him that showed the outside world. The ground was rocky and brownish, but a lighter tone of it than Earth's and the sky was a deep, rich green and the forest – what he could see of it – looked like the highest branches of the trees reached straight to the sky itself and the colours blended with one another.

"That would be Otho!" The Doctor was in his element again. This one liked being the tour guide much more than the last one Jack had properly travelled with – and that had been when he had still been with Rose because really, a year that had went horribly wrong couldn't really count as a holiday – and he gave them the full introduction every time. Both Ianto and Jack had something to say sometimes and steal his moment, which was usually treated with an undignified huff. "In the Flaxia System. Lots of sea and one single continent that goes from pole to pole. It's not populated by settled citizens – some of the insects in these forests are carnivorous – but it's the entertainment centre of this whole system and of half of this galaxy, so I thought he might like it. Plus, I saw him reading Harry Potter – he seemed pretty much into it by the way – and if you just look outside..." The Doctor fiddled a bit with the camera until it showed a different point of view. "Ta-da!"

Jack leaned in to see better and when he did, his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline.

Outside was a castle – a real one, with its towers and walls and everything else – and a few mountains behind it. The space in front of the gates was crowded and Jack spotted Ianto nearby, leaning against a tree and tapping impatiently with his foot on the ground, apparently waiting for them to come out.

"It's completely like it's meant to be, even better than the one you've got on Earth," the Doctor said and his voice sounded a little higher with the pride he felt in himself, and Jack couldn't help but see how different he was from his past selves. "No roller coasters, I'm afraid, but he'll love that one even more. Everything, just like in the books. Even Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. You can buy anything you like, you can go to the classes or the dormitories and there's even a Sorting Hat that can tell you where you belong – how cool is that? – and..."

"Doctor?" A questioning look was his only response. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The Doctor looked scandalised. "You haven't heard of Harry Potter."

"Of course I've heard of it," Jack scoffed. "I've just never read it or seen the movies."

"Yeah, well, Ianto mentioned something about being a Slytherin, so we're in for a day in the dungeons."

Dungeons did not bring happy memories and at this point Jack realised – a rather belated realisation, really – that what the Doctor and Ianto considered amusement wouldn't be something he would like very much.

o.O.o

Ianto did turn out to be a Slytherin, whatever that meant. He took the green badge with the snake that was offered to him and stuck it in front of his shirt with pride, which was a rare and endearing thing for Jack to witness because really, the James Bond thing he could understand – Ianto had a soft spot for secret agents of any sort – but him reading books about a boy going to a magic school was something new entirely. The Captain thought that he should have seen it coming because if there was a person in this world – or any other he could think of – was remarkable for still finding the miracle in a world that didn't do anything to pay back any of the favours he gave it, that would be Ianto.

The Doctor's test passed with a few disturbances. Jack was told that it worked on an entirely psychic level and the hat had started blurting out everything at once before going between Slytherin and Ravenclaw and, after a pause, proclaiming him as a Slytherin too.

Jack took the sorting thing mostly to please Ianto and the Doctor and, after the hat told him – apparently only he could hear it at first – a few truths he hadn't been exactly prepared for, it had shouted out to the room, "Gryffindor!" and it made Ianto and the Doctor exchanged glances that were somewhere between intrigued and sceptical.

Ianto was having the time of his life, that much was obvious. For once, there were no shadows in his eyes as he took in everything with that bright curiosity Jack had started loving so much as the Time Lord pointed out details that the guide or the Doctor had missed. The Captain had even had to listen to a few arguments between the two of them on several topics. Things got especially heated when they got back to the TARDIS and the subject of the necessity – or lack thereof – of Sirius Black's death was brought up.

It was something new, definitely, but he was rather enjoying it, Jack thought as he listened to them. Yes, there was running for their lives and there were the ridiculous things that Time Lords found important to think about way too often, which didn't really go well with the emotional baggage of the three of them combined, but it was his. And he wouldn't change it for the world.