18/12/22

AN: Sorry this has taken longer to write than usual.

I have been trying to get it done for a while, but it always managed to get away from me meaning it had to wait one extra day.

Also I had to rewrite a few things because i couldn't get it right.

Either way it's up now, so Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and all that.

I will TRY and do better with updates next year, but don't count it it.

U-D123 :)

The next morning, Jack woke up in the armchair and walked up to his dormitory to get dressed for the school day, grabbing his things.

As he went about getting ready it was clear that no one really got that good a night's sleep last night after the second break-in.

Leaving a note to Neville saying to meet him in the Great Hall, Jack grabbed his things and headed downstairs, yawning a bit himself.

o0o

After ignoring Sir Cardigan's fighting words of morning greeting, Jack set off to the Great Hall yawning to himself wondering if any of the teachers were up yet.

He had almost reached the first stair case when Binky popped up out of thin air next to him.

"Young Sir, Master Sirius is asking for you to meet him in the Come and Go Room so's you can talk about what last night." the Elf said after bowing to Jack.

"You mean the Room of Requirement?" Jack asked confused, his brain not fully awake yet.

"Yes sir," Binky said nodding "The Come and Go Room is the name the Elves give it as sometimes it is there, but sometimes it is not."

"Right." Jack said yawning a little thinking "When does he want me there?"

"Whenever you are free to come, but preferably sooner than later, sir," Binky said smiling.

"If it can be later, can I bring some friends with me? They won't be Harry or a non-friendly teacher. Promise." Jack said calmly.

"Binky is unsure, let me go check," the Elf said popping away, soon coming back "Master Sirius says it's ok, but says to call him Padfoot, when you tell your friends to come." he said.

"Ok, well one of them is from a different house, but I'll tell them when I can and we will probably come after the last lesson." Jack said strategizing "Hopefully Padfoot can last until then. Thank you Binky."

Nodding Binky bowed and left, letting Jack get back to going to the Great Hall.

o0o

He was finishing his second round of toast when the teachers and other students started to come in.

Looking up he saw Bunny (looking grumpy as always) coming over to him.

"Oh here we go..." he said getting up to meet him "Bunny before you say anything –"

Before he could finish, Bunny had hit him around the back of the head.

"You are a complete dingbat!" he said firmly "How could you have let something as valuable as passwords get stolen by that psycho, who brings a knife into a children's sleeping quarters."

"He's not a psyco!" Jack said frowning and rubbing his head "Yeah ok, so he's not as sane as he possibly could be, but that's what happens when you're around Dementors for 12 years!"

Everyone who was there in the Hall was watching this (rather loud) conversation.

"An' why was he put in there in the first place ah?" Bunny asked raising an eyebrow.

"Oh... I don't know, maybe because his FRIEND BETRAYED HIM, and then everyone else just pushed him away without hearing HIS SIDE OF THE STORY?! Remind you of anything Bunny? Huh?!" Jack asked snatching his things up and began to leave.

He was almost at the doors when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Turning to it he saw it was Elisa who smiled gently "Want to come and eat with us?" she asked as she looked Luna and her friends from Ravenclaw.

Looking back to where Bunny was, seeing the minor guilt on his face, Jack nodded and followed her to the blue house table, but didn't really have much to eat.

While the friends were gossiping about what happened last night, telling Jack that Professor Flitwick told them that morning, Jack told Elisa what really happened.

"They were Neville's passwords, but I didn't want him to get into trouble." Jack began calmly, playing with his cutlery because he was board. "So I said they were mine, and as such I got punished instead."

"What does the punishment include Jack?" Luna asked quietly as she paused in having some pancakes.

"Among detention and points off Gryffindor..." Jack said looking to Elisa "I can't go on any more Hogsmeade weekends for the rest of the year. Meaning... our Valentine's Day hang-out-together has to be moved from there to here."

"Well who wants to walk through all that snow and whatever only to be in a cramped tea room where everyone is watching everyone else anyway?" Elisa said pouting a little.

"I'm not sure if you're serious or not," Jack said carefully "Are you ok with this or..."

"It's fine," she said stopping him "I was just... looking forward to it."

Just then Neville came over with Baby Tooth, Annie was staying at the Gryffindor table that morning to help Ginny keep Ron's already-big-head under control from blowing up anymore, because of all the attention he was getting.

"Hi Jack," Neville said timidly, he wasn't used to switching tables.

"Hi Neville," Jack replied calmly.

"So I got some ideas on what to say to my Grandmother when we write her the letter, but I want your opinion too, seeing as you're the one with the facts." Neville said being careful what to say.

"We could just ask him ourselves," Jack said quickly as Neville was looking through his bag "He's still here, one of the House Elves told me and where he is. I asked if I can bring friends to meet him, and he said yes."

"Are you sure that's safe?" Neville asked nervous.

"Neville, the best way to get the true facts from something that happened from years ago is to ask someone who was there." Luna said calmly. "And the only one who knows the truth 100%, who was there, is him. Besides I'm sure he'd like to see you. Papa told me once you were his backup god-child after Harry."

"We will be there too Neville," Elisa said calmly. "If he tries anything we can fight him and take him to a teacher."

"Preferably one who doesn't want to kill him," Jack added seeing Snape looking grumpier than ever.

Agreeing to this, Jack said to meet up on the 7th floor down the corridor with the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy after lessons, telling Neville about the tapestry in case he had never heard of the Room of Requirement before.

All through out that day, signs of tighter security were everywhere.

Professor Flitwick seemed to be trying to teach the front doors how to recognize Sirius Black using an enlarged photo of him.

Filch was going up and down corridors boarding up every nook and cranny he could find, and told the headmaster to set up guards over the secret passages he knew about, leading out of the school.

Sir Cadogan's portrait was sacked, taken down and put back in the lonely landing on the 7th floor, and replaced with the true guardian of Gryffindor Tower – the Fat Lady – who only said she would return if she had extra protection. And sure enough, when the students came back that evening there were a couple of security trolls with large clubs either side of her.

Looking around the school one thing that seemed to be untouched was the One-Eyed-Witch and her hump.

But Jack didn't have time to worry about that, he and Baby Tooth had to meet up with Elisa and Neville down the Room's corridor, Luna saying that she had homework to do which was why she was missing out.

"Ready for this Nev?" Jack asked seeing his fellow Gryffindor was nervous.

"I – I think so," Neville said nodding.

Reaching out Jack knocked on the wall a few times, and soon a door appeared and opened by itself.

Taking a hand each, Jack and Elisa lead Neville into the room where on a large bed there was a sleeping, large black dog.

Scared that it was a grim, Neville let out a cry and tried to leave but the door was gone.

The sound woke the dog up and after shaking himself out, looked over to the children.

Getting out of the bed, the dog turned back into a man – Sirius Black.

This only made Neville cry out again, only to be silenced by Jack freezing his lips together.

"Nev, it's ok, remember I said so last night," Jack said calmly but firmly.

Taking quick breathes Neville nodded, but still looked scared.

"If it helps Neville," Sirius said in his rough voice "I don't have a wand on me, and I'm not at my full health either, so you three might be able to take me down if I try something, which I won't of course." he added, seeing the boys face get more scared. "I was wondering when you would get here. I was getting bored of pacing around so I took a nap instead."

"Do you always sleep in your Animagus form?" Elisa asked pulling out some chicken pieces from her bag and handing them over.

"Only when I'm having trouble sleeping," Sirius said shrugging and tucking into the food. "So..." he said his mouth full "Why's he here?" he asked nodding to Neville.

"This is the boy who's passwords you managed to acquire," Jack said not giving names as it seemed Sirius already knew him. "Last night once everyone was sent to bed again, he felt guilty about what happened, and so I told him you were innocent and gave a rough telling of what really happened." he paused here to make sure Sirius understood. "Once the story was done he asked 'If you were innocent why were you placed in Azkaban?' and I said it was because those Ministry people wouldn't listen. But he said his grandmother would listen. So he's here with us to help write a letter to her, to help you get your named cleared."

"Humph, that won't be easy without that rat as proof," Sirius said but agreed to this idea.

"We can worry about him some other time. For now, let's just worry about getting in touch with Neville's gran." Elisa said imagining up a table / witting desk, some paper and some pens.

Seeing Neville had calmed down Jack unfroze his lips and the Longbottom Heir started to give his notes on how to write a letter to someone as important as his grandmother, and what to say.

o0o

'Dear Madam Longbottom,

We are writing to you in the hopes that you may help right a wrong that was handed out 12 years ago when Sirius Orion Black III was wrongly accused and sent to Azkaban without a Trial.

We know the truth as to what happened on the night James and Lily Potter murdered and what happened the following day to Peter Pettigrew.

The Potters switched Secret Keepers, because they believed Black would be too obvious a choice, and it was Pettigrew who really betrayed them.

Black then went to track him down, and was wrongly accused by Muggle witnesses who didn't think what they thought they saw.

If it is unknown to you, Ma'am, Black, Potter, and Pettigrew are all unregistered Animagi, and that is how Peter got away - alive.

When the Ministry came, they didn't do a proper search, or checked Black's wand to see what his last spell was, they just grabbed him and threw him into prison with no trial to try and claim his innocence.

Please help us fix this wrong.

Sincerely: Jack Frost, Elisa Dale, and Sirius O. Black III.

P.S: In these potion vials are untampered memories from Sirius Black showing what really happened on the days in question. The Switching of the Secret Keepers. And what happened after the Ministry took him away from the scene.'

o0o

"Not all that formal, but I think it would work," Sirius said, nodding. "Between the four of us, I believe I was her favourite."

"Maybe we should try and contact someone in the Ministry too," Elisa said rereading the letter.

"Like who?" Jack asked playing a game of (Muggle) chess with Baby to pass the time.

"We can try Amelia Bones, she's the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Neville said a little more confident then he was an hour ago.

"She any relation to Susan Bones?" Jack asked looking up.

"She's her aunt." Neville said nodding.

"Well what do you think?" Jack asked Sirius who shrugged.

"If it will get my name cleared sooner, I'm all for it." he said using a copy spell and changing the name at the top.

Once that was done, the kids left to do and get an owl to post them, Sirius saying he would stay until night fall then head out back to the forest.

"You guys really think this will clear his name?" Elisa asked looking at the addressed envelopes.

"It's worth a try," Jack said tapping the walls frosting them over. "Better to have failed trying then not having tried at all. And the sooner people know the truth, the sooner his name can be cleared."

"It still might take months before anything is done," Neville said nearly tripping on a trick step on the staircase they were climbing. "Unless it has the words 'Urgent' or 'Top Secret' in bold red letters on the envelope, post goes very slowly through the Ministry." he explained. "And then there may be questions as to how exactly you got these memories from Sirius in the first place."

"We'll say he gave them to us in a secret room in the castle while we wrote these letters." Elisa said in a truthful but slightly sarcastic voice.

They reach the Owlery and Jack called his owl Archie down and gave him one letter.

Knowing the other letter was going somewhere else; Elisa looked for another owl and was surprised when Harry's owl, Hedwig, came over and held out her leg.

"Um shouldn't we ask Harry first?" Elisa asked the group.

"If we do we'll need to explain everything to him," Jack said taking the letter himself and giving it to the snowy.

"What if he wants her to send a letter himself?" Elisa asked trying to get him to understand.

"Snowflake, I'm not sure if you know this, but Harry doesn't have all that many friends," Jack said slowly "And those he does have are around him almost 24/7. The best chance of him needing her is to send something to Hagrid while we're all locked up inside the castle."

After a moment of thinking it was agreed that Hedwig can deliver the second letter.

Once the birds were out of sight they start to head down to dinner.