20/11/23

AN: Sorry for being a bit late, it's a mix of not doing it, being busy, and not knowing what to write.

I have a minor idea where i want to go, but i don't know how long it will take to get there, but I am working on the next chapter as i am putting up this one, so hopefully it won't take too long to put up.

Because it was still in the afternoon, there was no problem with Harry, Baby Tooth, Jack and Elisa crossing the grounds to see Hagrid.

When they get there, they see him with a campfire accompanied by Hermione (still looking a bit tired) and Anna (who had a stick of five marshmallow's) having a daytime celebration on Buckbeak being able to live - even if he had to go back to the sanctuary with Newt.

"Hello," Hagrid said beaming happily as he cooked some sausages. "You lot been having a nice day, ah?"

"Um sort of," Jack said unsure what to say looking to the window of the cabin to check there were no eavesdropping rats.

"Hagrid, do you have a cage we could borrow, about yay big?" Elisa asked holding up her hands "Preferably one out here." she said quickly as Hagrid started to get up to go inside.

"I might have, why would you want it?" Hagrid asked going to look in his outdoor storage pile.

"Well you remember how the trial went the other day," Jack began slowly getting nods from everyone "Well Elisa and I believe the true culprit for everything that happened to Harry, here, is inside your house right now."

This got mix looks of confusion, worry, and a bit of anger from Hagrid who shook his head.

"What? No I don't have anyone in there but Fang," he said, but kept looking for the cage pulling one out that was roughly the size they wanted. "Keeping him inside so he doesn't nick our sausages."

"How would you know he's in there, if he was, anyway?" Harry asked wand out to attack this man just in case Jack was right.

"Lupin came to see us earlier and using the map we saw him in there," Elisa said quietly as Jack took the cage and put some non-breaking spells on it and then covered it with a thin layer of forever-frost as double protection.

"Ok, you lot stay out here, and I'll go in and look for this snake in lion's fur," Jack said telling Baby to wait with the others. "No matter what happen, what you see, what you hear, don't open the doors and come in after me. And If I'm not out in five minutes go and get one of the teachers or those aurors."

"Got it," Elisa said nodding in understanding for everyone.

Giving a mocking tent-hut salute, Jack span around, kept his wand out and went inside the wooden house.

o0o

Once he was inside and having closed the door with his foot, reaching behind him to latch it, Jack looked up at the shelves holding the pots and jars.

Slowly he moved forward and placed the cage onto the table and pulled out one of the seats.

He placed it in potion and was about to stand on it when Fang gave a questioning bark and whine getting up from his bed to meet Jack.

"Shhh..." Jack said quietly petting the dog's head "It's ok boy, I'm just looking for something, I'm not here to pull a prank. Promise."

Giving an unsure look at Jack, Fang nodded and went back to bed so he wouldn't be in the way.

Nodding in thanks, Jack started to get up onto the chair and one by one carefully looked in each of the pots and jars, trying not to move them too much in case Pettigrew got wind of him looking for him.

Jack was in the middle of looking in one of a pile of soup bowels when a scuttering caught his ear from shelf on the other side of the room above the fire place.

Slowly, carefully as if pretending not to have heard anything Jack put the bowels back and got down, pretending to get ready to move the chair along some more and then...

"Protificus Totalis!" he called out pointing his wand and spinning around firing the spell and making it hit a rat that had its front paw clenched into a tiny fist and what looked like floo powder inside it, making it fall to the floor still as a statue.

Glaring down at the rat, Jack came over, used his wand to lift the vermin up and placed it into the cage.

Only then and after he double checked the lock, did Jack lift the spell and walked outside to meet everyone again.

o0o

As he got outside, he saw Sirius, Lupin, Bunny, and McGonagall had joined them, along with one of the aurors who had been questioning the Weasley's earlier.

"I'm sure I said only get help if I was in there for more than five minutes," Jack said checking his imaginary watch.

"We came of our own accord, mate," Bunny said rolling his eyes a bit looking at the cage with the rat inside.

"Well here you are then," Jack said handing the cage over to Lupin going over to get himself a marshmallow while the adults handled Pettigrew.

"You were rather slow you know, despite it not being five minutes" Elisa said already roasting herself some of the puffy pink and white blobs of sugar.

"Well I couldn't let him think he had to run, can I?" Jack asked checking his one and turning it over and he held it over the fire again. "If I did, he probably have acted quicker and thrown the floo power in the fire and vanished faster than I could catch him."

"And how exactly would a rat activate the floo if he did manage to throw some powder in?" Hermione asked raising an eyebrow.

"I dunno," Jack said checking his marshmallow "Squeaking? Thinking it? Transforming back and speaking it?"

Off to the side, Lupin and Sirius were confirming this rat was indeed Peter, and explaining to the adults the story of how he came to be a rat in the first place.

It seemed McGonagall was in a mix of mad that three students became illegal Animagi and proud that they were able to do it while still in school.

Once the story was done, the auror said they needed to let the rat out, so he can be taken back to the Ministry as a man and not a rat.

"Wouldn't it be better to keep him in there like that until you get there?" Bunny asked raising an eyebrow "That way he wouldn't be able to escape."

"We need to be 100% sure that this rat is Peter Pettigrew," the man said trying to undo the cage door.

"These men already confirmed that it is him, sir," McGonagall said nodding to Lupin and Sirius. "How much more proof do you need?"

"Professor, please, I think I know what I am doing," the auror said, trying to melt the ice.

"Then you should know, sir, that that ice won't melt to or for anything except the one who cast it," Jack said coming over sensing something wasn't quite right.

"And how would you know that young man?" he asked rolling his eyes as he kept trying to let the rat out, ignoring Jack.

"Because where I'm from, we see this magic ice it every year in winter and the start of spring. We call it Forever Frost." Jack said quietly pulling his wand out ready to use it if need be.

"That's weather, not magic," he said now trying to set fire to it "Magic can't control the weather."

As soon as he said that a medium sized cloud appeared over his he as and it started to snow very hard on top of him, making him look up confused.

"You were saying sir?" Elisa asked coming over to support Jack who held out his wand pointing it to the cloud.

"Well, if you're so smart boy, why don't you come and undo this spell on the cage then?" he asked not answering the question.

"Yeah... no I don't think I'll do that," Jack said wand still pointing to the cloud but eyes on the man. "Not until you show me your left fore-arm."

"And why would you need to see that?" he asked his right hand moving to grab it but resisting.

"Just a feeling, sir. Your behaviour seems familiar, and I just want to check," Jack said calmly. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. So just show us, and we can carry on."

By now, all the adults had their wands out, pointing to the man, even Hagrid with his flowery pink umbrella.

Glaring at Jack, the man started to roll up his sleeve to his left arm and showed everyone a bare arm.

"There, happy now boy?" he asked starting to pull the sleeve down again.

"Not yet," Jack said, making him stop, and grabbing his wrist to have a closer look. "I scene an illusion spell here. Revelio." he said pointing his wand to the arm and right away a faint almost unseeable tattoo of a skull with a snake coming from it's mouth was seen."

There was a small gasp from McGonagall, a growl from Sirius, a slightly smaller one from Lupin, a glare from Bunny, and confused looks from the students.

Quickly the man pulled his arm back, pulled his sleeve down, grabbed the cage and started to run across the grounds.

"After him!" Jack cried out and led the chase with everyone following him.