Jack, not Jackson

Chapter 69: Haunting

Harry's POV:
—
Jack is screaming.
The kind of heart-breaking, fear-inducing, tear-wrenching scream that movies have to mute because they would scare the audience..
Except this wasn't on mute.

His ice lashes out like a physical manifestation of his pain, encompassing each and every nightmare within seconds.

Everyone had frozen just as effectively as if Frost had actually frozen them.
The school can do nothing but watch as the boy curls into himself a little from the weight of his anguish.

Somehow the Nightmares had changed form and Frost had gone from fighting horses, to monsters, to people.
It must have been what caused him to scream, the shape change; cause as far as I could tell he'd seemed to be winning. I guess he couldn't handle the final humanoid forms.

I know it's too much to ask, but mentally I beg him to get up. He needs to get up, to fight. Before the kids like Callum are forced to. I don't want to see another generation of students scarred like me.

I want to jump into the fray but I know I could never reach Frost. My fear has me frozen anyway, and Callum is holding onto me like a drowned kitten.

Filling my lungs so deeply it hurts I shout one word.
Frost.

I keep going. over and over.
By the time I run out of air I can taste blood in my mouth and my throat is completely raw but I don't take my eyes off of Jack.
Something is happening.

-
Jack Frost's POV:
-
As I scream, I notice numbly that my powers seem to be lashing out too.
But I can't seem to care. I can feel my ability to hold myself together drifting away like an unanchored boat with the tide going out.

I knew I was doomed from the moment I saw her. Then I was forced to watch her fade without me all over again. Without the chance to ever follow, or say goodbye. I could have made myself okay with just a goodbye.

I hear someone yelling my name, but it seems so far away.
I'm about to let go completely when a detached thought floats past me. I look at it disinterested before it sinks in.
If I let go, this body will not die..and I don't know if what's left of me is capable of connecting. Of protecting the students.

I take a final breath on this receding tide, this moment of numbness before I let it all flood back. I don't have a choice, I have to wait out the wave. Let it drown me, For them. For the ones who never had the chance to try their hand at surviving; and the ones that should never have to try.

The voice yelling my name gets louder as the clarity comes back, stabbing me with each death. Over. And over. But I let it. I need it to. Pain is the only thing I have that's sharp enough to draw me back right now.

With effort and empty lungs, I let my screaming fade.

-
3rd Person POV:
-

Jack is at the center of the battlefield. It took him less than two seconds to fall and a little longer to react, his ice cutting away from him, catching nearly every nightmare in its grasp, Pitch's mare being the only exception as he guides her through the danger.

As the echo fades, it brings the kind of complete silence you get after heavy snow falls, muffling everything.
Then, the temperature drops from mild and chilly to below freezing. It's so sudden everyone gasps as the air bites back when they breathe.

The trees nearest Jack start to crackle. Then, all around like wooden bombs, they explode, echoing off the slight dip in the valley. These trees could not handle the change but the Forbidden Forest remains unaffected.

The last nightmare rears at the sounds suddenly coming from all around, the echos doubling the noise. Trying to bring her under control with a whip
Pitch's arm briefly touches the ice.

It crawls up his arm, burning with an intensity Pitch didn't know was possible. It'd been so long since he'd felt the cold but this, this was past the point of cold.

He tried to use nightmare dust to stop the ice but it consumed that too. It stops on its own at his elbow. Pitch gets the Nightmare under control as the power he'd found and contained in his arm fades, the soul fragment of the Dark Lord seeping from the mark on his arm as frostbite leeches it away.

Frost breathes and that seems like it's the only thing moving in the entire valley, the rest of the world stuck holding its breath. His breathing slows as he calms himself and the ice—now containing all of the nightmare dust, melts and slowly starts to move toward him.

It gathers in a silent swirl of water as he absorbs it. All of it, Nightmare dust and all disappearing as it touches his skin. His veins turn black, but if you look closely, you can see that too starts to fade. Nothing that can kill him will survive. The curse won't allow it.

Ice, water, and nightmare dust gone, the valley looks empty. Pitch himself and the unconscious DeathEaters laying about the field are the only indication that the entire school did not just hallucinate the battle.

It's eighteen seconds before Jack moves. So slowly that it's hard to tell if he's raising his head or if the wind is ruffling his hair. Pitch is a different kind of frozen when Jack looks at him.

There's no anger, no fear. There's nothing even remotely emotional written on Frost's face except the tracks of tears he must have shed trying to hold onto the girl.

"You had a chance Pitch. I told you to run. If you come back, you won't get that chance again."

Pitch doesn't remember deciding to flee. Just locking eyes with Frost, then galloping away. Simply looking at the boy's face was enough to know he had chosen the wrong place to harvest nightmares.

That wasn't the face of someone haunted by the past. That was the face of someone who had found a way to survive. Of someone capable of haunting you right back.

3rd Person Continued.
—

At first, no one dares to move. The Frost they knew wouldn't have been capable of screaming like that and the Professors come to the realization that, if Jack is as old as he claims to be, they don't really know him at all.

Harry has no such hesitations. He's scrambling his way down the valley to Frost before anyone can blink. Callum and Rowen quickly follow and everyone else trails after them.

They only slow when they see Jack sitting on the ground. He's looking at his icy sword with such a mix of emotions that not a single one can be read.

Harry goes and sits quietly next to him. Like the so-many mornings Frost had done the same for him. Close enough to lend support but far enough to give Jack time. Wherever they happen to be  standing, the rest of the group sinks to the ground.

The whole school had ended up coming to the valley so it is every person that sits with Jack, no one speaking until he is ready. It takes a few minutes before Frost looks up from his sword, letting it melt away into water that dissipates in the air like a breath of fog.

His smile is a weak one, but it is almost genuine as he speaks.
"Thank you."

Whatever tension was in the air fades as everyone looks to their neighbor. This..is the Frost they know, come back to them despite so much.

Despite Nightmares, years, battles, and memories forming a canyon between them, he had come back.
It's a muffled version of the Jack they had come to depend on, but it's all they need to know that everything will be okay, even if it isn't yet.

He had told them that it was okay for the strong to be weak. Now, he was showing them.