Jackson Overland Frost was undoubtedly the most elusive student who ever walked the halls of Hogwarts.

Not in the literal sense; anyone could easily pick out from among the sea of black cloaks his untidy peak of white hair. Nor did he actually walk per se; he was more likely to be seen sprinting, bounding, pelting, sneaking, or trotting up and down the stone staircases with boundless energy. Everyone, from first years to seventh years, knew who Jack Frost was.

Reports of his academic aptitude came from diverse ages. According to the third years, he was terrible at Transfiguration, hopeless at Charms, and mediocre at Potions. The fourth years said he barely passed Herbology. But the biggest surprise of all came from the sixth years, who had him in their Astronomy class and pronounced him utterly superb. Jack himself preferred to hang around with the first years.

No one ever saw hide nor hair of him in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Along with his age, his background was similarly mysterious. Although his accent was decidedly American, when asked where he was from, he would reply vaguely, "North." Unable to get him to elaborate further, they thought he might mean Canada.

Dennis Creevey said, very seriously, that he must have come from the North Pole. His fellow Gryffindors laughed, but such having a peculiar place of origin would account for some of his more eccentric habits.

For example, Jack did not own a wand. Instead, he kept on him at all times a sturdy staff of gnarled wood, a staff that was even taller than he was. Teachers raised eyebrows but otherwise did not comment on this anomaly. It made the older girls giggle scandalously, and the older boys give him a hard time. A knot of Slytherin sixth years took it upon themselves to taunt Jack about his lack of a proper wand at every opportunity.

Oddly enough, Jack showed nothing but sincere remorse when he visited them in the hospital wing, where the entire gang was being treated for severe hypothermia.

Yet another extraordinary event was his befriending of Peeves.

Somehow, Jack managed to never run afoul of a single one of the poltergeist's traps. Peeves, sensing the presence of a master on par with himself, redoubled his efforts.

Dozens of students bore witness to this exchange:

As was his habit on snowy days, Peeves had been lurking outside around the school entrances, ambushing unwary students the minute they walked out the door. Upon seeing Jack's silvery hair, he cackled gleefully and unleashed a volley of snowballs.

Unlike the other students, Jack did not cover his head, run, or make any other attempt to flee. Instead, he whipped around to face his assailant.

At this point, the accounts tend to diverge.

Some say that Jack shot out an arm and, with the precision of a Seeker, caught Peeve's next throw. Others say a snowball appeared in his hand out of thin air. Still others insist that he simply scooped up a handful of snow and packed it like a normal person, but this last group tends to be scornfully looked down upon.

(Dennis Creevey always swore that Jack had raised a miniature army of four-inch snowmen.)

Regardless of how it got there, there was a snowball in Jack's hand. He wound up—students shouted at him not to do it—mimicking Jack's actions, Peeves grabbed a lump of snow—they both threw—all over the courtyard, heads turned to watch—Peeves missed his target—

Jack's snowball, ignorant of the incorporeality of poltergeists, hit Peeves squarely between the eyes.

A two-man war erupted in the snow.

Who would've won was anyone's guess, as the Headmistress had to forcibly drag Jack back indoors long after dusk had fallen. It took her quite a lot of force, since Peeves was pulling him the other way.

From that day on, they had formed a kind of alliance. It wasn't uncommon to walk into an empty classroom and find Jack excitedly giving instructions to an attentive Peeves, or to see Jack hauling buckets of muck from the Weasley swamp up the stairs, while the floating little man cheered him on.

This turn of events gave rise to the popular rumor that Jack was an undercover envoy from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, sent to Hogwarts to conduct field research. Therefore, he was not really a student at all, which would explain why he seemed to lack a House.

Jack was nice to everyone. That is to say, he wasn't especially friendly to anyone. Whether you were a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff, he greeted you with equal familiarity. No one remembered seeing him in the Great Hall. Likewise, nobody knew which dormitory he slept in.

"I thought he was in your house," people often said. Anastasia Clearwater claimed to have seen him napping in a tree in the Forbidden Forest, but later admitted that it could have been a unicorn that she had glimpsed.

So when the Hufflepuff Seeker fractured his skull and Jack Frost showed up to replace him, they thought that every question ever pondered about Jack's allegiance had been answered at last.

Alas, it was not to be.

"He just walked up to me," whispered the Captain, "and asked if he could be the replacement. I thought he had to be a Hufflepuff because no one in their right mind would ditch their House for us."

"Can he fly? Does he have a broom?" the team wanted to know.

Their Captain didn't respond immediately. There was a faraway look on his face.

"Fly?" he repeated distantly.

They received the answer to their second question, at least, when Frost walked out onto the pitch, staff in hand.

"Is that even allowed?" wondered one of the Beaters.

"Must be, or else Hooch never would've let him play," said the other.

They mounted their brooms, Looking foolish (at least to his new teammates; he himself was smirking self-confidently), Frost swung a leg over his staff.

Could Jack Frost fly?

Did Harry Potter have a scar?

As it turned out, Jack spent very little time actually sitting on his broom-staff. He stood on it, he surfed with it, he used it to deflect a stray Bludger. Mostly, he hung from the staff with one hand, as if the physical contact alone enabled his entire body to gain the properties of the Snitch he sought. It was, in fact, almost as though Jack were flying without the aid of his staff at all.

Even the wind seemed to always favor Jack's direction, and at the same time retard the progress of the fluttering Snitch.

Visions of House Cups danced through the team's heads.

The captain dismissed practice with tears in his eyes. But when he reached out to clap their newest member on the back, Jack was nowhere to be seen. Mystified, he settled for hugging the Chaser.

They were unable to contain their excitement that night in the Common Room.

"Did you see that dive?"

"How he hit the rogue Bludger?"

"So that's what the staff's for."

Speaking of the devil, why hadn't he come back to the Common Room yet?

The captain shrugged. "I don't care where he sleeps, as long as he shows up next practice."

The rumor mill started grinding again.

They speculated that his staff, like Hagrid's umbrella, had a wand embedded in it. By "north", he meant Durmstrang. He had been expelled, his wand snapped in half. He was on the run from the Bulgarian version of Aurors. THey had cursed his hair white to make him instantly recognizable. He had sought asylum at Hogwarts. He was afraid to go to DADA classes for fear of revealing his knowledge of the Dark Arts. He was Viktor Krum in disguise. He was a Malfoy in disguise. He was You-Know-Who in disguise.

When confronted with all this, Jack merely smirked, neither confirming nor refuting their allegations.

"You know me," was all he would say. "I'm Jack Frost."

And that, indeed, was all they really knew.

I have yet to find an ROTG/HP fanfic where Jack keeps his staff. Somehow, the image of all these kids with their dinky little wands, and then Jack with his freakin' staff, is irresistable. Plus, he just looks incomplete without it. A wand just doesn't cut it for Jack.

Things grew a bit from there. Was it everything you ever imagined? Nothing you would ever want to imagine? Please review!