Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Nope. Still not mine. Wish it were, I could use the money.
Chapter 4: Storm
Summary: Not out of deep water yet.
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Harry felt raindrops on his ears as he began to lever house elves out of the mud. He could only manage to haul one elf at a time over to the stairs, where the still mobile elves were waiting to take them. Hagrid was doing the same thing, only the big Groundskeeper was able to carry five or six of the things on his shoulders at a time. Hagrid looked battered too. His beard had a singed look to it – again with that odd diamond pattern, like he'd slammed into a red-hot chain link fence – and there was a bloodied length of cloth wrapped around one hand. Harry worked his way towards him, wanting to ask questions, but the thunder was getting louder and louder, and the rain suddenly came down like water from a thousand spigots.
He started to go inside when he saw a small hand waving from the mud. He pried up the owner and found himself being hugged fiercely. "I knew Harry Potter would find Dobby," said the overenthusiastic elf.
"Hullo, Dobby," Harry sighed. "Are you hurt?"
"Dobby's leg is hurt, Harry Potter," said Dobby, displaying an ankle that was bent in a direction that would have had Harry yelling for an ambulance. "But Madame Pomfrey can fix it."
"If we can find Madame Pomfrey," Harry said, gathering up Dobby carefully in his arms. He squinted through his rainstreaked glasses, trying to figure out which way to walk. "Hang on."
"No, no," Dobby said, after a step or two. "Madame Pomfrey is that way."
Harry turned the way that Dobby pointed. Just then, the biggest lightning flash he'd ever seen in his life lit up the entire world. It was like sheet lightning in every direction. For a moment there were no shadows anywhere, and every raindrop flashed with light so bright it was blinding. On its heels came a thunder clap almost too loud to be heard.
Harry found himself down in the mud, his ears ringing. He'd managed somehow to keep himself from landing on top of Dobby, but the mud was all over both of them. He picked himself and his patient up carefully and started trying to find the castle. It was awful. He had to try avoid being close enough to anything that was being hit by lightning – and that was just about everything. Poor Dobby seemed to be badly affected by the stuff too. He stopped trying to help and just shivered in Harry's arms with his tennis ball eyes tight shut and whimpered. Harry had never seen so much lightning. It came from one direction and then another, making the shadows change direction this way and that – sort of like dozens of mis-timed strobe lights. Between the glitter of the lightning lit rain, and the constantly changing position of the shadows it took Harry forever to find a pathway, and even with a line of flagstones to follow the going was frightening.
Harry had been just about ready to give up trying to get inside and just stay in a hollow under the steps he'd finally reached when Professor Trelawney found the two of them and escorted them in under the protection of her fringed purple parasol. She was perfectly dry. Harry knew he probably looked like a drowned and muddy rat as she ushered him down the entire length of the Great Hall carrying Dobby. Fortunately, the thunder was so loud he couldn't hear what she was saying. It was embarrassing enough having to be rescued. Most of the students had been herded into the hall, and quite a few of them waved at him from the groups that the prefects seemed to be trying to collect them into.
A big chalkboard, which usually hung in the corridor and reflected school announcements and such, had been magicked to another use. It was hanging near the windows, and it looked like it had a list of every teacher, student, house elf, ghost, and pet in the entire school. His own name was written in red, but as he found it, an eraser scrubbed it off and a piece of chalk flew up from the ledge to rewrite it in the same blue as most of the names. There were several names in red, and a few in green. A lot of the names were in yellow – nearly all of the elves were, for one, and most of the faculty. Dumbledore's name was in yellow, Harry noted.
The stage end of the Hall had been transformed into an infirmary. There were rows of human sized beds, and stacks of house elf sized bunks, and most of them were filled. There was one really large bed, and Harry was surprised to see Hagrid sitting in it, looking very dazed and scorched, his hair and beard sticking out in all directions above striped pajamas. He handed Dobby to Madame Pomfrey and watched as she magicked a chair into yet another house-elf sized bunk, and then went over to see how Hagrid was. He was taken quite aback when Nearly Headless Nick suddenly appeared from half inside Hagrid's chest.
"What are you doing?" Harry exclaimed, rushing over, but the ghost – who seemed to be able to hear in spite of the thunder – smiled reassuringly at him.
"Just cooling him down, Harry," the cultured voice was clear in spite of the racket overhead. "Best thing for burns is a good chill, you know, and the poor chap took a direct hit of lightning."
"Lightning? Are you all right, Hagrid?" Harry thought better just in time of putting a hand on Hagrid's shoulder – the skin that did show was lobster red, and he didn't expect that it was any better under the pajamas. But Hagrid just blinked at him slowly, and then managed a small fleeting smile. He said something Harry couldn't hear, but Nick did, and passed it along. "He says could you look out for Fang, please."
"All right, I will." But Harry lingered, still worried.
"He'll be all right in a week or two," Nick assured him. "But you'd best get something dry on, or you'll catch cold. Especially since Peeves is acting up."
Reluctantly, and keeping an eye out for Peeves as well as Fang, Harry started back down the hall, wondering if he'd be allowed up to the dormitory to get something dry to wear. He was so busy looking under the tables for the dog, he didn't see who rammed into him with a hug from behind until after they'd already done it, and his heart almost stopped. It was just Ron, though, and Hermione right behind him. Ron jumped up and down talking even though Harry couldn't hear him. Hermione produced a pair of purple fluff balls and reached over to put them over Harry's ears.
"…need these. Sorry about the color, but I think it's the only shade that they'll turn to." Hermione was saying, and now that Harry had a moment to think, he saw that she and Ron were wearing the things too.
"What are they?" he asked, touching one. It wasn't nearly as soft as it looked. The fluff seemed to be made of hedgehog spikes.
"Hear-Muffs," Hermione said.
"Ear-muffs?" Harry tried, wondering if he'd heard her right.
"No, Hear-muffs, so you can hear. They're working aren't they? I tried to set them to block out most of the thunder, but they'll probably work best if you're looking at the person you want to hear."
"Oh," Harry said. "Where did they come from?"
"Thistles," Ron chipped in. "One of the Hufflepuffs grabbed the box of them that were in the Transfigurations classroom waiting to be turned to pincushions by the second years, and has been teaching the spell to some of the others. Hermione was the first one to get it right, weren't you Hermione?"
"There can't have been enough thistles there for everyone," Harry protested.
"There weren't, but Professor Sprout's taken some of the others off to the greenhouses to get more." Ron pulled off his cloak to wrap it around Harry. "You're sopping, Harry. Lucky you didn't get hit by lightning like Hagrid did."
"Hagrid," Harry said, reminded. "He asked me to find Fang. Have you seen him anywhere?"
"No," Hermione said, looking to the board. "But he must be here and safe. His name's in blue."
"What do you mean, his name's in blue?" Ron asked. "What does the color have to do with it?"
Hermione gave him a fondly exasperated look. "Blue's for the people who are in the hall and unhurt, yellow's for the ones who are here but hurt, and red's for the one's who haven't come in yet."
"What about purple and green, then?" Harry asked. There weren't nearly as many names in those colors.
"I'm not as sure of those," Hermione admitted. "They both include names of people who were here, but they've gone again. I think purple might mean that the person's all right, and that green means they've been hurt, but I haven't got enough examples to be sure."
"Well, if Fang's here, let's find him, so Hagrid won't have to worry," Harry said, checking under another table.
"I wonder why there isn't any orange?" Ron said, still looking at the board, while Hermione bent down to help Harry look.
Hermione pulled a face, but it was more of an "I don't think you really want to know" kind of face. Her answer was suspiciously casual. "Well, some people don't even see orange, you know. The American Navaho tribe doesn't even have a word for it in their language. They just think of it as a kind of yellow-red, I expect."
"Oh," Ron said, and bent to the search. "Here, Fang," he called, and whistled.
"He hasn't got Hear-muffs, you know," Harry pointed out.
"I know, but he's a dog, isn't he. Their hearing's different from ours," Ron said equably and went over to the next row of tables.
Harry cornered Hermione. "What do you really think about the orange?" he asked her quietly.
Hermione made sure Ron wasn't looking towards them. "Madame Pomfrey's the one who witched the board. I think maybe she witched it so that orange would mean people who are hurt badly, but she's made it so that we see it as yellow. She wouldn't want us getting more upset than we already are, but that way she can tell who needs the most help quickly." Harry looked at the board, trying to see if Dumbledore's name was any redder than the other yellow names, but he couldn't tell. Hermione followed his glance and then put a hand on his arm. "Honestly, Harry, I'm just guessing. No one's explained the colors to us. No one's had a chance to."
"Maybe, but you're better at guessing than anyone else at Hogwarts," Harry said. "And even if we don't know who got hurt the worst, there's way too many names in yellow. I don't see a single house-elf in blue, do you? And Trelawney and Madame Pomfrey are the only grown-ups in blue or purple. Even Filch and Sprout are green. And… what happened to Hooch?"
"It was that really big thunderbolt," Hermione said. "Crabbe fell off the tower and she tried to catch him just before he hit the ground. I think her arms are broken."
"He got hurt too," Harry said, finding the name. He wished that Madame Pomfrey had witched it to have everyone grouped by color or by whether or not they were a student or teacher or what, and not just in alphabetical order. There were so many names it was hard to count how many names each color represented.
"He probably would have gotten killed if she hadn't slowed him down," Hermione said. "Trelawney and Sprout were bringing the pair of them into the Hall when we first got down here."
Harry took off his glasses. It was easier to estimate when he only saw colors and not words. "Yellow and red take up nearly half the board," he said.
"Yes, but a lot of the red names are for owls or pet cats or toads and things," Hermione said. "And once we get them into the Great Hall, they may all turn out to be blues."
"Sure," Harry agreed. "But who's going to organize it? Trelawney?"