Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns this lot. Honest. Really. Wouldn't dream of being foolish enough to claim what's not mine.
Chapter 7: Rescue Party
Summary: Someone's got to go find Snape and McGonagall…
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Harry brought his eyes down and found himself staring straight at Draco Malfoy, thirty feet away, who had apparently looked up from his consultations with Hermione just moments before. And by the look on his face, he'd just realized the potential of the Hear-Muffs. Harry beckoned him to come over, and kept looking around, checking for any other little swirls, and thinking furiously. The sight of Madame Trelawney, nearly even with the table where he was standing, gave him an idea, and he went to intercept her.
"We're going to try to go out and find Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall," he told her bluntly. "And we need to know that spell you were doing with Professor Sprout to keep lightning off."
"Mr. Filch has gone to fetch them," she said reassuringly, but glanced automatically at the chalkboard as she said it and went pale. Harry looked too. Filch's name had been re-written in red. "Oh, dear. There was nothing in the stars about this."
Harry took her arm and pointed up at the tiny swirl. "Look. Something's going very wrong. We need to find them."
She turned her narrow face upwards and went quite still. "Water, fire… it'll be a windstorm next, and if we get as far as the earthquake I'm not sure …" Her eyes came back down, huge behind her glasses, to look into his. "Yees," she said slowly. "Yes, you should go and look. But I'm afraid I don't know the lightning spell. I was merely supporting Professor Sprout."
Harry bit back a swear word.
"One of the advanced herbology students might know it," Trelawney went on, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice. "I think it was developed to keep lightning away from valuable trees. I'll go and fetch her, shall I, and we'll find out." She pulled away from Harry and went on out of the hall, walking much faster. Harry thought she might break into a run as soon as she passed the doorway and the students couldn't see her.
Hugh Hanley had come up to listen to the conversation, and he tapped Harry's shoulder to get his attention. "If anyone knows the spell, it'll be Fritz Gehrendts. He's planning to be a forester when he leaves Hogwarts."
"Is he a good flyer?"
"He could be on the house team if he wanted, but he says he'd rather study."
"What's going on?" Draco had arrived. "What spell? What are we doing?"
"The spell's to keep off lightning," Harry told him. "We're going to find Snape and McGonagall and fetch them back. Are you in?"
"If I had a broom, I would be," Draco said, frustration on his face.
"Fair's fair. You can use mine," Harry told him. "I'll borrow one off of Fred or George." He looked back to Hugh. "We still need a Ravenclaw."
"You'll have one," Cho Chang said, joining them. "I'm going to ask Elisa Mountjoy to help you. She's the only decent flyer I can think of who can work healing spells without checking in with Madam Pomfrey every five minutes. You might need that."
"Right. Tell them to meet us at the door to the Great Hall in five minutes, and we'll start for the top of Gryffindor." Harry didn't wait to watch them off, but turned and started walking toward the table where Fred and George Weasley were helping Ron and Neville fit up first years with earplugs. Draco trailed along beside him, frowning. "Draco, can you think of anything we're forgetting?"
"Brooms for those two, unless you want to waste time fetching their own. Why go to Gryffindor at all?" Draco asked.
"Because it's the highest tower," Harry said. "The one with the best view." Harry bit his lip, but decided to go on with describing his vague plan. "Haven't you noticed that the Hear-Muffs let us hear a lot farther than we ought to?"
"Well… yes," Draco admitted.
"I think, if we're lucky, we might be able to hear them if they're calling for help, as long as we're concentrating on them."
"If they're calling for help," Draco said, pointing out the weakest point of the plan with ease. "Still, it's worth a look. We'll be wasting a lot of time climbing all those stairs, though. We should double up with some of the Slytherins who have brooms and fly up the staircases. It would be faster."
"That would be good, if you can arrange it," Harry said. "I want to bring Fred and George up there too, though. I've got a job for them."
"The Weasley Terror Twins? What is it, setting fire to the tower?" Draco asked, rolling his eyes as he parted ways with Harry and headed for Marcus Flint and the other Slytherin Quidditch players.
"I hope not," Harry muttered, and went to pull on George's arm.
"Hey, Harry? What's up?"
"Some of us are going to go look for McGonagall and Snape," Harry said, "I need to borrow your brooms, and I'd like you and Fred to see if you can't rig some kind of beacon or light at the top of Gryffindor so we're sure to be able to find out way back."
George blinked. "Lee Jordan said you were going to have us all looking for the animals and bringing them here."
"That too, but it's not as important as getting the teachers. I think Dumbledore's life may depend on it."
"I hope you're pulling my leg," George said.
Harry shook his head, soberly.
"Oh, bloody hell. All right, we're in." He reached around and tapped his twin on the shoulder. "Come on, Fred, we've got a job to do."
"Okay," Fred said cheerfully. "Don't ruin all the food, Ron," he advised, scruffing Ron's hair in passing.
"Where are you going?" Ron asked, looking at Harry.
Harry wished he had time to explain it all, but then Ron would want to come – and it was bad enough risking four necks, let alone more. "Tell you later. See if you can't make up something hot to go with those sandwiches, though. I'm starving."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Something hot. Like what?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know. How about tea?"
"Tea," Ron nodded, reluctantly and turned back to what he was doing, although Harry could hear him talking to himself. "Tea. Right. That's just hot water with stuff in it. How hard can it be?"
George and Fred had taken either side of Harry and towed him along relentlessly. "I hope you know what you're doing, Harry," Fred said. "Leaving Ron and Neville in charge of getting us food? I can't imagine what they'll come up with."
"Some of the first years might be able to cook," Harry made a weak rejoinder. He looked ahead and saw Adrian Threadneedle having words with Draco and an assortment of quidditch chasers players from every house.
He concentrated. "…and when you've dropped off the team that's going after the teachers," Adrian was saying to the players, "bring back the Gryffindor animals. I'll be organizing parties for Slytherin and Hufflepuff next, but if you get back sooner than they do I'll send you on to Ravenclaw. Remember, every animal you can find is one less name for us to have to go searching for, right?"
"Right," the chasers answered.
Angelina Johnson spoke up then, "Shouldn't we get blankets and our own brooms, too?"
"The animals are the first priority," Adrian said.
"We could put the animals in the blankets," said a Hufflepuff chaser. "And the more brooms we get down here, the more teams you can have going at once."
Adrian pulled a face, but he nodded. "Just don't get distracted by side trips. If you see something that needs doing, send someone back to the Great Hall to let us know what you're up to so we don't have to send out another rescue party."
Harry and the Weasley twins reached Adrian about the same time as a tall, burly Hufflepuff boy and a slightly built Ravenclaw girl. Harry knew that the boy was Fritz Gehrendts – Fritz' family was from Barbados and he had skin that nearly matched his black robes. He was also the only student in the school who bid fair to coming up to Hagrid's height at nearly two meters. He sometimes assisted Professor Sprout in the greenhouses, and Harry had talked to him once or twice about Herbology. Elisa Mountjoy was only familiar from the library, though. Harry had seen her there fairly often, but she almost always had her nose in a book, and he didn't think that even Hermione had had call to talk to her. He nodded to both of them and held out a hand. "I hope they told you what we're going to do," he said.
Fritz reached out a hand to envelop Harry's. "Go out in the wet and bring back the teachers still out there," he confirmed. "Hugh says you need someone to work the lightning spell for you."
"Right." Harry said.
"Can't he just cast it on us now?" Draco said, coming over to join them and looking slightly sour, like things weren't quite going his way. Or like he was beginning to get scared.
"Then who's going to cast it on the professors when we find them?" asked Elisa quietly. "I think that they must be hurt, to have not come back so far."
"Hurt or lost," Harry said. "I was out there, and it's terribly easy to get mixed up with all that lightning." He jerked a thumb at the Weasleys standing behind him. "Fred and George are going to see about turning Gryffindor into a lighthouse, so we can find our way back."
"Then you ought to get going," Adrian said, herding them impatiently towards the team of flyers he'd assembled and glancing nervously towards the ceiling. They couldn't help following his gaze.
The swirl was still there, still rotating, and now Harry thought he could see a tiny thread of spinning light coming down from it, into the hall. It seemed to not be stable enough to keep its existence for more than a second or two at a time, but it lasted long enough for Harry to predict where it would touch down eventually.
On Dumbledore.