Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the toys.
Chapter 8: Up…
Summary: Finding a way through the darkness isn't always easy.
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Once they were out into the corridor, Harry got on the bristles of a broom behind one of the Ravenclaw chasers and hung on. It wasn't nearly as comfortable as riding solo, but he figured he could put up with it for as long as he needed to. Two of the players had no passengers, and they took the front and middle of the line, casting light spells to illuminate the darkened halls as they flew along. They couldn't go very fast – not as fast as the brooms would allow anyway – because the shadows did strange things around them, and made it hard to recognise landmarks. When they came to the stair tower, they stopped for a moment, to let the last few brooms and riders catch up. Harry looked up into the darkness, trying to see if there were anything up there besides stairs, and heard a distant caterwauling.
He tapped his chauffeur's shoulder and pointed up, "Do you hear anything?"
More of them looked upwards. "Sounds like a… a banshee, maybe," someone said.
"Sounds like a cat with a rock tied to its tail to me," said Draco.
"Or a lot of cats," said Fritz.
"Maybe," Elisa said, bringing out her wand and pointing it upwards. "Illuminae Solarum!" she called, and a bright beam of sunlight shot towards the top of the high chamber.
It was so bright Harry was startled and looked away, trying to blink away the purple and green column at the edge of his vision. Some of the others had better luck, and some worse, but everyone seemed to end up shouting about it.
"Look, the stairs are all stuck."
"That's not eyes, is it?"
"Relax, I think that's the cats."
"I can't see anything,"
"It's over there."
"Wait'll my eyeballs stop trying to pop out of my head, will you?"
Harry kept blinking, letting his eyes adjust gradually by looking at the walls instead of up toward the light itself. As his gaze went higher, the ghostly retina burn images began to fade and he grew more and more aware that he wasn't seeing what he should see.
"Look at the walls," he said quietly, and the clamoring around him stopped abruptly. "Do you see anyone in the portraits? Anyone at all?"
The column of light wavered and Draco said, "Not you! Just keep the light going while we look."
"All right," Elisa said. "But look quickly. This isn't the easiest of spells to keep going, you know."
"I don't see anything moving," said a Hufflepuff chaser. "Not stairs, not portraits. Nothing."
"Just those eyes up on the stairs," said one of the Slytherins. "We'd better be right about them being cats."
The chamber went dark as the spell failed and they all fell quiet. Harry had the feeling that every single one of them was looking up towards the stairs, and he wondered if anyone else saw the greenish glint of pairs of eyes looking over the edge of a staircase. "We'll find out soon enough. But maybe we should have some paralysis spells ready, just in case."
"But you two stick to providing light," Draco recommended to the two who'd been doing the lumos spells before. "We don't want to end up hitting each other."
"Right," Harry said. "Wands ready then? Let's go."
Harry'd already begun to suspect it, but the ride upwards through the stair chamber proved that he really really hated not being the one in charge of the broom. It wasn't that it was a bad ride, or that they came too close to hitting anything – it was just that his own reactions would have been different, and he had to be careful not to lean too and tip over both of them. He distracted himself by keeping an eye on the eyes. To his relief, as they got closer, he could see that they were indeed mostly cats. About eight floors up, the stairs had failed to come to meet each other properly, and a gaggle of cats, rats, frogs, and of all things, Lee Jordan's tarantula, were waiting impatiently on the upper landing.
"Well, that'll save some time," said George Weasley cheerfully. "Looks like the animals are trying to get to the Great Hall on their own."
"I think the cats are in charge," said Fred. "Look at that tabby keeping that toad from wandering off."
"I'll start ferrying them over to the next set of stairs," volunteered one of the lightbearers. "You go drop off the rescue party."
"All right," the other lightbearer headed up and the rest followed quickly, so as not to be flying in the dark. At last they reached the highest landing, and started down the corridor toward the entrance to Gryffindor. Harry wondered how they were going to get in, if the Fat Lady weren't there to take the password. He thought maybe they could go outside and up somehow, but in the event, it wasn't necessary.
The Fat Lady's portrait hung empty in its frame, standing ajar. They could see the flicker of firelight down the passageway into the common room. Harry slipped off the back of the broom and stood a little uncertainly on the stones of the passageway as everyone else dismounted as well.
The feeling of wrongness was worse up here. Harry hoped that the collywobbles in his legs had to do with riding on the uncushioned part of a broom, but it was obvious as he crawled through the passageway into the common room that the tower was shaking even worse than the Great Hall had been. He felt very strange, like he was changing size from moment to moment.
The non-Gryffindors were trying not to crane their necks around too obviously; curiosity being enough to overcome even the strangest feelings for at least a moment as the rest of the group got in. There were more people than Harry had thought, or they were moving around. He took the chance to stand nearer the fire, hoping to warm up a little before he had to go outside. The flames dipped and leapt up again, with odd colors in their hearts. It was mesmerizing, patterned without patterns, like the interplay of quidditch players below him in the first wild seconds of a game.
"Best brooms for the seekers," said a voice, and Harry blinked as Oliver Wood handed him a broom. Hadn't Oliver…
"Hey! Harry!" George's shout from the stairs caught his attention. "Come on. Let's get you lot going."
"Coming," Harry said, clutching the broom. Draco, Elisa and Fritz were with George already. George led the way upstairs, passing Fred coming down with a stack of blankets.
"No sign of any more animals," Fred said. "All the cages have been opened."
"Maybe it was the cats," George said. "Meet me in the attic once you've got rid of that lot. I'll need your help getting that beacon thing up to the roof."
"No problem," Fred said. "At least there's plenty of wood for it in the common room."
"Going to be fun carrying it up all the stairs, though," George said, and started on up. "Harry, get a broom for Draco and a dry cloak on, while I get brooms for Fritz and Elisa from our rooms, right?"
"Right." Harry turned towards his room and Draco followed.
"Is it always this shaky in your tower, Potter?" the blond boy asked.
"Never," Harry answered. He wondered if he should take the time to change the rest of his clothes and decided he should at least put on dry socks.
Draco bit his lip and settled on the bed to wait, staring around unabashedly. "You'd think they'd try to make things different from house to house," he said as Harry found his spare shoes under the chair. "But all they do is give the beds different color curtains."
Harry shrugged, and pulled on his winter cloak. "Maybe they buy them wholesale," he said.
"Buy them? Wholesale? What's that supposed to mean?" Draco's sneer wasn't quite as effective when he was frightened, Harry noticed.
"It means we're all the same, as far as Hogwarts goes, I think," Harry said, going over to the coatstand to get the broom he was lending Draco. "We all start out with the same advantages." He frowned as he took it into his hand. Hadn't his broom been locked somewhere? Maybe he'd just forgotten.
"All of us but you," Draco said bitterly. "I expect you'll get all the glory this time, too. Everything always falls into your lap, doesn't it?"
"What?" Harry forgot about the puzzle of his broom and looked at Draco. "What are you on about? You're the one who's rich."
"And you're not? Weasley doesn't buy all that candy you always have on the train. You're famous, too. I can't even look at the Daily Prophet without seeing you mentioned somewhere, even if it's only the letters column." Draco's face turned pinker. "I don't like you, Potter," he grumbled, looking at the floor.
"I don't like you much either," said Harry, surprised at the outburst. "But this isn't about liking or not liking each other. It's about surviving, isn't it?" He held out the broom, handle end first, so that Draco could see it. "Look, I'm not interested in the glory. I just want to go and get the teachers, so they can keep whatever's wrong from getting worse."
Draco looked up at him, mouth pursed, but thoughtful. "Even Professor Snape? Even though you don't like him?"
"I don't have to like him to know that he's one of the smartest teachers Hogwarts has probably ever had," Harry said, surprising himself a little. He shrugged. Maybe Draco just needed a Slytherinish enough reason to do something right. "Look, think of it this way. I'm coming along to make sure that you rescue McGonagall, and you're coming along to make sure that I rescue Snape."
Draco looked at Harry with narrowed eyes, thinking for a long moment. "All right," he said slowly, at last, and took the broom. "Let's go."