Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Go JK. I'm too sleepy to fight back anyway…
Chapter 9: …and Out
Summary: And after much exposition, the rescue party finally gets underway!
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George and the others were waiting for Draco and Harry at the bottom of the fire escape stairs. Fritz cast the lightning ward on each of them before they climbed up the metal ladder, and when they got out onto the roof, Harry was glad of it. The rain was easing now, but St. Elmo's fire danced across the stones, and lightning bled off from the towers sideways and down, to skitter across the leaded roofs of the classrooms and halls below.
"I'd better ward the tower, too," Fritz said to George. "Especially if you and your brother are going to be up here with a metal beacon frame."
"That's not a bad notion," George's voice cracked, and he looked surprised, like a kitten who's gotten a noseful of milk from a saucer. Harry looked – in this light, George looked younger than Harry was – but then the lightning struck nearby and the effect faded. George grinned at Harry and handed him a backpack. "You might need this," he said, his voice back to its usual note.
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"Emergency supplies. Everything Fred and I thought we might need to get out of trouble with." George said. "There's muggle fireworks in there, in case you need to send up a signal without letting any thaumivores know you're about."
"Thaumivores?" Harry repeated, pulling the backpack on. It was heavy enough.
"Magic eaters. Snape and McGonagall were headed towards the Forest last I noticed – and there's rumors about that sort of thing." George grinned, "But it might just be a story to keep us out. At least you won't have to worry about werewolves."
"That's something at least," Harry agreed. "If we send up a firework, it means we've found them. If we send up a second one, it means we need help. All right?"
"And if you send up three of them, I'll bring the whole team," George agreed.
"Hey, Harry," Elisa pulled on Harry's sleeve. "I think Malfoy's got a direction for us."
"Good," Harry went with her to the parapet, where Draco was looking out over the lightning lit landscape to the forest. He tried to line up himself with Draco's intense stare and deliberately made himself think of McGonagall and Snape. He turned his head a little, left, then right, and suddenly, he heard a distant conversation.
"…nevertheless, I think that you are underestimating his potential. He does fine in Transfigurations class."
"But in Potions he fails to concentrate." Was it the distance, or did Snape's voice sound strained?
"Rather the opposite of a certain student I remember." McGonagalls voice was a little clearer, but it was still faint.
Harry rested his hand on the stones and pointed his finger in the direction he was listening so he wouldn't lose it and then started looking for landmarks that way. If they went on a line to the right of Hagrid's hut and about ten of the biggest trees over, then they should be on the right track. Elisa had done much the same thing, he noticed. He described his results to her and she concurred.
"It matches me, too," Draco said, relaxing from his taut concentration with a sigh. He shook his head like a fly was buzzing at him. "They sounded funny when I first heard them. Wrong."
"Do you think it's some kind of illusion?" Elisa asked. "A trap?"
Draco bit his lip. "No," he said slowly. "But.. I think we should go carefully. I think maybe the Professor's hurt. And I don't think we'll be able to listen and fly at the same time. It's too hard to hear them."
Harry agreed. "We'll fly down to the edge of the forest then," he said. "We can stop and listen there, and then work our way along a little at a time. It might get easier to hear as we get closer, too."
"With any luck," Elisa said. "Fritz," she called over to their last rescueman. "Are you ready to go?"
"Just a mo'" he said, casting the lightning spell on Fred, who had just come up the tower. "Have you noticed that the lightning's getting less? There's more time between flashes."
"That's all to the good, isn't it?" Elisa said.
"Yes, except that it's so dark. Should the sun have gone down so soon?" Fritz asked.
Harry reached over to pat his shoulder, feeling vaguely surprised that he could. "It's just taken a while to get everything ready, I guess. And the clouds are hiding the moon."
"Better take my lantern then," Fred said, handing it to Draco. "I can get another one from the tower." He went over to help George with something, and Harry thought for a moment that he loomed half-a-foot over his twin, but then he blinked, and the two boys were the same size as each other, the way they always were.
The queasy feeling in his stomach was getting worse. He wanted off the tower, now. "Come on," he told the other three. "Fritz, follow us." It had to be better to be flying.
But when they launched themselves from the wall, the brooms didn't "catch" until they'd already fallen several stories. Draco and Harry got control first, and Elisa and Fritz managed seconds later. They all pulled up, hovering, a few feet above the roof of the hospital wing and looked at each other with huge eyes.
"I thought you said this broom was a good one!" Draco shouted at Harry. "What was that all about?"
"I don't know," Harry said, equally shaken. "It's like they were jinxed or something."
Fritz frowned "If that whirlpool thing is draining magic, maybe we flew through it. All the brooms were affected. But they're working now, aren't they?"
"They seem to be," Draco muttered bad temperedly. "I wish I had mine."
"We're outside. Why don't you call it to you?" Harry said hotly. It wasn't his broom's fault that Draco'd gotten a scare.
"I'm not casting a summoning spell for anything called a 'Thunderbolt' right now, thanks," Draco said sarcastically.
"'Thunderbolt'," Harry repeated just as sarcastically. "Do you always give your brooms stupid names, Malfoy?"
"Leave it!" Fritz roared, taking advantage of his much larger size to intimidate the two younger boys into stopping their argument. "We've still got a rescue to do!"
Harry and Draco shut up. Quickly. Before Fritz decided to bang their heads together. They hadn't even known he had a temper. It was like walking across a field and suddenly finding that you were standing on a volcano.
"Let's fly closer to the ground," Elisa said, nervously. "If something else is going to go wrong, I don't want to be fifty feet up in the air."
"Good idea." Now that Fritz had taken charge, he kept it. "Draco, you were the first one to get the direction, and you've got the lantern, so you lead the way. Harry, you stick near Elisa, in case she has more trouble with her broom. I'll take the back. All right?"
"All right," they chorused, and took their positions.
Draco took a careful path, going down from roof to roof, until they reached the end of the building and made the drop to just above the grounds, instead of going in a straight line the way that Harry would have if he'd been able to trust the brooms. It took a little longer, but not much, and it wasn't long before they were hovering near the tree that marked the line from Gryffindor tower to where the two professors had been talking.
They landed and tried to listen again.
It was Fritz who pointed the way first, and with his lead, Harry caught the voices again, still faint, but a little clearer.
"…easier if you just let go." That was Snape.
"No, it wouldn't," McGonagall said. "And you know it."
"Yes, Minerva. So what shall we talk about next? We're running out of students to slander." Snape sounded tired.
"I don't know. Something cheerful?" So did McGonagall.
"Cheerful?"
"How about the party we're throwing when the Weasley twins graduate. Verna has already promised to bring some of her special summer squash…"
Harry looked at the others. They were all lined up the same way, but it was harder to mark landmarks among the trees in the forest. "Draco, give me the lantern."
"What for?"
"I'll go into the trees for a distance, and you use a lumos spell on your wand to let me know if I'm too far left or right. Make circles. The direction you're going at the top is the direction I should move to. And straight up and down when I'm right. That way we won't get too far off track."
"Might work," Fritz said. "Worth a try, anyway. Don't go too far without us, though, Harry."
"I won't," Harry said. He never much cared for the Forbidden Forest at the best of times, really, and he had to remind himself that all the creatures had been chased out by the balrog. "When I don't think I can go any farther without losing sight of you, I'll wave the lantern from side to side, all right?"
"Right."
The plan worked pretty well, although Harry had to go around trees a lot. And it didn't take him very long to get to the point where the forest would obscure the others. He landed on a fallen log, thinking that that might save the broom's 'fuel' somehow while he waited, and gave the signal.
And then something touched his leg.