Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: This is still JKRs, but I'm getting awfully fond of it…
Chapter 14: First Aid
Summary: Having gotten Snape and McGonagall rescued from the edge of the world, Harry and Draco have to get the battered teachers back to Hogwarts.
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"Professor!"
"Severus!"
When Snape fell face forward into the mud, McGonagall leaped forward to check on him. Harry left her to it, and quickly switched his place on the rope so that he could pull Draco the last of the way up onto solid ground. Draco looked as worried as Harry felt. He extracted himself quickly from the rope harness as Harry collected the pack and went over to him.
"Did you see anyone?" Harry asked him, checking over his own shoulder for more shapes in the shadows.
"I was watching the Professor," Draco admitted, rubbing at his sore arm nervously. "And then when he said that about Lupin I looked over and I thought I might have seen… someone… or something… but…" he bit his lip. "Who would help and then go away? Do you think it was Professor Lupin?"
"Or another werewolf," Harry guessed. "I didn't get a good look either." He had a horrible feeling of being watched, and he didn't much like it. He handed the pack to Draco. "Here. There's some first aid stuff in this. You help the teachers, and I'll get the lantern."
"Do you want to use the rope?" Draco said, taking the pack and holding up the rope he'd just gotten free of. "I don't want to have to go over the side again if you slip."
"Thanks," Harry said, emphatically. He meant to be very careful indeed, but he was grateful to have the rope to hang onto for extra security. The roots were slippery, and the wind was starting to pick up.
By the time he got the lantern down, Draco and McGonagall had managed to get Snape off of the tree roots, using his battered cloak to drag him over to a slightly softer patch of mud, with his head in McGonagall's lap. She had wrapped a corner of her own cloak around one stiff hand and was awkwardly cleaning the mud off the unconscious man's face. As Harry tried to find a good place to put the light so that they could see what they were doing, he heard her say softly, "Oh, Severus, trust you to be difficult and obstructive!"
The light showed up Snape's bruises. It also showed the black chainmail coat that Snape was wearing. It was shaped much like the coat he usually wore under his cloak, except for that it didn't have the buttons down the front, only a slit partway up from the bottom, front and back, as if he were going to have to sit a horse or a broom. It came down to his knees, like a frock coat, the fine meshed rings of metal glinting silver where they'd been knocked clean of patina by a blow. Harry thought it a pity that the armor didn't extend farther down. If Snape had been wearing armor trousers too, he might not have been as badly hurt.
Draco was carefully cutting open one of Snape's trouser legs with a folding knife and look of determined disgust. The black wool didn't show the blood well, but Draco's pale hands did, and when he finally managed to get the seam split up to Snape's knee, the light showed up a cut along his calf that was deep enough to make both boys have to turn away for a moment.
"Euwwch." It wasn't right, being able to see the inside of someone's leg like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. Harry was glad he hadn't had a chance to eat anything, and poor Draco looked absolutely green. "Professor McGonagall, how do we deal with that?"
She checked the damage, worried, but not unsurprised. "Wrap it well until we can get far enough away from here to use magic reliably," she said. "The pressure should slow down the bleeding."
"I'm surprised he's got anything left to bleed with," Draco said, starting to reach for the pack, and then hesitating at the sight of his own gory hands. "Hand me something clean to put against the cut, will you, Potter? I don't want to make a mess of things."
"Okay." Harry wiped his own hands as clean as he could on the inside of his cloak, and dug into the pack, finding the small roll of gauze and bandages near the bottom. It didn't look to him as if it would be enough to pad the wound and wrap it, but there wasn't any more.
Draco scowled when he heard the news. "We'll need to wrap the leg, to keep the clean stuff against the wound. Not that I know how we'll manage that with him changing size all the time. Isn't there anything else in there? Cloth we can cut into strips? Anything?"
"Nothing," Harry told him.
"Look again!" Draco ordered angrily, his voice going higher.
"I did. I'm not hiding anything, Malfoy!" Harry said, stung by the implied criticism.
"Stupid Gryffindors!" Draco said, trying to make the pad of clean stuff stretch over the length of the wound. "If I make an emergency kit, it's going to have enough bandages in it for a proper emergency!"
"That's enough, you!" said a very young girl's voice, sharply. Both boys' heads swung up, startled, to find McGonagall glaring at them with frightened eyes – she looked like a child dressed in her mother's armor, and not any older than nine. She bit her lip a little uncertainly, but then took a breath and went on, a little unsteadily, "Insults aren't going to get us out of here – wherever it is. Gryffindors aren't stupid. Being brave doesn't mean you have to be impractical," she told Draco. "And being practical doesn't mean you aren't brave," she told Harry.
"You can make bandages out of your cloaks or scarves, or cut off his other trouser leg, all the way round at the knee to make a tube, and then pull it up over the hurt leg to hold the rest where it is," She went on determinedly. "Just pin it, or tie it, to keep it in place." It was hard not to keep staring at her, for as she spoke, she aged upwards, blossoming from a gawky, plain adolescence into a kind of brilliant beauty that made the regal bone structure of her face into something out of a fairytale. "It might be even simpler just to cut off the toe of a stocking, and use that," she decided. And then she blinked, and shook her head, still young enough to be intimidating and beautiful, but too old for school, and said. "What an odd sensation!"
"Are you all right, Professor?" Harry asked, carefully not looking at her as he started tearing from the lining of his own cloak. That sounded a lot more practical than cutting off a trouser leg or getting a sock. Dryer, anyway. Draco was still holding the bandages in place on Snape's wound and goggling at McGonagall, looking very uncomfortable.
"I went younger than eighteen, didn't I?" she said, still licking her lips as if she'd tasted something odd. "How young?"
"Uhm.." Draco's voice cracked, and he blushed as he tried again. "I think nine. Or maybe ten.
"Too young for a first year, anyway," Harry agreed. He held up the cloth he'd collected to distract Draco. "Here. Let's try wrapping his leg with this."
"Right," Draco said, becoming quickly more helpful.
Professor McGonagall was lost in thought. "I don't think Severus ever went younger than eleven," she said. "So if the limitation hasn't something to do with being a first year student…" she frowned, thinking.
Harry and Draco worked together, glancing over now and then. It took a much longer time for McGonagall to reach her proper age than it had for Snape to do it, and the flow of lines and wrinkles and gray hair never seemed to change her completely the way they had with him. But now, both boys could see that her beauty was a constant– it changed in quality, but it never vanished. Harry wondered that he had ever thought of her as being anything but beautiful before this. Draco seemed to be affected the same way. As they pulled Snape's trouser leg down and tucked into his stocking to keep the crude bandaging as secure as they could manage, he whispered to Harry, "Do you suppose any of the girls in our year are going to change like that?"
It didn't surprise Harry that Draco could be thinking about girls; anything was better to think about than the feel and smell of the blood that they couldn't avoid getting on their hands as they'd bandaged Snape. "I hate to break it to you, Draco," he said, "but I think some of them have already started."
"I meant now… when we get back to the castle," Draco said, wiping his hands on some leaves and getting stiffly to his feet.
Harry looked around at the wind-rattled trees at the edge of the light, and the black swirling of what Snape had called the abyss. The not-colors made his eyes and stomach hurt. "I don't think so," he said, suddenly wanting very much to be back safely in the Great Hall. "But I think we'd better get a start on trying to find out." He went over to the muddy broom, still lying where he had left it and reached out his hand with a sense of misgiving. "Up," he coaxed. To his surprise, the broom floated up to his hand – not with the eagerness that a broom usually did, but at least it still seemed to work.
They had to rouse Professor Snape in order to get him upright enough to sit on the broom. The Potions professor had shifted age only a little while he was unconscious, but the moment his eyes opened he slid suddenly toward childhood again, and they were left with a small white-faced boy, biting his lip to keep himself from whimpering with pain. Draco swore and hastily checked the wrappings on the injured leg.
"It's all right, Mr. Snape," Professor McGonagall said. "We've got to get you onto this broom, so we can fly you back to the hospital wing. Do you think you can balance?"
"Yes, Professor," Snape said shakily, looking from Draco to Harry with confusion in his eyes. "If I have to."
"Double up," Harry said gruffly. "You ride with him, Draco."
"I don't think the broom will hold two," Draco said. "Not 'til we're closer to the school anyway." He shifted to get a good grip on Snape while the teacher was so much smaller. "Potter, hold the broom steady while I get him on."
"Right." Harry held it carefully at a height of three feet, while Draco lifted the injured boy into position, grimacing at the strain it put on his bad arm
"Do you want me to do that?" Harry asked, when Draco stumbled. "That armor's got to be heavy."
Snape tightened his hold a little on Draco's neck, and the blond boy shook his head. "It's not as heavy as it looks," he said. "Just … I'll hold still, and you move the broom here, okay?"
"I suppose you think this is funny, Potter," Snape growled, glaring at Harry suspiciously, as he maneuvered the broom into place. "It's probably all your fault."
"Not this time," Harry said, trying to be patient, since Snape obviously didn't remember things when he was too young. It was kind of funny, really, being told off by a soprano Snape, but Harry was too worried to enjoy it just now. "Come on," he said persuasively, "let go of Draco. I'm not going to let the broom drop you."
"You'd best not," Snape said.
"It's all right," Draco said, shaking his arms out before giving Snape a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Nobody's going to do anything rash when we've got a Professor watching, right?"
"Certainly not," McGonagall said. She was still sitting on the ground, and Harry left the broom and Snape to Draco to go over and help her. "I trust you have a plan, Mr. Malfoy?"
"We'll just keep the broom about this high and walk alongside it. I can take care of Professor Snape and Potter can help you over the rough bits. It might take a while, but once we're closer to the castle maybe we can use magic again."
"Professor Snape?" Snape asked looking around. "Is Uncle Silas here?"
"We'll explain later," McGonagall said, hooking her arm through the straps of the pack to lift it up to Harry as he helped her to her feet. "Fetch his cloak, Mr. Potter. It's wet, but it's probably warmer than that mail."
Harry settled the pack onto his back and then bent to get the length of wool that had saved Snape's life and disentangle it from the bits of ivy and holly that clung to it. Behind him he heard Draco say, "Professor, if there was no magic over the edge of the… edge, then why didn't Professor Snape's chainmail turn back into his regular clothes?"
"You should be able to work out the answer to that, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said, drily. "Mr. Snape, please tell me about the antidotes to…"
"Excuse me, Professor," Malfoy interrupted politely, "but I think he'll be easier to keep on the broom if he's younger."
"True. Very well, then, Mr. Snape, please explain the process by which you Transfigure a matchstick into a needle."
Snape sighed as Harry wrapped the cloak around him. "Yes, Professor," he said, and then started to describe the process she'd asked for as Harry retrieved the lantern so that they could all start up the hill.
The rain, which had been very light down in the hollow, got heavier when they got farther away from the edge, and the ground was covered in debris along the path of the balrog's advance, so they couldn't go very fast. They had to rely on the lantern, because the lightning had diminished to a flash every few minutes, and Harry had a lot of trouble keeping the sputtering lantern from going out completely, since one side of it was open to the wind. He had to use his other hand to support McGonagall, since she couldn't hold onto him very well. He had to put the lantern down entirely, once or twice, to help her over rough bits, and very nearly carried her entirely across the streambed. Fortunately, her armor didn't have a proper weight either. Harry shook the rain out of his hair and wiped his glasses before getting the lantern and helping McGonagall catch up to Draco and Snape. He wondered what the armor was made of. Magic aluminium, perhaps?
Draco wasn't having an easy time of it either. In spite of everything, Snape began to put on some inches and his voice went deeper. They had to stop and wait for him to orient himself once he passed the odd "leaving school" place in his growth, and then Draco had to adjust the bandage again because it was too tight. Snape almost fainted, and when Harry hastily tried to help Draco keep Snape from falling off the broom he dropped the lantern and it broke.
"Blast it, Potter, I'm all right!" Snape protested, as he tried to regain his balance. "Get the light."
"I will in a minute," Harry said, waiting for Snape to get his balance on the broom before he let go of the injured man. He pulled out his wand, hoping they'd walked far enough. "Lumos!"
The wand flashed bright, much brighter than Harry had expected it to, but only for a second before it went dark again. Harry blinked, seeing purple spots from the glare.
"Hey!" Draco said. "Warn us next time, Potter."
"I don't think wand magic will be reliable just yet, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said.
"A potion might," Snape said, fumbling along the nearly empty pockets of the bandolier he still wore. "Here." He handed a phial to Harry. "Try that on something you don't mind catching fire."
"Thank you, Professor," Harry felt around for a stick, and then poured a few drops of the potion onto one end. The stick burst into flames, despite how soggy it had been to begin with, and Harry used it to find a bigger stick for a better torch.
In the renewed light, Harry saw that Draco was looking off towards the castle. "What is it?" he asked.
"I thought I saw some lights, before you lit that," Draco said. "Will o' the wisps, probably."
"Listen," Harry suggested, looking the way that Draco had pointed, and immediately he heard voices.
"Careful!"
"There's another patch of it."
"Look out then."
"We should be getting close."
"What are you listening to, Mr. Malfoy?" Professor McGonagall asked. "And how?"
"It's the Hear-Muffs," Harry said. "If you concentrate, you can hear people from a long way off."
"And we're hearing people," Draco said happily. "It's a rescue party, I bet. Let them know where we are, Potter."
Harry gave the torch to Draco and dug into the pack for the last of the fireworks. It skittered upwards brightly, bursting green and red well above the trees. Then he took the torch back again, waving it back and forth.
It wasn't a minute before he saw half a dozen riders on brooms coming up the burn. They were cloaked and hooded against the rain, but several of them carried lanterns, and they flew like experts. Another minute and they were swarming around the tired foursome, touching down lightly.
"Sorry we took so long," said the first to arrive cheerfully, pushing his hood back off of his face.
It was Cedric Diggory.