Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Not mine. JKRs.
Chapter 16: Fetching Filch
Summary: Filch has a few surprises up his sleeve after Harry finally gets back to the Great Hall.
A/N: Thanks here to Ozma (You MUST go and Read the "Squib" series!) for what I've done with Filch, and ~v~Jinx~v~ for lending me Professors Woodwalker and Keele.
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"What's Filch got to do with anything?" Draco asked.
Snape shook his head. "Too much to explain. Get him. You or Potter."
"Why not one of the others?" Draco settled himself, as if to make his position more permanent.
"Where's Diggory, then?" Snape closed his eyes, grimacing.
Harry, startled, looked at the others in the group. Cedric wasn't among them. Cho was still there, and so was Oliver Wood, who he didn't remember seeing before among the rescuers. His stomach fell to his boots. "But….But… We can't have lost him. Not again."
McGonagall had managed to sit up with Lupin's help, and was looking over the group just as confusedly as Harry was. "Possibly," she said after a thoughtful moment. "Possibly, the people who've left school or… The ones who weren't here when we fell out of our proper time and place don't always… stay," she theorized. "He's not lost, just, not here now."
Harry saw the problem. "If we send the wrong messengers, they might not arrive. The message would never get there." He put his hand up by his face to shield it from the eye-watering wind as he measured the distance left to go. All those stairs. "Guess it'll have to be me, then."
He thought about asking Cho to come with him – he was pretty sure that she was one of the ones who wouldn't disappear – but she was looking around at the others, and he didn't think the tears in her eyes were from the wind. "Maybe you ought to at least start towards the castle though. Just in case," he said, directly to the tall Ravenclaw, hoping to distract her. Cho met his eyes, really looking at him – not just at The Boy Who Lived – and Harry tried to smile reassuringly, even though it didn't feel as if he were doing it very well. "Maybe he'll come back," he blurted out, feeling his nose suddenly go hot, and the tears driven sideways across his face.
Cho nodded, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. "Maybe," she said, the struggle to keep the real tears at bay clear on her face. "I've got some things I mean to say to him." She swallowed. "If I remember."
"You'll remember," Harry assured her. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, all of a sudden, and no time to say them. How much he liked her wasn't even on the list. He wanted to tell her how he saw now that she really loved Cedric. How much Cedric had clearly loved her back. How Cedric had died. But there was no certainty. No certainty, even, that Harry would ever get another chance to apologize to her. And still no time. Not now. "I'd better go," he said, his voice cracking, but he couldn't, not until she nodded agreement.
He patted McGonagall's shoulder. "I'll be right back. With Filch," he promised, and started running.
***
It was when he had to stop and take a breather on the stairs that he first noticed that tremors. They weren't very large. On Privet Drive, he might have thought the shaking was due to a particularly large lorry passing by outside, except that it went on too long. What was it Trelawney had said about an earthquake? Nothing good, he was pretty sure. He sat firmly on the desire to panic. Trelawney wasn't nearly as good at predicting things as she thought she was.
Although she'd been remarkably good at dodging the balrog.
His knees felt like they were ready to bend backwards by the time he reached the doors of the Great Hall. He wanted to rest, but one look at the chaos in the Hall was enough to drive that idea out of his head.
He'd never seen so many wizards and witches in his life. Not even at the World Cup Quidditch match. There were dozens of teachers crowding the dais, moving among the beds, and a whole ring of them blocking the view of Dumbledore, wearing clothes that looked like a museum exhibit of historical costumes. But mostly the excess people were youngsters, and most of them were awfully young looking.. He even saw a few infants.
He checked the ceiling. Nearly half of it was blank brickwork now, and the silver whirlwind, that had been come-again, go-again before he'd left, was now established much more firmly. It looked even more like the drainwater whirlwind of a still bath, although it was at least four feet wide at the top. A long tail extended downwards from the main part of it. To his surprise, several students were flying their brooms around the tail, tossing small objects into the stream that interrupted its swirling before they vanished. The students were careful not to get caught in the flow, Harry noticed, and the ghosts who flew near them were even warier
A small boy in wrinkled pyjamas that Harry vaguely recognized as a Hufflepuff caught him by the elbow. "What's your name?" he demanded self-importantly.
"Harry Potter," Harry answered, somewhat breathlessly, and was surprised when the boy turned and repeated the name in a loud voice. The shout went up the hall, from one first year to another, all of them standing in a long row against one wall, until it came to a boy standing on a chair by the chalkboard, who found Harry's name and put a blue checkmark by it.
"Harry!" yelled a familiar voice, and Ron barrelled out of the crowd, hands full of sandwiches. "There you are! Have you got McGonagall?"
Harry met him half way, taking the sandwich Ron shoved at him and shaking his head. "Not quite. But almost. Listen, Ron, have you seen Filch anywhere?"
"They took him to Pomfrey, I think. Probably still up there." Ron looked up at Harry, grinning. "Go on, eat something. The Fat Friar took charge of the kitchen, so you don't have to worry about it tasting like the stuff Neville and I were making."
Harry took a bite, gratefully, as he walked up the length of the hall with Ron trailing along. It was jam and banana, and the sweetness of it almost made him start shaking.
Ron kept pace, passing over a second sandwich and trying to fill Harry in on everything that had happened in his absence. "The animals keep showing up, all on their own, but we've had people looking anyway. All sorts of people. I mean, Bill and Charlie sent Fred and George down from the tower because Fred kept going all young on them, and Percy got a black eye arguing with another prefect about which one of them was supposed to be Head Boy. Funny having you taller than me, isn't it?"
"It's an effect of the time displacement," said Hermione, reaching out to grab Harry's arm from where she sat with a table full of students and a dozen stacks of books. "I don't think it will last. Are you feeling all right, Harry? You've got blood on your clothes."
"It's not mine," Harry reassured her around a mouthful of egg and cheese sandwich.
"This is the most fascinating situation," Hermione went on enthusiastically. "We're completely unattached from time, I think. But it's got the oddest effects. I've theorized that anyone who's ever come to Hogwarts might show up, except there are limits to how old or young they might go. I mean, look at the Parvati twins." Ron and Harry rolled their eyes at each other, grinning at Hermione's relentless elucidation. "They visited here when they were two, and do you know how much trouble it's been keeping them in nappies? The first years are most consistent. I mean, they just stay eleven don't they, within a month or two, but the teachers go all over the place, and the other staff as well, including Hagrid, who was awfully tall even when he was a first year, and then there's the house elves, only they don't seem to change very much except ..."
"Have you seen Filch?" Harry interrupted desperately, having managed to swallow. "Snape's hurt and he needs him."
"Severus Snape? Is he hurt badly?" a young green-eyed girl sitting near Hermione asked, worriedly, and then blinked and frowned when she got a good look at Harry.
She looked familiar. Very familiar. Harry stared back, trying to remember that even if she was his mum, she wasn't his mum, yet. "Yes. His leg," he stammered. "He says he wants Filch."
"Better hurry, then, boy," the Bloody Baron appeared at Harry's elbow, and shooed him up the hall. "There's not much more this place can wobble without falling over."
Harry let himself be carried along, still staring over his shoulder at the green eyed girl. She really did look like his mum in some of the pictures that Hagrid had put in the album he'd given Harry his first year. She and Hermione were talking to another girl he didn't recognize until she suddenly went all silver and began to cry. Myrtle?
"Watch your step, boy," the Baron ordered, his cold hand steering Harry around a cluster of students who were trying to sort out baskets of laundry into different sizes. "Why did the Head of Slytherin send you after the Caretaker, and on foot? You left on a broom."
"The brooms stopped working," he found himself explaining to the Slytherin ghost. "It's all strange outside."
"Better get one that does work, then," the Baron advised, and turned toward the ceiling, calling out in a voice that Harry couldn't hear, even with the Hear-Muffs.
One of the flyers, a slim, blond teen in Slytherin robes, bent his broom down at the Baron's bidding, and came to a showy stop just in front of Harry. He looked the younger boy over disdainfully. "What is it, Baron?"
"Lend Potter your broom, Malfoy," the Baron ordered.
The familiar sneer crossed the boy's face. This must be Draco's father, Harry thought. "You've got to be kidding. It's a Starfire. They're the best brooms ever made. I'm not lending it to some scruffy Gryffindor."
"Oh yes you are," another tall, good looking Slytherin boy had come down to hover close enough to hear. It was Tom Riddle. It had to be. Harry could never forget that encounter in the Chamber of Secrets. He held his breath, wondering why the future Lord Voldemort would ever take the side of a Gryffindor needing a broom. "Whatever has us trapped here is beyond the reach of any one house. You don't want to stay stuck in Hogwarts forever, do you? If the Baron's got an idea, and it takes a "scruffy Gryffindor" to implement it, then a broom's not too much to ask."
Harry watched the battle of wills warily. It wasn't all that much of a surprise when Lucius lost. Even knowing that Riddle would grow up to be Voldemort wasn't enough to counteract the strength of his personality. Harry held very still, hoping that Riddle wouldn't look at him more carefully. There was no telling what he might remember... or if there'd been a Potter uncle or someone who resembled Harry and had been a rival. He was surprised that his scar wasn't hurting like mad. Malfoy was losing years by the minute.
As an eleven year old Lucius passed over the broom with bad grace, Riddle bestowed a smile of polite command on Harry that changed subtly, as he got a better look. "Have we met?"
"Not yet," Harry said nervously. "But... no time now." He nodded at Malfoy. "Thanks for the broom." He mounted quickly and flew toward the stage before Riddle could decide he wanted to continue the conversation. When he glanced back, he saw Riddle still staring after him, and Malfoy arguing with the Bloody Baron.
Madam Pomfrey was working with a lanky wizard with skin the color of chocolate, trapping house-elves off the wall with a long-handled net before wrapping them onto their beds. "Careful, Woodwalker," she was saying. "Don't chase them into flight or we'll lose another one to that cyclone." When she saw Harry her eyes lit up with relief. "Have you brought them? Severus and Minerva?"
"Almost," Harry told her, hovering. "I need Filch."
"With Hagrid," the wizard said curtly, nodding the direction. "Come on, Poppy," he told her. "Just a few more, and then I'll give Sprout a rest."
Harry found Filch sitting at the end of Hagrid's bed, trying to contain the antics of a small, hyperactive kitten as it curled with mock ferocity around his thumb. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, but seemed otherwise unchanged from the cranky old man Harry had always known. He scowled when Harry landed next to the bed.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Professor Snape needs you," Harry said. "I'm to take you to him." He did his best to sound as if it were a foregone conclusion – a necessity that couldn't be denied, but he was still astonished when Filch instantly passed the kitten over to Hagrid.
"Is Minerva with him?" the caretaker asked, mounting quickly on the broom behind Harry.
"Yes," Harry said. "Hold on."
"Fly careful like!" Hagrid called after them.
Professor Trelawney waved a scarf at Harry as he brought the broom into the air, and shouted something about hurrying, but he didn't wait to answer. He dodged the thread of silver cyclone and flew down to the doors, rather pleased with how much better Filch was at being a passenger on a broom than Draco had been.
It was a definite advantage when they got outside into the wind. It had got fiercer, if anything, and Harry used Filch's extra bulk to help steer the broom the way he wanted it to go. He saw a single lantern still flickering on the lawn and headed for it.
Draco had taken charge of the lantern while the others carried the stretchers. He held it close with his good arm, shielding it from the wind. He was the first to see Harry and Filch arrive, and he shouted at the others to make a wind break once they'd put down the two injured teachers.
Harry hadn't known that Filch could move so fast, without a secret passageway. The caretaker paused for a moment by McGonagall before moving on to Snape. Harry had to use the Hear-Muffs to listen over the wind.
"Potter said you needed me."
"Yes." Snape fumbled at a button on his collar until a small silver key appeared. "You know the box, under my bed. The one you mustn't touch?"
"Of course. It makes it difficult to dust down there."
"Use this on it. Once the key is turned, it will be safe enough to open. There are three potions inside. Bring me both the bottle on the right, and the one from the center. Your right as you face the key hole, remember." Snape sounded like he was in a lot of pain. "Don't confuse them, Argus. I'll need to know which is which, before I taste them."
"And the one on the left?" Filch asked.
"Wrong emergency." Snape said, handing the key to Filch.
Harry braced himself for another broom ride, but Filch only stood and looked up at the castle in a calculating way.
"We're close enough," he muttered, and walked off, away from the light.
"Wait! Mr. Filch!" Harry called, but it was too late. For a moment he thought he saw a square of blackness even darker than the windy night, and then Filch vanished.