Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: This is all Rowling's, y'know. Except the bits I borrowed from Ozma and Jinx, anyway...
Chapter 17: Of Potions...
Summary: Filch returns.
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Harry stared after Filch in disbelief. He couldn't have Apparated. Even if everything had gone so strange that the barriers against Apparation were down, Harry was pretty sure that Filch didn't have enough magic to manage it.
"It's all right, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said, her auburn hair streaming sideways in the wind. "Mr. Filch can travel quite quickly when there's need to."
"I guess so," Harry said. He crouched by Professor Snape. "Should we wait for him here, or head for the castle, do you think?" he asked. "This broom might work for a little longer."
"Wait," Snape said curtly. For a man who'd been being carried he was breathing pretty hard.
"Is everyone all right up at the Great Hall?" Draco asked. "I mean, magic still works and all?"
Harry shrugged. "Some of it does, anyway. But the chalkboard's not working now. And almost half the enchantment on the ceiling's gone. That vortex thing's gotten a lot bigger."
McGonagall and Snape exchanged worried glances. "And which 'vortex thing' is that, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked.
"It's like a tornado in a movie, or a waterspout," Harry said. "About four feet across at the top, but thinner going down. They've got people throwing things into it to interrupt it, but it comes back. I heard Madam Pomfrey say they'd lost a house-elf into it."
"It looked like it was trying to get to Dum... Professor Dumbledore," Draco put in. .
"It still does," Harry said. "Only there're about half a hundred teachers in the way." He rubbed at his forehead nervously. "The Hall's full of people. From what I saw, the time slippage goes back at least fifty years. Maybe more."
"You can't tell that," Draco said, scornfully. "You're guessing."
"Not really," Harry said thoughtfully, not bothering to explain. He didn't think Draco knew about Myrtle or Tom Riddle, and from the expressions on McGonagall's and Snape's faces they'd thought of at least one person Harry could recognize from that far back.
Luckily, just then Lupin interrupted the conversation by abandoning the lined up students who formed the windbreak and jumping over Snape to run out onto the grass. "Help me catch it!" he shouted.
Catch what? Harry wondered, even as he stumbled to his feet and followed. Cho and the rest were coming too – he hoped that Draco had the sense to stay and guard the teachers.
Lupin was jumping after something so dark it was hard to see, something big and flapping. He caught a corner of it and was nearly pulled off the ground as it belled out in the wind. Harry remembered the broom in his hand at last and jumped onto it from a run, letting the wind carry him toward the thing. Even though it was as black as barrier above him, it didn't have the same strange way of swallowing stray leaves. Harry only felt a small pang of fright as he grabbed for a corner of it.
It felt like a rug – heavy cloth, with an extra layer of threads on it. Harry dragged it down towards the ground, between him and Lupin they were able to get it close enough to ground for the others to catch hold of it, too. They had to work along the edges and pull it out on the ground to keep the wind from picking it up again. Harry sprawled sideways to keep down his corner, holding onto the broom with the crook of his knee as he used the length of his body to pin the black cloth to the grass.
A hand came out of the cloth and grabbed his arm.
Before he even had a chance to scream it was followed by a head, and Harry found himself nose to nose with Mr. Filch. The caretaker scowled at him. "Potter. Hold still, boy. I wasn't expecting to have to climb out."
"That's all right," Harry squeaked. He tried not to mind having Filch use him as a ladder – it was an emergency after all – but he couldn't help but feel very strange about holding himself on the ground and having someone climb past him like he was on the edge of a lake or something. He tried wiggling his fingers, to see if they'd go down into wherever it was Filch was coming out of, but they only stubbed against the cloth. "Ouch," he said, as a hobnailed boot caught his elbow.
"Sorry," said Filch getting to his feet and bracing against the wind. "Thank you." Harry had the feeling that the caretaker wasn't speaking to him. And then, abruptly, he was sprawled on wet grass. He heard the exclamations of the others as he rolled over to stare up at Filch.
"How did you...?" he asked.
Filch almost smiled. "Shortcut." He reached down to catch Harry's hand and pull him upright, helping Harry to disentangle himself from the broom. "Which way do you think gets us back to Professor Snape?"
Harry looked around. He could still see the lights up in Gryffindor Tower, but they'd been pulled around the corner of the castle, and there wasn't any light at ground level. "Into the wind, I think."
"Are you all right, Mr. Filch?" Cho Chang came over, towing a skinny youngster. "Come on, Lupin, he won't bite you."
"His cat will," Lupin muttered sullenly. He hung onto Cho, though. If he hadn't the wind would have blown him sideways. Harry knew the feeling. If Filch didn't have hold of his arm he'd have trouble keeping on his own feet.
"I'm fine," Filch growled. "How many of you lot are there here?"
"Eight." It was Cedric Diggory, dragging two smaller ones with him. "Including Harry. I counted while we were hanging onto that rug. He handed one person to Cho and the other to Filch. "Hang onto these two while I fetch the others, will you?
"Diggory?" Filch whispered, and Harry was glad to see that the caretaker was just as gut-punched as Harry had felt earlier.
"It's all right," Harry told him, grateful that someone had given him Hear-Muffs too, so that no one would have to shout to make Filch hear. "At least, Professor McGonagall said it was. Just don't ... don't tell him."
"I don't think he'd hear it if I did," Filch said in a low voice. He squinted after Diggory, who was trying to bring the last two students back to the group. "Give him a hand, Potter. You're tall enough now."
*****
Cloaks looked good, and made warm outer layers most of the time, but they made walking into the wind a lot harder than it had to be, especially when you had to hang onto the hands of the people next to you in line. Cho gave up and let hers go first, but the others imitated her quickly enough the next time they paused to rest. Harry felt badly about turning his loose. He had a feeling that anything that hit the barrier was gone forever – and with the wind the way it was, there wasn't much chance of the cloaks doing anything else.
Filch led the way, holding onto Diggory, then Cho and the other students, with Lupin after them and Harry bringing up the rear in case someone came loose and he had to chase them down with the broom. All of the students, even Diggory, kept sliding up and down in age, much more rapidly than the people in the Great Hall had. Lupin called Harry "James" once, when he was smaller. But Harry noticed that Filch stayed the same. Just as well, really, or the line wouldn't have had a reliable anchor.
Five minutes walk and they reached the angle of the castle and could see Draco, Snape, McGonagall watching for them, huddled together. It took another five minutes to get to them though, leaning into the wind the whole way.
As they finally got within shouting distance, Draco called "You might have done better to go 'round!" He held up someone's cloak. "Look!"
They worked their way forward, and Diggory led the line of students to make a new wind break, Cho hanging on tight to his hand. By the time Harry had managed to get close enough to watch with the rest, Filch was sitting next to Snape, pulling bottles out of two different pockets.
"Center," he said, giving Snape one of the bottles. "Right," he went on, holding up the other.
"Good." Snape used his teeth to break the wax seal and pull the cork before taking a long swig. He jerked a little, from the strength of it and then passed it to McGonagall, already looking improved. "Here. Just a swallow, mind. You're not used to it."
She took the bottle gingerly between her palms and let a little of its contents onto her tongue. "Ah... I went through a good bit of this stuff a few years back," she told Snape and took a healthy swallow, shuddering gratefully. "Nicely blended. I never can get the arnica this subtle."
"Arnica isn't meant to be subtle," Snape growled. "Malfoy, help me get this bandage off."
Draco pulled a face, but he began unwrapping the bandage while Snape took the second bottle and opened it with a small knife from his pocket, muttering under his breath. Harry listened harder, and realized that Snape was counting. "Twenty thousand, twenty one thousand, twenty two thousand..." His face was losing the pinched look as the seconds passed, although the pallor only eased a little. Once the leg was bare he swallowed, and kept counting until he reached sixty and then poured six drops of the second potion out over the length of the cut, protecting the bottle from the wind with one hand. Green smoke billowed up, to be whipped away by the wind almost right away. Under it, the cut sealed itself, leaving a thin whitish scar.
"That's wonderful," Draco said admiringly. "Does it work on anything?"
"No," Snape said, rather smugly, "But what it does work on, it works on very well indeed. Hold out your hands, Minerva." He measured out four drops onto her hands and she rubbed them together, looking relieved as the effect spread out from her palms.
"Why not use it all the time, though?" Harry asked. "I mean, if it works that well."
"Because he's probably used 300 galleons worth of it just on the two of us," McGonagall answered. "And as good as it is, it won't replace the blood he's lost, Mr. Malfoy, so I suggest you stay close as we go up the stairs."
Draco stopped rubbing his arm suggestively and nodded. "Yes, Professor."
"300 galleons? For ten drops?" Harry exclaimed. "That's thirty galleons a drop!"
"Very good, Potter. Perhaps you should take on the challenge of Arithmancy next term," Snape said snidely. "Mr. Filch, how bad is that head injury?"
"Not bad enough for HealWell Salve," Filch said sourly. "And there's plenty in the Great Hall could use it. Professor Flitwick for one. He was still unconscious last I knew."
"Would it heal Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked. He fidgeted with the broom at his side. "I think this broom works well enough. One of us could fly it up to Madam Pomfrey."
Snape shook his head, suddenly somber. "HealWell Salve has drawbacks, Potter. If I'd used it before I'd taken the Restorus Potion it would have healed my leg and left me in a coma for the next six weeks. Without knowing which potions and spells Madam Pomfrey has already used – not to mention the other teachers you've told me are there – well, I shouldn't like to risk it."
"You could fly up there," Harry said, offering the broom. It was almost snatched out of his hand by the wind.
"In this storm?" McGonagall objected. "One bad gust and you'll crash into the castle wall, breaking you and the potion bottles, and then where would we be?"
"Worse off," Snape admitted. He was getting younger, Harry thought, and so was McGonagall. But Filch still hadn't changed.
The caretaker pulled himself upright and took charge. "It will have to be the stairs, then, won't it? Come along, you lot. You're wasting time."