Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Lots of borrowings from JKR, some from Ozma, some from Jinx, I just write the stuff.
Chapter 18: Home Before Dark
Summary: With the professors healed, the party is finally able to get back to the Castle.
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Once again Harry found himself crossing the lawn toward the stairs that led up to the Great Hall. The wind was so strong that even with everyone hanging on to each other, they had to struggle to stay on their feet. To make thing worse, they kept getting hit with small bits of trees, or stones, that stung their faces, and now and then they got knocked sideways by another one of the loose capes. Harry had to really concentrate to stay much taller than the broom he carried because he was so tired. But, to tell the truth, only Filch was having any luck at keeping his proper height for more than a minute or two. Even Professor McGonagall went young enough to stumble on her skirts once or twice, and the look of gratitude she gave Harry when he caught her made him blush. Snape and Draco took it in turns pulling each other along as one or the other of them was the taller. It was usually Snape, which Harry thought was a good sign, even if the Potions Professor still seemed to be favoring his injured leg.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Cedric and Cho, tucked close together, talking somehow, despite the horrible wind. He remembered seeing them at... when... it had been a feast, hadn't it? And he'd been jealous. The Yule Ball. How stupid of him not to notice that they liked each other before he'd even asked her to be his partner. He hadn't paid attention. But looking at them now, all he could think was how much they seemed to fit next one another. He hoped Cho was saying the things she'd meant to say, but he was careful not to listen. He wasn't the one she wanted to say them to.
In spite of the wind, they finally reached the main staircase, and Filch, without asking, pulled the entire group to the sheltered side of it, where they could stop and catch their breaths. Harry stumbled as he tried to get in close enough to the wall to feel sheltered from the wind, and the broom in his hand knocked against Draco's back.
"Ouch! Blast it, Potter! Can't you just toss that useless thing away?" Draco yelped, snatching at the handle to suit actions to words.
Harry hung on. "If someone falls off the stairs, I'm going to need it to catch them," he shouted back. "And besides, I don't expect you'd want to me lose two Malfoys' brooms in one day!"
"Two Malfoys?" Draco's eyes widened as he found an elaborate coat of arms burned into the wood of the broomhandle and he paled. "This is my father's," he stammered. "He keeps it over the mantelpiece with the shield he won for racing. How did you get it?"
"He lent it to me. Up in the Great Hall, when I went to get Fil... Mr. Filch," Harry said, suddenly aware that the others were watching the spat. "It's a good broom," he added, as reluctant mollification, since Draco was losing years again and it made him feel like a bully to be arguing with anyone that much shorter than he was.
"Do you think you really can catch us if one of us falls off the stairs?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked Harry, staring up the wall beside them. The edges of wide stone banisters were only visible on this side of the wall for few yards above them, before the light of the lamps was swallowed in darkness but they'd all climbed the stairs often enough to imagine what would happen to anyone who was blown over the railing.
"Well, I'd try anyway," Harry said, trying not to think about it too much. If the winds kept blowing a person around the castle, he might have a chance of catching them. But if they ran into a wall... "I'd rather not have to, though."
"I wish we'd thought to bring the rope," Draco said. "We could tie ourselves in a line. That way if one person got caught by the wind, the rest of us could anchor him down."
"Maybe if we crawled up the stairs?" Cho suggested.
"How are we going to hang onto each other if we're crawling?" Lupin said. He looked to Snape, Filch and McGonagall. "Aren't there other ways in? Something closer to ground level?"
Snape and McGonagall both went much older. "Kitchens?" Snape said.
"Blocked," McGonagall said, "As soon as the alarm went up about the Balrog. The lake passage?"
"Not unless we can find a supply of gillyweed in the dark. And it would mean going back down the hill in the wind."
"You don't have any?" McGonagall asked, eyebrow raised.
"Not enough. The Quidditch Tunnel?"
"Blocked off, like the rest." McGonagall dismissed the possibility.
"It may have opened up again once the balrog was defeated," Snape pointed out.
"Do you really want to walk halfway 'round the castle to find out that it hasn't?" Minerva asked wryly. "Helga's sett?"
Snape made a face. "I think I've lost enough blood for one day. I'm not inclined to try to make my way past a colony of enraged badgers. And no, the old passage to the dungeons won't do either. It's been rigged to discourage visitors."
"Godric's Gate is out of the question," McGonagall said. "For much the same reasons. Although, you'd think the castle might consider helping us. There really must be a way in."
Snape turned an unwavering regard on Filch. "I can think of one."
To Harry's surprise, Filch flushed and shook his head. "No. I won't. You can't help Dumbledore if you're half dead."
"Ah, but the last time I was a fully adult wizard, with the ... scars ... to prove it," Snape said, in the uncompromisingly reasonable tone that meant he wasn't going to let you have a hope of winning the argument. "That's not a condition that always applies, now."
"It is easier on youngsters," Professor McGonagall put in, resting a hand on Filch's arm. "And it's certainly easier – and safer -- than trying to get up those steps in this hurricane."
Filch looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded. "All right," he said gruffly. "I can only take two at a time, though. I've only got two hands. And I'm not looking forward to cleaning up after you lot."
"Fair enough," McGonagall said. She looked around the small group. "Now everyone, I want you to try to imagine yourselves crossing the lake, coming to Hogwarts for the first time..."
Harry wanted to get inside as much as any of them, but he was too interested in what Filch was doing to concentrate properly on that first boat trip at Hogwarts. The caretaker had stepped to the tallest bit of the wall and nodded slightly to it, as if he were acknowledging another person. And in response, a square of blackness appeared against the stone. Almost immediately, it started to slide to the left, and Harry grabbed for an edge, realizing that it was the same – or nearly the same – as the cloth that Filch had climbed out of on the lawn. "Grab two people and go!" he shouted, but Filch had already thought of that. With a tight grip on one of Justin's arms, and a Ravenclaw girl's shoulder, he ran for the wall and the cloth under Harry's hand vanished.
Harry found himself breathing hard, like he'd run a race, as he stared around at the others. No one said anything, waiting, and then the rough stone went to cloth again and Filch reappeared through it. Harry leaned against it, not letting the eddies of wind sneak under the edges.
"Did it work?" Professor McGonagall said, catching Filch before the wind could knock him sideways. "Argus, are they safe?"
"Yes." Filch said, looking around the group with wild eyes as he steadied himself. "But you're not young enough yet!" he scolded Snape.
"I'm working on it!" Snape growled. "Take the ones who are!"
"Do we have to think of the boats?" Cho asked McGonagall, as Filch grabbed two more children and vanished, and the cloth with him.
"Anything that makes you feel eleven," Draco told her. He looked like he was having as much trouble as Harry was, concentrating. But in Draco's case it was because he kept watching Snape. "Try the Sorting Hat song from your first year. It worked once."
"Good suggestion," Snape said, and closed his eyes to think, hanging onto Draco's shoulder.
The cloth came back – it felt different, and thicker this time – and Filch came out just in time to see Cho whisper something into Cedric's ear that sent them both to giggling first years. For a moment, the caretaker hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he took each of them by the hand and pulled them back through his door of cloth.
That left Draco, Lupin, Snape, McGonagall and Harry. And none of them were young enough. Harry had a feeling that Snape was having trouble with it, and so was Lupin, and although McGonagall was growing younger in fits and starts, her concentration was broken every time Filch came through. Draco seemed to be trying to protect Snape – which was keeping him older.
When Filch appeared this time, he stumbled on the way through and had to sit. Harry and Lupin leaned on the edges of the fresh cloth, watching the others.
"Minerva," Snape said, with an edge of complaint. "The boats aren't working."
"Try harder," she ordered him, and gained five years.
"Try something else," Draco said. "Think."
Snape glared at him for a moment, but then his expression changed and he gave Draco a frosty smile before turning to Filch. "Don't just sit there like a lump, man, chew me out!"
"What?" Filch exclaimed.
"Dress me down," Snape explained through gritted teeth. "Dock me points, invent detentions..."
Professor McGonagall got it first. "What were you thinking, Mr. Snape? The assignment was to turn the matchstick into a needle, not a toothpick!"
Filch chimed in, getting to his feet to loom as well as he could over where Snape was sitting. "There's two inches of stone floor eaten away by the muck that overflowed from your cauldron, Mr. Snape, and you're going to help me restore that floor and then you're going to polish it!"
"Your penmanship is atrocious, and illegible, and you will have to take the mark for what I thought I read on that essay, and not on your impromptu translation in class." McGonagall said, her hair gone silver once more.
"Whatever Potter and his lot did to you, it doesn't excuse pouring slugslime all down the Gryffindor table, and you're going to clean up every last drop of it without magic!" Filch was getting into Snape's face now. "And I've had enough bloodstains to clean up from you and Black for this year, thank you!"
The mention of Sirius Black was a mistake, Harry thought, because Snape had been losing years – even if it was slowly -- but that sent him older again. Filch seemed to realize it though, and started in about some kind of mess on the ceiling of the Potions classroom.
Harry felt a tug on his sleeve and turned to see Lupin, slid down to about sixteen. "What are we doing, James?" he asked, jerking a thumb at the three adults.
"Trying to get Professor Snape to feel like he's eleven," Harry answered. "And not lose this cloth at the same time."
"Oh." Lupin said, and then grinned and reached out a foot to tap against Draco's leg. When the fair haired boy looked up, Lupin motioned him to come and take his place holding the cloth against the wall.
Draco glanced over for Harry's nod first, but he got up and took one side of the cloth. He and Harry watched curiously as Lupin crouched down to avoid the wind and moved around behind Snape. The someday Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher gave McGonagall a cheerful thumbs up from behind Snape, who seemed to have stalled out at around twenty five or so and was rubbing absently at his arm as he glared back at Filch and McGonagall.
Harry concentrated on Lupin, wondering what the young marauder had in mind. Whatever it was, he was enjoying the thought of it, gleeful and ready to pounce as he waited for a gap in Filch's and McGonagall's expostulations.
It came in a moment, and Lupin tapped on Snape's shoulder. Snape turned – for a moment they were nearly nose to nose – and Lupin opened his mouth to bleat like a distressed sheep. "Baaaaaaa!"
It worked! Well, almost. Snape slammed downwards in age, but stopped while he still had the gawkiness of fourteen.
Then Lupin tweaked his nose.
That was it.
Eleven.
And attacking.
Lupin dropped years too, the moment Snape punched him. Professor McGonagall pushed the two combatants at Filch, who grabbed one under each arm and turned to run at the cloth. It seemed to Harry that Filch was having to work harder each time he stepped through, but it certainly wasn't stopping him. Then the cloth vanished. Harry leaned against the rough stone, wondering if Snape and Lupin would get through safely.
McGonagall got up and came to stand near Draco and Harry. "It will have to be you two next, I think," she said. "Although heaven help me if all you remember is how much you were at each other's throats First Year."
"Shouldn't it be you?" Draco asked. "I mean, there's not much point in getting you all the way back here to save the Headmaster if we don't see you get inside."
"It should, Mr. Malfoy," she admitted. "But I'm feeling very old at the moment."
Harry looked from her to Draco. He had an idea. Two really. "You don't look old," he told McGonagall. "In fact, you look quite young." Draco blinked and frowned so Harry went on, signalling Draco to follow his lead with the fingers of the hand that was holding the broom.. "I mean. You've got really nice..."
"Teeth," Draco put in, smiling encouragingly. "And your hair is nice too."
McGonagall looked from one to the other of them with amused disbelief, but her cheeks colored nicely and so did her hair as she slid down the years.
"It's lovely hair," Harry said, glad for the chance to be unmistakably sincere. He reached out for her hand and she dropped a few more years as she let him take it. "And you've got a wonderful shape to your face."
"Good bones," Draco said. "And good eyebrows. Not all clumpy like some people's."
In spite of herself, McGonagall smiled. She was almost young enough to forget her adult self now, and Harry could feel rough cloth forming between himself and the wall. "You're beautiful," he said.
Filch was coming out of the cloth, and McGonagall was seventeen, her eyes confused, but still too old to go through with Filch. Harry, on impulse, leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.
It wasn't a very romantic kiss. More of a peck than a kiss, really, but McGonagall's hand grew much smaller in his, and she smiled up at him shyly, twisting her free hand in her skirts.
"You go with Mr. Filch, all right?" Harry told her, feeling tall and gawky. He passed her over to Filch, who was looking quite startled at McGonagall's transformation. The Caretaker looked at her as if she were a porcelain figurine that he dared not drop, and picked her up just as gently. Then he turned to look at the boys, his free hand hesitating between them.
Harry shoved the broom into Draco's hands. "Take this to your father," he said, and Draco lost five inches. Filch grabbed the young Slytherin, glaring at Harry. "I'll be all right till you come back," Harry insisted. Filch made an impatient noise, and nodded, but he headed toward the wall, his teeth gritted together as he hitched his two burdens up under his arms before vanishing back through his cloth.
Draco had taken the lantern with him.
It was dark.
Harry huddled against the wall and wondered how long it would be until Filch came back. Unable to think of anything else, he began to count. One thousand and one. One thousand and two...
He'd be grateful for lightning.
One thousand and eleven... One thousand and twelve...
The darkness seemed to get darker. That was impossible.
One thousand and twenty two...
But everything that had happened today was impossible.
One thousand and thirty...
He didn't mind most darkness, but this was really dark -- like the inside of the cupboard when the light had burnt out – that awful total blackness that you knew had things in it...
One thousand and forty two...
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