Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Tisn't mine, tis true. Thanks to Ozma for her Squib Doors (yes, you should go read her stories, now!—er, well, just as soon as you read mine, anyway), Jinx for people and other things, and JKRowling who started it all...
Chapter 19: Back inside
Summary: Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall...
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Something's gone wrong.
Harry curled himself into a ball, huddling against the wall, trying not to get caught by the wind.
It didn't work. They're in trouble. They're hurt.
...or dead.
The darkness howled around him.
The wind. The wind howled. Darkness can't howl.
Things in darkness can.
Maybe another monster came. Another balrog, only this time it got inside...
No. It'd get blown out by all this wind.
He had to get inside.
He couldn't even leave the wall.
What if they don't remember where I am? What if they've forgotten all about coming to fetch me, with all the time changing and such? What if they don't remember me?
Hermione will remember me, Harry told himself firmly. Hermione remembers everything. And Ron would never forget me.
But they don't know where I am, do they? And it's not like Draco's going to go out of his way to save me.
The wind tugged at his hair and clothes no matter how small he made himself. If he stayed out here much longer, he was going to get blown away, and then he'd be blown out into that strange barrier and that would be the end of him. For once Harry wished that he was as heavyset as his cousin, or better still his uncle. Uncle Vernon could probably stand still in a hurricane. Of course, he'd find a way to blame the storm on Harry....
A hand fell on his shoulder, gripping hard. "No!" Harry cried, ducking away from the blow that was sure to follow. He was so small he stepped right out of his shoes. The muddy grass pulled wetly at his stockings as he fought to get away. "Uncle Vernon, I didn't mean to -- "
"Blast it, Potter!" Filch growled, stepping away from the wall in order to keep his grip on Harry's shirt. "Don't make me lose my Door!"
"Your what?" Harry squeaked, recognizing the Caretaker belatedly, trying to freeze, and failing as the wind caught him and nearly pulled him out of Filch's grasp. He grabbed for the caretaker's wrist, just before something wrapped itself around both of them, trapping him against Filch and then pushing both of them off their feet. Harry nearly choked on the mingled smells of soap and dust and fresh vomit on Filch's coat. The wind must have caught the cloth and the cloth had entangled both of them on its way. They'd be blown out of the world, without a chance to catch hold anywhere and save themselves. Harry felt the rough texture of needlework where the wind plastered the material forcefully against his face and hands, and then, abruptly, the sensation changed.
It was like getting poked by about a million dull needles – for a few seconds, Harry was sure that he was being examined, all the way down to his bones – and then most of the sensation went away, except for the tingling ache that concentrated on the place where his scar crossed his forehead.
Gradually, he sorted out other sensations. Filch was tugging on his shoulder, drawing him forward, but Harry didn't want to move, in case it set off another round of the strange, prying almost-pain. Carefully, he raised his right hand, still clutching Filch's wrist with his left, and reached forward like a blind boy seeking out warning for the obstacles that would hurt worst.
An adult hand fitted itself into his, and Harry blinked as the pain in his head vanished.
Filch was still on his left, still pulling on him, and the new person pulled gently as well. Harry swallowed and stepped forward, letting his two guides draw him on.
It was like walking through water – really thick water -- but a few moments took him to a place where the resistance ended.
Harry stepped out into the noisy confusion of the Great Hall.
They were near the back of the dais, near the bunks of the injured house-elves. Filch, still gripping Harry's shirt, had stepped back, arched like his cat, as if he were expecting Harry to throw up all over him. He was staring at the man on Harry's right.
He looked like a king: tall and muscular, with a mane of dark red hair, wearing gold robes embroidered in red, and a swordbelt. The man smiled down at Harry. He looked familiar, somehow, although Harry wasn't sure why. He ruffled Harry's hair with one hand and then stepped away, vanishing into the patch of shadow in the corner.
"Gryffindor?" Filch whispered. Harry stared up at the caretaker, enlightened and alarmed.
"Godric Gryffindor?" And much younger than the picture on his Chocolate Frog card. Harry wouldn't be much surprised to see Merlin himself, next. Not the way today'd been going.
No one else seemed to have noticed. The house-elves were too lost in their daze, and the rest of the people nearest them were busy or ill, or looking upwards. In the high reaches of the Hall, brooms swept around the rafters as their riders threw old clothes, silverware, and plates at the greatly lengthened and thickened tendril of the whirlpool.
"Leave off!" a shrill shout echoed piercingly off a nearby wall.
"Give it here!" That angry shout sounded uncomfortably familiar to Harry's ear. He pushed forward past the teachers to see Neville Longbottom shielding a house-elf from a furious Tom Riddle.
"No!" Neville insisted, pale with determination. "You'll throw him in the whirlpool!"
Riddle's face was red with fury. "Do you want to get us all killed for the sake of a house-elf? The last one that went in stopped that thing for a full five minutes!"
"That would be murder!" Hermione was charging her way through the crowds of yattering students towards Neville, Ron at her heels, and a trail of other bookbearing researchers behind him.
"That would be survival," a tall Ravenclaw whom Harry didn't know said regretfully, hovering on her broom. "Nothing's even slowing the whirlpool down, now. Better a house-elf than the headmaster." A lot of the students – and some of the teachers – were nodding agreement.
"But it doesn't have anything t-t-t-o d-d-do..." Neville was too excited to get words out. He bit his lip in frustration and reached into his pocket, pulling out the Remembrall he'd gotten in his first year. "Look!" He cocked back his arm and threw the crystalline ball, straight as a string, into the heart of the whirlpool.
The vortex blinked out.
All the voices in the Hall went silent in surprise, except for Dean Thomas's call of "Well thrown!"
"It eats m-magic," Neville said, with more certainty, his words loud in the momentary quiet. "We need to throw magic things into it to slow it down."
"But... how will we get them back?" Ron asked. "Strong enchantments cost money."
"I don't think we can," Hermione said.
Tom Riddle frowned, hovering higher, where everyone could see him, but moving away from Neville. "What do you suggest then? We're not going to throw our wands at it!"
"Portraits, from the corridors?" suggested a Hufflepuff, and then sagged a little. "But no one's in them, right now. They might not be magic enough."
"I know what to use," Filch rasped out, stepping from behind Harry to the center of the stage, and startling even Riddle out of his posturing. "The torches in the halls will hold it off for now, but I've got better still. You lot," he called to the flyers, "I need some of you to come with me down to my office."
"We know the way!" James Potter swooped down to hover near the caretaker, with two other boys following him more circumspectly. James was grinning all over his fifteen-year-old face. "Come on, Mr. Filch. You must've confiscated enough Exploding Snaps and Boobytrap Bubbles off of us to slow that thing down for hours." He held out a hand to Filch, who took it with the most incredulous expression Harry had ever seen.
"No funny stuff, Potter," he growled, mounting behind the boy, who aged a little as he blushed.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Filch," he said. Then he hesitated, seeing Harry for the first time. "Cousin?" he asked, peering down at his son.
A heavy hand landed on Harry's shoulder before he could answer, and Snape's cloak swung massively around as the Potions Master stepped forward, like a woolen wall separating the two boys. "Distant relation," Snape said icily.
Harry glared up at him, but Snape was staring over Hermione's shoulder, at her research team, at the red-haired girl with arms brimful of books. He looked haggard and old. Deliberately Snape broke her gaze and turned his onyx eyes upon James. "There isn't time now for reunions," he said harshly. "Not if we're to get out of this alive." His hand trembled upon Harry's shoulder, years falling away as he faced his boyhood nemesis.
James aged a little, almost to graduating age, as he met Snape's glacial hauteur. Behind him the other two boys crowded closer. Neither one looked much older than thirteen.
"Merlin's eyebrows!" exclaimed the heavyset one. "The greaseball grew up to be a teacher!"
"He's not the only one." Remus Lupin stepped up on Harry's other side, casually taking half-a-step more to put himself between his old friends and Snape.
"Remus?" The last boy said, and grew taller, even as he gave Lupin a wondering grin.
"You're meant to be helping Filch, Sirius." Lupin said, his age slipping a little. He stood up a little straighter to make up for it. "Best hurry."
"Right," James saluted briskly and summoned the other two with his head, "Come on, Peter" he said, forestalling another round of comments, and turned his broom towards the door. "Hang on, Mr. Filch." The other two shrugged at each other and followed.
Harry glared past Snape's left arm and Lupin's right, focusing on the departing trio. "That's Pettigrew?" He reached for his wand.
Snape tightened his grip painfully. "You can't change it backwards, Harry." He warned in a low voice.
"You wouldn't want to," Harry accused, watching his father, Pettigrew and Black flying away down the length of the hall.
Snape looked down at Lily, who had come closer, and was studying Harry's face with a thoughtful air on her seventeen-year-old face. "Indeed I would," the Potions master said softly. "But changing history will do just that, boy. The possibilities are incalculable. Make the wrong choice and you've killed Dumbledore, and that would kill us all."
It was bitter truth. Harry grimaced and snarled at the messenger. "Aren't you meant to be helping Dumbledore?"
"Yes." Snape, still holding Harry's shoulder, started to steer the boy away, but Harry resisted, remembering something important.
"Ron!" he called.
"Potter..." Snape growled, but Harry shook his head defiantly as Ron clambered up on a table to get close enough to talk above the conversations which were rising in volume all over the Hall.
"What is it, Harry?" Ron asked. "Do you need me?"
"Take Fred and George, and go after Filch. People who aren't from now don't always stay, and we're going to need whatever it is that Filch is bringing up." If James and the other two vanished the way that Cedric had, Filch would be left on his own, and that would cause delays.
"Right," Ron said cheerfully, slapping one fist into his other palm. "It'll give me a chance to give Pettigrew a fat lip."
"Fine," Harry said. "Just don't let him know why, all right? And try not to get into a fight with m... with the others. We don't want to change things too much or we might change things we don't want changed."
Ron grinned. "You didn't come up with that on your own," he said. "Don't worry, Harry. Hermione'd go spare if I did anything that might mess things up. She's been on about it for hours."
"Go on then," Harry said, waving Ron off. He looked for Hermione, meaning to say something to her, but she and Lily had been accosted by a small boy with an opened book, and were bending to read something.
Snape, reassured that Harry and Ron were going to mind the consequences of their actions, had turned to address the werewolf, although he still held onto Harry. "Lupin, make yourself useful," he ordered.
"How?" Remus asked.
"That one," Snape said, indicating Tom Riddle with a subtle move of his head. "The tall Slytherin boy."
"The one organizing parties to fetch torches?" Lupin confirmed.
"Tom Riddle. Keep an eye on him. If he should age up and vanish, then do something to incapacitate that one. His name is Quirrell. Get Black to help you when he comes back. He's good at that sort of thing."
"Quirrell's here?" Harry's voice cracked as he swung his head around quickly in search of that horrible purple turban. It took a moment to recognize the stammering, nervous Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher of his first year in the lanky, fair-haired, confident wizard who was helping tend to one of the injured teachers. "He looks younger than I remember," he said, wondering if it were the lingering smell of vomit on Snape's cloak or the sight of the man he'd fought... well, that he'd killed, really, if you thought too much about it... during his first year that was making him feel queasy.
"Too young to remember you," Snape clipped out peevishly, steering Harry toward the back of the stage. They worked their way past teachers, some of whom objected, and a few of whom faded away at a touch, toward the wall under the windows.
The rest of the rescue party, including Draco Malfoy and a still-very-young McGonagall, were lined up sitting along a bench there, each one clutching a piece of crockery at the ready. The Slytherin's pale skin showed up the green particularly well as he looked sourly at Harry over a porcelain punchbowl. "How come you aren't sick, Potter?" he asked. "All the rest of us have been."
Harry shrugged, pinching his nose against the stink of illness. "Luck?" he guessed, past a grimace.
"Intervention," Snape said, looking much younger as he, too, seemed to be trying to fight off incipient nausea. He frowned down at McGonagall. "Come along, Minerva. This is no time for a Head of House to sit idle. Even Godric Gryffindor has shown up to fill in the gap for you, but we can't rely on that. Should this phenomenon reach much farther back in time, we'll have to contend with woad wearing warriors."
"Don't want to grow up," McGonagall said, pulling a face. "Just means more of me to be sick." She looked very small and stubborn, her armor rumpled and the chainmail pooled around her, one small bare foot showing through the riding slit in front, swinging defiantly above the floor.
Snape, not much more than nineteen himself, bent down to her, holding out his free hand. "But it also means there's more of you to fight back the feeling," he promised, in a serious tone, "which reduces the possibility that you'll actually be sick."
She blinked at him, her eyes large in her small thin face. "You're the one who was hurt, before. Did you go big too?"
"I did."
"And it made you feel better?"
"Yes."
She sighed and took Snape's hand. "All right then. But if you're not telling the truth I'm going to turn you into something nasty."
Snape actually laughed. "Too late," he said, standing and drawing her upright, his grip on Harry's shoulder tightening abruptly as his balance faltered. He's not mad at me, Harry realized, he just needs a crutch. His leg must still hurt. He put out a hand to steady the potions professor, and noticed Draco watching jealously.
"Can you help yet, Draco?" he asked the other boy.
"I can try," Draco said, gaining inches as he made himself stand. It did seem to help, Harry noticed. At least Draco was less green.
McGonagall was gaining years too. She looked a little startled when she reached adulthood, pulling up her mail skirt to look at her bare feet, and then making a face when she realized how the pitcher in her hand smelled. "Well, we're inside," she said, putting the porcelain down on the bench quickly. "That's something."
"Even if we all did get sick but Potter," Draco growled resentfully. "All he's got all over him is mud."
"It could have been worse, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said, eyes meeting McGonagall's in some silent communication that made Harry's curiosity itch. "Much worse."
"Worse than this?" Draco said, pointedly avoiding a damp patch on Snape's cloak.
"That was Lupin," Snape said. "And I returned the favor."
"But..."
Draco's question was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, middle-aged wizard, who loomed suddenly between the nearest torch and their small group. "Minerva?" he asked, in a rich, musical voice, eyes bright in his dark brown face. "And Mr. Snape. How did you get past me? I've been waiting to meet you at the entrance to the Hall."
"Woodwalker," McGonagall greeted him, accepting the two hands he extended to her with only the smallest of hesitations, the age-lines gathering on her face like iron filings against a magnet. "I should have expected to see you."
"Perhaps and perhaps not. Young Pomfrey tells me you are the newest Heads of your Houses," Woodwalker looked from McGonagall to Snape searchingly. "Do you fade from this place and time as we older ones do? Is that how you came into the hall without being seen?"
"Filch brought us in," Snape said. "We won't fade away."
"We might get rather shorter, however," McGonagall warned cheerfully. "I hope you shan't all fade away now that we're here."
"There's no time for that," Woodwalker said somberly. "Dumbledore needs our help, all our help, most urgently. Come with me."