Balance: by rabbit
Disclaimer: 'Tisn't mine, 'tis true. Thanks to Ozma for letting me borrow her view of Filch, Ariana Deralte for her Uric the Oddball, and JKRowling who started it all... but especially Jinx, who is patient but encouraging when I've gotten stuck. Elsie Piddock belongs to Eleanor Farjeon. (bonus points to anyone who spots her!) Special thanks to VJM for Scotspicking Rowena's lines.
Chapter 22: Simple Gifts
Summary: By turning, turning we come out right.
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A high, piping trill from the dais cut through the silence, and every head turned toward that sweet, clear sound. Flames leapt up suddenly from one of the small cots and from the fiery fountain of sparks Fawkes appeared, singing with glee as he launched himself into the air. Dumbledore smiled and sat up, offering an arm as perch. The phoenix, who after a long spiral, alighted gracefully, sidling along towards the Headmaster's elbow where it could reach up to nip affectionately at Dumbledore's beard. "Hullo," he said fondly. "You're looking well, if a bit blurry." Skritching the bird under the chin with one finger, he turned his gaze to the room.. "Has anyone seen my glasses?"
"I think I have them, sir," Poppy Pomfrey, about fourteen just now, pushed her way past Professor Sprout and extracted an assortment of glasses from the deep pockets of her apron. She waited fiddled with the tangle for a moment and then held the lot out nervously while Dumbledore selected his own pair.
He found them at once and perched them onto his crooked nose. "Thank you, my dear," Dumbledore smiled. His eyebrows rose as the girl aged swiftly into the woman before his eyes. "Thank you indeed." He rose to his feet, balancing Fawkes still, and turned slowly, surveying the room. Harry looked around too, wondering whether the dance had changed anything but Dumbledore.
The ring of people the Founders had created was fuller now, more balanced between the houses. A dozen or more Gryffindors had appeared in their quarter, but the other three houses had new representatives too. Harry recognized Headmaster Dippet standing among the Hufflepuffs. With that clue, he looked again. All of the newest arrivals were people he'd seen in portraits in Dumbledore's office – former Headmasters. Had they only been able to appear once Dumbledore was awake, then?
The Founders themselves stood at the cardinal points. They were as young as Harry had seen them; only Rowena Ravenclaw looked to be older than twenty-five. As Dumbledore made his bows to them they bowed or curtsied in return.
"I had no idea it was a party," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. He sketched a sigil in the air and his nightshirt transformed into feast-worthy robes. A sigh ran through the watching crowd, as if everyone had been waiting to see that Dumbledore's puissance was intact.
"WATCH IT!" A gruff shout interrupted the tension. Harry looked up. A lone flyer, clad in Hufflepuff Quidditch robes, had stuck to the task of watching for the descent of the magic devouring whirlwind. He swooped low to intercept its probing tentacle with a writhing bit of rug. The scrap of cloth tried to dodge, but the whirlwind twisted left and absorbed it, flickering with colors of the fabric before it vanished.
"Well," said Dumbledore, matter-of-factly. "We'll have to do something about that." He shooed the headmasters and four students to one side, banishing the bed with a flick of his wand so that he could stand on the spot that Slytherin had marked as the center. Then he looked up decisively. "Argus! Argus Filch!" he called and the Caretaker of Hogwarts was ushered forward into the cleared circle by the bed.
"Yes, Headmaster Dumbledore?" Filch, as old and crusty as Harry had always known him, clumped stolidly into the cleared space, shoulders hunched as if that were all the defense he needed against the whirlwind dropping down on him. He looked strange, and it took a moment for Harry to realize why.
Students, teachers, founders, and all, everyone's ages were in constant flux now, the ghosts going from flesh to spirit and back as others flickered in and out of existence like mayflies. Everyone but Dumbledore and Filch. The two old men stood in a small pool of certainty – one the most powerful wizard in Hogwarts, clad in robes that spoke of power – the other a Squib, wearing the same draggled coat he always wore as he mopped the floors that had been muddied by scores of students.
"I require your assistance, Caretaker Filch," Dumbledore said formally, inclining his head respectfully. "There is a spell which must be cast."
Filch shifted uncertainly from foot to foot. "My assistance, Professor?" His voice rasped more than usual, and his cheeks darkened under the stubble of his whiskers. "There's plenty of Caretakers as has been here before me to choose from," he pointed out, waving a work-roughened hand at the presence of several other wizards in practical, work-stained robes whose ages were shifting more slowly than most. "When it comes to spells..."
"For this spell, Argus, it is your assistance I need, and none other. But it must be given with a whole heart." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, although his expression kept its formality. "Do you accept the task?"
Filch stared and scowled, but then his lamplike eyes softened and he straightened his shoulders to make a formal bow. "I do indeed, Headmaster. With all my heart."
Dumbledore smiled. "Thank you," he told Filch and then turned his attention to the rest of the hall. "Is everyone here, then?"
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore," a first year still standing at the chalkboard called in a self-important soprano.
"Very well. Mr. Filch?" The Headmaster held out a hand, which Filch took with a scowl of concentration. Dumbledore passed his wand over the clasped hands and then he and Filch simultaneously stepped back, a twist of white silk growing in the space between their hands. They kept walking backwards, and as they did, the silk strengthened until it was as thick as a clothesline, but still lengthening all the while. When they were about six feet apart, the two men began to swing the line in a circle, like children playing with a skipping rope.
A tiny witch darted into the circle, clapping her hands with delight as she jumped into the middle of the rope's blurring white arc and chanting. "Andy Spandy, sugardy candy, French Almond Rock. Bread and butter for your supper's all your mother's got!"
Filch and Dumbledore were still moving backwards, and as the distance between them grew, another witch, not much older than the first one, dashed out to skip, chanting "Sugar for the cauldron, honey for the brew...." and then another skipper and another rhyme, and another and another. Harry saw the small Pavarti sisters jumping with joined hands, long braids bobbing against their backs with each jump.
"These clothes are too heavy," said a sad voice at his elbow, and he turned to find McGonagall quite young again, looking wistfully at the others. "and too big."
On impulse, Harry drew his wand. "Semper conformae," he cast, hoping he'd got the Latin right. McGonagall giggled as her armor shrank to fit her nine-year-old self and darted clanking off to join the others.
"Well done, Mr. Potter!" said Professor Flitwick.
"I'm surprised it worked," Draco said with a sour expression. "Nothing did when we were outside."
"The magic's strongest here," Salazar Slytherin reappeared behind Draco, looking smug. "Learn to read the flows, boy, and uphold the honor of your house." The Founder's tone was kinder than his words, and Draco pulled himself upright and made a little bow.
"I shall, my Lord," he said. Then he glanced back at the lengthening line of rope-skippers. "I can tell that there are still some things we haven't studied yet." His scorn was tempered by confusion and curiosity.
"Well, it's not the way I'd cast the wards," said Godric Gryffindor, cheerfully, stepping into McGonagall's former position out of thin air. "But it has been a generation or two, and children will try new things."
"It's nae to do with the passage of time," Rowena Ravenclaw joined them, with Helga Hufflepuff beside her. Both witches looked highly amused. "This is witches' magic, Godric. Hogwarts finally has a Headmaster wi' the wit tae give space and time to what he cannot create alone." She cast a significant eye at Slytherin.
"I always made time for the ladies," Gryffindor protested with a smile. The other three founders made inarticulate noises of disdain, but that only pleased him all the more.
"If' it's witches' magic, then why don't I feel like I have to jump rope?" Lisa Turpin asked, watching the others.
Rowena Ravenclaw smiled down at the small, intent face. "Have all the women in your family been witches, child? Able to pass along what they knew?"
Lisa shook her head. "No. My mother's a Muggle, and my grandmother only had my father and she was an Auror in the war. She died before I was born."
"You see!" Slytherin pounced, sharp and sudden, "You see what comes of mixing with Muggles? If the wards don't have the power required it's because you three..."
"Hush!" Helga Hufflepuff told him fiercely. "The wards will be fine."
"Of all things," Ravenclaw asserted, "A lack o' knowledge is most easily mended." She raised a hand and a raven launched itself down from its perch on the rafters to land on her wrist.
"That is what a school is for, after all," Gryffindor said, with edged reasonableness.
"There are other considerations," Slytherin grumbled, but subsided for the moment.
Lisa was looking uncertainly at the big sleek black bird, and Harry didn't blame her. Ravens had beaks that were a lot bigger than owls did. "If you like ravens so much," she asked, "then why is the symbol of our house an eagle?"
"The stonemason's chisel slipped," Helga Hufflepuff chuckled.
"And eagles are much better at keeping an eye on serpents," Gryffindor added.
"Eagles are less chatty," Ravenclaw said firmly. "But there are times when a raven's memory is useful. Listen."
Lisa's whole body tried to get as far away from the bird as she could get and still let it whisper into her ear, but her frightened expression changed after a moment. "Listen to the bell ring..." she said softly, as if she were memorizing something.
"I know that rhyme," said Neville Longbottom, who still had the tray with the last bedraggled sandwiches on it, stepped forward, nearly spilling his burden. "Gran taught me."
"Have you sisters, lad?" At the shake of Neville's head, Helga Hufflepuff took the tray from the boy and deposited it into Snape's startled keeping. "Come and jump, then."
"But it's a girl thing," Neville protested, blushing to the roots of his hair. "And I'll trip and mess things up."
"Not with me, you shan't." She took Neville's hand and the two of them went and joined the jumpers, with Lisa Turpin and Rowena Ravenclaw jumping in not more than a few steps behind them.
Harry looked down the length of the hall. Ginny Weasley was jumping rope, and so were a few other girls he knew, but Hermione was still standing by Ron, perplexed. There were a scattering of boys jumping rope, so it wasn't just Neville who'd learned what to do. And there were plenty of girls not jumping, too – including some of the Slytherins Harry knew would never admit to Muggle ancestry – in a thousand years some families must have lost the thread. But Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff didn't look worried.
Filch had backed up as far as he could go, his back was against the doors. Dumbledore, already up on the dais, took one last step so his back was to the wall, and the happy cacophony of skipping rhymes suddenly focused into a single chant:
"Listen to the bell ring, time to go to school
If you can catch the candleflame you'll prove that you're a fool
But the thing that's worth a second thought and worth another look
Is the world which you will find between the pages of the book
And three's a goodly number but still we want one more
The sum that makes us whole again is 2 + 2 is 4,"
The rope picked up speed, blurred doubletime, and the skippers
raced to keep step and shout.
"By sword and cup and wand and coin
Square the Circle all hands join!"
A the rope arced high, the skippers grabbed one another's hands and landed solidly, going flat footed and giggling in a long shaking chain. The rope came down slowly, like a first snow; for a moment Harry thought it was going to hit them all in the ankles, but instead of slapping the against the floor it went through it.
When it came up on the other side of the swing, it ran right through the arms and legs of the people standing nearest, startling out gasps, but doing no harm. Dumbledore and Filch began to turn the rope more broadly, paying out line to make the circumference of the swing increase. Each time the rope came down to the floor it went through as if the floor weren't an obstacle to it, and came up on the other side. Some people tried to back away, but in the crowded room there wasn't anywhere to go. Two more rotations and the spin of the magical line reached Harry; he felt a cold rush of magic as the rope passed right up from the floor at his feet, the spell dividing him into almost even halves as it went on its way.
The light changed. For one swing of the magical line, Harry saw the Great Hall in strange vivid and uncertain relief, differently from each eye as if he'd put on 3-D glasses backwards. His left eye, now inside the circumference of the wards, saw the colors brighter and steadier, the people realer somehow than the people still outside the spell. Auras -- which he'd never quite believed in when Trelawney talked about them -- glowed, this one like moonlight, and that one like a candle flame. Dumbledore was a small sun, Filch a catseye in the dark. Harry looked for his friends, past McGonagall's tawny warmth, Snape's moonlight-on-water and Draco's cold blue icelight; he saw Neville's aura spurting jet-flames from scarlet-coal-under-ashes, Dean's feathery rainbow and Seamus' green-gold glittering -- and there was Ron's light, lemonbright and steady and Hermione's blue as the sky in autumn. Where their two auras touched they blended into a promise of spring. And then the spell line passed around again, and Harry was entirely within the wards. The auras were hidden, and he could no longer see the difference between what was inside the circle and what was outside.
At least, not in the people. Overhead, the whirlwind re-appeared, and Harry saw it shot through with colors – reds and blues, oranges and greens, but mostly the gray of the castle walls – twisted like strands of wool in a length of yarn. And where it gyrated against the roof...
Harry swallowed hard. That wasn't the remains of the spell of night sky, that was... that was the black nothingness beyond the edge of the world, visible through stone worn as thin as old cloth.
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Author note: I was truly hoping to finish before OotP came out, but I didn't manage it. The Founders don't seem to be able to show their noses without a conversation! There's not much left to go, honest, but I thought I should post this as a promise that I still intend to finish, even if I have to put an "alternate universe" label on the darn thing...