Balance

Chapter 3: Aftermath?

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Beyond the outer wall of the grounds, the paths were obscured by mud, and the damage from the water had confused any landmarks Harry could remember. He slowed down some more and listened. No balrog roars, which was good, but he thought he could hear a waterfall. There weren't any waterfalls near Hogwarts.

He flew on. Without warning the ground fell away beneath him, rocky and mudslimed, and spotted here and there with the silver glints of dead or dying fish. Harry tilted the broom down, and suddenly found himself below the mist. He was in the deep irregular bowl of the lakebed, and it was nearly fifty feet down to the silver surface of the water. Along the far wall there were three waterfalls, where streams fed into the lake from the mountains. Harry could see Merpeople clustering near the places where the cool mountain water reached the remains of the lake, and caught glimpses of the squid's tentacles moving restlessly under the surface. Of the balrog there was no sign.

Harry flew over to the nearest clump of Merpeople. One of them popped its head up above the water to look at him and he landed on a rock near it. "Are you all all right?" he asked, uncertainly. "I'm sorry we had to put that thing in your lake, but it was all we could think of."

"We are too warm, and some are injured, but we fled in good time," the merman answered, fortunately in English, although it's high squeaky voice was hard to understand. "Where is Dumbledore?"

"Hurt," Harry said. "I'm going to go and find out how badly as soon as I tell the others that the balrog's dead. It is dead, isn't it? I mean, we couldn't see past the mist."

"Not dead, but banished back to its own place and time," the merman said. "And much diminished into the bargain. I doubt it can return; and if it did, it would be no taller than your hand."

"Thank you," Harry said with relief. "Do you want Madame Pomfrey to come and see if any of your people need medicines?"

"If we need aid, we will send for it." The merman assured him.

Harry turned the broom upwards and tried to find a path he knew. He was still working it out when all of a sudden he heard a chorused shout from the rooftops and the fog vanished upwards, forming into a small cloud.

The other students were still waving wands, keeping the cloud intact, when Harry got close enough to shout, "It's gone!" to Lee Jordan and wave reassuringly to the others as Lee passed along the word. He looked for a place to land, but every way he turned, the other students clustered towards him, taking up all the space to wave at him and cheer.

. "Potter! Potter!" someone started to chant, and Harry shook his head, waving at them to stop. He didn't want the credit. He didn't want any publicity this year at all if he could help it.

"It was Hermione's idea which spell to use," he shouted, to make sure he was heard by most of the tower. "And Draco Malfoy's the one who figured out how to get rid of that thing. Shout for them, if you want to."

"MALFOY!" shouted most of the boys, and Draco was subjected to a friendly buffeting by the prefects. "GRANGER!" replied the girls, and Hermione blushed at the accolade as the hurrahs began.

"Keep your minds on the spell!" Cho Chang ordered fiercely, "Lee, get them to concentrate!"

"All right you lot," Lee called obligingly. "We don't need our pet cloud for the balrog, but that forest fire doesn't look too friendly either. Come on, just a little more effort here." Most of the students chuckled, but turned their wands and eyes obediently.

Harry hovered nearer to where Ron was standing. "Check the stairs, will you, Ron? If it's safe enough, they ought to have moved so that we can all get down again."

"Good idea. I don't like the look of those lightning clouds. They've gotten closer if you ask me." Ron nodded his head, since his wand hand was busy, down toward the lawns. "The teachers are a right mess, too. You'd better get down there with some of the ones who know healing spells straight away."

"Some of the house elves are hurt too," Hermione pointed out. "They were coming out to help when the water hit."

Harry turned his head to look. Ron and Hermione were right. The wave had left half the lawns deep in slime and mud, and there were small struggling figures all over the place. Hagrid was bent over something near the Whomping Willow, and Trelawney was sitting on the wall, perfectly dry, putting away a purple parasol with a calm air. Snape, McGonagall and Hooch were with Sprout, bent over Dumbledore. As he watched, Snape took Hooch's broom and mounted it, heading back toward the forest, with McGonagall leaping into her cat form and snagging a ride on the bristles as he disappeared into the trees.

The small cloud under the children's control burst into rain, dousing the highest patch of flames. They cheered, but their cheers were met by the rattle of thunder from the approaching clouds.

"We've got to get off the roof!" several people screamed.

"Don't panic!" Lee Jordan commanded. "First years, get to the ladder. Everyone else, wait your turn."

Draco struggled his way to the outer wall. "Potter, I need my broom!"

"Potter!" Hooch called from the ground, at full Quidditch referee volume. "Get that broom down here!"

Harry shrugged an apology at Draco and turned the broom towards the ground. "Coming!" he shouted back, and then hesitated glancing beyond the tower to the storm clouds. They were definitely coming closer, and the lightning looked like something out of a very scary movie. "Draco, brooms for the Quidditch players, to get the staff and the students inside. Does Slytherin have enough?"

Draco blinked, but nodded, his shoulders straightening. "Of course."

"NOW, POTTER!" Hooch roared.

"It's up to you, then!" Harry told Draco and went to Hooch at the best speed the broom could manage. "Sorry," he told her as he dismounted and she snagged the broom for herself. "The Merpeople say that the balrog's been banished, and Malfoy's going to try to get the Quidditch players brooms enough to help everyone inside," he reported quickly, trying not to stare at the diamond mesh pattern of burns on her left hand and the left side of her face.

"That's a start at least. What on earth possessed you lot to all go out on the roof? It's going to be coming down pitchforks in a minute!"

"We helped," Harry said weakly, but he said it to her back. She was already halfway up to the tower. In a moment he could hear her taking command of the swarm of Quidditch players who'd acquired brooms.

There was plenty to do on the ground, he told himself, after a moment of feeling lost. And he still hadn't reported to Dumbledore. Harry took a deep breath and turned to face the Headmaster. Given how both Hooch and Snape had reacted, he wasn't sure if Dumbledore was going to approve of what the students had done. "But it did get rid of the balrog," Harry reminded himself quietly. Then he got a good look at Dumbledore and found something else to worry about.

For the first time since he'd known him, Harry saw Professor Dumbledore looking as old as he was. One arm was bound to his chest, and his robes had rips in them as well as mud and blood. Professor Sprout was moving him, very carefully, onto a stretcher, but he blinked and even tried to smile as Harry came over to help. "Harry..."

"The balrog's gone, sir." Harry told him, taking a careful hold to help Sprout move the old man. "The Merpeople told me it was banished, something about back to its own place and time."

"Excellent." Dumbledore said. "And the Merpeople? I intended ... bringing water ... from the lake, not ... the other way round."

"Some of them got hurt," Harry admitted, trying not to think about how frail and thin Dumbledore felt through his robes. "But I don't think any of them were hurt badly."

"None of them had trees falling on them," Sprout said briskly, tucking her cloak over Dumbledore. "Unlike certain headmasters. Don't you look so worried, Potter. He'll be fine once Madame Pomfrey sees to those broken ribs and that arm and leg."

"Reminds me ... of my Quidditch days..." Dumbledore said, with a ghost of his usual twinkle.

The Weasley twins and the two Slytherin beaters hovered suddenly nearby. "We're to carry the headmaster inside," Fred said. "Professor Sprout, Madame Hooch says can you and the others keep the lightning off the towers for ten minutes more, please. And get the house-elves in."

"Very well. Keep him level. And straight to the Great Hall. Madame Pomfrey should be waiting there." Sprout pulled Harry aside so that each beater could grab a corner of the stretcher, but she didn't stop to watch the way he did, as the four students carefully flew in formation to bring the stretcher to the main doors. Instead, she went to the wall and called to Madame Trelawney and the two women began to work some kind of complicated spell together.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^end chapter 3

Chapter 4: Storm

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Harry felt raindrops on his ears as he began to lever house elves out of the mud. He could only manage to haul one elf at a time over to the stairs, where the still mobile elves were waiting to take them. Hagrid was doing the same thing, only the big Groundskeeper was able to carry five or six of the things on his shoulders at a time. Hagrid looked battered too. His beard had a singed look to it - again with that odd diamond pattern, like he'd slammed into a red-hot chain link fence - and there was a bloodied length of cloth wrapped around one hand. Harry worked his way towards him, wanting to ask questions, but the thunder was getting louder and louder, and the rain suddenly came down like water from a thousand spigots.

He started to go inside when he saw a small hand waving from the mud. He pried up the owner and found himself being hugged fiercely. "I knew Harry Potter would find Dobby," said the overenthusiastic elf.

"Hullo, Dobby," Harry sighed. "Are you hurt?"

"Dobby's leg is hurt, Harry Potter," said Dobby, displaying an ankle that was bent in a direction that would have had Harry yelling for an ambulance. "But Madame Pomfrey can fix it."

"If we can find Madame Pomfrey," Harry said, gathering up Dobby carefully in his arms. He squinted through his rain streaked glasses, trying to figure out which way to walk. "Hang on."

"No, no," Dobby said, after a step or two. "Madame Pomfrey is that way."

Harry turned the way that Dobby pointed. Just then, the biggest lightning flash he'd ever seen in his life lit up the entire world. It was like sheet lightning in every direction. For a moment there were no shadows anywhere, and every raindrop flashed with light so bright it was blinding. On its heels came a thunder clap almost too loud to be heard.

Harry found himself down in the mud, his ears ringing. He'd managed somehow to keep himself from landing on top of Dobby, but the mud was all over both of them. He picked himself and his patient up carefully and started trying to find the castle. It was awful. He had to try avoid being close enough to anything that was being hit by lightning - and that was just about everything. Poor Dobby seemed to be badly affected by the stuff too. He stopped trying to help and just shivered in Harry's arms with his tennis ball eyes tight shut and whimpered. Harry had never seen so much lightning. It came from one direction and then another, making the shadows change direction this way and that - sort of like dozens of mis-timed strobe lights. Between the glitter of the lightning lit rain, and the constantly changing position of the shadows it took Harry forever to find a pathway, and even with a line of flagstones to follow the going was frightening.

Harry had been just about ready to give up trying to get inside and just stay in a hollow under the steps he'd finally reached when Professor Trelawney found the two of them and escorted them in under the protection of her fringed purple parasol. She was perfectly dry. Harry knew he probably looked like a drowned and muddy rat as she ushered him down the entire length of the Great Hall carrying Dobby. Fortunately, the thunder was so loud he couldn't hear what she was saying. It was embarrassing enough having to be rescued. Most of the students had been herded into the hall, and quite a few of them waved at him from the groups that the prefects seemed to be trying to collect them into.

A big chalkboard, which usually hung in the corridor and reflected school announcements and such, had been magicked to another use. It was hanging near the windows, and it looked like it had a list of every teacher, student, house elf, ghost, and pet in the entire school. His own name was written in red, but as he found it, an eraser scrubbed it off and a piece of chalk flew up from the ledge to rewrite it in the same blue as most of the names. There were several names in red, and a few in green. A lot of the names were in yellow - nearly all of the elves were, for one, and most of the faculty. Dumbledore's name was in yellow, Harry noted.

The stage end of the Hall had been transformed into an infirmary. There were rows of human sized beds, and stacks of house elf sized bunks, and most of them were filled. There was one really large bed, and Harry was surprised to see Hagrid sitting in it, looking very dazed and scorched, his hair and beard sticking out in all directions above striped pajamas. He handed Dobby to Madame Pomfrey and watched as she magicked a chair into yet another house-elf sized bunk, and then went over to see how Hagrid was. He was taken quite aback when Nearly Headless Nick suddenly appeared from half inside Hagrid's chest.

"What are you doing?" Harry exclaimed, rushing over, but the ghost - who seemed to be able to hear in spite of the thunder - smiled reassuringly at him.

"Just cooling him down, Harry," the cultured voice was clear in spite of the racket overhead. "Best thing for burns is a good chill, you know, and the poor chap took a direct hit of lightning."

"Lightning? Are you all right, Hagrid?" Harry thought better just in time of putting a hand on Hagrid's shoulder - the skin that did show was lobster red, and he didn't expect that it was any better under the pajamas. But Hagrid just blinked at him slowly, and then managed a small fleeting smile. He said something Harry couldn't hear, but Nick did, and passed it along. "He says could you look out for Fang, please."

"All right, I will." But Harry lingered, still worried.

"He'll be all right in a week or two," Nick assured him. "But you'd best get something dry on, or you'll catch cold. Especially since Peeves is acting up."

Reluctantly, and keeping an eye out for Peeves as well as Fang, Harry started back down the hall, wondering if he'd be allowed up to the dormitory to get something dry to wear. He was so busy looking under the tables for the dog, he didn't see who rammed into him with a hug from behind until after they'd already done it, and his heart almost stopped. It was just Ron, though, and Hermione right behind him. Ron jumped up and down talking even though Harry couldn't hear him. Hermione produced a pair of purple fluff balls and reached over to put them over Harry's ears.

"...need these. Sorry about the color, but I think it's the only shade that they'll turn to." Hermione was saying, and now that Harry had a moment to think, he saw that she and Ron were wearing the things too.

"What are they?" he asked, touching one. It wasn't nearly as soft as it looked. The fluff seemed to be made of hedgehog spikes.

"Hear-Muffs," Hermione said.

"Ear-muffs?" Harry tried, wondering if he'd heard her right.

"No, Hear-muffs, so you can hear. They're working aren't they? I tried to set them to block out most of the thunder, but they'll probably work best if you're looking at the person you want to hear."

"Oh," Harry said. "Where did they come from?"

"Thistles," Ron chipped in. "One of the Hufflepuffs grabbed the box of them that were in the Transfigurations classroom waiting to be turned to pincushions by the second years, and has been teaching the spell to some of the others. Hermione was the first one to get it right, weren't you Hermione?"

"There can't have been enough thistles there for everyone," Harry protested.

"There weren't, but Professor Sprout's taken some of the others off to the greenhouses to get more." Ron pulled off his cloak to wrap it around Harry. "You're sopping, Harry. Lucky you didn't get hit by lightning like Hagrid did."

"Hagrid," Harry said, reminded. "He asked me to find Fang. Have you seen him anywhere?"

"No," Hermione said, looking to the board. "But he must be here and safe. His name's in blue."

"What do you mean, his name's in blue?" Ron asked. "What does the color have to do with it?"

Hermione gave him a fondly exasperated look. "Blue's for the people who are in the hall and unhurt, yellow's for the ones who are here but hurt, and red's for the one's who haven't come in yet."

"What about purple and green, then?" Harry asked. There weren't nearly as many names in those colors.

"I'm not as sure of those," Hermione admitted. "They both include names of people who were here, but they've gone again. I think purple might mean that the person's all right, and that green means they've been hurt, but I haven't got enough examples to be sure."

"Well, if Fang's here, let's find him, so Hagrid won't have to worry," Harry said, checking under another table.

"I wonder why there isn't any orange?" Ron said, still looking at the board, while Hermione bent down to help Harry look.

Hermione pulled a face, but it was more of an "I don't think you really want to know" kind of face. Her answer was suspiciously casual. "Well, some people don't even see orange, you know. The American Navaho tribe doesn't even have a word for it in their language. They just think of it as a kind of yellow-red, I expect."

"Oh," Ron said, and bent to the search. "Here, Fang," he called, and whistled.

"He hasn't got Hear-muffs, you know," Harry pointed out.

"I know, but he's a dog, isn't he. Their hearing's different from ours," Ron said equably and went over to the next row of tables.

Harry cornered Hermione. "What do you really think about the orange?" he asked her quietly.

Hermione made sure Ron wasn't looking towards them. "Madame Pomfrey's the one who witched the board. I think maybe she witched it so that orange would mean people who are hurt badly, but she's made it so that we see it as yellow. She wouldn't want us getting more upset than we already are, but that way she can tell who needs the most help quickly." Harry looked at the board, trying to see if Dumbledore's name was any redder than the other yellow names, but he couldn't tell. Hermione followed his glance and then put a hand on his arm. "Honestly, Harry, I'm just guessing. No one's explained the colors to us. No one's had a chance to."

"Maybe, but you're better at guessing than anyone else at Hogwarts," Harry said. "And even if we don't know who got hurt the worst, there's way too many names in yellow. I don't see a single house-elf in blue, do you? And Trelawney and Madame Pomfrey are the only grown-ups in blue or purple. Even Filch and Sprout are green. And... what happened to Hooch?"

"It was that really big thunderbolt," Hermione said. "Crabbe fell off the tower and she tried to catch him just before he hit the ground. I think her arms are broken."

"He got hurt too," Harry said, finding the name. He wished that Madame Pomfrey had witched it to have everyone grouped by color or by whether or not they were a student or teacher or what, and not just in alphabetical order. There were so many names it was hard to count how many names each color represented.

"He probably would have gotten killed if she hadn't slowed him down," Hermione said. "Trelawney and Sprout were bringing the pair of them into the Hall when we first got down here."

Harry took off his glasses. It was easier to estimate when he only saw colors and not words. "Yellow and red take up nearly half the board," he said.

"Yes, but a lot of the red names are for owls or pet cats or toads and things," Hermione said. "And once we get them into the Great Hall, they may all turn out to be blues."

"Sure," Harry agreed. "But who's going to organize it? Trelawney?"

end of chapter 4