Balance

Chapter 5: Planning

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Hermione pulled a face. She didn't like Trelawney any better than Harry did. Less so, really. But before she could think of an answer, Ron reappeared, dragging a cringing Fang by his collar.

"I found him, Harry!"

"Well done, Ron," Harry said, glad of the momentary distraction. Poor Fang, he looked like the thunder was hurting his ears. "Hermione, have you got another set of those Hear-muffs?"

"No," Hermione admitted, but she pulled out her wand and a couple of Kleenex. In a minute, she'd managed to transform them into a pair of fluffy cotton earplugs. Fang wasn't sure he wanted to let her put them in his ears, but he allowed it, and then relaxed a little, leaning his big head on her thigh in drooling gratitude.

"I thought you needed thistles," Ron said.

"I do. These block out all the sound. But it's better than the thunder," Hermione said.

Harry had had a chance to think while she was working, and to look around the hall. Most of the prefects had Hear-Muffs, but a lot of the other students were still waiting, and the younger ones had put fingers in their ears. Some of the second years looked ready to cry, and some of the first years were crying. Many of the older students were almost as wet as Harry was, but none of them were as muddy. Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were mostly all mixed up together, but the Slytherins were starting to gather a little ways apart, and a lot of them were looking at the door with stiff, worried faces.

"Can you make a lot of those earplugs in a hurry, Hermione? I mean, until they get the thistles they need?"

"I could," Hermione said, "if I had any more tissues."

"Would toilet paper work?" Ron asked.

She blinked. "It might."

"Right," Ron said. "I'll take Fang up to Hagrid, and you and Harry pop down to the girls' loo and you'll be all set."

"Would you mind going by yourself?" Harry asked Hermione. "I think I'd better go talk to the prefects."

"Whatever for?" Hermione asked.

"They're just waiting for the teachers to tell them what to do, I think. They haven't figured out the colors. And they'll listen to me. It's not fair, but they will." He shrugged defensively, unsure that even Hermione and Ron would understand why he felt so sure that he could trade on the fame he didn't want to make the older students listen, and unsure himself of why he felt that he should. "I can't just... not do anything."

But Hermione nodded and smiled. "Right. Madame Pomfrey could probably use some help," she said, and twisted on her heel to head out of the hall.

"And the rest of us could use dry clothes, blankets, food...especially the food," Ron suggested. He tugged on the dog's collar. "Come on, Fang."

Harry, left on his own, took a deep breath. He knew he needed to talk to the prefects, but he had something else to do first. He was pretty sure Ron wouldn't like it, but Harry had a feeling that he needed to somehow keep the Slytherins from getting isolated from the rest of the school. Which meant getting Draco involved. "He did lend me his broom," Harry reminded himself, looking over to the shadowed corner where Draco was in huddled conference with a tall Slytherin.

He was thinking so hard about Draco, he was surprised when he suddenly heard Draco's voice across forty feet of the hall.

"...can't fly in that."

Harry blinked and lost the thread of the sound, but then he realized that the Hear-Muffs had to be responsible, so he focused again on Draco as he walked towards them.

"...probably just waiting for the lightning to stop. The Professor's too smart to take a stupid risk," the other boy was saying. Harry frowned. That sounded like Marcus Flint, didn't it? Wasn't he...

"But what if he's hurt?" Draco's whine interrupted the thought. He had to be talking about Professor Snape, Harry decided. It was just like the Slytherins to talk about their housemaster as if he were the only teacher in the school.

"McGonagall's with him, isn't she? And it's not like there could be another balrog out there. It'd be drowned in a minute." Flint shook his head at Draco. "He'd expect us to be too smart to take stupid risks too."

Draco looked frustrated, but he nodded. Then he glanced over and saw Harry coming and tensed up. "Here comes Potter," he said to Flint, his chin coming up and his expression going colder.

Harry tried not to let Malfoy's automatic snobbery get under his skin, but he waited until he was in normal conversational range before he spoke. No point in letting the Slytherins find out about how well the Hear-Muffs worked if they didn't already know.

"You're a mess, Potter," Draco said, wrinkling a disdainful nose. "What did you do, go wallowing in the mud? Getting back to your roots?"

"Not exactly." Harry said. This was going to be tricky. Talking to Draco Malfoy was always tricky if you were trying not to lose your temper. "Were you able to get your broom back from Madame Hooch, Draco?"

Draco shook his head. "No. Some fool dropped it in the mud. You didn't happen to pick it up when you were out there crawling around, did you?"

"No, sorry. If it's broken I'll buy you another one." Harry wasn't sure what prompted him to make that offer. He'd much rather buy a broom for Ron. But Draco blinked and then sneered..

"I don't need you to buy me a broom, Potter. Draco said. "Buy one for yourself. It still won't keep up with the one my father's going to buy me for Christmas."

"Lucky you," Harry said, with feeling. He'd have to forget about being nice and just get to the point. "Listen, Draco, I've got to go tell the prefects what the Merpeople said about the balrog. I'd like you to come with me. You know more about balrogs than anyone else here."

Draco blinked again, and his sneer faded as he took a moment's consideration over Harry's statement, as if he were looking for a humiliating trap. "True," he said finally. With a jerk of his head at Flint that was somehow a command to keep watching he came forward and fell into step beside Harry.

"It is dead isn't it?" Draco said when they were far enough away that Flint shouldn't have been able to hear them. Harry had the feeling that knowing about balrogs was the first thing that anyone outside Slytherin had ever found valuable about Draco, and he was willing to milk it for the attention all he could get, but not if it meant losing the other Slytherins' good opinion of him.

"Not exactly," Harry said.

"What do you mean, not exactly?" A worried note crept into the cultured tones. "Do you mean it's nearly dead, or undead?"

Harry shook his head. "The Merpeople said it was said banished back to it's own place and time."

Draco's shoulders came down the inch they'd gone up. "Well, that's all right then. So why do you need me?"

"I think we're still under attack." Now that he'd said it, Harry realized that it was true. It wasn't the same sort of attack as the balrog had been, but it was definitely going to be a siege.

"That's ridiculous, Potter. Who'd attack Hogwarts..." Draco fetched up suddenly, and Harry had a feeling he was biting back "with me still in the castle." The blond boy looked uncertainly up at the lightning spangling the enchanted ceiling. "I think you're jumping at shadows, Potter. It's just a bad storm. What's the matter, lightning setting off that scar of yours?"

"No. As a matter of fact it isn't." Which probably meant that the attack wasn't by Voldemort. Still... "But it's not natural lightning. There's too much of it, for one thing. And it feels wrong."

Draco shrugged one shoulder, half agreement, half "so what?"

"With most of the teachers hurt," Harry began, and saw Draco's face narrow and still at the thought, "we're going to have to be the ones who figure out what to do." Harry sighed, and bit his lip, trying to think it through. "Do you think there's any chance that we might have been ... dragged along with the balrog somehow?"

"Rubbish, Potter." Draco said quickly. "Balrogs live in smoke and flames. This is lightning and rain. That's water, in case you hadn't noticed."

They'd reached the table where most of the prefects were gathered. Neville Longbottom was also sitting there, waiting for more thistles to transform, but he'd obviously been watching them come and had heard some of the conversation. "Something's still wrong, though," he said, "Look at Trevor." His toad was hopping in a restless circle. Draco just looked superior, but Neville went on. "Animals can feel things we can't. And the castle's trembling. You can tell if you put your hand on the table."

^^^^^^^^^end of chapter 5, as posted^^^^

Chapter 5: More Planning

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Harry and Draco both tried it and then looked up at each other. "It is trembling," Draco said.

"But what does it mean?" Harry wondered.

"Nothing good," Neville sighed. "I wish Professor Sprout would come back."

"You're not the only one," said Hugh Hanley, a Hufflepuff prefect who had noticed the conversation. Much to Harry's relief, the other prefects were looking at him curiously as well, and he motioned for them to come and sit at the table.

"We can't just wait for the professors to tell us what to do," Harry said, once he had the attention of most of the prefects. "Most of them are hurt, except for Trelawney. And I think Madame Pomfrey needs her help."

"Thank goodness," muttered Cho Chang, from the far end of the table.

"Now, Hermione thinks that the colors on the chalkboard mean things." He summarized the theory, and everyone looked worriedly at the board.

"Professor Snape's name is in red," Draco observed unhappily.

"So's McGonagall's," Harry countered. "I think we need to gather everything and everyone we can here into the great hall. We should be getting some dry clothes and blankets and food, too. We can send out rescue parties, to find anyone else who's still missing. First things first. There are enough of us to take care of most everything at once, but we've got to keep the first and second years busy. Neville, can you take them down to the kitchen and have them make sandwiches or something for the rest of us?"

Neville blanched. "Kitchens? Sandwiches? I don't know how to make sandwiches." At Harry's stare he shrugged. "We have a house elf, Harry. If I want a snack I just ask for one."

"He's right, for once" Draco said. "That's servants' stuff, Potter."

"There aren't any servants, Malfoy," Ron said, having just arrived in time to hear the comment. "Look at the list. Every single house elf is either in yellow or red. And they're acting very strangely."

"What do you mean?" Cho Chang asked.

"Look," Ron said, pointing. They all looked. At least a dozen house elves were walking in sideways circles on the wall above the beds, bumping into each other once in a while, but quite unconcerned by the law of gravity.

"All the frightened children in here aren't going to help," Hugh said. "House elves get their magic from the auras of contented people. Unhappy people make them nervous."

"That's what they get out of the bargain," came Hermione's voice from behind Harry. She took the place beside him, stacking rolls of loo paper onto the table. "Here, these are for making earplugs until we get more thistles. The injured people don't need to listen to all that thunder anyway, and it will help the first years to relax. None of the torches in the hall are working, by the way. I expect it's the house elves who see to them, normally. Do they really get their magic from our auras?"

"Yes, of course," Hugh said.

"Talk about it later," Harry said, interrupting them before it turned into a SPEW meeting. "Ron, can you take Neville and get the first years earplugs and then take them down to the kitchens and bring back some food for us? It would keep them out from under foot if they were all busy making sandwiches."

"You should take at least one older student from each house," Cho Chang said. "That way none of them will be able to sneak off without you noticing."

"Right," Ron said, collecting some of the rolls. "Come on, Neville. Hermione showed me how to make the earplugs when she made them for Fang."

Hermione handed the rest of the toilet paper to Neville. "It's Cottonus Obfuscatus, a simple Transfiguration spell. You should be able to get one plug for each sheet, but I don't know if you should split them apart first." She watched Ron go off with Neville with his arm across the other boy's shoulder. "I hope the food will be edible," she sighed, and turned back to the party. "Don't forget to send someone to help Madame Pomfrey, Harry."

"I can organize that," Hugh Hanley said. "Some of the sixth and seventh years have been studying healing spells."

"Good. Now the search parties, for the animals, the blankets, and to go out. I think we can have ordinary groups for inside the castle, but we're going to need good flyers to go beyond the walls." Harry bit his lip. "Draco, I wanted to put you with the research party in the library, but you're too good a flyer to not be a searcher," he tried not to notice the sickening way that Draco preened at the compliment. "Take a few minutes with Hermione and tell her whatever stories you know about balrogs. Hermione, when you've heard what Draco can tell you, gather up a party of the brightest students from each house and take a party to the library. Grab the books you think are important and then bring them back here. If you wind up needing something else, take another trip, but don't get all caught up so that we think you need rescuing, all right?"

"All right," Hermione said, nodding to Draco to step aside with her. She paused after a step or two. "Harry, don't forget, none of the torches are lighting. It's only the lightning that lets us see. In rooms without windows it's dead dark."

"Thanks."

"So every party will need someone who can cast a "lumos" spell," said Adrian Threadneedle, a Slytherin prefect.

"Or torchbearers," said Rachel Young, from Ravenclaw. "That would be a good job for second years."

"We could probably get blankets from the laundry," Hugh suggested. "That would be a good job for the third years."

Harry nodded, but he felt like they were missing the point. "The thing is, I think every party should include people from every house. Even the ones going to the dorms to get the animals and dry clothes."

The storm of protests he was expecting didn't come. The prefects looked at each other, biting lips and looking thoughtful. "It makes sense," Cho Chang said after a moment. "I mean, we all got sorted into different houses because we solve problems in different ways. That might be important."

"I guess so," said Adrian. "But why should we bother? I mean, there's probably clean clothes in the laundry where the blankets are. And it doesn't make sense to risk our necks for a lot of animals."

"It doesn't make sense for Madame Pomfrey to list all the animals on that board," Harry pointed out, "but she did it."

"And if we've got organized parties going after them, it will keep the little kids from sneaking off to get them," Hugh said.

"That's a point," Adrian nodded. "I'll put together a party to go to the Owlery, then. I know a way we can get there by secret passages, and if we can convince the owls to fly back that way, then they don't have go outside into the lightning."

Harry nodded, and forebore to remind Threadneedle to take people from every house. It was kind of scary, how quickly the prefects had agreed with him on that, which only made him feel like it was all the more important. And come to think of it, they hadn't argued much about getting the animals, either. Adrian did have a pretty magnificent barn owl, but it was almost as if his objections had been made because he thought someone ought to make them. Did all of them have the same feeling of standing on a floor that kept tilting that he did? He let the prefects sort out which seventh years to assign to the parties going to different areas of the castle while he closed his eyes and tried to sort out the strange feelings that were nudging into the peripheries of his senses. It didn't work very well. The closest he could come to it was the feeling that you had after you'd spun on your broom too many times dodging bludgers. Up and down were pretty obvious, but they kept trying to switch off inside your ears. He gave up and looked up to Madame Pomfrey's domain, wondering if Dumbledore were awake enough to ask about the feeling - and whether Pomfrey would let him ask.

Madame Pomfrey was just placing a bundled up Professor Flitwick into the bed alongside of Dumbledore, having magically enlarged it. Trelawney floated the blankets down over both of them and asked, "Will that help, do you think?"

Harry realized that the Hear-Muffs were doing their trick again, and put all his concentration into listening to the two women.

"You're the prognosticator, Sybil," Madame Pomfrey said. "And yes, I think it might help a little, but it would work better if you went and fetched Sprout back from wherever it is she's gotten."

"It doesn't work that way, you know."

Madame Pomfrey sighed, and smoothed the sheet a little over Dumbledore. "No, it doesn't. Not perfectly. But until Severus and Minerva find their way back all I can hope to do is to keep him from slipping farther away."

"All right then." Trelawney pulled out her parasol and started down the length of the hall.

Harry blinked and tried to catch his breath. That had sounded an awful lot like Dumbledore was dying. He slapped a hand on the table and got the attention of the prefects. "We need to find Snape and McGonagall. Quickly."

"But didn't they go into the Forest?" Rachel asked.

"I'm not sure that anyone should go out into the lightning," Cho said reluctantly, "At least, not until we've checked all the places in the castle first. I don't like the idea of getting a rescue party injured looking for people who aren't even there."

Harry looked up at the enchanted ceiling, meaning to see how much lightning there still was, since the flickering of the flambeaus and the flickering of the lightning were hard to distinguish between when you couldn't hear the thunder. It was easing off a bit. But there was still a lot of it. "I think it might be getting a little better," he said, trying to be optimistic. "And I'm not sure how much longer we can wait."

"Only a little," Cho said. Most of the prefects were looking up now. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to the far end of the hall.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "It looks... like... a tornado?"

"Oh, great. Who's going to fly in a tornado?"

"It's not a tornado," said Hugh decisively. "It looks more like... like that little whirlpool you get when you're draining out the bath."

"What do you suppose is draining away, then?" Adrian asked. "The clouds? The storm?"

"What if it's the air?" Rachel asked, nervously.

Harry watched the small swirl. Wherever it moved, the ceiling seemed to be going to stone, and it gave him an unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach. "What if it's the magic?"

^^^^^^^^^end of chapter 6