Balance

Chapter 13: Cliffhanger

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Lowering Draco with the rope proved to be more complicated than it sounded. There was only one length of rope in the pack, for one thing, and they had to work out a way of tying Draco to one end that wouldn't go too loose when he was smaller or too tight when he grew. It was Draco who suggested two loops, that he could put his legs through. "We can do the same thing with the other end of the rope for Professor Snape."

"That's an idea." Harry agreed. "It doesn't leave a lot of rope for pulling you back up with, though."

"Maybe not, but once I've got the rope around the Professor, you can tie it to something, and then McGonagall can help you pull me up and we'll all three pull him up."

"Loop the rope around a tree," Professor McGonagall suggested. "That will make it easier to control than if you've just hung it down straight."

"Which tree?" Harry wondered, seeing the sense of the suggestion.

"The hawthorn on the other side of the oak," McGonagall said. "That would be the most appropriate."

Harry couldn't even tell how she knew it was there from where she was lying, but she was right, there was a hawthorn, not five inches from the edge, and about four feet from the oak tree. He worked his way carefully under the lowest thorny branch and threaded the rope around the trunk once and once more, completely encircling it. Then he tested the rope, working it back and forth to make sure that it wouldn't catch on the bark, before backing back out to Draco.

"This end's ready," Draco had the loops set. "Give me that end."

"Here." Harry paced the clearing, testing possible places to brace his feet or tie off the rope while he waited for Draco to get the ends ready. A couple of the things he thought were roots came free of the mud at the first tug, but he found a few sturdier possibilities. At least it wasn't raining very much anymore. Maybe it couldn't rain, so close to the barrier. Harry looked up, wishing he could figure out whether or not it was worth wasting a firework to signal for more help. He just couldn't tell. By the way the tree branches were cut off, it might only go up and be destroyed, and he only had two of them left.

"Severus, you're very quiet," McGonagall said, and Harry looked back to where she was holding on.

"Just..." Snape's voice was hoarse, and he coughed to clear his throat. "Just resting, Minerva," he said tiredly. "I haven't bled to death yet."

Harry and Draco looked at each other. There wasn't going to be time to wait for help to get here anyway, Harry decided, as Draco held up the other end of the rope, ready to go. "Just hang on, sir," Harry called to Snape. "And keep your eyes closed in case Malfoy knocks anything loose on the way down."

Draco stepped into the first harness, one leg in each loop, and held the rope with his injured arm as he made his careful way over McGonagall's head. "When I get a good place to hold on," he told Harry, "you tie off the rope, and then let down the other end so I can get Professor Snape hooked into it. Then you make his rope fast. Right?"

"I've got it," Harry said testily, and then regretted it when he saw how pale Draco had gone, now that it was time to make the climb down. He twisted his arm into the rope for a better grip, and nodded in a way that he hoped was reassuring as he braced his feet. "Good luck, Draco."

He realized his mistake the moment that Draco had to really put his weight on the rope. Harry just couldn't depend on his arm strength staying consistent while he tried to support Draco - and the rope burned in his hands as he tried to hold it. "Wait!"

"Ouch!" Draco shouted from where he'd disappeared over the edge. "Don't drop me, Potter!"

"Sorry!" Harry called. "Can you hang on for a minute?"

"I'm not low enough yet," Draco protested.

"Just for a minute. I need to get a better grip."

"Hurry up then. It's all thorns down here."

"That's holly, Lucius," Snape said, his voice younger again. "Honestly, don't you ever pay attention in Herbology?"

Harry made a hasty overhand knot in the rope, leaving the bight big enough to slip over his head and down around his chest, so that he was bracing his entire weight on the line across his back. "I'm ready now. How much more rope do you need?"

"About three feet. I think I can brace myself there." Draco called.

"All right. I'm going to have to do it pretty carefully," Harry grunted. "Try not to let go with both hands." Carefully, moving inch by inch along the footholds among the roots, Harry worked his way toward hawthorn tree, watching as the rope came back round the oak and over the elbow of one of the roots over McGonagall before vanishing down into the darkness. He could hear Draco talking to Snape.

"Of course I pay attention in Herbology, but it's easier when there's a little light. How did you get so tangled up in it?"

"I'm not sure. It sort of tangled itself. Have you come to get me out of here?"

"Yes," Draco said. "There." The rope stopped pulling on Harry. "All right, Potter! Make sure you tie it tight."

"Potter's up there? What if he's got Black and Lupin with him?" Snape's voice cracked.

"It's all right," Draco told him as Harry worked a knot around a tree root to support Draco and began to coil up the rest of the rope to take with him as he got into position to pass it down. "McGonagall's up there. I mean, Professor McGonagall. Sir. Come on... please, remember. You're the Potions Master, now."

"It's all right, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said, as Harry carefully stepped over her once more. "There seems to be a memory barrier whenever he drops to the ages around the time of school leaving, but it doesn't seem to be permanent."

"Potions Master?" Snape echoed, his voice dropping half an octave. "As if I'd ever be a teacher at this school. Imagine having to look at old McGonagall's hatchet face in the faculty lounge every morning."

"Severus!" McGonagall exclaimed indignantly.

Harry had to get a better grip to keep himself from slipping and stepping on her, and he swallowed a laugh. He reached the edge of the tree and looked down to the two Slytherins, who, safely out of McGonagall's range of vision, were grinning at each other. Snape looked to be about seventeen or so, and going upwards, Draco slipping down towards eleven again. "Hey, Draco. Ready for the rope?"

"I think so," Draco said, shifting his grip on the root he was holding onto, so that he'd hooked his elbow through with one arm, and could get both hands a little freer.

They both composed their faces quickly, and Snape frowned upwards at Harry. "Potter?" he asked, and then, as he passed some invisible boundary in time, repeated, "Potter," more certainly before calling, "Minerva?"

"I'm still here, Severus," McGonagall said tartly. "Hatchet face and all."

"What are you on about?" Snape asked wonderingly. Harry ignored them both and threaded the rope downwards to Draco while McGonagall relieved her feelings by reciting a rather thorough description of the past few minutes' conversation.

"You'll have to forgive me, Minerva," Snape said dryly as Draco worked one of the loops around his left boot. "As an insult it really wasn't up to my usual standard." He made a pained noise then, and used a word that Harry only vaguely knew the meaning of. "Careful, Mr. Malfoy," he told Draco, "that leg's not exactly unhurt, you know."

"I can tell," Draco said. "Let me get the other foot through this loop, and then we'll see about padding it a little." He looked up at Harry. "I'm not sure we're going to be able to just pull him up," he said. "He's all tangled into things; you might need me to work him loose as you pull."

"I'm not sure..." Harry started.

"You and McGonagall together," Draco said, cutting him off. "I'll tell you when he's gone youngest again, and you can pull him up when he's at his lightest point. I'll climb up along behind and help him. As long as the rope's tied, it's not like I can fall any farther, right?"

"I don't think so," Harry said. He didn't like the plan much, but he couldn't think of a better one. "All right. I'll go back and get the rope tied off so that Professor McGonagall can let go of the cloak, then."

"Right." Draco concentrated on getting Snape into the rest of the harness.

Harry made sure that the rope would go over another root, and not hit McGonagall as he measured it out to the farthest tying off place he could reach. He turned to check the tautness and the rope looked sturdy enough. When he called for Draco to check, the other boy said that the rope seemed to be holding Snape all right. Harry went over to McGonagall. "You can let go now, Ma'am."

"Do you know," she said carefully, "I don't think I can, actually."

Oh. Harry knelt and looked at her hands, clenched tightly around the gathered cloth. They looked cold - nearly blue, where they weren't white with effort. "Uhm... this might hurt," he said, and carefully began working the cloth out of her grip. Her hands were cold, terribly cold, and he tried blowing warmth at them as he worked, and letting his own hands warm them now and then, to loosen up the crabbed shapes from the wool.

Over the edge of the world he heard Draco saying, "Do you see colors in it?" quietly.

"It doesn't do to look long at the abyss, Mr. Malfoy," Snape replied. "You soon get a surfeit of it."

At last Harry got McGonagall's hands free of the cloth and she pulled them into her chest as she curled onto her side, biting her lip to keep from making a noise about the returning circulation. Her age slid younger than Harry had seen it go all this time, down into her forties or even thirties. She looked very different and much the same in the shadows below the lantern; soft-faced and vulnerable with eyes that spoke of steel, and he hastily made himself busy with disentangling the ivy that had caught at her legs. "There," he said, and caught her elbow to help her upright. "There, how do you feel?"

"Not entirely well, Mr. Potter," she answered. "But I think... I think we should get the other two up here, quickly."

"Yes." Harry helped her take her place in the bight, so she could use her weight to pull with and not her tormented hands. He dug through the pack for some cloth to use on his hands as makeshift gloves.

"We're almost ready, Draco," he called. "Tell us when."

"Now, sir," Draco responded, speaking to Snape. "See if you can remember. What did the Sorting Hat sing the year you first came to Hogwarts?"

And I'll concentrate on being as old as I can, Harry thought to himself, trying to think his muscles as big as they'd go. He wasn't expecting a lot of help from McGonagall, really - not in the shape she was - and as the voice of Snape trying to recite the song grew younger he dug in his heels and started to pull.

An inch, two inches, six, eight... He had to find another place to brace his right foot, and then all of a sudden he felt McGonagall's help kick in and was astonished at the strength of the steady pull. A small pale face appeared over the tangle of roots and then the oversized coat of chain mail along with it. Harry kept pulling, since Snape kept coming, not stopping until he'd gotten the boy onto the muddy leaves and he could see Draco climbing up behind him.

As soon as the rope stopped pulling at him, Snape twisted up onto his knees and stared wearily at Harry, and beyond to McGonagall. He was already beginning to age upwards, his face filling in and changing, although his hair always seemed to be the same. As Harry watched the boy became the man, lengthening and starting to fill out. Lines started to appear gradually on his face, and then suddenly he pulled his left arm to his chest as every line that Harry knew filled in the outlines, as if he'd aged twenty years in a single night, once not so long ago.

Snape blinked once, looking nearly as startled as Harry felt. He was looking past Harry, and Harry turned to follow the gaze.

There was...someone...or the shape of someone... just blending into the shadows of the forest where the rope had been pulled, well behind the place where McGonagall still stood looking confused in the circle of the loop of rope where Harry'd put her.

"Remus?" Snape asked. And then fainted.

^^^^^^^^^end of chapter 13

Chapter 14: First Aid

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"Professor!"

"Severus!"

When Snape fell face forward into the mud, McGonagall leaped forward to check on him. Harry left her to it, and quickly switched his place on the rope so that he could pull Draco the last of the way up onto solid ground. Draco looked as worried as Harry felt. He extracted himself quickly from the rope harness as Harry collected the pack and went over to him.

"Did you see anyone?" Harry asked him, checking over his own shoulder for more shapes in the shadows.

"I was watching the Professor," Draco admitted, rubbing at his sore arm nervously. "And then when he said that about Lupin I looked over and I thought I might have seen... someone... or something... but..." he bit his lip. "Who would help and then go away? Do you think it was Professor Lupin?"

"Or another werewolf," Harry guessed. "I didn't get a good look either." He had a horrible feeling of being watched, and he didn't much like it. He handed the pack to Draco. "Here. There's some first aid stuff in this. You help the teachers, and I'll get the lantern."

"Do you want to use the rope?" Draco said, taking the pack and holding up the rope he'd just gotten free of. "I don't want to have to go over the side again if you slip."

"Thanks," Harry said, emphatically. He meant to be very careful indeed, but he was grateful to have the rope to hang onto for extra security. The roots were slippery, and the wind was starting to pick up.

By the time he got the lantern down, Draco and McGonagall had managed to get Snape off of the tree roots, using his battered cloak to drag him over to a slightly softer patch of mud, with his head in McGonagall's lap. She had wrapped a corner of her own cloak around one stiff hand and was awkwardly cleaning the mud off the unconscious man's face. As Harry tried to find a good place to put the light so that they could see what they were doing, he heard her say softly, "Oh, Severus, trust you to be difficult and obstructive!"

The light showed up Snape's bruises. It also showed the black chain mail coat that Snape was wearing. It was shaped much like the coat he usually wore under his cloak, except for that it didn't have the buttons down the front, only a slit partway up from the bottom, front and back, as if he were going to have to sit a horse or a broom. It came down to his knees, like a frock coat, the fine meshed rings of metal glinting silver where they'd been knocked clean of patina by a blow. Harry thought it a pity that the armor didn't extend farther down. If Snape had been wearing armor trousers too, he might not have been as badly hurt.

Draco was carefully cutting open one of Snape's trouser legs with a folding knife and look of determined disgust. The black wool didn't show the blood well, but Draco's pale hands did, and when he finally managed to get the seam split up to Snape's knee, the light showed up a cut along his calf that was deep enough to make both boys have to turn away for a moment.

"Euwwch." It wasn't right, being able to see the inside of someone's leg like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. Harry was glad he hadn't had a chance to eat anything, and poor Draco looked absolutely green. "Professor McGonagall, how do we deal with that?"

She checked the damage, worried, but not unsurprised. "Wrap it well until we can get far enough away from here to use magic reliably," she said. "The pressure should slow down the bleeding."

"I'm surprised he's got anything left to bleed with," Draco said, starting to reach for the pack, and then hesitating at the sight of his own gory hands. "Hand me something clean to put against the cut, will you, Potter? I don't want to make a mess of things."

"Okay." Harry wiped his own hands as clean as he could on the inside of his cloak, and dug into the pack, finding the small roll of gauze and bandages near the bottom. It didn't look to him as if it would be enough to pad the wound and wrap it, but there wasn't any more.

Draco scowled when he heard the news. "We'll need to wrap the leg, to keep the clean stuff against the wound. Not that I know how we'll manage that with him changing size all the time. Isn't there anything else in there? Cloth we can cut into strips? Anything?"

"Nothing," Harry told him.

"Look again!" Draco ordered angrily, his voice going higher.

"I did. I'm not hiding anything, Malfoy!" Harry said, stung by the implied criticism.

"Stupid Gryffindors!" Draco said, trying to make the pad of clean stuff stretch over the length of the wound. "If I make an emergency kit, it's going to have enough bandages in it for a proper emergency!"

"That's enough, you!" said a very young girl's voice, sharply. Both boys' heads swung up, startled, to find McGonagall glaring at them with frightened eyes - she looked like a child dressed in her mother's armor, and not any older than nine. She bit her lip a little uncertainly, but then took a breath and went on, a little unsteadily, "Insults aren't going to get us out of here - wherever it is. Gryffindors aren't stupid. Being brave doesn't mean you have to be impractical," she told Draco. "And being practical doesn't mean you aren't brave," she told Harry.

"You can make bandages out of your cloaks or scarves, or cut off his other trouser leg, all the way round at the knee to make a tube, and then pull it up over the hurt leg to hold the rest where it is," She went on determinedly. "Just pin it, or tie it, to keep it in place." It was hard not to keep staring at her, for as she spoke, she aged upwards, blossoming from a gawky, plain adolescence into a kind of brilliant beauty that made the regal bone structure of her face into something out of a fairytale. "It might be even simpler just to cut off the toe of a stocking, and use that," she decided. And then she blinked, and shook her head, still young enough to be intimidating and beautiful, but too old for school, and said. "What an odd sensation!"

"Are you all right, Professor?" Harry asked, carefully not looking at her as he started tearing from the lining of his own cloak. That sounded a lot more practical than cutting off a trouser leg or getting a sock. Dryer, anyway. Draco was still holding the bandages in place on Snape's wound and goggling at McGonagall, looking very uncomfortable.

"I went younger than eighteen, didn't I?" she said, still licking her lips as if she'd tasted something odd. "How young?"

"Uhm.." Draco's voice cracked, and he blushed as he tried again. "I think nine. Or maybe ten.

"Too young for a first year, anyway," Harry agreed. He held up the cloth he'd collected to distract Draco. "Here. Let's try wrapping his leg with this."

"Right," Draco said, becoming quickly more helpful.

Professor McGonagall was lost in thought. "I don't think Severus ever went younger than eleven," she said. "So if the limitation hasn't something to do with being a first year student..." she frowned, thinking.

Harry and Draco worked together, glancing over now and then. It took a much longer time for McGonagall to reach her proper age than it had for Snape to do it, and the flow of lines and wrinkles and gray hair never seemed to change her completely the way they had with him. But now, both boys could see that her beauty was a constant- it changed in quality, but it never vanished. Harry wondered that he had ever thought of her as being anything but beautiful before this. Draco seemed to be affected the same way. As they pulled Snape's trouser leg down and tucked into his stocking to keep the crude bandaging as secure as they could manage, he whispered to Harry, "Do you suppose any of the girls in our year are going to change like that?"

It didn't surprise Harry that Draco could be thinking about girls; anything was better to think about than the feel and smell of the blood that they couldn't avoid getting on their hands as they'd bandaged Snape. "I hate to break it to you, Draco," he said, "but I think some of them have already started."

"I meant now... when we get back to the castle," Draco said, wiping his hands on some leaves and getting stiffly to his feet.

Harry looked around at the wind-rattled trees at the edge of the light, and the black swirling of what Snape had called the abyss. The not-colors made his eyes and stomach hurt. "I don't think so," he said, suddenly wanting very much to be back safely in the Great Hall. "But I think we'd better get a start on trying to find out." He went over to the muddy broom, still lying where he had left it and reached out his hand with a sense of misgiving. "Up," he coaxed. To his surprise, the broom floated up to his hand - not with the eagerness that a broom usually did, but at least it still seemed to work.

They had to rouse Professor Snape in order to get him upright enough to sit on the broom. The Potions professor had shifted age only a little while he was unconscious, but the moment his eyes opened he slid suddenly toward childhood again, and they were left with a small white-faced boy, biting his lip to keep himself from whimpering with pain. Draco swore and hastily checked the wrappings on the injured leg.

"It's all right, Mr. Snape," Professor McGonagall said. "We've got to get you onto this broom, so we can fly you back to the hospital wing. Do you think you can balance?"

"Yes, Professor," Snape said shakily, looking from Draco to Harry with confusion in his eyes. "If I have to."

"Double up," Harry said gruffly. "You ride with him, Draco."

"I don't think the broom will hold two," Draco said. "Not 'til we're closer to the school anyway." He shifted to get a good grip on Snape while the teacher was so much smaller. "Potter, hold the broom steady while I get him on."

"Right." Harry held it carefully at a height of three feet, while Draco lifted the injured boy into position, grimacing at the strain it put on his bad arm

"Do you want me to do that?" Harry asked, when Draco stumbled. "That armor's got to be heavy."

Snape tightened his hold a little on Draco's neck, and the blond boy shook his head. "It's not as heavy as it looks," he said. "Just ... I'll hold still, and you move the broom here, okay?"

"I suppose you think this is funny, Potter," Snape growled, glaring at Harry suspiciously, as he maneuvered the broom into place. "It's probably all your fault."

"Not this time," Harry said, trying to be patient, since Snape obviously didn't remember things when he was too young. It was kind of funny, really, being told off by a soprano Snape, but Harry was too worried to enjoy it just now. "Come on," he said persuasively, "let go of Draco. I'm not going to let the broom drop you."

"You'd best not," Snape said.

"It's all right," Draco said, shaking his arms out before giving Snape a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Nobody's going to do anything rash when we've got a Professor watching, right?"

"Certainly not," McGonagall said. She was still sitting on the ground, and Harry left the broom and Snape to Draco to go over and help her. "I trust you have a plan, Mr. Malfoy?"

"We'll just keep the broom about this high and walk alongside it. I can take care of Professor Snape and Potter can help you over the rough bits. It might take a while, but once we're closer to the castle maybe we can use magic again."

"Professor Snape?" Snape asked looking around. "Is Uncle Silas here?"

"We'll explain later," McGonagall said, hooking her arm through the straps of the pack to lift it up to Harry as he helped her to her feet. "Fetch his cloak, Mr. Potter. It's wet, but it's probably warmer than that mail."

Harry settled the pack onto his back and then bent to get the length of wool that had saved Snape's life and disentangle it from the bits of ivy and holly that clung to it. Behind him he heard Draco say, "Professor, if there was no magic over the edge of the... edge, then why didn't Professor Snape's chain mail turn back into his regular clothes?"

"You should be able to work out the answer to that, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said, dryly. "Mr. Snape, please tell me about the antidotes to..."

"Excuse me, Professor," Malfoy interrupted politely, "but I think he'll be easier to keep on the broom if he's younger."

"True. Very well, then, Mr. Snape, please explain the process by which you Transfigure a matchstick into a needle."

Snape sighed as Harry wrapped the cloak around him. "Yes, Professor," he said, and then started to describe the process she'd asked for as Harry retrieved the lantern so that they could all start up the hill.

The rain, which had been very light down in the hollow, got heavier when they got farther away from the edge, and the ground was covered in debris along the path of the balrog's advance, so they couldn't go very fast. They had to rely on the lantern, because the lightning had diminished to a flash every few minutes, and Harry had a lot of trouble keeping the sputtering lantern from going out completely, since one side of it was open to the wind. He had to use his other hand to support McGonagall, since she couldn't hold onto him very well. He had to put the lantern down entirely, once or twice, to help her over rough bits, and very nearly carried her entirely across the streambed. Fortunately, her armor didn't have a proper weight either. Harry shook the rain out of his hair and wiped his glasses before getting the lantern and helping McGonagall catch up to Draco and Snape. He wondered what the armor was made of. Magic aluminum, perhaps?

Draco wasn't having an easy time of it either. In spite of everything, Snape began to put on some inches and his voice went deeper. They had to stop and wait for him to orient himself once he passed the odd "leaving school" place in his growth, and then Draco had to adjust the bandage again because it was too tight. Snape almost fainted, and when Harry hastily tried to help Draco keep Snape from falling off the broom he dropped the lantern and it broke.

"Blast it, Potter, I'm all right!" Snape protested, as he tried to regain his balance. "Get the light."

"I will in a minute," Harry said, waiting for Snape to get his balance on the broom before he let go of the injured man. He pulled out his wand, hoping they'd walked far enough. "Lumos!"

The wand flashed bright, much brighter than Harry had expected it to, but only for a second before it went dark again. Harry blinked, seeing purple spots from the glare.

"Hey!" Draco said. "Warn us next time, Potter."

"I don't think wand magic will be reliable just yet, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said.

"A potion might," Snape said, fumbling along the nearly empty pockets of the bandolier he still wore. "Here." He handed a phial to Harry. "Try that on something you don't mind catching fire."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry felt around for a stick, and then poured a few drops of the potion onto one end. The stick burst into flames, despite how soggy it had been to begin with, and Harry used it to find a bigger stick for a better torch.

In the renewed light, Harry saw that Draco was looking off towards the castle. "What is it?" he asked.

"I thought I saw some lights, before you lit that," Draco said. "Will o' the wisps, probably."

"Listen," Harry suggested, looking the way that Draco had pointed, and immediately he heard voices.

"Careful!"

"There's another patch of it."

"Look out then."

"We should be getting close."

"What are you listening to, Mr. Malfoy?" Professor McGonagall asked. "And how?"

"It's the Hear-Muffs," Harry said. "If you concentrate, you can hear people from a long way off."

"And we're hearing people," Draco said happily. "It's a rescue party, I bet. Let them know where we are, Potter."

Harry gave the torch to Draco and dug into the pack for the last of the fireworks. It skittered upwards brightly, bursting green and red well above the trees. Then he took the torch back again, waving it back and forth.

It wasn't a minute before he saw half a dozen riders on brooms coming up the burn. They were cloaked and hooded against the rain, but several of them carried lanterns, and they flew like experts. Another minute and they were swarming around the tired foursome, touching down lightly.

"Sorry we took so long," said the first to arrive cheerfully, pushing his hood back off of his face.

It was Cedric Diggory.

^^^^^^^^^End of chapter 14

Chapter 15: Unexpected Help

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Cedric, seemingly unaware that he was the cause of the weary quartet's silence, went on speaking as the rest of the rescue party landed in a semicircle behind him. "Fritz said you'd be using foxfire for markers, but I don't think he figured on how dim foxfire is on a rainy night. Good thing you sent up that firework or we'd never have found you."

"Not before time, Mr. Diggory," Snape rasped. Like Harry and McGonagall, he'd shot up to his full age, but he, at least, was still able to speak directly to the Hufflepuff Seeker. Snape was pale as parchment, but his expression was as fierce as ever, and he straightened defiantly on the broom.

Harry just stared at the apparition before him and stumbled backwards into McGonagall, feeling like he'd been hit in the belly with a bludger. McGonagall wrapped an arm around him, and he could feel her trembling behind him as she too stared at the revenant Hufflepuff. "Easy, Mr. Potter," she said in his ear. "We've been knocked free of our proper time, remember? Diggory is just... from earlier." Her voice shook, low as it was. Harry reached up to cover her arm with his free hand, grateful to her for trying to make sense out of what could never be right.

Draco was chalk white, years falling off him steadily. He started to back away down the slippery hillside, despite Snape's grip on his shoulder, and the injured Professor swayed, trying to stay balanced as he was dragged along. Cedric stepped forward, probably intending to help, and Draco squeaked and fled, taking Snape and the broom along with him. Harry swore. If it weren't for McGonagall he might have wanted to run from Cedric himself, but Draco had just panicked. He wasn't paying attention to Snape, and Snape was still hanging on to his student's cloak, shouting in a harrowed, gruff voice, "Mr. Malfoy, the castle is that way..." as he began to tip sideways... Boy and teacher crashed to the ground as the broom slipped free and sped off into the darkness.

"Accio broom!" Cedric cried quickly, pulling out his wand. Harry thought he saw the broom falter and fall, but it didn't return.

Harry started toward the two who had fallen, bringing the torch for light toward the fallen pair. McGonagall still held onto him, so he had to go more slowly than Draco had over the wet, debris-strewn ground. Behind him, Harry could hear some of the other students making comments in alarmed soprano voices. When he checked over his shoulder, Cedric was coming along behind him with a lantern, but the rest were hanging back, their cloaks puddling around their feet and their eyes huge in young faces.

McGonagall slipped, and Harry dropped the torch as he kept her from falling. It didn't quite go out, in spite of the sogginess of the ground. Once Harry was sure that McGonagall's footing was firm again, he bent to retrieve it, and the flame quickly circled the wood again, doubling the light as Cedric caught up with the lantern. They still had twenty yards to go to catch up to Draco and Snape.

Then things happened very fast. Snape pushed himself upright and then made a strange, high, cut-off noise when Draco, trying to disentangle himself, accidentally kicked the bandaged leg.

A shadowy figure dropped from a low limb and loomed over Snape and Draco. Harry took a tighter grip on the torch, visions of werewolves in his head. Snape twisted around, fumbling for his wand and glaring at the figure as he tried to push Draco behind him.

Harry advanced with Cedric, waving the torch in hopes of scaring off the new arrival. The flickering torchlight turned the strange hump of the silhouette into a battered black cloak, and then the figure threw back its hood back with a snap of its head.

Snape's wand wavered, just a little, before he tucked it away. "Lupin," he growled. "I warned you once about dropping out of trees behind me."

It was Professor Lupin, looking exhausted and soaked. "Sorry," he said, crouching down and showing both hands empty. "Pax."

Snape stared at him, and then took the hand, as if to pull himself upright. Lupin tugged him upwards, putting Snape's arm over his own shoulders so Snape could hang on as he gathered him up and lifted. Snape looked startled, but submitted, and his other hand pulled Draco upright by the cloak as Lupin straightened.

Lupin looked from Harry to Cedric. "Here," Lupin said, trying to hold out his burden to Cedric, still the taller of the two. "You'd best get him back to the castle."

McGonagall had come up behind more slowly. She nudged Harry's shoulder. "Take Malfoy," she told him. "Remus can manage to carry Severus." Harry did as he was bid, trying not to shy away from Cedric too obviously, since the older boy plainly had no clue of what it was about himself that was so unnerving.

Snape tightened his grip determinedly on his sometime colleague. "You'd best come too," he commanded.

"I can't go with you," Lupin shook his head, clearly unhappy. "It's not safe. I can't tell if the moon... I can't even feel the moon. It's not safe."

"There is no moon," Snape told him, "Some of the usual constants are absent here," He glanced down at his left arm, and then scowled when he noticed the boys were watching him.

Lupin turned to McGonagall then, still shaking his head in denial. "I keep... blacking out. Forgetting things," he said, as if it were an explanation.

"You keep dropping and rising in age," Snape told him sharply. "It's happening to all of us. Look at Malfoy and Potter."

Harry'd gotten a grip on Draco's arm by now, and he knew what Snape meant. He was as old as he'd ever been in his life, but Draco still looked like he'd gotten fresh off his first trip on the Hogwarts express. "It's alright, Professor Lupin," Harry said, trying to be reassuring. "You just can't remember what happens when you get too young, I think. Professor Snape can't."

"Nor I," added McGonagall. "Come with us, Remus. We won't leave you out here alone."

"Go along with Potter, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said, still looking down at Draco, who had gotten a grip of his Housemaster's cloak. "There's nothing here to worry you."

"Yes, sir." Draco said, letting go reluctantly.

"Good," Snape said. "I'd like to get back to the castle before I bleed to death, then," he said, and closed his eyes.

"Stretcher," Diggory commanded and the other students who'd come with him began to unfurl the stretchers they were carrying.

While Lupin and Diggory got Snape settled onto one of the stretchers, and McGonagall too, Harry checked Draco for damage from his fall. "It's all right," he told him, wondering if Draco were going to go even younger than eleven. "You're not afraid of ghosts."

"Of course not," Draco sneered automatically, still staring at Cedric. He bit his lip, and looked at Harry. "But he's not a ghost, is he? He's not supposed to be here - and I can't remember why."

"I can," Harry said grimly. He hadn't been able to until Cedric came, though, and that was almost worse. When had everything outside of Hogwarts gotten so hard to concentrate on? Maybe that's why Draco had gone so young, so that he couldn't remember. "Can you remember the balrog?"

Draco nodded. "Sort of," he said. "But... it's starting to feel like a story. Like it happened to someone else."

"What's the first thing you do remember clearly, then?"

Draco scowled. "Wanting someone older to take over with the Quidditch team, so that they'd pay attention."

"Flint!" Harry exclaimed, remembering that first conversation with Draco in the Great Hall quite well. "That's why it felt wrong. He's already left school!"

Draco grew three inches. "Do you mean people can show up, even if they're not supposed to be at Hogwarts? People from the past?"

"I think so," Harry said, a little frightened by the idea, now that it had been put into words.

"Dead people?" Draco said, although it wasn't really a question.

"They wouldn't be dead yet, would they?" Harry said. "Not if they're coming from the past."

"I guess not." Draco straightened up. "At least he doesn't think he's dead. And there are bound to be Living people too, if Flint wasn't meant to be here. That's not so bad." He turned to look up towards Snape and muttered, "Just as long as we don't run into Father."

"Here, Harry, you'll need this," someone said, putting a broom into Harry's hand. He jumped, and was astonished to discover that it was Cho Chang, and was astonished again because he hadn't noticed her when the rescue party had arrived. There's too much to think about, he realized. Snape and McGonagall at the edge of the world, Diggory here, and maybe other people... He was grateful for the chance to mount the broom, Draco behind him and just fly for a while.

They got above the trees, where they could see the flaming outline of Gryffindor tower and fly straight, taking turns switching off with the stretchers, since no one quite trusted the spell that was meant to make the stretchers float in the increasingly strong wind. The size of the rescue party seemed to change too, although there were never fewer than four flyers with each stretcher. Draco and Harry ended up staying with Snape's stretcher, since Draco could do the lifting while Harry flew the broom. Lupin had somehow gotten a broom of his own, and he stayed with McGonagall.

It took concentrating to just fly; to not look as leaves and even branches got pulled off the trees and splattered above them into black nonexistence against an undefined barrier in the sky. Harry had to keep steering to the left just to go in a straight line, and he was grateful to the Weasley twins for lighting the windows of the tower as well as the beacon on the roof, because it meant he didn't have to keep his head as high. Without conference, the rescue party dropped to just above the grass as soon as they were clear of the trees. It reminded Harry of flying through the fog before; the light didn't illuminate much more of an area than he'd been able too see in the mist. Except then he'd been on a much better broom. He could feel odd skips, each one longer than the one before. He checked on the flyer in front of him and realized that she was having trouble too.

Harry's feet brushed the grass moments after they'd passed over the main gate. "We have to stop!" he called. "Stop, everyone!" Two of the others had reached the same conclusion, and called out too, and the party quickly landed. Cho tried getting her broom to fly again, but it was no use.

Draco drew his wand and tried a Levitation charm on Snape's stretcher. It didn't work. "I'm getting very tired of magic not working!" he growled.

"Muscles still work," Harry said, not much looking forward to carrying two teachers up all those steps. Maybe they could talk them into being children again.

"Mine are tired, thank you," Draco said, rubbing at his arm.

"But they work," said Lupin. His age was slipping downwards, but he was still older than anyone else in the group - anyone standing, anyway. "Alternate young and old, half to each stretcher. We're almost there."

McGonagall tried to sit up. "I don't need to be carried," she pointed out, but she was very pale.

"Potions," Snape said hoarsely. He blinked up at them, and Harry wondered if the man had spent some of the trip in a faint. "Potions work."

"Yes, but you can't be carried with a potion, Professor," Draco said, getting out a handkerchief to wipe some of the rain and wet leaves off the injured man's face and hands.

"Bring me Filch, and I won't need to be," Snape growled.

^^^^^^^^^End of chapter 15

Chapter 16: Fetching Filch

************

"What's Filch got to do with anything?" Draco asked.

Snape shook his head. "Too much to explain. Get him. You or Potter."

"Why not one of the others?" Draco settled himself, as if to make his position more permanent.

"Where's Diggory, then?" Snape closed his eyes, grimacing.

Harry, startled, looked at the others in the group. Cedric wasn't among them. Cho was still there, and so was Oliver Wood, who he didn't remember seeing before among the rescuers. His stomach fell to his boots. "But....But... We can't have lost him. Not again."

McGonagall had managed to sit up with Lupin's help, and was looking over the group just as confusedly as Harry was. "Possibly," she said after a thoughtful moment. "Possibly, the people who've left school or... The ones who weren't here when we fell out of our proper time and place don't always... stay," she theorized. "He's not lost, just, not here now."

Harry saw the problem. "If we send the wrong messengers, they might not arrive. The message would never get there." He put his hand up by his face to shield it from the eye-watering wind as he measured the distance left to go. All those stairs. "Guess it'll have to be me, then."

He thought about asking Cho to come with him - he was pretty sure that she was one of the ones who wouldn't disappear - but she was looking around at the others, and he didn't think the tears in her eyes were from the wind. "Maybe you ought to at least start towards the castle though. Just in case," he said, directly to the tall Ravenclaw, hoping to distract her. Cho met his eyes, really looking at him - not just at The Boy Who Lived - and Harry tried to smile reassuringly, even though it didn't feel as if he were doing it very well. "Maybe he'll come back," he blurted out, feeling his nose suddenly go hot, and the tears driven sideways across his face.

Cho nodded, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. "Maybe," she said, the struggle to keep the real tears at bay clear on her face. "I've got some things I mean to say to him." She swallowed. "If I remember."

"You'll remember," Harry assured her. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, all of a sudden, and no time to say them. How much he liked her wasn't even on the list. He wanted to tell her how he saw now that she really loved Cedric. How much Cedric had clearly loved her back. How Cedric had died. But there was no certainty. No certainty, even, that Harry would ever get another chance to apologize to her. And still no time. Not now. "I'd better go," he said, his voice cracking, but he couldn't, not until she nodded agreement.

He patted McGonagall's shoulder. "I'll be right back. With Filch," he promised, and started running.

* * * * *

It was when he had to stop and take a breather on the stairs that he first noticed that tremors. They weren't very large. On Privet Drive, he might have thought the shaking was due to a particularly large lorry passing by outside, except that it went on too long. What was it Trelawney had said about an earthquake? Nothing good, he was pretty sure. He sat firmly on the desire to panic. Trelawney wasn't nearly as good at predicting things as she thought she was.

Although she'd been remarkably good at dodging the balrog.

His knees felt like they were ready to bend backwards by the time he reached the doors of the Great Hall. He wanted to rest, but one look at the chaos in the Hall was enough to drive that idea out of his head.

He'd never seen so many wizards and witches in his life. Not even at the World Cup Quidditch match. There were dozens of teachers crowding the dais, moving among the beds, and a whole ring of them blocking the view of Dumbledore, wearing clothes that looked like a museum exhibit of historical costumes. But mostly the excess people were youngsters, and most of them were awfully young looking.. He even saw a few infants.

He checked the ceiling. Nearly half of it was blank brickwork now, and the silver whirlwind, that had been come-again, go-again before he'd left, was now established much more firmly. It looked even more like the drainwater whirlwind of a still bath, although it was at least four feet wide at the top. A long tail extended downwards from the main part of it. To his surprise, several students were flying their brooms around the tail, tossing small objects into the stream that interrupted its swirling before they vanished. The students were careful not to get caught in the flow, Harry noticed, and the ghosts who flew near them were even warier

A small boy in wrinkled pyjamas that Harry vaguely recognized as a Hufflepuff caught him by the elbow. "What's your name?" he demanded self-importantly.

"Harry Potter," Harry answered, somewhat breathlessly, and was surprised when the boy turned and repeated the name in a loud voice. The shout went up the hall, from one first year to another, all of them standing in a long row against one wall, until it came to a boy standing on a chair by the chalkboard, who found Harry's name and put a blue checkmark by it.

"Harry!" yelled a familiar voice, and Ron barreled out of the crowd, hands full of sandwiches. "There you are! Have you got McGonagall?"

Harry met him half way, taking the sandwich Ron shoved at him and shaking his head. "Not quite. But almost. Listen, Ron, have you seen Filch anywhere?"

"They took him to Pomfrey, I think. Probably still up there." Ron looked up at Harry, grinning. "Go on, eat something. The Fat Friar took charge of the kitchen, so you don't have to worry about it tasting like the stuff Neville and I were making."

Harry took a bite, gratefully, as he walked up the length of the hall with Ron trailing along. It was jam and banana, and the sweetness of it almost made him start shaking.

Ron kept pace, passing over a second sandwich and trying to fill Harry in on everything that had happened in his absence. "The animals keep showing up, all on their own, but we've had people looking anyway. All sorts of people. I mean, Bill and Charlie sent Fred and George down from the tower because Fred kept going all young on them, and Percy got a black eye arguing with another prefect about which one of them was supposed to be Head Boy. Funny having you taller than me, isn't it?"

"It's an effect of the time displacement," said Hermione, reaching out to grab Harry's arm from where she sat with a table full of students and a dozen stacks of books. "I don't think it will last. Are you feeling all right, Harry? You've got blood on your clothes."

"It's not mine," Harry reassured her around a mouthful of egg and cheese sandwich.

"This is the most fascinating situation," Hermione went on enthusiastically. "We're completely unattached from time, I think. But it's got the oddest effects. I've theorized that anyone who's ever come to Hogwarts might show up, except there are limits to how old or young they might go. I mean, look at the Parvati twins." Ron and Harry rolled their eyes at each other, grinning at Hermione's relentless elucidation. "They visited here when they were two, and do you know how much trouble it's been keeping them in nappies? The first years are most consistent. I mean, they just stay eleven don't they, within a month or two, but the teachers go all over the place, and the other staff as well, including Hagrid, who was awfully tall even when he was a first year, and then there's the house elves, only they don't seem to change very much except ..."

"Have you seen Filch?" Harry interrupted desperately, having managed to swallow. "Snape's hurt and he needs him."

"Severus Snape? Is he hurt badly?" a young green-eyed girl sitting near Hermione asked, worriedly, and then blinked and frowned when she got a good look at Harry.

She looked familiar. Very familiar. Harry stared back, trying to remember that even if she was his mum, she wasn't his mum, yet. "Yes. His leg," he stammered. "He says he wants Filch."

"Better hurry, then, boy," the Bloody Baron appeared at Harry's elbow, and shooed him up the hall. "There's not much more this place can wobble without falling over."

Harry let himself be carried along, still staring over his shoulder at the green eyed girl. She really did look like his mum in some of the pictures that Hagrid had put in the album he'd given Harry his first year. She and Hermione were talking to another girl he didn't recognize until she suddenly went all silver and began to cry. Myrtle?

"Watch your step, boy," the Baron ordered, his cold hand steering Harry around a cluster of students who were trying to sort out baskets of laundry into different sizes. "Why did the Head of Slytherin send you after the Caretaker, and on foot? You left on a broom."

"The brooms stopped working," he found himself explaining to the Slytherin ghost. "It's all strange outside."

"Better get one that does work, then," the Baron advised, and turned toward the ceiling, calling out in a voice that Harry couldn't hear, even with the Hear-Muffs.

One of the flyers, a slim, blond teen in Slytherin robes, bent his broom down at the Baron's bidding, and came to a showy stop just in front of Harry. He looked the younger boy over disdainfully. "What is it, Baron?"

"Lend Potter your broom, Malfoy," the Baron ordered.

The familiar sneer crossed the boy's face. This must be Draco's father, Harry thought. "You've got to be kidding. It's a Starfire. They're the best brooms ever made. I'm not lending it to some scruffy Gryffindor."

"Oh yes you are," another tall, good looking Slytherin boy had come down to hover close enough to hear. It was Tom Riddle. It had to be. Harry could never forget that encounter in the Chamber of Secrets. He held his breath, wondering why the future Lord Voldemort would ever take the side of a Gryffindor needing a broom. "Whatever has us trapped here is beyond the reach of any one house. You don't want to stay stuck in Hogwarts forever, do you? If the Baron's got an idea, and it takes a "scruffy Gryffindor" to implement it, then a broom's not too much to ask."

Harry watched the battle of wills warily. It wasn't all that much of a surprise when Lucius lost. Even knowing that Riddle would grow up to be Voldemort wasn't enough to counteract the strength of his personality. Harry held very still, hoping that Riddle wouldn't look at him more carefully. There was no telling what he might remember... or if there'd been a Potter uncle or someone who resembled Harry and had been a rival. He was surprised that his scar wasn't hurting like mad. Malfoy was losing years by the minute.

As an eleven year old Lucius passed over the broom with bad grace, Riddle bestowed a smile of polite command on Harry that changed subtly, as he got a better look. "Have we met?"

"Not yet," Harry said nervously. "But... no time now." He nodded at Malfoy. "Thanks for the broom." He mounted quickly and flew toward the stage before Riddle could decide he wanted to continue the conversation. When he glanced back, he saw Riddle still staring after him, and Malfoy arguing with the Bloody Baron.

Madam Pomfrey was working with a lanky wizard with skin the color of chocolate, trapping house-elves off the wall with a long-handled net before wrapping them onto their beds. "Careful, Woodwalker," she was saying. "Don't chase them into flight or we'll lose another one to that cyclone." When she saw Harry her eyes lit up with relief. "Have you brought them? Severus and Minerva?"

"Almost," Harry told her, hovering. "I need Filch."

"With Hagrid," the wizard said curtly, nodding the direction. "Come on, Poppy," he told her. "Just a few more, and then I'll give Sprout a rest."

Harry found Filch sitting at the end of Hagrid's bed, trying to contain the antics of a small, hyperactive kitten as it curled with mock ferocity around his thumb. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, but seemed otherwise unchanged from the cranky old man Harry had always known. He scowled when Harry landed next to the bed.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Professor Snape needs you," Harry said. "I'm to take you to him." He did his best to sound as if it were a foregone conclusion - a necessity that couldn't be denied, but he was still astonished when Filch instantly passed the kitten over to Hagrid.

"Is Minerva with him?" the caretaker asked, mounting quickly on the broom behind Harry.

"Yes," Harry said. "Hold on."

"Fly careful like!" Hagrid called after them.

Professor Trelawney waved a scarf at Harry as he brought the broom into the air, and shouted something about hurrying, but he didn't wait to answer. He dodged the thread of silver cyclone and flew down to the doors, rather pleased with how much better Filch was at being a passenger on a broom than Draco had been.

It was a definite advantage when they got outside into the wind. It had got fiercer, if anything, and Harry used Filch's extra bulk to help steer the broom the way he wanted it to go. He saw a single lantern still flickering on the lawn and headed for it.

Draco had taken charge of the lantern while the others carried the stretchers. He held it close with his good arm, shielding it from the wind. He was the first to see Harry and Filch arrive, and he shouted at the others to make a wind break once they'd put down the two injured teachers.

Harry hadn't known that Filch could move so fast, without a secret passageway. The caretaker paused for a moment by McGonagall before moving on to Snape. Harry had to use the Hear-Muffs to listen over the wind.

"Potter said you needed me."

"Yes." Snape fumbled at a button on his collar until a small silver key appeared. "You know the box, under my bed. The one you mustn't touch?"

"Of course. It makes it difficult to dust down there."

"Use this on it. Once the key is turned, it will be safe enough to open. There are three potions inside. Bring me both the bottle on the right, and the one from the center. Your right as you face the key hole, remember." Snape sounded like he was in a lot of pain. "Don't confuse them, Argus. I'll need to know which is which, before I taste them."

"And the one on the left?" Filch asked.

"Wrong emergency." Snape said, handing the key to Filch.

Harry braced himself for another broom ride, but Filch only stood and looked up at the castle in a calculating way.

"We're close enough," he muttered, and walked off, away from the light.

"Wait! Mr. Filch!" Harry called, but it was too late. For a moment he thought he saw a square of blackness even darker than the windy night, and then Filch vanished.

^^^^^^^^^End of chapter 16