Balance

Chapter 17: Of Potions...

* * * * *

Harry stared after Filch in disbelief. He *couldn't* have Apparated. Even if everything had gone so strange that the barriers against Apparition were down, Harry was pretty sure that Filch didn't have enough magic to manage it.

"It's all right, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said, her auburn hair streaming sideways in the wind. "Mr. Filch can travel quite quickly when there's need to."

"I guess so," Harry said. He crouched by Professor Snape. "Should we wait for him here, or head for the castle, do you think?" he asked. "This broom might work for a little longer."

"Wait," Snape said curtly. For a man who'd been being carried he was breathing pretty hard.

"Is everyone all right up at the Great Hall?" Draco asked. "I mean, magic still works and all?"

Harry shrugged. "Some of it does, anyway. But the chalkboard's not working now. And almost half the enchantment on the ceiling's gone. That vortex thing's gotten a lot bigger."

McGonagall and Snape exchanged worried glances. "And which 'vortex thing' is that, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked.

"It's like a tornado in a movie, or a waterspout," Harry said. "About four feet across at the top, but thinner going down. They've got people throwing things into it to interrupt it, but it comes back. I heard Madam Pomfrey say they'd lost a house-elf into it."

"It looked like it was trying to get to Dum... Professor Dumbledore," Draco put in. .

"It still does," Harry said. "Only there're about half a hundred teachers in the way." He rubbed at his forehead nervously. "The Hall's full of people. From what I saw, the time slippage goes back at least fifty years. Maybe more."

"You can't tell that," Draco said, scornfully. "You're guessing."

"Not really," Harry said thoughtfully, not bothering to explain. He didn't think Draco knew about Myrtle or Tom Riddle, and from the expressions on McGonagall's and Snape's faces they'd thought of at least one person Harry could recognize from that far back.

Luckily, just then Lupin interrupted the conversation by abandoning the lined up students who formed the windbreak and jumping over Snape to run out onto the grass. "Help me catch it!" he shouted.

Catch what? Harry wondered, even as he stumbled to his feet and followed. Cho and the rest were coming too - he hoped that Draco had the sense to stay and guard the teachers.

Lupin was jumping after something so dark it was hard to see, something big and flapping. He caught a corner of it and was nearly pulled off the ground as it belled out in the wind. Harry remembered the broom in his hand at last and jumped onto it from a run, letting the wind carry him toward the thing. Even though it was as black as the barrier above him, it didn't have the same strange way of swallowing stray leaves. Harry only felt a small pang of fright as he grabbed for a corner of it.

It felt like a rug - heavy cloth, with an extra layer of threads on it. Harry dragged it down towards the ground; between him and Lupin they were able to get it close enough to ground for the others to catch hold of it, too. They had to work along the edges and pull it out on the ground to keep the wind from picking it up again. Harry sprawled sideways to keep down his corner, holding onto the broom with the crook of his knee as he used the length of his body to pin the black cloth to the grass.

A hand came out of the cloth and grabbed his arm.

Before he even had a chance to scream it was followed by a head, and Harry found himself nose to nose with Mr. Filch. The caretaker scowled at him. "Potter. Hold still, boy. I wasn't expecting to have to climb out."

"That's all right," Harry squeaked. He tried not to mind having Filch use him as a ladder - it was an emergency after all - but he couldn't help but feel very strange about holding himself on the ground and having someone climb past him like he was on the edge of a lake or something. He tried wiggling his fingers, to see if they'd go down into wherever it was Filch was coming out of, but they only stubbed against the cloth. "Ouch," he said, as a hobnailed boot caught his elbow.

"Sorry," said Filch getting to his feet and bracing against the wind. "Thank you." Harry had the feeling that the caretaker wasn't speaking to him. And then, abruptly, he was sprawled on wet grass. He heard the exclamations of the others as he rolled over to stare up at Filch.

"How did you...?" he asked.

Filch almost smiled. "Shortcut." He reached down to catch Harry's hand and pull him upright, helping Harry to disentangle himself from the broom. "Which way do you think gets us back to Professor Snape?"

Harry looked around. He could still see the lights up in Gryffindor Tower, but they'd been pulled around the corner of the castle, and there wasn't any light at ground level. "Into the wind, I think."

"Are you all right, Mr. Filch?" Cho Chang came over, towing a skinny youngster. "Come on, Lupin, he won't bite you."

"His cat will," Lupin muttered sullenly. He hung onto Cho, though. If he hadn't the wind would have blown him sideways. Harry knew the feeling. If Filch didn't have hold of his arm he'd have trouble keeping on his own feet.

"I'm fine," Filch growled. "How many of you lot are there here?"

"Eight." It was Cedric Diggory, dragging two smaller ones with him. "Including Harry. I counted while we were hanging onto that rug. He handed one person to Cho and the other to Filch. "Hang onto these two while I fetch the others, will you?

"Diggory?" Filch whispered, and Harry was glad to see that the caretaker was just as gut-punched as Harry had felt earlier.

"It's all right," Harry told him, grateful that someone had given him Hear-Muffs too, so that no one would have to shout to make Filch hear. "At least, Professor McGonagall said it was. Just don't ... don't tell him."

"I don't think he'd hear it if I did," Filch said in a low voice. He squinted after Diggory, who was trying to bring the last two students back to the group. "Give him a hand, Potter. You're tall enough now."

* * * * *

Cloaks looked good, and made warm outer layers most of the time, but they made walking into the wind a lot harder than it had to be, especially when you had to hang onto the hands of the people next to you in line. Cho gave up and let hers go first, but the others imitated her quickly enough the next time they paused to rest. Harry felt badly about turning his loose. He had a feeling that anything that hit the barrier was gone forever - and with the wind the way it was, there wasn't much chance of the cloaks doing anything else.

Filch led the way, holding onto Diggory, then Cho and the other students, with Lupin after them and Harry bringing up the rear in case someone came loose and he had to chase them down with the broom. All of the students, even Diggory, kept sliding up and down in age, much more rapidly than the people in the Great Hall had. Lupin called Harry "James" once, when he was smaller. But Harry noticed that Filch stayed the same. Just as well, really, or the line wouldn't have had a reliable anchor.

Five minutes walk and they reached the angle of the castle and could see Draco, Snape, McGonagall watching for them, huddled together. It took another five minutes to get to them though, leaning into the wind the whole way.

As they finally got within shouting distance, Draco called "You might have done better to go 'round!" He held up someone's cloak. "Look!"

They worked their way forward, and Diggory led the line of students to make a new wind break, Cho hanging on tight to his hand. By the time Harry had managed to get close enough to watch with the rest, Filch was sitting next to Snape, pulling bottles out of two different pockets.

"Center," he said, giving Snape one of the bottles. "Right," he went on, holding up the other.

"Good." Snape used his teeth to break the wax seal and pull the cork before taking a long swig. He jerked a little, from the strength of it and then passed it to McGonagall, already looking improved. "Here. Just a swallow, mind. You're not used to it."

She took the bottle gingerly between her palms and let a little of its contents onto her tongue. "Ah... I went through a good bit of this stuff a few years back," she told Snape and took a healthy swallow, shuddering gratefully. "Nicely blended. I never can get the arnica this subtle."

"Arnica isn't meant to be subtle," Snape growled. "Malfoy, help me get this bandage off."

Draco pulled a face, but he began unwrapping the bandage while Snape took the second bottle and opened it with a small knife from his pocket, muttering under his breath. Harry listened harder, and realized that Snape was counting. "Twenty thousand, twenty one thousand, twenty two thousand..." His face was losing the pinched look as the seconds passed, although the pallor only eased a little. Once the leg was bare he swallowed, and kept counting until he reached sixty and then poured six drops of the second potion out over the length of the cut, protecting the bottle from the wind with one hand. Green smoke billowed up, to be whipped away by the wind almost right away. Under it, the cut sealed itself, leaving a thin whitish scar.

"That's wonderful," Draco said admiringly. "Does it work on anything?"

"No," Snape said, rather smugly, "But what it does work on, it works on very well indeed. Hold out your hands, Minerva." He measured out four drops onto her hands and she rubbed them together, looking relieved as the effect spread out from her palms.

"Why not use it all the time, though?" Harry asked. "I mean, if it works that well."

"Because he's probably used 300 galleons worth of it just on the two of us," McGonagall answered. "And as good as it is, it won't replace the blood he's lost, Mr. Malfoy, so I suggest you stay close as we go up the stairs."

Draco stopped rubbing his arm suggestively and nodded. "Yes, Professor."

"300 galleons? For ten drops?" Harry exclaimed. "That's thirty galleons a drop!"

"Very good, Potter. Perhaps you should take on the challenge of Arithmancy next term," Snape said snidely. "Mr. Filch, how bad is that head injury?"

"Not bad enough for HealWell Salve," Filch said sourly. "And there's plenty in the Great Hall could use it. Professor Flitwick for one. He was still unconscious last I knew."

"Would it heal Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked. He fidgeted with the broom at his side. "I think this broom works well enough. One of us could fly it up to Madam Pomfrey."

Snape shook his head, suddenly somber. "HealWell Salve has drawbacks, Potter. If I'd used it before I'd taken the Restorus Potion it would have healed my leg and left me in a coma for the next six weeks. Without knowing which potions and spells Madam Pomfrey has already used - not to mention the other teachers you've told me are there - well, I shouldn't like to risk it."

"You could fly up there," Harry said, offering the broom. It was almost snatched out of his hand by the wind.

"In this storm?" McGonagall objected. "One bad gust and you'll crash into the castle wall, breaking you and the potion bottles, and then where would we be?"

"Worse off," Snape admitted. He was getting younger, Harry thought, and so was McGonagall. But Filch still hadn't changed.

The caretaker pulled himself upright and took charge. "It will have to be the stairs, then, won't it? Come along, you lot. You're wasting time."

^^^^^^^^^end of chapter 17

Chapter 18: Home Before Dark

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Once again Harry found himself crossing the lawn toward the stairs that led up to the Great Hall. The wind was so strong that even with everyone hanging on to each other, they had to struggle to stay on their feet. To make thing worse, they kept getting hit with small bits of trees, or stones, that stung their faces, and now and then they got knocked sideways by another one of the loose capes. Harry had to really concentrate to stay much taller than the broom he carried because he was so tired. But, to tell the truth, only Filch was having any luck at keeping his proper height for more than a minute or two. Even Professor McGonagall went young enough to stumble on her skirts once or twice, and the look of gratitude she gave Harry when he caught her made him blush. Snape and Draco took it in turns pulling each other along as one or the other of them was the taller. It was usually Snape, which Harry thought was a good sign, even if the Potions Professor still seemed to be favoring his injured leg.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Cedric and Cho, tucked close together, talking somehow, despite the horrible wind. He remembered seeing them at... when... it had been a feast, hadn't it? And he'd been jealous. The Yule Ball. How stupid of him not to notice that they liked each other before he'd even asked her to be his partner. He hadn't paid attention. But looking at them now, all he could think was how much they seemed to fit next one another. He hoped Cho was saying the things she'd meant to say, but he was careful not to listen. He wasn't the one she wanted to say them to.

In spite of the wind, they finally reached the main staircase, and Filch, without asking, pulled the entire group to the sheltered side of it, where they could stop and catch their breaths. Harry stumbled as he tried to get in close enough to the wall to feel sheltered from the wind, and the broom in his hand knocked against Draco's back.

"Ouch! Blast it, Potter! Can't you just toss that useless thing away?" Draco yelped, snatching at the handle to suit actions to words.

Harry hung on. "If someone falls off the stairs, I'm going to need it to catch them," he shouted back. "And besides, I don't expect you'd want to me lose two Malfoys' brooms in one day!"

"Two Malfoys?" Draco's eyes widened as he found an elaborate coat of arms burned into the wood of the broom handle and he paled. "This is my father's," he stammered. "He keeps it over the mantelpiece with the shield he won for racing. How did you get it?"

"He lent it to me. Up in the Great Hall, when I went to get Fil... Mr. Filch," Harry said, suddenly aware that the others were watching the spat. "It's a good broom," he added, as reluctant mollification, since Draco was losing years again and it made him feel like a bully to be arguing with anyone that much shorter than he was.

"Do you think you really can catch us if one of us falls off the stairs?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked Harry, staring up the wall beside them. The edges of wide stone banisters were only visible on this side of the wall for few yards above them, before the light of the lamps was swallowed in darkness but they'd all climbed the stairs often enough to imagine what would happen to anyone who was blown over the railing.

"Well, I'd try anyway," Harry said, trying not to think about it too much. If the winds kept blowing a person around the castle, he might have a chance of catching them. But if they ran into a wall... "I'd rather not have to, though."

"I wish we'd thought to bring the rope," Draco said. "We could tie ourselves in a line. That way if one person got caught by the wind, the rest of us could anchor him down."

"Maybe if we crawled up the stairs?" Cho suggested.

"How are we going to hang onto each other if we're crawling?" Lupin said. He looked to Snape, Filch and McGonagall. "Aren't there other ways in? Something closer to ground level?"

Snape and McGonagall both went much older. "Kitchens?" Snape said.

"Blocked," McGonagall said, "As soon as the alarm went up about the Balrog. The lake passage?"

"Not unless we can find a supply of gillyweed in the dark. And it would mean going back down the hill in the wind."

"You don't have any?" McGonagall asked, eyebrow raised.

"Not enough. The Quidditch Tunnel?"

"Blocked off, like the rest." McGonagall dismissed the possibility.

"It may have opened up again once the balrog was defeated," Snape pointed out.

"Do you really want to walk halfway 'round the castle to find out that it hasn't?" Minerva asked wryly. "Helga's sett?"

Snape made a face. "I think I've lost enough blood for one day. I'm not inclined to try to make my way past a colony of enraged badgers. And no, the old passage to the dungeons won't do either. It's been rigged to discourage visitors."

"Godric's Gate is out of the question," McGonagall said. "For much the same reasons. Although, you'd think the castle might consider helping us. There really must be a way in."

Snape turned an unwavering regard on Filch. "I can think of one."

To Harry's surprise, Filch flushed and shook his head. "No. I won't. You can't help Dumbledore if you're half dead."

"Ah, but the last time I was a fully adult wizard, with the ... scars ... to prove it," Snape said, in the uncompromisingly reasonable tone that meant he wasn't going to let you have a hope of winning the argument. "That's not a condition that always applies, now."

"It is easier on youngsters," Professor McGonagall put in, resting a hand on Filch's arm. "And it's certainly easier - and safer -- than trying to get up those steps in this hurricane."

Filch looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded. "All right," he said gruffly. "I can only take two at a time, though. I've only got two hands. And I'm not looking forward to cleaning up after you lot."

"Fair enough," McGonagall said. She looked around the small group. "Now everyone, I want you to try to imagine yourselves crossing the lake, coming to Hogwarts for the first time..."

Harry wanted to get inside as much as any of them, but he was too interested in what Filch was doing to concentrate properly on that first boat trip at Hogwarts. The caretaker had stepped to the tallest bit of the wall and nodded slightly to it, as if he were acknowledging another person. And in response, a square of blackness appeared against the stone. Almost immediately, it started to slide to the left, and Harry grabbed for an edge, realizing that it was the same - or nearly the same - as the cloth that Filch had climbed out of on the lawn. "Grab two people and go!" he shouted, but Filch had already thought of that. With a tight grip on one of Justin's arms, and a Ravenclaw girl's shoulder, he ran for the wall and the cloth under Harry's hand vanished.

Harry found himself breathing hard, like he'd run a race, as he stared around at the others. No one said anything, waiting, and then the rough stone went to cloth again and Filch reappeared through it. Harry leaned against it, not letting the eddies of wind sneak under the edges.

"Did it work?" Professor McGonagall said, catching Filch before the wind could knock him sideways. "Argus, are they safe?"

"Yes." Filch said, looking around the group with wild eyes as he steadied himself. "But you're not young enough yet!" he scolded Snape.

"I'm working on it!" Snape growled. "Take the ones who are!"

"Do we have to think of the boats?" Cho asked McGonagall, as Filch grabbed two more children and vanished, and the cloth with him.

"Anything that makes you feel eleven," Draco told her. He looked like he was having as much trouble as Harry was, concentrating. But in Draco's case it was because he kept watching Snape. "Try the Sorting Hat song from your first year. It worked once."

"Good suggestion," Snape said, and closed his eyes to think, hanging onto Draco's shoulder.

The cloth came back - it felt different, and thicker this time - and Filch came out just in time to see Cho whisper something into Cedric's ear that sent them both to giggling first years. For a moment, the caretaker hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he took each of them by the hand and pulled them back through his door of cloth.

That left Draco, Lupin, Snape, McGonagall and Harry. And none of them were young enough. Harry had a feeling that Snape was having trouble with it, and so was Lupin, and although McGonagall was growing younger in fits and starts, her concentration was broken every time Filch came through. Draco seemed to be trying to protect Snape - which was keeping him older.

When Filch appeared this time, he stumbled on the way through and had to sit. Harry and Lupin leaned on the edges of the fresh cloth, watching the others.

"Minerva," Snape said, with an edge of complaint. "The boats aren't working."

"Try harder," she ordered him, and gained five years.

"Try something else," Draco said. "Think."

Snape glared at him for a moment, but then his expression changed and he gave Draco a frosty smile before turning to Filch. "Don't just sit there like a lump, man, chew me out!"

"What?" Filch exclaimed.

"Dress me down," Snape explained through gritted teeth. "Dock me points, invent detentions..."

Professor McGonagall got it first. "What were you thinking, Mr. Snape? The assignment was to turn the matchstick into a needle, not a toothpick!"

Filch chimed in, getting to his feet to loom as well as he could over where Snape was sitting. "There's two inches of stone floor eaten away by the muck that overflowed from your cauldron, Mr. Snape, and you're going to help me restore that floor and then you're going to polish it!"

"Your penmanship is atrocious, and illegible, and you will have to take the mark for what I thought I read on that essay, and not on your impromptu translation in class." McGonagall said, her hair gone silver once more.

"Whatever Potter and his lot did to you, it doesn't excuse pouring slugslime all down the Gryffindor table, and you're going to clean up every last drop of it without magic!" Filch was getting into Snape's face now. "And I've had enough bloodstains to clean up from you and Black for this year, thank you!"

The mention of Sirius Black was a mistake, Harry thought, because Snape had been losing years - even if it was slowly -- but that sent him older again. Filch seemed to realize it though, and started in about some kind of mess on the ceiling of the Potions classroom.

Harry felt a tug on his sleeve and turned to see Lupin, slid down to about sixteen. "What are we doing, James?" he asked, jerking a thumb at the three adults.

"Trying to get Professor Snape to feel like he's eleven," Harry answered. "And not lose this cloth at the same time."

"Oh." Lupin said, and then grinned and reached out a foot to tap against Draco's leg. When the fair haired boy looked up, Lupin motioned him to come and take his place holding the cloth against the wall.

Draco glanced over for Harry's nod first, but he got up and took one side of the cloth. He and Harry watched curiously as Lupin crouched down to avoid the wind and moved around behind Snape. The someday Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher gave McGonagall a cheerful thumbs up from behind Snape, who seemed to have stalled out at around twenty five or so and was rubbing absently at his arm as he glared back at Filch and McGonagall.

It came in a moment, and Lupin tapped on Snape's shoulder. Snape turned - for a moment they were nearly nose to nose - and Lupin opened his mouth to bleat like a distressed sheep. "Baaaaaaa!"

It worked! Well, almost. Snape slammed downwards in age, but stopped while he still had the gawkiness of fourteen.

Then Lupin tweaked his nose.

That was it.

Eleven.

And attacking.

Lupin dropped years too, the moment Snape punched him. Professor McGonagall pushed the two combatants at Filch, who grabbed one under each arm and turned to run at the cloth. It seemed to Harry that Filch was having to work harder each time he stepped through, but it certainly wasn't stopping him. Then the cloth vanished. Harry leaned against the rough stone, wondering if Snape and Lupin would get through safely.

McGonagall got up and came to stand near Draco and Harry. "It will have to be you two next, I think," she said. "Although heaven help me if all you remember is how much you were at each other's throats First Year."

"Shouldn't it be you?" Draco asked. "I mean, there's not much point in getting you all the way back here to save the Headmaster if we don't see you get inside."

"It should, Mr. Malfoy," she admitted. "But I'm feeling very old at the moment."

Harry looked from her to Draco. He had an idea. Two really. "You don't look old," he told McGonagall. "In fact, you look quite young." Draco blinked and frowned so Harry went on, signaling Draco to follow his lead with the fingers of the hand that was holding the broom.. "I mean. You've got really nice..."

"Teeth," Draco put in, smiling encouragingly. "And your hair is nice too."

McGonagall looked from one to the other of them with amused disbelief, but her cheeks colored nicely and so did her hair as she slid down the years.

"It's lovely hair," Harry said, glad for the chance to be unmistakably sincere. He reached out for her hand and she dropped a few more years as she let him take it. "And you've got a wonderful shape to your face."

"Good bones," Draco said. "And good eyebrows. Not all clumpy like some people's."

In spite of herself, McGonagall smiled. She was almost young enough to forget her adult self now, and Harry could feel rough cloth forming between himself and the wall. "You're beautiful," he said.

Filch was coming out of the cloth, and McGonagall was seventeen, her eyes confused, but still too old to go through with Filch. Harry, on impulse, leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.

It wasn't a very romantic kiss. More of a peck than a kiss, really, but McGonagall's hand grew much smaller in his, and she smiled up at him shyly, twisting her free hand in her skirts.

"You go with Mr. Filch, all right?" Harry told her, feeling tall and gawky. He passed her over to Filch, who was looking quite startled at McGonagall's transformation. The Caretaker looked at her as if she were a porcelain figurine that he dared not drop, and picked her up just as gently. Then he turned to look at the boys, his free hand hesitating between them.

Harry shoved the broom into Draco's hands. "Take this to your father," he said, and Draco lost five inches. Filch grabbed the young Slytherin, glaring at Harry. "I'll be all right till you come back," Harry insisted. Filch made an impatient noise, and nodded, but he headed toward the wall, his teeth gritted together as he hitched his two burdens up under his arms before vanishing back through his cloth.

Draco had taken the lantern with him.

It was dark.

Harry huddled against the wall and wondered how long it would be until Filch came back. Unable to think of anything else, he began to count. One thousand and one. One thousand and two...

He'd be grateful for lightning.

One thousand and eleven... One thousand and twelve...

The darkness seemed to get darker. That was impossible.

One thousand and twenty two...

But everything that had happened today was impossible.

One thousand and thirty...

He didn't mind most darkness, but this was really dark -- like the inside of the cupboard when the light had burnt out - that awful total blackness that you knew had things in it...

One thousand and forty two...

^^^^^^^^^end of chapter 18

Chapter 19: Back inside

* * * * *

Something's gone wrong.

Harry curled himself into a ball, huddling against the wall, trying not to get caught by the wind.

It didn't work. They're in trouble. They're hurt.

...or dead.

The darkness howled around him.

The wind. The wind howled. Darkness can't howl.

Things in darkness can.

Maybe another monster came. Another balrog, only this time it got inside...

No. It'd get blown out by all this wind.

He had to get inside.

He couldn't even leave the wall.

What if they don't remember where I am? What if they've forgotten all about coming to fetch me, with all the time changing and such? What if they don't remember me?

Hermione will remember me, Harry told himself firmly. Hermione remembers everything.And Ron would never forget me.

But they don't know where I am, do they? And it's not like Draco's going to go out of his way to save me.

The wind tugged at his hair and clothes no matter how small he made himself. If he stayed out here much longer, he was going to get blown away, and then he'd be blown out into that strange barrier and that would be the end of him. For once Harry wished that he was as heavyset as his cousin, or better still his uncle. Uncle Vernon could probably stand still in a hurricane. Of course, he'd find a way to blame the storm on Harry....

A hand fell on his shoulder, gripping hard. "No!" Harry cried, ducking away from the blow that was sure to follow. He was so small he stepped right out of his shoes. The muddy grass pulled wetly at his stockings as he fought to get away. "Uncle Vernon, I didn't mean to -- "

"Blast it, Potter!" Filch growled, stepping away from the wall in order to keep his grip on Harry's shirt. "Don't make me lose my Door!"

"Your what?" Harry squeaked, recognizing the Caretaker belatedly, trying to freeze, and failing as the wind caught him and nearly pulled him out of Filch's grasp. He grabbed for the caretaker's wrist, just before something wrapped itself around both of them, trapping him against Filch and then pushing both of them off their feet. Harry nearly choked on the mingled smells of soap and dust and fresh vomit on Filch's coat. The wind must have caught the cloth and the cloth had entangled both of them on its way. They'd be blown out of the world, without a chance to catch hold anywhere and save themselves. Harry felt the rough texture of needlework where the wind plastered the material forcefully against his face and hands, and then, abruptly, the sensation changed.

It was like getting poked by about a million dull needles - for a few seconds, Harry was sure that he was being examined, all the way down to his bones - and then most of the sensation went away, except for the tingling ache that concentrated on the place where his scar crossed his forehead.

Gradually, he sorted out other sensations. Filch was tugging on his shoulder, drawing him forward, but Harry didn't want to move, in case it set off another round of the strange, prying almost-pain. Carefully, he raised his right hand, still clutching Filch's wrist with his left, and reached forward like a blind boy seeking out warning for the obstacles that would hurt worst.

An adult hand fitted itself into his, and Harry blinked as the pain in his head vanished.

Filch was still on his left, still pulling on him, and the new person pulled gently as well. Harry swallowed and stepped forward, letting his two guides draw him on.

It was like walking through water - really thick water -- but a few moments took him to a place where the resistance ended.

Harry stepped out into the noisy confusion of the Great Hall.

They were near the back of the dais, near the bunks of the injured house-elves. Filch, still gripping Harry's shirt, had stepped back, arched like his cat, as if he were expecting Harry to throw up all over him. He was staring at the man on Harry's right.

He looked like a king: tall and muscular, with a mane of dark red hair, wearing gold robes embroidered in red, and a swordbelt. The man smiled down at Harry. He looked familiar, somehow, although Harry wasn't sure why. He ruffled Harry's hair with one hand and then stepped away, vanishing into the patch of shadow in the corner.

"Gryffindor?" Filch whispered. Harry stared up at the caretaker, enlightened and alarmed.

"Godric Gryffindor?" And much younger than the picture on his Chocolate Frog card. Harry wouldn't be much surprised to see Merlin himself, next. Not the way today'd been going.

No one else seemed to have noticed. The house-elves were too lost in their daze, and the rest of the people nearest them were busy or ill, or looking upwards. In the high reaches of the Hall, brooms swept around the rafters as their riders threw old clothes, silverware, and plates at the greatly lengthened and thickened tendril of the whirlpool.

"Leave off!" a shrill shout echoed piercingly off a nearby wall.

"Give it here!" That angry shout sounded uncomfortably familiar to Harry's ear. He pushed forward past the teachers to see Neville Longbottom shielding a house-elf from a furious Tom Riddle.

"No!" Neville insisted, pale with determination. "You'll throw him in the whirlpool!"

Riddle's face was red with fury. "Do you want to get us all killed for the sake of a house-elf? The last one that went in stopped that thing for a full five minutes!"

"That would be murder!" Hermione was charging her way through the crowds of yattering students towards Neville, Ron at her heels, and a trail of other book-bearing researchers behind him.

"That would be survival," a tall Ravenclaw whom Harry didn't know said regretfully, hovering on her broom. "Nothing's even slowing the whirlpool down, now. Better a house-elf than the headmaster." A lot of the students - and some of the teachers - were nodding agreement.

"But it doesn't have anything t-t-t-o d-d-do..." Neville was too excited to get words out. He bit his lip in frustration and reached into his pocket, pulling out the Remembrall he'd gotten in his first year. "Look!" He cocked back his arm and threw the crystalline ball, straight as a string, into the heart of the whirlpool.

The vortex blinked out.

All the voices in the Hall went silent in surprise, except for Dean Thomas's call of "Well thrown!"

"It eats m-magic," Neville said, with more certainty, his words loud in the momentary quiet. "We need to throw magic things into it to slow it down."

"But... how will we get them back?" Ron asked. "Strong enchantments cost money."

"I don't think we can," Hermione said.

Tom Riddle frowned, hovering higher, where everyone could see him, but moving away from Neville. "What do you suggest then? We're not going to throw our wands at it!"

"Portraits, from the corridors?" suggested a Hufflepuff, and then sagged a little. "But no one's in them, right now. They might not be magic enough."

"I know what to use," Filch rasped out, stepping from behind Harry to the center of the stage, and startling even Riddle out of his posturing. "The torches in the halls will hold it off for now, but I've got better still. You lot," he called to the flyers, "I need some of you to come with me down to my office."

"We know the way!" James Potter swooped down to hover near the caretaker, with two other boys following him more circumspectly. James was grinning all over his fifteen-year-old face. "Come on, Mr. Filch. You must've confiscated enough Exploding Snaps and Boobytrap Bubbles off of us to slow that thing down for hours." He held out a hand to Filch, who took it with the most incredulous expression Harry had ever seen.

"No funny stuff, Potter," he growled, mounting behind the boy, who aged a little as he blushed.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Filch," he said. Then he hesitated, seeing Harry for the first time. "Cousin?" he asked, peering down at his son.

A heavy hand landed on Harry's shoulder before he could answer, and Snape's cloak swung massively around as the Potions Master stepped forward, like a woolen wall separating the two boys. "Distant relation," Snape said icily.

Harry glared up at him, but Snape was staring over Hermione's shoulder, at her research team, at the red-haired girl with arms brimful of books. He looked haggard and old. Deliberately Snape broke her gaze and turned his onyx eyes upon James. "There isn't time now for reunions," he said harshly. "Not if we're to get out of this alive." His hand trembled upon Harry's shoulder, years falling away as he faced his boyhood nemesis.

James aged a little, almost to graduating age, as he met Snape's glacial hauteur. Behind him the other two boys crowded closer. Neither one looked much older than thirteen.

"Merlin's eyebrows!" exclaimed the heavyset one. "The greaseball grew up to be a teacher!"

"He's not the only one." Remus Lupin stepped up on Harry's other side, casually taking half-a-step more to put himself between his old friends and Snape.

"Remus?" The last boy said, and grew taller, even as he gave Lupin a wondering grin.

"You're meant to be helping Filch, Sirius." Lupin said, his age slipping a little. He stood up a little straighter to make up for it. "Best hurry."

"Right," James saluted briskly and summoned the other two with his head, "Come on, Peter" he said, forestalling another round of comments, and turned his broom towards the door. "Hang on, Mr. Filch." The other two shrugged at each other and followed.

Harry glared past Snape's left arm and Lupin's right, focusing on the departing trio. "That's Pettigrew?" He reached for his wand.

Snape tightened his grip painfully. "You can't change it backwards, Harry." He warned in a low voice.

"You wouldn't want to," Harry accused, watching his father, Pettigrew and Black flying away down the length of the hall.

Snape looked down at Lily, who had come closer, and was studying Harry's face with a thoughtful air on her seventeen-year-old face. "Indeed I would," the Potions master said softly. "But changing history will do just that, boy. The possibilities are incalculable. Make the wrong choice and you've killed Dumbledore, and that would kill us all."

It was bitter truth. Harry grimaced and snarled at the messenger. "Aren't you meant to be helping Dumbledore?"

"Yes." Snape, still holding Harry's shoulder, started to steer the boy away, but Harry resisted, remembering something important.

"Ron!" he called.

"Potter..." Snape growled, but Harry shook his head defiantly as Ron clambered up on a table to get close enough to talk above the conversations which were rising in volume all over the Hall.

"What is it, Harry?" Ron asked. "Do you need me?"

"Take Fred and George, and go after Filch. People who aren't from now don't always stay, and we're going to need whatever it is that Filch is bringing up." If James and the other two vanished the way that Cedric had, Filch would be left on his own, and that would cause delays.

"Right," Ron said cheerfully, slapping one fist into his other palm. "It'll give me a chance to give Pettigrew a fat lip."

"Fine," Harry said. "Just don't let him know why, all right? And try not to get into a fight with m... with the others. We don't want to change things too much or we might change things we don't want changed."

Ron grinned. "You didn't come up with that on your own," he said. "Don't worry, Harry. Hermione'd go spare if I did anything that might mess things up. She's been on about it for hours."

"Go on then," Harry said, waving Ron off. He looked for Hermione, meaning to say something to her, but she and Lily had been accosted by a small boy with an opened book, and were bending to read something.

Snape, reassured that Harry and Ron were going to mind the consequences of their actions, had turned to address the werewolf, although he still held onto Harry. "Lupin, make yourself useful," he ordered.

"How?" Remus asked.

"That one," Snape said, indicating Tom Riddle with a subtle move of his head. "The tall Slytherin boy."

"The one organizing parties to fetch torches?" Lupin confirmed.

"Tom Riddle. Keep an eye on him. If he should age up and vanish, then do something to incapacitate that one. His name is Quirrell. Get Black to help you when he comes back. He's good at that sort of thing."

"Quirrell's here?" Harry's voice cracked as he swung his head around quickly in search of that horrible purple turban. It took a moment to recognize the stammering, nervous Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher of his first year in the lanky, fair-haired, confident wizard who was helping tend to one of the injured teachers. "He looks younger than I remember," he said, wondering if it were the lingering smell of vomit on Snape's cloak or the sight of the man he'd fought... well, that he'd killed, really, if you thought too much about it... during his first year that was making him feel queasy.

"Too young to remember you," Snape clipped out peevishly, steering Harry toward the back of the stage. They worked their way past teachers, some of whom objected, and a few of whom faded away at a touch, toward the wall under the windows.

The rest of the rescue party, including Draco Malfoy and a still-very-young McGonagall, were lined up sitting along a bench there, each one clutching a piece of crockery at the ready. The Slytherin's pale skin showed up the green particularly well as he looked sourly at Harry over a porcelain punchbowl. "How come you aren't sick, Potter?" he asked. "All the rest of us have been."

Harry shrugged, pinching his nose against the stink of illness. "Luck?" he guessed, past a grimace.

"Intervention," Snape said, looking much younger as he, too, seemed to be trying to fight off incipient nausea. He frowned down at McGonagall. "Come along, Minerva. This is no time for a Head of House to sit idle. Even Godric Gryffindor has shown up to fill in the gap for you, but we can't rely on that. Should this phenomenon reach much farther back in time, we'll have to contend with woad wearing warriors."

"Don't want to grow up," McGonagall said, pulling a face. "Just means more of me to be sick." She looked very small and stubborn, her armor rumpled and the chain mail pooled around her, one small bare foot showing through the riding slit in front, swinging defiantly above the floor.

Snape, not much more than nineteen himself, bent down to her, holding out his free hand. "But it also means there's more of you to fight back the feeling," he promised, in a serious tone, "which reduces the possibility that you'll actually be sick."

She blinked at him, her eyes large in her small thin face. "You're the one who was hurt, before. Did you go big too?"

"I did."

"And it made you feel better?"

"Yes."

She sighed and took Snape's hand. "All right then. But if you're not telling the truth I'm going to turn you into something nasty."

Snape actually laughed. "Too late," he said, standing and drawing her upright, his grip on Harry's shoulder tightening abruptly as his balance faltered. He's not mad at me, Harry realized, he just needs a crutch. His leg must still hurt. He put out a hand to steady the potions professor, and noticed Draco watching jealously.

"Can you help yet, Draco?" he asked the other boy.

"I can try," Draco said, gaining inches as he made himself stand. It did seem to help, Harry noticed. At least Draco was less green.

McGonagall was gaining years too. She looked a little startled when she reached adulthood, pulling up her mail skirt to look at her bare feet, and then making a face when she realized how the pitcher in her hand smelled. "Well, we're inside," she said, putting the porcelain down on the bench quickly. "That's something."

"Even if we all did get sick but Potter," Draco growled resentfully. "All he's got all over him is mud."

"It could have been worse, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said, eyes meeting McGonagall's in some silent communication that made Harry's curiosity itch. "Much worse."

"Worse than this?" Draco said, pointedly avoiding a damp patch on Snape's cloak.

"That was Lupin," Snape said. "And I returned the favor."

"But..."

Draco's question was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, middle-aged wizard, who loomed suddenly between the nearest torch and their small group. "Minerva?" he asked, in a rich, musical voice, eyes bright in his dark brown face. "And Mr. Snape. How did you get past me? I've been waiting to meet you at the entrance to the Hall."

"Woodwalker," McGonagall greeted him, accepting the two hands he extended to her with only the smallest of hesitations, the age-lines gathering on her face like iron filings against a magnet. "I should have expected to see you."

"Perhaps and perhaps not. Young Pomfrey tells me you are the newest Heads of your Houses," Woodwalker looked from McGonagall to Snape searchingly. "Do you fade from this place and time as we older ones do? Is that how you came into the hall without being seen?"

"Filch brought us in," Snape said. "We won't fade away."

"We might get rather shorter, however," McGonagall warned cheerfully. "I hope you shan't all fade away now that we're here."

"There's no time for that," Woodwalker said somberly. "Dumbledore needs our help, all our help, most urgently. Come with me."

End of chapter