No depth, that was it, but Harry didn't give it much thought as he pushed to his feet and stumbled towards the front door. His body didn't seem to be moving correctly, or obeying his commands; he lurched more than walked, but somehow he made it, splaying one hand against the wall so he could lean, panting, his fingers out to perform Abrire.
No thought in him of holding his wand to cover the wandless magic, not now. No time to waste, not with that doorbell still pealing away inside his head. Draco needed him now. Besides, he didn't even know where his wand was. Had Draco taken it with him when he'd left?
If he loses my wand to a bunch of Slytherins, Snape will kill us both, Harry thought. What will it be this time, ten million lines?
It came to Harry then that his thoughts were terribly jumbled and disconnected, like he hadn't eaten or slept in days, like he was walking around in a daze, actually. What did it matter what their father would do? Getting Draco inside; that was what mattered, and he wasn't going to accomplish much with Abrire, was he? He needed Parseltongue, needed Sals... but when his glance skittered across the door parchment, it didn't say Draco Malfoy in any case.
Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, it simply read.
His anxiety growing tenfold in one instant, Harry scooped his cloak off its peg --thankfully nearby-- and focused his eyes on the crest, then held out a shaking hand and whispered in a hoarse, raw voice, "Open up, now."
The door swung open, and there were Ron and Hermione as predicted, wands at the ready. Ron craned his neck a bit to look around at the interior of the room. "Everything all right in here?"
Before Harry could get a word in, Hermione was exclaiming, "We've been waiting forever, seems like! We sent Ginny running to tell the Professor that neither you nor Malfoy appeared to be at home--" She tried to cross the threshold then, but as Harry hadn't actually invited her in, a nasty green light flashed across the entrance. Yelping in pain, Hermione jumped back slightly and rubbed both her arms.
"I'm on my way out," Harry quickly said before either one of them asked to enter the rooms.
"The hell you are," Ron interrupted.
Ignoring him, Harry crossed into the hall, intending to go after Draco. Fat lot of good that did him. Ron and Hermione were in his way; Harry tried to push through them. With a muttered oath, Ron grabbed hold of Harry's arm and peering closely at his face, abruptly questioned, "What's all this, then? You didn't take a hex in the eye last night!"
"Still going to claim that Draco Malfoy's as harmless as baby wombat?" Hermione railed, her keen intelligence working overtime as usual. "Because I know full well you didn't get that practicing magic! We were there!"
"Draco!" Harry gasped, struggling against Ron's grip. His muscles were still so uncoordinated that he couldn't quite shake the other boy off. Actually, it felt a bit as though this time, instead of melting the walls, the wild magic had melted him, from the inside out. "I have to go find him--"
"Do you want Wizard Family Services visiting again? They'll get a flurry of Howlers if you run 'round the halls with your face looking like that!"
"What?" Harry could hardly make sense of Ron's comments. Sure, his eye hurt more all the time, and he still couldn't seem to open it, but he couldn't have a bruise already from that awful punch Draco had landed, could he? Just how long had he been caught in that hex? It couldn't have been that long, or Snape would have finished in his classroom and come home.
Ron was shaking a solemn head, his grip on Harry still so tight that Harry had no hope of slipping it, not when he felt as weak as a half-drowned kitten. "You stay put. Listen, I know how much this thing with Snape means to you, and since it's not his fault Malfoy punched your lights out, you really don't want Family Services thinking they need to come investigate. Especially not after last time." Ron clenched his fists. "Hermione and I will go get Malfoy and give him what-for--"
"Let go!" Harry shouted. "It's not like that! I have to go help Draco, he's in horrible danger! He's going to somehow end up in the Owlery; let me go or I swear I'll have to make you--"
He reached back inside and snatched his cloak off its peg, only realizing just then that he'd been heading out without it. That punch and hex must have rattled him more than he'd thought... Well, no matter, he had the cloak now. Fixing his gaze on the crest, he was already raising his hand to Stupefy his friends, when a grim, dark voice broke his concentration.
"I shall go after Draco," said Snape as he emerged from the Floo. "Mr. Weasley. Thank you for sending your sister to alert me to the situation. Now, if you'd be so kind, this matter is private family business." He waved an expressive hand, and when the students were slow to react, shouted, "Gryffindors, out!"
"We were never really in," Ron muttered, letting go of Harry. Actually, he gave him a little push toward Snape. In other circumstances, Harry would have found that amusing.
"We'll check back lat--," Hermione tried to assure Harry as Snape literally shut the door in her face.
Before his father even had a chance to turn around, Harry began blurting, "Draco got a letter from Pansy and left to talk to her in some supply closet near here!" He had to stop and take a breath then. Or several, really. It was ridiculous. All he could think was that breaking out of the hex had exhausted all his reserves, since a little tussle like he'd just had with Ron really shouldn't have left him gasping for air. "I tried to stop him but he caught me off guard--"
"I should say so," Snape interrupted, looking him up and down. "Harry. Sit down before you fall over."
"Sit down?" Harry echoed in stark disbelief, sucking in more air even though it singed his throat. "Draco could be in the Owlery, fighting for his life right this very second! He said he wouldn't go anywhere near there but they probably won't give him a choice. Come on--"
But Snape knew what he was talking about, evidently, because just as Harry grabbed for his father's hand, a wave of absolute dizziness crashed into him, buckling his legs, and he found himself abruptly falling straight onto the hard dungeon floor, the room spinning around him as he sat there by the door.
Snape scooped him up and deposited him on the sofa, the motion so economical it took but a second. Then he was conjuring ice from thin air and wrapping it in a handkerchief he fetched from a cloak pocket. He thrust it out in one quick motion that said he was restraining his anger only with great difficulty. As Harry took hold of the makeshift ice-pack, the Potions Master brusquely instructed, "Put this on your eye but take it off every few moments to let the tissue rest. You will stay here, is that clear? I will go look for Draco--"
The room all around him lurched as Harry tried to stand up, the ice-pack in his hand already forgotten. What on earth was the matter with him? His head was pounding, and it seemed like the light in the room was intensely painful for the one eye still in working order, and only now was he realizing that all his muscles hurt, every one, the pain soaking through his flesh to make the bones hurt too.