"Potter, wake up. Hey, wake up. Come on," Draco finally muttered when Harry refused to stir. He'd slept for almost twenty-four hours and Draco was worried the other boy would never wake again if he let him continue to sleep.

"POTTER!" Draco shouted, and finally Harry stirred with a groan.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, staring bleary eyed at the ceiling.

"You've slept an entire day. I found a way to mark stairwells but the spell only lasts a little while. If you help me we can mark them all and keep them marked so Snape can find his way up."

Harry pulled the covers off of himself weakly and rolled to the side of the bed until he unceremoniously fell out onto the cold stone floor.

"Maybe you can't help," Draco said, frowning at the other boy who had his head down on the bed.

"No, just give me a minute," Harry insisted. It took three tries but he was finally able to push himself up off the floor and then to a sitting position on the bed again. "What's the spell?"

Draco showed him a simple spell which cast an orb of light. When he used his hands with his wand held a certain way between his thumb and palm he could push the orb away from himself, or pull it back.

"It stays lit for 12 hours, and you can cast three or four in different spots. If you take one stairwell down and I take the others we can light them all up. The orb is so bright Professor Snape is sure to see them and come up one of the flooded stairwells, even if we have to submerge the lights in the more flooded ones."

"Show me where you want me to go," Harry said.

Draco led him out, moving slowly so Harry could follow, and took him to the nearest stairwell down.

"This one's flooded to the ceiling of the lower floor. Go down as far as you can and cast the orbs under the water at the very bottom. Push them away from you so they pop out into the corridor. Then wait at the top of the stairwell and I'll come get you when I'm done with the others."

"Ok," Harry said.

Draco frowned. "You're cooperating easier than I thought you would."

"Why wouldn't I?" asked Harry. "We have to work together."

"Yeah," Draco said, still giving Harry a strange look, but then he left him at the entrance to the stairwell and moved off down the corridor.

Alone again, Harry was careful to take the steps slowly so he didn't tumble down and into the water again. The stairs twisted down in a gentle curve until he came to the flooded corridor below. Draco was right, there was no way down into the floor below by this route because the water was too high. The only air was in the stairwell. Harry cast one orb and floated it up above him, and then cast another and pushed it down into the water. The water twisted and morphed the light, but it was still bright and white, and would hopefully draw Snape's attention. He cast a third and pushed it into the water too and then pushed it as far as he could until he felt an invisible force resisting him from pushing it any further. Hopefully the light was in the corridor somewhere where Snape would see it.

Harry sighed and hoped the man wasn't dead and would come find him and Draco. He was glad Draco had found him and taken him to a warm dry place, but he'd feel a lot better if Snape was there with them.

He got up, legs feeling marginally stronger, and went up the stairs a ways, and at the top cast one final orb before coming out into the corridor above where Draco had promised to collect him. Harry let his eyes roam up and down. There was a window here where light came in, and he went to it and looked out. Everything was still flooded, and there wasn't a person to be seen. Hadn't Draco said the others were all ok? They were safe somewhere? Harry had been so tired when the blond boy had found him that he wasn't sure what had been halucinated and what was real.

Thirty minutes later Draco came back down the corridor and took Harry back to the room, and let him fall into the bed again. Harry noted Draco had found extra pillows and blankets and had made a bed for himself on a comfortable looking sofa.

"We'll have to go back in eleven hours and cast them all again, but if we do this twice a day that's not so bad if we can find him."

"Yeah," Harry said. He closed his eyes, but after a moment opened them again and said urgently, "Did you say everybody else was ok?"

"Yeah. There's only a few people still missing, and you were one of them."

"Hermione and the Weasleys?"

"They're fine. Gryffindor never flooded. Hufflepuff and Slytherin are all sleeping in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and the library. Some of the Gryffindors have moved out and into other spaces just to be with friends and some of the Ravenclaws have done the same. Some of the older Slytherins... some of the Dark Lord's followers have taken up an entire corner of the library at the back for themselves."

"And the Headmaster lets them?" Harry asked.

"Would you rather they were bunking in your dorm?"

"You might have a point," Harry said, and closed his eyes again. He wasn't going to go back to sleep, he was just planning to close his eyes and think for a moment, but he was still tired and the next thing he knew, Draco was waking him again.

They repeated the same magic they'd done earlier in all the stairwells, Harry taking care of one and Draco the other three, and since it was getting dark out and in the upper corridors they also cast several orbs in a breadcrumb trail down the hallway to their room, just in case Snape found his way up in the middle of the night.

"This is going to work," Draco told him as they settled in for the night.

"I hope so," Harry said, and he let sleep claim him once again.

Day 11 - Monday November 27th, 2:07 AM

The next time Harry woke it wasn't to Draco's prodding. He was being shaken violently. He startled so badly he threw his arms up to shield his face, afraid somehow Voldemort had come straight out of his dreams and was really there in the castle attacking him.

"Foolish, arrogant boy!"

Harry opened his eyes and was surprised when the shaking stopped and he found himself in the embrace of soaking wet arms. He still wasn't sure what was happening until he was released and took in the sight of Professor Snape, dripping from head to toe and looking pale, crazed and relieved at the same time.

"You found our breadcrumbs," Draco said from the couch, rubbing the sleep out of one eye.

"I saw a light under the water and followed it to a stairwell, and then here. You left them?"

"We left them in every stairwell that led down," Draco said. "We'd hoped you'd see them and find us."

"Thank you," he said to Draco, and then he turned to look Harry up and down again.

"How long have you been here?"

Harry, still groggy and shaken from his rude awakening, looked to Draco for help.

"I found him a couple days ago. I found a stairwell with an airpocket under the ceiling of the floor below and shouted until he heard me and found me."

"Very smart," Severus said, sending a drying spell at himself. Draco sent several at him as well until he was dry. Snape sat down on the edge of the bed and asked, "But why were you calling for Potter?"

"I- well-" Draco seemed like he didn't want to answer and Harry wasn't certain why.

"Out with it," Snape said, tired and uninterested in waiting for Draco to tell the truth.

"You and Harry were still missing. I slipped out in the night with a boat and went looking. I found a few people and got them to safety and then I came in here, still looking for the two of you."

Snape tried to send Draco an upset look, but he was too tired and too grateful to be dry. "That is a performance you will not repeat," he said instead. "However, I appreciate your efforts. There is a safe place to go then?"

Draco explained in detail where everyone was located and about how long he'd been in this part of the castle, as well as who he had found and who was still missing.

Snape nodded at the end and laid down on the large bed. Harry didn't move from his spot on the opposite edge.

"It is lucky Professor Vector's quarters are in this part of the castle. This is the only living area on the floor."

"She's got warm blankets," Harry yawned. He didn't know if Snape and Draco talked any longer after that. He was more interested in sleep.

* * *

Harry thought if they could just stay in Professor Vector's quarters and never leave, he'd be perfectly happy with that. Forget food, forget school and magic and holidays and everything else. He never wanted to venture out again.

There were enough warm blankets and soft pillows for all of them, a working bathroom, and books to read (Harry hoped Professor Vector didn't mind them using her space like this). There was a window in the bathroom that looked out over what Harry could only assume was the area the Quidditch Pitch used to occupy, and if they left the bathroom door open, it shed some light into the small kitchen next to the bedroom and small living room.

Harry listened quietly as Snape told Draco that these quarters were smaller than his, and that his had two bedrooms, and explained that all the quarters in the lower castle were larger. Harry didn't care how big the living space was. He thought it was perfect. Snape had repaired the door to the corridor and found several jars in the kitchen to conjure fire into, and eventually the small living space warmed up to a tolerable degree. Harry had also been able to shower, though the water wasn't warm, and get the grime and blood off of himself. He also washed his clothes in the shower and used his wand to dry them so he could have something clean to wear.

After two days in the quarters with Snape and Draco, where Harry spent his time reading and snoozing contentedly under a heavy blanket and Snape and Draco talked and read, Snape said, "We will have to leave soon and attempt to get back to the others."

Harry looked up, illusions of staying here peacefully, shattered. "But, we have the best place to stay," he said. "There's no water."

"There is also no food or medicine," Snape said. "You are still fighting off an illness." Harry hadn't minded the coughing so much now that he was warm and dry, and he was feeling a little better each day with all the rest he'd been getting.

"I don't want to go back into the water," Harry said firmly, looking into his Professor's dark eyes.

"We will not be returning to a flooded floor," he confirmed, and seemed as adamant about that as Harry was.

"We could try to call the boat back," Draco said. "Madam Hooch may have taken it and secured it somewhere though so I couldn't keep evading her."

"Tomorrow we will try that," Snape said. Plan in place, Harry went back to his book and Draco laid back on his couch and stared at his parchment, which still had several missing people listed, though Harry and Snape's names were now crossed off.

The next morning Draco showed Snape down to the window he'd initially entered through, and they tried for almost an hour to call the boat or a broom to them. When none came, Harry pretended to be disappointed, and settled down into his blanket as far as he could, wrapping it around himself like a shield that would never be broken.