Harry grunted as he lifted the last of the large cauldrons up onto a shelf, struggling with it for a moment with his tired arms, and then finally managing, feeling he'd just barely escaped the fate of being crushed. With a frown Harry muttered something to himself under his breath and then wiped the sweat from his brow. He supposed it would have suited Snape just fine if the cauldron had fallen and crushed him. It would have been a great end to Snape's detention he thought sarcastically. As Harry picked up the rags he'd used to clean the set of 25 cauldron's out, he knew he had two more nights of this to look forward to. Damn Snape and his assumptions, always thinking Harry the spoiled brat and always looking for some excuse to punish him. Wasn't it bad enough that Harry was still weak from lack of food over the summer? No, he supposed not, and Snape had to go and give him three detentions for stumbling in class and accidentally knocking a few ingredients off of Pansy Parkinson's work bench, as if he'd done it on purpose.

Harry scowled in the darkened dungeon classroom as he spied water on the floor that he'd apparently missed when he had mopped up after cleaning the last set of cauldrons. Muttering about the work of a slave never being done, Harry snatched up the mop from the floor and began mopping it up, thoughts of his warm bed up in Gryffindor tower the only thing keeping him from snapping just then and throwing the mop to the ground. Later Harry supposed it was his daydream that kept him from noticing that the puddle of water was only growing bigger, because it wasn't until the water had come up over the soles of his shoes that he looked down again and startled at the sight of the mini flood. Had Myrtle flooded a loo again? If she had, then Harry wondered what she was doing all the way down in the dungeons. She usually avoided this area of the castle because she didn't want to run into the Bloody Baron.

As Harry stood there wondering, the water came in and added another inch to the floor.

"What the-" Harry sloshed through the water, leaving his mop behind leaning against a desk as he made his way out of the classroom, having trouble opening the heavy door because water was pushing against it from the other side. He managed to get it open just enough for his thin frame to squeeze through, and then let it slam closed again. The hallway had at least five inches and was well above Harry's ankles, and it only seemed to be coming in faster.

Harry's next thought was that he should get up to the Entrance Hall because somebody's spell had gone awry, but he didn't want to leave anybody trapped down here in the dungeons if it got worse. True he hated Snape and most of the Slytherins, but Hermione had made a good point the other day about some of the Slytherins not being too bad. There was even a girl the year ahead of Harry in sixth year that he thought wasn't too bad because she never made fun of him, and her eyes were pretty.

Making his decision, Harry went to Snape's office to see if he knew about the problem, but found it empty.

"Professor?" Harry called down the hall, but he got no answer aside from the sound of rushing water which was rising at an alarming rate now.

Harry ran down the hall towards Slytherin common room and wondered if he could pound on the door and be heard by the people inside, but just as he got there the wall slid open and students came pouring out like a panicked wave, several tumbling into him and knocking him down into the water in the darkened corridor.

Thoroughly soaked now Harry tried to get up only to be pushed down several more times by frightened Slytherins. When the last student had run out Harry was finally able to use the wall to pull himself up. Well, the Slytherins were out, he thought, and Snape would just have to fend for himself, because Harry had no idea where to look for him and wasn't going to risk drowning if the man wasn't even in the dungeons.

Harry had to hike his knees up high to make good time through the icy water and fell twice before the stairs up out of the dungeons came into view. He was just about to climb up out of this watery mess when a strange cry in the darkness behind him caught his attention. It didn't sound like Snape, Harry thought, squinting into the darkness. Several of the torches on the walls had flickered out now in the damp air, and Harry pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket and lit it.

Damn, he thought. What if it was a first year stuck back there somewhere?

"Where are you?" He called, and in the distance he heard splashing and a noise that sounded a little hysterical. After another moment of indecision Harry finally began splashing his way back down the hall, avoiding several items that had floated out of the Slytherin common room including a table, some clothing, and too many school books to count.

By the time he'd struggled down to the end of the corridor and called out again, every light was out except for his wand, and Harry wasn't sure which way to go until he heard the cry for help again. Another left and two rights and Harry was in a part of the dungeons he wasn't familiar with, with water almost up to his armpits surrounding him.

"Hello?" he called out uncertainly. If he waited much longer to turn back then he'd have to swim back to the stairs.

"Here!"

Using his arms to help him navigate the obstacle laden water faster, Harry finally found his query in a dark room that looked like it might have been an extra study room. There Draco Malfoy sat on his knees on a floating table in the darkness.

"Potter, thank God."

"Draco? Come on, we have to get out of here!" Irritated that Draco hadn't already vacated the area, Harry turned to leave, but Draco screamed out to stop him.

"No Potter!"

Turning, Harry saw the blond Slytherins white face.

"What?" Harry's anxiety was creeping up on him as the cold water kept coming in. "Come on," he urged.

"I can't swim!"

"THEN WALK!" The water had risen another inch just in the sixty seconds he'd wasted there and he was beginning to feel panicked himself. If he had to guess, he thought it had been less than five minutes since he'd first spotted the puddle in the classroom.

"I- I can't." Draco's voice sounded defeated and Harry rolled his eyes before swimming over to the table and grabbing hold of it and trying to drag it and Draco through the door. His feet were no help anymore as his toes were just barely touching the floor.

"What's happening?" Draco asked timidly as he tried to keep balance on top of the table.

"I don't know," Harry said. His arms were already tired from scrubbing cauldrons all evening and he was still feeling weak besides. He'd had to miss dinner for detention.

Barely getting the table through the door, Harry told Draco to hold on and then he allowed his feet to float up under the table so he could use his other arm to swim better. After nearly falling from the table, Draco finally lay down on it on his stomach and held on to it with both hands.

Feeling almost too tired to continue on, Harry stopped swimming, and said, "Push yourself off the table a little bit and use your legs to kick. We'll get out of here faster."

"No, I'll fall off."

"No you won't, just do it or I'm leaving you here."

Draco grumbled, "You would," and then did as he was told, allowing his feet and knees to slide down into the water. With Harry holding on to the other end with his arm, the table was balanced and neither one of them fell off. Harry put his wand in his mouth and held it with his teeth, keeping his head tilted so he could shine light where he needed it. The water was almost too full to swim through now, and Harry was hit in the face several times with books and other objects.

Both boys were startled several moments later in the darkness as a bedraggled cat swam past them, trying to find its way out, and feeling sorry for it Harry grabbed it by the collar and struggled to lift it up onto the table.

"Shoo," Draco said to it, voice shaky. "This is my table."

Harry didn't have an opportunity to tell Draco to knock it off with the wand in his mouth, so he kept going instead.

Harry was keeping a keen eye out for the stairs, but was surprised when he found no stairs where he knew there ought to be some. The water had covered them now and Harry looked up to find themselves near the ceiling of the tall corridor.

"I don't think we can take the table up," Harry said, taking the wand out of his mouth and holding onto the table tightly, not wanting to let go of it himself.

"We have to!"

"I'll swim you up."

"Forget it!"

"Would you just shut up and listen to me! We're not getting out of here on the table! We have to swim up!"

There was silence aside from rushing water, and after a few moments Draco said, "Don't let me drown Potter." It was a plea for help that Harry couldn't ignore, even if Draco had cursed his shoelaces together last week.

Carefully moving around the table, Harry said, "Don't strangle me or we'll both drown. You have to lay on your back and we'll swim backwards. You kick and I'll keep us floating."

"Oh- oh- ok."

Cold sapping Harry's energy even more, Harry took Draco from the table and they rolled onto their backs, Harry using one arm to hold Draco and the other to swim.

"Kick," Harry said, his head going under water for a moment as he swallowed some. When his head bobbed back up he found Draco panicking, and they struggled for a few moments before the table knocked into Harry's head hard and he fought to push the infernal thing away from them.

Long moments passed and both boys went under several times before Harry regained control after slapping Draco hard on the side of the head, and Harry grabbed him before he could panic again and made for the opening that was supposed to be the stairs.

Harry had hoped to walk the rest of the way up out of the dungeons, but as they began up the stairs, a surge of water poured in from wherever it was coming from and filled up the rest of the corridor, pushing them forcefully up the stairwell and out into the dark Entrance Hall.

"What the hell!" Harry spat out with a mouthful of water as they were deposited unceremoniously onto the Entrance Hall floor, which was fast flooding itself and was already under a foot of water. Harry struggled to stand up drag Draco to his feet as another foot of water came in.

"Up here!"

Harry and Draco looked up to see Snape most of Slytherin house at the top of the stairs, though some of the students had begun running up the next set of stairs upon seeing the water flooding the floor level now too.

Harry and Draco made a run for it, and Draco just made the first step when Harry lost his balance in the fast moving water and was swept off his feet and towards the front doors, where one stood open, forced open by the water. Too weak to regain his balance, Harry grabbed onto stone statute holding Hufflepuff's points hourglass, and looked up to see Draco dragging himself to the top of the stairs, and Snape running down.

"Stand up and come here Potter, now!" Snape was calling to him, holding out his hand from the second step up, as the bottom step was covered in water already. Harry looked out into the dark beyond and hoped there wasn't a flood out there too, because he couldn't stand and couldn't hold on either. A moment later, his fingers slipped from the statue, and he was gone out into the night.