I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER OR DRACULA! PLEASE REVIEW!

LADY OF THE NIGHT: YEAR TWO:

CHAPTER TEN:

Summer was starting to make its way across the grounds, but with no Hagrid making his way across the grounds with Fang close at his heels, it didn't seem right; and it was no better inside the castle, where things were just as gloomy with Dumbledore gone. We'd tried to visit Hermione in the hospital wing, but Madam Pomfrey had barred any and all visitors. "We're taking no more chances. No, I'm sorry, there's a strong chance the attacker might come and try to finish these people off."

With Dumbledore gone, fear had now spread even quicker than before. One person, though, seemed to be enjoying himself despite the fear plaguing the school. Malfoy was strutting around the school like he'd just been made Head Boy. We didn't see what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left. "I always thought Father might be the one to get rid of Dumbledore. I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster this school's ever seen. Maybe we'll get a decent one now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in..." He turned to look at Snape. "Professor, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"

"Now, now, Malfoy. Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back among us soon."

Malfoy smirked at this. "Yeah, right. I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job-I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir..." Snape walked off, smirking, and Malfoy continued. "I'm shocked the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now. Bet you five Galleons the next one dies-pity it wasn't Granger-"

The bell rang just then, which was lucky for Ron, who had leapt off his chair, meaning his attempts to get at Malfoy went unnoticed. "Let me at him," Ron snarled as Harry and I hung onto his arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands-"

"Hurry up, I've got to take you to Herbology," Snape said loudly over the class's heads, and we walked off, still hanging onto Ron, who was struggling to get free. We only let go of him when we'd reached the greenhouses.

Herbology class was rather quiet. Two of our number were missing: Justin and Hermione. Professor Sprout had us all pruning Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. We had just tipped some withered stalks on the compost heap when we came face-to-face with Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff. "I just wanted to say, Harry, that I'm sorry I ever suspected you. I know you'd never attack Hermione Granger, and I apologize for all the stuff I said. I guess we're in the same boat now, so-" he stuck out his hand, and Harry shook it.

Ernie went to work on the Shrivelfig next to me, Harry, and Ron. "That Draco Malfoy, he seems very pleased about all this. Do you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir." Ron rolled his eyes. "That's clever of you."

"D'you think it's Malfoy, Harry?

"No." He said this so firmly that Ernie stared at him. A second later, Harry had nudged me and Ron hard in the ribs. "Ow! What was that for?" He nodded over at the spiders outside the window, and Ron's face fell. "Oh, yeah. But we can't follow them now..." Harry watched them closely. "Looks like they're headed for the Forbidden Forest." I shuddered at his words.

As Professor Sprout walked us to Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry turned to me and Ron, talking in a low voice. "We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again. We can take Fang into the forest with us. He's used to going into the forest, he might be some help." I nodded, and Ron's voice sounded shaky. "Aren't there-aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?" Harry didn't answer, instead saying, "There are good things in there, too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns..."

Lockhart came into the classroom, grinning broadly, and we all stared at him. "Come now! Why all these long faces?" He was met with a stony silence. "Don't you people realize the danger has passed? The culprit has been taken away-"

"Says who?" Dean Thomas said loudly. "My dear boy, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid away if he wasn't one hundred percent sure Hagrid wasn't guilty." Ron glared at him. "Oh, yes, he would!"

"I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you, Mr. Weasley." Ron opened his mouth to respond, but Harry kicked him under the table. "We weren't there, remember?"

Lockhart's irritating cheerfulness, his hints that he'd always known Hagrid was no good, and his utter confidence the whole thing was over made me want to chuck one of his books in his face. I looked at a note that Harry had passed to me. It was identical to the one he'd passed Ron, and said,

Let's do it tonight.

Ron and I looked over at Hermione's empty seat, and nodded, Ron looking rather pale.

Harry went to get his Invisibility Cloak, and sat on it as we waited for everybody else to leave. The twins challenged us to games of Exploding Snap while Ginny watched silently from Hermione's usual chair. We kept losing the games on purpose, so trying to finish the games quickly, but it was still well after midnight when Fred, George and Ginny went to bed. Once they had closed their respective dormitory doors, Harry, Ron and I threw the Cloak over ourselves, and left the common room.

We had a tough time making our way out of the castle, since so many teachers were patrolling the corridors. Finally we reached the Entrance Hall, and slipped outside.

"'Course," Ron said quietly, "we might get to the forest and find there's nothing to follow. Those spiders might not have been going there at all. I know it looks like they were headed in that general direction, but..." His voice trailed off as we reached Hagrid's house. When I pushed open the doors, Fang bounded around, barking happily when he saw us. We were worried he might wake somebody back up at the castle, so Harry fed him some treacle toffee from the tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his jaws together. Harry placed the Cloak on Hagrid's table, seeing as we wouldn't need it in the dark forest. I patted Fang. "Come on, boy, we're going for a walk."

Harry and I both raised our wands, and muttered, "Lumos!" Ron smiled weakly. "Good thinking. I'd light my wand too, but you know, it'd probably blow up or something." I tapped Ron on the shoulder, gesturing to the spiders scuttling on the ground ahead of us. Ron sighed. "Okay, let's go." We had been walking for about twenty minutes when the trees overhead got thicker than ever, and Harry's and my wands showed that the spiders were leaving the path. Harry and I squinted after them, trying to see where they were going, but we couldn't see beyond the glow emitting from the ends of our wands.

"What do you reckon?" Ron spoke, his voice shaking slightly. "We've come this far." We headed off the path, and began moving slower because there were tree roots and stumps in the way. We'd been walking for about half an hour when the ground began sloping downwards. Suddenly, Fang barked, startling the three of us. Ron began gripping Harry's elbow. "What is it?"

Harry peered into the darkness, listening hard. "There's something moving over there. Listen...sounds like something big..." Somewhere to our right, we could hear it snapping branches as it headed our way. Ron gasped. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no..." I glared at him. "Shut up! It'll hear you!"

"Hear me?! It's already heard Fang!"

There was a strange rumbling, and then a silence. "What do you think it's doing?" Harry asked in a low whisper.

"Probably getting ready to pounce." We waited, hardly daring to move. "You think it's gone?"

"Dunno..."

To our right, a sudden blaze of light so bright that we had to throw up our arms to shield our eyes. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got caught in some thorns and yelped even louder.

"Harry! Evangeline! It's our car!"

"What?!"

"Come on!"

Mr. Weasley's car stood there in the middle of trees under a roof of dense branches. As Ron walked toward it, the car moved toward him. "It's been here all this time! Look at it. The forest's turned it wild..." The sides of the car were scratched and caked with mud. It seemed to have taken to driving around the forest on its own. Fang didn't seem too crazy about the car: he kept close to me, and I could hear him whimpering quietly. As our breathing slowed down, Harry and I stuffed our wands back into our robes. Ron grinned, patting the car. "And we thought it was going to attack us! I wondered where it had gone!"

Harry and I looked around for any signs of the spiders, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights. "We've lost the trail. Come on, let's go and find them." Ron stared above me and Harry, eyes wide with fear, unable to speak. "Ron, what-" A second later, I felt myself lifted into the air by two immensely long, hairy legs. As I hung upside down, I saw the other six legs. I heard Fang yelping nearby, and it seemed as though Fang, Harry and Ron were being carried by three of the same creatures.

We reached a hollow, and I nearly threw up when I saw the scene before me. Huge spiders were swarming all over the place. I fell to the ground, having been dropped by the spider carrying me, and judging from the thumps next to me, Harry, Ron, and Fang had also been dropped. Ron's eyes were popping, and his mouth was open in a silent scream. Suddenly, we realized that the spider that had been carrying Harry was saying something. "Aragog! Aragog!"

From the middle of a domed web, the largest spider of the lot emerged. There was grey on the black of his body and legs, and he was blind. "What is it?"

"Men."

"Is it Hagrid?"

"Strangers."

"Kill them. I was sleeping..."

Harry finally spoke up. "We're friends of Hagrid's!" Aragog paused. "Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before..." I caught my breath, and spoke. "Hagrid's in trouble. That's why we've come."

"In trouble?" If I didn't know any better, I could've sworn that Aragog sounded concerned. "But why has he sent you?"

"They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a-a-something on the students. They've taken him to Azkaban." Aragog began clicking his pincers furiously, and the sound was echoed by all the other spiders in the hollow. I felt sick with terror.

"But that was years ago. Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free."

Harry's voice was shaking now. "So-so you didn't from the Chamber of Secrets?"

"I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's kindness..."

"So you never attacked anyone?"

"Never. It would have been have my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle except the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and quiet..."

"But then...do you know what did kill that girl? Because whatever it is, it's back and attacking people-" Harry was cut off by the sounded of their pincers clicking furiously. "The thing that lives in the castle is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go when I sensed it moving about the castle."

"What is it?" There was more loud clicking and rustling. It seemed as though the spiders were closing in on us. "We do not speak of it! We do not name it! I never told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times." The spiders seemed to be getting even closer. "Um...right. Well, we'll just go, then..."

"Go? I think not..."

"But-but-"

"My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat, when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Good-bye, friend of Hagrid."

Even as Harry and I reached for our wands, we knew it was hopeless, but as we tried to stand and die fighting, a long, loud note sounded, and a blaze of light entered the hollow. Mr. Weasley's car was thundering down the slope, horn screeching as it knocked spiders out of its way; many were thrown onto their backs, their legs waving in the air. "Get Fang!" Harry dived into the front seat, and I jumped into the back with Fang. Ron went into the driver's seat, his mouth still open in the silent scream.

The car acted of its on volition, speeding up the slope, out of the hollow, and crashed through the forest, with the car taking shortcuts it had obviously discovered during its time in here. "Are you okay?" Ron stared straight ahead, unable to speak. Finally the car stopped outside the forest. I let a howling Fang out, and he ran back to Hagrid's cabin, his tail between his legs. Harry, Ron and I got out, too, and after Harry gave the car a grateful pat, it went into reverse and disappeared back into the forest.

Harry and I went into Hagrid's cabin to get the Cloak and check on Fang, who was shaking violently under his blanket in a corner. When we went back outside, Ron was throwing up in the pumpkin patch. "Follow the spiders," Ron said weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."

"I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," I said.

"That's exactly Hagrid's problem! He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're made out to be, and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban! What was the point of sending us in there?! What have we found out!?"

Harry flung the Cloak over the three of us, prodding Ron in the back to make him walk. "We found out that Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets. He was innocent." Ron snorted. Obviously, hatching Aragog in a cupboard wasn't his idea of innocent.

As we entered the castle, Harry adjusted the Cloak to make sure our feet were hidden, and made our way silently back to the Gryffindor common room. Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak, and we sat down, quietly talking it over. "The creature that's hiding in the castle seems like a monster Voldemort-" Ron and I winced at Harry saying that, "-even other monsters don't want to name it. But we're no closer to finding out what it is, or how it's Petrifying its victims. Even Hagrid never knew what was in the Chamber of Secrets."

Harry seemed to be thinking hard, and then his eyes snapped open. "That girl who died. Aragog said she was found in a bathroom. What if she's still there?" Ron and I stared at him in shock. "Do you mean-Moaning Myrtle!?"