This chapter will contain some dialogue and passages from my fanfic Twelve Kisses. Just letting you know.

Chapter 37: Follow The Spiders

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle. Even though the skies were blue and the weather was nice, without Hagrid and Dumbledore being there, the castle still felt dark and cold.

Harry and I had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing.

"We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off."

I for one, didn't listen to a bloody word she said. I started to take Harry's cloak and see Hermione at night.

The first night that I had done so, I almost got caught by one of the ghosts. Thankfully, they totally missed my tripping over my own steps, and I rushed to the wing, opened the door, and went to sit by Hermione.

I felt terrible as I sat in the chair beside her bed. She still looked the same. Still, stiff, lifeless.

"Mione? Hermione?" I said, seeing if she would show some sign of her hearing me. Nothing.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but I just want to let you know that I'm angry as hell at you. Why didn't you come with me? I know you were on some breakthrough, but you knew what was happening. You knew that this Heir of Slytherin bastard was looking for kids like you. Why, why, why did you do this to yourself?"

"I need to stop blaming you. This isn't really your fault. You didn't know he would strike. It was my fault for letting you go by yourself. I should have chased after you, instead of rushing to the Quidditch match. And now you're like this. That was very selfish of me. I should have been there to protect you. Instead I was thinking about how I would rather be outside at the game instead of a stuffy old library. That's my problem. I need to study harder like you. Maybe it will help with my poor decision making."

"I don't like seeing you like this. It's like you're dead. But thank Merlin you aren't. If you died, I wouldn't know what I would do. You're my best friend. Harry is too, but I would miss you a lot. Hell, I miss you right now. I wouldn't mind you yelling at me over something dumb, or nagging me to do my homework, or laughing at one of my jokes."

"You have got to wake up. You can't stay like this forever. I won't allow you to. Mione, please."

No answer. No change.

I thought about that muggle thing that Hermione had told me about called a movie. Something about fairies and a girl sticking her finger on a needle and falling into a deep sleep and some prince bloke came along and kissed her, breaking the spell and waking her up.

Well, I was no prince. But maybe, just maybe...

I got up and kissed Hermione on her forehead. I looked at her to see if there was any movement. There wasn't any.

I sighed. "Fine, Hermione. Hagrid says to solve this, we have to follow the spiders. So I'll do it. I'll follow the spiders. Not for them, but for you."

I patted Hermione's shoulder, draped the cloak over me, and walked out of the door. I couldn't be there any longer.

Potions the next day was torture for Harry and I. Malfoy was strutting around as though he had just been appointed Head Boy.

"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in..."

Snape walked past us, a sneaky grin plastered on his face.

"Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"

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

"Yeah, right," said Malfoy, smirking. "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 smirked as he swept off around the dungeon. Harry had to move my arms after I made a not so pleasant gesture behind Snape's back

"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger."

The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky for Malfoy, as Harry and Dean had to grab at my arms and hold he back firmly. I was about to fuck him up.

"Lemme at him!" I growled as Harry and Dean held onto me as tight as they could. "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 all to Herbology." barked Snape over the class's heads. Harry and Dean continued to hold my arms, as i was trying hard to break away from them. He had talked about my best friend for the last time. How fucking dare he wish death upon a girl that had done nothing to him. They let me go when we got outside and Snape had left with the other Slytherins.

"Snot nosed son of a bitch." I growled as we headed to Herbology.

As we pruned the Abyssinian Shrivelfig, Ernie Macmillan came over to our station. He took a deep breath and said, very formally, "I just want 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. We're all in the same boat now, and, well-"

He held out a pudgy hand, and Harry shook it.

Ernie and his friend Hannah came to work at the same Shrivelfig as Harry and I.

"That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, "he seems very pleased about all this, doesn't he? Do you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir."

"That's clever of you." I snapped at him. Harry may have forgiven him, but I sure as hell did not.

"Do you think it's Malfoy, Harry?" Ernie asked.

"No," said Harry, so firmly that Ernie and Hannah stared.

A second later, Harry had hit me over the hand with his pruning shears.

"Ouch! The fuck are you-"

Harry pointed out the spiders, who seemed to be moving in a uniformed line

"Oh, yeah." I gulped. "But we can't follow them now."

Ernie and Hannah were listening curiously.

"Looks like they're heading for the Forbidden Forest." he whispered in my ear. That made me feel worse.

At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to our Defense Against the Dark Arts "lesson". Harry and I lagged behind the others so we could talk out of earshot.

"We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again." Harry said to me. "We can take Fang with us. He's used to going into the forest with Hagrid, he might be some help."

"Right." I said, twirling my wand nervously in my fingers. "Er - aren't there - aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?"

"There are good things in there, too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns..." reassured Harry. Truly didn't work.

Lockhart came prancing into the room and the class stared at him. He was happy. Too fucking happy.

"Come now," he said, beaming around him. "Why all these long faces? Don't you people realize the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away!"

"Says who?" said Dean, loudly.

"My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty," said Lockhart.

"Oh, yes he would," I said, even more loudly than Dean. I truly didn't give a damn.

"I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a confident and arrogant tone that grinded my gears.

I was about to tell him otherwise, and also where he could stick his flattery, when Harry kicked me hard under the desk.

"We weren't there, remember?" Harry muttered.

As class went on, I hardly paid attention to the pile of tripe speaking to us. I was too angry to focus on anything. Finally. Harry had passed me a note.

Let's do it tonight.

I read the message, swallowed hard, and looked sideways at the empty seat usually filled by Hermione. I sighed, wishing she was there. I nodded at Harry.

The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o'clock onward us Gryffs had nowhere else to go. People stayed in common room talking and it didn't empty until past midnight.

Harry went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk right after dinner, and spent the evening sitting on it, waiting for the room to clear. The twins challenged us to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching us quietly in Hermione's usual chair. Ever since her attack, Ginny had looked even worse. We kept losing on purpose, trying to finish the games quickly, but even so, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and Ginny finally went to bed.

We waited for the sounds of two doors closing before seizing the cloak, throwing it over ourselves, and climbing through the portrait hole.

It was another difficult journey through the castle, dodging all the teachers. At last we reached the entrance hall, slid back the lock on the oak front doors, squeezed between them, trying to stop any creaking, and stepped out onto the grounds.

"Course," I began, trying to psyche myself out. "we might get to the forest and find there's nothing to follow. Those spiders might not've been going there at all. I know it looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but..."

I stopped talking, trying to imaging this whole spider ordeal would be absolutely nothing.

We reached Hagrid's house, which looked completely dark and depressing without any signs of him there. When Harry pushed the door open, Fang went mad with joy at the sight of us. Worried he might wake everyone at the castle with his deep, booming barks, we fed him treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together.

Harry left the Invisibility Cloak on Hagrid's table. There would be no need for it in the pitch-dark forest.

"C'mon, Fang, we're going for a walk." said Harry, patting his leg, and Fang bounded happily out of the house behind us, dashed to the edge of the forest, and lifted his leg against a large sycamore tree.

Harry took out his wand, murmured, "Lumos!" and a tiny light appeared at the end of it, just enough light the path and see the spiders.

"Good thinking." I said. "I'd light mine, too, but you know - it'd probably blow up or something."

"There." said Harry, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing at the grass. Two spiders were hurrying away from the light and into the shade of the trees.

"Okay. I said, taking deep breaths. "I'm ready. Let's go."

We followed the trail of spiders deeper and deeper into the forest. The whole time I kept thinking. "For Hermione, for Hermione." over and over again so I could keep constantly reminding myself of why the fuck I was following things that I were deathly afraid of.

The trees got bigger and bigger and it got harder to maneuver through them. We walked over for what seemed like forever, until Harry stopped.

We followed the shadows of the spiders into the trees. We couldn't move very quickly anymore, as there were tree roots and stumps in our way, barely visible in the near blackness. More than once, we had to stop, so that Harry could crouch down and find the spiders in the wandlight.

We walked for what seemed like at least half an hour. After a while, we noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downward, though the trees were as thick as ever.

Then Fang suddenly barked loudly, making both Harry and I jump out of our skins.

"What the fuck Fang?!" I said loudly, looking around and latching onto Harry's arm like the scared bitch that I was. At that point, I had no shame.

"There's something moving over there." Harry breathed. "Listen... sounds like something big..."

Some distance to our right, the something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees.

"Oh, no." I began to panic. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh-"

"Shut up!" said Harry frantically. "It'll hear you!"

"Hear me?" I said in a high pitch whine. "It's already heard Fang!"

"What d'you think it's doing?" said Harry.

"Probably getting ready to pounce." I said, my body trembling.

We waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.

"D'you think it's gone?" Harry whispered.

"Dunno-"

Then, to our right, came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that we had to shield our eyes. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder.

"Harry!" I shouted, relieved."Harry, it's our car!"

"What?"

"Come on!"

We ran over roots and grass until we reached Dad's car. "It's been here all the time!" I said,delightedly. "Look at it. The forest's turned it wild."

The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently it had taken to trundling around the forest on its own. Fang didn't seem to like it.

"And we thought it was going to attack us!" I said, leaning against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!"

"We've lost the trail." said Harry, looking around. "C'mon, let's go and find them."

I looked up, getting ready to walk, and I paused at the sight that was in front of me. I could speak. I couldn't move. All I could do I stares terrified at the huge motherfucking spider that was clicking its fucking teeth in front of us.

Suddenly the bug fucker grabbed Harry and dragged him off. I quickly found myself snatched up as well, too crippled with fear to fight back. All I could do was scream.

I was dragged violently through the forest. I could hear Harry grunting and Fang barking and whimpering, but I couldn't see either of them. The legs were tickling my skin in the worst way, I felt as if I was going through the teddy bear incident all over again.

Suddenly, my face hit the ground as I was flung forward in what looked like an open pit. Jarry and Fang were thrown in as well. I stood up as quickly as I could, feeling as if I was going to bloody pee on myself.

I hears clicks of the spider that had Harry's mouth. It was speaking about something. Or someone.

Someone called Aragog.