Chapter Fifteen: Aragog

Everything was still grey.

Hermione thought she saw something at the end of the grey. A person. Finnegan… or was it Marius? Hermione couldn't tell. She squinted. As he drew near, however, his features morphed into a bright red owl. Within its beak was a letter that seemed to read itself aloud into her unconscious. Hermione felt a pressure as the owl perched itself on her hand, accompanied by the smell of spearmint.

Hey 'Moine.

Madam Pomfrey is being completely mental and not letting anyone come in to visit all of the petrified students anymore. I don't get it. What harm would we do? You're already basically stone. Fred and George know all kinds of hidden passageways in the school, though, so here I am.

Anyway, I don't even know if you can hear me or whatever, but I thought you'd want to know what's been going on. Me and Harry went to go visit Hagrid to see if he was really the one who opened the Chamber before, and while we were there, Dumbledore, Malfoy's dad, and Fudge, the Minister of Magic, came to arrest Hagrid! Luckily we had Harry's cloak, or else they'd have seen us. I think Dumbledore did, though. Weird guy, that one. I'm glad he talks to Harry more than me.

But, yeah, and not only did Hagrid have to go to Azkaban, but Malfoy was also going on about some rubbish about the school governors and then said all of the school governors voted for Dumbledore's suspension from being Headmaster. We could tell Fudge wasn't happy, but there was nothing he could do because the governors run the school, not the Ministry. I'd bet it was all Malfoy, though. He probably blackmailed all of the governors to vote that way because he's a big fat tosser. It's complete bollocks.

I don't know what we're going to do without Dumbledore. Everyone's so tense. If there's another attack, I reckon they're going to have to shut down the school. I dunno. I hope not. Oh, but guess who's not tense: Draco. He's strutting all over the school, being a right git. I almost got a good swing one day at Potions at him, but Harry and Dean stopped me. He's lucky I didn't get my hands on him.

Sorry. I'm rambling. I know you'd be telling me to get on with it if you could. You'd probably be making that, erm, funny looking face where your forehead scrunches up, and you look really surprised until your eyes roll. And you'd probably say something like, "Honestly, Ronald, get on with it." I can almost hear it… I kind of miss it...

So anyways, Hagrid told us to "follow the spiders" before they led him out to Azkaban. "Follow the spiders." Mental, that one is. I hate spiders, but you already knew that. But we wanted to figure this out for you, so me and Harry did just that. We followed the spiders all the way out to the Forbidden Forest. We had to use the cloak again to get down to Hagrid's Hut so we could take Fang, though it turns out he's a bigger scaredy-cat than Mrs. Norris.

So there we are, deep in the Forbidden Forest, and we hear this noise. It was the car! Our car! The Ford! The Forest must have turned it wild. It looked all shabby and rusted. My mum would have fainted right there and then at how bad it looked. Honestly, we could barely tell what colour it was originally.

But, then I looked to where the headlights were pointed, and I saw - I don't even know if I can say it - I saw... giant spiders. Everywhere. They were huge. They picked us up and… Actually, I don't know because I blacked out. Can't remember a thing. Harry says they carried me, him, and Fang through the forest, but I don't remember much. The next thing I remember is standing in front of an even bigger spider. I swear, 'Mione, this one was bigger than the Ford. It was so big! It's big, hairy legs… ug! I can't even talk about it!

Let's just pretend it was a fluffy bunny, ok? A cute, fluffy bunny. That may make this easier. Yeah. So the bunny starts talking to us as all of the baby bunnies - though they were really big for being called baby bunnies - surrounded us. The bunny's name was Aragog, and he was Hagrid's pet when Hagrid went to Hogwarts. No surprise there. I mean, he always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're made out and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban! He's lucky he hasn't been killed! Never gonna forgive him for this. Hagrid that is.

The bunny said that everyone thought he was the Monster of Slytherin, but it wasn't him. Just said that his "family" - ugh - was scared of it… but he did give us one clue: the girl who died was found in the bathroom. At that point, I wanted the Monster, whatever it was, to show up even if it turned me to stone. But at least, now, we know Hagrid didn't open the Chamber of Secrets back in the day, and we think the girl that died may be Moaning Myrtle.

So we were getting ready to leave, and the stupid bunny was like, "Yeah, I didn't kill any humans out of respect for Hagrid, but since that bloke landed himself in Azkaban, bollocks to that!" and then he told all of his baby bunnies to go ahead and eat us!

Luckily, the Ford picked us up and got us out of there, but it was a close one, I'll tell you. And as soon as Hagrid gets out of Azkaban, he's going to hear about it! I promise you that!

But can you get better soon? We need you, 'Mione. We can't figure this out without you. Plus, my essays have been horrible without you checking them. If we survive all this, I'm not sure if I'm gonna pass all of my classes. You wouldn't want me to have to repeat my second-year, would you?