A/N: So, as you can probably guess, the next few chapters will feature Renee. Much more Clara to come in Sea of Monsters canon, I promise that. I will find a way to fit her in more, but I wanted to petrify her for now. I promise she will be more than she's been, considering the story started about her anyway. So yeah, hope you enjoy!
Hufflepufferfish
Renee POV:
Harry told me everything he knew from the diary.
"But it can't be Hagrid….can it? I mean, he's never hurt anything! Let alone killing!"
"That's what we thought as well. But, I mean, we have to check."
"Oh, alright. Where'd you get this cloak, Harry?"
"My dad left it to Dumbledore, for me. It's been useful."
I nodded. We reached Hagrid's, and Ron pounded on the door. Hagrid stepped out, holding a crossbow.
"Oh. What're you two-three? doing here?" He looked at me oddly, and I realized that midnight visits from Harry and Ron were probably actually quite commonplace. Of course I didn't fit in.
"Hagrid, what's that for?"
"Nothin'...nothin'...been expecting...never mind, come in."
"Are you okay, Hagrid?" Even I knew that he wasn't generally like this.
"Yeah….yeah, never mind," he said, knocking over his tea kettle.
"Did you hear about Hermione and Clara?"
"Oh, I heard alright," he confirmed grimly.
Hagrid kept glancing nervously at the window as he continued to make tea. Harry put a finger to his lips. There was a loud knock, and Hagrid dropped the fruitcake he was holding. Harry threw the cloak over us and we shuffled toward the back of the house.
"Good evening, Hagrid."
"Professor Dumbledore, sir."
Dumbledore was followed by a short man with gray hair. I stifled a giggle at what he was wearing. But then again, I had seen Clara in worse clothes….that one time when we were eight, playing in the sprinkler with those horrid swimsuits….yeah. Those were the days.
"That's Dad's boss, Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic!"
I elbowed Ron in the ribs. "Shhh!"
"Bad business, Hagrid," Fudge said heavily. "Very bad business. Had to come. Five attacks on Muggle-borns, the ministry's got to act."
"I never," said Hagrid forcefully. "You know I never, Professor Dumbledore, sir."
"I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence in the matter."
"Albus, his record is against him. Ministry's got to be doing something, the school governors have been in touch-"
"Yet again, Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid will not change anything."
"Look at it this way, Albus. I'm under a lot of pressure. Got to be seen doing something. If it turns out it wasn't Hagrid, he'll be back and no more said. But I've got to take him. Got to. Wouldn't be doing my duty as minister…."
"Take me? Take me where?"
"For a short stretch only. Not a punishment, but as a precaution, really." Fudge wasn't looking at Hagrid as he spoke.
I gulped and all heads turned our direction. Harry elbowed me in the ribs. I was about to nudge him back when there was another knock, this one much harsher than Dumbledore's. A man stepped in and I gulped again. Ron looked sick. It was Lucius Malfoy.
"What are you doin' here? Get outta my house!"
"My dear man, please believe me. I have no pleasure in being in your….you call this a house?"
"Well, I have no doubt it's cozier than yours," I mouthed. Harry kicked me. Lucius looked up at us for a split second before shaking his head.
"I simply arrived at the school and was told that the headmaster was here."
"And what exactly did you want with me, Lucius?" I marveled at Dumbledore's ability to stay calm.
"Dreadful thing really….the governors feel it's time for you to step aside. This is an order of suspension. You'll find all twelve signatures on it. I'm afraid we feel you're losing your touch. How many attacks have there been now? Three more this afternoon, wasn't it, and only two of them Mudbloods-er Muggle-born."
I snarled. "Now see here, Malfoy," said Fudge. "You can't take Dumbledore! Last thing we want just now-no, no."
"The appointment-or suspension-of the headmaster is the decision of the governors. And as Dumbledore has failed to stop these attacks-"
"And how many of 'em did you have to threaten and blackmail before they agreed?!" Hagrid yelled. "Take Dumbledore and there'll be an attack a day! The Muggle-borns won't stand a chance! There'll be killin' next, mark my words!"
"Dear, dear. You do know that temper will lead you into trouble one of these days, Hagrid."
"Calm yourself, Hagrid. If the governors wish for me to step aside then I surely shall."
"But-" stammered Fudge.
"NO!" Hagrid roared.
"However," the headmaster continued, his eyes looking in the direction of our corner, "you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none left here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given to those at Hogwarts who ask for it."
Lucius sneered. "Very admirable sentiments, Albus. We will all miss your-er-highly individual way of running things. I can only hope that your successor will be more capable at preventing the, ah, killins."
I glared at him, bending down and whispering something with my wand. Hagrid stood up and glanced at us to make sure we were listening. "If anyone wanted to, er, find out a few things, my advice would be to, er, follow the spiders. They could tell yeh some useful information."
Everyone stared. Fudge steered Hagrid to the door, and Dumbledore and Lucius followed. We heard the door slam and went to the window to know when we could come out. Fang howled loudly.
"That dirty son of a titan!" I cursed. Harry laughed.
"Is that what you say at camp Half-Blood?"
"I'm going to write to the governors and tell them to fight against him! To kick him off the board!"
"You will not, Renee. We're not supposed to be here!"
"Oh. Right. I can't believe he just left! He didn't even resist!"
"I bet he has a plan. I hope Hagrid's okay."
"Yeah." I noticed some spiders heading toward the forest. "Should we follow them?"
Harry checked his watch. "No. We'll come get you like we did tonight when we plan to." He stepped up near Ron.
We heard swearing from outside and I noticed a hat sitting on the chair. "It must be Lucius's. Not that he'll come back for it."
"Why wouldn't he?"
"I cast a repelling charm on this house."
Ron high fived me. Harry laughed, and we threw the cloak over us to head back to the castle.
Harry, Ron, and I tried to visit Clara and Hermione the next day, but Madam Pomfrey said, "We're taking no chances. The attacker might come back to finish them off."
Summer was approaching, which meant my birthday was coming. I hoped the potion would be ready by that time. If I couldn't celebrate with Clara, it would be like not celebrating at all. I frequently asked Harry and Ron when we were going out, but all the spiders seemed to have disappeared.
With Dumbledore gone, everyone was worried. Any laughter that rang through the halls was unnatural and tense and was quickly silenced.
The hardest day was when I got the letter from David Bradley. Clara's family had been super worried, so distraught that her parents couldn't even bear to write me themselves and had to have their oldest son do it.
Dear Renee,
She told us it was only going to happen to the Muggle-borns. So she didn't know. But you two can not keep going to Hogwarts! Once your nurse treats my sister with the potion, we are bringing the two of you straight home! I understand that you have to go to Camp Half-Blood for survival, even though it gets dangerous. But returning to Hogwarts in the fall will be totally unsafe. I'm really sorry. Renee, you're a part of the family now. We can't just let you live in the orphanage, so I can adopt you in a few years if you wish, after I've done a couple years in college and am living on my own. We're really worried about you. Stay strong and keep us updated, please. This has to be hard on you as well.
Sending love,
David and the Bradleys.
Well, the prospect of having David adopt me in a few years was promising. The fact that Clara's family cared about me so much was as well. But the idea that we couldn't return to Hogwarts in September was something of a shock. Clara would probably agree with me that we had to find a way to fight that. After all, it would mean leaving behind Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Sandra, Gill, and Hagrid, who were all beautiful people who I needed in my life. It would mean losing a defense as well. And I couldn't evade danger. There were still monsters to fight as a demigod; there was still the impending threat of Kronos. I wished I had someone to talk to about this, but with Clara gone I didn't. I could tell Harry and Ron, but they wouldn't understand.
The days went by slowly. I met with Harry and Ron every night after dinner, but it was hard to see them regularly because I was a Slytherin.
Meanwhile, Sandra and I had rekindled our friendship. It wasn't like I trusted her much, but there was comfort in having a friend who was in my dorm, a friend to fight against Kaylee with. Because although the heir of Slytherin had relented for the time, she hadn't, and she still tortured me at every chance she got. She seemed to believe I was dating Harry, Ron, and Gill all at once, which was her latest way of trying to pit me against my friends.
"Hey, cheater, how's your boyfriend? Oh, that's right, you don't know which one I'm talking about, do you?" "Sanderson, how's ginger? Or is it scarhead this week? Or maybe blackie?" "What does Miss Stupid Hufflepuff have to say about all this, huh? Oh that's right, she can't tell you, she's petrified!"
"Don't call her stupid! And don't call Gill Bellis 'blackie!' That's racist, Parkinson!"
"Hey Renee!" I braced myself for an onslaught of insults before realizing it was Ron.
"Wha-oh hey."
"We're going to do it tonight. Meet us outside Slytherin."
"Okay. Thanks for telling me."
"And don't let that complete bitch Parkinson get you down. I swear, she's worse than her sister. I didn't think it was possible."
I laughed. "Thanks."
That night, Harry and Ron were waiting for me in the cloak. It felt good to have friends who waited for me. Ron looked white.
"What's up?" I asked as we made our way to Hagrid's house. We would be taking Fang with us in case that would help at all.
"I don't like spiders," he mumbled.
"You'd fit right in at camp, there's a whole cabin who hates them. The Athena cabin, my friend Annabeth…."
We reached Hagrid's house and opened the door. Fang came bounding out with a howl. I grabbed a treacle tart and fed it to him, hoping it would be sticky enough to clamp his jaws for the time being.
"Good thinking," Harry said.
We walked towards the forest. I lit my wand and Harry followed suit.
"I'd light mine, but it'd probably explode or something." Ron's wand had been funny ever since they broke it at the Whomping Willow when they flew the car. Also known as the good times, before the Heir. I sighed.
We had left the invisibility cloak at Hagrid's because we wouldn't need it and it would be easier to walk. We kept our voices down.
I nearly screamed when something touched my leg, but it was just Fang. I continued walking, my heart beating heavily.
"What do you reckon?" Harry asked.
"We've made it this far," Ron said, and I nodded.
Suddenly, Fang barked. We looked at each other in alarm. "What is it, boy?"
"Ron, Renee, I think there's something moving in those trees over there." Ron gulped and we froze. "Something big."
"Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no."
"Shut up, Ron. It'll hear you!"
"Hear me, Renee? It's already heard Fang!" I hadn't put enough charmspeak in my voice, I guess.
"What do you think it's doing?" murmured Harry.
"Probably getting ready to pounce." Even in the dim wandlight, I could see Ron looked sick.
From the right, there was a sudden blaze of light. Fang yelped and tried to run, getting tangled up in thorns, which made him yelp louder. Ron laughed.
"Harry, it's our car!"
"What?"
I chuckled too. "Come on, you two. Look, the forest's turned it wild."
It was the strangest thing. I'd never seen a car behave like an animal. Actually, the only time I'd ever even seen a car behave was in the movie Cars. It was hilarious and I only wished Clara was there to see it with me. Speaking of Clara….
"We should keep moving. Should we take the car?"
"No. You're right, though. Come on."
"I wondered where it had gone!" Exclaimed Ron, bewildered.
We turned to keep walking, but now there was a sense of being more open. It was nerve racking, and we had lost the trail. Ron saw it first and turned to us, his face livid with terror.
I didn't even have time to react. Something picked me up and carried me to the forest in a not-very-gentle way. The thing threw me down, and I heard three thuds and a yelp, confirming that Harry, Ron, and Fang had also been taken.
I looked around. It seemed we were in some kind of a home and everywhere we looked, there were-
"Spiders," Ron groaned.
They weren't just any spiders either. The biggest may have been the size of a small elephant. I stifled a scream.
I realized with horror that the spiders could talk. "Aragog!" they were calling. "Aragog!" It was Annabeth's worst nightmare. Talking spiders had never been the way I planned to die. I looked at Harry, who was nearest to me, and thought hard about my imperial silver sword, which was sitting locked in my dorm. I knew some demigods could summon their weapons just by thinking of them, and if I ever needed to do that, the time would be now.
A blind spider stepped out of the clearing. He was huge and ugly, probably the largest there. "What is it?" He asked, his pincers clicking.
"Men."
"Is it Hagrid?"
"Strangers."
"Kill them. I was sleeping."
I looked around nervously. "We're friends of Hagrid," I said, throwing in as much charmspeak as I had ever used. I heard something whiz through the air, and my sword landed in my backpack, thank the gods. The spiders hadn't noticed a thing, which was good.
"Hagrid has never sent men here before."
"He's in trouble," Harry said quickly. I noticed he looked pained; the fall had landed his leg in a painful position.
"They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a-a-something on the school. They've taken him to Azkaban." I helped Harry out, using all my charmspeak and feeling the comfort of my sword against my back. Not that I could do much against so many of them if it came to that.
Aragog clicked his pincers furiously, and all the spiders followed him. "But that was years ago! Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They thought I was the monster."
"And you….you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked.
"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 and feeding me scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered and framed 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 see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness?
"So you never attacked anyone?" A little easier on the charmspeak.
"Never. It would have been my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was found in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard I was raised in."
"But do you know what was attacking the students? Because it's come back."
"We do not speak of it! We spiders fear it above all others. I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, although he asked me many times."
The spiders were closing in on us. "We'll just go, then," I mumbled.
"Go, girl? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into this clearing."
"But-but-," we stammered.
"Goodbye, friend-of-Hagrid's."
My sword was out in a flash and I was on my feet. Harry and Ron were trying spells and I was slashing randomly through the air. Fang was whimpering.
It was no use, and I was prepared to die fighting. No chance of getting adopted by David Bradley, no chance of ever seeing Clara again.
Suddenly, there was a roar and a blaze of light. I gaped as the car came trundling through the forest. Quickly, I grabbed Fang and hauled him up with more strength than I thought I had. Harry and Ron ran after me, and we clambered in. Ron yelled, "MOVE!" but the car didn't need him.
I had never been in a flying car before. I had to say I preferred a broom or even a pegasus. Within moments, we landed at Hagrid's house and the doors opened and threw us out. Then, the car sped off and I knew we would never see it again.
"I can't believe you two actually flew that thing here! That's crazy!"
Ron laughed nervously. "Well, at least now we know that Hagrid never set anything loose in the castle. He was innocent!"
"Innocent?" I asked in disbelief, Ron nodding vigorously. Harry ignored us.
It wasn't until later that night when I was lying awake in my bed in the Slytherin dorms that I realized something. I pulled out a drachma from my bag.
"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept this offering." I held up a mirror to create a rainbow. "Harry and Ron, at Gryffindor tower!"
I looked in the boys' dormitory, where all the boys were sleeping. "Harry! Ron! Wake up!"
"Wha-? Who's there?" Then the impact of what they were seeing seemed to hit them.
"Renee Sanderson, what is your head doing in our dorm?"
"I just realized something. Aragog said that girl died in a restroom. What if she never left?"
It took them a minute, but then Harry gasped. "Moaning Myrtle!" I nodded. "And what is your head doing here?"
"Iris messaging. A demigod technique."
"Well okay then. We'll talk more about this tomorrow, okay?"
I nodded. "Good night, you two."
"Good night, Renee. You're a creep, you know."
I laughed.
Narcissa POV:
I went to the payphone down the street in the dead of night. It was only the third time I had spoken to him since Clara's birth. I was scared, and there was no way I could talk to Lucius about this.
"Narcissa Malfoy, transfer me to Apollo on the 600th floor."
"There is no 600th floor."
"Do we have to go through this again? My demigod daughter is in danger!"
"600th floor it is. Just had to make sure."
I groaned. This was super annoying if I had to do this every time I wanted to talk to my daughter's father.
"Cissa!" Apollo exclaimed. "It's great to hear from you!"
"Apollo, our daughter has been petrified by Slytherin's monster. I don't know what to do. It's not like I can show any emotion to Lucius, is it?"
"Petrified? What do you mean, Cissa?"
"She's lying stone cold in the hospital wing! Apollo, do something!"
"Cissa, I can't."
"You're the god of healing, Apollo. Just fly over to the school and heal her."
"But their nurse is already working on it."
"Don't you care about our daughter? Don't you care about her friends, don't you care about Renee Sanderson?"
"You've been absent for as long as I have, Narcissa. Why do you care now?"
"She's our daughter, Apollo. I care about her. Oh, I remember now. Gods. Don't. Care."
"I care, Cissa!"
"Well, you and the rest of you have a funny way of showing it! I'm done, Apollo! And don't call me Cissa!" I hung up the phone angrily, tears forming in my eyes. She was my daughter, and I was worried.
I wouldn't go back to Lucius tonight. I would check into a corner motel and stay there. I couldn't bear to be with not one but two men who didn't appreciate or understand me.
The phone rang and I picked up. "What?"
"Cissa, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way!"
"Then what did you mean?" My voice was ice cold.
"I just….let me tell you in a haiku." I groaned. Apollo's haiku were notoriously bad.
"I didn't mean to harm/Swear on the Styx she'll be fine/Apollo is great."
"Apollo is great? Why do you have to end them all like that?"
"Maybe a limerick?"
I rolled my eyes. "Apollo, no-" but he had already started.
"There once was my love Narcissa/I wish she could know that I miss her/And that I love our daughter/She couldn't be wronger/I love our daughter Clarissa."
Okay, fine. The sentiment touched me, but it couldn't have been true. "Really? That didn't even rhyme!" But I laughed all the same.
"Come visit me in New York?"
"What'll I tell Lucius?"
"Tell him nothing. Obliviate him in the morning." I laughed. That was a good enough plan.
"Okay." I turned on my heel and apparated to New York.
A/N: So yeah this was a long chapter. Sorry I haven't posted a lot, school's been super busy. Don't expect a lot of new posts any time soon, please.
Let us all raise our wands and take a moment of silence for Alan Rickman. Beloved actor and friend to the Harry Potter cast. RIP
Anyway so yeah the spiders, Renee shocks Harry and Ron with Iris Messaging, and a bit more Narcissa/Apollo for those of you who wanted it. I'll try to add more of that occasionally, when I can and it fits.
As always, please review. I'd like some constructive criticism too if you have any.
~Hufflepufferfish
