Chapter 5: Into the Forest
The weekend passed quickly, much too quickly for Harry's liking. Saturday's Quidditch match against Ravenclaw, which had been eating in at the back of Harry's mind since Thursday, passed easily enough and Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup for the second year in a row. As Fred put it, pretending to wipe a tear from his eyes, "Wood would be proud," and so he was. Everyone on the Gryffindor Quidditch team received congratulatory letters from him the next morning.
The rest of the weekend was spent in Gryffindor Common Room; Hermione doing her homework while tutoring Ginny in Ancient Runes, and the rest of the Canoe team steadfastly avoiding doing anything practical, so strong was their conviction that they would die.
As Ron and Harry started up another game of gobstones, Hermione's stickler personality finally got the better of her.
"If you guys aren't going to do anything productive, could you at least waste time elsewhere? I have homework to do, as do the two of you and with the O.W.L.s coming up, I don't know how I'm going to manage. You must have some homework you need to do by Monday."
"Sure we do, Hermione. Face it, though. The odds are against us. Tonight we're going to face the Guardian of the canoe who has a notorious reputation for eating people. There's not going to be enough of us left to take the O.W.L.s," Ron explained carefully.
Hermione replied, in all sincerity, "I'll still be taking those bloody O.W.L.s, devoured by a hairy monster or not. I've worked too hard to let a silly thing like death stop me!"
She has a point, thought Harry. Out of all Gryffindors, Hermione seemed most likely to die of stress before they took their O.W.L.s in four weeks and, like Professor Binns, she was determined enough to take them that being a 'has-been' didn't seem like much of a long shot.
Ginny looked up from her translation, laughed and then added, " You did say that Ron would be devoured by a large, hairy monster, didn't you Hermione? Maybe Professor Trelawney was wrong and you do have the makings of a true seer."
Hermione laughed. "Mind you, it still has to be seen whether or not it speaks Chinese yet. Or, for that matter, eats Ron."
Ron relented and pulled out his potions essay, which he had only just begun. "I think one of the reasons why it's not a good idea to spill invisibility potions is that it makes Snape mad and that is never a good thing. There is also not antidote for a pissed off Snape," he said writing in the air above his parchment.
All in all, it was a good day.
Then the evening rolled around. Harry, Hermione, Ron, George, Fred, and Ginny all waited patiently for the common room to empty. Once the Creevy Brothers left ("Harry, don't forget, we're sitting next to you at breakfast tomorrow!"), Harry ran up to his dorm room and grabbed his invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map. Suddenly, a problem occurred to him: how were 6 people, two of them eighteen, going to fit under one small cloak?
When he expressed this fear down in the common room, Hermione just smiled and reaching under her robes produced two vials of invisibility potion.
"Hermione," exclaimed Ron. "Have you been smuggling supplies out of potions again?"
Hermione laughed and said, " Smuggling, no. Openly taking it, yes. Now, Fred, George, and I will take the potion. No, don't take it yet," she cried as George eagerly reached for his. "It's only enough to last a half-hour, after that, the potion wears off and we still need some for the return journey." "If there is a return journey, that is," interrupted Ron. "Ginny, Harry, and you, Ron, will use the cloak," Hermione continued as though she had never heard Ron. "Now, Harry, you've got the map, correct?" Harry nodded.
He held out the map, tapped it with his wand, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Spidery writing appeared and Ginny let out a gasp; then it occurred to Harry that she was the only one in the group that hadn't seen the map before.
"What is that?" she asked. "It's the Marauder's Map. It shows a map of Hogwarts as well as where everyone in Hogwarts is. This way, we won't get caught," Harry explained. "See, there's Filch and Mrs. Norris on the second floor, Snape's in his office and Peeves is flooding the Girl's lavatory again. Everyone ready?" They all nodded an affirmative and headed out of the portrait hole.
Standing in front of the Fat Lady, Ron, Ginny, and Harry disappeared underneath the cloak and Hermione, George, and Fred took their potion. Once they too were invisible, Harry took another glance at the map. Peeves was now destroying the History of Magic room and the bubble labeled "Filch" was headed in his direction. If they were going to make it, now was the time. Harry whistled and they were off.
After walking for 15 minutes, they reached the Entrance Hall in more or less one piece. Ron had stubbed his toe on a suit of Armor, which immediately began to laugh. It was only due to Hermione's quick thinking ("quietus") that they avoided catching Filch's attention. They exited the school and Harry stopped Ginny and Ron to make sure they hadn't lost anyone. Shortly after they stopped, George, Fred, and Hermione ran into them.
"Ouch!" whispered George. "Why'd you stop?"
"Good, we're all here," Harry confirmed. "Now, onto the Forest."
They began to walk again and shortly arrived in the Forest shortly before the potion wore off. Harry threw the invisibility cloak off of the three of them and stuffed it into his back pocket, where it wouldn't get in the way. Hermione and the twins appeared shortly.
"Okay," breathed Harry. "I suggest we follow the path until something -er- unusual happens. Wands at the ready, of course."
The six of them took out their wands and whispered "Lumos!" before setting off on the path deep inside the woods.
They walked without talking for next half-hour but Fred and George began to hum the "Volga Boatmenn Song" during the start of the second hour. It's hard to tell whether or not they would have been stopped- or even heard- by the large eight-legged creatures had Fred and George not been humming. But it is known that shortly into the second hour of their trek, two very large spiders stopped the group.
"Oh, no," murmured Ron. "Not them again." Fred, George, and Ginny, who had not heard of Harry and Ron's second year adventure, looked at him confused.
"The spiders," he tried to explain. "Aragog…(The spiders clicked their pincers together at the sound of his name.) An ex-pet of Hagrid's …he tried to eat us when we paid him a visit while we where trying to figure out who was causing the attacks…" He trailed off, glancing uncertainly at Ginny. She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, shouldn't we figure out what they want? They don't seem to be eating anyone yet."
Point, thought Harry. "Do you know Aragog?" he asked them. They didn't respond, but moved a bit away from the group, then back towards them."
Hermione watched the spiders do their odd dance for a little bit before saying, "I think they want us to follow them."
"What?" Ron stared at Hermione, filled with disbelief. "Hermione, they tried to EAT us three years ago! And you're suggesting that we follow them?"
"I don't hear you giving any better suggestions Ron. Besides, as Ginny said, they haven't eaten us yet and even if they try to, there are six of us and we have wands. They don't."
George sat down on a stump and made himself comfortable. As the others watched him curiously, he explained, " With them arguing, we probably won't be going anywhere for the next hour so I might as well be comfortable."
Ginny stood up and said exasperatedly, "They can stand there all night if they want but I'm going to follow the darn spiders and find that boat so I can go to bed." And with that, Ginny marched off toward the spiders.
Hermione and Ron stopped arguing immediately and Ron, forgetting his fear of spiders momentarily, chased after her. "Ginny, no! You're not going there alone! Mum'll kill me if you get eaten!" Harry decided that it would be better to go with Ginny than remain there with Fred and George, after all, he already had experience dealing with oversized spiders.
Hermione smiled smugly at Ron following the spiders he despised and was against following. She quickly joined Harry and Ginny heading in the same direction. George and Fred, noticing that they were finally on the way again, started walking and mumbling quietly to each other.
The Spiders, finally seeing their chattels following them, started off at a rapid pace and led the group deeper into the woods.
The weekend passed quickly, much too quickly for Harry's liking. Saturday's Quidditch match against Ravenclaw, which had been eating in at the back of Harry's mind since Thursday, passed easily enough and Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup for the second year in a row. As Fred put it, pretending to wipe a tear from his eyes, "Wood would be proud," and so he was. Everyone on the Gryffindor Quidditch team received congratulatory letters from him the next morning.
The rest of the weekend was spent in Gryffindor Common Room; Hermione doing her homework while tutoring Ginny in Ancient Runes, and the rest of the Canoe team steadfastly avoiding doing anything practical, so strong was their conviction that they would die.
As Ron and Harry started up another game of gobstones, Hermione's stickler personality finally got the better of her.
"If you guys aren't going to do anything productive, could you at least waste time elsewhere? I have homework to do, as do the two of you and with the O.W.L.s coming up, I don't know how I'm going to manage. You must have some homework you need to do by Monday."
"Sure we do, Hermione. Face it, though. The odds are against us. Tonight we're going to face the Guardian of the canoe who has a notorious reputation for eating people. There's not going to be enough of us left to take the O.W.L.s," Ron explained carefully.
Hermione replied, in all sincerity, "I'll still be taking those bloody O.W.L.s, devoured by a hairy monster or not. I've worked too hard to let a silly thing like death stop me!"
She has a point, thought Harry. Out of all Gryffindors, Hermione seemed most likely to die of stress before they took their O.W.L.s in four weeks and, like Professor Binns, she was determined enough to take them that being a 'has-been' didn't seem like much of a long shot.
Ginny looked up from her translation, laughed and then added, " You did say that Ron would be devoured by a large, hairy monster, didn't you Hermione? Maybe Professor Trelawney was wrong and you do have the makings of a true seer."
Hermione laughed. "Mind you, it still has to be seen whether or not it speaks Chinese yet. Or, for that matter, eats Ron."
Ron relented and pulled out his potions essay, which he had only just begun. "I think one of the reasons why it's not a good idea to spill invisibility potions is that it makes Snape mad and that is never a good thing. There is also not antidote for a pissed off Snape," he said writing in the air above his parchment.
All in all, it was a good day.
Then the evening rolled around. Harry, Hermione, Ron, George, Fred, and Ginny all waited patiently for the common room to empty. Once the Creevy Brothers left ("Harry, don't forget, we're sitting next to you at breakfast tomorrow!"), Harry ran up to his dorm room and grabbed his invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map. Suddenly, a problem occurred to him: how were 6 people, two of them eighteen, going to fit under one small cloak?
When he expressed this fear down in the common room, Hermione just smiled and reaching under her robes produced two vials of invisibility potion.
"Hermione," exclaimed Ron. "Have you been smuggling supplies out of potions again?"
Hermione laughed and said, " Smuggling, no. Openly taking it, yes. Now, Fred, George, and I will take the potion. No, don't take it yet," she cried as George eagerly reached for his. "It's only enough to last a half-hour, after that, the potion wears off and we still need some for the return journey." "If there is a return journey, that is," interrupted Ron. "Ginny, Harry, and you, Ron, will use the cloak," Hermione continued as though she had never heard Ron. "Now, Harry, you've got the map, correct?" Harry nodded.
He held out the map, tapped it with his wand, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Spidery writing appeared and Ginny let out a gasp; then it occurred to Harry that she was the only one in the group that hadn't seen the map before.
"What is that?" she asked. "It's the Marauder's Map. It shows a map of Hogwarts as well as where everyone in Hogwarts is. This way, we won't get caught," Harry explained. "See, there's Filch and Mrs. Norris on the second floor, Snape's in his office and Peeves is flooding the Girl's lavatory again. Everyone ready?" They all nodded an affirmative and headed out of the portrait hole.
Standing in front of the Fat Lady, Ron, Ginny, and Harry disappeared underneath the cloak and Hermione, George, and Fred took their potion. Once they too were invisible, Harry took another glance at the map. Peeves was now destroying the History of Magic room and the bubble labeled "Filch" was headed in his direction. If they were going to make it, now was the time. Harry whistled and they were off.
After walking for 15 minutes, they reached the Entrance Hall in more or less one piece. Ron had stubbed his toe on a suit of Armor, which immediately began to laugh. It was only due to Hermione's quick thinking ("quietus") that they avoided catching Filch's attention. They exited the school and Harry stopped Ginny and Ron to make sure they hadn't lost anyone. Shortly after they stopped, George, Fred, and Hermione ran into them.
"Ouch!" whispered George. "Why'd you stop?"
"Good, we're all here," Harry confirmed. "Now, onto the Forest."
They began to walk again and shortly arrived in the Forest shortly before the potion wore off. Harry threw the invisibility cloak off of the three of them and stuffed it into his back pocket, where it wouldn't get in the way. Hermione and the twins appeared shortly.
"Okay," breathed Harry. "I suggest we follow the path until something -er- unusual happens. Wands at the ready, of course."
The six of them took out their wands and whispered "Lumos!" before setting off on the path deep inside the woods.
They walked without talking for next half-hour but Fred and George began to hum the "Volga Boatmenn Song" during the start of the second hour. It's hard to tell whether or not they would have been stopped- or even heard- by the large eight-legged creatures had Fred and George not been humming. But it is known that shortly into the second hour of their trek, two very large spiders stopped the group.
"Oh, no," murmured Ron. "Not them again." Fred, George, and Ginny, who had not heard of Harry and Ron's second year adventure, looked at him confused.
"The spiders," he tried to explain. "Aragog…(The spiders clicked their pincers together at the sound of his name.) An ex-pet of Hagrid's …he tried to eat us when we paid him a visit while we where trying to figure out who was causing the attacks…" He trailed off, glancing uncertainly at Ginny. She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, shouldn't we figure out what they want? They don't seem to be eating anyone yet."
Point, thought Harry. "Do you know Aragog?" he asked them. They didn't respond, but moved a bit away from the group, then back towards them."
Hermione watched the spiders do their odd dance for a little bit before saying, "I think they want us to follow them."
"What?" Ron stared at Hermione, filled with disbelief. "Hermione, they tried to EAT us three years ago! And you're suggesting that we follow them?"
"I don't hear you giving any better suggestions Ron. Besides, as Ginny said, they haven't eaten us yet and even if they try to, there are six of us and we have wands. They don't."
George sat down on a stump and made himself comfortable. As the others watched him curiously, he explained, " With them arguing, we probably won't be going anywhere for the next hour so I might as well be comfortable."
Ginny stood up and said exasperatedly, "They can stand there all night if they want but I'm going to follow the darn spiders and find that boat so I can go to bed." And with that, Ginny marched off toward the spiders.
Hermione and Ron stopped arguing immediately and Ron, forgetting his fear of spiders momentarily, chased after her. "Ginny, no! You're not going there alone! Mum'll kill me if you get eaten!" Harry decided that it would be better to go with Ginny than remain there with Fred and George, after all, he already had experience dealing with oversized spiders.
Hermione smiled smugly at Ron following the spiders he despised and was against following. She quickly joined Harry and Ginny heading in the same direction. George and Fred, noticing that they were finally on the way again, started walking and mumbling quietly to each other.
The Spiders, finally seeing their chattels following them, started off at a rapid pace and led the group deeper into the woods.