It was raining heavily when Harry woke up.
Just great, he thought. The tunnels to the chamber are going to be even damper than usual. He looked over at the other beds and noticed that both Ron and Galahad had already left.
Ron opened the door into the room. "Oh, Harry, you're awake! I went down to the kitchen and got us breakfast. Hermione's waiting in the common room, she wants to go over the plan again."
Harry got dressed and followed Ron downstairs. Hermione was sitting on the couch, tapping her wand distractedly on the table and obviously deep in thought. Harry took a piece of toast off the tray on the table, trying not to disturb her. Ron sat down too and began peeling an orange.
"I guess she already ate," he said, noting her disregard for the food in front of her. "I haven't, though. I'm starved."
Hermione finally looked around. "Good morning," she said. "Did you both sleep well?"
"Yeah, except Galahad started rolling around during the middle of the night," Harry told her. "Woke us both up when he fell onto the floor. You?"
"Fine. Are we still going to fight the spiders today?"
"What other choice do we have?" Ron asked, his mouth full. He swallowed and continued, "I mean, we've got the sword, the griffin, and the spells. Why wait?"
"Well, last night I suggested we tell Professor Dumbledore what we've accomplished so far-"
"Including getting ourselves stuck in his office? Come on Hermione, he'll think we're idiots if we tell him."
"I wasn't going to tell him that! I just think that we ought to tell him what we're going to do! Besides, he never told us we were supposed to fight the spiders at all! If you remember our conversation, he only asked us to figure out Gryffindor's journal. And we've done that!"
"Ron has a point, Hermione," Harry told her. "Who do you think Dumbledore wants to fight the spiders? If he was going to send the other professors, why didn't he give them the journal?"
Hermione shrugged. Ron spoke up to support Harry's argument. "And anyway, Hermione, Gryffindor wanted us to do it. You read the note in his spellbook too. He left Harry the sword, not any of the professors, and we have his griffin now. Do you really think Galahad would leave us to go help someone else? He thinks we're the ones to do it."
"All right, then we'll take on the spiders ourselves. Now, I don't know if either of you have a plan, but I've been doing some thinking about how we're going to do this."
"Can you tell us while we walk?" Harry said. "We could start for the bathroom now."
They picked up their wands and walked out with Galahad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry stood nervously in the entrance to the chamber of secrets with Galahad. So far they hadn't encountered a single spider in the tunnels. Harry had a feeling that they were all waiting in the main chamber to deal with the trespassers in force.
Hermione and Ron had split off to either side. The plan depended on taking the spiders by surprise from all three directions. Harry, on Galahad, would sweep in from the doorway and keep the spiders from escaping, while Hermione and Ron would pick them off with spells from both sides at once, hopefully confusing the spiders enough that they would not put up much fight.
Harry turned and mounted Galahad. A pale golden glow appeared around the griffin and its rider, not obstructing Harry's vision but telling him how far the anti-magic shield extended. As long as he stayed inside the shield, he could not be harmed by any form of magic, including, they hoped, the spiders' venom. Harry was carrying his wand in case he became separated from Galahad, but he also had the sword to use while he rode the griffin.
To his right, Harry saw a quick green sparkle. Ron was in position and could not see any spiders. Harry waited to see Hermione's sparks. It was another minute before she sparked green. But her green sparks were just beginning to fade when she sent out red ones. A spider was coming. Harry tightened his grip on the sword. It was your help that got us into this, Godric, he thought desperately. We could sure use your help getting out.
A group of seven spiders came around the corner. The one in front saw Harry and clicked to its companions. They stopped and began to back away.
"NOW!" Harry shouted and drove Galahad forward. The spiders scattered as jets of light flashed in from the sides. Two were hit immediately with stunners; a third fell as Harry swung his sword into the fray. Ron and Hermione were able to continue casting spells without fear of hitting Harry. One more spider was stunned. Harry stabbed the fifth as Galahad ripped his claws into another. The last one backed up until it was out of view of Hermione and Ron. Galahad stepped towards it, Harry holding the sword ready to swing, and the spider ran.
"Don't let it get away!" Harry yelled. Galahad sprang after it, but too late. The spider ducked into the shadows by the wall and disappeared from sight.
Harry groaned. Of course it would warn the other spiders, and their advantage of surprise would be gone. But wait…the spider was coming back. And not alone. A much larger spider was following it.
Before Harry could react, Ron shouted "Stupify!" from the other side of the room and the smaller spider collapsed. The larger one walked up and nudged the other with a foot. Then it turned to face Harry.
"Got him!" it said. Harry felt his jaw drop. "Oh Harry, stop being silly, it's me!" Hermione? Harry blinked rapidly. If he tried hard enough, he could see Hermione instead of the spider, but only now that he knew she was there.
"Arachniomorphing spell. I know we haven't done human transfiguration yet, but there was a really simple one in Gryffindor's book. And it works! That spider thought I was another spider!"
"That's just great, Hermione," Harry said. Ron came over and went through the same blinking process that Harry had done. "What now? Do we wait for another group to come by?"
"No. We go find Aragog and put an end to this."
I haven't updated this in forever! I'm sorry! I thought this was going to be the last chapter, but I just can't cram everything in, so there'll be at least one more after this.
Arwen Undomiel thought of the arachniomorphing spell. The other spells will be in the next chapter, I haven't forgotten them!