Ronald Weasley and the Armor of Gryffindor
Chapter Ten: It's called the "Forbidden" Forest, right?
He who hesitates, meditates in the horizontal position. -- Edmund K. Parker
Ron cursed as he tried to hurry through the woods. This armor was heavy, and whatever it was supposed to do for him, it wouldn't matter if he couldn't catch up with the Arachneataur. It also wouldn't matter if he dropped dead any minute, but that wasn't something he could be too concerned with right now.
If Ginny died, his Mother would never forgive him. He felt guilty for thinking about it that way, but it seemed like the ultimate failure to him. Well, almost the ultimate failure.
If Hermione died, he might as well die, too. It wasn't a matter of not being forgiven. Without her, he could never be complete again. She didn't know how much she meant to him, and if she died not knowing, it would be his fault.
When he and Harry had looked in the Mirror of Erised, back in their first year, he had seen a number of his dreams for the future. He had never thought that any of them would become reality, but almost all of them had. He had won Quidditch matches for Gryffindor, he was the Captain of the team, and, if he didn't make Head Boy next year, he had at least been a Prefect. His parents trusted him, and the Professors didn't treat him as just another Weasley any more. Even Snape singled him out for his own punishment, not a hand down from his older brothers.
If he died now -- if the Armor took his life and power at dawn -- he could honestly say that he'd fulfilled his childhood dreams. He was his own person, and he'd stood on his own. Still, he wasn't ready to die. He couldn't, not until she'd forgiven him for his faults, not until he'd told her what she meant to him. Not until he had become a person that she could care about too.
If he died now, it would be too soon. But he would rather have that happen than lose either of the girls.
Ron could see the cavern up ahead. It was where Hagrid had said it would be. Ron had no doubts that it was the right place - the thirty foot wide opening webbed with sticky black strands was a dead giveaway. Ron saw that there were large cocoon-like bundles of webbing hanging from the top. He hoped that they didn't contain anyone he knew.
He flew through a hole in the webbing, landing on the ground inside. The cavern was dark and moist, and it smelled like week-old bread, or the Slytherin dungeons.
He stepped forward, and accidentally kicked something. He heard it bump against the far wall, and then rattled loudly with a metallic sound as it bounced. He looked down at what he'd stepped on, and shivered. It appeared that he'd accidentally kicked the helmet off of a knight, but the rest of the armor was still there. It wasn't as nice as his, he thought proudly, and in fact what was left was mostly rust, with a few well-aged bones showing through on the arms.
His eyes started to adjust to the room. He saw twisting passages leaving from the main chamber in different directions, and he saw the remains of several other visitors to the chamber. The most recent turned his stomach; it was a dog, not dead more than a few months. It probably belonged to the missing archaeologist.
Ron picked a passage at random. All of the passages looked alike, and he couldn't see a reason to take one over another. The passage was dark. He waved his wand, whispering "Lumos." A dim light appeared around his wand, illuminating the narrow passageway.
The passage joined with another, then split again. Ron wandered for what felt like hours without seeing the Arachneataur, Hermione, or even the way out. He came upon a few wider chambers, some of which showed that they had been occupied at one time, and some of which showed that the Arachneataur had, at one point, been there.
In one such passage, he found the Japanese tourists that Hermione had mentioned. One had died with his wand in his left hand and his camera in his right, although the camera was so far rotted that Ron didn't think there was any point in looking at it. The other was wearing a suit of intact samurai armor, carrying both a wand and a pristine sword. It looked like they had expected trouble, but hadn't managed to survive it.
"What am I doing here," Ron whispered under his breath. "I'm just a teenager. What can I do against a thing like this?"
He shook his head. Maybe Harry would be back by now. If the Professors would work together, maybe they could fight back this thing. He just needed to find his way out.
Ron didn't have any more idea of how to find his way out than he did how to find the Arachneataur, and he passed the tourist and samurai twice more in the next hour.
As he passed the samurai again, Ron reached down and picked up the sword. He felt squeamish about removing something from the hands of a corpse, but he didn't think it would mind too much. He held it in his left hand, the familiar Beater's Bat in his right, and his lit wand between his teeth.
Ron was breathing hard now, a sign of the exertion. He didn't think that there was much time before the sun came up. If he didn't get to the Arachneataur before then, he'd probably end up next to everyone else.
Ron started to move more quickly, less cautiously. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the hallways, and he had to stop repeatedly to make sure that it was just him. He wondered if he had missed the Arachneataur, or if Hagrid had been wrong about its lair. Sure, there were corpses here, but that didn't mean that it hadn't moved on.
Ron turned a corner, and instantly realized that he hadn't been in this room before. The sight of Mrs. Norris, or what was left of her, lying in the center of the room, half wrapped in spider silk, was enough to clue him in to that. Her wounds were ghastly.
Ron looked up. There were half a dozen shapes hanging from the ceiling, each the size of a person. All of them were totally wrapped in spider silk. Ron crouched to put the sword down gently on the ground, so he could hold his wand. As he lay it on the ground, he saw something moving in the sword. He stared at it, and then realized it was something reflected in the metal.
Ron rolled forward, tumbling on the rough ground, barely missing Mrs. Norris' corpse. Something big moved behind him. As he came to his feet, Ron got his first glimpse of the Arachneataur.
To begin with, his impression was that it was huge. Its legs were spindly, but there were eight of them, and they were tipped with saw blades, which more than made up for their lack of width. Its lower body was bigger than most horses, and its human-shaped upper torso was almost as big as Hagrid's. The skin on the almost human part of it was hairless and gray colored, matching the light fuzz that covered the purely spider parts of it.
Ron might have tried reasoning with it, or at least taunting it a little, but its head didn't bear much resemblance to humanity. While it was almost human shaped, its ears were the size of a Knut. Its eyes were purely black orbs, and they were set further apart than he would have expected.
The most disturbing features were its jaws. It had four mandibles sticking out of its mouth, and Ron saw rows of teeth inside. It looked neither spider like nor human, it was just purely disturbing. The mandibles looked like they were covered by something black and slippery, which he guessed might be venom. Whether or not it was, he didn't want to find out first hand.
While he was studying it, it began to move. It was almost silent, except for the whisper of air around it as it went. It reached out with large hands, which ended in thick claws, and tried to grab for him.
Ron swung his Bat with all his might, and the Arachneataur let out an awful keening as Ron connected with one of its hands. There was a loud smacking sound at the contact, and he felt a sort of sickly crunch.
Unfortunately, Ron had only parried one of the two claws. The other connected soundly with Ron's side, knocking him to the floor. The Armor stopped the sharp points of the claws from penetrating, but the force was still strong enough to force the breath clean out of Ron.
Ron tried to regain his momentum, but the Arachneataur was already moving on top of him. Its torso was over the lower half of his body, and it was bending over, its jaws rapidly approaching his neck. Drips of venom from its mouth had fallen on his robes, and there was a hiss as they burned through, but they didn't seem to be coming through the armor. A glint of something caught Ron's eye. In the tumbling and parrying, he had managed to get back to the sword.
Ron reached an arm out, his fingertips barely brushing the sword. The Arachneataur had a leg on his other arm, now, so his bat was useless. If he could just reach the sword, he might have a chance, he thought.
With a slap, the hilt of the sword slid into his hand. He wasn't sure if he'd summoned it or it had moved towards him, but either way, he had something sharp in a position to give the Arachenataur a world of hurt. He swung it, and it connected with one of the half-spider's legs with a soft, wet sound. It gave a keening again, and reared back. Ron took the opportunity to bring the sword over to his other side, hitting at the leg that held down his arm. As it connected, the half-spider lifted weight off that arm, and Ron was able to pull it out from underneath. Quickly, he did a backwards somersault, and stood before the half-spider again. He felt like so far, he was doing fairly well. After all, he'd managed to wound two of its legs, and it really hadn't done anything to him yet.
It let out a roar, and lifted its wounded legs into the air. Ron saw the wounds glowing. The ichor that had been oozing out bubbled, dried, and flaked off in the space of six seconds, leaving behind no trace that anything had wounded the Arachneataur. Everything he'd just done was completely healed. It roared again, looked straight at Ron, and charged.
Charging he could deal with. Ron focused all his attention on its head, which was slightly larger than a Bludger, but much slower. As it came closer, he swung the Bat with his right hand, connecting solidly with its skull. There was a splintering sound. The Bat broke in his hand, but not before it had done its job -- there was Arachneataur stuff flying everywhere. Ron had smashed the skull completely. He followed through with his left arm, swinging the sword back into the neck, severing the half-spider's head.
"Heal this," he said, and then wished he hadn't. Challenging the big, evil, hopefully dead thing probably wasn't a good idea. He waited a few more seconds to make sure it wasn't going to get back up, then discarded the splinters of his Bat, and pulled out his wand. He wasn't taking any chances. "Incendio," he cried, and soon the entire body was in flames.
Ron carefully used a severing charm to cut the bodies down from the ceiling, and levitated them to the ground. Four of them were ancient, old enough that they didn't even turn his stomach, at least not compared to poor Mrs. Norris. The other two, though, were still alive, if barely. Ron removed the spider silk from around Hermione and Ginny, and looked to see that they were still breathing. He couldn't believe that he had been so lucky. Ron charmed the bodies to lift them up, and pulled them both out of the caves. It only took him about a half hour to find the way out, and he only passed the samurai twice. The second time, he left him his sword.
A/N: There are a number of inside jokes here, mostly references to NetHack or the other games in its family. If you don't know what NetHack is, don't tell me. I feel old enough already.