Chapter 16: Spiders in the Dark
In the night, Harry had again a dream about this place, he always saw flickering in his mind. It was now very clear and he thought he knew which place it was. Then suddenly, he waked up.
He had heard noises in his bedroom. Soft, creeping noises, from above his bed. His heart was racing as he reached for his wand. He felt the presence of something in his dormitory, that did not belong there. He listened again. He was glad to hear four people´s deep breath and as he was certain, that nobody of his mates was awake, he carefully climbed out of his bed.
"Lumos", he muttered to his wand. A little light appeared on its point and Harry raised it up to the ceiling. It gave him a nasty little shock of what he saw there. Above his bed were about ten big black spiders. But what on earth where they doing there in the middle of the night?
As far as Harry knew, there had never been a single spider in their bedroom. He climbed on a chair and held his wand higher. As the spiders became aware of the light, they escaped in a big haste.
They crawled down the walls and quickly disappeared under the doorstep. They were gone. But why had they been there? Harry examined the whole room and it seemed to him, that the spiders had only been above his own bed. Maybe they were spies of someone. Slowly, after calming down a bit, he lay back down in his bed, wondering who had sent the spiders to set a watch on him. He didn´t dare to close his eyes anymore, but lay there, thinking.
Some hours later, the sun began to rise and Harry decided to get up. He dressed quickly and went down, to sit in the common room. He wanted to wait downstairs for the first person, so he could go down to have breakfast. Luckily, the first person to come down after him was Hermione. After greeting her, they went down together and on the way to the Great Hall, he told her about seeing these visions and about the spiders.
"But Harry. Why didn´t you tell me about these visions before? I thought you wouldn´t have any since you are able to do Occlumency. And these spiders are indeed very strange. I think you should go and tell Professor Dumbledore about it."
Harry nodded. He had been thinking about doing that all night and he was now determined to do so. Unfortunately, the Great Hall was crowded and Harry didn´t want to attract too much attention to himself, so he waited for everyone to have left for classes, so he could speak to Dumbledore unnoticed.
Slowly he went to the High table, where now only the Headmaster was sitting.
"Professor Dumbledore. I wondered if I could have a word in private with you. There are some things happening at Hogwarts since a arrived and I do not understand the meaning and the importance of these things."
"I had already thought that you were coming to talk about things my boy. Please, follow me into my office."
They walked the long way up to the Headmaster´s office and Harry sat down on a stool in front of Dumbledore´s desk. Dumbledore´s expression worried him. He had never seen his Headmaster looking so confused and depressed. He wondered if Dumbledore knew something more, that he didn´t want to share with anybody.
"So Harry. What did you want to tell me? Please, begin wherever you want to."
Harry looked into Dumbledore´s pale blue eyes and felt some self-confidence inside him. Then he started.
"As I flew to King´s Cross, we passed the London Eye and suddenly my scar began to burn, but it was over as soon as it had come. Then I arrived at Hogwarts. Since then, on every single day that I´ve been here, I have seen small flashes of the same vision inside my head. I wanted to shut them out by Occlumency, but there was no way shutting them out. They came without a warning and held only for few seconds. It looked like a rollercoaster to me or a sort of big carrussell."
Harry stopped. Suddenly it came to his mind what he had seen. It had indeed been images of the London Eye. But what was the meaning of this all.
"It is as I feared, my dear boy. It seems to me, that Lord Voldemort has again found a way to set a watch on you. I do not know if there is a way shutting these things out, but I will try to find something that will at least be able to ease your mind. It is very dangerous, seeing things like that. It´s not your fault of course, but I am most certain that the Voldemort will once again try to kill you. You must be ready for an attack. I don´t know when he is going to attack you, but it will happen some time this or next year. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?", asked Dumbledore softly.
"Yes", said Harry. "Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard strange noises in my dormitory. I got up and raised my wand to see what it was. On the ceiling above my bed, I found ten spiders sitting there like spies. When the light of my wand caught their eyes, they escaped and I didn´t see them since that night. I made sure that no other spiders were hiding above the beds of my friends, but they seemed to have been only present over my own bed."
Dumbledore frowned and didn´t say anything for a long time. Then, after quite a long silent moment, he coughed and said:
"These news are new to me. There have never been spies in these castle I fear. But I do not know who possibly could have send them. You have to be inside the castle to perform the spell on spiders, so they could spy for you. There is no Death Eater in this castle, so who else could have done the spying? I will try to solve this problem too."
Harry sat there, thinking about all the odd things he had seen so far this year. Then he remembered his dream, the one he had during the summer holidays, the one he had told Mr.Weasley about.
"Sir, there is one other thing. I hear Voldemort speak about a weapon to attack everyone in the world. What about that?"
Dumbledore looked into Harry´s eyes. "I have had a small talk with Arthur about this subject and we didn´t know what to think of this weapon. But know that you have told me about your vision and the spies, I think I can figure out what it means. The weapon might be the unknown power of the London Eye or maybe we have a traitor inside Hogwarts once again, though I cannot say who it is. In meantime, I want you not to trust any strangers or tell anyone besides your friends about everything we talked about. I will write a letter to Professor McGonagall, explaining why you come to late to her class. Now, hurry or she might get mad at me for keeping you so long."
His eyes twinkled and he smiled at Harry. But Harry still could see the sorrows in which the Headmaster was now.
Harry hurried to the Transfiguration classroom and opened the door.
"Potter! Where have you been? I do not allow this behaviour – ", began McGonagall, but stopped as Harry gave her the parchment.
She opened it, while Harry went to his seat.
"Very well. You are excused. Now let´s continue with our class. You all have your rats. Try to transfigure them into cats. The procedure is written down on the blackboard. Now proceed."
Hermione and Ron wanted to hear why Harry had come at the end of the lesson, but he made them signs not to ask anymore, because Professor McGonagall was passing by, looking at their works.
At the end of the lesson, the classroom was full of cats. Some were too fat or had no tail, but most of them looked quite normal. Hermione, Harry and Ron went to the History of Magic classroom and sat down in the last row. But Harry still wasn´t ready to tell them what had happened in Dumbledore´s office. He wanted to be alone with them, so nobody could overhear them.
During lunch, Harry wasn´t very talkative. He kept thinking about what to do if the spiders or his visions came back. He didn´t feel ready to have a fight with Voldemort again. He wasn´t even sure if he would like to tell Hermione and Ron everything that Dumbledore had told him. Harry didn´t want to tell Ginny anything about these happenings, he didn´t want her to worry about him. After all, she was in her O.W.L. year and he knew perfectly how much work she had to do.
After a horrible double Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, Harry, Hermione and Ron had a quick dinner and went back to their common room.
"Are you going to tell us NOW what happened this morning?", asked Ron excited.
"Did you talk to Dumbledore about the spiders?", asked Hermione.
Ron gave her an astonished look, but remained quiet.
Harry began to tell them everything about his visions, the spiders, the weapon, he even told them about Dumbledore´s fears. At first he didn´t want to tell him that there would be another fight with Voldemort, but there was no good hiding them the truth.
"Oh Harry. That are horrible news. Why didn´t you tell us earlier? We will try to help you as far as we are able to. It must be urgent if Dumbledore is afraid of it. But you know, you have your friends to rely on." Hermione´s eyes had filled with tears, by the sound of these indeed evil news.
Ron sat there, mouth open, not saying anything.
Harry gave them both a weak smile. "Come on. There´s no point to be sad now. Nothing has happened so far and I will be ready when Voldemort wants to attack me once more. Cheer up a bit. Besides, I forgot to ask you something. How many O.W.L.s did each of you get? I had wanted to know it since the last summer, but there were always other things, driving it out of my head."
Ron looked a bit embarrassed. "I got six O.W.L.s. My mother was quite pleased, but she had expected me to get some more. But after all, I´m having every subject I want. So who cares?"
"I do", replied Hermione. "Besides I have gotten ten. You know, that you need to be very good at school, so you can do the job you want after Hogwarts."
"I didn´t doubt, that you would get all you O.W.L.s", smiled Harry. There simply was no smarter which in this school than Hermione and he knew that. They talked some more and when they began to feel tired, they said ´Goodbye` to each other.
Ron had already headed upstairs, but Hermione suddenly called Harry back to her.
"Have you seen Ginny today?", she asked.
´Oh my god! Ginny!` Harry had totally forgotten about her. His troubles had made him think about so many different things this day, that he had not thought about his girlfriend. He felt miserable, but it was too late to meet her now. He decided to apologize to her, first thing the following morning.
"No, I have not seen her today."
"Ok, fine. Harry, did you hurt yourself on your neck? There´s a red mark. Wait, can it be? Is that a lovebite?" Hermione grinned broadly at Harry. "Who´s your girlfriend? Come on, tell me."
Harry blushed. He hadn´t noticed anything this morning on his neck.
"I don´t have a girlfriend. Good night, Hermione."
He quickly went up to his dormitory. Hermione was satisfied. He definitely had a girlfriend and she would be too pleased to find out who it was.
In the night, Harry had again a dream about this place, he always saw flickering in his mind. It was now very clear and he thought he knew which place it was. Then suddenly, he waked up.
He had heard noises in his bedroom. Soft, creeping noises, from above his bed. His heart was racing as he reached for his wand. He felt the presence of something in his dormitory, that did not belong there. He listened again. He was glad to hear four people´s deep breath and as he was certain, that nobody of his mates was awake, he carefully climbed out of his bed.
"Lumos", he muttered to his wand. A little light appeared on its point and Harry raised it up to the ceiling. It gave him a nasty little shock of what he saw there. Above his bed were about ten big black spiders. But what on earth where they doing there in the middle of the night?
As far as Harry knew, there had never been a single spider in their bedroom. He climbed on a chair and held his wand higher. As the spiders became aware of the light, they escaped in a big haste.
They crawled down the walls and quickly disappeared under the doorstep. They were gone. But why had they been there? Harry examined the whole room and it seemed to him, that the spiders had only been above his own bed. Maybe they were spies of someone. Slowly, after calming down a bit, he lay back down in his bed, wondering who had sent the spiders to set a watch on him. He didn´t dare to close his eyes anymore, but lay there, thinking.
Some hours later, the sun began to rise and Harry decided to get up. He dressed quickly and went down, to sit in the common room. He wanted to wait downstairs for the first person, so he could go down to have breakfast. Luckily, the first person to come down after him was Hermione. After greeting her, they went down together and on the way to the Great Hall, he told her about seeing these visions and about the spiders.
"But Harry. Why didn´t you tell me about these visions before? I thought you wouldn´t have any since you are able to do Occlumency. And these spiders are indeed very strange. I think you should go and tell Professor Dumbledore about it."
Harry nodded. He had been thinking about doing that all night and he was now determined to do so. Unfortunately, the Great Hall was crowded and Harry didn´t want to attract too much attention to himself, so he waited for everyone to have left for classes, so he could speak to Dumbledore unnoticed.
Slowly he went to the High table, where now only the Headmaster was sitting.
"Professor Dumbledore. I wondered if I could have a word in private with you. There are some things happening at Hogwarts since a arrived and I do not understand the meaning and the importance of these things."
"I had already thought that you were coming to talk about things my boy. Please, follow me into my office."
They walked the long way up to the Headmaster´s office and Harry sat down on a stool in front of Dumbledore´s desk. Dumbledore´s expression worried him. He had never seen his Headmaster looking so confused and depressed. He wondered if Dumbledore knew something more, that he didn´t want to share with anybody.
"So Harry. What did you want to tell me? Please, begin wherever you want to."
Harry looked into Dumbledore´s pale blue eyes and felt some self-confidence inside him. Then he started.
"As I flew to King´s Cross, we passed the London Eye and suddenly my scar began to burn, but it was over as soon as it had come. Then I arrived at Hogwarts. Since then, on every single day that I´ve been here, I have seen small flashes of the same vision inside my head. I wanted to shut them out by Occlumency, but there was no way shutting them out. They came without a warning and held only for few seconds. It looked like a rollercoaster to me or a sort of big carrussell."
Harry stopped. Suddenly it came to his mind what he had seen. It had indeed been images of the London Eye. But what was the meaning of this all.
"It is as I feared, my dear boy. It seems to me, that Lord Voldemort has again found a way to set a watch on you. I do not know if there is a way shutting these things out, but I will try to find something that will at least be able to ease your mind. It is very dangerous, seeing things like that. It´s not your fault of course, but I am most certain that the Voldemort will once again try to kill you. You must be ready for an attack. I don´t know when he is going to attack you, but it will happen some time this or next year. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?", asked Dumbledore softly.
"Yes", said Harry. "Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard strange noises in my dormitory. I got up and raised my wand to see what it was. On the ceiling above my bed, I found ten spiders sitting there like spies. When the light of my wand caught their eyes, they escaped and I didn´t see them since that night. I made sure that no other spiders were hiding above the beds of my friends, but they seemed to have been only present over my own bed."
Dumbledore frowned and didn´t say anything for a long time. Then, after quite a long silent moment, he coughed and said:
"These news are new to me. There have never been spies in these castle I fear. But I do not know who possibly could have send them. You have to be inside the castle to perform the spell on spiders, so they could spy for you. There is no Death Eater in this castle, so who else could have done the spying? I will try to solve this problem too."
Harry sat there, thinking about all the odd things he had seen so far this year. Then he remembered his dream, the one he had during the summer holidays, the one he had told Mr.Weasley about.
"Sir, there is one other thing. I hear Voldemort speak about a weapon to attack everyone in the world. What about that?"
Dumbledore looked into Harry´s eyes. "I have had a small talk with Arthur about this subject and we didn´t know what to think of this weapon. But know that you have told me about your vision and the spies, I think I can figure out what it means. The weapon might be the unknown power of the London Eye or maybe we have a traitor inside Hogwarts once again, though I cannot say who it is. In meantime, I want you not to trust any strangers or tell anyone besides your friends about everything we talked about. I will write a letter to Professor McGonagall, explaining why you come to late to her class. Now, hurry or she might get mad at me for keeping you so long."
His eyes twinkled and he smiled at Harry. But Harry still could see the sorrows in which the Headmaster was now.
Harry hurried to the Transfiguration classroom and opened the door.
"Potter! Where have you been? I do not allow this behaviour – ", began McGonagall, but stopped as Harry gave her the parchment.
She opened it, while Harry went to his seat.
"Very well. You are excused. Now let´s continue with our class. You all have your rats. Try to transfigure them into cats. The procedure is written down on the blackboard. Now proceed."
Hermione and Ron wanted to hear why Harry had come at the end of the lesson, but he made them signs not to ask anymore, because Professor McGonagall was passing by, looking at their works.
At the end of the lesson, the classroom was full of cats. Some were too fat or had no tail, but most of them looked quite normal. Hermione, Harry and Ron went to the History of Magic classroom and sat down in the last row. But Harry still wasn´t ready to tell them what had happened in Dumbledore´s office. He wanted to be alone with them, so nobody could overhear them.
During lunch, Harry wasn´t very talkative. He kept thinking about what to do if the spiders or his visions came back. He didn´t feel ready to have a fight with Voldemort again. He wasn´t even sure if he would like to tell Hermione and Ron everything that Dumbledore had told him. Harry didn´t want to tell Ginny anything about these happenings, he didn´t want her to worry about him. After all, she was in her O.W.L. year and he knew perfectly how much work she had to do.
After a horrible double Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, Harry, Hermione and Ron had a quick dinner and went back to their common room.
"Are you going to tell us NOW what happened this morning?", asked Ron excited.
"Did you talk to Dumbledore about the spiders?", asked Hermione.
Ron gave her an astonished look, but remained quiet.
Harry began to tell them everything about his visions, the spiders, the weapon, he even told them about Dumbledore´s fears. At first he didn´t want to tell him that there would be another fight with Voldemort, but there was no good hiding them the truth.
"Oh Harry. That are horrible news. Why didn´t you tell us earlier? We will try to help you as far as we are able to. It must be urgent if Dumbledore is afraid of it. But you know, you have your friends to rely on." Hermione´s eyes had filled with tears, by the sound of these indeed evil news.
Ron sat there, mouth open, not saying anything.
Harry gave them both a weak smile. "Come on. There´s no point to be sad now. Nothing has happened so far and I will be ready when Voldemort wants to attack me once more. Cheer up a bit. Besides, I forgot to ask you something. How many O.W.L.s did each of you get? I had wanted to know it since the last summer, but there were always other things, driving it out of my head."
Ron looked a bit embarrassed. "I got six O.W.L.s. My mother was quite pleased, but she had expected me to get some more. But after all, I´m having every subject I want. So who cares?"
"I do", replied Hermione. "Besides I have gotten ten. You know, that you need to be very good at school, so you can do the job you want after Hogwarts."
"I didn´t doubt, that you would get all you O.W.L.s", smiled Harry. There simply was no smarter which in this school than Hermione and he knew that. They talked some more and when they began to feel tired, they said ´Goodbye` to each other.
Ron had already headed upstairs, but Hermione suddenly called Harry back to her.
"Have you seen Ginny today?", she asked.
´Oh my god! Ginny!` Harry had totally forgotten about her. His troubles had made him think about so many different things this day, that he had not thought about his girlfriend. He felt miserable, but it was too late to meet her now. He decided to apologize to her, first thing the following morning.
"No, I have not seen her today."
"Ok, fine. Harry, did you hurt yourself on your neck? There´s a red mark. Wait, can it be? Is that a lovebite?" Hermione grinned broadly at Harry. "Who´s your girlfriend? Come on, tell me."
Harry blushed. He hadn´t noticed anything this morning on his neck.
"I don´t have a girlfriend. Good night, Hermione."
He quickly went up to his dormitory. Hermione was satisfied. He definitely had a girlfriend and she would be too pleased to find out who it was.