Disclaimers: See the first chapter.
Snippets From the Potterverse
Chapter 43 - Arachnophobia
It was Friday the thirteenth.
A very very bad day.
Ron Weasley woke up that morning to feel something tickly on his hand. He opened his eyes and screamed.
A fat, black spider was crawling across his hand!!
Ron flapped his hand wildly, and the spider went flying across the room and onto Dean's pillow. Dean yawned, smushed it, and went back to sleep.
So it was no surprise that Ron was trembling during breakfast that morning. Hermione was inclined to giggle at Ron's story, but was cut off when her Daily Prophet arrived. She unrolled it. Something tumbled out.
Ron squeaked. It was a large spider! The spider scurried towards his plate. Ron moved away, whimpering. The spider crawled even closer. Ron wailed aloud.
Harry reached over and smashed the spider under his goblet.
Thanks, mate, Ron gasped, massaging his chest. He thought he felt a heart attack coming on.
The rest of breakfast was quite uneventful. No spiders popped out of anything as Ron, Harry, and Hermione made their way to History of Magic, and Ron had hope that perhaps two spiders in one day was just a fluke. He relaxed and pulled out his quill and ink to play Hangman with Harry as Professor Binns droned on.
Plop. Something landed in his inkwell. Ron frowned, and poked his quill in to fish it out.
It flopped onto the parchment and shook itself off, then crawled towards Ron. Another spider!
With a strangled half-cry, Ron pushed his chair away from the spider as it advanced on him. His bottom lip trembled as he fought not to cry.
Harry rolled up the parchment and smacked it. There was a loud CRUNCH as the spider got smushed.
Thanks, Harry, Ron said, pulling out his hanky and wiping his sweaty forehead.
Next was Herbology. Harry, Ron, and Hermione hurried across the grounds to get to the greenhouses. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and Ron felt a little better as he and his friends walked under the trees. But then - Ron walked straight into something sticky!!
he cried, waving his arms around. Harry! Hermione! I just walked into a spiderweb!!
Then the realisation of what he was saying struck him. ARRRGHH!! A spiderweb!!! The spider itself was crawling along his arm!!
SMUSH. Hermione crunched the spider as Harry gently disentangled Ron from the remainder of the spiderweb. Ron sniffled and tried bravely to smile. Thanks, guys.
It continued like that all day. Spiders kept popping out at Ron, and Hermione and Harry kept squishing them for him. Ron reckoned he owed them roughly 3,850 favours each by the end of the day. Tired of being humiliated, he headed to the Quidditch pitch on his own that night, to have a ride on his broomstick and clear his head.
The pitch was empty. All the other Quidditch players and flying aficionados had gone in for the night. Smiling, Ron clambered onto his broom and took off.
It was a lovely flight. A silvery crescent moon hung in the sky, and crickets were chirping softly. Ron felt better than he had all day. He soared around the stadium one last time before touching down lightly and shouldering his broomstick. But as he neared the castle, he froze. A large spider was sitting on the front steps! He couldn't get in.
What now? he whimpered. I hate spiders!
a voice shrieked. Out of nowhere, a woman with long dark hair appeared and smashed the spider with a giant mallet, leaving a huge black splotch on the front steps. Ron squeaked. It was Bellatrix Lestrange!
She looked at him. Someday, I'll be able to smush Sirius the way I smushed that spider, she said proudly, before running off into the night, leaving a dumbfounded Ron to stare after her.
