diclaimer: jo owns it all, genius that she is
a/n Hi... so this isn't actually the new chapter... I decided to break up the most recent one and add some stuff to chapter 19 that I've wanted to explain about Ascella so if you want the new material it is there. Sorry! Will post next chapter soon.
May 1993
When they entered May though their hopes were still high. Everyone's thoughts turned to other matters, namely the ending of the Quidditch season. Harry was busy with practices every evening beginning right after dinner. They were only playing Hufflepuff but Wood was relentless. As such the only way Ascella saw much of Harry was at meals and at night in the Gryffindor common room while he worked on the homework Ascella was either blowing off, had already done, or was yet to get around to, while she read other advanced Charms books and tried to figure out the spells, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth. She'd very nearly set Seamus Finnigan's hair on fire when she'd been being a little to free with her wand movements.
Ascella was now walking down to grab a quick breakfast the morning of the Quidditch match, she'd spent a rare Friday night in Ravenclaw Tower and had slept too late for a normal sit down breaky, when she quite literally ran into Harry.
"Ooff!" Ascella grunted, reeling back, the breath taken from her at the impact. "Watch wher - oh Harry!" she started, a nasty sneer on her face before spotting her friend, dressed in his Quidditch robes, broom in hand, green eyes flashing distractedly at her.
"Oh hello Cella!" Harry rushed the words out.
"Running late?" she asked with a grin as she joined her friend in his hurried pace down through the castle.
"Yes," he said. "Got a bit distracted down after breakfast."
"Oh? With what?"
"I heard the voice again."
Ascella stopped in her tracks.
"Wha - what? Not the - " Ascella lowered her voice, "not the voice from before the attacks?" Harry nodded grimly. Ascella swore.
"But that means -" Ascella mused, rejoining Harry as they walked through the front doors and out onto the lawn with the rest of the crowd, any thought of grabbing some toast gone from Ascella's mind.
"Yeah," Harry said. "It's back. And it really wants to kill this time." Ascella swore again. First Harry's room gets sacked and the diary goes missing and now this. "And what's even more strange is that Hermione had some sort of brain storm after I told her and Ron."
"Really? What did she say?"
"That she'd understood something finally and that she had to go to the library. Then she ran off to, I can only assume, the library."
Ascella might have rolled her eyes if the topic hadn't been so serious. Hermione would go to the library before explaining anything.
Instead she said," Strange. 'Suppose I should go find her?"
"Nah," said Harry. "You know Hermione."
"True enough. Well good luck!" Ascella said at the gates to the Quidditch Pitch, giving Harry a swift, tight hug. "Give 'em hell!" she called before separating and heading to find Ron in the Gryffindor section.
She felt like she'd just settled in when she caught sight of McGonagall marching across the field, an enormous purple magic megaphone in her hands.
"This can't be good," Ascella had time to mumble to Ron before McG was rising the megaphone to her lips and announcing that the game had been canceled and that everyone was to return to their House common rooms to await further instructions.
"Come on," Ron said tugging Ascella down to where Harry was being led away by McGonagall, amidst the groans from the students around them.
Upon reaching their friend they were surprised to be beckoned along with McGonagall.
"Yes, I suppose you two'd better come along too," she said before leading them at a brisk pace back up to the castle.
She led them to the Hopistal Wing.
"This might be a bit of a shock," McGonagall said with surprising gentleness. Ascella exchanged one, wide-eyed look with Harry, her pulse spiking with nerves, before she turned to look behind McGonagall.
She let out an audible gasp, her hand going to cover her mouth.
"Hermione!" Ron gasped. Hermione indeed. The Gryffindor lay on a bed next to the other girl who'd been attacked, a fifth- year Ravenclaw with curly hair, her eyes staring and glassy.
Not Hermione, Ascella thought shaking her head.
"She was holding this when they were found," McGonagall cut through Ascella's horror, holding up a small hand mirror, the same gilded silver one that Ascella had gifted her friend with for Christmas. "I don't suppose any of you know what it means?" she asked looking at the three of them. They all shook their heads. Ascella didn't know why Hermione would have had that. Why did she have to run off alone to the library, she thought. She should have just gone to the match like everyone else.
"Well in either case, I will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower. I need to talk to the rest there," McGonagall sighed. "Black, I can take you back to Ravenclaw after."
In the Gryffindor common room, McGonagall explained that everyone was to be in their own common rooms by 6pm each night, that they would be accompanied everywhere by a teacher, including to the toilets and in between lessons. She finished by announcing that unless the culprit was caught it was likely that the school would have to close.
Ascella looked at Harry then. "We need to talk to Hagrid," she whispered to him as McGonagall rolled up the scroll she'd been reading from and beckoned her over so she could take her back to Ravenclaw Tower. Harry nodded.
"Tonight," he whispered. "We'll meet you outside Ravenclaw Tower with the cloak." Ascella nodded and moved off to walk with McGonagall back to Ravenclaw Tower.
Later that night, Ascella heard scrambling on the other side of the door to her common room. She heard the bloody knocker give it's latest riddle. Of course it was one she actually knew the answer to, having heard it last year. Bird probably knew she was listening on the other side. Ascella still was no good at answering the riddles, but she had memorized the answers to any riddle the knocker had ever given her figuring it was bound to run out of new ones eventually. She'd even heard it reuse some riddles that she knew for other people like it was now and had heard from others that they'd had the same riddle twice more than once, but she never had. If she didn't know any better she'd say the stupid bird knocker made sure to always give her new ones. Even the one that it had given McG the previous afternoon hadn't been taxing, despite no doubt knowing that McGonagall was more than capable of answering a hard riddle.
Instead of waiting for her friends to respond to the riddle, and no doubt get it wrong, Ascella threw open the door.
"Yeah, yeah, it's a bloody Portkey," Ascella said to the knocker. "They didn't really want in anyway." And then turning to where she'd heard a choked laugh she said, voice hushed, "Right, let's go." Harry threw the cloak over her and the three of them made their way down to Hagrid's cabin.
It was difficult getting through the castle as the teachers, ghosts, and prefects were out in force, patrolling the castle in pairs. Finally, they made in out onto the grounds and were able to rush across the lawn to the lights of Hagrid's cabin.
At Hagrid's front door they threw off the clock and pounded on the door. Seconds after they knocked the door was flung open and they were met with Hagrid wielding a crossbow aimed at their faces. Ascella took a startled step backwards, very nearly falling off the top step. The only reason she didn't was because Ron had the quick reflexes to grab the front of her robes.
"Oh," said Hagrid, realizing who it was and lowering the crossbow. "What're you three doin' here?"
"Never mind that," Ascella said as they all stepped inside. "What's with the crossbow?"
"Oh," he muttered. "That - uh - that's nothing - bin expectin' - doesn't matter - I'll make tea."
Ascella sat with the others at the table, Fang bounding up into her lap and placing a wet slobbery kiss on her cheek. Ascella rustled his head with her hand in response, she'd always got on well with dogs, but most of her attention was drawn to Hagrid. The big man was clearly agitated. He even smashed the teapot with a nervous twitch of one of his massive hands. Ascella made to help him then but he waved her off and filled three cups with boiling water, no tea bags, and had set a large slab of fruitcake on the table when there was a loud knock on the door.
Ascella, Ron and Harry exchanged wide eyed looks before Ascella threw the cloak over them and they retreated into a corner of the room. Hagrid checked that they were hidden before grabbing his crossbow and yanking open the door.
It was Dumbledore. He entered looking serious and Ascella felt a sense of foreboding cloud the room. He was then followed by a most ridiculously dressed man. He had gray hair and was wearing a pinstriped suit, a scarlet tie, a long black cloak, pointed purple boots, and tucked under his arm was a lime green bowler hat. Ascella might have laughed if she wasn't so horrified by the ensemble.
"That's Dad's boss!" Ron breathed. "Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic!"
Harry and Ascella elbowed him, hard, to make him shut up.
They were then, painfully, forced to watch as the Minister announced, nervous looking and sweating, that this Chamber business had gone on long enough and that something must be done. The bad feeling Ascella had only grew as the conversation drew on. She was glad at least that Dumbledore was defending her large friend but even so she could see that Dumbledore's hands were tied.
Then Hagrid's face paled at hearing he'd be taken somewhere, "just for a little while."
"Not Azkaban," he all but croaked out. It was Ascella's turn for her face to go pale. She felt herself shrink further under the cloak and take a step back, accidentally stepping on Harry's foot. He glanced at her concerned but she just shook her head.
Now wasn't the time to explain Azkaban nor her reaction to the word. But they couldn't take Hagrid there. Surely not. Azkaban was for real criminals. Murderers and torturers, the worst of Wizarding society. It was a place for people like her father, not kind souls like Hagrid.
It then that there was another knock at the door. Dumbledore answered it. This time Harry gave an audible gasp. Ascella and Ron elbowed him in the ribs, though Ascella at least couldn't fault Harry's reaction. At the door was Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father. Clearly sneering was a familial trait. This just keeps getting better and better, Ascella thought, heart in her throat. Whatever the elder Malfoy was here for couldn't be a good thing.
Sure enough, it wasn't. He soon announced, more like gloated, that Dumbledore was to be removed as Headmaster. He even produced an Order of Suspension with all twelve school governor's signatures on it. It was Ascella's turn for two elbows to the ribs as she'd cursed violently under her breath when Malfoy senior produced the order, calling Malfoy senior the dirtiest thing she could think of.
Ascella wanted to cheer Hagrid on as he defended Dumbledore stating what they were all thinking: that they couldn't take Dumbledore away, that there would be a killing next. Dumbledore cut him off and graciously accepted his fate. Ascella wanted to scream at him that he was being a right twat waffle but she held her tongue. But then Dumbledore silenced all of them as he spoke slowly and very clearly "I may be gone but you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."
Subtle, Dumbledore, Ascella thought, sure that Dumbledore somehow knew she, Harry and Ron were hidden in the room. The greatest wizard in the world would of course have better means than just sight to know what was in a room, no doubt having either done a revealing spell or something else of the like.
Malfoy senior commented on Dumbledore's speech, joy oozing through his words before he too exited the room. Hagrid and Fudge lingered, Fudge clearly waiting for Hagrid to go first.
Hagrid meanwhile, merely stood there, gathering himself before saying, his voice and words clearly directed at Ascella and her friends, "If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff, all they'd have ter do would be er follow the spiders. That'd lead 'em right! That's all I'm saying. Oh! An' someone'll need ter feed Fang while I'm away." Again, real subtle. Were they trying to give them away? And then they were gone, the door banging shut behind them. Ron pulled the cloak off them.
"We're in real trouble now," he said. "With Dumbledore gone there will be an attack a day now."
Harry looked grim, while Ascella nodded thinking, her bottom lip tucked under her top. She was thinking about what Hagrid had said and not about the feeding Fang bit.
"'Follow the spiders'", she mused aloud. "What the bloody fuck does that mean?" Harry and Ron looked at each other before looking back at her and shrugging.
"Hmm," Ascella pursed her lips. "Well anyway we'd best be getting back to the castle." She threw the cloak back over themselves and they headed out. "By the way is no one going to discuss that ridiculous outfit the Minister was wearing?" Her friends snorted.
Back in the Gryffindor common room Ascella was pacing back and forth, while Harry yawned and Ron was snoring, his head dangling at a weird angle off the back of the armchair he was sat in.
"Go over it with me again," Ascella said. They'd spent the better part of the last couple hours going over every detail they had. Ascella particularly wanted to hear the details from when Hermione had run off to the library before she'd been attacked.
"Ce-cells," Harry said through a yawn. "We've been over it a hundred times already."
"I know," Ascella sighed sitting down, her head falling into her hands. "It's just I know we are close! I just need to try and follow Hermione's logic and maybe we'll have it. I can't let her attack to have been for nothing."
Harry's face softened. "I know," he said, his hand going to rub her back. "But we are tired. Maybe we'll have better luck with some sleep."
Ascella felt the tension leave her shoulders. Harry was right. She nodded at him then.
"Come on," she said rising and heading for the stairs, kicking Ron awake as she walked past. He jolted awake with a yelp and glared at Ascella as she and Harry laughed.
Soon it became obvious that summer was upon them, the castle grounds coming alive with sunshine, green grass, and fresh blooming flowers. But the outside warmth did not seep into the castle. With Dumbledore gone and the new curfews in place, every one was on edge, the castle gloomier than it had ever been, even in the dead of winter.
Ascella, in particular was finding it extremely difficult to sneak off to Gryffindor Tower, what with the strict rules on curfew and being escorted everywhere by a teacher. It was because of this that Ascella became the temporary owner of the Invisibility Cloak.
She'd slip it on outside the Great Hall after dinner and walk next to Harry and Ron up to Gryffindor Tower where she spent all her nights. It had been a long time since she had seen the inside of her home tower but she didn't care; she felt safer when she was close to those she cared the most about.
Even visiting the Hospital Wing was proving difficult, as the three friends found out when they'd tried to visit Hermione and had been promptly shooed away by Madam Pomfrey. With the Mandrakes so close she didn't want to risk the creature coming back and finishing off those petrified and that apparently meant no one, not even the friends of the victims could visit.
"Crotchety old bat," Ascella grumbled, looking put out as they'd instead moved on down to lunch.
Harry and Ascella continued trying to puzzle out the clues that they had but to no avail and were instead now keeping their eyes peeled for spiders, helped rather reluctantly by Ron. They'd decided to follow the hint Hagrid had given as he'd been escorted away, having had no luck in figuring the Chamber business out any other way. Unfortunately it soon became increasingly irksome to realize that the castle seemed completely devoid of spiders. Ascella couldn't so much as find a cobweb, even in places she was sure she'd seen cobwebs before, having had to pull them out of her hair. She got so desperate she even started opening random broom cupboards. After she'd walked in on more than one couple snogging though, in various states of undress she'd stopped that, deciding she wasn't really that desperate to find spiders.
While most of the school was terrified there was one person that seemed to glorify in the doom and gloom; Draco Malfoy. Just over two weeks after Hagrid had left Ascella found out why he was so chummed in their morning Herbology lesson.
"Always knew Father would be the one to get rid of Dumbledore," she heard him gloating to his cronies, while she was bent over grinding a dung beatle to dust for use as an additive to the soil. She about broke the ceramic grinding bowl she grew so angry as she listened to him continue to insult both the Headmaster and Hagrid.
Zabini had to stay her hand and snatch the grinder away from her.
"I think that's good," he sneered at her, but even his usually stoic face looked disgusted with Malfoy's happiness. Ascella figured he probably just missed Kevin too, he was after all the only one of their group at all competent at Herbology. Aaron was good at it but without Kevin there he was less focused, his time more spent grossing Ascella out or teasing her mercilessly. More than once the giggling duo had been shot dirty glares by the gold eyed Slytherin.
It was around this time too that Padma and Aaron cornered Ascella on the way to lunch, yanking painfully on her arm and swinging her to the Ravenclaw table instead of where she'd been headed to join Harry and Ron at the Gryffindor table.
"Agh! What the hell guys?" Ascella groused rubbing her arm. That's gonna bruise, she thought. Who knew Padma could be so forceful?
"Don't give me that!" Padma hissed, sitting down on one side of her, Aaron on the other. "Where the hell have you been?"
"What do you mean?"
Padma looked around furtively, making sure no one was within ear shot.
"I mean, where have you been? You don't come back to the common room or the dormitory at night?"
It was then that Ascella finally saw the look in Padma's eye, the look mirrored in Aaron's, the real reason they was being so forceful with her. They were worried. Ascella felt a stab of guilt.
"I'm sorry Pads," she said her voice genuine. She turned to Aaron. "Aaron, I didn't even think -" she trailed off. He nodded though, understanding; they both knew what she meant, Kevin's still empty seat paramount in their thoughts. "I didn't think to tell anyone - didn't really think anyone would notice actually. With everything going on I didn't think. I'm so sorry. You don't need to worry though. I've been staying in Gryffindor." Somehow this fact didn't seem to assure either of them. "Tell you what, I'll send Ezzy or I'll magic over a letter to you every night once I'm back safe in Gryffindor. That way you know for sure." That did the trick. They nodded and sat back.
Ascella reached for a sandwich and she couldn't help but grin at Padma and Aaron now that the uncomfortable moment had passed.
"What?" Padma said, more than a little irritated with her friend. Ascella grinned.
"It's just nice to know you care Pads," she teased but then seriously she added. "If it was reversed I'd care too."
"Oh shut it," her friend said, but she didn't look overly put out.
That afternoon, in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry huddled down with Ron and her in the back of the classroom to tell them about the spiders he'd seen during the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Herbology lesson. Apparently Ernie MacMillan had also apologized to Harry for thinking he was the Heir of Slytherin, but Ascella couldn't really be all that bothered to care; why Harry did was still a marvel, but he did. He just didn't like it when people thought bad of him, unlike Ascella who could give a rats ass what people thought of her.
"Enough about that!" Ascella waved him off, voice rapid and hushed. "What did you see?"
Harry leaned closer. "Spiders," he said, while Ron paled. "Heading for the Forbidden Forest."
"That's it then!" Ascella breathed. "We have to follow them. Best be tonight. Sooner rather than later," she continued ignoring Ron's squeak of protest. Harry nodded in agreement, eyes bright, both thinking the same thing. Maybe, just maybe, they'd finally solve this mystery once and for all.
"We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again," Harry continued with the planning. "And we should take Fang. He's used to going into the Forest with Hagrid."
"Good idea," Ascella said. Ron swallowed nervously.
"Right, but aren't there like werewolves and stuff in the forest?" he asked, looking furtively between the two of them.
"Well, there's good stuff too," Harry replied. "Centaurs and unicorns and such..." Harry trailed off, not meeting either of their gazes.
"Real convincing Harry," Ascella shook her head, at his less than assuring answer. She wasn't looking forward per say to their adventure but she would do it gladly, if it meant they'd get to the bottom of this Chamber business. Ascella looked up abruptly at the sound of jubilant laughter at the front of the room. Her face settled into a scowl. It was Lockhart.
"What's with him?" she jerked her head in his direction, her tone making it clear what she thought of his happy demeanor. Harry and Ron shook their heads, just as Lockhart asked them why they were so upset. Ascella's mouth fell open. He couldn't possibly be serious. Especially asking that to a class that had lost not one but two of it's members to being petrified, Kevin and Hermione's seats noticeably empty.
Apparently Lockhart was happy because he thought, with the culprit caught, and Ascella could only assume he meant the fact that Hagrid had been taken away, that the attacks would stop now and everything would be alright. Harry and Ascella about had to physically restrain Ron when he'd wanted to open his mouth to argue with Lockhart but it was halfhearted; they too wanted nothing more than to throw one of Lockhart's stupid books at his stupid face.
Being confined to the common room by six with a lot to talk about was leaving everyone rowdy and made for a long wait until everyone else had gone up to bed. It didn't help them get away sooner when Fred and George challenged the trio to a few games of Exploding Snap with Ginny sitting perched uncomfortably in Hermione's usual chair watching. Harry and Ron were having particularly bad luck with the games, losing early. It wasn't until Harry hissed at her a quarter to midnight, "Stop winning," that she finally understood. They were losing on purpose in the hopes of getting the twins to go to bed. "I can't start losing now," she hissed back. "It would be suspicious." And so it was well after midnight when the twins, and Ginny, finally went off to bed.
Soon after, the three of them threw the Invisibility Cloak over themselves and made their way through the castle and across the dark lawn to Hagrid's house. Fang greeted them joyfully, even giving Ascella a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Ascella had been the most diligent of the three of them in feeding Fang. She just loved dogs, always had. Growing up she'd begged Meda and Ted for one. She'd easily gotten Ted on her side, but Meda had put her foot down. Her excuse was she was allergic but Ascella knew witches and wizards had easy cures for such allergies, otherwise they'd never have been able to deal with so many cats. Despite this she could have sworn they must have had a dog at some point, a big black dog often a hazy part of her earliest memories.
Harry threw the cloak on Hagrid's table and Ascella beckoned Fang outside, telling him they were going for a walk. At the edge of the forest Ascella and Harry muttered "lumos," lighting both of their wands. Ron refrained, his wand being so unpredictable and all, but conceded it was a good idea on their parts.
"There," Harry said then, first scanning the ground and then pointing out two spiders scampering across the forest floor, while Fang bounded happily around them. Ron swallowed hard, resolving himself and they headed into the forest.
They didn't speak, simply listening hard to the noises around them, as they followed the spider trail deeper and deeper into the forest. Soon only the light of their wands shone, the thick foliage above them having all but blocked out the light from the moon and the stars. It was around this time that the spider trail left the path they'd been walking on. They all stopped, trying to see into the forest but all beyond their wand light was shrouded in the deepest darkness.
"Well, we've come this far," Ascella intoned, swallowing hard and taking the lead pushed the branches and brambles aside, Harry close on her heels, Ron following behind, if reluctantly.
About a half hour later after fighting with the branches grabbing at their robes more than actually moving through the forest, they all about jumped out of their skins at the sound of Fang letting loose a sudden and frightening bark.
"What is it?" Ron's voice echoed loudly, as he clung close to Harry and Ascella.
"Something is out there. Something big," Harry answered. Ascella's blood ran cold. Something big, a werewolf? No, it wasn't the full moon yet, Ascella was sure. There was a particularly loud rumbling and then - silence.
"D'you think it's gone?" Ascella whispered, trying to hold her wand light higher and see into the impenetrable darkness around them. Instead she was blinded by a sudden blaze of light, so bright they all flung up their hands to shield their eyes.
"I think its the car!" Ron shouted then, before bounding off after the bright light.
Harry and Ascella exchanged a perplexed and worried glance, before blundering after their tall red-headed friend.
What they found made Ascella stop short.
"Is that - is that the car?" Ascella breathed. Before them was Mr. Weasley's blue Ford Angela that Harry and Ron had crashed into the Whomping Willow earlier in the year, moving forward towards Ron, much like a dog would greet its owner.
The car was scratched up and smeared with mud as though it had spent the better part of the year roving about the forest.
"Well its certainly seen better days," Ascella commented, taking in the back window which had been shattered.
Harry meanwhile, one track mind that he had, commented that they had lost the spider trail. As he was turning to head back the way he'd come Ascella nudged him.
"Wha-" he started but she pointed to Ron. Their friend's attention was fixed behind them, a look of utmost terror on his freckled face.
Ascella felt a prickling along her spine at the sight and made to turn around but it was too late. A loud clicking and scuttling sound came and then she was picked up by something large and hairy. She had a moment to see Ron and Harry similarly swept up, before whatever was holding her started moving, her head hanging upside down, her hair blocking her view. From what she'd been able to discern though was that whatever it was, was large, black and had eight large legs. Large, bloody spiders, she managed to think even through her terror.
Soon (or was it soon? She had completely lost track of time in her terror) the creature deposited her in a heap on the ground. She struggled, tripping up on her robes, and pushing her hair back, mildly annoyed at all the twigs and dry leaves she was going to have to pick out later of her now very tangled hair, lamenting for a moment that she hadn't braided her hair, before she looked up. She immediately wished she hadn't.
Harry, Ron and Fang had been dropped near her, both looking like she felt, silently terrified but unable to make a sound. They were surrounded by giant spiders and looked to be in the midst of their nest. Ascella swallowed, hard, before edging closer to Harry.
It was then, she realized the spider that had dropped Harry was speaking, actually speaking, though it hardly sounded normal due to all the clicking of pincher's. It was saying a name, Aragog, she thought.
Ascella watched horrified then as a spider the size of an elephant emerged from a cave of webbing. She could hardly focus on what the spider was saying, so terrified was she of the monster before her, an Acromantula, her brain oh so helpfully supplied, but even so she couldn't miss when the elephant spider, Aragog, said to kill them.
"Now, wait just a min-" but Harry was speaking too, louder, thankfully, than her, her words not quite having her usual level of assertiveness.
"We're friends of Hagrid's!" Harry shouted. Good thinking. Ascella was impressed.
Ascella looked hopefully at Aragog as he paused. Pausing was good, especially when not pausing meant killing the "men" that had come to their hollow, a sexist comment the spider had made earlier that Ascella at least knew not to comment on.
"Hagrid's in trouble," Harry continued. "Up at the school, they think that Hagrid's been setting loose a - a - something on the students. He's been taken to Azkaban."
While Ascella doubted the creature would know what Azkaban was, she appreciated her friends effort. Talking also meant the spider wasn't killing them.
"But that was years ago," Aragog said. Ascella was almost surprised to see the creature almost look and sound distressed at this news. Giant talking spiders didn't seem like something that should or even could feel emotions. "They believed I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets."
"And you... you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked, forehead shining with cold sweat.
"No!" the spider spat angrily, if spiders could even spit. Ascella had a flash of curiosity about if they could and almost wanted to ask. Merlin, she thought shaking herself. Apparently she turned into even more of a Ravenclaw when she was scared. Maybe it's a coping mechanism, she mused curiously to herself, before Stop! and refocusing her attention on what the spider was telling Harry.
He was saying that he definitely wasn't the creature in question, that he and his kind do not speak of the creature that it was. Ascella had looked around, eyes wide at that. They spiders around them had reacted violently and with much fear at Harry's question of what the creature was. "A creature we fear above all else," it had said. A Basilisk? Ascella had the flash of thought but that was where it ended as it was also at this point that Ascella began to notice the spiders around them creeping closer to them, as Aragog was backing away into his hollow.
"So we'll just be going then," Harry called, a hint of desperation in his voice.
"Go? I think not. I cannot deny my sons and daughters such willing meat."
"Willing my ass!" Ascella exploded, drawing her wand. "You son-of-a-bi-" but Harry cut her off, yanking on her arm and pulling her around, his wand already in his hand.
"Ascella! The car!" he shouted, as he sent a curse behind her and she one over his shoulder.
"The car-" she started to ask but then she saw it. Mr. Wealsey's car was back, thundering toward them, headlights cutting through the darkness, sending spiders flying as it drove through. It screeched to a stop in front of Harry, Ron and Ascella.
"Grab Fang!" Harry shouted as he threw a curse over her shoulder. Ascella grabbed the dog and threw him into the back of the car with a strength she didn't know she possessed adrenaline and fear fueling her and jumped in the back seat after him. Not a second later but did the car tear off, hitting more spiders as it went. Ascella and Harry helped by shooting spells out the windows. At one point Harry asked them how they were doing.
"Oh, just fine!" Ascella moaned, wiping slobber off from her cheek from where Fang had drooled in his own terror as he trembled next to her, while Ron had been only able to nod, still unable to speak.
The car dropped them off at the edge of the forest near Hagrid's hut. Ascella and the others got out, Ascella on trembling legs. Fang followed Harry into the hut and dove under a blanket in his basket while Harry picked up the cloak, and Ron proceeded to violently retch in Hagrid's pumpkin patch.
"Follow the spiders," Ron said weakly when Harry came back out. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."
"He probably thought it wouldn't hurt friends of his," Harry said.
"Yeah, but he forgets monsters are still monsters and there is a reason they are classified as such," Ascella said. "Remember Norbert?"
Ron nodded his head vigorously in agreement.
"And what was the point," Ron continued. "I mean really? What did we learn?"
"That it wasn't Hagrid. That the creature wasn't a spider," said Harry.
Ascella shook her head. "Oh, real helpful. Now we know it's not a giant Acromantula. Now we just have to start eliminating the other monsters it could be one by one. We could be finished with that by - oh next year." Harry glared at her. She held up her hands. "Nope, I'm with Ron on this one. The risk of that far out weighed what we found out."
Harry sighed then. "Yeah, maybe you're right. C'mon, let's get back to the castle." And back to the castle they went, there exhaustion causing them all to fall into bed and fast asleep. That is until Harry had a brainstorm and shot up out of bed, his bony elbow smacking Ascella in the side of the head.
"Hey! You don't think maybe the person who died last time, that died in a lavatory, you don't think she's still there do you?" he asked Ascella and Ron. Ascella's response was to groan as she felt her temple, forehead wrinkled in pain. Ron meanwhile blinked awake, his eyes coming into focus as the information Harry said slipped in.
"You don't think - Moaning Myrtle?" he breathed. Harry nodded, eyes feverish with excitement. Ascella groaned. She knew that look.
"Please don't tell me we have to go back to that lavatory?" she groused, unfortunately already suspecting the answer and knowing that if it helped she'd do it. It was time this Chamber business ended once and for all.
a/n: Again thank you to all my lovely reviewers! You guys brighten my day! As well as all the rest of you readers! Can't believe people actually spend the time to read this :)
One more chapter until we are on to Third Year! I am so excited for you guys to read that year!
a/n 2: sorry again this wasn't the "new chapter" but I promise to get the new one out by the end of the week!
