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Chapter Nine
The Spider's Hollow
Draco took Hermione's attack rather hard. Over the past year he had grown quite close to the four Gryffindors, and her absence was sorely missed. The four boys weren't even allowed to visit her anymore, as Madam Pomfrey had barred anyone not injured from the hospital wing.
"We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off..."
Harry, Ron, and Faykan told Draco everything they had overheard at Hagrid's, and both Harry and Ron ranted about Draco's father for a while, which stung, but Draco knew that what they felt was normal and probably true. But still, Dumbledore's cryptic sense of knowing and simply allowing Lucius to force him out of the school was very odd. Hagrid's hint about the spiders was rather easier to understand, but the trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow.
With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn't look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled. Draco couldn't be more ashamed of his father for forcing Dumbledore out of the school at a time like this, not that he was in any position to say anything to Lucius. Draco knew full well the consequences of going against his father's wishes. It was the only thing he wished to tell his friends when they accosted him about his father.
One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Theodore Nott was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Draco didn't realize what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, when, sitting right behind Nott, Draco, Faykan, Ron and Harry overheard him gloating to Crabbe and Goyle.
"I always thought Mr. Malfoy might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down as he smirked toward Draco. "I told you my father and Mr. Malfoy both think Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long; she's only filling in..."
Snape swept past Draco and Harry, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron.
"Sir," said Nott loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"
"Now, now, Nott," said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough."
"Yeah, right," said Nott, smirking. "I expect you'd have Mr. Malfoy's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job, I'll tell my father to tell him you're the best teacher here, sir…"
Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron.
"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Nott went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger…"
The bell rang at that moment, which was a stroke of luck for the Slytherin; at Nott's last words, Ron had leapt off his stool and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Nott went unnoticed.
"Let me at him," Ron growled as Harry and Faykan hung onto his arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand. I'm going to kill him with my bare hands…"
Faykan suddenly clamped a hand over Ron's mouth and said quietly to Draco and Harry, "I've figured it out, the spiders. Remember, I saw them early this year heading into the Forbidden Forest. That has to be where they're all going."
Ron started to squirm behind Faykan's hand, and Draco paled. "The forest? Aren't there supposed to be… werewolves in there?" he asked sheepishly.
"There are good things in there, too. Like the unicorns," Harry commented. Sadly, this did little to ease Draco's mood, nor Ron's, if his face was any indication of it. But before they could talk further, Snape called for the Gryffindors to assemble so he could lead them to their next class, Herbology.
During dinner, Draco was interrupted from talking with Daphne Greengrass when the large form of Roac, Faykan's pet raven, landed next to his plate and dropped a small message to him before alighting into the air again. Glancing at the message quickly, Draco spied his Gryffindor friends watching him from across the room. Giving the three boys a short nod, Draco burned the message, memorizing it as it turned to ashes:
'We're doing it tonight. Meet at Slytherin common room entrance after midnight.'
~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~
Harry went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk right after dinner with Faykan, and as he pulled it out he noticed the small glass phial that Faykan had given him for Christmas. On a whim he pocketed it, thinking that it could be an extra light source if anything. Before they returned to the common room, Harry saw Faykan clip the silver-white dagger to his belt, hiding it under his cloak. While they waited for midnight, Fred and George challenged Harry, Faykan and Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching them, very subdued in Hermione's usual chair. The three second years kept losing on purpose, trying to finish the games quickly, but even so, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and Ginny finally went to bed.
They waited for the sounds of the dormitory doors closing before Harry and Ron threw the cloak around them and followed Faykan the fox down to the Slytherin common room.
~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~
Draco waited in the chair closest to the secret door out to the dungeons from the common room. It was well past midnight and all the other Slytherins had gone to bed, but Draco knew that the Gryffindors would show, even if they were late. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Draco heard a rhythmic tapping from the door, and quietly opened it to find Faykan in his vulpine form, waiting for him. Harry and Ron opened the cloak a bit to allow Draco to squeeze in with them, and they made their way back up to the entrance hall and out onto the grounds.
"'Course," said Ron abruptly as they strode across the black grass, "We might get to the forest and find there's nothing to follow. Those spiders might not've been going there at all. I know it may have looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but..."
His voice trailed away hopefully.
They reached Hagrid's house, sad and sorry-looking with its blank windows. When Harry pushed the door open, Fang went mad with joy at the sight of them. Worried he might wake everyone at the castle with his deep, booming barks; they hastily fed him treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together.
"C'mon, Fang, we're going for a walk," said Harry, patting his leg, and Fang bounded happily out of the house behind them, dashed to the edge of the forest, and lifted his leg against a large sycamore tree.
Harry took out his wand, murmured, "Lumos!" and a tiny light appeared at the end of it, just enough to let them watch the path for signs of spiders. Draco followed suit immediately, while Faykan unsheathed the dagger. It had runes etched into the blade from hilt to point, but Draco didn't see how useful it would be in the forest.
"How's a dagger going to help against things in the forest?" Ron asked bluntly as they moved toward the line of dark trees.
"It's not a dagger Ron," Faykan said smugly. He held the small blade up in both hands and murmured, "Glamdring goth namba hyanda en' quessir amin poldora yassen lee ra val" [1]
Immediately the dagger glowed faintly blue, and lengthened until the blade was over thirty inches long. Faykan tested its balance with both hands, and smiled approvingly. "Better?" he asked a wide eyed Ron. Harry suddenly pointed toward the grass. Two solitary spiders were hurrying away from the light of two wands and the sword's glow into the shade of the trees.
"Okay," Ron sighed as though resigned to the worst, "I'm ready. Let's go."
So, with Fang scampering around them, sniffing tree roots and leaves, the four boys entered the forest. By the glow of the wands and Faykan's sword, they followed the steady trickle of spiders moving along the path. They walked behind them for about twenty minutes, not speaking, listening hard for noises other than breaking twigs and rustling leaves. Then, when the trees had become thicker than ever, so that the stars overhead were no longer visible, and their lights shone alone in the sea of dark, they saw their spider guides leaving the path.
Draco paused, trying to see where the spiders were going, but everything outside their little spheres of light was pitch-black. He had never been in the forest before. But Hagrid had said to follow the spiders. They walked for what seemed like at least half an hour, their robes snagging on low slung branches and brambles. After a while, they noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downward, though the trees were as thick as ever. As they went further into the forest, Faykan's sword seemed to glow more brilliantly, as if there was blue fire flying from the blade.
Fang suddenly let loose a great, echoing bark, making them all jump out of their skins.
"What?" said Ron loudly, looking around into the pitch-dark, and gripping Harry's elbow very hard.
"There's something moving over there," Harry breathed. "Listen... sounds like something big...
They listened. Some distance to their right, the something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees.
"Oh, no," said Ron. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh…"
"Shut up," said Faykan frantically. "It'll hear you."
"Hear him?" said Draco in an unnaturally high voice. "It's already heard Fang!"
The darkness seemed to be pressing on Draco's eyeballs as they all stood, terrified, waiting. There was a strange rumbling noise, and then, silence.
"What d'you think it's doing?" said Harry.
"Probably getting ready to pounce," said Ron.
They waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.
"D'you think it's gone?" Draco whispered.
"Dunno…" Ron stopped speaking abruptly. His eyes were fixed on a point some ten feet above the forest floor, right behind Harry. His face was livid with terror.
Harry didn't even have time to turn around. There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly something large and hairy seized him around the middle and lifted him off the ground, so that he was hanging facedown.
Draco didn't have time to speak before he too was lifted off the ground, followed by Ron and Fang. The clicking sound seemed to heighten as something barreled toward Faykan, who stood still with his sword held high.
"Back foul creatures!" Faykan cried in a commanding voice, swinging his sword in a high arc, causing whatever was trying to grab him to falter and retreat from him. "I will walk to your hollow, not be carried like prey in the night." The clicking continued and Draco, Ron, and Harry were carried off deeper into shadows of the forest.
~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~
Harry never knew how long he was in the creature's clutches; he only knew that the darkness suddenly lifted enough for him to see that the leaf strewn ground was now swarming with spiders. Craning his neck sideways, he realized that they had reached the ridge of a vast hollow, a hollow that had been cleared of trees, so that the stars shone brightly onto the worst scene he had ever laid eyes on.
Spiders. Not tiny spiders like those surging over the leaves below. Spiders the size of carthorses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic. The massive specimen that was carrying Harry made its way down the steep slope toward a misty, domed web in the very center of the hollow, while its fellows closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load. None of the spiders tried to advance on Faykan, who held his sword high as the blue fire danced off its blade.
Harry fell to the ground on all fours as the spider released him. Ron, Draco and Fang thudded down next to him, while Faykan ran over to help them to their feet. Fang wasn't howling anymore, but cowering silently on the spot. Ron looked exactly like Harry felt. His mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream and his eyes were popping.
Harry suddenly realized that the spider that had dropped him was saying something. It had been hard to tell, because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke.
"Aragog!" it called. "Aragog!"
And from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was gray in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind.
"What is it?" he said, clicking his pincers rapidly.
"Men," clicked the spider who'd had caught Harry.
"Is it Hagrid?" said Aragog, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.
"Strangers," clicked the spider who'd had brought Ron.
"Kill them," clicked Aragog fretfully. "I was sleeping..."
"Descendant of Shelob and Ungoliant, you will hear us," Faykan yelled, causing a stir amongst the spiders, "for we are friends of Hagrid…"
Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow.
Aragog paused.
"Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before," he said slowly.
"Hagrid's in trouble," said Harry, breathing very fast. "That's why we've come."
"In trouble?" said the aged spider, and Harry thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?"
"They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a, a… something on students. They've taken him to Azkaban." Draco said nervously.
Aragog clicked his pincers furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn't usually make Harry feel sick with fear.
"But that was years ago," said Aragog fretfully, "years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free."
"And you... you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" said Harry, who could feel cold sweat on his forehead.
"I!" said Aragog, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness..."
Harry summoned what remained of his courage.
"So you never… attacked anyone?"
"Never," croaked the old spider. "It would have been my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet..."
"Do you know what did kill that girl?" said Faykan. "Because whatever it is, it's back and attacking people again…"
His words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily; large black shapes shifted all around him.
"The thing that lives in the castle," said Aragog "is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school."
"What is it?" said Harry urgently.
More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in staying out of the light of Faykan's blade. "We do not speak of it!" said Aragog fiercely. "We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times."
Harry didn't want to press the subject, not with the spiders pressing closer on all sides. Aragog seemed to be tired of talking. He was backing slowly into his domed web, but his fellow spiders continued to inch slowly toward the four boys.
"We'll just go, then," Draco called desperately to Aragog, as leaves rustling behind them.
"Go?" said Aragog slowly. "I think not… my sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat, when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Goodbye, friends of Hagrid."
Harry spun around. Feet away, towering above them was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads.
"Wands, now!" Faykan commanded. "Ron, get Fang!" The spiders started to surge toward the boys, and Faykan swung his sword at those who dared to enter the parameter of the blue light. High screams and fierce clicking came whenever Faykan sliced through a leg or pincer. Draco bellowed "Arania Exumai!" at a spider that tried to sneak behind Faykan, blasting it back into the mass of its fellows. The group started to edge back, out of the spider's hollow, Faykan and Draco fending off the spiders as best they could. The spiders tried to block their path, but Faykan slashed his sword in a wide low arc, "Naur en' Isengard!" [2] Flames burst off the blade, scorching the ground and driving the spiders away, opening a path out of the hollow. Together they burst out running as fast away as their legs could carry them, Faykan taking the rear and pausing often to cut down any spider that caught up to him.
They ran like madmen, the spiders chasing after them, the clicking growing louder as more and more spiders joined the chase.
As they neared the tree line that marked the beginnings of the forest outside the hollow, Harry chanced a glance around. The spiders were circling them, trying to cut off their escape. Harry, in the lead, was about to raise his wand when a thought struck him. He pulled the shining phial, held it aloft and bellowed words that came to his mind, "Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!" [3] The light inside the crystal glass magnified to rival the sun, pouring forth toward the oncoming spiders. They halted, screaming in pain and holding their forelegs up to protect their eyes. The boys kept running, passing through the midst of the now retreating spiders; they could not tolerate the light from Harry's phial.
Finally they burst out of the edge of the forest, and didn't stop until they were all partially barricaded inside Hagrid's hut. Fang dived under a blanket and began trembling. Ron had to pause outside and was violently sick in the pumpkin patch.
"Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he entered. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."
"I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," said Harry.
"That's exactly Hagrid's problem!" said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. "He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're made out, and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban!" He was shivering uncontrollably now. "What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I'd like to know?"
"That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry, as he watched Faykan wipe the black spider blood from his sword, shrink it and sheath it in his belt, "He was innocent."
Ron gave a loud snort. Evidently, hatching Aragog in a cupboard wasn't his idea of being innocent.
"So, tell me how we managed to escape them so easily?" Draco piped up, looking paler than usual. "I mean, the last thing I remember well was the spiders trying to surround us, then a blinding light…"
"That, dear Draco," Faykan said with a wide smile at Harry, "was Harry's ingenious use of the Phial of Galadriel."
"The what?" Draco and Harry responded simultaneously.
"The Phial of Galadriel, it is a crystal container which holds inside it the light of Eärendil, most beloved star of the elves. Dark creatures cannot bear the light of something so pure and good. It was made for the one purpose of protecting the bearer when they are amidst the shadow of evil," Faykan explained with the grin still plastered on his face.
Harry's eyes widened. He looked down at the crystal phial in his hand, whose light had returned to a comfortable glow. 'Most beloved star of the elves?' he thought. Faykan, presuming Harry's unasked question said, "Not house elves, Harry. The Quendi, the immortal elder children of Ilúvatar, wisest and fairest of all beings. Galadriel was the last great queen of the Noldor in arda, the world."
"What happened to them?" Draco asked in an awed voice.
"They left, sailing far across the sea to the lands of Valinor. Only a few remained, sacrificing their immortality to become the ancestors of all wizardkind."
"Wow…" Ron said softly. The four boys stared at the elven phial for a few solemn moments before leaving to return to the castle. Harry's mind wandered to what Aragog had told them as they approached the front doors. Something clicked in his mind, and he gasped aloud.
"That girl who died fifty years ago, Aragog said she was found in a bathroom," said Harry. "What if she never left the bathroom? What if she's still there?"
Ron rubbed his eyes sleepily, frowning through the moonlight. And then he understood, too. "You don't think… not Moaning Myrtle?"
Faykan and Draco's eyes widened with realization.
[1]Glamdring goth namba hyanda en' quessir amin poldora yassen lee ra val : Glamdring foe hammer, blade of the elves strengthen me with your great power
[2]Naur en' Isengard : Fire of Isengard
[3]Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima : Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars
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