Chapter 14: Spiderpocalypse

Another attack in Bath this time. Heard a rumor that Bellatrix was there. After the gruesome stories I read in the Prophet, I believe it. James said that there's nothing we can do about it and that we should focus on the upcoming match against Ravenclaw. Wasn't sure if he was being intentionally dense or if he was just trying to find ways to manage his own growing anxiety about the war.

Leo was abruptly awoken early the following morning by Harry and Ron, who dragged him out of bed at nearly two in the morning and told him something that had him wide awake in seconds: Dumbledore and Hagrid were both gone.

The duo had snuck out to Hagrid's the previous night under Harry's Invisibility Cloak in order to confront him about the Chamber. Before they could really learn anything, Fudge, Lucius Malfoy, and Dumbledore had all shown up. Once there, Fudge had sentenced Hagrid to Azkaban – Leo visibly paled at this, having seen first-hand what it could do to a person. Malfoy had then informed them that the Board of Governors had declared Dumbledore unfit and removed him as Headmaster from the school. Leo collapsed into a chair with his hands on his face.

"This is just like last year," he mumbled, an edge of anxiety in his voice. "Quirrell waited until Dumbledore was out of the school to make his move, and I'm sure the Heir will do the same... with Dumbledore gone, we're in serious trouble, you guys."

Harry and Ron exchanged nervous looks at this before telling Leo about Hagrid's final message: Follow the spiders. Leo thought that that was likely to get them in a world of trouble much like their investigations into the Stone that had led to him getting kidnapped and him and Harry almost dying. Ordinarily, Leo would've been all for getting into trouble and diving head-first into danger, but even he was a wee bit apprehensive.

Despite this, he helped the two look throughout the castle for spiders, which were strangely absent. Leo thought that they'd have better luck at nighttime, and took to strolling the halls once more on his own late at night, his eyes glued to the Map. The third night he did this, a sudden thought occurred to him, prompting him to stop dead in his tracks: Riddle's diary.

Seeing the words magically unfurl on the Marauder's Map had brought the diary to mind, which brought the Chamber and everything else to mind as well. A diary that contained the memory of a boy who had been there the last time the Chamber had opened randomly appearing was suspicious enough, but the timing was what really got Leo's attention.

The attacks had stopped during the Christmas holidays, which Leo dismissed out of hand since there wasn't a large enough victim pool for the monster to attack. He would've assumed they'd start up again soon after, but they did not. Harry had had the diary in his possession for some time until the day before the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. The very next day, there was a double attack.

The diary is the key to this somehow. Leo determined as he quickly hid from Filch behind a large statue. Maybe Riddle is really the one who opened the Chamber fifty years ago? Maybe he's instructing whoever has his diary now on how to open it? Maybe he's the one who's really behind the attacks?

Unfortunately, Leo couldn't tell anyone about this. Without the diary, he had no proof that his story was even remotely true. He couldn't send a letter to Remus or Sirius since Apollo was currently with one of them. And he most certainly couldn't tell Harry, since the git was practically in love with Riddle.

Without any leads, Leo could do nothing but speculate and continue his nighttime searches for the spiders. Luckily, an answer to this particular problem presented itself two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid's departure, following the end of Potions class.

"Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and off they marched, with Harry, Ron, and Dean bringing up the rear and Leo following immediately behind the grouchy professor, keeping his eyes trained to the ground as Snape saw them out of the castle and off across the vegetable patch toward the greenhouses.

The Herbology class was very subdued; there were now two missing from their number, Justin and Hermione.

Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. Harry went to tip an armful of withered stalks onto the compost heap and returned with a Hufflepuff boy by the name of Ernie Macmillan.

"That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, "he seems to be acting very oddly about all this, doesn't he? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir."

"One word against Draco and I'll toss you into the compost heap," Leo threatened, receiving a startled look from the boy in return.

Draco had, indeed, been acting odd since Hagrid and Dumbledore had gotten the boot. Leo had pulled him aside one day and asked what was wrong. Draco shifted uncomfortably before admitting that he didn't think Dumbledore was kicked out entirely legally and that his father may very well have blackmailed and threatened people to get his way.

Leo took a moment to digest this before giving a small shrug and saying that it sounded like something Lucius would do and that it wasn't Draco's fault. Even so, the boy remained feeling incredibly guilty, something Leo could relate to ever since he had used his uncle's name to shut up the crowd of Gryffindors.

"Do you think it's Malfoy, Harry?" Ernie asked.

"No," said Harry, so firmly that Ernie stared.

A second later, Harry spotted something. Leo followed his gaze with a raised eyebrow.

Several large spiders were scuttling over the ground on the other side of the glass, moving in an unnaturally straight line as though taking the shortest route to a prearranged meeting. Harry hit Ron over the hand with his pruning shears.

"Ouch! What're you —"

Leo pointed out the spiders, following their progress with his eyes screwed up against the sun.

"Oh, yeah," said Ron, trying, and failing, to look pleased. "But we can't follow them now —"

Ernie was listening in curiously.

"Mind ya business," Leo snapped, snipping his clippers together a couple times just inches from the boy's nose.

Ernie jerked his head away abruptly and returned to his Shrivelfig. Feeling triumphant, Leo turned his gaze back to the spiders, following their trajectory to -

"Looks like they're heading for the Forbidden Forest..." Harry said aloud.

And Ron looked even unhappier about that. Leo couldn't help but smile in delight. Despite his previous experience in the Forbidden Forest, he much preferred the dense, dark trees to whatever horrors lay beneath the school at this very moment. He could handle the creatures in the forest but didn't think he could handle Slytherin's personal death machine.

At the end of the lesson Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Leo, Harry, and Ron lagged behind the others so they could talk out of earshot.

"We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again," Harry told Ron. "We can take Fang with us. He's used to going into the forest with Hagrid, he might be some help."

"Right," said Ron, who was twirling his wand nervously in his fingers. "Er — aren't there — aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?" he added as they took their usual places at the back of Lockhart's classroom.

"No, they only come out during full moons," Leo shook his head before a thought occurred to him. "Maybe we'll run into Knight again – Hagrid says he's supposed to be the guardian of the forest and he did save me and Harry last year. Maybe he can show us where the spiders are heading?"

Harry looked somewhat cheered at this thought, recalling Hagrid's words about how not many creatures in the forest tangled with the black wolf. Ron, however, seemed confused. Harry explained everything he could remember about Knight as Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant.

"Come now," he cried, beaming around him. "Why all these long faces?"

"Chudley Cannons are bottom of the league again – what the bloody hell do you think?" Leo rolled his eyes sarcastically, having had more than enough of Lockhart by this point in the year.

A few scattered chuckles swept over the class. Having Lockhart and Leo in the same room was probably the most joy they were able to find these days. It was certainly the most fun Leo had had all year. Making fun of Lockhart was a great distraction for him and kept him from remembering all the horrible stuff about Quirrell.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Black," Lockhart waggled his finger at the boy before he began speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim. "Don't you people realize, the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away —"

"Says who?" yelled Dean.

"My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty," said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two.

"Oh, yes he would," said Ron, even more loudly than Dean.

"Fudge is a power-hungry moron who cracked under public scrutiny," Leo snorted. "He'd've arrested you too if he thought it would boost his poll numbers."

"Ten more points from Gryffindor, Mr. Black. And I flatter myself -"

"Yeah, we know that," Leo grumbled.

"- I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a self-satisfied tone, ignoring Leo's comment.

But Lockhart's disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Harry so much that he yearned to throw Gadding with Ghouls right in Lockhart's stupid face. When he mentioned this in an undertone to Leo and Ron, the blonde took that opportunity to do as his cousin had suggested. He lost fifty points from Gryffindor, but it was worth seeing Lockhart's bloody nose.

The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o'clock onward the Gryffindors had nowhere else to go. They also had plenty to talk about, with the result that the common room often didn't empty until past midnight.

Harry went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk right after dinner and spent the evening sitting on it, waiting for the room to clear. Fred and George challenged Leo, Harry, and Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching them, very subdued in Hermione's usual chair. Harry and Ron kept losing on purpose, trying to finish the games quickly, but Leo couldn't bring himself to purposefully lose anything – unless it involved one of Lockhart's tests or homework assignments (which he never once did) -, and so, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and Ginny finally went to bed.

The three waited for the distant sounds of two dormitory doors closing before seizing the cloak, throwing it over themselves, and climbing through the portrait hole.

It was a difficult journey through the castle, dodging all the teachers. Leo had been tempted to bring the Map, but remembered his promise to Fred and George and decided to keep it a secret. Thankfully, he knew many secret passages around the castle and got them around the teachers quickly and efficiently. At last, they reached the entrance hall, slid back the lock on the oak front doors, squeezed between them, trying to stop any creaking, and stepped out into the moonlit 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 looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but..."

"Don't crush my dreams, Ronald," Leo grumbled.

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.

Harry left the Invisibility Cloak on Hagrid's table. There would be no need for it in the pitch-dark forest.

"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, illuminating -

"Knight!" Leo crowed gleefully, bounding toward the black figure lying in the shadow of the trees.

Knight gave a flick of his ear and a small wag of his tail as Leo and his friends approached. He gave a small incline of his head, almost as though nodding in greeting to the people who approached his domain. After a look back at the other two boys, who nodded encouragingly, Leo kneeled down slightly until he was looking Knight in the eyes, which were glowing silver in the moonlight.

"Listen, Knight," Leo began, encouraged when the wolf tilted his head to the side and eyed him more intently. "We have friends – Hagrid, among many others – who are in trouble. In order to help them, we need to follow the spiders to wherever they may lead. Can you take us to where they're going?"

Knight folded an ear back, giving a look that indicated that he thought that was a very bad idea. Nonetheless, he rose to his paws ("Bloody hell, you didn't mention he was so big!" Ron yelled in surprise.) and turned away, waving his tail for them to follow him before trotting into the forest.

Leo lit his wand and went after him, followed by Ron with Harry taking up the rear and Fang gallivanting all about them. About ten minutes in, Fang tried to bound ahead of Knight, who tackled him to the ground and pinned him there, snarling lightly. Harry and Ron tried to run forward, wands pointed at the wolf when Leo held out an arm to stop them. Fang whimpered, curling his tail between his legs before Knight released him and continued onward. Fang followed behind in a more subdued manner.

"It's a dominance display of sorts," Leo informed the other two as they followed their canine companions. "Knight's an Alpha, so he kind of leads us. Fang's a Beta at best, so him trying to run ahead was a challenge to Knight's leadership – not to mention the fact that Fang's running around could've attracted all sorts of unsavory predators. Knight didn't have much choice but to put him in his place."

"Bloody hell," Ron rose an eyebrow. "You sound like Hermione."

Leo merely gave a small shrug, raising his wand a bit higher to allow for a bit more light. 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.

Then Fang suddenly let loose a great, echoing bark, making the humans jump out of their skins whilst Knight rounded on him with an angry snap of his jaws.

"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. Knight started to circle the group, ears erect and fur bristling as he snarled at whatever was coming for them.

"Oh, no," said Ron. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh —"

"Shut up," said Harry frantically. "It'll hear you."

"Hear me?" said Ron in an unnaturally high voice. "It's already heard Fang!"

There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence. Knight suddenly gave a low bark before sitting down, his fur lying flat. Leo lowered his wand slightly, assured that they were no longer in any sort of danger. He was proven correct when, mere seconds later, there came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that all three of them flung up their hands to shield their eyes. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder. Leo had to cast Diffindo to get him out.

"Harry!" Ron shouted, his voice breaking with relief. "Leo, it's our car!"

"Holy shit, really?" Leo asked incredulously, raising his wand to get a better look.

Mr. Weasley's car was standing, empty, in the middle of a circle of thick trees under a roof of dense branches, its headlights ablaze. As Ron walked, open-mouthed, toward it, it moved slowly toward him, exactly like a large, turquoise dog greeting its owner.

"It's been here all the time!" said Ron delightedly, walking around the car. "Look at it. The forest's turned it wild..."

The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently, it had taken to trundling around the forest on its own. Fang didn't seem at all keen on it; he kept close to Knight, who growled and snapped at him for getting too close. The dog whimpered before crawling over to Leo, who gave him an absent pat on the head.

"And we thought it was going to attack us!" said Ron, leaning against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!"

Knight suddenly went rigid before launching forward and pushing them away from the car. Mere seconds later, a giant spider landed where the trio and Fang had been standing. Knight gave a low bark before nudging them to their feet and urging them forward, not that they needed much incentive. The wolf led them through the trees at a brisk pace, now and again running around behind them to snap at the heels of whoever was lagging behind.

Leo wasn't sure quite how long or how far they had been running before Knight led them into a hollow surrounded by cobwebs and spiders on all sides. A misty, domed web sat in the center of the hollow, which Knight walked toward confidently. Leo had the sudden urge to light the dome on fire.

Knight gave a few barks.

And from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was grey in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind. Leo didn't find much relief in this fact.

"What is it?" he said, clicking his pincers rapidly.

Knight barked again.

"Is it Hagrid?" said the spider, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.

Knight barked, giving a flick of his ear.

"Kill them," clicked the spider fretfully. "I was sleeping..."

Knight snarled lowly at this, his fur bristling as he glared around the hollow, almost daring anyone to come closer. They did not.

"We're friends of Hagrid's," Harry shouted.

"Besties, really," Leo added.

Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow.

The old one 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 Leo thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?"

"He didn't, we came of our own accord, hoping to save him and some other friends of ours," Leo informed the old spider honestly.

"They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a — a — something on students. They've taken him to Azkaban," Harry explained.

The blind spider clicked his pincers furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders. Leo was able to make out that they were worried – terrified – by whatever it was that lay in the castle. The blonde wondered what exactly was so huge and monstrous that it terrified a spider that was almost the size of his house.

"But that was years ago," said the blind spider 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."

Leo spared a moment to give Harry an 'I told you so' look.

"And you...you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" said Harry, and Leo immediately knew this was the wrong question to ask.

"I!" said the old spider, 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..."

"Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing Hagrid would do," Leo remarked, stepping forward a pace. "I'm glad he helped you find a family and a home after you were so wrongly accused, Mr...?

"Aragog," the spider clicked, sounding mildly amused now. "You are...different from your companions. Your words are more clear. Who are you?"

"Er, Leo Black," Leo replied, shaking off his surprise.

Harry decided to get the conversation back on track.

"So you never — 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..."

"But then...Do you know what did kill that girl?" said Harry. "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 them.

"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."

"Is it a snake?" Leo asked in a dry tone.

More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in.

"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."

"Right, right, we get it," Leo replied, holding his hands up in surrender. "The creature is like your Voldemort, right? It's understandable that you wouldn't want to talk about it – but could you tell us how to stop it? How to kill it?"

"This creature cannot be killed – not by hands such as yours, Leo Black," Aragog informed him. "And it cannot be stopped. It cannot be reasoned with."

Leo was disappointed and irritated at this. He was going to press the subject, but Aragog seemed to be tired of talking. He was backing slowly into his domed web, but his fellow spiders continued to inch slowly toward Leo, Harry, and Ron. Knight began to circle them again, snarling aggressively.

"We'll just go, then," Harry called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind him.

"Go?" said Aragog slowly. "I think not..."

"But — but —"

"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. Good-bye, friends of Hagrid."

Leo looked around wildly at the spiders starting to surround them. Thinking quickly, he pointed his wand to the sky and shouted, "Incindeo Tria!"

Blue flames erupted from his wand and surrounded the small group in a small dome. The spiders gave angry and fearful clicks as they scuttered back away from the heat and the light. After a minute, Leo's face began to sweat, he was unused to holding Incindeo Tria like this and for such a long amount of time. He started panting heavily, about to fall to the ground when a loud, long note sounded, and a blaze of light flamed through the hollow.

Leo released the spell to see that it was Mr. Weasley's car thundering down the slope, headlights glaring, its horn screeching, knocking spiders aside; several were thrown onto their backs, their endless legs waving in the air. The car screeched to a halt in front of Leo, Harry, and Ron and the doors flew open.

"Get Fang!" Harry yelled, grabbing Leo and pushing him into the backseat while he climbed in the front.

Several spiders tried to approach them, only to be repelled by Knight, who was snarling and barking at them angrily. One tried to move past him when it suddenly shrieked in anger and pain as the large wolf grabbed hold of its leg.

This gave Ron time to seize the boar-hound around the middle and throw him, yelping, into the back of the car — the doors slammed shut — Ron didn't touch the accelerator but the car didn't need him; the engine roared and they were off, hitting more spiders. They sped up the slope, out of the hollow, and they were soon crashing through the forest, branches whipping the windows as Knight raced forward ahead of them, leading them between large gaps in the trees.

Harry looked sideways at Ron. His mouth was still open in the silent scream, but his eyes weren't popping anymore.

"Are you okay?"

Ron stared straight ahead, unable to speak. Harry instead turned his head around to look at Leo, who appeared to be slowly recovering from the endeavor.

"You alright?"

Leo merely panted and gave a weak thumbs up.

They smashed their way through the undergrowth, Fang howling loudly in the back seat until Leo got tired and used the Silencing Charm on him in order to help ease his slowly growing headache. After ten quiet, rocky minutes, the trees thinned, and Leo could again see patches of sky.

The car stopped so suddenly that they were nearly thrown into the windshield. They had reached the edge of the forest. Fang flung himself at the window in his anxiety to get out, and when Harry opened the door, he shot off through the trees to Hagrid's house, tail between his legs. Harry got out too and proceeded to help Leo out and, after a minute or so, Ron seemed to regain the feeling in his limbs and followed, still stiff-necked and staring. Harry gave the car a grateful pat as it reversed back into the forest and disappeared from view.

Knight gave the trio a nod before running back into the forest after the car. Harry ran back inside to retrieve his cloak while Ron threw up in Hagrid's pumpkin patch. Leo didn't think the man would be pleased upon his return. It wasn't until Harry returned that Ron stopped long enough to speak.

"Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."

"I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," said Harry.

"Hagrid wasn't there to ensure that wouldn't happen," Leo replied bitterly as he sank onto the steps of Hagrid's hut. "Aragog had no need to uphold the unspoken agreement he had with Hagrid if Hagrid wasn't around."

"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, hauling Leo to his feet and throwing the cloak over him and Ron, prodding the latter in the arm to make him walk. "He was innocent."

Leo looked at him, raising an eyebrow as Harry mumbled out an apology. The blonde turned forward, somewhat satisfied by this.