A/N: SOOOO sorry for the delays. It was attack of the plotbunnies. Anyway, please review after you read (:

Chapter 8: We follow the Spiders

"Why did you make me leave my sword, again?" I demanded the boys as we shed the cloak.

"The ghosts would've sensed it and caught us, I told you!" said Harry.

I sighed, snatching the cloak from Harry's hands. I looked back at him, almost ready for him to say, "Hey, that was my dad's!" or some form of protest, but both he and Ron were both staring at me expectedly.

"What?" I asked, throwing the cloak into a chair.

"Do the thing you did when you found the spiders," said Harry.

"Wait, what?" said Ron to Harry. "I thought we wanted to get the bloody hell back to the Common Room!"

I shot Ron a dirty look. As I did, my eyes focused past him and saw a queue of spiders crawling through a crack in the window.

"No need," I said, ignoring Ron's statement. I pointed. "Look."

They turned and Ron, who was closer to the window, jumped back.

I was already starting toward the door.

"Dim the lights," I said, using my ice cold fingers to extinguish the fire in a lamp on the table as I passed. Harry blew out a few more lamps and Ron didn't take his wide eyes off the spiders.

I opened the door, letting Harry out first. I had to tug Ron out of his trance and force him out of the hut.

We circled around to the window where I lit my hand with black flames, which gave off a dim light; just enough to see, but not enough to give us away. The line of spiders I'd found continued down the side of the hut and joined a longer, larger group of spiders that led straight to the Forbidden Forest.

"We have to go in," I said grimly.

"What?" Ron, of course.

"You heard Hagrid: 'Follow the Spiders'. That's what we've gotta do," said Harry, who began walking toward me.

"This is mad! They're heading into the Forbidden Forest!"

I looked at him. "You can stay here and wait for us to come back in the dark with gods-know-what crawling around out here."

Ron paled. "Fine," he said tersely.

"Good. Let's go."

I led the way, seeing as I held the light. The long parade of spiders led to a burrow. Now, instead of one single-file line, spiders came in from all directions, in even larger numbers. I also noticed that they were getting larger in size as well. Some of them were as large as raccoons or bigger.

I looked back at the boys. Harry has a determined look on his face and Ron looked ready to shit his pants. I ducked into the hole. They followed me into the tunnel.

None of us dared to touch the spider-covered walls in fear of disturbing whatever was on the other end. The tunnel opened into a cave; the walls were draped—almost dripping—with long, wide spider-webs. On the other side was a large hole that was halfway in the floor, halfway in the opposite wall.

Kgish! Something made a loud noise like a mix between a rash and a thud. Something big.

"Who is it?" said a very breathy, old-sounding voice. Another Kgish! "Hagrid? Is that you?" it wheezed.

"We're friends of Hagrid's!" said Harry. His voice sounded a little higher than usual. "He sent us here!"

"Hagrid has never sent men into my hollow before." Kgish!

"Um, actually, I'm a—"I cut myself off; the biggest spider I'd ever seen emerged from the hole on the opposite end. "…woman," I finished, my voice now awe-filled. Ron was now pale, wide-eyed, mouth agape and whimpering like a lost puppy.

"And you…You're Aragog, aren't you?" asked Harry.

"Yes. Hagrid has never sent men into my hollow before..." Aragog repeated like a senile old man.

I didn't fear Aragog. In fact, I was in awe. Almost a respect for him. I was at a loss for words. Whereas Ron was about to piss his pants and Harry seemed like the only one who remembered what we were there for.

"He's in trouble," said Harry. "Up at the school, there have been attacks. They think it's Hagrid. They think he opened the Chamber of Secrets. Like before."

"That's a lie!" wheezed Aragog. "Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets."

"Then you're not the monster?"

"No. The monster was born in the castle. I came to Hagrid as a boy... in the pocket of a traveler."

"But what is it? The monster?"

"We do not speak of it. It is a beast we spiders fear above all others."

"But have you seen it?"

"I never saw any part of the castle but the box in which Hagrid kept me. The girl the monster had killed was discovered in a bathroom. When I was accused, Hagrid his me away here."

"Harry…" Ron breathed, shaking his sleeve.

"What?" said Harry, sounding slightly irritated.

Ron looked up. So did Harry and I. Dropping slowly from the ceiling by their own strands of web were dozens, if not hundreds of spiders the size of chairs all around us.

Harry swallowed, looking back at Aragog.

"Well—thank you. We'll just—go."

"Go?" said Aragog. "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, friend of Hagrid."

Well, so much for that.

As the spiders closed in on us, I drew my wand and handed it to Ron, whose was of no good use. I then reached for my sword. Wait—shit! I'd left my sword back in the Common Room!

"Dammit, guys!"

We stood back to back to back. I turned my mind over for options. I couldn't afford to waste too much energy summoning the dead. The spiders got closer. Geokinesis wasn't an option either—

Wait. Geokinesis. I could summon Stygian Iron. I could call my sword to me.

I concentrated hard and kicked a spider and Harry shot a spell. Ron's hand that held my wand was outstretched and shaking like mad.

Finally, a shining sliver of black rushed toward me. I caught it in midair and stabbed the nearest spider. It squealed and its legs curled in agony as my sword literally sucked the life out of it. It was reduced to ash. I grinned an admittedly crazed grin.

Just as I raised my sword again, a bright light filled the cave. The light startled the spiders and they backed away from it quickly. A blue Ford Anglia came into view.

Driverless, it drove toward us and screeched to a halt.

"Come on!" Harry yelled, and we clambered in. I got in last, fending off a few spiders. Without any of us even touching the wheel or pedals, the car began driving off at full speed through the tunnel and out into the forest. The spiders attempted to chase us, but as the trees thinned, they seemed to doubt the safety of the grounds and retreated.

The car stopped next to Hagrid's hut and we got out.

"Follow the spiders!" Ron exclaimed, slamming his door shut. "If Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'll kill him!"

"Shut up!" I hissed. I snatched my wand out of his hand, pocketed it, and sheathed my sword. The car fish-tailed and drove away.

"I mean, what was the point of sending us in there?" Ron went on. "What have we found out?"

"Hagrid never opened the Chamber," Harry and I said in unison.

I don't know how I got to sleep that night, but I did. The next morning was one of those mornings that I did NOT want to get up, but I dragged myself out of bed by the mere motivation of hunger. As soon as I set foot in the Common Room, two hands grabbed my arms and dragged me to the side.

"What?" I snapped at Harry and Ron as soon as they'd let me go.

"Remember that girl that died fifty years ago? She died in a bathroom." said Ron.

"So?"

"What if she never left?" said Harry.

I gaped at the two of them. "Of course!"

oOo

Bad news: exams were still on. Good news: The mandrakes were ready.

But besides that, I'm sure you'd rather hear about our attempt of an interrogation with Myrtle.

Well, we were being escorted to History of Magic by Lockhart, my least favorite teacher. But again, he proved to be the easiest to fool, because we convinced him to leave us alone in the corridor. We got briefly caught by McGonagall, but she let us go after I told her we were visiting Hermione. Upside was, we weren't in trouble. Downside was, now we had to actually visit her.

I couldn't help but stare at her face as I sat on the nightstand next to her hospital bed, my hood up as always. It sucked; the last we'd seen her, she had figured something out. Had she discovered something we had yet to? Or had we already figured it out?

Harry held up a balled up old sheet of paper that he'd removed from Hermione's frozen hand. He opened it and Ron and I looked over his shoulder at it. But it was written in English, so I immediately got a headache just looking at it.

"Read it aloud." I groaned, rubbing my eyes. Harry began reading in a whisper.

"Of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the Basilisk, king of serpents. This snake may reach gigantic size and live for hundreds of years—"

"Whoa, wait!" I exclaimed. Both Ron and Harry shushed me, and I whispered, "That's what's been attacking people isn't it! What else is on there?"

Harry skimmed it. "Spiders flee before it, it kills my looking at people in the eye; she's right, Ron. It all fits."

"Let's not discuss it here," said Ron.

Two minutes later, we walked slowly through an empty corridor.

"So, if the monster is a basilisk and it kills by looking people in the eye, why is it no one's dead?" said Ron.

After a short silence, I said, "Because no one's looked it directly in the eye."

"Right," said Harry. "Colin had his camera—"

"And Justin must've seen it through Nick," I said.

"And Hermione had the mirror."

"And Mrs. Norris?" said Ron.

"There was water on the floor that night-" said Harry.

"So she had only seen the basilisk's reflection." I said. Harry and I had begun to sound like Fred and George.

"But how's it been getting around? A great big snake, someone must've seen it."

Harry pointed to a word written on the bottom of the page that looked to me like a jumble of gibberish.

"Pipes. It's been using the plumbing."

"Remember how Aragog said that the girl it killed fifty years ago was found in a bathroom?" I asked. "Why would it be in a bathroom? Unless it came from—"

"Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom!" we chorused.

Just them, McGonagall's voice echoed through the corridor. "All students are to return to their dormitories. All teachers to the second-floor corridor immediately, please."

"That's not far," I said. "Let's see what's up."

We rushed down the hall, nearly rounded the corridor, and backed up when we saw the teachers huddling around the opposite wall. We pressed our backs against the wall as we peeked around the corner to see what they were doing.

"As you can see, the heir of Slytherin has left another message!" said McGonagall, sounding extremely worried. The teachers all crowded around and none of us could see what was written. "Our worst fear has been realized. A student has been taken by the monster into the Chamber itself!"

"What is to be done?" asked Professor Sprout.

"The students must be sent home. I'm afraid this is the end of Hogwarts."

Lockhart picked that moment to arrive late.

"So sorry. Dozed off. What have I missed?" he asked, smiling stupidly.

"A girl has been snatched by the monster," Snape informed him, "Your moment has come at last."

The grin was practically smacked off Lockhart's face. I laughed quietly.

"What?" breathed Ron, who was in the back. We repositioned ourselves to where we could all three see, in which Harry was standing straight, I was stooping, and Ron was squatting.

"M-my mo-moment?" Lockhart stammered.

"Weren't you saying just last night how you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber is?" said Snape.

Lockhart looked at a loss for words.

"Well, that's settled," said McGonagall coldly. "We'll leave you to deal with the monster, Gilderoy."

He took up his confident façade again. "Very well. I'll just be in my office getting…getting ready."

The teachers began to disperse.

"Who is it the monster's taken, Minerva?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Ginny Weasley."

Ron sat down hard.

As the last of the teachers left, the message was revealed, which Harry read aloud for my benefit.

"Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever."

"Ginny…" Ron whispered breathlessly.

We sped toward Lockhart's office. No, correction: Harry and Ron ran to Lockhart's office while I tagged along wondering why we didn't just let him die in the Chamber.

When we reached his office, he was running around and throwing things into suitcases. He immediately stopped when we walked in. All three of us furrowed our brows.

"Are you going somewhere?" Harry demanded.

"Er—yes, well—" he began packing again. "Urgent call—unavoidable—gotta go—"

"What about my sister?" Ron yelled.

"Well—" more packing, "As to that, most unfortunate—no one regrets more than I—"

"You can't pussy out now! You're the DADA teacher!" I pressed.

"Well, I must say, when I took the job, there was nothing in the job description—"

"You're running away?" said Harry. "After all that stuff you did in your books?"

"Books can be misleading!"

"You wrote them!"

"My dear boy, don't you use your common sense? My books wouldn't've sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things!"

I glared at him—the Death Glare. Like the coward he was, his legs gave out and he sat down hard in a chair. I couldn't help but feel a twinge of satisfaction amongst my outrage.

"You're a fraud!" Harry accused. "You've just been taking credit for what other wizards have done!"

"Is there anything you can do?" Ron demanded.

"Yes, now that you mention it. I'm rather gifted with memory charms. Otherwise, those wizards would have gone blabbing and I'd never have sold another book."

My scowl deepened. Screw the rules. I Shadow-Traveled to the dorm and grabbed my sword. When I came back, Harry and Ron had their wands pointed at Lockhart.

We took the blundering idiot to Myrtle's bathroom.

I sheathed my sword as I entered the bathroom with them.

"Myrtle?" I called. "I need to ask you something."

She poked her head through the closed stall door, as only a ghost can do, then floated out with wide, almost innocent eyes that were magnified behind ghostly spectacles. She said nothing, but I could tell that she was wondering what I wanted that the boys and Lockhart (who was shaking like a fall leaf) wanted to know.

"I know it's not a subject that you feel like talking a lot about, but could you tell me how exactly you left your life?" I tried to put it in away that didn't patronize her or force her to tell us. But surprisingly, she looked flattered.

"Oohhhh," she said airily. "It was dreadful. It happened right here," she pointed to the stall she'd just come out of, "I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in."

"Who was it?" Harry asked.

"I don't know!" she said snappishly at him for interrupting her obvious trip down memory lane. "I was distraught!"

After a breath (so to speak), she said, "But they said something funny, some other language. And then I realized that it was a boy speaking, so I unlocked the door to tell him to go away and…I died."

"Just like that?" I asked, incredulous.

"Well, the last thing I remember seeing was a pair of great big yellow eyes over there by that sink." She pointed toward the circle of sinks behind them.

We all turned to look. I muttered a thanks to Myrtle and all of us approached the sink.

Harry told it to open up, evidently in Parseltongue. The top of the circle of sinks was magically lifted off and they all began to space out, moving outward, and the one that Harry had spoken to slowly sank into the floor. All this revealed a large hole in the floor in the middle of all the sinks, large enough for even Neville to slide down.

This was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

POLL: Should I write out the POA based one or just summarize it in the next one? (I've already decided, but answer anyway and post legit reasons) Thanks, Update as soon as possible, I SWEAR.