Chapter 25
The air around them was charged, and Hermione could feel her skin vibrating with nervous energy. She could smell an acrid, rotting smell permeating the air, and it turned her empty stomach.
The Acromantula in front of them moved slowly down the tree it was on, carefully checking the space in front of him for movement. It was covered in thick, black hair, like a dog.
A second Acromantula slowly dropped down to their right, on a shining string of web. The spider swung languidly from side to side, its eyes flashing dangerously.
"I smell blood, directly below." The spider said, dropping down lower. Hermione remembered her scraped shin from earlier, and mentally cursed herself for not tending to it when it happened.
Hermione felt Draco sneak his hand around hers and lean in close. For some reason, the warmth of his skin on hers made her heart rate accelerate.
"We need to move," He breathed almost silently in her ear. "Now," He hissed again.
She squeezed his hand, and they took off running, careful to keep the cloak around them. Draco didn't let go of her hand as they tried to make their way over the choppy landscape.
"Kadmiel, I hear them moving!" One of the spiders boomed from behind, and Hermione's heart sank. It was impossible to move fast around all the jagged foliage that blanketed the forest. She could hear that familiar clicking sound, and abruptly one of the spiders slid down a web in front of her. Draco wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders, pulling her close.
"Urijah, here!" It called, extending two of its sharp, long legs, into the air in front of Hermione's face.
Eyes started forming in the branches around them, as more of them appeared.
"There," She heard one of them call, as her and Draco worked to get over a fallen Pine tree.
All at once, a pair of thin, hairy, steel-like arms closed around her waist, pulling her backwards away from Draco. The cloak fell away from her, and by default exposed Draco as well. Hermione barely had time to register a pair of arms grabbing for him, too, when she was hoisted into the air away from him.
"Granger!" Draco yelled, trying to extend a hand towards her, face a mask of panic and dread. Then he was gone, as Hermione was pulled too high up to see him. She estimated she was about 30 feet off the floor, hanging against a massive, ancient Pine tree.
"It is a girl, a witch, from the castle," A voice hissed from behind, sounding more feminine than the first two spiders they had heard.
"Show her to me, Agripa," A loud, coarse voice commanded from above them. Hermione could see the Forest Floor below her. Her eyes darted madly, searching for Draco. There were hundreds of Acromantula around them, filling every branch, scurrying across the exposed roots, and fallen branches.
She felt herself being pulled upward still. The world was lightening around her, and the trers grew sparse the higher up off the ground she was. She was able to make out more Acromantula around her, infesting the trees. Some were as small as cats, and other's as large at Thestrals, bending the supple Pine trees under their weight.
"She smells so good," one of them hissed, extending an arm, and catching a tuft of Hermione's hair, pulling it loose from her scalp. She struggled not to show any reaction to the pain.
When they came to a stop, a huge Acromantula grabbed her in his arms from the one that had carried her up. He was the biggest one she had seen so far, and three of his 8 eyes were glazed over white. A giant, jagged scar cut through them and went down the rest of his shaggy head, the scar pulling up in angry red ridges.
"We will take her Mosag, and the wizard too. Get their wands," he said in a bass toned voice, so deep it shook in Hermione's chest. She couldn't move her arms to defend herself, his grip was so tight around her.
She felt a small, cat sized Acromantula crawl up her legs and trifle through her robes, pulling away from her with her wand in its grasp. She kicked at it but missed. The one that was gripping her tightened its hold.
An Acromantula appeared at the top of the pine tree next to the one she was on, holding Draco in its grasp. He was thrashing about madly, trying to wriggle free. It was in vain.
"Stop moving or we will make you stop," The Acromantula commanded, and when Draco didn't stop, the spider bashed his head upon a sturdy tree branch. Draco's face grew slack, and his body stilled. Hermione was feeling stabs of panic and horror rising in her chest. Please don't let him be dead! She thought to herself gravely.
"Come, to Mosag," The one holding her commanded, as he tensed up and jumped from the tree they were on the a neighboring pine. As they landed, the tree swayed under their weight. She listened to the sound of a thousand Acromantula moving at once, and it filled her ears deafeningly. Hermione was very, very afraid. At least during the Death Eater attack back at Grimmauld place she had had her wand and was able to defend herself. Now, she had nothing. She vaguely noted that she heard galloping again but didn't have time to worry about that now.
The Acromantula holding her started to descend an Oak he had just jumped to, and Hermione saw that there were spiderwebs everywhere. She assumed they were getting close to their den, and her stomach turned even more, causing a bile to rise in her throat. If her stomach hadn't been so empty, Hermione would have vomited.
To her left she noticed a shock of blonde hair descending with them. At least Draco was close.
They were about ten feet off the ground when A voice called out that stopped all the Acromantulas from moving, and the one holding Hermione squeezed her even tighter.
"Eraz release that witch," A strong, yet melodic voice called. Hermione could hear what sounded like a bow being pulled back.
"This doesn't concern you horses," The Acromantula holding her, apparently named Eraz, said. Hermione tried to spin around to see who was calling to them from the ground, but the one holding her wouldn't give her any leeway.
"Release the wizard and witch, and you may not be harmed." A different voice called, this one sharper than the first. Hermione could hear the clicking sounds erupt around her as the Acromantulas swarmed the ones holding her and Draco.
"We do not wish to war with you. Leave us," A different Acromantula said, calmer than Eraz.
"Release them to us, and there will be no warring," The melodic voice from before said. Hermione realized now there were centaurs asking for them, and she didn't know which was worse. She looked at Draco, and her heart thumped out of rhythm to see he still looked lifeless.
"Do not make us attack," The Acromantula called Kadmiel spoke up, sliding down a string of web.
The cat like Acromantula that had stolen Hermione's wand was a few feet below her, and it was now holding Draco's wand as well. I must get our wands back. How? She thought to herself desperately.
"I see no need to continue to try to sway them. Fire at will," The sharp-voiced centaur said. After that, things happened very quickly. Hermione felt herself being projected through the Forest swiftly, she heard arrows piercing the air, the sounds of clicking erupted from all sides, and the galloping of hooves stamped the forest floor so hard the trees seemed to be shaking with the force. The Acromantula holding her was jumping from tree to tree frantically, and bits of branches and leaves were hitting Hermione in the face as she lay helpless in the beast's arms. The cat-like Acromantula was following them closely, as if afraid to lose sight of Eraz.
Suddenly, she felt herself drop low in his grasp as an arrow hit him in the back. He let out a high-pitched scream, but quickly regained composure and started to move again.
"Eraz, this is your last chance," A new centaur voice rose up from below. "We cannot allow you to have them."
An arrow sailed by Hermione's head, and she felt stunned. It had almost hit her!
Th next arrow hit Erza in the back again, and his grip on her loosened enough to where she could drop to the branch below them. Her heart was beating madly, and she could feel herself sweating and shaking. Do or die, she thought determinedly as she steadied herself on the branch. Eraz was screaming out in pain above her. She spotted the cat-like Acromantula and reached for it, grabbing it by one of its spindly legs. It made a high-pitched squeaking noise, and Hermione tried to pull it close, only to see its leg break off. Dammit! she thought wildly.
As it started to back away from her, still squeaking, Hermione lunged for it, flinging her whole body off the branch she was on to reach the creature before it escaped. I need my wand you foul beast, she thought darkly, her first closing around its stiff thorax. She wrestled her and Draco's wand free and launched the creature away from her. Another pair of legs closed around her waist- a different Acromantula than Eraz, but she had her wand now.
"Stupefy!" she yelled, hitting the one trying to grab her. He fell away from her. She was losing her balance on the branch by now, though, and felt herself falling. "Sie Fenum!" She yelled, a rope appearing out of the end of her wand, and then wrapping around a nearby tree branch, swinging her upward to land on it. She steadied her balance, and then scanned the chaos around her. There looked to be about 25 centaurs on the Forest floor below, shooting arrows at the Acromantula that were descending on them. She saw one centaur covered in five of them, trying to fight them off. She also saw a smattering of dead ones, filled with arrows, littering the area around them. She searched for Draco around the melee they were in, as Acromantula and Centaurs alike called out battle cries and screams of pain.
"Witch, down here!" She heard one of them call, and saw the non-moving Draco propped on the back of a gray spotted centaur.
She started climbing down the pine she was on rapidly as Acromantula converged on her, trying to capture her again. "Stupefy!" she yelled, casting blindly into the trees around her. "Stupefy!"
She finally made it to the bottom of the tree, into a chorus of galloping and arrows being loosed into the night sky around her. She was afraid to be down in the chaos, but she needed to get Draco. she couldn't leave him here to die.
"Young witch," The centaur with Draco on his back said again, extending a muscled arm to her. She accepted and he pulled her on to his back with force. Hermione wrapped her arms around Draco's body and was so relieved to feel a heartbeat under his clammy skin. She held tightly to him, to steady him, and the centaur they were on galloped away from the battle raging around them. Are we being led to death? she asked herself sickeningly. But what choice did she have? The Acromantula weren't much better, after all.
"Are you helping us?" She leaned close and asked the centaur carrying them away.
"I am helping the world." He responded back, easily navigating himself through the craggy and uneven underbrush. "You are not in danger with me."
Hermione leaned back into a comfortable position. She had no other option but to see where she was being taken, and what fate she was being led to.