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Author's Note!
Hello! Our prompts we are using are:
(Object) Wand
(Word) Pie
(Emotion) Regret
Trigger warnings: violence
Word count: 2,998
Anyone with an unnatural fear of Ron Weasley SHOULD NOT READ!
Misters Forsooth and Conquest hope you enjoy this story, if you do, check out our others, they will make you belly laugh, or send you to an early grave.
Slight AU regarding Grindelwald
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One did not normally find Ron in a library. He was usually in the common room or outside when not in classes.
However, today Ron was waiting in the library.
He grumbled as he leaned back in his seat. Harry and Hermione should've been here by now. He thought.
He checked the time with a quick Tempus charm and sighed.
A few more minutes passed before Ron stood up to leave, his chair scraping against the floor.
Madame Pince sent him a glare that he promptly ignored. One did not go to Hogwarts for six years only to flinch at the librarian's stare.
Ron let the door fall shut behind him as he started down the corridor.
He made a few turns towards the Great Hall, hoping breakfast was still going.
The room was mostly empty, students of varying years sitting sparsely around the tables.
Ron gave Malfoy a glare when he noticed him.
Draco smirked and nodded to Ron's usual seat.
Ron took one look at the folded slip of parchment sitting there l, crumpled it into a ball, and flung it over his shoulder as he piled food onto his plate.
Once he was happy with his selection, Ron turned around and shot Malfoy a rude hand gesture.
Malfoy scowled.
A minute passed and Ron spat his stew onto the person sitting across from him as a clunky paper airplane smacked into the back of his head.
"Sorry mate!" Ron apologized before turning and shouting at the paper airplane on the floor. "Oi, that hurt! Incendio!"
Malfoy's scowl deepened.
He did some complicated spellwork and sent his third message.
"I'm running out of parchment, Weasley, you better read this one!" He grumbled.
Ron was halfway through a beef pie when an open letter landed directly onto his food.
"Come on!" Ron complained, "I'm so sick of being malnourished all the time! Oh look, its got words on it."
He picked up the letter and read it.
WEASLEY!
I have taken Potter and Granger, and have trapped them in the Forbidden Forest.
"What is with Malfoy and only calling people by their last name?" Ron muttered.
A little bird told me that the spiders are treating their new guests with comfortable sleeping arrangements.
I doubt you have long to save them.
-Malfoy
Ron shuddered, the image of spindly brown legs, beady black eyes, and an engorged bronze abdomen flashed through his mind.
He flinched and dropped the parchment onto the table.
Malfoy watched Weasley grab a fistful of pie and dash out of the Great Hall, leaving the only evidence of Malfoy's involvement sitting there. He could now dispose of it without issue.
Then, Colin McCreevey leaned over the table and snatched the parchment.
Draco paled as he watched the boy's lips move in tandem with the words he was reading.
He made eye contact with Malfoy.
For some reason, he had brown stew and bits of carrot covering the front of his robe.
The Gryffindor crawled under the table to the other side, picked up the crumpled ball, and used Reparo on the scorched airplane.
Malfoy moved to stop him, but the boy was already exiting the Great Hall, all three papers clutched in his hand.
"That was brilliant, Hermione." Harry said, "What spell did you use to make Crabbe and Goyle shout like that?"
"Actually, I made it myself." Hermione said, beaming. "It's a temporary tooth rotting curse. Browns and blackens teeth like nothing else."
Harry cringed. "That sounds like it hurts."
"Just a bit." She giggled. "I did notice that they ran towards the hospital wing, so they should be fine."
They entered the library to find their usual table empty.
"I thought Ron was going to wait for us." Hermione tsked.
"You can hardly blame him, Hermione." Harry reasoned. "Crabbe and Goyle made us late."
"Well, then let's start studying and hope he returns." Hermione replied.
She grabbed some books and parchment from her bag and placed them on the table.
"Hold on." Harry said suddenly, pointing at the window. "Is that Ron?"
Hermione looked out and saw their friend running towards the Forbidden Forest.
"What is he doing?!" Hermione asked, half shouting.
"We need to go after him." Harry decided.
Frowning, she said, "Of course we do, but we should tell a professor first."
"We don't have time for that, he's already at the trees, come on!"
Harry dashed out of the room.
Hermione hesitated before running after him, leaving her books and papers on the table.
Madame Pince sent them her angriest frown.
She gripped her wand with a special green curse at the tip of her tongue. But she held herself back, Pince couldn't expose herself over loud children, even if she was at the end of her rope with them. Grindelwald was not to be disappointed and he had high expectations for her and her partner.
Ron gazed into the darkness between the branches of the towering trees.
The youngest Weasley boy considered his situation for a moment, and realized something.
"I don't know where the spider nest is."
Turning back around, he ran to Hagrid's hut.
At that same moment he rounded the hut's corner, Harry and Hermione exited the castle, running for the forest.
"Hagrid?" Ron asked, knocking on the door. "I need some help."
"Yes?" Hagrid asked, opening the door. "What you be needin'?"
"What's the quickest way to the giant spiders?" He asked.
"Oh visiting Aragog, are you?" Hagrid grinned. "Fantastic, he's been needin' company! He's not long for this world."
Tears welled up in his eyes.
"Hagrid," Ron said. "Please, I need to know how to get to the spiders!"
"Oh, here's a map. Drew it myself. Along with all o' these." He said, gesturing towards an enormous pile of rolled up parchments sitting in the corner.
Ron grabbed one, brushed off the cobweb and looked it over.
"Does this say Death Valley?" Ron asked.
"Yep, curse on the place. Any non-centaur that enters drops dead on the spot. No idea why." The half-giant said proudly.
"You should burn these maps." Ron said helpfully. "Someone might try to find that place."
Hagrid wasn't paying attention, still talking about Death Valley. "That's when I lost my third toad, Gregory, to it. Had to trade a schematics of Hogwarts castle to get his body back from the centaurs."
"Hagrid." Ron said, "Burn these maps."
"Alrigh' I heard ya the firs' time."
Hagrid muttered as Ron started to leave.
"It's not like you can tell me what to do, only Dumbledore and Grind- shouldn't 'ave said that."
Fortunately, the boy was already out the door and heading into the woods.
Ron stared at the map, following a game trail. He thought he heard voices, but ignored them.
He was going into extreme danger for his friends, whose lives were at stake. He couldn't afford to be distracted.
Mmmmm steak.
Harry and Hermione flinched when something stomped near them as they finally escaped the Forbidden Forest.
They had been chased out by some far reaching giant spiders.
"Those were much bigger than what you described in second year, Harry." Hermione shuddered.
"Yeah, I don't want to mess with those again." Harry said, shaking his head.
"Let's ask a teacher if they know where Ron went." She suggested.
He agreed. "Let's ask Hagrid!"
Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her to the small hut.
At least it's close by. She thought.
They reached Hagrid's pumpkin patch and noticed a bonfire roaring nearby, the Gamekeeper throwing in stacks of parchment.
"Hagrid!" Harry exclaimed. "We need your help."
Hermione cringed from the waste of good parchment.
"Well go on 'arry." Hagrid nodded, tossing in another stack of rolled up parchment. "I'm just finishin' burnin' the last o' these."
"Nevermind that, we saw Ron heading for the Forbidden Forest!" Harry said. "Do you know where he went?"
Hagrid looked at the fire. "Uh, yep. Ron went to see Aragog. 'E asked me for a map and I gave 'im one."
"Do you have any others?" Hermione asked.
"I did." The large man said, gesturing towards the fire.
Harry and Hermione groaned.
"He told me to burn the lot." Hagrid said defensively.
"You know what, I think I might actually remember the path we took to get there, come on Hermione!" Harry said, leaving the hut.
"Wait! Harry!" Hermione growled. "Hagrid, do you think you can take us to the spiders?"
"No can do, 'ermione!" He replied, "Got a meetin' with Grindelwald, I do!"
A second passed.
"I shouldn't 'ave said that."
Hermione took a step back as Hagrid's eyes became dangerous.
"Obliviate."
"Stay strong, Ron." The red haired boy huffed, "You need to be brave. For Harry! For Hermione!"
The ancient brown branches of the trees around him, wretched as they were, reminded him too much of the spiders that nearly killed him.
He grit his teeth. "You can do this."
Spiders had always terrified Ron. Creepy little monsters with sharp fangs and terrible venom that could kill wizards. Acromantulas were much worse. Their venom had few cures and they were enormous, growing as large as dragons in their adult years.
He crested a hill and saw them.
A hoard of ugly, brown spiders. From the size of his hand to the size of a house, the crawling menaces swarmed over webbed creatures, sinking their fangs into the flesh of their prey.
He bent over, using a thin tree nearby for support and sent his most recent meal onto the ground.
Why is this tree hairy? Ron thought dazed.
He looked up and screamed.
A massive spider hissed and stabbed at him with one of its legs.
Ron dodged the brown spear and fell into a pool of mud. He rolled to avoid another stab.
Then, using his fear and adrenaline as courage, he darted into the nest.
The cold, brown mud prickled at his skin, but the fear struck him to his core.
The nest was an enormous hole in the bottom of a sheer cliff, surrounded by massive trees and thorny vines.
The Weasley boy approached the feeding spiders as quietly as possible, wand in hand and a slew of spells at the ready. Despite the one spider attacking him, he had gone unnoticed by the swarm.
Ron sneaked closer to a pair of webbed humanoids hanging from a branch twenty feet off the ground.
"That must be them." He whispered.
Ron took a deep breath.
He walked towards the bodies and brought them down with a cutting curse.
They hit the ground and one yelped.
Detecting the scent of food, Ron brought his wand up to his nose.
"I got beef pie on my wand?" He realized. "This smell should sustain me for another half hour."
Suddenly, two giant spiders dashed towards him, their many legs skittering across the ground.
He panicked.
"Incendio!" He shouted, sending a wave of fire over the terrifying, light-brown monsters.
The spiders screeched and Ron cut through the webs of the people in front of him.
"Fred? George?"
"Hey, Ron." Fred grinned.
"Thanks for that!" George said.
"But, where's-"
"RON!"
Harry and Hermione burst through the foliage and took positions on either side of him.
"Wow!" Fred said, "I can't believe you went into an acromantula nest to save us!"
George nodded. "All three of you!"
The trio looked at them in confusion.
"Right." Harry said.
"Are you alright Ron?" Hermione asked, "When we saw you running into the Forbidden Forest from the library, we were worried. When we heard from Hagrid that you were looking for the acromantula nest, we panicked!"
Ron sent a spider back with a thick shield spell, and asked. "You…weren't trapped here by Malfoy?"
"What?" Harry laughed, ducking under a huge, swiping leg. "Malfoy couldn't spell his way out out of a paper bag."
"Much less trap us." Hermione added, sending an attacking spider into death throes with a red curse.
The twins took up their wands and helped fight the swarming monsters.
An acromantula jumped at Ron from overhead.
He stood his ground, banishing it deeper into the nest.
"Everybody, use the spell Arania Exumai!" Hermione shouted, blasting a spider into fragments of exoskeleton.
The twins took up the attack, defending them from the sides with house elf-like efficiency.
Harry stood in front, using powerful Protego and Depulso spells to keep them safe from charging spiders.
Hermione took the rear, targeting the largest spiders from a position of safety.
Ron looked at his friends, his family and glowed with pride.
He sent scorching flames and blasting curses to destroy the acromantulas in the trees.
His stomach growled audibly.
"I'm so malnourished." Ron said.
"I thought you didn't know any big words!" Fred joked.
A loud rumbling cut off Ron's retort and the largest spider any of them had ever seen rose into view.
Aragog was here and he had grown since they last saw him.
"Why do you slaughter my children?" He growled.
"We're trying not to die!" Harry shouted back.
"You came to us!" Aragog said.
"We came for Fred and George!" Hermione lied.
"They too came to us." Aragog snarled.
"We didn't want to stay!" Fred shot back incredulously.
"Then you should not have been stealing venom from my sleeping children." The hoard of spiders grew as he spoke.
Harry looked at the twins with annoyance, Hermione's eye twitched, and Ron sighed.
"Of course you did." He said.
"You deserve this." Hermione added.
"Not like they were using it." Fred grumbled.
George shushed him.
Ron held his wand, pointed at the spider king.
"Get ready to run." He whispered. "Hermione make sure we have a way out."
She nodded.
Fred and George held up shield charms around them as they prepared for whatever it was Ron was going to do.
"Get ready to Ron." George quipped.
A moment of silence passed.
"That pun was terrible." Aragog said.
"BOMBARDA!" Ron shouted, pointing his wand upwards.
The base of a huge branch exploded, and the tree sized extremity fell. Several tons of wood slammed into one of Aragog's legs and crushed some spiders.
"Run!" Harry yelled unnecessarily.
The group ran for their lives. Hermione had created a path, bending the branches away from them as they ran, only for them to spring back into place once they passed. It hindered the spider's chase and some of them suffered a shattered exoskeleton from the blows.
"Where do we go?" Fred shouted.
"I have a map!" Ron replied, holding up a mud covered parchment.
He led them through the forest until the sound of skittering legs faded away.
The adrenaline slowly drained from their systems and the three students and two trespassers rested against a large tree.
"What are you doing at Hogwarts?" Ron asked his brothers. "I thought you dropped out last year."
Fred scoffed. "None of your-"
"Business." George finished.
"Oh, a spider." Ron said calmly, smacking his arm.
Fred and George looked at him.
"What?" He asked.
"Are you no longer scared of spiders?" Fred asked.
Harry and Hermione looked at him.
Ron pondered on the little brown stain on his sleeve that was once a spider.
"I guess not." He eventually said. "When I thought you two were in danger, I didn't think twice and when you stood there, ready to fight alongside me, there was nothing to be afraid of."
Hermione pulled him in for a hug.
Harry gave him a look that spoke of a proud friend and brother.
Fred and George cackled over a large bag of vials, each one filled with watery, purple acromantula venom.
Hermione released Ron after a moment and stood up.
"Are we going to go back to the castle now, or…?"
Harry nodded.
"We have another way back to Diagon Alley." Fred and George assured him.
By the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione exited the forest, the sun was beginning to set.
They stopped cold.
In front of the castle, Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Dumbledore were waiting alongside Malfoy, Colin McCreevey, and Hagrid, who was wringing his hands.
As soon as they spotted the trio, Hagrid stepped forward.
Crying heavily, Hagrid said, "I'm so sorry! I should 'ave known better than to give you a map directly to Aragog's nest!"
Harry patted him on the arm as the giant man blew his nose into a tablecloth sized handkerchief.
Snape shoved Malfoy forward.
"I regret fooling you into believing that Potter and Granger were in the Forbidden Forest." He sneered.
"One hundred and fifty points from Slytherin for intentionally putting students in danger." McGonagall said.
"Now I actually do regret it." Malfoy muttered bitterly.
Snape smacked the back of his head.
"I regret getting beef pie on my wand." Ron remarked.
"In addition, I award Gryffindor house one hundred and twenty points for bravery and moving into danger to save someone's life." Dumbledore said.
McGonagall's smile turned into a frown. "But, you should have gotten a professor. Minus twenty points from each of you for going into the Forbidden Forest, and not getting a teacher.
Hagrid let out a large sob and spoke up. "I also take an 'undred points from Slytherin for what Malfoy did."
Snape and Malfoy looked at the half-giant incredulously.
"He can take away points!?" Malfoy shouted.
Dumbledore chuckled. "He has always been able to take away points. He's a member of the staff after all."
Malfoy grimaced. If he was lucky, then those would be the only points taken from House of Ambition because of him.
Ron shot Malfoy a smirk.
"If that will be all, I need to catch up on some studying before I go to sleep." Hermione said.
Harry yawned in agreement. Sleep sounded good.
Professor Dumbledore nodded and Snape took Malfoy into the castle, probably to berate him some more.
"Now that that's over with…"
Ron pulled a clump of something brown and wet from his robe pocket. "Anyone want some beef pie?"
"Your loss."
"Where did my wand go?"