Chapter Fifteen
Aragog
Author's Note: In the original book, Harry did the entirety of the talking during his conversation with Aragog, while Ron stood terrified. Therefore, I decided to have it so Aragog briefly reveals that Hagrid did not open the Chamber of Secrets, then immediately decides to have Ron killed. This means the information about the girl being killed in the bathroom is completely lost, and Ron just decides to question Myrtle because he is desperate for answers at this point.
Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; the sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers large as cabbages burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong.
Ron had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing.
"We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told him 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…"
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.
Who exactly was Ron supposed to ask for help, when everyone was just as confused and scared as he was?
Hagrid's hint about the spiders was far easier to understand. The trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. He was hampered, of course, by the fact that he wasn't allowed to wander off on his own but had to move around the castle in a pack with the other Gryffindors.
Most of his fellow students seemed glad that they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers. One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. During the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, Malfoy gloated to Crabbe and Goyle.
"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks 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, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron.
"Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"
"Now, now, Malfoy," 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 Malfoy, smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job— I'll tell Father 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," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger —"
The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Malfoy's last words, Ron had leapt off his stool, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Malfoy went unnoticed.
"Let me at him," Ron growled as Dean hung onto his arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands —"
"Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and off they marched, with Ron, and Dean bringing up the rear, Ron still trying to get loose. It was only safe to let go of him when Snape had seen them out of the castle and they were making their way across the vegetable patch toward the greenhouses. The Herbology class was very subdued; there were now two missing from their number, Justin and Hermione.
Professor Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs.
Ernie and his friend Hannah came to work at the same Shrivelfig as Ron.
"That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, "he seems very pleased about all this, doesn't he? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir."
Ernie and Hannah stared outside, where 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. Ron could not follow the spiders now in the middle of class. Ernie and Hannah were watching curiously. If they pursued their fixed course, there could be no doubt about where they would end up. And Ron looked even unhappier about that.
At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Ron lagged behind the others so he could get a better look at the spiders. As feared, the spiders were heading towards the Forbidden Forest. Ron had never been into the Forbidden Forest before, but he did not enjoy the thought of venturing inwards. He feared what creatures he might encounter in the forest.
Not wanting to dwell on the matter further, Ron took his usual place at the back of the line heading towards Lockhart's classroom.
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?"
People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered.
"Don't you people realize," said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, "the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away —"
"Says who?" said Dean Thomas loudly.
"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.
"I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a self-satisfied tone.
Ron started to say that he didn't think so, somehow, but stopped in midsentence. Ron, swallowed hard, and looked sideways at the empty seat usually filled by Hermione. The sight seemed to stiffen his resolve, and he nodded. It was not worth getting in an argument with Lockhart. Ron would head into the forest tonight to get his answers.
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.
Ron waited for the room to clear. Fred and George challenged Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching them, very subdued in Hermione's usual chair. Ron 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.
Ron waited for the distant sounds of two dormitory doors closing before seizing the cloak, threw it over himself, and climbed through the portrait hole.
It was another difficult journey through the castle, dodging all the teachers. At last he 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.
Despite the dire circumstances, Ron held a faint hope that their might not be anymore spiders to follow. Or if there were still spiders scuttling away, they might not even be heading into the forest, they might have simply been heading towards the general direction.
Within minutes, Ron reached Hagrid's house, sad and sorry-looking with its blank windows. When pushed the door open, Fang went mad with joy at the sight of him. Worried he might wake everyone at the castle with his deep, booming barks, he hastily fed him treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together.
Fang bounded happily out of the house behind him, dashed to the edge of the forest, and lifted his leg against a large sycamore tree.
Two solitary spiders were hurrying away from the wandlight (from Ron's broken wand?) into the shade of the trees.
Ron sighed as though resigned to the worst, gathering the courage to enter the Forbidden Forest.
So, with Fang scampering around them, sniffing tree roots and leaves, he entered the forest. He followed the steady trickle of spiders moving along the walked behind them for about twenty minutes, 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, he saw his spider guides leaving the path.
Hagrid was miles away now, probably sitting in a cell in Azkaban, and he had also said to follow the spiders, so that was what Ron needed to do. He came this far, so he must go forward.
So he followed the darting shadows of the spiders into the trees. He couldn't move very quickly now; there were tree roots and stumps in his way, barely visible in the near blackness.
More than once, he had to stop, crouch down and find the spiders.
He walked for what seemed like at least half an hour, his robes snagging on low-slung branches and brambles. After a while, he 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 Ron jump out of his skin.
"What?" said Ron loudly, looking around into the pitch-dark.
He listened. Some distance to his right, something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees.
"Oh, no," said Ron. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh —"
The darkness seemed to be pressing on his eyeballs as he stood, terrified, waiting. There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence. Ron feared it was preparing to pounce on him like a great demonic cat.
He waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.
"Dunno —" he mumbled
Then, to his right, came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that he flung up his hands to shield his eyes. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder.
Ron suddenly felt a wave of relief wash over him. It was his car. Ron moved toward the light, stumbling and tripping, and a moment later he had emerged into a clearing.
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 was dented in several places, with moss growing in the cracks. The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently it had taken to trundling around the forest on its own. Ron thought the forest must have driven it wild.
Fang didn't seem at all keen on it; he kept close.
"And I thought it was going to attack me!" thought Ron, leaning against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!"
There were signs of more spiders, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights.
Suddenly, Ron saw something large in the blaze of the headlights. Ron didn't speak. He didn't move. His eyes were fixed on a point some ten feet above the forest floor. His face was livid with terror.
There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly he felt something long and hairy seize him around the middle and lift him off the ground, so that he was hanging facedown. Struggling, terrified, he heard more clicking, and heard Fang whimpering and howling — next moment, he was being swept away into the dark trees.
Head hanging, what had hold of him was marching on six immensely long, hairy legs, the front two clutching him tightly below a pair of shining black pincers. They were moving into the very heart of the forest. Ron could hear Fang fighting to free himself from another monster, whining loudly.
He 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 he 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 Ron made its way down the steep slope toward a misty, domed web in the very center of the hollow, while its fellow arachnids closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load.
Ron and Fang thudded down. Fang wasn't howling anymore, but cowering silently on the spot. Ron looked exactly like he felt. His mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream and his eyes were popping.
The spider 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.
"Is it Hagrid?" said Aragog, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.
"Strangers," clicked the spider who had brought Ron.
"Kill them," clicked Aragog fretfully. "I was sleeping. As you all know, I owe Hagrid a debt of gratitude for standing by me when I was accused of being the monster in the castle. I hold no such loyalty to other men. Fresh meat for you, my children!"
Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow.
A dozen feet away, towering above, was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads. There were too many of them, but a loud, long note sounded, and a blaze of light flamed through the hollow.
Mr. Weasley's car was 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 Ron and the doors flew open. Diving into the front seat, Ron seized the boarhound around the middle and threw 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 the car wound its way cleverly through the widest gaps, following a path it obviously knew.
His mouth was still open in the silent scream, but his eyes weren't popping anymore.
Ron stared straight ahead, unable to speak.
They smashed their way through the undergrowth, Fang howling loudly in the back seat, and the side mirror snapped off as they squeezed past a large oak. After ten noisy, rocky minutes, the trees thinned, and again, Ron could see see patches of sky.
The car stopped so suddenly that he 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 he shot off through the trees to Hagrid's house, tail between his legs.
After a minute or so, Ron seemed to regain the feeling in his limbs and followed, still stiff-necked and staring. The car reversed back into the forest and disappeared from view.
Fang was trembling under a blanket in his basket. Ron was being violent sick in the pumpkin patch.
"Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. I'm lucky to be alive."
That was exactly Hagrid's problem according to Ron. He always thinks monsters are misunderstood, and all that got him was cell in Azkaban. Ron was seriously wondering what the point of sending him in there was. This whole mission seemed nearly pointless. Yes, the spider monster confirmed that Hagrid was not the culprit, but then immediately tried to kill him. Now Ron had nearly died and he was no closer to solving the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets. Ron gave a loud snort; he had hit a dead end.
As the castle loomed nearer, he pushed the creaking front doors ajar. He walked carefully back across the entrance hall and up the marble staircase, holding his breath as he passed corridors where watchful sentries were walking. At last he reached the safety of the Gryffindor common room, where the fire had burned itself into glowing ash. He took off the cloak and climbed the winding stair to his dormitory.
Ron fell onto his bed without bothering to get undressed. Suddenly, Ron woke with a yelp like Fang's, stared wildly around. Ron rubbed his eyes, he finally decided a new course of action.
"Moaning Myrtle!"
Since Ron had hit a dead end, he had decided to ask the ghosts if they had seen anything suspicious the last time the Chamber was opened. Since Nearly Headless Nick was out of commission, and since Ron had spent so much time in the girl's bathroom, he was going to ask Myrtle first. It seemed like a stretch, but Ron was getting desperate at this point. He wanted to solve this mystery before the term ended, and he was going to turn over every stone to resolve this.