Rory Potter, the Girl Who Lived

Follow the Spiders

          As summer creeps over the grounds, I try to be happy, but without Hagrid, Hermione, and Dumbledore, things don't feel right. And Madam Pomphrey won't even let us go and visit Hermione.
          I spend a lot of nights sitting in our dormitory looking at her empty bed and quietly crying. I also spend a lot of time with Fred, also crying quietly, trying to tell myself that he would be good for me. And he's so kind and caring towards me. So maybe, just maybe, I'll let myself fall for him. It'll take some time, though.
          "Sir," says a voice loudly. "Sir, why did you not apply for Headmaster? You would be good for the job. I always knew Father would be the one to get rid of Dumbledore, and I'll bet he could get you the position."
          I jump, having been startled out of my thoughts of Fred. Its Draco, addressing Snape. I roll my eyes and return to absentmindedly stirring my potion. Every once and a while, I halfheartedly check the potion and add the next ingredient. I'm physically here, but my mind is still elsewhere.
          I completely ignore Draco rambling on about how great Snape would be and stare at the swirling silver contents of my cauldron, sighing deeply. My vision blurs at the corners and it takes all of my will not to burst into tears. Dumbledore is who knows where. Hagrid is in Azkaban. Hermione is as good as dead. Hogwarts may have to close. I have no way to contact Moony at the moment, because I'm pretty sure that Ivy won't fly a letter, seeing as how she's a cat.
          Suddenly, Ron leaps from his seat, at the same times the bell rings. His attempts to throw himself at Draco are lost in the bustle and prevented by Harry, Seamus and Dean hanging on to his arms.
          We follow Snape to Herbology, where Ernie Macmillan apologizes to my brother and I, then proceeds to accuse Draco.
          "Its not him," I say, rather harsher then I meant to. Ernie looks surprised.
          "What makes you so sure?" he asks, not in a rude way, but a genuinely curious and polite way.
          "Oh, uhh . . . I asked him," I say. "Now that I think of it, I was a bit foolish to believe a git like him. Maybe it is. I mean, he acts so suspicious . . . "
          Ernie nods and goes back to his work, but Harry elbows me hard in the ribs.
          "Ouch, Harry, what was that for?!" I demand, rubbing a new sore spot.
          Harry hisses for me to shut up and points to something on the ground, his face so excited I'd have thought he'd gone insane. I start to say something, then I see the trail of spiders and let out and excited squeal, then elbow Ron.
          "For Merlin's sake, Rory, what now?" Ron demands, also rubbing his ribs.
          Harry and I both point excitedly at the spiders as they scuttle by. Ron gulps and turns a bit paler than normal.
          "Follow the spiders!" Harry and I say in unison.
          Ron glances warily around, as if to make sure no one is listening, then he leans in close and whispers, "Not now, you two! We're in the middle of class and we'd never manage to get away!"
          "They're going into the Forbidden Forest!" I hiss.
          "You know what?" Harry says quietly. "Let's take Dad's cloak out tonight. We'll bring Fang with us and follow the spiders."
         "I hate spiders," Ron mumbles halfheartedly, but he agrees to go with us.

~~~~~~~~~~

Its almost midnight when the common room finally is emptied, and Ron and I are none too happy about that. Harry, however, is ecstatic. Why, I have no clue. Spiders are gross, and I'd much rather not follow them. We dress in our day clothes, grab the invisibility cloak, and creep down to Hagrid's hut.
          Fang is delighted to see us, and I immediately contact him through my pendent, scratching his ears and kissing him on his nose.
          "Hiya, Fang! How are you doing buddy?"
          'Rory, Rory, Rory! Did you bring Hagrid back!?'
          "I'm sorry, buddy, but Hagrid isn't going to come back for a while," I say. "He's in Azkaban."
          Fang let's out a pitiful whine, and I throw my arms around him and give him a huge hug as Harry sets the invisibility cloak on the table.
          'Why? Why is Hagrid gone to Azkaban? Is he bad, Rory?'
          "Hagrid isn't bad at all, Fang. He's been falsely accused of setting a monster loose, but Harry, Ron, and I are going to get him back, okay?"
          'Yay! Rory's gonna bring Hagrid back! Can I help, can I help?'
          "You're gonna come with us, right? We're gonna follow the spiders!" I say, standing up and looking at Harry and Ron. "You two ready?"
          "You know, Rory, I can swear he understands you," Ron says as we creep out the door. I giggle.
          "He can," I say in a matter-of-fact tone.
         "The necklace?" Ron asks. I nod.
          When we reach the woods, we all pull out our wands and whisper into the dark, "Lumos!"
          Our wands light up, illuminating the forest around us. And we set to look for the spiders. After about five minutes, its Harry that whisper-shouts us over to a thin trail of spiders winding into the depths of the forest.
          "So now what?" Ron asks, as though he knows and dreads the answer.
          "We follow them," Harry and I say in unison.
          I contact Ron with my necklace. It adds a pale rosy glow to our wandlight.
          'You're nervous,' I say, stating the obvious. I follow Harry into the forest but stay a few feet behind him with Ron and Fang.
          He responds in my mind like Harry, Ron, Hermione and I have been practicing since the beginning of the year: 'Nervous?! What makes you think that, genius?'
          I almost laugh aloud, but then decide that it wouldn't help a bit. Instead I soothingly respond, 'You'll be fine, I promise. You've got me and Harry and Fang.'
          And I leave him to scramble after me as I run to catch up with my twin. Fang bounds after us as we travel deeper and deeper into the forest, aided by the combined glow of our wands and my necklace.
          Finally, we reach a cove-like clearing in the trees, encased by thickly knotted branches that form an almost building structure with a large entrance. After exchanging a few looks, we duck inside after the little spiders.
          On the inside, there's even more trees that almost form a maze of bridges and ladders stretching high above our heads. And they're all covered in what appears to be giant spiderwebs that catch the light from our wands and direct it around the tree-branch walls to create a pattern.
          "Wow! What is this place?" I ask, spinning in a circle. "Its so cool!"
         Just then, I huge snapping noise makes me look around. I grab onto Fang and grip my wand tightly, readying myself to attack at any sign danger.
          "H-H-Harry!?" Ron stutters. "I think we should go - "
          Harry nods slowly and starts to back out if the clearing, a hand on my arm to pull me back with him. We're nearly out when a deep, gravelly, loud voice demands, "Who goes there?"
          Eight hairy, six-foot long spindly legs appear over our heads as an immensely huge spider lowers itself to block out way out of the clearing. The gravelly voice rings out again, "Hagrid? Is that you?"
          Ron is so pale his face practically glows in our wandlight. He's holding my arm with a grip so hard it hurts, and Fang's loud, deep barks ring across the clearing. Harry steps bravely in front of us, holding out his wand defiantly.
          "We're friends of Hagrid's! He sent us here!" my twin says confidently, but the high-pitched squeak at the end alerts me to his real terror.
          "Sent you here? Hagrid has never before sent friends to our hollow. What is it you want, friends of Hagrid?" the immense spider demands, his blank milky eyes glowing like two moons before our wands.
          "Yes, he sent us here!" I say, shaking Ron's hand from my arm. He whimpers in fear as I step us to stand next to my brother. "Hagrid has been taken to Azkaban," I declare. "The Ministry of Magic thinks he opened the Chamber of Secrets again. And, ah . . . who are you? Or what are you?"
          "I am an acromantula. My name is Aragog. I came to Hagrid from a distant land . . . in the pocket of a traveller," the spider Aragog says. "But understand one thing: Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets. And I am not the monster that has been set upon the castle, either time. The girl who died, she died in the bathroom. I never left that trunk that Hagrid kept me in."
          "What is the monster then?" Harry asks.
          "We do not speak of it!" Aragog spits loudly. Harry and I flinch away.
          "Don't panic, Ron," I say fiercely.
          "That monster is something we spiders fear above all others. We do not name it. No matter how many times Hagrid begged, we would never tell him," Aragog says.
          Ron tugs insistantly at my arm, getting more and more desperate by the minute.
          "Oh, okay then," Harry says. "We'll just go now . . . "
          "Go? You are not going anywhere. 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 grasp."
          And that's when I realize why Ron was yanking at my sleeve. About fifty more spiders, all huge, but none as immense as Aragog, are descending from the thick twisted branches.
          "Can we panic now!?" Ron demands in an unnaturally high voice.
          "Yes!" Harry says quickly.
​​​          "Where's Hermione when we need her," I demand grumpily, but I keep my wand aloft and shout, "Arania Examae!"
          The giant Acromantula Aragog is thrown from the entrance of the clearing with a blast of blue light. I grab Harry and Ron's arms, screaming, "RUN!"
         And so we sprint from the clearing with Fang bounding behind us, tripping and scrambling in our hurry to escape. I can hear the pincers clicking from behind us, the twigs and leaves snapping and crackling under the spider's legs.
          "Rory!" Ron screeches.
         I look up just in time to have a spider drop out of the tree next to me. I scream and shove Harry aside as fast as possible. Fang yowls and dodges to the side. The spider sweeps out a long leg and sends me crashing down into the dirt.
          "HARRY! RON!" I scream bloody murder as the spider presses a long hair leg onto my chest, pinning my frail body to the ground. 
         My dominant arm is pinned underneath my body, and that hand holds my wand. With the other hand I dig my nails into the leg of the spider as hard as I can. My legs flail in a desperate attempt to get away.
          "RORY!" Harry bellows. He lunges forward with his hand held high, then brings it down with a swish, yelling, "Arania Exemae!"
          There's a flash of bright blue light, and the spider is thrown off of me, knocking over the others that are approaching. That gives Harry and Ron enough time to grab my arms and pull me upright, with Fang barking at us, and drag me away.
          Only to back into a tree and get surrounded.
          "Bloody hell," Ron whimpers.
          "You can say that again. We're surrounded," I moan.
         Just then, two bright lights blind us, starting small and getting bigger and bigger, as though something is coming very fastly closer. Then I hear the roar of an engine, and that gives away what the object is.
          "Mr Weasley's car!" Harry yells.
          The Ford Anglia crashes through the spiders on its own, knocking them aside and screeching to a stop beside us. The doors fly open and we take the hint.
         "Get in!" I scream, sprinting towards the back seat with Fang at my side.
          Ron throws himself in the drivers seat and Harry dives shotgun. The doors slam shut after us and the car revs off, not slowing down a bit until we reach Hagrid's front door, where it stops. Then the doors clunk open and we're thrown from the battered car. Fang runs inside the hut with his tail between his legs, whimpering softly.
         "That," I pant from the ground, "was close."
          "'Follow the spiders!?'" Ron demands weakly. "Why couldn't it have been 'follow the butterflies!?'"
          Harry disappears inside to get the cloak as the car trundles off again. Meanwhile Ron heaves into the pumpkin patch while I just sit there on the ground, staring at the spot where the car vanished.
          "You okay, Ron?" I ask when he finishes.
          "I think so."
          "Well we know one thing," Harry says, closing the door to Hagrid's hut and pulling us under the cloak. "Hagrid didn't open the Chamber. He's innocent."
          When we reach the common room, the boys and I part ways. My brain whirs at about a million miles an hour as I change into my pajamas. And then I realize something. My eyes stretch wide and my mouth forms a small 'o'.
          "Oh. My. Merlin," I whisper.
          I slam my glasses back onto my face and sprint with slipping feet down into the common room. Fumbling with the railing, I run up to the boys dormitories and burst as quietly as possible into Harry and Ron's dorm.
          "Harry! Ron! Wake up, I've just realized something!" I whisper-scream, shaking them both awake.
          "What?!" Ron demands quietly. "Merlin's beard, Rory, I've just been through hell. What could possibly be more important than sleep?"
          "Guy, remember what Aragog said? About the girl who died?"
          "You mean that he didn't kill her?" Harry says, slipping his glasses onto his face.
          "No, no, no!" I say, my heart pounding in excitement. "That girl . . . she died in a bathroom. What if she never left?"
          Ron suddenly looks awake again. Harry gasps.
          "You don't think . . . Not Moaning Myrtle?!"