So we followed the darting shadows of the spiders into the trees. We couldn't move very fast now; there were tree roots and stumps in our way, barely visible in the near blackness. I could feel Fang's hot breath on my hand. More than once we had to stop, so that I could crouch down and find the spiders in the wandlight. Yep, it was that dark.
We walked for what seemed like at least half an hour, our robes snagging on low-slung branches and brambles. After a while, we noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downwards, though the trees were as thick as ever.
Then Fang suddenly let loose a great, echoing bark, making both myself and Ron jump out of our skins.
"What?" Ron asked loudly, looking around into the pitch dark, and gripping my elbow very hard.
"Ow," I hissed, rolling my eyes. "Anyway, there's something moving over there. Listen...Sounds like something big"
We listened. Some distance to our right, the something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees.
"Oh no," Ron moaned. "Oh no, oh no, oh-"
Does this boy have a brain cell?
"Shut up," I hissed frantically. "It'll hear you"
"Hear me?" Ron said in a high voice making him sound like a girl. "It's already heard Fang!"
The darkness seemed to be pressing on our eyeballs as we stood, terrified, waiting. There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence.
"What d'you think it's doing?" I asked, my eyes scanning the darkness.
"Probably getting ready to pounce," Ron said.
Such happy thoughts, Ron.
We waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.
"D'you think it's gone?" I whispered, hopefully.
"Dunno-"
Then, to our right, came a sudden blaze of light. It was so bright that it made both me and Ron raise our hands to shield our eyes from it. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder.
"Harry!" Shouted Ron, his voice breaking with relief. "Harry it's our car!"
"What?" His car? The flying one?
"Come on!"
I blundered after Ron towards the light, stumbling and tripping, and a moment later we 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 headlamps ablaze. As Ron walked, open-mouthed, towards it, it moved slowly towards him, exactly like a large, turquoise dog greeting its owner.
"It's been here all this time!" Ron said happily whilst walking around the car. "Look at it. The Forest's turned it wild..."
"I can tell,"
The wings of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently, it had taken to trundling around the Forest on its own. Fang didn't seem at all keen on it; he helps close to me, and I could feel him quivering. My breathing slowed down again and I stuffed my wand back into my robes.
"And we thought it was going to attack us!" Ron leaned against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!"
"You were only wondering so your dad wouldn't kill you," I pointed out
Ron shrugged. "Fair point. But I'm going to live for another year so I can't complain"
I ignored him and squinted around on the floodlit ground for signs of more spiders, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights.
"We've lost the trail," I said. "C'mon, let's go and find them"
Ron didn't speak. He didn't even move. His eyes were fixed on a point above the Forest floor, right behind me. His face was filled with terror.
I didn't even have time to turn around.
There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly I felt something long and hairy seize me around the middle and lift me off the ground so that I was hanging face down. Struggling, terrified, I heard more clicking, and saw Ron's legs leave the ground too, heard Fang whimpering and howling - next moment, he was being swept away into the dark trees.
Head hanging, I saw what had hold of me was marching on six immensely long, hairy legs, the front two clutching me tightly below a pair of shinning black pincers. Behind me, I could hear another of the creatures, no doubt carrying Ron. We were moving into the heart of the Forest. I could hear Fang fighting to free himself from a third monster, whining loudly, but I couldn't have yelled even if I wanted to; I seemed to have left my voice back with the car in the clearing.
I don't know how long I was in the creature's clutches, I only know that the darkness suddenly lifted enough so I can see that the leaf-strewn ground was now swarming with spiders. Craining my neck sideways, I realised that we had reached the rim of a vast hallow, a hallow which had been cleared of trees so that the stars shone brightly onto the worst scene I had ever cast my eyes upon.
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 me made its way down the steep slope, towards a misty domed web in the very centre of the hollow, while its followers closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load. I fell to the ground on all fours as the spider released me. Ron and Fang thudded down next to me, Fang wasn't howling anymore, but cowering silently on the spot. Ron looked exactly like I felt. His mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream and his eyes were popping.
I suddenly realised that the spider which had dropped me was saying something. It had been hard to tell because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke. Talking spiders. Great. Add that to the list of things I thought I would never see.
"Aragog!" it called. "Aragog!"
"Who's Aragog?" Ron whispered.
"Dunno," I whispered back, "but it can't be something good"
From the middle of the misty domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was grey in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered heard was milky white. He was blind.
"What is it?" he asked, clicking his pincers rapidly.
"Men," clicked the spider who had caught me.
"Is it Hagrid?" Aragog asked, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.
"Strangers," clicked the spider who had brought Ron.
"Kill them," Aragog clicked fretfully. "I was sleeping..."
Damn it!
"We're friends of Hagrid's!" I yelled. My heart seemed to have left my chest to pound in my throat.
Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow. Aragog paused.
"Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before," he said, slowly
"Hagrid's in trouble," I told him, breathing very fast. "That's why we've come"
"In trouble?" the aged spider asked, and I thought I heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?"
Rude...
I thought about getting to my feet, but decided against it; I didn't think my legs would support me. So I spoke from the ground as calmly as I could.
"They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a - a - something on the students. They've taken him to Azkaban"
Aragog clicked his pincers angrily, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn't usually make me feel sick with fear.
"But that was years ago," Aragog said fretfully. "Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free"
"And you...you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" I asked, and I could feel cold sweat on my forehead.
"I!" Aragog said, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveller gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the Forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness..."
I summoned what remained of my courage.
"So you never - never attacked anyone?"
"Never," the old spider croaked. "It would have been my instinct, but from respect of Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet..."
"But then...Do you know what did kill that girl?" I asked. "Because whatever it is, it's back and attacking people again-"
My words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily, large black shapes shifted all around me.
"The thing that lives in the castle," Aragog said, "is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go when I sensed the beat moving about the school"
"What is it?" I asked urgently.
More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in.
"We do not speak of it!" Aragog answered fiercely. "We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me many times"
I didn't want to press the subject, not with the spiders pressing closer on all sides. Aragog seemed to be tired of talking. He was backing slowly into his domed web, but his fellow spiders continued to inch slowly towards me and Ron.
"We'll just go, then" I called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind me.
"Go?" Aragog said slowly. "I think not..."
"But - but-"
"My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannont deny them fresh meat, when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Goodbye, friend of Hagrid"
I spun around. Feet away, towering above me was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads...
****
I'm bacckkkkk!!!
I'm back and ready to continue this story again! Sorry for the long wait but it's been Christmas and then we started the New Year so I didn't have time to update at all. I wanted to update earlier but I came down with a killer cold and I was really ill. I'm feeling better now so the updates will continue as normal.
Happy new year to each and every one of you! Thanks for everything you've done for me! I love you all!
2018 let's have yah!