During lunch the next day, Harry called them over again. "Hagrid sent me a letter yesterday. Aragog, his spider friend, died and he wants me to go to it's funeral today."
"He's mental! That creature tried to kill us!! 😣" Ron exclaimed.
"But still, it's Hagrid's friend! I think you should go! You don't want to hurt his feelings!" Steve protested.
"Fine then you come with me! See how crazy it is! What if there's other spiders there?" Ron rebutted.
"Ok! We'll come too! When is it?" The triplets agreed enthusiastically.
"Harry, shouldn't you focus on getting the memory from Professor Slughorn? Dumbledore said it was important!" Hermione lectured.
"What memory?" asked Sapphire.
"It's nothing!" Harry quickly said.
"But it's clearly something," Star pointed out. "Because Hermione's bothering you about it."
"We're your friends too! How come you always keep secrets from us?" Sapphire frowned. The Golden Trio gave each other a look that said 'should we tell them?'
"Now you're the ones who're staring at each other. Funny!" laughed Star, "And now we also know that there really is something! And we're not going until you tell us! And neither are you!" Star said, moving to block the staircase. She added a curse to it so that if anyone tried to leave, they would pop right back as if there was a wall.
Hermione gave Harry a look that said 'go on then.' Ron whimpered slightly, also looking at Harry. Harry sighed, "So, in Dumbledore's office, he asked me to get a memory from Slughorn. It's important, since it's about Voldemort. It seems that Slughorn taught Voldemort something. But Slughorn tampered with the memory so now, Professor Dumbledore asked me to get the real one. But the thing is, he won't give us the memory. I told Dumbledore I couldn't do it. He just ignored that and said I needed it for future lessons."
"Oh. OH! Harry! If he won't give it to you, you can use the Luck potion!" Harry pulled out the small bottle of gold potion.
"You mean this? I don't know..." Harry wondered.
"It'll work! We know it will!" encouraged the trio.
"Alright then. Anyone want to come with me?" asked Harry
"I'll go!" Star volunteered.
"Me too!" yelped Sapphire.
"Don't forget about me!" called Steve. Harry looked at them, half amused and half surprised.
Then he nodded and announced, "Alrighty! We'll meet at dusk. What should the plan of meeting up be?"
"So first, Star's gonna pick up Sapphire-" Steve started.
"-and she's gonna make us invisible-" Sapphire interjected.
"-then we're gonna go to the Gryffindor place to get Steve and Harry-" Star continued.
"-and we'll go to Hagrid's all together!" they all finished.
"When do we meet up with Harry and Ron?" Star asked.
"Hmmmm...maybe at 6? Or maybe 9." answered Steve.
"And where? The Gryffindor common room?" Star continued.
"Yeah, I guess so." Sapphire replied.
"Ok, see you! And we'll meet at 8, in front of the Gryffindor common room." Harry waved, and left.
A few hours later, they met up as planned. Harry told the trio that Ron wanted to go to bed early. "He's probably just scared," Harry muttered. By now, Steve and Sapphire were able do the invisibility charm with practice. After they met, the five set off to Hagrid's hut on the grounds, Harry confidently striding in front of them. They found Slughorn in the greenhouse.
"What's this kind of flower..." Slughorn was muttering to himself. Harry lightly poked him. Startled, Slughorn turned. "Ah! My dear boy! Why are you out so late? Not getting into trouble I hope!" Slughorn raised an eyebrow.
"Cause he wants to, and he can get into trouble later," the trio thought, but stayed quiet.
'Well, my friend Hagrid lost his best friend spider, and he invited me to go and be with him while he buries it. I was wondering if you would like to come?" Slughorn looked flabbergasted that Harry would want to watch Hagrid bury a spider, but brightened up while murmuring that the spider of Hagrid's have useful venom, and he could use it for his potions.
"I'll come." Slughorn announced. They continued their journey to Hagrid's hut.
"Ah, hello Harry. Professor Slughorn, thank you for not giving Harry detention for being out late."
"Oh, not at all, wouldn't dream of it. Why would I give my favorite student detention for trying to help his friend? Anyway, I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Hagrid."
"Ah, well, it's a sad day. Aragog's 'ver 'ere." Hagrid took out what looked like a small blanket and blew his nose in it. Then, he walked over to a big hole in the ground. The others ran to keep up with him. In the pit, the trio could see a large spider. Although Harry looked oddly at it, the trio thought it looked quite nice. Slughorn opened his mouth and said,
"I will say something for it. Farewell, Aragog, king of arachnids, whose long and faithful friendship with those who knew you won't forget! Though your body will decay, your spirit lingers on in the web-spun places of your forest home. May your many-eyed descendants ever flourish, and your human friends find solace for the loss they have sustained." Hagrid sniffed. Harry suddenly looked at the trio's way with an urgent look, and the trio realized that the invisibility charm had wore away. They hurriedly tried to do the spell again, but it was too late. "Wooo! Where did you first years come from!?" Slughorn yelped. The first years just stood there. "You three go back to the castle! It is dangerous, you shouldn't be wandering around past curfew! And outside, too! Go!" Slughorn scolded. "But I'm out here..." Harry muttered quietly. Hagrid gave the trio an apologizing look, but the trio just smiled back, turned, and left.
Not too far from the castle, they heard a noise from the forest. Looking keenly at where the noise could've come from, they stopped walking. As if pulled by some mysterious force, the trio staggered towards it. Suddenly, a bright red light appeared for a split second, and then everything went black.
When the trio woke up, they sensed that they were in a different, more tense place. They could hear a silent conversation going on in the next room.
"So you caught them...?" croaked a cold, harsh voice.
"Yes, my Lord, they are in the next room." said another familiar voice.
"Ah, you did good, Dolohov." They heard footsteps coming closer to the room they were in. The door opened, and they saw the most feared wizard of the magical world, Voldemort. He smiled nastily and, saying each word slowly, as if picking them out carefully, "It has been a long time. I'm sure you did not forget about me." He laughed, which made the air even more tense, if possible.
"Just get to the point." snapped the trio bravely. In their heads, they were quickly trying to draft an escape plan. Voldemort gazed at them intently, and said,
"I am here to ask a simple favor. Join me." he trailed off. Looking straight into his red eyes, the trio stated promptly,
"We will NEVER join you."
"No ?" Voldemort smiled. "I thought you three would say that. Then should I keep you here? Or torture you until you say yes?" He called a Death Eater over. The trio recognized him as the one who had attacked and stunned them in the deep forest. Voldemort nodded at the Death Eater and said," You know what to do."
"You!" the triplets growled. Dolohov just smirked.
"Yes, me." he said with a vicious smile. "I see that you resist joining the Dark Lord's side. Well then, if my Lord lets me handle this, I'll do it my way. Crucio!" His spell missed them, even though he was literally right in front of them. Looking at his wand, which was now mostly covered in heavy duty duct tape, he growled. A little fire appeared on it, and the ground shook. The wind blew hard, even though there was no window in the room. The wand snapped.
"AVADA KEDAVRA" another Death Eater screeched, while falling off his chair. He went back and applied extra-extra-extra duty duct tape to keep his wand on his hand and attached himself to the chair.
"YOU DESERVE TO DIE, SUCKERS!! !I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY THE DARK LORD WOULD WANT YOU TO BE ON HIS SIDE!!
"AVADA KEDAVRA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Voldemort burst in and said, "I KNOW I TOLD YOU TO HANDLE THIS, BUT I SPECIFICALLY SAID NOT TO KILL THEM!!!
"Oh look! A toilet!" Steve cheered joyfully. The Death Eaters and Voldemort stared at Steve like he was a three-headed-dog.
"We're about to kill you and you want to go use a toilet? Something's wrong with you." But, the dark witches and wizards didn't see Star in the background turning a stick into a Portkey.
"Portus." She nonverbally cast the spell and successfully turned the stick into a Portkey .
"OoOOoO, a toilet! I've never seen one like this before!" Sapphire awed at the toilet. Voldemort shook his head and cast "Bombarda" on the toilet, which exploded.
"NOOOOOOO!!!!!! WHY DID YOU SPOIL THE FUN!?!?!?" Sapphire and Steve cried.
"SILENCE! Someone is missing! WHERE IS YOUR SISTER!?" Sapphire and Steve didn't know what to do.
"I'm right here!" they heard Star say tauntingly, and the trio grabbed the Portkey. There were flashes of green, blue, red, and white light from the spells the Death Eaters were firing, and a yell of "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!" from Voldemort, and in a second, everyone was gone.
Meanwhile, as the trio was doing all that, Harry was going back to the castle to celebrate that he had gotten the memory. As he walked, he could feel something odd from the forest, but shrugged it off. When he got into the castle, Hermione and Ron came over and realized that the triplets weren't with him. "Where's Star, Steve and Sapphire?" they asked. Harry frowned and said, "I thought they came back?!" The others shook their heads worriedly. "Then where can they be?" they all wondered as they stared out the window.