The Secrets of The Sighted (Golden Trio Era) {3}

Aragog's Send Off

"Yeh came," croaked Hagrid, when he opened the door and saw the pair emerging from the Invisibility Cloak in front of him. "Yeah, Ron and Hermione couldn't, though," Harry said solemnly, "they're really sorry." Mikayla added, even though it that was a lie. "Don- don matter... He'd've bin touched yeh two 're here, though." Hagrid gave a great sob, blowing his nose in a large spotted handkerchief, Mikayla noticed that his eyes were puffy, red, and swollen. Harry patted him consolingly on the left elbow, which was the highest point of Hagrid they could easily reach, and Mikayla did the same on Hagrid's right elbow.

"Where are we burying him?" Harry asked gently, "the forest?" He suggests, but Hagrid shakes his head no before wiping his streaming eyes on the bottom of his shirt. "The other spiders won' let me anywhere near their webs now Aragog's gone. Turns out it was only on his orders they didn' eat me! Can yeh believe that?" The honest answer was "yes," Mikayla knew the nature of Acromantulas where Harry recalled, with painful ease, the scene when he and Ron had come face-to-face with the hairy beasts. They had been quite clear that Aragog was the only thing that stopped them from eating Hagrid.

The pair lead Hagrid back into his hut, sitting him down on his sofa as Mikayla moved to make him a cup of tea to calm him down a bit. "Never bin an area o' the forest I couldn' go before!" Hagrid complains while shaking his head, "it wasn' easy, gettin' Aragog's body out o' there, I can tell yeh, they usually eat their dead, see... But I wanted ter give 'im a nice burial. A proper send-off..." Hagrid broke into sobs again and Mikayla handed over the mug of tea and resumed soothingly patting of his elbow, with Harry slowly following her lead. "I'm sure Aragog would appreciate a final goodbye from his lifelong friend." Mikayla voiced gently not wanting to upset Hagrid even more.

"Professor Slughorn met us coming down here, Hagrid." Harry stated suddenly and Hagrid stilled instantly, "not in trouble, are yeh?" Hagrid asked before looking up with an alarmed expression, "yeh shouldn' be outta the castle in the evenin', I know it, it's my fault-" Mikayla shushed Hagrid lightly while shaking her head no, "No, when he heard what we were doing he said he'd like to come and pay his last respects to Aragog too." Mikayla told Hagrid to stop him from stressing about them getting in trouble. "yeah, he's gone to change into something more suitable, I think. And he said he'd bring some bottles so we can drink to Aragog's memory." Harry explained further as to why Slughorn wasn't there at that very moment.

"Did he?" Hagrid asked looking both completely astonished and very touched, "tha's- tha's righ' nice of him, that is, an' not turnin' yeh in either. I've never really had a lot ter do with Horace Slughorn before... Comin' ter see old Aragog off, though, eh? Well... he'd've liked that, Aragog would..." Harry thought privately that what Aragog would have liked most about Slughorn was the ample amount of edible flesh he provided. Mikayla nodded slowly in agreement, even though she believed that Aragog would've prefered to eat Slughorn than have him pour one out at his funeral.

Harry got to his feet and moved to the rear window of Hagrid's hut, where he saw the rather horrible sight of the enormous dead spider lying on its back outside, its legs curled and tangled. "Are we going to bury him here, Hagrid, in your garden?" Harry questioned as Mikayla encouraged Hagrid to drink the tea, "yeh, jus' beyond the pumpkin patch, I thought," Hagrid choked out, his voice thick with sadness. "I've already dug the, yeh know, grave. Jus' thought we'd say a few nice things over him, happy memories, yeh know." His voice quivered and broke, Mikayla and Harry shared a frown, they hated seeing Hagrid in such a bad way.

There was a knock on the door, they all turned towards it but Hagrid got up to answer it, blowing his nose on his great spotted handkerchief as he did so. Slughorn hurried over the threshold, several bottles in his arms, and wearing a somber black cravat. "Hagrid, so very sorry to hear of your loss." Slughorn offered his condolences in a deep, grave voice, and Mikayla genuinely believed for a split second that he was here for a friend over some Acromantula venom. "Tha's very nice of yeh, thanks a lot. An' thanks fer not givin Harry and Mikayla detention neither,  fer comin' here." Hagrid managed a rather wobbly smile at Slughorn.

"Wouldn't have dreamed of it," Slughorn claimed as he looked over at Mikayla and Harry, who were now leaning against Hagrid's kitchen counter. "Sad night, sad night indeed, and where is the poor creature?" Slughorn asks looking around the room, which Mikayla thought was rather silly as he would've noticed the spider's corpse had it been in Hagrid's small hut. "Out here," Hagrid said with a shaky voice while gesturing to the door that leads to his back garden, "shall we, shall we do it, then?" Slughorn asked and they all agreed that they should, and the four of them stepped out into the back garden.

The moon was glistening palely through the trees now, and its rays mingled with the light spilling from Hagrid's window to illuminate Aragog's body lying on the edge of a massive pit beside a ten-foot- high mound of freshly dug earth. "Magnificent," Slughorn murmured while approaching the spiders head, where eight milky eyes stared blankly at the sky and two huge, curved pincers shone, motionless, in the moonlight. Mikayla heard the tinkle of bottles as Slughorn bent over the pincers, disguising his extraction of Acromantula venom from Aragog for examining the enormous hairy head and appreciating it's peculiar beauty.

"Its not ev'ryone appreciates how beau'iful they are" Hagrid says to Slughorn's back, tears were leaking from the corners of his crinkled eyes and Mikayla frowned gently. "I didn' know yeh were interested in creatures like Aragog, Horace." Hagrid comments as he mistakes Slughorn's greed for admiration, "interested? My dear Hagrid, I revere them," Slughorn responds while stepping back from the body. Harry saw the glint of a bottle disappear beneath his cloak, though Hagrid, mopping his eyes once more, noticed nothing. Harry and Mikayla share a knowing look in the single beat of silence of Slughorn's movements.

"Now... shall we proceed to the burial?" Slughorn asked, to which Hagrid nodded and went to step forward but Mikayla stopped him. "Let me, Hagrid." Mikayla asked as she withdrew her wand, placing a simple levitation charm on the dead Acromantula and slowly lowered it into the bottom of the dark pit with extreme care. "thanks fer tha', Mikayla." Mikayla offers him a soft smile while telling him that it was no problem at all, but Hagrid started to cry again. "Of course, it's difficult for you, who knew him best," Slughorn sympathised with Hagrid and patted Hagrid's elbow, like Harry and Mikayla had before as he could reach no higher.

"Why don't I say a few words?" Slughorn offered graciously. He must have got a lot of good quality venom from Aragog, Mikayla and Harry thought, for Slughorn wore a satisfied smirk as he stepped up to the rim of the pit and said, in a slow, impressive voice. "Farewell, Aragog, king of arachnids, whose long and faithful friendship those who knew you won't forget! Though your body will decay, your spirit lingers on in the quiet, 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..."

Mikayla stepped forward after Slughorn finished, "and may your loving wife, Mosag, journey through her grief and find inner peace in your absence." Mikayla concluded the final farewell to Aragog. "Tha was... tha was... beau'iful!" Hagrid howled and he collapsed onto the compost heap, crying harder than ever. Harry rushed to comfort the man as Slughorn waved his wand so that the huge pile of earth rose up and then fell, with a muffled sort of crash, onto the dead spider, forming a smooth mound. Mikayla transfigured one of the pumpkins into a stone to use as a marker for his grave. Mikayla carved some words in the stone:

Here Lies
Aragog the Acromantula
Age 54
October 12th 1942 - April 20th 1997
'Thank you for being my friend,
I promise to never forget you.'