A Lion's Honor & Pride (Harry Potter) (Under Editing)

Chapter Six: Forbidden Forest & Aragog

The summer sun was coming over the grounds around the castle. The sky and lake had both turned blue and flowers large as cabbages closed in the greenhouses. But Hagrid had been arrested for "attacking" students, though he didn't sent any beast to petrify students. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right to Ariana; to her it is making things going so horribly wrong.
With Professor Dumbledore gone, 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, unnatural, and was quickly stifled.
That's what Ariana had seen as she quietly followed Jaxon down to the library from the Hospital Wing, she still felt a little downhearted after seeing her brother's raw sadness. Jaxon kept respectfully quiet, he seemed to understand that she wasn't in the mood for talking.
As they started arrived to the library, Ariana and Jaxon had both started skimming through books in the library. Jaxon had decided to go into the Forbidden Section, even Ariana knew that none of the books could harm them since they were spirits.
But as Ariana had started looking through the books about magical animals on a table, she soon found the correct animal that's been causing all of the problems.
"Ariana!" cried out Jaxon. "I've found something!"
Jaxon immediately ran towards her, his blue eyes bright with excitement and was carrying an ancient looking book before he placed it in the table.
"This book is about curses, magical illnesses..." Jaxon was saying as he flipped through the pages. "Ah! There it it." He pushed the book toward her, and Jason read: "Petrification was a malign magical state in which a living creature was rendered immobile and unresponsive, as if they had been turned to stone. It was a phenomenon of the most advanced Dark Magic, affecting beasts, beings and even spirits such as ghosts. Petrification could be inflicted by the Statue curse.
Victims of petrification were completely paralysed and unresponsive. It may have taken careful examination to discern if a victim was petrified. A petrified ghost would turn a dark smoky grey and could only be moved using air currents. The antidote to petrification was the Mandrake Restorative Draught, a highly potent healing potion made from Stewed Mandrakes."
"At least that's some news," remarked Ariana. "I've found something too." She pushed the book toward him, and Ariana read: "Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad and breed by Herpo the Foul (look for Herpo the Foul). Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Looking a Basilisk directly in the eye causes instant death, but an indirect look will merely render the victim Petrified. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."
"Bloody serpent," muttered Jaxon, he took a deep breath as he tried to calm down. Jaxon sighed and gave Ariana a smile before his became saddened. "I wished I had thought of that before watching my little brother grow up without me."
Ariana placed her hand on top of his and was quite surprised when he pulled her into a hug, Jaxon had given an aura of a older brother and she must be the little sister in his eyes. She had started to feel him trembling slightly, it took her while to realize that he was crying. His breathing had became ragged, but Ariana returned the hug. At first, he seemed too stunned to react, but he continued hugging Ariana.
"Come on, let's see if my theory works for the both of us." Ariana nodded at Jaxon's suggestion and they both pulled back from the hug. They closed the books and placed the books back on the shelves, so it wouldn't be too suspicious.
Ariana and Jaxon both went up to the Hospital Wing, she gave inward shudder when she saw the other petrified students, ghost, and cat.
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The moonlight soon shone through the windows and everybody had fell asleep. There was a sliver of a crescent moon shining in the night sky. But Ariana and Jaxon are both wide awake as ever before.
"Come Ariana," said Jaxon. "They're heading towards the Forbidden Forest as we speak."
Ariana glanced at her still body, Selina flapped her wings and looked at Ariana understandingly. Ariana nodded as she followed Jaxon out of the Hospital Wing towards the Training Fields. Ariana and Jaxon both followed the hidden figures of Harry, Ron, and Devin out of the castle towards Hagrid's cottage.
Ariana soon heard Ron said as they strode across the black grass. "'Course, we might get to the forest and find there's nothing to follow. Those spiders might not've been going there at all. I know it looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but..." His voice tailed away hopefully.
"You're not afraid, are you Ron?" teased Devin.
"Oi!" Ron protested. "Of course, I'm not afraid."
They reached Hagrid's house, sad and empty with its black windows. When Harry pushed the door open, Fang went mad with joy at the sight of them.
Worried he might wake everyone at the castle with his deep, booming barks, they hastily fed him treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together. When they came out of the cottage again, Harry had left his Invisibility Cloak inside the cottage. They had also brought Fang outside to track down the spiders again.
As Harry took out his wand, murmured, "Lumos!" And a tiny light appeared at the end of it. But around the same time, Harry had accidentally tripped over an unseen root at the edge of the forest and his light disappeared into the undergrowth.
"Harry!" yelped Ron and Devin, they both raced after him.
Devin lit up his wand to check out the scene. But when they looked over the bushes, there wasn't a twelve year old boy there on his back. There was an impressive-looking stag staring back at them. It has a glossy dark brown coat and wide emerald green eyes. He has black marks around his eyes that had reminded Ariana of Harry's wire-rimmed glasses and a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. His black antlers has two points and branched towards the sky. He also has a white stripe on his neck and underbelly now stops under his head and above his chest.
"Bloody hell," breathed Ron as he looked at the stag.
"Harry? Is that you?" Devin asked.
Harry soon turned back into himself and he got up a little unsteadily. He looked around and found his wand, he soon relit it once again.
So, with Fang scampering around them, sniffing tree roots and leaves, they entered the Forest. By the glow of Harry's wand, they followed the steady trickle of spiders moving along the path. They walked for about twenty minutes, not speaking, 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, and Harry's wand shone alone in the sea of dark, they saw their spider guides leaving the path.
Ariana paused, trying to see where the spiders were going, but everything was pitch black. She had never been this deep into the Forest before. She could vividly remember Hagrid advising her not to leave the forest path last time she'd been in here.
"What d'you reckon?" Harry said to Ron and Devin, whose eyes Ariana could just make out, reflecting the light from his wand.
"We've come this far," said Ron bravely.
"We're behind you on this," Devin said with a smile.
So, they followed the darting shadows of the spiders into the trees. They couldn't move very quickly now; there were tree roots and stumps in their way, barely visible in the near blackness. Ariana could feel Fang's hot breath on her invisible form when she and Jaxon hid themselves. More than once, they had to stop, so that Harry could crouch down and find the spiders in the wandlight.
They walked for what seemed like at least half an hour, their robes snagging on low-slung branches and brambles. After a while, they 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 them jumped out of their skins.
"What?" said Ron loudly, looking around into the pitch dark, and gripping Harry's elbow very hard.
"What's going on?" Phoebus asked as he waved his lit wand around the area.
"There's something moving over there," Harry breathed. "Listen... Sounds like something big."
Ariana felt herself become tensed and she soon noticed that Jaxon was also growing tense by her side. In her instincts, Ariana knew she doesn't like anything that could hurt them. By Jaxon's anxiety, he doesn't want them getting hurt.
They were silent. Only the rustling of the leaves could be heard with the soft breeze.
They listened carefully. Some distance to their right, the something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees.
"Oh no," said Ron. "Oh no, oh no, oh—"
"Shut up," said Harry frantically. "It'll hear you."
"Hear me?" said Ron in an unnaturally high voice. "It's already heard Fang!"
Devin hushed him and hissed. "If it didn't, it sure heard us now."
The darkness seemed to be pressing on their eyes as they stood terrified, waiting. But Ariana could smell something. It was bigger than her, smelled like smoke, and had something creepy on top of it. There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence.
"What d'you think it's doing?" said Harry.
"Probably getting ready to pounce," said Ron.
"It might be more afraid of us than we are at them," whispered Devin.
They waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.
"D'you think it's gone?" Harry whispered.
"Dunno—"
Then, to their right, came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that flung up their hands to shield their eyes. Ariana almost yelled in surprise from the sudden bright light. But when she stepped away, Ariana realized it was Mr. Weasley's flying car.
Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder.
"Harry!" Ron shouted, his voice breaking with relief. "Harry, it's our car!"
"What?"
"Come on!"
"You have got to be kidding."
Harry and Devin both walked after Ron towards the light, stumbling and tripping, and a moment later they 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 the time!" said Ron delightedly, walking around the car. "Look at it. The forest's turned it wild..."
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 kept close to Harry, who could feel him quivering. His breathing slowed down again, Harry and Phoebus both stuffed their wands back into their robes.
"And we thought it was going to attack us!" said Ron, leaning against the car and patting it.
Ariana sniffled her amusement and glanced at Jaxon, who watched curiously with slight amusement. "I wondered where it had gone!"
Harry and Devin squinted around on the floodlit ground for signs of more spiders, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights.
"Just our luck," grumbled Devin.
"We've lost the trail," he said. "C'mon, let's go and find them."
Ron didn't speak. He didn't move. His eyes were fixed on a point some ten feet above the forest floor, right behind his two friends. His face was livid with terror.
Ariana felt herself pale with fear and started stepping back as soon as she saw it. Jaxon gulped fearfully and started stepping back too. As they brushed shoulders, Ariana could feel each other shaking in fear. They were massive spiders and Ariana truly hates spiders. It was like a nightmare come true. It had became even worse when the spiders had wrapped Harry, Ron, Devin, and Fang in silk before carrying them off.
As they slowly followed the spiders, they had went down the steep slope, towards a misty domed web in the very center of the hollow, while its fellows closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load.
Ariana watched as Harry, Ron, Devin, and Fang fell to the ground on all fours as the spider released them. Fang wasn't howling any more, but cowering silently on the spot.
They were all pale from fear. Their expression could of said that they could of screamed before it had happened. Their eyes were wide with terror.
Ariana suddenly realized that the spider which had dropped Harry was saying something. It had been hard to tell, because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke.
"Aragog!" It called. "Aragog!"
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 who had caught Harry.
"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..."
Ariana would of said something if her throat hadn't tightened up in terror at the terrifying sight she was seeing. It was scaring her all the way to the moon and back. She'll be having nightmares for weeks from this trip.
"We're friends of Hagrid's!" Harry shouted.
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," said Harry, breathing very fast. "That's why we've come."
"In trouble?" said the aged spider, and Ariana thought she heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?"
"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 furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn't usually make Ariana feel sick with fear.
"But that was years ago," said Aragog 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?" said Harry, who had cold sweat on his forehead.
"I!" said Aragog, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler 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..."
Harry seemed to have summoned the last of his courage. "So, you never attacked anyone?"
"Never," croaked the old spider. "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?" said Harry. "Because whatever it is, it's back and attacking people again—"
His words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily; large black shapes shifted all around them.
"The thing that lives in the castle," said Aragog. "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 beast moving about the school."
"What is it?" said Harry urgently.
More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in.
"We do not speak of it!" said Aragog fiercely. "We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times."
Harry 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 Harry and Ron.
"We'll just go, then," Harry called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind him.
"Go?" said Aragog slowly. "I think not..."
"But—but—"
"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 midst. Goodbye, friend of Hagrid."
They quickly spun around. Feet away, towering above him, was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads...
Mr. Weasley's car was thundering down the slope, headlamps glaring, its horn screetching, knocking spiders aside; several were thrown onto their backs, their endless legs waving in the air. The car screetched to a halt in front of Harry, Ron, Devin, and Fang, making the doors flew open. Ariana and Jaxon jumped in the back of the car, she could feel her heart racing and Jaxon's breaths was heavy from the running.
"Get Fang!" Harry yelled, diving into the front seat; Ron seized the boarhound round 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.
They heard Harry asked Ron and Devin. "Are you okay?"
"Once I see no more spiders for the rest of my life, I'll be just fine," Devin said breathlessly.
"You and me both," said Ariana and Jaxon in unison.
They smashed their way through the undergrowth, Fang howling loudly in the back seat, but he soon calmed down a bit when Ariana and Jaxon started petting him. After ten noisy, rocky minuted, the trees thinned, and Diana could again see patches of sky.
The car stopped so suddenly that they were nearly thrown into the windscreen. They had reached the edge of the forest. Fang flung himself at the window in his anxiety to get out and when Harry opened the door, he shot off through the trees towards Hagrid's house, tail between his legs. Ariana and Jaxon quickly followed, they both hid behind the cottage just as well. Harry got out too, and after a minute or so, Ron seemed to regain the feeling in his limbs and followed, still stiff-necked and staring. While Devin was slowly recovering from the nasty shock and terror, but he was still shivering from the incident.
As Harry went inside to receive his cloak and Devin took deep breaths by the cottage, Ron was being violently sick in the pumpkin patch. Jaxon curled his lips back in disgust and Ariana wrinkled her nose slightly, but had a sympathetic look in her eyes.
"Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."
"I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," said Harry.
"That's exactly Hagrid's problem!" said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. "He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're made out, and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban!" He was shivering uncontrollably now. "What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I'd like to know?"
"That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry, throwing the cloak over Ron and Devin, prodding them in the arm to make them walk. "He was innocent."
Ron gave a loud snort. Evidently, hatching Aragog out in a cupboard wasn't his idea of being innocent. It was a little judgmental of Ariana, but she agrees with Ron at the moment. 
As the castle loomed nearer Harry got the Cloak to make sure their feet were hidden, then pushed the creaking front doors ajar. They walked carefully back across the Entrance Hall and up the marble staircase, holding their breath as they passed corridors where watchful sentries were walking.
"L-Let's get back to the Room of Requirement," whispered Jaxon shakily.
"Agreed." Ariana and Jaxon both ran after the boys, but they split up from the boys.
Ariana watched Jaxon as he paced in front of the empty wall of the hallway they had both entered. After the third time, a door appeared in the wall. Jaxon opened the door and ushered her in. They found themselves in a comfortable sitting area. Ariana laid on the carpet and Jaxon had also laid down on the carpet next to her. Ariana sat down by a cushioned window seat, but she soon felt Jaxon down next to her and his arm wrapped around her.
"Jaxon?" Ariana whispered. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay," whimpered Jaxon. "But promise me we'll never, ever going back there into Aragog's lair."
"It's a deal." At that thought, the two of them both fell asleep. But unfortunately, Ariana felt as if it was the beginning of the end of their adventures.