Adventures of Harriet Potter

Aragog

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers large as cabbages burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right to Harriet; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong. Harriet and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing. "We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off. . . ."
With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that 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 and unnatural and was quickly stifled. Harriet constantly repeated Dumbledore's final words to herself. "I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. . . . Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." But what good were these words? Who exactly were they supposed to ask for help, when everyone was just as confused and scared as they were?
Hagrid's hint about the spiders was far easier to understand — the trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. Harriet looked everywhere she went, helped (rather reluctantly) by Ron. They were hampered, of course, by the fact that they weren't allowed to wander off on their own but had to move around the castle in a pack with the other Gryffindors. Most of their fellow students seemed glad that they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers, but Harriet found it very irksome. One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Harriet didn't realize what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, when, sitting right behind Malfoy, Harriet overheard him gloating to Crabbe and Goyle.
"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in. . . ." Harriet wanted to hit him, he was degrading her mum and — albeit unknowingly, assuming he didn't really believe the common knowledge throughout the castle that she was raised by Muggles and was just as new to magic as any Muggleborn — herself by saying they didn't belong at Hogwarts.
Snape swept past Harriet, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron. "Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?" Harriet shuddered at the thought, Snape may be trying to protect her at school but he was still a right burke at the best of times. "Now, now, Malfoy," said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough."
"Yeah, right," said Malfoy, smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job — I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir —" Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron. "I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger —" The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Malfoy's last words, Ron had leapt off his stool, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Malfoy went unnoticed. Harriet did manage to get her wand out, her temper having flared to the point where she was going to hex Malfoy so hard his bits would fall off, but she didn't have a clear shot.
"Let me at him," Ron growled as Lydia and Dean hung onto their arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands —" Harriet slowly cooled down, reminding herself that it wasn't worth it to hex Malfoy. "Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and off they marched, with Harriet, Ron, Lydia, and Dean bringing up the rear, Ron still trying to get loose though Harriet was calming down. It was only safe to let go of him when Snape had seen them out of the castle and they were making their way across the vegetable patch toward the greenhouses.
The Herbology class was very subdued; there were now two missing from their number, Justin and Hermione. Professor Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. Harriet went to tip an armful of withered stalks onto the compost heap and found herself face-to-face with Ernie Macmillan. Ernie took a deep breath and said, very formally, "I just want to say, Harriet, that I'm sorry I ever suspected you. I know you'd never attack Hermione Granger, and I apologize for all the stuff I said. We're all in the same boat now, and, well —" He held out a pudgy hand, and Harriet shook it. Ernie and his friend Hannah came to work at the same Shrivelfig as Harriet and Ron. "That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, "he seems very pleased about all this, doesn't he? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir."
"That's clever of you," said Ron, who didn't seem to have forgiven Ernie as readily as Harriet. "Do you think it's Malfoy, Harriet?" Ernie asked. "No," said Harriet, so firmly that Ernie and Hannah stared. A second later, Harriet spotted something. Several large spiders were scuttling over the ground on the other side of the glass, moving in an unnaturally straight line as though taking the shortest route to a prearranged meeting. Harriet hit Ron over the hand with her pruning shears. "Ouch! What're you —" Harriet pointed out the spiders, following their progress with her eyes screwed up against the sun.
"Oh, yeah," said Ron, trying, and failing, to look pleased. "But we can't follow them now —" Ernie and Hannah were listening curiously. Harriet's eyes narrowed as she focused on the spiders. If they pursued their fixed course, there could be no doubt about where they would end up. "Looks like they're heading for the Forbidden Forest. . . ." she said, having a theory that she severely hopped was wrong. And Ron looked even unhappier about that. At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Harriet and Ron lagged behind the others so they could talk out of earshot.
"We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again," Harriet told Ron. "We can take Fang with us. He's used to going into the forest with Hagrid, he might be some help." She didn't mention that Fang was a coward, feeling it was better if Ron didn't know about that. "Right," said Ron, who was twirling his wand nervously in his fingers. "Er — aren't there — aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?" he added as they took their usual places at the back of Lockhart's classroom. Preferring not to answer that question, Harriet said, "There are good things in there, too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns . . ."
Ron had never been into the Forbidden Forest before. Harriet had entered it only once and had hoped never to do so again. Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant. "Come now," he cried, beaming around him. "Why all these long faces?" People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered. "Don't you people realize," said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, "the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away —" Harriet rolled her eyes, knowing Hagrid was innocent. The attacks were inconsistent with a spider, there were no bite wounds and the bodies were free of cobwebs. "Says who?" said Dean Thomas loudly. "My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty," said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two. "Oh, yes he would," said Ron, even more loudly than Dean. "I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a self-satisfied tone.
Ron started to say that he didn't think so, somehow, but stopped in midsentence when Harriet kicked him hard under the desk. "We weren't there, remember?" Harriet muttered. But Lockhart's disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Harriet so much that she yearned to throw Gadding with Ghouls right in Lockhart's stupid face. Instead she contented herself with scrawling a note to Ron: Let's do it tonight. Ron read the message, swallowed hard, and looked sideways at the empty seat usually filled by Hermione. The sight seemed to stiffen his resolve, and he nodded.