Amelia Potter and the Chamber of Secrets PART 1

109

'The Chamber has been opened.'

'That's where Filch has been keeping guard,' Ron muttered. They looked at each other. The corridor was deserted.

'Can't hurt to have a poke around,' said Harry, dropping his bag and getting to his hands and knees so that he could crawl along, searching for clues.

'Scorch marks!' he said. 'Here – and here –'

'Come and look at this!' said Hermione. 'This is funny ...'

Harry got up and crossed to the window next to the message on the wall. Hermione was pointing at the topmost pane, where around twenty spiders were scuttling, apparently fighting to get through a small crack in the glass. A long, silvery thread was dangling like a rope, as though they had all climbed it in their hurry to get outside.

'Have you ever seen spiders act like that?' said Hermione won- deringly.

Amelia shook her head. 'Only in moives.'

'No,' said Harry, 'have you, Ron? Ron?'

He looked over his shoulder. Ron was standing well back, and seemed to be fighting the impulse to run.

'What's up?' said Harry.

'I – don't – like – spiders,' said Ron tensely.

'I never knew that,' said Hermione, looking at Ron in surprise.

'You've used spiders in potions loads of times ...'

'I don't mind them dead,' said Ron, who was carefully looking anywhere but at the window, 'I just don't like the way they move ...' Hermione and Amelia giggled.

'It's not funny,' said Ron, fiercely. 'If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my – my teddy bear into a dirty great spider because I broke his toy broomstick. You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and ...'

He broke off, shuddering. Hermione and Amelia were obviously still trying not to laugh. Feeling they had better get off the subject, Harry said, 'Remember all that water on the floor? Where did that come from? Someone's mopped it up.'

'It was about here,' said Ron, recovering himself to walk a few paces past Filch's chair and pointing. 'Level with this door.'

He reached for the brass doorknob but suddenly withdrew his hand as though he'd been burned.

'What's the matter?' said Harry.