Taming The Serpent [Tom Riddle/Tomione]

O7. Aragog, a friend

Riddle, unknowingly, led Hermione toward the dungeons. The torches hadn't been lit, and when Riddle pushed the door almost closed, Hermione could only just see him, standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside. She remembered Harry telling her and Ron, that when the school was threatened with closing, a consequence highly undesired by Tom Riddle, the boy found out about Aragog – Hagrid's giant acromantula - and turned Hagrid in as the culprit; he even further slandered Hagrid with accusations of raising werewolf cubs under his bed and running off into the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls. But she was determined to change Hagrid's fate.

It had been at least an hour. All she could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue. She began to contemplate whether or not it would be wise to address Riddle, but ended up thinking that would be foolish. And she was correct. He would have hexed her in a heartbeat. And just when Hermione had started feeling tense and wished someone else could have taken this mission instead of her, she heard something move beyond the door. Someone was creeping along the passage. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, Hermione tiptoeing behind him, careful not to be seen nor heard. 

For perhaps five minutes they followed the footsteps; she had a pretty good feeling it was Hagrid that Riddle was after. Then, he stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. A door creaked open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper. "C'mon... gotta get yeh outta here... C'mon now... in the box..." There was something familiar about that voice... Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Hermione stepped out behind him. She could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it. 

"Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply. Hermione quickly grabbed her wand and crouched down behind a statue.  "What yer doin'down here, Tom?" Riddle stepped closer. "It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop." 

Hermione aimed her wand at the spider and kept it there, waiting. "I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and--" 

"It never killed no one!" said the large boy, who Hermione knew very well as younger Hagrid, backing against the closed door.

"Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving yet closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered..."

"It wasn't him!" roared the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"

"Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing out his wand. His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Hermione let out a long gasp. A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers – Aragog. 

Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. Hermione recited the teleportation spell. "Loci mutation. " This is a spell that vanishes objects which then appear elsewhere. Back in 1996, Albus Dumbledore used this to transport Harry Potter's school supplies, clothes, and owl to the Burrow, so that they could first journey to Budleigh Babberton to try and recruit Horace Slughorn unhindered... 

Where there once stood a huge arachnid, now was nothing. Riddle let out an angry groan and pointed his wand at Hagrid. "What did you do to it? Where is that thing, Rubeus? " Riddle snarled. Hagrid shook his head, backing away from the raging boy. "I don' know. Please, I don' know." The third year student kept pleading, much to Tom's fury.