Treacherous | Hermione Granger Book II

|59| Chapter Fifty-Nine

F I F T Y  N I N E

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The plan was simple, but Saffron had previously learned that often the simplest of plans could go awry. She, Harry and Ron were going to use Harry's dad's old invisibility cloak to go to Hagrid's Hut. From there, they were going to take Fang into the Forbidden forest where they would wait to see if they could follow any spiders, as Hagrid had instructed them to do so.

Saffron did feel bad for Hagrid when they made it to his house. It was lifeless, barring Fang, which was a rarity for someone as lively as Hagrid. Once Fang saw them, the dog was instantly in a good mood. Harry and Ron had fed the dog on a number of occasions and as it turned out Professor Sprout was caring for Fang too. But barring those short encounters, Fang had been entirely alone.

Fang's excitement came with eager, loud barks, which Harry quickly stopped by force-feeding him several pieces of Hagrid's sticky treacle fudge. He left the invisibility cloak and readied Fang for their trek.

"Ready?" Saffron asked Harry, as she and Ron stood at the door waiting for Harry. 

"Yeah," nodded Harry and so they set off to the edge of the forest. Saffron and Harry both lit the tips of their wands in order to give them a source of light to find the spiders with. 

Saffron tapped Harry and Ron on their shoulders, pointing at the grass. Two solitary spiders were hurrying away from the wandlight into the shade of the trees.

"Okay," Ron commented exasperatedly,  looking as though he would rather be anywhere else at that moment. It truly was one of his worst nightmares coming true, but nonetheless, his inherent bravery shone through. "I'm ready. Let's go."

The group of Gryffindors almost found themselves following Fangs lead in addition to the group of spiders that were around the dog. It turned out to be quite a journey into the forest and Saffron was on edge for entirety of it. Twenty minutes had passed, and during those twenty minutes, they remained close to the spiders. But after that period of time, the spiders diverged and went down a sloping stretch of forestry, that was completely black. Not even the moonlight provided it with light, the only source of light came from two of their three wands.

A large part of Saffron wanted to turn around and set off in the opposite direction, but she knew she couldn't. She wasn't putting herself through this likely life-threatening situation for herself, she was doing it for the school and most notably the Muggleborns of the school. They had an opportunity to find answers, even if the unreliable, incompetent Hagrid had provided them with that opportunity, they couldn't just ignore it. Hence, when Ron suggested they head back to the castle, in spite of wanting to agree and leave, Saffron insisted that they stay. Harry agreed, whilst Ron begrudgingly followed on. 

Barely avoiding tripping over the trees, Saffron narrowed her eyes and stuck close to Harry, who was shining his wand at the ground in order to try and find the spiders whenever they disappeared amidst the darkness.

Suddenly, Fang gave out a loud bark, which made Saffron squeak and stumble backwards into Ron.

"What?" said Ron, as Saffron clutched onto his hand in fear.

"There's something moving over there," whispered Harry shakily, in turn, causing Saffron's hand to shake in Ron's, who too was holding tightly onto her. "Listen ... sounds like something big."

Biting her lip, Saffron listened closely and instantly froze, garnering the feeling that something was headed in their direction. Twigs snapped sharply as a light flashed in their direction. But then it came to a halt.