𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 | 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳

26 || Aragog

"Okay," Hermione said, eyes alight with excitement. "...Ash's modified the instructions, I told you, we need tarantulas, not jumping spiders," she scolded Ron, who had refused to get the tarantulas down from the student stores.

"Are you sure we should--you know--trust her writing? I mean, the book says-"

"I trust Ash," Harry said seriously. "And she told me that she'd been practicing over the summer." Ron gulped, but went out of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, mumbling something under his breath.

Hermione had already stewed the Mandrake and was adding horned slugs.

"Hermione?" Harry asked. Hermione acknowledged him with a nod and kept stirring. "Do you know what the monster in the Chamber is yet? Ash said-"

"I have a faint idea, but I'm not sure," she said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I need to do more research."

There was a slam, and both of them jumped. Ron pretty much threw the jar of dead tarantulas at Harry and backed away to the other side of the bathroom, locking himself in a stall.

Hermione and Harry laughed quietly as they chopped up the spiders. Whimpers were coming out of Ron's stall.

"It should be ready soon," Hermione sniffed the potion. "I think-"

"Are you done with the spiders?" Ron sniffled.

"Yeah, you can come out," Harry replied, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. Ron's stall door opened and he came out cautiously.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said crossly.

--

By the next morning, the potion was ready, so Hermione, Ron, and Harry snuck up to the hospital wing in the dead of night using Harry's invisibility cloak.

They poured the potion down Ash's throat, and waited expectantly for her to pop up and start to complain that they took too long, but she never did.

Harry was very concerned. They had followed all of her instructions, so why didn't the potion work? They waited for an hour, whispering quietly, but still, nothing happened.

Disappointed, the trio returned to Gryffindor tower, out of ideas. Harry turned to Riddle's diary for solace.

By reading (or rather, getting sucked into) Riddle's diary, Harry had figured out that it was Hagrid that opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago. However, when he tried to relay this information to Hermione, it was too late.

Hermione had been petrified, along with a Ravenclaw, Penelope Clearwater.

With this news, also came the terrible possibility that Hogwarts could be closed for good. Harry was desperate. Now two of his best friends were stuck in the hospital wing, and Hagrid could be blamed for the opening of the Chamber.

Harry and Ron decided to visit Hagrid, and make sure he was alright, while trying to glean as much information as they could.

It was a clear, starry night. They hurried toward the lit windows of Hagrid's house and pulled off the cloak only when they were right outside his front door. Seconds after they had knocked, Hagrid flung it open. They found themselves face-to-face with him aiming a crossbow at them.

While they were there, Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, and Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, had come into his hut, suspecting Hagrid. Lucius Malfoy also had managed to get Dumbledore to step aside as Headmaster, though he hadn't been replaced yet. Fudge insisted Hagrid leave and be forced to reside in Azkaban, but before the giant man had left the hut, he had said to Ron and Harry (invisible in the corner) "Follow the spiders."