Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery Year 4

Chapter 16

"VERMILLIOUS!"

Torvus galloped over to Hagrid, as well as the three students preparing to enter the vault. "Let's go, shall we?"

He led the way to the acromantulas' lair, where they were greeted by a large acromantula. Dani'd decided to let Hagrid do the talking, but upon their approach, the acromantula trapped them in sticky webs, similar to how they were frozen in ice shards in the first vault.

Bill and Dani somehow managed to evade the webs, and before Dani could make a move, the older student dragged her out of the lair.

"What the hell?! He's gonna eat them! I could've-"

"Dani, remember our research? It'll probably wait for it's family to eat, which'll most likely buy us some time. Now, as you're well aware, it's an acromantula we're facing. Don't think that you'll be able to hold him off just because you're a good dueller. We need a plan B now that there's only two of us left-wait, you have one, don't you?"

Dani shook her head, making a mental note to come up with one for the next vault.

"Fortunately for us, I have one in mind. You've learned diffindo, right?"

"I have. Let me guess, you want me to break the webs?"

"Precisely. I'll hold off the acromantula in the meantime. Now let's go!"

They both ran back in, where the acromantula had thankfully not began his meal yet. Dani freed Charlie and worked on Hagrid while her classmate used the severing charm on the webs binding Torvus to the ground.

"Guys-a little help please! INCENDIO!"

Dani glanced back at Bill, who was trying to have at least one of his spells connect with the acromantula, while dodging it's frantic attempts to trap him in cobwebs.

Charlie and Dani were quick to begin hurling spells at the acromantula. Torvus was slighly stunned at first, but quickly regained his composture, loaded his bow and shot a well-aimed arrow at the acromantula, puncturing one of it's many eyes. Dani took the oppertunity as it was staggering around in confusion, deciding to use her signature spell first as a backup. "DEPULSO! ARANIA EXUMAI!"

At the mercy of the force of being hit by two strong spells at the hands of a master duellist, the oversized spider rolled to the side, revealing a rather sketchy pair of wooden doors covered in webs. Dani was pretty sure she knew exactly what lay behind the door. She asked herself just HOW LONG it COULD'VE been since Alex penetrated this vault before casting diffindo on the webs and pushing the heavy door ajar.

It was exactly as she'd expected it to be-a dark green room with the glittering, majestic vault in the middle. Dani went ahead and touched it. Nothing.

She remembered the engraving on the last vault, and looked around the panels for any words or symbols, still to no avail. She pulled out Alex's wand from her pocket (just in case) and trie to tap it against the column, which continued to remain bolted shut by magic.

Dani thought again. She opened the first vault with her bare hands, and found Alex's wand inside, which the she used for the second vault, whete she found a map of the forest, and...

"Torvus, you don't happen to have your arrow with you, don't you? I mean, the one with the ruby?"

"Thought you'd need it," said Torvus, taking the arrow out of his back satchel. Dani took it and tapped it against the column-and heard Alex's voice again.

"Now that you've found the third of five vaults, Dani, you deserve to know this: the vaults are fake. They're decoys, save for the last one. I'm trapped in the next vault, and only select few can save me... You being one of them. Good luck, sis. You'll need it. Seriously."

Dani snapped back to her senses as the vault opened, revealing two more items which appeared to make even less sense (at least for now)-a painting and a sweater with a dragon on it.

The squad grabbed the items and made a bid for the exit, only to be stopped by-guess who-Dumbledore. "Ah, hanging out with a centaur, are you? You may leave, I need to have a word with these students."

Torvus cast a mournful glance at Dani as he left the lair, and the headmaster turned to Hagrid. "So... You accompanied these students to the forbidden forest?"

"We asked him to," Bill interjected before Hagrid could reply to his boss. "We thought he had experience with-"

"You could've asked a proper professor for assistance," said Dumbledore. "Especially with a highly dangerous mission like entering the forest, the acromantulas' lair in particular. I'm sure you know that well enough, Miss Jackson."

"But you'd never let me!"

"As a matter of fact, if you tried to talk it out nicely to us and we figured out a safe, plausible way to do what you need to, we could. But since you didn't do that, combined with your constant troublemaking, you're being placed in indefinite detention."