Chapter 70 — Hagrid’s Friends

We left the folded cloak and my note beside Hagrid’s door. Harry took the larger lantern, Ron found a smaller lamp, and Fang led us across the frost until the trees swallowed the light from the hut.

At the edge of the Forest, he stopped. Our lantern reached a low branch and the roots beneath it; the spiders passed under both without showing any interest in whether we could follow.

‘Far enough to know it’s the Forest,’ Ron said. He held his lamp towards the path behind us. ‘We could go back and tell McGonagall that.’

‘The near part,’ I said. ‘We’ll keep the path in sight.’ He gave me a look I deserved, then Fang lowered his nose and moved between the trunks. I followed, letting the dog turn a decision into a matter of keeping up.

The ground softened beneath the leaves. I looked back at each bend, trying to remember a split trunk or a distinctive root, until something pale caught the lantern beam beyond a fallen tree.

Harry stopped so abruptly that Ron walked into him. The blue Ford stood among the ferns, with scratches along its doors and a branch caught against the radiator grille. Something green and thick had begun growing beneath the windscreen.

‘The car,’ Ron said, taking a step towards it. The engine growled, and both headlamps came on.

Harry told it who we were. That did not seem to improve its opinion of visitors: it backed behind a tree and disappeared through the undergrowth, leaving us to watch its lights move between the trunks until they went dark.

‘Dad’s been wondering where that went.’ Ron stared after it, then looked at the path again. ‘I’d quite like to tell him.’

I said we could do that when we got back. Before he answered, Fang barked at the foot of a steep bank, where spiders were passing beneath an enormous root. One as large as my palm crossed my boot, and Ron made a tight sound between his teeth.

I took the larger lantern from Harry and lifted it towards the opening. ‘Aragog?’ I called, keeping outside the hollow. A dry rustle answered from the bank above us, spreading much too widely to belong to one animal.

Ron said my name. I told him I had heard it and asked him to stay by the opening, with his light on the route behind us. I could still see the first bend; at the time, that felt like having a way out.

A jointed leg reached into the light, followed by another. The spider emerging from the hollow was far bigger than the creature I had watched escape from Hagrid’s box. Its body hung like a weathered sack between the legs, and its eyes were pale.

‘Who calls me?’ The voice seemed to come from a place I did not want to examine closely. Fang backed into Harry’s knees, making him stumble.

‘Oswald Mercer. Hagrid told us to follow the spiders.’ I held the lantern where it lit the ground between us instead of taking another step. ‘He’s been taken away. The Ministry think he opened the Chamber again.’

The rustling stopped around the hollow. Aragog repeated the last word, slowly, and I told him about the scene the diary had shown me: Tom Riddle, the box and the accusation.

‘Hagrid raised me,’ he said. ‘He fed me and hid me in a cupboard. When they accused him, he let me go.’

‘Did you kill anyone in the school?’ I asked. His mandibles moved with a sound like shears closing through stiff cloth.

‘I never harmed a human in that castle. Hagrid would not have allowed it.’ Harry drew a breath beside me, and I held one hand low, asking him to wait.

I asked about the girl. Aragog said she had been found in a girls’ bathroom, somewhere he had never been. He could not identify the room more precisely; he had not accompanied the people who found her.

Myrtle and June 1943 came immediately to mind. Aragog had supplied neither a name nor a floor, however, and I needed to remember that when I repeated his answer.

‘There was another creature?’ I asked. His front legs drew inward as he told us that it had been there before him, born in the castle. He had come from a distant country in a traveller’s pocket; Hagrid had not hatched him beneath Hogwarts.

I asked what the creature was. Aragog’s answer came with a slow closing movement of his mandibles: ‘We do not speak of it.’

‘It attacked our friend this morning. If you know what we’re looking for—’ I broke off at a sound behind Ron. A spider was lowering itself on a strand between him and the path, its body the size of a bucket.

Another settled beside it. Above us, legs appeared along the bank, and the reply came from more than one direction this time: they did not speak of it.

‘We need to leave,’ Ron said. His voice shook, but the words were perfectly clear. I shifted sideways, bringing Harry and Fang towards the same gap while I watched the route we had so carefully kept in sight disappear behind moving bodies.

Harry told Aragog we were Hagrid’s friends. Aragog said Hagrid was welcome there, and when I asked him to let us go, his pale eyes remained directed beyond my shoulder.

‘My children do not harm Hagrid. I cannot deny them fresh meat whenever it comes to us.’ Ron made one short, disbelieving sound, and I reached into the marked fold of my pouch.

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‘When I move, take Fang through the gap on the left,’ I said. ‘Don’t stop to watch me.’ The nearest spider lifted two legs towards Ron’s chest, and I threw the prepared strip at the raised limb.

‘Reducto!’ The leg broke with a hard crack. Its owner lurched sideways and dragged another spider down the bank, opening a space where there had not been one before. I had used the curse on practice targets; the living violence of that result reached my stomach just after my hand had let go.

Ron seized Fang’s collar and Harry took the lantern from me. Before they reached the gap, a third spider dropped into it. I pulled four preparations from my pouch: two impulses and two fire strips, enough for a short sequence if I could set the direction properly.

I dropped three low along the ground, aiming their folds between us and the approaching legs. The fourth stayed in my hand until the others were clear of its line. Then I threw it and spoke the word that would begin the release.

‘Impello!’ My pulse struck through loose leaves into the first waiting fire strip. Flame flared across the opening, the next impulse caught a spider low and the last preparation burned beneath its retreating legs. There was no waiting for an enemy to step on anything; I had spent all four to make a few seconds of space.

‘Not through that!’ Harry shouted, checking Fang as the fire opened beside the route. I pointed along the bank, and he changed direction with Ron close behind him. The flames held one side, but shapes were descending ahead of us faster than we could climb.

Harry threw the lantern at one of them. Glass broke and burning oil splashed its legs, making it recoil before it came forward again, now horribly easy to see.

‘Arania Exumai!’ Harry shouted. I had repeated Riddle’s incantation in describing the memory; Harry had the words and a movement he was guessing at. His spell made the creature jerk and lose a foothold, but it recovered before he could try again.

I caught his sleeve and pulled him clear of a striking leg. Behind us, Ron had drawn his broken wand halfway out, looked at the Spellotape and pushed it back. Fang was hauling him through the leaves hard enough to make his heels slide.

‘There’s a gap!’ Ron called, lifting the smaller lamp towards it. He was right, but the opening was filling with spiders. I tried to count the bodies directly ahead and gave up at eight; the hollow seemed to be producing more of them wherever I looked.

A leg hooked my shoulder. I twisted against the pull on my robes and threw a shield strip between its owner and my face.

‘Protego!’ The barrier caught the descending fangs, driving my heel against a root. I stayed upright, but the shield shivered, and its edge was already thinning when something roared behind me.

White light swept across the bank. For one appalling instant I thought another creature had arrived to argue over us, then a horn blared and the Ford smashed through a curtain of webbing with its doors swinging open.

It struck two spiders broadside, throwing mud and leaves over the bonnet. One headlamp went dark. Fang tore free of Ron and hurled himself through the open back door with a decisiveness I wished I had shown at the Forest’s edge.

‘Get in!’ I shouted. Ron reached the driver’s seat while Harry caught the other front door, slipped and hauled himself inside. The engine howled as Ron wrestled with the gear lever.

I backed towards the car. My shield failed with a crackle, letting the spider surge into the space where my face had been, and I threw the strip waiting in my right hand.

‘Impello!’ The pulse knocked its front legs aside. It did not send the creature flying; it gave me time to turn and run while the Ford began moving backwards.

I shouted Ron’s name. Harry leaned across the seats and caught the rear door handle, holding it wide as a spider dropped onto the roof. Metal crumpled with a bang, and I jumped for the back seat.

My knee hit the sill. Harry caught my robes, Fang barked into my ear and my hand scraped across a broken edge as I dragged my foot inside. The door slammed just before a pointed leg punched through the roof above my head.

I threw myself over Fang as it withdrew and struck again. The point buried itself in the seat back. Harry twisted round with his wand raised, but my head was between him and the hole.

‘Don’t!’ I pulled another strip from the pouch and thrust my hand towards the tear, releasing the paper through it before I spoke. ‘Impello!’

The roof buckled upwards. The spider lost its grip and slid across the rear window into the branches while Ron kept reversing. Once the bank opened behind us, he hauled the wheel round and the car lurched forward towards a tree.

Harry shouted for him to turn. Ron turned too far, striking the bark with a grinding shriek that threw me against the opposite door. We stopped with the engine running, Fang scrambling over my knees and spiders coming down the slope towards us.

Ron stared through the windscreen with both hands locked round the wheel. I reached between the seats and touched his shoulder. ‘Across. Let me drive, and tell me where the flying controls are.’

That gave him something to do. He climbed over the gear lever while Harry squeezed into the back, rescuing the small lamp Ron had wedged by his feet. I got into the driver’s seat and pulled it forward until I could reach the pedals.

The wheel was too large and the position unfamiliar. For an instant, another dashboard overlapped it in my memory, with rain running across a windscreen somewhere in Britain. My old hands had known what to do; these hands were smaller, and a spider was reaching round the tree.

I reversed clear, found first gear and drove through the gap beside the trunk. Something struck the passenger door. Ron cried out, braced his feet and dragged the handle shut before pointing at the controls.

‘Blue button, there. Then pull that lever back.’ I tried, felt the lever refuse to move and nearly put us into another tree while looking down at it.

I kept my eyes ahead for the next turn. The tyres slid into a rut, the car rocked and Ron reached for his wand before stopping himself.

‘Find what’s jammed,’ I told him. He bent over the dashboard while Harry shoved a broken branch through the rear window to dislodge a smaller spider clinging to the frame. Fang snapped at the legs until Harry pulled him back by the collar.

Ron found the obstruction: a bent lip of trim had folded over the lever’s slot. At the next short stretch between the trees, I had him hold the wheel while I struck the loose panel with the heel of my hand. The first blow did nothing; the second knocked the corner free and scraped my knuckles.

I pulled the lever. The front wheels rose, leaving the back of the car dragging through undergrowth while the bonnet pointed at the sky. Branches battered the floor, then the trees fell away beneath us and Ron made a noise that was almost a laugh.

I kept hold of the wheel. The steering had gone light, the car was listing towards its broken headlamp and the engine sounded as though it had objections to everything we were doing.

‘How do we come down?’ I asked. Ron began with ‘gently’, saw my face and supplied instructions I could actually use. We crossed the edge of the Forest and hit the frost outside Hagrid’s hut hard enough to bounce once.

The doors flew open. Fang was out first, followed by Harry, and Ron and I climbed down together. Before I could reach back to stop the engine, the Ford slammed its doors and drove into the trees, taking its remaining headlamp with it.