Chương 1560: 22
Chapter 22: Beginning of the new termNotes:
Good morning everyone,
here is the latest chapter. Hope you'll like it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Pretty soon term started again, and nothing had really changed. Girls still glared at Mione because of jealousy, Ron and his friends still hated Harry, despite the fact that they couldn't deny that he couldn't be behind the attacks. Tracey and Parvati still acted strange, Ginny always disappeared on weekends and between classes, something that Harry and Hermione blamed on the diary. Aside from that, everything was fine, there were no new attacks or other events worth mentioning.
During their free time they were still searching for the diadem in the Room. Thanks to the weather outside, mostly blizzards or storms during January and February, Oliver Wood held less training lessons, giving at least Harry more free time for that. Mione always joined him (they had decided to not go in there and search on their own), and the professors did the same when they didn't have to grade essays or prepare classes. It wasn't really motivation though, that they were never successful. Sure, some things in here were quite interesting, but none of that was helping them in any way.
Ronald Weasley and Seamus Finnegan were amongst the only students which regularly left the castle during those blizzards as they were visiting Hagrid rather often. After the whole incident with the dead roosters and Dumbledore's lack of willingness to help him, the boys had visited him in his shack to ask if he had any idea whatsoever. But the half-giant had simply no clue. He then offered the two of them, because the weather was anything but nice, that they could stay for tea.
From then on they did that regularly, despite the not so great baking skills of Hagrid. They liked the guy, and that was all that mattered. A few times he even took them into the forest to look after some of his animals. Not that they went in deep, but the prospect of visiting the forbidden forest was another thing that kept them going.
One of those days, during the last week of February, Hagrid started telling them that one of his oldest friends, an animal named Aragog, had told him that most of his younglings were disappearing and fleeing. Hagrid, who loved that animal (whatever it was, he didn't specify that), had promised his old buddy that he would come out there and check what was going on.
"Wait, you're saying that Aragog fella lives deep in the forest? Damn sure, Seamus and I are so in for visiting him."
And so the trio (+ Fang) headed into the deeper parts of the forbidden forest, to spots none of the students ever got to see. Sure, the Weasley twins, the group around James Potter or Marcus Flint and his mates and many more, they all sneaked or had sneaked into the forest on a regular basis, but not so far. Only Hagrid knew those spots.
"So, since when do you know that friend of yours, Hagrid?"
The half-giant turned to Seamus.
"Oh, since he was damn small. I actually hatched him back in the forties, when I was at Hogwarts. Got me expelled though, yeh know. Good ol' Dumbledore, he tried everything, but Dippet stopped him. Dunno why, I reckon he believed Tom, the prefect. But Tom didn't know any better, thought that little Aragog hurt someone."
Seamus wasn't sure what to believe. Sure, he trusted Hagrid, the man clearly knew how to deal with all kinds of creatures, but getting expelled. That was something very harsh and usually didn't happen at all. He would have to check with the records to find out more about it. Not that he was really going to do that, that would be such a Granger or Potter kind of thing. Besides, Dumbledore trusted Hagrid obviously enough to give him a job here. That should be enough.
After a while they reached a clearing, and Seamus was able to see Ronald shuddering. Oh true, he was afraid of spiders and the whole clearing was filled with giant cobwebs.
"Aragog! I'm here!"
"Oh please, Hagrid, don't tell me that friend of yours is a spider."
"Well, kind of yes, He's an acromantula."
That didn't calm Ron at all, his brother Bill had told him about those spiders once. Sure, they weren't native to Egypt where Bill worked, but during his Gringotts training he had spent a few weeks on Borneo, where they were native. Now the redhead hoped that Hagrid had control of those ugly beasts.
"Hello Hagrid. I see you brought some younglings from the castle with you."
"Yeh, I did. Those fellas are helpin' me with some issues I'm havin'. My roosters are gettin' killed. But anyway, what's goin' on here in the forest, what's your problem?"
The giant spider slowly walked towards them, leaving the forest's shadows and Ronald was freaking out. He didn't show it, but if he wouldn't be so afraid of them eating him he'd start running away. That's why he didn't really manage to listen to any of the things Hagrid and Aragog were discussing. He only got something along the lines of 'the spiders are fleeing from the beast', whatever that meant. Ronald didn't care, for him that freaking giant spider was beast enough. If the spiders were fleeing, then he didn't have any problem whatsoever with that.
Suddenly a few smaller (only relatively) spiders came forward and started chatting with Hagrid, while Ronald was shaking more and more. He really hated spiders.
"Hagrid, I think one of your younglings is not doing well. That one with the red hair over there."
Aragog stepped forward and pointed at Ronald, who at that point just snapped. He hadn't paid attention to anything that had been spoken. Now as the huge spider was coming closer to him and pointing with his legs, he thought that now he would get eaten. Ronald reached for his wand and attempted to throw a knockback jinx at Aragog, but he was way too nervous to properly perform the wand movement.
Now dozens of spiders came at them, thinking that their leader had been attacked. Aragog hissed and jumped into Ronald's direction. Now Hagrid intervened. Yes, he would like to yell at Ronald, but that was not the time for it. He caught Aragog in the air and threw him backwards while ordering the two boys to start running.
Which they obviously did.
Seamus, before freaking out completely, still managed to cast some red sparks, hoping that anyone at the castle would see them. If no one would come to their help, they might not make it out of here alive.
Ronald, the unlucky, clumsy idiot he was, managed to stumble over a root and fall, which led to some smaller acromantulas catching up with him and attacking the poor boy. He got bitten and injected with acromantula poison several times, before someone blasted all the spiders away from him.
Lady Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, was still residing at Hogwarts most of the time. Sure, she travelled to the ministry on around four days per week, but the nights she mainly stayed here, claiming to be here for the students' sake. Not that this wasn't true, but she knew what was going on, she knew that it was a basilisk attacking the students. Her main goal though was gathering more intel on Dumbledore so they could bring him down as soon as Harry and Hermione were ready for that.
While finishing a report, someone knocked on her door. Amelia sighed, got up and, after opening, looked at her very startled niece.
"Red sparks! There are red sparks over the forest, but no sight of Dumbledore yet. Hannah is informing McGonagall and Sprout, but your office was closest. Can you take a look?"
As soon as she heard "red sparks" the woman got up, summoned her auror robes and left her office, rushing down to the forest. Thankfully her quarters were on the ground floor, so she was outside pretty quickly, heading in the general direction of the sparks.
After a few minutes of running, she heard two male voices, young schoolboys, and a barking dog. A Gryffindor second year - Seamus Finnegan, she remembered - ran past her, screaming that the spiders had gotten Ron (presumably Weasley). Knowing that, she sped up, following the screaming, which presumably came from Weasley.
Just a few metres further she saw around a dozen acromantulas, biting Ronald Weasley. With a flick of her wand she blasted the creatures off the boy, followed by a few blasting curses into the direction of more incoming spiders. Since Ronald was cramping and whining, she didn't start pursuing the animals but lifted him up and levitated him out of the forest.
Remus and Minerva were already rushing towards her when she left the forest. After handing out orders to check for other students and hold back the spiders, she brought Ronald Weasley into the hospital wing. Poppy Pomfrey wasn't amused that now she had a patient, poisoned with acromantula venom - again.
Once Amy Bones heard that, she got furious. Not only were there actomantulas in the forest, they had even attacked students on numerous occasions. She had to do something against that.
Harry and Hermione heard about that from Severus and made their way to the hospital wing, not to visit Ronald, but to intercept Amelia Bones. They told the woman where the spiders came from, a fact that she didn't enjoy hearing.
When Amelia stormed into Albus Dumbledore's office, she didn't see both Weasley parents before she had already started yelling at him.
"ALBUS DUMBLEDORE! How can you allow Hagrid to keep his acromantulas? You out of all people should know about them, that's why he got expelled back in the forties. And how dare you ignore over a dozen attacks on students? We should have been informed right away. I will oversee the removal of all the acromantulas myself.
Oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Weasley, good afternoon, Arthur. Poppy says Ronald will be fine."
Arthur Weasley smiled at the woman, thanking her for saving Ronald. Molly just smiled at her, still taken aback that Amelia Bones dared yelling at Albus, but hiding that. She was Dumbledore's follower through and through, just like Hagrid. Only difference was that she was not purely obedient, but ruthless and calculating. And right now she had recognised Amelia Bones as a threat to the plans of both of them.
"But please, Mrs. Bones, we won't press any charges. None of us wants to punish Hagrid, and since Ron is going to be fine, we can just put the whole matter to rest."
Arthur was about to protest, but then decided against speaking up. He wasn't the young and fierce man anymore. No, Molly would know what was right.
Amelia - for once - ignored the fact that Molly Weasley called her Mrs. instead of Lady (she wasn't even married), and just got up and left. She knew what would have to be done.
Through Minerva's office she flooed into the ministry, firstly heading into her department and assembling a dozen of her best aurors who were not on assignment, briefed them on the acromantula situation (which made all of them pretty upset) and told them to stay put until she was back. Then she headed to Amos Diggory's office.
"Amelia! Good to see you, how can I help you?"
"Hello Amos, I have a situation at hand that needs both of our attention. You know that I'm mostly staying at Hogwarts because of the whole petrification situation? Earlier this afternoon Ronald Weasley went into the forbidden forest with another student and Rubeus Hagrid. They visited a 'friend' of Hagrid's in the forest, an aromantula by the name of Aragog."
Amos basically jumped up and wanted to ask a lot of questions, but Amelia wasn't done yet.
"There actually is a whole colony in the forest. Thing is, Hagrid has hatched the spider himself when he was a student. That is why he got expelled in the first place, so Dumbledore knows about it. Ronald Weasley got attacked and bitten earlier. He's in Poppy's care and going to be fine, but she said that he's not the first one. Dumbledore wants to ignore it and the Weasleys won't press charges. Still, we need those things gone. I have aurors assembled and with your approval as deputy head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creature I could move right now and no one would be able to complain afterwards."
There actually was a law that if an action, sanctioned by a department head (Amelia in this case) and the head or deputy of another department, if there were legal grounds for said action, would be executed, then only a review board, appointed by the Wizengamot, could declare said action as unfounded and illegal. With Amos' backing, Amelia strengthened her position. Now Dumbledore couldn't simply stop her, he would need to go the long way.
Amos, still shocked, approved and assembled a team of his own, while Amelia went to the minister. By informing him she strengthened her position even more, it didn't matter if he would agree. And if he wouldn't, then she had another thing to add to their dossier against the minister.
"I need to see them minister. NOW!"
With those words she just walked past the secretary and opened the door to Fudge's office, who was just talking to his Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge. Amy knew how bad that woman was, the only unfortunate thing was that up until now she hadn't done anything that would see her in Azkaban.
"Amelia! The minister and I are in a meeting."
The head of the DMLE simply ignored the horrid woman and addressed the minister.
"Minister, I'm here to inform you that I, with the backing of Amos Diggory, am going to lead a team into the forbidden forest to remove the colony of acromantulas there. It appears as though Dumbledore kept dozens of attacks over the years quiet, but I was there when earlier today Ronald Weasley got attacked and bitten. Thankfully Poppy Pomfrey is by now used to that. The headmaster has convinced the Weasleys to not press charges, but it's a security risk, since acromantulas fall under the revised dangerous animal act of 1852 I am not only allowed, but obliged to remove them by all means necessary."
Thankfully, since that action would harm Dumbledore's reputation, Fudge nodded and informed Amelia that she would have his backing too, he even gave her that in writing. Thanking the minister, as much as it hurt her, she left and wanted to take the assembled team of twenty-seven wizards and witches plus Amos and herself to the floo office, but Amos stopped her. After assembling his team, he managed to secure a portkey, leading to Hogwarts grounds.
Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his office, when suddenly he felt a soft tug. It was the wards signalling him that someone had portkeyed in. Wondering what that was and fearing that Lady Bones would do something rash, he left his office and headed to the main entrance, where the portkey had appeared. And truly, it was a rather big group of aurors and ministry employees heading towards the forest. Unfortunately, Albus was slow and so they would certainly be in the forest before he reached them.
But it seemed to be his lucky day, since Hagrid stopped the group on the edge of the forest,
That was something that Amelia had wanted to avoid. Hagrid.
"Hagrid, please step aside. We're obliged to remove all the acromantulas from the forest, and any attempt of stopping us will result in an arrest and prosecution for hindering the execution of ministerial orders and wilful endangerment of children."
"Nah, ye can't do that. Aragog has done nothin' wrong. Ah, Headmaster, please tell 'em that they can't do that."
Now Dumbledore had finally reached them, a bit out of breath, but sadly that didn't stop him from speaking.
"Lady Bones, I must protest. You can't just come onto Hogwarts grounds and take out a species of magical creatures. Besided, the Weasleys didn't press charges. You can't do that. I shall speak to Cornelius about that."
Amelia held out the documents that allowed her to take out the spiders. Already anticipating that confrontation she had assembled the necessary legislation as well as the signed forms, both the one from Amos and her, as well as the one signed by the minister.
"You and I both know that I can and I will, Dumbledore. I have Amos' backing, so you can only do something against my actions through a Wizengamot appointed review board. And you see that Cornelius is backing me too. Even without the Weasleys, I would either find one of the many other victims, or even simpler, argue with endangering the students. And don't tell me that the forest is off-limits, we both know that its name just attracts more students to sneak in. It's not like you'd prevent them from doing so. And even without all the endangering, their existence outside of a secure and authorised facility is illegal. Please step aside."
Albus Dumbledore rarely backed down, but in this case he saw that this fight was lost. He stepped aside and allowed Amelia and her team passage, but what neither he nor anyone else expected was Hagrid getting physical. No, he didn't get violent, but simply used his size. A half-giant was a bit scary, but Amelia Bones didn't back down either.
"Please, Mr. Hagrid. Step aside or we will resort to a forceful removal, as much as I'd hate that."
Unfortunately, Hagrid didn't back down. When Kingsley, one of Amelia's most trusted aurors, made a step forward and tried walking past Hagrid, it all started to escalate. The half-giant, usually friendly, just couldn't imagine one of his oldest friends getting hurt and then grabbed the tall man. All the aurors raised their wands.
Hagrid, not being in his right mind, then threw Kingsley a few feet backwards and grabbed his pink umbrella, which he was constantly hiding underneath his coat. He didn't like attacking other people, but they just couldn't hurt Aragog. He cast a stunner at a man that looked quite familiar, though he couldn't place where he knew him from.
Amos Diggory barely deflected the curse since it came absolutely unexpectedly, but then started to fire back. And so did all the other ministry workers.
Albus Dumbledore couldn't believe it. Hagrid had attacked all those wizards, especially with his - officially destroyed - wand in the umbrella. His most obedient servant just got himself a prison sentence, no matter how much he would try to defend him. Maybe he could avoid Azkaban for Hagrid, but that was about it.
After a few minutes of throwing spells at Hagrid (not too harmful ones, basically everyone of them knew and liked him) and avoiding his punches, they successfully stunned the half-giant. Amelia then delegated two of her aurors to use an emergency portkey to bring Hagrid into one the ministry holding cells. No, she wouldn't put him into Azkaban, unless the Wizengamot would sentence him to that, but she would hold him on all his charges (hatching and possessing a creature, classified as dangerous, hindering the ministry to execute a sanctioned action and usage of a wand despite it being snapped).
Now they could finally remove all the damn spiders, so the forest would be safer again.
A few hours after entering the forest, most of the spiders, including Aragog, were either dead or stunned and transported to a facility where they were already keeping acromantulas, Amelia headed back into the castle. After having a short discussion with a very disappointed but actually very understanding Dumbledore (at least he acted like he understood), she met with Minerva.
Not long after that, the transfiguration professor informed the others about it. It was hard to say who was more surprised, Remus or Harry. They couldn't believe what had happened. But like Hermione put it: "the timeline is obviously trying to stay intact. Yes, it's earlier than last time, but Hagrid still got arrested."
The day after Hagrid got arrested, another interesting thing happened. Harry, Hermione and Remus were in the Room of Requirement, looking for the diadem, when the young, black-haired wizard suddenly shrieked. He fell onto his knees and rubbed his forehead. The diadem was near.
While Mione went to look after Harry, Remus continued to search for the diadem in the immediate area and sent a patronus message to Minnie. Severus was busy brewing a potion for Albus, he couldn't postpone that.
A while later, when Harry was back on his feet, all four of them were vanishing items at a very high rate to uncover the diadem.
In the end it was Remus, who uncovered Ravenclaw's diadem. It was stashed in the drawer of an ancient looking cupboard, wrapped in a silk cloth. Actually, it wasn't very well hidden if you knew which cupboard to open. The package was laying on top of a stack of books in the top drawer, very accessible. Kind of underwhelming. Seemed like Riddle was quite the arrogant bastard.
The destruction of the soul fragment was as satisfying as always, it was simply nice to hear Tom Riddle scream out of pain. Now they had only the diary and the ring left, since Nagini wasn't a vessel yet. That meant that after year two, ending with the diary's destruction, they could recover the Gaunt ring rather quickly and destroy it, so they would only need to wait for Tom's resurrection to happen. With all the advanced knowledge Harry had, his chances of winning weren't that bad. Besides, he wasn't alone. He would never be alone again.
Roger Davies, the fourth year Ravenclaw and keeper for his house's quidditch team, suddenly started laughing. He had been successful. Sure, now Pince was glaring at him, but at least he now knew what the monster was. Roger had been researching for a few weeks now, but not that successfully. But after hearing what had happened to that Weasley boy - the idiot one with no table manners…correction, no manners at all - and Finnegan, it finally clicked. The fact that the acromantula was afraid and had said something about her children fleeing from the beast had narrowed the number of possibilities.
The book even said "spiders flee from it." Slytherin's monster was a god-damn basilisk.
After Roger had spotted that phrase, he started thinking about why no one had died, but got petrified instead. Now it all began to make sense. Filch and his cat must have seen the reflection in the puddle, the annoying little Gryffindor most likely had had his camera at hand as always. That young Hufflepuff, Justin, must have seen the basilisk through the ghost, and well, killing a ghost isn't possible. Add to that that Slytherin's symbol is a snake. It was pretty obvious. Why had no one found that out yet?
Or maybe they had and were already searching for the chamber and the basilisk, but not telling anyone so there wouldn't be even more panic.
Potter was a parselmouth, could he be…no, they had already eliminated that possibility. It was a rumour that Potter had fought you-know-who's spirit end of last year, but no one knew if that was true.
Maybe it was he who shall not be named as a spirit, he had been a parselmouth after all. A student or teacher could be possessed. Was that why no one had disclosed that it was a basilisk? They didn't know who it was and were investigating?
Roger, while hurrying out of the library, a copied page of the "basilisk" entry in his hand, was creating the wildest theories. Who could be the possessed person? And what could be responsible for the survival of you-know-who? He was a Ravenclaw after all, feeling the need to find out as much as possible.
But first, he needed to find Amelia Bones. She would be the right person to tell abo…
After running down a corridor and turning left, Roger found himself eye-to-eye with a basilisk.
Notes:
So... thing's are escalating, aren't they? Let's wait and see.
Until then, Merry Christmas to everyone and see you all next week. Looking forward to your comments
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