Chapter 49. Following Spiders

A couple hours passed by, between the Quidditch match today, the ensuing accusations of cheating, and looking over the school for any more secret rooms, hissing for me to come closer, I felt every moment of my day was busy. Abarrane helped comfort me as best as she could while I went to visit her for dinner tonight. She just held me above the calm blackened waves, and watched the stars together, the waxing moon almost looked full with how close the next full moon was only a few days away. Abarrane's massive yellow eyes glowed from under the surface while Val splashed around in the waves together with her, and she happily tossed him around the water, much to his amusement.

After almost an hour had passed of me relaxing, I was beginning to doze. I took my wand, and gently pressed it against the tendril gently wrapped around my arm. “Thank you for this, it was nice, but I think it’s about time for me to sleep.” Val, already inside my sleeve was coiled and resting, having been tuckered out from Abarrane’s playing. She squeezed my body, sucking and releasing me from her grasp. “***on’t *orry *’m s*re *ou n**d*d so*e rest.” Her voice was still warbled and unclear, but her gentle message was.

She placed me on the edge of the water, and we both said our goodbyes before I left towards the castle. Walking up the stone steps inside, the flickering light of the torch guiding my path, I paused from movement in the corner of my eye. I glanced upwards at the torch, and jumped at the strange sight that caught my eyes. Spiders, walking in a single file line, marching from the open slit in the architecture above the torch near the doorway.

They moved quickly, yet neatly. With some sort of communal goal in mind. I followed their trail before I lost sight of them in the darkened grass at the base of the steps. “Lumos.” I flicked my wand, a bright light being emitted. The spiders in the grass immediately scattered under the bright gaze, so I instantly held the wand higher, and dimmed the power I was using to lower the light. The spiders calmed down a little, but I knew they were still worried. I decided to skip them, and follow up the line to those that weren’t so frightened.

I jogged further into the field, and after some searching found the trail of spiders again. I then looked back to see it was nearly a straight line from where I had seen them before, and then turned my head to guess where they were headed. My stomach dropped at the sight of the place of so much pain, gripping at the vial weighted around my neck, remembering her last moments. The tree’s looked black as pitch, absorbing all the light that the moon dared to emit from the sky. It was certainly interesting, and I was curious over what the spiders were doing, but did I really want to head back in there?

I stood frozen near the edge of the forest, my mind going back and forth over if I should really do this. 'Salazar may have placed his secret chamber outside the grounds... It would make the most sense to hide something away from where you lied about...' The last thought that came to my mind, held water, forcing me to walk into the abyss. I finally took a large breath, and took the first step inside the Forbidden Forest. Knowing myself, it would drive me mad wondering if this had something to do with Salazar's Chamber. ‘If I find something strange I’ll just run right back out.’ I thought to myself, keeping the light dim, and low to the ground, in order to avoid beings seeing me easily from a distance.

The twigs and leaves crunched under my feet, being fall, near winter everything from the tree’s had reached the ground and exploded with sound with each of my footfalls. I kept an eye on the spiders, easily walking over the rough terrain, and staying above the fallen leaves I had trouble avoiding. The woods grew darker, the ambient sound dimmed, leaving me alone in darkness and everlasting silence. I finally stopped, my ears almost ringing from the lack of sound entering them.

I gulped, seeing a few leaves hanging in thin air. I used my wand and poked the leaf to see it dangle and spin while hanging. The invisible sheen of silk reflecting into my eyes as I stared at the suspended leaf. I then looked deeper, seeing more leaves being frozen in mid air, and the blackened trees turning more and more pale further in. My instincts screamed, yelling at me to turn back, my assumption was good enough for me, I didn’t need to see any further.

I turned around and quickly began walking the direction I came, using the spiders to make sure I was keeping a straight line. However it wasn’t long before I heard rustling leaves and chittering. I instantly froze and pointed my wand in the direction of the noise, but it was further away than my light could reach. I let out a breath to keep calm, and took out a vial of Vitamix, seeing as this would be the best time to use it.

I quickly downed its contents and immediately felt the effects coursing through my veins. My face became flush, the light from my wand seemed to get brighter, as the world surrounding me came into clearer view. “Nox…” I muttered, turning off the bright light, now blinding me. The sound of the chittering and rustling leaves grew louder under my better hearing, and I felt more confident to investigate from a distance.

I quietly jumped from the exposed tree roots, using them as stepping stones to avoid making noise as I approached the noise. Turning the corner of a larger tree, it was there I witnessed the largest spiders I had ever seen, easily 4 feet across, they were man-eating spiders. ‘Acromantula… I knew it…’ I thought, biting my lip, seeing how things were progressing. Two of them were facing one, and they all had their two front legs off the ground, hissing and chittering at each other.

It appeared that two were attacking one, clearly intending to eat it since these creatures were cannibalistic. Not something particularly evil, it just made sense that they would have to be considering how large colonies could be, not that I would want to find out. However the one being attacked was acting strange, it had its back facing me, so I couldn’t see them perfectly, however their movements looked sluggish. Their attempts to keep their face towards each of its attackers lagged behind ever so slightly where the attacker truly was.

Strange as it was, I continued to watch, wondering what was perhaps wrong with that one, that the other two felt it was weakened enough to eat. They continued to circle the weakened Acromantula while the weakened one tried its best to keep them both to their front. “Weak.” “Eat weak.” They both muttered, their voices dripping with both figurative and literal venom. “Not weak!” The other one yelled back, their voice a much higher pitch, but still filled with vitriol.

They continued circling until the singular one turned around for me to see their head. Their eyes were completely white, rather than the ever encompassing black that the other two had. ‘If I remember correctly, white eyes mean they are blind in that eye… That one is completely blind!?’ I gasped at the tenacity this spider had, my hand gripping my thumping chest. I licked my dry lips seeing how they both went on either side of the blind spider, and the one in the back finally pounced. “AAAHHH!!” The blind one screamed, trying to shake off the one about to bite into her abdomen, flashes of the unicorn's screaming came immediately to my mind. I bit my lip, grasping at my wand tighter.

“Flipendo!” I yelled knocking the one about to bite away from the blind one. “Human!?” The other yelled, the blind one remaining silent in confusion, unable to see what I was or how I looked like. “Flipendo!” I yelled, sending the other one back, hitting a tree to injure and break off a couple of its legs. I knew that they could grow back when it would molt the next time, so it wasn’t anything permanent. It screed, while the first one immediately began eating the second one I just dealt with. “Truly carnivorous creatures…” I mumbled, a little repulsed at the sight, even though I knew it was just instinctual.

I then looked back at the blind one, absentmindedly staring at my feet with her blind eyes, not needing to really ‘look’ at me. I sighed, staring at them, knowing that their days would be numbered here, not even knowing what I was trying to accomplish from keeping this one alive for another day. Perhaps as a remembrance for the unicorn I was too late for. “You’ll die if you stay at the colony.” I said, knowing that these creatures always had a colony of some sort, but I didn’t know the size. “Die… Because blind.” They answered back, their higher tone from the other that dragged the corpse of his brother away led me to believe this was a female.

She slowly moved closer to me, I silently pointed the wand at her, unsure what she was doing. She then used her front legs to tap on my shoe. “Will you kill… Because blind?” I shook my head while I answered, only realizing later that she couldn’t see. “No, I won’t kill you.” I took out my bottle of food, and unscrewed the cap. I took out a large piece of fish that I had saved for Abarrane later, and rested it on the foot she was feeling. She tapped it a few times, before the smell caught her attention. She instantly gobbled it down, eating it in nothing less than a single bite. “Do you know why the spiders are leaving Hogwarts?” I asked, placing another on my shoe so it didn’t touch the ground directly.

The spider froze under the question, before shivering a bit. “We… We don’t speak name… Monster at Hogwarts. Scary! Too scary!” I gave her another piece of food to help calm her down with a frown, unsure of what the monster they were talking about was. However, it just proved to me that Salazar's monster was truly at Hogwarts, ruining my theory of the Chamber being in the forbidden forest. The voice in the back of mind growing louder, telling me that I couldn’t know it wasn’t me controlling the monster. I shook away the intrusive idea, instead filling my mind with the poor blind child standing before me. “Would you like to come with me?” I asked, closing the cap on my container.