Harry Potter 02 & The Chamber Of Secrets (Illustrated) (31 page)

‘But then … Do you know what
did
kill that girl?’ said Harry. ‘Because whatever it is, it’s back and attacking people again -‘

His words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily; large black shapes shifted all around him.

‘The thing that lives in the castle,’ said Aragog, ‘is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school.’

‘What is it?’ said Harry urgently.

More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in.

‘We do not speak of it!’ said Aragog fiercely. ‘We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times.’

Harry didn’t want to press the subject, not with the spiders pressing closer on all sides. Aragog seemed to be tired of talking. He was backing slowly into his domed web, but his fellow spiders continued to inch slowly towards Harry and Ron.

‘We’ll just go, then,’ Harry called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind him.

‘Go?’ said Aragog slowly. ‘I think not …’

‘But - but -‘

‘My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat, when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Goodbye, friend of Hagrid.’

Harry spun around. Feet away, towering above him, was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads …

Even as he reached for his wand, Harry knew it was no good, there were too many of them, but as he tried to stand, ready to die fighting, a loud, long note sounded, and a blaze of light flamed through the hollow.

Mr Weasley’s car was thundering down the slope, headlamps glaring, its horn screeching, knocking spiders aside; several were thrown onto their backs, their endless legs waving in the air. The car screeched to a halt in front of Harry and Ron and the doors flew open.

‘Get Fang!’ Harry yelled, diving into the front seat; Ron seized the boarhound round the middle and threw him, yelping, into the back of the car. The doors slammed shut. Ron didn’t touch the accelerator but the car didn’t need him; the engine roared and they were off, hitting more spiders. They sped up the slope, out of the hollow, and they were soon crashing through the Forest, branches whipping the windows as the car wound its way cleverly through the widest gaps, following a path it obviously knew.

Harry looked sideways at Ron. His mouth was still open in the silent scream, but his eyes weren’t popping any more.

‘Are you OK?’

Ron stared straight ahead, unable to speak.

They smashed their way through the undergrowth, Fang howling loudly in the back seat, and Harry saw the wing mirror snap off as they squeezed past a large oak. After ten noisy, rocky minutes, the trees thinned, and Harry could again see patches of sky.

The car stopped so suddenly that they were nearly thrown into the windscreen. They had reached the edge of the Forest. Fang flung himself at the window in his anxiety to get out and when Harry opened the door, he shot off through the trees to Hagrid’s house, tail between his legs. Harry got out too, and after a minute or so, Ron seemed to regain the feeling in his limbs and followed, still stiff-necked and staring. Harry gave the car a grateful pat as it reversed back into the Forest and disappeared from view.

Harry went back into Hagrid’s cabin to get the Invisibility Cloak. Fang was trembling under a blanket in his basket. When Harry got outside again, he found Ron being violently sick in the pumpkin patch.

‘Follow the spiders,’ said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘I’ll never forgive Hagrid. We’re lucky to be alive.’

‘I bet he thought Aragog wouldn’t hurt friends of his,’ said Harry.

‘That’s exactly Hagrid’s problem!’ said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. ‘He always thinks monsters aren’t as bad as they’re made out, and look where it’s got him! A cell in Azkaban!’ He was shivering uncontrollably now. ‘What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I’d like to know?’

‘That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets,’ said Harry, throwing the cloak over Ron and prodding him in the arm to make him walk. ‘He was innocent.’

Ron gave a loud snort. Evidently, hatching Aragog out in a cupboard wasn’t his idea of being innocent.

As the castle loomed nearer Harry twitched the Cloak to make sure their feet were hidden, then pushed the creaking front doors ajar. They walked carefully back across the Entrance Hall and up the marble staircase, holding their breath as they passed corridors where watchful sentries were walking. At last they reached the safety of the Gryffindor common room, where the fire had burned itself into glowing ash. They took off the Cloak and climbed the winding staircase to their dormitory.

Ron fell onto his bed without bothering to get undressed. Harry, however, didn’t feel very sleepy. He sat on the edge of his four-poster, thinking hard about everything Aragog had said.

The creature that was lurking somewhere in the castle, he thought, sounded like a sort of monster Voldemort - even other monsters didn’t want to name it. But he and Ron were no closer to finding out what it was, or how it Petrified its victims. Even Hagrid had never known what was in the Chamber of Secrets.

Harry swung his legs up onto his bed and leaned back against his pillows, watching the moon glinting at him through the tower window.

He couldn’t see what else they could do. They had hit dead ends everywhere. Riddle had caught the wrong person, the heir of Slytherin had got off, and no one could tell whether it was the same person, or a different one, who had opened the Chamber this time. There was nobody else to ask. Harry lay down, still thinking about what Aragog said.

He was becoming drowsy when what seemed like their very last hope occurred to him and he suddenly sat bolt upright.

‘Ron,’ he hissed through the dark. ‘Ron!’

Ron woke with a yelp like Fang’s, stared wildly around and saw Harry.

‘Ron - that girl who died. Aragog said she was found in a bathroom,’ said Harry, ignoring Neville’s snuffling snores from the corner. ‘What if she never left the bathroom? What if she’s still there?’

Ron rubbed his eyes, frowning through the moonlight. And then he understood.

‘You
don’t
think - not
Moaning Myrtle
?’

‘All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away,’ said Ron bitterly at breakfast next day, ‘and we could’ve asked her, and now …’

It had been hard enough trying to look for spiders. Escaping their teachers long enough to sneak into a girls’ bathroom, the girls’ bathroom, moreover, right next to the scene of the first attack, was going to be almost impossible.

But something happened in their first lesson, Transfiguration, which drove the Chamber of Secrets out of their minds for the first time in weeks. Ten minutes into the class, Professor McGonagall told them that their exams would start on the first of June, one week from today.

‘Exams?’
howled Seamus Finnigan. ‘We’re still getting
exams
?’

There was a loud bang behind Harry as Neville Longbottom’s wand slipped, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. Professor McGonagall restored it with a wave of her own wand, and turned, frowning, to Seamus.

‘The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education,’ she said sternly. ‘The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all revising hard.’

Revising hard! It had never occurred to Harry that there would be exams with the castle in this state. There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made Professor McGonagall scowl even more darkly.

‘Professor Dumbledore’s instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible,’ she said. ‘And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year.’

Harry looked down at the pair of white rabbits he was supposed to be turning into slippers. What had he learned so far this year? He couldn’t seem to think of anything that would be useful in an exam.

Ron looked as though he’d just been told he had to go and live in the Forbidden Forest.

‘Can you imagine me taking exams with this?’ he asked Harry, holding up his wand, which had just started whistling loudly.

*

Three days before their first exam, Professor McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast.

‘I have good news,’ she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted.

‘Dumbledore’s coming back!’ several people yelled joyfully.

‘You’ve caught the heir of Slytherin!’ squealed a girl on the Ravenclaw table.

‘Quidditch matches are back on!’ roared Wood excitedly.

When the hubbub had subsided, Professor McGonagall said, ‘Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit.’

There was an explosion of cheering. Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and wasn’t at all surprised to see that Draco Malfoy hadn’t joined in. Ron, however, was looking happier than he’d looked in days.

‘It won’t matter that we never asked Myrtle, then!’ he said to Harry. ‘Hermione’ll probably have all the answers when they wake her up! Mind you, she’ll go mad when she finds out we’ve got exams in three days’ time. She hasn’t revised. It might be kinder to leave her where she is till they’re over.’

Just then, Ginny Weasley came over and sat down next to Ron. She looked tense and nervous, and Harry noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap.

‘What’s up?’ said Ron, helping himself to more porridge.

Ginny didn’t say anything, but glanced up and down the Gryffindor table with a scared look on her face that reminded Harry of someone, though he couldn’t think who.

‘Spit it out,’ said Ron, watching her.

Harry suddenly realised who Ginny looked like. She was rocking backwards and forwards slightly in her chair, exactly like Dobby did when he was teetering on the edge of revealing forbidden information.

‘I’ve got to tell you something,’ Ginny mumbled, carefully not looking at Harry.

‘What is it?’ said Harry.

Ginny looked as though she couldn’t find the right words.

‘What?’
said Ron.

Ginny opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Harry leaned forward and spoke quietly, so that only Ginny and Ron could hear him.

‘Is it something about the Chamber of Secrets? Have you seen something? Someone acting oddly?’

Ginny drew a deep breath and, at that precise moment, Percy Weasley appeared, looking tired and wan.

‘If you’ve finished eating, I’ll take that seat, Ginny. I’m starving, I’ve only just come off patrol duty.’

Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified, gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look, and scarpered away. Percy sat down and grabbed a mug from the centre of the table.

‘Percy!’ said Ron angrily. ‘She was just about to tell us something important!’

Halfway through a gulp of tea, Percy choked.

‘What sort of thing?’ he said, coughing.

‘I just asked her if she’d seen anything odd, and she started to say -‘

‘Oh - that - that’s nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets,’ said Percy at once.

‘How do you know?’ said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

‘Well, er, if you must know, Ginny, er, walked in on me the other day when I was - well, never mind - the point is, she spotted me doing something and I, um, I asked her not to mention it to anybody. I must say, I did think she’d keep her word. It’s nothing, really, I’d just rather -‘

Harry had never seen Percy look so uncomfortable.

‘What were you doing, Percy?’ said Ron, grinning. ‘Go on, tell us, we won’t laugh.’

Percy didn’t smile back.

‘Pass me those rolls, Harry, I’m starving.’

*

Harry knew the whole mystery might be solved tomorrow without their help, but he wasn’t about to pass up a chance to speak to Myrtle if it turned up - and to his delight it did, mid-morning, when they were being led to History of Magic by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Lockhart, who had so often assured them that all danger had passed, only to be proved wrong straight away, was now whole-heartedly convinced that it was hardly worth the trouble to see them safely down the corridors. His hair wasn’t as sleek as usual; it seemed he had been up most of the night, patrolling the fourth floor.

‘Mark my words,’ he said, ushering them around a corner, ‘the first words out of those poor Petrified people’s mouths will be,
“It was Hagrid.”
Frankly, I’m astounded Professor McGonagall thinks all these security measures are necessary.’

‘I agree, sir,’ said Harry, making Ron drop his books in surprise.

‘Thank you, Harry,’ said Lockhart graciously, while they waited for a long line of Hufflepuffs to pass. ‘I mean, we teachers have quite enough to be getting on with, without walking students to classes and standing guard all night …’