Two massive Acromantulas, their bodies encased in hard, glossy exoskeletons, loomed as large as elephants. Their dense, tough bristles glinted faintly, and their eight powerful legs splayed out from their sides, clacking against each other. Their heads bore eight eyes arranged in two rows, gleaming with a menacing light in the shadowy Forbidden Forest.
Ron stared ahead, his face ashen, teeth chattering with fear written all over him.
Hermione, seeing Acromantulas outside the pages of a book for the first time, was equally terrified. She muttered under her breath, "Acromantulas, native to the rainforests of Southeast Asia, particularly Borneo. Believed to be a wizard-bred species. Savage temperament, fond of human flesh, weak point is the underbelly beneath their armored hide…"
The massive beasts crept closer. Harry gripped his wand tightly, his expression tense.
They knew Acromantulas were classified as XXXXX—dangerous creatures on par with dragons in terms of yearly casualties. They'd ventured into the Forbidden Forest thinking Aragog, Hagrid's friend, and the proximity to Hogwarts would keep these intelligent creatures in check, like the centaurs or unicorns, bound by some unspoken rule not to harm them.
But faced with the Acromantulas' raw, predatory aura, their eight piercing eyes locked onto them, hearts raced, and a faint metallic tang of blood lingered in the air—a scent built from years of hunting and slaughter. It turned the young wizards' stomachs.
Melvin, unhurried, observed the Acromantulas with keen interest.
Their black pincers twitched, jaws strong enough to rival a crocodile's bite. Droplets of saliva carried a faint, acrid stench—likely their venom, worth 100 Galleons a pint on the market.
The Acromantulas' swollen abdomens were covered in fine bristles, with dark gray patterns that, upon closer inspection, resembled human faces, adding an eerie, sinister edge.
As the spiders drew nearer, Harry yanked Ron's arm, but Ron was frozen, body stiff, mind blank.
Harry glanced back at the professor and shouted at the spiders, "We're Hagrid's friends! We're here to see Aragog!"
The two Acromantulas paused, eyeing each other. Though their faces showed no expression, Harry felt they understood.
Noticing their gaze on his and Hermione's wands, he pocketed his, saying calmly, "We really are Hagrid's friends. We mean no harm."
The words barely left his mouth when the spiders lunged. Despite their massive size, they were anything but clumsy. Their eight legs moved with startling speed, navigating the uneven terrain effortlessly.
In a blink, Harry felt his feet leave the ground. Two hard, bristly legs clamped around his waist, hoisting him up.
The Acromantula knew how to subdue prey, jostling him until he dangled upside down, blood rushing to his head, leaving him dizzy.
"We're Hagrid's frie—" Harry shouted, twisting, but the increasing pressure on his chest cut him off, forcing him to stop struggling.
He pinned his hopes on the professor, craning his neck to look. Then he froze.
Ron was caught in another spider's grip beside him, eyes bulging, lips clamped shut, teeth no longer chattering but unable to speak.
In the legs of the second Acromantula were Hermione and Professor Lewent. Hermione looked petrified, but the professor was unfazed, leisurely inspecting the spider's head with a calm, almost relaxed expression.
Catching Harry's gaze, Lewent tilted his head slightly, offering a perfectly timed encouraging look.
What did the professor think this was? A pop quiz!?
Harry thrashed in frustration, then paled as the grip tightened, forcing him to settle down as the spiders carried them deeper into the forest.
Melvin, meanwhile, found the perspective rather novel.
The Acromantulas' long, powerful legs drove their sharp, hooked tips deep into the soil with each step, moving with explosive force. Bushes or rocky paths posed no challenge; they advanced at a steady pace with impressive shock absorption.
When they hit impassable bogs, they leapt onto branches, clattering forward with ease.
Their massive bodies and wide frames resembled small carriages, covered in thick bristles. Add a seat, and it'd be downright comfortable.
As Melvin's mind wandered, Hermione's voice broke through. "Professor, why…?"
"Didn't you want to find the Acromantulas?"
"You mean this is faster and keeps us from getting lost?"
Hermione exhaled, her tone lightening.
She knew it—there was no way the professor would let them be captured by spiders or face such dangerous creatures without a plan.
Melvin smiled, saying nothing, and casually snapped a branch from a passing tree, tucking it into his sleeve.
Roots and stumps littered the dense forest, but with the spiders' help, low branches and thorny vines didn't snag their clothes.
After an unknown stretch of time, the ground sloped downward, the trees thinning as if deliberately cleared. Scattered leaves crawled with tiny spiders.
The Acromantulas brought them to a wide, flat hollow. Melvin noticed Hermione's breathing quicken and glanced over.
Moonlight spilled unobstructed into the hollow, illuminating a Quidditch-pitch-sized slope crawling with hundreds of Acromantulas. Seeing their kin return with prey, the spiders surged forward, clicking their pincers excitedly.
Descending the steep slope to the nest's heart, they reached a misty, hemispherical web—a shimmering silver curtain draped over the hollow's base, its thick, sticky strands glinting coldly in the moonlight.
Thud…
The spiders released their legs, dropping the group heavily to the ground. One spider scuttled forward, shouting, "Aragog! Aragog!"
Its voice resembled a middle-aged wizard's, odd and muffled, with an accent eerily like Hagrid's.
Hearing human speech from a spider's mouth sent a strange chill through Hermione. The mist in the hollow carried a cold edge, raising goosebumps on her arms.
She couldn't pinpoint why she felt so uneasy.
Melvin leaned in, whispering, "If a lost traveler or wizard heard that call in a desolate forest and followed it…"
Hermione shivered.
From the misty web's depths, an ancient Acromantula emerged, larger than the others but moving sluggishly. Its black bristles were flecked with gray, and its eight eyes were clouded with white cataracts, clearly blind.
"What's this?" Aragog's voice was hoarse and aged.
"Humans. We caught four."
"Is Hagrid among them?"
"No, strangers."
"Kill them. Don't disturb my sleep."
"Wait! Wait!" Harry, hearing Hagrid's name, relaxed slightly but quickly shouted, "We're Hagrid's friends!"
Aragog turned its head slowly. "Hagrid never sent people to our hollow."
"We came on our own. We're investigating what happened years ago. Do you know any clues?"
"That was ages ago, long, long ago…"
Disturbed from sleep, Aragog was unusually patient, recounting events from fifty years prior.
A traveler had given Hagrid a spider egg. A student then, Hagrid hid it in a castle cupboard, feeding the hatchling with table scraps until Myrtle's death. Others found Aragog and blamed it for her death.
Hagrid and Dumbledore protected it, sparing it from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures' executioners. It had lived in the Forbidden Forest ever since.
"Hagrid found me a mate, Mosag, but she's gone now," Aragog said, its voice thick with gratitude. "Look how our family has thrived, all thanks to Hagrid. Out of respect for him, I've never harmed a human."
Answering Harry's question, it didn't hide the truth. "The creature that killed that girl, the one living in the castle, is an ancient beast we spiders fear most. I still remember sensing its aura and begging Hagrid to let me go."
"What was it?"
"I can't say. I didn't even tell Hagrid. It's pointless to tell you."
"Why?"
Aragog sighed but didn't answer, turning its blind eyes toward the adult wizard. "And you are?"
"Hogwarts professor," Melvin said, twirling his wand with a nod. "Caught these students sneaking into the forest at night. Couldn't stop them, so I tagged along. I'll deal with their detention later."
"No need for that…"
Aragog's slow words were paired with a wave of its foreleg.
At its signal, a dozen spiders reared up, aiming their spinnerets at Melvin. A silver thread shot out, wrapping his wand, followed by more strands weaving tightly around him. In seconds, he was encased in a thick cocoon.
Hermione stared, her sense of safety crumbling, panic rising.
Her instincts screamed that the professor couldn't be subdued so easily, but the menacing glares around them reminded her they were in the heart of a XXXXX creature's nest.
Crack!
A spider bit down, snapping the "wand" taken from Melvin.
Harry glared. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Aragog drawled, "Fresh meat delivered to our door. I can't stop my children from feasting. Farewell, Hagrid's friends…"
"Damn it!"
Harry's shout was drowned by the clattering of countless Acromantulas advancing, their massive shadows closing in. Aragog retreated into its web's depths.
Ron snapped out of his daze, looking up to see the hollow's steep slopes teeming with Acromantulas, their exoskeletons clacking, eyes glinting with malice.
It was like a wall of spiders pressing forward.
Hermione steadied her racing thoughts, took a deep breath, and gripped her trembling wand. "Break their blockade! Save the professor!"
In the hollow, dazzling spell-light erupted.
Repello Inimicum!
Incendio!
Ventus!
---
Deep within the hemispherical web, Aragog's eight legs groped along familiar threads, returning to its nest.
Settling on soft sheepskin, it grew drowsy. If Hagrid blamed it later, it didn't care much.
The little humanity it had learned from Hagrid was reserved for him. Decades in the Forbidden Forest had cemented Aragog's belief in the law of the jungle—survival of the fittest, the root of its thriving clan.
The sounds of battle filtered through layers of webbing and twisting tunnels, faint in Aragog's ears. But through the web's vibrations, it sensed the young wizards were tougher than expected—harder to crack than a wolf pack.
Some of its kin might die in the fight.
The flesh from four wizards would barely feed one or two spiders. The rest would feast on their kin's corpses.
But that didn't matter.
Sleep beckoned, and the ancient Acromantula closed its eyes, murmuring in a half-dream, "That's how beasts are. Everything for survival, everything for the clan."
"Well said. In the forest, it's the law of the jungle—eat or be eaten. Even a fox knows that. They came to your nest, so they're fair game. I'd do the same."
Aragog jolted upright, blind but sensing a young wizard's presence through the web's vibrations and his voice—a figure leaning against the nest's inner wall, curiously looking around, holding a slender stick.
It had heard that voice moments ago, so familiar. But that professor was sealed in a cocoon, his wand snapped, paralyzed by the web's venom. How was he here!?
"You… just now…"
"This?" Melvin raised his wand, waving it before Aragog's blind eyes. "You spiders have eight eyes, but none see well. You snapped a branch I picked up on the way."
Before it could question further, Melvin's wand, fragrant with wood, flicked, unleashing a verdant glow.
Morsmordre!