The Dark Lord's Daughter Book 2: Secrets

Follow the Butterflies

Notte leads the way into darkness. Until she realizes of course how dark it really is, and her brave facade shatters.
"Why couldn't it be follow the butterflies-" Ron almost squeaks white as a sheet,
"Blimey its dark out-" Notte grabbed Ron's arm and pulled out her wand.
"Lumos-" Her wandtip lights the ground in front of them.
"Ugh- spiders." Ron gulps and Notte pats his arm reassuringly, they follow Fang.
"You two alright?" Harry asked them after a few minutes of walking in silence.
"No- I think the trail stops here." Notte said pointing her wand at the ground looking for more spiders. Ron looks up and freezes. Notte follows his eyes slowly. Notte tugs on Harry but he ignores her.
"Harry, I don't like this... Harry, I don't like this at all!" Ron says to Harry. Harry shushes him and Ron whimpers. Harry continues to look for the trail of spiders.
"Harry- the trail is u-up." Notte stammers out and Harry looks up and pales. Harry cusses under his breath as he sees giant spiders weaving webs. Not just giant either. Some were as big as or bigger than Notte herself.
"Yipes-" Notte squeaks out.
"Who is it?" A voice calls out from the darkness and Notte looks down, frightened to think of who would stay in a place such as this.
"Don't panic." Harry told Ron and Ron looked at a humungous spider that was the size of a small house, creeping out from under a huge tree root.
"Hagrid? Is that you?" The spider asks the three and Fang.
"We're friends of Hagrid's. And you? Y- y-you're Aragog aren't you?" Harry puts two and two together braver than the other two were.
"Yes. Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before." Aragog answered and Notte swallowed hard.
"He's in trouble. Up at the school, there have been attacks. They think it's Hagrid. They think he opened the Chamber of Secrets, like before."
Harry was talking to Aragog and didn't notice the spiders creeping up to Notte. Notte pushed Ron towards Harry. The overgrown spider almost sniffed her. Notte cringed but the spider seemed to be friendly to her enough at least.
"That's a lie! Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets." Aragog said angrily snapping Nottes attention back to the conversation.
"Then you're not the monster." Notte said simply.
"No! The monster was born in the castle. I came to Hagrid from a distant land, in the pocket of a traveler." Aragog explained. A smaller but still big, about the size of Notte's hand crawled up her leg.
"Harry." Ron said watching in terror as the spiders sniffed his sister curiously. Notte did her best not to move- for fear of the spiders suddenly turning on her.
"Shush. But if you're not the monster, then- then what did kill that girl fifty years ago?" Harry shushed Ron again.
"Its fine Ron- calm down." Notte said to him without looking at him.
"We do not speak of it. It is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others." Aragog said with a hint of fear in his voice.
"But have you seen it?" Harry asked quickly.
"I never saw any part of the castle but the box in which Hagrid kept me. The girl was discovered in a bathroom. When I was accused, Hagrid brought me here." Aragog lifted a long leg to gesture around him.
"Harry!" Ron said loudly watching yet another spider sniffing Notte, two were at her feet and one was crawling up her leg.
"What?" Harry snapped and looked in horror at Nottes legs. Notte had on a look of terror and discomfort from staying so still.
"Ahh- hhh..." Ron started to say something or scream but didn't finish.
"Well, thank you. We'll just...go." Harry said moving to push the spider of off Notte.
"Go? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid on my command, they won't harm the halfing either. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Good-bye, friends of Hagrid." The two boys, looked at Notte. Notte carefully plucked the spider off of her. And pulled out her wand backing away.
"Can we panic now?" Ron asked, and the three started running, Fang far ahead of them.
"Know any spells?" Ron shouted at Notte and Harry.
"One, but it's not powerful enough for all of them." Harry shouted nearly falling tripping over a root.
"I've got this- Ron, stay on me."
"Where's Hermione when you need her?" Ron asked ignoring Notte. A spider grabbed Harry.
"Let's go! Arania exumai! Go!" Harry shouted to Ron.
Notte stopped in front of the spiders and pointed her wand at the trees.
"Oppugno!" The trees branches whipped at the spiders.
"Whoah!" Harry and Ron shouted together as they saw Mr. Weasley's car barrel from out of the forest. All three of them ran into the car the spiders numbers thinned by Nottes trees.  Ron grabbed Fang round the middle and threw him into the car.
"Glad we're out of there!" Ron was suddenly grabbed from behind by one of the spiders- "Arania exumai!" Harry quickly pushed the spider away with his charm before Notte could act.
"Thanks for that." Ron said rubbing his throat.
"Don't mention it." Harry said looking out the window to see more spiders coming to get the boys. "Get us out of here. Now! Come on! Come on! Move faster!" Harry said and Ron slammed his foot on the gas jerking them all forward.
"I should have driven!" Notte said shielding Fang from getting banged around in the backseat.
The boys screamed bloody murder and Notte looked up from Fang to see spiders coming from all directions. Notte screamed and hugged Fang closer.
"Go on! Go! Get us in the air!" Harry screamed at Ron.
"The flying gear's jammed!" Ron shouted back and Notte lunged into the front seat and slammed it up. The car soared over the spiders and onto the front lawn of the castle next to Hagrids Hut. The car threw out Harry and Ron, but waited patiently for Notte to get out with Fang. The three and Fang watched in disbelief watching the car trumble back into the forbidden forest.
"Its gone wild in there!" Notte said falling to the ground holding onto Fang for dear life.
"Follow the spiders! Follow the spiders! If Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'll kill him! I mean, what was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out?" Ron asked angrily as they went back to Hagrids hut to get the cloak and feed Fang.
"We know one thing. Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets. He was innocent." Harry replied.
"It means Riddle lied." Notte added stiffly.
"Lets go see if we can find anything out in the Library where Hermione was found-" Harry said quietly looking at Notte. Notte's makeup was smeared, her eyes were smokey from the mascara running. Notte wiped off her face, cleaning the smudges underneath- her lips were still a brilliant blood red.
"I want to go see her first- maybe she wrote us a note in her pocket, and they just didn't find it." Notte said and the boys agreed, both missing the wisest of the four.
They snuck into the hospital wing with no problem, Madam Pomfrey was no where to be seen thankfully. Notte pulled the curtain around Hermiones bed closed.
"I'll go through her pockets-" Notte said hurriedly and she she winced when she looked at Hermione looking up into nothing. Notte searched through her pockets finding nothing of use.
"Nothing." Notte went to stand next to Harry who was sitting next to Hermiones bedside.
He went to hold her cleanched fist.
"Wait- Harry!" Notte exclaimed quietly and Harry yanked his hand back. Notte basically shoved him aside and the two boys gave her very strange looks as she pried something out of her closed fist.
"Its a page from a book-" Notte smoothed it out and Ron hurried over to her to read over her shoulder.
"'Of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the basilisk. Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death awaits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it.' Ron, this is it. The monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk. That's why we can hear it speak. It's a snake!"
Notte and Harry looked At eachother excitedly- finally finding useful information.
"But if it kills by looking people in the eye, why is it no one's dead?" Ron asked and Notte looked at Harry.
"Because no one did look it in the eye. Not directly, at least. Colin saw it through his camera. Justin...Justin must have seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick. Nick got the full blast of it- but he's a ghost- he couldn't die again." Harry said too loudly.
"And Hermione...had the mirror. She was using it to look around corners, in case it came along!" Notte finished for Harry quietly.
"And Mrs. Norris? I'm pretty sure she didn't have a camera or a mirror, Harry." Ron walked around to the other side of Hermione to pick up the little silver mirror.
"The water. There was water on the floor that night. She only saw the basilisk's reflection. 'Spiders flee before it.' It all fits!" Harry gestured at the paper excitedly.
"But how's a basilisk been getting around? A dirty great snake- someone would have seen it." Ron asked. And Notte smirked pointing to the single word Hermione had scribbled out.
"Hermione's answered that, too." Harry said impressed looking at Hermione now. Ron crossed back over to look.
"Pipes? It's using the plumbing!"
"Remember what Aragog said, about that girl fifty years ago? She died in a bathroom? What if she never left?" Harry asked Notte who grinned as Ron answered.
"Moaning Myrtle!"