The Will of Gil (Gilderoy Lockhart SI)

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Chapter 95- Salvation Incoming!

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The darkness seemed to be pressing on their eyeballs as they stood, terrified, waiting. There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence. "What do you think it's doing?" said Harry, grasping his wand tightly. "Probably readying its knife and fork and making sure its bib is in place before it eats us," replied Ron before they turned silent in fear. They waited, shivering, hardly daring to move.

"D'you think it's gone?" Harry whispered to Ron, to which the redhead looked back in horror. After all, they had just invoked Murphy's Law "Fuuu—" And then something was jumping at them, something black and dark, like shadow given form. Harry just about managed to jump and tackle Ron to the floor, the black mass narrowly going over their heads, something long, thin and furry washing over Harry's back. Whatever it was, Harry did not like it, not one bit.

A spider. Not a tiny spider like those surging over the leaves below that they were following. A spider the size of a carthorse, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, and most importantly, gigantic. The massive specimen that was waiting now, holding back and clicking its pincers menacingly at the sight of its prey. Clearly, it now thought the two were more dangerous than they looked, using caution instead of going straight on the attack again.

"...W-What do we do?" Ron trembles, the both of them having gotten back to their feet but not taking their eyes off of the human-sized spider that was winding up its mandibles. "We have wands, don't we?" Harry asks rhetorically, showing more bravado than he felt, but knowing that one of them had to be confident for the other, and Ron is afraid of spiders. Even though Harry said that he had yet to use his wand. To be honest, Harry hadn't really used his wand to hurt anyone before except for some light hexes and jinxes, and Harry knew if he fought, he would have to kill this spider.

Then, to their right, came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that both Harry and Ron flung up their hands to shield their eyes from the intense shine. Harry quickly realised he had taken his eyes off the nearby predator and looked back whilst still covering his eyes with his arm, except all he saw was the light coming closer. "Harry!" Ron shouted, his voice breaking with relief and surprise. "Harry, it's our car!" And Harry just about managed to make out a flash of blue before it struck the giant spider.

"What?" Was all Harry could muster as the light faded, as it was now pointed away from him, and he could see the absurd sight before him. The blue Ford Anglia that had once delivered both him and his best friend to Hogwarts and crashed them into the Whomping Willow was now parked before them. And under its tyres and undercarriage were the remains of a formerly threatening giant spider, now dead or close to dead, its pincers twitching from underneath the wheels, crumpled and barely still attached. They had been saved by the very thing that had nearly killed them earlier this year.

"Come on!" Ron says, rushing towards it, happy to be able to return it to his father. Harry blundered after Ron towards the car, stumbling and tripping, still unable to believe how close they were to danger and how quickly it was dealt with. Mr. Weasley's car was standing right on top of the spider corpse like it wasn't even there and under a roof of dense branches, its headlights ablaze. Ron walked, open-mouthed, toward it, slowly advancing forward, looking exactly like a large dog with its tongue out and looking at a bone.

"It's been here all the time!" said Ron delightedly, walking around the car. "Look at it. The forest's turned it wild…" The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently, it had taken to trundling around the forest on its own. Harry's breathing slowed down again now that he was no longer in danger, and with the headlights out, there was no longer a need for a Lumos, so Harry stuffed his wand back into his robes.

"That spider was going to attack us! And the car saved us!" said Ron, leaning against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!" Being reminded of the spiders, Harry squinted around on the floodlit ground for signs of more of the tiny variety, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights. "Forget about the car. We've lost the trail," he said. "C'mon, let's go and find them." Harry turned around to see if Ron was going to follow, but Ron was stock-still.

Ron didn't speak. He didn't move. His eyes were fixed on a point some ten feet above the forest floor, right behind Harry. His face was livid with terror. Harry only had enough time to look up. There was a loud clicking noise, and suddenly, he saw something long and hairy jump at him, long legs going directly for his head. He was unable to move or do anything, and his wand was tucked away and out of reach. But then, there was a sudden beam of light, and Harry was filled with deja vu as he saw tyres and the underneath of a car flash across his eyes.

The car, that was capable of flight, had proved once more than it was invaluable as it flew over Harry's head and tackled the massive spider out of the air. The car quickly lowered and landed just behind Harry, its high beams shining forth to illuminate the predator that had been safe in the dark before. Harry turned around to see the spider just laying there, looking just as dead as its brthren behind Harry. Harry had had another close call, but thankfully, he survived it. Suddenly, the car revved its engine, and the spider on the ground moved. Having been playing dead, it began to scuttle away, leaving a trail of blood behind it as it ran away.

Harry turned around to see if Ron was okay, but the boy was still frozen in position, looking terrified. And then Harry heard more clicking and saw Ron's legs leave the ground, a thick web having latched onto him from above; the next moment, he was being swept away into the dark trees. Harry fumbled for his wand, but by the time he pulled it out, there was no trace of Ron to be found, the spider having absconded with his prey. Before Harry could even panic, the Ford Anglia suddenly roared and sped off after Ron and the spider, leaving no thought for Harry and leaving the boy in pitch black, the light having left with the car.

Harry felt himself drowning in panic, the suddenness of everything overwhelming him and leaving him unable to breathe. There are man-sized spiders everywhere. Ron has been taken by said spiders. The car ran away after them. Harry is all alone by himself in the forest... in the pitch black of night in which numerous things lurk... with nothing but his wand. His wand. Feel the magical instrument in his hand; Harry can feel himself physically calming as his wand sends soothing waves over him, calming him down. Whether or not he was imagining it or not didn't matter because by remembering he had a wand, he remembered he had magic at his fingertips, and with that, anything was possible.

No longer panicked, Harry raised his wand and cast another Lumos, the light serving to help calm him further. Harry made sure that the light was not too bright, not wanting to draw the attention of any nearby creepy crawlies. He then set about his next problem, which was Ron's disappearance. Ron was taken by a spider, and spiders were something that Harry was familiar with. Who cares if these spiders were one hundred times bigger? They were still the same type of creature. The same arachnid that Harry had watched in the ceiling of his cupboard whilst bored out of his mind with nothing to do.

Harry used to watch them in the dim light of his cupboard, crawling around, making their webs, their homes and staying there. The spiders only ventured out to sometimes get prey, which they would wrap up in webs and take back to their web, their nest, where they would keep it to devour at their leisure. These giant spiders were no different. Ron was a snack, and these things wanted to savour him, so they were definitely taking him back to their nest, which meant he was safe for now. But the question was, how was Harry going to find his friend?

Remembering something, Harry waved his light over to the area where the injured spider that ran off had played dead before, spotting sickly-looking brownish blood on the ground. Blood that trailed off into the distance, no doubt leading to the nest. A wounded animal would always retreat and head for safety, for home. Harry was sure that was right, and so if he followed this trail, he would find the nest and find Ron, and hopefully also find the thing that would prove Hagrid's innocence. However, there was one other problem.

When Harry used to watch the spiders on his ceiling in boredom, he had witnessed many flies and insects wandering into the spider's home and getting trapped in the web only to get eaten. Harry would be risking that himself now, but he couldn't very well leave his friend to get eaten, could he? No, he couldn't. And so, with more bravery than Harry had ever felt, he set off into the woods once more, following the blood trail towards his best friend. Don't worry, Ron, salvation is coming... and its name is Harry Potter.

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"Where are you little fucks? I'm your fucking salvation, so could you make it easier for me to find you!" I muttered to myself, trekking through the woods of the forbidden forest, trying to follow the trail left behind by the boys. Unfortunately, the Marauders Map did not cover the Forbidden Forest, which means I have to find them myself. Suddenly, there was a whoosh of air in front of me as something darted past.

"Is that a fucking car?"

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Head focused on the ground, Harry continued to follow the trail and finally came upon a crumpled corpse with six immensely long, hairy legs, the front two clutching the ground tightly between a pair of shining black pincers, dying whilst trying to return home with all its might. And it very nearly made it, too, dying just before the cave entrance. They were now in the very heart of the forest. Harry seemed to have left his common sense behind at Hogwarts because he walked straight into the cave with who knows how many giant man-eating spiders. He didn't hesitate for a single moment.

He didn't know how long he was walking in that cave with only his dim Lumos for light; he only knew that the darkness suddenly lifted enough for him to see that the leaf-strewn ground was now swarming with spiders. Hundreds of tiny little things scurry back and forth across the ground. Craning his neck sideways, he realised he had reached a vast hollow's ridge. The cave had just been a passage out into the actual nest to a hollow that had been cleared of trees so that the stars shone brightly onto the worst scene he had ever laid eyes on.

Hundreds of spiders. No, not the tiny spiders that were surging over the leaves below, which now seemed to number in the thousands to Harry. They were spiders of the bigger variety, like the one that had attacked Harry earlier and the one that had absconded with Ron. They were everywhere, surrounding Harry and only now revealing themselves and stepping out of the shadows now that Harry had wandered too far into their lair. One massive specimen of a spider made it its job to push Harry forward, corralling Harry to make his way down the steep slope toward a misty, domed web in the very centre of the hollow while its fellows closed in all around him, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its fresh meat.

Once there, Harry felt a strong limb push him in the back, and he fell to the ground on all fours as the spiders fully surrounded him, leaving only a meter or two of free space. Working his way back to his feet, Harry quickly took stock of his surroundings, feeling relief when spotting Ron on the floor beside him, trussed up in a web with his mouth completely wrapped, only able to breathe through his mouth. Even with the webs on it, Ron's mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream, and his eyes were popping.

Harry suddenly realised that the spiders around him were conversing about something, made even stranger by the fact that Harry wore he could hear them talking in plain English. Of course, it was hard to actually tell because the spiders clicked their pincers with every word they spoke. Eventually, most of them quietened down, and it was the one that was pushing Harry that was speaking. "Aragog!" it called. "Aragog!" Harry waited patiently and silently. They had not yet tried to eat him, and so Harry was biding his time to figure out how to get Ron and get out of there. Also, they seemed capable of talking, so Harry wanted to talk, not forgetting the missing Hagrid had given them.

Then Harry's resolve was shaken and tested as from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged very slowly. There was grey in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind. His blindness only made the situation stranger as it stopped in front of Harry, only a short distance away, and those big milky eyes were nearly pressing up against his skin. "What is it?" The most enormous spider said, his voice booming, clicking his pincers rapidly.

"Men," clicked the spider who was behind Harry. "Is it Hagrid?" said Aragog, tensing up, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely as if trying to find the intruders in spite of his blindness. However, Harry was just relieved; hearing Hagrid's name confirmed they were not in the wrong place, and the situation was not lost. "Strangers," clicked the spider, another spider that was very close to Ron, almost touching the boy with its pincer, looking very eager to make contact.

"Kill them," clicked Aragog fretfully. "I was sleeping…" Aragog began his motion to turn around and go back to his slumber, but Harry knew that he had to do something or else he and Ron were finished. "We're friends of Hagrid's," Harry shouted. His heart seemed to have left his chest to pound in his throat. Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow. But then it all went silent as Aragog paused.

"Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before," Aragog said slowly, doubting the veracity of Harry's words. "Hagrid's in trouble," Harry spat out quickly, breathing very fast. "That's why we've come. To save him. He said you would prove his innocence." Harry's words, instead of helping, only seemed to confuse the great spider and agitate the rest, all of them only getting aggravated by the fact Hagrid was in trouble.

"In trouble?" said the aged spider, and Harry thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?" Harry heard everything go quiet, and all of the millions of eyes looked at him. Feeling his heart close up, he fingered his wand, the wood providing him with some comfort. "They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been going around p—p—petrifying students. They've taken him to Azkaban." Harry managed to get out, not actually knowing what Hagrid was officially charged with.

Aragog clicked his pincers furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn't usually make Harry feel sick with fear. If anything, the clicking was more like roars and boos, full of anger and rage. They all quietened down once Aragog raised a pincer, looking sombre and sad, which was quite hard to do with his spider face.

"But that was years ago," said Aragog fretfully. "Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free." Aragog explained, and Harry was finally getting some clarity on why Hagrid had just been arrested. Things were becoming clearer for him, so he kept up his questioning.

"And you… you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" said Harry, who could feel cold sweat on his forehead. He felt fear every time he spoke to the giant spider in front of him, but he also needed to know the truth, and so he was willing to risk it. "I!" said Aragog, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveller gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend and a good man. When I was discovered and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness…" Yes, Harry could see that, and he also couldn't help but think Hagrid had made a mistake as well.

Harry summoned what remained of his courage to ask something else. "So you never—never attacked anyone?" Aragog looked affronted if that was even possible. "Never," croaked the old spider. "It would have been my instinct, but I never harmed a human out of respect for Hagrid. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet…" Aragog trailed off.

"But then… Do you know who or what did kill that girl?" said Harry, desperate for an answer. "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, some looking dangerously close to just going for 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." Aragog looked around, realising something, but Harry didn't take any notice.

"What is it?" said Harry urgently. More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in. But Harry ignored it, more focused on the conversation at hand. "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 decided not to press the subject, not after realising that the spiders were 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 toward Harry and the immobile Ron.

"We'll just go, then," Harry called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind him. Still, he reached down and started ripping the webs from Ron's body, which made all the spiders bristle. "Go?" said Aragog slowly. "I think not…" Argog spoke ominously, not even turning around as he continued to head back to his slumber

"But—but—" Harry began, seemingly trying to figure out how to get out of this, thinking about his connection to Hagrid. "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. Farewell, 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. A figure was there in the distance, making itself known.

"Die, you long-legged monstrosities!!" A loud voice bellowed.

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Nearly 4k this time, which is rare for me. I just wanted to get all the talking out of the way since it isn't anything really important, but it still needs to be said. Next time, there will be action.

Watch Kraven The Hunter; it was a good movie if you didn't know who Kraven The Hunter was. Honestly, he was not about the hunt at all; if anything, he was anti-hunt. He was also hunting people when Kraven should be all about hunting worthy prey. Also, the thing that irked me the most was the American accent; he should have a Russian accent, but whatever. Good movie about a man hunter, not Kraven The Hunter. The dad was more like Kraven the hunter than Kraven.

Upcoming Chapters:

Hero: Chapter 96- Still the MC!

Super: Chapter 98- This Bitch!?

Legendary: Chapter 100- Chamber of Fear...

Galactic: Chapter 104- Back in Business!

Mythic: Chapter 105- Wizards Renovating Houses!

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That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I will see you in the next one!

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