Early Morning.

Wednesday, Sept. 11

Hermione’s response to Harry’s question was a single line:

I don’t know, Harry.

Then she remembered something else:

What are we going to do about the basilisk? She wrote.

...

Harry— Great. I forgot about that one too. We need to talk face to face. Meet in the common room.

It took Hermione about half a minute to make it downstairs, and she got there almost at the same time Harry and Hedwig did.

“What are we going to do, Harry?” She asked, trying to keep her worry out of her voice.

“I don’t know, Hermione,” Harry said, echoing her reply from earlier.

How had they forgotten these two very important things? Hermione wondered, then paused. Had they forgotten them? Or had it simply been easier to not think about them?

The girl shook the thought away.

Whichever it was didn’t matter now; what mattered was that there was a giant, magical snake that could kill with a glance, slithering around under the school, and also that Voldemort needed unicorn blood.

The basilisk wasn’t that much of an emergency, she hoped. Unless Voldemort went to command it, it shouldn’t hurt anyone.

On the other hand, Voldemort needed unicorn blood and was more than willing to kill to get it. He probably already had. And that meant that neither Spirit, nor her mom, or any of the unicorns were safe.

The children retreated to the little corner of the common room that Harry had slept in, and that they stayed whenever they came down here alone at night. Harry had thought to bring a blanket, so with a few cushions from the sofas on the ground and the blanket thrown around their shoulders, they were comfortable enough.

Hedwig, as usual, perched on an armrest and kept an eye out.

Both preteens sat quietly for almost a minute. Despite their rush here, neither of them really had any ideas on what to do about the situation.

Well, Hermione had one idea.

“Maybe we should tell Dumbledore,” she said, watching Harry for his reaction.

She knew Harry didn’t like Dumbledore, and after seeing how the Dursleys, the people Dumbledore had dropped him with, treated him, she understood why and was willing to admit that she wasn’t particularly pleased with the Headmaster herself.

Regardless of her feelings towards the wizard however, Hermione knew that they needed help. They needed help against Voldemort, and all the books had said that Dumbledore was the only wizard The Dark Lord had feared.

Having him on their side would give them a big advantage.

Harry’s reaction to the idea was, thankfully enough, not hostile, but his response didn’t exactly fill Hermione with hope either. “And what are we going to say when he asks us how we know?”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? They couldn’t tell the truth. Not about how they knew any of this, and certainly not about Harry.

Hermione almost wanted to argue that it might not matter. That Dumbledore might understand. That, if the truth hadn’t bothered her when she found out, then it might not bother anyone else they told.

And maybe she was right. Maybe people wouldn’t treat Harry any differently if they found out about the isekai thing. Maybe they wouldn’t accuse him of killing the original Harry and stealing his body. Maybe they wouldn’t react with fear like people tend to do when faced with things they don’t understand.

But she couldn’t take that chance. Not when she still remembered the look in her parents’ eyes when they’d faced irrefutable proof that she was different.

“And besides,” Harry continued, pulling Hermione from her thoughts, “what is he going to do about it even if we tell him? What can he do?”

The boy paused and thought for a bit, before answering his own question. “Huh. I suppose he could always animate a small army of statues or something to patrol the forest; enchant them well enough and they’ll slow Voldemort down at the very least.”

Hermione frowned. That could work; an animated army of mindless, but capable drones who are aware of the danger and on the lookout for it.

It was only too bad that she and Harry didn’t have that kind of magical skill, otherwise they could have...

Hold on. What if they—no, no. That would be wrong.

But would it? In fact, wouldn’t it be the right thing to do?

“If you chew on your lip any more there’ll be nothing left,” Harry said, and she turned to him. He met her eyes. “What are you thinking?”

Hermione hesitated for barely a second. “What if we told them?”

Harry frowned. “I feel like you’re not talking about the teachers.”

“What? No, the centaurs. What if we told the centaurs?”

Harry’s expression turned disbelieving. “The centaurs? As in, the same people who took one look at us and realized that there was something off. Even gave the whole speech about how ‘these things happen.’”

“Precisely,” Hermione said. “They knew, but they didn’t judge you. We won’t have to lie, or worry about them knowing how we know things. We can tell them, and they can prepare to stop Voldemort when he goes after the unicorns.”

Harry’s expression had steadily changed from disbelieving to pensive as she spoke, and Hermione knew she was winning him over, but then, at the final moment, he got a look of realization on his face, before his expression fell.

“It’s not enough,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Even after Voldemort had already killed some, and the centaurs and unicorns and even Hagrid were all alert, they still didn’t catch him. Chased him off, yes. But unicorns still died. I don’t think they have the numbers.”

Hermione slumped. Great. And just when she thought she had a solution.

Harry was right, an army was what they needed; so many numbers that Voldemort wouldn’t be able to sneak around without getting spotted.

The girl began to run through all the creatures of the forest mentally, trying to see if there were any that could be of help.

She gave up almost as soon as she started when she realised that she didn’t really know all that much about The Forbidden Forest; Hogwarts, A History just hadn’t gone into much detail about it.

Maybe when day broke she could visit the library to see if there was a book with more information on it, and hope that it would reveal to her that there were a secretive species of powerful, numerous, and hopefully intelligent creatures hiding in The Forbidden Forest this whole time.

Hold on a minute.

“Harry?”

“Hmm.”

“Those spiders you told me about— acromantulas? The ones Hagrid’s friends with. Are there a lot of them?”

“Huh?” Harry looked very perplexed by the seemingly non sequitur, but he answered all the same. “Uh, yeah, there are. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

Hermione nodded quietly. “And they’re intelligent?”

“Yes,” Harry answered slowly. “Very aggressive though; they’ll eat anything. The only reason they haven’t eaten Hagrid is because he’s friends with their leader, Aragog. Why are you asking about—”

Hermione saw the moment realization struck.

Interestingly, Harry’s voice was oddly calm when he asked: “Are you insane?”

“It’s a great plan, Harry. They’re strong, and there are a lot of them.”

“Great, I’m sure we’ll make lovely appetizers.”

“Stop being negative, Harry.”

“Try being practical, Hermione.”

“We’ll be fine; we’ll take Hagrid with us.”

“Oh, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? We can’t take Hagrid with us, because if we took Hagrid with us, then Hagrid would know that we were up to something. Which would mean Dumbledore would know. So we might as well just walk up to him now and tell him what we’re up to.”

Hermione blinked. She hadn’t thought of that. “Well then, in that case, we won’t tell Hagrid. I’m sure we can handle this ourselves.”

Harry looked at her like she’d gone mental.

“You said it yourself, Harry,” Hermione said, “we need an army. So many people that Voldemort can’t sneak through. What if he hurts Spirit, Harry? Or her mom?”

And at those words, Harry deflated in surrender.

“Fine,” he said. “But if we’re doing this, then we’re doing it right. Which means we find out everything we can about acromantulas before even setting foot in the forest.”

Hermione rolled her eyes; she was almost insulted that Harry thought he needed to tell her that.

*****

All it took for a seed of doubt to sprout in Hermione’s heart over her plan was a picture of an acromantula.

When Harry had said “giant, man-eating spiders” she’d imagined spiders the size of a small dog. Maybe even a big one. Scary, yes, but nothing too crazy.

Unlike her expectations however, an actual acromantula was big enough to match a horse in size. Its fangs were like two huge, curved daggers dripping with venom, its eight eyes were red and evil-looking, and worst of all, the one in the first picture she saw wasn’t even the largest they could get.

There were many bigger and nastier-looking ones than that first one.

Hermione swallowed.

“It’s not too late for us to try a different plan, you know,” Harry said, speaking softly since they were in the library (they’d gone there right after classes ended for the day).

“Do you have a different plan?” Hermione asked, a part of her hoping that he did, even as much as the rest of her knew he didn’t.

“Well, I kind of stalled at sending Hedwig in to assassinate Quirrel in his sleep, so...”

Despite herself, Hermione snorted, then she smacked Harry on the arm. “Stop it, Harry. I’m serious.”

The boy just shrugged, as if to say he couldn’t help himself, and they both settled into companionable silence for some time.

“We’ll need to be able to defend ourselves, you know. In case they attack us,” Harry said.

“Well, all the books agree that fire spells are the best way to fight them, since it’s their greatest weakness,” Hermione said, then added, somewhat grumpily, “Seems to be all the books talk about anyway.”

Harry gave her a look. “What do you mean?”

“The books. All they talk about is how to kill them, how to fight them, how to keep them away. Acromantulas are intelligent creatures; they speak human language, and yet it seems like everyone just treats them like pests.”

Harry gave her another look. “Please, tell me you’re not planning to start a Society for the Protection of Arachnid Welfare?” He pleaded.

“What?” Hermione asked in confusion.

“Never mind. My point is though, of course people treat them like that. They’re the goblins of the Wizarding World. You don’t learn how to appreciate goblin art and culture, you just learn how to kill them.”

Hermione had no idea what Harry was talking about with the goblin thing, but she understood the message well enough to make a reply. “But we’re going to ask them for their help, Harry. How would you like it if someone came to ask for your help while carrying a big gun?”

Harry actually took a moment to think about it. “Not very much, no. But I would also have to applaud their negotiating skills though,” he said, and at Hermione’s look, he added defensively, “What? I mean, it’s not like I’ll tell that person no.”

Annoyingly enough, Hermione couldn’t actually argue with that one, so she just pushed through to the point she was going to make instead. “We need to talk to Hagrid. We won’t tell him anything about what we’re planning, but he’s the only person we know of who’s friends with an acromantula. He should be able to tell us things that the books here can’t.”

Harry thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “Fair enough. But we should go meet him now though, before it gets dark.”

They quickly returned all the books they’d taken back to their proper places, before exiting the library and heading for Hagrid’s hut.