Harry pointed out the spiders, following their progress with his eyes screwed up against the sun.

“Oh, yeah,” said Ron, trying, and failing, to look pleased. “But we can’t follow them now—”

Ernie and Hannah were listening curiously.

Harry’s eyes narrowed as he focused on the spiders. If they pursued their fixed course, there could be no doubt about where they would end up.

“Looks like they’re heading for the Forbidden Forest…”

And Ron looked even unhappier about that.

At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Harry and Ron lagged behind the others so they could talk out of earshot.

“We’ll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again,” Harry told Ron. “We can take Fang with us. He’s used to going into the forest with Hagrid, he might be some help.”

“Right,” said Ron, who was twirling his wand nervously in his fingers. “Er—aren’t there—aren’t there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?” he added as they took their usual places at the back of Lockhart’s classroom.

Preferring not to answer that question, Harry said, “There are good things in there, too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns…”

Ron had never been into the Forbidden Forest before. Harry had entered it only once and had hoped never to do so again.

Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant.

“Come now,” he cried, beaming around him. “Why all these long faces?” People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered.

“Don’t you people realize,” said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, “the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away—”

“Says who?” said Dean Thomas loudly.

“My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn’t have taken Hagrid if he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty,” said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two.

“Oh, yes he would,” said Ron, even more loudly than Dean.

“I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid’s arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley,” said Lockhart in a self satisfied tone.

Ron started to say that he didn’t think so, somehow, but stopped in mid sentence when Harry kicked him hard under the desk.

“We weren’t there, remember?” Harry muttered.

But Lockhart’s disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Harry so much that he yearned to throw Gadding with Ghouls right in Lockhart’s stupid face. Instead he contented himself with scrawling a note to Ron: Let’s do it tonight.

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Snape swept past Harry, making no comment about Hermione’s empty seat and cauldron.	\|	Ron read the message, swallowed hard, and looked sideways at the empty seat usually filled by Hermione. The sight seemed to stiffen his resolve, and he nodded.

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