Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 680 The City of Aragog

With Hermione and Harry's comfort, Hagrid seemed to calm down a little, but when he woke up the next day, the faint sadness of parting still lingered in his heart. So Hagrid made a quick decision to go deep into the Forbidden Forest to see his beloved Aragog.

But when he arrived at the gathering place of the eight-eyed giant spiders deep in the Forbidden Forest, all that remained were countless empty, collapsed, and rotten giant trees, and vines and shrubs that had taken over the surface of these giant trees in just a few days.

Aragok has disappeared—

Not only Aragog, but all the eight-eyed giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest have disappeared.

In the very center of that sunken basin stood a simple door made of two wooden planks and a stone frame.

The door, which looked like rotten wood, was covered with densely packed incantations written in a script that Hagrid couldn't understand.

Hagrid seemed a little lost, like a big kid standing there dumbfounded.

"Aragok!" Hagrid shouted. "Aragok, where are you?"

"Aragog! Aragog!"

Hagrid shouted anxiously, circling back and forth around the simple door made of stone and rotten wood.

"Click-clack. Click-clack click-clack."

Just as Hagrid was on the verge of tears, a series of almost inaudible "click" sounds came from inside the door.

Aragog?

Hagrid approached the door with delight, but still dared not push it open, only calling out anxiously.

"Is that you, Aragog!" Hagrid began to shout with anticipation.

"Hagrid."

"it's me."

"I'm inside the door."

A rough sound, like sand rubbing against a stone, came from inside the door. Aragog's voice seemed to come from a very, very far place, and by the time it reached Hagrid's ears, it was already intermittent.

"Aragok!" Hagrid exclaimed in surprise. "Where are you? Aragok? How do I find you?" "Open the door, Hagrid, open the door," Aragok's voice came again. "Open the door and come in."

"This door?" Hagrid asked, pushing open the thin and simple door with his large, fan-like hand.

Behind the door was not the other end of the Forbidden Forest that Hagrid had imagined, but a forest of giant sequoias that seemed to belong to another world, with one towering pillar after another rising from the dew-covered lawn.

Although this is a forest of giant sequoias, the giant sequoias are far apart and arranged in a neat and orderly manner, just like man-made buildings, arranged in an overly uniform way on the boundless grassland.

Countless spiders, large and small, crawled up and down these giant cedar trees, using the steel-like spider silk they sprayed from their tails to build one spider silk bridge and spider silk mound after another between the giant cedars, as if they were going to build this entire cedar forest into a spider city.

"Ah, Aragog?" Hagrid called out uncertainly.

"Hagrid, I'm here." A giant eight-eyed spider, even larger than a baby elephant, slowly crawled out from behind Hagrid. It was Aragog, the ancestor of all eight-eyed spiders.

"Aragok... what... what's going on?" Hagrid asked, puzzled.

“We are on another planet,” Aragok answered honestly.

"Another planet?" Hagrid felt his brain freeze for a moment as he tried to understand the meaning of Aragog's words.

“Yes. On another planet.” Although Aragog had completely shed his old age, he still spoke haltingly, as if he was not yet used to communicating using a human language system.

"Ti...Tiera made this?" Hagrid asked in surprise.

“Yes, it was Mr. Tierra who did it,” Aragok said. “He moved me and all my offspring to this planet, to this lawn.”

"Grass, lawn?" Hagrid looked around in surprise at the seemingly endless forest of giant sequoias.

“Yes, Hagrid,” Aragog said slowly, “after Mr. Tierra brought us here, it was a meadow. Then Mr. Tierra created this forest of giant sequoias for us, saying it would be our future city.”

"Your city?" Hagrid asked, puzzled.

“Come on, Hagrid, I want to show you around,” Aragok said excitedly. “Mr. Tyella left us a lot before he left. He told us a lot, but I didn’t remember it all. He said if I didn’t remember it very clearly, you would definitely know that he told me to ask you after you arrived.”

(End of this chapter)