Two minutes earlier.
"Are you sure this is the way, Ron?" Harry Potter rubbed his forehead, looking at the somewhat familiar suit of armour before him, and asked his friend beside him for the umpteenth time.
Ron Weasley scratched his red hair, uncertainty written all over his face. "Um... I think so. Isn't the Transfiguration classroom over there? We just came down the stairs, then went through a corridor..."
"All right, I don't remember." He gave up trying.
Harry sighed, momentarily at a loss for words.
Their situation was quite clear now-they had managed to get lost while trying to find the classroom for tomorrow's Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson ahead of time.
He thought they must have ended up on the wrong floor, because the Marble Staircase always quietly changed direction whenever they weren't paying attention.
Their destination should still have been upstairs.
Just then, Harry caught sight of something strange out of the corner of his eye. A black shadow was moving rapidly across the ceiling directly above them.
"Ron, look up!"
Harry spoke quietly, tugging at Ron's sleeve.
Ron looked up blankly.
Then he saw something he would never forget for the rest of his life.
A huge, hairy black creature was scuttling rapidly across the rough stone ceiling on eight long, slender legs.
"Sp... sp... spi..."
Sometimes, the more you feared something, the more likely it was to happen.
Before Ron could finish speaking, the spider lunged down at him like lightning!
It was so fast that he didn't even have time to react before it landed on his leg.
All he felt was an agonizing pain in the side of his calf.
"Aargh!"
Ron let out a short scream. The spider had clamped its jaws onto his trouser leg at the calf, its sharp mouthparts already sunk deep into his flesh. Blood gushed out.
"Get off!!"
Scared out of his wits, Ron kicked his leg wildly, trying to shake it off.
But the spider held on tightly, swinging with his movements and only tearing the wound wider.
Harry's mind went blank at the sight.
He had no time to think, but the surge of adrenaline made him react instinctively.
He rushed forward, raised his foot, and kicked the black monster clinging to Ron's calf with all his strength!
Thud!
His kick landed squarely on the spider's soft abdomen.
The spider flew off like a ball of yarn, tumbling several times through the air before smacking into the wall.
But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the spider he had kicked away shook its head and clambered up again, its cold compound eyes fixed firmly on him.
If only I'd already learned magic. That was Harry's only thought at that moment.
Just as the spider was about to attack again.
"Stupefy!"
A spell shot from the other end of the corridor, striking the spider poised to pounce with pinpoint accuracy.
The spider stiffened, then slumped limply to the floor.
Harry turned to look and saw three older students hurrying towards them. Two of them were the Weasley brothers he had seen at the start-of-term feast.
"Looks like we weren't too late." Fred put away his wand and let out a long breath.
"No, I'm afraid we were still a little late." Morris pointed at Ron, who lay on the floor, pale with pain. "This kid doesn't look too good."
George walked over to Ron and crouched down, pulling aside his blood-soaked trouser leg to reveal an alarming wound.
After examining it, however, he merely waved a hand. "Oh, just a minor flesh wound. Nothing serious."
"Really?"
From Morris's Muggle perspective, this should have been a fairly serious wound.
By his rough estimate, even with proper treatment, it would take several weeks to heal.
Yet to a wizard, it was only a minor flesh wound.
It seemed that wizards' medical capabilities really were far better than those of Muggles.
"Go put the spider away first," George told Morris. "Perhaps we shouldn't have kept it in a wooden box."
"Then I'll have to transfigure a box out of something sturdier," Morris replied.
"Use that." Fred pointed at the head of the iron suit of armour beside them.
"!"
As though sensing Fred's malicious intentions, the suit of armour let go of the sword in its hands and clutched its head tightly with both hands.
"Looks like it doesn't want to." Morris spread his hands helplessly, then could only walk over and hold the Acromantula in his hands for now, adding a Weakening Curse.
Meanwhile, Ron grimaced in pain, his forehead covered in cold sweat.
Seeing that Fred and George still seemed to be discussing other matters at their leisure, he growled angrily, his voice thick with tears, "Stop standing around and get me to the Hospital Wing! I'm dying!"
At that moment, Ron seriously doubted whether he really was these two fellows' younger brother.
"Don't panic, Little Ronnie," Fred said with a smile. "You're still a long way from dying. There's no need to go to the Hospital Wing for an injury like this. George, did you bring any essence of dittany?"
"Of course."
George took a small bottle of potion and half a roll of bandages out of his pocket.
"We often get hurt, so we carry essence of dittany with us," he explained to Morris as he deftly dripped a few drops of essence of dittany onto the bandage. "I don't suppose you know yet, but essence of dittany is an extract of dittany. It can heal most wounds."
After quickly wrapping the bandage around Ron's wound, he patted his younger brother's shoulder, making Ron grimace again. "See? All fine now. The injuries we usually get during our various magical experiments are much worse than yours. So stop blubbering."
Morris didn't think that was anything to be proud of.
Ron looked at his swiftly bandaged leg. Although it still hurt, it really was much better than before, and only then did he relax.
"Don't underestimate me," he said. "I wasn't crying."
Harry turned his gaze to the unconscious black creature in Morris's hands and asked, still shaken, "What exactly is that thing? Why did it suddenly attack us?"
Morris glanced at the twins and found them signalling to him with their eyes.
Unfortunately, he couldn't read minds and couldn't tell exactly what they meant.
But he could more or less guess.
"Just a naughty pet spider." Morris held out his hand to Harry, changing the subject. "Oh, right, you're Harry Potter, aren't you? I'm Morris Black, a first-year in Ravenclaw."
"I'm Harry Potter. Just call me Harry." Harry shook Morris's hand, but his gaze remained on the Acromantula.
Spiders in the Wizarding World were actually this vicious, completely different from the ones he had seen in the Muggle world.
After all, he had lived in a cupboard since he was little, but the biggest spider he had ever seen was only the size of a fingernail, and it would dart into a crack as soon as it saw anyone.
It seemed he would have to be careful from now on.
If a spider suddenly appeared while he was sleeping and bit him, that would be no joke.