Cyrus took out his wand and murmured, "Lumos!" A thin beam of light shone from the tip of the wand. He could have made it brighter, even enough to illuminate the entire forest, but that would have been too conspicuous. Now it was just enough for them to observe if there were any spider shadows on the road.

Harry followed suit.

"What a great idea," said Ron enviously. "I'd like my wand to glow, but you know, if you don't do it right it could explode..."

"Don't worry, I think Mr. and Mrs. Weasley will buy you a new wand during your summer vacation. Then you can say that the wand was broken when they were looking for a successor." Cyrus comforted.

"Good idea, Mr. Riddle!" Ron's eyes lit up. He hadn't told his family about the broken wand yet.

Then Harry tapped them on the shoulders and pointed across the grass where two solitary spiders were scurrying away from the light of their wands into the dark shadows of the trees.

"Sure enough, spiders have entered the forbidden forest."

"Okay," Ron sighed, as if resigned to the worst, "I'm ready. Let's go."

So they walked into the forbidden forest, Fang scampering around them, sniffing at roots and leaves.

By the light of Cyrus and Harry's wands they followed the steady stream of spiders that crawled along the path.

They walked for perhaps twenty minutes, neither speaking, listening for any sound beyond the snapping of branches and the rustling of leaves. Then the trees grew thicker, and the stars disappeared overhead. The two wands gleamed faintly in the endless blackness, like two feeble fireflies.

"They've left the road," Cyrus whispered, stretching out his arm, shining a cold light on the ground.

Harry stopped and tried to see where the spider was moving, but beyond the tiny glimmer of light, it was pitch black. He had never been so deep in the Forbidden Forest before.

"The Forbidden Forest is already very dangerous, but at least Hagrid often walks on the road, and there are also traces of centaurs. But once you deviate from the path in the forest, it is unknown what you will encounter." Cyrus reminded.

His words made Ron even more uneasy.

Harry also vividly recalled that the last time he had been in the woods, Hagrid had warned him not to stray from the path, but Hagrid was now a thousand miles away, probably sitting in his cell in Azkaban, and he had said to follow the spider.

"Let's go, I trust Hagrid!" Harry said firmly. In fact, there was no other way except to trust Hagrid.

"Hagrid is trustworthy, but..." Cyrus pursed his lips and took the lead to step forward.

"What do you think?" Harry asked Ron. He could make out Ron's eyes, the light from his wand reflected in his pupils, and Ron looked as if he was about to speak.

"I just want to say that maybe Mr. Riddle is right. It's not that I don't trust Hagrid, but Hagrid may not think the Forbidden Forest is that dangerous." Ron said tremblingly, "But it's different for us. He thinks the dragon was playing with him when it bit him. But do you know how long my hand was swollen after being bitten by Norbert?"

"But Mr. Riddle is almost gone." Harry said helplessly, "Think about Hermione, we have to save her!"

"All right!" Ron breathed. "For Hermione!"

So they followed Cyrus's shadow into the trees.

The path in the forbidden forest was not easy to walk on. It was sparsely populated and there were tree roots and stumps everywhere blocking the road. What was worse was that the visibility was so poor at night that they could hardly see the obstacles on the road.

After a while they noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downward, although the trees were still as dense as before.

"We walked for at least half an hour."

His and Harry's clothes were caught on low branches and thorny vines from time to time, making them look a little disheveled. Only Cyrus walked along as if he was taking a stroll on the Quidditch field.

But at least they didn't encounter any other danger along the way.

"These spiders are pretty smart, at least they avoid danger," Ron said, swallowing.

"Or - nothing else dares to come near here." Cyrus' eyes flashed.

"What? Don't scare me!" Ron said tremblingly.

At this moment, Fang suddenly became agitated and curled up its tail in fear. It couldn't make any sound and could only whimper, but it still made a lot of noise, which scared Harry and Ron out of their wits.

"What is that?" Ron called out, peering out into the darkness and clutching Harry's elbow tightly.

"Something's moving in there," panted Harry. "It sounds... like a big thing."

They listened carefully. Some distance to their right, the huge thing was cutting its way through the trees, breaking numerous branches.

They stood there waiting in terror, the darkness seeming to press upon their eyes. Cyrus was not afraid, for he knew what was there.

"Okay, there's nothing there. It's not a monster, it's the car you guys drive when you go to school."

As soon as Cyrus finished speaking, a dazzling light suddenly appeared on their right, blindingly bright in the darkness.

Harry and Ron put their hands up to shield their eyes. Fang snarled and tried to run away, but got caught in a patch of thorns and rolled over on the ground.

"Quiet!" Cyrus cast another spell at it to calm it down.

The car came over.

"Car?" Ron's voice was choked with relief. "It's really our car!"

Harry and Ron followed Cyrus, stumbling towards the light, tripping over their steps, and a moment later they came to a clearing.

Mr. Weasley's car was parked in the middle of a thick circle of trees, with dense intertwining branches and leaves above it. The car was empty, and the headlights were shining brightly. As Ron walked towards it with his mouth wide open, it was also moving slowly towards him, like a big green dog greeting its master.

"So it's been here all along!" Ron said delightedly, walking around the car. "Look at it, the woods have turned it wild..."

"In the Muggle world, this is no different from being scrapped. But this car seems to have undergone some magical modifications. To be honest, it can still be driven." Cyrus was actually very interested.

The existence of magic-modified vehicles shows that technology and magic are not completely isolated. Maybe he can also modify something else, such as the Gatling Killing Curse? He shuddered. This is too evil.

The wings of the car were scraped and covered in mud. Fang seemed to have no interest in it at all; it followed Harry closely, looking cautiously at Cyrus - the terrible wizard who had cursed it twice! Harry could feel it trembling.

Now, Harry and Ron's breathing slowly calmed down again.

"We thought it was going to attack us!" said Ron, leaning against the car and patting it. "I never knew where it went!"

But Harry was in no mood to pay attention to the car now. He squinted his eyes and continued to look for the shadows of spiders on the ground illuminated by the lights, but they all hurriedly avoided the glaring lights and ran away.

"We've lost our trail," he said. He was more interested in finding the spider than a car. "Let's go. Don't waste any more time here."

But Ron suddenly stopped talking and did not move.

His eyes were fixed on a spot ten feet above the ground behind Harry, his face was livid, and fear was evident in it.

"Looks like we don't need to look for it anymore." Cyrus raised his wand and looked up, and saw several huge eight-eyed spiders staring at them greedily.

He wanted to kill them directly, but after thinking it over, he decided not to do so.

Instead, he watched helplessly as Harry and Ron were grabbed by the waist by their huge jaws and hung in mid-air. He gave up resistance and let the monsters drag them into the dark bushes.

(End of this chapter)