"Thud!" The heavy hatch atop the turret slammed shut.
Ron quickly bolted the hatch and took the driver's seat without hesitation; among the trio, he was the only one who knew how to drive. Harry, meanwhile, scrambled into the co-pilot's seat.
Outside, the long, sharp appendages of the Acromantulas scraped against the thick tank armor, producing a series of dull, rhythmic thuds.
Ron turned his head to glance at Hermione. "Hermione, you handle the weapons!"
Sitting at the weapon control station in the rear, Hermione stared at the dense array of buttons and the console display—which had been fashioned from a modified crystal ball—with a look of pure exasperation.
She had originally thought the Weasley family's tank was just a hollow shell; she hadn't expected Mr. Weasley to go so far as to install over a dozen different weapon systems. What she didn't know was that the tank's weaponry was actually the handiwork of Kyle and the twins. Fred and George were responsible for providing and installing the hardware, while Kyle had integrated the operating system for them.
To make it as user-friendly as possible, Kyle had designed the interface to be completely "idiot-proof."
Hermione reached out and slammed her hand down on a red square button labeled [Close-In Weapon System].
A mechanical whirring sound echoed from outside the hull as several rapid-fire machine guns deployed from the Centurion tank's body, beginning a frenzied strafe of the surrounding Acromantulas.
Bullets poured out at a rate of thousands of rounds per minute. Like a torrential downpour, they tore into the spiders besieging the tank, instantly clearing a massive perimeter around the vehicle. In the blink of an eye, the floor of the Forbidden Forest, once covered in dry leaves and twigs, was buried under a thick layer of Acromantula carcasses.
Hermione stared open-mouthed at the slaughterhouse surrounding them. She suddenly felt immensely grateful to be protected by such overwhelming firepower. Looking at the dozen or so other buttons on the console, a hint of excitement flickered across the young witch's face.
Jamming rounds, stun grenades, flamethrowers, incendiary bombs, cluster munitions...
With lightning speed, she slapped every single button labeled with a weapon name.
Even more weapons deployed from around the turret.
A sphere of searing white flame erupted within the Forbidden Forest. The Centurion tank, looking like Ghost Rider's Hellcycle transformed into a war machine, tore through the curtain of fire and crashed into the swarming spiders.
Various types of bombs shot out from the hull in a continuous stream, their explosions merging into a vast ocean of fire. Bullets condensed into a literal curtain of lead; the Acromantulas shrieked as they were instantly swallowed by the hail of gunfire, shattered into countless fragments and severed limbs by the relentless torrent of steel.
Seeing the tide turn, the surviving Acromantulas began to flee desperately away from the tank, their eight long legs moving at a frantic pace.
Aragog, however, was in a dire position—the Centurion tank was parked directly at the exit of his massive web.
"Hermione! See that big spider? Find a way to give him a blast!" Ron roared at the top of his lungs, pointing toward the colossal web where Aragog lurked.
Under the dual bombardment of the engine's roar and the thunder of gunfire, Ron had to scream at maximum volume just to be heard through the communication channel, even though Hermione was wearing noise-canceling headphones.
Hermione's eyes swept across the console, quickly finding the button labeled [Main Cannon].
She slammed it down. The crystal ball display immediately shifted to show the view outside the cabin. Since it was an idiot-proof system, Hermione quickly grasped how to aim the tank's primary gun.
The Centurion tank ground to a halt, and the turret began to rotate. Hermione's finger slid across the screen, finally selecting a High-Explosive (HE) shell.
Aided by the magical auto-loading system, the chosen HE shell was rammed into the breech.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" Harry "Yunlong" Potter screamed hysterically.
Hermione punched the firing key. The Centurion's main gun let out a deafening roar as a massive plume of fire erupted from the muzzle. The HE shell whistled through the air, screaming like a falling star before slamming into the hemispherical web in the distance.
A brilliance rivaling the sun bloomed within the Forbidden Forest.
By the time silence finally returned to the forest, not a single Acromantula could be seen within a radius of several hundred meters.
Inside the tank, the trio sat in a state of shock, their faces pale. They had no idea what kind of modifications Fred had made to those HE shells, but that level of power was far beyond anything a standard shell should possess.
For a moment, Hermione had honestly thought she'd detonated a hydrogen bomb. If the shockwave from the explosion hadn't activated the defensive runes etched into the tank's hull, they might have been killed right along with the spiders.
Back near Hagrid's hut, a ghastly-pale Ron leaned against the tank's treads, gasping for air. Part of his exhaustion came from the trek through the forest, but the majority was pure terror from the encounter with the spiders.
"If Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'm going to kill him," Ron muttered viciously.
"Forget it, you couldn't beat him anyway," Harry said, patting Ron on the shoulder while leaning against the treads himself.
Hermione hurried past them, running toward the castle. "What are you two waiting for? We have to report to the professors! The creatures of the Forbidden Forest were going to attack Hogwarts!"
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Harry and Ron followed her, sprinting toward the castle.
Just then, the voice of Professor McGonagall rang out through the Skynet surveillance and campus broadcast system that covered all of Hogwarts.
"Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, and Ron Weasley—please return to the Great Hall immediately!"
Hermione, who was in the lead, spun around abruptly to look at Harry and Ron.
"Ginny!?" Ron's voice was laced with horror.
The three of them put on a final burst of speed, sprinting into the castle. As they burst into the Entrance Hall, Professor McGonagall's voice reached them, filled with immense relief.
"Thank heavens, you're safe," she said, her eyes searching the space behind them. "Where is Ginny?"
Harry and Ron both turned deathly pale. "Ginny hasn't been with us this whole time."
McGonagall's face went white instantly.
At that moment, Professor Flitwick came hurrying down the marble staircase from the floors above.
"Professor McGonagall, something has happened," he said to the group in the hall. "A student has been taken by Lockhart into the Chamber of Secrets."
"He left a message on the wall of the third-floor corridor, right beneath the previous one—'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.'"
Professor McGonagall clenched her fists tightly. Ron collapsed onto the cold stone floor.
They all knew exactly who the student was—Ginny Weasley.
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