For no particular reason, Ron inexplicably felt that the voice sounded somewhat familiar.
This time, the group identified which package the voice was coming from at a glance, because the thing was wriggling too violently.
"Scabbers!"
Seeing the little mouse head poking out from the bottom of the package, Ron instantly recognized it, his eyes widening, staring blankly at the spider silk package swaying vigorously in the air— evidently not just the humans noticed this, the Acromantulas also realized there was an unruly captive.
Hence, a "cub" even larger than Ron began crawling along the ceiling spider silk toward the source of the commotion.
"Hey, get back!"
Hagrid reacted swiftly, raising his hand again and punching the spider off the ceiling. The dazed spider coincidentally fell directly in front of Ron, looking at the still twitching eight legs; Ron flipped his eyes again—
"Gah—"
...
...
When Ron woke up again, he only saw the warm flames slowly dancing before his eyes.
"You're awake?"
Watching Ron sit up from Hagrid's bed, Harry finally breathed a sigh of relief. Ron, who had just woken up, blankly blinked his eyes and then finally remembered, "Scabbers! Where is it?"
"Right here, on the table, Ron, it's fine— I told you, your mouse's disappearance has nothing to do with Crookshanks."
Sitting by the fireplace, Hermione was keeping warm by the fire, the glow making her face glow red. She said with a hint of annoyance, evidently displeased after being "falsely accused" by Ron for more than two months (which felt closer to half a year for Hermione).
"Nothing wrong? It's almost dead!"
Ron leaped from the bed abruptly, despite the momentary dizziness from standing up too fast. He quickly charged to the table, scooping up the barely clinging mouse, glaring at Hermione with fury, and shouted aloud.
Indeed, as Ron described, Scabbers looked far from being in good spirits.
Emaciated, sallow, hovering between life and death—
A plethora of similar adjectives seemed exceedingly apt for it, this mouse looked as if there was only one last breath left, seemingly ready to pass out like Ron had just done, lying in Ron's palm with regretful tears streaming down from those beady eyes.
It now only wished to slap the version of itself that escaped Hogwarts Castle at the time.
If it hadn't been scared witless by Neville back then, it could still be lounging on Ron's soft bed, free from fretting over meals, nor being bound up and hung from the ceiling by a bunch of spiders—
After escaping Hogwarts Castle in one swift motion, Scabbers originally planned to flee far and wide, even contemplating escaping the United Kingdom outright, but realizing its mistake upon fleeing the dormitory, branding Neville as that person was merely a nervous misjudgment, coupled with doubts that a mouse like itself could run so far, it ultimately did not flee far.
Keep in mind, similar to a notorious fugitive, as a recipient of the Merlin Medal, he dared not show face in human society.
Thus, it settled in Hagrid's water tank, hiding by day, and emerging to scavenge food by night. As a hunter, Hagrid's cottage was always amply stocked, and aside from the Half-Giant, the inhabitants were only an unshareable hound and a blind spider, Scabbers's days were somewhat joyous.
Carefree here, not missing Ron.
Until the night before last, approximately a month ago, the blind old spider disappeared, and Scabbers had initially assumed it was dead, until one night when it had just crawled out of the water tank, intending to dine on Hagrid's ceiling-slung bacon while sipping his leftover whiskey from the table, it locked eyes with a spider over ten times its size.
No, wait, Scabbers didn't have that many eyes.
The spider hadn't died?
Then it had reverted to youth?
Scabbers was initially stunned, then without hesitation, turned tail and fled— but soon discovered there were far more spiders surrounding him than anticipated, five or six colossal ones, surrounding him. The disparity in size made him seem akin to a Masked Rider standing amongst Ultramen.
Finished.
Facing the enormous pincers snapping toward him, Scabbers immediately turned ashen, evidently without an unforeseen circumstance, it realized it couldn't escape this ordeal— fortunately, just when it had closed its eyes resigning to death, a startled Fang woke the snoring Hagrid—
Donning an oversized nightgown, Hagrid rubbed his eyes while rising, punching each spider in turn.
"Bang, bang, bang..."
One dizzy spider after another hit the ground, just as Scabbers thought his calamity had been averted, it was suddenly wrapped tightly in webbing from a freshly shot strand— even facing a concussion-causing punch from Hagrid, still insisted on securing the prey with silk? Tarantula, this guy...
Ahem, anyway, a half-awake Hagrid didn't notice Scabbers tied to the Tarantula's rear end but tossed all these jailbreak spiders back into the cellar.
Subsequently, probably deeming itself too meager a morsel without allure, Scabbers never faced imagined Death but instead found itself hanging from the ceiling as a toy for this spider batch until today, finally hearing that unmistakably familiar voice.