NOVEL NEXT 21. The Spiders
Dan ducked under another sharp spider leg and sent a purple lightning spell in his direction with a wave of his hand. The spider flew away from the force of the impact, making a screeching sound like the creaking of rusty door hinges.
The longer the battle went on, the more damage both sides received. But if Dan teleported out from under the blows so quickly that they could only inflict superficial damage on him, then the giant spiders suffered much greater losses. The corpses of seven arachnids were already lying on the ground, curled into a ball of limbs.
Tearing off a particularly long and sharp leg from a dead spider, Dan staggered, his vision blurred.
"The fu–" He wasn't given time to even finished cursing. The leader of the pack pounced on him as soon as Dan stumbled, and knocked the boy to the ground, piercing him in the ribs with his fangs.
With a cry of rage, Dan stuck his makeshift weapon into the spider's belly and teleported at the bastard's back, trying to stick his claws into the Alpha's head. But his hands never reached the target, as another spider jumped away from the tree and hit Dan in the back, knocking him off the leader and sending him straight to the ground.
Dan felt like death was leaning in, every breath was a dose of pure pain into his system, but it only added fury to his thoughts. 'How dare these subhuman creatures bring me to such a state?! ME!'
Two spiders immediately attacked his fallen form, but Dan disappeared even before they could touch him. The arachnids already saw what their opponent could do and immediately began to look around, but suddenly their heads just slipped off their bodies. Only the faint silhouette of a monster hung over their corpses.
Now, fighting an invisible opponent, the Arachnids' chances looked worse and worse.
"Hiding is… useless… We can see you…" The alpha spider managed to hiss–
–right before half of his body exploded into a bloody mist, purple sparks raining down on his corpse.
The remaining six spiders froze for a moment, only to scream something that Dan couldn't understand right now. The invisible monster boy felt his arms weaken with every passing second, but refused to back down.
Fortunately, he didn't have to.
"Glacius." A familiar cold voice said with confidence and the three spiders were quickly covered in ice. The remaining three turned into cubes of wood silently, and promptly fell soullessly to the ground.
Dan sucked in air greedily, like a drowning man. Feeling that the danger had passed, he let go of the invisibility and finally allowed himself to fall to his knees.
"Foolish boy!" Snape hissed – his voice unnaturally resembled the voice of a spider – approaching the exhausted teen, actively trying to avoid his eyes. A wave of the wand and the goggles were back on Dan's eyes. "What moronic idea made you stay here instead of grabbing Lovegood and apparating back to the castle?!"
Dan, as expected, didn't care much about the man's words. Right now, he was trying not to lose consciousness, using the remaining adrenaline in his brain to avoid falling into the hands of Morpheus. The venom in his veins slowly paralyzed his body and he didn't want to know what would happen if it also affected his heart.
Minerva also approached the boy, still looking around for danger. "For Merlin's sake, help the boy first before you lecture him! He's obviously poisoned!"
"Without a doubt…" Snape muttered and began to move his wand over Dan's wounds, which were still oozing black blood. "Nella coda sta il veleno."
As soon as he finished speaking the spell, Dan's wounds began to ooze with translucent spider venom, as if it was being pushed out by an invisible force. Minerva made a sound of displeasure in the back of her throat, but let Snape work. She would have asked why the man didn't just give Dan a flushing potion, but…
~ Flashback ~ Hogwarts' bi-weekly Staff meeting ~ Two weeks earlier ~
Sitting at the same table, Hogwarts professors usually did two things: they ate in the Great Hall or discussed what was happening in the Castle. Whether it's Weasley pranks, student performance, or the mysterious disappearance of part of the castle walls.
Today, the main topic for discussion was a recently arrived student of their institution - Danil Khromov. Dumbledore wanted to keep the information about the monster boy closer to his chest, but he knew he couldn't keep secrets. Not now. Not about him.
"Potions for humans won't work on him. But somehow, I think Khromov already knows that." Snape said.
This was a problem that didn't appear often among wizards. Of course, there were allergies and immunity to some ingredients, but nothing of this magnitude.
"But why? Isn't he a human? He's just cursed." Batsheda asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
Snape sneered in response. "No, he's not human. Even if he were human, the boy can't touch water. Almost all potions require water." Only some medicinal pastes and powders eventually got rid of water as an ingredient, but he wasn't going to explain that. "Our potions will work just as well on him as on, say, a house elf, goblin or centaur. His physiology and magic are so different from ours, that most potions won't affect him, or just make things worse."
Pomfrey nodded in agreement, her face dark with displeasure. "The same can be said about more directed healing spells. I can heal everyday injuries, but what if it's something more serious? This is already beyond my competence."
The professors fell silent for a minute, most digesting the new information. Dumbledore expected something like this, in the past, questions about treatment were not raised in conversations with Arwen, but when a child of an almost extinct race turned up at his school… Well, it made him start thinking about trivial things.
"And what kind of treatment choice does he have then?" Dumbledore asked eventually.
"... Spells and potions that work on Muggles should work on him as well." Pomfrey suggested. "Or general aid spells."
"There are still many options, but none will be as comfortable as our usual methods of treatment."
It was easy to say that the day when Dan gets into the Medical Wing will be very unpleasant for the boy.
~ Flashback end ~
After the last drop of poison left Dan's body, Snape forcibly closed his wounds. "Levicorpus," he cast a spell and the boy's body rose into the air. Dan himself lost consciousness somewhere in the middle of the process. Blood loss and fatigue after the battle finally caught up with him.
Minerva immediately conjured a white sheet and covered his body with it, not letting anyone see his form. And she did it very timely, because just at that moment the Professors heard the footsteps of several people at once.
For some reason, both Professors were not surprised when they saw a trio of very familiar Gryffindors. Minerva swore softly in Scottish, another couple of seconds and she would have made Dan invisible.
"Professor McGonagall?! What happened here?" Harry asked, looking at the battlefield in shock, he couldn't describe it otherwise. Ron, who was behind him, was green in the face and pretty quickly stopped looking at the giant spiders.
"Merlin's beard, it's somehow worse than if they were alive," Ron muttered to himself.
The scenery really wasn't the best. Two dozen spider corpses lay on the edge of the forest, many of them were torn apart or simply crushed to death. Harry didn't know much about spiders, but could swear that they shouldn't have that much blood. The earth was burned in some places, and small craters were left on the trees.
"What happened here," Snape said, "is none of your business, Mr. Potter. Miss Granger, please take your friends away from here before Mr. Weasley shows us what he had for breakfast."
Minerva, meanwhile, touched the sheet with her wand and it disappeared from the trio's gaze.
"Is that-" Hermione swallowed nervously. "Professor McGonagall, is that a student?"
The Transfiguration Master's face was as if carved from stone. She couldn't tell them the truth, but she wasn't going to lie to them.
"That," Snape answered again, "like I said, it's none of your business."
He walked towards the castle at a brisk pace, feeling Dan's body flying behind him. Minerva pursed her lips into a thin line and turned back to the battlefield. "I ask the three of you to return to the castle, we don't know if there are any more Acromantulas within the premises of the school."
If it had been possible, Ron would have turned even greener. Seeing that it was actually better for them to be away from the Forbidden Forest right now, Harry reluctantly turned around and dragged the two friends with him, away from whatever that was.
"H-Harry, did you notice it?" Hermione muttered, holding his robe sleeve.
Harry wasn't used to seeing Hermione so disoriented and frightened. No, it wasn't fear, more nervousness. It was noticeable that she was worried about the possible student whose state was hidden from their eyes. The thought that one of their peers might be hurt – or worse, dead – was not a pleasant one.
"Yes." He muttered in response. It was hard not to notice the thin black hand that stuck out from under the sheet of fabric. "Like someone plunged into a barrel of tar."
"Or burnt…" She added. "If it's a student, they won't show up for class. Maybe we can learn more from Madam Pomfrey?"
Ron finally caught his breath and spoke with an abnormally serious tone. "I vote to stay out of this issue, it's better to face a naked Dementor than this."
Harry and Hermione nodded reluctantly in agreement, the last thing they wanted was to be in the same place as what had done all the damage.
