Regulus finished dinner and left the Great Hall with a thick-cut steak in hand.
He pushed open the dormitory door and a burnt-protein stench hit him square in the face.
Cuthbert and Alex were hunched over a desk, heads together, blocking whatever lay on the surface.
Hermes stood beside them with his arms crossed, leaning against a bedpost. His perpetually sullen expression showed no impatience, though his head tilted forward, gaze reaching past their shoulders to the desk below.
"Regulus, come look!" Cuthbert spun around, eyes bright, jabbing his finger at the desk. "Hurry, hurry!"
Regulus walked over. Alex shifted half a step to the side.
Baruk crouched on the desk, no bigger than a palm,. Eight legs tucked against its body, chelicerae parted slightly.
A small patch of web lay spread in front of it, the edges singed and trailing white smoke.
That burnt-hair, burnt-nail stink was coming from right here.
"Try again," Cuthbert said, nudging Hermes with his elbow. "One more time."
Hermes exhaled through his nose, arms still folded, wand in his right hand. A flick of the wrist, a lazy point toward Baruk.
A tiny fireball condensed at the wand tip, slightly larger than a pea, drifting toward the desk at a leisurely pace.
Regulus spared it a glance. Decent control. Hermes couldn't have managed that last term.
Then his attention returned to Baruk.
A rapid-fire string of clicks, a hitch of the abdomen, and a thread of silk shot out, fanning into a fine net that caught the fireball head-on.
The web wrapped around it. A sharp hiss. White smoke seeped through the mesh, and the smell of scorched protein thickened.
The surface blackened, edges curling under the heat, but the web held.
"See that!" Cuthbert slapped Alex on the back. Alex stumbled forward, nearly cracking his chin on the desk, and shot him a glare.
Regulus ignored them both. His magical perception overlaid his vision, Baruk's magical system spreading open before him.
Venom gland branch, silk gland branch, visual branch. Three independent circuits running stable, same as last term.
But the fire affinity branch grafted from the Salamander had shifted position.
When first implanted, the new branch had sat like a foreign object wedged into the gap between venom and silk glands, its magical flow sharply distinct from the host system, kept from conflict only by a buffer of ambient magic.
Not anymore.
The fire affinity branch still originated from the same point, but its terminus had sprouted fine, tendril-like extensions that wound twice around the silk gland branch, like vine climbing a trunk.
The silk gland's magical circuit was responding in kind.
Where the tendrils made contact, matching patterns had appeared on the silk gland's circuit, sharing the same origin as the color gradient at Baruk's joints, that shift from deep brown to dark red.
Two magical systems were bleeding into each other.
Baruk's silk, from its internal structure to its external properties, was being rewritten bit by bit.
It still feared fire. The web had held for a few seconds before its edges blackened and curled. But before, contact with open flame meant instant brittleness, crumbling to powder. Now it could at least hold for a while.
This was an ongoing process, not something that locked in place after the graft.
Once the new module entered the host system, the host began actively adapting to it.
The fire affinity branch was growing into the silk glands. Once it had fully permeated them, the venom glands would be next, then the visual branch, then the magical core itself.
When that day came, Baruk would carry the fire affinity trait from head to tail, inside and out, as innate as a Salamander's birthright.
Regulus gave a small nod. "Good."
Baruk launched off the desk, eight legs pushing against the surface, and landed on his shoulder with a short, sharp click.
Cuthbert sidled a step closer, mumbling, "I want one too."
Regulus looked at him.
"I told my father," Cuthbert said, words tumbling faster, hands gesticulating. "I said I wanted an Acromantula, told him how smart yours was, how incredible..."
Alex couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing. He'd heard this story once already, and it was still funny the second time around.
Cuthbert wheeled on him with a glare, then turned back, shoulders sagging. "He pointed at the study door and told me to get out."
Hermes's mouth twitched. The complete lack of strategy baffled him. Why ask at home?
Regulus had gotten one. He could get a second. Why not ask him?
He went back to watching Baruk. He wanted one too.
Baruk crouched on the desk, chelicerae tearing through the steak's fascia, crunching through it piece by piece.
Regulus watched Baruk eat while his thoughts ran elsewhere.
Acromantulas were classified XXXXX. Untameable. Run on sight.
Baruk was docile in his hands, but that didn't make it safe.
It could stay in the dormitory because spell kept its size down, the inner circle accepted it, and it recognized him as its leader.
Behind a closed door, no one outside knew a Class Five creature lived here.
But beyond the dormitory?
A two-metre Acromantula crawling through the corridors of Hogwarts would cause panic.
It had happened before. 1943.
Tom Riddle opened the Chamber of Secrets. The Basilisk killed Myrtle Warren, found dead in the lavatory, eyes open, not a mark on her body.
Riddle pinned the blame on Hagrid's pet, Aragog. Hagrid was expelled, his wand snapped, and Aragog fled into the Forbidden Forest.
The headmaster at the time was Armando Dippet, an old-school wizard who trusted evidence. Someone to point the finger, a creature to serve as the weapon, and the case could be closed.
Dumbledore, then the professor, had never believed Hagrid guilty, but he lacked the authority to overturn the headmaster's ruling.
The Ministry of Magic wouldn't have investigated either. A Basilisk's lethal gaze and an Acromantula's venomous bite looked nothing alike from any angle. The most cursory examination would have exposed the discrepancy.
But there was a giant spider to point to, the case could be shut, and no one followed up.
If another Acromantula appeared at Hogwarts, it would invite unnecessary trouble.
Regulus wasn't worried about trouble on that scale, but there was no reason to court it either.
Baruk sucked the last strand of meat clean from its chelicerae, then lifted a foreleg and wiped it against its bristles.
That done, it clicked once in Hermes's direction, chelicerae spreading to flash the tips of its fangs.
Hermes's mouth twitched again. He drew his wand, a small fireball condensing at the tip, slightly larger than the last, gliding across the desk to settle on Baruk's body.
A soft hiss. The grease and blood clinging to the bristles evaporated under the flame, and Baruk enjoyed a comfortable bath.
Its bristles fluffed out, amber eyes gleaming, chelicerae opening and closing idly. It waved toward Hermes, a vague gesture of acknowledgment.
Regulus looked down at it. "Do you want to go back to the Forbidden Forest?"
Baruk's chelicerae froze. Then it erupted into a rapid-fire string of sharp clicks.
All eight legs launched off the desk at once. It scrambled across his shoulders, left to right, right to left, forelegs hooking his collar, trying to climb onto his head.
Regulus reached up and pressed it down, fingers resting lightly on its carapace.
"I'm not getting rid of you," he said quietly. "Don't you want to visit?"
Baruk circled his shoulder twice more, bristles rasping against his collar.
Then it settled, legs folding in, crouching on his shoulder, chelicerae opening and closing softly. A low, single click.
"...Baruk... not strong enough... Aragog father... big spider..."
The corner of Regulus's mouth tugged upward.
The spider's ambition was plain to see. It wasn't that it didn't want to go back. It didn't think it could beat Aragog yet, so why bother.
It was waiting until it was strong enough to go back and take the throne.
"Don't you miss your colony?" Regulus asked.
Acromantulas were textbook social creatures. The Forbidden Forest colony had descended from Aragog and Mosag, dozens living together, building a communal nest, hunting as a group, maintaining a clear social hierarchy.
Baruk had been with him for over a month and had never shown a shred of homesickness.
Its eight eyes swiveled. Chelicerae gestured in the air. It clicked at Cuthbert first. "...little spider."
Cuthbert grinned, apparently finding the assessment fair.
A click at Alex. "...little spider."
Alex grinned too, then caught himself. How had he been classified as a spider?
A click at Hermes. "...little spider."
Hermes shrugged, expressionless.
Baruk scuttled from Regulus's left shoulder to his right, forelegs raised wide, spread to twice their usual span. "...Baruk... big spider!"
Then it moved close to his ear, chelicerae tapping lightly on his shoulder. "...Regulus... leader... colony."
Alex was the first to get it. He nudged Cuthbert. "It's talking about its colony. We're its colony."
Cuthbert blinked, then his grin stretched wider than before.
Hermes's expression didn't change, but the corner of his mouth curved upward by a fraction, barely perceptible.
Baruk seemed quite pleased with its arrangements. It settled on Regulus's shoulder, forelegs tucked beneath its chest, head resting on them, and gave a contented little sway.
Regulus's mouth curved. He scooped it off his shoulder, carried it to the bed, and set it down on the pillow. "Then we're not going back."
He turned and walked out of the dormitory.
---
The Library was quiet at this hour.
Second day of term, and most students were still dragging themselves out of holiday days. Only a handful of upper-years sat scattered across the study area, buried in piles of parchment.
Regulus walked along the shelves, stopping at the Alchemy row. His fingertip traced the spines until he pulled out Basic Alchemy Theory: From Hermes to Paracelsus.
The gilt lettering on the spine had begun to flake. It looked like no one had touched it in a long time.
He studied the name on the cover for a moment. Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of Alchemy. Thrice-great Hermes.
The same name as the sullen boy from the Mulciber family.
His mouth twitched. He tucked the book under his arm and headed for his usual seat by the window.
The British wizarding world was practically a desert when it came to Alchemy.
Nicolas Flamel was French. The heart of Alchemy lay on the continent. Britain had no real tradition of its own, and Hogwarts offered it only as an upper-year elective.
Knowledge about the interconversion of magic and mass would never appear on a public shelf. Even the Restricted Section might not have it.
He was only looking for something introductory, checking how far the publicly available literature went in describing alchemical principles.
He rounded the last row of shelves. The corner seat by the window was already taken.
Lily sat in their usual spot, a book open in front of her, chin propped on one hand, fingers threaded through red hair, the ends curling out between them.
Her eyes rested on the page. She hadn't turned it in a long while.
Regulus walked over and set his book on the table.
Lily looked up. The instant she saw him, her mouth curved upward on reflex and her eyes softened, before she caught herself and forced it all back down.
She lifted her chin from her palm, pressed her lips together, furrowed her brow, and put visible effort into looking like she was still angry.
Regulus saw the performance, and it hit him.
He'd forgotten to write again.
Last time, a simple apology had smoothed things over. Leading with another "sorry" this time felt thin.
He pulled out the chair and sat down, snapping his fingers under the table to cast Muffliato, sealing their little pocket of space in silence.
His expression stayed neutral. Inside, a plan had already formed.
He decided to go on the offensive.
His gaze warmed, touched with concern. "Lily, I heard your power went out?"
---
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