ITW,H - Chapter 111 - Acromantulas (2) (Patreon)

(Word Count: 2,128)

Harry raised his wand, and closed his eyes, concentrating. “Serpensortia!”

Two large, emerald green snakes shot out of his wand, landing on the ground beneath him.

The acromantula in the tree a few meters away shook violently with fear and jumped down from the tree to make a hasty escape. “The enemy is here! The bane of spiders!” it shrieked with fear.

Keeping his eyes closed, Harry hissed out an order. “$Kill it.$”

The two basilisks merely opened their eyes and glanced towards the fleeing spider, and it dropped dead instantly.

There was a reason basilisks were considered the “bane of spiders.” Spiders had nearly 360-degree vision and could not close their eyes. They were utterly helpless to defend against the basilisk's eyes.

“$It is done, Master,$” one of the snakes hissed in a respectful, almost fearful tone.

Harry couldn't open his eyes. Through the familiar link to the basilisks, Harry got a better sense of the capabilities of the snakes. He had hoped there would be some sort of secondary transparent eyelid they could open and close to control the death gaze, but no such luck. Instead, they have long since become proficient in navigating around with their eyes fully closed should they need to not kill something, though that was rarely the desire of a basilisk. This is why the basilisk in canon managed to give Harry so much trouble despite being blinded.

And no, despite being a parselmouth, Harry was not somehow immune to their gaze. Not even being in a familiar contract protected him. All it did was allow him to command them. Otherwise, such a proud malevolent serpent would not listen to him. Though perhaps they would have with his recent perk.

Nonetheless, summoning such a creature was always something to do with extreme caution. To summon a basilisk was to summon the powers of death. Which is why Harry's eyes would remain closed.

Still, he could merely use the basilisks' own eyes to navigate. They didn't affect themselves after all, so Harry didn't have to worry about the secondary paralysis effect. Through their eyes, Harry studied the basilisks he had summoned.

They were nowhere near the size of the one in the chamber. That one was a thousand years old, and would take an extraordinary amount of magic to conjure one that size. These snakes were a mere 1/6th the size, at only 10 feet long each. 

Luckily for Harry, the size of the basilisk didn't matter too much. Their eyes were just as deadly.

“$There is a nest of hundreds of acromantulas in that direction,$” Harry pointed in the direction the spider had fled towards. “$I want you to hunt them all down. Leave none alive!$”

Magic said to reduce their numbers to below 100, so Harry did have to pause to wonder whether Magic would be okay with him wiping them out, but these spiders were an invasive species. They thrived in other locations around the world, but there were a handful of magical species that only lived here in the forbidden forest.

Besides, once he reduced their numbers down to below 100, there was no way the centaurs wouldn't take advantage of that to launch their own attack to wipe them out for good.

So he might as well wipe them all out now and save them the trouble. If Magic objected later, he'd gladly take the scolding to rid the forest of these evil creatures.

“$Yes, Master!$”

“$As you command, Master!$”

“$Right away, Master!$”

The basilisks immediately turned and slithered quickly across the forest floor, spreading out widely to cover as much ground as possible. 

As the basilisks disappeared into the distance, Harry reverted back into crow form, and flew up high above the treetops.

The spiders would quickly realize that something was wrong, perhaps smell the scent of their old enemy in the air, and flee in the opposite direction. So he had to get ahead of them, and make sure they couldn't escape.

He flew high above the spider nest, and dropped back low on the other side, a good way away to catch any spider that was further out than their nest.

He swooped low to the ground and transformed back, transitioning smoothly into a walk. He raised his wand again, and once more cast “Serpensortia!”

Two more basilisks formed in front of him. Harry groaned at the strain. He had pushed beyond his limit to conjure them. While maintaining them didn't cost too much, only about 10 units of Power each, the actual summoning cost him nearly everything he had. Now, summoning more while he was already using his magic sustaining previous summons was almost too much.

Now, he had 40 points tied into sustaining these mere four familiar connections, as opposed to the 30 it took last year for 30 horned serpents. It goes to show just how impressive basilisks are. They truly are the king of the serpents.

He knelt down to catch his breath, his vision swirling. “$Spiders! Go kill!$” He hissed shakily.

The new batch of basilisks set off eagerly to go hunt some acromantulas.

Harry groaned and rolled over onto his back, feeling sick. Overdrawing magic really wasn't good for his health. Luckily, he didn't overdo it too badly, or he would have been out of commission for the rest of the day, or longer.

He would have just set the whole place on fire with some fiendfyre, but he couldn't bring himself to torch all of that acromantula webbing. There were probably several tons of the silk just waiting to be gathered. It was a literal fortune.

That wasn't even considering the venom he could gather.

It wasn't just about preserving valuable loot from the spiders though. In order to clear out such a large area using fire, he ran a serious risk of losing control over it and starting a legitimate forest fire. He was here to help the forest, not burn it down.

So, to preserve as much wealth as he could, and not damage the surrounding forest, he had decided on this method.

After catching his breath, he rummaged through his trunk and fished out a potion to calm his nausea, took a dose and then settled in to watch the carnage. 

He sent his awareness through the binds and watched out of four sets of eyes simultaneously. Through them, he watched them glide through the nest, spiders falling dead by the dozens.

They kept their heads on a swivel so they could “meet” the eyes of all of the acromantulas around them, including the ones high above them in the trees. Every time their yellow eyes passed over a section of web, bodies dropped. Some spiders simply went limp and fell over, their legs curling inward. Other spiders tried to leap away, but their eyes betrayed them and they died mid-leap.

The spiders were in full frenzied panic trying to get away. Harry could feel the raw blanket of fear all the way from where he was, it was so strong. It pressed against his mind, almost driving him into a panic of his own as well, but Harry pressed down hard with his occlumency to not be overwhelmed by the raw emotion. 

The first two basilisks had reached the nest first, so all of the spiders were trying to run away, only to run headlong into the second pair.

There were a handful of smarter, older acromantulas that tried to keep some of the thicker trees between them and the basilisks. It was really the only way to try to survive. However, the basilisks, in the gleeful rush of the hunt, didn't notice.

Harry quickly pointed them out through his link. “$There! Hiding behind the trees! You need to be more thorough!$”

The basilisk he directed the message to quickly broke off from its chase to kill the stragglers.

The nest was turning into a macabre scene of slaughter. Dead spiders were hanging in their own webs in the tree tops, and many more bodies littered the forest floor.

Through one snake’s eyes, Harry saw a handful of smaller acromantulas slipping through a torn section of web high in the canopy, dropping down into the undergrowth and bolting away from the nest. They stumbled over roots, crashed through dead leaves, then began to find their stride, heading in the direction of the lighter, safer part of the forest. They were clever enough to use the dead body of another acromantula as a shield on their back to block their vision behind them to run away, so they hadn't died when the basilisk glanced their way.

These spiders were smarter than he gave them credit for.

“$Continue through the nest. I'll handle these runners,$” Harry said through the link.

By now, the aftereffects from the magical strain were gone, so he felt good enough to handle himself against a dozen or so spiders if it came to that.

Harry stood up from the branch, took a step off and smoothly transformed into a crow. He flew after the runners.

He had expected there to be more than a few escapees. Despite the successful slaughter of hundreds already, there were only four basilisks trying to cover a far too large area. They couldn't get the coverage needed, and plenty of spiders would have managed to get around them to escape. Hopefully, that number would be less than a hundred. It would be a pain to try to hunt them all down afterward.

Flying high above the trees, he spotted the group of spiders quickly, as well as larger groups escaping out the sides of his little pincer maneuver, and swooped down to confront them. He tucked his wings in, and dove between the branches, flaring his wings out at the last minute to slow him, and transformed, hitting the ground running.

“Depulso!”

A wave of force slammed into the group of spiders, sending them hurtling backward into the trees behind them. Harry didn't give them a chance to recover.

“Confringo Trio!”

Three blasting curses split off from his wand, arcing towards the group of spiders writhing on the ground trying to get back on their feet. The three bombs exploded, sending spider limbs flying.

One of the spiders towards the edge of the group writhed in pain as it burned from the fire of the blast.

Harry walked up to it, pointed his wand at its head. “Percutio.”

The piercing hex shot through its head like a bullet.

He glanced around to check if there were any others. Finding none, he turned back into a crow and flew above the trees once more.

He checked back in on the progress of the four basilisks. During the time he was dealing with his spiders, they had converged in the center of the nest. There, surprisingly, was Aragog, the king of this nest. He hadn’t bothered to run. He was too old and wouldn’t have made it very far. As soon as the basilisks neared, he had died where he stood.

Harry's heart twinged with guilt. Not for Aragog, he couldn't care less for a man-eating spider, but for Hagrid. Hagrid had basically raised Aragog, and obviously loved him dearly. The poor man would be devastated.

Nevertheless, he had a job to finish.

“$Two of you chase the spiders fleeing to the North. The other two chase those fleeing South. However, be very careful not to kill anything besides the spiders. I forbid it.$”

While the basilisks were chasing the larger groups, Harry flew around the perimeter to handle the singular spiders that had somehow slipped past the basilisks on their own. Every time he found one, he would swoop down, transform, then blast it with an explosion before it could react. Sometimes, he didn’t even land before he was already transformed back into a crow flying off to find the next target.

Over the course of the next few hours, Harry and his basilisks combed through the surroundings to make sure every spider was dead. The basilisks had been able to catch up to the main groups that had fled.

When they couldn’t find any other spider after another half an hour searching, he decided that it would have to be enough. He dismissed the basilisks, and they dissolved into nothing.

He turned to look at the remains of the nest. Despite all of the spiders being dead, curled up husks, the sight of the nest was haunting. The OG Harry and Ron either had some serious balls of steel on them, or they had a blindingly stupid amount of trust in Hagrid’s advice. He was leaning towards the latter.

Harry sighed. He still had a lot of spiders to kill to finish the Quest.