"Fake…?"
Aragog's massive pincers, capable of snapping a human head in one bite, trembled slightly as it rasped out those two words.
Its black body resembled a moving fortress of shadows, exuding a foul stench of blood. Yet, at this moment, it shrank into a tight, quivering ball.
"That's right, fake," Hagrid said, trying to soften his voice. "It's just an illusion conjured by magic, not real. Whatever you saw in there…"
"Don't mention that thing!"
The mere hint of the illusion's contents sent Aragog, still under Hagrid's care, into another fit of shudders.
"No—don't talk about it, Hagrid. We have to leave—get out of here! It's coming back—it always comes back—it's always been here! Those centaurs keep muttering about some great calamity—"
Its eight enormous legs twitched as if about to unfurl, only to curl back up even tighter. The giant spider's pincers clacked rapidly, and Hagrid swore he'd never seen Aragog so unsteady.
As a 5X-class creature, it had no natural predators in the Forbidden Forest—a fact that had allowed its kind to grow into such a sprawling colony.
Hagrid had to throw himself onto the eight-eyed giant spider, pressing down with his full weight to stop its trembling.
At that moment, Viktor spoke up out of the blue, his tone cool and detached:
"No need to worry. I can deal with the monster you're afraid of."
"You?"
Aragog seemed to recognize the voice, pausing in hesitation. Its small brain finally clicked, connecting Hagrid's talk of magic and illusions.
Its back arched warily, shifting into a defensive stance, poised to strike.
"You're scared of a magical creature, right? If it's still lurking in the castle, I can take care of it for you—at the very least, I could scare it the way it scared you. I doubt even that monster is without its own predators," Viktor said.
"That way, it's less likely to come after your colony. What do you think?"
At this, Aragog seemed to calm slightly. Its eight massive eyes swiveled, as if weighing the offer.
"Oh, right," Viktor added casually, "but I'll need some of your colony's venom sacs. I don't need them from living spiders—just give me some from the sick ones."
"Fine, wizard."
After a pause, Aragog's large pincers twitched slowly. Its back relaxed, settling into a posture of exhaustion.
Hagrid was stunned to see its demeanor soften so noticeably.
Aragog spoke slowly: "As long as you keep that monster from coming here, we can stay out of each other's way… I'll have Mosag, my wife, give you some premature and defective young. The rest is up to you."
It sounded like a compromise with Viktor, though its tone carried an urgent edge, tinged with fear, as if it desperately wanted him gone.
With that, it coiled up again and began crawling up a silk thread dangling from above.
"What exactly are you afraid of?" Hagrid asked at that moment.
"I can't say—I still can't say, Hagrid. That thing in the castle is something we absolutely cannot name. It's the ancient creature we spiders fear most…"
As it spoke, Aragog's spine quivered again, and then it fell completely silent.
Only then did the surrounding spiders, big and small, begin to recover from their state of abject terror, cautiously stretching out their limbs.
No matter how Hagrid pressed, they offered no further response.
In the end, Hagrid waved a hand, signaling Viktor to follow a spider the size of a small elephant toward the nest to collect the eggs Aragog had promised. Hagrid stayed behind, apparently intending to talk more with Aragog.
After that little episode, the eight-eyed giant spiders around them suddenly became remarkably docile. As Viktor passed by, they even shuffled back obediently, sparking a fleeting urge in him to keep one as a pet.
There was just enough space in the woods outside his cabin to raise a few…
In the end, he decided to take two undersized eight-eyed giant spider eggs and two premature spider corpses—though premature, they were still the size of human heads.
Viktor figured that size was plenty.
The eggs of the eight-eyed giant spiders were like ostrich eggs—slightly elastic and warm to the touch, but with hard shells overall. In the brief time he spent in the egg chamber, Viktor spotted at least fifty or sixty eggs, each with a sticky shadow wriggling inside.
Anyone with a fear of spiders would've gasped and fainted on the spot.
But Viktor wasn't that sort. After collecting what he needed, he simply nodded calmly to the spider that had guided him, watching as it climbed back into the shadows.
Hagrid emerged two or three minutes later.
"Good heavens, those little spiders were terrified—I've never seen them like that before… I've got to say, Viktor, you'll need to be more careful in the future. Not all magical creatures are keen on shaking hands with humans, even with me around."
Hagrid strode out of the dense forest, lantern in hand, his coat draped over his shoulders. His expression wasn't exactly grim, but it wasn't cheerful either—he had a deep empathy for Aragog.
Viktor shook his head.
"Sorry. It's just that in that moment, I had this strange gut feeling to act, so I did. I suppose it's some kind of intuition from divination."
"You sound like one of those centaurs," Hagrid grumbled under his breath, shaking his head too.
But deep down, he knew Viktor might be onto something—Aragog didn't just hand over spider eggs for no reason.
"Speaking of which, do you know how to raise eight-eyed giant spiders, Hagrid?" Viktor asked. "I was thinking of keeping them at my place. They'd make great pets."
At that, Hagrid perked up.
"Oh, I know a thing or two about that! The little ones still in their eggs are awfully fragile. I'd suggest keeping them in a dark but warm spot to help them hatch."
"Oh, and for the young ones, you'll need a place with just the right humidity—not too wet, not too dry. Best to put a leaf nearby to test it; if the leaf dries out, mist some water in."
Viktor nodded. Hmm, doesn't sound too hard.
But Hagrid wasn't done:
"Once they hatch, it gets simpler. Just set up a nest for them, give them water every morning, clean the nest every evening, feed them some breadcrumbs every other day, and toss in a live bug once a week. But after a while, you'll need to check their shells now and then—make sure you don't feed them anything too hard during molting, or they could get hurt. Once their venom sacs grow in, it gets trickier—you'll need to wipe them down every three days…"
Viktor's face went completely blank as he silently tossed the idea of raising eight-eyed giant spiders into the trash.
"I'll just send them to Baba Yaga to raise. I'll visit them when they're grown."