Chapter 10 - Bow down, bitches.
"Honestly, dementors, I don't know what they're thinking." Madam Pomfrey's rant had stuck with Harry even until he was finally able to lie down on his bed in Gryffindor tower.
The start of this year was almost as bad as last year, it was pretty much only Venom's help that stopped it from being worst. After being exposed to a dementor, Harry had been sent to Madam Pomfrey while Hermione had gone somewhere with Professor McGonagall for some reason. After being checked over by the fussing and ranting nurse, Harry had been sent to the great hall to join everyone else in the sorting/welcoming feast where he learnt that Professor Lupin was the new defence against the dark arts teacher for this year. He had honestly just been glad that Madam Pomfrey hadn't detected Venom, perhaps she could have if she kept searching, meaning Harry had to do better than normal to avoid a trip to the hospital wing.
Harry couldn't help but notice that Draco had kept his distance from him and was glaring at him, Harry couldn't help but smile at that, something that caused Draco's glare to grow worse. Harry was under no illusion about the fact that Draco at some point in the near future would go running to Snape who would jump at the chance to get him into trouble but recognised that there wasn't anything he could do about that now so pushed the thought out of his mind. Throughout the feast, Harry had heard people whispering about his confrontation with the dementor, it was even easier to do so with Venom boosting his hearing. He could hear that some people had a fairly accurate idea about what had happened, while others most certainly did not because Harry was fairly sure that he had not at any point headbutted a dementor.
Dumbledore had given his usual, unusual speech before giving everyone a warning about the dementor. Throughout the feast, Harry noted that Dumbledore hadn't paid any more attention to him than normal which was something Harry greatly appreciated, the last thing he wanted right now was a telling off about leaving the Dursleys.
Once Harry was in bed he waited for the maximum ten minutes needed for all of his roommates to fall asleep, once he was fairly sure they wouldn't wake up and disturb him, he started talking with Venom.
'Venom, are you there?' Harry asked.
'Yes, it's almost like I'm a part of you.' Venom's dry response earned an eye roll from Harry.
'What happened with the dementor?' Harry asked. 'You stopped my emotions from going haywire, which I appreciate, but then I heard a scream. A woman's scream, it wasn't Hermione though, I'm sure it wasn't. It felt familiar.'
'Yes, it was your mother.'
'My mother?' Harry repeated. 'That voice was my mum?'
'It was her when she died,' Venom's voice was softer than Harry had ever remembered it being. 'she was screaming your name while being attacked.'
'How do you know?' Harry blinked, feeling his eyes growing slightly wetter.
'I have full access to your brain,' Venom answered. 'I have access to all your memories, even those
you don't remember. I can give you access to every memory you have ever nad since you were capable of storing memories.'
"You can show me memories of my parents?!' It took a great deal of effort for Harry to keep quiet and not jump up and down with excitement, he barely noticed the tears slipping down his face.
'Yes, but not right now.'
"What?!" Harry hissed angrily before pausing, he opened his bed curtains and quickly looked around and made sure that his roommates were still asleep. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief before closing the curtains again. 'What?!' Harry mentally hissed.
'We have other things to do first,' Venom reminded him. 'remember that we agreed to deal with the acromantula problem tonight.' Harry frowned, remembering that Venom had insisted several times on dealing with the acromantulas on the first night back at school.
'Yeah, but you can't just tell me something like that and not show me!' Harry protested.
'The sooner we get the spider problem dealt with, the sooner you can view these memories,' Venom said. 'relax, the memories are not going anywhere.'
'Fine.' Harry ground his teeth together in anger, sneaking out of his bed and walking into the bathroom.
'Good, use that anger.' Venom approved. 'We'll jump out the window, I'll transform and...'
'About that,' Harry cut Venom off as he gently closed the door. 'are you sure that that is a good idea?
You transforming, I mean.'
'What?' Venom asked in a confused voice.
'Venom,' Harry began patiently. 'even in the dead of night a seven-foot black mass of muscle and teeth will attract some form of attention either from Dumbledore, or any of the teachers and students that would tell Dumbledore or the creatures in the forest that would tell Hagrid who would tell Dumbledore. The last thing we need is Dumbledore on our tail.'
'Fine,' Venom growled. 'we'll try a different look.'
'What are you..'Harry found himself cut off as his body became covered in the usual black goo that he recognized from Venom, except this time he didn't feel his height increase, nor was he given a body bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The goo covered him like it was a second skin, he turned and saw his reflection staring back at him. He was black as usual, but there were no massively sharp teeth either, just a pair of white eyes. "whoa, that's cool." Harry whispered out loud as he stared at himself, he could admit that he really liked this new look.
'I know.' Venom sounded so undeniably smug. 'We should go now.'
'Right.' Harry agreed. Venom slowly opened the bathroom door and saw the other boys were still asleep, he gently shut the door before releasing a small tendril from his arm that opened the window. Venom jumped across the room and through the open window, his tendril closing it as he
Dasseo.
Venom's body fell towards the ground, shoving wind out of his way as he allowed gravity to take
over. a few seconds later a tentacle shot out from his wrist and latched onto the side of the casstle.
Venom used it and swung himself upwards, gaining impressive height before letting go and attaching a new tentacle to another part of the castle and repeating the process. Venom swung around the castle, doing his best to stay away from windows or any other bright lights until he had to get away from the castle and landed in the field that he knew would lead to Hagrid's hut. After taking a moment to prepare himself, Venom turned invisible and stealthily made his way towards the forbidden forest, making sure that Hagrid was asleep as he walked past his hut.
Once he entered the forest he shot out another tentacle that latched onto a nearby tree branch and used it to swing himself up into the air before he began swinging through the forest, heading towards
rhe acromantula nest.
'Fuck me, that's a lot of spiders.' Harry couldn't help but point out as Venom landed on a tree branch near the cluster of spiders.
'Yes,' Venom agreed. 'but we'll be fine as long as we stick to the plan.'
'I remember it,' Harry replied, thinking back to their research on acromantulas. 'I just hope that the information we learnt was accurate, if not we're fucked.'
'If not then we'll improvise,' Venom told him. 'now, are you ready?'
'Nope,' Harry answered honestly. 'but I sense there's no getting out of this.'
'I knew you were smart.' Venom grinned before leaping off the branch, he shot out a tentacle that wrapped around a tree branch and allowed him to swing forward. The tentacle retracted mid-swing and allowed him to drop down in the middle of the acromantula territory.
"Aragog!" Venom bellowed, attracting the attention of each and every acromantula there. The spiders all clicked their pincers together and hissed at the intruder, but none of them moved forwards to attack.
"Who are you?" A voice boomed, the owner of this voice being none other than Aragog, if one was scared of spiders then they would be terrified of acromantulas, but they would be petrified with fear upon seeing Aragog. He was a spider that was bigger than an elephant, he was black but there was a bit of grey mixed in, each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white, letting Venom know that he was blind.
"We are Venom," Venom chuckled.
"Venom?" Aragog repeated, sounding like he was testing out the word. "Why are you here? Very rarely does prey walk so willingly into my web.'
"Prey?" Venom laughed. "We are not prey, we are hunters!" One acromantula moved closer to Aragog and quietly whispered something to him.
"You say we, yet you are alone." Aragog's voice sounded confused.
"We are never alone," Venom laughed once more.
"My spiders have told me that you are the only one here, do not lie to me!" Aragog hissed.
"Oh Aragog," Venom said in a mocking voice. "so old, so strong, so slow. We aren't here to mock you, no matter how much you deserve it. We are here to challenge you."
"Challenge me?!" Aragog demanded. "You dare?!"
"We do," Venom nodded. "we challenge you, Aragog, king of spiders. We challenge you for your title, when we win, we will rule the spiders.'
"Only a spider may rule!" Aragog yelled.
"That's fine, we count as one." Venom rolled his shoulders, feeling the acromantulas around him getting riled up.
"You lie! Kill him!" Aragog ordered the other spiders.
"We don't lie!" Venom shouted before aiming his hand at an approaching spider, webs shot out from the back of his hand and wrapped around the spider's leg, causing it to fall onto the floor. The other spiders stopped moving and stared. "See?! We make webs, and that's not all we can do." Venom added just as the spider managed to get free, it leapt towards Venom who jumped backwards and landed on the middle of a tree, sticking to it. "We can crawl as well," Venom pointed out before he jumped off the tree, grabbing the attacking spider by one of his legs and throwing him hard at a tree before landing. The spider crashed hard into the tree before falling down to the ground with its skull caved in. "We challenge you, old man," Venom said, pointing to Aragog. "you're weak, you're blind and you're old. Your time is done, you'd be better as a meal for all of these spiders.
"Kill him!" Aragog ordered once more.
"You nearly unleashed the basilisk!" Venom roared, causing all the spiders to flinch and hiss at him for even mentioning the name of the feared serpent.
"Liar!" Aragog shouted at him.
"I don't lie!" Venom growled. "Last year two boys came here, seeking answers, hoping to stop the basilisk! Friends of Hagrid, friends of your friend! You weren't loyal enough to spare them for the sake of your friendship with Hagrid, and you nearly cost everything. One of those boys went on to slay the monster, but nearly didn't because you ordered his death! If he hadn't then the basilisk would be loose and would kill every spider here! All because of you!" Venom pointed an accusing finger at Aragog, the rest of the spiders hissed at the mention of the basilisk before turning their attention to Aragog.
"Kill him!" Aragog commanded. None of the spiders moved, all of them staring between him and Venom.
"We're not the ones that will die tonight!" Venom leapt into the air at heights impossible for a human to jump, he arched through the air and headed towards Aragog. Venom slammed both of his fists down onto Aragog's head, causing the giant spider to fall onto the ground. Aragog tried to grab Venom with his pincers but Venom dodged in time and moved to the first of the legs on Aragog's left side and grabbed hold of it. "And this little piggy went.." Venom pulled hard and eventually the leg was pulled out of Aragog's body with a pop, the elderly spider roared in pain. Venom didn't waste time and slapped Aragog right across the face with the leg before throwing it away and hitting Aragog with a punch to his face that broke one of his pincers and sent him to near-unconsciousness.
Venom placed a hand on Aragog and suddenly he transformed, the black goo left Harry's body and crawled onto Aragog. In front of all the spiders of the forest, it spread all around Aragog's body, covering him from his head to the bottom of all of his legs. An eight leg and a second pincer, made entirely of the same goo as Venom, shot out of Aragog's body and a second later Aragog's body rose up to a standing position.
"Listen up," Harry said loudly, causing all spiders to look at him. "last year you all tried to kill me, and because of that you nearly unleashed your most feared enemy and mine. I don't want to hurt you all, but we will if we have to. From now on, we're the kings." Harry gestured between himself and Venom-Aragog. "You speak when we say, you move when we tell you to and you don't even blink without our permission. You will not tell anyone about us. If anyone has a problem then we can sort it out, you can try and expose us. But to do so, you'd have to go through us, or to be more accurate..." Harry trailed off and placed his hand on Venom-Aragog, the black goo left Aragog and transferred to Harry, leaving Aragog once more with one pincer and seven legs as he fell to the ground. A second later Harry was back in his seven-foot and muscular Venom form, complete with long tongue and sharp teeth.
"We go through you!" Venom bellowed before turning to Aragog, Venom's jaw and teeth extended before he lunged towards the downed spider. The acromantulas hissed and flinched as Venom tore through Aragog's head and began eating his brain in front of them. Once Venom was done, he turned to face the other spiders, licking his lips and long teeth. "Bow down, bitches." Venom ordered.
The spiders hesitated, but mere seconds later they were all bowing their heads to Venom, signalling to him that he was indeed the new king. In the world of acromantulas, the strongest was the one in charge. Aragog had been the strongest for so long that nobody had challenged him, partly because of his strength and partly because he had fathered the entire lot of them. But it hadn't escaped their notice that he was old and couldn't see, despite that none of them wanted to challenge him, it would only take a single strike from him to cause serious damage to them. Yet this newcomer, one who claimed to be a spider, dealt with him easily. If that wasn't enough then it appeared to them that this new spider could also store a human inside of himself! Clearly, this wasn't a being that they should take lightly, especially with the way that he had eaten Aragog's brain.
Venom grinned just before making a nice change to his body, on the front of his chest a white patch formed, the patch grew and changed shape until there was a large white spider on the front that ranged from his chest to his stomach, the legs of the spider wrapped around the side of his body and attached itself to matching legs from a matching spider on his back.
Venom reared his head back and roared triumphantly into the air, causing all the other spiders to flinch.