Bring a fairy tale to Hogwarts!

Chapter 79 Fear Curse

Even with lanterns, the Forbidden Forest remained pitch black at night, making it impossible to see anything clearly. If anyone were standing where Victor was now, they would only see a huge shadow and eight bright black eyes reflecting some light within it.

This is a scene straight out of the most terrifying nightmare.

But Victor stared directly at this nightmare, and even pulled out a limb from it and shook hands with it in a friendly manner.

Even Hagrid was stunned.

Two or three seconds later, he suddenly revealed a joyful smile.

"You're right, Victor. I'm so glad you think so too. Oh my god, I'm so touched. I've never met anyone who feels the same way I do..."

He even took out a small handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his nose, and revealed a look of finding a kindred spirit—for a moment, he even forgot about Victor mentioning unicorn blood that afternoon.

But the emotions between humans and animals are not interconnected. As Hagrid showed signs of excitement, the other eight-eyed giant spiders suddenly began to move their large claws, making a clicking sound.

"Aragok! Aragok!"

A spider quickly scurried up to Aragok and seemed to move its large pincers to say something. Aragok then turned angrily towards Victor.

"What are you doing?"

"This is an offense to us, stranger! Don't think that just because you came with Hagrid you can do whatever you want to us. You are not Hagrid."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you didn't like handshakes," Victor said.

But Aragog continued resentfully, "Hagrid is a good man, but we don't know you, Professor of Hogwarts. You're as arrogant as those wizards, and we don't welcome you—."

As Aragog was still speaking, the eight-eyed giant spider in front of Victor seemed to be getting impatient. It suddenly opened its sharp pincers and lunged forward. If it succeeded, a large chunk of flesh might be torn from Victor's arm.

But it didn't.

As the giant eight-eyed spider approached, the ground beneath its feet suddenly changed from an earthy color to a strange green. Immediately afterward, the spider's eight sharp legs sank into the ground, unable to move an inch, and its large pincers naturally missed their mark.

This change occurred in a small circle around Victor.

But because they were so close, even Aragog, who was already blind, found his forelegs entangled in a sticky, damp ground.

Every struggle only makes them sink deeper, unable to move.

Its anger flared up instantly.

Aragog's massive claws swung in the air a few times, about to unleash a piercing roar, intending to summon its clan to attack. At that moment, it completely forgot that Hagrid was right beside it.

Based on its intuition from living here for so long, its eight white eyes looked in Victor's direction.

At that moment, Victor's lips suddenly moved slightly, uttering a short incantation:

Now my bones have become a flute; it speaks for me.

Victor's voice was low and hoarse, carrying an ominous tone. But none of the others present, including the spider, could understand what he meant, because Victor was speaking a strange language that none of them could comprehend.

But the next second, Aragog saw a sight he would never forget.

Using the word "see" might not be entirely accurate, since Aragog hadn't seen anything for many years. But a pair of large, bright yellow eyes, shining like light bulbs, appeared directly in Aragog's mind as it turned toward Victor, accompanied by some strange, guttural sounds.

Those large eyes possessed the vertical pupils characteristic of snakes, but were hundreds, even thousands of times larger than any snake's. The vertical pupils stared coldly ahead.

It chooses its prey to devour.

Beside those eyes were some green scales...

Eyes and scales

In that instant, a tremendous fear, stemming from instinct, suddenly tightened Aragog's heart, making it want to let out a shrill scream like a human.

But by this point, even the giant spider could barely make a sound. Its massive claws froze in mid-air out of fear, and all it could do was lock its eight legs together as if twitching, its enormous body sprawling on the swampy ground, trembling.

All the eight-eyed giant spiders around did the same.

When Hagrid came to his senses, he found the entire jungle shrouded in a terrifying, unprecedented silence. All the giant spiders were curled up into a single, massive ball, not even a single thud of their pincers could be heard.

Hagrid looked at Victor hesitantly and asked, "What did you do?"

"It's nothing."

"It's just a curse of fear from my hometown."

Victor moved his hand, restoring the swampy ground to its original state. But even so, the giant spiders did not return to normal and remained in fear.

"Fear Charms? Why would you do that?" Hagrid said, somewhat taken aback. "I thought you liked them!"

“I do like them, Hagrid, but those giant spiders just tried to attack me—I think that went beyond a reasonable retaliation for my handshake. So I had to scare them to prevent me from being attacked,” Victor said. “Sorry, I thought their intelligence was no different from that of a normal person.”

"Oh, yes—...maybe I didn't explain this clearly to you, they do sometimes dislike people getting too close—...but they have never hurt anyone." Hagrid suddenly became embarrassed again.

He was also somewhat surprised by Aragog's reaction. Aragog had assured him that he would never harm humans, and had also promised to order his children not to harm anyone, which was why Dumbledore had agreed to let them stay in the Forbidden Forest.

But Aragog clearly showed signs of going back on his word.

"I'll teach it a lesson again—that way, you can break the spell, right?" Hagrid said.

"I've already untied them," Victor said, looking at the giant eight-eyed spiders curled up together with some confusion. "I only released them for a moment."

"The spell can only make them see their deepest fears. It turns out that I used it when I was taming the dragon. As I just mentioned, my dragon friend is sometimes very irritable and will attack others indiscriminately without thinking, so I had to use this spell to calm him down."

"But generally, they recover in a minute or two at most."

"This is the first time I've seen such an effect over such a long period of time. I wonder what Aragog saw inside."

Hearing this, Hagrid seemed to remember something. He ran to Aragog's side, trying to soothe it gently, and whispered to Victor:

"...Aragok did seem to mention something about school that frightened it, but it never said what it was... "

He placed his large hand on Aragog's carapace, which was covered with hairy spikes, and stroked it gently, in a soothing manner.

With Hagrid's comfort, Aragog seemed to recover somewhat, his eight eyes opening slightly with fear and confusion, moving aimlessly in the air.

"It's alright, Aragog. It's alright. It was all fake."