Bring a fairy tale to Hogwarts!

Chapter 80 How to Raise an Eight-Eyed Giant Spider

"Fake·-?"

Aragog's massive claws, capable of biting off a person's head in one bite, trembled slightly as he uttered those two words.

Its black body resembled a moving shadow fortress, carrying a stench of blood, but at this moment it cowered and curled up in a ball.

"Yes, it's fake," Hagrid tried to soften his voice, "it's just a magical illusion, not real. Whatever you saw in it—"

"Don't mention that thing!"

When Hagrid mentioned the things in his hallucinations, Aragog, one of his men, suddenly trembled again.

"Don't mention that thing, Hagrid. We have to get out of here! It's coming back, it always will, it's always been here! Those centaurs are spouting some great calamity—"

Its eight enormous legs, which had just begun to spread out, immediately curled up tightly again. The giant spider's pincers thrashed about rapidly, and Hagrid swore he had never seen Aragog so unsteady.

As a Level 5X creature, it originally had no natural enemies in the Forbidden Forest, which is why its population has been able to grow to such a large size.

Hagrid had to cling tightly to the eight-eyed giant spider to stop it from trembling.

At this moment, Victor suddenly said out of the blue:

"Don't worry, I can take care of the monster you're afraid of."

"...-.you?""

Aragog seemed to recognize the voice and hesitated for a moment. Then, his little mind finally caught on.

This connects Hagrid's talk of magic with illusions.

Its back arched warily, assuming a posture ready to attack.

"You're afraid of a magical creature, aren't you? If it still lives in the castle, I can take care of it for you, or at least scare it like I did you just now—I don't think that monster is without any natural enemies," Victor said.

"That way, it's less likely that monster will attack your tribe. What do you think?"

Upon hearing this, Aragog seemed to calm down a bit, his eight enormous eyes darting around as if he were thinking.

“Oh, right,” Victor added at this point, “but I need some of your kind’s venom sacs—I don’t need them from living spiders, just some from sick ones.”

"—Yes, wizard."

After a while, Aragog's large claw moved slowly, its back relaxed again, and it even showed a tired posture.

Hagrid was surprised to find that its attitude had clearly softened.

Aragok said slowly, "As long as you keep that monster away from here, we can live in peace—I'll have Mossag, my wife, give you some early childhood education and help with your disabled toddlers; the rest you'll have to handle yourself—"

It sounded like he had compromised with Victor, but there was a clear sense of urgency and a hint of fear in his voice and tone, a desire for him to get out of there as soon as possible.

After it finished speaking, it coiled up again and slowly climbed onto a silk thread hanging down from the top.

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

Hagrid asked at this point.

"I can't say, I still can't say, Hagrid. That thing in the castle is something we spiders absolutely cannot mention; it's the ancient creature we spiders fear most—"

As he spoke, Aragog's back trembled again, and then he fell completely silent.

Only then did the spiders, large and small, slowly recover from their extreme fear and timidly stretch out their limbs.

No matter how Hagrid asked, the spiders no longer responded.

Finally, Hagrid could only wave, signaling Victor to leave first with a spider the size of a baby elephant to retrieve some of the spider eggs Aragog had promised from the spider's nest. Hagrid himself remained where he was, seemingly preparing to talk to Aragog for a while longer.

After that little incident, the giant eight-eyed spiders around him suddenly became unusually docile. They would obediently step back when Victor walked by, making him feel an urge to keep one as a pet.

There's just enough space in the woods outside his cabin to raise some.

So in the end, he planned to take away two thin, emaciated giant spider eggs, as well as two early-dead giant spider corpses—although they were early-dead.

But they are still about the size of a human head.

Victor felt that this size was sufficient.

The eggs of the giant octopus spiders are like ostrich eggs; although the surface feels somewhat elastic and warm to the touch, the shell is generally hard. In just a short time inside the ovary, Victor saw at least fifty or sixty eggs, each with a sticky shadow moving inside.

If someone who is afraid of spiders were to appear here, they would definitely gasp and faint.

But Victor wasn't that kind of person. After retrieving the spider, he simply nodded calmly to the giant eight-eyed spider that had brought him there, and watched it crawl into the shadows.

Hagrid came out two or three minutes later.

"Good heavens, those little spiders were terrified. I've never seen them like that before. — I have to say, Victor, you'd better be careful in the future. Not all magical creatures are willing to shake hands with people. Even I would have a hard time."

Hagrid, wearing a coat and carrying a lantern, strode out of the dense forest. His expression wasn't exactly unpleasant, but it wasn't particularly happy either—he had a great deal of empathy for Aragog.

Victor shook his head.

"I'm sorry. It's just that at that time, I had a strange premonition that I wanted to do it, so I did it. I think it was probably some kind of intuition that the divination gave me."

"...You always talk like those centaurs." Hagrid muttered under his breath, shaking his head.

But he knew in his heart that Victor might have some truth to it—Aragok would never give spider eggs to people for nothing.

"Speaking of which, do you know how to raise giant eight-eyed spiders, Hagrid?" Victor asked again. "I'd like to keep them at my place."

I think they would be perfect as pets.

Hagrid gets excited when this is mentioned.

"Oh, I just happened to know that. Spiderlings still in their eggs are very vulnerable. I suggest you keep them in a dark but warm environment to help them hatch."

"Oh right, raising baby giant octopus spiders requires a moderately humid environment; it must not be too humid or too dry."

It's best to place a leaf nearby to test the humidity; if the leaf dries out, spray some water inside.

Victor nodded. "Hmm, that doesn't sound difficult."

But Hagrid wasn't finished:

"After it hatches, things become very simple. You just need to prepare a nest for it and give it water once every morning."

Clean its nest every night, feed it a little breadcrumbs every two days, and one live insect per week. However, after a while, you might need to check its shell periodically to prevent injury from hard food during molting. Things get a bit more complicated after the venom sacs develop; you'll need to clean it every three days.

Victor's face turned completely expressionless as he silently threw the option of "raising the eight-eyed giant spider himself" into the trash can.

"I'll give it to Grandma Baba Yaga to raise. I can go back and visit her a few times when she's older."