Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. Written for the Mother's Day Contest at HPFC. Reviews appreciated!
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Morag clacks her pincers and moves to stand in front of her babies, who scramble on top of each other in a fluidly moving mound of spiders.
"What do you want?" she clicks.
The new alpha male, Garon, leers at her. "You should be my alpha female. You are the most fertile."
She spits venom at him. "How dare you? My Aragog has been gone only a few nights."
"Maybe," clicks Garon, "but you must think of your brood. They will have a better life as the alphas' children, you know."
She looks back at her babies with four of her eight eyes. "We shall see," she clicks, and he crawls away.
Turning back to the pile, Morag resumes dropping tiny bound insects to feed the brood. One, two, three…
Aragog was a good mate. There was plenty of food, space for building webs, children. Love isn't something arachnids believe in, but she and Aragog had a bond, a common goal to raise their offspring. Now she must make a decision, to move on and do what's best for them.
But as she lovingly caresses the pile with a hairy foreleg, she can't help but wish it wasn't so hard.