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Arachnia.
She was almost ready, she reflected as she poured the final ingredients from the bottles she was holding into the bathtub. The liquids boiled and cracked within the bath as they reacted with the potion that was coming together, at long last she would finally be more than human; it was ironic, but a few years ago, she had believed being a witch made her special and while it did, she was disappointed and dismayed when she discovered that while her magic gave her many advantages, it was still not enough.
This was the moment she had been waiting for.
But she needed for this to work if she was going to beat Voldemort; sure, some of the things he had done to his own body were horrific, but what she was going to do was nothing like that.
The potion within the bathtub was nearly ready, and she could see the thousands of Black Widow spiders within the bath scurrying around as they were bathed by the magic within the potion. In a few more minutes, the potion would be ready. As she adjusted the temperature within the brewing potion, Selena took a moment to think about what she was doing.
When Selena had found the Room of Requirement in her first year, the young Ravenclaw 5th year had come from a childhood where she was usually left bleeding and in a lot of physical and mental pain thanks to the Dursleys. Selena had often asked why they did that to her, although she had learnt from an early age never to talk back or ask the Dursleys questions. It never ended well. But as she had grown older, Selena had found herself wishing many a time she had the physical strength to put up a fight.
Selena knew there was little chance she could ever beat Dudley Dursley in a fight, but as the years passed she realised the Dursleys were nothing compared to Dumbledore and Voldemort. One wished to control her, although if he wanted to kill her that was certainly something she could expect on a good day, the other had launched one scheme after another to try to kill her. So far she had managed to survive each attack, using the resources of the Ravenclaw common room and what was inside the Room of Requirement to help her even the odds. But Selena knew sooner or later her luck would run out. Voldemort and Dumbledore were both relentless - if she didn't do something soon, one of their plans may very well succeed, and she would be killed.
Unless she did something about it.
Selena had always been fascinated by the superhero comics Dudley had collected - and thrown around his bedroom, but one day she had found the Marvel character Spider-Woman, or at the very least the three women - Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, and Mattie Franklin, who had donned the title and became a superheroine, and she was familiar with the story of Spider-Man. The idea of being so incredibly strong and having the ability to fire webs was a fantastic one for Selena, but when she got into the magical world, one of the first things she had done was to see if her dream could ever come true. She had written it off in the muggle world, but in the wizarding world it held up. Thanks to the Room of Requirement, which she had discovered in her first year, she had found a gene-splicing potion which would transplant the 'powers' of whatever was used in the potion into her body, and she had found a similar potion which would transform her into a half-human, half-human crossbreed, similar to Centaurs and Merpeople which was what she didn't want. She wanted to be able to walk down a street without being noticed.
But as she looked down at the potion bubbling away with the spiders Selena felt that everything was coming together. Waving her wand over the bathtub, Selena realised she was ready. Slipping off her robes, Selena gently clambered into the bath and submerged herself into the bathtub slowly. She winced as she felt the needle-like pain from the multiple spider bites, but she forced herself to relax in the bath, feeling the potion boiling around her as the spiders continued their assault on her. She took a deep breath as she felt the venom of their bites burn within her body, and she felt everything going dark…
Author's Note - The idea of a version of Harry, male or female, who would want to be more than what they are is an intriguing and logical one, but I have never written one like this before, and it won't be the last.