The Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning
Authors Note: *Back from playing NIOH, cracks knuckles, starts typing.*
Disclaimer: I don't at this time own any published work of Sega or JK Rowling, if I did I'd gut the current Sonic fandom and only allow literate people to contribute cutting the fandom back by 90% and improving the quality by the same percentage.
Susan and Maurice pushed off from the ground hard, rocketing up high out of the giant spiders many legged reach, followed unanimously by almost every student with a broom in hand. In any other situation this would have been adequate, not this one. Hundreds of eyes, innate magical resistance and the sheer size of the spiders themselves enhanced their threat level, most importantly their range.
One of the Hufflepuffs went down under a hail of ballistic webbing and was immediately set upon by the oversized arachnids, Maurice was diving before he knew what he was doing.
Close enough to the ground to leap off the broom and into a run, displaced air and noise sent spiders skittering out of his way.
Scooping the shaking Hufflepuff off of the ground in a princess carry in a fraction of a second and heedless of the blood and webbing Maurice poured on the speed angling straight back to the castle faster than the spiders could react.
Susan was not idle wand pointed below her "Arania Exumai!" shouting the spider repellent spell repeatedly, jets of light hammered down leaving a bitter waxy smell with each successful impact forcing the spiders back sometimes missing limbs. The students in the stands and the grounds had not been idle and had been casting their own spell barrages to ward off the arachnid invasion, some not so specialized if the screaming madly skittering spiders on fire were anything to go on.
Madam Hooch herself was transfiguring grass into animated ropes breaking spiders legs from her own broom and blasting away at the ground whenever a spider got too close to one of the ground bound students.
A spider shrieked loudly in agony as its front mandible was unceremoniously lobbed off by a suit of animated armor effortlessly dual wielding two long swords. Susan paused in her casting to take in the sight of Minerva McGonagall storming down the front steps wand raised and directing what seemed to be every suite of armor in the castle, each armed with what seemed like every sharp weapon in the Hogwarts armory.
At the end of the day no one died although some students had bruises, scratches and the occasional venomous bite, Headmistress McGonagall set all the suites of armor into a guard rotation around the forests boundary monitored by teachers and volunteers from the seventh years and then called the Ministry.
Amelia Bones arrived at Hogwarts in style, furious and flanked by three squadrons of Aurors, a dozen healers lead by Healer Hippocrates Smethwyck and several Unspeakable's.
Then came the examination of the attackers the front lawn of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, it wasn't pretty, yelling featured predominantly.
Healer Hippocrates Smethwyck was the mildly furious Healer-in-Charge of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and like Poppy Pomfrey had seen many things in the course of his long career to the point he felt like he'd married the job instead of just working.
Smethwyck had originally been in charge of one of the wards of St Mungo's that of dangerous creatures, then after a nasty incident involving two rookie Aurors, their prisoner, the prisoners indebted healer friend and a mass poisoning the entire hospital had undergone massive administrative restructuring.
Upon being forced to take charge by popular vote Smethwyck had taken a rather spiteful route after decades of being forced to deal with really ignorant isolated wizards who thought inbreeding 'really wasn't all that bad'. He'd blanket copied the Muggle system in place in the Scottish National Health Service, then he'd marched into Amelia Bones Office and told her flatly that the Ministry would fund St Mungos because of her sup-par Aurors or else the entire hospital would go on strike. Considering St. Mungo's serviced the United Kingdoms entire Wizarding World Amelia had allocated the entirety of the funding from the now defunct Department of Magical Games and Sports. To the criminal elements of Wizarding Britain and the purebloods this made bribing people to do unscrupulous things such as burying research findings significantly harder. As well as that, Smethwyck had taken an inordinate amount of glee in firing the easily bribed welcome witch who thought patient confidentiality was a medical condition not a actual hospital doctrine sending her running in tears, no reference was provided.
Miriam Strout had been recruited as his second in command for her motherly demeanour and ability to cow unruly patients into compliance as well as her competence in ousting under trained healers who paid their way in, whilst Augustus Pye was a new trainee who helped him with his backlog of administrative paperwork i.e. acted like his personal gopher.
As it was Smethwyck administered wound-healing potion madly suppressing a smirk as Miriam brow beat some of the more unruly students into letting themselves being examined whilst Augustus looked between the two exasperatedly, idly Smethwyck wondered if his healer colleague Omar had placed that bet on when he'd propose to Healer Strout to be Mrs. Smethwyck his winnings from that pool would fund a rather nice honeymoon in Austria.
"Smethwyck if you could examine this, I have a worrying theory that needs a second opinion" Horace Slughorn indeed looked quite worried presenting a purple stone streaked with white and blue thread like material. That looked familiar, unsettlingly so. "Please tell me you didn't get that from one of the Acromantula" Slughorn looked grim "Unfortunately" halfheartedly and almost knowing what he would find Smethwyck scanned the stone with a spell "It's a bezoar approximately thirty years old highly poisonous and comprised entirely of partially digested unicorn meat and Centaur hair suggesting that the Acromantula this specimen came from is native to The Forbidden Forest and has been for at least thirty years as it is the only place in the world both species live in harmony" The Ministry and a great deal of the wizarding world were going to be up in arms about this, it was times like this Smethwyck was glad he was a healer because he didn't envy the Hogwarts staff or Amelia Bones the outrage that would come.
Neville Longbottom was surprised to hear giant spiders had been on Hogwarts grounds having skipped the flying lesson intentionally and had been indoors fiddling around with a portraiture charm guided by George Weasley.
Ending up in Ravenclaw had been a blessing in disguise for the boy as his grandmother could no longer compare him to his father nor was she hovering over his shoulder. It was also nice to have someone in his corner for once, Filius Flitwick had staged an intervention when he had discovered how far Augusta traditionalism went, forcing Neville to use an incompatible wand. As a former dueling champion Flitwick knew the importance of matched equipment and had been incensed with Augusta, Neville hadn't heard the supposed tirade over the floo but the same evening Flitwick had taken him personally to Carkitt Market in London to a shop called Wands by Gregorovitch, a shop founded by Mykew Gregorovitch a European wandmaker said to have rivaled Ollivander's in his prime. Obtaining a supposedly odd Vine and Unicorn Hair wand that gave off a fountain of pale blue sparks Neville couldn't be happier, then to make a great day even better Flitwick had introduced him to an older student also interested in charms.
George Weasley could admit that this was the most fun he'd had in a long while teaching the timid little firstie charms though he knew that Flitwick was trying to get him out of the social hole he'd crawled into over the last year.
"Well seeing as we can't get out or do anything thanks to McG locking down the school, what do you want to do?" It still felt odd to be speaking normally rather than in twinspeak with Fred but after last year he just didn't have the enthusiasm to mingle anymore.
The first year was painfully shy and clearly needed a confidence boost "I want to learn charms and maybe some enchanting so I can prove I'm not a squib"
George inwardly shrugged "A good a reason as any, we'll start at the bottom with paper animations and work our way up"
In the Hospital Wing
Maurice carefully scrubbed the blood off his face, wearing clean hospital wing issue pyjamas as his blood soaked uniform had been judged unsalvageable by Madam Pomfrey. Maurice had run back to the pitch to after delivering the Hufflepuff girl, Parvati Patil to Pomfrey just in time to see McGonagall's enchanted suits of armour army drive off the attacking spiders with extreme prejudice.
Headmistress McGonagall words rang through his head like a reverberating clash of cymbals "You're a hero child, Hogwarts is proud to have you as one of her own"
The rest of what she said had gone over his head as the days events had began to sink in. He hadn't thought as he dived to save Parvati, he hadn't intended to be a hero, how could he even be called a hero when Parvati Patil lay as pale as death on the hospital bed missing her left arm and both her legs?
"I know that look"
Maurice jerked and met the gaze of the man who had snuck up on him "Who?!"
The grizzled old man covered in scars in Auror uniform smirked prosthetic blue eye spinning in all directions "My name is Alastor Moody and I hear you're the reason one of my goddaughters is still alive"
Maurice grimaced, if it had been him in that bed in that state he wouldn't want to be alive.
"None of that looking sorry for yourself boy I near raised that girl myself after things went bad with her parents and I'll tell you this, that despite looking like a harmless little bunny rabbit that girl has grit, just you wait she'll be up and hopping before you know it."
Maurice couldn't find it in him to smile but no longer was he as miserable "Between you and me boy" Moody tapped his prosthetic peg leg which then shimmered revealing a entirely different looking leg that near matched his original one made of a patchwork of glinting steel that emulated each flex of muscle, Maurice gawped Moody winked and reapplied the glamour "She's not going to be losing much"
Above The Forbidden Forrest
Magical spider insecticide rained down upon the Forbidden Forrest poured by hundreds of witches and wizards on brooms wearing bubble head charms like astronauts.
These witches and wizards in white and grey robes were the Sky Patrol, their first mission out in force as blandly stated by Amelia Bones, Pest Control.
In the Astronomy Tower Professor Sprout watched the green rain falling on the forest with gritted teeth remembering the Minister's announcement earlier in the Great Hall. An expedition into the forest to manually deal with the problem had been judged as unfeasible as Acromantula were expert ambush predators evolved specifically to eat humans.
"It is the only option" Amelia Bones had spoken "I will not have another Acromantula attack on the school where a great deal of Wizarding Britain's children reside, though it will upset the ecosystem for a short while spiders, ordinary normal spiders, will be reintroduced after the Acromantula are gone."
Professor Sprout had already ordered the house elves to source the schools food from further afield, the thought of hastily sourced, thus of dubious quality nerve degenerative solution based spider pesticide making its way into the food chain and then the students scared her something fierce.
In the Forbidden Forest
The large white Acromantula sighed gazing with blind eyes up at the sky "Things have changed Hagrid… I have grown old, no longer do my children listen to me and because of this they have invited death into our home… I will not be here when you return, I only wish that I could have warned you of what is coming. Farewell my friend"
Green rain descended.
In an Unknown Location
"I hear there was some excitement at Hogwarts today"
"Yes sir, apparently half a colony of Acromantula attacked the campus without provocation"
"Was it one of our agents?"
"Negative, The Unspeakable's, St Mungo's Head Healer and a potions master confirmed that they were completely native"
"And they didn't attack before now? How interesting."
"The British ministry has confirmed that the centaur population has been decimated and there hasn't been a single unicorn sighting in the entire forest"
"They searched the entire thing?"
"Yes sir after they gassed the Acromantula they took the opportunity to cleanse the forest of anything truly dangerous, did you know that there were hags in the darker parts of the forest?"
"No, but good riddance to bad rubbish"
"Agreed"
