Summary: SSHG, AU, Ron should just learn not to touch what isn't his.
Written for the 31 Day of Ron Bashing, er… 31 Days of SSHG Flash Fiction 2023
Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose
A/N: I ran out of prompts…
The Crystal Spider
I don't handle creepy crawlers well. I had a spider problem at a house in Australia, and one of my female friends had to come rescue me from it.
Jai Courtney
"It's not natural, that is," Ron scoffed as they fanned out of the room and searched for Dark artefacts.
While most of the room appeared relatively bland, if being surrounded in meticulously organised ancient tomes and scrolls was bland, a lone spider seemingly crafted out of stone sat upon a pillow of golden velvet in the centre of the room. Another crystal hovered directly above it casting down rays of filtered almost-blue light that made the stone fluoresce a glowing fiery orange. A small runic chain of magic swirled around it in ancient runes.
Ron stared at it, and he pointed his wand at it to scan it for Dark magic. When the pillar glowed, Ron smiled in satisfaction. He loved vanishing Dark artefacts. Without waiting for confirmation because spiders were evil and they all deserved to be vanished anyway, he cast his Auror speciality spell to neutralise the evil effigy to the Void.
The beam from his wand, however went straight to the crystal that was focusing light down on the spider, and when it shattered—
The glowing crystal inclusions in the stone spider went out, and the spider promptly disappeared with a pop!
The room was utterly silent for a few seemingly long seconds just before the pillar the spider had been perched on began to spew lava like a volcano as a demonic imp leapt out of the fiery portal.
"Hahahahahahahaa! I'm free! The old man finally croaked. See you, suckers!"
The creature disappeared, leaving only the stench of sulfur and char.
Savage wrinkled his nose as he saw the charred pillar and attempted to relieve himself of the stench in his nose by rubbing it furiously. "Bloody hell, what did you do, Weasley?"
Ron averted his eyes. "Nuthin'."
"Exploring new fashions in wearable arachnids?" Severus asked dryly as he kissed his wife good morning.
The stone spider peeked out of Hermione's curls, blending in with the duller earthen colours of greys and brown. Its eyes were seemingly a shiny black onyx. Every so often, magic would shimmer across its "skin," and the muted colours would light up with bright shimmering orange fluorescence.
"He appeared this morning while I was checking the wards." Hermione passed him his tea with a smile.
"To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Magic bound me to protect an area, but someone broke the binding and cast me out," the spider said softly, its voice a soothing almost whisper of chimes.
Severus eyed the talking spider with a lifted brow. "So, why are you here?"
"I like her," the spider announced. "She has kind hands."
Severus sighed and shook his head. "Who can argue with that logic?"
Hermione smiled at him, gently touching her fingers to his cheek.
His expression softened, the harsher lines of his face disappearing and making him seem less worn and aged by the war. Then, he seemed to become more sombre. "How many more refugees are we going to get from Weasley's ineptitude with magical creatures before Potter fires him?
A large tentacle rose up from a pool of dark plasma, refilled his tea, poured some milk, chucked a sugar cube into his drink and stirred it before disappearing.
"Not that I don't appreciate the extra hands around here as it were."
Hermione shook her head. "I don't think Harry will ever fire him. He's apparently really good with the regular Auror work. He gets too many compliments on the official record."
"Obviously not from competent people," Severus muttered.
The stone spider raised its front legs as if to agree.
Hermione made a token attempt to remain neutral, but her expression, as usual, failed to accommodate her. "Look at the bright side, the DoM lets us keep to ourselves on the coast as long as our acquisitions aren't causing the magical apocalypse or murdering innocents."
The three-headed dog curled up by the hearth wagged his tail enthusiastically.
"Glorious," Severus said. "There will be no end to our added companions if Weasley's chain of botches have anything to say about it." He rubbed the dog's ears, and two of the three heads got jealous and attempted to shove the lucky head out of the way.
"I will admit that he's up there with Hagrid when it comes to magical creature releases."
"I just wonder why we always end up with them," Severus said, brows knitting together. He pursed his lips together as Hermione stuck half her body into the mouth of a giant saber-toothed beast the like of which seemed larger than any life that had been seen on Earth's archeological record.
Hermione blasted some things out from between the beast's teeth with water from her wand and vanished the plaque and tartar with some well, aimed spells. She removed herself from "danger" and the happy beast gave her a grateful slurp before going to work on a meaty haunch of something.
"If you were anyone else, I'd call you mad, witch," Severus said.
"His jaw was hurting!" Hermione protested.
"You stick half of your body into the maw of sabre-toothed death, woman!" Severus exclaimed.
"He's a familiar," Hermione said. "He knows better. Unlike Hagrid's horrible experiments. Besides, we have shared custody. You know he's far more interested in other foods."
"At least he's not trying to eat the postal carrier," Severus said as the Lethifold that was dusting the bookshelves slumped a little before going back to work.
"It was one time!" Hermione said. "It was a new carrier. He didn't know him!"
Severus rolled his eyes before stabbing a banger with his fork and eating off the end like a proper heathen. "My mistake."
A line of miniature dragonets lined up on the side of the table looking hopeful.
"Did you not feed these bottomless pits?" he asked.
"Of course, I did, but you're eating their most coveted food."
He purposely ate his banger while staring the dragonets in the eyes.
The little reptiles whimpered sadly in disappointment.
"I survived the Dark Lord," Severus told the dragonets. "I can most definitely resist your aura of cuteness."
Severus speared his last banger just as the strong odour of sulfur filled the room and a flaming imp appeared.
"A pox upon you, human scum!" the imp cried. "I shall have my revenge on humanity for holding me prisoner for a hund—"
The crystal spider shot out magical webbing to bind the interloper, the dragonets all turned at once and flamed it with fairie magic flames, the Lethifold tackled it to the ground, the giant saber-toothed beast breathed on it to freeze it in place, and the three-headed dog tore it to pieces as its drool dissolved the imp's inherent magic.
Severus eyed the pile of ash that had been the escaped demon with a critical eye. Sighing with resignation, he forked over his banger to the dragonets, who happily relieved him of his sausage.
The dragonets hummed happily and then sneezed out a pile of perfect botryoidal gem spheres in a variety of colours that landed on Severus' empty breakfast plate.
He sighed heavily. "You're forgiven."
Hermione laughed and kissed her husband tenderly as she combed his hair with her fingers. "I love you."
"You're not going to sneeze rare gems out at me are you?" Severus asked.
"I haven't yet, but give me time."
"Please, no," Severus said. "I'd rather we occupied ourselves in other endeavours."
"Oh? What did you have in mind?" Hermione asked.
"Well, the Lethifold seems to have constructed us a rather stunning spare room," he said cryptically.
"You want to decorate a guest room?" Hermione asked dubiously as she checked her husband for a fever.
"It has a crib," Severus said, deadpan.
Hermione's expression went from incomprehension to confusion to delight as she flung herself into Severus with a flying tackle, bowling him over.
The dutiful Lethifold caught them both and carefully transported them to the bedroom for post-breakfast shenanigans.
Whuff, the Cerberus commented, tail wagging.
The crystal and stone spider spun a pair of silken baby booties and a soft baby blanket in happy celebration as the three dragonets corkscrewed their tails in solidarity.
The floo lit up as Harry's voice came out. "'Ermione? Are you there? I need your help. Ron accidentally released an imp of vengeance on Britain. 'Ermione?"
The sabre-toothed beast swatted the floo closed with one paw and lay in front of it, muffling the sounds with his massive size.
Meanwhile, out in the garden, a Dementor arrived and seemed to peer at the shimmering magical sign that said "Safe Haven" and drifted in to make itself at home.
The sign then disappeared with a pop!
And they lived securely ever after…
A/N: Alas, my Beta has been out for the count, so I am publishing this unsupervised and a little late.
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