A Spider and a Unicorn
By the time twilight fell, James was feeling very confused.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “Romeo gets the message that Juliet is dead and goes running off to buy poison and kill himself?”
“That’s right.” Severus tramped along, a dim shadow in the deepening shade.
“But…why? Didn’t Friar Laurence send him a message saying it was all fake?”
“That message never arrived, James!” Severus said impatiently. “He only got the news from Balthasar that Juliet had died!”
“Seems stupid to me,” James muttered. “Rushing off to kill yourself on the basis of one message. Romeo sounds like a big drama queen.”
“Well, you have a point,” Severus admitted. “But it was true love, James.”
“Yeah, and about that,” James said. “Romeo and Juliet are our age, right? And they get married after they’ve known each other, what, twenty-four hours?”
“True love, James,” Severus said smugly, as though that trounced all argument. “Besides, it’s a play. It would kind of ruin the dramatic tension if they took six months to move on with the action!”
James shook his head. “Nuts.”
Severus eyed him sidelong. “What, like you didn’t want to marry Evans right after you met her on the train?”
“I did not!” James’s face turned hot.
“You did, you did, you did,” Severus crowed.
“No, I didn’t!”
“But soft! What light through yonder Hogwarts window breaks?” Severus misquoted. “It is the east, and Lily is the sun!”
James aimed a swat at Severus, which Severus dodged, snickering. “You’re terrible,” grinned James. “Like you don’t want to marry Evans yourself.”
Severus’s grin faded. An uncomfortable silence fell. “Do you think she’s worried about us?” Severus asked at last. “Lily?”
“I’m sure she is,” said James. “For both of us,” he added. “I bet everyone’s really worried for both of us.” His breath caught on a sudden pain: by now Dumbledore must have informed his parents of his mysterious disappearance. Fleamont and Euphemia must be beside themselves.
“For you,” said Severus quietly. “Not me.” He kicked at a nearby pebble, sending it skipping off down the path.
“I’m sure people are worried for you, Severus,” James said after a pause. “I’m sure Dumbledore’s told your parents and…” He trailed off, remembering the truth of Severus’s relationship with his parents. “Look, whatever’s happened…I’m sure your parents will be worried about you. They’ve got to care a little, right?”
“You don’t know them.” Severus’s shoulders hunched, his feet trailing in the leaf litter.
James felt a jab of pain. Here he was, beloved by so many: his parents, Dumbledore, the other Marauders, all his friends in Gryffindor. And here Severus was, not sure if his own parents cared that he was missing.
“Well, don’t be like Romeo, Severus,” James said at last. “Don’t go rushing off half-cocked because of what you think is true. Get back home and find out the truth first.”
Severus shrugged, but James thought he’d relaxed a little. “Maybe that’s not terrible advice.”
James was about to reply when there came a sudden noise out in the Forest.
James and Severus both instantly drew their wands. Instinctively, they turned back-to-back, wands out, scanning the darkening Forest, as the sound of something huge came crashing through the branches. James remembered the centaurs’ words about some great evil in the Forest and gripped his wand tighter with a sweating hand. What could be out there?
Whatever it was, it did not reveal itself. The sound of multiple footsteps, of some enormous body moving, faded slowly away until silence fell. Tentatively, a nightbird sang.
“Maybe we’d better make camp now,” said James at last.
“Yes,” said Severus. “With lots of wards.”
They set up camp then and there, on the path itself. It was too bad the stream didn’t run here, but they had water in the centaurs’ canteens. James set up camp while Severus cast ward after ward, murmuring the protection spells and alert charms. They were both quiet, keeping a nervous eye on the Forest, now veiled in deepening shadows.
Despite their protection spells, neither of them felt safe risking a campfire, or even Lumos. They dug out rations from James’s pack and ate them raw, sitting side by side in the darkness.
“So…are there any wizards in the Shakespeare plays?” James asked, in a lower voice than before.
“Oh, yes.” Severus finished chewing his pemmican and swallowed. “There are the three witches in Macbeth, of course, and Prospero in The Tempest. The fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are also a lot of references to magic and portents in most of the plays. A lot of ghosts. Mind you, a lot of it isn’t very flattering. Muggles didn’t much care for magic back in Shakespeare’s time.”
“Wouldn’t it be marvelous if Shakespeare had been a wizard?” James sat back, thinking of it. “If Friar Laurence could’ve just sent Romeo a message through owl post and Romeo could’ve just Apparated back to Verona? Or Juliet Apparated to Mantua?”
“It’d be a different play for sure,” Severus said thoughtfully. “I kind of like that it’s so tragic, though. It’s beautiful, in a sad sort of way.”
“Well, I think it should have had a happy ending,” James said stubbornly. “Romeo and Juliet should have been together.”
“They were together in the end. And their deaths brought an end to the feud.”
James rolled his eyes. “Oooh, real good compensation prize, that. Committing suicide just so your awful families can finally stop fighting about nothing!”
Severus was silent a few minutes, a featureless shadow in the near-total dark. “I guess it does seem pretty stupid,” he said at last, “if you put it like that.”
After tossing around a few more ideas about how Romeo and Juliet would have been different if it was about wizards and what potion Severus would have used to drug Juliet (Draught of Living Death, but Severus said he would have fed it to the other Capulet family members instead of Juliet so Juliet could sneak out to find Romeo), the boys succumbed to exhaustion. James barely had time to wonder if they should set a watch before falling unconscious.
He awoke to the sound of clicking.
James was already drawing his wand, thrusting on his glasses and sitting up in a panic before his conscious brain fully realized what was happening. “Lumos!” he gasped, then recoiled at what his wand’s light revealed.
The lighted tip of his wand shone in a set of eight eyes, liquid black and curving around a vast hairy head over a pair of enormous pincers. It was a spider, James’s stuttering brain realized, but a spider the size of a carthorse, a spider big enough to eat him and Severus—
“Severus!” he cried, lurching to his feet. Severus raised his head, blinking groggily, then yelled and grabbed for his wand, staggering to his feet.
The boys stood shoulder to shoulder with their wands at the ready. It was quite clear that the giant spider was not like the centaurs: there would be no reasoning with this monster, no hope of civilized interaction. But neither wizard tried to fire any spells at the beast; to do so would be to weaken or break down their own defensive magical perimeter. They simply stood, wands ready, staring at the spider.
The spider moved at last, raising a hairy front leg to brush at the air. Its limb met the perimeter of defense wards. There came a sizzling noise and an awful smell. The spider hissed in pain and scuttled back, limping on its burned leg.
“Go away!” James shouted, more bravely than he felt.
The spider clacked its mouthparts, chitin gleaming in the wandlight. Noises came from its mouth. James felt a wash of cold horror when he realized the thing was talking.
“Wizards,” the spider hissed. “More wizards, here in our Forest…”
“We don’t want any trouble,” James forced himself to say. Acromantula, he realized at last. This creature was an acromantula. Acromantula were sentient, he remembered, and capable of human speech, but they were far from friendly. “We’re just trying to leave your Forest and get back to school as quickly as we can. We mean no harm.”
The acromantula hardly seemed to be listening. “More wizards,” it whispered to itself. “Young, juicy ones. Not like the others.” It clacked its mouthparts eagerly.
James raised his wand higher. “We don’t want any trouble,” he repeated. “But we’ll give it, if we need to.” Desperately he hoped the acromantula couldn’t penetrate the defensive barrier or, if it did, his and Severus’s offensive spells would work on the monster’s thick, hairy, no-doubt-magical hide.
Severus, meanwhile, was pursuing a different line of inquiry. “Other wizards?” he rasped. “What other wizards?”
The acromantula’s multiple eyes snapped up at this. “Don’t you know…?” A dreadful hissing, whispering noise came out of it. Laughter, James realized, feeling sick. The thing was laughing. “Ah. You don’t.” More laughter. “Just wait until you find the Broken Souled, then. He will strip the meat from your bones and suck the marrow.”
“Broken Souled?” James was distracted from his own terror. “What do you mean?”
The acromantula let out an angry-sounding hiss. “We hate him!” it snarled. “The stench of our greatest enemy hangs heavy on him. He is defiling our Forest. We would not aid him or send him fresh meat.” The acromantula was backing away now, retreating into the darkness of the Forest. “But we will not deny him his rightful prey, either. Such a killer as the Broken Souled deserves fresh blood, if you are not strong enough to escape him. Go, wizards. Soon you will encounter the Broken Souled. Either you shall defeat him, or he shall defeat you.” The monster clacked its mouthparts, unholy clapping. “Kill him, tasty little wizards, and dine long upon his flesh.”
With that, the acromantula turned and shot a long bolt of silk into the treetops. With a scrambling of vast legs, it clambered onto the rope and darted away, climbing up and around the rope, until it was gone.
James stared after it. “Did it just say that it hoped this ‘Broken Souled’ wizard would eat us, or that we would eat him?”
“That we would eat him,” said Severus, also staring at the spot where the giant spider had disappeared. “I think.” His black gaze fell speculatively on the rope of acromantula silk.
“Don’t you dare!” James said, recognizing that acquisitive look. “You’re not breaking the wards just for some spider silk!”
“Acromantula silk is really valuable,” Severus said absently, still staring at the rope. “A marvelous ingredient in night-vision potions.”
“Well, you can collect some in the morning. Assuming we’re still alive by then.” The Forest seemed a lot dark, larger and more dangerous than before. James’s skin crawled, as though touched by hungry arachnid eyes.
“Or if we don’t encounter this ‘Broken Souled.’” Severus seemed more thoughtful than frightened, still staring at the spider rope. “Who do you think this wizard is? And what’s he doing in the Forbidden Forest?”
“Whoever he is, it looks like he’s managed to piss off all the Forest inhabitants,” James muttered. “So I’m guessing he’s up to no good. Let’s hope we don’t meet him.”
Severus turned to him with a ghost of his old sarcastic smile. “Odd attitude for a Gryffindor, James, don’t you think? Shouldn’t you be wanting to challenge the Broken Souled to a duel and heroically defeat him singlehanded?”
“Ha ha ha,” said James, deadpan. “Look where that got Tybalt and Mercutio. Just being a Gryffindor doesn’t mean you’re suicidally stupid.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
James kicked some leaf mold at him. “Go back to sleep, Severus. I’ll stand watch for a while.”
Severus glanced back out at the Forest. “Okay.” He lay down, drawing his cloak around him. James settled down to keep an eye on the Forest. It sang and murmured around him, with the songs of night insects and the hoots of owls. Overhead, some bats flittered. Mercifully, however, no acromantula showed up.
James wondered again what the giant spider had meant. Who was this Broken Souled wizard? And what was he doing in the Forest? What had he done that had disturbed the centaurs and the acromantula so much? What had the acromantula meant by ‘the stench of our greatest enemy’? James wracked his brains, trying to remember what he’d learned of acromantula and their natural enemies, but it wasn’t much. It was hard to imagine a giant talking magical spider having many natural enemies. And he was too tired to think, anyway, his mind wandering.
James wished he had some coffee.
When James started nodding off and realized he just couldn’t keep awake any longer, he woke Severus. The other boy took up his watch without complaint and James lay down with a sigh of relief. He barely had time to think how odd it was that he felt so safe with Severus Snape on duty before he fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was dawn, the Forest lightening around them. Severus was devouring smoked fish and acorn cake. “Wake up, Romeo.” He threw James a bar of pemmican, landing on his cloak. “It was the lark and not the nightingale that sang on yon pomegranate tree.”
“No pomegranates in this Forest.” James took up the pemmican, biting into it. Damn, but he longed for good, hot, cooked food. “Probably no larks or nightingales either. And I don’t want to be like Romeo anyway.”
“Well, whoever you are, eat up and let’s get going.” Severus glanced at the Forest. “I want to get out of here before any more monsters show up. And get some of that acromantula silk.” He shot the rope of spider silk a covetous look.
“Just make sure you don’t get caught up in it.” James crammed the last of the pemmican into his mouth and stood up, shaking off leaves and mulch.
They took down the wards and James stood watch while Severus carefully harvested some of the acromantula silk, cutting it with his wand, sealing it in one of his plastic bags and tucking it away into his satchel. Luckily, it was not the sticky kind of spider silk, but James still shuddered at the reminder of last night’s visitor. “Can you believe that thing?”
“Actually,” said Severus, straightening and adjusting his satchel, “I can’t. Acromantula are native to the jungles of southeast Asia, I think. What are they doing here in Scotland?”
“Some wizard must’ve imported them.” James grunted as he heaved the pack onto his shoulders. “Though I can’t imagine why.”
“That probably explains why they hate wizards so much,” said Severus with a grim smile. "This must be a terrible place for them. Especially in winter."
The boys set off down the path, walking more quickly and quietly than yesterday. They were still a few days away from Hogwarts, James recalled; and after last night’s encounter, their chances of making it back seemed considerably dimmer. He tried to push aside his fear and apprehension. They’d made it this far. They simply had to keep being quick and vigilant, their wands at the ready, and get out of the Forest as fast as possible.
At least the weather was still fine. Sunlight poured down through the branches in golden falls, birds sang, and small animals scurried through the undergrowth. A flit of fairies appeared at one point, the tiny creatures following the boys curiously, whispering to one another, their luminous wings flapping, before they fluttered off with tiny spangles of laughter.
Soon afterward, the boys passed a pond, covered with water lilies and ringed with purple iris. James rejoiced at the sight of the open sky, a clear, innocent blue. “Do you think there are any grindylows in this pond?” he asked, even as he bent to refill his canteen.
“Probably.” Severus eyed the waters keenly, but no scaled heads breached the surface of lilies. “We see grindylows through the lake-window in the Slytherin common room, sometimes. And mermaids.”
“Mermaids! Really?” James had heard of the mermaids of the Black Lake, but never seen one. They seldom came to the surface.
“Oh, yes.” Severus smiled a little. “They come say hello. Actually, I sometimes wonder if it’s us looking at them or them looking at us.”
“Their own zoo exhibit,” James joked. “Examples of the exotic species Homo sapiens wizardus.”
Severus laughed too, that surprisingly pleasant sound. “Pretty much!”
Their canteens refilled, they ate lunch by the pond before moving on. The day continued warm and uneventful. James was just starting to think they might get through the day without incident when he spotted something up ahead. A flash of white.
He held out an arm, stopping Severus. “What is it?” the other boy whispered, getting his wand out.
“I’ll check.” James slipped off his pack. “Stay here. Watch my back.” He crept ahead, wand out.
Whatever it was, it was lying across the path, burning a clear white in the Forest shadows. A few more steps and James realized that it was dead. His relief transmuted into horror, though, when he realized what it was.
It was a unicorn. A full-grown unicorn, coat whiter than snow, silky mane splayed on the ground, horn lying in the leaf litter. Its cloven hooves lay in helpless position, as though it had just finished kicking out its death throes. Across its throat was a brutal slash, silver with unicorn blood.
James stood and stared at it. Someone had clearly killed the unicorn, but why? Who would do such a thing? It was an abomination to kill a unicorn, everyone knew that: an act so vile that the wizarding world didn’t even have any laws against it. Magic itself would punish such an offense, far more grievously than any wizard could. Who would dare…?
Then James noticed the runes, written on the path in unicorn blood.
“James!” Severus shouted, just as a curse, fired from a wand, zipped over his head.
James turned, flinging out his wand, ready to fire back, but the runes shone with sudden, savage light, something coiled up around his legs, and he blacked out and knew no more.