Chapter 414: Spider Logic
Saturday, early March, around noon.
Regulus left the castle under a Disillusionment Charm and flew toward the Forbidden Forest. After Apparating to the clearing outside Aragog's lair, he found the forest still shrouded in fog, with the trees only beginning to recover from winter.
He came here twice a day, far more often than he visited the Library. Voldemort couldn't interfere with his studies, but Baruk somehow could. By that measure, the spider was more troublesome.
Regulus usually came just to watch Baruk run around him. Once, Baruk had wanted Dragon meat, so Regulus had given it a slice. Since then, it had been obsessed with the little pouch, apparently deciding that Regulus was saving the meat for it.
Then Baruk came up with an even better idea: Regulus should make it smaller so it could come back to the castle with him.
Regulus refused. Baruk was still growing, and this was hardly the time to make it smaller.
All that forest, and it still wasn't enough to feed you?
He'd barely finished waiting under the tree when the web ahead began to shake, a rhythm quick and dense, the sound of eight legs alternating across the strands.
Baruk came boiling up out of the hollow, dark red bristles catching the fog with a scaled shine, eight amber eyes swinging onto him at once, chelicerae rattling out a long string of clicks.