Before long, Kane arrived at Hagrid's hut and pounded on the door.
Creak. The door swung open.
"Kane? What brings you here?" Hagrid asked, pleasantly surprised to see him.
"Hey, Hagrid. Got a minute?"
"Er, honestly, not really. Dumbledore wants me to go to Diagon Alley and buy a huge batch of Mandrake seeds for some reason. Normally that'd be Professor Sprout's job, but she's been a bit busy lately, so, er, heh..." Hagrid gave him an awkward smile.
Kane nodded. Hagrid wasn't his personal babysitter, after all. Of course he had his own things to do.
Besides, Kane didn't need Hagrid to escort him through the Forbidden Forest. He only needed Hagrid to tell him where all those giant spiders lived.
So Kane got straight to the point.
"I heard there's a nest of spiders in the Forbidden Forest. Where is it?"
The instant the question left his mouth, it went straight to Hagrid's heart.
Kane's appearance was simply far too deceptive. With a face like his, asking a question like that, anyone would assume he wanted to go into the Forbidden Forest and make friends with the spiders.
After all these years, someone had finally discovered how adorable they were!
Hagrid hurried back inside, rummaged around, and returned with a white ball of spider silk tangled into a clump. He handed it to Kane.
"This is a token shared by the spiders in the Forbidden Forest. As long as you've got this with you, they'll lead you to their nest."
Hagrid only gave him a simple explanation of how to find the giant spiders and left it at that. Children never liked adults hovering over them and telling them how to make friends.
Better to let Kane discover the little spiders' charms for himself.
Kane, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea what was going through Hagrid's head. All he knew was that this white ball of spider silk would lead him to the spider nest in the Forbidden Forest.
Damn...
Hagrid, you really are the foremost authority at Hogwarts.
Before long, Hagrid left Hogwarts in an excellent mood.
Kane was willing to befriend the Acromantulas.
This was a wonderful start. As long as more and more people learned to accept his precious little darlings, then someday, surely, Acromantulas could live peacefully alongside humans.
Maybe they would even show up in pet shops in Diagon Alley.
By then, Kane had already entered the Forbidden Forest.
After wandering around for quite a while, he finally found a small spider. He held out the ball of spider silk and let it take a sniff.
The little spider immediately began leading the way.
What a good little spider.
I'll definitely save you for last. Then you can keep reproducing, generation after generation, forever and ever.
However, once Kane followed the little spider to the nest and finally laid eyes on Aragog himself, he realized there probably wasn't any need to spare the little spider after all.
Because barring some unforeseen disaster, there was no way he was going to finish killing all these spiders anytime soon.
Aragog hung at the very center of a massive web. He emitted a sound almost impossible for human ears to hear.
A moment later, the second-largest spider in the colony, seemingly Aragog's second-in-command, came crawling over on spindly legs.
Its enormous jaws stopped only a few centimeters from Kane's face, as if inspecting the young wizard to see whether he posed a threat.
Kane had just been wondering what method he should use to make the first move.
Then a gigantic spider head suddenly shoved itself right in front of him.
Well, wasn't that convenient?
The next instant, his wand appeared in his hand.
He thrust it straight into the giant spider's head.
Shadow corruption spread through it, transforming the spider almost instantly. Then Kane unleashed the most basic Knockback Jinx directly inside its skull.
Bang!
The enormous spider instantly turned into a slick Spider Gland and two bundles of Silk.
Kane scooped them up and stuffed them into his pockets at once.
In that moment, many thoughts passed through Aragog's mind.
Eventually, his little spider brain arrived at a conclusion.
This human was an enemy.
Then he looked toward the corner at the little spider that had brought Kane here.
You?
Unfortunately, before Aragog could even voice the accusation, the little spider's shadow suddenly twisted.
It transformed into a grotesque mouth and bit the spider's head clean off.
Two bundles of Silk and a Spider Gland dropped from its corpse.
Interestingly enough, despite being such a small spider, it also dropped a piece of Monster Meat.
With the second spider dead, the rest of the colony finally snapped out of their confusion.
This young wizard was not a friend.
He was an enemy.
In an instant, they all lunged at him.
Kane whipped his wand through the air.
A massive swarm of Killer Bees appeared as though he had scattered a handful of beans and conjured an army from them. They immediately surged toward the densely packed spiders.
Kane, meanwhile, bent down and gathered every bundle of Silk scattered across the ground, stuffing them into his pockets.
"Human, where did you get that ball of spider silk?" Aragog suddenly asked in human speech.
"Whoa, the big guy can talk?"
Kane was somewhat surprised, but that was all.
The creature certainly looked intimidating, but in reality, it was so old it could barely move.
The odds of Aragog personally attacking Kane and successfully killing him were probably lower than Kane's chances of being crushed to death by a barrel of tartar sauce falling from the sky.
Eventually, the limited number of Killer Bees were nearly wiped out by the comparatively endless supply of spiders.
By then, Kane had collected more than enough Silk.
He flicked his wand, sending a wave of shadowy flames sweeping outward and forcing most of the spiders back. Then, without so much as looking over his shoulder, he turned and left.
Anyone who knew what Kane was doing would understand that he had come here to gather Silk so he could advance his technology from the Constant.
Anyone who didn't know...
Or any spider, for that matter...
Could only stare at the scene in utter fear and confusion.
A young wizard had shown up at their home carrying the token Aragog had given Hagrid.
The moment he arrived, he killed the colony's second-in-command without saying a word. Then, like some kind of lunatic, he started slaughtering random members of Aragog's offspring with magic and those bizarre shadows.
Finally, after apparently getting his fill of killing, he simply left without another word.
Walking into a spider colony, slaughtering whoever he pleased, and then casually walking back out again as if there were nothing there to stop him...
No matter how you looked at it, this was not the behavior of a normal person.
"Hagrid... you're the one who sent this lunatic to me?"
Aragog let out a long sigh.
Perhaps he was lamenting the fact that his good friend Hagrid, who lived outside the Forbidden Forest, had been deceived by an evil little wizard who played with shadows and had effectively handed him the knife to slaughter Aragog's children.
Or perhaps...
Hagrid hadn't gotten himself into trouble, had he?
Whatever the case, somehow there was a trace of melancholy visible on a spider's face.
The next time Aragog saw Hagrid, he was clearly going to have plenty to complain about.
Kane, meanwhile, casually wandered out of the Forbidden Forest.
The first thing he did was return Hagrid's ball of spider silk, placing it on a wooden stump in his yard.
Now that Kane knew where the spiders' nest was, he had no further use for it.
After that, he returned to the dormitory.
Harry and Ron were already awake. Since neither of them was there, they had probably gone off somewhere to forage for food.
Kane was perfectly happy with the peace and quiet.
He plopped himself down beside the Alchemy Engine, pulled out handful after handful of Silk, fiddled with them for a while, and crafted himself a Top Hat.
A Top Hat restored Sanity much more efficiently than a Garland.
More importantly, wearing one wasn't nearly as embarrassing.
He just needed to...
Kane placed the Top Hat on the ground and gave it two hard smacks, crumpling it slightly. Then he violently bent the brim into a smooth curve, turning it into a cowboy hat before planting it on his head.
He immediately felt his mind relax.
He almost wanted to go to sleep.
Speaking of sleep...
Kane suddenly remembered something.
It took him two seconds to throw together a Tent by hand, and then he shoved his bed inside it.
That gave him yet another way to restore Sanity.
With his most urgent problem solved, only one final task remained.
Crafting a Prestihatitator still required four rabbits...
Aragog's spiders were probably still hunting him through the Forbidden Forest right now, so...
Rabbits...
If he remembered correctly, there were a few rabbits in the Potions classroom used for testing potions...
Hmm...
Would Professor Snape welcome me?
Probably not.
Would that make me chicken out and stay away?
Of course not.
Me, back down from him?
And so, just as Harry and Ron finished using certain less-than-honorable methods to pack up a huge pile of food from the basement and were preparing to leave, they spotted Kane coming from the opposite direction, marching aggressively toward the Potions classroom.
???