Chapter Text
“Moving along now to the Spider Room – everyone stick together, please – this room contains over one hundred species of spiders, some of them specially bred for research projects . . . “
Ten-year-old Harry Potter was as happy as he could ever remember being. He had never been on a field trip before, but the night before his cousin Dudley had gotten suddenly ill (Harry rather suspected that he was faking – the prospect of visiting the Science Museum had not interested him one bit) and his Aunt and Uncle had grudgingly allowed him to come in Dudley’s place, since they had already paid for the trip and it would keep him out of the house for the day.
As the tour guide prattled on, Harry wandered about the large, brightly-lit display room, gazing at the various arachnids. He was very interested in spiders, having shared a sleeping space with them for as long as he could remember. As he pressed up to get a better look a tank full of giant raft spiders, he felt something tickle his head. He reached up to brush away the whatever-it-was, and when he looked at his hand, he found he had picked up a companion.
“Wow,” he said to it, “what kind of spider are you?” He let the little red creature crawl around on his hand as he examined it. It was an unusual color for a spider, a bright red with golden markings on the abdomen. Harry smiled as he noted that the pattern resembled the lightning-shaped scar on his own forehead.
Suddenly, a loud alarm filled the air. “Ow!” exclaimed Harry, jumping back from the tank just in time to see the spider skitter underneath it. Just then, his teacher grabbed his arm and started pulling him towards the door. “Come along, Potter, don’t you pay attention? The museum is closing.”
As the teacher dragged him along, Harry worried about the spider that he had been holding. Had it escaped from the exhibit? Is that why they’re sending us home? Should I tell someone about it? He wondered to himself. But what if I get in trouble? I didn’t do anything!
Like that’s ever stopped me from getting in trouble before.
As his teacher pulled him along, he became conscious of a slight pain in his wrist. He looked down at it, and noticed two tiny pricks in it. He shrugged, and dismissed the pain. He had been hurt worse, after all – a wound that small would be no trouble at all.
He would be fine.
******
Harry was not fine. Maybe Dudley wasn’t faking after all he thought, wobbling down Wisteria Walk after returning to St. Grogory’s from the aborted excursion. The pain in his wrist had traveled up his arm and down to his other wrist, and seemed to have taken up residence on the inside of his skull, as well. On top of all that, he was getting chills, and his stomach felt – Harry leaned over mad old Mrs. Figg’s fence and threw up into her rhododendrons. One of her numerous cats shot out from underneath it and ran yowling into the house. Harry staggered another step, then collapsed onto the pavement. As he lost consciousness, he felt something in the back of neck start to tingle . . .
As his awareness slowly returned, Harry realized that he had somehow gotten back to Number Four, and was lying on his bed in his cupboard. As he slowly sat up, he noted that the pain and nausea from earlier in the day – the previous day? – had vanished. Getting dressed, he pushed open the door and started for the kitchen, where Aunt Petunia was making breakfast.
Her eyes narrowed as she spotted him. “Stay away from my Dudders, boy,” she snapped. “I don’t want you making him sick again!”
Harry thought this rather unfair, since Dudley had purported to be sick before he was, but knew better than to protest. Unfortunately, his aunt wasn’t finished with him yet.
“And where are your glasses? Your uncle and I spent good money on those, and if you’ve lost them . . . “
But Harry had stopped listening and reached up to his face in alarm. His glasses were, in fact, not on his face, but he hadn’t noticed – due to the fact that he was seeing the world perfectly fine without them.
Stuttering out an apology, he raced back to his cupboard, where, fortunately, his glasses were sitting on the shelf where he kept his few possessions. He picked them up, put them on – and took them back off as the world went wildly out of focus. Slipping them back on – blurry. Taking them off – clear.
Harry frowned. This was all too similar to the time that his aunt had cut off most of his hair, only for it to grow back overnight. Having his poor eyesight fix itself, even if he had no idea how it happened, was almost certainly going to enrage his aunt and uncle, not even taking into account the money they had “wasted” on his glasses.
The only thing to do, Harry decided, was to pretend he still needed his glasses, and make the best of it. He slipped his glasses onto the end of his nose so that he could see over them, and went out to face the day.
******
Unfortunately for Harry, the rest of the day turned out to be as unusual as the beginning, and that, for him, was a bad thing. The trouble began as he was shuffling about the schoolyard – alone, as usual – and he was suddenly aware of a prickling sensation in the back of his neck. Looking around, he noticed Gordon, one of Dudley’s usual crew, in the process of spotting him. As the bigger boy gave an excited shout, Harry took off running. With his cousin and his gang close behind, Harry headed for the school kitchens. Rounding a corner, he saw some big bins by the door that he might be able to hide behind. Harry leapt for the spot just as his pursuers came into view.
Much to his surprise, Harry found himself jumping higher than he had intended. High enough, in fact, to clear the bins completely and arc towards the side of the kitchens. Throwing his hands out in front of him, he braced himself for a double impact – first with the wall, then with the ground.
The collision with the wall, much to Harry’s relief, was relatively painless, with his arms absorbing much of the force. He hadn’t slid down very far, however, when he jerked to a sudden stop. Harry looked up in confusion.
His hands, seemingly of their own accord, were sticking to the wall. Harry’s feet scrabbled for purchase on the rough brick, while he simultaneously tried to move his hands. Obligingly, they unstuck themselves from the wall, leaving Harry free to plummet towards the ground. Grabbing at the air, he seized upon what seemed to be some sort of rope, which slowed his descent considerably. Glancing upwards, he received another shock.
The ropey substance he was clutching was a bright golden color, slightly sticky, and anchored on the eaves of the kitchen. The other end seemed to be coming out of his wrist.
Stunned, Harry landed on the ground with a soft thump. The golden sticky stuff remained attached to the buildings roof. Harry gave a sharp tug, which only succeeded in tearing down a large section of the trim. As he raised his arms to shield himself from the debris, the sticky rope detached itself from his wrist and disappeared into the debris – and not a moment to soon, for Dudley’s gang, having disappeared while he was flailing around on the wall, had returned, bringing with them the headmistress of the school. As the inevitable reprimands rained down on him, Harry’s mind was fixed on a single question.
What’s happening to me?
******
Harry had plenty of time to ponder that question later that day, as Uncle Vernon had locked him in his cupboard following the shouting match that resulted from the letter Harry’s headmistress had sent home with him. Looking closely at his hands, he noticed that on his wrist – about where that spider bite was, some small part of his mind noticed – was a small, fuzzy, golden lump. Further investigation proved that there was a matching lump on his other wrist.
Intrigued, he reached out his hand and tried to mimic the motion he had made during his earlier adventure on the school wall. After a few tries, he got the golden rope to again shoot out from his wrist. Further experimentation showed that he could not only shoot the stringy substance from either wrist, but extend, retract, and detach it more or less at will. Furthermore; once detached, it would eventually shrivel up and disappear – Harry estimated that this took about an hour.
But the most enlightening discovery occurred when Harry, holding his hand slightly differently, caused the mysterious substance to form not a rope, but a shape more like a net . . . or a web.
The spider! Harry thought to himself. Could it have done something to me with that bite? Turned me into some sort of spider-man mutant? That would at least explain all the strange things going on lately. . .
Emboldened by this discovery, Harry decided to test the other odd talent he had displayed at school. Standing on his bed, he stretched his hands above his head and placed them firmly on the underside of the stairs. Cautiously, raising his legs, he was delighted to find himself hanging from the ceiling – for a few short moments, until his hands slipped off and he fell onto the bed with a crash.
“Boy! Be quiet in there!” roared his uncle. With a hastily shouted apology, Harry decided that further experimentation would have to be put off until later, when he would attract less attention from his relatives, who would most definitely not appreciate his new . . . talents? Gifts?
Powers. Like the heroes in Dudley’s comic books, Harry decided; although none of them that he could recall had powers similar to his. St. Joan could jump really far, though . . . I should see just how far I can jump . . . tomorrow . . .
Soon Harry, exhausted from his extraordinary day, was fast asleep.
******
Over the next several weeks, Harry pushed himself – as much as he could without the scrutiny of his relatives – to discover the scope of his new powers. With practice, he was soon able to crawl up a perpendicular surface, and even across a ceiling, if he had his shoes off. Apparently the source of his creepy-crawly power was a number of fine hairs on his hands and feet that could reach through his socks, but not his shoes. Given that these were cast-off trainers from Dudley, getting them on and off in a hurry was seldom a problem.
He also found that he could, in fact, jump quite far, due to what seemed to be an overall increase in strength; he also practiced as much as he could with the ropey substance – or, as he mentally termed it, his webs – until he could shoot it with ease. Harry thought that, given a tall enough anchor, he might be able to swing around on his web like Tarzan, but such structures were non-existent in Little Whinging.
There was one final power that seemed to have manifested itself as a result of Harry’s spider bite – a prickly tingling in the back of his neck that seemed to alert Harry when danger (in other words, Dudley and his gang) was nearby. He dubbed it his “spider-sense”, figuring that it was connected to the other weird powers the spider-bite had bestowed on him. In addition to Dudley’s gang, it had also warned him of several instances when his relatives almost caught him practicing with his powers, as well as flaring up wildly when he went near the Reptile House at the zoo on Dudley’s birthday. He had stayed away from the building, but when Dudley and Piers emerged unscathed Harry figured that his “spider-sense” had some sort of reptile phobia.
As the spring turned to summer and Harry’s proficiency with his powers increased, hiding them became second nature. So much so, in fact, that when the extremely large man battered down the door of a little shack in the North Sea and told him he was a wizard, it didn’t even occur to Harry to bring them up.
Following Hagrid about Diagon Alley, Harry didn’t see any sign of anyone displaying powers similar to his. Later, reading through his new books, he concluded that they were not the result of magic; at least not as this strange new world saw it. So, he kept on hiding them.
Even from Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, the new friends he made at Hogwarts.
Even as he snuck out of Gryffindor Tower at night to practice and discovered that he could, indeed, swing from his webs around the outside and through the larger halls of the castle.
Even as he used his powers, surreptitiously, during nearly three full years of adventures.
Until the night he met his godfather.