Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Carefully Tangled Webs of Darkness	By : Ladygreychaton Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 37442 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: Do not own Harry Potter, characters, rights to, any books, movies, songs, poems or references made. Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling, this is just for fun, with no intentions of profit.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
[[ Do not own Harry Potter, characters, rights to, any books, movies, songs, poems or references made. Several hints to Harry Potter books, but again belong to J.K. Rowling. Any further things belong to their original owners, aside from original characters. Used with no intention of profit! ]]
Sorry for the delay! Family matters and life carried me away, though this and a few chapters and ideas have been buzzing in my brain for a long time. Hope you like it! Name changed because I didn't realize there was another story of the same name...
Also, hopefully this chapter clears up some curiosities?
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Harry's Potter was a very bright child, his teachers noted. He was in the 3rd grade, though many questioned why he wasn't moved higher. Perhaps it was a matter of age? A six year old in the 4th grade was bad enough, but putting him much higher would be appalling. The age difference alone would cause a stigma, a sort of gap to form between him the other children. But still, the teachers noted how bright the child was.

He was quiet, and completed his work on time. He rarely ventured out to encourage peer interaction, aside from group studies. Generally, he preferred to spend his recess wandering about, sitting or feeding the odd biscuit to some strange bird that seemed to hang about the school. A loner, but not uncommon with highly intelligent children.

It was not that he was rebuffed by others, it was simply the matter of his age, being two years their junior. Mature or not, the small elegant boy stod out like a sore thumb amongst the other students with his height making it apparent.

Harry Potter was noted to dress smartly, they found. He was well-spoken, and tended to spend a lot of time in the library. But he simply could not apply his confident personality to making friends his own age. There was a fear of bullies, but as the adults watched and waited, it seemed as if the fear was for naught. Strangely, students seemed to avoid the young Potter altogether, and so the thoughts were quickly passed off.

The years rolled by, and Harry graduated Primary School and headed to Secondary School. He was in 6th grade, and just newly turned nine, two years junior the other students. He'd perfected his strings and webs over children, though he'd noted that adults were indeed far harder.

Minds were a complex thing. The more they contained, the harder they were to control. The harder the will, the harder it was to suggest things they wouldn't normally think or do. Harry was currently working on a layering system with his spiders - start small, build up the strings. Suggest small things, and then layer another suggestion over that. Another, then another.

Begin with simple suggestions, too. 'Today, you'd like to eat on the left side of the cafeteria'. Eventually it could become something like, 'Leave out your chocolate puddings, you've always had a slight dislike for any pudding your mother didn't make', and so on. Occasionally, opinions would war with the new knowledge introduced though the strings and webs, thus the reason Harry was working on his various layers. The quicker he began, the smaller he started, the more susceptible the influence.

The idea to influence, to use his webs at all again, had started out innocently enough. One night, as he lay in bed and listened to the reports of his many-eyed friends, he felt a slight... tug coming from the direction of the scar atop his brow.

Following the pull lead him to a strange house that looked oddly familiar... though it was just a simple two story house, perhaps even a cottage. Harry wasn't sure, but he felt like he had been there before. The house was dimly lit, and in disarray, as though it's occupants had left in a hurry. Or perhaps they'd encountered something unexpected, and simply ended up with unexpected results. This thought was followed with an strange pang in Harry Potter's small chest, but he brushed it all aside and moved into the only lit bedroom of the odd little cottage.

The room itself was simple, but it appeared that it was intended for a very small child. This did not seem to bother the only other occupant in the room, a man in a dark cloak that sat in the rocking chair staring out the broken window.

The nine year old Harry regarded this all very curiously, his eyes taking it all in with a strange sort of sense of deja vous. When the man turned to Harry, he spoke.

"I've been watching you, boy," the man said, his voice high and as soft as a whisper. Curiously, Harry noted he had an odd sort of accent.

"You have," Harry answered. The response was curious, for Harry had felt as though someone was watching all these years, and yet he had seen no one. Aside from old Mrs. Figg, and the cat-that-wasn't, the Kneazle, he hadn't found any spies aside from nosey neighbors. Thus, Harry curiously did not question the man, he simply waited.

"I have," the man agreed quietly, with his strangely accented high voice. "I could not have contacted you... if you were not also curious." The man tilted his head, and Harry noted that the cloaked figure seemed thin and pale, but no distinguishing features could be seen. "I have tried, you know," He continued as though answering once more. "But I was sstopped... by both your mother..." The green eyed boy perked at this. "And... those sstrange little... friendss you've made."

The figure turned and Harry noted he could faintly see eyes beneath the hood of the cloak. They were watching him with a cold sort of interest. "Ssstrange, no? That I should be so fond of snakes... as is my right. And you, Harry Potter? You like the shadow and the spiders that crawl in the night. I bet he never imagined that..."

The figure, the man... did not elaborate who he meant by 'he'. Perhaps Harry's father? Or maybe some other person. Harry was not certain. He neither said more, nor explained how Harry's dead mother could prevent him from contacting Harry. Nor how his spiders would further aid someone who had passed on, in a battle against a strange hooded figure the resided in his dreams.

Eventually, when the silence stretched and Harry regarded it as troublesome, the boy spoke. "I do not understand," he quietly admitted. "Snakes, spiders... men in strange houses. I do not understand."

The figure huffed out a sort of dark chuckle, the sound still high and vaguely accented. After a moment, the man gestured towards Harry, his long thin fingers extending in the space between them. "You, Harry Potter... Have defeated even a memory of me. And I can do no more than watch... unlesss you wissh to see me, I can go no further. But after careful..." The man paused. "Careful diplomacy, and very difficult magic which leaves me quite tired... I've found you."

The green eyed boy watched the man, wondering if he would ever speak clearly. His green eyes studied, and he watched with an unnerving sort of clarity. "What do you want, then?" Harry asked finally. He was uncertain if this cloaked man would make any sense, and he did not enjoy playing this sort of game. Not a game where he did not understand the rules, nor the opponent.

This time the man snarled, shrugging deeper into his dark cloak, his long fingers seeming to claw at it and drag it tightly around his thin frame. "What do I want?" The man appeared to be having some sort of fit, then suddenly he began to cackle in that high voice of his. Harry straightened, once more overcome with deja vous. He'd heard that odd laugh before.

"Harry Potter would like to know what I want!" The man seemed to crow, as though he were telling some sort of grand joke. "Oh you ssilly boy... some day you will understand, and you too will look back at thiss moment and laugh." The figure seemed to gather some sort of stability, for his odd sort of madness was fading. "What do I want?" He repeated.

Harry nodded, uncertain if he was supposed to answer, but feeling as though perhaps he could guide the odd man in the strange cottage along. Perhaps this was the only way to get answers. "Yes... what do you want... here, now, with me?" The man spoke of the future, and sometimes the past, but didn't clarify either. So Harry, being such a good child, decided he would.

"Ssuch a smart boy," The man seemed to hum, shaking his head beneath the hood of his black cloak. "I want... to obsserve more. I am willing to barter, of course... it'sss not as though I can do much without your..." His teeth glinted in the dim light as he sneered the next word. "Permisssion. But I can offer you... knowledge."

Harry watched and waited, debating on how best to answer. The offer of knowledge was teasingly tempting. The man had mentioned magic, and his mother, so Harry easily came to the conclusion that this strange person was one of his Kind. Though Harry wasn't sure what he meant in regards to snakes over spiders, he put the little thoughts behind him as he considered.

Slowly, Harry licked his lips in anticipation as he whispered, "What sort of knowledge?" Somehow, it seemed as though this was a proverbial deal with the devil. And those sort of things were best made in the dark, in the quiet.

The man stood, moving near and stepped further into the light. Most of his features were still in shadow, but a pair of brilliant ruby eyes caught his as the man seemed to hiss in pleasure. His teeth shining in a dark smile as he answered, "Many things... many magicsss. But you seem to have a lot of magic at your disposal already, don't you, Harry?" Strangely, it seemed as though the cold voice was cooing mockingly at him. "I think, my dark child... that I shall teach you things to spin in your..." Here he chuckled once more. "Websss.. and perhaps help you pay more attention to how the dark bendsss around you. For such an observant boy... you have not noticed."

And so, his lessons with the strange man, in the strange cottage began. Each night while he slept, the man would visit him for a few hours. Mostly, he would draw strange pictures. They looked almost like another language, or perhaps they were like those heiroglyphs he'd seen in the history books of Egypt. But they were... different, still. And as the man, now called Diaboli, as he humorously requested to be known as, taught him the symbols... Harry's webs improved.

Runes, Harry was told, were a lot like words of power. And crafting them into his webs, in a specific array or arrangement, could make his nets and woven spells much more powerful. Again and again Diaboli had tried to convince him to let him teach spells with words, and some form of hand waving, but Harry had denied him.

What use had he for silly finger waving? All the boy need do was want it, or imagine it happening, and it did. He didn't much care for restrictions or words and fancy gestures to get what he wanted. The runes, however, were useful.

Immediately, Harry had noticed an improvement when he'd woven runes of 'sleep' or 'night' or even 'dream' into the webs his many-eyed friends created above each of the Dursleys. And this was something to be celebrated, indeed.

Often, Harry would find himself debating in his dreams with Diaboli. As the cloaked man relaxed, he spoke more to Harry about things he had done. Admitting that he had often had a way of commanding others, or making things move long before he got his wand. Diaboli called the commands 'compulsion' and said that it 'compelled someone to listen and obey'. Harry likened these to his webs that he placed inside a person's mind, and Diaboli argued that they were different.

A compulsion, he argued, was something like pure magic in words or a voice that lay heavily on a person and bent or forced them to the will. Harry's, Diaboli noted, became a part of the person. Slipping into their psyche and were very hard to throw off as they layered upon each other. Adding more weight with each new web, the victim would honestly believe that these were their own ideas and beliefs. They would not want to throw anything off, nor know how.

Diaboli stated that this was a complex form of the mind arts that he'd rarely encountered before. A person practiced in protecting their mind would have difficulties still, as the original webs were often so small and simple that the groundwork would be ignored. It would take someone truly powerful in Occlumency to even note there was something wrong, let alone to be able to tear through the various layers of webbing that would enter their thoughts.

Along with improving his mind webs, he learned how to spin runes into the webbing for other things. After careful guidance from Kali and Pheobe, Harry found that he could 'borrow' their spinnerettes and small silken strings simply flew from his fingers. Only his right hand, he noted, and he'd use his left to weave or bend the strings into intricate patterns. This, proved difficult because in the beginning he had little idea of how to use the thread and often created snarled, tangled bits of web that held little use. He'd originally spun webs out of magic, or lent it to his many arachnids, but this was going to be another matter.

With encouragement from Ren, Pheobe, and Kali, who moved closer to the palms of his hands when he attempted, Harry began to be able to craft his own strings and silk. Soon, he wondered, if he'd be able to create the beautiful webs like his friends.

But for now, with careful encouragement and wise words from Sobek, Harry was eventually able to craft ribbons of silk. The runes had to be adjusted and crafted by other spiders, as Harry was not skilled enough to apply them yet, but these ribbons became his primary use for holding his hair back or simply tying them about his wrist, or throat. Thinner ribbons were even braided into several strands of his hair.

Ribbons of protection, ribbons with an array of runes for tidiness, or health, or better sight. Even Runes that would heat up if someone appeared angry, or watched him too closely. The warning ribbons were red, and the magic in them enabled the colorblind child to see it.

Diaboli approved that the method, although crude, was interesting enough. He often remarked that when he regained a body, he'd like to study Harry and his silk. Harry, uncertain what the man spoke of, or why he sometimes slipped into strange tenses, merely agreed noncommittedly.

Still, they would often talk about things that Harry had done, as well as how to improve them. Even little things, like his childish healing of his Aunt Petunia, Diaboli found interesting. Larger still, the man was fascinated by the concept of Hecate.

Weaving magic into a wounded bird, and altering her, changing her... he often wondered whether it was a subconscious transfiguration, or some sort of binding and ritual. Harry, unable to answer this as he did not know, simply remarked that his raven friend was simply vastly improved. Stronger, larger, faster, and more intelligent.

Harry learned other words through Diaboli, as the man kept insisting that Hecate was now his Familiar. What a familiar was, or it's job, frankly confused Harry. But Diaboli would rave about magic that could be enhanced or rituals undergone, only possible with the aid of a Familiar. The green eyed boy simply shrugged, elegantly lifting his shoulders and remarking that, 'As long as 'Cate agreed with it' or 'As long as she wasn't hurt'.

Remarkably, the cloaked man in his dreams appeared most fascinated by how Harry understood the spiders. After Kali made an appearance in his dreams, crawling from the darkness of the ceiling in the odd room and dropping down on Harry's shoulder, the conversation had stalled.

When the dangerous spider had clicked and chattered at Harry, only for Harry to respond accordingly, the red-eyed man had held his breath and whispered, "Fascinating."

It seemed that even his Kind could not speak to spiders. Diaboli spoke to snakes, he admitted, but proudly pointed to it being a rare 'gift' and one of bloodlines. How Harry could speak to spiders appeared beyond him, and Kali offered no answers other than, "The boy is ours, and we are his."

Still, the man argued that Harry simply 'did not notice the darkness'. In reality, Harry did. But he found it a strange topic. The dark, the shadows, and the night were when he felt the most at home. The most... at peace. The confusing concept of controlling or bending the shadows was foreign. It was one of the few things that truly made Diaboli angry, and prone to his strange mood-shifts and madness.

"I hardly think you're a mere wizard anymore, Harry Potter, so why you insssist on this battle against ussing the sshadowss is beyond my knowledge!" The high voice of Diaboli often ranted. His whispery tones, so cold and somehow malicious in his anger, often unsettled the nine year old.

His rant and rage continued, gesturing wildly with his long, spindled fingers. "Names to wizards are important! Fashioning magic names are the very foundation to power, Harry Potter! Your parents named you after one of your many Potter ancestors, Harold Potter. Offering you the power of a pureblood, and the protection! And your pathetic, dirty muggle Uncle deemed you a shadow! A shadow!" Diaboli raged. "Giving power to a name, or rules, especially to a child with magic as wild as yours... You must harness it!"

The man's eyes were burning, and his teeth gnashed in his pale, gaunt face. "When I fashioned a name for myself, a name others would fear, I cast aside my own mortality and increased my power! Even those afraid to say my name gave me power! Names, Harry Potter the Shadow, are everything to wizardkind!"

The uncomfortable sort of fear that had gripped the green eyed child as he listened, the kind that prickled the back of your neck and urged you away from predators, faded. Somehow, by stating Harry's full name... or was it a title? Somehow... somehow he felt calmer. He felt... more alive.

The shadows in the toddler's room in the strange dream cottage lengthened. The images of trees that stretched across the wall from the dim light, creating silhouettes began to thicken, yawn and gape. Branched claws flexed and inched closer to both the child and the raging elder, and a pair of green eyes glowed incandescently.

After several moments, Diaboli paused, seeming to note the strange behavoir. The way the shades of darkness skittered unnaturally about. Like great black clouds, they gathered around the small, slim form of the child and enveloped him like a mother embracing it's offspring.

"I do not like the idea of controlling the night, Diaboli," Harry spoke softly. His voice seemed more hushed, and the words were oddly spaced, as though weighted. "I think you put too much thought into it. I am what I am.. shadows are less inclined to worry about such things." The boy paused and the strange oppressive air of gloom seemed to lift marginally. "Should I need to be of the dark, I shall be. For now, I am content. You would do well to remember this, Diaboli... after all... you are but a shade in the dark, easily swallowed."

And the cloaked figure living in the scar of the Boy Who Lived knew fear once more. He greatly desired his own existence, and the thought of this strange boy devouring him struck to the central core of his very being. So with a stiff sort of dignity, he said, "I apologize, Harry Potter... I shall not overstep my bounds again."

The boy seemed to nod, and the light slowly filtered back into the room. Diaboli watched with startled clarity as several red eyes seemed to open in the cloud about the boy, before winking back into the black. This was something to be remembered, to be wary of. But as Harry didn't wish to pursue it at this time, he let it be. He had a strong sense of self-preservation, after all.

And so went Harry Potter's ninth year of life. Quietly passing into Secondary School, learning at night from both his eight legged friends and the man in the dream Cottage. His weaving surpassed it's original standards, and the boy was content.

He had many friends now, after all. Hecate, Ren, Sobek, Pheobe, Kali and Daiboli. It turned out that Ren and Sobek were creating children, and had asked to keep the little sack with them. Diaboli was noticeably disturbed at the idea of having a spider's egg sack inside the boy, but Harry remarked that it wasn't much different than having the spiders in his skin already. While he begrudgingly ceded this point, the red eyed man asked where the little ones would go? After all, a single sack could vary between ten and a thousand.

Harry found this an odd question, and simply said, "Why, with us of course! I wouldn't want to separate the little ones from their parents..."

The orphaned boy wizard had a point, but the man asked once more, "And how will they feed? Do you have enough blood and magic for that many spiders, Harry?"

This was a valid reason, and he had then brought it to Renenet and Sobek's attention. The spiders had twitter in delight that he was worried about their health, before turning the question over to the leader of their band, Kali.

With a patience that spoke of years of intelligence and watching, perhaps supplimented by Harry Potter's own power and abilities, Kali had crossed her front legs and watched him curiously out of her many eyes, her mandibles clacking gently as she gently spoke, "You are a kind child, Harry Potter. But I doubt all of the sack will live. Many will likely pass on... and probably be absorbed or eaten by ourselves, or you. It is the spider way, after all. A few hundred that might survive... could easily live off you without harming you. Should they become cumbersome, I shall demand they leave... or devour them myself. Does this settle your doubts, little Spinner?"

When Harry had relayed this to Diaboli he was visibly curious and disgusted by the conversation with the matriarch of their strange spider coven. Harry often wondered if the man had been a scholar before being lost to this odd dream world, as he seemed to know a lot about magic, but always thirsting for more. Even about things he found slightly vile, or offensive, such as the knowledge that Harry's own body might swallow up the dead spiders.

All in all, life was good. Harry Potter, the Shadow of Number 4 Privet Drive, Nobody and Kin of Spiders had found his lot with his family and friends. They were even planning on enlarging his makeshift family! The boy could not be happier.

Until the boy found his Uncle waiting for him after school, nervously fidgetting with his tie and slightly red in the face. His mustache bristled, sweat beading his forehead as he turned to the child and said, "There's an important client coming for dinner... and I've decided you'll make him agree to buy for our company. You'll do this for me, won't you?"

Vernon Dursley really had poor timing.
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Diaboli : Latin for 'devil', but this is not his true name.
For names of the Spiders or species, see Chapter 4.
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[[ lolol : I think you're quite right. It appears that I'm leaning towards Slytherin without noticing. He's showing more cunning than I intended, but that's how stories take on lives of their own, no?
Ironically I have severe arachnophobia myself due to a traumatic experience. But I studied spiders in an effort to "get past the fear" and somehow this seemed to just... take on it's own ideas of the spiders. There's gonna be a lot more of them, sadly. If it helps, think of them like the kindly Charlotte from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.
Yes, Harry's a prodigy but he's still very childish. A lot of the magic he does is just 'controlled' versions of accidental magic, which is often called "wish magic" by Wizards. Controlling it is a bit odd, but then so did Tom Riddle. The only things that make him exceptional beyond that, are a few hints at shadows, and his spiders. Ahh, so many plans and I have to keep supporting it and taking my time but I'm excited! I hope you like this chapter, the POV shifting more and more to Harry, and hopefully it paints a clear picture of where this is going.
wicked : Hopefully you think it's a good different, but it's intended to be a bit 'creepy' or odd for now. As things expand, and more characters interact, hopefully it'll seem less... Addams family? Though I do like how it is now.
Hope everyone likes the new chapter! ]]
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Carefully Tangled Webs of Darkness