Chapter 23

Throughout the day, several Gryffindor wellwishers came to visit Milo in the hospital wing. Apparently, word had spread of his run-in with the acromantula, and the rumours had quickly gotten out of hand.

"We heard you fought off a horde of giant spiders, mate —" said one of the Weasley twins (Milo decided, for convenience's sake, to call him George).

"— and save a beautiful unicorn princess —" said Fred (maybe).

"— which is unusual, because unicorns tend to be male —"

"— and also managed to rescue Professor Quirrell —"

"— while growing increasingly weak from spider venom —"

"— defeated You-Know-Who for good —"

"— became king of the Goblins —"

"— found a Philosopher's Stone —"

"— so now, you can live forever —"

"— discovered a thirteenth use for dragon's blood —"

"— and that you're still an available bachelor —"

"— but maybe not for long, based on the rate these stories are spreading."

Following the conversation was somewhat dizzying, but sort of entertaining as well. Hannah and Lavender dropped by with candy (though the people in this strange land called them "sweets," which Milo supposed was generally accurate, with the exception of several trillion flavours of the Every-Flavoured Beans), and Lavender apologized for her behaviour during detention. Milo appreciated the gesture, but was somewhat suspicious of wizarding candy as a whole – he remembered Harry's chocolate frogs trying to escape back on the train (Milo shuddered at the thought of that mechanical monstrosity) and the more unpleasant flavours of the every-flavoured beans.

Hermione, naturally, brought him copies of her class notes from the ones he missed (Milo copied them all into a notebook with Amanuensis (an obscure 0th-level spell that copies text rapidly) and then read it with Scholar's Touch (an invaluable 1st-level spell that reads an entire book (and not, say, a stack of loose-leaf) in a few seconds)).

Ron approached somewhat sheepishly to apologise for not going to the forest with him and Harry, but said that it was really for the best because he was absolutely useless around spiders and would probably just have gotten in the way. Milo forgave him, and they played a game of Wizard's chess, which was just like regular chess except the pieces were apparently intelligent. It really changes the game when, instead of sending a rook forwards to be sacrificed, you're sending up an old, tired wooden soldier begging to be allowed to live and return to his family (he had a pair of pawns to take care of, after all), yet nonetheless resigned to his fate. Ron won, of course, because Milo couldn't remember ever playing chess before. He knew the rules, oddly, but had no memories of an actual game — probably because he was still cut off from any of his backstory not yet explicitly stated.

While he recovered from his ability score damage, Milo tried to solve the puzzle of the spider bite. There was, without a doubt, an ugly injury caused by a fang in his side. However, Milo was absolutely certain that he hadn't been bitten. Even if the spider tried, Milo had Mage Armour and Protection from Evil, which gave him a net boost of +6 to Armour Class, assuming the spider was evil (which it totally was). It was improbable, though not impossible, that the spider had hit him in one attack. But between being blinded and off-balance from Milo's magic, he really doubted the acromantula had a chance — unless he'd been bit before Milo started his attack. But that was impossible because Milo was invisible, and had illusions up besides…

He frowned. No, it really can't have been before I became visible, and probably wasn't when the spider was blinded. Milo could account for the spider's actions during the duration based on the number of mirror images it destroyed and the number of spells he cast.

This doesn't add up at all.

And then there was the matter of Snape. If Snape had been trying to kill him, why did he brew an antidote? Was it really some sort of terrible, slow-acting poison that would kill Milo over the course of weeks, making it look natural? But why bother — he could have just left Milo to succumb to the acromantula venom.

No, there must be another player at work here. Snape was evil, sure — but he wasn't actively trying to kill Milo. He might not even have realized, yet, that Milo was a threat to him.

"Hey, mate," Harry said, breaking him out of his thought process. Milo hadn't noticed the boy entering the room. "Sorry I didn't come earlier, we had broomstick lessons — it turns out I can fly really well! I don't have any idea where the skill came from, I was always rubbish at P.E. — and anyway, Draco must still be mad from that time on the train, so he stole Nev's Remembrall (poor fellow just got out of St. Mungo's) and ran off with it. Anyway, I'm rambling. The point is, I got it back, but McGonagall saw and guess what — I'm on the Quidditch team!"

"What, the game with six pointless players and one PC?" Milo asked.

"Yeah! And I'm the Seeker!" Harry said excitedly. "Hermione's upset because it's against the rules and thinks McGonagall shouldn't have made an exception, but Ron is beside himself."

"That's pretty cool. Bet you'll catch the Snitch — like, really. Ten gold pieces — Galleons, whatever — that you win the first match by the skin of your teeth."

"You're on, but I probably won't be able to pay you for a while when I lose. My money's all in Gringott's," Harry said.

"Oh?" Milo asked. "What's Gringott's?"

"It's this big underground thing, full of dragons and run by goblins," Harry said. "I was there once, it was actually kinda scary."

Milo's ears literally perked up upon hearing this (he was one-sixty-fourth elf).

"Goblins got your gold, eh?" he asked. "Well, well, well. Sounds to me like we have a dungeon crawl in our future," he said excitedly.

"What's a dungeon crawl? Is that some sort of dance? Only, I've never danced before," Harry said.

"What? No. It's where you go into a big underground thing, full of dragons and run by goblins, and come out with piles and piles of gold," Milo explained.

"Oh, I've done that already," Harry commented. "Though I left most of the gold behind for later."

"You— you did what now? I think you're not really getting into the spirit of the thing."

"Well, I was with Hagrid, and he only let me take so much out—"

"Oh, that makes sense. Higher level character, he probably did most of the work to get there. Still, try to argue for an even split next time. If you play your cards right, you could wind up way ahead of your WBL," Milo said.

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