The Snake and the Emerald Apple

New Year's Eve

"Will you come out of the room this evening?" asked Barty in a weary tone. "Our Lord has sent Pettigrew away. Don't let this ruin your evening."

"Ruin it?" Harry growled on the other side of the door. "I wouldn't call it that. I would say that with his presence, Peter has infected this festive day with melancholy and mental retardation. I don't think he can do anything about that, rats also carried diseases with them in the past. Instead of Wormtail, we can call it 'Pustule' or 'La Pest'."

"Let me in, little brother. I'm sure my company is much better than your side's cobwebs."

"I don't know about that, I can tell you that I had a long conversation with an Acromantula in my second year at Hogwarts. He wanted to eat me, but it was not the company that lacked."

"Merlin, kid! Now I definitely need to drag you out of the room before you incite an army of house spiders to kill 'La Pest.'"

A dull thud against the door's wood told Barty that Harry had sat against it. He heard a deep sigh, but also a soft chuckle. "Did you know that you will find at least one spider in every house, in three-quarters of the cases that is your own bedroom. In fact, there is a good chance that a spider is looking at you right now."

Barty looked around warily, taking in all the dark nooks and crannies. He felt a tickle in his neck and rubbed his hand excessively over his skin as if doing so would scare away the imaginary spider. "You do have a way with words, little brother," he said in a voice that was a little too high to continue as relaxed.

"Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to eat lizards, birds, and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the gluttony of their appetites, you might wonder that if you added up all the food eaten by the entire world spider population in one year, how much would that be?" Harry wondered aloud, tapping the weathered wood with his nails.

"The spiders of the world consume anywhere from 400 million to 800 million tons of prey in any given year," came Tom's dark but cultured voice. "That means spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion people on Earth combined, who consume about 400 million tons of meat and fish each year."

Tom grinned and sat on the floor in front of the door of the room Harry had barricaded himself in. "Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison, the total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated at 287 million tons. Even if you add another 70 million tons to account for the weight of children, it still does not equal the total amount of food eaten by spiders in any given year, and exceeds the total weight of humanity... In other words, spiders can eat us all and still be hungry."

Harry laughed, dejectedly, "Sure, leave it to Lord Voldemort to know such creepy facts."

"I'm a Dark Lord, Harry. It's to my advantage to know exactly how many spiders I need to eat a man."

"And how many spiders do I need to make a certain rat disappear?"

"That depends on whether you want him to be eaten as a human or as a rat... He's a bit on the heavy side...I'd say between 1.800.000 and 2.000.000 spiders."

Harry rubbed his face with his hand. "So that's practically impossible."

"With magic, anything is possible and within reach."

"Carrion beetles are probably a better option," Harry murmured from behind the door, thinking of familiar potion ingredients.

"American Carrion Beetles are scavengers, and they are otherwise harmless to humans. Unless they are already dead, but even then these insects will eat the maggots in the flesh first, and only then will they feast on human flesh."