The owner of the Monsieur Mal is staring with a kind of horrified awe as the sounds of crunching bones arise from Aragog. He shuffles around a little to get a better view, but he's wise enough not to get too close - Aragog's still not big on sharing. You're working on it. It seems you've impressed the whole lot. Makes sense of course, they can clearly tell an acromantula of Aragog's obvious quality. ... But you've got that little itch, the one that means a proferssor's about to scold you for missing something. After a few seconds you remember! Acromantulae aren't a thing, so far as muggles know, are they?
Well, the muggles will come up with something to explain it. It'll be fine!
"Oi friend," you try to snap him out of it. It takes a tick but his eyes snap right back up to you proper quick. It's funny, the wideness of his peepers and his long face... if his face was a little gaunter, he'd put you in mind of a thestral. You've always liked thestrals. Well, most beasts, really. "Go' a few questions fer yeh."
He scratches the sweat-stained underarm of his off-white jacket, blinking fiercely as he struggles to not look at Aragog long enough to speak. "Yes, fine. But first, where did you find zat creature?"
"Raised 'im meself I did!" you say with pride. It wasn't easy, raising a monstrous spider in a children's school, but what other choice did you have? It's not his fault his mom left her egg sac unattended way too close to the school and he wandered in. He was too young to survive on his own, so of course you lent a hand to a critter in need. Who wouldn't-especially when they're so darn cute?
"You breed zem?" the lizard-raiser asks with a shudder, happily knocking you back out of your memories of Aragog's adorable baby months.
"… Can I have one?" Horse-face asks, cementing himself instantly as your favorite of the bunch. Even Aragog's looking at him without looking too peckish about it-for other people that's a great first impression!
"Well, he's still a mite small for breedin', yet," you explain. "Still hasn't hit 'is adult growth yet! An' I s'pose I'll need ter find or buy 'im a mate fer that."
Oh, Aragog is giving you the puppy eyes. Having eight of them, it's at least four times more effective than when pups do it. None too shy about what his instincts are asking of him - never has been, and he don't need to be. As long as he can keep a lid on it 'til you find him a proper home-
"He will get bigger?" Lizard-man looks vaguely ill.
Whispers murmur back and forth.
"Y'a des histoire à propos de l'Afrique, mais..."
"À propos d'animaux immense, sure, mais des bestioles comme ça?"
"J'imagine de terrible forêts, plus immense que les plus gros immeubles et des centaines de ces-"
"Arrête de rendre les choses encore pire, merde!"
" 'Course! Acromantulae keep growin' all their lives. Give this lil' fella another six months, an' he'll be twice as big as he is now!" Bit of a showboat now that you aren't keeping him secret, little Aragog does a happy wriggle, tapping out a solid beat on the already stomped-down desert scrub with his legs. You're sure there's not an eye in twenty paces that didn't get a solid gander at that little performance! He'd make it on the stage.
"Cannibal..." comes the whisper from the crowd of muggles.
"...c'est assez mignon par contre-"
"Quoi. Non, n'explique même pas...stop."
"Yes, of course. Ah, but where are my manners? Jean Abel," Horse-face introduces himself with a nod that wobbles his cap.
"Rubeus Hagrid," you introduce yourself. "Formerly of Hogwarts School of- well, nevermind tha'. Now, 'bout them questions. Where, uh… where are we?"
The crowd starts up again. Bit rude, that.
"Il sait pas?"
"Comment il peut pas savoir?"
"Sure, moquons nous du géant avec l'araignée encore plus grosse pour ne pas être au courant."
"Je peux appelé un idiot un idiot. Du moment qu'il ne comprend pas le langage."
"Donc on se concentre sur tous sauf l'a-"
"Ferme ta gueule avant que les choses deviennent encore pire pauvre con!"
"Got a touch inter me cups last night, weight of a whole lotta bad news. Can't rightly recall what happened after that," you admit.
"How long were you drunk?" Jean asks incredulously. "We have been at zis staging ground in the Levant for three days, waiting for ze British and Australians!"
"Yeah, funny story…" you mutter sheepishly, scratching your beard. It's like he's never heard of a drunken wander before.
"He could have come in with ze Senegalese tirailleurs or ze North African spahis?" Lizard-man pondered. A few heads nod at that comment that's at least half frogspeak, but others-
"Il a l'air d'un colonial français à tes yeux, Alan?"
"Il a l'air d'un Ogre à mes yeux."
"Tu devrais lui dire ça. On va juste rester là, à regarder-"
"Tu me crois vraiment si stupide!?"
"...qu'est-ce qu'il peux être d'autre alors ?"
"Un membre de la cavalerie ?"
"Hah! Où est-ce que tu vas trouver un cheval suffisamment gros ? À moin que tu pense qu'il chevauche son araignée au combat?" smirks a young lad with a wispy moustache that's frankly a bit sad. He gets some raucous laughter, and a rough pat on the metal helmet he's sporting even in this heat.
"Possible," 'Alan' says insistently, with the air of a man determined to stick to a theory.
"No matter," Jean says with finality. "He is here, he will fight. It does not matter, ca va?"
"Right, right, 'course," you nod along knowledgably. "Always up fer a scrap. An'… we're fightin' who, exactly?"
Bunches of faces put on that fierce look teachers sported when you forgot an assignment, and Jean slaps his face with his bare palm in disbelief.
"Il se moque de nous, j'pense."
"J'sais pas. Je pense qu'on a suffisamment d'évidence qu'il est pas réel, donc c'est parfaitement logique qu'un personnage imaginaire soit pas au courant des événements dans le monde réel."
"Qu'est que que tu baragouine encore?"
"Comme si t'avais une meilleur explication. C'est complètement ridicule!"
"Ferme la, sont araignée regarde vers nous." A few nervous gulps and sideways glances after that bit of foreign jabber.
You are getting real tired of the peanut gallery not speaking words you understand, although watching them push each other around as they talk is kind of funny.
"Mon dieu," Jean exclaims loud enough to make you wince. "We go to Damascus, so that those Vichy-led fools that call themselves Frenchmen won't fold to the damn Germans!"
So they are French! Well, some of them. Looking around, you see some other folk that have all sorts of different looks to them. Including a lot of dark-skinned lads, now that you think of it. More than you've ever seen in your life, really. You wonder if this is the most worldly company you've ever kept, or if hags and goblins - English nationals though they are - count for more.
"If ze Germans gain ze Levant, they will have all ze ports and airfields zey would wish for, control of the Suez Canal, and easy access to oil besides."
"And the Desert Fox, cursed be his ancestors, will run right through Egypt and up our backsides if we must fight on two fronts for long," a crinkly old African in a red fez added worriedly.
At which point you perk right on up – that sounds important. You lean over the dark-skinned man and ask, "Wha' was that 'bout a fox?"
"Yes, the Desert Fox Erwin R-"
You smile thoughtfully. "Desert fox givin' you some troubles, eh?"
He leans back, out of your personal space. To do it he has to approach the horizontal, but he manages it.
You go on, warming to the idea. "Aw, 'e sounds like a big softie - I bet if someone took the time to corner the bugger and show him what's what, he'd behave."
"You think we haven't tried?" the African asks you incredulously. "Better men have tried. He's a ghost!"
A ghost fox? Don't that beat all. It explains why the muggles are so afraid of course; they don't have your experience with ghosts. "Ah, I bet yer just not huntin' him right. I bet I could wrangle him right off."
A contemptuous snort from Alan. "I'm sure you can, man mountain."
Jean frowns. "I'm not sure he-"
"Good ter hear a vote of confidence like tha' - yeah, I don' like ter toot me own horn much but I'm a pretty good tracker – somethin' like a fox? Run o' the mill after what I've seen."
Good days wiled away in the Forbidden Forest come back to you. You come over all nostalgic.
"You are English, yes?" the African asks. At your nod, he spits and declares, "One would think there was not a brave man left among the British after the Desert Fox was done with them in Tobruk last year. How would you even find him? He is cunning as his name, that one."
He seems a little overly proud of the slippery fellow.
"Yeh bet I could!" You're not normally one to brag, but this sounds right up your alley.
A caustic laugh from Alan. "Maybe he should!"
Aragog speaks again – looks like the little guy's finished his meal. "Fox is tasty. Would desert fox be more or less savory than English, you think?"
"Mon dieux, elle est vraiment cannibale, vous l'avez entendu!"
"… Ventriloque."
"Ouais!"
And that fellow with the braid looks like he's done jawing, too. At least, he spots you with these other blokes and starts coming over.
[X] Hunt the Desert Fox to prove yourself! That'll show 'em.
[X] As fun as that sounds you were getting an introduction with your original guide… you think?
[X] There's still other things you could poke into around camp. Those pigeons, for instance, or those big metal muggle toys.
[X]-Write in!
