The last few years at school had been interesting for Harry, but thankfully without any near-death experiences, which made it a lot better than Harry's Hogwarts experience, not counting the lack of magic. Harry had become great friends with Gwen and Peter, the three of them having formed their own group. Flash on the other hand had become quite popular in school, especially since getting on the school football team (though Harry still found calling American football 'football' while calling regular football 'soccer' to be a bit weird). Flash was near always surrounded by the football team and Liz who was now apparently his girlfriend according to the school rumour mill.
Harry was initially quite popular at school, being the son of a rich billionaire and all, but eventually, his popularity died down when people learnt he wasn't willing to toss out cash like sweets. It took a while, but eventually, the students realised that Harry wasn't going to be spending a ton of money trying to make friends. Harry and his friends quickly became known as the brains of their year, Gwen was slightly more popular than Peter was once she lost her braces and glasses, apparently, even muggle boys were suckers for pretty girls. Peter was probably the least popular member of the group, not helped by Flash's attempts to bully him. Though thankfully those attempts had decreased after Flash kept getting pranked over and over, something that Harry would deny suggesting to Gwen and Peter, hoping that the Marauders and the Weasley twins would be proud.
Flash might not have been the brightest bulb in the school but even he could work out that the pranks were connected to his attempts to bully Peter. After the fourth time he got covered in green paint, he learnt to dial down his attempts to make Peter's life hell. Though with that being said, the trio occasionally would perform another prank to remind Flash if he forgot. Their last prank ended up in Flash landing on top of the headmaster, apparently, vengeful geniuses could be a bit dangerous, who knew?
"Alright class, gather around," Mr Adams, the group's science teacher said before taking a few minutes to do the class register, "now, everyone, this is a rare and special opportunity for us, I'm expecting all of you to be on your best behaviour, is that clear?"
"Yes sir." The class chorused, though some a lot more dully than the others.
...
"This is unbelievable," Harry said as he and his friends walked around the room they had been brought into.
Inside was pretty much every piece of scientific equipment that you would need in a lab and then some. Some students like Flash and Liz looked like they would rather be anywhere else, meanwhile, Harry and his friends felt like they were in science heaven.
"Hey, hey, look." Harry pointed to a picture on the wall. "Is that who I think it is?"
"That's Bruce Banner." Gwen breathed.
"Told you guys," Peter smirked before looking around. "oh my god, I hope your father buys this and lets us have it."
"Yeah," Harry couldn't help but nod in agreement. Harry would always do his best to not imitate Malfoy and demand that his father buy him everything he wanted, but it didn't mean he wasn't tempted. "what's this?" Harry stopped alongside a glass case, inside the glass case were fifteen separate glass boxes, each of which contained a spider.
"Ah," One of the tour guides stepped up next to them. "I see you've found our spiders. Impressive, aren't they?"
"I've seen bigger," Harry replied, shivering slightly as pictures of Aragog and his children shot into his head. "what's so special about these?" He asked.
"These aren't regular spiders," The guide smiled. "they've all been genetically altered and each of them has been experimented on. Some with drugs, but all of them have been exposed to varying levels of radiation. Unfortunately, we won't have much longer with them."
"What? Why?" Peter asked.
"Their life spans aren't very long," The guide mentioned, choosing not to mention the fact that their experiments had likely decreased those short life spans. "but still, all fifteen of them are treated very nicely here, or at least as nice as you can treat spiders."
"Fourteen." Gwen corrected.
"I beg your pardon?" The guide blinked.
"There are fourteen," Gwen repeated, taking another look at the glass case. "one of them is missing."
"Huh?" The guide stared at the glasses case. "Oh yeah, you're right, one of our guys must have taken it out for tests. Anyway, I…"
"John," Another tour guide called. "Doctor Danielson needs some help in lab three."
"Oh, well I guess that's my cue to leave," The guide, apparently called John, said before nodding to the three. "I hope you all enjoy your trip here." He nodded before walking off.
"Oh, poor spiders." Peter frowned.
"I'm not really a fan of spiders," Gwen shivered slightly.
"They're fine at a distance," Harry spoke up. "I just don't like big ones."
"Class," Mr Adams called. "gather around over here please, quickly does it."
"Let's go see what he wants." Gwen quickly walked back to Mr Adams with Peter following behind. Harry was just behind the pair but suddenly stopped when he felt a large pain in his hand.
"Ah!" Harry hissed and shook his right hand, he looked down on the floor and saw a spider scurrying away.
"Harry, are you alright?" Peter asked, having stopped when he noticed Harry wasn't following them.
"Huh? Uh… yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Harry said quickly, suddenly feeling slightly lightheaded. "let's go." He quickly started walking before Peter could respond.