Toby had been hesitant about showing up to the SNAC meeting after that one particular Divination lesson they'd had, AND by the vibe he got from that urgent notice. After all, in his unfortunate experience, urgent notices were never good.

And yet, here he was, stood among the group, wand reluctantly drawn (THAT request was never a good sign, either) as he wondered if maybe this hadn't been such a great idea.

Toby knew... he kneeeew what Professor Cassie was on about, even though she didn't mention it. Spiders. Bleskjfhskhskhsd. SPIDERS. Merlin, he had a terrible phobia of them which made THIS TERM SO GOSH DARN FUN =D

And he knew his creatures too, so when the professor posed her question, he reluctantly put in, "Spiders are scared of Basilisks. They run away from them. But the one down there is...-" *wibble* "-... dead. I think. But we saw Nifflers in there last year. It's possible they'll befriend the spiders and persuade them that a life underground in the chamber is truly a life worth living and then they'll leave us alone and then we'll all be happy. OR..." OR!!!!! "... the spiders already live down there on account of how there's no scary basilisk anymore and that's actually their headquarters now 'cause it's all dark and scary and spiders like those sorts of places, right?"

Toby, who had started looking around at the cobwebs as he started on his TOTALLY POSSIBLE THEORIES, now looked back at the professors, glancing between them. Did they need him to elaborate? 'Cause his imagination had already taken those theories and run with them. He'd already thought up an elaborate hierarchy as well as a cobweb trade system and how basically the school had just become a COBWEB STORE ROOM. He could keep talking, check out that crazy glint in his eye. Say the word and he'd share the wealth of information.

... It often helped when he thought of outlandish and humanising theories about spiders. Made them a little less scary... at least until such a time came when he saw one in real life again, but y'know. Working progress.