AN: shorter chapters now because i've learned to be Lazy and to love myself. Arachnophobia warning! jsyk

Word count: 2,777

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Chapter Three - Superheroes and Superpowers

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He had been right, the strangeness, the expected... happenings, were a reoccurring thing when Marie was around.

For Harry, at least, he found himself at the mercy of such happenings, as they happened at any moment, and often left him slightly confused and always afraid the Dursleys would see her running off. To her credit, Marie was actually quite good at her whole disappearing act, and he wasn't sure if it involved some bad luck oh his part (never seeing her go), her, darting away the second he turned is head (while also not making a sound), or some sort of invisibility, which would have been awesome, but also impossible (but then again, she was kind of impossible to begin with, so it made sense).

At the end of the day, Harry was plagued with a million questions on is mind, and the haunting fear that she could show up at any moment with him none the wiser.

One of such happenings, if perhaps more important than the others, had been on a Friday, after the Dursleys had eased a bit up on their punishments and allowed him some free time, as long as he remained out of sight. which, of course meant he was in the cupboard again, because out of sight always meant the cupboard. If not that, then the attic, but someone would have heard the commotion it would have taken to get the ladder down, and the trouble just wasn't worth it with dudley's tenth still fresh in their minds.

Between homework, chores, dealing with the Dursleys, Harry's free time was pretty normal. He had his books, comics, toys and the like, (usually passed down from Dudley when he had no interest in them anymore). He had a fondness for his little medieval figurines, the knight in shining armor, the princess with her rosy smile, and the dark knight on his white horse, his bow drawn.

Harry had few props to play with as he sent the white rider on a gallop, imaging a tense battle scene, rite with conflict, but he did what he could. A row of toilet paper tubes was his forest, a ring of stones as the rider's obstacles, and among the scene, another knight, dressed in red, wielding a great sword from atop his crimson steed. The paint had long peeled off the little plastic figurine, but the knight stood as an imposing enemy.

Harry took his white rider and circled the red knight, bow drawn. The battle was tense- the white knight kept their distance, struck when they could, dancing around the reach of the red knight's sword. when dawn broke, the white rider's arrow shot true, and pierced the red knight's armor, striking his heart, and down he went. The kingdom erupted in cheers, and the white knight was crowned the new ruler, beloved by all.

He took the little gold wedding band he had found in the garden, and crowned the victor, the sounds of the people ringing in his ears. In his little cupboard, the world outside was a million years away. He could imagine rolling fields of green grass and horse drawn carriages, people who spoke in languages of old and a kingdom of magic and mystery. When he had his time like this to himself, he could imagine what freedom felt like. He could-

knock, knock.

Right, well, spell ruined. Harry groaned and hid his figurines, expecting Vernon or aunt Petunia about to tell him to do another thing for them. What he didn't expect, were the wide grey eyes of Marie looking down at him through a crack in the door. "W-what are you doing here?"

She opened the door further, poking her head in to get a better look inside. "Better question is, what are so many spiders doing in here? Either they know something we don't, or there's some tasty, tasty flies hanging around. Or you feed them. Do you feed them?"

"Sssh! Uncle Vernon is right in the other room- how did you even get inside without them hearing you?" Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, ignoring the surprised yelp she let out, and shut the cupboard door behind her.

With such little space, he had to scooch back as far as he could to let her sit down, and he pushed a couple boxes out of the way so she wasn't cramped. Somehow, she didn't seem the least bit bothered. "So this is your crib, huh...?."

"Um, yeah..." It occurred to him that he had never had anyone in his cupboard, not even Dudley (who would probably fit in theory but not in practice). Harry didn't really know what kids his age did when they had friends in their rooms, let alone their cupboard under the stairs. "Do you... like comics?"

Her eyes lit up. "I do!"

There wasn't much room with the two of them squeezed inside; Harry reached around her to dig up a stack of pages stuffed between the mattress and the wall. Admittedly, he didn't have many to share-a recurring theme in Harry's history was that most of his things had been handed down to him, or scavenged from Dudley. What he could have for himself was well loved and worn, held onto by him for years, rarely ever seeing new copies of being handled by another pair of hands.

There was a hesitance in his expression that perhaps she picked up. There was something deeply sacred about the comics in his hands, but he passed them along anyway. The first one she opened up, was a copy of the Incredible Spider-Man. It was one of the more common copies, a duplicate from Dudleys collection. There had to be about a million of them everywhere, but Harry version was bent around the corners and missing a couple staples. He knew the pages by heart, traced the words over under his fingers until he could absorb the lines and color. Whenever he had a bad day or felt trapped, small, or invisible, he would go to Spider-Man, and he could imagine a life where the wind whistled through his hair as buildings swept past him; where radioactive spiders could grant the gift of great power and great responsibility.

Spider-Man was perhaps one of his favourite superheroes, if only because he came from the same place Harry did, more or less, and wasn't that the most important? Superman was from another world, batman was a billionaire- they were compelling heroes but they weren't Harry. They weren't just another kid. At some point, sure, Clark Kent had thought he was just another farm boy, and Bruce Wayne... had parents. In a way, Harry could relate to Batman, but all he had known had been the Dursleys, and their punishments and severity had never made him want to don a bat costume and fight crime. It just made him want to keep everyone from getting angry at him and be alone.

Well, for the most part.

"If the webbing comes from his wrists does that mean there's glands under his skin that secretes the string or do his tendons just create a sticky substance. Does it ONLY happen when he does the very specific wrist thingy- can he control it with his mind like how you can salivate on que or does it just happen on reflex? what if he goes to pick something up and flicks his wrist and it just thwips out? And yeah, thwips out is a verb, as in 'to thwip,' it makes sense, don't look at me like that."

Harry shook his head and looked down at the comic in his hands. He was starting to get a little more used to Marie and... whatever it was going on in her head. He passed her an issue of The Swamp Thing and an issue of Uncanny X-Men. "These ones are really good."

"Do you think the swamp thing ever like, goes to the gym?" Marie laid back and stretched her legs out, flipping to the next page as her grey eyes roved over the detailed biceps of the mutated scientist. "With arms like that you'd think he lifts."

"Between plotting his revenge against his would-be killer and being a plant, I don't think so, no." Harry paused, watching her as she got further through the story. "Then again, I don't know if there's much to do in a swamp. Probably lots of logs and alligators to carry, since it takes place in America."

"Gators are like, the eagles of the bayou," Marie murmured, nodding in agreement. Agreement to what, Harry wasn't quite sure, but it sort of sounded like it made sense if he squinted.

She flipped another page and Harry watched her read a passage about the plant who thought he was a man-when the real Alec holland died in a fiery explosion, and the swamp thing that emerged was only a pale imitation, burdened with memories that weren't his own. He wondered what she thought about it; if the werewolves, vampires and plant magic was too much, but when she finished the issue and looked around in his collection for the next issue, he found himself oddly pleased she wanted to read more.

"Where's the rest?"

"That's all there is," he answered, shuffling his comics back into a pile. At her distressed expression, he ducked his head. "Well, uh-comics usually cost a bit to buy, and Dudley always gets most of them."

Marie stared at him for a moment. "Does he have more in his room?"

"Yes, but I don't think he'd-" And then she was crawling out of the cupboard and climbing the stairs before he could even finish. A second later, he was climbing the stairs after her, terrified she was going to do something, or prompt the Dursleys to do something.

He found her hovering outside the large, spare bedroom, one hand on the doorknob. She said nothing at first as she heard him approach, but her hand twisted the knob once, twice, as he came to stand beside her.

"Harry." She stared into the big empty room, then back at him. "That's a lot of space."

"It is," he agreed, not liking where this was going.

"Harry," she said again, staring back into the guest bedroom, which could have easily fit seven cupboards and everything harry ever owed, ten times over. "How many spiders do you think could fit in here?"

"I… I don't know?" He was expecting her to ask why he slept in a cupboard when they had extra space. But the look in her eyes was strangely focused as she turned and quickly ran towards the stairs. He followed after her, taking two stairs at once, and ignored the sound of Aunt petunia telling him to slow down in favor of catching Marie before she was seen.

But she was already crawling out of his cupboard by the time he was down. How did she even move so fast? Harry had to add teleportation to his list of suspected Marie getaway talents, but he stopped in his tracks when she stood back up and saw her arms.

"Harry look," she said, wiggling her fingers as eight fat spiders sat all the way up to her elbows. "I'm spiderman."

"That's-that's not… How did you even find them all so fast…?" He stared at her for a long, hard time. Eventually, and with great effort, he kept himself from backing away. One of the spiders wiggled its abdomen and turned around in circled as she smiled down at it. "That's not how it happened in the comics."

"One of them could be radioactive, you don't know that." she held up one of her arms and urged the closest spider to crawl across her finger. "Do you want to be spiderman too?"

"There's only supposed to be one," he shot back, and watched as it spun a little web at the tip of her finger and fell towards the floor.

Marie gasped and tried to catch it before it ran away, but the other spiders made it difficult to move. "No! Stop!"

It ran towards the kitchen where Aunt Petunia was cooking and Harry winced as it crawled under the door. Marie was stricken, and her seven remaining spiders crawled around on her purple sweater, agitated.

"Where's she going?!"

"It fine!" Harry said quickly, cutting her off, before she moved and the rest started crawling everywhere. "I've got it!

"Harry what are you going on about?" aunt Petunia called from the kitchen, clearly agitated that he was speaking so loudly-and then he made it to the door, and Aunt petunia's footsteps slowed, followed by an ear-piercing shriek of terror. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"

"Slow down!" Harry ran through the kitchen hunched over, trying to catch the fat spider as it ran like it was possessed, across the tiles, over his Aunt's shoes, into the dining room, and back again.

When his hands finally clasped around the spider, Petunia was up on one of the countertops, pale and huffing from lack of breath. "Kill it! Kill it!"

"I'll just toss it outside!" he argued back, and he could feel its legs wiggling in his hands as he moved to the back door.

Before he could do anything about it though, Marie was there, by his side, and leaned over to open the door for him. He jumped, immediately more concerned about his aunt, staring in their direction, and the girl who should not have been in his house to begin with.

"Thanks for catching her instead of killing her," Marie said expectantly, waiting for him to walk out the back door and set the spider free. She seemed completely unconcerned about Harry's aunt slowly easing herself off the countertop. "I'm sure the spider really appreciates it."

With a second wave of dawning horror, Harry realized she wasn't covered in spiders anymore.

(And there was just something about that realization that made Harry realize, yeah, that was just the kind of person Marie was, apparently. When she wasn't covered in spiders, then he would worry.)

"Where… what did you do with the…" He didn't even want to say it. Honestly? He didn't even really want to know. But Petunia was still losing it, and shrieked at him to close the door before the spider crawled back inside and bit her. To be quite honest, in all the panic, he hadn't even considered that as an option.

"Get it over with!" Petunia snapped, her eyes bearing down into him, and completely glazing over the spot where Marie was. Why wasn't she commenting on her? Why he feel like he was the only person on the planet who noticed she was there?

"Yes, Aunt Petunia…" Harry brought the spider over to the little garden he had fished that ring out of, and it occurred to him that all of the Marie happenings only ever started when he touched that ring. Every single time.

He turned to the girl standing right behind him, and stared at her.

"Can the others… see you?" He asked, and for once he felt like he was actually onto something, actually knowing where this line of questioning was going to go, because with Marie, he had always been so uncertain.

The smile he received in response was playful, and the apprehension he felt blooming in his chest died down a little. She was still his friend, despite all the… madness. The weirdness. The happenings. "I mean, where's the fun in that?"

And of course he expected her to say that. Because the trickster, malevolent child-entity before him wouldn't have been Marie, if she didn't somehow find some amusement in that.

Harry silently added 'invisibility' to his list of Marie-related superpowers, before he trashed the whole thing and figured, trying to figure her out would just be a waste of time to begin with.

"I have the invisible man comic somewhere in my collection," he sighed, trudging back up to the back door. Her grey eyes glittered, and she followed after him, eager as always. "We can read it together, or something."

"Or something," she laughed, and then walked past Aunt Petunia without a care in the world, like his Aunt wasn't even there. Like a ghost. "I'll get some popcorn?"

Harry didn't even want to know if she could summon food out of the air. He was that done.

"Fine, but keep the spiders out of it."

"Aw, no fair!"

Maybe having an invisible, impossible friend wasn't so bad after all.