"I don't get it." Neville said after a while.

“Don’t get what?” Harry asked, half his attention on the weird movie playing on the telly.

“Why snakes?” Neville elaborated.

“Well... A lot of people are afraid of snakes - I think it’s one of the most common phobias? And they can get into all sorts of places that wouldn’t seem obvious, which would make for good jump scares when you're suddenly face to face with an unexpected snake.” Harry said in answer.

“When wouldn’t a snake be unexpected?” mused Ron.

“When it’s on display at a zoo, a pet you own or are buying, when you actively go looking for one in the wild...” Harry listed, ticking a finger off with each instance.

“I guess that would make sense.” Ron conceded.

“Ouch!” The pretty young flight attendant (as if there were any other kind in movies like this) said as she drew her hand back from the overhead bin. A hand that was bleeding with two small but not tiny puncture wounds in it. Slowly the head of a black snake with slightly iridescent blue and purple scales lowered into view from the top lip of the overhead bin, casually flicking its tongue before disappearing back up into the dark of the bin.

“Have you noticed that while the snakes are biting people, they’re not actively going after them like I thought they would?” Ron asked.

“It’s not like real world snakes go out of their way to try and bite people.” Percy pointed out.

“That’s not what I meant. Any other movie, and the snakes would be the villains who’s whole purpose was to kill everyone they could.” Ron explained.

“I think I remember seeing mention somewhere about how the guys who made this movie said something about it being more realistic during an interview.” Draco added.

“More realistic my arse.” Harry snorted as he pointed to the screen where the handsome leading man was ‘sucking the poison’ out of the bitten breast of a heavily endowed blonde woman in a shirt cut so low it flirted heavily with the line between decency and indecency. “Sucking out venom like that’s a good way to get you both dead. It won’t remove any of the venom that's already hit the victim’s bloodstream and will envenomate you when you inevitably accidentally swallow some or if you have any open wounds in your mouth. And that’s not taking into account the risk of catching any blood borne diseases that the victim might have. How the hell did she manage to get bit there anyway?”

“Well... maybe it was just the whole snake thing that was supposed to be more realistic? I mean, it’s still a Sanatorium production after all. They’re not exactly known for the quality of their films.” Ron postulated.

“True. At least the acting’s on the decent side of things, and the CGI’s actually surprisingly good. At least I think it’s CGI and not real snakes.” Harry said, squinting a bit to see if he could see what was going on in the movie a bit better.

“I would certainly hope so.” Percy said, chiming in, “It would be highly inadvisable from a health and safety standpoint for both the snakes and the actors to use live snakes like that - especially when there are other avenues such as CGI available.”

“There was that one cannibal horror movie from back in the pre-quirk days...” Neville suggested with a shudder. He’d never actually seen it (very few in this day and age had; the film had been so controversial that it had been banned almost everywhere in the world within five years of it coming out), but he’d certainly heard about it.

“Despite what the persistent rumors would have you believe, no one was ever able to prove that anything illegal had actually happened during the production of that movie.” Percy pointed out, “Which is not to say that it hadn’t deserved the near global ban it received; it was still in very poor taste.”

“Would it still be if it was made today? Or even just later on in the pre-quirk days? I know that gory torture porn horror movies were a big hit for about ten or twenty years at one point. And even now, things like that keep cropping up every now and again.” Ron wondered. 

The five of them lapsed into a contemplative silence as they pondered that. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but Ron might just have a point about that. Overly violent and gory horror movies were nothing new and seemed to surge and recede in popularity on an almost regular scale. 

“There were a number of violent slasher films coming out around the same time though.” Percy pointed out as he organized his thoughts.

“Anyway,” Draco said in a blatant attempt to get everyone back on track (that is to say, ripping the movie they were trying to watch apart for the fun of it), “Wait. Did that snake just eat one of the others?”

“Well it is a king cobra, and they are known to subsist almost exclusively on a diet of other snakes.” Percy said with a frown, “Although I don’t know why it would do so in those circumstances, or why the filmmakers would decide to include it in the first place.”

“You don’t think...” Neville started to say, going a bit pale as the implications of his line of thought hit him like a lorry.

“It couldn’t be. Right?” a horrified Ron said as his train of thought caught up to Neville’s and he began to think about what those thoughts implied.

“It wouldn’t be practical.” Harry began, shaking his head, “Venomous snake ownership is even more regulated than large cat or bear ownership. It has to be considering how even experienced venomous snake owners have been accidentally bit despite working with the snake for years. To work with even one on a set, you'd need to have at least one ambulance stocked with enough of the right antivenom on site  - and that assumes that both an antivenom for that particular snake species even exists (you'd be surprised how many don't)  and that the person who was bit isn’t allergic to either the venom or the antivenom - and a lot of the time you won't find that out until after they start having an allergic reaction. Not to mention that even if the person survives, there's a good chance that of them sustaining permanent injuries such as losing part of a limb if the venom was necrotic and you happened to be bit there. And all that’s on top of everything you need to have any live animal on the set. CGI’s a lot easier and cheaper to use in the long run, and you can get some really good and realistic looking CGI these days.”

“If it’s that hard, then why do it?” Neville asked, more in reference to the amount of regulation involved in owning venomous snakes in general than in reference to using them as part of a movie or tv show. That at least he could somewhat understand, at least a bit. Even with CGI and practical effects as good as they were, they still couldn’t always compare to using the real thing (even if CGI and the more traditional practical effects would’ve been safer for all involved).

“Lots of reasons. Education and conservation efforts since a lot of these snakes are considered endangered or vulnerable species. Developing new or better antivenoms as well as producing those that we already have in order to have a chance of helping those who’ve been bitten. Medical research into the ways that components of the various venoms might be able help people, much in the same way that foxglove was found to be able to help with certain heart conditions. Because you just fell in love with the species; some species - like eyelash vipers or variegated bush vipers which come in an almost literal rainbow of colors - can be downright beautiful and you really shouldn’t discount the thrill of owning something so potentially dangerous. Although I personally feel that that last reason is pretty bullshit.I think that the people who go for the power of it are likely the people most likely to end up getting bit - or getting someone else bit.” Harry listed off. 

“I still don’t get the appeal at all.” Ron said with a bit of a shudder of disgust. 

“That’s because you don’t like snakes.” Draco pointed out with a bit of a pout (and if he was talking metaphorically as well as literally, well none of them were going to say anything. They were all well aware of what Ron’s opinion of Snakes had been).

With that all said they went back to watching the rest of the movie, laughing at the cheesiness of it.