hatchery

[chanuphis]

The next alchemy class of their second year, they arrive to the lab to discover that each of them has an ordinary chicken's egg (brown) and another box of miscellanea.

Slughorn explains, when everyone is assembled, that alchemy with an egg is actually where phoenixes are speculated to originate; but no one has the recipe any more and there haven't been new phoenixes for centuries. They will not be making living things today. But the eggshell is a good base from which to appear lots of possible objects; alchemy doesn't like to conjure things into existence in plain sight but is quite willing that new things appear inside eggshells, cocoons, geodes, and similar. Their eggs have been pre-drained of their interiors for this purpose, although some recipes use full eggs.

As last week, they are invited to come up with recipes on paper for review by the professor before trying anything. Known possible results available with this set of ingredients include wooden, decorated eggs nested inside the shell; a shellful of small sharp teeth (the commonest source of hens' teeth, as they have encountered once or twice in potions); successively smaller eggshells the smallest of which holds a blob of mercury; and a perfectly hardboiled egg which can be arbitrarily flavored by exact details of the process. But they are welcome to aim at another result as long as their procedure looks safe.

Comments

[chanuphis]

"I'll just have to console myself with being right."

[mswoods]

"Of course, because this is a factual, objective matter."

[chanuphis]

"I'm glad we can agree on that much."

[msmaxwell]

"Riiiight, anyway my tryout's at 3, and they need a Beater and a Keeper."

[mswoods]

"I'll be there!"

[chanuphis]

"Have fun."

[pleating]

"I might actually go watch. But I'll probably have a book."

[mswoods]

"The first parts are actually kinda boring," she admits.

[pleating]

"Well, they might not all do the tryouts the same way. But yeah."

[mswoods]

"Probably won't, but I can't imagine spending however long watching people try to be good Keepers will be the most engrossing of activities."

[msmaxwell]

"I liked watching you guys try to score with a Bludger."

[mswoods]

"Yeah but the other part with Prince wasn't nearly as much fun."

[pleating]

Ultimately Karen does appear at the Ravenclaw tryouts. With a book.

[mswoods]

Sadde's there! She also has a book. "Hiya."

[pleating]

"Hi!"

[mswoods]

"Which book did you bring?"

[pleating]

"History textbook. I get through the class better if I read ahead before Binns gets his Binnsness on everything we're covering."

[mswoods]

"His Binnsness," she giggles.

[pleating]

"Yes."

[mswoods]

"I don't mind it much, but that might be a better idea, I should've thought of it."

[pleating]

"It's not too late to start."

[mswoods]

"Yeah, no, I definitely will." She squints at the Pitch. "They're probably about to start. There's Willow," she says, pointing.

[msmaxwell]

Willow is, indeed, there! There are three groups: one containing Willow and two other people, one containing another two people, and one being the actual current team.

[pleating]

Karen puts her book down to see if they're going to do anything interesting.

[peterxy]

For the first few minutes, they'll be talking.

After that, the three prospective Beaters will mount on their brooms and start trying to bat a Bludger to each other in order. A second Bludger is added to the little game at one point, and then hits start becoming common. Willow's strategy of hitting everything with a bat really fast does mean she's the one who's hit the least and who hits the others the most.