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

[pleating]

"Well, maybe you'll figure it out when you're closer to the age people usually learn it?"

[mswoods]

"Harry Potter learnt when he was thirteen. He cannot be that special at that many different things."

[chanuphis]

"I mean, they could be correlated, somehow, although it beats me how."

[mswoods]

She starts listing. "Killed You-Know-Who when he was one. Star Quidditch player for Gryffindor. Figured out how to cast the Patronus when he was thirteen. Won the Tri-Wizard Tournament when he was fourteen, three years younger than his youngest peer. Killed You-Know-Who again when he was seventeen. Am I forgetting anything?"

[chanuphis]

"I think that's more or less it."

[mswoods]

"Bleh. I dunno, maybe you have to have had horrible things happen to you so you can compare to your happier memories?"

[msmaxwell]

"Because that's not horrible or anything."

[chanuphis]

"It's a little horrible. Should we try that? I don't think we've tried comparison type stuff."

[mswoods]

"Maybe? I'd meant that maybe it won't work for us until something horrible enough happens to us that we can 'truly appreciate' happiness or something," she says, air-quoting with her fingers. "That'd explain why some people manage to go from nothing to full corporeal Patronus when they see a Dementor."

[chanuphis]

"Sure, but we could still give it a whirl juxtaposing whatever we've got. ...I'm not very well equipped there either, but, still."

[mswoods]

"I'm a little bit well-equipped, if the bullying counts."

[chanuphis]

"It might. Depends how it works."

[msmaxwell]

"Still kinda horrible."

[chanuphis]

"Not very, and it might be useful."

[mswoods]

"Yeah, definitely be good to get something out of the bullying."

[msmaxwell]

"If you say so."

[pleating]

"I mean it will have happened anyway, so."

[mswoods]

"My point exactly!"

[chanuphis]

"It's just efficient."

[mswoods]

"Either of you wanna come with?" she directs the question to Willow and Karen.

[msmaxwell]

"I was planning on using free period to practise Charms, but I could do that around you two."

[pleating]

"I concentrate better when nobody's going 'expecto patronum' across the room repeatedly..."

[msmaxwell]

"Oh, yeah, that's a good point, it could get distracting."

[pleating]

"But we'll be with you in spirit?"

[mswoods]

"Alright. If I manage it I'll bother you with a Patronus message."