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

[mswoods]

"Okay, this time it'll work." She stretches, cracks her knuckles, closes her eyes, does circles with the tip of her wand, and then: "Expecto Patronum!" And from the tip of her wand the light leaps in the form of a ferret, trotting in the air until it reaches the floor. It looks up at them and its nose twitches. "Omigod I have the cutest Patronus!"

[chanuphis]

"Awwwww."

[mswoods]

"Okay, how do I- find Willow and Karen and tell them I have the cutest Patronus!" she giggles, and the ferret dips its head in a nod and disappears into the distance.

[chanuphis]

"I wonder if that only works if they happen to be together."

[msmaxwell]

The ferret reaches them, startling Willow, and relays its message. "Awwwww! You're adorable! I want one!"

[pleating]

"I wonder if I can pet it -" Karen reaches for the Patronus.

[peterxy]

It allows itself to be "petted," but being insubstantial, that doesn't amount to a whole lot.

[pleating]

"It's not very soft. Or like it's so soft that it stops being soft? Oh well."

[mswoods]

The ferret dips its head again and disappears.

"I have no idea," Sadde answers Miranda. "We should test it some time."

And presently the ferret is back! It reports on what it heard, mimicking Willow and Karen's voices with perfect fidelity. Sadde giggles.

[chanuphis]

"So how'd you pull it off?"

[mswoods]

"Concentrated happy. The specific memory was summer, playing in the pool with you guys. 'Parently that's the happiest I've ever been or something," she says, shrugging. Her ferret disappears.

[chanuphis]

"I tried that one..."

[mswoods]

"Umm... I was thinking about you guys in specific? Not just the situation, but that in the context of having actual friends and such."

[chanuphis]

"Um -" Wandwave. "Expecto patronum!"

Mist.

[mswoods]

"Okay, different tacks, um. I'm a social person, I like people, I'm doing the networking thing, right, so it makes sense the kind of memory that makes it work for me involves that. You're different, you're introverted, more studious. What's the equivalent thing...?"

[chanuphis]

"I really don't know, I'm kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel here."

[mswoods]

"Uh... Figuring things out? Learning new things? Getting things you want? Achieving goals? That's a you thing, achieving goals."

[chanuphis]

"I haven't achieved anything really major yet."

[mswoods]

"Maybe the thought of achieving them, then? Uh, getting into the alchemy thing may count?"

[chanuphis]

"Maybe..."

She tries.

Mist. Maybe with a little more definition around the edges, but not enough edges to be a real shape.

[mswoods]

"Okay, that's progress! Maybe after we make the panacea or the philosopher's stone that'll work."

[chanuphis]

"Most people don't have to make legendary alchemical rocks to cast a patronus!"

[mswoods]

"Most people don't cast one, full stop. But that was a worst-case scenario, we just need something significant enough? Maybe? I mean this is just a theory, your mist getting a little bit better defined is definitely not enough."

[chanuphis]

"I'll try getting my pearl to work," and she tries that, and it's back to undefined mist.

[mswoods]

"...okay, um, what does 'getting into alchemy class' have in general that just the pearl doesn't have in specific?"