The students drifted toward the Ravenclaw girl without a word between them, drawn by some unspoken pull, their footsteps hushed against the greenhouse floor. No one wanted to disturb whatever was happening.
Hagrid's enormous frame cut through the crowd like a ship through water. He shouldered people aside, gently mostly, and planted himself at the front.
His face, which had never once in his life hidden a single emotion, was doing something it had apparently never done before. Shock and confusion had collided there into an expression that had no name.
He bent down until his face was nearly pressed against the cold crystal observation window. His breath fogged the glass immediately. He didn't notice, just swiped at it with his sleeve and stared, eyes wide as dinner plates.
Inside the shell, the golden patterns were moving.
Not drifting. Not fading. Moving. Alive.
"Merlin's beard..."
The sound that came out of Hagrid wasn't quite a word. More of a groan. A low, suppressed thing that crawled up from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Douglas..." He exhaled slowly. "What he said... it was actually true."
His voice carried through the silent greenhouse and reached every ear in the room.
"He said, follow every step. Not one more, not one less." Hagrid shook his head, still staring at the egg. "And it'll grow into the right shape. All by itself."
He must have felt the stares, because he suddenly straightened up and cleared his throat with enough force to rattle the nearest shelving unit.
The professor was back. Mostly.
"Right. Look here," he said, pointing one thick finger at the perfect egg. "It's very calm. Very... settled." He nodded sagely. "According to Professor Douglas's research notes, a Blast-Ended Skrewt in this condition is a particularly delicious Blast-Ended Skre, "
He stopped.
His cheeks went from pink to crimson in under a second.
"Ahem. Powerful! The most powerful Blast-Ended Skrewt!" He pivoted hard, gesturing toward the cracked egg in the corner, the one still leaking that thick, intoxicating scent into the air. His tone dropped. "And that one. That one's angry."
"An angry Blast-Ended Skrewt," he pressed on, with the gravity of a man delivering a lecture, "will have toxins running all through its flesh. Completely ined, "
A pause.
"Dangerous." He said the word very firmly. "Extremely dangerous. Completely unusable."
Hagrid could feel his own face burning. He gave up trying to ad-lib and just recited from the notes.
"However — and this is important — the state of anger causes the creature to emit an aroma several dozen times more potent than usual. Dangerous, yes. But captivating." He tugged at his collar. "This is simply... the law of nature. Many powerful predators rely on deception to, "
His voice trailed off into a mumble.
He could tell, from the looks on their faces, that his authority had not survived the last two minutes.
Fred and George hadn't heard a word of it.
Their eyes were locked onto the egg the way iron filings lock onto a magnet , unmoving, unavoidable. Their minds had gone somewhere else entirely, racing at a speed that had nothing to do with Care of Magical Creatures.
"Fred." George's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. There was a light in his eyes that most people would have found slightly alarming. "Look at it."
"I am looking."
"That's not drawn on." George's voice was reverent. "It grew there."
Fred went very still.
"It imprinted magic," he said slowly, "onto a living creature." His voice started to shake , just slightly , with the effort of containing himself. "A stable, self-consistent, living magical circuit."
"That's exactly it." George's breathing had gone uneven. "The problem we've been stuck on — how to get unstable electrical energy and equally unstable magical energy to coexist without destroying each other, "
"Professor Douglas already solved it."
Fred grabbed his brother's arm. "Not forced fusion. Induction. You let them grow into the most stable structure themselves, using the living organism as the carrier. You don't build the circuit. You grow it."
"Like the egg."
They looked at each other.
The gateway to something enormous opened up in the space between them, visible only to the two of them, in the pupils of each other's eyes.
The Blast-Ended Skrewt was almost beside the point. What they'd just seen was bigger than that.
This was the key to a Magical Industrial Revolution.
"Right! Enough! Everyone's had a good long look!"
Hagrid's voice came down on the greenhouse like a thunderclap, snapping every head up at once.
"The rest of you , class dismissed! Off you go, move along!"
He swept his great hands through the air, herding the lingering students away from the breeding tanks the way you'd shoo chickens off a doorstep. The students went reluctantly, craning their necks for one last look at that extraordinary egg, still murmuring to each other as they filed out.
The greenhouse emptied.
Only Hagrid and the Weasley twins remained.
Hagrid turned around slowly. His hands went to his hips. He looked down at them from his full, considerable height, and the last remnants of professorial authority settled back onto his face like a mantle.
"Weasley."
Steady. Measured.
"Both of you. Get to work."
Fred and George came back to earth. The brilliance on their faces dissolved into something significantly more miserable.
"Right, Professor," Fred tried anyway, "about the magical imprinting technique , we had a few thoughts on the underlying mechanism, and we think, "
"Quiet." Hagrid pointed at him. "I don't care what you think. Get. To. Work."
He swung his finger toward the far corner, where a mound of fresh Calming Moss sat waiting , damp with earth, reeking of roots, and absolutely enormous in volume.
"Every breeding tank in this greenhouse. Replace all the moss."
He paused for effect.
"By hand. No wands."
Another pause.
"This is so you learn what it means to respect living things." He gave them a look. "And to respect instructions."
He left them there, turning back to fuss over the golden egg with the careful tenderness of someone handling something irreplaceable.
The twins stood facing the moss pile.
It was very large.
"Well," George said at last, rolling up his sleeves, "at least we'll have plenty of time to talk through the bio-circuit board plan."
"That's true." Fred reached in and grabbed the first handful. The look in his eyes had nothing to do with moss. "George. I think our Magi-Electric dual-effect devices are ready for a new direction."
---
P.S. , Daily Quiz Answer:
Answer: A
Explanation: Bowtruckles have a natural affinity for beech twigs. The first step is using a twig to transmit a friendly signal. Option B is incorrect , applying potion directly will be perceived as a threat. Option C should only be attempted after trust has been established. Option D's whistling may startle the young.
➤ Next: My Unlimited Refill Milk Tea, Seeing Through the Whole Show!
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