Chapter 46: The Hatching of the Bird-Snake

On the early morning appearance of the young wizards in the library, Mrs. Pince did not feel touched with admiration for their dedication but rather had a peculiar sentiment of "these students are here to damage my books again."

Mrs. Pince treasured her books dearly, and in her eyes, a pristine book was the best state a book could be in. Every time someone flipped through a book, it was the greatest form of damage. This was one of the reasons why she disliked young wizards.

After being questioned by Mrs. Pince for a while, Tom and Hermione finally entered the library. They picked up several books on magical creatures and then found a inconspicuous corner to sit down.

"Fantastic Beasts Care," "Where to Find Fantastic Beasts," "Oviparous Magical Creatures: From Hatching to Burial..." Hermione said, somewhat baffled. "Why do you need all these books? 'Fantastic Beasts: Where to Find Them' looks like the only sensible one. What are you planning with these books?"

Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed her mind, and she realized something extraordinary.

"Are you trying to hatch the silver egg you got from Diagon Alley?" she asked Tom in a hushed tone.

Tom nodded in affirmation. "And I obtained two bottles of supplementary hatching potion. Now I need to find out how to use this potion."

Hermione became intrigued. She quickly flipped through the books they had selected, trying to find any clues about "stimulating the hatching of oviparous magical creatures."

"...Medieval wizards used to place dragon eggs in fire pits because mother dragons would breathe fire on their eggs during incubation... This might not work for the bird-snake because it doesn't seem to tolerate heat," Hermione muttered as she read. 

"Look at this," Tom said, pointing to a sentence in the book. "Roman priests would mix collected volcanic ash with water and apply it to the egg they wanted to hatch. They believed this gathered earth, water, fire, and air, which would help with the hatching process."

"So maybe you need to apply the potion to the bird-snake egg?" Hermione pondered. Then she found the original text: "Prepare two doses of potion and apply them to the egg at the moment when day meets night, and the hatching will be complete."

"Day meets night? That would be dawn and dusk," Tom mused. He planned to try it out tonight. After finding the information they needed, neither of them paid much attention to the books anymore; their thoughts were focused on the silver egg.

After the afternoon flying lesson, Tom and Hermione found an abandoned classroom where they could quietly await nightfall.

Tom watched as the sun gradually disappeared over the horizon and took out the red potion bottle. He uncorked it and inspected the potion inside. It was quite thick, and he wondered if it had dried up due to being stored for too long.

"Could this potion have expired from being stored too long?" Tom began to doubt. Hermione, on the other hand, took out the books and reviewed them but couldn't find any information regarding the potion's shelf life.

Tom thought, "As a proper system, you can't possibly reward me with expired potions, can you?" Considering that he had possessed the silver egg for three months with no apparent progress, waiting any longer might lead to a stillbirth. So, he decided to use this mysterious potion.

Tom dripped the potion onto the bird-snake egg. It felt like pouring ink onto rice pudding. As soon as the potion touched the eggshell, it was absorbed instantly. When the entire bottle of potion was emptied, there was no noticeable change in the egg's appearance. However, when touched, it felt warm, almost as if it had a beating heart inside.

"Tomorrow morning, I'll wake up early and come back to this classroom to complete the hatching process," Tom said, putting the egg away. He then left the classroom with Hermione. However, instead of going directly back to the common room, he found a reason to separate from Hermione. He needed to collect two other task rewards.

One of the rewards was hidden in the Room of Requirement. Tom couldn't help but shake his head at the system's choice of locations. "Why does every reward have to be hidden in the Room of Requirement? At this rate, I might as well become a scavenger in there. What's the point of completing tasks?"

When he followed the system's guidance to find the reward, he was somewhat disappointed. It was just a bottle of ordinary ink. There were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of bottles of ink in the Room of Requirement. Tom was beginning to think that the system was trolling him.

The other hidden reward was not in the Room of Requirement this time but in a corridor on the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle. The system did not provide a specific location but instead instructed Tom to look for anomalies in the corridor. Tom circled the corridor twice and sensed that something was amiss. Upon closer examination, he noticed a peculiar painting in which a group of people and a pile of corpses all had the same faces.

Approaching the painting, Tom extended his hand instinctively but stopped himself. After a pause of about a second, the system finally prompted him with a message: "Task Sub-instance: Shallow Trench Cleansing unlocked. Touch the painting to enter the sub-instance."

"Damn it! The system is playing tricks on me!" Tom exclaimed. If he had touched the painting just a moment earlier, he would have been inside the sub-instance now. Tom knew that he needed to be better prepared and know what the reward was before entering a sub-instance.

The night passed without further incidents. The next morning, before dawn, Tom and Hermione arrived back at the same classroom. It was a safe journey since Argus Filch, the caretaker, would likely be asleep at this hour. He might patrol around midnight, but he certainly wouldn't be around in the early morning.

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(End of this chapter)