Dealing with all the rumors seems a lot less bad when she knows she's got Ellie.

Everything's better when they're together.

But now it's the new year, and Ellie needs to get serious about cracking this clue if she's going to have time to prepare. She tries opening the egg at different times of day, partway, halfway, but all she gets is that godawful shrieking. There's no sense to be had in it.

After one of Anathema's Parseltongue singing sessions with Elodie, they're listening to the older girl describe what it sounds like to her. It then occurs to Ellie that the egg could also be singing or talking in a magical language. She excuses herself early, and takes the egg to Professor Reynolds to ask if she's ever heard of a creature that sounds like this.

She winces, then - "Yes. That sounds like Mermish - it sounds like that above water, but works like Parseltongue below water."

"So I should go swimming with it?"

"Or at least dip your head under with it."

"Guess it's bath night for me."

"You can use mine - I don't think the dorm showers would work, and it's rather cold for a dip in the Great Lake."

"Great, thanks. Is now okay?"

"Sure."

Off to fill the tub, then.

The egg when listened to underwater reveals an eerie chorus of singing voices!

Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.

So what's that mean? The merpeople are going to steal something of hers (or have it given to them, more likely) and she'll have to go get it back. It'll be in the lake, obviously. So she'll need some way to breathe underwater for an hour, some way to get past the merpeople, some way of finding the thing...

"Professor," Ellie says after drying her head off, "can you recommend a good book about merfolk?"

"Sure. I'm fairly sure the library has a copy, too..." She gives a title and author.

"Cool. Thanks."

She'll go see if that's available for checkout.

It seems to be - it's a fairly thin book.

Maybe it's just incredibly dense.

At least it'll be a quick read if not.

It doesn't seem to have a lot of information - though it does have small pictures of different sorts of merpeople. Scotland, where Hogwarts is, is mostly home to selkies. Adult selkies are usually seven feet from head to tail or longer. All merpeople share a great love of singing, and their traditional magic forms are often song-based. They've often had rocky relationships with human mages, though they're not universally cruel - they'll often rescue swimmers and sailors. Their technology is considered primitive by most wizards, mostly based on stone and not metal. They've domesticated several water-dwelling creatures, though. Cold-water merpeople are considered less beautiful than warm-water merpeople. Their language, Mermish, is incomprehensible above water, and they seem unable to learn human verbal languages (which has led to many wizarding societies classifying them as 'beasts'; the book does note though that there's one coastal magic community with a nearby group of merpeople who communicate with each other via sign language). They make art and wear jewelry; the book's author is of the firm opinion they're sapient, 'and often kinder than humans besides.'

That... was not spectacularly helpful. Interesting, though.

She mentions to Anathema a passing interest in learning how to breathe underwater. "Don't tell Elodie, though."

"Okay. I won't."

"Could you maybe self-transfigure gills? Possibly onto your Animagus form... Or just a really huge lung capacity..."

"Maybe... Though might coughlosepointsforusingthesamethingagaincough."

Giggle. "Modifying an Animagus form is really hard, but, yeah... You should show the full extent of your wonderful talents. I can look into stuff, though... I know there's some stuff divers use - maybe I'll just ask Professor Sprout what wizards do to gather plants that grow at the bottom of really deep water."

"Thanks." Kiss.

Heee. Kiss! "No problem. Probably best time for me to ask is after Herbology class... But I can ask sooner, if you want."

"Whenever's good. I can still work on the Animagus things anyway."

"Yeah. Or underwater hazards in general."