The taste of the Blast-Ended Skrewt was unforgettable.
Hermione carefully chewed on the Blast-Ended Skrewt Tom had given her, and before she knew it, she had eaten the entire Blast-Ended Skrewt.
After finishing the Blast-Ended Skrewt, Hermione's eyes sparkled with excitement. She told Tom that the taste of the Blast-Ended Skrewt was very similar to the fresh shrimp she used to eat as a child, which her father used to bring her.
Hermione wiped her mouth a little embarrassed and said, "Well, I admit you've found something good in the Blast-Ended Skrewt."
"Do you want another one?" Tom smiled.
"No, after all, this is Hagrid's teaching material," Hermione replied, declining the offer, although her gaze betrayed her.
"You're a good girl," Tom rolled his eyes. Most of these Blast-Ended Skrewts would end up killing each other anyway, so he was just making use of the leftovers.
But he didn't know how Hagrid would react when he found out about their discovery.
What Hermione didn't dare to do, Tom did. On his third attempt, Tom felt bolder and quickly prepared and roasted four or five Blast-Ended Skrewts, skewering them on a stick and placing them in front of the fire.
This significant effort didn't go unnoticed by the others. Hermione's roommates approached, drawn by the aroma.
"Yodel, what are you doing?" Padma asked curiously.
"As you can see, I'm roasting Blast-Ended Skrewts. I just discovered that they have quite a good taste," Tom replied.
Roommates: ...
After thinking for a moment, Padma said to Tom, "Can I try some?"
Hermione and the others: ???
Tom was also surprised, but remembering that Padma's family was from India, he realized that Asians had a greater tolerance for different types of food. He generously offered her a roasted Blast-Ended Skrewt.
Padma thanked him and, after gently blowing on it twice, began to eat the Blast-Ended Skrewt in small bites. When the taste of the Blast-Ended Skrewt meat entered her mouth, her eyes lit up: "The taste is really good!"
With Padma leading the way, the other girls bravely tried the roasted Blast-Ended Skrewts and fell in love with this seafood-like ingredient.
Hermione watched as her roommates devoured the roasted Blast-Ended Skrewts and felt a strange sense of loss – she wanted to eat them too!
"Here, you can have your share," Tom handed Hermione the remaining Blast-Ended Skrewt. After all, didn't he know Hermione well enough? She could be a bit fussy at times. If he didn't give her one, even though she didn't say it out loud, she would feel bad.
Tom couldn't let that happen.
As expected, Hermione was delighted to receive her own Blast-Ended Skrewt.
From that moment on, Tom and the others secretly roasted and ate the Blast-Ended Skrewts in a corner. Padma generously brought out several spices and added extra flavor to the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
Although they continued to enjoy it, in the end, they didn't consume many Blast-Ended Skrewts. After all, they were Blast-Ended Skrewts, not shrimp. A person could eat three kilos of shrimp, but with these fifteen-centimeter-long Blast-Ended Skrewts, three of them were satisfying.
Moreover, compared to seafood relatives of unknown blood relation, Blast-Ended Skrewts practically had no "shrimp head." The entire tail was also edible, like calamari, with a high yield.
So, although they enjoyed it immensely, in the end, they only ate less than twenty Blast-Ended Skrewts, which wasn't so surprising considering there were more than a hundred in a box.
"It seems like everything's going well here," Hagrid, busy dealing with various incidents in the other groups, finally turned his attention to this seemingly calm corner.
"Yeah, well, very tasty, I mean, everything's fine," the others nervously said as they stood up.
Although Tom and his six friends' suspicious actions didn't go unnoticed, Hagrid, of simple nature, didn't realize it. He looked at the box of Blast-Ended Skrewts and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary; he only had a vague sense that the Blast-Ended Skrewts in the box seemed more active and aggressive.
This was natural. Blast-Ended Skrewts were naturally combative, and when they encountered others of their kind, fights were very likely to occur. If they were crammed into the box like canned sardines, that would be fine. But Tom had taken twenty of them out of the box, leaving plenty of free space, so the Blast-Ended Skrewts had "room to use their skills" and began to fight eagerly.
"Are they easy to feed?" Hagrid asked hopefully. The other groups had no idea, and Hagrid could only rely on Tom's group, which seemed to be doing abnormally well.
"They're quite tasty... I mean, not picky," Tom said. He hadn't found out what the Blast-Ended Skrewts liked, but he had found out what he liked.
"Well, I'll keep looking for other food then; we have to solve this problem," sighed Hagrid, getting ready to leave, but he was stopped by Tom.
"I have an idea that might stimulate the appetite of these Blast-Ended Skrewts." Tom decided to assist Hagrid so that the Blast-Ended Skrewts could successfully reproduce.
"Really?" Hagrid exclaimed excitedly, slapping Tom on the shoulder. "If it really works, I'll give Ravenclaw ten... no, twenty points!"
As for how to handle it if the points limit was exceeded... Hagrid said he could award them in multiple installments.
"Hagrid, why don't you consider giving these little ones their own separate space? Separate them all, so they won't easily fight when they're together."
Tom understood the combative nature of the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Eliminating competitors was a basic instinct of living beings. Shark pups would kill their unborn siblings after hatching from the eggs, and the constant fighting of the Blast-Ended Skrewts had a strange similarity, all to obtain more resources for survival.
Tom pointed to a pair of Blast-Ended Skrewts that were fighting and said, "They're so busy fighting that they don't have time to eat."
Hagrid suddenly realized, "You're right, so it's not that they don't like the food, but they don't have time to eat it."
"And they don't have a safe environment to eat," Tom added.
"After class, I'll make some separate compartments for them," Hagrid had his own plan.
"Yes, a safe environment will allow them to grow better. Blast-Ended Skrewts, they need to grow fast and not fight," Tom looked at the Blast-Ended Skrewts in the box and showed a wicked smile. "If they injure themselves in a fight, there's nothing that can be done."
He took out the Blast-Ended Skrewt that had lost the fight. "This Blast-Ended Skrewt is seriously injured from the fight; it looks like it won't survive..."
Hagrid looked at Tom with curiosity, not fully understanding what he meant.
"Speaking of which, where's Buckbeak?" Hermione intentionally changed the subject.
"He's currently living in my orchard, you see..." Indeed, Hagrid's attention was diverted to Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, and he began to talk endlessly about how Buckbeak was tending his orchard.