After enslaving Bellatrix before Christmas, Felix found that time quickly passed. While Bellatrix hated it, she turned into his spy among the Death Eaters. She would report and pass him information nearly daily from new recruits or raids they are planning.
Naturally, after sorting and verifying with basic divination, he would in turn pass it to the Headmaster to deal with. He did try to be secretive about it, but he felt Dumbledore held some clues who was sending him the information. Yet, each time Dumbledore came by to check upon him, it wasn't mentioned.
Now that February has come, the hatching of the phoenixes is drawing close. Felix would be lying if he didn't feel excited about it. He wasn't the only one either as Angel and John tended to frequently stare at the eggs each time they worked on their homework.
"The phoenixes won't run away upon hatching right away, right?" John asked nervously.
"I think they should grow at a normal pace. It's not like they went through a rebirth and will grow rapidly." Angel answered.
"What is the normal pace though?" Felix asked.
"Ah, I don't know." Angel gained a hint of redness on her cheeks.
"Don't you know, Felix." John asked.
Felix shook his head because the books he looked at never said it. While a few said they did, but that was theories and no proof as nobody really knows since no records exist in Hogwarts library. Even if he tried to peek at the Paths, he came up empty, since he could learn how to breed or use them in various magics. Which allowed him to find another weakness of his abilities.
His ability to peek doesn't factor in such things as it focuses on paths of uses and how to create. So the habits and knowledge such as how fast a newly hatched phoenix grows, he needs to study himself.
"So there are things even you don't know, Felix." John seemed to let out a sigh of relief.
"Of course, I don't know where you got the idea that I know everything." Felix gave his friend a strange look. "I may know a bit more than others, but that doesn't mean I know everything."
John just rolled his eyes at the last sentence, while Angel shook her head. Shifting his focus, Felix seemed to hear a light cracking sound. So he quickly looked over to the phoenix eggs and saw one of the eggs beginning to shake.
"John, your phoenix is hatching." Felix said excitedly.
"What do I do?" John smiled but also panicked.
Felix just looked at him before rolling his eyes and went to his desk. Pulling out the journal on phoenix hatching, he tossed it over. Where John nervously read it, before calming down. He realized he seemed to be overreacting since it was written he just needed to wait.
"Have you picked out a name yet?" Angel asked.
"I thought about naming it Hermes if it's a male." John scratched his cheek. "For females, I thought of naming it Hera."
"What about you, Felix?" Angel turned her head.
"Athena." Felix shrugged with a smile.
"So all three of us are naming them after gods." Angel sighed.
Felix and John just glanced at each other wondering why she was sighing. It wasn't a rare thing for people to name animals after gods or other names like certain weather or flowers. Felix had actually thought of naming his phoenix Rain, but he felt Athena would work better. So following his instinct, he decided to go with Athena.
"What are you naming yours?" John asked her.
"Nyx." Angel replied.
--
After waiting over an hour, John's phoenix was nearly out of the shell. The egg shell was cracked all over and it shouldn't be long before the phoenix can escape its egg. Then in one more crack a large chunk fell off revealing a beak alongside a nearless featherless chick inside. Only a scarlet red feather was on its head as it let out a squeak as John rushed forward excitedly as he smiled like an idiot at the sight.
The baby phoenix seemed to look at John for a moment before letting out a high pitched chirp. It continued to break its shell in more of a rush as it tried to reach for John outstretched hands. Then upon breaking free, it rolled out of the flames and into John's hand and rubbed his palm happily.
"He seems to really like John." Angel commented.
"Naturally. It was born in John's magical flame and seeing him upon breaking the shell. He considers John to be his half parent and friend." An old voice replied.
Appearing from the doorway, Albus Dumbledore appeared. In his hand, he held a small phoenix that seemed similar to Hermes in John's hand. While on his shoulder Fawkes sat staring at both of them with his head tilted.
"So yours also hatched." Angel said happily.
In the coming days, Angel hatched with an orange feather, while Felix took nearly a week later.