Since Lupin agreed to teach Sean the Patronus Charm, Sean had things to do every evening from Monday to Saturday. Thanks to his Time-Turner and large supply of mental recovery potions, he could barely manage it all.
Sean's fulfilling campus life from dawn to dusk was proceeding vigorously, but something major had happened in the Gryffindor common room.
The guardian portrait of the Gryffindor common room had been torn to shreds, and the Fat Lady in the painting had disappeared somewhere. Most critically, according to Peeves' testimony, the person who had torn apart the guardian portrait was none other than the Azkaban escapee, Sirius Black.
Sirius Black was at Hogwarts!
The news spread like wildfire, and panic immediately filled Hogwarts.
Once evening came, the corridors of Hogwarts were deserted. Everyone hid in their common rooms, and even there, they didn't feel particularly safe. After all, the Gryffindor common room had been breached by Sirius. Who could guarantee that other common rooms could stop such a deranged criminal?
Sean was in his room. Unlike others, he didn't feel particularly nervous because he clearly understood what Sirius Black's situation really was.
"Ah, how annoying. Why is it so noisy outside? It's making it impossible for me to sleep peacefully."
Kulkan woke up grumbling, stretched her obviously much larger body, crawled out of the snake nest that had become cramped and inadequate, came to Sean's side, raised herself up, and placed her head on Sean's shoulder.
"Sean, I'm awake. Get me something to eat."
Putting down his quill, Sean turned to look at Kulkan.
Kulkan had now become a truly large snake, and he could vaguely see that some sharp, protruding scales had grown around her head, looking like small horns. The scales on Kulkan's body had also become more lustrous. When touched, they felt smooth with a hint of coolness. Sean thought he probably wouldn't need air conditioning in summer.
He directly summoned a Hogwarts house-elf to prepare some fresh eggs and meat for Kulkan and also brought out the previously preserved basilisk blood. Watching Kulkan eat heartily, Sean said with some emotion: "Kulkan, if you keep growing like this, whether I can afford to keep you is one thing, but continuing to bring you along will probably be impossible. Even if Hogwarts allows keeping pets, there's no way they'd let me keep such a large pet."
Without immediately responding to Sean, Kulkan had slept for so long that although the basilisk blood, flesh, and eyes she'd eaten before contained extremely powerful magical energy, they ultimately weren't filling. If Kulkan were human, she'd be starving by now. Where would she have time to chat with Sean about random things? Food was the most important thing in the world.
After eating everything clean, Kulkan burped loudly. Sean didn't know why a snake had the ability to burp, but she did, and it was very loud. Sean heard it clearly.
Showing no shame whatsoever for her completely unladylike behavior of burping so thunderously, Kulkan raised her head to look at Sean and asked: "What you just said, do you mean you're planning to throw me back home? Are you sure you can live with yourself doing something so irresponsible?
No way, right?
Could your heart actually be as worthless as Blaise's?
No way, no way, no way!"
Tapping the desk with his hand and looking at the now-quiet Kulkan, Sean asked back: "Then what do you suggest? You should know that your current size isn't like when you were small. Unless you can stay quietly in the room, even the Slytherin common room isn't suitable for keeping you anymore."
Actually, there were solutions.
Sean had originally thought of taking Kulkan out of Hogwarts Castle and letting her live in places like the Forbidden Forest or the Black Lake, visiting periodically to feed her. At worst, he could find Hagrid and trouble him to help look after her. As long as she didn't go deep into the Forbidden Forest, there shouldn't be major problems.
But Kulkan's next action was obviously something Sean hadn't expected.
He saw Kulkan's body rapidly shrink at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming the thin, elongated form she'd had when Sean first bought her.
Seeing this scene, Sean was stunned for a moment, then asked with considerable interest: "Is this an ability you gained after your slumber?"
"Magically rich food allows me to awaken some bloodline abilities. Currently, unicorn blood, basilisk flesh and blood, and basilisk eyes have each awakened one ability in me."
Hearing this, Sean was stunned, then asked somewhat puzzled: "Unicorn blood also awakened some ability in you? Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I was lazy." Kulkan's answer was completely matter-of-fact.
"..." Sean was speechless. He looked at Kulkan, reached out to scoop up the now-smaller her and placed her in his hands, asking: "One ability is shrinking? What are the other two abilities?"
"It's not really shrinking. I can adjust my body size within a certain range. As for the other two abilities, one allows me to conceal my form, and one allows me to briefly petrify people through my eyes."
Sean listened to Kulkan's words, thought carefully, then said to her: "In that case, I happen to have something I'd like to trouble you with. Gryffindor has a rat, and you can turn invisible and change size. Find an opportunity to help me catch it."
Although Kulkan claimed to be very lazy, when Sean asked her to do something, she agreed quite quickly. After all, she'd been cooped up in Sean's bedroom for so long and wanted to go out and look around. It hadn't been convenient before, but now with those awakened abilities, Kulkan was confident she had some ability to protect herself, so she immediately agreed.
Just as Sean was promising to help Kulkan find some magical creature blood and flesh afterward, a notice came to the Slytherin common room: all Slytherin students were to gather in the Great Hall to spend the night there, while the school's professors would patrol together inside Hogwarts, searching for and capturing Sirius Black, who was hiding inside Hogwarts.
Hearing this news, Sean and Kulkan looked at each other. It was like receiving a pillow when drowsy. Such a good opportunity gave Kulkan the perfect chance to capture Scabbers the rat.