Madam Hooch stood in the middle of the Quidditch pitch and gave Sean a relieved nod when she saw him walking over.
"Captains, shake hands."
Madam Hooch called out, and Cedric and acting captain Roger stepped forward.
The Quidditch match started fast and ended even faster.
While the crowd was swept up in the usual frenzy, Sean shot across the sky like a comet.
Best broom in the game plus flight skills that had hit Expert-level proficiency—he shook off everyone in three minutes flat and ended up tailing the Golden Snitch all by himself.
The second his feet left the ground, every thought in his head vanished except the pure magical instinct he'd drilled into himself through endless practice.
His insane willpower let him master alchemical creations at a ridiculous level, which was exactly why he caught the Snitch in five minutes total.
"We won! It's Sean! Holy—Terry!"
Up in the stands, Michael tackled Terry in a bear hug.
"We've got the best Quidditch team ever!"
Down on the pitch, Roger was screaming his head off.
The Ravenclaw team swarmed Sean and piled in close.
"To the wind and eagle wings that soar forever!"
…
And just like that, the match was over.
Before leaving the pitch, Roger turned to Sean, practically stammering.
"I know this isn't your thing, but just once—last time, I swear—help us win that stupid Quidditch Cup!
This is our best shot in seven years! Ravenclaw's gonna take the House Cup!"
Quidditch was fun. When he was flying, Sean's brain went blissfully blank. But fun stuff would never lead straight to the heart of real magic.
He remembered the promise he'd made to the prefect, nodded, and said goodbye to acting captain Roger.
"That's my boy!"
Professor McGonagall came hurrying down from the stands, with a faintly fuming Professor Snape trailing behind her.
For days after that, Snape carried around this quiet, simmering anger.
His "guidance" started coming with extra bite:
"Well, Mr. Green, did the Snitch forget to tell you how hard you're supposed to stir the Shrinking Solution?"
"Of course, Mr. Green—clearly brute force has taken over your brain, so you forgot that temperature control requires the gentlest touch."
McGonagall, on the other hand, got even warmer.
During breaks she'd casually start reminiscing about old Quidditch matches with Sean.
In that relaxed mood, Sean's grasp of magical circuits in Transfiguration got sharper and smoother.
Time kept slipping by.
Sean's plan never changed.
His Transfiguration proficiency was inching closer to Master level every day, and he was dying to know what came after that.
He already had several advanced Transfiguration types pretty much mastered:
Turning objects into magical things was his strongest suit. Then came multiple transfigurations that ramped up power and complexity.
He was slowly working on self-to-living-creature transfiguration… and everything else in the giant ocean of Transfiguration? He just didn't have the energy for it yet.
In one week he built a magical circuit for stone plinths and could now summon small ones without totally wiping himself out.
He was starting to realize that magical circuits were all about cutting down on energy and willpower costs, and perfecting them was basically an endless road.
No wonder wizards got scarier the better they were at Transfiguration—this branch just kept stacking power forever.
…
After the match, Sean's popularity in Ravenclaw shot up so high you could see it with the naked eye.
Michael and the other little eagles spread the wildest rumors.
The craziest one was: "Oh, Sean? Totally makes sense if he's already better than Dumbledore was at his age."
Even Neville in the Great Hall started believing Sean was destined to be the next Dumbledore.
The candy-loving headmaster watched the whole thing with twinkling eyes and a tiny, surprised smile when something clicked.
…Yeah, this kid really was outdoing young Albus in some areas.
No matter how crazy the rumors got, Sean kept studying at his own pace.
Thanks to spending every day "patrolling the grounds" with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest, his bond with the Thestrals was almost high enough to make a magical-creature cookie.
At the same time, the kids in Hope Cabin had been training hard, and Justin brought some exciting news.
"We've all been working on Finite Incantatem. It's super practical and powerful…"
Justin walked into the cabin, talking over Mr. Owl's usual racket.
"Totally by accident, Hermione found it in The Standard Book of Spells. It's so similar to regular Finite that we picked it up without any trouble…"
Sean didn't get it at first—until he saw Hermione and the others excitedly point their wands downward.
Then it clicked.
Wand up: ultimate protection. Wand down: all spells end.
Finite (the group version) is a mass counter-spell. It takes multiple wizards casting together to cancel large-scale magic effects.
It works the same way as the single-target Finite Incantatem, but on a bigger scale. It can break most regular spells, though it's useless against heavy hitters like Avada Kedavra.
In a team fight, it's a game-changer.
Like when Gellert Grindelwald tried to burn Paris with blue flames, the local wizards pulled off a mass Finite and stopped the disaster.
"Come on, Sean! I think we can totally do it!" Hermione whisper-shouted, practically bouncing.
Her desk was buried under The Standard Book of Spells, Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed, Defensive and Deterrent Charms, and more. No surprise she'd dug up something cool.
Professor Flitwick happened to be passing by and happily agreed to test them.
"Impedimenta!"
Flitwick flicked his wand.
"Finite!"
The Hope Cabin kids lined up with Sean in the center, wands pointed down.
A golden-red glow linked up at their wand tips and—boom—actually canceled Flitwick's Impediment Jinx.
"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, children!"
Flitwick clapped like crazy.
Inside the cabin, everyone went dead quiet for a second, too excited to speak.
Harry and Ron never thought they'd trade spells with a professor. Justin was over the moon—they'd stumbled onto something huge.
And Sean? He heard the panel ding:
[You practiced the mass Finite spell at Adept level. Proficiency +30]
In that single moment when they all cast together, they'd actually hit professor-level counter-spell power for a split second.