"…Stole the car, did you? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they expelled you! Just wait till I get my hands on you! Have you any idea how your father and I felt when we found the car missing—"
Mrs. Weasley's Howler blasted through the Great Hall at a volume a hundred times louder than usual. Plates rattled violently; spoons clattered; the stone walls echoed the fury until it rang in every ear.
Everyone in the hall turned to see who had received the Howler. Ron practically folded himself into his seat, only the top of his blazing-red forehead visible.
Amid the chaos, Sean quietly slipped away with his mirrored cylinder. On the way out, he bumped into Professor Flitwick, who was handing out schedules just as Professor McGonagall had done moments earlier.
The new timetables revealed that student schedules had grown by one extra period.
The latest class no longer ended at three-thirty—but nearly five.
Ravenclaw had no morning lessons today. In the afternoon: Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Herbology.
Herbology was shared with Slytherin. Unsurprisingly, they'd be repotting mandrakes.
Sean still remembered working with them last winter—bundling them in warm clothes and scarves.
Holding his timetable, he made his way to the Hope Cottage, lush with thriving plants, a cultivation rack standing proudly at the front.
The moment he arrived, his wooden cabinet unfolded itself into a tidy workbench.
From the windowsill, fallen leaves whispered news of another cool, abundant autumn. As the season seeped silently into the castle, the fir trees had begun to yellow. Sean raised his head just as he finished adjusting his magical refracting lens.
[Magical Refracting Lens: Apprentice Level (20/90)]
Its function was simple: refract incoming light multiple times and funnel it directly into the user's eyes.
Technically, it could be done without magic—but magic made everything far easier, saving Sean plenty of time.
All that remained was to test whether his method actually worked.
To do that, he needed to recall every detail of the Chamber of Secrets incident. But time had blurred those memories, leaving only vague shapes instead of solid facts.
Sean had anticipated this.
Which was why he prepared a solution:
The Pensieve.
A Pensieve, enchanted to reproduce memories, could faithfully reconstruct even the faintest detail stored in the subconscious. Anyone—its owner or another—could enter the memory and walk around inside it.
But Pensieves were exceedingly rare. Only the strongest witches and wizards ever used them, and most others didn't dare try.
After all, memories were a wizard's most private, precious possession.
Traditionally, a Pensieve was buried with its owner, much like a wand.
Fortunately for Sean, being a well-known alchemist meant he always managed to find a seller.
A shallow stone basin slid out of his cabinet, its rim carved with runes and ancient symbols.
Inside it swirled a silvery substance—both liquid and cloud.
With a tap of his wand, threads of memory lifted from the surface and flowed back into his mind. The scene of Mrs. Norris petrified returned vividly.
It had been October—the night Nearly Headless Nick held his Deathday Party. The basilisk had launched its first attack, and poor Mrs. Norris had been the victim.
So that meant: in October, when the basilisk struck again, he'd have the perfect chance to rescue Mrs. Norris and test his refracting lens.
The cabinet curled protectively around Sean as he returned the Pensieve. It rumbled softly, swallowing the basin into its deepest compartment—one Sean had enchanted with an emergency self-destruct charm.
He stared at the cabinet.
Was it just his imagination?
His wooden bookcase was starting to feel… almost intelligent.
…
On the very first day of term, when all the freshmen were still enchanted by the magical castle, something even more surprising happened: clubs began recruiting new members.
Ordinarily, Hogwarts' clubs were unenthusiastic—members lazily inviting friends when they felt like it.
But now, one particular club had gone completely mad, recruiting aggressively, even poaching from other clubs.
The chaos spread.
Other clubs had no choice but to start recruiting too.
"Castle Spirit Cat Club! The biggest club in all of Hogwarts!"
Hannah—usually painfully shy—had become impressively outgoing since becoming club president.
Right now she had gathered several first-year girls, talking animatedly.
Neville stood behind her, equally shy, face red as a ripe apple.
To be fair… Hannah wasn't wrong. If you ignored the fact that their club aggressively stole members from every other organization.
"I'm thrilled—truly! You've all seen the Lucky Statue on the third floor corridor, right? That's proof the Castle Spirit Cat is real! It helped save Mr. Grimm from failing his exams, helped our resident alchemy prodigy, and even Professor Lockhart during Defense Against the Dark Arts…
Can you believe it? These blessings always happen after someone spots the Spirit Cat!"
She spoke so quickly that the first-year girls looked utterly overwhelmed.
Sean, passing by, quickened his steps.
The Great Hall was full of bustling clubs—banners lifted high, passionate speeches echoing, enchanted objects crackling for attention.
There was the Gobstones Club—small but respected. Snape's mother, Eileen Prince, had once been its president, and her name still gleamed in the trophy case.
The Quidditch Club—though in practice it functioned as the Hogwarts Quidditch Fan Association.
The Castle Explorers—Weasley twins included—dedicated to discovering every hidden passage in the castle.
There were also scholarly clubs such as the Magical Society and the Charms Club—both, unsurprisingly, founded by Ravenclaws.
And of course, nearly all of Hufflepuff had joined the club Sean secretly admired:
The Never-Go-Hungry Club.
"Sean! I heard your next class is Herbology."
Justin emerged from the crowd holding several mandrake leaves.
"May I see your Animagus transformation? I've been really interested in it lately."