The corridor was pitch-black.
Sean didn't exactly look his best, either.
His robes were torn in a dozen places from flying shards of stone, and the dust kicked up by collapsing rock had settled all over him. In the moonlight the only thing that gleamed was the Sword of Gryffindor, its silver blade streaked with greenish blood.
He looked exhausted.
Master-level material transfiguration wasn't hard for him anymore, but in actual combat he had to shave every possible second off his casting time while maximizing power. In the last twenty minutes he'd repeatedly reshaped the terrain: craters ten meters wide and two meters deep. That put him on par with the dueling masters of ancient times.
And that wasn't even counting the soul transfiguration he'd kept running the whole time. The owl and the Bowtruckle had seemed perfectly in sync with him, but controlling them had drained him dry.
Ten minutes of fighting had left him completely spent.
Now he looked like he'd been dragged through a chimney (which wasn't far from the truth; most of the grime came from crawling through pipes with a sword in his teeth).
Still, the plan had worked. The basilisk was physically and magically tucked in for a very long nap.
Sean gripped the fang he'd yanked out and walked, footsteps echoing softly, until he reached the gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were standing there, staring at him like he'd risen from the dead.
"Sean…?" Harry's voice cracked.
He had never seen Sean this wrecked. Not even last year, when they'd faced all those obstacles guarding the Stone, had Sean looked anything less than perfectly composed. Now his robes were shredded and his hair was full of dust.
And that sword, Gryffindor's sword, was dripping green blood.
"Did he… succeed? Or…?" Ron's voice shook.
Everything suddenly felt horribly real. They knew exactly what Sean had gone to face. The books said the basilisk was fifty feet long. Just coiled up it could probably scare two students into fainting on the spot.
"Sean!" Hermione was already running toward him.
Harry and Ron stumbled after her, not sure what to do with themselves.
"Evening, Hermione. Harry. Ron," Sean said calmly, sliding the sword behind his back for the moment. It was still drinking in the basilisk's blood and venom, so he didn't want to sheath it yet; he needed to watch what happened.
"Evening?! I'm not okay at all!" Hermione's eyes darted over him, checking for missing limbs, then let out a shaky breath of relief. "Sean, you—"
Harry swallowed hard. "The basilisk. I mean… is it… dead?"
Sean shook his head.
"You really went after that thing alone?! Oh my God!" Hermione yelped, then clapped both hands over her mouth.
"Hogwarts has a basilisk… it's not dead… Hogwarts has a basilisk…"
Ron looked like he was about to faint. He kept glancing nervously at the moonlit walls, half expecting a giant snake to burst out and swallow them whole.
Sean was too tired to notice their panic. He just wanted to put the sword down and collapse.
The trio noticed how dull his eyes looked and swallowed every question they had. They watched in silence as he stepped toward the gargoyle.
"Why's he still carrying Gryffindor's sword?" Ron whispered. The green blood was impossible to miss.
Hermione had already pulled out the library book from her bag. "'The basilisk's hide is covered in scales that repel spells…'"
They fell quiet.
Harry took the book and read slowly:
"'Parseltongue can induce a state of deep sleep in the basilisk, halting its growth and placing it in a death-like trance…'"
"We have to do something," Harry said suddenly. "I don't know who woke it up, but someone's definitely using that thing to cause trouble. That's why Sean went after it alone. He failed this time, and we still don't know who's behind it. Remember Quirrell? He was being controlled by Voldemort…"
"You think it's Lockhart?" Ron's eyes went wide. "That would explain why he's such an idiot; it's probably an act!"
That also explained why Sean hadn't said a word. Because Voldemort's follower was inside Hogwarts again!
Hermione looked pale. "We… we should tell the headmaster."
"Don't be thick, Hermione," Ron muttered weakly. "We might as well tell Snape. Remember? When Quirrell went after Harry, Snape was the one watching him like a hawk."
Hermione didn't argue.
Meanwhile, inside the headmaster's office…
The battered, crumpled Sorting Hat twitched in the moonlight as it was lifted off its shelf.
Sean turned it over, looking for a way to stuff a three-foot silver sword inside.
"No, no, absolutely not, get that thing away from me, young man!" the Hat squeaked in his mind, sounding genuinely alarmed.
Sean paused.
He'd assumed the sword and the Hat were a matched set; both Gryffindor relics, after all.
Did that mean he was supposed to just… walk off with Gryffindor's sword?
"You did wonderfully, my boy," came a kind, warm voice. "Just set it on the desk."
Sean turned to see Albus Dumbledore standing there, beard glowing silver in the moonlight.
"I must say," Dumbledore continued, eyes twinkling madly, "you've broken at least a hundred and thirty-seven school rules tonight."
Sean blinked. In the middle of basilisks, Chambers, and Voldemort, he'd completely forgotten he was still technically a student.
"Oh, how delightful," Dumbledore chuckled, beard shaking. "You solve an ancient mystery single-handed, fight a monstrous serpent in the dead of night, and now you're worried about rules."
He waved a hand. "You don't need to explain anything to me, Sean. I've long suspected you walk a rather a special path.
But indulge an old man's curiosity: what do you gain by pushing yourself to subdue that creature alone?"
Sean's voice was quiet, steady. "I knew the basilisk had woken up. Before anyone else got hurt, I had to do what I could."
At Hogwarts, very few things stayed hidden from Albus Dumbledore for long.