Harry had fallen asleep.
Sean was patiently waiting for something.
Before long, two tennis-ball-sized eyes appeared. They peered at Harry in the darkness, and a tear rolled off a long pointed nose.
"Harry Potter has come back to school,"
it said sadly in a small voice.
"Dobby warned Harry Potter again and again. Ah, sir, why did you not listen to Dobby's warnings? Harry Potter missed the train—why did he not just go home?"
Harry woke up in fright.
"Get away!"
he shouted. "Wait—did you say the train? That was you? You sealed the barrier and wouldn't let us through?"
Sean studied Dobby. The elf wore a filthy old pillowcase, with bulging eyes and a water jug currently bonking against his own head.
He had just finished explaining how a house-elf could be freed from servitude, and now he was stammering and sobbing as he pleaded:
"Go home, Harry Potter, go home—"
That made Sean think of something.
"You said you tried to stop me coming to school because the Chamber of Secrets was going to be opened?"
Harry gave a bitter little laugh.
"Ah, sir, no more questions, do not ask poor Dobby—so dangerous, it is so dangerous there—"
Dobby moaned, more tears dripping onto his tattered pillowcase.
"Dobby, you know if you keep trying to save my life like this, you're going to kill me,"
Harry said helplessly—then suddenly his eyes sharpened.
"How did you know Voldemort wants to kill me—"
Dobby let out his loudest, shrillest scream yet.
"Dobby! The basilisk is dealt with!"
Harry had to change the subject in a hurry.
Dobby fizzled down like a kettle taken off the boil:
"Harry Potter has gone mad. The great Harry Potter, so noble, so brave—and now he has gone mad."
Sometimes Harry felt he and house-elves simply didn't speak the same language.
He rolled over and carefully took a small box from his bag on the bedside table.
Inside lay a single basilisk fang—courtesy of a certain small wizard who had taken down a basilisk with one sword.
Harry still couldn't forget his words:
"It's fine, Harry. I've got more."
At the time, Harry had felt like he and Sean weren't exactly speaking the same language either.
The hospital wing was dark. Dobby boiled and cooled like a little kettle all over again, and it took a lot of effort before he finally believed that Hogwarts now had an upgraded teenage Dumbledore wandering around.
And that said upgraded Dumbledore had quietly left.
Now the one most likely to cause trouble was not the elf, but the sleeping basilisk.
While Sean was thinking about what to do with the basilisk, and about what exactly truly great wizards had done to leave behind those odd magical bloodlines, he found himself standing at the door of the Headmaster's office.
He hadn't been learning magic long, but that didn't matter. Magic was vast, and many wizards had walked very far along its paths.
"Headmaster Dumbledore."
Sean knocked.
The door swung open on its own.
Several headmaster portraits barely even reacted anymore. They glanced at Sean, then went right back to snoring.
It wasn't curfew yet, but the silver instruments still gleamed under the crescent moon. Rain tapped on the turrets outside, not loud enough to wake the slumbering Fawkes.
Sean walked over to the Sorting Hat's perch. Godric Gryffindor's sword had originally been displayed here in the office, but now it seemed the Sorting Hat had "swallowed" it again.
"Ah, ah, come closer—"
Sean heard that faint voice.
"Try again—"
the Sorting Hat was muttering.
Sean frowned in confusion and, without thinking, touched the frayed brim. He hadn't expected his fingers to close around a hilt sliding free.
"A wizard's faith leaves its marks in this world. You've shown astonishing courage—those marks don't just vanish—"
the Hat wiggled.
Sean held Gryffindor's sword and drifted into thought.
He couldn't help recalling something Dumbledore had once told Harry:
"Harry, to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever… Love leaves its own mark. Not a scar, not something you can see…"
And right outside the office door, two figures were standing.
"How curious. Gryffindor's sword, in a Ravenclaw's hand,"
Dumbledore said, eyes crinkling.
Professor McGonagall said nothing. She stared at the small black-haired wizard whose hair shone slightly in the moonlight, the sword in his hand, words stuck in her throat.
In the end she only glared silently at the Sorting Hat still wriggling on its shelf.
"You see, Minerva,"
Dumbledore added gently,
"for people like this—people who matter greatly—everyone grows very, very careful."
"So, Albus, the Chamber really has—"
McGonagall's mouth flattened into a hard line.
"That's not mine to explain. Let's talk about Gryffindor and Ravenclaw instead—"
Dumbledore said with a blink.
His eyes held a deep, amused light. Very few students would ever suspect that sometimes getting into the Transfiguration office was even harder than entering the Headmaster's.
The kettle burbled on the fire. Outside the office, rain was pouring down in sheets.
Inside the wide, elegant room, things were peaceful and quiet. Sean gently set Gryffindor's sword back on the desk, letting it stand as before.
The rain that had begun during the Quidditch match hadn't stopped. Under that steady white noise, it was easy to feel sleepy.
Sean saw the Empty Sigil flash faintly on his chest, and then he slipped out of the office.
As he passed the Transfiguration office, he stopped.
Light from the fireplace was leaking through the crack under the door; he knew his professor often worked late.
Inside, Minerva McGonagall sat with an old book in her hands, the firelight picking out words like "Chamber of Secrets", "Monster", "Heir of Slytherin".
Hagrid's voice echoed again in her ears, and it was as though Hogwarts had once more been wrapped in a black curtain.
And at the very centre of that curtain stood the one person she least wished to see there.
At that moment, someone knocked.
"Come in—"
She closed the book and looked toward the door.
"Albus—how many times are you going to—"
Her tone was calm, but there was a thread of irritation in it.
"Professor."
Sean stood in the doorway. Rarely did he ever want to leave a room as badly as he did then.
Outside Hogwarts' thick stone walls, the autumn leaves had quietly turned golden; once they fell to the ground, winter wouldn't be far behind.
In winter, people always seemed to draw closer together.
"Professor, about the Chamber of Secrets—"
~~~
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