The Quidditch match went off without a hitch.
The next afternoon, Sean sat in the stands with Justin beside him. Hermione, Ron, and Neville were outside the locker room, wishing Harry luck.
Harry knew they were secretly terrified they'd never see him alive again.
He glanced toward the stands. Even though his view was blocked, he could almost feel Sean up there, watching everything.
Sean's magic was already beyond anything they could imagine. Deep down, they figured he could take on full-grown wizards.
That thought was the only thing giving Harry any comfort.
He pulled on his Quidditch robes, grabbed his Nimbus 2000, and tuned out Wood's pep talk completely.
Meanwhile, Ron, Neville, and Hermione split up in the stands. They looked grim and worried, each with their wands tucked close.
Talking about it earlier, nothing had seemed that scary. But now they were alone, each covering a section, and fear hit hard.
What if the curse-caster was a lunatic? What if he didn't care and threw deadly curses at them?
Everyone in Hope Cottage had been secretly practicing Finite Incantatem.
Their goal: stop the unknown enemy from casting and track him down. A strong defensive Finite was their go-to.
"Remember, don't forget, Finite," Hermione whispered as Ron slipped his wand up his sleeve.
"I know," Ron muttered, unusually agreeing with her. He was shaking with nerves.
"Quit nagging."
In the locker room, Wood pulled Harry aside.
"Not trying to pressure you, Potter, but we need to catch the Snitch fast today. End it quick before Snape has time to favor Hufflepuff too much."
"The whole school's out there!" Fred Weasley peeked out the door. "Even, Merlin, Dumbledore's here to watch!"
Harry's stomach flipped.
He wasn't the only one. The crowd buzzed.
"Thank Merlin, excuse me, coming through,"
Ron darted through the stands, eyes on Sean, there were still a few empty seats nearby.
"Dumbledore's here,"
"It's Headmaster Dumbledore,"
He and Hermione had arrived together and said the same thing.
Hermione cut Ron off before he could speak.
"That guy won't dare show his face now. Looks like 'Operation Round Table' is on hold."
Her face flashed excitement, fear, hope, relief, then settled into a complicated sigh.
"No idea when he'll try again…"
Ron's excitement faded at that.
"Doesn't matter," Justin said with a grin. "We'll be ready, right?"
Everyone looked at him, then at Sean calmly eating pudding, and suddenly felt steadier. They nodded hard.
With the threat gone, they settled in to watch the match.
"And it's on! The biggest hype is still Gryffindor's Seeker, Harry Potter! He's in for Gryffindor, and Gryffindor has the Quaffle, Angelina Johnson lining up to score,
Hufflepuff blocks it, now Harry Potter, wait, what's he doing?!
Match over! Harry Potter! He caught the Snitch! In just… five minutes!"
The stands exploded. A new record. No one could remember a Snitch caught that fast.
"Did you see that?! Hermione, Neville! Merlin's beard! We won!"
Ron yelled, jumping.
Sean watched the little wizards cheer and realized: Quidditch might be boring, but it carried so much more.
Hope for friends, pride in the house, love for the game and competition… at least it gave the kids memories to keep.
But for Sean? Still not enough pull. After the match, he headed to the Transfiguration office.
Hagrid had asked him to swing by the Forbidden Forest today to meet a "special magical creature."
Sean had been looking forward to it. Was it a Norwegian Ridgeback early? Or had the timeline shifted a bit?
In the books, the dragon's arrival was never pinned down exactly. Sean had just guessed based on big events.
In the Transfiguration office, Professor McGonagall was writing as usual.
She'd glance at Sean's practice now and then, correcting tiny mistakes.
Time passed with snow tapping softly on the windows.
Sean waved his wand at the fireplace. Flames shaped into a giant lizard head, fierce but kind of goofy.
He'd been aiming for a dragon…
His "object-to-magic" transfiguration, boosted by his special talent, had progressed fast.
Thanks to mimicking magical creatures' natural magic, he'd covered seven years of a normal wizard's path in no time.
Fire salamanders, fire crabs, snowmen, water basilisks, he could command them freely as magic forms.
But creating one from scratch, without a creature's built-in magic circuit? That was tough.
Like the fireplace, he could only control a small patch. Or the wizard's chess pieces, just a few at a time.
You can imagine how insane Dumbledore casually commanding statues or McGonagall mobilizing stone benches was.
Sean guessed they'd gone beyond Master in this field.
So what came after Master?
"Goodbye, Professor McGonagall."
Sean said politely and left.
McGonagall watched his small figure vanish through the door, then took a quiet sip of hot tea.
From Marcus… he hadn't sent anything in a while.
…
On the way to the Forbidden Forest, Sean daydreamed. A dragon wouldn't just help with dragon biscuits; it'd let him study "fire" to "dragon" transfiguration.
In Fiendfyre, flames start shifting into fire-beasts: salamanders, chimaeras, dragons…
Sean suddenly felt a weird parallel with his own transfiguration journey. He wasn't… accidentally inventing Fiendfyre, was he?
He pulled up his panel:
Wizard Sean, Dark Magic Talent: Gold
Evaluation: You are a rare genius in dark magic history. Dark magic embraces you. You are a natural king of dark magic.
Dark magic, Sean thought. Yeah… let's not hug it out.