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"The Chamber of Secrets?"
Professor Minerva McGonagall's face went tight the instant she heard the words.
"Yes, Professor."
Standing in front of her, Sean suddenly felt about three feet shorter.
"Start talking," she said, giving him a look that was equal parts resolve and dread.
The silver cat figurine on her desk glinted in the firelight. For some reason it made Sean think of Justin, back at the cottage, always toasting marshmallows or warming honey-tea by the hearth.
"Hogwarts does have a Chamber," he began, finding his rhythm as he went. "The entrance is in the girls' bathroom on the second floor. There really is a basilisk down there, roughly fifty feet long, kills with a look, but after a few reflections the eyes lose their power…"
He laid out the basics: Tom Riddle's diary, how he'd found references to Horcruxes in the Restricted Section, the frame-job on Hagrid fifty years ago. He conveniently skipped the actual fight in the Chamber.
McGonagall's voice shook. "And just how do you know all this so… precisely?"
The firelight fractured into sparks in her eyes.
"I… was involved. A bit."
"You were involved?" She sounded like she already knew the answer and hated it. "Albus has lost his mind, letting a child get mixed up in something this dangerous—"
She'd clearly been expecting the worst, but it still took her a long moment to choke the words out.
Sean dipped his head. Truth was, Dumbledore hadn't actually known at first.
"You did well, lad," she finally sighed, long and heavy.
How was she supposed to put her pride and terror into words? Was this just the price everyone who loved these kids had to pay?
It was a warm winter night; the fire roared, rain-snow melted the second it touched the windowpanes. McGonagall sank into her cushioned armchair and listened to a second-year tell a story wilder than most adult wizards ever live.
It started with noticing something off about Ginny, running into Moaning Myrtle, digging up the truth from fifty years ago… Slowly, patiently, the whole tale of the Chamber unfolded around the crackling hearth: teenage Tom Riddle framing Hagrid, trying to reopen the Chamber decades later, and finally getting his Horcrux destroyed by Harry.
It wasn't hard to tell who'd really done most of the heavy lifting.
"And the basilisk?" McGonagall asked quietly. At this point she was braced for pretty much anything.
Sean went very still. He'd been trying to dodge this part.
"I'm the one who killed it."
He said it so softly he might as well have been confessing to breaking a teacup.
"SEAN GREEN!"
McGonagall shot to her feet, slamming a hand on the desk. "That was a basilisk! You absolute—you reckless—"
"Details. Now."
Outside, even the owls seemed to sense the storm brewing; one banked hard and flapped away from the window into the night.
"You once told me the Weasleys are all exceptional wizards," Sean said, lifting his head. His green eyes were perfectly calm, like a storm out at sea. "Voldemort was eating away at Ginny's soul. He could send that snake after anyone, any time. Before something irreversible happened, before another tragedy—I had to do something."
McGonagall's shoulders sagged. She stared at him, lips pressed into a thin line, unable to find words.
"How exactly did you kill a basilisk?" she managed at last, clinging to the faint hope that Dumbledore had at least been there as backup.
"I used some transfiguration… and Gryffindor's sword. Actually… there wasn't anyone else."
That night felt endless.
Lying wasn't an option; between reports and Harry's big mouth, she'd piece it together anyway.
McGonagall went statue-still, the world spinning around her.
Down in the Chamber. Alone. No backup. A twelve-year-old with nothing but a handful of spells, a crushing sense of duty, and courage too big for his body. And somehow that had been enough to face a basilisk and walk out the victor.
She couldn't even begin to guess what close calls there'd been. And that terrified her more than anything.
Closing her eyes, she heard the Sorting Hat's voice from first year: "Remarkable courage, I've rarely seen…"
Even though Sean had stunned everyone with his transfiguration skill right from the start, to her he was still "a second-year." She could accept him reshaping half the Forbidden Forest if he felt like it, but facing a basilisk? That was a bridge too far.
When curfew finally rolled around, she walked him out of her office without asking for any more details; she wasn't sure her heart could take them.
"Get some sleep, dear," she said gently, managing the ghost of a smile.
At least he'd trusted her enough to tell her. That had to count for something.
Truth always sounds different depending on who's telling it.
Sean let out a long breath of relief, watched the rune on his chest flicker once, and headed back toward Ravenclaw Tower, past the snoring portraits.
Meanwhile, Gryffindor Tower was anything but calm.
The second McGonagall walked in, she summoned Harry and Ron.
She'd calmed down a little, at least outwardly.
"The Chamber of Secrets," she said briskly. "I know everything. Well done, both of you. Anything you'd like to add?"
Harry and Ron had been expecting a month of detentions each. Instead, it sounded like Dumbledore had painted them as heroes.
"Of course, Professor!" Ron lit up like a Christmas tree. "It all started the night we found Sean—his robes were shredded, hair full of dust, and he was carrying this bloody sword—if Professor Dumbledore told you, yeah, the actual Sword of Gryffindor—"
"Ron—" Harry hissed, elbowing him as McGonagall's face cycled through three different shades of pale.
"Every single night he was down there fighting that thing—" Ron barreled on, oblivious.