It felt like everything had slowed down. In the days before Easter, both Wizard Chess and the Squirrel Cookie reached [Expert], and Sean began planning how to get it into Professor Quirrell's hands in a way that made sense.
For an ordinary wizard, a [Apprentice]-level cookie would suffice to transform, but Quirrell's condition is anything but ordinary. So Sean took no action until the cookie reached [Expert].
He must not expose himself to Voldemort's gaze—and the same goes for the Squirrel Cookie.
Voldemort is quick-tempered to the point of losing reason, but that doesn't mean he lacks intelligence. Quite the opposite—he's fiendishly cunning.
One attempt.
Without alerting Voldemort, without Voldemort even guessing Quirrell's Animagus, there would be only one chance to try.
While turning this over in his mind, Easter approached.
The professors hid lots of painted eggs around Hogwarts; lucky students could find all sorts of interesting trinkets.
The castle was once again decked out in bright colors, the House tables piled with all kinds of round eggs.
Ron and Harry had been preparing to exchange eggs for days, while Hermione worried about something else entirely.
She'd already begun drafting a study plan and was color-coding all her notes.
Justin and Neville pitched in; with their help on Herbology, History of Magic, and the like, Hermione's progress sped up a lot.
Harry and Ron hadn't cared much at first. One of them now spent most of every day training; the other, praised for a week after crafting that giant banner, was busy learning Transfiguration.
But the Hope Nook's atmosphere rubbed off on them—especially Hermione, who almost scheduled their mealtimes and bathroom breaks too.
"Hermione, exams are still a few hundred years away," Ron pleaded. He did not want even the loo timed to the minute.
"Ten weeks," Hermione shot back, "not hundreds of years. To Nicolas Flamel, that's the blink of an eye."
"But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "And anyway, why are you revising? You already know everything."
"Why revise? Are you mad? We have to pass these exams to move on to second year! They're important. I should've started a month ago—I don't know what I was thinking…"
Exasperated, and getting nowhere with Harry and Ron, she headed toward the center of the room, casually peeking at Sean's planning map—he'd been using a map-like thing to organize tasks. Hermione nodded, satisfied.
That's normal.
"Hermione, you can't compare us to Sean," Ron muttered.
"What about Justin? What about Neville?" Hermione lifted her chin, brandishing Justin's equally jam-packed schedule and Neville's "basically lives in the Hope Nook" plan.
"Oh, Merlin's beard… are they really first-years?" Ron groaned, and started revising.
When the holiday began, the Hope Nook still hummed with study.
On Sean's wood-bounded table sat a broom. He had ground three mid-tier alchemy items up to [Expert]—Wizard Chess, Oddball Chess, and the Leisure Broom.
Now he was grinding the Planner's Map.
He handed Justin a small button to serve as the Summoning Charm's target object, then added Justin's name to the Planner Map.
The name moved according to the faint magical fluctuations, and he added a reverse summon to the button—when Justin pinched it, "Justin" would light up on Sean's map.
Kind of like an NPC posting a quest…
Sean stared at the glowing name and thought so silently.
"Sean! Can it mark multiple people?" Justin crowded in, eyes wide as his name drifted across the parchment.
"It can," Sean nodded.
"Merlin—" Justin breathed, mind spinning with possibilities.
His shout brought the others running—but the Hogwarts bells were already ringing, and they had to head for the Great Hall.
The Hall glittered with color; heaps of Easter eggs piled high. Students were already swapping eggs.
Sean received many and gave many.
From the start of term he'd sent holiday gifts to the entire staff table.
The professors had all helped him in countless ways; even Quirrell—Sean had exchanged gifts with him too.
Sean gave books; as for what the professor sent back, Sean didn't know—and to be safe, he didn't touch the parcel.
The last person to fiddle with one had been Dumbledore, and he ended up with Voldemort's curse from the ring.
At the staff table:
Dumbledore eyed his Easter egg curiously; inside the note read: "Honeybee Cookies."
Easy to guess the sender.
He blinked slowly and glanced at Minerva McGonagall.
Professor McGonagall had received an egg painted with cats. She set it aside, plainly not planning to open it now.
Snape flicked his wand to extract a Reindeer Cookie, gave a heavy snort, and slipped it into his robes.
Least noticed at the staff table was Quirrell.
No one had given him anything; Sean's lone egg stood out starkly.
He stared at it a long time, then slowly slipped egg and note into his bag:
[Happy Easter]
…
The holiday began.
Unluckily for students, the professors seemed to share Hermione's philosophy.
They assigned mountains of homework; Easter was nothing like Christmastime.
With Hermione reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood at your elbow—or drilling wand motions—it was hard to relax.
Most of the Hope Nook spent their free time studying. There were groans and yawns aplenty, but the results were obvious.
That day, outside—
The sky was crystal clear, forget-me-not blue; the air carried the first hint of summer.
It was the first truly fine day in months.
With homework done, they had time to rest. Ron squared off against a last snowdrift, trying to Transfigure it into a snowman.
Justin and Hermione chased after Neville—who'd turned himself into an animal—and drifted, bit by bit, toward the Forest.
And in the Forbidden Forest, Sean was talking with Hagrid:
"Dragon-handling? I've seen A Study of British and Irish Dragons, From Egg to Inferno, So You Want to Raise Dragons? in the library…"