"The Chamber?"
Minerva McGonagall snapped to attention at the word, her expression suddenly looking rather grim.
"Yes, Professor."
In front of Professor McGonagall, Sean felt like he'd shrunk a size.
"Go on."
She looked at him with a gaze he couldn't quite interpret—like someone who had just made a heavy decision.
On the desk, the little silver cat ornament glinted in the firelight. Sean was suddenly reminded of how, in the cottage, Justin often baked soft sweets by the hearth or warmed a few mugs of honey tea.
"Hogwarts does have a Chamber of Secrets. The entrance is in the girls' bathroom. And there is a basilisk in it—about fifty feet long. Its gaze can kill, but once the light's been reflected several times, it loses its power—"
Once he started explaining, Sean's voice grew steadier. "Everything began with Tom Riddle's diary. From the Restricted Section I learned it was almost certainly a Horcrux—"
Sean sketched out the problem of Riddle's diary, and the framing that had happened fifty years ago. As for the actual fighting in the Chamber, he skimmed that part.
"Why… do you know all this so clearly?"
McGonagall's voice clearly trembled. She didn't ask for more details about the Chamber, the basilisk, or the diary. Sean saw the firelight shatter into sparks in her gentle eyes.
"I… was involved. A bit."
Sean said.
"Dumbledore must be mad to let you take part in something that dangerous—"
She had half-expected it, but even so it took her a long time to force the words out in a hoarse voice.
Sean lowered his head slightly. In truth, the Headmaster hadn't known at the beginning.
"You did very well, child."
Professor McGonagall fell silent for a moment, then let out a long sigh.
How was she supposed to put her mixture of pride and fear into words? Maybe this was simply the price every person who loved someone had to pay.
It was a warm winter; the fire in the grate roared, and the thin sleet on the windows melted as soon as it touched the glass.
Minerva McGonagall sat in a cushioned armchair, listening as the boy slowly unfolded his story.
From noticing Ginny's strange behaviour, to meeting Moaning Myrtle, to digging into the truth from fifty years ago—
The story of the Chamber, of how a young Tom Riddle once framed Hagrid, then tried to reopen the Chamber now, and how his Horcrux was finally destroyed by Harry—was painted out in slow strokes around the hearth.
It was not hard to hear that the destruction of Tom's Horcrux had been almost entirely orchestrated by this boy.
"And the basilisk? How did you deal with that?"
McGonagall said quietly now. She was, it seemed, ready to accept that he had done dangerous things.
Like inventing a magical refraction lens and then walking straight into the Chamber. Like investigating the entrance at the risk of being discovered by Riddle…
At this point, nothing should have been able to ruffle her calm, firm heart.
Sean fell silent. However he tried to dodge, he couldn't go around this part.
"I defeated it."
Sean said softly.
He felt like he'd shrunk yet again.
"Sean Green!"
Minerva McGonagall couldn't stop herself from slamming her hand on the desk. "That was a basilisk! You child—"
She was furious. "Tell me in detail!"
Outside the window, it was as if even the owls sensed that something dangerous was happening here—they beat their wings hard and veered away from this window, vanishing into the dark sky.
"You said the Weasleys are all excellent wizards, Professor.
Voldemort was slowly destroying Ginny's soul, and he could command the basilisk to attack at any time—
Before anything tragic happened, before things became completely irreversible, I had to do what I could."
Sean raised his head and spoke.
His green eyes were utterly calm, like a vast, bleak sea.
McGonagall's shoulders slumped; her lips pressed into a tight line as she stared at the boy, unable to form the words in her throat.
"How did you defeat the basilisk?"
She asked, as if hoping somewhere in his story a headmaster might appear—some reassurance that he'd had some kind of safety net, that it hadn't been as dangerous as she imagined.
"I used some Transfiguration… and Gryffindor's sword. There was no one else, in fact."
That night felt especially long to Sean.
Lies wouldn't help—between the articles and what Harry and the others would say, she could easily piece together what he'd done.
Professor McGonagall froze. For a moment the world spun.
In the Chamber, with no one else there, no support, just a second-year boy with a handful of "insignificant" spells;
Just a boy carrying a crushing sense of responsibility and a courage too deep to name—yet it had been enough to face a basilisk and come out alive—
What had happened in the middle? How many things could have gone wrong? There was no way to know.
And that was what made it so terrifying.
She closed her eyes and saw, unbidden, the Sorting Hat's unhesitating praise: "You have shown astonishing bravery."
In truth, even though Sean had revealed extraordinary Transfiguration right from the start of term, in her eyes he still was "a second-year student."
So she could accept that he had enough magic to reshape the landscape at the Forbidden Forest's edge, but she could not accept that he was already capable of looking a basilisk in the face.
So, when curfew came, Sean walked out of the Transfiguration office at her side. She asked nothing more, as if she didn't want to hear any further details.
"Go and get some sleep, child."
Professor McGonagall said gently.
There was the slightest, almost invisible smile on her face.
At least… he'd chosen to tell her, right?
The truth, spoken by different mouths, was never quite the same.
Sean finally let out a slow breath.
He glanced at the faint glimmer passing across the Empty Sigil and walked quietly back toward Ravenclaw Tower, under the snores of the portraits.
Over in Gryffindor Tower, things were less peaceful.
As soon as she came in, Professor McGonagall called Harry and Ron to stand before her. By now, she'd regained some composure.
"About the Chamber of Secrets. I've heard everything. Well done, Harry—and you too, Ron. Is there anything you'd like to add?"
McGonagall had that uncanny ability to make students fall immediately into line with just one sentence. Harry and Ron, dragged in without warning, had been quaking at first.
They'd thought she'd discovered the hundred or so school rules they'd broken.
But now… it was clear the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall had been telling her of their heroic exploits.
"Of course, Professor!"
Ron was actually a bit excited. Once he got going on this topic, he couldn't stop.
"It was like this— that first night, we saw Sean—
His robes were torn, his hair was dusty, and he was carrying a bloody sword—if the Headmaster told you, that's the legendary Gryffindor sword.
At first we had no idea what he'd done. Later we found out, Professor—every single night, he was fighting the basilisk…"
"Ron—"
Harry saw Professor McGonagall's face change once, then again, and jabbed Ron sharply in the ribs.