Boom!
In the Slytherin common room, nearly everyone present heard a deep rumbling sound and felt the ground beneath their feet and the walls around them shake noticeably.
Everyone looked at each other with confusion and concern, searching desperately for the source of the disturbing vibrations.
At that precise moment, Blaise—who was standing near the entrance to the boys' dormitory—was looking toward Sean's room with a distinctly strange expression on his face. When the vibrations had first occurred moments ago, he had fully intended to go find Sean to see what he was doing. However, just as he reached the dormitory entrance, the vibrations suddenly resumed with even greater force. Blaise vaguely felt certain that the vibrations were emanating directly from Sean's private room.
What in Merlin's name was going on?
It genuinely felt like it was coming from Sean's room specifically. What could he possibly be doing in there?
Blaise turned around and looked at Andy and Jason, who were also looking back at him with equally confused expressions. The three of them exchanged meaningful glances, and Blaise gave a slight nod to both Andy and Jason. At this silent signal, Andy and Jason immediately realized what Blaise was implying. They pretended to be completely indifferent to the curious stares of other students and then casually made their way over to where Blaise was standing.
"Blaise, what is going on?" Andy asked in a hushed whisper.
Hearing Andy's whispered question, Blaise immediately lowered his head closer and said quietly, "It seems to be coming directly from Sean's room—that vibration we just felt."
"From Sean's room?" Andy repeated with concern.
"I will go check it out immediately!" Jason declared.
Jason was very much a man of direct action, and it was indeed his sworn duty to protect Sean's safety at all times—although with Jason's current magical strength, he might not actually be a match for Sean in a real confrontation anymore.
He quickly walked up to Sean's door and knocked firmly upon it.
"Sean, are you alright in there?"
Jason's concerned words received absolutely no response. He frowned slightly with growing worry and knocked again more insistently, saying louder, "Sean, are you asleep? Sean, answer me!"
Finally, Jason's repeated words were answered, and Sean inside the room replied in a distinctly muffled and strained voice, "I am fine, I just... cannot turn around properly..."
Cannot turn around?
What did that even mean?
Just as Blaise and the other two were standing directly in front of the door feeling utterly confused, a series of loud crashing noises emanated from inside the room once again. It sounded distinctly like a large amount of furniture breaking apart and falling heavily to the ground, and the furniture itself seemed to be shattering into pieces.
Blaise and the other two were genuinely confused as to what could possibly be making such destructive noise.
Crack...
Sean's door suddenly swung open from the inside.
A room resembling an active battlefield opened before the shocked eyes of Blaise and the other two students.
Not a single piece of furniture remained intact within the space: the bed, cabinets, desk, chairs—absolutely everything was shattered and scattered across the floor in pieces. The room presented a complete scene of utter devastation, as if it had been struck directly by some kind of explosive spell.
"Sean, what in Merlin's name happened to you?" Blaise asked in amazement.
"I was attempting to practice a new spell and it went somewhat awry," Sean explained casually, waving his wand and beginning to repair the shattered bed frame. Then, turning to face Blaise and the other two, he added, "What are you three waiting for standing there? Help me clean this mess up! Pull out your wands and use Reparo or Scourgify spells. Thank you very much!"
Blaise and the other two glanced at each other with knowing looks, shook their heads in mild exasperation, and laughed quietly. They all drew their wands obediently and began helping Sean clean the destroyed room and repair the damaged furniture.
When the room was finally clean once more and all the furniture had been restored to its original condition—even the shattered books were repaired and returned to the shelves—Sean finally reached down and pulled Kulkan out carefully from the corner of the room where she had been hiding.
Sean gently grabbed Kulkan around her neck and shook her body slightly. Kulkan's serpentine form swayed back and forth like a pendulum for several moments. If Sean had not been able to clearly feel through their bond that Kulkan was still very much alive, he would have genuinely thought that he had accidentally crushed Kulkan to death simply by transforming himself in such a confined space.
"Hey, Kulkan, are you still asleep?" Sean asked.
Sean said this in normal human language, but Kulkan understood him perfectly well through their connection.
Therefore, as soon as Sean finished speaking, Kulkan grumbled irritably to Sean in Parseltongue, "Sean, I absolutely hate you right now!"
"Sorry, sorry, it was all a complete accident, I promise. The main problem is that I did not expect the transformation to result in something quite that large. Perhaps there was something fundamentally wrong with the process. Next time I attempt it, I will make certain to try the transformation in a significantly larger space."
It was not entirely Sean's fault, to be fair. In actual reality, the Animagus transformation most likely correlates closely with the Patronus Charm, and the vast majority of people's Animagus forms are normal real-world animals. This observation is simply based on documented accuracy. Sean had not encountered any examples of an Animagus being a magical creature in any historical material he had studied—not a single documented case.
Therefore, Sean had not seriously thought his Animagus transformation would be anything particularly special or unusual. Although his Patronus had not fully materialized into a corporeal form yet, it was clearly taking the shape of a snake of some kind. In other words, Sean's Animagus transformation was most likely going to be some form of serpent. Even the largest snake species in the natural world would easily fit within Sean's private room, so transforming within the room should not have been any significant problem.
However, Sean had completely overlooked one crucial fact: when he had slain the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, he had successfully acquired two of its powerful innate abilities through his system. Both of those abilities had been automatically assigned to enhance his Animagus form by the system panel. This assignment had caused Sean's Animagus form to undergo completely unpredictable changes and enhancements under the direct influence of the basilisk's two inherited abilities.
The biggest and most obvious problem was Sean's Animagus form's massive physical size. While not quite as impossibly large as the ancient basilisk itself had been, Sean's transformed serpent form was still far too large to possibly fit comfortably within a single room. This size discrepancy had directly led to what had happened today. Sean had not even had sufficient time to properly assess his actual appearance before being forced to hastily revert back to his human form to avoid further destruction.
With the generous help of Blaise and the others, Sean's room was quickly restored to its original pristine state.
"Sean, what kind of experimental magic are you possibly working on to turn your room into such a disaster?" Blaise asked with genuine curiosity.
As soon as Blaise finished speaking, Jason added helpfully, "Last year, you seemed to have experimented with magic in your room as well, and you ended up accidentally smashing the cabinet into pieces. This year, you have somehow managed to destroy the entire room itself."
"This actually happened last year too?" Andy asked with interest.
Looking at both Blaise and Andy, who were clearly eager to press Jason for additional embarrassing details, Sean glanced at them pointedly and said dryly, "Why do I get the feeling that the next scheduled program is going to be the special Christmas edition of 'Roasting Sean Bulstrode'?"
"It is perfectly acceptable if you do not want us to make jokes at your expense, but you should at least tell us what kind of magic you were actually using and how you managed to turn your room into this state of destruction, should you not?" Blaise pressed.
Sean raised his eyebrows slightly, looked directly at all three of them, and asked seriously, "Are you absolutely certain you want to know?"
"Of course we are certain!" they answered in unison.
"Then do not be frightened by what I am about to show you."
Having said that clearly, Sean carefully stuffed Kulkan securely into the front of his robes, and then led Blaise and the others out of the Slytherin common room. He headed straight for the abandoned girls' bathroom located on the second floor.
Looking at the decrepit abandoned girls' bathroom stretching before them, Blaise and the others asked with distinctly strange looks upon their faces, "Sean, why exactly did you bring us here to this place? There are no girls anywhere around here."
Hearing this peculiar comment, both Andy and Jason were immediately shocked by the implication. They looked at Sean with surprise and then at Blaise with equal confusion, and for a moment they genuinely did not know which one of them was more disturbed in their thinking.
Looking at Blaise with complete helplessness, Sean said with clear annoyance in his voice, "Stop talking absolute nonsense and just follow me inside!"
Come support and get the advanced chapters:
patreon.com/Daoist_Kalyug