Chapter 422: The Operation Begins
Almost any other wizard would have been swayed by Hannah Abbott's earnest invitation. But Sean ultimately shook his head.
Hannah looked crushed. "You don't believe the Lucky Black Cat exists? But you've already seen him in your dreams!" she asked, bewildered.
"Mmm. Luck may manifest on occasion, Miss Abbott, but I find I prefer to trust in myself," Sean said softly.
"But... it's luck! Everyone wants a bit of good fortune. Don't you even want to scratch his ears?" Hannah stammered.
"Perhaps," Sean mused. Could a cat actually scratch its own ears? It was a confusing anatomical question.
"Very well. I'm sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Green." Hannah clutched her invitation and walked away, her shoulders slumped in disappointment.
"Hannah," a voice drifted after her just as she reached the door. "I don't know if luck truly exists as a force. But the feeling of waiting for luck... that, perhaps, is the real gift."
"You're right!" Hannah turned back eagerly, but the heavy doors of the hospital wing had already swung shut.
Through the narrow gap before the latch clicked, she caught a glimpse of the wizard on the bed giving a lazy flick of his finger. Several thick textbooks took flight and settled in his lap. She rubbed her eyes, but the door was already sealed tight.
Mr. Green is truly the most remarkable wizard in a hundred years...
The consensus of the Hogwarts student body had, once again, been confirmed in her mind.
As the clock wound down toward a warm, pleasant evening, the sun began its slow descent behind the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. Sean walked across the lawn, his silhouette bathed in the orange glow of the sunset.
Beside him, Hermione clutched a crystal phial to her chest. Justin gripped his wand with white knuckles, his expression one of grim readiness.
"It's a fascinating place," Sean explained as they walked. "The Hogwarts house-elves call it the 'Come and Go Room,' or the Room of Requirement."
Hermione and Justin listened with rapt attention. They needed a quiet, forgotten corner of the castle to carry out their move. If they were discovered or interrupted halfway through, Hogwarts might actually consider expelling them.
Of course, that rule wouldn't apply to Sean. Not a single professor on staff would ever vote to sack Sean Green.
"Why is it called that?" Justin asked.
"Because the room only manifests when someone is in genuine need of it," Sean said. "It is there when you need it, and gone when you don't. When it does appear, it is always equipped to suit the seeker's specific requirements. A house-elf who has had too much Butterbeer might find a stash of sobering draughts and a bed suited to their size. Mr. Filch once found a supply of extra cleaning materials there when his own stock ran low..."
"It sounds remarkably like the Room of Hope," Justin noted thoughtfully.
"Mmm. They share a common source," Sean confirmed.
"It sounds like a marvelous place," Justin said, his excitement beginning to override his nerves.
"How many people know about it?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowed.
"Very few," Sean replied. "People usually stumble upon it by accident in a moment of crisis, but they can never find it again because they don't understand that it was listening to their intent."
"Brilliant. Where is it?" Justin's heart began to beat faster.
"The eighth floor. Directly opposite the tapestry of Barnaby the Barmy being clubbed by trolls," Sean shared.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Justin took the lead, before spinning around and scurrying back. "Which tower, Sean?"
Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but her own hands were shaking slightly.
The night was pleasant as they navigated the upper corridors. They reached the designated spot: the massive tapestry of Barnaby the Barmy attempting to teach ballet to a group of confused trolls. Opposite the art was a long stretch of blank, white stone wall.
"We're here," Justin whispered. On the tapestry, a moth-eaten troll stopped pummeling the ballet master and turned its head to watch them. "Sean says we have to walk past this wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need."
They began the circuit. They walked from a high window at one end of the corridor to a man-sized vase at the other, then turned back. Sean stood to the side, leaning against a pillar with a book from Ravenclaw's studio. Justin squeezed his eyes shut in focus; Hermione began a low, rhythmic muttering.
We need a place where no one can escape... Justin and Hermione thought in unison. Give us a chamber where no sound can get out... a place where we won't be discovered...
"Sean!"
Hermione gasped on their third pass. A smooth, polished wooden door had appeared in the center of the wall.
Justin reached out and grasped the brass handle. He pulled it open, and the trio stepped into a spacious room. It was lit by flickering torches, much like the subterranean classrooms in the dungeons. But aside from the torches, the room was entirely empty.
Sean walked toward the wall, his eyes tracing the stones. He spotted a series of intricate runic arrays etched into the mortar.
"Soundproofing magical wards," he noted.
"Nothing but a bit of junk-room sorcery," the Owl Gentleman hooted, emerging from the Wizard's Tome at Sean's waist. He puffed out his chest with an air of superiority.
"Mr. Rav," Sean said, a warning in his tone. Snowy poked her head out of the Tome a second later.
"Stupid wizard! Look, it's asleep!" Rav blustered, gesturing to the white owl. "I'll tell you again: a wizard only needs one owl... and you should choose the cleverest one."
"Mr. Rav," Sean repeated, his voice dropping an octave.
"Vexing boy! I told you—Madam Snowy, you're awake?!"
Rav took flight as Snowy let out an indignant hoot and lunged for his tail feathers. The two owls began a frantic game of aerial tag, circling the high ceiling of the room.
"That voice sounds familiar," Justin said, scratching his head as he watched the white blurs.
Rav's formal waistcoat had been taken by Will for a thorough cleaning, and in the dim torchlight, Justin hadn't recognized the "portrait" owl in the flesh. Hermione, however, was staring at the Owl Gentleman's retreating back with a look of growing suspicion, eventually shaking her head to clear the "ridiculous" thought.
"Right. Lock the door behind me," Hermione commanded, her business-like tone returning. "Lockhart is currently in the Defense office. I'll be back with him in thirty minutes."
"Mmm," Justin said, his hand tightening around his wand.
Now that the comedy with the owls had ended, a heavy, nervous tension filled the room. Justin was visibly trembling, and Hermione took a long, steadying breath. What they were about to do carried an immense amount of risk. Furthermore, once they separated, they would have no way to coordinate if things went wrong.
Just as Hermione reached for the door handle, a draft from the corridor made the torches flicker.
"Wait. Take these," Sean said. His voice cut through the tension like a knife.
"What are they?" Hermione asked, looking at the small, polished mirrors in Sean's hands.
"A variant of the Two-Way Mirror. They function exactly like a telephone. I call them Magic Hand Mirrors."
Sean handed a mirror to each of them.
"Sean... do you mean...?" Hermione's eyes lit up.
"Truly? This is incredible!" Justin whispered.
"It is," Sean said with a small, confident smile. He offered them both a nod.
[End of Chapter 422]
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