After curfew, Sean first went to Snape's office.
Since he was carrying out a task for Dumbledore, he had special permission and did not need to worry about running into Filch.
Ravenclaw's diadem was still hidden inside Merlin's Chamber.
Sean intended to make the performance convincing. He would spend two nights "searching" before moving the diadem back to the Room of Requirement.
The first thing he asked when he saw Snape was:
"Professor, has Professor Dumbledore returned?"
"He has," Snape replied flatly.
Snape's expression was as unreadable as ever, which reassured Sean that Dumbledore had likely succeeded in destroying the diary.
Fiendfyre really was absurdly effective.
As long as they found the Horcruxes and handed them to Dumbledore, the rest would be simple.
Sean also resolved to find a chance to personally observe Dumbledore casting Fiendfyre.
"I wonder if Fiendfyre could destroy Herpo's golden scepter as well," Sean thought.
On the way to Professor McGonagall's office, they happened to meet her, and the three of them headed straight for the eighth floor.
"Harry, what do you think Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, and Sean are doing together this late at night?" Ron whispered.
Harry frowned and shook his head.
"I think the professors are hiding something. Dumbledore specifically emphasized the curfew because he doesn't want students discovering the secret."
For once, Harry's wild guess was completely wrong.
Dumbledore had strengthened the curfew simply because his instincts told him that something was seriously wrong at Hogwarts.
"Should we follow them?" Harry asked.
Ron nodded immediately.
His curiosity outweighed even his concern for Fred and George.
The two boys slipped beneath Harry's Invisibility Cloak and followed Sean and the professors silently through the castle.
As one of the Deathly Hallows, the cloak was so powerful that even Sean's Magic vision could not see through it.
Highly skilled wizards could still sense unusual disturbances in their surroundings—Dumbledore certainly could, though Snape was not quite at that level.
"Harry, where are they going?" Ron whispered.
"No idea," Harry murmured. "Keep following."
Sean and the two professors remained silent all the way to the eighth floor.
There, they paced back and forth three times before the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
The wall opposite them began to shift.
Bricks rearranged themselves rapidly, and a beautifully carved wooden door appeared where moments earlier there had been only stone.
Harry and Ron stared in astonishment.
Sean, committed to his act, also widened his eyes.
"A hidden room like this in the castle? Incredible."
McGonagall and Snape were seeing the Room of Requirement for the first time as well.
This room was meant for those who needed it.
Intelligence and magical power alone were not enough to discover it.
McGonagall looked genuinely excited.
Despite her stern demeanor, she had once been an adventurous young witch.
Snape, however, remained as expressionless as ever.
The three entered the Room of Requirement.
Before the door closed, Harry and Ron slipped inside like two mice.
"What is this place?" Ron whispered, staring at the endless piles of clutter.
"Looks like some sort of giant storage room," Harry said, keeping his eyes fixed on Sean and the professors.
"We'll split up," McGonagall instructed. "If you find anything, do not act alone."
Dumbledore still feared the unknown influence of Horcruxes, which was why he had sent three people.
Safety in numbers.
"They're definitely searching for something," Harry muttered.
"They're splitting up," Ron said. "Who do we follow?"
Harry thought for a moment.
"Sean."
The two professors were intimidating enough.
Following another student felt much safer.
Sean was only here to go through the motions.
He cast Lumos and slowly wandered among the heaps of discarded objects, peering around as though searching intently.
He moved at a leisurely pace.
Harry and Ron followed just as slowly.
Sean remained completely unaware that he was being tailed.
He accomplished nothing.
Harry and Ron, by extension, accomplished nothing as well.
"What do you think he's looking for?" Ron whispered.
Harry said nothing.
Sean and the professors had barely exchanged a word and never once mentioned what they were searching for.
After more than half an hour, Sean, Snape, and McGonagall left the Room of Requirement.
Harry and Ron, however, were too excited to sleep.
Since they had no idea what Sean had been searching for, they simply wandered around the room aimlessly.
Sean returned to the Slytherin dormitory.
Before he even reached his room, he heard Jerry yowling inside.
"That troublemaker is causing chaos again," Sean thought.
As he reached for his key, he froze.
The door to his room was slightly ajar.
"I distinctly remember locking it."
His expression sharpened.
Sean glanced around the common room, then carefully pushed the door open.
Jerry sprang at him with claws extended, only retracting them at the last second when he recognized his master.
Sean caught the cat.
"Someone came in while I was gone?"
Jerry meowed twice.
Yes.
Sean set Jerry down and began inspecting the room.
The desk, wardrobe, wall hangings, and clock all appeared untouched.
Then his eyes landed on the lowest drawer of his bedside cabinet.
"Damn!"
The magical lock had been opened.
Sean knelt on the carpet and examined it carefully.
The small bronze lock was intact.
There were no scratches, no signs of forced entry, no marks around the keyhole.
Whoever had opened it had done so with magic.
And Sean was absolutely certain that no student at Hogwarts possessed the skill to force open this particular lock.
The drawer still contained the Marauder's Map.
But the Wizard's Heart was gone.
The moment he confirmed it, Sean's mind exploded.
This was no minor theft.
The Wizard's Heart was one of his most important treasures.
"Who the hell stole my Wizard's Heart?!"
Sean shot to his feet and bolted from the room.
Salazar Slytherin had enchanted the Wizard's Heart a thousand years ago so that it could not leave Hogwarts.
That meant the thief was still somewhere inside the castle.
Sean's first suspect was Peeves.
The poltergeist had broken into his room once before, and his strange powers might have been sufficient to open the lock.
Sean sprinted through the castle, checking all of Peeves's favorite haunts.
Snape had warned him that once he returned to his dormitory, he was not to leave again.
If caught, he would lose fifty points like any other student.
Sean no longer cared.
House points were meaningless.
Recovering the Wizard's Heart was all that mattered.
Meanwhile, Harry and Ron were making their way back to Gryffindor Tower.
Ron tapped Harry on the shoulder.
"Did you just see that?"
"See what?"
"A crystal ball," Ron whispered.
"I think it just floated past us."
To Read 60+ ahead advanced Chapters, head over to P@treon
patreon.com/DarkVerse146