With a light beckoning gesture, the wand and its holster on the desk flew into Sean's hand.
But in his activated spiritual sight state, the wand's trajectory appeared before it even moved—captured by spiritual sight before the actual movement occurred. This visual effect, similar to precognition yet resembling arithmancy divination, left Sean amazed.
No wonder he'd always felt that arithmancy had considerable auxiliary effects on spiritual sight. This near-prophetic, instantaneous calculation ability was indeed significantly related to arithmancy.
If this was the case, how much would it enhance his combat abilities?
With this thought, Sean knew he needed to practise immediately. Only through practice could he understand what this ability truly offered, so he wouldn't fumble unfamiliarly when facing Death Eaters and Voldemort in the third round.
Of course, before that, Sean needed to visit Scull. Now that spiritual sight was fully activated, it should reveal some new information.
Sean stood and left the common room. Though the alcohol hadn't completely dissipated, it no longer affected him much.
Leaving the Slytherin common room, just as he was about to exit the dungeons for the first floor, a familiar voice sounded behind him.
"Sean, where are you going?"
Turning to look at Snape, Sean didn't hide anything. "Professor, my spiritual sight just fully awakened, so I want to—"
Snape wasn't stupid. Hearing the first part of Sean's sentence, he immediately realised what Sean was thinking. Without hesitation, he walked ahead. "Follow me. Otherwise, if some professor catches you for nighttime wandering and deducts points, I'll have to work hard to add them back."
"Thank you, Professor."
Frowning slightly, Snape stopped and examined Sean carefully. That laugh just now wasn't something Sean could normally produce—it was too playful.
After careful observation, Snape suddenly reached out and pinched Sean's cheeks, squeezing them together. The smell of alcohol immediately reached Snape's nostrils.
"You've been drinking!"
Hearing Snape's obviously displeased voice, Sean immediately mumbled an explanation through his squeezed cheeks. "Everyone was celebrating my upcoming third round, so we celebrated in advance. The atmosphere got to me, and I drank a little."
Rubbing his sore cheeks, Sean looked at Snape with an ingratiating grin. "Professor, I only drank very, very little. Don't worry."
"Me, worry?" Snape's face showed his familiar cold sneer as he looked at Sean. "What does your drinking have to do with me? Even if you eventually drink until your hands and feet tremble, can't even hold your wand steady, and bid farewell to Potions forever, I won't say it's a pity. This is the consequence of your troll-like lack of restraint and excessive indulgence—all self-inflicted! What does it have to do with me? When you finally become addicted to alcohol and completely turn into a waste, I'll bring future Hogwarts students to see you. I'll let them see your fate; let them know the consequences of alcohol addiction!"
"I understand, Professor. From now on, unless absolutely necessary, I definitely won't touch alcohol."
Seeing Sean seriously apologising, Snape fell silent for a while, finally snorting coldly before turning to continue taking Sean to find Dumbledore.
Along the way, Sean sidled up to Snape, whispering to him. By the time the teacher and student arrived outside Dumbledore's office, Snape was no longer angry. Though still cold-faced, Sean knew his Head of House's expressions well. This current cold face indicated relatively good mood, not the extremely bad mood version he showed when encountering Sirius, Lupin, or Harry.
Seeing Snape bring Sean into his office, Dumbledore paused, then became serious. "Severus, has something happened for you to bring Sean here at this hour?"
Nodding lightly, Snape said, "Dumbledore, Sean's spiritual sight has fully awakened."
Hearing this, Dumbledore immediately stood. Looking at Sean, without waiting for him to speak, he said directly, "Sean, you want to see Scull, correct?"
Nodding, Sean replied, "That's right. With spiritual sight awakened, I want to use Scull's eyes to see what schemes and plots Voldemort has."
In front of Dumbledore, Sean always directly used Voldemort's name. When Snape heard it, his face involuntarily paled.
"Good, let's go now."
On crucial matters, Dumbledore was always swift and decisive.
Without hesitation, Dumbledore led Sean and Snape to the abandoned girls' bathroom on the third floor. Walking to the Chamber entrance, Dumbledore didn't need Sean—he directly spoke in Parseltongue himself.
"Sss (Open)!"
Seeing the Chamber door open, Sean looked at Dumbledore with surprise. "Professor Dumbledore, when did you learn Parseltongue?"
"It's been some time. Specifically, after Tom first released the Basilisk."
Hearing this timeframe, Sean immediately realised something. "So in second year, you actually knew all along, didn't you?"
"From beginning to end. But some things—if I didn't play ignorant, I couldn't see the truth."
"Then those people injured by the Basilisk..."
"They could always turn danger into safety. They couldn't directly look into the Basilisk's eyes, could they? As long as they didn't directly meet the Basilisk's gaze, there were ways to save and restore them."
Hearing this, Sean finally understood. When he'd encountered the Basilisk back then, he'd also felt that each person petrified had very coincidentally experienced some accident that prevented them from directly meeting the Basilisk's eyes—either seeing it through a mirror or through something else. So although these people were petrified, they could still be saved.
Now it seemed those "accidents" back then were probably achieved by Dumbledore using some method behind the scenes. He'd known about the Basilisk's existence from the start. What he'd wanted was simply to flush out whatever was releasing it.
Dumbledore—truly worthy of being Dumbledore.