The Mutated Egg

In his inventory, Sean noticed that the egg's description had changed slightly.

Magical Creature Egg (Violent Variant) (Incubating) (Gold).

A violent variant... Sean licked his lips. It seemed that the immense negative emotions he had transferred over had affected the egg.

What Sean had not expected, however, was that the egg had actually begun incubating?!

He had transferred his negative emotions into the egg, and he had felt quite guilty about it, because Sean thought he might have killed an unborn life.

But he had not expected this tenacious little fellow to absorb those things and even speed up its incubation progress.

Sean rubbed his hands together and took the egg out of his inventory.

"Whoa..." His eyes widened.

Fine, twisted crimson veins now covered the eggshell's original turquoise patterns. They tightly encircled the edges of those patterns, while the green fluorescence had turned into a clear red glow. The entire egg now carried an eerie, uncanny air.

It swayed gently and rhythmically atop Sean's bed.

"Hey, little guy, are you okay..." Sean placed a hand on the eggshell.

Then, to his surprise, he felt a tremor beneath his palm, as though he were pressing against someone's chest while that person breathed in a steady rhythm.

Most importantly, the frequency of that tremor almost perfectly matched his own breathing.

Sean sensed a faint connection.

A smile gradually appeared on his face. After gently stroking the eggshell, Sean put it away again.

"I'm looking forward to the moment we truly meet. When that time comes, I'll definitely make it up to you."

In an excellent mood, Sean walked out of the dormitory and happened to run into a girl entering the Common Room with a huge old book in her arms.

It was Stephanie Ollivander. Ever since she had said she would give him time to consider things, the girl had not taken the initiative to speak to him again.

"Good morning, beautiful miss." Sean smiled and greeted her in his usual manner.

Stephanie was still wearing those Gold-rimmed Glasses. She looked Sean up and down, then said in her cool, ethereal voice, "You're alive. Good."

"Oh, being alive is certainly a wonderful thing." Sean spread his hands with a smile.

Stephanie took off her glasses and stared directly at Sean with her beautiful pale blue eyes.

Sean felt a slight sense of infatuation rise within him, but he quickly suppressed it.

"Miss Ollivander, while your charm is truly astonishing, I'd suggest that you not take off those glasses too often." Sean said with a wry smile.

Stephanie put her glasses back on and nodded in satisfaction. "Your resistance to me is getting stronger and stronger. That's good."

She paid no attention whatsoever to what Sean had said and simply continued speaking to herself.

Sean, meanwhile, grew a little suspicious. If he had not seen wrong, had the color of her eyes changed?

Because of the other girl's unusual allure, Sean had never really dared to look directly into her eyes. But after she mentioned that his resistance was growing stronger, he realized that Stephanie's eye color had changed.

The last time he had seen her, her eyes should have been black...

Stephanie glanced at him before walking straight toward the dormitory.

"Congratulations again on still being alive. And about becoming my assistant, you can think it over some more. Also, you can call me Stephanie from now on."

"Oh, all right, I will..." Before Sean could finish speaking, the girl's figure had disappeared into the passageway.

Sean stood there blankly for a moment, then shrugged helplessly.

He really could not tell whether the girl was likable or not.

Sean found an armchair by the window and sank comfortably into it.

He would leave the rest of the castle's repairs to everyone else. He chose to nap beneath the soft, warm sunlight.

Ravenclaw was really nice. The Common Room over in Slytherin probably did not get any sunlight at all, right?

With that thought in mind, Sean slowly drifted off to sleep.

What woke him was a great big hug.

"Sean, when did you get back? Are you all right?!" Hermione hugged him excitedly.

Sean opened his bleary eyes and gave her a lazy smile. "If you keep pressing down on me, I might not be all right, Hermione."

"Oh, oh, sorry." Hermione jumped off him, her face bright red.

"It's fine. Even though it's only been one day, I still have to say it—I'm glad to see you, Hermione." Sean sat up straight and yawned.

"Me too." Hermione nodded, then apologized again. "Sorry, I got a little too excited. Did I disturb your rest? Oh no, after everything that happened, you must be exhausted. I can't believe I didn't even think of that..."

Seeing that Hermione was about to start rambling again, Sean quickly said with a smile, "Actually, I already slept for a night in Professor Dumbledore's office. Right now, I just want to be lazy for a while."

"Really?" Only after Sean nodded firmly did the girl smile again.

After they talked through what had happened last night once more, Hermione checked her watch. "It's lunchtime. Let's go to the Great Hall—you must be starving."

"Exactly what I was thinking." Sean nodded. His stomach had already shrunk flat.

The two headed toward the Great Hall together, receiving quite a few whistles and rounds of applause along the way.

"Sean, you're already a celebrity at Hogwarts!" Hermione said, lowering her excited voice.

Sean spread his hands. "Well, all I can say is, it wasn't bad."

During the meal in the Great Hall, Sean was hugged for a long time by the overwhelmingly enthusiastic Weasley twins again, while Ron came over to express his thanks with great sincerity.

"Actually, I didn't help all that much," Sean said with a wry smile.

"No, Madam Pomfrey said that bottle of Healing Potion played a crucial role." That was Fred.

"Right, without that potion, Percy wouldn't have lasted much longer. And you helped us get to the Hospital Wing." That was George.

"Even though, as a prefect, he's always picking on us."

"He's still our brother, though."

"He's alive. That's good news."

"Oh, Fred, the bad news comes after that."

"I think you're right, George."

The twins rattled off a whole bunch of things before finally patting Sean on the shoulder.

"If you ever need any forbidden little trinkets, come find us, Sean." Fred raised an eyebrow.

"And your underwear—we keep our word." George winked.

Sean smiled and nodded. "I will, Fred, George."

Though the castle was in dire need of repairs, Sean was in a good mood.

That mood was amplified during Sunday's dinner.

There had been progress with Sean's incubating egg.

Beside Dumbledore sat a white-haired wizard with his head slightly lowered.