The Brain-Eating Swooping Evil

Sean was actually a little uneasy, because the nature of this spell was rather strange. The Magical Flame it summoned possessed the properties of Fiendfyre, yet neither he nor anyone he acknowledged would feel its heat upon touching it.

The Swooping Evil's egg should not be attacked by his flames, but whether it could actually hatch remained unknown.

Sean placed the egg into the flames. A blue tongue of fire licked across its surface, and the egg stopped swaying.

Sean immediately breathed a sigh of relief. This matched the hatching characteristics Professor Scamander had described.

The hatching process required no further steps, and as long as Sean did not actively end Protego Diabolica and it was not attacked, it would continue burning quietly.

This was one source of Sean's confidence. If he had learned the Fiendfyre Curse, setting aside whether the Swooping Evil could hatch, the Room of Requirement would definitely have been burned down.

The hatching process lasted an entire day. Sean practiced a few minor spells nearby, checking on the Swooping Evil's egg every so often.

As time passed, the blue-green patterns on the egg's surface gradually blurred, like brushstrokes in an oil painting bleeding together.

When the eggshell began to deform slightly, just as Professor Scamander had said it would, Sean stopped practicing and stared unblinkingly at the very center of the flames.

The egg, which had been still all day, finally began to tremble softly. By then, the patterns upon it had long since melted into a muddle of colors, with only the red bloodlines still faintly visible.

"Crack." The eggshell made the sound of foam board snapping under pressure.

There was no gradual cracking of the shell as Sean had expected. Instead, it was as though the shell had suddenly turned to liquid, and wisps of smoke began to coil upward.

The smoke churned violently, then abruptly contracted. The egg vanished, leaving behind a spiky blue-green cocoon.

Sean reached out. Before he even touched it, he felt something strange. That faint, almost imperceptible connection from before seemed to have suddenly strengthened. He felt as though the cocoon before him had grown up alongside him.

A smile unconsciously appeared on Sean's face as he picked up the oval cocoon, which was only about half the size of a fist.

It wriggled softly in Sean's palm, seemingly adjusting to its new surroundings.

"Hey, little guy, aren't you coming out to meet me?" Sean gave the Swooping Evil a gentle squeeze.

The moment he did, the blue-green cocoon suddenly expanded!

A pair of blue-green wings snapped open, and a creature that resembled both a reptile and a giant butterfly appeared before Sean.

Its spiny wings made up more than half its body. The backs of the wings were blue-green, while the rest was blue, resembling the unfolded canopy of a convertible. The two layers at its tail bore dense, web-like patterns, and upon closer inspection, the edges of those patterns were faintly blood-red.

The Swooping Evil's head looked like a white bony mask, and its round black eyes were staring directly at Sean.

"You're so cool..." Sean muttered.

He placed a hand on the Swooping Evil's white head. The little creature, newly born only moments ago, made a series of sharp, hoarse noises. It responded to Sean's touch, then spread its wings and took flight.

The Swooping Evil's flight seemed to contain some magical effect. It merely flapped its wings twice, yet its speed rapidly increased.

After circling swiftly through the air a few times, the Swooping Evil suddenly let out a piercing shriek. Its black pupils were instantly stained blood-red.

The Swooping Evil abruptly accelerated and dove straight at a dummy in the corner.

It slammed heavily into the dummy. Its drooling maw snapped open, then clamped fiercely onto the dummy's head.

The head of the specially made spell-practice dummy burst like a watermelon, crushed directly beneath the Swooping Evil's fine, sharp teeth!

"That would really hurt if it bit someone's head..." Sean involuntarily shrank back at the sight.

The Swooping Evil looked disappointed. It spun around and pounced toward Sean. Just as Sean's nose was about to touch its gleaming fangs, the Swooping Evil abruptly contracted, wrapping itself tightly into a cocoon and dropping into Sean's hand.

Sean felt that connection again, and vaguely understood what the Swooping Evil meant.

"Hungry. Want food. Inside you."

Sean froze for a moment before understanding. He took out the sheep brain he had procured from the kitchen.

At the time, the House-elves had very respectfully fulfilled his request, even chasing after Sean to ask whether he needed other kinds of brains...

Sean placed the sheep brain on the ground. The Swooping Evil unfurled itself, and its round pupils once again uncontrollably flushed red, but it did not act rashly. It merely stared straight at Sean.

Sean smiled. "Eat. It's all yours."

The Swooping Evil flicked away its drool and pounced onto the sheep brain.

Watching the little creature wolfing it down, Sean nodded in satisfaction.

His greatest concern had been that the Swooping Evil would refuse to obey him. His own violent emotions had been transferred to it, and that might have made the creature's desire to attack exceptionally strong.

Now, though its way of eating was a little brutal, it still seemed willing to listen to him.

A flash of realization crossed Sean's mind. It was probably because he had left a connection with it when he transmitted his emotions back then.

Even with its body fully spread out, the Swooping Evil was only a little larger than an owl. Yet the instant it saw brains, its eyes glowed red. Sean's five pounds of food were swallowed completely in less than two minutes.

The Swooping Evil looked at Sean with its mouth open, drool still dripping continuously.

"Full, but not completely full."

That was the meaning it conveyed.

Sean walked over and stroked its hard head, comforting it, "It's not good to eat too much. You can eat again tomorrow."

The Swooping Evil's blood-red pupils faded, and it turned back into that small cocoon.

"Okay."

Sean could not help grinning.

Though the little thing loved eating brains, it was still rather cute when it behaved.

Sean wrapped one of the feelers protruding from the Swooping Evil's cocoon around his finger and left the Room of Requirement in satisfaction.

Along the way, Sean ran into several people. The Swooping Evil in his hand would always tremble, as though asking Sean whether it could have a taste of their brains.

After Sean strictly forbade it, the Swooping Evil could only wrap itself up even tighter in grievance.

When he returned to Ravenclaw's Common Room, Sean happened to find Hermione still reading beside the fireplace.

"Sean, where did you go today? I didn't see you at all," Hermione asked curiously.

Just as he was about to answer, Sean felt the Swooping Evil hidden in his palm begin to tremble violently.

The emotion it conveyed was excited.

"The one across from us—I can smell it. That brain looks delicious!"

"...Stop staring at human brains!"

Sean gave Hermione an awkward smile. "Oh, I went out to exercise my brain today... no, I mean, exercise my body."

Aha! I'm now asking all readers to help name the Swooping Evil. Put that wit of yours from the chapter comments to work!

And, while I'm at it, a humble request for votes!