Testing Godelot's claim wasn't difficult. He'd written, very specifically:
[Dark magical creatures possess cruel instincts, born from a wizard's extreme faith.
A witch or wizard bearing the Elder Wand can more easily perceive the malice buried in their souls… and seize it.]
Which meant Sean could use the Empty Sigil to sense and verify that malice—just as he did with Tom…
Out in the corridor, Sean suddenly stopped.
Malice. Voldemort…
If Dark creatures were born of a warped, extreme belief, then what about Voldemort?
"He barely has any humanity left…"
That was why he was both cruel and powerful.
Sean whispered it to himself, thinking of what Firenze had once said. The facts were quietly lining up with Godelot's theory.
…
Sean was out at night again. Mrs. Norris lay draped across his shoulder all the way down the corridor, rubbed her head against the back of his neck, then slipped off into the darkness.
Sean stepped onto the lawn and headed toward the Forbidden Forest.
By wandlight, he walked for at least twenty minutes. Other than the snapping of branches and the rustling of leaves, there was no other sound.
The further he went, the denser the trees grew. The stars vanished overhead. His wand was a tiny, lonely spark in an endless black.
Whether Godelot was right or not, Dark magic was obviously a shortcut—but there was a voice in Sean's heart that kept saying:
The hardest, most winding path is often the shortest one.
Deep in the Forbidden Forest.
Low branches and thorny vines often snagged a wizard's robes; that was why Hagrid's were always torn. Yet as Sean walked forward, the branches and brambles along the path seemed to retract, as if under a spell.
Then Sean realized something new had joined the path.
He had left the basilisk far deeper in the forest, well away from the main animal trails—Firenze's territory, in fact. Outside those paths, the forest was not nearly as safe.
Off to his right, something large was forcing its way through the undergrowth, snapping branches as it came.
"Lumos."
Sean raised his wand. Light spilled outward.
Spiders.
Not the tiny ones that scuttled across the dungeon floors, but beasts the size of Thestrals, each with eight eyes, eight legs, hulking and hairy, like moving boulders.
One giant spider clambered down a steep slope toward a misty, half-spherical nest of web at the center of a hollow, its companions closing in around it.
Their fangs clicked as they moved—click-click-click.
Acromantulas?
How were they here?
When had they built a nest here?
Sean frowned. That wouldn't do at all.
Every creature in the forest had its own territory. He knew this patch of woods belonged to the centaurs.
"You shouldn't be here," Sean said, wand raised.
It was his first time seeing so many Acromantulas at once, but his face remained calm, his voice as smooth as a still lake.
"Aragog!"
One spider called out.
"Aragog!"
Slowly, something the size of a baby elephant emerged from the misty web-dome.
Its body and legs were black streaked with grey, its massive, fanged head crowned with eight milky, clouded eyes.
It was blind.
"What goes on?" it rasped, fangs clacking as they moved.
"The one from the forest," said the spider that had called him.
"Hagrid?" Aragog shuffled closer, his eight pale eyes staring sightlessly.
"Sean Green," Sean said.
Hagrid had told him he'd mentioned Sean's name to every creature in the forest.
"Hagrid never sent anyone into our hollow before," Aragog said slowly.
"This is centaur territory," Sean replied, gaze steady.
"There's a monster from the castle nearby. It makes its lair on the edge of our land. We had to move," Aragog answered.
Sean fell silent.
"You can return. It wakes tonight, and it'll be gone from here afterwards," Sean said.
"No! No! If it wakes, we'd be walking to our deaths!" Aragog shrieked, fangs rattling.
Sean turned slightly. Clearly the basilisk had already shaken the forest's balance more than he'd hoped.
He'd have to deal with that soon.
"You're leaving?" Aragog asked, his fangs clacking louder. All around them, the rustling grew denser; the spiders were closing in.
"I think not… My children have obeyed me and never harmed Hagrid. But fresh meat walking to us on its own—how can I forbid them that pleasure? Farewell, friend of Hagrid…"
Sean looked up. Just a few steps away, high overhead, a wall of spiders had closed in—thick as a rampart, fangs clacking in unison, dozens of eyes glittering in the dark.
There were a lot of them.
"Whitey," Sean called softly.
Within seconds, a silver-white owl appeared in the ink-black sky, swooping down to land on his shoulder.
Looked like it was time to start collecting material for Acromantula biscuits a bit earlier than planned.
A roar of flame burst from Sean's wand. Fire coiled around him, blooming into a small sea of fire.
Faith…
Sean thought quietly.
Ritual magic sharpened a wizard's conviction; it was the concrete expression of their magic.
Faith might well be the wizard's soul—the line between a dark wizard and a light one.
As he scraped away the darker clutter of his thoughts, the fire expanded, surging outward.
Sean swung his wand; firelight danced in his eyes.
[You have practiced a magical transfiguration at master-level standard in the master's domain. Mastery +300.]
Flames roared and surged, carrying Sean's unyielding will through the trees in a blazing wave.
"It's you! You're the one who shook the forest—the wizard who made the ground quake!" Aragog's legs trembled. A swath of his children lay charred on the forest floor, and the fire still stretched farther than the spider colony itself.
They scrambled in panic, trying to flee, only to find a massive shape behind them—a colossal beast with glasses perched over its closed eyes.
~~~
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