Mr. Fluffy won Rose's sympathy with his pitiful puppy-dog eyes, but Edward and Cohen weren't exactly thrilled about taking in this cat.
"But he's so cute," Rose said.
"And he's got a nice voice too," she added after a moment's thought.
"My voice is nice too!" Edward shot back, a little jealous.
"But you're not a cat, and you're not fluffy," Cohen sighed. "Well, okay, you're *partly* fluffy."
"What are you even saying?" Edward grumbled, ushering Cohen and Harry toward the stairs. "I'm staking my claim as the boss of this house—that cat's not getting the better of me…"
"So what's the deal with that cat?" Harry asked curiously as he followed Cohen upstairs.
"It's my grandma's cat," Cohen explained. "I only found out a while back, when I was alone with it, that it can talk just like Earl. But it's way chattier than Earl. If you don't cut it off, it'll ramble on for an hour or two straight…"
"That's terrifying…" Harry gasped.
"It gets worse," Cohen said. "It can't die."
"Can't die?!" Harry exclaimed.
"Probably some kind of curse or something," Cohen said. "When it dies, it just randomly pops back up somewhere nearby."
Truth be told, Cohen *could* eat Mr. Fluffy's soul if he wanted to—but he hadn't, because offing a cat just for being a chatterbox felt a bit too heartless.
Getting annoyed and calling it a "blabbermouth" was one thing, but killing a harmless creature over a minor irritation? That was a whole different story.
Harry had briefly considered adopting this magical, talking cat—until he imagined a lifetime of nonstop feline monologues and decided against it.
Cohen didn't really want Mr. Fluffy either, but only because the cat couldn't cast spells with a wand like Earl could. A magical, immortal cat that could wield a wand? That'd be worth putting up with some chatter.
Still, if Rose thought it was cute and wanted to keep it… it might not be a bad idea to let her have it for self-defense. It could block a Killing Curse like a phoenix or something.
After Harry settled his stuff in the guest room, Cohen heard a commotion downstairs—someone had just walked into the house.
"Phew… give me a sec to catch my breath," Arnold panted from below. "I must've sealed up hundreds of Muggle doors and cast dozens of Memory Charms on the way here. That woman can *float*—she nearly made it to Hertfordshire…"
Cohen poked his head out from the shadows upstairs, sneaking a peek at what was going on.
Harry quietly leaned out beside him, trying to figure out how the Ministry was going to handle his situation.
"Harry Potter hasn't run off, has he?" Arnold flopped onto the couch. "Don't tell me I've got to chase him down too—and then waste my energy explaining what Fudge means by 'protect Harry Potter at all costs.' Thank Merlin, I must've done something awful in a past life to end up as a Memory Obliviator…"
"So I'm off the hook?" Harry whispered to Cohen.
"You were never on the hook," Cohen replied. "Right now, you're too valuable to the Ministry for PR and keeping people calm. Even if you took out the whole Dursley family, they'd just call it self-defense."
"Phew…" Harry let out a relieved breath.
"Good news—you don't have to scour the world looking for Harry," Cohen called down to Arnold in the living room.
"We've taken him in," Edward added, clapping Arnold on the shoulder.
"Thank heavens…" Arnold said gratefully. "Now I can finally go home and rest. Edward, you're a real pal. Next time, I'll treat you to a night at Bewitched—"
Edward quickly clapped a hand over Arnold's mouth.
"Bewitched what?" Rose asked, stepping out of the bathroom and giving them a suspicious look.
"Drinks!" Edward blurted. "The Leaky Cauldron's got this new stuff—something like 'Three Shots of Chaos'—"
"It's amazing! Hits harder than Firewhisky," Arnold chimed in, covering for him.
---
After repeatedly warning Harry "not to go out alone" before heading home, Arnold left. Rose dragged Edward into the master bedroom, and whatever happened next had nothing to do with Cohen or Harry.
Harry didn't have to worry about expulsion anymore, but now something even scarier was weighing on him.
Sirius Black was out to kill him.
Still, Edward and Rose promised Harry he'd be completely safe at the Nortons', which touched him deeply.
Cohen, on the other hand, wasn't fazed. For one, he knew Sirius was really after Peter Pettigrew. For another, even if someone tried to attack, they wouldn't get far with Cohen around.
…
But Cohen hadn't expected Sirius to show up at his house that very midnight.
*Click.*
The room was pitch black, with only faint moonlight outlining the shapes around him.
A large dog-like shadow crept silently into Cohen's room.
And Cohen's floating soul saw it all—the dog was messing up his desk and leaving muddy paw prints on a few sheets of parchment.
Did Sirius climb through the wrong window? Harry's next door, dude.
Cohen didn't spook him, though—he was curious to see what Sirius was up to.
Under the moonlight, the figure stretched and morphed, shifting from dog to man.
Nice. Sirius had found an old wand on Cohen's desk—one Cohen had picked up from the mayor's house in Coombe ages ago.
Sirius grabbed the wand, swallowed hard, and cautiously raised it toward Cohen.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He muttered the spell under his breath.
A wisp of silver mist sputtered from the wand's tip, thin and weak, like the last puff of smoke from a dying chimney.
"Damn it…"
Sirius shook the wand in frustration, annoyed that he barely had any happy emotions left to summon a Patronus.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He tried again. Still nothing.
"Want me to show you how it's done?" Cohen couldn't watch anymore. His soul slipped back into his body, and he sat up in bed. "You're running a little low on happiness."
Cohen wasn't lying. After twelve years in Azkaban, the Dementors had pretty much drained Sirius dry of any joy.
Seeing Cohen rise from the bed in an eerie, stiff motion, Sirius instinctively stumbled back a few steps.
There was something familiar about Cohen—a faint Dementor-like aura. Most people might not notice it, but Sirius had spent twelve years surrounded by Dementors. Even if the scent was weaker than the smell of frying fish sticks downstairs, he could pick it out.
Sirius had no idea why this kid—who looked human but was definitely some kind of Dementor-like evil creature—was in Rose and Edward's house, posing as a child. But Harry was here too—which meant this thing might be planning to make a move on him.
The bone-deep fear of Dementors screamed at Sirius to run, but his concern for Harry drove him to do something stupid yet oddly heroic—
"Stay away from my godson!"
Sirius tossed the wand aside and lunged at Cohen like a wild dog.