"Hiss—"
Harry in the next bed gasped—he clutched the scar on his forehead, looking like he'd been woken up by the pain.
"Did you guys eat something bad yesterday?" Ron, still half-asleep, heard the noise outside the covers and asked groggily.
Cohen felt it was more likely the snake he'd sensed in his dream had eaten something bad—the school's pipes should be the Basilisk's territory; only it could roam freely in them.
But why was he dreaming from its perspective? That Basilisk couldn't possibly be part of Cohen's being—it hadn't been released for fifty years.
Those researchers certainly couldn't control a Basilisk that had lived for thousands of years; Parseltongue wasn't some common thing, and now only Voldemort truly spoke Parseltongue; Harry's ability was more of an "inherited" fragment of Voldemort's soul.
At breakfast, Hermione's greeting to Harry was a little stiff; she was still somewhat displeased with how Harry and Ron had arrived at school—though she greeted Cohen quite normally.
Their first class was in the afternoon, Professor Sprout's Herbalism class, so they didn't wake Ron, who was still lazing in bed, after all, he had driven half the day yesterday.
Harry quietly asked Cohen about waking up with a start.
"Did you have a nightmare too?" Harry asked somewhat uneasily. "I was woken up by the pain in my scar—I felt like..."
"Voldemort?" Cohen frowned.
Harry's scar was a Voldemort detector, burning with pain when the "Voldemort concentration" was high.
Cohen felt it was indeed possible that Voldemort had slipped back—considering Cohen was an "insider" at the school, it wasn't impossible for Voldemort to have a new plan.
But his dream was definitely not Voldemort's doing; Cohen felt it was more like a connection, like a kinship—had the unknown giant snake that escaped the laboratory come looking for him? Damn it, one Basilisk alone created "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," now if two come along, they'll turn the school upside down!
"When he was in pain last time, he was planning to steal the Philosopher's Stone…" Harry said softly. "I think it was a warning—a warning that danger was coming—and on my birthday…"
Harry told Cohen about Dobby stopping him from going to school.
Dobby did try—but this time Harry wasn't warned by the Ministry of Magic for "casting spells outside of school," all thanks to the Nortons living next door, though Harry himself was completely unaware of the reason.
"But that house-elf wouldn't tell me who was plotting 'terrible things' at school." Harry's detective instincts were kicking in. "I suspect that Ron and I not being able to get into the station was also related to this."
"But there shouldn't be any treasures at school this year, right?" Cohen was a little confused about Voldemort's purpose in returning to Hogwarts; he couldn't just create a body for him.
"Do you have any gut feeling?"
"I don't know," Harry said honestly.
Their conversation didn't last long, because after Ron, who had just woken up, rushed to the Great Hall, the owl postman arrived—
"Why are you all up so early!" Ron asked, utterly bewildered. "There wasn't even one this morning—"
Thud!
An old owl fell into the cold soup bowl in front of Ron.
"Errol!" Ron called out, grabbing the owl by its talons and pulling it out.
"Oh…no—" Ron cried out.
"It's alright, it's still alive." Hermione nudged the owl.
"It's that…" Ron pointed tremblingly to the bright red letter the owl had brought.
"Will it explode?" Harry moved back a little.
"It's a howling letter," Cohen warned, "Cover your ears—"
Before Ron could even open the letter, it seemed to sprout a mouth—
it berated him in Mrs. Weasley's voice, the volume like a movie theater's speakers turned up to the maximum, threatening to lift the invisible ceiling of Hogwarts.
Everyone in the Great Hall turned to look at the source of the roaring letter. Ron huddled in his chair, only his bright red forehead visible. Harry, head bowed and silent, had also turned red at the sound of his own name.
Mrs. Weasley berated Ron almost without repeating herself for fifteen minutes, until everyone's ears were ringing. Only then did the roaring stop, and the letter suddenly burst into flames, curling up into ashes.
"Terrible…" Cohen clicked his tongue. "I can't even imagine what it would be like if my mother had sent it—I bet it would have scared my dad to tears."
"I'm too ashamed to show my face…" Ron said hoarsely.
"Well, did you expect anything else? Ron, you know you—" Hermione stopped reading—in fact, she had long since lost focus.
"Don't tell me I deserved it," Ron said irritably.
Although Ron and Harry had lost face, they had won back Hermione—Hermione felt they had been punished enough and spoke to them much more normally.
This meant they could finish some of the more difficult papers they hadn't completed today—by asking Hermione for help.
"Cohen, have you finished all your homework?"
Ron asked in surprise when he saw Cohen carrying a suitcase, heading to Hagrid's place, in the common room that morning.
"Finished, of course. Who leaves summer homework until school starts?" Cohen shrugged. "Good luck to you guys. I'm off to give Hagrid some comfort—Norbert seems a bit malnourished from eating only sheep all the time. Considering none of my pets have lived more than a year, I need to take some remedial measures…"
"He's only finished his homework because of his father,"
the drunken Earl said smugly to Harry and Ron after Cohen left, slumped on the fireplace.
"I finished his homework in just one night—hiccup—a little paper, nothing to brag about…" The weather on the first day of school wasn't good ; the sky was overcast and gloomy, looking like it could rain at any moment.
When Cohen went outside, the little Dementor peeked out from the horned camel skin pouch hanging at his waist—but it shrank back when Cohen looked down. It
really did look quite like the "good Dementor" in that Quixote article about Dementors; perhaps the little Dementor Mr. O'Connor saw was it.
Crossing the grounds, Cohen arrived at Hagrid's hut.
Hagrid was tending to cabbages in the vegetable garden, which were about the size of a child; these vegetables had definitely been enchanted with a swelling charm.
However, they looked quite affected by insects, with large and small insect holes all over them.
"Oh, Cohen!" Hagrid saw Cohen and warmly led him into the house. "How was your birthday present? Actually, I was thinking about whether to give you a leather belt made of lizard skin or just a live lizard…"
"I guess the Earl rejected your second idea," Cohen said. "Lizards eat birds—"
Hagrid's birthday present to Cohen was a leather bag made of lizard skin. This magical bag would retract when a stranger approached, and only the owner could put their hand inside.
Cohen had a magical idea—but because of ****, he couldn't say it aloud.
"I really like the gift, thank you, Hagrid," Cohen said. "I brought the box—Norbert has grown very fast this summer, almost seven meters long."
Cohen handed the box to Hagrid.
"But I feel like it's been losing some scales lately. It might be because it's been eating sheep all the time and its diet is a bit unbalanced. Do you think you could get it something else to eat to balance things out?"
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(End of Chapter)