For the rest of the time, Feng Braun explained everything that had happened to him to Cohen.
Originally, he was just using his status as a Silver Key to help Cohen find others on the Silver Key list – and he'd actually contacted one of them, this old man...
"Wait a minute..." Edward frowned, suddenly remembering something:
"You mean you, as a Silver Key member, have been colluding with my son to track down other members, and this whole thing was done completely behind my and your mother's backs, and none of you would have mentioned a word if I hadn't shown up..."
"Uh—your dad didn't know?" Feng Braun asked, a chill running down his spine as he looked at Cohen.
"I was practically winking at you until my face seized up," Cohen said, sounding disappointed. "Honestly, I shouldn't expect any quick thinking from you..."
"Just how many dangerous things have you been up to that your mother and I don't know about!" Edward exclaimed, eyes wide. "Aren't you supposed to be at school? Is this how Dumbledore lets students run wild these days?"
"Feng Braun is a professor," Cohen said with a shrug.
"I actually was..." Feng Braun said cautiously. "For about half a semester last year... but let's be clear, your son was the one who asked me to find the Silver Key –"
"I'm going to have a serious word with Dumbledore!" Edward said angrily. "And you – Cohen!"
"Those people are going to make our family's life a misery," Cohen said. "Either I deal with them preemptively, or they'll start looking for ways to take you and Rose out."
"..." Edward thought back to the time he was attacked by some strange wizards last year.
"It's all a bit complicated to explain..." Cohen said. "The Silver Key seems to think I'm going to destroy the world – which is clearly not what I'm doing at the moment."
"You and your wife are Cohen's last ties to the world," Feng Braun explained to Edward. "At least, that's how the Silver Key members see it, so they're willing to do anything to achieve their aims."
"..." Edward didn't say anything else, leaning against the edge of the table and thinking.
"What about me? What about me?" The Earl flew onto the table next to them. "Don't I count as one of Cohen's ties? We're so close –"
"They even kidnapped Mr. Frondo and didn't bother with you," Cohen said, looking at the Earl with a touch of pity. "Don't lose heart, though; your time will come."
The Earl still held onto hope, looking at Feng Braun, desperately hoping for a sign that "The Earl is also on the Silver Key's hit list."
"Ermmmm..." Feng Braun looked away awkwardly.
The result was clear: the Silver Key had never considered harming Cohen's owl.
"Blast it," the Earl huffed, flying away to the side.
"But they didn't actually plan to kidnap this cat for Cohen either," Feng Braun explained. "At least, this old man didn't. He just thought the soul of this cat, which can apparently come back to life repeatedly, could be used to stop that 'replica Cohen' from falling apart..."
"Where's Frondo's soul?" the Earl asked.
"In that black bottle over there, I saw it," Cohen said, pointing towards a dark glass bottle on the old man's workbench. Cohen could see Mr. Frondo sleeping inside.
"But he never actually managed it," Feng Braun said. "That 'replica Cohen' just couldn't absorb the cat's soul. Its soul was protected by some kind of magic. The fake Cohen could only carry Frondo's soul around inside it, but couldn't destroy it."
"I bet Voldemort would be absolutely sobbing if he heard that," Cohen said, clicking his tongue. "I actually thought the Silver Key had figured out how to extract a creature's soul..."
"Smash!" The Earl shattered the black glass jar.
Freed from its confinement, Frondo's soul quickly sought out Cohen and zipped right into the pocket at Cohen's waist.
"Oh, honestly, that was dreadful, I was just stuck talking to the dark opening of the bottle with no reply whatsoever –" An owl's head poked out from Cohen's pocket.
"Quiet," Cohen said, poking Mr. Frondo's face with his wand. "Right, Feng Braun, carry on. What exactly was your part in all this?"
"You don't have to be so cruel..." Feng Braun said, sounding stung. "I couldn't beat the old man, and I was forced to be his assistant for over a week because I'm a Silver Key member, getting shouted at for not working fast enough, even being called lazy for sleeping – the old man didn't seem to care if he died, I never once saw him sleep..."
"Sounds like you weren't much help at all..." Cohen sighed.
"Not being useful was the most useful thing!" Feng Braun said, raising his voice. "I could hardly try and lend a hand while he was murdering people, could I?"
"Did the old man set up all that business in the hotel?" Cohen asked, changing the subject. "The people with the crow heads, those little notes talking about immortality?"
"No, he was just doing his research down here," Feng Braun said. "The hotel was abandoned ages ago. The stuff upstairs was something the 'replica Cohen' decided to do on its own. Its actions were theoretically a kind of piecing together and imitation of fragmented memories from your past..."
"Your past?" Now that Mr. Frondo was rescued, the Earl seemed much more energetic. "You used to run a hotel?"
"That's clearly from some sort of story or something!" Cohen said. "It's a plot I've read about before – and where on earth would you find people with crow heads in real life?"
"Also..." Feng Braun expertly pulled out a large stack of parchment bound like books from various corners of the lab. "Phew – the old man's research was a replication based on the experiment records from Boke Manor."
"They want to create another Cohen?" Edward asked suddenly. "A complete 'Cohen'?"
"The Silver Key essentially broke apart because of internal squabbles and the Ministry of Magic raid. Now they're scattered all over, not talking to each other, and they don't even have the same goals anymore..." Feng Braun explained. "But if you're just talking about this old man, then yes, he absolutely wanted to create another Cohen to speed up the end of the world – that was his initial goal, until that 'replica Cohen' actually spoke."
"One person dies, another gains revelation," Edward murmured.
"That's from that story too," Cohen said, covering his face. "It's hard to believe someone would take that seriously – but then again, considering how much it sounds like a prophecy from a wizard's point of view... it actually seems quite reasonable that he'd believe it."
"But the replicated Cohen always just completely fell apart very quickly," Feng Braun said. "There was no solution for that issue in the experiment reports..."
Edward knew exactly how to solve it – and he also knew why this replica Cohen plan had failed.
"It would have been properly haunted if it had worked," Cohen said, shaking his head.
After taking possession of the parchment, which Cohen basically saw as "production reports," they needed to come up with a believable reason for why they were there at all.
Dark wizards, a basement filled with chaotic magical traces, an unconscious Muggle, a second-floor room that looked like it had been hit by a bomb...
The Ministry of Magic people would eventually find this place unless they were complete buffoons. To avoid any trouble later on, Edward came up with an excellent plan.
After all, Edward wasn't exactly without contacts within the Ministry of Magic...
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