"I did get permission from Professor Dumbledore, Professor," Cohen said quickly. "Professor Dumbledore agreed..."
"We got permission too—" Harry added, sounding a bit uncertain.
"Aside from Cohen, did Professor Dumbledore approve your absence notes?" Professor McGonagall asked sternly. "You could have run into trouble! It's very dangerous outside the school – there are all sorts of dark wizards wandering around, and you, Potter, do you have any idea how many people out there want to harm you?"
The three of them lowered their heads in unison.
Standing to the side, Cohen suddenly felt surprisingly smug.
"I've never encountered anything like this – so many students skipping class all at once –"
"We're not going to be expelled, are we..." Ron thought suddenly, feeling a prickle of horror.
"If there's a next time, you'll be saying goodbye to Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall said coldly.
This was really just to scare them; Professor McGonagall had never actually expelled a normal student – unless they genuinely didn't want to be at school anymore.
"Oh, thank goodness..." Harry breathed a sigh of relief.
"But you will be punished," Professor McGonagall said. "A week's detention each, and fifty points deducted."
"No..." Harry said, horrified. "Professor, the term's almost over – the House Cup –"
"Fifty points deducted, Potter, from everyone," Professor McGonagall said sternly. "And from my House – I hope you understand how serious this is, and don't let anything like this happen again!"
Finally, Professor McGonagall let them go, but all four of them received notes on the Transfiguration lessons they had missed while away.
Thanks to the notes, Hermione was clearly much more relaxed on the way back to the common room, but Ron and Harry weren't feeling so good.
"A hundred and fifty points gone..." Harry said heartbrokenly. "That's it... the House Cup's finished..."
"Didn't you guys think about the consequences before you left..." Cohen said, holding his forehead.
"School rules aren't as important as friends," Hermione said, shaking her head. "We figured that out in our first year, didn't we?"
"The good news is everyone's alive," Ron said glumly. "The bad news is everyone's alive – we're going to have to put up with the Slytherins' teasing, a hundred and fifty points..."
Bad news is always worst right after it happens, like the points being taken from Gryffindor.
For the first few days, some other students were annoyed with Harry and the others about it – but soon enough, everyone just moved on.
Because on Friday of the second week, Slytherin's points suddenly plummeted.
The reason was that three students had snuck into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night and were caught by Hagrid –
"They probably wanted another look at the Chimera,"
Hagrid explained when Cohen and the others arrived at his hut.
"After we learned about the Chimera last lesson, students were bound to want another look at it... but unlucky for them, Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were here at the time, so they couldn't get away..."
"Roar..." The lion part of the Chimera let out a soft growl from Hagrid's bed.
Hagrid tossed it a piece of dragon meat.
"Hagrid, you're going to spoil that lion," Cohen said with a frown. "It's not going to start lying around expecting me to feed it too, is it?"
The lion chewed on the dragon meat with a grumble, as if it hadn't heard what Cohen said.
[Those three students were taking pictures of us,] the Long-Horned Water Snake said to Harry – Harry was the only one besides Cohen who could understand it. [I doubt that's a good thing.]
"They probably just wanted to report you," Ron said, sounding unexpectedly clever. "Chimeras are forbidden creatures."
"Why were Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall here?" Harry asked.
"Was it about the Chimera too?" Hermione asked worriedly. "I said this plan was dangerous..."
"They came to check how safe the Chimera was," Hagrid said, scratching his head. "The goat part was much better at explaining things than I was – when Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall came to ask about it, I was just mumbling and couldn't explain properly..."
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"Dumbledore told me the outcome of this," Cohen said. "We're pretending this Chimera was just passing through – happened to bump into Hagrid, and Hagrid just happened to tell the students a bit about this creature – after all, the Ministry of Magic can't catch a Chimera anyway."
"But at least last lesson was a success," Hagrid said. "Everyone really liked the Chimera, I bet Acromantulas will be popular too –"
"Don't!" Ron quickly stopped him. "The Chimera was only popular because the goat talking was so weird –"
"Well then it's even more likely!" Hagrid said happily. "Guess what? Aragog can talk too!"
Ron couldn't talk Hagrid out of it, but Hagrid's plan was definitely never going to work.
Because Aragog simply refused to show up – Hagrid even planned to ask Cohen to try and persuade him.
"You seem to be very popular with magical creatures," Hagrid said hopefully. "The unicorns are doing great with you, maybe Aragog will be convinced by you..."
"Me?" Cohen pointed to himself. "I'm worried it might have a stress reaction..."
Right now, Cohen smelled faintly of Sysocko (ever since Sysocko found out Cohen could turn into a snake, he'd cling to Cohen whenever he went into the case), and Acromantulas probably didn't have such bad memories – there was no way Cohen, the evil creature who nearly destroyed their colony, would seem "popular"...
"Just give it a try!" Hagrid thought Cohen was just being shy.
But the final result was very unexpected for Cohen.
On Saturday afternoon, Hagrid took Cohen with him to talk to Aragog about the class...
Aragog agreed.
"Brilliant!" Hagrid said happily.
"..."
Cohen looked at Aragog's eight blind eyes and the 'fear' emotions coming off him.
It felt like threatening an old man with a knife...
"..." Aragog faced Cohen just as calmly. The only sounds in the air were Hagrid's rambling and the clicking of the surrounding Acromantulas' mandibles.
"So, that's settled!" Hagrid said. "Don't you worry, Aragog, the young wizards these days are much more open-minded, they even accepted the Chimera – speaking of which, would you mind if some young wizards rode on you?"
"No..."
Aragog instinctively wanted to refuse, but Cohen's scent in the air kept 'reminding' him,
"No problem..."
"See! I told you you're popular with magical creatures!" Hagrid said happily, patting Cohen on the back. "Aragog was all shy about meeting people before –"