When Cohen woke up in the morning, he saw the snowy landscape outside the Gryffindor Tower window. It looked like it had snowed heavily last night.
He wasn't sure if Carlton's brother, Miguel, had found the stone tablet under the door, but Cohen planned to eat breakfast before he started probing for information on the Silver Key.
And he also needed to think about buying Christmas presents.
Originally, students who stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas could only send out gifts through Owl Post.
But because Cohen had Herbert, the newly appointed professor, as his backing, he could go to Hogsmeade without a problem, bypassing Filch.
And Filch was in a state of torment, racking his brains for a way to stop Cohen from having a good time, but failing to come up with anything.
"What? You're unhappy because I'm happy?" Cohen said to the grumpy Filch. "A caretaker of your level should be..."
"Alright, alright, Cohen," Herbert said, pulling Cohen away from the door, looking embarrassed. "Don't bully him..."
"He targets students first," Cohen said, justifying himself. "I'm just playing into his persecution complex. He thinks every student is going to mock him for being a Squib, but in reality, most of the time, students are no different from Squibs at school anyway."
"But I have to act as a supervisor, after all, we're both on staff..." Herbert sighed. "I remember our caretaker back in my day was a mean old fellow who liked to brand people on their bums. Does your caretaker do that too?"
"He likes to pull people's guts out. The Weasley twins told me, but I don't think Dumbledore would approve of that kind of corporal punishment..." Cohen said. "Let's split up later. You go buy your presents, and I'll go buy mine."
"What do you want to get this year?" Herbert asked with a chuckle.
"It's not about what the gift is, it's about who it's from," Cohen said. "I'd be happy even if the package was a pile of shining Galleons..."
"That's not high enough?" Herbert ruffled Cohen's hair. "You get to have your cake and eat it too."
"Alright, alright. Meet me at the Three Broomsticks after you're done shopping. I'm going to order a butterbeer and then go cyber-flirt." Cohen left as soon as they entered Hogsmeade.
"What is 'cyber-flirting'?" Herbert wanted to ask, but Cohen had already run off toward Gladrags Wizardwear.
Cohen was here to buy socks for Dobby and balls of yarn for the little Catoblepas in his trunk. Ever since the lion taught it to chase yarn balls, the Catoblepas had fallen completely in love with the activity. But there was only one ball in the trunk, and the lion was being a very selfish elder, unwilling to share even a small bit.
So Cohen had to come here to buy one for it.
"For a cat?" The shop owner asked curiously, seeing Cohen buy two large, grey balls of yarn.
"How so?" Cohen asked.
"Students who come to Hogwarts to buy yarn balls all own cats, but this ball seems a bit too big for a cat..."
"The two cats I own are quite large, and they might still be growing," Cohen said nonchalantly.
"Ten Sickles in total," the shop owner wisely stopped asking questions, because the only thing bigger than these yarn balls was a lion. The worst thing you could do in business was to ask too many questions about things you shouldn't.
Besides buying clothes, Cohen also needed to randomly pick a few things from Dervish and Banges for Harry and the others, get some treats for the animals at the Magical Menagerie, and pick out a few more books by British authors for the goat at the bookshop.
However, in the Magical Menagerie, Cohen ran into a familiar old snake—a blue-striped pet snake that greeted Cohen as soon as he entered the shop.
It was the same little female snake that Thistle had stolen for Cohen from this very shop in his third year. Later, because they couldn't stand each other, it was returned.
"Want to buy this snake?" The Magical Menagerie owner asked hopefully.
He still had vivid memories of the weirdness of that night. The snake had also secretly slithered back after being stolen by the invisible troll, which often kept him up at night, terrified that the invisible troll with a strange fascination for blue-striped pet snakes would return.
But the snake was also very expensive, and the owner couldn't bear to let it go.
[No]
"No, I won't," Cohen said politely.
---
After finishing his shopping, Cohen stuffed all the bags and packages into his mokeskin pouch.
He hadn't used the backpack the system had given him in ages. This system always gave out useless rewards.
"All done?" Herbert had already bought his butterbeer and was waiting for him at a table in the Three Broomsticks.
"Yep," Cohen said. "You'll never guess what I'm getting you for Christmas this year."
"Wool socks?" Herbert guessed.
"I've already given you several pairs. This time it's something with the same core but a different form," Cohen said.
"A hug would also be a good gift," Herbert said with a chuckle, stroking his chin.
"Something more substantial," Cohen said. "No, not that substantial—it's alive."
Alive?
Herbert was a bit confused.
But Christmas was only two days away, so he'd find out soon enough.
By the time they got back to the castle, it was already noon.
After lunch, Cohen went back to the common room, intending to start his chat with Miguel.
There wasn't a single word on the stone tablet yet. Cohen wasn't sure if the other person was nearby, so he wrote a name on it first.
[Miguel]
Soon, Cohen knew for sure that Miguel was looking at the tablet—because a scratch appeared on it.
It certainly wasn't written with a quill, because the triggered repair spell Cohen had placed on it had activated.
The other person was probably startled and dropped the tablet on the floor.
But Miguel seemed to understand what to do very quickly. Cohen had designed the tablet to look like a writing board, making it easy to figure out it was for writing, not for looking at your reflection.
[Who are you? How do you know my name? What is this thing doing at my door? What do you want?] Miguel wrote.
Four questions in a row, which meant the person was worried that a crazy villain was about to rush in and kill his entire family.
[I am Cohen Norton] Cohen wrote. [You are a member of the Silver Key]
[What?] Miguel wrote. [How could you possibly find me? I haven't been disloyal. I haven't done anything disloyal.]
Miguel even misspelled "find," writing "flnd" instead.
[That already proves you are very disloyal] Cohen wrote.
There was a pause before Miguel wrote again, as if he had been shocked by Cohen's revelation.