Looks like Quirrell's finally about to make his move!
Cohen was pretty pleased with this setup—his *Dungeons & Dragons* sandbox campaign was getting old, and he was itching for a new source of entertainment.
Late that night, Cohen slipped back into the Gryffindor common room. It was a time when every student *should* have been in bed, but instead, he spotted three shadowy figures huddled together, clearly plotting something.
"Who's there?!"
Harry snapped his head toward the portrait hole, alert as ever. When Cohen climbed through, Harry let out a relieved breath.
"Are you guys planning a rebellion?" Cohen accused playfully, getting the first word in. "Up this late at night…"
"Cohen, I overheard something today!" Harry yanked Cohen into their little circle, his voice urgent. "Outside Quirrell's office! I heard him give in!"
"Quirrell's office?"
Cohen frowned. That didn't add up—Harry shouldn't have been able to hear anything so easily. Cohen had specifically warned Quirrell to keep things under wraps.
"Yeah!" Harry tried to keep his voice down, but it was no use—he was still loud. "I heard Quirrell say, 'Fine… fine…' Snape must've threatened him into spilling how to get past his protections!"
"But what about Hagrid?" Hermione cut in, her tone steadier than Harry's. "Remember, Harry? Hagrid's got that three-headed dog. Snape can't get by that." She always stayed level-headed when Harry got worked up.
"Hagrid…" Harry's face went pale in an instant.
"What's wrong, Harry? You don't look so good…" Ron asked, concern creeping into his voice.
"Hagrid might've already let it slip," Cohen said, knowing exactly why Harry looked like that.
He needed to lure Harry and the others to the fourth-floor corridor. Thanks to Dumbledore's magic, "only someone who wants to find the Philosopher's Stone but not use it can get it from the mirror."
Cohen and Quirrell definitely didn't fit that bill.
The mirror couldn't read Cohen's mind directly, and besides, he absolutely had ulterior motives for the Stone.
So Harry was the key piece here.
"What?" Hermione and Ron said in unison.
"You think so too, Cohen?"
Harry's heart pounded harder when he realized Cohen shared his suspicion.
"That day Hagrid went to buy butterbeer for Cohen's unicorn, he ran into some hooded guy who'd lost a dragon egg in a card game. Hagrid's always wanted a fire dragon—and some random stranger in a pub just *happens* to have a dragon egg in his pocket? How many people walk around with dragon eggs all day? That's illegal! Doesn't it seem way too convenient for Hagrid?"
Harry blurted it all out in one breath, panting by the end.
"And one more thing," Cohen added fuel to the fire. "Snape's a Death Eater—I heard it from Quirrell."
"What?!" Ron's eyes went wide.
"What's a Death Eater?" Harry asked, clueless.
"Voldemort's old followers," Cohen explained, ready to escalate things. "If Snape gets the Stone, he might be able to bring Voldemort back."
"Then how can Dumbledore let him teach here?!" Harry felt like his eardrums were ringing. "He's one of Voldemort's people!"
"Can we *not* say that name…" Ron shivered. To wizard kids, it was like the boogeyman from a bedtime horror story.
"I shouldn't have let Ali go to Hagrid's…" Cohen said, faking regret.
"It's not your fault, Cohen. None of us knew," Harry said, brushing off any chance Cohen could be involved. He trusted him completely and tried to reassure him. "As long as we can stop it—"
"Hagrid might not have said anything yet," Hermione interjected, trying to calm Harry down. "Don't jump the gun, Harry. We can ask Hagrid tomorrow—I'm worried you're about to charge out of the castle right now."
"And Dumbledore's still here," Ron added, nervous that Harry might break curfew in a fit of impulse. "As long as Dumbledore's around, the Stone's safe."
---
Hermione and Ron managed to talk Harry down, pointing out that Gryffindor couldn't afford to lose any more house points. For now, Dumbledore seemed like the Stone's best safeguard.
Cohen could hear Harry tossing and turning in the next bed over. Classic Chosen One—too much responsibility weighing him down.
It almost made Cohen, one of the culprits in the next bed, feel a little guilty.
It reminded him of a joke he'd heard in his past life:
In class, the teacher asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. One kid said he wanted to be a cop. The teacher replied, "Then you'd better watch out for your desk mate—he says he wants to rob banks."
Old memories came back to haunt him out of nowhere.
Harry's sleeplessness didn't bother Cohen much, though. Even with the noise next door, Cohen could sleep like a corpse all night.
The next morning, a bleary-eyed Harry shook Cohen and Ron awake.
"Come on, we've got to find Hagrid—now!" Harry urged.
If boys could enter the girls' dorms, Harry probably would've stormed in and dragged Hermione out of bed too.
"Then you'd turn into a creep, Harry," Cohen warned. "*'#ChosenOneCaughtHarassingFemaleClassmate'*—the *Daily Prophet* would plaster you all over the front page."
But the day was doomed to be full of bad news—for Harry, at least.
Hagrid let slip about Fluffy, the three-headed dog. Turns out, all it took was some music to put the beast to sleep.
"I knew it…" Harry left a bewildered Hagrid behind, pulling Cohen and Ron back toward the castle.
---
They ran into Hermione at breakfast.
"What happened to you guys…" She took one look at the mud on their clothes and instantly knew where they'd been. "What did Hagrid say?"
"He spilled it," Harry whispered, leaning close to her. "We've got to tell Professor Dumbledore…"
But worse news hit them.
Throughout breakfast, Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen at the staff table.
And Harry was dead sure Snape was eyeballing them from the staff table with a sinister look.
"We need to check the headmaster's office—maybe Dumbledore's just busy?" Hermione suggested cautiously.
Once the conditions for stealing the Stone were met, Harry would definitely head to the fourth-floor corridor.
That also meant they'd probably get expelled if they were caught—and she, Ron, and Cohen weren't about to let Harry go it alone.
"But where's Dumbledore's office?" Ron asked, lost.
"I know," Cohen piped up. "It's on the eighth floor—not far from the Gryffindor Tower. The entrance is hidden behind a gargoyle that needs a password."
After all these months, the password probably wasn't "cockroach cluster" anymore.
"But the password I used last time has probably changed," Cohen warned them preemptively.
He was right.
When Cohen led them to the headmaster's office, the stone gargoyle wouldn't budge.
"Cockroach cluster? Lemon drop? Honeydukes toffee?"
Cohen tried a bunch, but the statue didn't twitch.
"It's been months—it's definitely changed," Hermione said, frowning. "But—"
"What are you doing here?"
Suddenly, Professor McGonagall's voice rang out behind them.
She stood there, lips pursed, staring sternly at the four students.
"We need to see Professor Dumbledore," Harry said quickly. "It's about the Philosopher's Stone…"
(End of Chapter)