As soon as she finished speaking, Rose grabbed Cohen and hugged him tight for a long time.
"You know I'm not like most kids," Cohen mumbled, his voice muffled against her. "I don't get all that—"
"You're a kid," Rose cut in. "The best kid in the world. And in my eyes, you always will be."
She planted a kiss on his forehead.
"Rose, where'd you go? Cohen didn't go back to Hogwarts—oh, Cohen's back?" Edward panted, appearing at the bedroom door. He glanced at Rose, then at Cohen, who was already back in the room.
"So… no running away from home?"
"I just wanted to grab something," Cohen said, wriggling out of Rose's arms to explain to Edward. "A little surprise for you guys."
"…"
Edward's face twisted for a second. "Please—*please*—don't tell Martha about this 'surprise.'"
"Ed? Where's breakfast?" Martha's voice floated up from downstairs. "If you haven't started, I'll fry some bacon for us…"
"I'll handle it…" Edward shouted back, turning to head down.
---
Edward and Rose didn't tell Martha that Cohen had gone missing for a bit—and they were right not to. No point in getting her worked up too.
But Edward got downstairs a little too late, and breakfast turned into a plate of charred lumps.
He whipped up some fresh bacon and toast, but Martha's batch didn't get tossed. She not only piled the burnt stuff onto her own plate with tongs, but enthusiastically dished out chunks to Edward, Rose, and Cohen too.
"So, this summer, *never* go to your grandma's alone," Edward whispered to Cohen during breakfast. "She's convinced her cooking beats anything magic can whip up."
"Of course I'm dragging you along," Cohen muttered back. "This… bacon makes me feel like a furnace. Tastes like coal or something."
Still, Cohen choked down a fair bit of the charred meat. Martha was watching him with such eager eyes, like "Cohen liking it" would prove her cooking theory right.
Good thing Cohen's stomach was tough—real coal probably wouldn't kill him either (don't try this at home).
After breakfast, Edward and Rose didn't press Cohen about where he'd gone to "buy candles," and Cohen didn't spill that he'd been wandering Knockturn Alley.
Just imagining it would freak them out—their son sneaking out in the dead of night to a place crawling with shady dark wizards and illegal black magic stuff? Yeah, no.
Life stayed calm right up until Cohen's return to school, the day before the Christmas holidays officially ended.
January 7th.
Outside, the wind howled, rattling the windows and doors. The sky was a gloomy mess, like spoiled mashed potatoes.
The weather didn't bother Martha heading home, though—thanks to Edward getting the house hooked up to the Floo Network, she didn't need to mess with regular transport.
After lunch, Rose got a message from a colleague at *The Times*.
"Elvis from the newsroom's gone missing," Rose said, flipping through her phonebook with a frown. "In Edinburgh—I think he was there for a story…"
"Isn't that good news?" Edward said from the couch, skimming his paper. "Didn't he have a beef with you? And I remember he's a wizard—old, ugly Irish guy?"
"Who's Elvis?" Cohen asked, leaning in curiously. "A bad guy?"
"Not exactly a bad guy," Edward said with a grin. "But surviving your mom's wrath means he's got some guts. He's an old wizard who stuck around in the Muggle world, works at the same paper as your mom."
"What'd he do to Mom?" Cohen slid closer to Edward. "Steal her article?"
"I think he once hexed an editor with a Confundus Charm just to mess with her," Edward recalled. "Made her pull all-nighters fixing drafts. All because she's a Burke—"
"Because he didn't realize my last name's Norton now—Rose Norton," Rose added. "He hates the Burkes because Caractacus Burke sold his great-granddad a poisoned parchment or something. I've never even met Caractacus—he's been dead forever."
"Sounds about right for wizards," Cohen nodded. "Holding grudges for centuries without even knowing why."
"If he's missing and doesn't show up by February, his workload's dumping on me," Rose said, her face souring. "And knowing him, he's a procrastinator—probably left a mountain of unfinished stuff."
"I bet the Ministry—wait, hold up…" Edward flipped over his *Daily Prophet*, voice spiking. "Elvis McCoy?"
Cohen followed Edward's gaze to the afternoon edition that'd just arrived.
A bold headline snagged his attention.
**"Elderly Wizard Elvis McCoy Kidnapped—Suspected Insanity of 'Silver Key Gathering'"**
The Silver Key was snatching people? Rose's coworker, no less?
Coincidence, or…?
"Silver Key?" Edward muttered, scratching his head. "Why's that sound familiar?"
"Bunch of lunatics," Rose said, setting down the phone she'd just dialed—no point now. "He's probably dead."
"What's the Silver Key?" Cohen asked. "How'd I go to bed and wake up feeling like a Muggle?"
Of course, Cohen knew exactly what the Silver Key was, but he hadn't expected Rose and Edward to know about this cultish group.
"Don't touch it, don't look into it, don't get near it," Rose said sternly. "They're a chaotic bunch of dark wizards with some serious cult vibes."
Well, crap. Cohen was practically their poster boy at Hogwarts.
He couldn't follow Rose's advice this time—the Silver Key was definitely coming for him.
"I won't, and you guys better steer clear too," Cohen warned. "I don't want my parents popping up in the *Daily Prophet* as kidnap victims."
"No chance—I'm home all the time," Edward said. "Except when I'm off at Charing Cross Road playing D&D…"
"Too busy with work to get kidnapped," Rose said, bolting upstairs to her study. With Elvis almost certainly gone for good—or at least out of commission through February—she had to jump on his workload before it buried her.
"So…" Edward finished scanning the paper and leaned toward Cohen, whispering, "Wanna check on your fire dragon? I'm thinking of mixing up its menu. Think it'd go for honey-glazed meat?"
Edward had gotten comfy with Norbert by now—figured out it was just a big dog that looked, sounded, and breathed fire like a dragon. ("Next time, I'm shoving this thing into the kids' campaign," he'd said when he caught Norbert wagging its tail like a pup. "Bet they'd either pet its head or blast it with an arrow of dragon slaying first.")
Time flew. January 8th, Edward dropped Cohen off at the station for the train back to school.
By some twist of fate, he ran into Luna again.
"Merry Christmas," she said airily.
"Christmas is over," Cohen pointed out helpfully.
"But the happiness isn't," Luna chirped. "Plus, my Christmas got delayed."
"You can delay Christmas?" Cohen raised an eyebrow.
What, was Jesus rescheduling his birthday?
"I'm waiting for Dad to finish up—he's been busy with a big project," Luna explained. "It's only Christmas when the family's together, so mine might be in July. Oh—I brought you a *Quibbler* too."
Cohen noticed she had two copies this time.
"How'd you know you'd bump into me again?" he asked.
"Gifts always find a way," Luna said. "You just keep them with you."
This *Quibbler* was different.
It spent pages describing something called "Cave Gladiatorial"—nothing Cohen had ever heard of.
In a moonless night, they'd shove a person and a monster into a cave for a week. Either the person ate the monster, or the monster ate the person.
Whoever won, some magic would twist them together—turning them into a better sacrificial offering.
This belonged in a horror story, not the quirky *Quibbler*.
"Silver Key again…" Cohen spotted the byline. "Luna, this big project your dad's working on—know anything about it?"
"He says it's a surprise," Luna replied.
For her sake, Cohen dropped it.
Telling Luna about the Silver Key wasn't smart. Either her dad was being threatened by them, roped into their mess—or both.
Cohen was planning a big move against them by month's end anyway—no need to drag a first-year into it.
The monster was TBD, but the person was confirmed: old wizard Elvis McCoy.
And the Silver Key had set a meeting with Cohen—in a cave, January 31st.
He'd checked: it was a waning crescent moon, close enough to "no moonlight" to fit the bill.
As for the final sacrifice…
January 31st had no moon, but plenty of stars.
**"Sirius is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, best seen on winter nights."**
Sirius… monster… evil sacrifice…
Basilisk?
It clicked—a creature that seemed to fit.
A basilisk was born under Sirius's glow, hatched from a chicken egg by a toad.
And in the Silver Key's prayer book, the first line was about a person, the second about a snake.
**"You see the deadly snake, and it hisses the tale of fate."**
Were these nuts planning to use a basilisk as their cave monster?
**(End of Chapter)**