"Help!"
A faint cry echoed from the basement. With the bald wizard Rupert's death, the magic binding the prisoners had naturally fizzled out.
Hearing Tom and Jerry's shouts, Cohen suddenly remembered there was still a bunch of Muggles locked up downstairs.
"Whoops, almost forgot," Cohen said, smacking his forehead. But he didn't rush to save them.
They wouldn't die if he left them a bit longer. First, Cohen needed to grab everything valuable here—there was still plenty of room in the horned beast hide pouch where little Dementor Mick lived.
Top priority: the bottled emotions on the shelves.
"No snacking on these!" Cohen warned, tugging Mick's hood. "We'll split them up after I've studied them."
Mick nodded in agreement—it didn't eat much anyway.
Next up were the research materials on the second floor. Cohen stuffed stacks of notes and reference books into the pouch without a second thought.
"Done," Cohen said after double-checking he hadn't missed anything, then headed back to the ground floor.
"Help…" Tom's voice was hoarse from shouting.
The Chimera beast lounged by the door, looking like it was waiting for Cohen to take it home.
For the sake of goodwill points, Cohen planned to casually rescue the five Muggles and two Muggle kids downstairs.
But he couldn't let them blab about him. Cohen was still an underage wizard—if the Ministry of Magic caught wind of this, they'd lose their minds.
So, to save the world from himself, Cohen needed to wipe "Cohen" from these Muggles' memories. Casting an Obliviate on seven people, though? Way too much hassle.
Then he remembered the Chimera beast had recently wiped the memories of Mayor Lewis and those two kids.
"Wait—don't eat that guy—seriously, stop!"
Cohen dashed over and punched the lion head.
The lion had opened its jaws to chomp down on Lewis's corpse. It paused when Cohen yelled—then pretended not to hear and went right back to preparing for a bite.
"Whine…" (the sound of a guilty goof-up)
Still, it drooled over the meaty corpse in front of it.
**[The dumb lion's always like this,]** the snake head hissed, scolding the lion.
"Be good," the black goat soothed the lion. "There'll be better food soon."
"We need to act like we were never here," Cohen explained. "You'll get sheep when we're back."
Then Cohen looked up at the black goat head.
"How'd you erase that fat Muggle's memory earlier?"
"The lion's got some leopard blood," the goat explained. "It can use its eyes to mess with other creatures' memories—like making them forget we exist. Doesn't work as well on wizards, though, so the lion adds a puff of fire."
"Can it only erase memories about you guys?" Cohen asked, a little disappointed.
"What's wrong?" the goat asked kindly. "It can help with more if you need."
"I want to wipe the Muggles downstairs' memories of me. I could use an Obliviate, but I'm too lazy to tweak them one by one," Cohen said.
"Roar?" The lion nuzzled Cohen's chest, its mane tickling his chin.
Clearly, it could handle that.
---
"Mind helping with the investigation…?"
Memory Eraser Arnold sat bleary-eyed in Martha's living room, scribbling a report with a quill while asking Cohen about last night.
"Cohen was asleep in his room last night—there's no need to grill a thirteen-year-old kid!" Martha snapped, annoyed that Arnold was even questioning a child. "This'll make him feel like he's some kind of criminal!"
"Sorry, it's orders from above. No choice…" Arnold said helplessly. "They specifically told me to check on Cohen Norton."
"It's fine, Mom, just routine stuff," Edward said, calming Martha down. "A couple quick answers, and we're done."
"Honestly, I think the Minister's days are numbered," Arnold griped. "No one sane would waste energy on a underage wizard, especially over a case from a month ago—you were still at school then, right?"
"Yeah," Cohen replied. "So what happened last night? More people go missing in town?"
"No disappearances this time—opposite, actually. The missing folks all came back," Arnold said, scribbling a half-hearted report on parchment. "They were definitely kidnapped—by that mayor, dragged to a farm south of town. They claim they don't remember anything, but I bet they just don't want to admit they teamed up and took him out. That'd be risky in Muggle society, right?"
"Probably," Cohen said, unsure.
"Self-defense gone too far?" Edward guessed.
"All clear, just Muggle crime, nothing to worry about…" Arnold said, sounding relieved but furious from a sleepless night. "Giant shadowy monsters, supernatural vanishings—overtime's bad enough, but I'm the only one stuck doing it! This Ministry's going down soon—it's full of useless idiots—"
"Careful, you look like you're about to burst," Edward said kindly. "Work's always like that."
"That's 'cause you don't *have* to work, Edward," Arnold snapped. "If I had a wife as great as Rose…"
"He said your wife's great," Cohen whispered, sidling up to Edward.
"She's your mom!" Edward bonked Cohen on the head.
"You eyeing my mom?" Cohen shot Arnold a stern look.
"You two done messing around?" Arnold yawned.
After seeing Arnold off, the town settled down.
Last night, Cohen had planned to stage it as a Silver Key crime scene. But when he brought the seven Muggles up, the lion couldn't resist chowing down on the bald wizard—Cohen had only told it not to eat the fat guy's body.
Plans changed. So Cohen scrubbed every trace of magic from the scene, rearranged it into a Muggle kidnapping case, and gave Lewis's corpse some "artistic touches" to make it look like he'd been hacked by a rusty axe in self-defense.
Cohen was getting way too good at playing the criminal.
"Come here a sec," Cohen said, pulling Edward mysteriously into a room.
"What's up? Why can't you just—"
"I caught a new pet last night," Cohen said.
"…"
Edward froze, staring at Cohen.
"Wanna see?" Cohen asked eagerly. "It's in the box—don't worry, it's safe. Well, it can talk, at least."
(End of Chapter)