Did Voldemort just track down Draco?
"Wait—hold up! Looks like Harry's spotted the Golden Snitch!" Ron blurted out suddenly.
The gloomy sky finally let loose a light drizzle. Harry and a Bludger zipped through the rain, one chasing the other. But unlike before when he was just dodging, this time Harry was clearly going after something specific.
Even though Draco had been totally zoned out, he snapped back to reality. He swooped right up to Harry's side—there was still a chance to turn this around. His Nimbus 2001 was faster than Harry's Nimbus 2000, after all.
With the rain coming down, it was tough to keep an eye on both a rival flying ahead and a walnut-sized ball at the same time. So when Harry started faking Draco out with tricky moves, Draco had no choice but to follow his lead and weave around too.
The two of them were getting farther and farther from the fleeing Golden Snitch—which was exactly what Harry wanted. He'd taken control of the chase now. He needed to use these roundabout tactics to put more distance between him and Draco. That way, he could snag the Snitch first. In a straight-up chase, he'd lose for sure.
The match was getting intense, but up in the stands, Cohen wasn't all that invested in who won.
He had bigger things on his mind.
If Voldemort had gotten to Malfoy, there was no telling whether Malfoy would spill the beans about Lucius handing that diary over to Cohen.
The Malfoys falling apart was small potatoes. The real problem was Cohen losing a major pipeline for racking up sin points and goodwill points.
Voldemort was like a walking, talking generator for both of those—Cohen just had to brush up against him to cash in big time. He couldn't let things slide into pure enemy territory so easily.
After all, an archenemy's an archenemy. There's no turning them into—
"Hermione, stop covering your face! Look—Harry's got it—Bloody hell, Harry's in trouble!" Ron shoved Hermione excitedly at first, but his face went white as a sheet a second later.
Harry took a hit from a Bludger—and then he fell off his broom.
Madam Hooch, the referee, blew her whistle and declared Gryffindor the winner.
The Gryffindor crowd jumped up and rushed toward the stairs, eager to check on Harry. Cohen tagged along with the mob, but he couldn't follow the Gryffindors to the hospital wing with Harry right now.
They didn't need another gawker like Cohen there. He had to track down Malfoy and figure out what was going on.
After the match, the Slytherin team trudged glumly toward the locker room. Malfoy changed in silence, bolting out without even a goodbye to his teammates.
Cohen intercepted him on the way back to the common room, yanking him into a hallway bathroom.
Why did this suddenly feel like a school bully move?
"Ah—you—" Malfoy stammered, his eyes darting nervously.
In a situation , Cohen didn't even need to say anything.
Real interrogation pros only need the simplest tricks.
Cohen crossed his arms and stared at him quietly.
"What—" Malfoy swallowed hard, sneaking a quick glance at Cohen.
The pressure had been building up for days. The Dark Lord wanted him—a student—to kill someone? How was that even possible? Who starts killing people in school? What if he got caught? Was he going to end up in Azkaban?
"You… you know?" he blurted out.
Talk about a fast confession! Cohen figured it'd take ages to crack him—Malfoy caved in three seconds flat.
"Help me—he told me to kill someone—I… I…" Malfoy pleaded. "I couldn't tell anyone—"
"So you just spilled it to me?" Cohen struggled to keep a straight face. "I haven't even threatened you yet. And isn't it normal for him to ask you to kill someone? It'd be weirder if Voldemort wanted you to be a model student."
"But I…" Malfoy hesitated. "Wait—there's something you need to know. He's got it out for you… He told me to pin some attack on you. I'm so confused—I thought you were on his side—so I didn't mention the diary my dad gave you…"
"Good call not saying anything. If you had, your family would've been toast," Cohen nodded. "Lucky for you, he's just a wisp of a soul right now and can't use Legilimency."
Malfoy stared at Cohen, dumbfounded.
"Let's not drag kids into this kind of mess," Cohen said. "You've got a leaky mouth, though. I'll tweak your memory in a sec so you don't blab and get your family on Voldemort's hit list. You should be thanking me."
Malfoy couldn't shake how weird this all sounded. Erasing his memory might actually keep the Dark Lord from finding out his family screwed up by giving away the diary…
"But I already told him—about you wanting to bring him back," Malfoy said uneasily. "Will that mess anything up? He seemed pretty happy about it."
"Then he's got every reason to be," Cohen replied. "And yeah, that's my plan."
"But why's he still telling me to frame you?" Malfoy asked, puzzled. "Aren't you two supposed to be—"
"Because he wants me too much," Cohen raised an eyebrow. "Probably hopes I'll break with the good guys over a misunderstanding. It's not hard to figure out."
"And you're not mad?"
"Would you get mad at food for tricking you?" Cohen said calmly.
The stress piling up had almost made him forget Cohen was a Dementor. Maybe to Cohen, people were just… like that.
"Enough chit-chat. No point dragging this out—I'm wiping some of your memories next," Cohen said, pulling out his wand.
"Wait—can you make him come after you… or someone else instead?" Malfoy panicked. "I don't want—"
"What are you scared of? If it gets out, just say Voldemort forced you," Cohen said. "Besides, I've got a next step planned—relax, memory tweaks are quick."
After giving Malfoy's memory a major overhaul, Cohen let the dazed kid stumble out of the bathroom.
Funny, last year he'd sucked Malfoy's happiness dry as punishment in this same first-floor bathroom…
Now, Malfoy's memory had no trace of Lucius handing Cohen the diary—or their little chat just now. Instead, it was replaced with a fake one: "Cohen's investigating the Chamber of Secrets and traced it to Malfoy; Voldemort's hideout with Malfoy's about to be exposed."
Once Malfoy snapped out of it, he'd run straight to Voldemort with that story. Then Cohen could gauge what Voldemort really thought of him…
"This feels so weird," Cohen muttered.
Back in the Room of Requirement, after filling the Earl in on the plan, it still felt off.
"I've seen this before!" the Earl piped up. "Two stubborn jerks both waiting for the other to make the first move—"