Harry's side of things was sorted, but Voldemort's wasn't so simple. When Cohen intended to head back to the Room of Requirement, he spotted Voldemort's wraith by the tapestry of the dancing trolls.
With Cohen's permission, Voldemort followed him into the room and once again attached himself to a book.
The pale, snake-like face rippled its facial "muscles" on the page.
"I've received some news… Barty Crouch Jr. is dead," Voldemort questioned. "What did you do at the Crouch residence?"
"Are all the goons you hire this nuts?" Cohen retorted with a question.
"?" Voldemort didn't understand.
"I'd just helped him suck up the Imperius Curse old man Crouch was using on him, and he immediately started yelling and screaming about killing his dad," Cohen said disdainfully. "The second he was free, he charged out of the dungeon shouting, 'You old geezer, I'm gonna kill you!' only to get offed by old man Crouch. You'd think he was one of Bellatrix's brothers or something."
"…" Voldemort wasn't in a position to judge the mental state of his followers. It seemed like anyone in a pure-blood family with their marbles intact wouldn't side with him anyway.
Most of the pure-blood Death Eaters under his command were pure-blood fanatics – and only the crazy ones were easy to control with pure-blood ideology…
"So, that useless idiot ruined our plan?" Voldemort's voice held a hint of displeasure.
"Cheer up, at least I managed to get him to make the Portkey before he went," Cohen said. "Good thing the Portkey doesn't need him to stay alive to provide magic."
As he spoke, Cohen pulled a smaller cloth bag from his pocket, which contained an empty soda can.
This was the Portkey Cohen had made himself during the Christmas holidays. Cohen didn't know where Riddle Manor was, so he'd just set the destination to the entrance of Diagon Alley.
"Excellent… excellent…" Voldemort gave a sinister smile. "Then let's get started as soon as possible…"
"Let me run through the plan again," Cohen confirmed. "I give the Portkey to Peter, then Peter, Harry, and you all get transported to your dad's grave. Then you get resurrected using your father's bones, the blood of an enemy, and the flesh of a servant, right?"
"Yes, yes!" Voldemort said excitedly.
He had longed for this moment for so long – he even wished Cohen would go kidnap Harry right then and there.
"Besides the blood, flesh, and bone, I also got you the unicorn blood for the base potion," Cohen pulled out a small vial filled with silvery-white blood. He'd traded a bottle of wine he'd nicked from Edward for it with the unicorn chieftain – the guy even seemed eager to offer more blood in exchange for more vintage wine, but Cohen had turned him down.
This resurrection was destined to fail anyway; this vial of blood was just for show in front of Voldemort, no need to waste it.
"Snake venom… that snake you brought near the school – Nagini. Do you need me to help you get the venom?" Cohen was being extremely "proactive" in preparing the props.
"Of course…" Voldemort was extremely gratified by Cohen's enthusiastic help. At least he hadn't seen Cohen being this proactive with Dumbledore.
It showed that the boy had completely sided with him.
That old codger Dumbledore had been teaching for so many years, yet he still didn't have the same appeal to ambitious young men as Voldemort did.
Thinking this, Voldemort felt like he'd scored a few more points.
He could live forever, Dumbledore couldn't – that was one win.
He had Cohen, and Dumbledore didn't – that was two wins.
He'd won against Dumbledore twice, and Dumbledore had lost twice – that was three wins…
"Alright, cauldron, stand, unicorn blood, silver dagger, empty vial…" Cohen counted out Voldemort's resurrection props in the Room of Requirement. "All set. Tomorrow you take me to find Nagini to get the venom, and then this weekend I'll take Harry and Peter to find Sirius Black—"
But Cohen suddenly changed the subject.
"Are you sure Peter Pettigrew won't flip on us? I heard he was friends with Harry Potter's parents and Sirius Black," Cohen asked.
"He's a traitor to Dumbledore's side to begin with," Voldemort was still very confident in that spineless coward, Peter. "Those people would kill him if they could. He's as timid as a mouse; he wouldn't dare betray us."
"Well, that's just great," Cohen said.
Then Voldemort was in for a disappointing ending because the current Peter Pettigrew was a fake! —
The first day of classes after the Christmas break wasn't too packed. There was a Defense Against the Dark Arts class in the morning and a Herbology class in the afternoon.
Herbology was in the greenhouses outside the castle, so Cohen could conveniently sneak off to the Forbidden Forest to have Voldemort lead him to Nagini for the venom. To make it easier for Voldemort to guide Cohen, Voldemort briefly stayed attached to Cohen's robes, saving them the trouble of searching for each other later.
"Do I need to avoid Dumbledore?" Cohen whispered to Voldemort, who was hidden in his collar, as he headed to the Great Hall for breakfast alone. "Can Dumbledore detect you?"
"Stay away from him… I'll hide deeper…" Voldemort said in a low voice.
Cohen saw him burrowing further into the layers of his clothes. Honestly, it felt a bit bizarre, like an old man who had turned into a child was snuggling into a kid's arms—
Voldemort stopped talking, and Cohen pretended everything was normal as he finished his meal. The good news was that Dumbledore didn't come to breakfast at all.
Professor Lupin was still teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts in the morning. It was still a while before the full moon, so he didn't need to take time off due to the weakening side effects of the Wolfsbane Potion.
Harry didn't rush to leave after class. Instead, he went straight to Lupin to ask about the Dementor-warding training.
"Of course, I remember," Lupin replied. "Hmm… Thursday evening at eight? You don't have Astronomy then, do you?"
"No," Harry looked relieved. He'd been worried Lupin might cancel the lessons because he was too busy; the Quidditch final was coming up soon.
"We can use the History of Magic classroom; it's quite spacious…" Lupin said. "I'll need to think carefully about how to do this, after all, we can't exactly bring a real Dementor into the castle for practice…"
Cohen felt Lupin glance in his direction.
Ugh, no way was he going to be a training dummy. Dream on! No Dementor would want to run into a Patronus.
"Um… Professor?" Suddenly, Hermione also joined Harry and Lupin, asking a bit shyly, "Could I maybe observe the training? I'd also like to try learning the spell to ward off Dementors…"
"It's a very difficult spell, and it's not exactly part of the third-year curriculum," Lupin reminded them with a smile. "But if you're interested in learning, I'm certainly happy to teach you."
"That would be great," Hermione said, quickly thanking him before hurrying off with a huge stack of books and a backpack full of heavy textbooks.