"A bit disappointing," Cohen said, a touch crestfallen.
"What exactly were you expecting a toilet to say?" the Count retorted sharply. "You weren't hoping its first words would be 'Why the bloody hell am I a toilet?' were you?"
"Why the bloody hell am I a toilet?" the toilet echoed after the Count finished speaking. The water from the toilet's U-bend even shot up in a stream, as if in agreement.
"You corrupted it!" Cohen accused the Count.
"Toilets are anyway, what do you mean I corrupted it?" the Count batted the blame away. "Besides, isn't this exactly what you wanted? You yourself said you were a bit disappointed..."
"What disappointed me was that it actually saw itself as a toilet," Cohen shook his head. "My expectation was that it would beg me to turn it into a human – like in those fairy tales."
"Turning human is worse than being a toilet," the toilet suddenly said sagely.
"Turning human is worse than being a toilet," the Count sighed.
Ultimately, this rather downbeat toilet was taken by Cohen to replace the old one in the bathroom of the little house inside the trunk.
"At least our concept was correct; it truly gained an independent soul," Nicolas said. "But we didn't touch upon the deepest aspect of alchemy in relation to the soul – the transformation of non-soul into soul."
"Meaning we were still using the soul born from those two field mice, right?" Cohen mused. "But from the second round onwards, only one side was truly a living creature."
"The birth of a soul has always been a difficult question to research," Nicolas said. "Because magic is hard to apply to a soul without destructive impact, leaving many variables in research. But you are different, Cohen – you can easily touch them on the spiritual entity level..."
"When I was watching, it felt like the two souls stuck together first, and then a new soul just appeared from the point of contact," Cohen frowned. "Why does that feel no different from normal mating behaviour?"
"In fields rarely trodden, perhaps the truth is often quite... mundane?" Nicolas said, sounding amused. "Like the rumours about me, some people always liked to claim I made the Philosopher's Stone from thousands of dead people."
"Did you take any measures against them later?"
"Those rumour-mongers simply ended up in their graves decades later, and the rumours faded into obscurity after a hundred years or so," Nicolas waved a hand. "In reality, the Philosopher's Stone isn't composed of anything gruesome."
Cohen's brief enthusiasm for alchemy pretty much evaporated after researching the talking toilet. Leaving the trunk, Cohen planned to head to the Great Hall for dinner.
Cohen had originally intended to take a long holiday, leveraging Dumbledore's promise to excuse him from lessons – but Fudge wasn't clever at all, rushing to act against Sirius Black right there at Hogwarts, not even willing to wait until he was back at the Ministry... And just like that, Cohen's 'no classes' privilege vanished. Old Dumbledore good, Fudge bad.
When Cohen arrived at the common room, only one person was there – Hermione. She hadn't dared to speak much to Cohen these past few days.
"Hmm?" Cohen tilted his head, looking at the little brown-haired witch. Looking at her, he knew instantly she was there to apologise. Using a Patronus Charm on his Dementor friends probably felt to her like stabbing Harry and Ron in the back. Though Cohen felt it was at most like being punched – and Hermione's Patronus Charm at the time wasn't even the level of a 'punch,' it wasn't useless, it certainly helped set the mood.
"I'm really sorry," Hermione apologised. "In the Shrieking Shack, I shouldn't have used a Patronus Charm on you..."
"Actually, I didn't really feel anything," Cohen said. "A Patronus Charm can't take me down – and I was certainly acting like I was going to help Voldemort attack Harry at the time. If you hadn't used the Patronus Charm on me, that would have messed up the plan."
"Then... are we still normal friends?" Hermione asked cautiously, looking relieved.
"If you keep letting us copy your homework."
"You have to do your own homework!" Hermione frowned.
"There's the normal Hermione," Cohen raised an eyebrow.
Hermione couldn't help but chuckle quietly – she really had overthought things. And in fact, she had overthought it. As long as it didn't involve matters concerning Cohen's parents, Cohen was generally quite easy to get along with. Of course, except for people constantly chasing him trying to kill him; it wasn't about the danger, just the sheer annoyance.
Hermione left the common room first. The Count, who had been warming himself by the fireplace, suddenly spoke.
"Didn't you ask me to send a list to someone named 'Von Braun' last time?"
"Yeah," Cohen recalled – he'd asked Von Braun to help track the current locations of those 'Silver Key' members on the list. "You're not just telling me now that you never sent it, are you?"
"Of course not! I delivered it into his hands with my own paws," the Count said, lifting his head proudly.
"Then how could you mix up the gifts for Herbert and Dumbledore?" Cohen asked suspiciously. "Dumbledore received the note I wrote for Herbert. I'm starting to doubt your professional competence..."
"Well, maybe it was because I was too rushed because you were giving me a gift..." the Count dodged Cohen's gaze. "And those two packages looked too similar, and the labels weren't stuck on properly – wait a minute, isn't the issue here about Von Braun?! It's been so long, and he hasn't written back!"
"Indeed..." Cohen said.
"Probably just being lazy," the Count criticised.
"Or maybe he's dead," Cohen said. "Go take a look?"
"And what if I die too?" the Count refused. "There might be a bunch of crazy Silver Key people lurking there, waiting for the first creature that enters to –"
Cohen thought for a moment. "Then let's have Mr. Frondo take a look. You take Mr. Frondo to Von Braun's place."
"Good idea." The Count flew out the window, seemingly quite happy to let Mr. Frondo test the waters first.
Dinner began, and Cohen followed the crowd to the Great Hall. Harry wasn't there. Cohen sat down next to Ron and Hermione.
"Where's Harry?" Cohen asked.
"He took some food and went to that house," Ron said between bites of steak. "He goes there whenever he has time now, it's just like..."
"He's craving family affection too much," Cohen shook his head. "Just let him vent it out right now..."
"What's up with Harry?" Fred leaned over. "Venting what? Falling in love? Venting with who?"
"Merlin's flowery socks, he's faster than us!" George exclaimed.
"How many outfits does Merlin even have for you lot to keep changing?" Cohen said, covering his eyes.