Voldemort didn't speak – he shouldn't have expected Cohen to be more... mature.
Cohen's past behaviour always gave people the feeling that he wasn't really a child at all, which led Voldemort to always see Cohen as a "partner."
And a normal partner wouldn't, Merlin help him, hug a meticulously crafted magical toilet and then prance around showing it off at the crucial moment of his resurrection.
"Act normal," Voldemort said, exasperated.
"Boring," Cohen said, utterly disappointed in Voldemort. Not everyone has the taste to appreciate a talking toilet, apparently.
Cohen decided to add some more outstanding abilities to the toilet, like perhaps adding a wand into the cistern, which had already lost its original function.
This toilet would unleash a nasty curse on any burglar who broke in but suddenly had to relieve themselves – because even brutal robbers or cunning thieves wouldn't just go anywhere if they were desperate, especially if they could find a loo.
#GreatAlchemistCohenDiscussesTheWeaknessesOfHumanNatureForThe260thTime#
"This body isn't as... distinctive as this toilet," Cohen said, covering the toilet before walking over to the workbench and pulling off another white sheet.
Because the sheet covered a "body," it looked like Voldemort had just died and was about to be wheeled into the morgue.
"Looks... normal enough," Voldemort examined the new body. "At least there aren't any strange parts – but..."
"Clothes? You expect me to be naked?!"
"What, shy?" Cohen said nonchalantly. "I moulded it to my size. How's that? Satisfied?"
What Dark Wizard in history would be shy about something ?! And... how could a child possibly be that big?!
Voldemort felt like if he had a physical body right then, he'd be getting a serious headache from the sheer frustration.
Patience, patience. It's just a minor inconvenience – at least it's a usable body. So what if it's a bit exaggerated in size and he'll be completely nude right after resurrecting? Nobody else is here to see...
"Alright, I'll take it then..." Voldemort said.
"Hold on, let me activate this body's vital signs," Cohen pulled out his wand and poked the body's chest. "Done."
As Cohen touched it, this 'flesh-and-blood puppet' began breathing unconsciously, looking just like a dead person returning to life.
Voldemort eagerly surged into it – the vessel easily accommodated his soul, and the feeling of being alive flooded back into him. He controlled the body, making it climb off Cohen's workbench, twisting its neck like a snake, and rediscovering the sensations...
"Maybe put some clothes on, you're swaying around and it's making me feel like I'm in a bathhouse," Cohen said, covering his eyes and tossing a set of old clothes from the Room of Requirement to the tall, thin figure in front of him. He shouldn't have let him stay shirtless; Voldemort's resurrection should have been a very serious event with a proper doomsday atmosphere... But with Voldemort stark naked reveling in the joy of being reborn less than a meter away, Cohen regretted for the first time not having dressed him beforehand.
"As I said before... I will reward you," Voldemort's eyes narrowed slightly, his voice cool.
If he wasn't currently in the process of pulling up his trousers, he might have been able to project a bit of menace. As it was, Voldemort announcing a reward while hiking up his pants looked rather like a greasy old man finishing business and preparing to pay the bill.
"Yeah, a reward is definitely in order," Cohen twitched his mouth. "It took loads of materials, you know – my blood, Basilisk venom, Nightmare liquid curse, Chimera hair..."
"Speaking of which..." After getting dressed, Voldemort raised his hand and examined it closely, feeling the powerful magical creature bloodlines within this body... But he quickly realised something was wrong.
Had he been dead too long? Why couldn't he feel any magic?
"I even specifically sought out a Unicorn for several vials of its blood, and while I was at it, I punched Fawkes in Dumbledore's office and made him cry a bottle of tears..." Cohen concocted the story.
"Unicorn blood... Phoenix tears... wait a minute!" Voldemort's pupils instantly narrowed into vertical slits. "What did you add last?!"
"Unicorn blood and Phoenix... Oh!" Cohen clapped his hand over his mouth in mock surprise. "Maybe that last one... shouldn't have been added..."
"You..." Voldemort felt his breathing start to hitch – damn it, now he understood why this body didn't have a single shred of magic.
"But look on the bright side..." Cohen's gaze drifted off to the side. "At least the bloodlines of those magical creatures and the Dark Magic experiment specimens perfectly fused! This body didn't explode, which means it's a creation on the same level as me –"
"Isn't that bloody effort all for nothing?!" Voldemort's fists clenched, knuckles cracking.
He might as well have just said this body was no different from a Muggle's! Who was he? Voldemort! The Dark Lord who made the entire British wizarding world tremble! Now he's resurrected and turned into a Muggle? His lifetime of infamy utterly ruined?!
"Careful!" Cohen made an expression of extreme distress at Voldemort's cracking knuckles. "This body was expensive! If you don't like it, you can just... off yourself – I'll spend some more time making another one..."
"How long will the next body take?" Voldemort's chest heaved violently, feeling like he was about to have a heart attack.
"Six or seven years, maybe," Cohen said.
"This body only took you a week!" Voldemort glared at Cohen.
"That's because of the most crucial material! Nicolas Flamel left half a bottle of Elixir of Life, that's the most important part for making the flesh. All those other magical creature ingredients were just side dishes," Cohen explained logically. "Just three drops are enough to grow a whole person..."
"Then there's still half a bottle left, isn't there?" Voldemort's voice was unnaturally calm – perhaps he was so enraged his emotional system was on the verge of crashing.
"Answer me!" Voldemort's face, pale as wax, began showing faint visible veins – looking like it was about to explode.
"I used it on that talking toilet," Cohen said.
Following that, Voldemort let loose with some curses from a generation Cohen had never even heard before – but he didn't lay a hand on him, because Voldemort knew that his current Muggle body, even if he tried, couldn't take on Cohen. What good would getting angry do? Truly break ties with Cohen?
"But don't be so angry – the Philosopher's Stone, with Nicolas Flamel's personal guidance, it's easy for me to make another one in a few years."
Cohen's pale attempt at reassurance had no effect; Voldemort still looked furious. "We've all got a long life ahead of us, don't rush so much.
If you're really worried about that prophecy, you could always just lie low until Harry dies of old age before resurrecting again..."
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