"Please remain calm and wait for rescue. Rest assured, the food at the inn is more than sufficient," Mr. Raven said in his usual flat tone. "We'll get through this safely—"
"Did you just say there are crocodiles in the lake?" the suited old man snapped sharply. "What if they crawl in here?"
"We're in a house!" said the younger Beatrice sister, defending Mr. Raven. "Stubborn old loon, did you have gunpowder for breakfast?"
"You foolish woman, this is kidnapping!" the old man shouted hysterically. "Tell me, are you people from the Groning Corporation? Is this about—"
"Dad, can you not have a meltdown here—" the young man quickly pulled his father back. "We're here on vacation, remember? We'll be stuck here a few days either way. It's not really affecting us that much..."
"You don't get it, kid. In the business world, you're always one step away from being stabbed in the back."
"And you three," Mr. Raven turned to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Are you staying the night? It's ten pounds."
He tilted his head, then added, "Per person."
"Did either of you bring Muggle money?" Ron whispered to Harry and Hermione.
"The Dursleys haven't given me pocket money in eight years," Harry replied with a dry laugh.
"I only brought Galleons..." Hermione said, fishing out a few useless coins from her pocket.
"You guys..." Cohen sighed.
"Cohen, do you have any? I can trade you for Galleons—" Harry leaned over hopefully.
Ron and Hermione also looked at Cohen with pleading eyes.
So Cohen reached toward Edward.
"You'll convert them back to Galleons for me, right?"
Edward sighed and stuffed a few notes into Cohen's hand, heart aching.
"I'm a minor. You'll have to get the money from my dad later," Cohen said righteously to Edward.
"You—" Edward held back the urge to shout, "I am your father!"
This is my kid. His friends just need a place to sleep. Can't exactly make them sleep in the lobby, right?
Of course, it wasn't like Cohen was really taking advantage of Edward. That money would end up back in Edward's wallet eventually—but Cohen found it too much fun teasing him .
"Just staying one night?" Mr. Raven asked.
"That's right," Hermione replied quickly. "We were only planning to stay one night before leaving..."
"But your boat broke down—" Harry caught on right away. "So if we can't leave, shouldn't we get some kind of compensation?"
Mr. Raven considered it.
"Alright," he said. "Until rescue arrives on the island, you may stay in your original rooms free of charge."
"What about us?" the suited old man narrowed his eyes. "You should refund us for the extra nights, shouldn't you?"
"Yeah, that's fair," the young man agreed.
"Can we maybe use the overpaid rent to… cover something else?" The Beatrice sisters tossed Mr. Raven a suggestive look.
"That's awful! You guys can't look!" Cohen quickly shielded Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "This isn't for underage eyes—"
"You're underage too," Edward said, stepping in and covering Cohen's eyes.
The ridiculous scene finally ended when Mr. Raven agreed to everyone's requests—though many now felt like they'd asked for too little and should've demanded more compensation.
Mr. Raven was surprisingly generous on the topic of refunds—as if the guy who was just harping about ten pounds per night wasn't even him.
Cohen had suspected from the start that the inn's true goal wasn't making a few pounds off Muggles. The Silver Key wouldn't go through this much trouble just to teach Cohen How to Make Money from Muggles 101.
They'd already completed step one—trapping everyone on the island. That's why Mr. Raven no longer cared about minor requests.
Dinner was delivered to each room by a chef with a literal frog's head. Harry and the others were too uneasy to split up, so they all crammed into Cohen's room.
This surprised the frog-headed chef a bit. He left the extra four portions of food in Cohen's room, then walked off without a sound.
Four kids and one invisible Chimera beast squeezed into Room 207.
"Was that an actual frog head? Transfiguration?" Hermione asked. "But the other guests are all Muggles, aren't they? I mean, if they were adult wizards, they could just Apparate or fly across the lake. No need for that argument downstairs..."
"Wouldn't that break the Statute of Secrecy?" Ron asked. "Wizards aren't allowed to expose magic to Muggles—and neither the Raven-headed guy nor the frog chef used a Memory Charm on any of them..."
"More than frog heads and Raven faces, I want to know how you guys got here," Cohen turned toward the invisible Chimera lurking near the window.
"Your friends wanted to find you," said the Goat.
[So we brought them.] added the Longhorn Water Serpent.
"Roar!" the Lion growled cheerfully.
"The lion's got a point," Ron nodded seriously.
"Point my foot—no, I have to maintain my one key difference from the Count..." Cohen resisted the urge to curse. "Things were already complicated, and now I've got four more people to deal with."
"We won't cause any trouble," the Goat said kindly. "Xisoco was really worried about you, so..."
"Don't tell me he came too," Cohen said flatly.
[No, he didn't.] said the Water Serpent. [We all agreed on who'd be best to come help you.]
"And that would be... us," said the Goat.
"Rrhh..." The Lion padded over to Cohen and gently licked his collar.
Cohen gave up trying to scold them.
"You absolute jerks made me emotional," he muttered, scowling.
"So Cohen, how much do you know about this place?" Harry asked quickly. "Did Mr. Frondo have his accident here?"
"You guys came here without knowing anything?" Cohen held his head in disbelief. "That's... bold, I'll give you that..."
"There's a cult here called the Silver Key. They kidnapped Mr. Frondo's soul," Cohen explained a bit of the current situation.
"The Silver Key!" Hermione's eyes went wide as she turned to Cohen. "They're the ones who sent you that letter, right? Back in January last year!"
"Good memory. But that's not the point," Cohen shook his head. "I traced the soul's trail to this place, but now the link between Frondo's body and soul has been disrupted. I can still feel his soul somewhere in the area, but I can't pinpoint the exact spot."
"What's their goal?" Harry asked. "To steal more people's souls?"