Malfoy's affairs weren't something Cohen had to worry about. All Cohen needed to do was accept the benefits from the Malfoy family. As for repayment… well, that kind of worldly reciprocity was something for adults to think about. Cohen was only eleven, and eleven was exactly the age when promises didn't have to be kept.
Cohen tossed the stone into the cabinet in the room. Before this, he had already stuffed it with plenty of things.
For example, there was the Dungeons & Dragons living display case Edward had given him for Christmas, the snow globe Ross had gifted him on his birthday (though due to the fading magic, the little clay figures inside could no longer make their chirping sounds), countless Honeydukes candies, a large sack of frozen ash snake eggs, and nearly an entire cabinet shelf filled with vials of Acromantula venom…
Thanks to the protective runes the Room of Requirement had etched into the walls for Cohen, he wasn't worried about the Malfoys tampering with anything.
If Lucius was foolish enough to send an alchemical listening device as a first gift, then the Malfoy family was honestly a bit too urbanized for their own good.
After leaving the Room of Requirement, Cohen returned to the Gryffindor common room.
Fred and George were in the common room, dressing a round-headed goblin in a shrunken Santa Claus outfit.
"Cohen, what do you think about putting this little Santa in the Great Hall?" Fred asked, spotting Cohen and waving him over.
"I think Professor Dumbledore might take it home to raise it—as long as we dress it up well," George chimed in.
"Or maybe Snape," Fred added.
"Or maybe they'd fight over this goblin!" Fred and George said in unison.
Though the two brothers were wearing sweaters with an "F" and a "G" respectively, Cohen suspected they'd secretly swapped clothes, making it impossible to tell who was Fred and who was George by that method.
"Cohen, do you think it looks flawed right now?" Fred asked. "We trimmed the calluses off its hands and feet and even gave it some hair-growth potion. Now it looks exactly like Santa Claus."
"At first glance, I couldn't tell," Cohen replied. "If Dumbledore took off his glasses… he probably wouldn't notice the difference either."
Cohen circled the goblin, which had a big, bushy white beard. It was tugging at its clothes—the heavy outfit clearly made it uncomfortable.
"But you'll need to figure out how to stop it from stripping on the staff table—it doesn't seem to like the clothes you put on it."
If consequences weren't a concern, Cohen thought the Imperius Curse might work. But considering it needed to interact with Dumbledore, an obviously dark spell wouldn't do…
That would have to rely on Fred and George's creativity.
"That's easy," Fred said, unbothered by the goblin's resistance. He pulled a book from under the armchair he was sitting on, flipped through it, and then muttered a string of guttural syllables at the goblin.
"Gobbledegook?" Cohen asked, catching sight of the book's title: *An Introduction to Goblin Language*. "What did you say?"
He asked because the goblin actually stopped moving and now looked like a defeated dog.
"We said we captured the other goblins in its nest," George explained precisely, despite knowing nothing about Gobbledegook himself.
"Exactly!" Fred said, happily high-fiving George.
"You two are really…" Cohen began, suddenly feeling that his earlier straightforward "kill, kill, kill" approach might have been too tame. Maybe those Acromantulas could be used for something else?
"I hope I get to see Dumbledore holding this Santa tomorrow," Cohen said. "Have you seen Harry and Ron?"
"Nope. Little Ron took a big bag of food and headed back to the dorm," Fred replied, re-buttoning the goblin's red coat. "Looks like they're having a secret party. Take a deep breath before you go in—any weirdness is totally normal."
"Even if you see two naked—" George started.
"He means Nick," Fred interrupted. "You know, ghosts love the holidays too, and they enjoy drooling over feasts they can't eat." Fred stopped George from saying that word to Cohen, a first-year.
With a twitching corner of his mouth, Cohen said goodbye to the Weasley brothers and climbed the stairs back to the dormitory.
Harry and Ron weren't there. It seemed Harry had already taken Ron to the Mirror of Erised.
Dumbledore would surely show up to counsel Harry, but that wasn't something Cohen needed to think about.
So… tonight, he could finally get a good night's sleep!
But the good sleep didn't last long—Harry and Ron returned.
"You're back so soon?" Cohen asked, poking his messy little head out from under the covers. "I thought you'd stay out all night, Harry."
"We…" Harry didn't know how to explain.
"We ran into Dumbledore," Ron said, his ears still tinged red. "He told us 'not to indulge in illusory happiness.' But it was my first time going today…"
"He was probably talking about me," Harry said guiltily. "I shouldn't have taken you guys out at night… or taken that mirror seriously. Cohen, you were right—I should focus on reality. There's a Quidditch match after the holidays."
"It's fine. At least Dumbledore didn't take points from us," Ron said reassuringly, though he shivered at the mention of Mrs. Weasley. "Otherwise, I bet Percy would've written to my mom."
The night passed relatively peacefully, though Harry still tossed and turned in the next bed, unable to sleep.
Cohen, however, slept soundly and even had a dream.
He dreamed of a giant snake with deep green scales, coiled up in a cave beneath some bushes.
It was hibernating, looking peaceful.
By the time he woke up the next day, Cohen had almost forgotten the dream—all he could recall was a vague cave and the sensation of being curled up.
For the rest of the Christmas holidays, Harry stopped thinking about the mirror and spent his days playing chess with Ron.
The Weasley twins' Santa goblin plan succeeded perfectly. Dumbledore cheerfully took the Santa goblin away, though the goblin itself didn't look too happy about it.
Cohen didn't idle either.
The day after getting the dragon egg, Hagrid sent him a letter, urging him to come to his hut quickly to see something rare he'd gotten his hands on.
Hagrid had been so excited while writing that he'd torn the paper, making the scattered words nearly illegible to Cohen.
When Cohen arrived outside Hagrid's hut, he knocked on the door.
Hagrid, acting rather mysterious, told Cohen to cover his eyes. He carefully shut the door, then led Cohen over to the fireplace.
The temperature inside the hut was very high.
"Ta-da!" Hagrid exclaimed, like he was giving Cohen a surprise. After Cohen uncovered his eyes, Hagrid proudly displayed it: "A dragon egg! I won it off some card bloke! Bet you've never seen one of these. We can raise it together! Merlin's beard—first a black unicorn, now a dragon egg. I can't believe what a year this has been!"
Hagrid looked thrilled, his big black beard quivering with excitement.