"What can Principal Dumbledore even do to me… Wait, hold on a sec. Are you being serious or just messing with me?"
Von Braun frowned, but he quickly realized he'd been thrown off again by Cohen's weird, nonsensical ramblings.
*Is this the corrupting influence of a great being? Just a little exposure, and it's already controlling me…*
"Cut it out with the Lovecraftian overthinking," Cohen said. "You're just secretly curious about Dumbledore's shady past, that's all."
"How do you know what I'm thinking?" Von Braun's frown deepened. Something wasn't adding up, and he instinctively took a step back, away from Cohen.
"Because you mumbled it out loud!" Cohen snapped, clearly annoyed. "Do all you Silver Key people have some kind of mental disorder that makes you paranoid around me or what?!"
"You even know I'm with the Silver Key…"
Von Braun nodded slowly, as if confirming something to himself.
"Stop looking so sure of yourself and imagining stuff that isn't even real, you old geezer!" Cohen gritted his teeth. "You were totally normal a few days ago. Shouldn't you be playing the villain right now? Keep up your sneaky spy act—go ahead, provoke me or kidnap me or something. Give me a reason to take you out right under Dumbledore's nose!"
"They've succeeded," Von Braun said, narrowing his eyes. "You're already turning violent, bloodthirsty, and craving destruction—"
"Yeah, I'll destruct *you*, old man."
Cohen gave up trying to reason with this unhinged guy who'd dropped all pretenses. He dramatically pulled out his wand—though he wasn't actually planning to use the Cruciatus Curse on a professor at Hogwarts. It was just a little threat.
"I'm done with all this red tape," Cohen said. "This could've been solved ages ago with a quick Cruciatus Curse and some Legilimency…"
"Wait!" Von Braun threw up his hands, clearly rattled by the threat. "Let me be clear—I'm not afraid of torture or death. The only reason I worked so hard to infiltrate Hogwarts was to stop you—or rather, to stop those radicals from waking you up…"
"Oh, so you're not one of the radicals?"
For some reason, Cohen felt a twinge of disappointment. He'd been kinda hoping for a fight with a professor. Even if it was just a temp gig, it'd be a cool story to brag about to kids someday. "I thought you were one of those Silver Key weirdos hiding out in a cave. Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I *did* say so!" Von Braun insisted. He distinctly remembered mentioning he was here to protect Cohen from the radicals—
"You didn't explain a damn thing!" Cohen shot back. "You acted all mysterious like some villain about to rip off his mask. Anyone would've pegged you as a brain-dead bad guy! The only one allowed to play the riddle game around here is Dumbledore. Anyone else tries it, and I'm slapping a villain label on them."
After a brief, awkward silence, Von Braun looked away, clearly embarrassed.
"Are you that Tucker Von Braun's son?" Cohen asked out of nowhere.
"Yes… Why bring up my father all of a sudden?" Von Braun asked, confused.
"I met him once when I hitched a ride with him," Cohen said. "His memory's not great, and he's got a bit of dementia, but he seemed like a good guy."
Von Braun still didn't get why Cohen was bringing this up. Weren't they talking about the Silver Key?
"And you've got a family photo on your desk," Cohen went on. "It's covered in fingerprints, so you must pick it up a lot. You really care about your family. I'm not trying to play Sherlock here, but I figure someone who loves their family wouldn't want the world to end. So… why'd you join the Silver Key?"
"Because my older brother joined them," Von Braun said, glancing at the photo on his desk. "He's an Auror. He shouldn't have gotten mixed up with a cult. They brainwashed him, and I want to save him. My dad's been worried sick about him too."
"Are there people in the radical faction who see 'killing Cohen' as their ultimate goal?"
Cohen thought back to that tall, skinny Auror—the one Ari had headbutted to death back in first year. The guy had looked at Cohen like he wanted him dead on the spot. Thinking about it now, it didn't seem like it was out of some sense of "justice."
That kind of justice was too dumb. Even the Ministry of Magic, famous for its stupidity, hadn't gone out of its way to keep antagonizing Cohen. Someone smart enough to become an Auror shouldn't be *that* brainless.
The only explanation was that Von Braun's brother didn't want to kill Cohen—he wanted to *awaken* him.
Professor Von Braun was saying, they wanted Cohen to turn cruel, bloodthirsty, and consumed by a desire to destroy the world.
Just like dark magic affects a regular wizard.
"Yeah, sadly, he's one of them," Von Braun said, lowering his eyes. "And I think he might be planning something even worse. He went missing two Christmases ago."
"Maybe…" Cohen replied, keeping his thoughts to himself.
*Let him stay missing. Sounds good to me…*
He couldn't exactly say, "Oh hey, I killed your brother! Surprise! Happy about that?"
"My brother's name is Joshua," Von Braun said. "If you ever run into him… keep your guard up."
"I'll watch out," Cohen said. "But if you're not with the radicals, then who was that student who sent me a letter in January?"
After coming back to school from the Christmas break, a senior girl had handed Hermione a Silver Key letter to pass on to him. If Von Braun wasn't the one behind it…
What the hell was Dumbledore even protecting as headmaster?! (Annoyed)
Anyone could just waltz into the school? Did he not care if students joined cults?
"A student delivered a letter to you?" Von Braun asked, suddenly on edge. "A Silver Key letter?"
"So you didn't know," Cohen said, disappointed. "Alright, keep going, double-agent. Why'd it take you three months after my 'kidnapping' to come talk to me?"
"Because I caught wind of something," Von Braun explained. "Another faction of the Silver Key has their eye on you. I'm here to warn you—they're planning to make a move over the summer. They might start tailing you at King's Cross Station. I've got a list of their names, but they're all fugitives now…"
"Fugitives, meaning they're not easy to track down ahead of time," Cohen said. "Got it. That could drag the plot out nice and long, but I'll just wait for them to come to me—"
"They don't want to hurt you," Von Braun interrupted. "They know they *can't* hurt you. What they want is to drive you out of the wizarding world entirely."