"But I didn't catch even a hint of fear from you," Rupert said, eyeing Cohen with amused curiosity.
Then, with a flick of his wand, the ropes binding Tom and Jerry came alive like snakes, dragging them toward the cellar beneath the staircase.
"You know about Dementors, so you're from a wizarding family, right?" Rupert leaned in close, his sparse, balding head hovering near Cohen as he stared into his eyes. "Not scared? I just killed someone with an Unforgivable Curse, you know."
"Terrified," Cohen nodded. "Please don't kill me, I'm begging you! No Unforgivable Curses, please—my dad'll come save me!"
Rupert felt like he was being played for a fool. The kid's tone was so dry it sounded like he was reluctantly reading from a script.
This little guy wasn't scared at all.
"You're lying, aren't you?"
"I'm *so* scared, you jerk! I'm shaking—look!" Cohen said, switching to high-frequency vibration mode to prove it.
"Damn it, no kid's ever looked down on me !" Rupert's face twisted with rage, as if Cohen reminded him of all those Silver Key colleagues who'd humiliated him.
"Say goodbye to your emotions!"
Rupert jabbed his wand hard toward Cohen's chest:
"*Emotivox Haurire!* (Emotion Drain)"
"Was it because I was shaking?" Cohen played dumb. "I stopped now—try again?"
"*Emotivox Haurire!*" Rupert thrust his wand again.
Rupert, refusing to accept it and feeling awkward, shook his wand.
"Is my wand broken or something?"
He'd rather blame the wand than admit it might be the spell—or Cohen.
"Maybe you should fix it? We could chat a bit while you're at it, before you kill me," Cohen said sweetly. "What's your name, baldy?"
"I'm Rupert Sharpe—" Rupert answered absentmindedly while inspecting his wand, then snapped out of it. He was the one in charge here, not this prisoner.
"Wait, why am I even answering you?" Rupert snapped, shutting down any further introductions.
He tested a Levitation Charm and a Transfiguration spell—both worked fine. The wand wasn't the issue.
The spell couldn't be either—he'd just used it on Lewis.
So the problem had to be…
"My turn!" Cohen said, tilting his head.
"I'm Cohen—Cohen Norton, or Cohen Bork, or 'Naturally Evil Little Dementor,' or even 'Evil Dark Magic Experiment from Bork Manor'…"
Cohen introduced himself earnestly as the ropes around him loosened and flopped to the ground.
"You didn't recognize me at first glance? I thought you Silver Key lunatics all slept with my picture under your pillows."
"You're *that*—that—*cough cough*—"
Rupert choked mid-sentence, literally coughing on his words. Cohen had never seen someone choke on speech before.
A new physiological wonder—right up there with water stuck in your teeth or air choking your throat.
"Oh, yeah, I'm *cough cough*," Cohen nodded.
"That spell you just used on me was pretty cool. Never seen it before."
"Are you gonna kill me…?" Rupert asked urgently, skipping the chit-chat.
"Probably. Your soul's too tasty," Cohen mused. "Plus, you're a murderer—I don't even have to feel bad about it."
Rupert backed up to the wall, sliding down slowly as if giving up—
But suddenly, his half-closed eyes snapped open. He fired off two quick spells, hoping to catch Cohen off guard and Apparate away.
Apparition takes a second or two of flickering. If someone grabbed him during that, they'd get dragged along to his destination.
With Cohen so close, Rupert couldn't risk it. A sneak attack to buy safe Apparition time was his best bet.
But he'd overlooked one key detail.
Normally, a sneak attack forces a choice—block the spell with your wand or dodge it—which would've bought him time. But Cohen just tanked both of Rupert's Stunning Spells.
If it'd been a Patronus Charm, Cohen might've bothered dodging…
"*Emotivox Haurire!*"
Cohen cast the spell he'd just picked up—at least, he'd mimicked Rupert's tone and wand movement well enough.
A faint silver stream of emotion flowed out of Rupert into Cohen. The flickering Apparition faded as Rupert slumped, drained of energy. Without emotions, even briefly, his magic fizzled out.
"How do you know how to…" Rupert slid to the floor, trembling.
"This is called magic redistribution," Cohen said, gobbling up the extracted emotions. The spell felt a bit redundant to him—why use a wand when he could just slurp it up with his mouth?
But it could pull emotions out and bottle them as snacks. Maybe it wasn't totally useless.
"Lame. Why aren't you fighting back more?" Cohen asked, looking at the listless Rupert. "Most villains at least spit out some tough talk before they die."
"Oh, right, I drained most of your emotions," Cohen remembered. "Guess that makes me kinda the bad guy here."
"Let's skip the back-and-forth then," Cohen said reluctantly. "You're too weak—no gang, no crew. You're out here doing illegal experiments solo, with your only helper being that clueless Muggle. Do the Silver Key folks bully you a lot?"
Rupert felt a flicker of emotion return. He clenched his fists.
Cohen sucked out his soul in one gulp.
**[Goodwill Points +100]**
*[Note: A case you could've wrapped up in ten minutes, and you dragged it out all day?]*
"How do humans phrase this?" the old goat head's voice rasped.
**[Idle as hell]** came in Parseltongue, sounding like a young female snake.
"Roar!" The lion let out a meaningless bellow.
The Chimera beast materialized, sprawled across the doorway. All three heads—lion, goat, and snake—stared at Cohen.
"It's kindness," the black goat head said in its elderly tone, pleased. "Good to see you, child."
"Roar!" The lion roared happily.
**[You've got another snake's scent on you. Is it that poor Basilisk from thirteen years ago, looking for its wife and kids?]**
The horned serpent tail asked Cohen.
"You guys…" Cohen frowned.
"What's wrong?" the goat head asked kindly.
"Where's your butt?" Cohen finally voiced the question he'd been dying to ask. "The head's a lion, the back's a goat, and the tail's a snake. If your butt's at the tail end, does that mean this snake has to deal with…"