"I didn't teach it that…"
Cohen's voice drifted out from in front of Rolf.
"I'm ready to bail us out of this plane—"
"Hold on—it must've spotted something familiar," Newt interrupted quickly after hearing Cohen's reckless comment. If things went south, Newt was prepared to Apparate them to the ground. Compared to crashing into Patras' concrete with a griffin, getting dragged around the sky by Cohen wasn't much better…
Griffins weren't exactly nimble in the air. If it didn't want to slam into the ground, it would start pulling up and flapping to slow down around five or six meters up. Newt had plenty of time to gauge whether the griffin was about to crash into a Muggle street.
As expected, when it reached the height of the two- and three-story buildings around them, the griffin flapped its wings to slow its descent, landing smoothly.
"What are you doing, you little pest?! My grandkid's still on your back!" Old Water Snake hissed angrily at the griffin.
As soon as they landed, Rolf scrambled off the griffin's back.
Some passersby glanced curiously at the voices and commotion coming from the alley, but under the effect of Newt's freshly cast Muggle-Repelling Charm, anyone who got close suddenly broke into a cold sweat and bolted toward home in a panic.
"Looks like they just realized their neighbor's visiting their house today…" Cohen mused, watching a wide-eyed, sweaty Muggle sprint off in the opposite direction.
"Screech!" The griffin let out an anxious cry, nudging Cohen with its beak before sniffing around frantically.
"Why can't griffins just say something I can understand…" Cohen muttered. "If I let the Chimaera out, it'd never fit here…"
The streets were narrow—too tight for a Chimaera's bulk. It'd probably knock people over just by walking, let alone cars.
Letting it float in the air didn't seem like a great idea either…
So Cohen gave up on summoning the Chimaera for now.
"Don't get too far from me," Old Water Snake warned Cohen. "Or I'll end up exposed."
"Got it," Cohen said. "But can you at least tell what the griffin's going on about? Roughly? It looks like a dog chasing its tail…"
"I never understand what those two—father and son—are squawking about. It's all gibberish or whining," Old Water Snake said. "Probably hungry…"
"Sounds more like you're hungry," Cohen said dryly.
Old Water Snake had been drooling over the fishing boats at the port from the sky.
"Cohen, you still there?" Rolf asked quietly. After getting off the griffin, he couldn't pinpoint Cohen's location.
"I'm to your right—ugh, forget it, let's drop the invisibility. We're not even wearing wizard robes…" Cohen said. "Take off the invisibility."
"Call me Grandpa," Old Water Snake demanded. "Call me Grandpa, and I'll—"
"…"
Cohen didn't say a word, but after three seconds of silence, Old Water Snake lifted the invisibility.
"Don't pick up weird habits from Sisyphus," Cohen said. "He's got a fatherhood obsession, and now you're catching a grandpa obsession?"
"How'd you know—" Old Water Snake said, surprised.
"It's the only snake in the trunk that keeps trying to make me call it Dad," Cohen said flatly.
---
The griffin's pathfinding seemed completely unreliable… and it was.
It led the trio and the snake straight to the steps of the city hall.
"Screech—" The griffin started to cry out but was promptly silenced by Old Water Snake's tail smacking it down.
"Don't let anyone spot us—yelling that loud while invisible?" Old Water Snake scolded. "There's so many people here…"
"It stopped here?" Rolf asked, tilting his head toward Cohen.
To passersby, the three of them probably looked like two kids on a trip with their grandpa. The city hall was impressive, but staring at it for so long started to look odd.
"Robbing city hall? Now that's interesting," Cohen said, rubbing his hands together.
"No wonder Dumbledore was so keen on me bringing you along…" Newt said, half-exasperated, half-nostalgic, running a hand through his white hair. "You're joking about the robbing part, right?"
Cohen blinked.
"?" Newt slowly turned, eyes wide.
"?" Rolf, about to chime in, also stared at Cohen.
"Kidding. I'm not some sociopathic criminal," Cohen said.
If the poachers the griffin was tracking were in the city hall, Cohen figured the people inside were probably involved. It'd likely end with him "robbing" the place anyway.
No big deal. Whatever happened, it wouldn't be too bad.
Tell it to my Dumbledore and my Dementor pals.
"Let's go check it out," Cohen suggested.
Plenty of tourists were strolling right in, and the guards didn't stop them—should be fine for them too.
…
"You can't go in," a Muggle guard blocked their way.
"I'm writing a travel journal," Cohen said, indignant at being stopped without even a glance at his ID. He gave a perfectly reasonable excuse: "When summer's over, I can't exactly write in my journal, 'I got stopped by a Patras city hall guard,' can I?"
"No entry without proper documentation," the guard said, giving them a strange, puzzled look but still barring their way.
Just then, a couple—tourists, by the look of them—waltzed right into the city hall. The guard barely glanced at them before letting them pass.
"Hm?" Cohen raised an eyebrow.
"No entry."
"That's a bit targeted," Cohen said, his face falling.
If this guy's soul didn't scream Muggle, Cohen would've pegged him as one of the Silver Key's goons.
"You didn't cause trouble here earlier, did you?" Newt whispered to Rolf.
"I swear I didn't!" Rolf hissed back nervously.
"I'm gonna have to use necessary measures," Cohen said to Newt.
But Newt shook his head and pulled them away.
The griffin and Old Water Snake hurried after Cohen.
"He's just a Muggle, and there's a crowd around. There might be people from the Greek Ministry watching. Don't do anything rash," Newt said, leading Cohen and Rolf to the shade of a nearby tree. "Those 'necessary measures' you mentioned… you don't mean…"
"Legilimency," Cohen said. "I'm a good Dementor, you know…"