Once Hermione and Cohen had finished that letter to a certain wicked old wizard, the Gryffindor Quidditch team's goalkeeper tryouts were almost over.
Cohen put away the letter to "Carlton Grey" with a satisfied look, and decided to have the Earl's new wife deliver it. He didn't choose the Earl because if Carlton was one of the Silver Keys, Cohen had a feeling he'd recognize the Earl. After all, the Earl had a presence unlike any other owl.
"Did you guys see that?! I thought I was going to miss it on the ninth one! But it looked like the tail of my broom hit it—" Ron immediately found Hermione as he came off the pitch and started gushing about his tryouts. "But Angelina's tenth throw was really tricky. I thought she was going for hoop number three, but it was actually number one..."
Hermione hummed in a very guilty way, because she had actually spent the latter half of the tryouts editing the rude language out of Cohen's letter and hadn't paid any attention to the game.
"You did great," Harry said, patting Ron on the shoulder.
Ron suddenly stopped, thinking about the water Cohen had forced him to drink before the tryouts.
"Wait a minute... now that the tryouts are over... don't you two have something to tell me?"
"Tell you what?" Cohen asked.
"About the Felix Felicis!" Ron said, scratching the back of his head. "Don't play dumb, Cohen, I saw the golden fleece."
"Nope, that was really my dad's hair. I just wanted to gross you out," Cohen said innocently. "Who told you that soaking golden fleece in water would work as Felix Felicis?"
"What?" Ron's eyes widened. He then looked at Hermione. "Then why did you look so guilty..."
"Because I thought it would make you feel more confident..." Hermione said, avoiding eye contact. "See, that's what happened, right? But I also thought Cohen put in golden fleece instead of Professor Norton's hair..."
"My dad's hair is cleaner than wool, isn't it?" Cohen said. "Even though golden fleece is more expensive than his hair, at least his living conditions are better than a golden sheep's—"
"How is it cleaner, noooooo!!!" Ron retched and started wrestling with Cohen.
In the end, Magic Jester Ron couldn't defeat the powerful and clouded-hearted Dementor Lord Cohen, who took him down with three punches.
After Friday, they were faced with an endless pile of unfinished homework, and Hermione's daily countdown to the O.W.L. exams.
"How did we manage to get seven essays and three practice assignments in just five days?" Ron said, scratching his head in the common room as if he had memory loss. "And five days of dream diaries—how am I supposed to remember what I dreamed five days ago..."
"That's why it's called a diary and not a weekly journal," Hermione said while refining the details of her own essay. "You can't wait until the last day to rush and half-do all your unfinished homework..."
"If you could just lend me your essay—"
"No!" Hermione snatched her Herbology essay away from Ron's sneaky little hands. "What would you learn that way? You have two days; you can definitely find the information and write it yourself!"
"I won't learn anything even if I write it myself," Ron said self-righteously.
"Cohen, why aren't you worried at all?" Harry also had a bit of a headache, and he glanced at Cohen, who was flipping through a thick book called Ancient Magic.
"No worries, the Earl will handle it," Cohen said. "Thankfully, I've already copied the History of Magic essay."
The Earl could handle all the other subjects' essays; writing homework was too difficult for a Dementor, but just right for an owl.
"Then we'll just copy Cohen's!" Ron turned his attention to Cohen.
"Fine—" Cohen was about to agree, but Hermione gave him a dangerous look. It was clear that if he lent his homework to Ron, he wouldn't be getting any freshly-written History of Magic homework in the future.
"No, you have to write your own homework," Cohen said, nodding as if it was a big deal.
"The Earl writes all your homework!" Ron protested.
"My bird and I are one," Cohen said. "What he writes, I write."
---
Two nights were enough to create two miracles, and getting through seven essays wasn't too difficult, since each one was only about a thousand words.
But by Monday, Harry and Ron looked as listless as if they'd been kissed by a Dementor.
"You two can't be that wiped out, can you?" Cohen asked gloomily after History of Magic class. "You can't even stay up until one or two in the morning?"
Because of it, no one would play ink checkers with him in History of Magic today.
"If you'd just lent us your homework..." Ron said sleepily. "Yawn—we wouldn't have had to stay up so late..."
Besides Harry and Ron, many other students were in a similar state.
This exhausted atmosphere continued into the afternoon's Defence Against the Dark Arts class, but towards the end of the lesson, Edward woke them all up with some big news.
"That's all for today's lesson... just a quick note before you all go. A few days ago, I asked the headmaster if I could start a Dungeons and Dragons club to help students relax and have some fun. We'll meet on Saturday nights. If you're interested, you can sign up beforehand..."
"A club? At a time like this?" Hermione said, frowning.
"See, I told you," Cohen said, shrugging. "You'll see his true colors."
"What's Dungeons and Dragons?" Ron asked, confused.
Many students from wizarding families had the same question as Ron, but they were more curious—they really needed a new and exciting way to relax.
"It's a tabletop game?" Harry said, only half understanding. "You get to play a character from another world and go on adventures with your friends..."
"That sounds interesting," Ron said, his eyes lighting up. (Hermione, meanwhile, grumbled about how it would slow down their studies.) "Don't be a spoilsport, Hermione. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
"I'll leave the sign-up list for the fifth-years with Cohen. If you're interested, you can find him to sign your name. Of course, if you find it's not for you, you can leave whenever you like. This is not a mandatory activity," Edward said. "All right, class dismissed."
The moment he left the classroom, almost every student gathered around Cohen, pressing him for details about the Dungeons and Dragons club.
"Oh, yeah, it's pretty fun..." Cohen answered their questions as if he were forced to be charming. "And the players don't have to do their Defence Against the Dark Arts homework—as he said, once you've played it, you've pretty much learned it..."
"No homework!" The students cheered.
Hermione pursed her lips unhappily, her expression just like Professor McGonagall's.