Chapter 65: Dumbledore's Warning

This alternative plan won everyone's approval. ("In a trunk? Can someone of my size fit in there?" Hagrid asked with extreme worry after agreeing.)

On the day Norbert was about to learn how to fly, the Earl finally returned to the Room of Requirement with those seventy-seven Occamy feathers—strangely enough, Newt had not accepted Cohen's money.

"After reading your letter, he felt that you shared his exact interests and aspirations."

The Earl dropped that bulging, heavy bag onto the table, the Galleons inside clinking crisply.

"His point was that, if not for the sake of those magical creatures, he would have loved to gift you his own trunk."

"Yet I didn't see any reply letter from him." Cohen rummaged through the full bag of blue Occamy feathers and the untouched heavy sack of Galleons, but found no response from Newt.

This meant Newt knew the Earl could speak—could a talking owl really manage to return from Newt's place?

"Yeah, yeah..."

The Earl muttered grumpily:

"After I spoke in human language, he actually intended to buy me from you..."

"Ungrateful wretch," Cohen commented mercilessly.

"But he suddenly changed his mind the moment I asked whether the 'Owl Purchase Contract' could be annulled!" The Earl angrily sat down right on top of his owl bed, squarely covering his own egg. "None of you featherless creatures are any good, I can see that clearly now..."

After Cohen crawled into the leather trunk he had newly purchased for this purpose, and used those Occamy feathers to complete the expansion of the entire trunk, the space inside had grown unimaginably vast—Cohen had originally thought the "seven 100s" mentioned in the book referred to dimensions or something, so he had specially increased his budget a bit...

"So the seven 100s referred to the side lengths..."

Cohen clicked his tongue in wonder.

The internal space of the trunk had been expanded using just seven Occamy feathers to a size sufficient to hold a dragon—guided by the fine virtue of not being wasteful, Cohen used all seventy-seven of them. Now, Cohen couldn't even be bothered to calculate the boundaries inside the trunk; firing a spell across it didn't even reveal the other end.

Is this a wizard's Ork-like "I think it works" logic?

It felt like buying a house was hardly necessary anymore.

It also helped that Newt bred endangered creatures in such large numbers; ordinary merchants could never pull out seventy-odd feathers all at once unless they plucked an entire family of Occamys completely bald—not to mention that a normal merchant's Occamy feathers were usually just found by luck in deep forests.

Once the space stabilized, Cohen set about crafting the interior layout of the trunk, such as a sky, a meadow, and a sun—but Cohen discovered a very serious problem.

The transfiguration of these elements was nowhere to be found in *The Standard Book of Spells*, *A Guide to Transfiguration*, or *The Big Book of Positive Spells*.

***

When facing difficulties, turn to the Headmaster. Therefore, the moment Cohen crawled out of the trunk, he headed straight for the Headmaster's Office—even though it was already close to curfew.

"Cockroach clusters."

Cohen gave the password to the stone gargoyle at the foot of the stairs.

Dumbledore hadn't changed this password in a week; it seemed the taste of cockroach clusters was truly irresistible.

"Knock, knock, knock—"

Cohen followed the stairs up to the door of the Headmaster's Office and raised a hand to rap on it.

"Come in."

Dumbledore's voice responded from within, accompanied by a yawn.

Dragging his trunk, Cohen pushed the door open and saw Dumbledore wearing deep blue night robes, his long white beard trailing down to his waist, looking rather...

"When you sleep at night, do you leave your beard outside the blanket or inside?"

Cohen asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

"?"

Dumbledore looked deeply at Cohen.

Surely this child hadn't come here in the middle of the night just to ask this question.

However, catching sight of the trunk Cohen was dragging behind him, Dumbledore understood Cohen's progress—the trunk prepared for raising a baby dragon had already been completed.

"My beard can be rolled up like a towel, but I still prefer the times when I don't have a beard at all."

Dumbledore chuckled heartily:

"I noticed that your trunk has been finished—the joy of completing a work is understandable, but please forgive me, whether for an old man or a child, adequate sleep is quite necessary..."

[If you hadn't been creeping around like a perverted old man stalking an eleven-year-old wizard in the dead of night, that sentence might actually carry some conviction...]

Cohen muttered inwardly.

Outwardly, however, Cohen put on a wide-eyed, pitiful expression for Dumbledore.

***

Dumbledore had considered many possibilities for getting along with Cohen, but the sight of a Dementor cub acting cute in front of him was still entirely too bizarre—

"Very well..."

Dumbledore found that he indeed had no way to resist a student's reasonable request—which was precisely why he kept a curfew restriction outside the Headmaster's Office.

However, Dumbledore did not directly modify the scenery inside the trunk according to Cohen's exact wishes. Instead, he explained the corresponding spells and transfiguration theories to Cohen and left him with a set of decades-old handwritten notes.

Moreover, Cohen's terrifying learning speed genuinely astonished Dumbledore. He had originally intended for Cohen to take these materials back to study tonight and attempt them later, or even come to him the next day to announce success—yet Cohen learned it on the spot and mastered it immediately.

"Cohen, I believe I need to remind you of a few things."

After accompanying Cohen to create the sky, sun, and meadow inside the trunk, Dumbledore's tone lost its usual relaxed cadence.

He said to Cohen with a worried expression:

"Sometimes, we must not reveal our brilliance too early—perhaps we ourselves do not fear the harm caused by certain people or events, but our lives do not belong to us alone; we have family and friends, tranquility and peace. These are things that magic and knowledge cannot buy back."

"When you become conspicuous to the outside world, trouble and accidents will inevitably find you out of nowhere. Before that happens, you need to grow—grow into someone capable of handling them."

Of course Cohen knew what Dumbledore was referring to.

If the Ministry of Magic were to discover that Cohen was rapidly evolving into something beyond their control, goodness knows what kind of chaos would be made of his life.

Dumbledore was worried that Cohen might be noticed by the Ministry for any abnormal conditions—they would undoubtedly react like startled birds and take coercive measures against him, even if they had previously possessed no effective way to handle him.

Doing so would only drive Cohen to become an absolute enemy force. Dumbledore was well aware of this and was doing everything in his power to prevent it.

"At Hogwarts, everything about you is safe. But outside the school, please do not perform any overly startling actions as an individual—so as to avoid inviting unnecessary trouble."

After Cohen completed the outer sealing charm of the trunk, Dumbledore offered this final piece of advice.

"Now that this little project has come to a temporary close—I imagine we should both be heading to bed. I'll have Fawkes send you back to your dormitory so that you can avoid a detention and focus on preparing for this school year's final exams."

With that, Dumbledore winked mischievously at Cohen, looking very much like an incorrigible old trickster.