Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 279 "Doesn't anyone find the people in the Ministry of Magic terrifying?" (Part 2)

“The World Cup,” Edward said. “Many wizarding families will be going, not just British wizards, but wizards from all over the world will come to watch the games—you can meet some foreign friends there…”

“You still haven’t given up, even though I’m only fourteen.” Cohen sighed. “No one but you would like a Dementor—unless I can turn myself into a Golden Snitch.”

“But there will be people who like ‘Cohen,’ won’t there? Don’t be so pessimistic.” Edward patted Cohen on the shoulder. “Harry and the others get along quite well with you too—”

“Let’s talk about marriage when I’m an adult.” Cohen climbed off the sofa. “I’m going to renovate my trunk—living in this little cabin isn’t quite right anymore. I’m going to build something bigger…like a castle or something.”

"Do you need my help?" Edward raised his eyebrows.

"Don't you have a party at three o'clock this afternoon?" Cohen glanced at the D&D chessboard that had already been set up in the study. It was obvious that Edward was going to take advantage of Rose's absence to invite a group of people over to play.

“Oh—I almost forgot—” Edward immediately jumped up, “Oh no—what time is it now?”

“It’s 2:47. You have thirteen minutes left to pick up your friends,” Cohen said, glancing at the clock.

"Then you go build the castle yourself first. Call me tonight if you need any help—" Edward grabbed his coat, which he had just draped over the back of the sofa, and rushed out with his car keys.

Cohen then took the suitcase back to his bedroom on the second floor.

"Renovation?" the count asked, tilting his head. "You don't usually live here!"

“I can live without them,” Cohen said, gesturing meaningfully to the Earl, “but I can’t live without them—considering that Voldemort has already begun gathering Death Eaters, I should also begin gathering my own small force in case of need.”

"That's easy. Go to Azkaban again, and hundreds of Dementors will be following you around. They'll be obedient and useful," the Count said lazily. "You won't need to build any houses. They can just lie down anywhere—the little Dementor you brought back has already moved its home to the forest. Living in a house or in the bushes makes no difference to them..."

"Did you bully it?" Cohen narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Why does it suddenly want to move?"

“Yes, yes, I bullied him,” the count said irritably. “Then let me ask you, if I apologize, will he return the bird’s nest that he forcibly took from me? It took me two whole hours to build it, branch by branch!”

"That means Mick has grown up," Cohen said with relief. "He's fighting back when someone bullies him now, so I don't have to worry about him being bullied outside anymore..."

Don't you care about me at all?

The count said angrily:
"I can't bully anyone except that dragon—where are you going?"

“Go out and find a good spot for my castle,” Cohen said. “And while you’re at it, go see how Mick is doing.”

“I don’t feel any love in this house,” the count sighed.

But when Cohen returned to the cabin, he had something else in his hand, which he threw in front of the Earl, who was still dozing on Cohen's bed.

"Coo-coo-coo?" The count looked at the bird's nest made of branches in front of him, and then at Cohen.

“Look, your handmade, no, your claw-crafted bird’s nest,” Cohen said. “I traded a scarf for it from Mick—it seems to be going through a bit of puberty, it even fought with me. Speaking of which, do Dementors go through puberty?”

"You..." The count looked at the bird's nest, speechless.

"You're very touched, aren't you?" Cohen smiled.

"You simply think that building the castle foundation with magic is too tiring, so you want to use this to drag me into doing the hard labor, right?" the Earl said calmly. "Would Mick fight you? You might as well just tell me that Voldemort will recognize me as his father."

“You’re still too smart.” Cohen’s lips drooped. “Looks like I’ll have to look into how to lower a pet’s intelligence level…”

"Hmph." The count, as if in a huff, carried the nest onto the table, turned around inside, and turned his rear end towards Cohen.
-
But in reality, Cohen did not intend for the Earl to help him build the foundation. Mick took the Earl's nest away simply because he thought it was a gift from the Earl—because Mick had never seen the Earl sleep there before (the Earl usually slept directly on Cohen's bed).

Although the count said he didn't want to be Cohen's laborer, when Cohen returned to the box the next day, a well-formed foundation had already been dug out from the plot of land designated for the castle.

This castle is near the forest where unicorns live, and in Cohen's vision, it would be a smaller version of Hogwarts, which would look more spectacular.

While Cohen was launching the "Castle in a Box Project," the Ministry of Magic also made some new moves.

But it's not about the upcoming World Cup, it's about...

"Cohen stayed home all day today."

Edward flung open the door and said impatiently to Auror, who was knocking for the third time that day.

"Sevich, why don't you just put collars with location tracking charms on my whole family?"

“Security check, Edward, there’s no way around it,” the Auror named Sevic said wearily. “I still have to check the security at the World Cup stadium later—could you call Cohen down for a bit? I need to write a report.”

As he spoke, he waved a report with a single eye in his hand.

The eyes on this report are still searching for Cohen.

Edward snorted angrily.

“Cohen—”

Edward turned and called out towards the stairwell.

"Do we have to go through this every summer?" Cohen swayed down from upstairs. "If the minister doesn't want me to go to the games, he can just say so. There's no need to go through all this trouble."

"It has nothing to do with the match," Sevic said sternly. "Alright, that's all for today. Goodbye."

Sevich strode away down Privet Drive, and Edward slammed the door shut.

“They look at me like I’ve done something wrong,” Cohen said.

“Fudge has been making silly mistakes for a while now,” Edward said disappointedly. However, as someone who could spy on Voldemort at any time, Cohen actually knew pretty well why Fudge had been so nervous lately.

Because Voldemort had already begun to have Lucius incite the Dementors—Barty Jr.'s death made Voldemort realize something.

Those Death Eaters who are truly loyal to him should be rescued as soon as possible, otherwise the death of any one of them would be a great loss to him.

The Dementors' commotion made it hard for Fudge not to extend his suspicions to Cohen—a dark magic creation infused with Dementors, who had even come into contact with the Dementor community during his school years.

Compared to the explanation that "Voldemort's minions have resurfaced," Fudge is now clearly more inclined to believe that "Cohen is organizing a Dementor rebellion."

In the last few days of July, Cohen felt as if he had seen every Auror in the Ministry of Magic.

On the evening of the 31st, the last Auror to check on Cohen was a young woman with violet hair.

“Edward! Did you manage to get any Quidditch tickets?” She greeted Edward with obvious familiarity. “My dad, Ted, really wanted to go see the Quidditch World Cup—he’s been curious about the wizarding world for ages, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any tickets—Kingsley said he didn’t have a single extra…”

“I had Arnold get me three,” Edward said. “You didn’t come all this way just to ask about tickets, did you, Tonks?”

“Of course not—today is the first time since I became a full-fledged official that I’m not on duty,” Tonks said with great interest. “Although it’s quite boring…checking on a junior wizard’s activities…”

“Come in and have a seat,” Edward said. “Have you had dinner yet? We just finished making some—Dobby?”

"Dinner is ready, sir!" Dobby's shrill voice came from the kitchen.

"You guys even got a house-pom?" Tonks said enviously. "My mom always says, 'I wish I had a house-pom,' because my dad is such a slob—oh, so this is Cohen? I've been training all these years and haven't had much time to go around visiting—I actually admire Rose quite a bit."

"Is my mom a hidden wizard in a Muggle newspaper?" Cohen asked curiously, leaning against the back of the sofa.

“She’s a good fighter.” Edward’s lips twitched.

“She’s a very strong fighter,” Tonks said with awe.

"It's clear that there are some things you can't tell kids." Cohen climbed back onto the sofa in disappointment.

A few minutes later, Rose went home from get off work—they all obviously knew Tonks and weren't surprised by her arrival.

“So can you give me a hint?” Rose asked Tonks at the dinner table. “To be honest, the Ministry of Magic’s actions these days are really affecting our lives—if they continue like this next month, I’ll have to take some less ‘harmonious’ measures against Fudge.”

“I don’t know much about this either,” Tonks said. “But I heard that the minister is concerned about the unrest in Azkaban—but to have the Auror office keep an eye on a fourteen-year-old wizard when there’s trouble in Azkaban… I feel like the minister has lost his mind.”

"When did you graduate?" Cohen asked curiously.

“1991—it’s quite a coincidence, the year I graduated was the same year you enrolled,” Tonks said with remarkable extroversion. “I heard that a lot of interesting things happened at Hogwarts afterward, making me a little regretful that I didn’t repeat a year—”

“If you repeat a grade, your mother Andromeda will kill you,” Rose joked. “What’s the plan behind this? How long will this surveillance continue?”

“Before the Quidditch World Cup,” Tonks said wistfully. “But the other Aurors in the office aren’t too keen on coming here every day, so I’ll probably be the one coming over these next few days—by the way, can I just leave this record sheet here with you? All I have to do is have Cohen tick off the date each day.”

“That sounds better than having people knocking on the door every day.” Cohen accepted the registration form. The eye on it looked more like a facial recognition device. The Ministry of Magic had really gone all out to ensure that the Aurors didn’t slack off. “Besides, I won’t be home tomorrow. I’m going to Sirius’s place. Harry invited me to visit. It’s his first time spending the summer with his godfather.”

“Sirius Black?” Tonks’s eyes widened. “I remember him—speaking of which, he’s my…emmmm, distant cousin? My aunt is his cousin—sorry, I’ve never understood these family relationships, and my mother never talks about her hometown—because the Black family removed her from the family register.”

“That’s how pure-blood families are,” Rose said empathetically. “To be honest, it’s better to leave a family than to stay in one. When I married Edward, those lunatics from the Burke family said they were going to leave us all hanging on the top bars of the Azkaban prison.”

“Now they don’t even have graves left,” Edward comforted. “Evil people don’t live long.”

After dinner, Tonks thanked the Cohen family and left, reminding Cohen that she would come to pick up the "location log" before the Quidditch match so she wouldn't have to keep running back and forth between her house and the Cohen's.

“No one who becomes an official Auror for the first time has to do this kind of work of registering escapees,” Tonks said. “The Ministry of Magic has so many fugitives on the run. Even Arnold from the Memory Deletion Team caught one. I might be able to catch a few if I wander around.”
-
After dinner, Cohen returned to his room, just as the Earl flew back through the window, carrying a huge field mouse in his paws.

"Did the Ministry of Magic come today?" the Earl asked Cohen while tearing into a field mouse.

“She’s here,” Cohen said. “But it’s Tonks. My parents know her. She’s a pretty young Auror—I don’t quite understand why Fudge is going to such lengths to pinpoint my location. Does the wizarding world have nuclear weapons locked in place?”

"I don't understand nuclear weapons or anything like that..."

The count asked in a very serious tone:
"But... doesn't anyone find the people in the Ministry of Magic scary?"

“?” Cohen raised his eyebrows.

"What I mean is, they've sent no fewer than thirty people over this month, and they've been working on this for so long, checking locations and setting up anti-counterfeiting registration forms, but actually, nothing has been done of any real effect..."

The count took a deep breath.

"terrible……"

“This is what the Ministry of Magic is like under Fudge’s control,” Cohen sighed. “It’s doomed sooner or later—it feels like the wheels of history are turning against me…”

I was originally planning to stay a little longer...

But Fudge's meddling did make Cohen a little impatient.

It's like a mosquito buzzing its wings through a mosquito net, even though it will never bite anyone in its lifetime, but it just wants to annoy you in the middle of the night.

"Could you send me a letter later?" Cohen said to the Earl. "To Malfoy Manor."

(End of this chapter)