Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 282 Thanks to Voldemort for sending the construction team—

Kreacher couldn't disobey Sirius's orders, and he also wanted to bring Regulus's body back.

But Harry always felt it was dangerous—the infernal corpses, the poison—it sounded like Voldemort's trap.

“Wait a minute.” Cohen suddenly had an idea and called out to Sirius, who was about to leave immediately. “I’ll go with you—you’re not planning to charge into the army of Infernals alone and then drag your brother out from there, are you?”

“I want to go too—” Harry added.

“You stay home,” Sirius and Cohen said in unison.

"Why should I!" Harry protested.

“I know the reverse of the Demention,” Cohen said. “Voldemort taught me a whole bunch of spells when he was trying to recruit me.”

"You've learned all of that?" Sirius asked warily.

"I won't do that now."

Cohen turned his head and said arrogantly:
"I haven't learned it, I don't know it, I don't know how to use it. Now you go and deal with the army of iniquities by yourself. After you die, Harry will continue to be abused at the Dursleys' house, and you'll lie at the bottom of the lake counting stones with Regulus's iniquities..."

"..." Sirius had calmed down—in the past, he might have stubbornly rushed into the cave by himself, not caring whether he died or not, but not wanting to lose face.

But now there's Harry—he has to consider Harry's future life.

Damn!

"Alright then," Sirius said in a muffled voice.

"It sounds like they're very reluctant."

"Let's go together, please?" Sirius said in a coaxing tone, then sighed, "I've never seen Edward and Rose as unforgiving as you..."

“They’ll be like that in the future, after all, they’re like me,” Cohen said matter-of-factly.

Cohen went back to his room, and a moment later returned to the living room with the suitcase.

“You brought that box because…” Harry felt like he was guessing something, “It’s not to let the Basilisk or the Chimera…”

“I want my brother to be whole.” Sirius frowned.

After a period of calm, he realized that the probability of his younger brother still being alive was zero.

“What are you guessing? Sissoko doesn’t eat carrion,” Cohen shook his head. “Lions don’t like eating people either—hurry up, we’ll be eating soon.”

Urged on by Cohen, Kreacher grabbed Cohen and Sirius, and with a snap, disappeared from the spot.

After a period of spinning and twisting, Cohen and Sirius landed steadily on the ground.

The air around them was filled with the smell of decay and sea salt. They were standing on the edge of a dark cave, and could see a small island emitting a green glow in the center.

The place looked rather eerie, especially the lake, which appeared dark and deep under the dim green light, as if some terrifying creature lurked beneath, ready to leap out of the water at any moment.

“It was there…” Kreacher said, pointing tremblingly to the small island in the middle of the lake, “That’s where Master Regulus was dragged down…” “Dragged down?” Although Sirius had already accepted the fact that Regulus was dead, Kreacher’s words clearly shattered his last remaining sliver of unrealistic hope.

“There are a lot of undead in the lake.” Cohen had already reached the lakeside and was observing the magical fluctuations below. “About two thousand—most of them are probably Muggles.”

"Can we find Regulus...?" Sirius stared blankly at the lake, his fists clenched tightly.

He had always thought Regulus was a cowardly fool...

Damn it, if only Regulus had left him a note!

"He could have told me..."

“Master Regulus said you’d rather kiss a Muggle than help bury a Death Eater brother,” Kreacher said. “Master Regulus forbade Kreacher to tell anyone…”

"That was just me saying it in anger!" Sirius punched his thigh. "Can't he tell I was trying to persuade him not to join the Death Eaters?"

“Perhaps he had no other choice at the time,” Cohen said to himself, stirring the lake water with his wand. “Think about it, your large family only has you and Regulus as heirs, and the rest of the family is full of old, weak, and disabled people—now Voldemort is in power, but as a pure-blood family, not a single one of you has joined him…”

Sirius fell silent.

Cohen was right—most of the pure-blood families at that time had taken sides, either siding with the Ministry of Magic like the Crouch family, or having their family members join Voldemort.

The Black family wavered for far too long—long enough that Sirius ran away from home, and long enough that Regulus was almost graduating from Hogwarts.

Regulus had no choice; his brother had run away, leaving him to bear the responsibility alone.

"Alright, stop being so emo." Cohen pulled the tip of his wand out of the water. "I found them. I'll fish them out from the bottom in a bit. Try to figure out which one is your brother—I don't know what Regulus looks like."

“I don’t really…” Sirius was about to say that he hadn’t seen him for fourteen years—but then he suddenly remembered that Regulus had died fourteen years ago.

“I recognize him.”
-
Under Cohen's control, the infernals began to emerge from the lake in droves.

Thanks to Cohen's studiousness in his first year and Voldemort's efforts in recruiting him, the similarity in their spellcasting habits made it easy for Cohen to take over Voldemort's batch of Infernals.

Most of the corpses here are dressed in Muggle clothes, and it's clear that Voldemort killed them in the summer, as they were dressed very lightly.

A few robed wizard corpses could be seen, and Sirius would always rush over to confirm their faces, but then shake his head and walk away—Cohen directly controlled them to jump into the boxes one by one, so as not to make the shore too crowded.

"Daddy, can I eat these?" the little snake monster's voice came from the box.

"No!" Cohen replied sternly in his Parsleyan accent. "If you get a stomachache, you'll be in for a beating from Sissoko!"

Eating everything will only harm you, you silly little snake!

"Are you really planning to put these people's bodies in your crate?" Sirius had already plopped down next to Cohen's crate. There were too many Infernals; if he kept running back and forth, he'd probably be exhausted before he even found Regulus. "Wouldn't it be better to let them rest in peace..."

"I'll find a place to bury them in a few months. I'm very kind-hearted."

Cohen said,
"But before that, I'll make use of this a little—anyway, if I didn't come, these corpses would continue to be desecrated. It's better for me to desecrate them than for Voldemort to do so. I'm short-handed for building the castle right now, so working is worse than being a killing machine."

(End of this chapter)