Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 293 "The Honest, Kind, and Loving Little Dementor Who Never Harms Anyone"

"what?"

The three looked at each other blankly after Cohen was led away by the new professor. Harry and Hermione looked confused, but Ron seemed to have realized something, and his face turned pale instantly.

After Cohen and Moody disappeared around the corner on the second floor, Ron anxiously said to Harry:

“Harry, we need to hurry and find the other professors…”

“What did he take Cohen for?” Harry asked.

Cohen just arrived at school, right? He got caught because he stepped into the school gate with his left foot first?
“My dad told me—Moody has always hated dark magic…” Ron swallowed hard. “Could it be…that he discovered Cohen’s true identity? Maybe his magic eye can see through Cohen…”

“But Cohen couldn’t choose his birth, could he?” Harry said anxiously. “He has absolutely nothing to do with dark magic—”

“Perhaps the Aurors see it differently,” Hermione said astutely. “Don’t just stand there—let’s go back to the Great Hall—Professor Dumbledore doesn’t seem to have come upstairs yet; we need to go tell him!”
-
Meanwhile, Cohen had already been taken by Moody to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office.

“It really is an annual tradition…” Cohen clicked his tongue in amazement.

Every year, I get dragged into the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office.

It seems like he was brought here a little too early this time; Cohen was never brought here on the first night of school before.

Moody's office was filled with strange-looking black magic detection devices. On the desk sat a large, top-shaped endoscope, in the corner stood a golden antenna lie detector, and on the other wall hung a long mirror with faintly visible human figures...

However, even after Cohen entered, these items used to detect dark magic did not exhibit any unusual activity.

"Were your former professors also interested in you?" Moody limped into his office, closing the door behind him and shoving Cohen into the armchair in front of his desk. "Voldemort and Quirrell, Lockhart who wrote the book, Joshua's brother Philip, Lupin..."

Moody seemed to know them all; after all, Wernher von Braun's brother had been an Auror in the department before.

“Don’t be nervous, kid. Just because people call me Mad-Eye doesn’t mean I’m a madman who throws spells at everyone I touch.” Moody chuckled a few times, but these words, spoken by him with his scarred face, were clearly not very effective—if an ordinary student came in, they would probably immediately tell him all the wrong things they’d done since starting school.

But Cohen seems alright—at least for now, Moody doesn't seem to be targeting Cohen with the historical issue of being a "black magic experiment subject."

"So you're looking for me...?" Cohen asked.

Surely we can't just get a close-up look at rare species, can we?
“Dumbledore asked me to explain some things to you.” Moody stretched his wooden leg. “He thinks you already know what happened at Burke Manor.”

“It’s hard not to know,” Cohen said. “My parents have mentioned it to me too… Is there some additional information to add? Don’t tell me something happened to Herbert—”

“No, not at all,” Moody grinned, making his face look even more menacing. “The misunderstanding Dumbledore wanted to avoid was… how was it again, ‘My retirement date was before you were born’—you wouldn’t indiscriminately hate everyone with an Auror background, would you?”

“I’m not some crazy person who gets triggered by the word ‘Auror’ and randomly picks a random passerby to throw a curse at them,” Cohen said, using the same phrase Moody had just used to introduce himself.

“That goes well then. At least we won’t clash, lest Dumbledore nag me about my ‘temperament’ and ‘personality’ again.” Moody clapped his hands. “To be honest, I’ve had enough excitement in the first half of my life. Now I just want to enjoy my retirement in peace and quiet—teaching sounds pretty leisurely, but Lupin wrote to tell me to be prepared…”

“Alright, let’s move on to the next topic.” Moody steered the conversation back on track, “but not about your studies—classes haven’t even started yet. It’s about you, the Ministry of Magic, and Voldemort.”

Moody started to get a little stern.

“The first thing is the Ministry of Magic’s underhanded tactics against you,” Moody said. “Although I’ve been retired for many years, I still have some friends in the Auror’s office, so I can hear some rumors—Fudge is a bit hysterical right now, and he desperately needs a topic of public opinion to divert people’s attention, and you are the one who is likely to break the big news.”

Moody stared intently at Cohen:

"Both Dumbledore and I think you need to tone it down a bit this semester—especially when it comes to things like leaving school."

Moody was referring to Cohen's trip to the Lakeside Hotel to cause trouble for the remnants of the Silver Key gang.

“As long as no one kidnaps my parents and pets,” Cohen said.

“That’s why Dumbledore invited me to teach here,” Moody said gruffly. “And you don’t need to worry about Edward and Rose’s safety, they have the Unwavering Faithful Charm…”

"So you became a professor to protect my cat?" Cohen's eyes widened.

"..."

Moody's face froze.

The conversation killer can silence you with just a little effort.
“Okay, I know you’re not here to protect my cat,” Cohen said, becoming more reserved.

“The second thing is about Voldemort’s Horcruxes,” Moody said. “Dumbledore doesn’t want too many people to know about this, lest he alert the enemy.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Cohen nodded. “It was Dumbledore who was telling people—look, you know everything…”

"..."

Does that mean Moody is an "outsider"?

Moody is already rebuilding his impression of Cohen—the kid's previous obedient and well-behaved demeanor was all an act, and now he's getting better at being a chatterbox.

“It’s alright, you’re not really being ostracized that much…” Cohen comforted her, “It’s just that you haven’t been interacting with Dumbledore much these past few years. He’s been staying at the school and never goes out, and you didn’t come to help him with the problem of not being able to recruit teachers a few years ago…”

“The third thing.” Moody just wanted to end this late-night conversation as soon as possible—no wonder Dumbledore had warned him not to talk to Cohen for too long.

He initially thought Dumbledore meant that Cohen was rather suspicious, and that talking for too long would make Cohen feel interrogated or something like that...

So, does Cohen's "top-notch conversation skills" need some warm-up time?!
"This is simply something I wanted to ask."

Moody suddenly asked:
Have you ever killed anyone?

“No,” Cohen said.

It would be strange if Moody didn't ask about this. Why would "Mad-Eye Moody" chat with him so calmly for so long without questioning his danger? Cohen would have to wonder if he had been replaced by Voldemort's men again.

Although Moody's soul strength has already proven his identity—there aren't any Death Eaters that strong around Voldemort right now...

After Cohen answered the question, neither the peephole nor the lie detector reacted.

Cohen now appears to be an upright, kind, friendly, and harmless person who never hurts others.

"Boom boom boom——"

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Moody said hoarsely as he put the wooden legs back on.

Dumbledore entered, followed by three extremely uneasy children. "Clearly, this is a clever misunderstanding," Dumbledore said to Harry and the others with a smile.

"Three more? Dumbledore?" Moody assumed these three were also students Dumbledore had brought in to discuss something.

“The way you took Cohen away was rather frightening, Alastor,” Dumbledore said with amusement. “His friends thought you were going to do something terrible.”

"I said I just wanted to talk."

Moody spoke in a muffled voice to Dumbledore, then stood up and nudged Cohen in his armchair.

"Let's go, child, let's go—it's over."

“You have some very precious friends, cherish them…” Moody whispered to Cohen as he stood up to leave, “Also, please pass on a message to Edward for me. He hasn’t given me a single bottle of wine in fourteen years, despite all the help I’ve given him before…”

"If you really send it, you won't smash it as if it were poison?" Cohen asked.

“Whether I smash it or not is my business,” Moody said angrily. “I almost thought they were dead.”
-
"He really didn't do anything to you?"

On their way back to the common room, Harry and the others kept pestering Cohen to ask what Moody had done to him.

"What kind of things do you want to hear?" Cohen had already figured out Harry and Ron's background, but Hermione remained calm. She probably understood after listening to Dumbledore and Moody's conversation that there was no conflict between Cohen and Moody.

“He thinks you’re evil, so he wants to catch you,” Ron said.

“He wants to interrogate you about Voldemort and the silver key,” Harry said.

“Then we got into a fight,” Cohen continued, picking up where the two had left off.

"Really?" ×2
“Fake!” Cohen said, covering his face. “You all really want me to be enemies with everyone in the world, right? When I become Minister of Magic, I’ll assign each of you a Dementor as a bodyguard sooner or later.”

"Sigh." Hermione sighed and shook her head at the three people beside her.

“Stop pretending. You’re actually curious about what Cohen and Mad-Eye Hood talked about, aren’t you?” Ron guessed Hermione’s thoughts perfectly. “I bet they talked about the Ministry of Magic.”

“It could also be about Voldemort,” Harry said. “Voldemort has definitely been making moves lately—Sirius also told Dumbledore about it…”

"I think so," Cohen yawned.

By the time they arrived at the Gryffindor common room, Cohen had almost finished telling the three of their conversation with Moody.

As for the advice not to spread the word about Horcruxes, since Harry and his friends already knew all about it back in their third year, Moody's warning was actually useless.

A dreamless night.

The next morning, the often terrible weather in the Scottish Highlands finally eased up. Although the sky was still overcast, at least there was no wind or heavy rain.

At breakfast, Cohen and his classmates also received their class schedules for the semester.

“Herbalism class… Magical Creatures Protection class…” Ron counted the morning’s classes. “Today was pretty good, all outdoors—no need to be cooped up in the castle…”

“I have two Divination classes this afternoon,” Harry said worriedly. “I feel like I’ve already come up with all the ways I’ll die…”

Because Cohen and his team were frantically fabricating their own tragic death prophecies in order to get points from Professor Trelawney, they predicted almost every possible way to die in less than a year.

“Then I’ll have to find some more bizarre ways to die,” Cohen said, stroking his chin. “I’ve decided that I’m going to die on a woman’s belly this weekend.”

“What about Harry and me…” Ron said worriedly.

“You can die on each other’s stomachs,” Cohen suggested.

“Why don’t you just give up on this course like I did? You can go and learn some more useful courses, like arithmetic and divination,” Hermione said.

“Too complicated, let’s skip the arithmetic divination—I’ve noticed your schedule is back to normal.” Ron peered at Hermione’s schedule.

“Because I realized I’d go crazy if I kept studying like this,” Hermione said casually. “For example, Muggle Studies and Divination classes—I found they didn’t actually give me much knowledge—especially Divination…”

She still harbored resentment towards the pretentious Professor Trelawney.

On the other side of the Gryffindor table, Fred and George were discussing how to make themselves older in order to qualify for the Triwizard Tournament (which required participants to be adults, and Fred and George were a year apart).

“I wish there were such a way,” Ron said enviously. “To become a champion of Hogwarts—it sounds so exciting.”

“That’s impossible,” Hermione reminded Ron. “Dumbledore knows how old we are; how could we possibly get away with this…”

Although Harry didn't say a word, Cohen could tell that he was also longing for it.

Then let "the great Lord Cohen" and "the next greatest Lord Voldemort" lend you a hand, little Harry!

After breakfast, they went together to the herbalism classroom greenhouse.

This class was with the Hufflepuff students, but Cohen wasn't very familiar with them—they were too well-behaved, so well-behaved that you could hardly find any Hufflepuffs in the places Cohen frequented.

In the first herbal medicine class of the semester, Professor Sprout introduced them to a dark plant that looked like a large slug emerging from the soil.

“The Babo tuber,” Professor Sprout said, “you need to squeeze it by hand; you need to collect its pus—”

Many students expressed their unwillingness to try this disgusting behavior.

“They are extremely valuable,” Professor Sprout said. “Don’t waste them. Collect the pus in bottles and wear your dragon-skin gloves. Undiluted pus from the Babo tubers can cause unusual damage to the skin.”

The squeezing process is done in pairs, one person holds the bottle and the other pinches the baboon tuber to prevent its yellowish-green pus from spraying onto someone's face.

However, Cohen, who was originally supposed to team up with Harry, was pulled away by a Hufflepuff student he didn't know very well.

Cohen could tell at a glance that something was wrong with the student.

[Soul Strength: 24]

This is clearly someone disguised as a compound decoction—as for who that person is, it's obvious...

He was a Death Eater sent by Voldemort.

(End of this chapter)