Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 308 Bottled Emotions and Mick's Help
“They’re probably hungry,” Nico said. “Didn’t you mention before that the other Dementors always thought you were hungry, but you’re not actually hungry—they probably see much more in you than you see in yourself…”

"Is it because you're hungry? Is it that simple?" Cohen asked. "That's easy to solve..."

Cohen's gaze shifted to a large pile of emotional trinkets that had been neatly arranged and stacked in a box in the study.

This was the silver key property confiscated during the summer when the Chimera Beast was found—the wizard who was researching how to extract emotions had collected a large number of sealed emotions, which Cohen had intercepted.

Cohen opened a can labeled "Happiness" and took a sip.

The familiar feeling of fullness and the pleasure of eating sweets—wait—pleasure?

Cohen seemed to sense the effects of consuming his emotions.

No wonder those negative emotions tasted so bad—was eating emotions meant to give Dementors the feeling of those emotions?

That's why happiness is sweet?

So it seems that I really did become violent because I was hungry.

Thinking about it this way makes a lot more sense—after all, if one were truly losing their humanity, they wouldn't want to kill someone out of "impatience," because "murder" would actually be detrimental to their current development.

After discovering that consuming ecstasy could alleviate his urge to kill, Cohen was no longer in such a hurry.

It's always easier to deal with happiness than to consume the soul, and once Nicole's bottled humanity is developed, Cohen can produce and consume both emotions and "humanity" on his own, so there's no need to worry about this trouble anymore.

The only problem might be that most of my emotional reserves are negative, with only a handful of happy ones.

"How do you feel?" Nicole asked with concern.

“It must have been great,” the count clicked his tongue. “He looked like he was enjoying it—like I’d just eaten ten field mice.”

“You can’t eat ten field mice,” Cohen pointed out, exposing the Earl’s boast. “But I do feel better now; having a solution makes things easier…”

"Boom boom boom——"

A soft tapping sound came from outside the window.

Mick floated outside the window, his long, thin, withered fingers rhythmically tapping on the windowpane, as if he wanted to come in.

"What's wrong?" Cohen opened the window and let it in.

Mick didn't say a word, but simply moved closer to Cohen and pulled out a wisp of illusory matter woven with dense colors from his robe, visible only to Cohen.

It's very similar to happiness, but much richer in color and much more stable than ordinary emotions—it's as stable as a ball of yarn in Mick's hand.

[Here you go...eat it...] Mick conveyed a sense of "expectation" to Cohen.

It was discovered earlier that Mick had little desire for human happiness and could even create his own happiness, but Cohen never intended to use Mick as his happiness generator.

"You can keep it." Cohen couldn't see any other pleasure in Mick's body, so he decisively refused. "I'll find my own food, and there's plenty here."

Cohen pointed to the canned food in the box. Maybe this stuff was Mick's source of happiness; what would happen to Mick if he ate it?
[…] Mick circled Cohen dejectedly, but didn't retract his cheerful expression. "I'll make you some more food…"

It then passed the ball of emotion towards Cohen and even gestured to him as if it were being rubbed into a ball.

[What do you mean? Did you just conjure this ball out of thin air?] Cohen examined Mick closely again and indeed couldn't see any joy besides this ball of yarn.

It looks like Mick has emptied his own wellspring of happiness.

After Cohen understood what he meant, Mick twirled merrily in the air, and Cohen saw it—some new joy was emerging from under Mick's cloak.

It creates happiness purely from its own nature, not from some so-called "source of happiness" that you might worry about.

"Well--"

While Cohen wasn't looking, Mick shoved the ball of happiness into Cohen's mouth, and then rolled around happily a few times, because Cohen had caught its gift.

“It must be because I’ve been influenced too much,” the count said. “I saw a Dementor rolling around in the air—ever since I started following this guy, my life seems to have suddenly become abnormal.”

“What happened?” Nico asked, because as a painting he couldn’t see the Dementors at all. “I only see Cohen talking to something—”

“His Dementors are feeding him,” the Earl said. “Putting race aside, the scene is actually quite touching, but why is it that Dementors… are so tough yet so soft?”

"What's wrong with the Dementors?" Cohen said fiercely to the Earl after swallowing Mick's gift. "Those perverted owls who got taken advantage of by blondie."

"Why don't you just turn back into your old self, you naturally evil little Dementor?" the Earl retorted.
-
With Mick's huge, concentrated burst of joy that seemed to have been building up for ages, Cohen felt like he had become human again—even arguing with the Earl became interesting.

"Don't spout nonsense! You just enjoy the thrill of bullying me; it has absolutely nothing to do with your humanity!"

When Cohen suggested that the Earl and Norbert duel more often to gain experience, and that the Earl take Cohen's place in the first battle to create the myth of "the owl defeating the dragon," the Earl angrily replied:
"I'm not even big enough to fill a dragon's teeth!"

“Dragon taming relies mainly on technique,” ​​Cohen instructed. “Dragon tamers don’t subdue them with force, but with skillful petting techniques and the lure of dirty and despicable food—”

"I don't even have hands!"

The count said, "You want me to lure a dragon with a piece of meat hanging there... Don't you think this looks like God giving it a feathery, flying dinner that will crawl into its mouth?"

“That’s a pity. If you had agreed, you could have become famous through my efforts.” Cohen sighed. “Now I have to bear this damn fame.”

"What are you planning to do?" the count asked warily.

“In a few days, a woman named Rita Skeeter will be coming to interview the Warriors for the Daily Prophet,” Cohen said.

“I remember this woman; she wrote sensational articles in the newspapers every day.” The Count didn’t have a good impression of Rita Skeeter either. “Your father often criticized her articles.”

“I hope she’s still as good as she is when she interviews me,” Cohen said. “I just want the fame—that way, when I publicly kill Voldemort, at least people won’t ask, ‘Huh? Who’s Cohen Norton?’”

(End of this chapter)