Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 333 Cohen's Dance Partner Selection Competition

As they reached a large open space between the castle and the cabin, Cohen fired a brilliant red firework into the air with his wand.

Soon, the Chimera Beast, Sissoko, the little basilisk, the old basilisk, Ari, the unicorn herd, and Mick, who were unaware of the truth, all rushed over.

To Cohen's surprise, Aly and the unicorns were surprisingly not drunk.

Norber and his mother didn't come out; the two dragons were probably sleeping and couldn't hear any movement outside from inside the cave.

“I have an announcement to make,” Cohen said to the animals who had gathered around him. “I’m going to a dance for Christmas and I need to invite a girl—but I don’t really want to invite a human girl I don’t know very well, so I’ll pick one of you. It’ll also be a good opportunity for someone who wants to go out and have some fun to take along.”

"Are you really planning to have the animals dance?" the Earl asked, tilting his head as he stopped on the unicorn chieftain's head.

Only this unicorn leader was slightly safer for the Earl. Whether it was the basilisk, Ari, or the chimera, they were all too dangerous for birds—especially Ari, whom the Earl still feared from the way she tried to pierce him three years ago.

“Of course, I'm not actually asking one of you to come with me directly,” Cohen said. “Once it's chosen, I'll temporarily transfer its soul into a body disguised as a human girl. To prevent any accidents from happening if the soul and body are separated for too long, I'll bring it back to restore it after a dance at Christmas—”

After he said that, quite a few people around him wanted to be Cohen's dance partner, and a bunch of newly grown unicorns were also eagerly looking forward to trying the dance Cohen had mentioned—none of them thought that Cohen would harm them.

"Me! Me! Me! I want to dance with my son!" Sissoko shouted excitedly, lifting his upper body.

“You’re not good enough, you’re male,” Cohen refused.

"You said it yourself, it's a human girl—" Sissoko argued, "Nobody cares who's inside anyway—"

"That's a bit strange," said the long-horned water snake, "but it also seems quite reasonable."

“That’s unreasonable, next one,” Cohen said without any mercy.

"Roar!" the lion roared.

“You won’t do either. Let’s talk things out first—besides, aren’t you a male lion too?” Cohen rejected the lion’s proposal without even thinking.

“When did you come to understand this?” the count said.

“Because it got hard.” Cohen pointed in a direction.

“Eek…” The count shrank his wings, which caused the lion to roar at him in displeasure.

"Me!" the little snake monster exclaimed, its eyes shining brightly. "I want to dance!"

“It’s not that you’re no good…” Cohen examined the little snake monster’s soul strength. Although it had increased considerably compared to when it was born, it was still at a level that Cohen could absorb. “Any backup options…?”

【I want to go too!】A silver-white unicorn excitedly popped out. Cohen looked at it for a long time before recognizing it—it seemed to be the little unicorn that had given him flowers and fur before, but now it was an adult and its fur had turned from gold to silver.

"I won't fight with the little one for it." Aly said, feigning composure. "I know you want to invite me—as compensation, you can—"

“No, thank you, no need to say the rest.” Cohen could tell at a glance that Alyssa was trying to use this opportunity to get some new drinks from him. “I’m already being very humane by letting you fool around.”

There's another very important reason why you can't choose Ari—Ari's soul strength is 67, which was unattainable for Cohen in the past, and it remains unattainable for Cohen now. There's simply no way to extract her soul.

[Dancing...] Mick curiously approached Cohen, wanting to know what dancing looked like. Cohen gave it a memory of his, and it happily floated back into the house with the memory.

Mick is easier to coax—after all, it doesn't have anything that can be called a soul, and Cohen can't pull it into the puppet.

Several other unicorns were also eager to go out and dance, so they first held an internal election, and the winner was the unicorn who had given Cohen flowers and was more familiar with Cohen.

Then came the struggle between the little snake monster and the unicorn.

As for how they would compete, Cohen left the arrangements to the goats to keep watch—in order to avoid any injuries or fatalities.

However, Cohen was clearly overthinking it, because the snake monster's ideas for the competition were either a sheep-eating contest or a burrowing contest, while the unicorn's ideas were just a contest of grass-eating speed and drinking capacity.

But in the end, it actually turned into a competition between the elders—the sudden competitive spirit between Ari, the unicorn chieftain, and the two old snakes.

Both sides want their own child to win.

“Very spirited,” the count commented. “You should really take a picture of this and sell it—it would definitely sell very well.”

With the outcome uncertain, Cohen decided to come back and see later, believing that a first and second place would eventually be determined.

By the time Cohen returned to the lounge, it was almost evening, and he was supposed to go out for dinner—but unusually, even though it was dinnertime, there were still quite a few people gathered in the lounge.

Ginny and Harry were both around Ron, who looked as pale as if he were dead.

"What happened?" Cohen crawled in through the entrance and came over to ask.

“He just invited Fleur Delacour to the ball—” Ginny explained a second time, suppressing a laugh, but still patted Ron on the shoulder sympathetically.

“That was Veela’s magic,” Harry explained for Ron. “She was probably going to use that spell on Cedric, but it just happened to hit Ron instead.”

Harry also seemed a bit down, and Cohen guessed he had already tried to invite Cho Chang.

“This is ridiculous,” Ron said. “Now it’s just the three of us without dance partners—”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Cohen said with pity. “There’s already a sad, thick barrier between us.”

“Huh? Who is it?” Harry said. “Now you should tell us—”

“The two girls started fighting over me,” Cohen said. “I’ll dance with whoever wins.”

"Impossible!" Ron said incredulously. "Two girls fought over you? How could this be—"

“So you and Harry have to work harder.” Cohen patted the two on the shoulder. “If all else fails, you can settle things internally. Dumbledore won’t say anything—he might even send you some little gifts.”

“No—” Ron suddenly thought of someone else, “Neville doesn’t have a dance partner either—he told me after Potions class that he invited Hermione, you know, because Hermione often helps him with his studies… but Hermione told him that she had already promised someone else…”

"Hermione has a dance partner?!" Harry exclaimed in surprise, but the next second he thought of the person most likely to invite Hermione—Viktor Krum, who had said he liked Hermione after the first project.

(End of this chapter)