Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 356 Some things are only appreciated when you don't have them.
"I've seen it," Cohen said. "And I can take you to it—but you'll have to wait an hour; I'm in a competition."

"Oh, oh, oh!" the old water snake exclaimed with delight. "That's wonderful! I'll come with you. That 'competition' you mentioned... is it a wizard's hunt? Although I'm old, I can still help by catching some prey from the lake!"

"No need for that..." Cohen declined its offer. "You just wait here, I'll come back to you after the competition."

"Okay, okay, okay." The old water snake nodded repeatedly, but as if it had suddenly remembered something, it made a small request to Cohen, "Oh—and could you please not tell her in advance that I'm coming to see her?"

"What do you mean?" Cohen asked, puzzled. "Why couldn't you have said so beforehand?"

"Um... this..." the old water snake said, turning her head away somewhat evasively, "I was just afraid that if she found out I'd come all this way to see her, she'd get angry and refuse to see me anymore..."

"These two things are not directly related at all..." Cohen exposed the old water snake's lie.

However, at the old water snake's repeated pleas, Cohen agreed to take it to meet the Chimeramon without asking about what had happened between it and the Chimeramon.

"Then I'll wait for you here!" The old water snake flicked its tail, mimicking Cohen's waving gesture. "Do you like to eat mermaids? Want me to catch one for you?"

"If you don't like it, just lie here and don't move." Cohen left the old water snake with those last words before jumping into the water with Edward.

Edward wasn't a good swimmer, so he simply used the head-soaking spell to submerge his entire body, leaving the problem of swimming power entirely to Cohen.

Cohen, in his Dementor form, dragged Edward through the Black Lake. Finally, they arrived at a place very close to the shore—Cohen returned to human form, and Edward was freed from the Bubble Head Curse.

"Pfft—" Edward, who had almost choked on his breath, was pulled out of the water by Cohen and spat out a mouthful of water, his face turning red.

The moment Cohen and Edward surfaced, cheers erupted across the entire lake.

"I didn't expect you to not remove the bubbling spell when you left the water..." Cohen looked at Edward's face, which was red from choking on water, with some difficulty as he swam Edward toward the shore.

“I’m just—cough—making sure you win more realistically…” Edward said in a low voice, “What kind of unconscious hostage would have a bubble head curse on them…”

Once they reached the shore, they were pulled up by several hands.

"You're number one!" Rose wrapped Cohen in a thick, long towel with concern, but her eyes couldn't hide her pride in him. "I really should have gotten you a warm wetsuit—your dad insisted that using a wetsuit might be considered cheating..."

“Even if you don’t agree… you don’t have to not even give me a kiss as comfort… I just came up from underwater…” Edward muttered, starting to take off his already soaked suit and shoes and socks, so he could use a spell to dry them all off at once.

“How old are you to still be jealous of your son?” Herbert laughed and draped another long towel over Edward’s shoulder. “Cohen did a great job… fantastic—the others haven’t even come up yet, and the hour is almost up.”

After being forgiven by Edward and Rose, and hearing Cohen's promise to take him away from Burke Manor, Herbert seemed to have become many years younger, and his prematurely gray temples seemed to have grown back black hair.

"I just can't do anything with you..." Rose said helplessly as she took advantage of Herbert blocking the view of the surrounding audience to lean close to Edward and give him a kiss.

Then the two of them stuck together and couldn't be separated—

"No matter how much you two show off your love in front of me, I will not find a girlfriend at Hogwarts."

"I feel neglected," Cohen said very firmly.
-

After drying themselves off the lake and changing into clean clothes, Cohen and Herbert sat down in the row of seats near the referee's table, waiting for the other warriors to come up. Cohen was the only one who returned within the allotted one hour.

Just over an hour later, Furong surfaced, but she didn't bring any hostages with her; she was brought up by a group of fishmen.

“Gabrielle!” Fleur cried out in the arms of her parents who had pulled her out of the water. “I’m entangled by Grindylows—they’ve hooked me, and my spells aren’t working—what about Gabrielle…”

Furong's parents are comforting her, assuring her that no one will have any accidents during the competition and that Gabrielle will be brought back safely when the competition ends.

The third to return was Cedric, who successfully brought Cho Chang along, becoming the second successful warrior after Cohen, though he exceeded the allotted time by a minute.

Next came Krum, who brought Hermione with him.

Harry was the last one to return, bringing Ron and Fleur's sister Gabrielle with him.

Sirius Black excitedly plunged into the lake to help Harry bring the two hostages back to shore.

Cohen saw Dumbledore walk towards the water's edge, squat down, and exchange a few words in a sharp, piercing voice with a fierce-looking mermaid who had just swum ashore.

The mermaid even pointed towards Cohen, and then pointed towards Harry.

Dumbledore glanced at the two of them, nodded, and stood up, saying to the other judges, "Let's have a meeting before we score them."

“Thank you so much!” Fleur said gratefully as Harry sat down in the row of seats for the players and their families. “You saved Gabrielle… even though she wasn’t your hostage…”

“Ah, yeah…” Harry scratched his head.

Fleur kissed Harry twice on both cheeks, making Harry blush.

“You both did it safely!” Hermione said happily to Harry and Cohen. “And Cohen—Harry just said you were taken away by the giant squid down there—it gave me quite a fright, but thankfully I turned around and saw you were back…”

“Isn’t the giant squid a familiar fish to students?” Cohen said. “It feels like the probability of being murdered by a giant squid is even lower than the probability of being murdered by Dumbledore.”

“Hermione, there’s seaweed tangled in your hair…” Krum tried to draw Hermione’s attention away from Korn and Harry, and also seemed to want to remind Hermione that he was the one who rescued her from the bottom of the lake.

But Hermione just impatiently grabbed a piece of seaweed that was tangled in her hair.

“But you could have been number one alongside Cohen…” Ron said to Harry regretfully, “Dumbledore wouldn’t let a hostage die at the bottom of the lake—”

“I didn’t know at the time,” Harry said sullenly.

“Your dad would do that too,” Sirius said absentmindedly, patting Harry on the shoulder.

"Did I rescue them a little too easily?" Cohen turned to Herbert and asked, his gaze shifting from Sirius and Harry to Edward and Rose, who were entwined in a corner seat. "I admit that sentimentality can be quite useful sometimes, at least it can provide some emotional value..."

(End of this chapter)