Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 412 The Greedy Little Snake Monster Swallows the Owl

Mrs. Weasley looked a little angry because the owls had left their tracks all over the house.

However, Mrs. Weasley's expression softened a little after Cohen promised to clean it up immediately and get all the owls into the box.

“Mom, can I keep this owl?” Ron pointed to the brown-feathered owl next to him and asked Mrs. Weasley, “Cohen gave it to me.”

"What?" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed in surprise, and immediately intended to have Ron return the owl—an owl was hardly a cheap gift.

“It’s alright, Mrs. Weasley,” Cohen explained. “My owls have brought back too many ‘girlfriends,’ twenty-seven of them, I can’t afford to keep them all… I’ll give most of them away, even if I don’t give them to Ron.”

"Well... alright..." Mrs. Weasley looked a little embarrassed. "What would you like to eat tonight?"

“Stew and roast meat will do, thank you for your hard work,” Cohen said.

“That’s great!” Ron excitedly stroked the new owl’s feathers, then received a gentle peck from it.

“That’s terrible,” the count said dryly.

“The greedy bird will be eaten by the little snake monster,” Cohen said.

Besides Ron, Cohen also planned to give a few to Hermione and the other Weasley children—they couldn't be kept in boxes for long, because dragons and griffins were terrifying enough to scare ordinary owls to death. In the end, Cohen had to ask Arnold to find a way to resell most of the owls.

“Oh, I really would like to keep an owl, but Crookshanks might not like them,” Hermione said apologetically.

“Then I’ll go ask Fred and George again,” Cohen said.

“Ginny probably wants one too,” Ron said. “She always says she doesn’t have a way to send letters to her friends anytime—how big of a cage do you think I should get for her?”

Fred and George really needed an owl, and they insisted on buying it from Cohen rather than getting it for free.

“What’s done is done. You should spend more of your money on joke materials.” Cohen shook his head. “Besides, you’ll have to find a way to sell the remaining owls to Diagon Alley merchants—if you can find a way…”

“Leave it to us,” Fred said happily. “We’ve already got to know almost half the shops in Diagon Alley.”

“I’ll definitely help you get a good price,” George said. “And while I’m at it, I’ll also promote our fake wands—come to think of one we’ve ever made that turns into an owl…”

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With the start of the school year drawing ever closer, the letter from Hogwarts was still nowhere to be found.

However, Cohen did not expect that Edward and Rose would appear at the entrance of No. 12 Grimmauld Place in the last few days.

“We’re just casually attending this reunion of old friends,” Edward said casually as he followed Cohen in. “How have you been? How’s the place… emmmmm…”

“Beasts! Sluts! Filthy and sinful bastards!” Mrs. Black’s portrait flipped open again, and her drooling, darting eyes screamed and hurled insults at them in a terrifying tone, “Bastards! Freaks! Ugly creatures! Get out of here! How dare you defile my ancestral home—” “Shut up, you old hag.” Sirius rushed over and struggled to pull the curtain shut.

“I’m sorry, Edward, Rose, I’ve been wanting to remove this painting, but it’s stuck to the wall with a permanent gadget,” Sirius apologized. “Most of the time it’s kept very secure.”

“No wonder Lily said you often stay at James’s house,” Rose said sympathetically. “I guess it would be the same if I went back to Burke Manor.”

“Luckily, there’s nothing left there,” Edward said.

“Where’s Herbert?” Cohen asked. “I thought he would come too.”

“He’s looking for a house,” Edward said. “Nobody on Privet Road wants to move, so he’s planning to move to London.”

"No one lives at number 13 Grimmauld Place. The family sold the house, but I think it's because the soundproofing here is always faulty. The family always says they can hear a ghost screaming," Sirius said. "But the number 13 seems unlucky."

"I don't see how much luckier number twelve is than number thirteen," Cohen joked.

“Sometimes I really want to tear this house down and rebuild it,” Sirius sighed. “But the magic here is too complicated. Even Dumbledore would have to spend a lot of time to achieve the same protective effect.”

"Edward! Rose!" Mrs. Weasley came out of the kitchen and greeted the Nortons with a smile. "How have you been these past few days? Has the Ministry of Magic stopped giving you trouble?"

“They have to find us first.” Edward raised his eyebrows. “While Cohen was out, all they could see was our empty house. Even if they peered through the windows, they couldn’t see Rose or me.”

“Arthur said the department’s current policies are strange, but they won’t last long. We all think there will be fewer problems once Barty comes back to power…” Mrs. Weasley said. “Come in quickly, I’ve prepared some desserts for you. They usually finish their meetings around six o’clock in the evening, so dinner might be a little later.”

Although they were there to visit Cohen, they were still allowed to go in and listen to the meeting proceedings in the evening.

“Mr. Norton has already called himself an outsider!” Fred asked Mrs. Weasley unfairly. “And we’re all adults! We want to join too.”

“He used to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Children shouldn’t meddle in adult matters,” Mrs. Weasley said sternly. “We’ll discuss this after you graduate!”

“This isn’t fair,” Fred said, distressed, after Mrs. Weasley entered the living room and slammed the door shut. “Lupin told us yesterday that as long as we’re adults, we can apply to join the Order of the Phoenix, and we can help fight the Death Eaters.”

“You missed a sentence; he said ‘wizards who are adults and have completed their studies,’” Hermione said. “Dumbledore considered that wizards who hadn’t completed their studies might not be capable enough—”

"Cohen, do you think your dad will tell you what the meeting was about?" Fred asked Cohen hopefully, ignoring Hermione's nagging.

“If he thought it would be dangerous for me to know, he probably wouldn’t have told me,” Cohen said. “He’s a bit stubborn and always thought I was a kid who would suddenly die from a bump or bruise.”

“Sounds just like Mom,” George sighed. “Mom always thought we’d suddenly die if a Death Eater even glanced at us…”

(End of this chapter)