Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 99: We can’t have two basilisks causing trouble…

"hiss--"

Harry in the next bed gasped - he covered the scar on his forehead and looked like he was woken up by pain.

"Did you guys have a stomachache yesterday?" Ron, who was still asleep, heard some noise outside the quilt and asked in a daze.

Cohen felt more like the snake in his dream had an upset stomach - the school pipes should be the exclusive territory of the basilisk, and the only one that could crawl freely in them could be it.

But why did I inexplicably dream about its perspective?
That basilisk couldn't possibly be part of Coin's makeup—it hadn't been released in fifty years.

That group of researchers certainly couldn't control a basilisk that had lived for thousands of years, and Parseltongue wasn't something that was commonplace. Now Voldemort was the only one who could speak Parseltongue in the true sense, and Harry's ability was considered to be "inherited" from a fragment of Voldemort's soul.

At breakfast, Hermione greeted Harry with a somewhat stiff tone; she was still somewhat dissatisfied with the way Harry and Ron had come to school—but she was quite normal when she greeted Cohen.

Their first class was in the afternoon, Professor Sprout's Herbology class, so they didn't wake up Ron who was still in bed. After all, Ron drove for half a day yesterday.

Harry secretly asked about what had startled Cohen when he got up.

"Did you have a nightmare, too?" Harry asked uneasily. "The pain from my scar woke me up—it felt like..."

"Voldemort?" Cohen frowned.

Harry's scar is a Voldemort detector, and it starts to burn when the "Voldemort concentration" becomes high.

Cohen felt that it was indeed possible that Voldemort had sneaked back - considering that there was an "insider" like Cohen in the school, it was not impossible that Voldemort had a new plan.

But the dream he had was definitely not Voldemort's doing. Cohen felt that it was more like a connection of kinship - was the unknown giant snake that escaped from the laboratory coming to find him?
Oh my god, just one basilisk caused the whole "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". Now if there are two of them, won't the school be in turmoil?
"The last time it hurt, he was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone..." Harry whispered. "I think it was a reminder—a reminder of the danger to come—and on my birthday..."

Harry tells Coin that Dobby stopped him from going to school.

Dobby still took action - but this time Harry was not warned by the Ministry of Magic for "casting spells outside of school" because the Norton family lived next door to him. Of course, Harry himself knew nothing about this.

"But that house-elf won't tell me who's planning something 'terrible' at school." Harry's detective gene is awakening. "I suspect Ron and I can't get into the station because of this."

"But there shouldn't be any treasures in the school this year, right?" Cohen didn't quite understand Voldemort's purpose of returning to Hogwarts. He couldn't just create a body for him.

"Do you have any intuitive guesses?"

"I don't know." Harry said truthfully.

Their conversation didn't last long, because after Ron, who had just woken up, hurried to the hall, the owl arrived -

"Why are you all up so early?" Ron asked in great confusion. "We didn't even have a meal this morning—"

"Snapped!"

An elderly owl dropped into the bowl of cold soup in front of Ron.

"Errol!" shouted Ron, pulling the owl out by its talons.

"Oh... no—" Ron cried out.

"It's okay, it's still alive." Hermione poked the owl.

"That's the one..." Ron pointed tremblingly at the bright red letter brought by the owl.

"Will it explode?" Harry moved away.

"It's a howler," Cohen warned. "Cover your ears—" Before Ron could open the envelope, the letter seemed to have grown a mouth—

It scolded Ron in Mrs. Weasley's voice, with a volume as loud as the speakers in a movie theater turned up to the maximum, as if it could even overturn the invisible ceiling of Hogwarts.

Everyone in the hall turned around and looked towards the location of the Howler. Ron huddled in his chair, only his red forehead visible. Harry also lowered his head and remained silent. When he heard his own name, the roots of Harry's ears also turned red.

Mrs. Weasley lectured Ron for fifteen minutes, almost without repetition, until everyone's ears were ringing. Then the yelling stopped and the letter suddenly burst into flames, then curled up and turned to ash.

"Horrible..." Cohen clicked his tongue. "I can't imagine what it would look like if it was sent by my mom—I bet it would scare my dad to tears."

"I'm too embarrassed to face people..." Ron said hoarsely.

"Well, did you expect anything else? Ron, you know -" Hermione stopped reading - in fact, she had long been unable to concentrate on reading.

"Don't tell me I deserve it," Ron said angrily.

Although Ron and Harry lost some face, they saved Hermione - Hermione felt that the two had been punished enough and spoke to them more normally.

This meant that they could tackle some of the more difficult papers they hadn't finished today - by asking Hermione for help.

"Cohen, have you finished all your homework?"

In the common room in the morning, Ron saw Cohen carrying a suitcase and preparing to go to Hagrid, and asked in surprise.

"I've finished it! Why would anyone leave their summer homework until school starts?" Cohen said, spreading his hands. "Keep it up, you guys! I'm going to go and give Hagrid some warmth. Norbert seems a bit malnourished now, eating only lamb every day. Considering that none of the animals I raised before survived a year, I'll have to take some remedial measures..."

"It's all thanks to me that he was able to finish his homework."

After Coin left, the drunken Earl slumped on the fireplace and spoke proudly to Harry and Ron.

"I only spent one night to finish his homework—hiccup—it was just a small essay, not worth mentioning..."
-
The weather on the first day of school was not good. The sky was covered with dark clouds and was very gloomy. It looked like it would rain at any time.

When Coin came outside, the little Dementor poked its head out of the camel-hide pouch hanging around Coin's waist - but when Coin looked down, it retreated.

It really seems to look like the "good Dementor" in the report about Dementors in "The Quibbler". The little Dementor that Mr. O'Connor saw might be it.

Crossing the grounds, Cohen arrived in front of Hagrid's hut.

Hagrid was in the vegetable patch tending to cabbages the size of small children that had undoubtedly been enlarged.

However, they seem to be severely affected by insect pests, with large and small insect holes all over the cabbages.

"Oh, Cohen!" Hagrid saw Cohen and enthusiastically brought him into the house. "How about my birthday present for you? Actually, I have been thinking about whether to give you a belt made of shapeshifting lizard skin or just give you a live shapeshifting lizard..."

"I suppose the Count rejected your second idea," said Cohen. "The shapeshifting lizard eats birds—"

Hagrid's birthday gift to Cohen was a leather bag made of deformed lizard skin. This magical bag would shrink when a stranger approached, and only the owner could put his hand in it.

Cohen has an amazing idea—but he can't say it because of ****.

"I like the gift very much. Thank you, Hagrid," Cohen thanked him. "I brought the trunk with me - Norbert has grown very fast this summer. He's almost seven meters long."

Cohen handed the box to Hagrid.

"But I feel like it's been losing some scales lately. Maybe it's eating an unbalanced diet of lamb all the time. Can you give it something else to change things up?"

(End of this chapter)