Hogwarts, i am Dementor

Cohen had already figured it out.

Harry had still followed Dumbledore's plan and found the Mirror of Erised. That old man was playing some next-level game.

"Old age… England's southern gentleman… an eleven-year-old boy… no matter how you slice it, it's pretty darn weird!"

Cohen felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Huh? What'd you say, Cohen?" Harry didn't catch Cohen's muttering, but he had something more urgent to share. "You've got to hear this—last night, I saw my parents!"

But Cohen, who'd just killed two people, didn't exactly have the moral high ground over Dumbledore.

"I feel like I'm suddenly at peace," Cohen said with a sigh.

"What'd you just say?"

"I—I saw my parents! In a mirror!" Harry's first "I" came out too loud, but he quickly hushed himself. At this hour, no other students were awake anyway.

"Stuff in mirrors isn't real, Harry," Cohen warned. "Face reality. No matter how cool you look in there, the real you's still the same."

[Sin Points +1] 

[Note: The wicked Dementor has stooped to even dirtier tricks to bully the Chosen One.]

"But I've never seen my mom and dad before," Harry said, grasping for any proof the mirror wasn't just an illusion. "Maybe it's showing the future?"

"…"

Cohen really didn't want to shatter Harry's hopes—especially not after being briefly moved by Herbert for three whole seconds yesterday.

"Wanna come with me tonight to check it out?" Harry asked eagerly. "Maybe you'll see them too—I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Norton…"

"You're not scared of getting caught?" Cohen knew about the Invisibility Cloak but played dumb. "Sneaking out at night's a fifty-point deduction—Gryffindor's running low as it is."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you—" Harry smacked his forehead and pulled a thin, silvery, liquid-like fabric from his robe pocket. "Someone sent me an Invisibility Cloak—look!"

Harry showed off the gift he'd gotten yesterday.

"An Invisibility Cloak?" Cohen's envious look wasn't fake. With that thing, ambushing enemies would be a breeze.

Holy cow, if anyone messed with him, he could throw on the cloak, Apparate behind them with a *whoosh*, and—*slurp*—suck their soul right out with a big smooch to the face. The kind even a stomach pump couldn't fix.

Not that he'd actually need to get that close. So far, Cohen hadn't sucked out any creature's soul mouth-to-mouth—that'd be way too gross.

Regular Dementors had to aim their "Dementor's Kiss" at their target's lips, but Cohen didn't seem bound by that rule.

Maybe it was the weird alchemy, or some other creature's traits in his blood.

"Alright, I'll go with you."

Cohen agreed partly to get a closer look at the mirror and prep for snagging the Philosopher's Stone later.

Ideally, he'd grab it as a villain right in front of Harry. That way, he could complete both the good-guy quest (stop Voldemort from getting the Stone) *and* the bad-guy quest (stop Harry Potter from getting it).

If both sides lost, neither side really lost—a grand step toward wizarding world peace.

The system should totally give him ten thousand points for that.

Dealing with Quirrell was a slam dunk. Quirrell's soul was so weakened from Voldemort's possession and leaching that Cohen could've sucked it dry back at the start of term.

As for Voldemort's 40-point soul shard, Cohen couldn't absorb it yet, but an Avada Kedavra from him wouldn't do much to Cohen either. Verdict: zero threat from the evil side.

The only thing left to figure out was how to reasonably pocket the Philosopher's Stone—something destined to be destroyed in the future.

Harry perked up when Cohen agreed to sneak out together. If Cohen could see his parents too, didn't that mean Harry might have a shot at seeing his mom and dad in real life again?

It was a flimsy conclusion—Cohen's adoptive parents were alive, so it didn't prove anything—but too much hope tends to dull your senses.

As Dumbledore once said, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. With the sunlight beyond the castle and the calls of our friends, we'll eventually wake from the dream."

According to Ron, Harry had been out of it all day, skipping both lunch and dinner.

Cohen, though, had other plans during the day. He hadn't thoroughly gone through the books he'd brought back from the basement, nor had he dug into Ali's species abilities.

Ali was still fast asleep.

Cohen settled into an armchair in the Room of Requirement to read, starting with *Origins of Evil Life* from the stack.

The book was clearly a catalog for picking test subjects in the project. In its worn pages, Cohen found two sections circled with tons of handwritten notes.

The first was "Dementors." These non-beings were a massive headache for the wizarding world. Not physical entities, they couldn't be killed—only driven off. Their danger level was off the charts, their attacks nearly impossible to block. Only a handful of spells worked against them, with the Patronus Charm being the best bet—but it was so tricky that even most Ministry Aurors couldn't conjure a corporeal Patronus.

A few fat handwritten paragraphs caught Cohen's eye.

["Dementors, as non-being lifeforms, are hard to use as incremental material for the Vessel. Recommend removal."] 

That line had a red slash through it, "negating" it. Looked like the experiment's process was hashed out through debate, not just one guy calling the shots.

["Rejected. Dementors can't be added later, but they're perfect as a base material. Their inability to die and soul-targeting attacks are the crux of this experiment."] 

From there, the notes turned into an argument.

Researcher #1 (unknown): ["You could use a Basilisk or Phoenix—they'd work just as well."] 

Researcher #2 (unknown): ["The only Phoenix with a known location in Britain is with Dumbledore. If you don't like it, go steal his bird."] 

Researcher #1: ["What? Me? Fight Dumbledore? For real?"] 

The rest was nonsense. The results showed they'd settled on Dementors as the base anyway. Cohen figured he was about 60% Dementor, with 10% human, 10% Nightmare, and 10% each of two other mystery creatures.

"Other Dementors won't call me a Mudblood, right?" Cohen said warily.

"Then you'd wipe them out with some excuse like 'Azkaban's getting too urbanized,' huh?" 

The Earl said this while sneaking Cohen's candy. 

"Nothing you do surprises me anymore."

Cohen ignored the Earl and flipped to the next marked section.

The second was "Nightmares," straight out of *Secrets of the Darkest Arts*.

Nightmares were vile creations of the despicable Helpo. Unicorns, pure and infallible, were never meant to fall—but when a thick, liquefied curse was poured into a unicorn embryo's corpse, even a heavenly messenger could be dragged into hell—

"This whole passage feels off," Cohen muttered, frowning. "Corruption, sticky fluids, purity…"

"What? What! Let me see!" The Earl, lounging lazily before, perked up and shoved over excitedly.

After shooing the eager brown-feathered bird away, Cohen kept reading.

Despite the name "Nightmare," it was clearly just Helpo's twisted sense of humor.

These creatures had no dream-related powers. Beyond their unicorn-like shape and the curses flowing through them, they had almost nothing in common with unicorns.

All the gentle magic unicorns had? Nightmares couldn't do any of it.

But they were naturals at curses. Through their spiraled, silver-tipped horns, they could unleash thick curse magic—or inject it directly by stabbing their foes.

Their blood was liquid curse—but once it left their body, it evaporated fast.

Cohen experimentally nicked his hand.

"Holy—!"

He watched his blood turn into black curse vapor. Anyone who'd gotten close to him in the last ten years was insanely lucky he hadn't bled much—otherwise, one touch could've been a death sentence!

[*Ding! Special Ability Unlocked: Liquid Curse (1/10)*] 

The system piped up right on cue.

The ability's unlock level was (1/10), meaning Cohen's blood wasn't full-on liquid curse yet.

But it hit him with a terrifying realization.

If his blood was a curse, what about his other bodily fluids?

If he grew up and started dating…

*"It's poisonous down there?!"*

Cohen took a deep breath.

Terrifying. If he didn't fix this, it was basically a life sentence to bachelorhood…

But he was only eleven. No need to panic just yet.

Still, with how fast the blood evaporated, Cohen figured using it as an attack would mean smearing it on someone up close.

Shaking his head, he kept reading.

Nightmares could blend into unicorn herds—unicorns couldn't tell the difference between curses. Their own blood carried curses too, so Nightmares were just oddly colored kin to them.

Unicorns seemed pretty chill about it.

But Cohen wasn't about to drop Ali in the Forbidden Forest. Unicorns might not notice, but Hagrid and the other critters sure would.

A black unicorn didn't exactly scream "normal," and Ali's all-white eyes were creepy as heck.

The Dementor traits gave Cohen soul-sucking, emotion-draining, and undead soul-state perks. The Nightmare gave him dark curse talent and a hidden blood-poison trump card…

The book only flagged these two species. Cohen's other two unknown bloodlines weren't from anything else in it.

The rest of the stack was alchemy runes and technical gear books—no more evil creature stuff.

So, to figure out his last two bloodlines and powers, he'd need the original experiment logs.

Looked like he'd have to track down Mundungus for a "chat" over the holidays.

After a day of research in the Room of Requirement, Cohen met Harry in the common room that night.

The Invisibility Cloak easily hid two eleven-year-old boys. Step one of the night prowl went off without a hitch.

Step two? Not so much.

Harry realized he couldn't remember the way to the empty classroom with the Mirror of Erised.

(End of Chapter)