"Let's change to a more pleasant topic," Dumbledore continued. "I'm delighted to announce that we have two new teachers joining our ranks this term."
"First, we have Professor Lupin, who has kindly agreed to fill the Defense Against the Dark Arts position."
The applause was rather sparse, as Lupin certainly didn't look much like a professor – he had an air of poverty about him.
"But he's gotta be more useful than Quirrell and Lockhart," Ron guessed. "He gave us chocolate on the train, and that icy feeling like the Dementors sucked all the happiness out of you vanished instantly – though why that feeling seems so familiar, I can't quite put my finger on it..."
Because I sucked it out of you back in first year, little Ron.
Of course, Cohen knew what Ron meant by "familiar." Back in their first year, when Cohen first discovered his ability to absorb emotions, he tried it out on Ron as a little experiment – it worked remarkably well, so he compensated Ron with a brand new wizard chess set for Christmas, for which Ron thanked him for weeks.
"I don't know, but I've definitely never been knocked out cold before," Harry said gloomily.
"Being strongly affected doesn't mean you're weak or cowardly," Cohen explained. "It just means the source of your negative emotions is more terrifying – other people might have nightmares about failing a test or a spider crawling into their bed, while your nightmares go straight to your parents dying in front of you... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which one would make your head spin more."
"Is that so...?" Harry felt a little comforted – when the Dementor got close, he did hear a woman's scream and saw that chilling green light, the very scene of Voldemort killing his parents.
"As for our second new teacher," Dumbledore announced to the students after the sparse applause died down, "I regret to inform you that our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn, retired at the end of last term to enjoy his remaining limbs. However, his replacement is none other than Rubeus Hagrid! He has agreed to take on this teaching role in addition to his duties as groundskeeper."
"No wonder there's a book on our supply list that bites!" Ron thought of the bizarre book they had to buy this year, The Monster Book of Monsters.
"I remember overhearing an old shop assistant in Flourish and Blotts complaining about that book back in first year," Cohen recalled. "He cursed the manager, saying, 'This thing will become a Hogwarts textbook, and you'll have to order thousands of copies, and the owner will have to handle all of them himself – because by then, all the assistants will have quit.' Looks like his curse actually worked..."
"I'm not entirely sure if the point of this book is for us to read its contents or for it to bite our heads off," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Hopefully, Hagrid will have a reasonable way of dealing with it – but Hagrid becoming a professor is a good thing, right?"
"I bet he'll bring Norbert in as a teaching aid one of these days," Cohen said, shaking his head. "'You guys have never seen anything like this!'"
"That'll be the day," Ron said pessimistically.
However, after the feast, they still happily went to the staff table to congratulate Hagrid, who was so excited he couldn't even speak properly and buried his face in his napkin.
Back in their dorm, they all went to bed early. After a long train ride and encountering Dementors, Harry and Ron were completely exhausted.
But Cohen couldn't sleep, not because of Lupin or Sirius Black, who was on the run and held a slight misunderstanding and hostility towards Cohen, but because...
There was a freaking Dementor right outside their dorm window!
"Bang! Bang!"
It tapped on the window.
Luckily, it had been raining heavily outside, and the sleeping Harry, Ron, and Seamus subconsciously thought it was just the sound of raindrops hitting the window.
[What the heck!?]
Cohen's soul drifted outside, materializing into the form of a Dementor, and began a mental conversation with its fellow Dementor that had floated outside the dormitory building.
Although Dementors all looked the same and didn't currently have names, Cohen could clearly sense that this was the same Dementor he had encountered on the train.
Oddly, this Dementor had a soul strength tag under its cloak.
[You're hungry... we wanted to bring you some good food to suck the happiness out of...]
The Dementor pulled out from its large, black robes... a ragged prisoner. This prisoner had a black mark on his arm, the sign of a Death Eater.
So that's where the soul strength tag came from...
What is this? A care package from Azkaban delivered to Hogwarts?
[No thanks, you can keep that for yourself. If I get hungry, I'll find something around here.]
Cohen shoved the unconscious prisoner back under the other Dementor's cloak.
[There's a wizard who won't let us in...] the Dementor said to Cohen. [There's plenty to eat here, but we'll get hit if we go in...]
They're going after Dumbledore's students – of course, Dumbledore's gonna lay down the smackdown!
The newest novels are first released here!
It took Cohen a lot of effort to explain to the Dementor that "Cohen won't get hit here," "Cohen has other food," "Cohen won't really starve himself," and "this castle isn't a prison trapping Cohen, he can leave anytime."
And he sternly warned it not to "snatch a student as a gift" to feed him.
Only after confirming that Cohen was indeed living comfortably here did it drift away and disappear into the rain, returning to the group of Dementors lingering at the very edge of the castle grounds.
The next day, the weather finally cleared up a bit.
As third years, they had new timetables. Cohen didn't pick many electives – he didn't have much free time anyway, and taking something like "Muggle Studies" seemed like a waste of time.
Cohen only added Care of Magical Creatures and Divination. One class was because of Hagrid, and the other was because Cohen had inexplicably displayed divination abilities last Christmas – he had indeed seen images of the future in a crystal ball, and they were unusually clear, possibly inherited from the long-horned serpent on the back half of the Chimera.
Professor Trelawney might not be very helpful in terms of knowledge – but her uncontrollable yet extremely accurate inner eye was worth studying.
At breakfast, they were all exchanging timetables, seeing which classes everyone had chosen.
"Hermione, your timetable's all messed up!" Ron said, frowning, holding Hermione's schedule. "According to this, you've got like ten classes a day!"
Hermione snatched the timetable back, tugging at her collar to cover a thin gold chain around her neck. read more inpatreon
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