Cohen flew back to the Forbidden Forest without incident, though he got lost once – it was difficult to discern directions in the dark clouds.
At the break of winter dawn, Cohen stopped by to check on the giant spiders.
Unfortunately, they were almost entirely gone. Due to Cohen's evil oppression and ruthless slaughter, Aragok had taken his remaining offspring and hidden in deep burrows. Cohen didn't really want to go into the spider burrows – his previous actions seemed a bit too extreme.
But it wasn't a big problem. The young spiders, not old enough, couldn't satisfy Cohen's 27.2% soul integrity; their soul strength of only a dozen points at most wouldn't even increase his progress by 0.1%.
He estimated that only middle-aged and older spiders with a soul strength of 15 points or more, and Aragok with 20 points, would be useful to Cohen now.
He'd raise them a bit more, and check back at the end of the semester. Cohen only knew that spider eggs hatched in about nine weeks, but how long it would take for the baby spiders to reach adulthood was still a question.
The Forbidden Forest remained as peaceful as ever. The centaurs had been observing from a distance since Cohen landed, seemingly aware of what in the forest was truly dangerous—the spider colony they had been desperately trying to stop had been dealt with by Cohen in just three months, and they should thank him for it.
Leaving the Forbidden Forest, passing Hagrid's hut, Cohen caught a lingering Christmas scent—Hagrid must have brought some food from the castle.
Damn it, Cohen only ate one rabbit for Christmas!
Cohen skillfully slipped back into the castle. Because he could see the soul strength labels through the walls, avoiding Filch was a breeze—Cohen wouldn't make the same mistake he made when Filch caught him the first time. Now, whenever he needed to hide, Cohen would activate his soul vision beforehand to avoid anyone who might discover him.
Hogwarts Castle was decorated everywhere with warm wreaths made of holly and mistletoe for Christmas.
For some reason, as Cohen walked through the corridor outside the hall, he saw many seemingly non-existent souls beside the wreaths…
"Hooks?" Cohen thought of a creature not recognized by normal wizards.
Unfortunately, these little things had too weak souls; there was no need to eat them.
Like ordinary small creatures, they were marked with a soul strength of 1 point simply because the system's minimum value was 1.
Cohen climbed the stairs to the eighth floor, but instead of returning to the tower immediately, he went into the Room of Requirement as usual.
He needed to settle Ari in the leather pouch; the Room of Requirement should be able to create a separate area mimicking the outdoors for Cohen to keep his pets.
Back in the Room of Requirement, Cohen saw the Earl collapsed on the owl-shaped mattress, exhausted.
"Your whole family has to pay for this trip—I think your father's trying to murder me. He made me carry at least fifty pounds of stuff!"
the Earl complained the moment he saw Cohen.
"He sent you a bomb—"
"Don't talk nonsense. If a bomb could kill me, I would have died when I was a year old. Edward is stupid, but he shouldn't be dumb."
Cohen saw the huge pile of gifts in the Room of Requirement. Besides Rose's box of candy and Edward's enormous, unidentified square gift box, there was another pile of bulging paper packages.
Inside were rock biscuits from Hagrid—if he had known, Cohen wouldn't have pretended to like them so much in front of Hagrid.
There was also a hand-knitted sweater from Mrs. Weasley, and a whole box of homemade fudge.
It seemed Ron had written to his parents about Cohen. Of course, it was also possible that the Weasleys and Nortons had a good relationship, after all, they were from the same era and both sided with Dumbledore in those chaotic times.
The sweater Cohen received was white, with the initial "C" of his name knitted in dark blue yarn.
Receiving a bunch of Christmas gifts was indeed a delightful experience; no wonder children love Christmas.
"Let me see what Edward has up his sleeve..." Cohen opened the package Edward had given him.
This mysterious 1×1×2 (m) rectangular gift was... a transparent display case.
"Edward's going to buy me a property development?"
Cohen looked at the castle and village in the transparent display case and quickly noticed that this was completely different from the models in real estate sales offices.
Behind the mountain was a deep mine, where a fire-breathing dragon guarded glittering treasure.
A group of living clay figures were setting off from the castle, traversing forests, swamps, and mountains, making their way towards the cave.
It was a living chessboard of Dungeons & Dragons.
"Not surprising at all..."
Cohen's lips twitched. Although this thing was useless to him, it could at least serve as decoration.
The wizarding world didn't play these kinds of games, so Edward had most likely made everything here himself—he must have put a lot of thought into it. Cohen planned to praise him in his next letter to make him happy.
With enough emotional support, the family would be harmonious.
The plan to raise Ari was also progressing smoothly; to Cohen's surprise, an extra door appeared in the room.
Behind the door was a "fake outdoor" space with a night sky, complete with grass, a stream, trees, and even a high-hanging crescent moon and a sky full of stars—proving that the sky here was fake, because if the moon were that bright, the stars wouldn't be visible in the real sky.
Cohen released Ari, who curled up wearily on the ground. Cohen assumed it was because the curse he had used on the two Aurors had caused the power outage—
"Friendly reminder, magical creatures aren't inflatable dolls; they don't need electricity to move on their own," the Earl pointed out sharply to Cohen's error.
[You were too shaky when you flew; I'm dizzy now]
Ari's voice explained in Cohen's mind.
Then, it fell asleep in this safe environment.
"Alright,"
Cohen had originally planned to investigate what special effects he had inherited from this creature's bloodline, but it seemed that wasn't an option now.
After organizing the looted books and piling them on the bookshelves in the room, Cohen went out. He wanted
to go back to the common room to see if Harry and the others had pulled any tricks or found the Mirror of Erised as originally planned.
However, Cohen felt the latter was more likely, because Dumbledore would definitely try to let Harry see the mirror, firstly to teach Harry to look forward and not dwell on pleasant memories, and secondly to lay the groundwork for the later "protecting the Philosopher's Stone" plan.
Cohen crawled through the round hole behind the portrait of the Fat Lady, and as soon as he peeked out, he saw Harry with dark circles under his eyes.
Harry was sitting by the fireplace, seemingly lost in thought—and looked like he hadn't slept all night.
However, Harry still looked quite excited.
"Cohen?! How come you're back so soon? It's only the second day of your holiday—but I have to take you to see something—you'll never guess..."
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(End of Chapter)