Hagrid agreed to take care of Norbert without hesitation, promising to raise him well—he had been planning all summer to prepare plenty of new food for Norbert.
"I plan to raise a bunch of hogboars for Norbert; they reproduce very quickly," Hagrid said. "And they're not difficult to raise—the only worry is not to keep them with real pigs; they'll cause outbreaks of disease…"
"As long as the sheep and unicorns aren't affected," Cohen agreed. "It's best to build a sturdy pigpen so they don't run around everywhere."
Cohen had seen hogboars in his textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; they looked like underdeveloped piglets with long legs, short, thick tails, and squinty eyes—too ugly; Cohen didn't want to see them near his house.
Besides Norbert, there was also the issue of Ari's placement.
"The unicorns in the forest really want Ari to return to their pack…" Hagrid hesitated, "but neither the centaurs nor I think it's a good idea."
"It's definitely not a good idea. Also, Hagrid, remember, whatever you do, don't give it alcohol," Cohen warned. "It's having some withdrawal symptoms right now, including but not limited to lying, playing dead, acting cute, threatening… This is all or nothing. It really can't keep drinking—sooner or later, its blood will be filled with high concentrations of alcohol, the kind that explodes at the slightest spark."
Cohen wasn't sure if this warning would work on Hagrid, but it didn't matter—if it did explode, it would be Ari's own fault. Now Cohen needed to focus on other things.
Like finding out which nook or cranny of the school Voldemort was hiding in. Ads by PubRevAds by PubRev
During his free time, Cohen searched every dark corner of the castle—just keep an eye on the soul strength labels; Voldemort's 40+10 was quite conspicuous in Hogwarts, which was full of students.
Unfortunately, he found nothing before the afternoon Herbs class.
The school was too big, and there were too many students—the soul strength labels of those irrelevant people were too noisy for Cohen.
"Cohen, Cohen, does the Earl really do his homework?"
On their way to the Herbs greenhouse, Ron eagerly asked Cohen, who had just appeared,
"Can we borrow it? That way we can—"
"Ron! You can't expect to slack off using Cohen's owl!" Hermione warned. "If you don't even do your homework, you and Harry won't touch your textbooks for a whole year—don't think I don't know you..."
"But Cohen can use the Earl to do his homework," Ron retorted.
"Cohen reads and practices magic sometimes, unlike you guys—" Hermione said earnestly, "You don't want to receive another yelling letter from Mrs. Weasley at the end of the semester, do you?"
"Five siestas?" Cohen offered.
Judging from Ron's eager eyes, he really wanted one.
But in the end, the deal fell through—because Ron realized that if he really failed his final exams, his mother's yelling letters would bombard him three or four times a day, and he'd be deafened.
The Herbology classroom was the greenhouse—near the Black Lake, on the lower edge of the castle.
Professor Sprout had just returned from the Whomping Willow, accompanied by the blond bum Gilderoy Lockhart.
"Oh, hello!" Lockhart greeted the students with a beaming smile. "I just demonstrated to Professor Sprout how to treat a 'beating willow'! But I don't want you to think I'm better at herbalism than she is! I just happened to see a few of these plants while traveling…"
"Today, to Greenhouse Three!" Professor Sprout said with a hint of displeasure, her usual relaxed and cheerful teaching style gone.
Lockhart had successfully offended the first professor he had dealt with since joining the faculty.
Professor Sprout took a large handful of keys from her belt and opened the door to Greenhouse Three.
Greenhouse Three usually housed more dangerous and interesting plants, so it was always locked to prevent students from sneaking in and causing accidents.
Lockhart shamelessly asked Professor Sprout for Harry, saying he wanted to say a few words.
"What does he want with Harry?" Ron asked, puzzled.
"They're both celebrities, probably to impart some experience," Cohen said, mimicking the words with an air of expertise: "'Little Harry... riding a flying car to school might get you on the front page of the Daily Prophet, but the front page is too complicated, you can't handle it—let me do it!'"
"Hahahaha!" Ron chuckled, trying to suppress his laughter.
Hermione nudged the two of them—perhaps to prevent them from collectively mocking Lockhart, or perhaps because Professor Sprout was looking their way.
"We're repotting the mandrake today. Now, can anyone tell me what the characteristics of a mandrake are?"
Professor Sprout stood behind a bench in the middle of the greenhouse. About twenty pairs of earmuffs of different colors were stacked on the bench.
Harry sneaked back at that moment, seemingly having finally escaped Lockhart's clutches.
Faced with Professor Sprout's question, Hermione, unsurprisingly, raised her hand high.
"Mandragora, also called mandrake root, is a powerful restorative agent," Hermione recited fluently, "used to restore those who have been transformed or cursed to their original state."
For example, those petrified by a Basilisk.
Cohen thought to himself.
If he had Basilisk blood in his veins, why couldn't he inherit the ability to kill with his eyes… or
perhaps he inherited venom? Cohen had never tried biting a living creature—but he didn't have venom glands, much less venomous fangs like snakes.
Besides, the use of poison already overlapped with the Nightmare race! Nightmare blood was far more absurd than normal snake venom—snake venom could be cured with phoenix tears, but if someone was given a liquid curse… how many melodramas would Fox have to recall to quickly evoke tears and revive them within ten seconds?
While Cohen was lost in thought, a familiar soul strength label appeared.
[Soul Strength: 40]
Outside the greenhouse? Cohen's eyes lit up as he stared at the system label outside the greenhouse wall.
There were no other spirits outside besides this…
it was Voldemort!
"Mr. Norton, Miss Granger has already answered the question," Professor Sprout said, assuming Cohen had raised his hand to answer as well.
"No, Professor, my stomach hurts," Cohen said, feigning illness while clutching his stomach.
All methods of skipping class boil down to "Teacher, I need to go to the toilet."
Since teachers aren't sure if you'll actually ejaculate in class, no sane teacher would stop a student from going to the toilet.
Under the watchful eyes of his classmates, Cohen, hunched over and clutching his stomach, hurriedly ran out of the greenhouse.
Let's see what new tricks the idea-king Voldemort has come up with this time.
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(End of Chapter)