The house-elf Dingding quickly covered its eyes, but the next second, it realized it was still alive, and the terrifying creature in front of it, radiating a dark and horrifying aura, spoke a sentence Dingding could understand.
"Ah?"
Dingding let out a shrill scream.
Do Dementors eat fried chicken and fries?
"Sir, didn't you come to eat Dingding?" Dingding fearfully peeked at Cohen through its fingers.
This monster didn't have a black cloak, nor did it devour Dingding's soul in one bite…
"Have you ever seen a monster that eats house-elves start by saying 'Give me some fried chicken and fries'?"
Cohen said, somewhat strained.
"When I first walked in, you all screamed and ran away."
"I'm sorry, sir, we were so scared—that day a ghost said a Dementor that eats souls came to the school!" Dingding said, its voice trembling. "So everyone was very scared… We are bad elves—bad elves—"
As it spoke, Dingding seemed to subconsciously begin searching for something around it that could punish it.
It found a red-hot frying pan—
"Stop!"
Cohen immediately stopped it.
There was only one house-elf left; if it burned its hand—its dinner would be ruined.
This command was far more effective than persuasion. Dingding immediately stopped hitting itself on the head with the frying pan, looking at Cohen with its two large, lightbulb-like eyes that seemed about to cry.
"Give me something to eat, and then I'll declare you the best house-elf at Hogwarts,"
Cohen promised.
This verbal praise was like a lit fuse, and another series of crackling explosions followed—the group of escaped house-elves reappeared one after another.
"Sir! Pupu's making you fried chicken!"
"Sorry sir! Your fries!"
...
"Sir, sir! Kobe's got lots of freshly fried chicken legs!"
Why is there a house-elf named Kobe?!
Cohen didn't know how he escaped the kitchen. In almost a minute, several piles of food, each the size of a small mountain, appeared around him, and these precariously swaying foods were being pushed towards him—he was almost drowned in the fried chicken and fries.
If they weren't house-elves, Cohen might have started to suspect that someone was trying to stuff him to death—stuffing a Dementor to death is indeed a valuable research direction, at least no one has tried it yet.
Back in the common room, Cohen immediately saw Harry, Hermione, and Ron discussing something privately.
"Cohen! I didn't see you at dinner..." Harry asked curiously when he saw Cohen returning to the common room.
"Hermione even brought you some food—" Ron pointed to a large bag of food on the table, "And Hagrid said you brought him that black unicorn outside the house—how many interesting things did you find in the Forbidden Forest? Let's go together next time."
"The Forbidden Forest is dangerous!" Hermione warned Ron with great displeasure, "I don't think we should—"
"Putting a spell on Snape is also dangerous," Ron said, pretending to recall.
"That's different. It was to save Harry," Hermione retorted. "Cohen went to the Forbidden Forest with a professor, and Professor Quirrell didn't attend the dinner, right, Cohen?"
Regardless of the facts, Hermione's reasoning made perfect sense.
"Ah, right,"
Cohen agreed, sitting down at the table and discreetly replacing the cold food in his system inventory with freshly fried chicken.
"I found that unicorn by the lake. It kept bothering me, so I left it with Hagrid." Cohen began to eat his belated dinner heartily. "It's back in the unicorn colony now."
It might even take the colony with it to Hagrid to beg for butterbeer.
Cohen didn't finish his sentence; as long as Hagrid didn't go bankrupt from buying alcohol—even the newly hatched dragon needed to be fed chicken blood brandy every half hour, and Hogsmeade's pub would soon become Hagrid's major purchasing hub.
However, Hagrid could easily manage by selling off a small portion of his "family property," since his cottage was the largest warehouse of rare animal supplies at Hogwarts.
While Cohen was enjoying his meal, the three little ones were discussing Hagrid's dragon-raising plans with him. ("Hagrid will go to jail for this..." Hermione said worriedly.)
"Cohen, is it true that you have a place to raise dragons?" Harry remembered Cohen mentioning this at Hagrid's cottage.
"Of course it's true." Cohen patted his stomach contentedly after finishing his dinner at lightning speed. "And I've already thought about the food."
Judging by the wonderful nature of the house-elves at Hogwarts, raising ten dragons wouldn't be a problem.
Cohen didn't plan to raise the dragons in his secret base—having the Room of Requirement create a dragon breeding farm should be fine.
Cohen discovered that the Room of Requirement only maintained the appearance of "Cohen's Base" when he, the Earl, or Ari were inside; otherwise, it would change into something else.
Cohen had tried many other magical creatures, including fluffy creatures, salamanders, and even a reluctant eight-eyed spider.
None of them had the same effect as the Earl and Ari.
Cohen judged that this room could only detect human or human-like desires—dragons shouldn't be included, as that species is more of an instinct-driven beast.
So Cohen could keep dragons in the "Dragon Breeding Farm," so Hagrid and Harry could come and see them—while maintaining the privacy of his secret base.
But Cohen didn't intend to expose his base, especially with a whole bunch of books on dark magic inside; it was too suspicious.
The only problem might be whether Norbert would obey—if the dragon couldn't be tamed, Cohen planned to have Ron write to Charlie, who was in Romania researching dragons.
"But we still have to be prepared for both scenarios. If it doesn't behave, we'll have to send it away," Cohen said cautiously, "or..."
Cohen made a snapping motion at the neck.
"Hagrid will be very sad..." Harry guessed.
"Your first reaction wasn't too cruel?" Hermione frowned. "It is, after all…"
"Hey—wait, I have an idea!" Ron suddenly lit up. "I can write to my brother Charlie! He's researching dragons in Romania, he can definitely help."
Ron's backup plan was very sound, but at Cohen's insistence, they didn't write to Charlie immediately.
The backup plan meant that unless something unexpected happened, this plan would never be used.
Two days of relaxed academic life flew by, and on Thursday noon, Hagrid delivered a letter—the corners of the letter still showed signs of being burned.
[Almost hatching]
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(End of Chapter)