Hogwarts, i am Dementor

After all, it was the only wand in the entire shop brave enough to face Cohen. Not buying it almost felt like a disservice to Mr. Ollivander, who'd been running back and forth for so long.

After handing over seven gold Galleons, Cohen and Edward left Ollivanders' wand shop.

Cohen fiddled with the wand for a while before realizing that the soul inside it seemed to have only basic emotions—like "I like this wizard, so I'll stick with him for life" or "I hate this wizard, so I won't help him out."

Now, there was a new emotion to add to the list: the fear of "Run away fast when a Dementor shows up to pick a wand, or I'm toast."

Considering the rule that "a wand will switch allegiance if its owner is defeated," Cohen thought these wands were like semi-smart door locks. If they saw their owner getting beat up at the doorstep, they'd immediately unlock the door for the attacker.

In short: opportunists with a touch of intelligence—just not much.

The rest of the shopping—textbooks, robes, a cauldron, and potion ingredients—went smoothly. Books, robes, cauldrons, and herbs didn't freak out and scatter at the thought of Cohen sucking out their souls. Well, maybe except for that copy of *The Monster Book of Monsters* in the corner of Flourish and Blotts.

It had been chomping on its own pages inside an iron cage all by itself, but the moment Cohen walked into the shop, it went dead quiet and huddled in the corner, trembling.

**[Soul Strength: 5]**

What a weak little book, Cohen thought to himself.

The clerk helping Cohen pick out his textbooks happened to notice the book suddenly calm down and decided Cohen was his lucky charm. He secretly slipped Cohen two Galleons and seven Sickles, begging him to take the two-Galleon monster book off his hands.

The clerk even showed off a healed scar on his hand.

"That book's terrifying… I can't believe the manager keeps it in the shop. It's as bad as Cornish Pixies—no, wait, at least those pixies don't bite…"

Amid the clerk's cursing about how "this thing's going to become a Hogwarts textbook, and we'll have to stock thousands of them, and the owner will have to deal with them all alone because the staff will have quit by then," Edward wheeled a cart full of books and supplies out of the shop for Cohen.

"Ahh, all done. Next up is getting you a pet," Edward groaned, sounding relieved to be finished. He glanced at *The Monster Book of Monsters* lying quietly in the cart, wondering why it was behaving like it was dead.

"I get why your grandma didn't want to take me shopping back then. The list of stuff for a new witch or wizard is a little overwhelming…"

"Let's hope the little animals aren't as skittish as the wands…" Cohen said, suddenly struck by a bad feeling after just sucking the soul out of the monster book.

In the memories he'd inherited from his predecessor, normal animals didn't fear Cohen—unless he actively started sucking their souls.

But whether magical creatures would react differently to a Dementor's aura was anyone's guess…

That question was answered the moment Cohen stepped into the dimly lit Eeylops Owl Emporium.

The owl shop, usually filled with noisy hoots, fell silent the instant Cohen walked through the door.

"Hm?" The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman with curly hair, looked puzzled by the owls' sudden silence, then spotted Cohen walking in alone with a money pouch.

Edward stayed outside with the loaded cart since it wouldn't fit into the narrow, one-person-wide shop. Plus, Diagon Alley wasn't immune to pickpockets—even in the wizarding world, there were always greedy folks looking for an easy score. The only place they wouldn't dare steal from was probably Gringotts.

"Hi, I'd like to buy an owl," Cohen said, pretending he had no clue what was going on.

It's not like the owls trembling in their cages had anything to do with him. He hadn't sucked their souls dry or anything…

"Uh… the owls here are all very… lively…" The shopkeeper's prepared sales pitch got stuck in her throat.

Right now, every owl in the place was stiff as a statue, doing its best impression of a stone carving.

"Can I pick one myself?" Cohen asked politely.

Given the situation, he didn't really want to buy an owl anymore—if they were this scared of him, taking one home might count as "animal cruelty."

The owls only had soul strengths of two or three, and even sucking the full five points from *The Monster Book of Monsters* had only boosted his soul integrity by 0.5%...

In other words, offing a regular owl wouldn't even give him as much of a boost as snatching a few kids' lollipops.

What changed Cohen's mind wasn't that he'd run out of toffee, but two owls that stood out from the rest.

One was a pure white snowy owl with a soul strength of seven. Cohen's first thought was that it might be the same one Harry would later name "Hedwig."

The other…

It was a mostly brown screech owl with mixed feathers, white eyebrows, and black "feather-tufted ears."

Of course, owl ears aren't actually pointy tufts on top of their heads. Their real ears are hidden under the feathers on the sides, and if you parted the feathers, you could even see their huge eyeballs through the ear holes.

**[Soul Strength: 10]**

Was this a normal soul strength for an owl???

Cohen was brimming with curiosity about this one—and it seemed the owl was just as curious about him.

Its eyes locked onto Cohen, and its head tilted 90 degrees clockwise, like it was sizing up something weird.

For some reason, Cohen couldn't shake the feeling that this thing might pull a black cartoonish arm out from under its wing, grab a chip from a nearby bag, and start munching—wait, why was there a half-eaten bag of chips in an owl's cage?

Did the wizarding world even *have* chips???

"What's this one called? How much?" 

— 

"This owl looks pretty old, doesn't it?"

Edward frowned as Cohen emerged carrying a screech owl that was noticeably larger than the younger ones.

"It's called Earl. The shopkeeper said it's been in the store for three years, and if it doesn't sell soon, it might get sent to the owl post office to work grunt jobs…" Cohen explained to Edward.

"Oh…" Edward nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds kind of pitiful. I almost feel bad for it—is that why you bought it?"

"Nope," Cohen shook his head matter-of-factly. "It was only ten Sickles. The other owls were at least two Galleons."

Ten Sickles for an owl with an absurdly high soul strength was an absolute steal. Even if he couldn't figure out anything special about it, Cohen could always tearfully eat it when it got old—both spiritually and physically.

(End of Chapter)