Hogwarts, i am Dementor

July 15, 1991, evening, the lawn of Number 6 Privet Drive. 

"Waaahhh!"

A blond boy, about eight years old, was sobbing loudly. His small hand was still curled as if clutching a lollipop—though his palm was empty, holding nothing at all.

The culprit behind all this—Cohen Norton—had already turned his back on the crying child and was walking home.

Cohen was a slightly skinny eleven-year-old boy with neatly combed black hair. He wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans and lived at Number 5 Privet Drive. In his hand was the very same rainbow fan-shaped lollipop worth fifty pence that he had just "generously" given to the neighbor's kid—only to take it back.

"Desserts really do make people happy—especially if you don't have to worry about cavities."

Cohen contentedly licked the lollipop in his hand.

The pain of cavities was a distant concern for a kid who swapped out teeth faster than most people changed cups.

Since he'd been reborn once, he figured he might as well enjoy the carefree happiness of childhood first—while also completing a little task along the way.

[*Ding!* Kindness Value +1, Sin Value +1] 

[Note: Giving candy and then taking it back is immoral behavior. Your conscience will reprimand you.] 

An electronic voice chimed in Cohen's ear. Naturally, Cohen "selectively" only heard the first part and ignored the system's accusations…

Poor little system. It had nearly broken down in frustration after realizing Cohen was exploiting loopholes to double his shop currency, crying and whining pitifully.

The system hadn't appeared out of nowhere, and neither had Cohen of Privet Drive.

To be precise, it was a car accident a little over a month ago that brought Cohen into this familiar yet strange world. It seemed like a truck driver from another dimension had come to drum up some business.

Privet Drive, the Dursleys living in the villa at Number 4 next door, and their rarely seen "Harry Potter"—all the pieces were in place.

In an instant, Cohen realized he was in the famous world of *Harry Potter*.

As an Earthling who'd read the original books several times, Cohen knew his childhood—and even his youth—might not be all that pleasant.

After all, Harry Potter was the exact same age as him, and Cohen genuinely had abilities like making objects float with his mind, vanish into thin air, or teleport—straight-up "magic." The wizarding world was bound to get tangled up with him eventually.

In this world, he also had a pair of overly doting adoptive parents, both Muggles who couldn't use magic—at least, based on the original "Cohen's" memories, there wasn't a trace of anything magical about them.

But the *Harry Potter* world wasn't exactly kind to Muggles, especially after the big bad, Voldemort, came back to life.

If he wanted to keep his parents safe, he had two options: 

Either hightail it out of Europe as soon as possible, or take out Voldemort ahead of time— 

*Me, fight Voldemort? Seriously?*

Along with that came a not-so-competent system called the "Redemption System."

"Open the panel," Cohen muttered silently.

A cracked, half-black, half-white circular virtual interface appeared before his eyes.

In the center was Cohen's straightforward stat panel:

**[Cohen Norton]** 

**[Race: Dementor/Human/?/?/?]** 

**[Soul Integrity: 11%]** 

**[Special Abilities Unlocked: None]** 

**[Soul Strength: 11]** 

**[Current Kindness Value: 1250]** 

**[Current Sin Value: 250]**

When he first inherited this eleven-year-old boy's body and saw the word "Dementor," Cohen flat-out didn't believe it.

Aside from both having something resembling a mouth, he—a perfectly normal-looking human—had zero connection to Dementors, okay?!

But as he dug deeper into this body, a terrifying truth emerged.

He might actually be a Dementor in human skin. He could see the "souls" emanating from people, and he felt an uncontrollable hunger for them. Especially when he got close to others, Cohen couldn't help but want to slurp one up from a distance.

This was, of course, dangerous. His attempt on his sleeping adoptive father, Edward Norton, nearly sucked the guy's soul right out.

Though Cohen stopped in time, he still pulled *something* out—maybe a soul, maybe "happiness." Whatever it was, it was sweet and not cloying at all.

That's why Cohen always kept candy on him. Eating sweets felt about the same as eating souls.

After spending a minute accepting the fact that he was a terrifying Dementor, Cohen started studying this "Redemption System."

First off, the system gave him a seemingly useless but actually pretty handy ability: he could gauge whether to run or take a nibble at an enemy's soul when he encountered them.

He could see anyone's soul strength, like a virtual number tag hovering over every living being's head. Whenever Cohen wanted to look, the number would pop up instantly.

Soul strength seemed to be the benchmark for whether Cohen could devour a target's soul. His adoptive father Edward had a soul strength of 10, so Cohen could take a sip. His adoptive mother Rose, on the other hand, had 20 points, so Cohen couldn't touch her at all.

Cohen's soul strength was tied to his soul integrity, which was currently laughably low.

But at least soul integrity could be increased, and the way to do it was in the system's shop—or maybe by sucking souls.

When he'd sipped Edward's soul, Cohen noticed his soul integrity fluctuating. If he hadn't stopped right away, Edward's soul might've ended up as a number on Cohen's stat panel.

Still, Cohen saw himself as a humanoid with a strong sense of humanity. He wouldn't do something evil like sucking dry the soul of a hardworking dad who cooked for the family every day.

The system had two shops: the "Kindness Shop" and the "Sin Shop." Whenever Cohen did good or bad deeds, the system awarded him "Kindness Value" or "Sin Value" based on the impact of the action, which he could use as currency in the corresponding shop.

What the system didn't anticipate was that after it calculated his Kindness Value for a good deed, Cohen would immediately undo it—forcing the system to fork over Sin Value too. This way, Cohen could easily double-dip.

The system had no counter for this and could only passive-aggressively nag him during its announcements.

The items in the two shops were starkly different. The Kindness Shop was full of bright, cheerful, normal stuff: manuals and books on positive magic, magical creatures, magical plants, and non-dark magic tools.

The Sin Shop's items were much darker: tons of dark magic books, obviously illegal materials from the wizarding world, and even "souls."

These souls weren't just "Soul Fragments" worth 1000 Sin Value that could boost Cohen's soul integrity—they included living people's souls.

**[Tormented Human Soul]** 

**[A collectible from another world, usable in crafting various evil magical items, including but not limited to Horcruxes, malevolent spirit puppets, etc.—You can always hear the soul screaming. Maybe the next one will be yours.]** 

**[Cost: 7000 Sin Value]**

That price could buy lollipops from 7,000 kids. Way too evil.

So, aside from buying "Soul Fragments" to boost his soul integrity, Cohen hadn't purchased anything from the Sin Shop—not because he couldn't afford it.

The boost from Soul Fragments wasn't exactly impressive, though.

When Cohen first arrived in this world, his soul integrity was 10, and his soul strength was 10 too. After all his mischief, he'd finally saved up 1000 Sin Value, but it only raised his soul integrity by 1% and his strength to 11.

As for that mysterious row of question marks under special abilities…

He had no clue. Asking the system got him nowhere, which made Cohen seriously doubt how complete this system even was.

Luckily, soul integrity didn't seem to affect his daily life, so there was no rush to go full villain just to patch it up.

That meant he could enjoy his last carefree days before Hogwarts sent his acceptance letter.

But now, as Cohen stepped into his living room, a not-so-great piece of news reared its head.

A gray owl was flapping wildly around the ceiling. There was only one reason something like that would show up in his house—Hogwarts had sent a letter.

Today was Cohen's eleventh birthday, and it was about time for him to get his acceptance letter. But he'd waited all morning and nothing came, or else his "do a good deed" plan wouldn't have been pushed to the afternoon.

A middle-aged man with messy light blond hair rushed at Cohen with a huge grin, waving something that looked like parchment with curled edges.

"Oh, Cohen! My precious son, you're going to Hogwarts!"

Edward, Cohen's adoptive father, was in his forties with no real accomplishments. In the months Cohen had been here, he'd pegged Edward as a stay-at-home dad who handled chores all day. His cooking wasn't exactly gourmet, but it didn't scream "magic" either.

No way—why would he be so thrilled about his son going to Hogwarts, some obscure school Muggles had never heard of?

Just a while back, Edward and Rose had been prepping Cohen's uniform for Smeltings Academy.

According to Edward, it was the best private school in southeast England, especially when it came to food—guaranteed not to disappoint Cohen. Even though Cohen kept saying he just liked the occasional sweet treat and wasn't some food-obsessed kid, the quality of meals was nothing compared to the learning environment.

That left only one possibility: Edward was a wizard who'd been carefully hiding it from the family all this time.

Seriously? A wizard who'd let a Dementor slurp his soul and then sleep through it like a dead pig?

Wait, hold on…

Was an adult male wizard's soul strength really that low?

Just 10 points?

Muggle soul strength ranged from 5 to 10! (Cohen had assumed Rose's 20-point panel made her some kind of Muggle superhuman.)

That was the same as Cohen's half-baked Dementor soul strength! And he'd already climbed to 11!

Or maybe normal wizards were more like his adoptive mom, Rose, with 20 points?

Cohen hadn't met any other wizards. With only his parents—whose soul strengths were miles apart—as samples, he couldn't figure out what a "normal" wizard was supposed to be.

"Alright, Edward, your voice is about to carry into the Dursleys' living room next door. Don't forget Dumbledore's warning."

A woman in a violet dress came down the stairs, sternly scolding Edward.

This woman with long brown hair was Cohen's adoptive mother, Rose.

Though she was the same age as Edward, she still looked youthful. Her pale blue eyes were as beautiful as an elf hidden in a lake—though when she snapped at Edward, she was more like a starving tiger.

But with Cohen, she was a different person entirely.

"Cohen, Mommy's so happy you're going to Hogwarts. Your dad will explain everything later. I've got a seminar at the newspaper tonight, so I might not be able to sing at your birthday party."

Rose leaned down, smiling as she kissed Cohen's forehead. Her mood switched faster than a TV flipping from BBC to ITV.

"But I'll bring you a birthday gift. Love you."

Before hurrying off, Rose shot Edward a stern reminder: "Don't scare Cohen."

Once the tiger mom was gone, an excited Edward hoisted Cohen onto the couch.

"Since the letter's here, it's time we told you the truth."

*Uh-huh, and if there's anything I don't get about the wizarding world, feel free to ask me,* Cohen wanted to say. But then he thought about how he'd explain to Edward why an eleven-year-old who'd never touched magic knew all this stuff… Better to play dumb.

"Mm-hmm." Cohen sat obediently on the couch, listening.

"Alright, cards on the table—Daddy's a wizard. The magic kind."

*Cards on the table—I'm a Dementor. The soul-sucking kind.*

(End of Chapter)