Evening of July 15, 1991, the lawn of No. 6 Privet Drive.
“Waaahhhhh!”
A blond boy, about eight years old, was sobbing, his small hand still in the shape of holding a lollipop—even though his palm was empty, with nothing in it.
And the instigator of all this—Cohen Norton—was already walking back home, his back to the child.
Cohen was a slender eleven-year-old boy with neatly groomed black hair, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, and lived at No. 5 Privet Drive.
In his hand was the fifty-pence fan-shaped rainbow lollipop he had just “generously” given to the neighbor’s child.
“Sweets always make people happier—even better if there are no cavities.”
Cohen contentedly licked the lollipop in his hand.
The pain of cavities was too distant for a child who changed teeth more often than cups.
Since he had been reborn, he should first enjoy the carefree happiness of childhood—and complete a task along the way.
“Ding! Goodwill +1, Sin Value +1”
【Note: Giving candy first then snatching it back is immoral. You will be condemned by your conscience.】
An electronically synthesized voice sounded in Cohen’s ear. Of course, Cohen “selectively” only heard the first part, concerning the system’s accusation…
Oh, the little system, it was so angry and heartbroken when it found out Cohen was exploiting loopholes to get double the Mall currency, crying and making a fuss. Oh, how pitiful.
The system didn’t appear out of thin air, and neither did Cohen on Privet Drive.
To be precise, a car accident more than a month ago brought Cohen to this familiar yet strange world. It was truly an otherworldly truck driver coming to drum up business.
Privet Drive, the Dursleys living in the villa at No. 4 next door, and a “Harry Potter” who rarely appeared outside—all the elements were complete.
Cohen immediately understood that he was in the famous world of Harry Potter.
As an Earthling who had read the original novel several times, Cohen knew that his childhood, including his youth, might not be so pleasant.
After all, Harry Potter was the exact same age as him, and he genuinely possessed “magic” such as making objects float with his mind, disappearing out of thin air, and instant teleportation. Everything in the magic world was bound to be connected to him.
And in this world, he had a pair of extremely doting adoptive parents, both of whom were Muggles without magic—at least, there was no trace of magic found in the original “Cohen’s” memories.
But the world of Harry Potter was not friendly to Muggles, especially after the final boss, Lord Voldemort, was resurrected.
To protect his parents, there were two choices.
Either leave Europe as soon as possible, or eliminate Lord Voldemort in advance—
Me, fight Lord Voldemort? Is this for real?
What followed was a not-so-competent system called the “Redemption System.”
“Open panel,” Cohen murmured.
A broken, half-black, half-white virtual circular interface appeared before his eyes.
In the center was Cohen’s simple and crude attribute panel.
【Cohen Norton】
【Race: Dementor / Human / ? / ? / ?】
【Soul Integrity: 11%】
【Special Abilities Unlocked: None】
【Soul Strength: 11】
【Current Goodwill: 1250】
【Current Sin Value: 250】
When Cohen first inherited this eleven-year-old boy’s body, he completely disbelieved the three words “Dementor” after seeing them.
Aside from both having mouth-like organs, he, as a human with a normal appearance, had absolutely nothing to do with a Dementor, right?!
But as he gradually explored his own body, a terrifying truth emerged.
He seemed to be a Dementor in human skin. He could see people’s “souls” and had an uncontrollable craving for them, especially when close to others. Cohen would instinctively want to suck a bit from a distance.
This behavior was, of course, dangerous, because Cohen’s attempt on his sleeping adoptive father, Edward Norton, almost genuinely sucked out the man’s soul.
Although Cohen stopped in time, a little something was still sucked out by Cohen, perhaps a soul, or perhaps “happiness”—this stuff was sweet and not cloying.
This was also why Cohen always kept candy with him; eating sweets was similar to eating souls.
After taking a minute to accept the fact that he was a terrifying Dementor, Cohen began to study this “Redemption System.”
First, the system gave Cohen a seemingly useless but actually magical function that allowed Cohen to determine whether to run away or suck the opponent’s soul when encountering an enemy.
He could see anyone’s Soul Strength, like a virtual digital tag placed above all living creatures’ heads. As long as Cohen wanted to see it, the number would immediately appear.
And Soul Strength should be Cohen’s standard for judging whether he could devour a target’s soul. Cohen’s adoptive father, Edward, had a Soul Strength of 10, so Cohen could take a little suck. However, Cohen’s adoptive mother, Rose, had 20 points of Soul Strength, so Cohen couldn’t suck her at all.
Cohen’s Soul Strength was linked to his Soul Integrity, and Cohen’s Soul Integrity was clearly appallingly low.
But at least Soul Integrity could be increased, and the method for increasing it was in the system’s shop—or perhaps by sucking human souls.
Because when he sucked Edward’s soul at that time, Cohen saw his Soul Integrity fluctuating. Perhaps if he hadn’t stopped immediately, Edward’s soul would have become data on Cohen’s system panel.
However, Cohen considered himself a humanoid species full of humanity and would not commit evil acts like sucking away the soul of an old father who worked hard every day to cook for his family.
The system had two shops, one was the “Goodwill Shop” and the other was the “Sin Shop.” Whenever Cohen did good deeds or bad deeds, the system would grant “Goodwill” or “Sin Value” based on the impact of the event. These system currencies could be used to purchase items in the corresponding shops.
One thing the system didn’t anticipate was that after it calculated the Goodwill, Cohen would then ruin the good deed, forcing it to continue providing Cohen with subsequent Sin Value, allowing Cohen to easily earn two sets of money.
The system had no way to counter this, so it could only make various veiled criticisms of Cohen’s actions during each broadcast.
The items in the two shops were also completely different. The Goodwill Shop mostly contained normal, bright and cheerful-looking items, such as manuals and books recording various positive magic knowledge, magical creatures, magical plants, and magic items that were not Dark Arts.
The items in the Sin Shop appeared much darker: numerous Dark Arts books, evil materials that were clearly forbidden items in the magic world, and even “souls.”
The souls here included not only “Soul Fragments” worth one thousand Sin Value that could increase Cohen’s Soul Integrity, but also the souls of living people.
【Tormented Human Soul】
【A collection from another world, usable for the creation of various evil magical items, including but not limited to ‘Horcrux’, evil spirit puppets, etc.
—You can always hear the soul’s screams, perhaps you will be next】
【Value: 7000 Sin Value】
This price was enough to snatch seven thousand children’s lollipops; it was too evil.
So Cohen only bought “Soul Fragments” to increase his Soul Integrity and did not purchase anything else from the Sin Shop—it wasn’t because he lacked money.
However, the increase from Soul Fragments was not optimistic.
When Cohen first arrived in this world, his Soul Integrity was 10, and his Soul Strength was also 10. After committing evil for so long, he finally accumulated one thousand Sin Value, but his Soul Integrity only increased by 1%, and his Soul Strength only increased to 11 points.
As for the special ability section filled with question marks in between…
He had no clue, and the system gave no response when asked, which made Cohen quite suspicious of the system’s completeness.
Fortunately, Soul Integrity seemed to have no impact on Cohen’s normal life, so Cohen didn’t need to rush to do crazy bad things to complete his Soul Integrity.
This meant he could leisurely enjoy his last carefree time before Hogwarts sent his admission letter.
But now, a less pleasant piece of news emerged as Cohen walked into his living room.
A small gray owl was fluttering wildly on the living room ceiling. Such a thing appearing in his house could only mean one thing—Hogwarts had sent a letter.
Today was Cohen’s eleventh birthday, and it was indeed time for Cohen to receive his admission letter. However, Cohen waited all morning today and didn’t receive the letter, otherwise his “do good deeds” plan wouldn’t have waited until the afternoon to be implemented.
A middle-aged man with messy light blond hair rushed towards Cohen with a joyful expression, waving something like parchment with curled edges in his hand.
“Oh, Cohen! My dear son, you’re going to Hogwarts!”
Edward, Cohen’s adoptive father, was in his forties and had achieved nothing. For all these months, Cohen’s perception of him was that of a househusband who stayed home all day doing chores. Although his cooking wasn’t exactly “dark,” it certainly showed no trace of magic.
It didn’t make sense. Why would he be excited about his son entering Hogwarts, an “unpopular school” that had absolutely no news in the Muggle world?
You know, just a while ago, Edward and Rose were preparing Cohen’s new school uniform for Smelting’s Secondary School.
According to Edward, this school was the best private secondary school in Southeast England, and he particularly emphasized that Cohen would absolutely not be disappointed with the food—even though Cohen repeatedly stressed that he just liked eating desserts frequently, wasn’t a food maniac, and food was simply not worth mentioning compared to the teaching environment.
Then there was only one possibility: Edward was a Wizard who had meticulously hidden his identity from his family for so long.
Bloody hell, are Wizards really creatures whose souls can be so easily sucked by a Dementor, and then they just continue to sleep like dead pigs?!
Wait, no…
Is the Soul Strength of adult male Wizards really that low?
Only 10 points?
Muggle Soul Strength is only between 5 and 10 points! (Cohen previously thought Rose’s 20-point panel meant she was a Muggle Superman.)
This is only the Soul Strength of Cohen, a disabled half-Dementor! Cohen is already at 11 points now!
Or is it that normal Wizards should be like his adoptive mother Rose? 20 points?
Cohen hadn’t seen any other Wizards, and with these two samples of parents with vastly different Soul Strengths, he couldn’t determine what a normal Wizard was like.
“Alright, Edward, your voice will soon reach the Dursleys’ living room next door. Don’t forget Dumbledore’s reminder.”
A woman in a violet full-length gown walked down the stairs, sternly reprimanding Edward.
This brown-haired woman was Cohen’s adoptive mother, Rose.
Although she was the same age as Edward, she still looked incredibly young, and her light blue eyes were as beautiful as an elf hidden in a lake—of course, when she was fierce with Edward, she resembled a hungry tiger.
However, she was a completely different person when facing Cohen.
“Cohen, Mommy is very happy that you can go to Hogwarts. Your father will tell you everything later. Mommy has to attend a newspaper seminar later, so I might not be able to sing for you at your birthday party.”
Rose bent down, smiled, and kissed Cohen’s forehead. Her change of expression was faster than a TV switching from BBC to ITV.
“But Mommy will bring you a birthday present. Love you.”
Before Rose hurried away, she didn’t forget to sternly remind Edward, “Don’t scare Cohen.”
After the tigress left, an excited Edward lifted Cohen onto the sofa.
“Since the admission letter has arrived, it’s time for us to confess some truths to you.”
“Uh-huh, if you have any questions about the magic world, you can ask me.”
Cohen really wanted to answer that way, but then he thought about how to explain to Edward why an eleven-year-old boy who had never been exposed to magic would know about the magic world… It was better to play dumb.
“Mm-hmm.” Cohen sat obediently on the sofa and listened.
“Dad’s coming clean. Dad is a Wizard, the kind who can do magic.”
I’m coming clean too. I’m a Dementor, the kind who can suck your soul.