I wish every system in the world came with a manual…
Just as Harry and Ron were celebrating the fact that the two trolls had been knocked out, Professor McGonagall stormed into the bathroom.
Snape followed behind her, with Quirrell trailing last—it seemed Quirrell was surprised to see Cohen there. His eyes widened, as if the idea of "Cohen saving someone" was as absurd as a troll dancing ballet.
But Quirrell, the drama king, still put on a show. He let out a feeble sob, collapsed onto a toilet, and clutched his chest tightly.
Snape bent down to inspect the trolls—then shot Cohen an odd look, probably wondering how these two trolls had survived an encounter with him.
"What in the world are you lot up to?" McGonagall's worried expression turned to icy fury. "You're lucky you didn't get yourselves killed. Why weren't you safely in your dormitories?"
Harry and Ron didn't know how to explain. Cohen was about to speak, but Hermione beat him to it—
"Professor McGonagall… they came looking for me."
Hermione struggled to her feet from the corner.
"It… it was me who came to find the trolls… because I—you know, I've read about them in books and know a lot about them…"
Cohen gained a new understanding of how the world's timeline corrected itself—Hermione's words were almost identical to the book's, even with Cohen thrown into the mix.
No big deal, though. The trolls were down, and Cohen's focus shifted back to the diadem in the Room of Requirement.
Last time he checked, the soul fragment in Ravenclaw's diadem had a strength of 20 points. Now, thanks to the selfless contributions of the spiders, Cohen had reached 20 points himself—he could devour this piece of Voldemort's soul.
"If they hadn't found me, I'd definitely be dead by now…"
Hermione took the blame for breaking school rules.
Ron and Harry showed a brief flash of surprise at this, then quickly tried to act like they'd known the story all along.
Professor McGonagall awarded five points each to the three of them and deducted five from Hermione—giving the Gryffindors more capital to get into mischief.
Hermione ran off first. Cohen, Harry, and the others strolled toward the common room at a more leisurely pace.
"Cohen should've gotten more than fifteen points," Ron grumbled, his mouth full. "Cohen, that spell you used—I've never even heard of it—"
"Then you should look at yourself for answers," Cohen said with a shrug. "They're all spells from books."
Just not from *Standard Spells, Grade One*…
"It's only ten points total, counting the ones deducted from Hermione," Harry pointed out. "But Hermione saying that really got us out of trouble—McGonagall loves her."
"What about me?" Cohen complained. "I've been building goodwill with McGonagall too…"
"But you're always skipping class—McGonagall's face sours every time she calls your name and you're not there," Ron said.
Blame Quirrell for scheduling his lessons at the same time as Transfiguration. Dark magic was a lot to learn, and weekends alone weren't enough.
Back in the common room, Hermione was waiting at the entrance. She thanked the three of them and then hurried off.
Cohen quickly scarfed down his food and slipped out of the common room—everyone was distracted by the Weasley twins' fireworks display, so no one noticed him leave.
You couldn't blame Cohen for being in a rush.
It was like in a game when you finally hit level 20 to open a restricted reward chest after grinding for ages—
Only for your mom to come in and say, "Go to bed, you can play tomorrow."
Any normal person would agree, wait for her to leave, then sneak under the covers, turn on their phone, and check what junk was in the chest.
Entering the Room of Requirement, Cohen immediately spotted the Earl getting cozy with Hedwig—the two owls were nuzzling each other in the Earl's little nest.
"Please, don't remind me of something disgusting that just happened."
Cohen thought of the two trolls mating. Seeing the Earl and Hedwig so close together now… honestly, it was a little too similar.
"You didn't knock!" the Earl squawked in alarm.
"This is *my* room!" Cohen snapped back. "And don't act like I'm taking advantage of you—I've seen it all before. Your little bits aren't even as big as my finger!"
"Wicked, single little pervert…"
The Earl flapped its wings, taking off with Hedwig out the window.
Cohen was pretty much immune to the Earl's petty complaints by now.
He grabbed the old diadem from the cabinet. Its gems still sparkled in the firelight, though the soul fragment's evil influence had started to darken and discolor its main structure.
"No use hiding—I can see you, little Mr. Voldemort."
Cohen tilted his head, addressing the tiny soul inside the diadem.
Why did he feel like the villain here?
The way the soul shrank trembling into the gem's depths gave Cohen a twinge of guilt—too bad no amount of pitiful acting could change its fate.
Just as Cohen prepared to suck out the soul, the Voldemort fragment seemed to realize playing weak wouldn't sway the terrifying thing in front of it.
A torrent of dark soul energy burst forth, coalescing into a grotesque human shape.
It was going all-in. If it could catch Cohen off guard—
Cohen let out a sudden belch from the unexpected fullness. He hadn't even started sucking, and the thing had jumped right into his mouth.
Straight to the stomach in one go.
"So this is what it's like when a guy tries to slide-tackle a tiger?" Cohen clucked his tongue in mock pity.
Opening the system panel, Cohen checked the boost from this soul fragment.
[**Race:** Dementor/Human/?/?/?]
[**Soul Integrity:** 22%]
[**Special Abilities Unlocked:** Spirit Shaping (1/10), Emotion Drain (1/10)]
[**Soul Strength:** 22]
[**Current Kindness Points:** 2000]
[**Current Sin Points:** 711]
A 2% boost to soul integrity—equivalent to about twenty adult eight-eyed giant spiders. Voldemort really was a big, filling meal.
But Cohen's attention was elsewhere.
After hitting 2000 kindness points, a [**Kindness Branch**] and [**Inventory System**] had popped up.
He'd originally thought his system was just a simple shop, but it clearly wasn't.
The inventory system was handy. When Cohen opened it, the data panel in front of him switched to a square screen with nine slots.
He tested it out: one real-world item took up one slot. Each slot displayed an item count, but items couldn't stack—after all, no two leaves in the world were identical, and Cohen couldn't find two identical pieces of parchment either.
Objects made by a duplication charm were pure magic and couldn't be stored.
Living things were out too—the rabbit he'd rescued from Quirrell was still alive (he'd planned to keep it as emergency food).
For now, Cohen decided to use it to store his wand—saving him the hassle of digging it out of his pocket. The inventory let items appear directly in his hand.
Next up was the [**Kindness Branch**]…
[**Kindness Branch (1/7)**]
[**1. Prevent Tom Riddle from obtaining the Philosopher's Stone**]
[**Reward:** 1000 Kindness Points, Death Tracker Cloak]
[*Note: Future kindness branches will shift based on your choices. Mind your stance.*]
He wasn't sure what this cloak was, but it sounded pretty cool.
What about the evil path, then?
Cohen figured hitting 2000 sin points would unlock an evil branch—would the rewards be on par with the kindness ones?