Chapter Text
"I can't believe we're all sitting here, celebrating together, and no one has even started a fight in," Fred glanced towards a wall-clock Dazai was sure hadn't been there yesterday, "a whole hour!"
The gang office was decorated up with balloons and streamers. Dazai supposed the twins procured them from wherever they got the party supplies for last year's post-infirmary visit party, though he couldn't rule out a more magical alternative given the environment. He didn't ask. Either way, the office was looking positively festive. Most of the balloons were tied down to the desk or sofa by thin strings, but a few had floated up into the rafters. Egg and Featherbrain were happily chirping overhead while they bounced a rainbow-colored balloon back-and-forth. Every so often, the latex would pop, and Ron or Draco would obligingly release another balloon for the pets to play with.
Pansy rolled her eyes. She was leaning into Draco's side and tearing a streamer into thin, confetti strips. "Say something like that again, and I'll start a fight right now."
"Pansy," Blaise chided her. She shot him an unamused glance.
Blaise and Dazai were, somehow, pressed in together in the office chair. It was... not an easy fit. As it was, Dazai was basically just sitting in Blaise's lap. But Blaise hadn't complained about the seating—had actually laughed when Dazai suggested it.
"What? I'm just saying."
Dazai pushed a stack of twenty sickles to the side of the desk. "No fighting, children."
"Shouldn't that be my line?" Hermione asked. She took the sickles with a smile and dropped them into her cloak pocket.
The remaining coins on the desk—an impressive mix of knuts, sickles, and galleons—were unceremoniously shoved into one of the drawers. Dazai locked it shut. George whistled as the coins disappeared. "We sure made a killing on finals."
"And that was only for second year exams!" Fred grinned. "Think how much dough we could rake in next year if we sell to everyone."
"Enough to retire early," Dazai said wistfully, and the twins laughed.
Hermione snatched a neon balloon from Ron's hands before he could pop it. "Please, you all. That's enough talk about cheating."
"Right," Ron sniffed, shooting her a look. "We're here to celebrate passing finals through our own intellect," he said sardonically.
"I passed on my own," she told him.
"Everyone else cheated. Even Dazai cheated!"
Hermione's eyes snapped to him. Dazai lifted his hands pacifyingly. "I only cheated on Lockhart's exam, I'll have you know."
"And you still got a hundred on every final?" Pansy snorted. "Yeah right."
Draco flicked her on the arm and she squeaked. "He's only smart when its to prove a point, you know."
Blaise hummed. It rumbled against the side of Dazai's face and he turned to see what expression his friend was making. "How did your practicals go, Dazai?"
"Oh," he blinked. "Fine. Thanks to our schemes, I already knew which spells I'd need to practice ahead of time. And since McGonagall is busy being a big-wig these days, she let me skip the transfiguration practical." Dazai flared his fingers out, miming something either incredibly vague or incredibly magical. "Lucky me! I'd have failed that test for sure, and gotten expelled."
Ron snorted. "How come you always luck out of finals, 'zai? You've gotta teach me how to do that. I just about failed potions..."
"It's about the puppy dog eyes! See—" Dazai batted his lashes Ron's way. Ron snatched the balloon back from Hermione and threw it at him. Before it could hit Dazai in the nose, however, the helium lifted it up and away, where Egg pounced on it with an excited growl. "Anyway," Dazai said. He stood. Blaise made an uncomfortable noise as he pushed off. "That's a wrap on Hell's Hounds first big job. Good job, team."
Cheers rose up around him—the twins were the loudest among them. They were still hovering near the blackboard, which was written up with their final sales figures. They'd made a lot. A hefty sum went to each member of the gang, and a larger pool went into Dazai's desk. Call it the Hounds' funding for a rainy day.
Dazai grinned to each of them in turn. Triumphant. He was decidedly feeling triumphant.
Mori had told him the gang was a weakness and a waste of his time. But they'd not only pulled off a very successful business scheme, they'd also come to his aid without needing to be asked. And that wasn't a weakness by anyone's standards. And Blaise! That kind of loyalty was beyond even that of Port Mafia members. Dazai still didn't really know what to say about it. But he knew it was stronger than whatever Mori had mocked him over at the beginning of the year. He knew Hell's Hounds was stronger than what Mori had thought they were.
Dazai was beaming when he turned to Pansy. He beamed even wider when he saw she was pouting. He pulled something small from his cloak and tossed it to her.
She caught it with both hands, then unfolded her palms to see—"What is this?"
"Is Pansy getting more stupid by the day?" Dazai asked. "It's a king piece."
Pansy squinted at the tiny, wooden white king in her hands. Draco shifted to sit upright and peek at it as well. The piece should be familiar to her—it was the one she'd played a few weeks ago. The one Dazai had promptly stolen. Pansy turned it over in her hand. "Don't give me that, idiot," she snipped. "I mean what are you doing throwing it at me?"
When she held the king aloft, a cord of twine hung off of it at a limp angle. The twine was wrapped four times around white king's crown.
"It's a necklace," he told her, "and your joining gift for Hell's Hounds. This way, no matter where Pansy goes, she has to think of how much smarter and cooler than her I am!"
"You—!" Pansy raised her arm to throw the king back at him. Draco put a hand on her elbow before she could, and Pansy grumpily dropped her arm. "Fine," she said. "Whatever. Thanks, I guess."
"You're welcome!" Dazai grinned sharkishly. "You have to put it on, otherwise you're not really a member. And feel free to tell everyone who asks about it that you lost a game of chess to me."
"I was having an emotional crisis! It didn't count!"
"What about that first game then, huh? You lost then, too."
"Th-that doesn't count either! I thought you were some loser muggle so I went easy on you!"
Pansy was red-faced from yelling, but Dazai noticed she still put the necklace on without further argument, regardless.
They were interrupted from further bickering by a sudden alarm of knock-knock-knock! at the door.
The gang all shared a look. Then, as one, everyone turned to Dazai in askance. "Ginny," Dazai told them—because really, who else could it be?—just as the door flew open and Ginny hurried through.
She was gasping out heavy breaths as she shut the door at her back.
Fred and George rushed to her side instantly. They looked Ginny up-and-down for wounds in the same way they'd done to Dazai several times over the last two years. He crossed the room to her much more slowly.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Ginny drew in a shuddering breath before swallowing hard. She looked to each of then, then said to the floor, "I just heard—I came right here—it's—"
"Woah there, Ginny-Winny," Fred patted her hard on the back. "Breathe," George told her.
Ginny did. It seemed to help a little.
"The—" she drew in another gasp of settling air, "the petrification victims. Th-they're all dead!"
Silence.
A hollow, shattering silence.
Dazai could feel it under his skin.
A ragged series of gasps flew around the room. Hermione's hands flew to her mouth in horror. Even Featherbrain and Egg briefly stopped their playing, sensing the severe reality settling around the rest of the room.
"I thought the healers were going to, well, heal them," he said, folding his arms over his chest. He said nothing of the poison he and Blaise had administered. Nothing of the secrets Pomfrey had held over him. And he felt no triumph, either. Just a cold kind of completion over a job well-done. Beside him, Blaise bodily froze and Dazai elbowed him. And it was clear by everyone's shocked faces that they were all too alarmed by Ginny's news to read the invisible tells on Dazai's and Blaise's faces.
"They were," she said, frantic and shaking, still. "But they—I don't know what happened. But the rumors—the petrification cure was poisoned!"
Fred patted Ginny's back again. "Sit down, sis," he said, shoving her very gently towards the sofa. "You look like you're gonna fall over."
"I am," she gasped.
She followed all the same. Draco and Pansy had jumped off the sofa upon hearing Ginny's news, and didn't object when she curled up into a tiny ball where they'd just been sitting. Ginny drew in several more calming breaths—Hermione whispering out coached breathing exercises into her ear until she heeded them. Everyone was gathered around the sofa when Ginny finally continued her story, "I was with Percy when we heard. Madam Pomfrey, and—and every one." Ginny's fingers tugged at a blanket's edge. A few threads frayed out. "At first, everyone was shouting a-about the Demon Student."
She shot an apologetic look Dazai's way when he tensed. Draco nudged him reassuringly, misinterpreting Dazai's reaction as one of being falsely accused.
"Percy defended you! And Gemma, too."
Dazai blinked. "Gemma? Gemma hates me."
"Yeah!" The twins gaped. "She wants Dazai expelled."
"She wants him in Azkaban," Ron corrected with grinding teeth.
Ginny choked out a cry at the word Azkaban, and everyone's eyes shot back to her.
"Oh, stars. Dazai isn't going to Azkaban, is he?" Hermione said. "They don't really think he...?"
"No!" Ginny shouted.
Hermione let out the tiniest sigh of relief at this news. But she was somber again a moment later.
Dead.
Four dead.
It was Dazai's fault. Dazai's and Blaise's. But everyone here was so quick to defend him. To see his innocence. He'd manipulated them all into thinking he was a good person. Into thinking he was a person at all—
Dazai chased the thought away quickly. "So what happened?" he asked.
Ginny shook her head, shaking away some darkening thoughts of her own, perhaps. "Gemma told the staff that she'd seen the healers. Um. Professor Spleen and Assistant Wiggins?" Dazai and Hermione nodded to confirm the names, while the others looked on in horrified silence. "Gemma told everyone that she'd seen them working on the petrification cure. Or—or not working on the potion. All the things we overheard the other week in the infirmary, you remember that?" Ginny waited for everyone to nod before continuing wetly. "The healers have been so busy trying to slander Dazai they've been messing up the cure. Gemma told everyone she saw them spilling it, or exploding it, and making it smell strange like it probably shouldn't!"
(The petrification cure had smelled of roses. The stench clung to Dazai's nostrils even now.)
"So the healers messed up the potion and accidentally gave the petrified people a poison," Blaise surmised. To the outside ear, he sounded expressly calm. But to Dazai, who knew Blaise as well as he knew any page of his textbooks, heard the undercurrent of tension in his voice.
Ginny nodded, and Draco worried the skin of his lip. "What's going to happen to them?"
"A-Azkaban," Ginny stuttered out the word like a curse. "Prof—Headmistress McGonagall said they'll probably go to Azkaban."
Ron did curse. A loud, "Hell!" bursting from his lips.
Hermione shot him a look, but didn't scold him for it. There was no denying the severity of Ginny's news. "Their incompetence killed a matron, two students, and a familiar. Azkaban is hardly an excessive punishment."
"Still!"
"Oh, it's just terrible!" Ginny croaked. A second later, she burst out into terrible sobs. She hid her face behind her hands and wept loudly even as the twins fell into the seat beside her and held her in a hug.
"Damn." Pansy whistled. Despite her casual remark, however, Dazai saw the way her hands were shaking before she shoved them into her cloak. "That's a hell of a way to end the year."
"Pansy," Hermione warned, whirling a glare onto her.
For once, Pansy didn't bite back. She only looked to Draco imploringly. He muttered something low to her. A quiet comfort, Dazai suspected. Pansy mumbled something back.
Something nudged Dazai's side. He glanced up to see Blaise watching him with searching eyes.
We aren't suspected, the expression seemed to say. We're good, he said. We're good, aren't we?
Dazai didn't smile—didn't want to blow the cover his gang had given him—but he did nod shallowly. He cleared his throat. Everyone looked to him—save for Ginny, who was still hiding her sobs behind two shaking hands. "We killed the basilisk. We did a good thing," he told them. The voice of a boss was a heavy one. Heavy as Mori's coat and heavy as the truth he and Blaise were tucking in their back pockets. Here was Ginny, still blaming herself for what Riddle had made her do. And the rest of his gang, sullen over a series of deaths that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with him. A few words of consolation were all a guilty boss could offer their subordinates. "What happens after the basilisk has nothing to do with us."
Draco's brows furrowed.
Ginny cracked out another sticky wail.
And Blaise was the loyal dog sitting vigil at his side.
-
Severus' fingers dug in and out of the infirmary blanket like claws. The bed was empty. All the beds were empty.
The Ministry and a few St. Mungo's staff had swarmed the infirmary early that morning and cleaned the place out. They'd been a storm. A hurricane of crime-scene cleaning. Everything Spleen and Wiggins had used—everything they'd even so much as looked at—had been confiscated.
"For the trial," a Ministry official with a curling mustache had told him while they levitated the body of Collin Creevey into the air. The body had been floated over to another official, who'd used a spell to teleport it who knows where. "We'll need it as evidence."
Evidence.
Severus' eyes were too dry from blank staring to water over with tears anymore.
Evidence of murder.
Every cot in the infirmary was empty. Just yesterday, they had all been filled up with petrified victims awaiting their cure. And now—
Severus choked on something stone-like in his throat. The blanket he was clawing into had been on Poppy's body while she'd died.
Every since the news had reached him—the deaths—Severus felt as though he were trodding through thick mud. He couldn't breathe. His lungs were full of ichor and iron. Dead, dead, dead—! He'd only had enough sense of mind to take stock of what the Ministry had collected from Poppy's things. Potion ingredients, a few files—none of them Mr. Dazai's, curiously, but Severus had checked.
The small light hitting Poppy's cot felt cold.
"Severus."
He tore his eyes off the empty space and found Minerva standing tersely at the door. Her face had worked up into a blank frown when the bodies had first been discovered and had yet to soften into anything kinder since. "You can't sit here all day," she told him, slowly crossing the room. Her eyes briefly flicked to the empty beds before turning back to Severus. "I know you're close to—you were close to Poppy. But sitting in here all day neglects our work as professors."
Severus' lip curled. "She was my friend."
Minerva looked guilty. "She was mine as well. And any other circumstances, I would grant you leave for the grieving process. But Severus, my position as interim headmistress is new. And it is not one brought on by gentle times. Hogwarts is facing one crisis after another and I cannot have the staff neglecting their duties. Not now."
Severus wanted to bark at her. To bite. To scream about the injustice of what Spleen and Wiggins had so carelessly done, but—
But what was the point?
He deflated into the chair. It was the same one he'd sat in for days, hovering over Mr. Dazai's cot like some worried mother hen. But Dazai had gotten better. Poppy would not. (He would never see her again. No one would.)
"There are no words for a tragedy like this," Minerva told him. Her voice edged on gentle, but still sounded cold to Severus in ways he could not know. "But we must remain focused. The Daily Prophet is all over us already. We need not give them more reason to slander Hogwarts."
"Let them," he grumbled harshly.
"Severus," she chided.
He sighed. "...I know. The students leave campus tomorrow morning. I will manage one more day with them before taking my own leave."
Minerva nodded. "Good. Thank you."
The infirmary blankets had always felt exceptionally soft to Severus, but now, blistered under his digging fingers, he thought only that they were empty, empty, empty.
He shook himself. Minerva was right. There was no time for spiraling right now. After the students left, he could grieve in peace. But until then, the Daily Prophet was still on Hogwart's back. Severus wouldn't give them anything to pounce on.
He rose to his feet with a groan. How long had he been sitting there, beside an empty bed? It felt like no time at all—a blur of fog and misery in his brain. But his knees creaked like several hours had passed. Severus didn't know. Minerva offered him a hand up that he ignored, instead looking to the office to catalogue, again, the damages. The door was ajar—left that way by the officials who'd searched it for evidence. Severus had bristled during the entire search. His blood was screaming at him, No Trespassing! Poppy has a no trespassing rule for her office.
The Ministry hadn't cared, and Severus amended his thought with burning acid, Poppy had a no trespassing rule.
The office door was left open, now. What was the point?
Minerva followed his stare. She cleared her throat. "The Ministry raided the place for anything St. Mungo's looked at. Potion ingredients, mostly." She glanced at him significantly. "I checked everything they took before it left the office. Mr. Dazai's file wasn't confiscated."
Severus ground his teeth down. "Why not?" She lifted a brow at him, and he expanded, "We know those two were investigating Mr. Dazai. Why didn't they look at the boy's file?"
Minerva blinked, then sighed. "The Ministry certainly looked for Mr. Dazai's file. Apparently, they couldn't find it."
Weariness kept Severus from startling terribly, but he still couldn't shake how his stomach clenched. "That's..."
"Not good. I know," Minerva blew out another breath. She looked—sounded—deeply exhausted. More so than Severus, even. Responsibility and grief weighed on her like the overbearing coat Dazai always wore these days. Despite himself, however, Severus couldn't find it in himself to console her. "I will search Poppy's office after the students leave—"
Severus lifted a hand to cut her off. "No need. I'll do it now."
"Now?" She asked. "You need to finish grading finals and getting the students ready to return home for summer."
He scowled, lips pinching meanly as he walked past the empty cots and Minerva to the open door. Stepping across the entrance without Poppy's permission felt like a sin. "It's not just Mr. Dazai's file I'm looking for," he told her. Severus heard the click-clack of heels follow behind him, but they stopped just shy of entering the office with him. "Returning home—that's the problem."
He heard Minerva fold her arms over her chest before looking up to see her frowning face. Severus braced a palm against Poppy's desk. How many times had they laid out books, here? Discussed their problem child together? How many more times would they have, if..?
He tugged against a locked drawer. Poppy's magic was layered over it. "Poppy was the only one of us to ever do something about Mr. Dazai's situation," he said, withdrawing his wand to unlock the drawer. It sprung open with a flash of magic. Stacks of official-looking papers were hidden within—Ministry documents, case precedent, child welfare. "She was going to adopt him."
Minerva stood straighter. "...Just what are you getting at, Severus?"
"She can't help him anymore." The papers crinkled underneath Severus' grasp. He forced himself calm to keep from tearing them. "Only I can."
"You—" Minerva stop-started. Her eyes were wide when she finally crossed into the office. "You don't mean you're going to adopt the boy? Severus, I don't have to tell you how horrible of an idea that is. The Daily Prophet is already claiming nepotism."
Severus slammed the papers down.
They fluttered out from impact. Minerva caught one before it could fall to the floor. 'Ministry Contacts for Muggle-Related Abuse Cases,' it read.
"What the hell else am I meant to do?!" He shouted.
Minerva looked taken aback. She set the page down gently. "Severus, you need to calm down. It has been a horrible day. Making rash decisions—"
"And do nothing again? Let the boy go home to be hurt—or worse! What if he dies too, Minerva? Because Poppy couldn't—because I couldn't help him."
"You're catastrophizing—"
"I'm being realistic," he growled.
The papers stared up at him, the beginning stages of Poppy's research before she'd been petrified. Abuse, it yelled up at him, abuse, abuse, abuse.
"I don't need your permission to do this."
Minerva's frown briefly turned heavy with anger. But it was replaced with a kind of resignation a moment later. Severus almost felt bad for snapping, but made no effort to take the biting words back. He had said them and he had felt them true.
"...No. You don't. I know Albus would have disliked you stepping in," she hedged, then shook her head to dismiss the idea altogether.
Severus looked away. To the shelf where Poppy had collected books on Magical Sensitivity, to the table where she'd kept the Sensing Stone (it was missing, as well. Severus hadn't seen them cart it off with the other evidences, but it was hardly Hogwarts' property in the first), to the papers again. Without Poppy here, the whole room felt empty. The books and documents and files lacked any sense of meaning or organization. It was just Severus and Minerva and a bunch of pointless things.
At least he could do this. The one thing he could grasp between his hands.
Poppy's final wish: Save Dazai Osamu.
"I have to do this," Severus said solemnly. "I want to do this."
For Poppy. For Dazai. For himself.
I have to do something. Just one good thing.
Sitting still had become unbearable to him.
Minerva looked on skeptically, but held her tongue. And the soft light of the infirmary, for the first time in all the years Severus had been at Hogwarts, felt unrepentantly cold. His shaking fingers wrinkled Poppy's notes.
-
Dazai would deny it if anyone asked, but he'd dragged his feet all the way to the train. The last day of his second year. After today, Dazai wouldn't see his gang again for several months. Mori didn't make for half the company. When they all sorted into two compartments—the gang was too big these days to all squeeze into just one—Dazai realized he wasn't the only one dragging.
Draco stared out the window, a tight look to his face as he watched the country-side flash by them in a blur. "I can't believe the year is already over."
"Already?" Dazai asked. He had pulled his knees up to his chest to make room for Featherbrain's cage on the floor. Blaise was pressed up to his side, and George pressed up to Blaise's. "Between the petrifications and all that Demon nonsense, it felt like this year dragged on for ages."
Blaise nudged his side. The gesture wasn't really necessary. They were already pressed so close together, Dazai could feel his friend's breath against his neck. "That's only because you don't know how to stop sticking your nose into everyone else's business."
"I know how to stop, I just don't."
George tittered. "Dazai just has a prankster's heart! Like me an' Fred!"
He gestured wildly—nearly smacking Blaise in the face—probably indicating something about his twin. Unfortunately, Fred hadn't been able to squeeze into the compartment with them. Fred, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and Luna were in the adjacent compartment, instead. It saved on breathing room, but Dazai still thought it was a shame they couldn't all be together at the end of things.
"He's got something," Pansy scoffed derisively.
"Undeniable charm," Dazai told them, "and an appreciation for hanging around where I'm not wanted."
Pansy kicked his shin from across the stall. "You aren't wanted here. Go sit with the other losers."
Featherbrain screeched when the kick rattled her cage. Pansy, pouting, pulled her feet back under her seat.
"And leave you here without my brilliant presence? I'll pass."
She scoffed. It almost sounded amused if Dazai strained his ears.
A field passed them by as a blur out the window. Trees and crops and some white dots Dazai thought might be sheep. He stared out at them for a moment, feeling Blaise bumping up against him as they rolled over the train tracks.
"So," George hummed, "What is everyone doing over break? Me an' Fred have some wicked pranks planned for Mom and Dad. And we've got a bunch of ideas to test out before we start fifth year."
"Color-changing jelly-beans aren't enough for you?" Pansy asked, sounding exasperated.
"That's just the start of it!"
In the window's reflection, Dazai met Draco's eyes. He lifted a brow. Draco sighed. "...I don't know."
"You don't know?" George asked.
Draco finally turned away from the window to stare somewhere near Dazai's feet. "I made it pretty clear I'm Team Dazai this year. There's no way my Father is happy with me."
Pansy made a face. She grabbed Draco's hand in hers and squeezed. "I'll be over for the next Malfoy party. You can hang in until then, right?"
Draco said nothing.
"...is you're old man really that bad?" George asked. When Draco and Pansy both shot him a scathing glare, he raised his hands appeasingly. "I mean, I think he's a rat! But that's a Weasley speaking."
Blaise looked between them. "Draco's father can be very strict," he informed. Then, to Draco, "you've never stepped this far out of his boundaries before, have you? It's difficult to say how he'll react."
"I won't let him do anything to Draco," Pansy growled.
Dazai watched the field turn into a forest. The train blasted through it, cracking over fallen branches and pine needles. "Sic Egg on Lucius if he tries anything."
Draco glanced at him. "Assuming she even comes home with me."
"I saw her hop on the train roof before we left. She's coming home with one of us."
Draco sniffed. Then, a little amusedly, he said, "as long as she doesn't pick Ron."
George laughed. "I'll tell my baby bro you said that!"
"Tell him he's a second-rate Quidditch player while you're at it."
Dazai turned away from the forest when it got too dim to make out anything properly. To Draco, he said, "if you're so worried about Lucius, you can just tell him I want you kept in one piece. He'll listen to that."
Draco swallowed, and the rest of the Loyalty Club shared a hasty look. Meanwhile, George did a double-take. "What? Why? Are you and Malfoy Senior in cahoots, Dazai?"
"Nah," he dismissed, lying easily with a wave of his hand. "But Lucius is pretty fixated on his public image." He turned back to the window. Dark. "Don't worry about it."
"Everytime you say something like 'don't worry about it' I get a little stress headache," George tapped the side of his head. "And then I super worry about it."
"Join the club," Draco grumbled.
"Just keep in touch," Pansy nudged Draco. "I want at least one letter a week until all this stupid Dazai nonsense blows over!"
"This stupid what-now?" Dazai blinked.
"Yeah," Draco obliged. Then, to Dazai and Blaise, he said, "Same goes for you two."
"Aw, what about me?" George pouted.
"I barely know you," Draco said. His eyes didn't waver from Blaise and Dazai.
Blaise tilted his head. "Sure. I'll see you at the Malfoy Summer Charity Gala as well."
They all turned to Dazai, expectant. He shrugged and hugged his knees to his chest. "I'll see what I can do."
"Not to have absolutely zero faith in you, Boss," George leaned forward in his seat so he could make out Dazai's expression better. "But you totally went ghost-mode last summer. No letters, no visits, no nothing!"
Dazai lifted a brow. "Yokohama is pretty far away, you know. And I've got other stuff going on."
Other stuff being that Mori hadn't wanted him talking to his Hogwarts friends. And sitting vigil with Father had taken so much of his time. Between that, the kennel, and the infirmary...
"Ooh, Dazai's mysterious other stuff!"
"At least manage a letter or two," Blaise said plainly. "Otherwise I'll worry."
"You'll worry anyway. Blaise is a worrywart."
Blaise nodded. "So you'll write. For me."
Dazai's nose scrunched up. "I absolutely did not say that."
Blaise looked at him imploringly.
Beside him, George suddenly burst out into laughter. He wiped at a teary eye. "Hey! Looks like Blaisey can do a mean puppy-dog eyes, too! Dazai's got some real competition now!"
Pansy snorted and Draco's lips curled up in distinct amusement. Looking between all of them—and pointedly ignoring Blaise's sparkling eyes—Dazai squawked. He threw an arm out over his eye. "No way! Blaise knows I can't say no to him, this is just no fair at all!"
Everyone laughed. It felt light.
The train burst out of the woods and into the sun again. Dazai knew where they were now. He'd ridden the train enough to know they were nearing the station. In a few minutes, this would be...
"Fine, fine. I'll write as long as it makes Blaise happy. But only because of that."
The corners of Blaise's eyes wrinkled brightly. "Thank you, Dazai."
"Yeah, yeah."
"I think we've finally found Dazai's weakness: Blaise's puppy-dog eyes!"
Draco huffed out a dry laugh. "His weakness is Blaise, plain and simple." He looked them up-and-down, eyes trailing over them. "I swear, every time you two wander off, you come back even closer than before."
"Draco is jealous I won't hold his hand, too," Dazai chirped, twining his fingers with Blaise teasingly.
"It's freaky," Pansy said. "Next time we see you two you'll be joined at the hip."
Dazai shoot his head firmly, the emphatic gesture wiggling his and Blaise's hands a little. "No way! If we connect like that, Blaise will die with me. That's just too cruel."
"Die with you?" George coughed. "What exactly are you planning now?"
"Bungee jumping without the cord? Sky-diving without a parachute? I haven't decided yet."
Blaise squeezed his hand. "Just write to me over break," he said, speaking over the way George's eyes had blown wide with concern. "All the time."
"All the time? You're awfully clingy."
"Well, I'll write you every day if you don't."
"...you're going to wear your owl out at that rate."
Slowly, underfoot, the train's clack-clack-clack over tracks began to peter out. The rumble died away into a whistling draw then stopped completely. The train had pulled into the station. Dazai looked away from his friends to glance out the window. People were gathered outside—family of students, he thought. Though...
"Oh, snap," George whistled. "That the press?"
Cluttered around the station were at least a dozen wizards wearing cameras around their necks, holding quills and notebooks, looking altogether too official for Dazai's liking. The bright-red lipstick of one Rita Skeeter stood out like a bloody beacon among the masses. Dazai slid down his seat until only the tips of his hair poked out above the window. "What's the likelihood they're all here to bother someone else?"
Pansy leant over Draco's lap to look out at the crowd of reporters. She scoffed. "Like who?"
"Maybe it's for you, Pansy. After all, you gave a report to Rita Skeeter at the end of last year, didn't you? She must be looking for another scoop."
"Wha—how'd you know about that?!"
"I have sources. Also, I can read."
Draco nudged Pansy off of him and stood. "Yeah. Well. No one is talking to the press today."
"So confident," George mused. "What's the plan?"
"Run past them?" Blaise offered. He was glaring out the window.
"Wouldn't running just draw more attention?" Pansy hummed. "I say we throw Dazai to the wolves. At least we'll keep Draco out of the papers that way."
Dazai sniffed. "That's an awful idea. I think Pansy should volunteer to talk to the press."
"I'll tell them how much of an idiot you are. I'll tell them you suck at magic and you're even worse at chess."
Dazai gasped and whirled on Draco. "Pansy is bullying me again! Draco, put her on a leash or something!"
"Okay, kids. Let's focus up," George tried, smiling a little despite himself. He reached into his jacket—they'd changed from their robes about an hour earlier; everyone into more comfortable clothes except for Dazai's mafia get-up and Draco's stuffy, rich-kid attire. A moment later, he pulled out—
"How many of those things did you make?" Dazai blinked.
A glitter bomb.
"Uh," George rolled his wrist, twirling the glitter bomb around haphazardly. Pansy leaned away like it might save her from an accidental glitter mishap. "This is the last one, actually." He made a face, then shook it off with a grin. "We were planning to take it home and use it as a basis for a new prototype. But. Eh. This is as good a cause as any."
Pansy stood next to Draco, and a second later the others joined. It was still a tight fit, and they spilled out into the corridor just to have breathing space between them all. "Just," she said, expression curdling, "don't get any on me."
"That's right, Pansy wasn't there either time Fred and George blew these things up," Dazai hummed. He fixed the coat hanging over his shoulders where it had rumpled during the long trip. It was too hot to be wearing the coat. He wouldn't take it off. "That's a really hopeless request. If we use this, everyone at the station is going to walk away covered in glitter."
Pansy shot him a dirty look.
Students shuffled past them in the hall, moving nervously past Dazai's group of obvious trouble-makers. After another few seconds past, the compartment adjacent theirs opened. Hermione's head popped out. When she saw them all gathered there, her brows furrowed worriedly. "Thank goodness you haven't left yet! Did you see al the reporters out there?"
"Dunno how you're gonna get out of here without an interview, mate," Ron shrugged, coming out into the hall beside Hermione.
Ginny and Luna followed after. Fred came out last. The second his eyes landed on his twin—on the glitter bomb he still held aloft—Fred grinned ear-to-ear. "Just what I was thinking, brother-mine!"
"Two peas in a pod, us!" George tittered.
Hermione took a purposeful step away from then, aligning herself with Pansy by the wall. "Oh, I want nothing to do with whatever you're planning this time!"
"Count me out, too," Pansy said. She shot a wry look to Hermione. "For once, we agree on something."
"I doubt it will ever happen again," Hermione said, grimacing.
"Here's to hoping. I want nothing to do with you."
Dazai rocked back on his heels. "Keep talking like that and I'll have to assign another team-building exercise."
Hermione looked aghast, though Pansy only glared at him. Typical.
"Alright, kiddos," Fred and George said. They clapped their hands on as many shoulders as they could reach between the two of them—Dazai, Blaise, Ron, and Ginny—and pulled them into an almost conspiratorial huddle. "Let's save the bickering for after our great escape!"
"You mean several months from now? After summer break ends?" Pansy deadpanned. "That's a really idiotic thing to say."
Fred continued, like she hadn't said anything at all. "George'll throw the bomb, and we'll all make a break for the exit."
"Everyone got their things?" George asked as he handed his own suitcase over to Fred. He was only holding the glitter bomb now.
Dazai hefted Featherbrain's cage into his arms while everyone else shifted their belongings in their arms for better carriage. "All set," Dazai said after a moment.
They turned towards the door—still open, but no longer bleeding out students. Their extended conversation, in combination with their less-than stellar reputations had kept most of the other students from lingering long.
Dazai sniffed. "Guess this is goodbye, then."
Blaise squeezed his hand. "Just for a bit. You're going to write to me, so it won't be that long."
"Long enough!" Fred and George whined. "It sucks the gang has to split when we were just starting to get together!"
"Oh," Luna pipped. She wrapped her arms around Ginny's waist and leaned into the girl's shoulder. "A gang. I've always wanted to join a gang."
"You should!" Ginny beamed.
"Hey, hey. This isn't an open club, you know," Dazai drawled.
"It isn't a club at all, Boss," Draco told him.
"Boss! Oh, that's very charming," Luna hummed. "May I call you Boss as well, Dazai? Perhaps I could have a cute title in this gang, as well. I'm partial to—"
"Okay, okay, that's enough dawdling," Fred said with a pleasant laugh.
George wiggled the bomb. "Time's a wasting."
"Right," Dazai stood straighter. He gave Blaise's hand one last squeeze before letting go. He rubbed his palm off on his coat, itchy with an empty feeling. He turned a sparkling grin onto the gang. "It's the end our second year as a gang. Let's go out with a bang, shall we?"
Fred and George whooped! Everyone bounced on their heels, ready to sprint. And even Hermione was grinning a little.
"Here we go, then. You wanna count us off, Boss?'
"Nah," he hugged Featherbrain to his chest. Time to run! "Just give it your best throw."
George's smile split ear-to-ear. He cocked his arm back, paused for a breath, then threw. The glitter bomb arced through the air. It shot out above the swarm of reporters with a whiiiiiiizzzz—
"Run, Hounds, run!"
—POP!
Glitter exploded out across the train station.
Instant kaleidoscope pandemonium!
Dazai and Blaise burst out of the train first, laughing madly as they did so. The others followed just behind in a clatter of laughter and footsteps.
Reporters shouted and students screamed and everything was a brilliant, giggling rainbow. Featherbrain kicked up a hooting fuss. The train whistle blew. Somewhere, Rita Skeeter cussed out every magical creature from A to Z. It was exhileratingly bright!
Dazai was still laughing when he leapt through the magic wall to the muggle world.
And then—!
A brick wall. A squirm of magic.
Grey.
This side of the world was so grey.
Dazai's giggles petered off in a breathy sigh.
He stood there for a few moments, just settling his breathing and holding Featherbrain to his chest. This side of the station was no less busy than the magical side had been. Except, these people were ordinary. Magicless. They were suits and carried briefcases and held phones up to their ears. And they gave the half-crazed, laughing Dazai strange looks for having an owl.
Right.
Dazai forced his shoulders square. Forced a look of calm over his face.
His friends were on the other side of the brick wall, still. Looking for their own families to take them home. Dazai's eye skipped across the sea of ordinary faces. Strangers, all of them.
It didn't take long for him to find his transport. Amidst the taxis, vans, and cars, there was only one stretch black limousine. Port Mafia make. Dazai steeled himself for the crowd and picked his way over to it. He didn't bump into anyone on the way—possibly because he was being quick, or possibly because his expression was closing off the closer he got to Yokohama. Dazai opened the door and slid in.
"Welcome home, Dazai," Hirotsu greeted him.
Dazai shut the door and immediately the engine started underneath him. The limo pulled out and began driving at once. But the windows were blackened, and Dazai had no way of knowing which way they turned or at what speed. It was dark. The limo smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.
He set Featherbrain's cage down in the seat beside him, heedless of how Hirotsu would need to scooch over to make space. She let out a hacking chirp. "She doesn't like the smoke," Dazai told the limo broadly. Finally away from the buzz of magic, he took off his gloves. He shoved them into a coat pocket.
Hirotsu pressed a small button on the door, rolling down his window by a crack. A small sliver of sunlight landed on the seat by Dazai's knee. "My apologies."
Dazai hummed. He said nothing.
A moment of silence passed between them. The limo turned a smooth corner. Dazai stared blankly out the window crack, but made out only the peaks of buildings. He didn't know where this was.
He held his own hands in his lap.
Something moved. Dazai looked down from the window. Hirotsu had an arm outstretched to him. Held in his hand was a loaded pistol.
"What's that for?"
Hirotsu waited until Dazai had taken the gun from him. He felt it in his bare hand, the gravel of the hilt, the shine of the barrel. He flicked the safety on and off, on and off.
"A job from the boss. You will be taking care of one final loose end before we return to Yokohama."
Dazai hung his head over the gun. "I could just shoot myself now, instead. Save myself the trouble."
"...do not do that."
"I won't." Dazai sighed. He looked past Hirotsu and back to the black of the window. "About this mystery job—what's so important it can't wait another day?"
An old brick building blotted out the sun.
-
The limousine pulled to a final stop several hours later. Hirotsu exited first, holding the door open for Dazai and dipping his head in a respectful bow.
Dazai stepped out onto crushed gravel and pine needles. The sun was lower, now—a burning red halo turning the lake the color of hellfire. Dazai had to look away or risk damaging his only remaining eye. He looked inland where a brick cottage was tucked way into a copse of coniferous trees. It was old, clearly. The stones bore long cracks and the windows were papered over in places. And what was assuredly a stoned-in garden at one point was now overtaken with leafy weeds and burrs. The grass felt wet. Maybe it had just rained.
"The sun is setting," Hirotsu said suddenly. Dazai turned to face him. "The Boss requested you back before tomorrow morning."
Dazai hummed. He tucked the pistol into his belt and began walking towards the house. Hirtosu followed two steps behind, his trail marked by the sound of cracking pine needles and turning stones. "Then let's get a move on," Dazai said.
He'd been at Hogwarts just that morning. He'd been laughing and enjoying the dying lights of his friendships—until next year, that was. But the second he'd sat in that dark limousine. The second Hirotsu had pressed a loaded gun into his hands, it felt as though Dazai had swallowed a rock. It sat heavy in his stomach. Cold. Or hot, like coals. He couldn't unfrown himself.
Work, work, work, he reminded himself. It isn't supposed to be fun.
Dazai rapped his knuckle against the door.
Knock, knock, knock. It creaked against his weight, but didn't budge.
Hirotsu and Dazai waited several seconds to no response. "Should've called ahead," Dazai joked, remembering when he'd teased Mori the same way over winter break, but Hirotsu merely blinked down at him.
Dazai shivered with a phantom chill. Mori's coat hugged him back to Earth. He knocked again.
Several seconds passed.
"Coming," a familiar voice called behind the door.
The lock clicked.
The front door opened.
Albus Dumbledore stood in casual, colorful robes. There was a steaming tea in one of his hands, and the doorknob in the other.
"Good evening, Albus," Dazai greeted. He forced some cheer into his voice, but it came out sounding wrong. Hollow and cracked.
Dumbledore stared forward for only a second before collecting himself. But it was a telling second. He was surprised.
"Mr. Dazai," he greeted. Dumbledore's words came out level and friendly, but Dazai knew he was only biding his time. Calculating the demon that stood before him. "And... I'm sorry. I'm afraid we've never met..?"
Hirotsu reached into his pocket for a cigarette. "Hirotsu."
"May we come inside?" Dazai interrupted the pleasantries.
Dumbledore's eyes slid back to him and stayed there. "My dear boy, normally I would offer just that. However," his tea floated back inside the house with a flare of magic, "I suspect you are not here on pleasant terms."
Dazai tilted his head to follow the tea's path across what was, ostensibly, a living room. It landed on a coffee table cluttered with old books. "That's fine. We don't have to go inside. I don't really care."
He held out his hand to shake.
After a moment, Dumbledore returned the gesture. Their shook hands caught in the red evening light.
Hirotsu had to start his lighter four times before a flame finally sparked. He set his cigarette to it until a thin line of smoke trailed out of it. Black smog curled around his face.
"Tell me," Dumbledore was still staring at Dazai, "what has changed that this war's third party should finally decide to show itself so brazenly?"
War.
Third-party.
Dazai drew in a breath and sighed out cigarette smoke.
Dumbledore tried to draw his hand away. Dazai didn't let him. Their hands held in a lock between them. Dumbledore's palm was calloused and wrinkled. Dazai's were small and scarred.
"I guess it can't hurt to tell you," Dazai drawled, looking around the inside of Dumbledore's home tiredly. Did his work ever end? He wondered, distantly, how Draco and Lucius were getting on right now. "But long-winded monologues are for comic book villains, and I'm tired."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "This is no game for children. And the world of magic is no place for Ability Users."
Cigarette smoke made Hirotsu's eyes dark.
"Figured us out, have you?" Dazai hummed.
Magic flared underneath Dazai's palm. Albus was casting wandless magic.
No Longer Human ate it whole.
Greatest Wizard of Our Time didn't amount to much in the face of No Longer Human. Without his magic, Albus was just a frail, old man. Dazai would pity the look of horror on Dumbledore's face if he wasn't growing numb from it all. His blood. His bones. His bile and saliva. Tingling and cold, all of it.
This was the job, after all. This was the color of Mori's coat in dying sunlight.
"You nullified my magic," Dumbledore said, though it seemed mostly to be for himself. Whispered and stark. His eyes widened. "You stole the Philosopher's Stone." His eyes that usually twinkled with amusement or dissected small things were burning with something fierce now. "The Daily Prophet and Department of Education are right to call you a Demon, dear boy."
Dazai's fingers squeezed into Albus' hand. He felt the bones creak underneath him. "Don't be mistaken. Of course I'm the villain here."
He withdrew the gun from his belt. Cocked back the hammer and aimed up.
"But Port Mafia is DOE, and I'm Port Mafia," Dazai watched as Albus' eyes widened further and further. "Good and bad... it's all a farce, you know."
He pulled the trigger.
"I guess that makes me both hero and villain, huh, Albus?"
Dumbledore's head exploded in a shower of blood and brain and bone.
It splattered across the door. Something wet slapped across Dazai's face. A second later, mucousy blood slopped off his chin and onto the gun's hilt.
Hirotsu took the gun from him.
The sun set.
"It's dark," Dazai told this to the corpse at his feet. Albus did not answer. And he did not wake. Another name to add to the list of people Dazai had killed. The house was already starting to smell. The stench of blood in the air would be dizzying to anyone who wasn't so familiar with it as Dazai was.
A moment passed. Maybe several moments. Dazai stared at the floor. At how Dumbledore's robes splayed out around him like flower slowly unfurling itself.
"I thought he was supposed to be powerful," Dazai said, apropos of nothing. "He didn't even get close to killing me."
Hirotsu hummed. He nudged Dumbledore's fallen hand back into the confines of his house with the toe of his shoe. "When it comes to magic users, No Longer Human makes you impossible to match," he said simply. He took a long drag from his cigarette then picked it from his lips. He inspected it for a short moment before flicking it away.
The cigarette landed some distance away on a pile of ancient books.
The dry paper ignited immediately. A flash of ember and white. Yellowed paper blackened and curled. Dazai coaxed the blaze along with a burst of magic and it spread hungrily to a blanket, a scroll, a corpse.
The air grew hot.
Within only a few seconds, the fires had grown large enough to engulf the entire entryway. It was searing just to stand nearby. Smoke burst into the air and stuck to Dazai's lungs as black ichor. He coughed dryly. Hacked into his sleeve. A hand settled on his shoulder to drag him away from the blaze.
Dazai blinked up out of a foggy eye.
Everything was drowning in red light. The flickering and laughing of a bursting fire.
Hirotsu pulled Dazai into his side. "Good work. It is time to leave, now. The Boss has been missing you. Let's not keep him waiting."
Dazai choked again.
Suffocating.
After another moment, Dazai and Hirotsu walked back to the limousine and away from dim fires. He hadn't even needed to squint against them, only choked on polluted air. The entire house was burst into flames. All evidence of the murder—of wizarding society's greatest wizard this century—in ashes.
But in the end, everything burned brighter in Yokohama. The blazing death of Albus Dumbledore felt paltry by comparison.
Dazai reached a hand into his coat pocket, and his fingers immediately landed on a coin. By the weight, it was a sickle. And it was warming slowly in the hot air. He rubbed a finger over one side of it, then the other.
Heads and tails.
He made a silent bet, then removed it from the pocket and flipped it high in the air. It spun around, catching light like a flashing fire alarm. Blue. Red. Blue. Red.
Dazai didn't catch the sickle. Let it fall into a trampled patch of overgrown grass. He stepped around it.
Heads or tails. Truth or lie, good or bad, hero or villain. The difference was negligible. These were just two sides of the same coin, after all.
Dazai didn't look back.