Sirius Black
He opened his eyes to be greeted with the early light of the sunrise shining through the window curtains. The night consisted of him tossing and turning, not being able to find a comfortable position. Before he had fallen asleep, he kept thinking about what the year would bring.
He had gained permission to go to some sort of village during the school year on weekends. He was honestly a bit surprised professor McGonagall had still allowed him to even go, after all, he’s still probably feared by many. Maybe it was the fact that he did as promised, killing the basilisk. Killing a single basilisk most definitely wouldn’t be enough to get everyone to immediately love and trust him. After all, he had basically scared off Lockhart and made him quit. People were bound to think he had probably threatened him to go away or else he would kill him like he did Quirell. Plus, he already knew he was still hated the moment he stepped into the Leaky Cauldron yesterday and all eyes had landed on him; glaring at him, as if by their glare alone, they were piercing him.
He had just realized that he also would have to think of plausible explanations for his injuries. He already knew his gang wouldn’t leave him alone otherwise. Always nagging him, and begging him to tell them. How could he possibly explain it to them?
It had taken him long to finally be able to fall into sleep last night, which wasn’t exactly all that new to him. He had stared at the ceiling for a solid thirty minutes maybe. He still had a few days until he would have to board the train back to Hogwarts for his third year there. He got up from bed, realizing that lying there all day wouldn’t do him any good. He had already went to buy all the necessities he needed for this year. He honestly didn’t know what to do right now. He didn’t want to call Mori right now, even if he probably should’ve. He was sort of glad he got to see Hermione yesterday.
Oh well, He should probably get up now. Can’t lay in bed all day, after all.
He decided to stroll around Diagon Alley. He had nothing better to do anyways. Not like he wanted to call Mori right now either. He’d rather never have to call Mori instead of sooner or later.
It was quite early in the morning, having only still been around 6 am. He went through to the alley using the Leaky Cauldron, and had asked Tom to help him cross through again, just like yesterday. He strolled around, looking at the stores and wizards and witches there. School would start soon, and he was in a bind between wanting to go back, and not wanting to at the same time. He missed the gang, sure, but he definitely didn’t miss having everyone trying to pry into his private life. Not to mention all the hate he gets.
Lockhart may have proved to some people that Dazai was indeed a “hero” after killing the basilisk, but he knew for a fact that not everyone would be ok with him. After all, the situation when we went shopping for his supplies only proved his point. Plus, it was his whole mission to make everyone hate him. That was what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to be feared by everyone.
He was casually walking past Knockturn Alley, the dark and “creepy” alleyway connected to Diagon Alley, until he spotted an abnormally large, and maybe even strange, black dog with piercing, glaring, yellow eyes.
He froze. That was all he found himself capable of doing. He stared wide eyed at the “creature”. He found it absolutely hideous. Those horrid memories that he so wished to forget had all came rushing back to him, against his will.
Blood, teeth, blood, teeth-
A passerby had walked past him, bumping into him as he did so. It caused him to snap out of his almost trance-like state, the horrid recollection of the grueling past. When he worked up the courage to look back at the creature, and prove he was a mafioso, not a scared little boy, it had disappeared. It was completely gone. Vanished. He hadn’t even seen any movement coming from it, other than the harsh breathing. Yet, he realized that maybe he was just a bit too focused on the memories that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings anymore.
He began to feel somewhat…ashamed. Ashamed that he immediately froze and became so vulnerable all of a sudden. Ashamed that a simple glance caused him to freeze in such fear. He had let something so simple, something so small that it might’ve even just been an illusion, control his entire body and mind for far too longer than necessary.
It caused him to realize just how weak he had grown since the wizarding community. Before Hogwarts, he was never nearly this weak. He had made sure of it. He would’ve been punished, even worse, tortured, if he had shown such a vulnerable and weak side of him. But now? Now he was far too weak to survive in the mafia. Now he was sure of it. It couldn’t have been his fault—or maybe it was. Maybe it was his fault that he’s become so weak and fragile. After all, he had let himself become attached to people, so much that he referred to them as friends. It reminded him of how he had never had friends, it was only allies and acquaintances. Having friends was weak, which just further proved his point of how weak he has become. What a failure.
Oh well. Best to keep walking before someone was to notice that the Demon Student had frozen in fear of some lesser creature. He began walking again, although he could not get the image of it out of his head. At this point, he didn’t focus on where he was going. He just walked, and walked, his mind overcrowded with his thoughts. He had made sure to take a mental note to never go to that alley—just in case.
————————————
A while passes, and he’s just been walking around, looking at everything. He realized that he had never actually really gotten the chance to observe everything very thoroughly before. Or perhaps he had just never cared enough to do so. The sun has now begun to set, and he’s beginning to realize that he should get back to his inn soon.
He decides to head back through the Leaky Cauldron, like always. Not that he could really think of another way out, either way. As he approached the hole in the bricks, he saw something familiar. A few heads of familiar ginger hair. The Weasley’s. What were they doing in the Leaky Cauldron? He felt himself questioning such. It seems that one of them noticed him as well. Someone who wasn’t a ginger. A brunette girl. Hermione. She ran up and hugged him.
“Dazai! I didn’t expect to see you here! What are you doing here?” She asked. She seemed quite excited. She had brought most people’s attention to them. The twins and Ron now approaching him as well.
“I-“ Dazai was about to speak, before getting interrupted by Hermione’s excitement. Was she really that excited just to see him? It couldn’t possibly be. Maybe she was just acting. Yeah, that sounded plausible.
“Oh! Dazai! You need to meet Crookshanks!” She excitedly exclaimed. “She’s my new cat!” Hermione picked up a ginger tabby cat nearby, holding it up to show Dazai.
“What type of name is Crookshanks? It’s worse than Featherbrain.” Dazai thought to himself. Honestly though, seriously? “And here i thought i had came up with the worse name for a pet…”
“She sucks! She keeps trying to eat Angel!” Ron spoke up, obviously annoyed at the cat. Angel, that annoying rat that Dazai has always hated, was on his shoulder.
Dazai couldn’t help but want to chuckle at the bitterness in Ron’s tone of voice. He secretly hoped the cat actually would eat that little demon hell spawn. Hermione’s excitement, Ron’s annoyance, and…..the twins. They walked up to him his big smirks on their face.
“Well well, look who it is, Fred!” George spoke up, ruffling Dazai’s hair from beside him, a playful smirk on his face.
“Woah woah, little snakey! What’s up with all the injuries you’ve got going on there?” Fred asked him. He was obviously worried, his smirk morphing into a concerned frown.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about it. Just way too clumsy is all.” Dazai stated rather nonchalantly, as he waved a dismissive hand in the air. He definitely did not miss their concern and constant worrying over the summer. That was the only thing he didn’t really like about Hogwarts, minus the professors.
“Are you sure little snakey? It looks like you got more bandages than usual…” George replied. Honestly, it feels like they’re both super protective mothers to him at this point. Always checking on him and invading his privacy, and all.
“I’m alright, I swear. Just clumsy little me always falling and bumping into things!” Dazai feigned casualty. He knew that wasn’t the truth, but he wasn’t about to go telling all his secrets to them. Especially not in public. Plus, they seemed to believe him, their worried expressions slowly melting away into that usual playful look of theirs.
“…well if ya say so, snakey.” Fred wrapped an arm around Dazai’s shoulders, giving him a pat on the back.
“Why are you so upset over crookshanks, Ron? She’s just playing!” Hermione said. It seems they were still arguing over the animals. Dazai had honestly muted them out, not having actually payed attention to their current argument.
“Playing? That creature is trying to eat Angel!” Ron responded, still worked up about the whole situation.
“It’s a cat, not a ‘creature’!” Hermione corrected him. Even during arguments she always finds time to fix people’s errors. Dazai can’t help but find it a bit hilarious, really.
“Ron! Fred! George!” The ginger women yelled out to the boys. Dazai assumed she was their mother. “Come on! Don’t got all day! Come and eat! Your food is getting cold!” The lady exclaimed.
Ron seemed to immediately stop arguing with Hermione the moment the lady called them. But, that didn’t stop him from glaring daggers at Crookshanks.
“But we’re talking with our friend, mum!” George replied to the woman, a bit sulky. So the lady was their mother. That was good to know, at least.
“Oh for goodness sakes, George! Ginny dear, be a darling and get the boys for me, will you?” The woman asked. Ginny nodded before setting the plates she was holding down and approaching them.
As she approached, she suddenly froze when she realized who George was talking about. Her face lit up almost immediately.
“…Dazai! You…you’re here..!” She was quite surprised. Dazai waved at her. “Oh, but…what are you doing here.?” She asked him.
“Just taking a stroll.” He smiled at her. She seemed excited, and still a bit confused.
“Oh….well…it’s nice to see you..!” She replied. He could tell she was starting to feel a bit awkward now. “…oh!…wait!…have you eaten.?…I can ask mom to make some food for you if you’d like..!” She spoke up, realizing that she was supposed to get her brothers so they could come and eat.
“No no, it’s alright. I’m good. I just ate, anyways.” He gave a dismissive smile and wave. He was lying through his teeth. He probably hadn’t actually eaten a decent, whole meal in quite a while now.
“Oh……alright then….” Ginny responded. She looked both disappointed and relieved at the same time. She probably hoped Dazai wouldn’t leave soon. It was possible that she just wanted to chat and talk with him more, but also was glad he had eaten something—which he hadn’t, by the way.
Hermione had long gone to go eat when she had heard Mrs. Weasley call the boys. Ron had followed after her from behind. Angel had, at some point, when he wasn’t paying attention, climbed off of Ron’s shoulder and onto the floor. When Hermione went to go eat, she put Crookshanks back onto the floor, causing chaos beneath them to occur. Crookshanks was chasing Angel, as Angel kept running in circles, dodging as the cat occasionally pounced at it.
It honestly looked like a game of tag or something. Like two small children chasing each other, running, and playing around without a care in the world. Except, this game might end up in death if that rat wasn’t extremely careful. Dazai secretly hoped that the rat would, in fact, get eaten. He never liked that thing anyways. And he wasn’t afraid to show it. He honestly found it a bit amusing. It looked funny. A monstrosity of a rodent, being chased by a cat with a hideous name.
———————————-
Time passed, and Dazai had ended up staying with them for a while longer, getting to know and meet the parents better. He honestly didn’t think it was that bad. Or at least not as bad as he had expected it to be. He never thought he would talk to his friends’ parents. He found it sort of weird, to be honest.
They talked for a bit, and Dazai didn’t actually feel as bored or uninterested as he he had expected. He actually found himself more the conversation than he thought he would have. Arthur, the father of the Weasley family, had ended up asking him a lot about muggle things and everything he knew about it. Dazai refrained from talking about guns, though. He didn’t want them to get suspicious as to why on earth he would possibly know so much about harmful weapons. He couldn’t risk it.
Right now Dazai was just taking a look around the Leaky Cauldron. He had never really actually gotten the chance to do so before. Nor had he ever really actually wanted to, anyways. But he was bored, so he did. He had nothing better to do anyways, and he’d rather do that than getting asked a ton of questions and risking getting found out. It was a shame the Weasley’s now all trust him, though. That was the opposite of what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to be menacing and scary, not trusted and liked by an entire family. Not to mention their father who actually genuinely worked for THE Ministry of Magic. His greatest enemy, at this point.
He was looking at the newspaper stand that was there now because he had already basically looked at everything there was to see. Or atleast, everything that was even the slightest bit of interesting to him.
A certain topic that had been on the newspaper had caught his eye while he was looking through each and every single one of them. He noticed that almost every single newspaper seemed to be even somewhat talking about it—
a man had escaped from Azkaban, the prison where those guys who “poisoned the potion” ended up. He still found it sort of hilarious. Anyways. He had saw that the man was supposedly named Sirius Black. He wasn’t exactly sure though, the Daily Prophet is always supporting lies, anyways. He looked at some other newspapers about the man, Sirius, until he noticed a wanted poster that was on the wall nearby.
‘So a man named Sirius Black escaped from a prison…’ He found himself thinking. He honestly didn’t really even care that much. He had met so many people in the mafia that had escaped prison before, so it wasn’t all that knew to him. Yet, he knew it was probably a massive deal to the wizarding community if there were so many newspapers yapping on and on about it.
Then, he found himself pondering if he would actually ever meet this man. He didn’t really care if he did, but he couldn’t help but wonder. Oh well, only time will tell…