Attendance
There he was, standing in front of the leaky cauldron.
He was soaking wet due to the rain.
He didn't wait a second more and went inside, dragging his luggage along.
As he went inside Tom, the innkeeper looked up.
His eyes immediately rested on Dazai, looking content
"How have you been?", Tom asked while cleaning a whisky glass. "I'm alright. What about you?", Dazai asked even though he didn't really care about it but that's apparently how you make small talk. Small talk was another obnoxious thing, people invented to build relationships around useless things. It was pretty blunt and Dazai thought of it a rather useless. Relationships that were built on anything other than usefulness weren't worth his time.
"I've been alright but I heard your year has been quite a mess. Have you heard the news?"
Dazai could only guess that he was talking about Dumbledore's death but he shakes his head, trying his best to look confused.
"Albus Dumbeldore, the greatest wizard of the century has died. His body wasn't found, as his house burned down . He was dead long before anyone had come to visit him. Sad way to go for the poor old man. I wonder who would be able to kill him. He is... I'm sorry, he was so mighty after all. Tho the papers say that he might as well, have killed himself because he was fired. I suppose you haven't heard of it since you're a mud- a wizard from a muggle family."
"Indeed, these news are new to me. How horrible that he died so alone ", he lied effortlessly. He actually kinda envied that old man. How come Dumbledore got to die but he was still living and had to continue this miserable life. How unfair!
Dazai pouted, which Tom mistook for a look of concern.
Before Tom could say something though, Dazai began talking again:" I would like to have room for the next two days, please".
" The second room on the left is still free. You have to go shopping for school, don't you? There are a few kids from Hogwarts here too, don't know if you know them. Booked under the names of Granger and Weasley. Do you perhaps have any idea of who they are?"
Dazai indeed has every idea of who these individuals were. He smirked a bit and nodded in Tom's direction.
Dazai was glad, that there was someone there to help him with his shopping and to carry around stuff. That is, what subordinate's are for after all.
"It's nice that you have friends, despite your...unfortunate situation."
Dazai tried his best to hold back a comment about them being his subordinates. After all friends would mean attachments and that is simply stupid. Dazai instead gestured wildly to the board with the keys to make this situation less awkward.
"Oh,of course", Tom mumbled, barely hearable.
Tom gave him the key, Dazai thanked him and went to his room straight away, avoiding any unnecessary talking.
The next morning he woke up to featherbrain wanting to be let in. He opened the window yesterday evening and closed it right after. He opened the window and featherbrain, on sight, let a mouse fall to his feet . Dazai looked at it for a few seconds. Featherbrain truly only came with the most disgusting things ever. Dazai would normally tell her to bring the mouse to Mori's office but he didn't want to get on the doctor's last nerve. Especially not so soon. He really wanted to write a letter to Blaise but he would soon see him anyway and Blaise would only write more questions, so he'll save himself the trouble and just find an excuse to tell Blaise.
There were a few papers, probably slipped under the door by Tom. The first headline he read was 'THE GREATEST WIZARD OF THE CENTURY DEAD!", followed by 'WORKERS AT ST.MUNGOU KILLED MULTIPLE STUDENTS AND THE MATRON'. They were all written in obnoxiously bright and all capital letters. There were also a few others but these and a weird headline, that read 'SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN' were the only ones to really peak his interest. Azkaban was the wizard prison they tried to get him into last year. Wasn't it supposed to be impossible to break out?
Well, just another loophole. The wizarding society was really going down, just as Mori intended. It was really quite good reading about stuff other than himself. Mori would probably scold him for not being the 'absolute villain' for once but it would be good to lay low a bit before another absolute bomb drops and he'll be in the center of everyone's attention again. He didn't want to get expelled after all. The entirety of his progress would be lost! Well, not really but it would be a lot harder to get further into the wizarding society and to gain information. Sneaking around and eavesdropping here and there had gone extremely well for him in the past two years, after all.
It was quite funny seeing all of wizarding society go down further with each event. Before he could think any more there was a hurried knock on the door. He couldn't even say anything, when Fred and George already came bursting into the room and hugging him intensively.
"You're suffocating me", he mumbled into their cloth.
"Snakey, we missed you so much. How dare you play down our affection. George, I think snakey doesn't like us anymore. "
"Oh the rejection! It hurts so much, Fred. How could our little snakey do this to us?"
Dazai tried to speak up for himself but it was pretty difficult talking at all with his head still pressed into Fred's chest, unable to move.
They continued their dawdling a bit more before Hermione walked in.
"Dazai!", she exclaimed, stalking towards him and embracing him in a big hug after Fred finally loosened his grip on him.
It was different from the twins' hug. More warm and loving somehow. Hermione looked a bit messy. Dazai guessed she only just got up, by the looks of her unbrushed hair, unwashed face and her dazed, glassy eyes.
"How have you been? Why weren't you responding to any letters? Have you heard about all the news?"
Hermione has always been pretty right forward when she wanted to be, unlike most other people. Of course others beside Blaise also wrote tons of letters. Letters that were also lost to the blazing fire of Mori's lighter.
Dazai quickly sat on a cheerful demeanour and started talking:" Oh Hermione, have you been worried about me? You flatter me so much. I have been wonderful! But I have no clue what letters you're talking about. I have received no letters."
There it was! That will be his cover. It's a long way from England to Yokohama, so it would be quite logical to assume that there could have been a problem with the transport.
" Oh, really? We've all written thousands of letters.
We were so worried"
" Yeah, who knows what could've happened?", the twins chimed in.
"You guys are such worrywards, my god ", Dazai pouted, looking away from them.
"How did you even know I was here?"
Dazai knew exactly how they knew. But he needed to make everything seem as normal as possible. It was actually really normal. He didn't have any meetings to attend, he didn't have anyone to kill. The way his day was planned for today, you could almost assume he was a normal student, a normal human.
"Oh, well the innkeeper told us. I hope we weren't interrupting your sleep"
"No, don't worry. I was already wide awake, even though your concern does flatter me 'mione."
Her face flushed red for a second before she looked away and took Dazai by the hand.
Dazai was almost 100% sure that she did this on instinct and had no real idea of what she was doing, driven by the pure feeling of embarrassment.
Dazai just let himself be dragged along by her while the twins were following them so closely they almost walked into his heels every other second.
When they arrived at their destination, the main room, Dazai saw the entirety of the Weasley family. Well almost the entirety, Bill and Charlie were missing but he supposed that was due to their jobs. Charlie didn't get a chance to meet egg last year. He wondered if Charlie would come to Hogwarts this year too. Probably, considering that McGonagall still thought that a feral dragon was on the loose. That assumption wasn't really wrong but Dazai knew that egg wouldn't hurt anyone unless he told her to.
All of the Weasley looked up at once when they came in. Ginny and Ron immediately ran his way, bombarding him with questions. It were all the same question that Hermione and the twins had asked just minutes before. At the mention of Dumbledore, Hermione cursed under her breath and slapped her hand against her head. "Oh of course, how could I be so stupid? I wanted to ask you before, have you been informed of Dumbledore's death? It's so crazy! I mean the greatest most powerful wizard of the century just dead? That's so implausible! Some of the papers say that he might've killed himself but that's purely rubbish since he made the announcement that he still wanted to change things. And if he didn't commit suicide than who would be able to compete with him?"
Before Hermione could start yapping again Ron intruded, " Bloody hell Hermione, calm down. He was old maybe he died cause of that? He wasn't the youngest if you would've taken a look"
"Ronald Weasley, how dare you disrespect him like this! He was truly a remarkable wizard and he deserves to not have people talking about him like this. "
"I'm sorry mom, it was just a theory."
Miss Weasley continued to give Ron a death stare and Dazai looked at the picture Infront of him bewildered.
He knew that the wizarding world had their differences in the theme of punishments but this was simply... unbelievable. She just scolded him and that was it? Not even a hit? Not even a spell to silence him? What was this? Were people outside of Yokohama like this or just wizards? Hermione also seemed to consider this as normal but it wasn't! Or was it? He knew that they handled consequences different after so many meetings with Pomfrey and Snape. Especially Snape never went through with consequences except for detention which was basically like no punishment.
He must've looked pretty out of it because Miss Weasley started asking if he was alright.
"I'm perfectly fine thanks for asking Miss! I'm just still a bit tired."
He couldn't get it into his head. She was so nice once again....but he shouldn't put too much thought into it. This will never be his reality after all.
"Oh dear, have they awoken you? I'm so sorry"
"What no! Snakey was already awake when we got in"
"Yeah, we didn't intrude"
The twins tried their best to convince their mother but she continued giving them looks of absolute dismissal.
The picture Infront of him was funny. The twins glancing between their mother and eachother, probably using their twin telepathy to hack out something, Miss Weasley switching her look from a disappointed and a kind one while her eyes went from the twins to Dazai, Mister Weasley looking like he desperately waited to talk and the rest of the bunch just looking completely lost and watching the scene Infront of them act out.
He was already on the verge but when he saw Tom also watching, trying to hold back his laughter, he couldn't hold it in anymore and started laughing loudly. Almost everyone else started chiming in till the entire room, including Tom, was just a group of loud laughter, only stopping when someone had to catch for breath.
Or at least that was until the door creaked open and a man walked in. The room silenced immediately.
The man had short brown hair, dimm green eyes and he was also pretty tall, Dazai guessed around 6'1 or 6'2. He wore a formal attire, a suit, and his overall appearance seemed pretty put together and neat, well except for the most obvious thing about him: the scar that reached across the entirety of his face. It looked healed up but the pains it must've caused when it was still fresh he could barely imagine and that was a lot coming from someone who literally had their eye stabbed out. He wanted to know more about this man, he seemed mysterious although not in a way of actually seeming like it. From his radiance he looked to be someone who would seem to be close and kind to you without ever revealing anything about himself, as if you could know him for years and still not know his favourite food. In that aspect he was surprisingly similar to Dazai, he could feel it despite only having seen him for a few seconds. He didn't want, he needed to know more about this man. For whatever strange reason he felt like that would happen quite soon.
"I apologize, please continue your talk. I didn't mean to intrude.", the man said politely, discomfort clearly showing on his face. Molly looked at him, eyes wide.
"Remus!", she went over and embraced him.
Remus! That was his name.
Looking around, he wasn't the only one who didn't know the man. The others except for Arthur seemed to not know who this man was either.
"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts? What are you doing here?"
Hogwarts? Why should he be there? Dazai had never seen him around there and if the twins didn't know him then he hadn't been around. He knew!
It was their new DADA teacher, that was the only reasonable explanation. He was different from the last DADA teachers, they had both been full of pride, whereas this one looked to be of a completely different kind. It got him a little excited for this year.
Remus finally answered Miss Weasley:
"There have been a few issues and therefore I will be arriving at Hogwarts together with the students. Minerva had been a bit skeptical but didn't see an issue with it" Dazai wanted to talk with him, so he did. No Mori to order him around or tell him who to interact with . He could do as he pleased! Well, at least for the most part.
"Why are you gonna be at Hogwarts? Will you be our new defence against the dark arts teacher?"
Remus looked a bit shocked.
"You're quite observant Mister Dazai. I will indeed be teaching you this year. I look forward to seeing you in class ", he smiled at Dazai and the others.
The others had a mix of confusion and curiosity on their face while looking at the strange man Infront of them.
After a moment of awkward silence, Remus said:
" I have to go now. I still have to prepare a bit for lessons. It was lovely meeting all of you.", with these words he disappeared into his room.
Miss Weasley immediately started clapping her hands upon Remus's leave :
"Now now kids, we also have to get going. Get ready!
We'll start going in about 15 minutes."
Shortly after, they all had disappeared into their rooms without a word.
After about 10 minutes everyone was ready to go, Miss Weasley with a generously packed backpack, Arthur with nothing but his wand, Hermione with a teacher-like leather bag, Dazai with a black briefcase which he stole from Mori and the other Weasleys with nothing in their hands. Dazai also wore a hat and a mask to not be recognized. The Weasleys didn't really care to be seen with him but Molly still advised it to him to be able to shop more easily. They went into diagon alley, Muss Weasley at the front and Dazai and Hermione at the end.
Diagon alley was as crowded as it had been the past two years, wizards with their colourful robes everywhere. It was loud and bright and Dazai hated it.
He became overstimulated immediately upon entering the streets and could only barely resist the urge of covering his ears. Since Hermione and Dazai didn't usually pay with wizard money their first stop was Gringotts, which means he had to see these ugly little creatures again. He hoped this time would go better than the last, the goblins weren't his biggest fans after all, just like most magical entities.
The walk to Gringotts felt like an eternity, his feet felt stuck and his body heavy. At least noone was staring at him for once. He did feel some stares directed to him but he may as well have just imagined it cause he was paranoid. It wasn't a very long way by all means but it dragged on for so long he might've just killed himself painfully in the meantime and it would've caused him less trouble. When they finally arrived Gringotts was surprisingly empty considering how full the streets were.
"Let's go over there, Hermione", Miss Weasley said while pointing at a goblin on the right.
"Arthur, you can go with Dazai", she added while she was already on the move.
Dazai picked some random goblin on the left and Mister Weasley followed him. The rest stood firmly in place, waiting.
When they stood Infront of the goblin, Dazai pulled a few banknotes out of his pocket. Mori had been generous due to Dazai being 'such a great executive ' and he should treat himself for something nice or whatever. He slid the banknotes across the table and spoke calmly :" I would like to exchange this please ".
Surprisingly the goblin took it immediately and exchanged it. To be honest Dazai still had no idea how much muggle money in wizarding money was. The goblin could have just scammed him without noticing but that was pretty unlikely cause Gringotts had the reputatiom of being the safest wizarding bank. Plus Mister Weasley was so interested in muggles he would've probably noticed. Ron had told him often about his father's obsession with muggles. Dazai guessed that's why Mister Weasley had looked like he wanted to talk with him for the whole day.
Even though he wondered why Mister Weasley hadn't just spoken to Hermione as it seemed they had met when they arrived at the leaky cauldron before Dazai. Maybe he just hadn't had the opportunity to talk.
He wondered about Arthur's strangeness while the goblin took out a whole stack of coins. Most were a golden, a few silver ones and very few copper ones.
Dazai took out a money belt and shoved the coins in it. Then he put the money belt into his briefcase, thanked the goblin and started walking towards the rest. Hermione looked to have finished her business already.
"Say Mister Dazai, what profession do your parents have?", Mister Weasley asked out of curiosity.
"My father is a doctor"
Silence fell over them once again. Dazai was well aware of the Weasley's financial situation. He still found it rather peculiar that Arthis hadn't said anything after but there was no time to worry about it now as they had reached the rest of the group already.
"Our next stop is flourish and blotts, everyone", Molly declared in an authoritative tone.
Upon hearing this the group started moving and Hermione came to his side again.
"I haven't really asked you this morning, so how was your summer break? What did you do?"
"I haven't really been that busy. I mostly just relaxed at home". Dazai couldn't really say if he had done something at all except sitting in Mori's office or letting Mori have his fun but he knew for sure that it hadn't been relaxing.
"Haven't you done anything other than that? Went out with friends or with your fathe- oh, I'm sorry I forgot you weren't on good terms with your father."
"Don't worry it's not like I'm allergic to mentions. And to answer your question I didn't really feel like leaving the house".
"You know, you really have to go outside more. If I don't pay attention I might as well mistake you for a ghost when we're back at Hogwarts."
"Hermione! How you hurt me ! That was really uncalled for."
"It's true tho. I might have to drag you outside this year"
"Since when do subordinates drag their bosses around? You're really wounding me"
"You could at least try to say something different, instead of trying to jokingly guilttrip everyone who tries to care for you"
Fuck, since when did Hermione have an extra course in psychology? He really didn't want to have this conversation, especially not right now.
Gladly he didn't have to because George started interfering :" Snakey, you don't happen to have a coin, do you?"
"If you want to pull a coin from behind my ear, then no I don't "
"Since when did Snakey become such a party pooper? Summer break didn't do you good!"
"If you're gonna be creative then maybe think of a few ways to prank Snape instead of trying to trick me. Pranking your boss is not a nice approach."
"If you're worrying about us lacking pranks for the year then we can promise you we already have a few great tricks in mind, if you know what I mean ", Fred winked in addition.
"You three are really impossible.", Hermione scolded.
"Come on we're just having fun. No need to ruin the mood 'mione."
She scoffed at that but before she could scold them again Miss Weasley told them to get their books and stop bickering. The Weasleys already had their books so the only people who had to go shopping were Hermione and Dazai, who immediately started looking. The books for this year were truly uninteresting, all just some random books about topics he couldn't care less about. The only time he paused was when they had to get their books for Hagrid's lesson because the book was.... alive? It barked and it was furry.... What in god's name was this monstrosity. He decided he could examine it later on when Miss Weasley started tapping her fingers on random surfaces. He quickly paid his books while everyone else was waiting at the door. He quickly packed them into his briefcase and went outside of the room with the others. Before they would return to the leaky cauldron tho Hermione still wanted to go to some shop. Which one could it be?