#ooooboi

The remainder of the journey to Hogwarts was uneventful; they disembarked at Hogsmeade, took a covered carriage to the castle, and prepared for the familiar feast which welcomed them back to school.

Once the Sorting ceremony finished and the excited whoops of houses accepting eager first years to their ranks died down, Professor Tenjin stood to make his usual announcements.

The normal warnings about curfew and the Forbidden Forest were rattled off, but one question was on everyone’s minds: why were Dementors surrounding Hogwarts?

Yato, Hiyori, and Yukine had uneasily watched their presence from the safety of a carriage, rattling through the thickets of forest which cleared as they took the rocky path to the schools entrance. The waif figures of Dementors were barely visible, but the pale moonlight and clear skies – as well as the flickering of hundreds of tiny windows which littered the dark silhouette of the castle – revealed them all too well. Yato suppressed the judders and memories that threatened to show a sign of weakness – something he didn’t want to be pitied for.

Another thing that the trio – and the rest of the students – had wondered about since the flight of their previous teacher was a matter of speculation:

Who would be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts?

Finally, the question was answered. With a motion of his hand, Professor Tenjin’s speech veered into an introduction as to who would be taking on the ‘cursed’ teaching position.

“Professor Daikoku has kindly consented to fill the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

All heads turned to look, and from the assortment of teachers a familiar man rose.

With the same battered coat – perhaps even older than Professor Tenjin himself – and the same gruff, unshaven stubble, there was no mistaking that the same man who had saved Yato from the Dementor was now his new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Yato’s eyes widened, too stunned to partake in the applause that rippled around the Great Hall. It made sense now, why he was on the train, Yato thought briefly, previous suspicions around him dissipating. He’s just a teacher…

Yato watched him intently as he took his seat once more before his attention drifted back to the headmaster whose tone had grown as grave as his expression.

“As some of you may have heard, over the summer a dangerous prisoner escaped from Azkaban.”

Whispers immediately echoed around the Great Hall.

“No one’s escaped Azkaban before,” Hiyori heard the people around her whisper. She could only guess it was some sort of wizard prison, but was it really that rare that someone would escape?

Regardless of the whispers and unasked questions, Professor Tenjin continued.

“As requested by the Ministry of Magic, and until further notice, Hogwarts will host the Dementors of Azkaban until they are captured.” His voice was slow and clear, but grew darker still with every sentence, sending a shiver down the spine of students and teachers alike.

“Be warned. Dementors are vicious creatures, and it is not in their nature to be forgiving. Give no reason for them to harm you.”

A heavy silence rung in the air, which was quickly displaced by the commencement of the feast which appeared on the platters before them. It seemed to dispel the dark aura around the castle as students fell into loud conversations, comparing summer experiences and stuffing their faces with baked chicken, fluffy potatoes, and assortments of sweet things.

Hiyori chattered to Bishamon about Quidditch practice – something she was eager to start on, whilst Yato, seated close enough to Yukine despite the opposing tables, listened to him talk to Suzuha about a book that tried to rip his face off when he opened it.

Yato stole a glance at the headmasters table. Madame Kofuku sat notably close to Professor Daikoku, totally engrossed in what little he had to say to her over enthusiastic chatter. He didn’t seem like a talkative type, not even a friendly type, but anyone was better than a nutjob that tried to kill the school.

~

The first class of the day was…interesting.

Students found themselves with the small mercy of not being subjected to another year of Madame Kofuku’s botched potions classes. Instead, she had taken over Divination, a topic both Yukine and Hiyori would be studying that year along with a multitude of others.

Studying, it turned out, was squinting into a cup of tea leaves with a burnt tongue and thumbing through dusty pages for some idea of what the future would bring.

Hiyori’s cup – read by Yama, who had shown an increasing interest in boys – declared that she had a swan, pertaining good luck and ‘a happy love life’.

Hiyori rolled her eyes, stealing a glance over at Yukine’s red velvet sofa where he sat with Suzuha, their heads bent together as they tried to make some semblance of the bland tea leaves in their blue china tea cups under the excited eye of Madame Kofuku.

It turned out that Madame Kofuku was Legilimens: ‘someone who can read other people’s thoughts and feelings,’ Yama explained, which sounded both fascinating and terrifying to Hiyori, but seemed to be impressive to those in her class. Perhaps it why she was chosen to overtake the position.

However, the main talk of the class had, of course, been the Dementors.

Hiyori, brimming with questions that no one knew the answers to, tried to keep her eyes away from the arcs of the veranda, filing alongside Yukine towards their next class.

“Why are they here if they’re looking for the prisoner?” Hiyori asked. “Why would the prisoner come to the school?”

“Beats me.” Yukine shrugged.

He looked out at the courtyard, finding it unusually empty. The Dementors could be seen eerily gliding through the summer sky whether they were in or between classes, marring what would be a perfect sunny day. He was just thankful they kept their distance.

Still, something - or rather, someone - had been bothering him since they arrived. Yato. He’d been awfully quiet since the Dementor attacked, and though he brushed it off, Yukine couldn’t help but feel something was amiss.

“Hey, don’t you think Yato is acting weird -” Yukine started to say as he turned around, but a stream of students passed him with Hiyori nowhere in sight.

Yukine stopped short, looking around in case he’d missed the classroom, but they were nowhere near, and Hiyori had vanished. After a few puzzled seconds, Yukine kept walking as the warning bell sounded, eyes scanning the black-robed figures in front of him but finding no trace of her telltale satchel.

Where the hell did she go?

~

“I did NOT try and sabotage Potions class!” Yato protested, chest puffed out and hands buried in his pockets.

Well, he might have – if Kiun didn’t happen to catch him in the act.

With the reshuffling of staff leaving Professor Takemikazuchi as the new potions teacher, and this new Professor Daikoku as the new Head of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Yato sought some other entertainment. This happened to be in the form of disrupting classes by attempting to bewitch the various ingredients in the stockroom to combust into whirring Catherine Wheels. A bonus would be seeing Professor Takemikazuchi himself, red with fury, try and stop them -- if Yato lived that long to witness it.

Kiun clearly wasn’t buying it. The long-suffering job of caretaker had given him a low tolerance with the various excuses offered to him over the years, many of which had come from Yato.

It looked like this was the last straw.

Herded from the caretaker’s office, Yato was sure he was going to spend the night collecting toadstools from the Forbidden Forest. Instead, he found he was being led down the slope of the castle, his feet falling hard on the beaten track as he tried to keep his balance.

Fields and sky stretched out for miles around them, the castle growing distant when Yato looked back as they approached the stone cottage which served as home to Hogwarts’ groundskeeper.

The groundskeeper, Kuraha, was a mammoth of a man. A dirty blonde beard surrounded his chiseled face, clothes untailored but fitting to his stature which filled the doorframe moments after he answered Kiun’s sharp raps. His piercing green eye regarding Yato reproachfully, the other of which was covered by a black eye patch, as Kiun explained that Yato’s punishment for years of insufferable hi-jinks was to be out to work with him.

His gruff grunt was enough answer before Yato was left at his mercy, Kiun walking back to the castle which was framed by a golden evening hue.

Yato gave him a feeble grin which was wiped off his face when he received a different reply.

“I have a job for you.”

Yato stumbled back down the steps as Kuraha advanced on him, the heavy oak door slamming shut behind him. Standing aside as he struggled on a patchy trench coat, Yato followed as they started circling around the hut and headed into the brushwood on the edge of the forest.