Chapter Text
It was early morning when 11-year-old Shuji, staring at himself with a pensive gaze in the mirror, heard a knock at the window. At first he paid no attention, but after thinking it over he turned toward the window all the same — after all, one doesn’t hear a knock on the window of the 38th floor every day. The cause of the sound turned out to be… an owl?
The bird beyond the glass looked absurd against the vast expanse of Yokohama stretching below. A huge snowy owl, its snow-white feathers already coated with a thin layer of city grime, was desperately clinging with sharp talons to the narrow concrete ledge of the thirty-eighth floor. It was fiercely battling a strong wind that kept trying to hurl it down onto the roofs of the city below. Tied to its left leg with a thick thread was a sturdy envelope of coarse yellowish parchment, noticeably ballooning in the wind and making the unfortunate bird’s already difficult task even harder.
Shuji approached the window with a leisurely, almost soundless step — the kind his father and tutors had so diligently instilled in him. On his unchildishly pale face not a single emotion befitting an eleven-year-old boy showed: no surprise, no excitement, no fear of the unexpected guest. Only a tiny spark of curiosity flickered in his brown eyes. As the biological and sole legitimate heir and son of Gen’emon Tsushima — the incredibly cruel, calculating boss of the Port Mafia, who by all appearances was slowly losing his mind and held the entire city in fear — the boy had been robbed of the right to a normal childhood far too early. While other children read fairy tales and played in playgrounds, Shūji read books on anatomy and psychology, studied foreign languages, and memorised by heart the structures of criminal syndicates and the schematics of painless (and not only) human deaths.
The boy reached out, turned the heavy, cold steel handle, and slightly opened the massive casement of the panoramic window. A stream of icy morning air burst into the room with a fierce whistle, bringing sharp smells of sea salt and faint sounds of the city’s bustle. The owl, letting out a low, deeply displeased hoot, immediately tumbled clumsily inside and collapsed heavily onto the wide lacquered windowsill. In the process, it nearly knocked over a stack of rare medical reference books and an open notebook in which Shūji had been drawing all sorts of doodles out of boredom.
“What a suicidal bird,” Shūji remarked quietly, almost in a whisper, tilting his head to one side and studying the uninvited guest with a slight squint. To rise to such an insane height in defiance of the laws of aerodynamics for the sake of… what? What a ridiculous waste of life force.
He stretched his thin, pale fingers toward the owl. His hands were hidden under tight layers of snow-white bandages up to the elbows — the mafia doctor, an old man who had seen far too much to react to anything anymore, had advised him to wrap his hands so as not to infect the small wounds he’d gotten after recently starting combat training. With deft movements he untied the knot, freeing the bird of its burden, and carefully took the heavy envelope in his hands.
The moment the boy’s fingers closed on the antique parchment, Shūji froze, and his breath caught. Deep within his soul — or perhaps his very being — somewhere on the very edge of consciousness, his ability — “No Longer Human” — stirred faintly. Usually sleeping a cold sleep, it suddenly rumbled low and furious as it came into contact with something alien, a concentrated energy flowing from the English letters on the envelope. Something foreign, yet familiar to Shūji, sealed for ages in that paper, had not completely vanished, but under the direct touch of Shūji’s skin it shrank back fearfully, hid, and faded, as if acknowledging the absolute, overwhelming supremacy of his unnatural nature. To Shūji this phenomenon called magic was not an absolute mystery: Gen’emon Tsushima, building his criminal empire, had never confined himself to Japan alone or the familiar world of espers. His father was one of the few people on the Asian continent who maintained secret, strictly business ties with the closed magical society of Europe. The Port Mafia had more than once helped European wizards smuggle rare contraband artefacts through the ports of Yokohama, prohibited potion ingredients, and hide fugitive mages from the eyes of their Ministries. Shūji knew about the existence of people with magic wands from his father’s secret reports, but he had never thought they would dare to touch him personally.
The boy unhurriedly turned the envelope over. On the back was a large, heavy crimson wax seal bearing an ancient coat of arms divided into four parts: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a writhing snake. Lines written in calligraphy read:
England, London, Surrey,
Little Whinging, King’s Road, house 12, flat 4,
To Mr. Osamu Dazai.
The boy raised an eyebrow in surprise. There was not a single mention of Japan or Yokohama on the thick parchment. Moreover, the recipient was listed as “Osamu Dazai” — a fictitious name, a false identity his father had only recently created for him in international documents. Gen’emon Tsushima guarded the status of his sole heir, and outside Yokohama no one in the world was supposed to know that the mysterious child from Asia had any connection to the head of the Port Mafia. The letter should have landed on the desk of an empty safe-house flat in a London suburb, rented under a false name.
But the owl was here. On the windowsill of a guarded skyscraper.
Shūji cast a brief glance at the bird’s leg and noticed something he hadn’t spotted right away — around the owl’s leg was wound a thin ring of dark, dully gleaming silver. A magical artefact for animals, the kind he’d seen a couple of times among shipments at the port. It became obvious: some personal agent of his father, stationed in Great Britain to control magical contraband, had intercepted the postal bird right as it left Hogwarts. Realising that the British mages had somehow discovered the boy’s existence, the spy had fixed a tracking amulet to the owl and forcibly redirected it across the ocean, compelling it to fly contrary to the address on the envelope — straight to its true owner. The bird’s magical orientation had simply gone mad, leading it to Yokohama instead of London. The contents of the letter itself read as follows:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards)Dear Mr Dazai,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We remind you that the Hogwarts Express departs promptly at 11:00 from Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station in London.
As you are a half-blood and are being raised in a family where one parent is among our alumni (Mrs Dazai, née Figgis — Ravenclaw House), a visit by a special school escort to your home is not strictly required. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that your father is a Muggle, the Ministry of Magic strongly recommends that your family confirm Mr Dazai Sr.’s readiness to comply with the Statute of Secrecy outside magical areas.
If your mother requires assistance or official permission to accompany her son through the King’s Cross barrier for your Muggle father, please indicate this in your reply.
We await your owl no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Shūji slowly lowered the parchment onto the lacquered surface of the desk, forcing himself to reread the lines: “Mrs Dazai, née Figgis — Ravenclaw House” and “your father is a Muggle.”
There was no panic in his brown eyes, the kind that ordinary children would show when faced with the inexplicable. Instead, a pure, almost scientific excitement awoke in the eleven-year-old boy. He carefully pressed the parchment with his finger, shifting his gaze to the snowy owl, which on the windowsill was now trying its best to peck at his half-eaten morning toast.
Shūji snorted quietly. The context of this situation was assembling in his head far too neatly to be coincidence. The Port Mafia had spent colossal resources to clean up every loose end behind him, and if the British mages had sent a letter addressed to Osamu Dazai, that meant behind the official wording lay a jeweller’s-precision, years-long plan. A plan his own father had been developing long before Shūji even learned of the existence of magical England.
The boy carefully, trying not to crumple the envelope, tucked it into the inner pocket of his formal, sharply creased suit shorts and resolutely strode toward the exit. He very much wanted to get to the bottom of everything as soon as possible. And, to be honest, it was an excellent excuse to skip his morning Russian lesson, which had been giving him a splitting headache for the second week already.
Passing the guards standing rigidly at attention by the doors, Shūji hopped into the glass lift. Pressing the top button, he pressed his forehead to the cool glass, watching the people below walk the streets of Yokohama, wrapped in the morning fog. It was time to shake out of his father the rules of this new, and apparently very entertaining in the future, mission.
The boss’s office on the fortieth floor greeted him with its customary oppressive silence. Gen’emon Tsushima sat behind the large oak desk, lit only by the bluish glow of surveillance screens and the light from the windows. Shūji, trying to look as serious as possible, came closer and without any unnecessary words laid the Hogwarts parchment right on top of an important arms shipment report.
The mafia boss merely ran a cold gaze over the crest with the snake and laced his fingers together. Not a single muscle twitched on his hard face.
Gen’emon leaned back in the massive leather armchair. The heavy stare of the Port Mafia boss lingered for a moment on his son’s bandaged wrists, after which the man spoke:
“You came to me with questions, Shūji? Did you think our lawyers made a childish mistake by filling out the Hogwarts form with random names? You are mistaken. The Port Mafia does not permit such blunders. Mrs Dazai and her husband really do exist in reality. And in the eyes of the British Ministry of Magic, you are their legitimate half-blood son.”
The boy blinked in surprise. The pure logic he had hastily been assembling in his eleven-year-old head just a couple of minutes earlier came apart with a quiet ringing sound. He had expected to hear about hastily fabricated passports or hired actors, but, as always, his father had everything calculated years in advance. And in the future the same would be demanded of Shūji himself.
“More than ten years ago,” Gen’emon laced his fingers and the cold light of the surveillance monitors reflected in his eyes, “the Port Mafia was building secret supply channels for contraband artefacts through Europe. It was then that we recruited Elizabeth Figgis — a young English witch. She was Muggle-born, which made her an almost perfect and invisible ‘sleeper agent’ of the mafia inside Great Britain; of course it would have been better had she been pure-blood, but recruiting them is more dangerous and less convenient. Her sudden financial independence and the purchase of a flat in Surrey aroused no suspicion among the Aurors of the Ministry. I sent Ryūnosuke Dazai to her. He was a sufficiently loyal agent of the mafia. An absolute Muggle, an ordinary man, not possessing a single drop of magic, but ideally trained in espionage.”
Gen’emon leaned forward, and his voice acquired a frightening, steely note:
“They entered into an official marriage, which to British officials looked like a classic, predictable union of a Muggle-born witch and an ordinary foreigner. And when I needed to create impeccable international documents and Swiss bank accounts for you in case of an emergency evacuation from Japan, we simply entered your fictitious name Osamu Dazai into their official family record. Under the laws of their world you are an ordinary half-blood. The son of the witch Figgis and the Muggle Dazai. Hogwarts’ ancient system detected the surge of your power in Asia, cross-checked it with the London registries, and automatically spat out this form addressed to Osamu Dazai. To the mages you are a half-blood by right of documents. They will meet you, ensure your appearance in London, and confirm your identity in front of any checks by Albus Dumbledore.”
Shūji silently digested what he had heard, absently rubbing his bandaged wrist. The complex chess game his father had played out turned out to be far larger and more elegant. The false parents were not just paper phantoms, but active mafia operatives ready to act out this performance before the entire magical world.
Gen’emon, noticing how his son’s expression had changed, sharply cut off his thoughts:
“But herein lies the main danger, Shūji. Your innate ability — ‘No Longer Human.’ Your nature as an esper is such that you nullify any unnatural effect with a touch. No one in Britain must know about this. Wizards are cowardly and paranoid to the point of madness. If their headmaster, that old man Dumbledore, or the Ministry get wind that an eleven-year-old boy is capable of destroying any of their centuries-old spells, family curses, or priceless artefacts in a second simply by the power of his touch, you will be declared a threat to international security. They will lock you in their underground prison, conduct experiments on you, or simply destroy you. Of course, certain pure-bloods or important people know about the existence of abilities, but that information is far too scant.”
His father pointed a finger at the boy’s hands, hidden under the thick gauze.
“You will wear special gloves that have already been prepared for you — they are made on the basis of your DNA, which was taken from you a couple of months ago.” Gen’emon pushed forward a painted wooden box. “Now this is your disguise, your containment barrier, so that you don’t accidentally dispel the magic around you. You are obliged to hide your power and wear them around the clock. In lessons you will wave their wooden stick and memorise incantations without revealing your true nature until I order otherwise. Our main advantage is in their absolute ignorance. Do you understand me?”
Shūji slowly nodded. Under the tight layers of fabric there was a barely perceptible tingling, as if his unnatural power agreed that his father’s toy called “the magical world” demanded the utmost caution. He was going to have to control his ability around the clock so as not to ruin his entire mission.
But instead of fear, Shūji suddenly felt anticipatory goosebumps run down his spine, and a light, already slightly more genuine childish smile appeared on his lips of its own accord. It seemed this trip to England definitely freed him from boring lessons in Yokohama and promised to be devilishly interesting. Perhaps he might even make friends… who knows. Although his father might be against it… but Shūji liked taking risks, even if he didn’t like the possible consequences.
Gen’emon gave his words time to fully settle in his son’s head. When that same suffocating, heavy silence again reigned in the office, Shūji stood motionless, still picking at the bandaged wrist of his left hand while various thoughts bounced one after another through his mind.
“Your plane departs today at eleven in the evening,” the boss of the Port Mafia broke the silence dryly, carelessly pulling another document toward himself and scrawling a broad signature on it with a fountain pen. “A flight to London. All the necessary papers, including your new international passport in the name of Osamu Dazai, are in the box with the gloves.”
Shūji blinked in surprise, momentarily losing all his feigned adult composure. Eleven in the evening. That meant he had just under twelve hours to pack his things, say goodbye to his room on the thirty-eighth floor, and leave Yokohama.
“So soon?” slipped from his lips quietly, childishly.
“The letter clearly states that your reply is expected no later than the thirty-first of July,” Gen’emon did not even raise his head, continuing to flip through report pages. “Today is the twentieth. We need time to get you to the spot, let you settle into the flat in Surrey, and prepare Elizabeth and Ryūnosuke for your arrival. As soon as you land in London, they will officially step into their roles. No delays, no holdups. Ryūnosuke will meet you at the airport. You must come down the gangway not as the heir of Tsushima, but as a tired child, frightened after a long flight, returning to his father.”
Gen’emon finally lifted his eyes from the papers and looked at his son. In his gaze there was not a drop of parental tenderness — only cold calculation.
“For the first few days you will spend your time in Little Whinging, playing the most ordinary, quiet family. The Muggle neighbours must get used to the fact that the Dazais really do have a son, who simply spent a long time studying abroad. Elizabeth will send the reply owl to Hogwarts the very next day after your arrival. And at the end of the week, once the Ministry of Magic registers your presence at the address, you will go to Diagon Alley for textbooks and things.”
Gen’emon paused briefly, as if weighing whether it was worth telling an eleven-year-old boy anything more, but then simply nodded toward the door.
“Go to your room and pack whatever you consider necessary. You won’t need any extraneous junk from Japan there — Elizabeth will completely renew your wardrobe to British standards. And remember, Shūji… from the moment you cross the threshold of this office, your name is Osamu. Forget everything you were taught here if it might give away your true origins.”
“I understand, Father,” Shūji obediently inclined his head, hiding behind his fringe a red spark that had suddenly flared in his eyes.
Taking the wooden box, he turned and walked toward the office exit with a calm, measured step. The heavy oak doors closed soundlessly behind his back, cutting off the cold semi-darkness of the fortieth floor. Finding himself in the empty corridor, the boy took a deep breath of the cool air and suddenly, in a completely childish manner, dashed toward the lift, nearly slipping on the lacquered parquet floor. There was far too little time left until eleven in the evening, and he still had to figure out how to secretly smuggle into his suitcase a couple of his favourite books on poisons, which his father would definitely deem “extraneous junk.”
Once in his room, Shūji first locked the heavy door, ridding himself of the intrusive surveillance of the guards stationed around his room around the clock. He leaned his back against the door and caught his breath. The owl on the windowsill didn’t even turn its head — it had already finished off his toast and was now lazily dozing with its beak tucked under its wing.
Shūji cast a quick glance at the clock. Half past eleven in the morning. Just under twelve hours remained before departure, and the room looked as if he wasn’t going anywhere.
In truth, there wasn’t much to pack. His father had made it clear: his entire wardrobe, consisting of strict black suits tailored to order by the best dressmakers in Yokohama, would become dangerous evidence in England. The prim mages would instantly sense something off if a boy dressed in the fashion of a Far Eastern mafia showed up in Diagon Alley.
Shūji pulled out from under the bed a small, scuffed leather suitcase he had once begged off the old doctor. The man had used it to store medicine bottles, so inside it still distinctly smelled of alcohol and a stinging bruise ointment. The boy hopped onto the bed, crossing his legs, and opened the lid.
“So,” Shūji whispered, studying the empty suitcase. “Father said to take only what I consider necessary. So let’s start with the most important.”
He jumped onto the floor, went to the bookcase, and without hesitation reached for the very top shelf. Shūji carefully took down a weighty, dog-eared handbook on rare poisons and a manual on military surgery that he had secretly swiped from the doctor’s office during his last bandaging session. As far as he knew, the magical world was heavily into potion-making, and Shūji was sincerely convinced that classic Japanese aconite or fugu fish venom would make an excellent addition to their vaunted arsenic.
The books settled at the very bottom of the suitcase, taking up half the space.
Then Shūji went to the chest of drawers and pulled open the top drawer, filled to the brim with rolls of snow-white bandages. This was something he definitely couldn’t do without. Shūji began, one by one, transferring the bandages into the suitcase, stuffing them into all the gaps between the books. He took them with a generous reserve, perfectly aware that in some Little Whinging finding exactly the same bandages with that special texture would be an impossible task for his false parents, and waiting for a possible parcel from Japan would be dangerous and long.
When the bandages were done, Shūji put on the gloves, took the ticket and passport from the box, and then froze in the middle of the room, thoughtfully nibbling his lower lip. His gaze fell on the knife that lay on the bedside table — a gift from one of his hand-to-hand combat instructors. The boy reached out his hand, touched the wooden handle of the knife, but immediately pulled his fingers back.
“Can’t,” Shūji mentally checked himself. If an eleven-year-old child’s knife is seen by the scanner at the airport, there will be trouble… and not only for him, but for his new parents too.
Instead of the knife, Shūji took from the shelf a small, yellowed detective novel in English that he had been reading secretly at night to improve his pronunciation. That suited the image of a well-read son of a Muggle-born witch perfectly. And the knife he would be able to get hold of once he was in England.
The boy carefully placed the book on top of the bandages, slammed the heavy lid of the suitcase shut, and locked the catches with a click. The job was done. For some reason his heart felt unusually light and free. Shūji went to the window and lightly ruffled the dozing owl’s wing. As soon as his bandaged fingers touched the feathers, the bird ruffled indignantly and hooted, but Shūji only laughed quietly.
“Well then, suicidal bird,” he whispered, looking at the sea horizon. “Fly back to England. See you soon.”
The remaining hours until the flight dragged on unbearably slowly, turning into one long, weary wait before a leap into the complete unknown.
Evening met Shūji at the stuffy airport terminal. Gen’emon Tsushima was building a legend for the ages, which meant the heir of the Port Mafia had to leave the country like the most ordinary economy-class passenger. Private jets leave far too obvious a trace in the databases of international airports.
By nine in the evening Shūji was already standing in the middle of a huge, seething human hive. Hundreds of tourists bustled around, flights were being announced over the loudspeaker, and the air was saturated with the smell of cheap coffee and sweat. Shūji, dressed in a simple, nondescript jacket and jeans, seemed the most ordinary child in this crowd. His lone leather suitcase, smelling of medicine, looked almost orphaned against the backdrop of huge tourist luggage.
The mafia operative escorting him, Hirotsu, with whom he had crossed paths often of late — a taciturn old man in a grey coat who was supposed to accompany him up to the start of passport control — wordlessly handed the boy his ticket: an ordinary scheduled night flight Tokyo–London, and the passport, which he had taken from Shūji an hour earlier so that he wouldn’t accidentally lose them. On the cover there was no surname Tsushima. Embossed in gold letters was: Osamu Dazai.
“From here on your own, young master,” the man said barely audibly, instantly dissolving into the crowd of passengers.
Shūji was left alone. He was only eleven years old, and for the first time in his life he found himself in a huge public place completely on his own, without the dense ring of his father’s armed bodyguards. This unfamiliar feeling of freedom went to his head more than any strong tea the mafia doctor sometimes poured him.
Gripping the handle of the leather suitcase tighter, the boy headed toward the passport control zone, trying to mimic the gait of ordinary children in no particular hurry.
At the checkpoint a stern border guard in a dark blue uniform kept peering from the pale face of Shūji to the bandages showing. But the documents produced by the Port Mafia were executed flawlessly. The stamp slapped onto the passport page with a crisp, dry thud. That sound definitively severed Shūji from his past. From that moment on, he was no longer the heir of Tsushima, but Dazai Osamu.
Boarding the huge aircraft began closer to midnight. Osamu — now he had to get used to thinking of himself exactly that way — obediently stood through the long queue of tired adults, squeezed along the narrow carpeted aisle of the plane, and somehow heaved his heavy suitcase into the overhead bin. His seat turned out to be at the very tail of economy class, right by the window.
Instantly, the usual chaos of scheduled flights swirled around him: businessmen irritably rustled newspapers, some woman was unsuccessfully trying to calm a crying baby, and foreign tourists loudly discussed the upcoming trip. This world of ordinary people — noisy, unpredictable, and smelling of cheap perfume — was the complete opposite of the sterile, stifling luxury of the headquarters.
When the plane tore away from the runway with a deafening roar and began to gain altitude, Osamu pressed his forehead to the cool glass of the window. Below, scattering into billions of tiny neon lights, Yokohama rapidly shrank. The boy slipped his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket, touched the letter with his fingers, and closed his eyes.
Ahead were fourteen long hours of gruelling night flight. Fourteen hours in a packed, stuffy cabin, where he would have to finally erase the remnants of Shūji Tsushima from his memory and turn into Osamu Dazai.
Fourteen hours in the confined space of an aircraft flying over continents turned into an endless, blurred grey dream for Osamu. He hardly slept. People shifted around him, the engines hummed dully, and flight attendants with forced, crooked smiles handed out tasteless aeroplane food that the boy barely touched.
To kill time somehow, Osamu leafed through the detective novel he had taken out of his suitcase, since it had passed as hand luggage. The English words he had once crammed under the supervision of tutors were now gradually becoming his new reality.
When the plane finally began its descent, breaking through a layer of clouds, the panorama of London appeared in the window. The city greeted Osamu exactly as it was written in his textbooks: greyness, endless rows of brick houses, and a fine, persistent drizzle smeared across the glass.
Heathrow Airport stunned Osamu with noise and insane queues at immigration control. The boy obediently moved within the crowd of arrivals, dragging his suitcase behind him. The jeweller’s-precision of the false passport worked flawlessly again: a British officer lazily stamped the entry stamp and tossed the document back to Osamu. That was it. The border was crossed.
The arrivals hall met Osamu with hundreds of signs bearing strangers’ names. He walked slowly past people, scanning the crowd with an unchildishly serious gaze.
The man who was supposed to become his “father” Osamu recognised instantly thanks to the sign bearing his new name.
Ryūnosuke Dazai stood a little way off from the shouting cabbies, leaning on a black cane. He wore an immaculately pressed but inexpensive grey suit, the kind ordinary office workers usually wear. From under the brim of a dark hat one could see stiff, close-cropped black hair, and his pale face seemed hewn from stone. There was not a drop of fuss in his posture, but Osamu, raised among killers, immediately picked up barely noticeable traits: the way Ryūnosuke held his right hand a little closer to the pocket of his jacket, where a holster with a pistol was clearly discernible under the fabric, and the way his icy grey eyes continuously scanned the perimeter. A man who could not do magic, but most likely knew thirty ways to cut a human life short in a second.
Ryūnosuke noticed the boy. His gaze fixed for a second on the leather suitcase, then slid over Osamu’s bandaged wrist. Not a muscle moved on the man’s face. No joyful exclamations, none of the embraces customary when meeting a son.
“Hello, Osamu,” Ryūnosuke said in English. His voice was low, dry, and devoid of any emotion. “The plane was delayed by fifteen minutes. Let’s go. The car is in the car park.”
“Hello, Father,” Osamu obediently inclined his head, dutifully trying on the new role. A soft, defenceless smile of an ordinary child weary from the journey immediately appeared on his lips.
Ryūnosuke did not attempt to take his suitcase. He simply turned and walked toward the terminal exit with a fast, measured stride. The boy trotted after him, barely keeping up with the new father’s wide steps.
They emerged into the underground car park, where an unremarkable dark blue car with London plates stood against the wall. As soon as they got into the vehicle and the heavy doors shut out the noise of the airport, the atmosphere inside instantly changed. Ryūnosuke turned the key in the ignition but did not move. He threw a quick glance in the rear-view mirror, checking for a tail, and then spoke in pure, flawless Japanese:
“Young Master Tsushima. I am pleased to welcome you to England. Forgive the cold reception — outside safe zones we are obliged to strictly observe protocol.”
“Drop it, Ryūnosuke, I even liked it,” Osamu leaned back on the rear seat, instantly shedding all his childish modesty. He cheerfully crossed one leg over the other. “You made an excellent stuffy papa. Is Mama Figgis just as stern?”
“Mrs Dazai is waiting for us in Little Whinging,” Ryūnosuke pulled smoothly out of the car park, merging into the dense stream of traffic moving along the road. “The letter from Hogwarts that we intercepted caught us off guard, but Elizabeth has already prepared the reply owl. We will send it the moment you cross the threshold of the house.” The man fell silent for a second, his fingers in leather gloves gripping the steering wheel tighter.
The car sped along the motorway, carrying the eleven-year-old boy deep into misty Surrey, where his first ever contact with real magic was already waiting for him.