Magic and Mystery Coil by Allegory_for_Hatred

Coil

From the outset, Port Mafia's headquarters looked like any other high-rise. A thousand shiny windows, a hundred pointless doors, a dozen big-wigs twirling their mustaches. Paperwork. Document shredders. Prostitutes. Copy. Paste. Delete. The tidy front desk was stationed by a cheery looking brunette. If you walked fifty feet over to the next skyscraper, you'd probably find an equally brunette receptionist manning an equally tidy front desk.

That was one of the key reasons ability users were able to stay on the down-low:

Subtlety.

Something wizards entirely lacked in.

Yokohama wasn't mile-wide castles. It wasn't owls and dragons. It certainly wasn't secret doors built into the walls of very public taverns in the middle of even more public busy cities.

Yokohama was gangs. Was mafias. Was the understanding that as long as you minded your own business, those criminal organizations would keep you safe. It was underground. It was secret as-in actually secret.

But if he was being honest, Dazai found the whole thing a little tedious. And anyway, what kind of secret was shared with an entire city full of people?

Dazai wiggled his fingers in the open air. The lack of excess latent magic around felt strange against his skin—the buzzing that had accompanied him for months now mostly absent. And his bones were stiff from writing.

Tom Riddle had kept him company through the night.

But throughout the day, Dazai kept the company of his father.

Father was sleeping, lying stiffly across his bed like a corpse. He really looked like he was dead, and Dazai had compulsively checked the man's breathing several times within the last hour just to check he wasn't. But there it was: the staggered puff-pull of the Mafia Boss' chest. He still smelled a bit dead.

Dazai leaned back into his chair, stationed at Father's bedside. It was tall-backed and wooden and creaked whenever Dazai so much as breathed. The chair was as stiff and uncomfortable as his father looked.

At least Father wasn't shouting obscenities anymore. Dazai easily preferred a stiff back to a pounding headache.

Though a swift death sounded all the better.

While he sat daily vigil, Dazai waggled his fingers vaguely in the air. He mimed rolling a coin, though his galleons were currently several hundred miles away at Hogwarts. But without an actual coin, the motion felt strange. Empty.

With his other hand, he reflexively flicked open-then-closed a pocketknife. He'd swiped it from a grunt two hours earlier. They'd yet to come back for it, and Dazai didn't think they ever would. The grip had a good feel in his hand. And even though Dazai's wrist was bruised where Father had grabbed it earlier, he didn't fumble the knife. The blade was just that well balanced—that perfectly-handled.

Port Mafia certainly kept good weaponry. Hogwarts only had those awful sticks.

Dazai flicked the blade open and pretended to cut the air. It would have been a clean slice, had the air any veins to sever. He imagined it did—imagined blood spilling all over the bed and the floor. The imagery had Dazai's fingers twitching over his knife in a way that would have Snape jumping.

Dazai kicked the bed.

Father didn't stir.

"Don't mistreat our patient, Shuuji."

Dazai groaned.

He knew that voice. He hated that slimy, good-for-nothing voice.

"It isn't like he's going to wake up," Dazai said, twisting in his seat to find Mori shutting the bedroom door behind him. "And don't call me that."