In another world, a boy with messy black hair was born, bearing thousand lives and star-crossing fate. His childhood would be harsh and lonely, his cousin was a bully and the whole neighborhood stayed away from him, but he would live, growing up as a sweet-not-quite-naive child. He knew hardship and misery, thus he understood compassion and bravery. His eyes dimmed over years, slowly losing its innocence but nothing could shatter it completely. He didn't always made the right choice, as the unspoken dreams and silent words always shook him, but when the time came he would knew by heart what to choose, and in the end that was what truly mattered. His life would be a wonderful story, a legend passed from generations to generations.

Unluckily for this world, instead of a boy with messy black hair, they got a boy with permed head instead.

Because here was the universal truth: Gintoki lived by his own rules. The past didn't matter and there was no use for worrying the future. He didn't want to be a savior or shit like that and he certainly didn't care about the thousand lives who selfishly hung their lives on his shoulder.

Much like in another world, Gintoki had a strange childhood. Suddenly appearing in the rooftop when his bully cousin was chasing him and despairingly having the same constant permed head despite his aunt's attempt to straighten it, those kind of things were common in his life. People calling him freak and staying away from him was common too and even though Gintoki didn't want to admit, the solitude actually hurt a lot.

It was pretty much the only thing that Harry Potter and Sakata Gintoki shared in common.

Before long, Gintoki snapped and had enough. The overweight pigs didn't feed him much and they kept ordering him around (not that he would obey).

He climbed to the roof and looked up at the star. The next day would be his first day at school and Gintoki knew that it wouldn't improve his situation at all.

Thus, he did the only thing he could think of.

He ran away.

Carefully preparing everything and brought all his uncle's money with him, Gintoki ran away and never looked back. Not even once.

Later, when he bumped into a suspicious dark-cloaked figure and suddenly get attacked then almost died right there in the side road, Gintoki reflected that maybe it wasn't a good idea after all.

What came after that was a series of bad choices and mistakes.

Ha, what? You seriously didn't expect Sakata fucking Gintoki to behave well then happily shipped to Hogwart, did you?

In another world, a boy with messy black hair was born, bearing thousand lives and star-crossing fate. His childhood would be harsh and lonely, but when the time came, when the boy faced his first day of school, he didn't think of running away.

Gintoki, on the other hand, couldn't stand the thought of staying in that house any longer. He knew it was the wrong choice, heck, he had predicted that he would probably be dead, or worse, mugged, the moment he went out five step away from the house.

But, it would be a beautiful life he had living on.

Gintoki got up and stared blankly at his bloody hand. Everything was red and he felt numb somehow.

"You're the Boy-Who-Lived, the boy who killed the Dark Lord?" the figure sneered. "Well, you won't be the Boy-Who-Lived for much longer."

As if.

Gintoki wouldn't easily let himself rotting in the side road, dying meaninglessly. He would fight. In his heart, he could feel his soul burning.

When Gintoki came back to his sense, the sky had turned orange. He never had the chance to appreciate how beautiful sunrise was before. Probably because he was too busy burning all his uncle's boxers and expose all his aunt's embrassing photos to the public (ah, good ol' memories).

The next thing he noticed was the dead body.

Gintoki threw up immediately. The magical wooden stick was in his grip when he woke up and with it, he burn the body until nothing but ashes remained.

He got up, his legs shaking, and threw up again.

Gintoki walked as far away as possible from the crime scene, not caring about the destination, he just wanted to run away forget.

.

.

Children weren't supposed to kill. It messed up their mind and broke somehing in them permanently.

Gintoki at least knew that much. Maybe it was why he didn't feel anything when he killed those people who attacked him. He was supposed to feel something, wasn't he?

What had gone missing?

His stomach grumbled and the important question immediately vanished from his mind.

The wind was whispering, Corpse-Eating Demon, and Gintoki tilted his head, listening to its song. It almost sounded like a prayer.

The world was losing its color and Gintoki crouched down, looking for foods among the gruesome dead bodies.

Meeting Shoyou was a surprise. Mostly because any other person would have been dead before they could even open their mouth. The dudes who could utter one sentence or two before dropping dead were luckier.

("Don't you want to know who you are?" A man said, looking afraid and desperate. "Don't you want to know why the Death Eaters want to kill you?"

Gintoki swung his magical wooden stick. It was, he reflected later, probably another wrong choice.)

And yet, the man with the long hair easily sneaked up on him and even patted his head.

Gintoki pointed his magical wooden stick at him.

The man was blabbering nonsense now, calling him an adorable demon, then threw his own stick at him.

Not using the wand correctly, the man had said. Come with me.

And Gintoki did.

When the colors of the world returned to him, Gintoki breathed a sigh of relief as he knew that he had made the right choice.

.

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