.
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Kaneki ken.
When they follow after professor Lupin and enter the staff room for their first DADA lesson of the year it's empty except for Snape and Dumbledore's enigmatic guest.
Snape leaves shortly after but Kaneki decides to stay and watch.
Professor Lupin seems strangely on edge around the mysterious foreigner, even more so than is usual. Despite this he continues his lesson with admiral composure even as his instincts and nose scream at him to flee. He doesn't know what but something about the man causes his hackles to rise and his hair to stand on end, it's all he can do not to growl when he draws too near.
The other students seem mostly unaware to this unseen tension but it is something that Hermione subtly picks up on. It is another curiosity to add to the list.
.
Today they are learning about boggarts. Most of his classmates have simple almost childish fears but for Harry it's a terrifying prospect, the idea of facing one's worst fears.
Just when it's about to be his turn and professor Lupin steps forward and looks like he is about to intervene he's interrupted by Kaneki.
So far he's just been sitting and watching but now he's standing with one hand lightly touching their defence professors' shoulder.
"I do wonder what it is that I fear most, I do hope you would not begrudge me if I were to ask for a try."
"Certainly," Lupin's response is almost chocked, like the man is forcing himself to speak.
Harry is secretly relieved that he does not have to face his fear. He has not been able to think of way in which he could possibly make a dementor seem funny.
His relief is short lived.
Until now he could not think of something more terrifying than dementors, was incapable of it.
That changes.
.
The whole class watches in horror as it unfolds.
The intensity of this fear is unreal.
Slowly with measured steps Kaneki walks to the front.
The boggart noticing him shifts.
.
It's Kaneki head bowed chained to a chair.
He's covered in blood and his clothes are ragged, what look like scar marks are visible surrounding the bases of his toes and fingers.
"548, 559," the voices lingers in the air and their eyes are drawn to the bucket full of severed toes and fingers and the blood stained metal implements.
The implications are disturbing.
Slowly he looks up and stands breaking his metal restraints like they're not even there.
He cocks his head and taps against one ear, and then he ceases tapping and they can hear it, the scuttling of multitudes of tiny legs.
And then he puts he hand to his ear and pulls.
It is the single most horrific thing any of them have ever seen.
Slowly inch by inch he removes the centipede from his head.
The real Kaneki watches on unfazed, until the scene fades and then he looks like he might cry.
There is a woman, beautiful with long purple hair with eyes like his.
She comes to stand before him.
With a tender expression she looks at him like someone would a lover.
As she fades, blood blooming across her clothes, her voice calls out softly filled with love and tenderness.
"That's right, Kaneki. To live is to devour others. Eat."
And there she lies.
Her body atop a pile of others, all with those same eyes and all dead.
"Eat."
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An: Lupin's wolf side can sense he's in the presence of a predator; this is where his odd subconscious wariness of Kaneki stems from. I love Touka but I also love Rize.
