Team: Ballycastle Bats

Position: Beater 1

A/N: This is for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 11.

Beater 1 Prompt: Who's Afraid of the Dark?, use Cujo — Stephen King as inspiration only.

Additional Prompts: (word) pattern, (location) Durmstrang

Disclaimer: J.K. owns us all.

Word Count: 1264

Beta: Grammarly

ημερολόγιο June 1990

I felt like I should keep some kind of record of the weird things that I have encountered in my short life. Which is saying something because I am a Wizard. I am only 16 years old, and before now I had what I thought to believe was a picture-perfect existence. Then I grew up and my father is not the man I thought he was. I feel utterly alone, and when I graduate from school I have no idea what I am going to do with my life.

Let me start with the simple facts. My name is Vitaly Demopoulos, and I have never understood why my father had insisted on Durmstrang for my formal schooling. Geographically speaking Hogwarts is practically the same distance to my hometown of Agrinio, Greece. Durmstrang is located to the northwest of my home country. I supposed that it was because as far back as the 17th century my family has a long-established pattern, more so a tradition of attending the notoriously Dark school.

I think it is it's because Durmstrang has decreed and enforces strict holiday and visitation. Looking back, that served my fathers needs for me. Out of sight, out of my mind. As a child, I never put more than a second thought into something as simple and complicated as that one statement. However, this past summer broke the way I thought about my family, more so how I thought about my father. It was just another summer night when I realized he has a severe gambling problem. To be perfectly honest, this is something I should have seen before now. Given that as a 16-year-old, coming of age Wizard, top of my class, things usually don't go unnoticed. I suppose it is different from ones that you love.

ημερολόγιο August 1990

One night about a month before I was to return for the year to Durmstrang, my father stumbled through the floo, a lump under his coat, and breath so repugnant that it could put hair on a man's chest, I knew things were about to change. You could tell by the look in his eyes. Mother never commented on his antics, maybe it's another factor in why my own realization of his behavior took so long. The lump fell out of his coat and hit the floor with a dull thud. Staring up at me, were six shiny black eyes. Two per head, on this single tiny… puppy? My father had brought home a Cerebus, a rare find indeed, and highly illegal to boot. He looked scared and looked down to the floor with a whimper.

I kept the pup with me until the end of the summer. He acted and behaved as any normal growing dog would. I even owled the Headmaster and received his permission to bring Fluffy, as I have taken to calling him, with me to school. I had to promise a few things on my father's behalf towards the school, and I may not have mentioned exactly what kind of animal I was to bring with me. My father was upset on both counts, that I decided to keep him after all, and wasn't going to leave the rapidly growing animal alone with him while away for my last year at Durmstrang. It came to pass, that he had won the dog in a dice game. His game of choice apparently, the man who lost could not pay up and offered the hellhound up as payment. Father was anxious to have me back at my alma mater sooner rather than later. Sometimes the hardest truths are closest to our hearts.

ημερολόγιο December 1990

Christmas has always been a lonely time for me since attending school. Most of the students here only go home for the summer holiday. It has been different this year because of Fluffy. It has not been so lonely, and overall, I didn't really mind staying behind with my few friends when I had my new best friend with me. I had to work tutoring the younger students for the Headmaster to allow the extra food from the kitchens for Fluffy, but being with him was worth it. Each head had its own personality. It was almost the size of a fully grown German shepherd, and the one in the middle was more alert and playful. The left was a cuddler, and the right almost always wanted to take a nap. I had to charm a harp or violin most nights for all three to sleep at the same time. During the day he would roam and wander the castle, no one had any complaints. They knew that although the three-headed hound looked ferocious, he couldn't hurt a fly. You would think that although the growing creature had only three heads it wouldn't take that much to feed it. But the way that he eats, it feels as if he also has three stomachs.

ημερολόγιο March 1991

Fluffy came back inside late last night. He was acting very strange, he stayed by the fireplace in the dorms instead of his pallet by my bed. It was easier to get everyone to sleep at night from beside my bed. I did not think any different of this until I woke in the morning. News had spread across the castle that one of the Hippogriffs the school was raising, had been found dead and mauled on the west side of the castle walls. The tight feeling of dread that I had pushed down the night before filled my stomach and made its way slowly to my arms and legs. Fluffy had never hurt anyone, and I know that is saying something since it is three sets of teeth to keep track of. But honestly, he has been an Angel, surely he can't be the one behind this vicious attack.

It had barely been a fortnight since the poor Hippogriff was found before they eventually found another. It hadn't taken long after that before the whispers and rumors started that Fluffy was the culprit. I had just finished the finalizing the arrangements for Fluffy to return home when I was summoned to the Headmaster' office.

I felt numb walking back to the dorms from the Headmaster's office. I guess the rumors were just that because the second victim was not a Hippogriff. It was the groundskeeper himself, and staff had kept the details private as to not scare off the students. Fluffy had to go, and he had to go immediately.

ημερολόγιο May 1991

It is because of the horrible incidents from the last few months that I find myself alone, with Fluffy in an undetectable-charmed case at my feet. The inside charmed with a soft musical lullaby the very same my mother used to sing to me. I had to find someone to take him, under no circumstance am I to bring him home to Greece. The bartender catches my eyes and indicates towards a door in the back. He knows why I am there, I grab up the case and nonchalantly walk down the long-obscured hallway. A wave of magic passes over me, I keep walking, just in case someone is watching, and the magical barrier is a test of sorts. I have to do this, this is what growing up is like. I spot an open seat at a table in the corner. What I thought was part of the wall is actually a huge bearded man obviously in his cups, maybe Fluffy will find a home tonight after all.