Chapter 5: A New Problem 1/5

Disclaimer: I do not own either Harry Potter (rightfully owned by J.K Rowling) or Naruto (rightfully owned by Masashi Kishimoto) nor do I make any money out of this fiction.

A/N: I really am so very sorry for the longer-than-usual wait. I have not and did not abandon this story and have been writing it semi-constantly (for the last year-or-so), just a lot slower than perhaps I should have. I almost ended up finishing this chapter to put up exactly a year after the last update, but things got in the way again, as they have been doing so a lot in the last year and so it's being uploaded now.

As always, thank you for your reviews, each and every one of you. I have read all of those reviews multiple times and have enjoyed reading them immensely, so please keep them coming. Also, perhaps belatedly, thanks to those of you who pointed me towards the lost Naruto fic that I was looking for called 'The Ghost and the Darkness.'

I'm afraid there might be one or two mistakes that I haven't noticed but I cannot for the life of me reread this chapter again. I've edited this chapter so much over the last year I think I could probably recite the first quarter from memory. I'm not saying there is going to be anything wrong with it, but I'm not willing to read it again to find out. If any readers do find an error, feel free to alert me in a review.

Oh, by any chance, would any accomplished artists like to draw me a nice fic-cover/profile pic for free, since this new function has come out?

*crickets of awkward silence sound off* ...I thought not...

I did consider adding in a brief summary of everything that's happened up until now in Silent Humanity so that you could catch up after this long hiatus, but that thought passed quickly since it would have been far too long and would have left out 'important' stuff anyway. If you need refreshing badly enough, you could always reread the entire thing. I did that and it took ages.

So, after a year and a half(ish), I present to you Chapter 5 of Silent Humanity!

Edit: Within a day of publishing this chapter (about two weeks ago) I got an offer for a fic cover and now, so soon after, I present to you this wonderful illustration, provided by the generous Darkling221. A big round of applause for Darkling221 (Whose DeviantArt address is darkness333. followed by the usual suffix [I would put the whole thing but the site would filter it.]

Edit #2: I went through and switched from line breaks to my own ones since most of the site's ones were missing. Oh, and sorry if any of you thought this was another proper update but I just wanted to give my pictorial benefactor the credit they deserve as well as drawing some attention to the picture.

Updated 3 May 2014: This chapter is the latest to be polished by my poor Beta who has had to read through all of this old tripe (not, that is to say, that my newer chapters are much better.) RisingNight is doing it all for free and for that my appreciation is boundless.

(Last Time)

When the tired and pained teenage weapon finally came to a stop in a densely planted area, he knelt down and waited. He could see through the thick blanket of leaves above him that the sun was just pushing past the horizon. Already the familiar feeling of the mental seals on Shukaku weakening sprang to the forefront of his mind, but then there was something different. As the last glimmers of solar light burst across the red-head's vision, he could feel a change occurring, but not as it had during the last lunar cycle or ever before.

Collapsing to the floor, Gaara's last coherent thoughts were of fear and uncertainty at this new sensation that was so foreign to him. The seals on Shukaku weren't dissolving, but rather changing and transforming into something unrecognisable. But this unexpected change did not stop Gaara from feeling a change going through him as he lost consciousness, only to wake up an hour or so later.

Things were not right…

'My head hurts...'

Oh dear God his head hurt, like it had been cracked open and sewn back up a hundred times by the Snake Sannin for fun. And his legs hurt too…

These insightful musings were some of the first thoughts at the surface of Gaara's otherwise blank mind when he regained consciousness on the cold, hard forest floor. The demon-jailor took a few moments to clear his head of the useless self-assessing thoughts he'd been fixating on in his stupor so that he could take stock of where he was and how he had gotten there. It didn't take long for Gaara to recall his evening jog/run in the woods followed by the disturbing sensation he'd experienced shortly before passing out rather unexpectedly. Gaara looked around the densely vegetated area he was now standing in, but what he saw didn't quite match up with the memory he had of the area from when he had arrived there only an hour ago, or so he guessed judging by the darkness of the sky and the position of the bright full-moon.

The area wasn't completely different; in fact, it looked perfectly familiar, just… wrong. The still groggy teenager spent a few more moments processing what he was seeing and then it all clicked, like the cocking of a pump-action shotgun; and the realisation that followed was just as pleasant as what one might expect to follow after hearing the distinctive cocking of said gun. The surroundings he found himself in were indeed exactly the same in appearance; just as they were when he had fallen asleep earlier that evening, but now that he looked closely, really closely, he saw that they were at least twice as big as they had been. As astute as Gaara was during the majority of his exploits, it took even longer for him to realise that it wasn't that the woods had grown through some genjutsu or through use of the Mokuton bloodline, both of which existed only in his world and the latter being extinct as far as he knew; no, the fact was that the trees and bushes around him hadn't grown bigger but rather he'd shrunk to about half his original size.

'Oh... great…'

Gaara had never been a tall child and even into his teenage years he'd retained his diminutive stature, which his sister had often argued was as a result of his lack of sleep when Kankuro would tease the Jinchūriki about his size; of course, his older brother wasn't stupid or suicidal enough to actually make any disparaging remarks about Gaara to his face as the red-head still had anger control issues from time to time. However, now that Gaara was effectively half his old height, it gave him a whole new appreciation for his previously relatively short body when opposed to this new miniature one.

Now, there was just one immediately pressing mystery left for him to solve: 'What's that, moving behind my head?'

Turning around, Gaara didn't see anything other than the obnoxiously tall bushes that he'd expected to find; but then, there it was again, the unknown fur-covered creature brushing against the back of his head softly, flattening the hair on the nape of his neck. Whipping around again and again produced nothing more than a dizzy mini-Gaara and no sign of whatever foolish animal was playing tricks on him. Deciding to cut this vexatious game short, lest he trip on the circus tent he was wearing, Gaara dug his hand into his now oversized clothes, which were so baggy on him he had trouble routing through the folds, before he produced a handful of sand without so much as looking down at it. He flexed his usual control over the sand and he waited for it to rise into his view so he could restrain (read: attack) the nuisance that was bothering him during what was already a difficult time; but the creature's discovery, unbeknownst to Gaara, was going to lead to even more tribulation on his part.

It took Gaara no longer than a second to realise that the sand he had commanded had failed to rise as instructed or even stir, except for the small amounts trickling between his fingers and falling to the forest floor. When Gaara looked down to diagnose the origin of the problem, he was hit by two revelations: the first of which was an unwelcome discovery that filled him with dread, and the second was one of self-disparagement at not having noticed the first one sooner.

As the shinobi looked down at his hands, he realised, with dire consternation, what was brushing the back of his neck; the very same thing that gave a responsive twitch as he concentrated on its movements. It became all too clear as he stared down at the fuzzy paws, complete with digital pads, where his hands should have been. He turned them over to look at the other side of the sandy coloured fur that covered the appendages that apparently belonged to him. Out of desperation more than logic, he brought his paws up to his fluffy chest and tried to dispel the horrible genjutsu someone had used on him, only to find that he wasn't in a genjutsu nor was he still asleep, as the highly acclaimed ninja test of pinching oneself proved, a task made all the more difficult because of the small size and almost rounded shape of the digits he was using. The equally fluffy, if not more so, tail that had been brushing against the back of his head, came into view when he honed-in on the tail's sensations. It was as he feared; he'd turned into a mini-furry-Shukaku. The enormous racoon tail that was similarly sand coloured and featured the characteristic blue swirls all over it just about proved that it was the same as the accursed demon inside of him. Funnily enough, he couldn't hear the demon's ranting and raving at the moment, but he had bigger problems than the unusual silence of his normally rambunctious tenant, namely his size and loss of sand control, equating to defencelessness for the shinobi who had once bragged of having the ultimate defence.

Ever the pragmatist, to the extent that he could adapt seamlessly to a new world in moments, Gaara didn't dwell on what he desperately hoped was a temporary change as he now had to focus on how he, as a small and fluffy tanuki-human with no chakra control or special powers, was going to survive the entire night in the infamously dangerous and aptly named Forbidden Forest. It appeared that he wasn't a full-fledged tanuki; thankfully, when he considered certain tanuki body-parts that would've made running a trifle more difficult. Also, he thanked whatever gods may be that he didn't have to cope without opposable thumbs during this troublesome ordeal, no matter how small the thumbs he had were. Apart from his height, stubby fingered paws and tail that was easily a foot taller than him on its own, Gaara appeared to have a fairly humanoid body, with the added bonus of surprisingly warm sand-coloured fur with the same blue markings as those on his tail, though sparser it seemed as he looked over his new body.

And people said Gaara was a pessimist; at least he was warm…

Gaara replaced the sand in his pocket, ready for the morning when he would transform back if he had any good luck going for him at all. After his lifeline was secure, he shed all of his oversized clothes completely, as they would do nothing but hinder his movement and identify him as the vulnerable Hogwarts student he currently was; besides, he was covered in fur to keep him warm so he didn't see the harm in leaving his folded clothes in the hollowed-out base of a nearby tree for the time being. With a few scratches around said tree as well as surrounding trees to guide him back to his garments when the sun was to rise, courtesy of his newly discovered and auspiciously sharp claws, Gaara didn't have to worry about his clothes being lost when the time came.

One feature that Gaara found to be even more irksome than his further diminished procerity, were his newly discovered digitigrade legs that made him feel like he was walking on his tiptoes constantly. He had trouble taking more than a few steps without teetering and falling when his concentration and balance wavered in the slightest. Like the canid he had transformed into, Gaara's new back legs now had shorter thighs and calves and longer feet, meaning he now had to perform a sort of shuffle to walk forwards rather than actual stepping. As Gaara had dropped off his clothes, he resolved to find out how to walk around properly with his incommodiously short digitigrade legs.

The final alteration that he noticed was that he could make some unintelligible sounds out of his previously heavily damaged throat. It seemed that this form completely regenerated his vocal cords, unfortunately it also appeared that he could not speak any coherent human words without sounding like a dog performing a trick, as this voice box wasn't built to speak, merely growl, whine and create any number of other animalistic sounds. Still, it was nice to be able to make himself heard again, even if it was nonsense and incoherent guttural noises and the occasional angry gnarl of frustration when he fell over again and again.

Walking wasn't at all difficult once he'd gotten used to ambling around on his new legs; running, on the other hand, was arduous if not impossible whilst carrying the considerable weight of his tail with him. The weight didn't make any sense to Gaara, as, when he had squeezed the soft extremity, he'd discovered that it was almost all fur, only a thin flesh and bone tail in the centre of the appendage that, including fuzz, was wider than his torso, at the tip. No matter how soft the thing felt when Gaara squeezed it to his chest with both arms, when it swayed to and fro behind him and hit a bush or tree sapling, the thing it hit was blown back as if it had been impacted with a large stone club. It was some measure of a consolation that he at least had a weapon of sorts with him, even if it was a large fluffy bat attached to his backside. Still, he didn't like his chances in a fight with only his teeny tiny claws, however sharp they might be, so the club was a reassurance.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Rubeus Hagrid was a caring man who tried in earnest to keep all of the animals under his watch in the safest condition he could, at the cost of his own health at times. Tonight was the full moon and that meant that the newest addition to the teaching staff of Hogwarts, other than him, was indisposed in the worst and most dangerous manner imaginable. With the threat of the ferocious wolf running around in the woods every month, Hagrid had been assured that the monster would keep well away from all of his precious creatures, like the very ones he was leading away at the moment because the bloodthirsty werewolf had strayed near their herd and Hagrid didn't want to risk their safety. The experienced groundskeeper didn't mind the stigma attached to thestrals, nor did he let it deter him from his duty to them. He was well away from where he had heard the wolf's cries and now felt that he could let the so-called death-creatures wander freely for the remainder of the night without them running into any lunar-related animals.

As he threw the pheasants he'd been using to lure the abnormally obstinate winged horses away with him, Hagrid saw a strange little thing out of the corner of his eye. It looked so short that, as it walked on its two hind legs, it probably wouldn't be tall enough to stare at his belt-buckle directly, though its massive tail would probably reach the bottom of his beard easily if it was pointed straight upwards. Needless to say, Hagrid was already fascinated by it. The thestrals didn't object to their new surroundings as they galloped off together, fighting over the offerings of dead birds and a few dead ferrets Hagrid had been planning to give to his Hippogriffs on account of their good behaviour in his classes, but he wouldn't have trouble catching more so he didn't see the harm. In the mean time, however, he was going to be hunting for something bigger and infinitely more interesting than ferrets, and appeared to be even more terrified of him than them.

It wasn't like he wanted to catch or kill the small, fluffy animal, whatever it was; he just wanted to have a look at the sandy-coloured mammal. It was incredibly odd to see a new creature in the forest he'd been patrolling for decades, but even odder was that the thing was running on two legs and looked almost humanoid in its panicked movements away from him, though his comparisons to humans ended there as he watched the creature trip or fall over after every few strides.

Hagrid jogged as gently as a half-giant could after the strange animal that had captured his interest. Every once in a while he would see whatever he was chasing before it would disappear behind a tree or some roots. Hagrid chased the poor thing for well over an hour, never getting closer than thirty feet or so. Eventually he thought he might catch the scared little critter as it ran into a clearing, which was a relief to the tired man, but as luck would have it, in that very clearing stood the entire herd of thestrals he'd released earlier on. The strange light-brown creature seemed to hesitate at the sight of the thestrals, Hagrid noted, before it apparently cut its losses and ran straight into the midst of them. Hagrid feared the tiny and defenceless morsel would become an after-dinner snack for the emaciated carnivorous horse-monsters.

What the oafish man didn't expect was for the thestrals to crowd around the thing and block it from his view. Hagrid tried to push through them or to get them to disperse in case they were indeed eating the defenceless animal in there, but every time he managed to shift one thestral, another would take its place and the moved one would rejoin the herd further away. Hagrid was reluctant to leave but the thestrals were not docile when angered and he couldn't take on twenty of them when angry just to examine an idle curiosity. Plus, there was a good chance that whatever it was would be around the next night if it had survived this long in the huddle, so he would just have to let it be and hope it stayed alive.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Gaara's midnight run hadn't been nearly as relaxed as Hagrid's had been, the tanuki-boy having had to sprint at top speed when he saw his Care of Magical Creatures professor chasing after him. Whilst his miniature form had the major drawback of shorter legs, meaning he was nowhere near his top speed in human form, furry-Gaara's stamina made up for this shortfall quite adequately, as, even after an hour, he still wasn't out of breath. Another problem Gaara had in his fluffy form was that his tail threw off his balance, meaning every few metres he'd fall over or stumble. Destroying any hope of quickly developing the ability to run despite these drawbacks were the hateable legs he was attempting to run with. The abnormal joints and smaller surface area on which to spread his weight was completely at odds with his experience and physical memory of walking and running and so he spent almost as much time on the ground as he did running along it. It was downright embarrassing for a ninja of his calibre to be suffering these indignities.

Gaara ducked and dived as quickly as his training in stealth and evasion had taught him to in order to avoid his teacher and the obviously awkward questions that would be incurred by his capture. He thought he'd run out of luck when he stumbled into a clearing in the middle of the woods filled with the skeletal horses that he had seen draw the carts that carried the students from the train station to the castle a few weeks prior. He stopped himself, falling over again from the inertia, trying to remember if he had heard the beasts before him be described along the lines of 'small-tanuki-eating winged horses.' Deciding the risk would actually be worth keeping this secret safe, lest it become common knowledge that he was weakened once a month, Gaara started again towards the thestrals, planning to cut straight through them and keep running. To his astonishment, though, he was welcomed into the herd that parted to allow him access and closed off around him, giving him a protective barrier of, apparently, non-small-tanuki-eating winged horses; they were even careful not to stand on him or his sensitive tail. He'd discovered just how sensitive his tail was when he'd tried running with the thing in his arms and had cut into it a little with his claws. He would rather fall over with the thing swaying around behind him than cut it again.

The tanuki-boy waited with baited breath, as Hagrid tried to force his way into the herd, and only let out the breath he would never admit to holding in when the colossal man gave up and walked away with a dejected slump in his broad shoulders. Gaara disliked disappointing the obviously fanatical man, but his secret was now something he had to protect at any cost if he was retain both his safety and, maybe more importantly, his dignity. He was Sabaku no Gaara, he didn't do small and fluffy!

When the magical beasts were alone in the clearing, transformed and non, Gaara felt it was safe enough to leave his temporary bodyguards and continue onwards. He had all night to look around and he didn't like how the smaller, overly friendly, thestrals were nuzzling against his fluffy tail; it was unsettling to say the least. Leaving the inordinately affectionate animals, Gaara stumbled out from the forest of horse-like legs and back into the real forest to explore, and figure out exactly what he'd been turned into.

When he'd found a quiet place where he would be safe for a few moments, a cosy little alcove under a tree, Gaara sat down awkwardly and attempted to enter his mindscape to question the monster that was undoubtedly to blame for his confounded new form. The little fluffy serial killer was further irked when he couldn't enter his mind like usual. If he was to turn back to his human form in the morning, he would spend a lengthy spell in his mind talking to his detainee, but until then he would just try to stay alive.

Gaara decided that self-preservation without sand was much simpler given the ability to run, so he put his full energies into developing that difficult yet vital skill. He spent a pain-filled hour trying in vain to run on his back legs like he had always as a human but that inevitably ended with him falling flat on his face, or on his back when he'd tried to stretch his… his tail out fully backwards. No matter what he tried or how he positioned his lead weight of a tail, he just couldn't run. He could walk just fine, if a little wobbly because of the new legs ending in paws that were still very foreign to him. Frankly, Gaara had had an idea of how he could move more quickly some time ago, but despite the desperate circumstances he was presented with, he couldn't bring himself to try it.

As Gaara, panting with his tongue hanging out like some stray dog, lay on the dewy midnight ground, he finally surrendered to his instincts and rolled over onto his front. Pushing against the ground with his hands/paws, Gaara moved his legs under him until he was on all fours. It was a strange feeling, now that his legs and arms were the same length, even more so as the position was infinitely more comfortable than his regular posture, which he'd tried to keep in this foreign form. Taking an experimental few steps forward, this animalistic stride was indeed much easier than his human one. With a deep breath and a low crouch before, Gaara set off in his first successful run in this bestial form. It was certainly exhilarating, if nothing else; Gaara was bounding along much faster than he could hope to run in his human form, though he wasn't about to be thankful for this dislikeable turn of events.

When he'd finished his, admittedly fast, run, Gaara stopped off near a small lake in the middle of the woods. He wasn't going to drink from it, his pride had suffered enough blows for one night, but the water's still and reflective surface would serve another useful purpose. Peering into the mirror-like lake, Gaara was finally able to see just how bad his transformation had been.

It was bad.

He still had his red hair on the top of his head and his green eyes, which was a comfort of sorts as he had briefly feared that he would have Shukaku's distinctive demonic irises. Under his fringe lay his tattoo, his reminder. The only other facial feature that he recognised as himself were the permanent dark circles around his eyes, though they had become much more pronounced than they had been before, which was saying something. The tattoo, now that he looked closely, inching towards the water's edge, looked blurred and faded, which was to be expected as was the darkening of the black circles around his eyes, when he saw that, unlike before when they were simple skin pigmentations or modifications, they were now colourations of his fur.

Gaara's eyes were then drawn to where his human ears had disappeared from, only for them to be replaced by large tanuki ones, much like Shukaku's own, including the blue tips. He was annoyed to find that they, like his tail, twitched and reacted to his mood as shown by their current downward pointing position, displaying his predictably negative feelings. What was worse was that they were much larger than Shukaku's miniature ears, drooping down almost to Gaara's slumped shoulders.

His entire body was covered in the soft, fine, sandy-coloured fur, including his face which now looked more animal than human, even having a muzzle rather than just a regular nose, and on the end of said muzzle sat a small pink rhinarium. The blue markings present on all of his body, so much like those found on Shukaku's body, also seemed to be arranged so that they centred in on Gaara's belly which he was glad to see didn't have the same exaggerated rotund appearance that his unwelcome tenant had; instead, the markings swirled around the seal on his stomach. The seal, like his tattoo and the signs of his insomnia and possession, was in the colouration of his fur now and so didn't disappear when he stopped channelling chakra, not that he could use any chakra in this form. The only thing left to examine was his gigantic tail which he had had to look behind himself to see before, and only now could he truly appreciate its enormous size and girth next to his laughably tiny body.

Now satisfied that he knew at least what he was dealing with, Gaara moved away from his temporary mirror in order to perfect the running he should've mastered in his infancy and also to see the extent of his tail's formidable power when he used it as an almighty club.

The running didn't take as long to learn as he had feared, being largely instinctual when he ran on all four paws, but the tail swinging was more difficult it seemed, as more than once he found himself losing his footing when the weight of it was moved too quickly or too far away from his centre of gravity. What he was happy to see was that the tail was actually able to leave a sizable dent in the bark of a tree he hit it with. Gaara had little doubt that if he had to, he could easily wind somebody with this useful appendage, which was a welcome thought despite his previous abilities overshadowing this by no small measure.

Through this fascinating learning experience, Gaara had regrettably neglected to keep his sensitive fuzzy ears, now perked up in excitement, concentrated on his surroundings and so missed the ominous wheezing sound nearing him at an alarming speed. Only when the temperature plummeted and his fur bristled in warning did Gaara finally notice the dementor that was now floating down from the canopy, focussed on Gaara. The small fluffy creature weighed up his severely limited options in an instant: fight or flight. Considering his fighting capabilities were currently limited to his sharp yet tiny claws and his humongous tail, both of which were completely useless against a dementor, which he had seen in the past recover from even the most brutal blunt-force traumas, only dying when it was pierced through the head, which was an impossible task for his woefully short claws, he was leaning towards flight.

As his options, however limited, flew through his mind, Gaara watched the nightmarish monster descend upon him. The ghoulish entity swooped down on the shivering Gaara, though he would deny that assessment to the bitter end, with all of the grace one would expect from the Grim Reaper reconnecting with an old acquaintance. By the time he had clearly assessed the situation, once he was able to fight back the fear that was so foreign to him having had a solid stone wall of protection surrounding him all of his life, Gaara realised that he had no options left to him; he could not fight for lack of strength and weapons, and he could not run because the abomination in front of him was clearly much faster and stronger than him at the moment. Gaara could only remember one other time in his life when he had been completely defenceless and helpless, when he had lost to the boy who was just like him, on the day of the Chunin Exam finals. Although the fight had technically been a draw, neither party officially losing, Gaara knew he had lost then, and now he had lost again and for the same reason, because he had no one to rely upon; but this time he didn't have his brother and sister to drop down and protect him in his moment of vulnerability, he was once again alone in the world because he had failed to trust someone, anyone, yet again.

Not one to go out without some measure of a fight, Gaara got up onto his back legs and prepared himself for his very own miniature battle of Thermopylae, ready to fight until the bitter end. The dementor took one final passing sweep towards the snarling mini-bijū before it abruptly turned and began to move back towards the tree tops, seemingly disinterested with the angry little animal.

Whilst Gaara watched what he had been sure was finally going to kill him fly back into the blackened sky, he fell backwards onto his tail, which made for a comfortable beanbag-style seat, in a sudden moment overwhelmed shock. He couldn't believe he'd survived another near death experience. By the way the dementors had been drawn to him in the past, he'd assumed they were attracted to the power he held within him, but apparently he'd been mistaken; either he was mistaken or dementors couldn't sense the souls of animals, but that was obviously not right. Who would employ prison guards that didn't account for any animals?

Gaara spent the rest of the night roaming around the woods, avoiding any and all noises he heard for fear of smarter dementors that might finish the job of the last one that had almost scared him to death. By the end of the night, Gaara was happy to note that he had mastered running again; then again, he wasn't going to go and shout about his mastery of running on all fours, but he was still secretly pleased, even allowing a small smirk to appear on his canid face, briefly revealing the rows of tiny razor sharp teeth, before they disappeared again.

As the black of night began to turn into dark blue, Gaara started on his way back to wherever he had left his clothes at the beginning of his latest 'adventure.' Once again, his thoughts were dragged back to whether or not he would indeed turn back into a human in an hour or so when the sun peaked over the horizon, otherwise he was going to have a much more problematic time ahead of him, like the explanations he would have to make, and trying to turn back through his own power or with help from another. Before he could worry any more about his form, Gaara had a more imminent problem that he had underestimated earlier on, and that was how difficult it was to trace his steps back to where he'd left his clothes, especially when he had fled in a panic from his professor. On that note, he would have to be careful around Professor Hagrid for the next few days so that he wasn't recognised inadvertently for the similarities between his true form and this one.

It took a lot longer than Gaara had expected to find his discarded garments, which were very cold and dewy after a long night in the burrow of a tree. Nevertheless, he waited on baited breath for the sun to finally show its face and let him turn back into a human. As the blinding white light of the nearest star rose into sight, Gaara felt the more than welcome and so very familiar feeling of changing, like he had at the beginning of the night and he did not fight the sensation as it spread over his small body.

Unlike before, though, the human weapon didn't pass out during the transformation, so he got to experience the strange and uncomfortable sensation of his body physically morphing into a different form. As the fur crept back into his skin and his tail receded in his spine, Gaara felt his bones creak as they too became human again, reverting to their regular size and shape. The experience was not painless, it was not quick and it was not fun, but once it was over and done with, Gaara was better off for it as far as he was concerned.

Sluggishly, the newly formed body picked itself off of the ground, letting go a sigh of relief at seeing his body once again in the correct shape, and stumbled over to his waiting clothes as quickly as he could. He put on his damp clothes eagerly, having had quite enough of the freezing morning air in direct contact with his skin. Fighting off a shiver as he dressed himself, he did a once-over to check there were no lasting effects of his transformation, to which he thankfully found none, other than his sore throat. An experimental attempted hum proved that his voice was still lost to him, disappointingly.

Now dressed and ready to make the long (and apparently unnecessary) walk back to the castle, Gaara called the sand out of his pocket with the ease gained from years of repetition and cast his long-awaited Third Eye technique. He sent the orb into the air, so high that, when activated, he could see tens of miles all around him; he really was a very long way away from Hogwarts. He immediately started off running and hopping. If he was lucky, he would make it back to the castle in time for lunch, as he was feeling incredibly fatigued from all of the exertions in the last twelve hours and could do with a good meal. Luckily, it seemed he had not forgotten how to run as a human after a night on all fours. When the trees became a little denser, Gaara leapt up to one of the branches before jumping onwards from tree to tree, making much better time than he had on his way into the woods.