3/8

Despite her noble intentions and insistence as well as her attempts at breaching an agreeable topic, Gaara totally ignored her and her efforts. She only realised she was speaking to herself after five minutes when Gaara, who had been reading all this time, marked his place at the beginning of a new chapter and moved the book behind his back, under his gourd where he apparently kept a bag, and continued ignoring her by staring into space in front of him.

Any normal person might have taken this disinterest in conversing as a sign to give up, but being the hard-working Gryffindor that she was, Hermione drew upon the handful of sign language words she knew from when she was younger and had found an interesting book about it. Her conclusion was that the mute Gaara must have been offended all of this time that no one had tried to communicate with him through the proper language and had instead relied on his abilities with the sand, which must surely be tiring for him considering the weight of the sand and complexities of wandlessly and wordlessly controlling it to such a fine degree. If he was responsive, which in her mind was almost certain considering her flawless logic, she would get to studying so that maybe he could open up to her.

She walked up in front of him and apologised for being so insensitive, but he didn't give any sign he'd heard, his eyes hadn't even registered she was there. When she brought her hand up in front of her chest and made the sign for hello and sorry, Gaara's eyes finally reacted by following her hands carefully and his eyebrow rising. She smiled brightly, believing she'd finally cracked him, but after a few moments when nothing more happened on either side, his eyes went back to their fixed stare at the horizon and she was almost out of ideas. There was only one thing left to do: get creative. After all, maybe all the lonely and vulnerable Gaara needed, seeing as he looked a little younger than he was said to be, was a hug...

Walking closer to Gaara, she circled him a little, looking for the best way to initiate the unsolicited and surely unexpected physical contact, and she decided just small hug from the side wouldn't be too intimidating for Gaara. The mute Slytherin didn't seem like he had received too many hugs before and she didn't want to scare him off. He didn't move a muscle as she came closer, and also didn't move when her arms moved out in front and behind him. He didn't even move a muscle when, as she tried to bring him into an embrace, she was met violently by a wall of sand that seemed to spring out of nowhere and push her back at least six feet and onto her back.

All the while, Gaara really hadn't noticed any of it. He'd been in his head, trying to work out whether he'd remembered to sort the laundry he'd left in his and Draco's room. He didn't trust the House Elves to do it for him as they didn't seem very bright and he didn't want his shirt to get dyed accidentally. He was only brought out of his ponderings when he heard a loud shouting. The Jinchūriki was peeved to be distracted, as he'd already been bothered by that Gryffindor girl who walked out in front of him and tried to copy one of his hand signs, as far as he could tell.

"Hey, you jerk! Say sorry, right now!" Harry was fuming as he marched closer to Gaara who was still ignoring him and everyone else in the class who'd turned to stare at the boy when they'd heard and seen the wall of sand knock Hermione away from him. Ron was helping Hermione back to her feet, which were still fairly shaky after the unexpected aggression from Gaara's side. She tried to explain that it was all really her fault and that she'd been too forward and had startled Gaara, but she was ignored yet again. "Apologise to Hermione, right now!" Harry screamed at Gaara, who'd finally turned to take notice of what was happening. The only reply he got was a non-verbal tilt of the head, signalling that Gaara apparently didn't understand what he'd done wrong.

Harry became more fired up than he'd been in a long while at Gaara's disregard of his friend's safety and pulled out his wand. "You think you can do whatever you want because Professor Lupin has been giving you special treatment and extra help, but you don't deserve any of it. God, you're such an ass even your own House of snakes can't stand to be around you! You had one friend here and somehow even Malfoy, of all people, found you to be too repulsive to stand being around. And now you think it's okay to just knock around my friend when she was trying to be nice to you?"

Though Gaara had turned to him, he didn't take any more notice of what Harry was saying, instead he was wondering why he had sand out. Maybe Shukaku had repelled something and Potter had taken offence for some reason. That could be it. Still, when someone threatened him, with wand or kunai, Gaara didn't take it lightly. Especially since this was the perfect sort of situation that Shukaku would like to utilise to take control if he wasn't on guard. The shinobi didn't trust whatever had happened to the seal to keep Shukaku at bay so he kept his guard up and took a hold of the sand outside and inside the container with his chakra.

At seeing no reaction still, Harry screamed and launched his opening attack at Gaara, following up and pair of smaller stunners to either side of the shorter opponent, sure in the knowledge that when Gaara tried to dodge his first attack, he'd be caught by one of the others. But then the sand sprung up almost too fast for his eyes to follow and blocked the centre spell. Harry brought his wand up again, but had to jump quickly to avoid whatever overcharged spell Gaara had seen fit to retaliate with. Fortunately whatever it was didn't hit any students behind him. Gaara was a menace when attempting to do anything normal with magic, which just meant it was all the more perilous duelling against him.

Harry kept firing spells as fast as he could whilst running all around, even behind Gaara, looking for a weak spot in his impenetrable defence. Only one of Harry's spells made it through the sand wall, having snuck past before the block had been completed, but Gaara had been able to deflect the tickling hex with his own wand before countering swiftly.

The duel was fairly short lived as Harry made the erroneous decision to move closer in order to heighten his chances to firing a spell through the sand defence that seemed to react even when Gaara was unaware. But when he was close enough, Gaara's free hand shot out and made a fist, sending out a blast of sand thick enough to send Harry over onto his back before his wand was wrenched from his hand by the sand and dropped into Gaara's own.

With Gaara's wand pointed at the downed and unarmed Harry, everyone present held their breaths and waited. The winner slowly stepped towards the loser, his sand still coiling protectively around him as Gaara's hand stretched out again, his eyes fixed on Harry's spectacled ones. The sand creeped along the ground and then went up, covering the Boy-Who-Lived's legs. Harry clawed furiously as the sand continued to climb, tightly binding him. As the sand cocoon reached his chest, making it harder and harder for Harry to breathe, he felt so afraid watching Gaara's eyes widen and stretch, looking so angry at him.

Only when the sand reached Harry's neck, did Draco shout, "Gaara, stop!"

The red-haired ninja seemed to snap out of his trance, his eyes lowering their intensity to their usual levels and his hands reached up to his head, clutching at his temples. Whilst he looked to be experiencing the mother of all headaches, the sand encapsulating Harry lost its cohesion and he was able to wriggle free and crawl away to where his friends helped him up.

Soon, Gaara's grimace and clenched teeth disappeared and his hands dropped to his sides, where one made a small motion for the sand to return onto his back. He dropped Harry's stolen wand and walked away in a daze. Gaara didn't want to kill anymore children. It was common knowledge that shinobi killed from time to time for money, but he'd killed for fun, Shukaku's fun, and he was a monster.

As Gaara wandered away, lost in the past, Ron and Hermione helped up their friend, but no one present knew what a miracle it had been that all Harry had received were a few cuts and scrapes. Hermione was apologising profusely for what she'd done, though she wasn't too clear on exactly what it was, as she checked Harry over for any more serious injuries. Ron, on the other hand, was as furious as Harry had been, swearing he'd get that monster for what he'd done to both of his friends. All three of the trio were greatly disheartened at what had just transpired, as it went to prove that despite the recent lapse in Slytherin attacks against them from Malfoy that had lead them to hope that maybe things would change for the better, but now they knew that Slytherins really were all rotten. Even Hermione was struggling to see how Gaara could have meant anything other than to hurt her and Harry.

Draco, who was now stood away from the moderates, was also a little upset at events. Partly, the antagonist in him still wanted to see Potter in more serious pain, but the other part, the pacifist, was concerned about his normally placid roommate. He wanted to storm over to Potter and his mud-bl. . . his friend and demand answers for what just happened to set Gaara off, but it was clear that the entire Gryffindor half of their class would swiftly attack given the slightest Slytherin provocation at this point, and it was unlikely that his old friends among the snakes would be forthcoming with their help in a fight.

It was more likely that the Slytherin side of the class would egg the Gryffindors on when it came to Draco these days. He was the second most hated Slytherin, after the obvious first. Fortunately he still hadn't been openly called a blood-traitor, as word of such an insult would inevitably reach his father's ears and then any howlers he received from his parents would seem like praise compared to the hell that would rain down upon him.

With nothing left to do and not being on the right terms to go after Gaara to help him, Draco walked back to his new friends who were markedly quieter around him now. It was becoming a belief around the castle, surrounding Gaara's ongoing legend, that the only one that could control the savage demon was the one that had made a contract with it. People were saying that Draco had summoned Gaara in order to become the next Dark Lord. Draco actually laughed when he first heard about that, as he had briefly considered that application of his friendship with Gaara but had had to dismiss it completely since Gaara listened to very little of what he said. Nevertheless, this latest incident only further alienated Gaara and subsequently Draco from the other students.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Just as Gaara stalked away from the class he'd just terrorised, the device that tracked the remains of the dementors followed his movement and registered the small traces of the dementor dust inside the child's gourd. Morbidus turned as he heard approaching footsteps coming down the hill, and saw a teacher he'd not yet seen in the castle, meaning he was presumably the Professor Lupin who had been aiding in hiding this strange creature all day long.

Lupin choked back a gasp as he returned outside to see the tall, straight-backed form of the inspector gazing intently at the retreating shape of Gaara down by the class he'd left only twenty minutes before. His steps slowed and his blood ran cold when the inspector turned to him and flashed a small smug smile and a curt nod in his direction. All of Lupin's work to keep Gaara hidden and safe had been for nothing now.

Lupin stood before his adversary and couldn't keep from sweating as he had no idea of what to do next. He couldn't fight his way out of this, he couldn't bribe or trick or persuade the inspector. He saw, from behind Morbidus, that Dumbledore was slowly making his way back up the hill towards the castle, and they shared the same distressed look to see Morbidus was still there, still displaying that triumphant smile.

When Albus arrived he wanted to ask what Morbidus had seen so that he could work out a strategy of denial or maybe even to pre-empt the report to Fudge by flooing him immediately to disclose some information, all he'd need to do was delay the inspector half an hour. But Morbidus stopped him short by saying, "Thank you very much for accommodating this most... interesting inspection, Headmaster. I'll be on my way now." He didn't turn to look back nor did he slow his pace. It was as if he was trying to stop from skipping along with his giant legs, he was so exalted with his discovery.

He strode through the school with purpose, the small children having to rush to get out of his way, and as soon as he'd passed over the bridge and was outside of the wards of the castle, Morbidus apparated straight to the entrance of the Ministry, where he barged past the lines of employees trying to get into the building, scaring many of them with his mere presence.

The foreboding man strode straight into Cornelius Fudge's office, ignoring the Minister's secretary's feeble protests, and demanded an immediate debriefing despite Lucius Malfoy sitting across from the Minister currently having a meeting. Insincerely, Morbidus apologised as Lucius was ushered out of the office. Once the door was locked and the standard privacy spells had been cast, the Head of the Minister's Administrative Inspectors gave the report on his findings. He told of how the dementors were being killed and that Black was not the culprit, how this 'Gaara' had probably been responsible, that he probably wasn't entirely human, and that this Gaara was definitely something to be concerned about.

Morbidus left Fudge's office with the Minister himself holding his fat head in his red hands, and the beanpole of an official offhandedly remarked to Lucius that he should be more careful of who his son allies himself with in future if he was to remain in the Ministry's good favour.

Fudge realised that his problems had now tripled thanks to this report. Not only was the mass murderer and Death Eater, Sirius Black on the loose after having slipped past the dementors in Azkaban, but now he had be concerned with this strange Gaara that had been allowed in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Gaara was an enigma that the Ministry couldn't allow. They had no records of him, they didn't even have a surname to go on, just rumours of something along the lines 'Sabakuno', but that hadn't turned up anything either. And most troubling of all with Gaara, his wand didn't have the trace on it, as had been mandatory for all wands made for over four hundred years. Morbidus had been diligent to trace all of Gaara's movements outside of Hogwarts, even to Olivander's, before looking for the boy himself.

But even Gaara seemed unimportant in light of the biggest problem he now faced; Fudge could no longer trust his long time ally and confident Albus Dumbledore. If Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard still alive, was using the greatest magical school in the world to keep secrets from him at a time like this, then he was going to have one hell of a fight on his hands in the future. The Minister for Magic needed to take action, but even the inept politician that he was recognised that he couldn't recklessly charge into this matter. He'd need to be extra careful on this.

He invited Lucius back in, but kept what he'd just been told to himself.

Things were certainly dire.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

By the following morning in the castle things were back to normal, for the students, at least. Gaara was suffering the dreadful nausea he had come to associate very closely with attending Divinations; however, the short bijū container had recently come to the wonderful solution that allowed him to nullify the worst of the tower's aroma therapy stench by burying his nose in a cup of tea for the hour-long lesson. His plan, whilst a little distracting from whatever it was that he was supposed to be learning, did also have the added benefit of making him look like he was working hard to 'gaze into the future' with his 'mind's eye' as he intently studied the bottom of his tea cup. Anything to distract Trelawney from giving him another worrying prophecy was a plentiful bonus.

On the other hand, after a few weeks, it occurred to the professor and the class that they hadn't studied tea leaves since the first week and no one present knew where Gaara had gotten his cups of tea from. It was dismissed, though, as of all of the strange things Gaara had done, summoning a cup of tea from out of nowhere was really rather inconsequential.

During this lesson, they were supposed to be using Tarot Cards with the people they were sitting across from to predict their fates. As fate would have it, Gaara had been placed next to Ronald Weasley since Trelawney wanted to test Ron's inner eye on someone other than the perpetually doomed Harry and the doubter Hermione. In the end, it seemed that Gaara had the same luck as Harry, as Ron kept telling him over and over that he was dead or going to die, usually with a menacing snarl or glare. It really didn't make for good tea-time conversation.

After his tea and the lesson had ended, Gaara was walking down away from the Tower of Bad Smells, when he spotted Draco breaking away from the flowing mob moving towards the Great Hall. Gaara was grateful that he'd be able to sit down for peaceful meal without the looming sense of dread that emanated from the evil aura Draco had been cultivating the past few weeks. Little did he know, Draco had decided today was the day for his plan to finally be enacted.

In the Great Hall, Gaara was practically in heaven as he ate the gizzard dish he'd finally gotten around to requesting the night before. To tell the truth, Gaara was little surprised that the House Elves in the kitchens had actually received the note he'd left with his dirty dishes, but even more surprising was that they were able to read. He had wanted to go down to the kitchen to request some more home-like dishes, but every time he had gone down there for something to give to Fluffy, he had found none of the elves were willing to get close enough to him for a chat. Fortunately, the elves apparently still liked him enough to cook him his special dish... or they were really afraid of him. Either way, it was nice to have a taste of home again.

As he snacked down on yet more of the chewy treat, an eclectic delicacy where he came from, one of Draco's new friends began to zigzag towards him, looking about as afraid as he'd seen someone act around him in months. Apparently this boy, something Norbel if he remembered correctly, had been one of the more acutely affected witnesses to his sparring match with Potter the day before. Gaara had decided to call it a sparring match as he didn't want to admit how close he'd been to killing the nuisance. Still, Gaara chomped down on his gizzard-on-toast slowly as he watched Norbel approaching slowly, as slowly as if he were approaching a wild lion. Gaara was half surprised the moderate hadn't brought a first-year as a human sacrifice in case the red-head had been less than amicable.

Really, people were acting like he had actually off'ed the Boy-Who-Lived. He might as well have, with people acting the way they were, but it was probably a bit too late now to find Harry, kill him and claim he was just finishing off their fight. Still...

"Um, Gaara?" Gaara stopped looking around the hall for the Potter boy and his two friends and turned back to Roy who'd finally plucked up the nerve to come within biting distance, figuratively speaking. Gaara watched blankly for a few seconds and wondered if he was supposed to confirm that he was in fact the "Gaara" Roy had been looking for. Seeing as Roy hadn't moved a muscle since his mouth closed, close to bolting, Gaara guessed, he nodded carefully.

At Gaara's acceptance, Roy breathed out a little, trying to calm himself down.

Maybe Gaara was acquiring the reputation of being a budding Dark Lord, and that was how Volde-whatsit had treated his underlings, by killing them when they spoke out of turn? It just went to show how peaceful this world had been for the past decade, when Gaara hadn't even killed anyone and he was still being treated like a mass-murderer. If only they knew the truth.

Gaara had to stop the smallest curvature of a smile from pulling at his lips at the thought of the pandemonium the truth would unleash, when Norbel moved onto why he had actually approached Gaara, which was probably quite important seeing how scared everyone was of him at the moment. "D-D-Dumbledore wants to see you. M-m-" If the addressee didn't know any better, he might have thought Roy had been about to call him 'Mister Gaara.' "He said to meet him by the big tapestry on the Fourth Floor. D-do you know where that is?"

The big, scary sadistic part of the shinobi considered 'saying' no, just to force the Slytherin boy to accompany him. Poor Roy probably wouldn't have made it to the third floor before he wet his pants. But instead Gaara took pity on Draco's friend and nodded and watched him back away slowly, never turning his back. It was only as he watched the retreat that Gaara saw that many people around him had seen the exchange and looked even more scared than before. Next thing he knew, Gaara was probably going to be called Dark Lord Sandimort. That was the last thing he needed, another ridiculous name.

As he made his way upstairs, giving up on the rest of his lunch after he'd finished his special requests, he wondered exactly what the headmaster wanted to say to him. It was obviously going to be in regards to the fight yesterday, but Gaara couldn't fathom what the educator would want to say about the friendly little duel, seeing as no one was killed or permanently maimed.

As far as Gaara knew, which was admittedly as limited as the amount of people willing to tell him things, Harry and Hermione hadn't had any injuries worth talking about after the events yesterday. Maybe Dumbledore had to give him a slap on the wrist, seeing as fighting wasn't encouraged in civilian schools. But then, why hadn't Harry been called up instead, seeing as he'd started it.

Gaara found the big tapestry quickly enough, which was to be expected with just how big the thing was. It spanned the entire length of the corridor, running parallel to the windows, all except one of which were closed. The Jinchūriki wondered where Dumbledore was. It was terribly rude to invite someone to talk and then not show up in a timely manner. How was he supposed to learn a lesson about respecting the rules when the headmaster didn't even follow basic etiquette?

Gaara stood by the open window, grimacing at the cold now chilling him to the bone but admiring spectacular view of the lake and valley. Even on a grey day like this one, Gaara thought Scotland was a beautiful place.

But then Scotland moved a couple of feet downwards and Gaara took a moment to reflect on why that was. Looking down, Gaara saw that the carpet he was stood on was now hovering steadily in the air, and suddenly his magical-aviaphobia flared into life and the well-honed reflexes and enormous power at Gaara's disposal abandoned him.

Gaara felt paralysed as the jinxed flying-carpet flew up and out of the open window and through the clear air. Some kind of sticking charm stopped him from sliding off but that was little consolation as Gaara's mind was filled with unprecedented panic. Gaara hadn't been hurt a lot of times in his life, and even fewer times were those injuries anything serious. So his fear of flying magically was quite profound, as was his fear of lightning and lightning-cutters. If Gaara ever met a thousand chirping birds, he would probably have a strong aversion to them as well.

The enchanted carpet soared high in the air, swooping and diving. It completely escaped his notice at the time, but Gaara later heard that a sizable number of students had witnessed what was going on from the ground.

The flight lasted, thankfully, only a few short minutes, but to Gaara it could have lasted all day for how it had felt to him. By the time the carpet began to make its final descent, Gaara was close falling back into sitting, but his legs held out long enough for the carpet to dive towards the ground only pulling up in time to run parallel to it. Gaara was just about ready to summon the strength to jump off onto the ground, when he saw his carpet-ride was now above the glassy surface of the Black Lake.

The carpet stalled for one terrible moment, in which Gaara looked up and saw Draco sitting on the shore of the lake with that ridiculous, great big smile he'd seen on only one other blond in his life. Gaara called his sand out as quickly as he could, knowing for sure what was to happen next, but before he could make a stable platform, Draco's wand, now in his hand, pointed downwards in a most sadistic motion. The carpet seemed to go slack under Gaara's feet and then he was falling again, all of ten feet into the piercingly cold water.

The one solace, that he later recognised, was that his sand was spared as it was still floating attentively (mockingly) above the surface alongside the carpet that was dangling like the strings on one end had been cut.

Gaara burst through the top of the water, taking in a big breath and gasping in a silent scream at how cold the water was. He actually saw ice forming at the edge of the lake. The biting cold was only confounded when Gaara heard and saw the absolutely raucous laughter coming from his spectating roommate. The howling laughter only ceased once Gaara managed to pull himself on top of the water's surface and began to walk along it like the scariest little messiah Draco had ever seen. Even the 'miracle' in front of him didn't stop Draco from smiling like he hadn't smiled in weeks.

Gaara walked atop the water, avoiding the icy lake and the admittance that he wasn't a particularly strong swimmer, while his sand reformed his gourd and reattached itself to his back all without him making any gesture, so intent was he that he wanted to reach dry, stable earth again. Gaara continued walking, right up to Draco, until they were close enough for the blond to see Gaara's miniscule shivers. The drenched part-time tanuki stood there for a little while; a lengthy pause to deliberate his response.

Sand flew out of Gaara's gourd and Draco couldn't stop himself from flinching until he saw that they were spelling out a message instead forming sharp tendrils to kill him, which he'd always assumed was a possibility.

The message read: 'We are even now.' With Gaara under it trying his hardest to suppress his shivering enough to raise his eyebrow and look as stoic as usual.

Draco slumped his shoulders, sighed in relief and confirmed that they were definitely even now and that he was glad it was over with. The dry Slytherin was readying to offer Gaara a little assistance up to the castle to get changed into dry clothes but before anything more could be passed between them, Gaara nodded at Draco in some unknowable benevolent gesture, and then shunshined back into the castle and to their room. It would be so much easier getting changed now that Gaara didn't have to dodge Draco to get back into their room.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"How did this happen?" McGonagall was concerned to see just how worn out this whole affair had left Albus. As the headmaster had asked this damning question, his head was resting on top of his hands, meaning to look to his most trusted staff members like he was in deep concentration but Minerva knew that really Dumbledore just didn't have the energy to sit up straight right now. Even if McGonagall had been walking up and down stairs all day, Albus had been performing countless spells to manipulate the castle's stair cases and secret passages as only a headmaster could. It was at times like these that Minerva remembered that unlike her, Albus wasn't just getting old, he was already almost twice her age.

"I'm sorry Headmaster. If I hadn't left Gaara on his own, Morbidus wouldn't have seen a thing." Lupin was looking like the runner up in this contest of attrition, appearing to be stressed, probably having not slept the night before. And with the full moon approaching, Remus would be feeling this acute weight tenfold.

"I don't mean to cast blame, I just-"

"Well, I do wish to cast blame. Your failure had left one of my students in the line of fire. Do you think Morbidus will leave it at this? This is only the beginning, and now he's seen Gaara and seen what he can do, the flood if going to be at the castle's walls in a matter of weeks, maybe days! Don't say you're sorry, it doesn't mean a thing when you've already caused this much damage." Severus wasn't pulling his punches this evening, and with how angry he was, no one present felt it was a good idea to mention that Severus detested Gaara and that he had no right to be angry on his behalf.

"Hold on a minute there, Professor Snape," However, despite it not being a good idea, Hagrid wasn't one to drop a moral qualm, "Everyone knows how you feel about Gaara. You don't have the right to be getting angry at Professor Lupin here when he tried his best to help. Where were you when all of this was happening?"

"Enough! Severus, now isn't the time for blame, Albus is right. We need to work out what the next move will be and how best to minimize the damage." Minerva was in no mood to see her old students argue with kind Rubeus in the middle of their meeting.

"Thank you, Minerva. But the Ministry has already made their move. I received an owl from Cornelius this morning, notifying me that Azkaban are going to be assigning more dementors to Hogwarts in the near future, as a precaution against whatever had been attacking them, as well as an added measure against Sirius Black."

"Do we know when these replacement dementors will be arriving?"

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as that, Severus. The Minister feels that in order to ensure the safety of our students, he wants to increase the number of dementors guarding the school. He intends to have three times the current number guarding Hogwarts' borders."

"What?" Minerva looked aghast, "You cannot be serious, Albus. That many dementors here? What about Azkaban itself? Surely they can't be intending to take away that many of its guards, breakouts will become a weekly occurrence."

"I imagine they'll leave a sufficient guard at the prison. The numbers will probably be made up of the other dementor colonies around the world that the British Ministry and the chiefs in Azkaban can control. Gathering that many won't be easy, even for the Minister, but it's probably his way of telling us that he's stepping up the game." Remus didn't enjoy the prospect of that many dementors around, what with Sirius so close by.

"You don't mean to say that Cornelius intends to declare war on Hogwarts, do you?" McGonagall's hand flew to cover her mouth, an uncharacteristic gasp showing everyone just how perilous the situation was. "They wouldn't go so far because of one student, surely."

"Professor Lupin is right," As much as it pained Severus to admit it, "Minister Fudge is making his intentions known. This isn't about one child, even Fudge isn't so simple as to take such a gamble over any one boy, no matter how monstrous or obscure. His isn't declaring war; he's telling us that he knows we can't be trusted, so he's making this into our term-time prison, complete with guards."

"That can't be right. I know the Ministry sometimes makes mistakes, but there's no one in the entire world that cares about the school more than Professor Dumbledore, they know that." Hagrid looked either angry or confused, it was often hard to distinguish the two where the half-giant was concerned.

"Fudge doesn't care, and neither does Morbidus. They now know that Albus and the rest of the school are keeping secrets, and after the last few years at this school, those secrets are clearly not ones to be scoffed at. Morbidus is a veteran, and he sees any kind of mistrust as the enemy. And we all know how paranoid Fudge has been around Dumbledore thanks to those silly rumours about Albus running for Minister of Magic. We are most certainly not at war, but the eyes of the Ministry are now firmly on us." Severus knew enough to be as worried as Minerva and Albus.

"But that's okay, isn't it. It's not like we've got anything to hide, right?" Hagrid was looking around the room, trying to see agreement and not finding it.

"Rubeus, I'm afraid there are a number of secrets, among other things, that Hogwarts holds that should be kept out of the hands of politicians, chiefly the futures of our students. I'm afraid there isn't anything else we can do for the moment other than to teach our classes, run the school and try our best to remain calm. This must, under no circumstances, reach the ears of the other staff members or, even worse, the students. We must show Cornelius that this school's absolute concern is for the students within its walls, nothing more and nothing less."

And suddenly it occurred to Lupin and Snape why Gaara had been admitted to the school. Both of the men had puzzled over this conundrum for the past two months as it just didn't make any sense to them. To admit a strange student into the middle of his education without knowing a thing about him... it was to protect him. Lupin felt a wave of relief wash away some of the doom that had been lingering thanks to this conversation. Severus felt more annoyed than relief, as he still couldn't see the purpose to caring for some disturbing little magical creature (nothing like Gaara could be a full-blooded human).

The two hopelessly trusting men came to the wrong conclusion as Albus moved on to less problematic recent events, namely why he had seen the subject of their latest problems, Gaara, flying out of a fourth floor window on an illegally imported magic carpet.

The staff members briefly discussed the prank but all eyes turned to Snape when Lupin asked whether Gaara had taken any moves towards revenge. They might have to move the student to a new school for his own safety. But Snape said that as far as he knew, things were going smoothly, and Gaara had even moved back into the dorms instead of sleeping rough. Minerva was upset that one of the students had been camping out in the classrooms all this time, but relented when Remus said Gaara's friendship with Draco was probably best left unprobed.

No one mentioned them outright, but all thoughts of the culprits were naturally directed at the Weasley Twins who had been out of control this year. They weren't mentioned out loud because there was no evidence for the accusation whatsoever, and none present could quite figure out how the austere Weasley's had managed to save up enough money to buy a magic carpet on the black market.

Snape later tried to recall where he had heard the black market being mentioned a few weeks ago, but soon dropped the thought as none of his Slytherins would possibly sink so low as to perform practical jokes, and on their own housemate, no less.

The twins for their part had been gobsmacked to see Gaara, the scariest student in Hogwarts, and recent defeater-of-the-defeater-of-You-Know-Who, being flown around on a magic carpet before being dunked in the lake. McGonagall had taken housepoints from them when they'd stood up the middle of her class and began applauding out the window. Minerva, for her part, had to pretend that she hadn't seen a thing in order to bring her class in line. But this whole event had left the twins a little out of sorts, as it was a prank that they just couldn't replicate. Not only were flying carpets incredibly expensive (and they had to prank within their means) but Gaara was a psychopath and they weren't willing to make a target of themselves to upstage the mystery prankster. They'd have to find some other way of retaking their place at the top of the school's most wanted list (pinned to Filch's door despite requests by the staff to stop criminalising students).

At the end of the meeting, Albus held Severus back a few moments to talk with him, "Severus, I wonder if I might make a request of you?"

"What is it, Headmaster?" Severus droned out, never liking this vein of conversation. It never boded well for him when Dumbledore asked him for anything. He had scars that he could attribute to favours he'd given, and god forbid Albus ever repay him for them...

"I want to discuss your readmitting Gaara into your Potions classes." Snape opened his mouth wide, ready to shout his refusal to the heavens but he was stopped when Albus raised his hand to finish what he needed to say. "With Gaara's progress in mind, I believe Potions is the only class that Gaara hasn't had an opportunity to improve in. Surely you can't bar a student from learning when they clearly still have so much to learn and a willingness to do so."

"You don't know the damage that boy has brought about in my classroom since the term began. He's set fire to the stones of Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake! And besides that-"

"I am well aware of your feelings regarding Gaara, but putting personal grudges aside, this is a school, Severus, and like or not, you are a teacher. It is your duty to impart your knowledge onto each and every one of the students that pass through these halls." Albus was getting desperate, resorting to beseeching Severus on behalf of the Slytherin's pride as a teacher.

"Very well. I will let it return to my class on the condition that I be allowed to remove him permanently if he causes any more danger to the others in his class."

"We will discuss it if the occasion arises. Well, I am very glad that you have seen sense, Severus. I'm sure you will soon see why all of the other teachers have begun to sing Gaara's praise lately."

"We'll see." 'You meddling old coot.'

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

As the war council in the Dumbledore's office was winding down, in the Slytherin dormitories, Draco was catching up on some of his long-neglected correspondence. Gaara was asleep in his bed on the other side of the room and even in his sleep he looked fittingly happy to not be sleeping on his increasingly uncomfortable (improvised) sand bed technique.

Now, Draco knew Gaara didn't necessarily need sleep, so it just went to show how happy the racoon-impersonator was, that Draco had been forgiven so readily.