3/5

It was a brief moment, not much longer than a lightning strike, but as he'd darted passed the stands at the top of the tower, he thought he'd seen a very ominous sign. His mind must have been playing tricks, his denial could not see a way it could be true, that there had been a Grim sitting and watching him and next to it had been Gaara! It just wasn't possible.

Harry was just about to turn his broom around, to go back and check to see if his newest enemy was in cahoots with his death omen, when he spotted a glint of gold that wasn't one of the Weasley twins, as it had been half a dozen times before. He set off immediately to chase the orb into the worsening weather above them and only belatedly noticed that Malfoy had seen it as well as was also going for the snitch.

The pair of Seekers raced up into the dark and storming clouds, dodging stray coats and flying umbrellas as the wind sent missiles to dissuade them. It was soon clear that despite Draco's superior broom, Harry was the better flyer of the two as he pulled out in front, his arm already reaching for the snitch.

Draco followed only milliseconds after, but he held his hands back and clutched onto is broom tightly, seeing the water running off of it turning to ice in what he thought was the winter's chill. It was only as the pair broke through the cloud line at breakneck speed that they saw a sight that filled them with dread before the effects of the dozens of dementors took hold of them.

Harry's previous encounters with the misery monsters had proven that he had an extra susceptibility to them, so he fell within moments of their icy reach gripping at his mind, but it was not much longer, as Draco tried to turn around and fly back downwards, that he too succumbed to the amassed and multiplied effects of the prison guards. Draco had turned ad just begun to fly straight back through the cloud line, with no thought spared for his classmate who was falling unaided, as the fear and darkness that was attacking his soul was beyond any he had felt and he knew he had to get away. He didn't make it to the clouds again before darkness crept in and he lost his grip on his Nimbus 2001 and fell too, just before the rotted hands of the nearest dementor were able to clasp him to their tormenting embrace.

The entire Quidditch stadium had gone from cold to icy in an alarming speed that precious few understood quickly enough to summon their Patronuses in defence. The first dementors breached the line of visibility at the same moment as the first of the two plummeting teens. Having watched Draco and their Gryffindor Seeker fly upwards a few moments ago in a rare spate of calm in the storm, Gaara jumped to his feet when he saw someone falling and instinctively sent out his sand to catch them, forcing as much chakra as he could spare to harden it against the onslaught of rain. Harry, his uniform now recognisably not Draco's, fell into the soft clutches of Gaara's sand arm and Gaara began to retract the appendage, seeing that he had no time to spare with all of those pesky dementors swarming from up on high. Speaking of... where was...?

A jolt to Gaara came when he saw a second falling boy approaching the ground, on the other side of the stadium and a long way from him. Gaara calculated, at speeds that belied his mediocre mathematical skills, whether even by dropping Harry there he could reach Draco before he impacted on the insufficiently softened muddy field. No chance. He tried to think of something he could do, something he could use, but nothing would work.

He thought he heard a low voice coming through the rain but his mind focussed on how, in his panic, Draco seemed to be falling in slow motion. It was remarkable that the dementors and rain seemed to speed up proportionally. Wait! Draco had actually slowed down! Someone on the other side of the wooden structure, in one of the other towers had cast some sort of spell. Thank goodness.

With that considerable worry out of the way, Gaara was still feeling quite fuelled by adrenalin and upset that his friend had almost been killed by these cloaked nuisances, so he dumped Harry into the stands beside him and sent out his sand in a set of super-dense spears to tear the closest dementors apart. It was not the most efficient use of his abilities, but in the conditions he didn't have much choice in his usage.

As he manipulated the trajectory of the lances to swoop as fast as the retreating players, to attack any of the monsters that came too close to him or his side of the stadium, Gaara turned to see Padfoot sniffing Potter and licking his nose concernedly but he nudged the worried dogfather with his foot and pointed to the stairs. These guards were on a feeding frenzy among the bright-eyed students, but they would have a field day if they found the escapee they were actually supposed to be looking for.

The number of dementors was clearly beyond his meagre abilities in this weather, so it came as a relief to Gaara when a blinding silver light began to wave and radiate from the other side of the stadium from the general vicinity that Draco had fallen into. The brilliant light crashed into the dementors buzzing about the place and sent them flying in pain that Gaara hadn't thought possible for the soulless wraiths.

The source of the light began to dim only after the last of the black hoods had fled the area and everything seemed to return to a calmness that ignored the raging storm still going on. Gaara called back his flying sand and refilled his gourd before turning to his good deed for the day. Potter was asleep it seemed, but slapping didn't rouse him so Gaara threw him over his narrow shoulder and began to walk down the unnecessarily tall staircase. At least it was dry and secluded from the violent winds, but it still wasn't gratifying to know that of all the people he could have rescued from plummeting to their deaths, it was probably the second most antagonistic person in the school. If it had been Snape, he might have seriously considered just pitching him off the side of the tower and pretending he'd missed the catch.

He carried Harry down and out of the stadium, into the throngs of panicking students who had only just overcome the trauma induce by Sirius Black's break in, and to the front of the crowd where the staff were discussing the situation heatedly and glancing around frantically, on the lookout for any more dementors. McGonagall, who had been levitating Draco's fitfully sleeping body and talking to Snape, spotted Gaara incoming and let out a great breath of relief when she recognised her missing student draped over his shoulder.

Gaara stooped down to drop Harry to the floor as gently as he could, within the bounds of his patience and short lived benevolence, before he walked to Draco's floating side to check he too had survived the fall without any major injury. It didn't escape his notice that the Granger girl was thanking him profusely while she fussed over Harry, nor did he miss the scowl on Weasley's face even now. Gaara had no time to give to receiving such praise, or animosity, as he wanted to get out of the rain and the staff had begun a procession towards the castle, McGonagall guiding the two hovering, unconscious teens with them.

Gaara wasn't too worried about Draco, he just seemed to have passed out, but the look on Dumbledore's face was really quite something. He'd seldom seen his own father that angry, and with the level of respect that this headmaster received, which his father often didn't achieve, it was interesting to think that such a kind and powerful old man might have finally gotten angry. It was unfortunate that the ancient wizard took off towards his office as soon as they entered the school, as Gaara would have liked to have seen what happened when Albus Dumbledore worked out some of his aggression.

He ignored Flint and the other Quidditch players as they lead the rest of the House back to the dorms, and instead followed McGonagall to the Hospital wing. He wasn't worried about Draco, he was just very cold and thought Pomfrey might have a potion or a better heater for him to warm up with.

Madam Pomfrey was more than willing to give Gaara a bed for the night, since his forehead felt like it was made of cold stone (which it just happened to be made out of), but she kicked both Hermione and Ron out of the ward after an hour, eliciting a fair few impertinent questions as to why the likely serial killer was allowed to stay and not them but she just huffed and slammed the door after them.

She turned to him and gave him a consoling smile before attending to Harry, the Mediwitch pretending not to have seen the little smile Gaara displayed in return. Gaara took the bed next to Draco's, for no real reason, really, and sat down. He was up to date with his homework so he didn't have anywhere better to be, and he didn't have any other friends to talk to, so he had nothing better to do. He just sat there and waited, coincidentally facing in the direction of Draco's bed.

Gaara was knocked out of his trance when the doors opened and Lupin poked his head in, turned to him and then gestured for him to follow the man out. Gaara gave Draco one last look and stood to leave.

Outside of the Hospital Wing, Lupin closed the door gingerly and moved a few steps further away, "Sorry about the cloak and dagger routine," He whispered, "Madame Pomfrey was here when I was a schoolboy and she's not gotten any kinder with age." Gaara wondered why he got special treatment. "I wanted to say well done earlier, saving Harry and all. Really well done.

"The dementors weren't supposed to be on the grounds today and they most certainly weren't meant to attack. Dumbledore is furious, as I'm sure you can imagine. The only one who is making more of a fuss, I hear, is Draco's father. Apparently Mr Malfoy has already heard about his son's fall and wanted to remove him from the school tonight. Professor Dumbledore said he was doing everything he could to calm any concerned parents, but all the same, things are tense."

'Sirius was there.' Lupin had to squint to see the letters in the dark of the hallway.

"What? What do you mean Sirius was there? Where?"

'In the stands, with me. He watched the game. He got away.'

"I'll go check on him, and this time I'll impress upon him not to try sneaking back into the school again. He's getting reckless." Lupin flashed that same look that Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy had been wearing all evening but the look passed and he glanced back to Gaara, "Are you going to stay here tonight or are you going back to your dormitory? I can give you a pass so you won't get stopped by Filch or Severus; a night like this and he's bound to be prowling the halls."

Gaara shook his head and turned around and walked back into the infirmary without a by-your-leave. He didn't feel like walking back to his room tonight, he could sleep just as well in one of the Medical Wing's beds, or stay awake as he ended up doing. It wasn't often that he couldn't get to sleep no matter how much he tried, so it was quite perplexing as he lay in the bed next to Draco's why he was unable to drift off.

It was so frustrating, that this pit in his stomach was taking the place of the ill-tempered demon bound to his soul was ridiculous. It wasn't like he had anything to worry about, he was safe. He was almost tempted to use his Forced Sleep technique, but that jutsu might still have the nasty side effect of releasing Shukaku. He hadn't tested that.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

At breakfast, the atmosphere permeating the Great Hall was tense once again, and the staff were just as much to blame as the students. Collective feelings of fear had not been this high since the Basilisk attacks last year had started and students had been petrified left and right, now that the so called protection their trusted Ministry had provided had turned out to be more of a threat to their health than the murderer that had broken in. The children, normally shouting across tables and excitedly chattering away, were whispering and huddling and looking to the staff table for some kind of official reassurance.

The owl post had been cancelled that morning to spare the upset castle's occupants any further unrest, which was assured when the torrents of letters from concerned or irate parents would arrive. There would be time for that in the coming days. After a series of pointed looks from Minerva, Severus, Pomona and Filius, Albus stood from his throne at the head of the hall and waited for the few remaining students to cotton on and hush up along with everyone else that had already avidly watched him.

"I believe apologies are in order," Dumbledore began, "on behalf of both Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, who are not here to say it. The Dementors strayed onto the grounds of the school yesterday, pursuing Sirius Black, and in so doing they trespassed onto the Quidditch field in the course of the game and as a result two players were sent to the Hospital Wing and the game was cancelled. I cannot stress how much worse things might have gone, but as the headmaster of the school and the person who permitted the Dementors to guard us, the responsibility falls to me to say sorry to you, the students who could have been hurt." The students and the staff had not seen this coming. Albus was a revered veteran and seasoned and respected politician on top of being the most powerful wizard still in action, so such a profound apology for the Minister of Magic's mistake was humbling for the student body.

It was also unsettling, seeing the, in some eyes, god-like man acting so unreservedly.

"The wards of Hogwarts castle have been modified and the Dementors have been banished from the grounds for the time being. They will not be allowed to attack any students again." Albus looked back at his ornate chair and was about to sit back into it but stood straight at the last moment. "Ah, I almost forgot; the Quidditch match yesterday has been postponed for the time being and the season will be resumed in the New Year when the Seekers from Slytherin and Gryffindor have had time to recover and replace their lost brooms." Albus sat back finally, listening to the greatly missed excited chatter as it flooded the hall again. If there was one thing that could get his students talking again, it was Quidditch.

He was too old for sleepless nights, he had been for sixty years, but last night he had spent the dark hours shouting irately at Fudge, Scrimgeour and the Dementor wranglers from Azkaban over the unforgivable lapse the day before. He would have mentioned it to the students, but he didn't want to terrify them by revealing just how scared he was of how close they had come to being hurt. The dementors had number in the dozens and had encompassed the field, attacking the students indiscriminately, not Sirius Black. It had been a mixture of luck and intervention from Gaara that prevented anybody from dying or worse before he was able to send out his Patronus to clear the stadium. He hadn't even seen Harry falling through the gale, his old eyes hiding behind his half-moon spectacles were no longer the eagle-eyed instruments he'd used to defeat Gellert.

That boy attacks Harry Potter, battles his Head of House and Headmaster, chases off Sirius Black, saves Harry from falling to his death and protects surrounding students from Dementors. If only he'd just pick one path so Albus could devise a strategy to deal with him.

Hagrid approached Hermione and Ron, spotting them along the Gryffindor by their distinctive hairs. Both the teenagers looked up at their friend turned professor with hopeful looks, having mentioned to him the night before that Harry's broom had been blown away during the upheaval the day before and asked him to keep an eye out for it.

"Morning, Ron, Hermione. How are you today?" Hagrid only engaged in small talk when he was nervous about something, and since his beard wasn't singed he hadn't procured another dragon's egg. Before either Ron or Hermione could answer what to them was a simple enough pleasantry, Hagrid cracked, "Oh, who am I kidding? You know why I'm here. I found Harry's broom."

Despite Hagrid's odd panic, both of the two thirds of the Golden Trio present were visibly elated to hear that Harry's Nimbus 2000 had been recovered safely. They had feared it might days or weeks to retrieve the broom. Their strings were cut when Hagrid leaned forward between them and deposited the pile of kindling he'd had hidden in his enormous palm.

"Oh my goodness! Hagrid, what happened?" Hermione turned back to Hagrid. Ron just continued to stare at the broken bits of broom and twig that Hagrid had thoughtfully collected.

"Well, I was looking around the grounds, mostly for any stray Dementors and the like, when I saw the Whomping Willow hitting something on the ground near its roots. I was worried it was one of the children, see, so I ran to check. I think Harry's broom must have blown into the Whomping Willow in the storm, and that tree's never taken too kindly to things landing on it..."

Ron finally dejectedly spoke, "Harry's broom..." There might have been a tear in his eye.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry was the first to wake up in the Infirmary and his first instinct, other than to check for any missing limbs or a stray house elf was to escape Pomfrey's clutches before the tyrannical healer could insist on any number of Pepper Up potions or those disgusting nourishment draughts. He ran for the exit as soon as the kindly but overbearing woman's back was turned, passing a single closed curtain before making it to the door. He wondered who was behind the curtain, whether someone had managed to hurt themselves between whenever he had arrived and now. His experience with Gaara earlier in the term had taught him not to go sneaking into other people's hospital areas uninvited.

It was rather disorientating since Harry wasn't too sure what day it was nor how he had ended up in the Hospital Wing as he wandered through the empty castle halls. Not until he reached the Great Hall did he recall the disastrous turn the Quidditch match had taken, but beyond falling off his broom and the Dementors attacking, it was all a bit of a mystery.

Hermione and Ron saw him approaching and swept something behind themselves before he was able to get a closer look at it. He sat down with a huff, ignoring the cheers and well wishes from his housemates around him until he could find out what had happened. It was a great relief to hear that he had only slept through the night, pleasant surprise considering how prone to nightmares the boy-who-lived happened to be.

"What happened?" His green eyes bore into his friends', skipping as much preamble as he could afford for the moment, desperate as he was to discover what had happened after the match. He'd been happy to see what appeared to be the entire student body at breakfast, not half missing and soulless.

"Well, you see..." Ron was clearly the more reluctant of the pair as Hermione quickly interjected from his pause.

"Yesterday, the Dementors attacked the match, they shouldn't have even been on the grounds! You were knocked off your broom I think, or you fell-"

"Harry didn't fall!" Ron's indignant defence of his flying skills was truly endearing to Harry.

"Fine, Harry was knocked off his broom, Ron, and you were falling from so high... It was on the far side of the stadium where there weren't so many people and, well..." Hermione looked to Ron nervously, uncharacteristically unsure of herself. Harry thought they were going to tell him that no one had caught him and that he was a ghost now.

Ron took his cue from there to be as blunt as only he could be, "Gaara caught you like a Quaffle, he used his sand, though. It was lucky he did, otherwise you would have, you know..." Harry was shocked; about as shocked as if he had been told he was indeed dead. Of all people to save him, he would have figured Lucius and Draco Malfoy working together to catch him would have been more likely.

"I fell... what happened to the match? Did they continue? Don't tell me that Malfoy caught the Snitch! He would have to wait until I was unconscious to find it." Harry's mood turned south as the possible outcomes from yesterday all seemed to be negative. Unless he'd caught the Snitch unconsciously as he was falling...

Before he could ask about his potential sleep-Seeking, Ron continued, "Since Malfoy fell too-"

"Malfoy fell too? When?"

"Same time as you or just a bit after. Dumbledore caught him, and then the game was cancelled and everyone was called inside."

"I've never seen Professor Dumbledore so angry! He banished all of the Dementors from the grounds after saving Malfoy from falling. From what I hear, Gaara also fought off some of the Dementors on the other side of the stadium after he caught you." Hermione said.

"Wait, you're telling me that Gaara saved my life and protected everyone else? What about the Grim?" Harry asked, standing up a little to peak over the heads around him to see where Gaara and Draco were sitting. He didn't spot the distinctive blond and red anywhere.

"He's not here. I overheard Millicent Bullstrode saying that Gaara sat with Malfoy in the Infirmary all night." Hermione said, noticing Harry's searching gaze.

"Madame Pomfrey let him sleep in the Infirmary?" Ron said, though nobody needed to air the ongoing question that was Gaara's friendship with Draco, as Slytherin social-politics would always confuse Gryffindors.