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'Then swap them. They are identical, yes?' Gaara said. He wouldn't have been so blasé about Draco's life (especially when those devilish brooms were involved) but since he knew exactly who had sent them, he felt relatively safe in their swapping the brooms.

"You would do that?" Hermione asked, her question as sceptical as Harry's face.

"No, of course-" Draco was interrupted when the sand unnecessarily loudly shifted into an agreement. With this in mind, Harry and Ron were started to look as suspicious as Hermione's own wariness lifted.

"Does this mean you know who the brooms were from?" Hermione had put the pieces together so Gaara figured he might as well own up.

'Yes, I do. They are safe.'

"Who are they from?" Harry said, addressing Gaara finally.

Gaara stared at them but his sand failed to shift into words and eventually funnelled back into the bag on his belt. He turned around and left without a glance back, prompting sighs, face-palms and the Golden Trio trying to get him to answer the question or suggesting possible suspects.

"You know, playing up the whole 'mute' thing is really annoying sometimes." Draco said, catching up after Potter had decided he didn't want to switch brooms with Malfoy after all.

Gaara glanced back at him as they made their way over to their table. "Don't get me wrong, it's never a bad thing when it's directed at Potter and his meddlesome friends. But between us, who did send the brooms? I should probably thank them." Draco was trying valiantly not to show how peeved he was with Gaara's deception and receiving a re-gifted broom. If it had been anything but a Firebolt, he would thrust it back in Gaara's face and wait for his father to send him another Nimbus 2001.

Gaara stopped and looked blankly at his questioning friend, then continued to their seats at the table, smirking to himself when heard Draco's indignation from seven feet away.

Later on in the day, at lunch, McGonagall approached Harry and asked if there was anything suspicious about the broom other than the unknown sender, to which he had vehemently denied even that, and said that Gaara knew who had sent them. McGonagall had wanted to confiscate them, as had Snape, but Dumbledore said that they would trust Gaara for the moment, and have the boys take the brooms out for a short test run under safe conditions.

If nothing went wrong, they would be cleared for the time being. Harry was ecstatic, Hermione was unsure, and Ron was upset that his precious pet rat had gone missing since the night before.

Scabbers had obviously escaped the boy's dormitory, and no amount of pleading had convinced McGonagall to let him search the girl's dormitory.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Lessons the first day back seemed to go about as well for Gaara as they had of his first ever day at the Wizarding school. His spells, even the more benign ones, had turned into deadly blasts that his seasoned teachers knew to expect and deflect. Though, that said, his academics had improved further yet, especially in the fields that were related to his private research goals. In those areas, he was easily leagues above even Hermione's or the Ravenclaws' abilities. In other areas, he trailed behind and peaked out in front of the highest students.

If his spell casting weren't so atrocious, he would have been a model student. Other than the personality issues…

Most of the teachers knew how to deal with him by now, leaving him to his own devices except when they needed to verify how he was coping with the material. He didn't bring many surprises anymore, except to the Divinations teacher who seemed perpetually surprised by the 'future' she saw for him and the rest of the class.

Gaara did manage to surprise Trelawney and his classmates when, upon being asked if he knew of any methods of divination not mentioned in their (oddly comprehensive) text books. He had smiled a little and had rummaged through his bags as his sand explained that he had wanted to ask about this device that he had been told was a very powerful artefact for prophesying the future.

Draco and a number of other students had spit up their tea when they saw Gaara pull out a Magic 8-Ball. The Muggle toy was known even to purebloods and caused a fair amount of laughter as well as a dumbfounded look on Trelawney's face. She had had a muggleborn present her with one some years ago as a joke, but on Gaara's porcelain face she saw nothing but confusion at the ruckus.

Draco pulled him aside and hastily explained that somebody had obviously been playing a prank on Gaara. Presumably someone he had met on his way from Somerset to Scotland.

Gaara had blushed (blushed! Of all things) and threw the plastic toy out of the window, vowing revenge on Sirius for presenting him with the 'ancient and powerful Black artefact.'

He had to endure smirks through the entire day, making him realise he missed the fear.

He disappeared during lunch, his hunger fading at the thought of hearing people laugh at his gullibility. This left Draco free to approach his Head of House without instigating a war of some sorts.

As far as he could see, there was no reason for Snape to hate Gaara as entirely as he did. Severus hadn't even hated Harry as much as he hated Gaara, which meant either the man had (fairly enough) lost his mind, or there was a reason no one else was aware of.

As dicey a subject as it was, Draco decided he had to broach it with his trusted Head of House nonetheless. The question had been bothering him all day and he couldn't think of anybody he trusted enough to ask of than Snape.

"Sir?" Draco asked just before the bat-type man could enter the Hall.

"Yes, what is it Draco?" Severus usually hated eating in the Great Hall, with all of the clamour and chatter, but today he was famished, so Draco's interrupting him was less than welcome.

"Sir, did the headmaster tell you anything about testing Gaara over the holiday?" If Gaara had taken this test during the break, he knew he would never hear how it went from the examinee. Killing two birds with one stone.

"What test? I would be well aware if that aberration had returned to the school early, both as Head of Slytherin and because he is a menace."

The innate survival instincts still alive in Draco warned him off of asking about Snape's obvious and seemingly pointless hatred of Gaara, and instead he said, "Oh, my mistake. I must have misunderstood what he was saying. Nevermind. Enjoy your lunch, sir." He then tried to speed walk away casually.

Either Dumbldedore hadn't seen fit to include Gaara's Head of House in his plans to assess Gaara's progress or Snape wasn't allowed to talk about it, or else there had been no such test in the first place. The final option brought back the question of why Gaara had lied to him.

Another thing, but much less important, since his scars had begun to fade, presumably with Madame Pomfrey's ongoing help, Gaara had stopped wearing his metal plate around his neck. He always carried it on him, but he seldom covered the decreasingly prominent scar on his neck anymore.

Then again, Gaara did a whole host of unusual things; it wouldn't do to get bogged down in the little details.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Typical Scottish weather for the time of year (that span between September and August) treated the students to the odd view of torrential rain falling harmlessly against the roof of the Great Hall yet again as they enjoyed their dinner. Draco was eating his regular meagre meal (as a nobleman, it wouldn't do to get fat, and it was uncommon for one such as him to exercise, so diet it was) and enjoying the lively conversation he was open to when Gaara decided not to join him.

His red-haired roommate was at another of his evening tutorials but unlike Potter, he hadn't taken a break to come to dinner. It made Draco pity Lupin just a little, since the man likely wasn't as happy to miss meals as his psychotic friend. Knowing Professor Lupin, he was far too polite to tell Gaara otherwise.

Being around his old peers, it reminded Draco of one of the last things his parents had discussed with him prior to his return to school, namely Gaara's place in their world.

Draco had never had faced an issue with any of his old friends, not because they were normal Slytherins, but because they were Purebloods from wealthy backgrounds. Gaara was an abnormal Slytherin Pureblood but with no family of money to speak of. In other words, he was a nobody.

Malfoys did not associate with nobodies, his parents had both insisted, so they needed a nominal way to explain Gaara's place near them, or else risk losing some of their own stature. Sadly, the only politically acceptable positions available for a boy like Gaara were serving ones. His father had candidly suggested an official 'cup bearer' as it would only require Gaara to serve a function at formal events and would be seen as the formality that it was.

Unfortunately, Draco had a vivid imagining of his own death at Gaara's deceptively petite hands if he suggested such a demeaning title to Gaara.

Draco would have suggested Gaara be his bodyguard but while that was the perfect job for him, it couldn't be said (aloud) that Malfoys needed bodyguards. Especially ones like Gaara. It would make him, and by extension the family, look weak and helpless.

For all of their many faults, Crabbe and Goyle had been convenient. They were intimidating enough to act as bodyguards but were from prominent enough families that there had been no issues with their placements at his side. They were school friends and would have grown to be colleagues (of vastly different levels.) Gaara could never hope to achieve the same sort of future as Draco (or even his old goons), and Draco couldn't stoop to some plebeian's level out of some misbegotten sense of sentimental loyalty.

His mother's suggestion had been much more palatable, if still a little demeaning. Then again, he supposed there wasn't likely going to be a dignified position for Gaara. Still, asking Gaara to pose as his 'valet' until he could hire him as a bodyguard when they finished school would likely result in a concussion.

His parents would only bite their tongues for so long before they either forced Draco to hire or drop his friend, or else they would approach Gaara directly. In Draco's mind, the less contact they had directly with Gaara the better, for everyone involved.

As Draco mulled over his aristocratic problems, Gaara had his own issues to be contending with, though he would argue that it was Harry that had the problem.

Lupin had started this first shared tutorial by trying to reach a common area of ability in both students from which to work from, and that had not gone well. For one, Gaara was hopelessly outmatched in terms of magical skill and ability if not power, and Harry was completely outshone in academic knowledge. So, not only did they intensely dislike each other (which they went about behaving remarkably like children), but they were also totally incompatible to learn with one another.

There was no chance he could teach Gaara the Patronus since it would take no small miracle for Harry to learn it. Little did he know, Gaara would have refused the futile offer had it been extended since he had no need to drive off dementors when he had such fun in killing them.

That had led to Lupin to doing twice the work to provide both boys with separate lessons to help bring them to a higher level. Though, for Gaara, it was more like bringing his spellcasting up to average.

And yet more work was thrust upon him when Harry went off to have dinner and Gaara blithely continued to practice, occasionally calling on Lupin to correct his posture or wand motion. The man was really hungry and could do with getting some dinner in him, but every time he tried to tell Gaara this, he would make some terrible blunder and Lupin wouldn't feel safe leaving him.

He would then spend the next week working up the nerve and the right words to kick Gaara out of their next tutoring session so that he might eat. He would inevitably fail in this endeavour, and his conviction that his hair was prematurely turning fully grey would harden.

It didn't help that Sirius had taken to calling him 'old man.'

The tutoring session ended shortly before curfew was set to begin, long after any chance of Lupin catching a late dinner, though the teacher assumed the timing was a coincidence since Gaara's disregard of the school curfew was already legend.

As it turned out, Gaara's timing was coincidental as he had no plans to return to his room that night. At least, not until he had completed the ritual he had swiped from one of the Malfoys' many dark books.

He had been disappointed by the distinct lack of useful material in the Malfoy library, but he didn't blame them. If he had been planning to assassinate a dozen wizards without using sand, he would have been spoilt for materials. There had been at least seven books dedicated to the subject of disembowelling, Gaara had counted.

Still, he had come to count his successes over his failures, and finding a ritual that showed one the way home from wherever they were, was definitely one of his better successes. He had had to wait until now because he had needed a few potion ingredients that were harder to snatch when the onerous potions keeper didn't have classes to prepare for. Snape had been annoyingly vigilant over the break, and hadn't given Gaara a chance to raid his cupboard.

As soon as Snape had Slytherins to wrangle and lessons to prepare, his larder was left unguarded and Gaara had wasted no time before swooping in and taking what he needed, and a little of what he wanted as well. There was every chance he wouldn't be able to get back in for a while after this theft was noticed so he figured he might as well pilfer a few other things he couldn't get elsewhere.

The potion was easy enough to make, luckily for him, but it did require a few drops of his blood as well as dirt from his homeland (of which he still had some in his gourd) and a couple of other 'dark' ingredients. To be safe, he had taken twice the required ingredients from Snape's stores, safe in the knowledge that Snape was an ass and had it coming.

When his potion turned the correct colour, as described in the surprisingly detailed instructions, he knew he was on the right track. The last step was the one that necessitated blood and he did not hesitate in shedding the few meagre drops into the ominously bubbling cauldron.

The potion turned the desired shade of indigo and he bottled a small amount up and walked away. He had again used one of the many abandoned classrooms from times when young witches and wizards had been more plentiful, so he didn't worry about leaving evidence behind for teachers to see. He could come back and clean it up in a day or two.

In the meantime, he needed to get to the Astronomy tower. Another requisite for the potion to work was that it needed to be used under starlight, which was easier said than done during a Scottish winter. On the bright side, it was the starry night he needed and it was quite beautiful, on the other side, it was even colder without the cloud blanket and warm-spelled cloaks only did so much.

At this rate, he thought, he would be lucky if the potion didn't freeze.

He took out a sheet of fresh parchment and poured seven thick drops of the viscous potion onto it. The potion should then have drawn a compass on the sheet that would point towards his home. Instead, to Gaara's growing rage, the potion spelled out the words 'Elsewhere' in a mockery of his own written communications.

When no more information was forthcoming, Gaara silently screamed, hurting his redundant voice box further, and throwing the remainder of the potion against the floor. He looked around the open air tower for something to hit or smash, but there was nothing up there so he took a running leap off of the tallest tower, calling his sand out as he fell.

The sand platform carried him into the forest with all due haste, the sand apparently sensing how urgently Gaara needed to get away from the castle and towards the killable things.

Gaara encountered the first dementor above the tree line, its robes dusting the tops of the trees as it glided along, looking for Sirius or possibly an innocent and vulnerable child to consume. He wanted to scream at it as he sent his sand to grab hold of it, but he settled for the satisfying rattling breaths that escaped the monster he was crushing to dust.

The wheezing dying sounds of the dementor acted as a beacon to the others in the area. Gaara watched as dozens of the creatures wandered up from the barren braches and through the mist towards where he was standing on his sand platform. ScSThe quickly gathering swarm were all around him, so Gaara descended to the forest floor and prepared himself for battle.

The dementors moved far too slowly for him, the anticipation building while they lazily approached the bright soul that had killed one of their kind. It was silent on the forest floor, presumably all of the wildlife having been scared off by the pressure of the oncoming storm.

And then the flock of dementors swept down from the canopy and commenced their attacks, trying to suck out his chakra or his soul or his magic. They were trying to eat something of his, and they were trying to grab him, so his sand went to work and began to slaughter them one by one.

Gaara spent over an hour and a half out in the cold of the night, sending his sand out to crush and lance the wraiths still swarming around him, trying to consume him. It was after their number had thinned from over a hundred to a couple dozen that Gaara's energy had begun to wane. Normally, he would have happily slaughtered thousands over the course of days, but he assumed that his opponents had been siphoning off his chakra or his energy, so after only a measly seventy-nine dementor kills, Gaara was sweating and ready to sit down.

Worse yet was that through all of this he still wanted to continue on and kill more and more. He cast a number of more efficient but less carnally satisfying jutsu and escaped the remaining prison guards for the moment. They would pursue him, but the ones he had killed were slowly being replaced from those who had come from miles around to the source of all of this delicious life energy.

After flying and then running for about fifteen miles in the expansive forest and killing another half dozen dementors on his way, Gaara was about ready to collapse when he settled in a quiet spot, the last dementor having been dispatched over a mile away.

As he rested against a tree, he tried to summon some of Shukaku's chakra through his seal so that he could restart his fight. He was in no way ready to stop killing tonight, and he could hear the damnable tanuki screaming his ascent from his cell. It would still take a little while for the chakra to clear through the seal without letting the Biju through as well. That would have resulted in a lot more killing for sure, but letting Shukaku free would certainly not improve his mood any.