3/6

"Yes, Draco mentioned he has discovered something of an affinity for the subject. A bright boy, definitely; they both are."

"How has Draco been finding this year's syllabus?"

"Gaara hasn't mentioned?"

"Gaara's letter writing leaves something to be desired. He doesn't tend to say a lot in his rare owls."

"Yes, I believe I recall the same. Well, Draco has been forced to work twice as hard with this silly tournament opening ceremony business they have him rehearsing for. Absolutely exhausted at the end of most weeks, he assures me."

"Well, blame the Minister if you feel that way. All of these restrictions and all that money."

"I am certainly not Cornelius' biggest fan recently, with how he's been treating Lucius. Reprehensible."

"Mark my word, he'll be out of office before long. Everyone knows this is just his latest scheme to avoid his inevitable ousting by someone more qualified."

"You may well be right."

"Is Lucius thinking of running this time?"

"I'm sure he hasn't decided one way or another yet. I for one believe it would be a waste of his talents. The Minister is a figurehead more than anything. Lucius keeps everything running."

"And he still has time for humility." Sirius said in false awe.

"Some men take pride in accomplishments."

"I won't be drawn into discussing Lucius' accomplishments. The bounds of good manners and conducting oneself as a gracious host will only cover so many sins."

"Then let us avoid that subject." She agreed.

"Molly Weasley has taken it upon herself recently to take Gaara under her wing. She's always taken such an interest in Harry and now she wants to familiarise herself with Gaara too."

"She doesn't have enough children as it is?" Narcissa said.

"She and Arthur are friends of mine and since Harry and Gaara are both my charges, she wanted to welcome Gaara a bit more."

"Into the fold?"

"Into the extended family, more like. A lovely woman. You and she would have more in common that you'd think."

"I somehow doubt that." Narcissa said, cringing at the memory of being forced to meet the woman at a Ministry function some years ago.

"Anyway, she's not looking to adopt him. She's just started sending him the odd letter now and then to remind him that there are people thinking of him. Not the best home life originally, so I think he could benefit from it."

"You know about his origins, then?"

"Yes. He's told me bits and pieces."

"Anything you could share?"

"Nothing worth saying. Everything else is between him and I. And maybe Draco. Who knows. He's a private person."

"Yes, so I gather. Not that it matters terribly."

"Just so long as he's not a muggleborn?"

"He's not, I am assured. That's enough for me."

"I'm glad you can concede even that much."

"Regardless, I think Mrs Weasley ought to tend more to her own litter of children and less to the children of others."

"I'll pass on your regards next time I see her." Sirius snorts into his cup of tea.

Sirius had also neglected to tell Narcissa of how Molly had really come to take such an active interest in Gaara alongside Harry. It had resulted from a meeting he had with the Weasley parents last week. He had confided in them that he was seeking to adopt the boys, since they were the only legitimate parental figures he happened to know and he wanted a little advice on how to cope with both parenting and how to approach telling the boys his intentions. Their advice on the former was more plentiful than in the latter.

He had also asked for their endorsement, if it came to it, with the Ministry, as upstanding members of society and personal friends. They had been all too happy to oblige, should it come to that.

They had been an absolute font of wisdom, some of it more applicable than other parts. When it came to Gaara, typical child rearing strategies seemed inadequate. Hearing this, Molly had laughed and said he was wrong. The twins sometimes made her doubt herself too but one simply had to ignore the eccentricities of children and help them to prepare for the world. Except, and he had not wanted to tell them this, it seemed Gaara was already plenty worldly.

The time for afternoon tea soon drew to a close and Narcissa took her leave to process the full wealth of information her cousin had shared with her. In the circles she tended to socialise, so little was shared in conversations twice the length of this, Narcissa was almost overwhelmed by her cousin's plentiful disclosures.

Brash and uncouth, he truly hadn't changed, but (not that she would dream of confessing this) Sirius presented a refreshing change of pace to chat with.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Gaara looked down at the two letters that had been deposited in front of him with today's morning post and turned to his breakfast companion, "Your mother has sent me another letter."

Draco set down his own letter and verified that his mother's handwriting was indeed across the front of one of Gaara's envelopes. "You're right." He wondered where this sudden concern for Gaara had come from and whether it had anything to do with the not altogether dissimilar interest the Weasley mother had taken in Gaara a few days before. His mother had all but refused to explain when Draco asked her in one of his previous letters.

He also wondered why the care package Gaara had received from his mother had been almost as large as Draco's own two days ago.

Gaara stared at the pair of letters and then slipped them into his pocket to read later, and tried to puzzle out why two women who were unrelated to him were taking such an interest in him, since no reason had been apparent in their previous communications.

Since Draco did not seem to know, the only other option for getting answers would have been through one of the Weasley children at the school. Considering the female one had slapped him in the face, the youngest boy clearly hated him, and the twins were obsessed with both Sirius and playing practical jokes… he would just have to leave it a mystery.

As it was the weekend, Gaara took the morning to run around the forest, or did whatever it was that he did in there, while Draco was forced to attend an extra meeting for the upcoming opening ceremony. It was only supposed to be a costume fitting this morning but that had swiftly turned into a full practice that run on for another two and a half hours until he was finally released.

Needless to say, it left him in a foul mood.

Storming into their room, Draco looked around for anything with which he might find fault so he would have an outlet for this impotent sense of indignation and rage. The best he could manage was decrying their freshly laundered clothes being left on their beds. The house elves came and collected all of their dirty clothes from each of their rooms, cleaned them, dried them and folded them, and then they deposited them on their beds instead putting them away.

Such a small extra step, which might have been left incomplete to remind even the Slytherins of some measure of personal responsibility, but Draco just found himself angered by the presumption.

Knowing that Gaara would quite possibly just dump his onto the floor when he returned rather than putting it away, it was left to Draco to play the part of servant and ensure an orderly living space. If Gaara were here, he would receive a piece of Draco's mind.

It was quick work for the most part, but when he came upon Gaara's expanding bag sat in his sock drawer, he shook his head and tried to reconcile Gaara's occasional capriciousness with his military utilitarianism. He preferred his rule-breaking gourd to the bag and so he cast the bag aside, for no reason but personal preference. In times like these, it helped Draco to de-stress by imagining Gaara as a warrior in some war somewhere, deciding something the way he did and charging ahead without regard to the consequences of his actions while everyone else fought to catch up. In short, it was fun to imagine his friend being an idiot as he sometimes acted.

He shoved Gaara's newly cleaned socks inside the bag and dropped it back into the otherwise empty drawer and forgot about it.

He had a couple hours at least until Gaara returned so he took the time to sneak a nap past his drill-sergeant-esque roommate.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

During the week, after another fascinating lesson on the basics of artithmantic formulae, Hermione Granger plucked up the courage to talk to Gaara again. She had not approached him nor had they otherwise talked since her birthday last month and she decided it was time she rectified that, since she obviously couldn't leave it to him to solve this tension. And if she left it to one of the boys, soon enough Gryffindor would have formally declared war on Slytherin (something that, her memory supplied, had not happened since the sixteenth century.)

She was admittedly a little skittish in her approach, but firmed her resolve that his rage episode had been a one-time incident and he was in fact harmless.

"How are you today, Gaara?" She had spent thirty minutes yesterday, in preparing for this encounter, deciding how she would best open a dialogue between them again.

"I am well." Gaara said. He avoided returning the question, hoping she might resume avoiding him.

"I'm glad to hear that. Professor Vector seemed awfully interested in you today. I noticed she took you aside earlier. There wasn't any trouble, I hope."

Gaara knew he could not rid himself of her without being unconscionably rude (a level he tried to stay above) so he humoured her probing question and answered, "She wanted to discuss a private matter with me. She gave me some help in a personal research project I was considering a while ago. She wanted a little more information about it."

"Oh, that sounds interesting. What were you trying to find out about?"

Gaara told her the same thing he had told Vector, "It was nothing of consequence, ultimately. A dead end."

Hermione wanted to know more but had gotten into hot water with Gaara before, sticking her nose too deeply into matters that did not directly concern her. He did not seem against her re-establishing friendly relations so she did not want to offend him too early on.

"I hope she was not too demanding. I've noticed she has been a bit more forthright with her teaching as of late. Personal issues, perhaps."

Gaara had no idea what she was talking about and did not particularly care. The woman had seemed fine to him.

The silence went on and Hermione used this to switch subjects, "I've been doing my own personal research project as well, as it happens." She said, shuffling the books in her arms to show him the title of one, The Triwizard Tournament: A History of Brutality.

"Interesting." He admitted.

"Isn't it?" Her eyes practically shined. "I've been looking into all sorts of things surrounding the tournament since they announced it at the start of term. There are only a few weeks until it starts properly so I've been learning all I can about the old tournaments and why they were stopped." Seeing that Gaara's eyes had not glazed over like Ron and Harry's had, she rattled off a few quick facts about the tournaments of old and, seeing a kindred spirit, began to recite her recent bibliography so he might continue to learn around the subject as she had.

He appeared to appreciate this as he actually looked in her direction as she talked for a change. She would have liked to continue this conversation but all too soon they had reached the Great Hall and when her eyes naturally drifted to where Harry and Ron would be sitting, they were already halfway to their feet, glaring harshly at Gaara, ready to come to her rescue from the murderous psychopath.

Them not knowing about the thawing relations with Gaara would inevitably lead to some sort of public confrontation that she was eager to avoid but by the time she turned to warn Gaara, he was already on his way to his seat at the Slytherin table. He always did that.

Hermione marched forward to intercept Harry and Ron before they might do something silly like follow the redhead to the Slytherin table, enemy territory, and explained that he had been perfectly pleasant on their walk from Arithmancy.

"So he's not an absolute arse for five minutes and you're ready to forgive him for what he said on your birthday?" Ron asked.

"I hate to say it, Herm, but Ron's right, Gaara's too dangerous to be around. At least on your own."

"What? Is that because I'm a girl?!" She asked, eyebrow raised.

Harry sensed danger and trod carefully, "No, not because you're a girl or anything, just because he threatened to kill us and he's got that sand of his, and…"

"Whatever happened on the full moon was clearly a misunderstanding of some sort. He's been pleasant enough since then, quiet even. Let's not go back to suspecting him of every crime because he's a little different."

"A little different?" Ron asked.

"I don't think you can call what he said a misunderstanding." Harry added.

"He's not said anything like that since. He was definitely going through something that night. You have to admit, he's not normally like that. Maybe he was hexed to act like that."

"You think someone made him threaten to kill us?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. Possibly." She said.

"But who would?" Ron asked.

"It wasn't that important, was it? Malfoy used to say things like that all the time." She argued.

"I don't see you chatting to him." Ron said.

"It's not just what he said, Herm, it's the way he said it." Harry said. Draco at least used to conceal his threats or make them indirect.

"And coming from someone like Gaara, you sort of believe it, don't you?" Ron said, never quite believing a bully like Draco Malfoy could work up the nerve to follow through on any of his darker threats.

"I think you're both overreacting." She decided.

"I hope you're right." Harry said, glancing over to the Slytherin table but unable to see past the new high-backed chairs.

"Well, what did Sirius say when you told him?" Hermione asked.

"He was concerned and asked all about it, but in the end he told me to try not upsetting him and Sirius was going to talk to him about it."

"And did he?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. Didn't say much about it but asked me to forget it happened."

"He wants you to forget about it?" Ron couldn't believe Sirius, who had seemed like a nice man, would be so oblivious when it came to Gaara.

"I don't think I could forget about it but maybe we should let it go. Sirius knows stuff about Gaara that we don't and he didn't seem to be worried."

"So, in the end you agree with exactly what I've been saying?" Hermione said, exasperated by her friends.

"I still don't see why he won't tell you, at least." Ron muttered.

"We'll find out eventually." Hermione was tired of this conversation. What had begun for her as an intriguing mystery had become an uncomfortable obsession with another person's private life. It had taken her longer than she was happy to admit to come to the conclusion that Gaara had tried pointing them towards at the start of their acquaintance, that his private business was not their right to know.

She started her lunch and tried to steer the conversation onto new territory, namely the boy's lapsed Potions homework. With how Snape had been acting since the article came out, it behoved her to keep atop her friends and their habitual laziness.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Gaara looked across the heaving table to make sure Luna was absorbed in her own book so he could check a chapter he did not want anybody seeing him check. He had already gone through most of the Library's books which concerned anything tangentially linked to demons but he was desperate for answers (again) so he was re-reading them to make sure he missed nothing. Sadly, the day he had allotted to checking out the magical creature books had been invaded by Luna, who had decided he needed company in the Library.

Granted, nobody in Hogwarts currently knew as much about real or mythicised descriptions of tanuki better than Luna Lovegood, so she was a valuable resource for the unconcealed part of that particular project. So, while she continued her doctoral-level research into the magical history of tanuki in Japan and East Asia, Gaara tried to keep her attention away from the subject of demons.

She had repeatedly mentioned lately that she was considering learning how to transform, as Draco had but the reason she had not yet started was the opposite of Draco's. Luna wanted to be sure she would turn into a tanuki, or something equally 'cute', if she was to devote the time to becoming an animagus. Gaara had steadfastly avoiding commenting on any of it.

Apart from wasting his time rechecking the magical school books for references of beings that, as far as he had been able to ascertain, did not exist in this world, he was also following up on the books Granger had recommended for him regarding the Triwizard Tournament. He had pretended, when Luna asked about those books, that his interest was simple curiosity in an interesting and historical event.

What he was reading was not… encouraging.

None of what was described was entirely beyond his capabilities, by his estimation, but it was more of a challenge than he had originally anticipated, considering it was supposed to be for civilian children.

Along with scoping out the range of previous tasks and the structure of the old tournaments, Gaara was also preparing for the backlash he was sure to endure from his friends. Since everybody he was on friendly terms with had thought to warn him against entering into the tournament, it was fair to say that they were worried about the possibility. While insulting that they thought he was stupid enough to enter of his own volition, since it was ultimately true, Gaara tried to forgive them their lack of faith in his better judgement.

The useless mythical creature books failed to turn up any new information, as he feared, so he buried them under the Triwizard Tournament reference materials and pulled open a stray Transfiguration book (which Luna had thumbed through earlier in her musings over animagi) to break up his serious research with a little homework. If nothing else, this simple foot-long scroll on Transfiguration theory would help distract him from the impending fallout.

Meanwhile, Draco was spending his time with his so-called 'moderate' friends. The term, he had always maintained, was something of a misnomer since none of them were cowards or moderate in any opinion they held, barring their scepticism of absolute blood purity. Slytherins were Slytherins, after all, and they were all venomous in one way or another.

He was enjoying a late lunch with Roy Norbel, Miles Bletchley, and Tracey Davis. A mixed group, to be sure, and one he would never have dreamed of associating with before last year, except, perhaps, for Bletchley who was also on the House Quidditch team. However, any fraternising with such a teammate, who was known to be from a less than fanatical family, would have been restricted to Quidditch and nothing more. Back then, Draco reflected, he probably would not have wanted to spend time with the overly meek Slytherin, anyway.

As most often happened when any group of Slytherins gathered, these four ended up gossiping endlessly about the various illicit romantic entanglements of their housemates and who the likely Hogwarts Champion would be. Most votes in the group, predictably, went to fellow Slytherins in the upper years. Norbel was not the only one to posit that Gaara would be a strong contender, with how powerful and respected he was, but Draco quashed that notion swiftly. Gaara would not be entering, even if he most certainly would win, Draco asserted.

Tracey Davis suggested a couple upper years from other Houses as contenders, and Norbel filled out the ranks with Quidditch players who should also be considered. Since Draco was the only one present who was being forced to participate in the ludicrous opening ceremony, his opinion of the entire affair was decidedly sour and he was happy when the subject moved back onto more comfortable territory, namely Quidditch.

"Oh, mind what you say, it looks like we've got a little eavesdropper." Davis said, looking out of the corner of her eye.

"Who?" Bletchley asked, avoiding looking over.

"Don't recognise the face. Looks like a firstie, our House."

"And they don't know better than to listen in on conversations yet?" Norbel said.

"Is it a girl?" Draco asked, hand running back through his hair.

"Yes." Davis said.

"Ignore her. It's just the Lavado girl. Been following me for weeks."

"That's Lavado?" Davis asked, almost glancing over. "I heard people talking about her the other day."

"And I bet nobody noticed you 'hearing' them, did they?" Draco smirked.

"So you're the newest boy to entrance the little…" Davis considered an appropriate insult.

"Let's stick with 'social climber' and not sully ourselves by discussing her further." Draco said shortly, tired of the first year's discomfiting antics.

Back in the Library, as Gaara was finishing his thoughts for the structure of his Transfiguration essay, their table was approached by some unwelcome visitors. Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, and Millicent Bulstrode all sauntered up looking out of place since most of them tended to avoid the library like the plague. Gaara had watched them enter the Library, as he watched everyone who walked into the room, and had been immediately suspicious.