4/6

The most influential and staunch of the purists in his year group minus Crabbe & Goyle, Gaara noted, were all Draco's old friends who had distanced themselves from him as soon as he stopped with the senseless bullying and racism. As such, they were not fans of Gaara's, who had turned Draco on his own kind, and Gaara was not a fan of theirs, for reasons beyond number.

"What do you want?" He asked as soon as they were all upon him, fanning out and trying to surround him, presumably to instil some sort of fear in him.

"Get lost, Loony." Bulstrode demanded, standing behind the significantly smaller girl's chair with her arms crossed.

Luna looked to him, a little intimidated but not unused to bullies such as these, and awaited his reaction. A sign of trust, Gaara decided.

"Luna, please excuse us." Gaara asked, turning to her. He did not have the same issue she did with turning his back on these civilians. That said, with the nature of Slytherins, it was best, even for a trained warrior, not to turn one's backs on them for too long.

Luna did not seem happy to be leaving Gaara alone, surrounded by notorious bullies, but she had faith in his abilities and knew, realistically, that there was nothing they could do to hurt him. She walked to the far end of the Library and tried to distract herself with her surroundings, though that was easier said than done when the far end happened to house the books on magical law and magical economics, that is, economics within the magical world, rather than anything more fantastical or engaging. She and a number of other curious Ravenclaws had learned this lesson the boring way.

Gaara was glad Luna had been so agreeable and that she had headed in a direction where there weren't any teachers. These people clearly had something to say to him and, while it was unlikely to be of much interest to him, he wanted to know what it was. It would be needlessly disruptive for Luna to encounter a teacher and warn them of Gaara's harassment.

He risked a covert glance to his pile of books, to confirm that none of the more inflammatory titles were on top of the piles, anything concerning specific beasts (i.e. tanuki) or demons. Luckily not, and these riffraff were unlikely to be staying long enough to notice any of the books buried in the piles.

"What do you want?" Gaara repeated now that they were alone.

The group of four formed a semi-circle around Gaara so he rose to stand, not willing to be intimidated. It was hard to make this point of defiance when even the shortest amongst them was six inches taller than him.

"We've been talking and it's long past time you were brought into the fold properly." Zabini said.

"The fold." Gaara was already getting bored with this conversation.

"Yes. Even if you don't have a family name, at all, and you've been disrespectful to your betters before, it's been decided that you should be told how things work, since Malfoy hasn't." Parkinson added.

"My betters." Gaara found himself repeating whatever they said back to them like some simpleton, but it was honestly rather difficult to find any new words when they spoke like this to him. It had happened a few times in his own world but his siblings or another handler were almost always there to get the condescending idiot away from the psychotic Jinchūriki. It was surely a sign of his growth, Gaara commended himself, that these four were still alive and even conscious. By the time he found his way back home, if he ever did, he could be an accomplished diplomat.

"Look, we're not trying to scare you, but you obviously know how to make yourself useful, and if the Malfoys have been too busy cavorting with blood-traitors, halfbloods and mudbloods to tell you the danger you're in on the outside, then we will do it instead. The Dark Lord will return someday and when he does, he will take over not only the wizarding world but the muggle one too. Those on the inside will be rewarded and those on the outside will…" Zabini trailed off.

"They'll die painfully." Bulstrode finally piped up, never one for finesse.

Gaara realised this was happening not just because of his display of power at the end of last year but because he was no longer scary enough to keep the annoyances at bay. What a miserable fate.

"You wish for Voldemort to kill all muggle-borns and sympathisers." Gaara said, wanting to get to the heart of the matter and get these teenagers to admit their genocidal dreams.

"You shouldn't say his name." Zabini warned, though it didn't seem to be his own wrath he was warning Gaara of.

"You would see your schoolmates killed because they were born in different cultures." While a lot of what went on in Hogwarts seemed entirely trivial to Gaara, the concept of two groups of people sharing one space despite grave differences in their ideologies and harbouring hostilities between them was definitely a more worrying conceptualisation of the issue. Like if Iwa and Konoha sent their Genin to the same Academy.

Or if Suna sent their Genin to a Chunin exam in an enemy village…

War was inevitable in some situations, it seemed. And here he was chatting with the vanguard.

The true-born Slytherins shared a look and clamped down on any further overtly xenophobic remarks, fearing some sort of trap from their housemate.

"Tell me this: would you let your friendship with Malfoy drag you down?" Zabini said.

"Yes." Gaara said without hesitation.

"You should have been sorted into Hufflepuff." Bulstrode huffed.

"Was probably supposed to be until he hexed the Sorting Hat." Daphne Greengrass finally spoke up, just as the others seemed to have finished.

Gaara said nothing further and watched them begin to disperse. He was about to resume his seat and ignore their slow exit when Zabini knocked his books off the table in a casual display of machismo. This small, subtle form of bullying would be ignored by most, through high-mindedness or cowardice, but Gaara could not abide by such blatant exhibitions of disrespect to him and the books.

Gaara stepped forward quickly, took a hold of Zabini's arm and then pushed him against the nearest bookshelf so fast that none of his compatriots had time to draw their wands.

"That insult would have earned you death, once upon a time." Gaara said, staring directly into Zabini's suitably intimidated eyes.

Gaara released his arm and totally ignored the wands, all three of them, pointed at the back of his head, and walked around the stacks to go and find Luna. It also helped that hiding amongst the books kept him out of Madam Pince's firing line, her having witnessed both spilling of the books onto the floor and standoff that followed. Gaara could hear her giving the other Slytherins a loud scolding and he was happy to avoid it.

Doubtless, by the time he resurfaced from the bookshelves, Pince would have moved on to another infraction. She ran the Library like a military encampment and he respected her for it. If only she could be relied upon to find a book every now and then, she would be worth her weight in galleons.

By the time Gaara and Luna emerged from their discussion of the surprisingly interesting introduction of a magical forbearer to the muggle middle classes almost a century before their rise in the non-magical economy, the Slytherins had slithered away and Pince had cleared their table. They decided to call it a day since she would take at least a few hours to re-shelve all of the books they had on their table and she greatly resented students picking books off of her trolley.

Draco and his friends had to endure a similar confrontation, as Crabbe and Goyle, who had begged off from the contingent sent to talk to Gaara (for reasons they would not elaborate on even now) brazenly walked up to them in the Great Hall, in sight of many professors and students.

Draco was ready to shoot off a harsh dismissal of his onetime cronies but they beat him to the punch, with Crabbe's opening salvo, "Don't know why you're still sat here."

"This is the Slytherin table." Draco said, honestly unsure whether Vincent had forgotten this salient fact.

"You're not a proper Slytherin anymore. Your family's a disgrace." Goyle continued.

"When the Dark Lord returns, the Malfoy's will be lucky to be doing what the Crabbes tell them to." Crabbe said.

"And the Goyles." Goyle added.

Draco looked between the imposing figures stood above him and rose to his feet; they might talk down to him but he would not let the likes of these two look down their noses at him. "As if a Malfoy would ever serve either of your families. We'd sooner bow down to the Weasleys. At least their family can be traced back more than a handful of generations."

"We'll see, Malfoy. The Dark Lord doesn't take kindly to blood traitors and everyone knows where you stand. And your father might as well be a traitor for all the use he is these days." Crabbe said.

"Why does he even bother showing up to the Ministry anymore?" Goyle said.

"At least he does show up to work. What happened to your fathers, did they finally realise that their absence makes no difference to the running of the Ministry?"

"Wouldn't you like to know-" Goyle said before he was elbowed in the ribs but Crabbe, receiving a shush to remind him of some secret.

"You know, I really wouldn't. The comings and goings of your slovenly and common fathers, both of them, can stay a complete mystery to me and the rest of the world. We would all thank you to keep them to yourselves." Draco smirked, back to his old self.

"I really don't think you understand your new place, Malfoy." Crabbed said, stepping towards Draco in a way he remembered ordering the boy to two years ago, to scare whoever had offended him that day. Strange to be on the receiving end now.

Where there was one, there was always the other, so Goyle backed his partner up and they both towered over Draco. Draco was confident he could beat either of them in a duel but both of them would be too much for him to handle, and in a vulgar contest of physical strength there was no comparison to be made. He was just about to ready himself for a bloody nose when the pair backed off a few inches, and then a little further, looking less confident of their ability to crush Draco's bones for some reason.

With their gazes directed behind him, even knowing the peril of looking away from them, Draco glanced behind himself quickly and saw that his friends were unaccountably backing him up. Roy, Tracey, and Miles were all stood behind him, with Miles' wand also drawn and ready.

As Goyle and Crabbe prepared some snappy comment with which to leave under, Draco beat them to it, "Just go. Act like your fathers and disappear. Make everyone happy." He then turned his back on them, with his friends to keep an eye on the pair, and hoped they weren't still stupid enough to start a fight they would surely lose through numbers just to hurt Draco. Frankly, even a sucker punch to the back of the head might be worth the profound insult he was paying them.

He tried to look casual until his friends and comrades relaxed but he would have settled for not sweating through his shirt. When everyone looked to each other, Draco risked a look over his shoulder and found the pair nowhere to be seen. He had won this encounter but he would need to be careful from that point on not to be caught alone.

As they all sat back down and tried to avoid the subject of that awkward encounter and continue their day. After another half hour, they all parted ways, none feeling particularly like chatting after that near miss.

More than anything else, Draco was now concerned with the feeling that the lauded Slytherin unity, that force which united their House against the other three who sought to undermine it, would soon disappear and they would descend into infighting and chaos. It would be each Slytherin for themselves and everyone would lose out. The balance of the school would be lost and the entire country might suffer, not to mention with the return of the Dark Lord the rest of the world would be dragged into the nightmare.

Draco rubbed his aching head and decided to go and take an afternoon nap. Or try at least. It was only a feeling, after all. Everything would probably be fine.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

October went quickly and too soon the full moon was upon Gaara once again. Despite Luna's frequent reminders of her original offer to watch over him when he elected to transform this month (since it was her "turn"), Gaara intended to abstain again and remain human.

The risks were considerable but he had made arrangement that should limit them as much as possible. He and Draco had located a cell in the Dungeons that was magically reinforced even after centuries of disuse, and could be locked from the outside, leaving Gaara trapped inside. Draco would keep his sand away from him and Gaara could spend the night working out some of his pent up anger without causing anybody any harm.

Last month, his higher skills including his control of the sand had seemed… irrelevant. His mind was so occupied with its rage and the prospect of destruction, the means by which this could most readily be enacted escaped him. No jutsu, no sand, no lock picking, nothing. Just screaming and threats.

Draco had not been happy with this plan, unable to understand why the pragmatist of the pair was taking such a risk instead of safely transforming into a tanuki and waiting out the night in the comfort of their room.

Gaara had tried to explain it without sounding childish, refusing to change because he didn't want to, but tautologies aside, there was another reason for his decision. These transformations were strange. Well, according to Draco, everything about Gaara was strange and Gaara would say the same about this world, but these transformations and mental breakdowns were something unaccounted for in either of their two worlds. They were anomalous and they were somehow, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps meaningfully, linked to the 'Kurai Sekai' that brought him here.

From the moment Gaara told him about this plan up until the moment he slammed the heavy iron cell door shut, Draco's nerves soured more and more. Whether or not Gaara had a decent reason for this gamble, Draco was so worried it would end in… well, he did not pretend to know what could happen when it came to Gaara's unique lunar changes but it would probably be bad. He had sought Luna's advice but she had been as unhelpful as he'd expected, simply agreeing with him that Gaara's should transform instead of losing his mind.

When the evening drew in and they had both made their excuses to leave dinner early, they travelled down into the darkest recesses of the Dungeons, well past the Slytherin dorms. The cell Gaara had chosen was nearly as big as their bedroom, and was totally dark, with no windows to let even the moonlight filter through the lake water. Inside, the pitch dark stones were covered in grime older than more than a few modern countries and rusted chains still hung from the ceiling. The door was thick and made of solid iron, strong enough to withstand a fair amount of magic, let alone Gaara's relatively meagre physical strength.

Draco had offered to set up the cell with a bed and some water, maybe a few books, but Gaara doubted he would have much use for those things. Still, Draco insisted on leaving him a thick woollen blanket since the cell was a cold nightmare. Gaara walked into the cell with grim determination, ready to discover what his affliction would have for him next and glared when Draco shot a bright light into the top of the cell, to illuminate the horrors to come.

Draco did not ask for any final confirmation, instead he took one last look at Gaara's back and pulled as hard as he could on the stubborn, heavy door. It took an embarrassingly long few moments before the thing budged, and then he dragged it shut and pulled out his wand to lock the bolt and then to cast an extra sticking charm. Finally, as Gaara had instructed him, he cast a silencing spell around the area so nobody (read: Snape) would hear any commotion and come investigating. Otherwise, no one ever came this far into the depths of the castle, so they could be guaranteed of privacy for the night.

'They' because despite Gaara's further instructions, Draco was not going to leave Gaara alone. Not because Gaara would be discovered, because he wouldn't, and not because Draco was looking forward to listening in on Gaara's suffering, because he wasn't; Draco would stay despite his inability to help because he couldn't bring himself to leave, simple as that. The thought of lying awake in their room, since sleep would definitely elude him, and waiting minute by minute for the sun to rise was too much to bear.

It came without warning, the first trial of the night, when Gaara spoke up from inside the cell, his voice muffled but discernible in the dead silence, "Draco, are you still there?"

Draco sighed with a smile; of course, Gaara would assume and predict Draco's actions. "Yes, I'm still here."

"It's not happening, you can let me out."

Draco already had his wand drawn ready to bring down the wards when he hesitated. It was a momentary doubt, that perhaps he should confirm that Gaara was in his right mind before swinging open the door. He dismissed this as soon as it came, since Gaara was not the sort of person to trick him like that.

"Open the door now, Draco."

Draco faltered. "Uhhh…"

"Open the door or I will murder you." Gaara said in the same deceptively calm voice.

Draco moved a step back from the cell door.

"Now, or I will break the door down and kill everyone in this castle."

Draco wanted to try and calm him down but his throat suddenly seemed so dry, his tongue turned to lead in his mouth. He was afraid; not of his friend trapped in the prison cell but of the change in his friend's mind.

He heard thuds coming from the door but they were almost inaudible behind the punctuated stream of threats coming from Gaara's mouth. These words worsened as they went on, growing in scale and severity until Gaara was not only threatening to kill every man, woman and child in the school, but went on to claim that he would destroy Britain and every person in it, magical or muggle. Whether this was hyperbole, hubris, or a further sign of his insanity, Draco did not know, but it was concerning, in retrospect especially, that these claims were made during Gaara's more lucid period.

After he stopped threatening Draco to open the door, he went on to alternating between maniacal laughter and yelling, including copious more undirected death threats and promises of destruction and bloodshed. The dull thuds against the door came and went until words left Gaara entirely and he devolved into animalistic sounds and screams that would haunt Draco for years to come.

When the noise moved away from the door, with his wand drawn, Draco risked opening the barred, eye-level hatch to see what was happening in there, to make sure Gaara was okay. He was lucky to avoid wetting himself when, from the shadows, Gaara ran right at the door, frothing at the mouth and face covered in blood. Draco slammed the hatch shut and heard yet another impact against the inside of the solid door.

The hours went on and no matter how much Gaara raved and shouted and laughed, nor how much he beat against and scratched at the walls and door, he did not tire or stop.

When morning finally came, Draco was curled up at the edge of the silencing ward, as far from the door as he could stray without sparing himself the horrid noises from within, clutching his knees to his chest and shaking, his tears having run dry sometime around two in the morning.

The first sign that it was over was the silence that Draco had been praying for since it began. Unwilling to take the chance, he cast the tempus spell and confirmed the sun had risen out of sight and that it was safe to unlock the door. Taking down the wards and unlocking the bolt, he steeled himself for what he expected to see, but that failed to adequately prepare him. When the cell door swung inward, Draco gasped at the state he found his friend in.

Gaara had broken his fingers and knuckles, lost nails, was drenched in what could only be his own blood from scratches and scrapes, and despite being conscious, he seemed unable to stand or speak as Draco approached. Gaara's foggy eyes tracked him as he walked in but he did not move or try to react in any way.

Looking down at his friend, Draco couldn't help but 'tsk' and say, "This because you didn't want to transform. Idiot."

Gaara continued looking up at him but did not, perhaps could not, move to answer. Draco would have liked to continue staring, to understand what had gone through Gaara's mind to choose this, but the horror of the sight was overwhelming and he needed to get Gaara to Madam Pomfrey. He had no idea how he was going to explain this away.

When he tried pulling Gaara upright, he saw how the redhead couldn't put any weight on one of his feet and could hear a wheezing sound with every painful breath Gaara inhaled. Draco's worry intensified when he realised the damage Gaara had dealt onto himself was so severe he couldn't even hobble to the Hospital Wing.

Draco set him back down, stepped back, and levitated the bruised and battered boy into the air. It was still early enough that the pair might be able to make it to the medical wing before they had to answer any awkward questions. Gaara's eyes slid closed when his weightlessness eased some of the pain so Draco carefully carried Gaara, shutting the cell door behind them so no one would think to investigate it and find the gore inside.

The castle was always eerily quiet at this time in the morning so Draco's ears were tuned in to his surroundings, waiting to hear the tapping of a professor's patrolling shoes, but all he heard was the rhythmic sounds coming from Gaara. The Hospital Wing doors were shut so Draco pounded on them as hard as he could, hastening as much as possible Madam Pomfrey's answering.

"What's all this ruckus, so early in the morning?!" She exclaimed as she opened the door, only to gasp much like Draco had when she saw what looked to her like signs of torture on Gaara. "Oh my goodness! What happened?" She asked, ushering Draco in.

"It was a spell backfire." He said, having thought up the most believable excuse on his way up the castle.

Pomfrey spared him but a glance and ignored the blatant lie in favour of treating the worst wounds first. Where normally she would be able to fix his broken bones in seconds, including the broken rib that was hampering his breathing, Gaara's unique resistance to magical healing prevented everything but emergency first aid. Poppy had to cast her mind back to her training all those years ago to recall the methods to safely encourage mending in bones when the patient is magically resistant or sensitive.

Knowing about Gaara's anomalous physiology, better than most, Draco hovered over the slow process, circling around the bed as unobtrusively as he was able. It all seemed rather barbaric, this muggle medicine. Instead of a potion and a waved wand, she was wrapping his wounds and setting his bones.

"Mister Malfoy, you can go back to your dormitory now." She said as she finished dressing all of the skin abrasions and cleaning the blood and dirt away.

"No, thank you." He said obtusely.

Poppy was used to shooing away the friends of patients while she worked, but Professor Snape would have to be notified so he might as well find both boys here instead of chasing one down. She would let Severus interrogate the little Malfoy; doubtless, he would be able to get to the truth.

After the emergency work was done and Gaara had resurfaced to some semblance of consciousness, she forced a couple potions down his gullet. One for the pain and one that would re-grow his missing fingernails in a few days. The last was more of a cosmetic potion but handy in rare circumstances like these, and better still, should still work on Gaara despite his resistance.

Gaara would be staying at least the next few days for recuperation and observation, but that time would be extended if Severus did not like the reason for the child's injuries.

Gaara had drifted off again after the potions had alleviated the pain and Poppy settled back to look him over. With the blood and unidentified grime cleared off and the worst of the injuries covered, he looked remarkably peaceful. While she had no desire to pry the answers out of either boy, she would be getting them out of Severus later. She had no idea what the boys had been up to but she sincerely doubted either had been practicing a spell that could have done all of this damage.

She called for Severus with a brief explanation of what she knew and he came promptly, which surprised her, knowing how he acted towards Gaara. Surely it wasn't concern.

"What happened, mister Malfoy?" He asked as soon as he came to a halt, having walked right into the Hospital Wing without pause or hesitation.

"… It was a magical accident, sir. We were practicing a new spell Gaara read about and it backfired and hurt him."

Snape's expression was contemptuous, but only so much so as it always was when dealing with students outside of his working hours, while he dealt with Draco, but it slipped into open hostility when his gaze drifted to Gaara's prone form for the first time.

"And I don't suppose you remember any specifics of this spell? Perhaps the title of the book it was from?" Snape asked, his eyes hard and unforgiving as they continued to stare at Gaara while still addressing Draco to his side.

"I'm afraid not, sir. It was something Gaara found out about. But I insisted that we try it."

"Of course." Snape said, closing his eyes for a moment and then pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Is this spell likely to misfire again in the near future?" Snape asked, turning away from Gaara to address Draco properly once more.

"No, sir, I don't think so."

"Then I will dock him fifty House Points for when he wakes up, for his reckless stupidity, and award you fifty for keeping him alive." Snape said, adding, "Perhaps I should deduct from you, too, for forcing us to endure his presence further…"

"Pardon, sir?" Draco asked, obliged to question but sure he did not want to know what Snape was mumbling where Gaara was concerned.

"Nothing. Go and prepare for the day."

"Actually, I wanted to stay here for a while-"

"Unless you have recently obtained your healer's license, I don't see any reason for you to wait around the Hospital Wing instead of attending your lessons. There are infinitely better uses for your time than playing nursemaid for your burdensome roommate. For instance, you have several long essays due over the coming week including one from myself."