5/6

Draco looked up at his Head of House but knew further arguments would be futile. Not to mention that he was too tired to be combating Professor Snape after enduring such a traumatic night. Right now, he wanted to take an hour-long hot shower and then curl up in bed to not sleep for a few hours, but instead he had less than an hour to ready himself for breakfast and then he had a full day ahead of him, with the memory of last night haunting him and the compounded weariness from staying up all night weighing him down.

And all through that, he had worrying over his unconscious friend to look forward to.

He remembered little of what transpired during the first half of the day and would need to find a generous classmate to share their notes with him, so tired was he. Honestly, he was struggling to keep his eyes open during Care of Magical Creatures, which was definitely a sign of his flagging energy since most would have described the lesson as anything but boring.

Any lesson where Professor Hagrid had to warn the students for fear of them losing digits could hardly be termed 'dull'.

At lunch he did not even stop by the Great Hall, his hunger not for food but to see his dear friend and make sure he was okay. Frankly, even though he had seen Madam Pomfrey heal almost all of the damage earlier, and knowing that any non-fatal damage could easily be remedied under her careful ministrations, Draco was finding it difficult to cope with the illogical feeling that Gaara was still in imminent danger.

In there, instead of the bloodied, broken mess he had feared, he found Gaara sitting cross-legged on the bed like today was any other day and he was in their bedroom rather than the medical wing. Granted those other times did not typically see Gaara's left foot and both hands wrapped in heavy bandages, but otherwise it looked sort of normal.

Draco had seen Gaara meditate like this a hundred times and was glad to see his eyes opening of their own accord, never liking to wake him from his contemplations. Seldom able to wake him from his meditation.

Draco shuffled over to the bed, Gaara's eyes following him blankly, and he took a seat, unsure of what to say since the great many expletives he had been planning to shout had flown out of his head the moment he saw Gaara awake and looking okay.

"How are you feeling?" Was the best Draco could manage.

"I'm fine." Gaara said, which Draco found hard to believe considering the terrible damage that Gaara had apparently dealt to his own body last night.

"Has someone told Mr Black?"

"Presumably." Gaara said.

"Is sitting like that not terribly uncomfortable?" Draco gestured to Gaara's broken foot which was still folded under him.

"Yes." Gaara admitted this and carefully shifted his feet out from under him so he could lie back in the bed.

"Why were you meditating now, anyway? Wouldn't sleep be better for you, for healing?"

"I was attempting to find answers from within myself." Gaara told him, comfortable with the half-truth he was sharing.

"And?" Draco prompted, ignorant of the deeper meaning of Gaara's statement.

"Nothing helpful. Though it occurs to me that these are getting worse each month." This stirred Gaara more than he let on. Only he knew the damage he might cause should Shukaku's chakra join the intense rage and unleash an unstoppable weapon on the world.

"I don't know how that could have gone any worse." Draco said.

"Perhaps you're right." Gaara conceded, sparking suspicion in Draco's mind. Injured or not, Gaara was never that quick to admit fault, even if it had been a monumentally stupid undertaking.

Gaara's mind was elsewhere as he conversed with Draco, a common problem. Shukaku had been less than unhelpful, only telling him in a number of off-putting ways that this 'tantrum' had been the funniest one yet and the only way it could be improved would be if he let Shukaku out to play. That tanuki demon was a broken record half the time but Gaara was sure if he visited a few more times, he would learn something from the ancient creature.

"Send a letter for me. I will write it this afternoon." Gaara said.

"Okay, but how will you write it?" Draco nodded to the bandages around both of Gaara's hands.

Gaara looked to them and marvelled at the analgesic potions available that helped him to forget the mangled state his hands had been in upon arrival. The small bones would heal in less than a week, most likely, but until then he would indeed face a few additional challenges.

"I can take dictation." Draco suggested, rooting around in his robes for his quill, ink, and a scrap of parchment to draft the letter on.

Gaara hesitated but then nodded as he formulated his message to exclude any mentions of his tenant. When Draco was set up and ready, Gaara began.

"Sirius, I am fine. Moonlit night was tiring as expected. Examining the beast within but no clues as of yet. No need for you to visit. Best regards, Gaara."

"Is that all?" Draco asked, looking down at his paper to double-check that the entire thing was indeed only a couple lines long. He was also curious about Gaara's strangely colourful turn of phrase, the 'beast within' part, which was certainly apt but strangely poetic nonetheless.

"Yes. Thank you." Gaara spent a moment wondering whether these useless hands were better or worse than living without his voice, but it was a short musing since the answer was clear to him.

"I'll write this out neatly and send it tonight before dinner. I have to go to Potions now. Professor Snape's probably in a poor mood after we woke him up early this morning."

Gaara doubted it took an early wake up call to put him in a bad mood, but kept his opinion to himself. Draco maintained an unnaturally forgiving disposition towards their Head of House and Gaara was already feeling bad enough about last night without insulting Draco's unaccountably favourite professor.

Draco set off for his afternoon lesson and dodged the handful of questions his housemates directed towards him regarding his celebrity friend's injury on the way to the Dungeons. Speculation had been rife in Hogwarts, with every interested party coming up with a new and more sensational reason for Gaara's stay in the Hospital Wing than the last.

As the day went on and the extent of Gaara's visible injuries spread, Draco had to field any number of invasive interrogations until he stopped answering even the most tactfully placed queries. By the end of the day when it was time for him to trudge up the stairs to send Gaara's neatly re-written letter to Mr Black, he was glaring in a very Gaara-esque fashion at anybody who approached him.

He was so exhausted, Draco intended to skip dinner and to go straight to bed, hoping that his alarm clock would be enough to wake him in the morning. In fact, he hardly used his alarm any more since Gaara was almost always around to wake him in the mornings. He felt like he might sleep for a couple days if uninterrupted.

So, as Draco lied on his bed, staring at the darkened ceiling, his eyes aching but refusing to stay closed, he wondered whether a dose of Dreamless Sleep potion might be called for. However, after lying to Madam Pomfrey about the cause of Gaara's injuries, he worried that admitting he needed help to sleep since his was continually being drawn back to the horrors he witnessed might raise unwelcome questions. The same problem arose if he asked Professor Snape, so what was he to do?

He really needed to sleep.

The answer was obvious, a late-night trip to the Library was called for. He remembered that Dreamless Sleep contained flobberworm mucus, valerian, lavender, wormwood, and standard ingredient, but the measurements escaped him. Still, he should be able to make a batch in a couple hours, which would be quicker than if he simply waited to pass out from exhaustion. There was also the supplemental benefit of being distracted from both the aforementioned horrors and his unsettling suspicions regarding his best friend.

Something was going on in Gaara's head and he knew there was no way he would ever find out unless Gaara decided to confide in him. When he considered how long it took Gaara to tell him what planet he came from, Draco doubted he would be hearing about Gaara' s innermost thoughts any time soon.

Certainly not before the next lunar cycle.

The book he was looking for was easy to find and soon he was back in his House, crouched over his cauldron in the bathroom.

It was surely a sign of his sleep-deprived state that Draco did not concern himself with the extreme danger of making untested potions at his level and then taking them unsupervised, particularly in his compromised mental state and worse yet since the potion shared a number of ingredients and qualities with the Draught of Living Death.

Two hours and sizeable mess in the bathroom later, Draco had filled two dozen vials with the dangerous potion and was ready to get his night's sleep. It was as he was brushing the petals of lavender from his borrowed book that he saw the potion directly after Dreamless Sleep, called the Dreamwalker Potion.

His eyes were swimming and his mind garbled, but Draco still took in the description the potion provided, detailing its ability to join the dreams of two individuals so that one might travel into the mind of another. Maybe that was the answer. It might be an invasion of Gaara's cherished privacy, but otherwise, what harm could it do?

It seemed like a perfect solution. But not now. Now, he was going to sleep.

He settled into the bed and took a swig from one of his vials, the drowsiness he'd been feeling all day intensifying suddenly until he was dragged into blissful unconsciousness.

The next morning, five minutes before the end of breakfast, Draco was finally roused from his blissful oblivion by the incessant ringing of his alarm. When he finally showed up to his first lesson of the day, the entire class stopped dead when they saw the state of his hair. Any day where Draco's hair was not perfectly slicked back and pristine was a one in a million.

Draco was eager to stop by and see Gaara again at lunch, but having skipped every meal for the past day and a half, he was actually too hungry to worry. In the end, he hardly had time to say hello before he had to ditch Gaara again and go to his next lesson. Luckily for Gaara, Draco had the foresight to bring a few books with him so that the redhead, who was trapped in the Medical Wing for the time being, would have something to do but meditate and stare at the walls. He also snuck Gaara's prohibited gourd into the infirmary and stashed it under his bed, for Gaara's peace of mind.

Madam Pomfrey was becoming somewhat unnerved by a patient she otherwise rather liked, mostly because he did not bother her, with his prolonged presence in her care. Although, his tendency toward harm (in increasingly ludicrous ways) was trying her patience, it was his blank staring and total disaffect when talking that troubled her. She had dealt with all sorts over the decades but Gaara was beyond even the most atypical young wizards she had looked after. More than any petty discomfort she felt, Severus had failed to find out what really happened and it was of much greater concern, that there were no assurances these injuries would not happen again.

In the evening, Draco came around for a longer visit and caught Gaara up on the day's goings-on. He would have had yesterday to recount too but he remembered precious little of it.

Gaara had received a response from Sirius, as well as letters from Professor Lupin, Mrs Weasley and Draco's own mother. Draco helped Gaara write out short replies to each when he found using his sand too clumsy to control the pen. He could make his words legible but Draco insisted that such chicken scratch was ill-suited for any sort of writing, let alone correspondence (especially with Draco's mother, of all people).

Most of the replies were assurances that Gaara was fine and would recover fully, given time, although Draco added a short congratulations on Sirius' successful bid for Triwizard Tournament tickets, which had gone on sale at midnight and had sold out in four hours. Draco's father had likewise managed to acquire tickets, although Draco doubted his father risked applying for them in the pedestrian manner Sirius had.

Luna had appeared for a quick visit but had been upset by the sight of Gaara's prolonged injuries and had to excuse herself in tears. Draco tried to explain this to Gaara but it was a wasted effort.

After keeping Gaara company for a couple hours and then eating a hearty dinner, Draco was ready to go and recoup the last of his sleep deficit. He was preparing for bed when he went to check on the mess he had left from his impromptu potion brewing the night before. The house elves had apparently seen fit to tidy up for him, which was just as well as he did not feel up to doing that particular job himself right now. They had put everything neatly away except for the book that they had correctly deduced was Library property.

Draco looked at the book and something bothered him. He remembered most of making the Dreamless Sleep the night before, which miraculously had not killed him, but something afterwards had caught his attention. A recipe, but for the life of him he could not remember what. Something to do with Gaara?

He settled into bed and picked up the book and scanned the contents but nothing jumped out at him. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Lovegood would say something about Wrackspurts or some such nonsense.

Giving up on what he assumed was a false feeling, he idly flicked through the book and came back to the Dreamless Sleep recipe, noting that he had brewed a fifth year potion in his bathroom while sleep deprived. And Longbottom couldn't make second year potions under supervision without blowing himself up!

As he was about to close the book, his eyes glided over the next page and something seemed familiar. Was this the thing he was half-remembering? Why was he interested in a Dreamwalker potion? What did it have to do with Gaara?

He clearly remembered now that he was excited to find this potion and that it would help with Gaara somehow, but the reasoning was totally lost to him. What use could it be when it took over a month to brew and required ingredients he would have to send away for?

Despite all that he did not know about Gaara, Draco was fairly sure whatever was going on in his head would be a nightmare. Not something he wanted to going walking around in. But then, how would he ever truly know his friend if he did not take some invasive and drastic measure to force the issue?

He could always brew the potion and throw it away if he changed his mind. He had a month to think about it and this would keep him pretty busy.

But would Gaara ever forgive him if he went ahead with it?

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

In the days following his admittance to the Medical Wing, Gaara welcomed any schoolwork he could use to distract himself from the monotony and the creeping doubts about his experiment in the Dungeons. Draco had clearly been hurt by the experience but he seemed to be recovering at about the same rate that Gaara's physical recovery was proceeding.

Draco had announced, apparently unprompted, that since Professor Lupin was gone and not coming back, he would take over Gaara's supplemental spellcasting lessons again. The redhead had been flagging behind even the bottom of the pack in terms of his practical abilities lately and with his absence in the Medical Wing stretching onwards, he needed some extracurricular help to catch up.

Granted, with both of his hands still largely out of commission, it was more of a hypothetical training, with him strictly observing the wand waving as Draco demonstrated what they had been learning and tried to convey the important parts that might trip the infirm boy up later. Still, beyond alleviating boredom, Gaara was appreciative of the help.

"Remember to flick the tip right at the end or you won't be able to aim the spell." Draco said, emphasising that part of the movement. He'd had to watch Weasley doing it wrong for twenty minutes before Granger interceded.

Gaara's face was pinched as he concentrated entirely on the task at hand. Strong as the pain potions were, he still winced when his fingers automatically formed into a gentle grip under the bandages, sending a spike of pain up him arm.

"I've been meaning to ask, what would you want to do, when you finish Hogwarts?" Draco specifically avoided using the phrase 'when you grow up', since the topic was uncomfortable enough without adding an insult to Gaara's height and maturity. Ever since Gaara had revealed that he would most likely be staying in this world, Draco had been wondering about his future because he was so… Gaara. It was impossible to imagine him sitting in an office or doing any sort of mundane career, really.

"I've had a job before. I will try to continue here." Gaara didn't look up from his examination of his hand's movement.

"I don't think there will be quite as much demand for ninja here as in your world." Draco warned him.

"The equivalent would be a mercenary in this land. Or an assassin. I assume there is demand for those services."

Draco stared at his roommate who casually contemplated becoming a hitman after finishing school but continued on regardless, "What about becoming an Auror? That's a more… traditional career option."

Gaara nodded but moved them back on to their previous topic of wand movement. He doubted that working as an Auror would present him with any real challenge, and beyond that he simply didn't want to think of his future if it did not include his home and his friends and family there. But likewise, he couldn't envision a future without the friends he had made here too. He knew this meant he was bound to be disappointed with however things turned out, regarding Dumbledore's plan to help him return home.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Gaara had managed to escape from Madam Pomfrey's care after only four days of boredom with the promise that he would return for twice-daily check-ups and dressing changes. She had wanted to keep him there longer or at least have him excused from lessons until he was more fully healed, but his will trumped hers and he insisted on returning to functional life.

Draco had been happy to have him back but the awkward silences in the aftermath of Gaara's transformation would not abate, no matter how Gaara tried to force some joviality. It wasn't his specialty but he gave it every effort only to hit against the brick wall of Draco's suspicion and trauma. It was yet another instance where Gaara could not understand a civilians' reaction to a mildly violent event.

Draco was acting like he was the one who had been hospitalised.

They settled back into their usual routine eventually, but every once in a while Draco would sneak off somewhere for some secret project that wasn't a scheduled opening ceremony practice. It bothered Gaara and he thought about following Draco to wherever he was going, but after everything that had happened, he would not feel right breaking Draco's trust in that way. Draco was his friend and whatever secret he was keeping was his to keep. It would be the height of hypocrisy to insist on full disclosure when he had made such a habit of withholding information in this world.

By the end of the month, Gaara was able to walk without the humiliating and karmic aid of a crutch, and his hands were both back to full functionality. The rest of the school, who had taken a keen interest in his injuries, had assumed his speedy recovery meant he had not been too badly hurt in the first place, although they still puzzled over why he had not been healed by Madam Pomfrey.

With his newfound popularity, Gaara was unprepared for the positive responses to his healthy return to lessons and meals. Even in Suna, he was unused to people, strangers, being happy to see him.

Even after spending those four days on bed rest, studying obsessively, Gaara was still behind his classmates and had a lot of work to catch up on. Not one to slack off or fall behind, Gaara worked around the clock (to Draco's chagrin) to catch up as quickly as possible.

Busy as this schedule made him, the day of the opening ceremony came upon him with a certain amount of surprise. This was something of a shameful oversight since Draco had been talking about it with increasing resentment all month and yet Gaara had still somehow tuned it all out. It was only when he noticed the swarm of Ministry workers, which had descended on the castle, that he pieced together the significance of the date.

The Ministry-employed decorators and organisers made quick work of what had been left unfinished before the start of term, making as much of the castle gleam as was possible. Everything was polished and re-polished to a mirror shine, making certain hallways rather perilous to anyone wearing leather-soled shoes, as those unfortunate individuals had learned when they slipped and slid in every direction.

The Weasley twin who wasn't taking part in the opening ceremony had complimented the workers and then gone about applying a variety of different slippery substances to the affected floors to see which sent the next unfortunate student sliding the furthest. By the end of the day, the prank had evolved into an organised sport amongst their friends and peers closely resembling muggle curling, using mops and first years.