2/6

Skeeter's feigned indignation fell away immediately. "I won't need to embellish my stories for long. You're right, the truth is better than anything I make up, and I will find that truth. Mark my words." She declared with a vicious smile. "And I can smell a story here. A story that will be read all around the world."

Gaara saw the middle-aged woman standing in the cupboard on her own, snarling at him like a wounded desert viper and he again had to consider the supposed wisdom of letting someone like this live to become a more substantial enemy in the future.

Gaara reached forward again, her eyes watching the hand warily but without flinching, and he snatched the Quick Quotes Quill out of the air and snapped it between his fingers.

Gaara was close to her now, and he said softly enough that Potter couldn't hear, "Approach us again and I will kill you."

Rita Skeeter had been threatened many times during her career, and some had even threatened her with death, but none had ever come from anyone remotely as young as the boy before her.

Gaara turned back around and walked away, with Potter almost tripping over his feet to follow after, lest he be left with the reporter.

When they were away from the danger, Harry easily caught up to and walked alongside Gaara. "Thank you for that. I've never been able to deal with people like that. You really helped me out there."

"That was my intention." Gaara said, not looking at Potter.

"Look, I know that we've been at each other's throats for a while, but I really appreciate you getting me out of there." Harry said. He wasn't nearly as god at this as a Huffelpuff, but it would be a huge improvement to be on good terms with his soon-to-be adopted brother and fellow Hogwarts Champion.

"I am not your friend but we are not enemies." Gaara said, stopping at a window.

Harry took a breath to respond, denying he even wanted to be friends, but he caught the words in his throat when he watched Gaara lean forward, trying to open the, in fact unopenable, leadlight. Gaara still looked angry, whether from his encounter with Skeeter or from whatever had upset him so profoundly in the press conference, so Harry assumed he just wanted a breath of fresh air. "I don't think that one opens."

Gaara opened the window anyway, the lead bending and snapping as he physically forced the glass out and away from the castle far enough until it was no longer connected to the frame and fell. Harry gaped a little at the casual demonstration of strength and vandalism.

Gaara climbed up into the window frame and as he leaned out, intending to exit from near the top of the castle, he turned back to Harry. "It wasn't me." He said, before swinging around and out of sight.

Harry rushed to lean out and see what happened but Gaara was just walking down the external wall like it was another stone floor. Harry would really have to press Hermione for the secret behind that trick one of these days. He didn't know when it would come in handy, but it certainly did look rather cool.

The sound of one of the glass panels still caught in the lead came falling onto the window sill reminded Harry that he should be going. If he were to be found in the vicinity of the damage, the blame would almost certainly fall on him in the absence of another suspect (who was now halfway down the castle with a manic smile starting to grown on his unseen face with every step closer to his prey in the forest).

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"I bloody well told you so!" Draco yelled at a volume that might have be labelled indiscreet if he hadn't taken the routine precaution of placing a cursory silencing charm on their room as soon as Gaara had appeared following Draco's own return from dinner.

After having been informed by the proverbial grapevine in the Great Hall about the Weighing of the Wands, Draco had been waiting to remonstrate his foolish roommate on his habitual destruction of his own wand.

Gaara, for his part, was glad he had skipped the rest of the school day in favour of continuing his cull of the giant spiders. If Draco was going to be this obnoxious about the whole thing, he didn't think he could have withstood the rest of the populace sharing their opinion. It was only thanks to the calm that followed a hunt that Gaara was unbothered by Draco's seeming overabundance of jollity over the situation.

Draco took great pride in having predicted the issue with Gaara's overreliance on his sand, as well as his previous warnings on the subject of damaging his wand.

Draco was pacing back and forth, with Gaara sitting cross-legged on his bed examining his wand. "And why didn't you think to clean up your wand a little beforehand? Maybe get a new one."

Gaara tuned him out and just started trying to relax a bit after a bad day.

"And did you really attack that wretched Skeeter woman to defend Potter, of all people?" Draco demanded. "I mean, I'm all for her getting what's coming to her after what she's written, but don't you dare tell me you're on Potter's side now."

Draco swivelled gracefully on his heel to continue his march and his tirade. "I dread to think what that's going to end up costing you in the press tomorrow morning. And all for Potter. Should have just left him to make a prat of himself. At least then- Stop that!" Draco had finally turned to look at his roommate, only to find him gouging one of his knives in the length of his wand.

"What are you doing?!" Draco rushed over and snatched the wand out of Gaara's limp hand. Gaara's only move was to shift the knife out of the way, to save damaging the wand in an unintentional way or slicing open Draco's hand. "Will you not be satisfied until it's completely unusable and you have all the magical abilities of a Weasley or a squib when facing a literal dragon?!

"You've put holes in it! This is the stupidest nervous habit I've ever heard of." Gaara was still just looking at the knife in his hand. Whether or not Gaara was actually transfixed by the knife or he was just avoiding Draco's gaze, the blond couldn't tell. As far as he was concerned, Gaara could continue looking away. He should feel ashamed.

Idiot.

"You know what, I'm keeping it. You can't be trusted with your own bloody wand. Like a first year going home for Christmas."

Gaara suspected that meant Draco had not been trusted with his wand over his first winter holiday. Knowing how the Malfoy's valued their wands and their magic, he could only wonder what Draco had done during that holiday to warrant his wand being confiscated.

"I'll let you have it back when you need it for a lesson. Otherwise, I'll keep it with mine."

Gaara was not too concerned. He'd have pick-pocketed it back from Draco by the end of breakfast tomorrow.

As Draco renewed his speech after having stashed the mangled wand up his sleeve, he tried to focus on chewing Gaara out and not on his growing concern. What could Gaara do against a dragon without his sand or any real magical capabilities? He was fast and strong, Draco could attest to that, but the off-worlder's acrobatics would mean nothing against dragon fire. But what could Draco do to help him with so little time left before the event?

When a sore throat and a dearth of new insults to level at his friend concluded Draco's ranting, he fell into his desk chair and breathed deeply. Gaara had pulled out a book halfway through but Draco knew he had been listening, even if he didn't outwardly react. Gaara had trouble shutting things out at the best of times, so the words would not have been lost on him.

Now, Draco's passionate anger had started to cool, he felt jittery and in need of some productive outlet for his energy. He needed to help Gaara somehow. However, it was nearly time to go to sleep, so there was no time to actually do anything to help Gaara prepare at this late hour. Instead, Draco resorted to an unseemly act.

Despite the horrendous impropriety of it, Draco found himself addressing a letter to Sirius Black on the subject of Gaara. Going over Gaara's head like was unspeakably rude but desperate times called for impolite measures. He would need some help getting Gaara ready (somehow) and there was no time to lose.

Perhaps he should solicit Father for help also. If nothing else, it would soothe his father's ego to be asked 'first'. Even if he did not reject the idea immediately, Draco didn't need to worry about his father taking an intrusive active interest in the preparations. Gaara was something of a sore subject with the head of the Malfoy family, as was the Triwizard Tournament. The most Draco expected, other than a stern rebuke, would be a few suggestions of extremely dark spells that wouldn't outright break the law. And possibly a few that would. Draco would have to check anything sent for Gaara.

When Draco had finished both of the letters, he sealed them and quickly ran to the owlery, conscious that he only had fifteen minutes before curfew. Unlike Gaara, Draco would be liable to receive a detention if he were caught out of the dorm. Gaara had repeatedly failed to appreciate this disparity when they had been hanging out in the evenings and had remarked only after Draco was accosted by a professor that he had known the time but forgotten the implication.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Luna was far too kind to actually use the words 'I told you so', unlike the other blond currently in Gaara's life, but her meaning came through loud and clear all the same. Then again, Gaara had been listening out for the sentiment. He might have been a little sensitive about the whole thing.

But it wasn't as if he really believed it had been a colossal mistake to assume he could use his sand, or frequently damaging his wand over the past year.

Gaara had gone for a walk rather than attending breakfast that morning, breathing in the frigid Scottish highland air and exhaling mist. Luna had evidently anticipated his avoiding the Great Hall and had managed to track him down in less than ten minutes, a new personal record for her.

Gaara had heard from Sirius that morning in a peculiarly prompt letter after the announcement yesterday. Though neither party had mentioned it, Gaara assumed Draco had sent a message to Sirius last night when he left just before curfew, or else Potter had sent one. Typical meddling.

Actually, both of them had sent a letter to Sirius. Though, where Draco's had been sent out of desperation and concern, Harry's had been sent out of a misbegotten sense of duty to report the trouble he found himself in to an authority figure. This was a habit Sirius hoped to break.

While he knew, from his experience with Gaara, that having a secretive child around was troublesome, Sirius could not in good conscience encourage Harry to do anything but rebel and get into trouble. James wouldn't have heard of it.

Well… 17-year-old James wouldn't have heard of it. With time and wisdom, even James would have admitted having one's child confide in one was ultimately a positive. However, Sirius outright refused to become boring and domestic like Prongs.

Gaara appreciated that Sirius cared enough to try and intrude, but he had not found anything pertinent or particularly helpful in his letter. Since it didn't contain anything private, he handed it over to Luna when she politely asked to see, without a second thought.

'To my dearest Bandit,

You are an idiot.

Yours sincerely,

Sirius Orion Black

(Ultimately unsurprised S.O.B.)

P.s. I suppose I have a sacred duty, beyond reminding you of the aforementioned stupidity, to offer you whatever assistance I can without getting myself thrown back into Azkaban.

That, unfortunately, limits me to offering you a few suggestions for spells or strategies you might employ against the dragon you are to face. If you haven't ruined your wand beyond all use (we'll be visiting Diagon when you are next at liberty to do so), the following might be of some utility in the Task to come:

- The summoning charm, which you can find in (amongst other books) – 'Common Charms and How to Use Them' by Hieronymus Pennick. Use it to summon your sand or some of your knives.

- If you get one that's sensitive to light, use the Lumos charm to blind it temporarily.

- Use the sneezing hex on it, which you should have learned a while ago, but otherwise you can find it in 'Childish Japes and Ignoble Practices' by Louise De La Devereux.

- Levitate the dragon out of the ring entirely.'

Luna read these suggestions, and the dozen that followed of decreasing merit, with a gentle smile on her face, appreciating Sirius's sentiment if not the validity of his suggestions.

"He seems worried." She said.

Having read no fewer than a dozen of Hogwarts's finest books on the subject of dragons (and swiftly moving to read all of the remaining in the coming days), Luna could say with some authority than half of Sirius's ideas would not work on a dragon, and the other half would not work coming from Gaara.

Luna, with as much faith as she had in Gaara's overall capabilities, had every doubt that Gaara could levitate an owl, let alone a fully-grown dragon trying to eat or incinerate him; not for lack of raw power, perhaps, but the necessary skill and a functioning wand. While she hoped her friend would know better than to try and use any of these methods, Luna couldn't be too careful when it came to Gaara's safety (and oft-times lack of self-awareness).

"Gaara, I know Mr Black means well, but I'm not sure any of these would be suitable."

Gaara had pulled out a copy of the Tournament rulebook while she had been studying Sirius's letter and only glanced up at her in response to her caution.

Gaara's first idea had been immediately ruled out as soon as the official rule book had been released for this Tournament, spelling out all of the alterations and amendments made to the traditional rules of the Tournaments. One of these new rules, the introduction of which had caused all of this consternation amongst his acquaintances, had been elaborated upon in the rulebook to entirely forbid the entrance of magical items, witches, wizards, or magical beings other than the Champion and their registered wands.

While the wording of the rules did prevent him from employing his first alternative, it did leave open his backup plan, however much he would have rather avoided it.

It was irritating, all the more, that he would need to rely on his backup when his sand was technically not a magical artefact at all. However, barring his fully explaining the nature of his ability to control it, and their accepting that explanation, there was no chance he would be permitted to use it. And even if he were to try and make sand in the arena, he would surely break all records for the duration of a Task, since the stone around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade always seemed to take him an inordinate amount of time to grind and imbue with a useful amount of his chakra.

"I don't think it was very fair of them to wait until so late to release the rules." Luna said, watching Gaara's concentrate on one passage, his hairless brows furrowing. He didn't respond, but she believed he was still listening even if there was no outward sign. He normally tended to listen to what people said around him even if he didn't react, judging by his later remarking on subjects he hadn't deigned to participate in at the time.

"Did you read the Prophet this morning?" She asked.

He had not, but he did glance at her for an instant before continuing reading. His way of saying 'go on, I'm listening'.

"There was a lot of coverage of yesterday's event. None of it was very good. Even if it didn't fill itself with lies, the Prophet is dreadfully written, don't you think?"

No response.

"That awful Skeeter woman wrote another article." Luna though she saw his ear twitch out of the corner of her eye. "It mostly talked about Harry Potter since he's very famous, of course. It suggested he is romantically involved with his friend, Hermione Granger."

Still no reaction, but Luna continued. "I'm fairly sure they aren't. Ginny said they were only friends and that Gryffindor boys are oblivious."

Gaara turned another page.

"It mentioned, you as well, though." She said, getting another glance to signal his rapt attention. She could understand; Gaara did not normally like maintaining eye contact. "It said you violently attacked Ms Skeeter when she tried to interview Harry Potter.

"I'm sure if you did, she was harassing him again. I don't think anyone believes what she says about you, not here anyway. After the way she described you last time, some people think she's mistaken someone else for you. Maybe Ginny's brother.

"You must be careful around her, Gaara. She's unscrupulous, even for a mainstream reporter. She's accused you and Mr Potter of only pretending to disagree and actually working together."

"I am aware of the danger." Gaara said, still not looking at her.

Luna was glad of the acknowledgement, though his renewed attention did make it harder for her to admire how soft his hair appeared to be. She had tried asking Draco what product Gaara used by apparently that was impertinent.

When he was finally done with studying the rules, Gaara handed the book over to Luna who happily traded it for the letter.

Gaara cast one more eye over it before pulling out his wand and setting it alight. It dropped to the floor and was ash soon after. Gaara had reclaimed his wand while Draco was asleep. He was going to need as much time with it as he could get before the Task in a few days and he couldn't have Draco's good-natured interference stop him.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry was wishing that morning that he had accepted Sirius's offer to tell him where the Marauders had stashed their bottles of Firewhisky. At the time, he had said he didn't want to know, that he couldn't risk the Twins weaselling the information out of him. Now, however, he was sure he could have snuck half a bottle's worth under Hermione's vigilant nose.

A hangover would not have been half as painful as this morning was turning out to be. And Hermione wouldn't have even been able to smell the alcohol on his breath, sitting more than three metres away from him. She had managed to peruse the entire morning's edition of the Daily Prophet by the time he showed up for breakfast and apparently the latest Skeeter smear campaign had precluded their associating in the immediate future.

Luckily it was still early so, despite the conspicuous distance between them, there weren't very many other at the table yet and Hermione and he could still talk with some measure of discretion.

Unluckily, Hermione had been reading the expanded rules that morning and had delivered the unhappy news that Harry's first plan to summon his broom would not be allowed.

"It seems like a pretty specific rule." Harry complained in a low whisper, trying to cover the distance but avoid being overheard by the not-as-subtle-as-they-think Ravenclaws at the next table. "They're probably just trying to stop Gaara from winning. But they're making it impossible for me too!"

"We've still got time, Harry. We'll find something for you to use." She reasoned, a book propped on her knee at that very moment. She had gotten up early and made her first (of four) trips to the Library that day.

"Oh, Sirius had some good ideas." Harry brightened up marginally. The banning of his original plan to summon his broom had hit him hard last night when he was writing his letter to Sirius, but Sirius had owled him back this morning with dozens of suggestions.

"I hope none of them are too outlandish. Or illegal." She muttered the last part into her pumpkin juice.

"A few of them probably are, but I think he was joking about them. No, there were a couple of spells that he's told me about that I think could be just the thing."

"You've only got a few days, Harry." She warned him in her customary tone.

"I've managed harder spells in less time before."

"Really?"

"Well, I've learned spells in less time, and these can't be that hard." He glanced again at the titles of the books Sirius had recommended to him and they didn't sound too impressive.

"Well, I'm happy to go and have a look with you before Herbology for some of them."

Harry's appetite was not what it normally was that morning, so eager was he to get started on his preparations. "Can we go now?"

Hermione had finished her healthy breakfast already so she began to get up until she noticed Harry doing the same. "What are you doing?"

"We're going to the Library, aren't we?" Harry's face was the model of confusion.

"Not at the same time! I don't want to do anything to add fuel to that despicable woman's rumours." She said, using Harry's astonishment to continue her own movement. "Wait for five minutes and then meet me there."

Harry scowled at her back. He'd make it ten minutes and keep her waiting. Plus, Ron might show up soon (though it would be early for him) and Harry wouldn't mind the extra company in the Library. Hermione could be unrelenting when she had a project to work on. Despite the healthy bump it inevitably gave their grades, even Harry and Ron were somewhat reluctant to pair with Hermione when they were asked to form teams to do homework.

While this was entirely for Harry's benefit, having another slacker in the vicinity would be a comfort.

However, where Hermione outshone Harry in academia, Ron outshone him in sloth, and so after twelve minutes, Harry headed to the Library.

"You'll need to chase after her quicker next time if you want her back, Potter!" Came a jeer from the Slytherin table, presumably having waited all this time for Harry to leave in the same direction.

Harry blushed and walked quickly to the door without looking back. The chuckles coming from multiple points in the Hall (so, from multiple tables), soured Harry's mood even more. When he next saw that Skeeter woman, he hoped he had someone like Hermione nearby to stop him doing something worthy of expulsion to the reporter.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry and Hermione were not the only Gryffindors to be having an unpleasant morning. However, where the Gryffindors of the present were fending off scandal and embarrassment, the Gryffindors of the past were instead being confronted with threats a little more pressing.

Dumbledore had requested Minerva attend an impromptu meeting of the senior school officials of Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. She was not entirely grateful for the opportunity.

It was quite early in the morning to have to deal with the histrionics resulting from a glorified tabloid journalist's baseless accusations, and yet Minerva appeared as fresh and scathing as if she had been called away from afternoon tea. Dumbledore, on the other hand, had appeared still in his bed robes and sleeping cap, which Minerva was relatively sure was only to make a visual point about the absurdity of interrupting their morning routines.

Evidently unfamiliar with the British press, it seemed both Madame Maxine and Professor Karkaroff credited the words of Rita Skeeter with undue weight and had taken the morning's article to be gospel truth. Apparently it was sufficient to confirm all of the worst doubts the foreigners had about the competition's integrity.

Words like 'outrage', 'fraud', and 'disqualification' were roared at Albus, but Minerva watched her mentor and oldest friend smile calmly and sip his tea without rising to any threat or insult. She had seen this same performance dozens of times before but, as a fellow Gryffindor-alumnus, she couldn't imagine herself holding her tongue like this. If such vitriol were directed at her, she would answer in kind and more.

After ten more minutes of them throwing accusations and demanding answer, the two visiting headmasters finally paused for breath or, perhaps, to finally hear a response.