Capítulo 52: 4/8
The students watching safe from inside the spell-sealed windows had been entranced by the spectacle of Gaara rising amongst the dementors, shrouded in sand and tearing apart the monsters like they were nothing. The spectacle had been almost a comfort, their old nightmarish schoolmate seeming almost comical amongst the actual nightmares trying to force their way in and suck out their souls.
In the midst of the carnage, Gaara needed more sand, and for this kind of eventuality he had been planning for months.
The Ravenclaws brave enough to look out the window while the dementors outside clamoured to press up against it, soon shouted out what their Housemates thought was lunacy.
"The Abandoned Tower! It's melting!"
The large tower that had been empty and left to decay for a hundred years was indeed falling apart, but not under the influence of the dementors. They didn't seem to notice or care as the entire tower's worth of stone and mortar fell away from the castle and then curled around in the air. The entire structure had dissolved into what looked like grey water from a distance.
Gaara had meditated in that enormous tower day after day, infusing the stone with his chakra, carving out the individual rocks and pebbles, grinding them into sand, and then hardening them back into place like nothing had happened. All so that he would have a plentiful source of sand at his disposal when an emergency arose.
His sand was now of such quantity that he didn't have to worry about the dementors coming anywhere near him. With a soft swipe of the enormous mass of powdered stone, he crushed or knocked away a great swath of the black cloaked soul eaters that had been surrounding him.
The sand turned to blades and cut through the dementors so quickly and angrily, for a moment the spectators worried that they weren't being saved but instead being fought over by two equally insidious monsters. Most of them hadn't been able to make out exactly who or what had been attacking the dementors from so far away in the morning light, but soon word started circulating that it was Gaara of all people, using his sand ability to combat this terrible threat.
Many still couldn't believe a third year, no matter how peculiar, was able to control such a spell and kill so many dementors like they were flies buzzing around him.
Furthermore, none of them could tell why Gaara's sand, which had always looked just like animate sand and had moved like a liquid or a fixed solid structure, was now lined with blue highlights and was starting to form into organic shapes.
Almost unrecognisable, but one of the tendrils of sand that had pierced through the surrounding dementors and had flown straight past a Gryffindor bedroom window, almost looked like a hand, or a set of claws.
The gigantic, shifting mass of sand circled loosely around Gaara, and seemed to increasingly be comprised of these separate almost living arms. They continued to attack, but even from afar the watching students and teachers could see the sadistic violence behind the attacks was not about protecting them safely and efficiently. Gaara, or whoever it really was out there, was slaughtering the dementors to see them die.
It was scary in an entirely different way from the doom that had been looming over them minutes before.
In his rage, Gaara had unconsciously started to draw upon Shukaku's demonic chakra more and more, channelling it into his sand and letting it seep into his distraught mind, turning his anger into unfettered wrath.
The dementors started to thin out as he attacked again and again and again and again, tearing them apart, crushing them, impaling them, bisecting them, shooting them full of holes…
Soon enough, he was no longer surrounded, but having to search around for dementors to kill. His sand arms, numbering at least twenty, curled into the castle's orifices and blindly lanced or grabbed the fluttering cloaks bustling around and tore them out into the dawn sky.
And finally, when he had destroyed every last dementor in sight, and had sent his sand into the school to root out the ones still trying to feed in the school, Gaara flew out over the forest on his sand platform to where he had last seen Sirius.
There, like before, were hundreds of dementors still pressing against Snape's and Potter's Patroni, although the size of the shield had shrunk considerably and the casters were looking quite ill from the ongoing acute magical depletion.
That pale, sickly look only got worse for Snape when he caught sight of Gaara after a number of dementors had been torn away from their Patroni barrier. It wasn't that he thought Gaara was here to kill him, he felt unwell because he was finally seeing how powerful the boy truly was.
Snape had been right all along: the boy was a weapon. And it made Severus sick.
Harry was only too glad to see Gaara come to the rescue. He might have preferred Dumbledore, Professor Lupin, McGonagall, or their incompetent Minister for Magic, but if Gaara was the only one there to help, he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He also wouldn't look Gaara in the eye, but that was because no matter how much he had saved Harry's life, Gaara was still a jerk and creepy as all hell.
That opinion was only confirmed when he saw how Gaara was attacking the creatures surrounding them. It was brutal.
Or, as Ron said, "He's bloody mental alright, but thank Merlin he's here!"
Hermione had been strangely quiet for the past hour, the shock making her shut down, but she had perked up when she saw Gaara was there to help.
The curse of her intellect, she had assessed all of their options after being surrounded and had despaired when she concluded they were going to die… if they were lucky.
Gaara had not spared a single one of them. His sand had taken on a strange form, but it was still definitely sand, albeit much more than they had ever seen him with, and it had sought out the soul stealers in groups and destroyed them quickly and easily.
Every time one of them slipped past the attacks and came close to Gaara, the sand that was still around him spiked out and killed it.
"Sir, Professor Lupin told us at the beginning of the year that it was really difficult to kill demetors, that the Patronus charm was the only way to protect yourself." Hermione said.
Snape would have reprimanded the know-it-all, but he couldn't fault her question. Killing dementors was next to impossible using magic, and with physical objects it was still notoriously difficult. Wizards knew better than to try and kill a dementor when they could keep it at bay with the Patronus Charm.
It wasn't even a bad joke to suggest going on the offensive when literally surrounded by the monsters.
And yet here Gaara was…
Well, 'going on the offensive' didn't quite describe what Gaara was doing. That would have been like calling it a fight. This was a cull.
Harry had let his stag fade finally when the last dementors had started to ignore the target of their hunt and focussed entirely on Gaara. He collapsed onto the ground and was unconscious soon after.
Snape joined him on the ground a few minutes later, clinging onto the waking world in case another threat to his detestable students arose that he needed to head off.
Gaara finished off the last of the dementors in the area with no sense of finality. He simply ran out.
After there were no more for him to kill, he and his sand flew back to the castle to go and find his soulless friend.
He arrived where Draco had been only to find Aurors swarming the area, chasing away the handful of dementors that had escaped his purge. The humans regarded him with instant suspicion as he landed, pointing their wands rather threateningly towards him.
"Identify yourself!" One of them in the lead shouted. "Now!"
Gaara might have killed these men too, his bloodlust still boiling away, had he not spotted them carrying Draco into the castle. Granted, this might have sent him in a homicidal massacre had he not seen the blanket and Madame Pomfrey stood at the castle gate. If Draco were dead, or soulless, they wouldn't have bothered.
Gaara knew that moving his sand would just result in a time-wasting fire fight with these men, so he slowly pointed behind them to Draco.
Only one of them looked, after exchanging looks from sideways glances with his colleague. Obviously they didn't trust Gaara and thought he was trying to pull a fast one. When the Auror saw it was Draco Gaara was pointing at, he seemed to clock on.
"You want to know if he's alive?"
Gaara nodded, urgently.
"Well, he's not fine, I wouldn't say, but he'll live. He came this close to getting the Kiss performed on him, so he'll not be up to much for the next couple of days."
Gaara actually sagged a little, falling back into the sand with relief. The Aurors were less wary of the strange boy now, cloaked in sand, standing on a floating stone platform and surrounded by more of the same sand.
Gaara turned around, heedless of the grown men trying to order him to dismount and come with them. Instead, he searched for his clothes that Draco had dropped next to his gourd. Secluding himself inside of his sand, he got dressed.
While he did this, his sphere floated higher and went right over the Aurors' heads and towards the castle. They tried sending stunners and other non-lethal spells to stop the mysterious teenager, but the most they did was loosen some of the sand shielding him, which was immediately replaced.
His protective sphere flew straight up and over the courtyard. He descended, and by that time he had managed to dress fully, if a little sloppily. His tie wasn't tied and Draco hadn't brought him any shoes, only socks. The time it had taken also gave the Aurors guarding the school time to spread word about this strange boy appearing and ignoring them and their orders (and spells.)
The other Aurors who had gone to liaise with the Hogwarts staff and check to make sure none of the students had been too adversely affected by the dementors proximity, had quickly heard fantastical tales of how one boy, a student at the school, had single-handedly killed every dementors stationed around Hogwarts in a matter of minutes. They had written this off as a group delusion since there was simply no way it could be true.
It was impossible.
And then the boy appeared, exhibiting his abilities, and somehow it seemed a little farfetched.
As many as had been able to assemble in the courtyard from where they had originally been stationed gathered, ready to face whatever the truth behind the legend might be.
The sand fell down into rivulets in a mesmerising dance and Gaara, sans shoes, stepped onto the chilly stones of the school courtyard amidst the flowing stone. He noticed the angry-looking men pointing their wands at him, but he didn't really have the time or the inclination to kill them all right now. Ten minutes ago, he would have delighted in crushing them one by one.
It was alarming for him to acknowledge how close he was to going back to his old ways. One dead friend.
Still, Draco was alive, even Shukaku was (somewhat) sated with the killing of hundreds upon hundreds of dementors, and Gaara was too tired to be throwing grown men around for no good reason.
He put his hands up and tried not to look threatening. His sand, the smallest legible amount he could muster, wrote out: 'I am a student. I am going inside to see my friend. Do not attack.'
He walked onwards, heedless of the commands to stand still or to surrender from the armed men and women. He hoped they wouldn't start something. As it was, there would definitely be questions for him about his abilities after he killed the dementors, since the wizards seemed incapable of it themselves. He didn't need them turning on him as an enemy because of a few stupid Aurors.
As he passed through the threshold and into the castle, appreciating the warmth, he saw another group of Aurors waiting with their wands raised and outstretched towards him. Perhaps he should just see if he could snatch their wands instead of tossing them about or killing them?
He might have done so when they started glancing at each other in between orders for him to stop, clearly considering attacking when he ignored them, but there were dozens of students all crowded on the main staircase, presumably being led to the Great Hall to be checked over and kept safe and grouped together. He didn't want to get innocent children caught up in his (pointless) fight.
"Leave him alone!" Cried a voice from amongst the crowd.
"Yeah, leave him alone!" Came another.
Once they got going, a large proportion of the students on the stairs all started up shouting.
"He's the one who saved us!"
"Where were you lot when the dementors were attacking!?"
"He's a student, don't attack!"
With the barefoot, diminutive and unresisting boy being vouched for by all of the children present as well as the accompanying Divinations professor who had been with them during the crisis, the Aurors had no choice but to stand down for the moment.
"Don't attack!" The watch commander ordered. "Let him through. Perkins, Aljoy, you two go with him. Keep an eye out, okay?"
The two stepped away from the other Aurors and walked sedately behind Gaara, their wands down but not re-sheathed. The trio climbed the stairs and Gaara had to shift and dodge people trying to pat him on the back or the head, and then there were the huggers…
He had not saved any of them, he had just killed the dementors. The saving business was just a nasty side-effect. How could he find value in a human life when they insisted on trying to hug him?!
Fortunately, after the first few lining the stairs had been dodged, the Aurors stepped up and started them moving towards the Great Hall again while Gaara's escorts stopped anymore from getting too close to him.
Trelawney was probably supposed to be helping guide the students, but she had found herself being herded along with them, looking rather confused about all of this. She kept trying to assure those around her that she had seen all this coming but hadn't bothered telling anyone because everything would be fine in the end. As they often did, the upper years humoured her.
Gaara continued up the castle, passing another group on the way, comprised on Gryffindors this time, all quick to follow the Ravenclaws' lead and thank Gaara as loudly and as cloyingly as they could, to his dismay. He managed to dodge them as he had their predecessors and continued on his way. He didn't pay his escorts any mind when they got caught in the throng and had to struggle through the crowd to catch up with him.
When he got to the Hospital Wing, he heard the chaos before he saw it. It was mostly from the seventh years scrambling around trying to get Pepper-Up potions and chocolate to the students who had been worst hit by the dementors effects. Stepping in to the infirmary, he wasn't spared a second glance by the busy people. The only thing they were looking out for were more affected students.
He walked on past those still conscious, lined up along the walls, sitting against them, clutching their hot chocolates and chocolate bars like lifelines, and to the victims that were unconscious either from their attacks or because Madam Pomfrey had deemed they were safer asleep for the time being.
That sort of proximity to dementors could and did drive many fully gown (criminal) adults insane in Azkaban. A child with a softer mind stood no chance when confronted as the school had been, so she would keep them asleep and dreamless until St Mungos could send over a few of their mind healers to try to reverse some of the damage.
One of the most severe cases was most certainly Draco Malfoy (of all people) who had been caught outside during the attack, for what reason, Poppy would never know. It had all started before the sun was up and Draco had been standing out in the grounds! He was lucky his soul had not been eaten entirely.
As it was, the boy was unconscious and would likely not wake for a day or two, and then he would suffer what Poppy had heard described as the 'mother of all hangovers.' And then there would be the nightmares and the trauma.
The poor boy would be in quite the state for the next week, she imagined. He would be lucky not to remember any of it by the time the mind healers were finished with him.
She glimpsed Gaara passing by out of the corner of her eye, but since he was walking and looking not to be crying, he was a lesser priority than everyone else in her ward at the moment. Taking a quick look over at him after he had passed, she noticed he was barefoot but otherwise unharmed, if a little tired. Just here to see his friend, Draco, then.
There weren't supposed to be any visitors at the moment, but Gaara wasn't likely to cause a ruckus. Then again, the perpetually quiet boy wasn't usually being followed by Aurors.
Poor lad.
Gaara found Draco, along with a few other motionless students, at the back of the Hospital Wing, next to Pomfrey's office. Gaara sat at Draco's bedside and waited. Oddly enough, he didn't feel like reading to pass the time right now.
The Aurors watched him stoically for half an hour before Madam Pomfrey, who had tended to both of them in years gone by when they had been Hogwarts students themselves, harangued them into service. She could ignore Gaara (after having him put on an extra pair of woollen socks she kept around) since he had apparently saved all of their souls earlier that morning, according to the varying reports she had received from her conscious charges. She didn't know how much of it had been true, of course, but she couldn't very well harass the 'Protector of Hogwarts'.
However, two layabout Aurors most definitely could help around here! She didn't care what 'orders' they had been issued or who was a 'threat'. So she had them carting students around, and serving out potions and chocolates, instead of watching a fifteen year old while the said teenager watched his blond friend sleep.
Luckily, no matter how long a student had been out of Hogwarts, they couldn't shake the instinctive fear of their school medi-witch.
When she got a moment's respite, since all of the affected students had been brought in and they were starting to be released, she spared a second to tell Gaara the news. It was a pleasure to tell him since she knew just how unpleasant it was going to be informing Lucius and Narcissa later on.
"He won't be waking up any time soon, I'm afraid, Gaara. His soul was returned to his body not long after it was distracted, I would say, so very little damage was done. He'll wake up in a few days and then he will need to see a specialist. You're not hurt are you?"
Gaara turned to her when she asked after his safety. It never ceased to amaze him when people would show concern for his health. He shook his head but let a small smile grace his lips momentarily, as thanks, before letting it slip back off and turning back to Draco.
At least he knew Draco wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Outside of the Hospital Wing, the Hallways were empty but for the handful of Aurors still patrolling. Over the hour that they had been there, they had managed to round up around thirty dementor stragglers that had been left after the slaughter, and they had found what was left of the wranglers that had been stationed around the grounds to control the dementors. They had been caught in the frenzy and the dementors had overcome their defences and Kissed them all.
The students had all been located and moved to the Great Hall to have breakfast and try and calm down. The professors present were left to try to explain what had happened and wait for the pandemonium that would occur as soon as the Ministry, the press or the parents caught wind of what had happened. They were also waiting for their venerable leader to return from his strategy meeting with the Minister, ironically concerning the presence of the dementors.
They were also trying to hide their panic because a few notable people were missing during their headcount. Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger had not shown up anywhere they should have been. The teachers, headed by Professor Sprout, had quashed any rumours of speculation about the conspicuous absences, saying the five were elsewhere being seen to or helping the Aurors.
The Slytherins were the most suspicious, as they were so inclined, by their missing Head of House. They had understood about Malfoy being in the Hospital Wing with Gaara (the only Slytherins caught outside of the dormitories that morning), but they couldn't accept that Snape hadn't seen fit to come and check on them once. Even if he was helping the Aurors clear out the last of the dementors, there was no way he wouldn't even look in on them.
He was an odd grump that way.
In the infirmary, just as the worst of the disorder had been quelled and the majority of the low risk cases had been treated the only way they could be, Poppy's headache quadrupled as two more Aurors arrived, carrying an injured Ronald Weasley between them, and being followed by Severus, Potter and Granger, all looking weary and pale. They had clearly been closer to the swarm than she'd recommend.
Following the group was a third Auror and his wand was drawn.
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