6/6

Gaara waited all afternoon for Luna to bring up the evening but she did not. As smart as the Ravenclaw girl was, there was no chance she had forgotten what was to happen so Gaara hoped in vain that Luna might have overcome her fixation.

If he had seen the notebook she dedicated to drawing and theorising about his world's tanuki, he would have given up on that hope.

In the evening, when he was alone, Gaara transformed like normal (a relative concept) without incident. He was out in the forest again, since his fur insulated him well enough against the winter chill and Draco had seemed averse to him staying. Whether this was related to the horrific memories of last month, the ongoing distance between them, the mound of homework Draco had to do, or whatever secret project he was working on, Gaara didn't know. But Gaara had no interest in imposing where he wasn't wanted.

And it was pleasant to run in this form.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Not long after the full moon, over halfway through November, Gaara was suffering under the noxious miasma of Snape's latest round of Potions torture, which Gaara suspected had been planned at least in part to make him feel nauseous, when he was rescued from the latter half of the lesson by a boy, apparently called Colin Creevey.

The nervous-looking boy had knocked on the classroom door and Gaara could not tell whether he had seemed more frightened by Snape's furious approach, or Gaara's more placid one. Snape, always glad to be rid of Gaara, however was less pleased by his class being interrupted for no good reason. And he certainly did not believe a nonsensical ritual related to the damned Triwizard Tournament anywhere near a good reason.

The momentary pleasure of terrifying the uncharacteristically meek Gryffindor could not last, though, so as soon as the Creevey boy had requested both Potter and Gaara, Snape ordered them both out of his laboratory like it had been his idea in the first place.

Harry had jumped to his feet when Snape shouted his name, a habit developed after years of persecution in that very classroom, and came at once to the door. Gaara was more sedate, never one to be beckoned like a dog.

"You are to go with Mr Creevey." Snape said, about as civilly as he ever addressed either of them. "One of your classmates will share with you the homework assignment following today's lesson. You will write double the length, to make up for the missed lesson."

"But sir-!" Harry tried but Snape had somehow manoeuvred them to stand outside the doorway during his short speech, and then promptly slammed the door in their faces as Harry tried to protest that he did not want to be involved in the Tournament.

Gaara had no such excuse, and he did not mind so much having to write extra homework for the lesson if it would help him escape the laboratory. It would be like when he had skipped Potions entirely last year and had devoted the time instead to self-study.

Harry didn't dwell on Snape's eternal hatred of him, having accepted it as a foregone conclusion in his third year, instead he turned to Colin to see where they had to go.

Colin was petrified. Here were the boy he admired and the boy he feared standing right in front of him.

After the silence drew on, Harry cleared his throat, hoping that might prompt Colin while causing the least embarrassment.

"Oh, right, yes, of course…" He started. "Professor McGonagall sent me to fetch you, and bring you to Dumbledore's office." Colin glanced at Gaara and stumbled out, "Professor Dumbledore, that is."

Gaara raised an invisible eyebrow. Did this boy think he minded that informality? Strange.

"Sure, Colin. Lead the way." Harry said with a smile. He was a bit twitchy, but Colin was a good guy.

"Yes, sir!" Colin said, before blushing and clarifying, "I mean, yes, Harry… yes. Let's… follow me." He seemed to lose some steam at the end.

They started the climb through the castle, Harry already wishing he had been taking a lesson on a higher floor before this summons. He was an athlete (as much of an athlete as could be found in the wizarding world), but even Harry knew his thighs would be burning by the time they had climbed the dozens of staircases to get to Dumbledore's office near the top of the castle. If they had been sent for, they couldn't dilly dally or take their time.

Harry was about to make a commiserative comment to Gaara walking beside him, but then he remembered that they weren't friends and Gaara strangely always seemed impervious to the unavoidable lethargy that came with puberty. In fact, despite Gaara's increasingly apparent stunted growth, and petite frame, he was actually very physically able. It might explain some of the otherwise inexplicable confidence Gaara displayed regarding the Tournament.

Well… his physical prowess alongside that powerful sand trick of his. Harry had seen a couple of people try to puzzle out the spell last year, and a couple dozen try it this year following the display against the dementors in the summer. No one had been able to do much more than make little sand tornadoes in their hands, but that had satisfied the majority who only wanted to be able to do just such a trick.

Gaara had found the entire thing unsettling, like any of the trends that had sprung up around him, but it had faded soon enough when a popular sixth year had switched to a new braided hairstyle and that had diverted their attentions.

Harry ended up walking a little ahead, to stride alongside Colin since it was unsettling to be next to Gaara for so long without forcing at least some conversation, in which neither of them were inclined to indulge. The downside was that Colin soon forgot his nerves and began to chatter animatedly about the 'atmosphere' in the school ("It's electric!") among other things.

"-and of course Dennis thinks it's something silly like fighting a chimera, but I reckon it'll be something like an obstacle course or a scavenger hunt, you know." Colin rattled on, almost impossible to stop after he got started.

"I don't think it's going to be a scavenger hunt." Harry said wistfully. If only…

Colin looked at Harry's grimace and tried to think of something to lighten his mood, having heard that Harry Potter wasn't entirely confident about his impending performance in the Tournament.

"Don't worry, Harry. I'm sure you'll do well no matter what it is." He said. "After all, you're the real Champion for Hogwarts." Colin said this with a smile that lasted all four seconds before his own thoughtless statement made him think of the other boy, walking silently three feet behind him. Colin glanced behind himself with pantomime fear, as if he honestly believed Gaara would be in the process of assassinating him.

Gaara was still just walking along; looking quite distracted, in fact. Not that Gaara would have taken any interest in the comment, had he paid attention to hear it.

"Don't worry about him. He's actually pretty harmless." Harry whispered. Colin didn't look like he believe him, and Harry wasn't sure he trusted what he had said either.

Colin eventually stumbled back to his previous pace alongside Harry and only took half a dozen more frantic glances backwards before he was reasonably convinced that Gaara might not have heard him besmirch his Champion status. Or, if Gaara had heard it, he would hold off on his revenge until Colin had already forgotten about the whole thing, then he would strike!

"So, do you know what this is about?" Harry asked Colin, interrupting his ridiculous train of thought.

"No- er… no. Professor McGonagall just told me to get you for a Triwizard event."

"Oh. Any ideas, Gaara?" Harry asked him.

"Yes."

Harry looked at him long and hard but the way Gaara glanced back at him, confusion written all over his face, indicated that the redhead had not meant to be difficult. He was simply an idiot.

"What do you think this is about?"

"It is the Weighing of the Wands, on the 21st of November. We were told about it." Not to mention Gaara had read about it preceding the first Task in just about every book on the Triwizard Tournament.

"That's today?" Harry vaguely remembered being told about this ceremony, but compared to the Tasks and the tourney and the Yule Ball, it hadn't registered.

"Yes." Gaara said redundantly.

"Only five days until the first Task!" Colin helpfully added in his excited tone.

Harry felt sick.

The staircase to Dumbledore's office was already waiting for them when they arrived, which was a shame as Harry would have appreciated a couple of minutes to regain his breath. In an effort to reduce the time he spent in proximity to Gaara now that he felt he had insulted him, Colin had set a fast pace up to the top of the castle, and Harry was breathing a little harder than he would like.

Evidently, without the House Quidditch cup and corresponding practices, Harry had fallen a little out of shape. He would need to work on that, even if it was too late for the first Task.

"Thanks, Colin." Harry said between breaths so neither Colin, who was suffering even worse, and Gaara, who seemed unaffected, would hear just how out of breath he was.

"No problem." Colin looked like he wanted to say something else but then he looked Gaara in the eyes and started speed walking away instead. Gaara said nothing, instead turning to ascend the final staircase and get this over with. The books had been vague about the exact procedure involved in the Weighing of the Wands, though it had said enough to indicate that there would be nothing of great concern for someone like Gaara. That just left him with the annoyance of a probable publicity event.

In the usually serene office were waiting many more people than either Harry or Gaara had been expecting. Both of the other Champions and their head teachers were already waiting for them, along with their own headmaster and deputy headmistress. Those people, Gaara had expected, but the others…

Dumbledore's office was normally quite spacious, rarely hosting more than a few people at once, and here were dozens. Fudge had brought along Crouch and Bagman, along with a handful of Ministry flunkies and Henrick Morbidus hovering behind them, all huddled in an officious flock. There were also quite a few reporters and photographers dotted about, taking pictures of everyone, and then snapping a couple hundred pictures of Gaara and Harry as they entered.

The reporters all rushed forwards to start their badgering but McGonagall was quicker, despite her age, and she managed to guide the boys over to where the Champions were to await the start of the proceedings. When they hurried over to the other side of the room, Gaara saw that the man who had sold him his wand was also present. He must have been an important wand expert to have come all the way from London for this, Gaara thought.

The din of reports repeatedly shouting inane questions was beginning to upset Gaara quite profoundly, to the extent that he was already planning to leave the event and make his apologies later. He had said he would participate in the Tournament and win it, but he did not think he could stand this sort of atmosphere. Not for long anyway. Shukaku was screaming some familiar suggestions and it was starting to make the backs of Gaara's eyes ache.

When was the last time he had slept? It might have been a few days, definitely no more than a week. Still, it was already souring his mood.

"Now, if I can have everybody's attention!" Fudge announced, stepping up and turning so the cameras would get his good side, forgetting that the magical cameras would capture him turning and posing, looking less regal than he had planned. Clearly Fudge was still trying to run things.

Gaara was just about to use this distraction to slip back and away to the door or, failing that, the window. He wouldn't make a sound and no one would notice his absence for a couple of minutes. And then a hand settled on Gaara's shoulder.

"Thank you for coming, boys." Dumbledore said warmly, his other hand on Potter's shoulder. "Minister Fudge, perhaps we should give Minister Bagman some room to start proceedings properly. He is running the event, is he not?"

The scowl on Fudge's face betrayed his fury, his head turning a very Dursley colour shade of purple. Clearly the bad blood between Dumbledore and Fudge had not improved in the past few months.

Gaara was not paying attention to these undercurrents, however; he was wondering how the old man had anticipated his escape and held him in place so efficiently.

Bagman blinked owlishly, startled to, in fact, be running the event he was supposed to be running. "Right, yes. Well, let's begin." He said with wide arms. "We're here for the traditional Weighing of the Wands, which is a ceremony which dates back to the Tournament of 1645, after one of the Champions in the previous Tournament was killed by a faulty wand."

Harry blanched at the casual mention of death. Gaara couldn't go much paler, but he was now a little more nervous. Of course, the name had indicated that his wand might be inspected a little, but he had hoped to claim it was an old wand that he had received damaged. Instead, the wand salesman might recognise it from last year and call him out on his bald-faced lie. After all, Gaara had been intermittently been whittling, carving and using his wand as a shoe horn for the past year.

All of this had probably not helped Gaara's spell casting. Luna had claimed it could take half the blame for Gaara's spectacular failure on most of the spells he tried to cast now. Luckily, he was rarely, if ever, called upon to demonstrate spells in classes and if he quietly skipped out on doing the practical parts of the lessons, the professors mostly turned a blind eye to save on repairing the damage should he have attempted whatever simple spell was being learned. Gaara was betting on receiving Dumbledore's help at the end of the year as he doubted he would pass another end-of-year exam like he had last year.

And now the entire wizarding world would know just how reckless and destructive he had been with his wand. Hopefully they wouldn't stoop to saying such hurtful things on the subject as Draco regularly did.

"Your wands will be your most important assets in the Tasks to come, so the foremost expert in wandlore in Britain, perhaps the world, will examine them each in turn." Bagman said, unknowingly rubbing it in.

The Champions were asked to line up and only when all eyes were on them did Dumbledore take his hand off of Gaara's shoulder. Gaara ensured he was stood at the end of the queue, to give himself as long as possible to come up with an excuse.

"Now, Mr Ollivander, if you would be so kind, would you examine each of the Champions' wands, please?" Bagman said.

"Yes, of course." Ollivander said, shuffling over to the end of the line, to Krum first.

Viktor sullenly stepped forward and surrendered his wand to Ollivander. Krum appeared to be in a foul mood, but Gaara was not a good judge of these things. People often thought he was in a worse (or more murderous) mood than he really was. Then again, Gaara was currently in a 'medium' murderous mood and he expected his glare was reflecting this.

"Yes, yes, quite nice. A Gregorovitch wand, if I'm not mistaken. One of the world's finest crafters, though very different from how I prefer to do things." Ollivander's words ended in a mutter as he started to look closely at the thick wand, paying no attention to the tight nod Viktor supplied to confirm the maker's identity. Ollivander held it in both of his hands and tested its flexibility and then ran his fingers along its polished surface. "A very fine example, indeed. Ten and a quarter inches, quite inflexible, hornbeam wood and a dragon heartstring core. Lovely."

Gaara wondered how the man was able to discern not only the type of wood, which might have come from specialist experience, but also the core embedded in the wood by some proprietary means. There was no way to see the core, so how did he know? And if it was some magical ability, how come the wandmaker had not been able to tell what was in Gaara's wand when he bought it? Peculiar.

The man, in full view of the press, used the wand to conjure some bright sparks and then cast a simple spell. Both were performed without any issue so Ollivander pronounced the wand as being ready for the Tournament. It was handed back to Krum, who didn't so much as look at it before he holstered the wand at his hip again.

Fleur was in a comparably bright mood, smiling sweetly at the old man as she stepped forward to hand over her wand. Ollivander smiled sweetly back at her, a sign that he was just as charmed by her as all of the other males in the room, barring Dumbledore, whose expression had not changed at all. Gaara wondered if his age protected him from whatever effect she exuded on men. But then why didn't it work on Gaara?

Ollivander paid the same careful attention to Fleur's wand as he had Viktor's. "Hmm, most peculiar. Might this contain Veela hair?"

Fleur smiles wider and said in her thick accent, "Yes, it does."

"Interesting, very interesting. That must make for quite a temperamental wand."

"It is well suited to a temperamental girl." She replied.

Ollivander blinked and then laughed heartily. "Yes, yes, quite right."

"It was my grandmother's after all." Fleur added.

"Your grandmother's?" He asked, re-examining its polished surface. "It's remarkably well-kept, in that case."

"No, the hair was my grandmother's. She gifted it to me so my parents could have the wand made specially."

"Oh! That's a novel idea! I must ask you more about this." Crouch loudly cleared his throat, startling Ollivander who had been so focused on the wands as to forget everything and everyone else in the room. "Another time, perhaps." He sounded sullen, perhaps rueful of the limited opportunities for such interesting conversations, especially at his advanced age.

"Onward, then." He said. "A nice, sturdy 9 1/2 inch rosewood wand; an elegant example." He cast a shower of sparks and the conjured a bouquet of roses to hand to the beautiful young lady. Fleur smiled demurely, used to the unwanted but ultimately harmless attentions of older men, and accepted her wand and her roses.

The flowers were found dumped in the bin of a nearby classroom an hour later by Filch, who put them in his finest crystal vase and proudly displayed them in his office/cupboard. Despite appearances, no one who truly knew Filch could say he didn't have an appreciation for the finer things in life. Sadly, the only being who knew the caretaker like that was Mrs Norris, and she wasn't talkative enough to let the secret out.

As Ollivander had been examining both Fleur's and Viktor's wands and marvelling at their pristine conditions, so had everyone else in the room. The assorted press were taking pictures of the wands that they almost certainly wouldn't use unless the story encompassed more than two or three pages of their magazines and newspapers.

Harry has also been watching, always having been curious about wands, and now he felt rather embarrassed by the mucky state of his own. It hadn't occurred to him before that moment to clean his wand and make it look presentable. Looking down at it, he now noticed all of the smudges, finger marks and minute scratches and scuffs that covered it. Where the other Champions had handed over wands with mirror shines that could have just been taken out of the box, Harry's looked entirely dull.

In what the scruffy teenager thought was a subtle move, Harry casually wrapped his wand in a fold of his equally shabby robes and tried to polish some of the marks off of his it without anybody noticing. Of course, several reporters noticed and made sure to snap pictures of the young Boy-Who-Lived looking, as he was, like a schoolboy caught short.

It was just fortunate that, in consideration of the slim possibility that he might be observed in the office filled with cameras and journalists, Harry had resisted the temptation to dab a little spit on his wand to clean it a bit better. That would have made the picture of Harry used in most of tomorrow's papers all the more embarrassing. It was already pretty bad compared the statuesque and regal-looking photos of Delacour and Krum that ran alongside it.

Harry looked up from his trying to buff out the scratch from the time Ron had tried to use his wand in second year and dropped it out a window when it sparked viciously, to find Ollivander was already standing in front of him waiting. All pretence of subtlety was now gone so Harry blushed furiously red and stood up straight. He held out his wand haphazardly, lacking the elegance of the other presentations, but Ollivander's receipt betrayed no sign of diminished awe.

"Now this is a wand with which I am familiar. No doubt you remember, Mr Potter, what I told you of it and its sibling wand three years ago." How could Harry forget. "It certainly looks like it has been put to a lot of use since then, I would say."

"Excuse me, sir," one reporter yelled from the back of the crowd with an Eastern European accent, "what do you mean by 'sibling wand'?"

Ollivander looked a bit aggrieved to be interrupted so abruptly, but before he could turn to answer, Crouch spoke up. "No questions, please! No questions. You may address any questions to the Champions after the ceremony."

"Hmm, yes." Ollivander muttered, turning his attention back to Harry's wand. "Eleven inches of supple holly wood with a Phoenix feather core. An excellent wand, if I do say so myself."

Harry's attention was drawn to the loud scribbling of the journalists in their notebooks. He'd never thought he would be grateful to the Ministry, but Crouch had just saved him from having to try and explain why his wand's core was somehow linked to Voldemort's.

Ollivander cast some bright golden sparks, in a larger cluster than either of the others' wands had managed, Harry noted smugly. Next, the wand maker conjured a small but ornate table on which a delicate statue of a Phoenix sat, for only a moment before Ollivander banished the boastful construct back to the aether.

"Yes, that should do nicely." Ollivander added as his final verdict before handing Harry's wand back to him.

Finally, it was Gaara's turn.

"I've been wanting to see you and your wand again for some time, Mr Gaara." Ollivander said. "After you were chosen by it, I made it a little project to try and learn a bit more about it and the other antique wands in my shop."

Gaara didn't move.

Ollivander smiles reassuringly and then held out his hand. "Your wand?"

Gaara still didn't move. It wasn't the most effective tactic for avoiding the impending awkwardness but it was all Gaara could do without running out of the ceremony, which he now recalled would breach his deal with the headmaster.

Ollivander was looking a little confused now, his smile slipping. He looked around nervously and back at Gaara. "Your wand, Gaara?"

Gaara considered lying and saying he hadn't brought it with him but, beyond the shock this would elicit from the magic folk who seemed abashed whenever anyone misplaced their wand for a week because they'd used it as a bookmark and returned it to the Library, Gaara doubted the Hogwarts residents present would believe him. People were starting to anticipate him, to Gaara's consternation.

Gaara drew his wand.

"W-what happened?!" Ollivander immediately snatched the wand away and held it up to the light to get a better look at the damage Gaara had wrought. "What did you do to it?"

"Is something the matter?" Ludo Bagman said, stepping forward to peer around the wand maker and see what the fuss was about.

The press were also snapping more pictures of the backs of Ollivander's and Bagman's heads as they looked at the unseen wand.

"An animal chewed on it." Gaara lied flatly.

"An animal?" Bagman asked, bewildered.

"Chewed on it?! You let an animal chew on your wand?" Ollivander was taken aback, both by the thought of such carelessness and also by the quite obvious lie, judging by the clear knife marks in the wood.

"It was too fast for me to stop it." Gaara continued his lie.

The other adults in the office were beginning to draw in closer. Harry was rubbing his closed eyes under his glasses, staving off a more histrionic reaction to Gaara's latest spectacle. And both Dumbledore and McGonagall were staying well back, unsurprised that Gaara would cause the issue. Minerva, for one, had already seen the late entrant mangling his wand. She had told Severus and washed her hands of the matter. Evidently his Head of House had failed to rectify Gaara's inexplicable behaviour.

"Will it still function?" Fudge finally spoke. He was red in the face, as he often seemed to be as far as Gaara had observed. Evidently, the man was upset at one of the British Champions already derailing the Tournament again, before the bloody Tasks had even started. This was supposed to be a formality!

"Will he still be able to compete with that?" Fleur asked from her end of the line. She sounded concerned but Gaara assumed this was faked for the sake of the witnesses. What sort of person would be concerned about a competitor?

The Ministry officials were hard at work, keeping the reporters from circling around and getting a closer look at Ollivander's horror.

The old man, for his part, was studying the wand closely, inspecting every facet and every hole Gaara had carved out of the scarred thing. "This wand is hundreds of years old, made out of African blackwood. A wood that's no longer used because it was too hard to work, and ebony is a perfectly good alternative. However, dense as it is, all of these marks and holes might not have ruined it completely. I'm not sure what core was used but, since it's not been exposed, the wand should still work. If just." The expert did not sound entirely sure.

"Those antique wands are not very reliable." Gaara heard Krum quietly opine.

"It functions well enough," Gaara said in defence of his 'carelessness', but quietly added, "though, it has become marginally more temperamental." But Gaara didn't consider this to be all that important in a tool.

Ollivander straightened up a bit and held out the wand. The wand failed to do anything at first, but then a couple of stray sparks shot out and finally Ollivander was able to cast some sparks, though they now came out with a bit more force than was probably intended. After proving it was still at least a conduit of magic, he transfigured a nearby chair into an austere-looking table.

"I wouldn't dare call it perfect, or even in a reasonable condition, but considering how perilous the task of finding him a suitable wand was in the first place, I believe it will suffice for the moment."

With this dubious assurance, and the demand that Gaara come and see him in the summer holidays, Ollivander was finished. Gaara had hoped that this might signal the end of the silly event, but his life was never that convenient. Bagman coughed into his hand to get everyone's attention.

"As I am sure you will all remember, the Weighing of the Wands for this Triwizard Tournament is where both the Champions and the public will also be told the nature of the first Task that these four brave Champions will face in a few days. With the nature revealed, they will be able to hone their strategies and refine their spells ready for the day."

Bagman's enthusiasm for all of this seemed uncalled for, Gaara thought. Not least because presumably all of the Champions, the Hogwarts staff and the Ministry representatives knew about the handful of dragons less than two miles from the castle's gate. Plus it was a potentially deadly contest involving school children.

"For the first Task of this Triwizard Tournament, you-" he finally addressed the focuses of the event, "will be facing dragons!"

If Bagman had expected a reaction from the teenagers, he would have been sorely disappointed with only Harry's pallor. Indeed, nobody reacted much at all, with the Ministry people always looking rather dour and the Hogwarts professors following suit, entirely bemused by the event or the attempts at spectacle surrounding it.

Then the dam broke and the reporters went into a frenzy, trying to ask questions and snap pictures of the four. Apparently the world's press were the last to know about quartet of fire-breathing monsters near the prestigious boarding school.

Bagman tried to continue despite the shouting. "Now, I can't say exactly what the challenge will be, but there are some rules for the participation that we will disclose ahead of time. Including, that the dragons should not be harmed during the Task. This will incur a steep penalty in… " He trailed off when he could scarcely hear himself speak.

"Quiet! Quiet, please." Crouch entreated them. "We will be taking questions in a moment. There is still more to be said."

Gaara dearly hoped this wasn't about a dress code for the event or some such nonsense.

"Thank you, Barty." Ludo said. "Now, the Champions will all be wearing specially designed uniforms for the Task, in order to prevent any enchantments or charms from being applied to their clothing. And, of course, the Champions may only bring their wands into the Task, and they may not receive any help from witches, wizards, or magical creatures outside of the arena during the Task."

"So we can't bring anything else with us?" Harry asked. Half of the ideas he and Sirius had been thinking up had necessitated him bringing his Firebolt with him.

"The rule states that when a Champion enters the arena for the Task, they may only take their wands in with them." Bagman clarified.

"Good. As it should be. I will only need my wand anyway." Krum again spike up.

"This much I had assumed." Fleur added dismissively.

It was certainly a cause for concern, but Harry's attention was drawn instead to Gaara, who actually looked frozen. It wasn't his usual stoic nonchalance; Gaara wasn't reacting to anything around him.

"Now, as was stated earlier at the opening ceremony, tickets will be allocated-"

As Ludo Bagman droned on about the allocation of tickets to Champions, paying guests, students, and the press as well as the various means by which external parties might arrive at the castle on the day, Gaara's mind was still stubbornly refusing to work on a solution to this latest, disastrous problem. He could bring nothing into the Task with him except for a potentially broken wand and the clothes on his back. No sand.

Then another thought occurred to the redhead that compounded the impending crisis of the first Task. Draco was going to be absolutely insufferable after having told Gaara not to rely exclusively on his sand in the Tournament.

Maybe if he rescinded Draco's invitation to watch, he'd never find out?

Then again, he'd probably just have his father buy him a ticket and would be both smug and angry.

In Gaara's mental absence, Bagman had finished explaining the minutiae, and when tuned back in, Bagman was saying, "Now we will be opening the floor to questions for the Champions. Thank you for your patience."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

A/N: Again, as always, I want to take the infrequent opportunity to thank my friends on this site, the reviewers, messengers, and artists that have kept this story alive.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Until next time.