Snow was building up outside Hogwarts Castle, plumes of untouched flakes covered the once green fields and hung from the branches of trees like pictures over a mantlepiece. Winter was settling in like an old friend and Christmas break was fast approaching. Harry was halfway through his eighth year at Hogwarts.

Inside, the castle was quite. The dawn was barely breaking over the horizon, the pinks and oranges shone against the snow stretching across the sky the way one stretches after a good nap.

Most of the students were still sleeping, but not Harry. No, the Saviour of the Wizarding World found himself sleepless like he had many times over the years, mostly thanks to Voldemort and the nightmares that came along with being The Boy Who Lived.

This year, Harry had taken to walking the length of the castle under the protection of his invisibility cloak when his nightmares began to plague him again. He had hoped he was free of them, of course, but lately they had been resurfacing. Only images. Flashes, really. So many people he loved; dead. His guilt was resounding and his friends only pacified him, hoping to forget the war the way one forgets about leftovers in the back of the icebox.

But Harry couldn't forget. He couldn't sleep. He was barely making it through classes. He was drowning and the only thing that kept him floating was walking the castle in the hours before everyone was awake and knowing they were safe because of the sacrifices he and his friends had made. In those moments, he felt happy that he helped so many people.

Normally, the walks were quiet aside from the soft padding of his footsteps along the stone floor, but today Harry heard something. A melody. Soft. Delicate. Sad. He found himself being drawn to it. The keys of a piano echoed through the corridors like a ghost. Each note tugged at his soul, unearthing something in Harry that he had buried after Sirius's death.

Harry found himself on the seventh floor, left corridor, standing across from the tapestry depicting the attempt of Barnabas the Barmy to teach troll ballet (a fact he would thank Hermione for later). It was also a place he was all too familiar with after his fifth year.

He was standing outside of the Room of Requirement and the melody was coming from inside. Since Harry was not the one in need of the room, he saw no door, but he could still hear the languid notes of the piano keys and it was really the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. All at once, Harry was wondering if music had ever sounded like this before, but he couldn't remember ever having the time to listen.

So Harry sat down, back against the place where he knew the door would have been and closed his eyes as the mystery piano player continued their song. Harry didn't know if it was a famous melody, or if the mystery player had composed it themselves.

All Harry knew was that the soft notes seemed to be lulling him to sleep, carrying away his nightmares like the last vestiges of a ship wrecked at sea. His eyes fluttered shut and he let himself be carried off into a slumber. A slumber that was free of Voldemort. Free of his dead loved ones. Free of sadness. It was the best sleep he had ever experienced and he felt himself craving that peaceful sleep again and again.

He found he dreamed, sort of: He was standing in a field of red tulips. The sun was setting and the sky was orange, bright orange, with tints of pink and purple around the edges of the horizon. Harry was barefoot and could feel the grass between his toes. It was squishy as if it had just rained. It was more like a vision, but it was peaceful and Harry had felt like he belonged in that field. Every part of him felt like it was in the right place for the first time in his life.

After that morning, Harry found himself on the seventh floor, left corridor, each morning for a week. He listened to the piano player and wished he knew who it was that played such a somber song. A song that Harry related to better than most people anymore. The dream always remained the same; just Harry in the field with the tulips. Each dream felt real and each dream calmed him like he was getting close to something that had been missing for some time. .

Of course he tried the Marauder's Map, but no such luck. The Room of Requirement didn't show up on the map and there were too many students at Hogwarts to sift through the map in hopes of seeing which student had been missing from their bed.

Harry wanted to ask his friends, but he had also been afraid of ruining the magic that the music held over him. He was scared that if he mentioned it, then the music would stop. The piano player would be spooked and Harry would be left to his nightmare's again. In a week's time, Harry had become dependent on the mystery player. He needed them to play their song the same way he needed oxygen.

It had, of course, occurred to him a few times that music was all in his head. That maybe he was going crazy now that the war was over. It wasn't a stretch, really. Apparently, Harry had been withdrawn lately and everyone seemed overly concerned about his wellbeing. People had begun doting on him as if he were a temperamental child. Doting the way Aunt Petunia doted on Dudley, so afraid to say the wrong thing in fear of the boy going off on a tantrum.

But since it was the only time he slept without nightmares, Harry didn't care if he had gone mad. In fact, if he was mad, it was the best feeling he had ever experienced and that was fine by him. At least there was peace in the dreams. Listening to the song of the piano player soothed him in a way that he hadn't thought possible. Especially after the war. Especially since Harry thought of himself as broken because it seemed he was the only one having trouble adjusting to life after Voldemort. To a life where he would finish Hogwarts, become an Auror, and marry Ginny. Just as everyone expected him to.

So, on his seventh day sitting outside of the Room of Requirement, Harry willed himself to stay awake in hopes of learning the identity of the one person who seemed to understand Harry, even if it were only though song.

But the melody carried him away like a soft wind carries the petals of a dandelion. Harry was asleep again, back against the wall, dreaming of the field