Summary: Sixth year at Hogwarts. Draco unexpectedly finds a valuable item of Harry's that led to spying, secrets and slash!

Warnings: This is post-OotP, so if you haven't read the book (for some reason), you'll be in the risk of finding spoilers. Also, this is going to be D/H slash so if you don't like, save me and yourself the trouble of reading any further. Another thing is that this work has not been through a beta. If you happen to find any mistakes, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd point it out for me so I can fix it.

Disclaimer: Obviously, Harry Potter and the rest of the gang do not belong to me.


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What Dreams Are Made Of
I: Behind a White Rose
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Harry sat himself down at the edge of the large window, and promptly pulled his legs up, hugging them close to his body as his head swivelled to the view on the right.


It was raining outside. Earlier that day, the clouds had gathered up in a gloomy grey overcast, refusing the much needed rain. Now, the heavens opened up and the water poured down heavily, its tapping sound heard from its contact on the school's stone walls and glass panes, creating countless tears from invisible eyes that hesitantly trickled downwards. The sudden downpour had almost seemed sacred to Harry, who alone in the room was watching the event; it seemed as if the sky was crying its flood of tears, but only for Harry to witness. It was as if the sky was crying for him.

It had been the third consecutive day that Harry had come to this room. His insomnia, the rather amusing but terribly annoying sleeping noises that emitted from his dorm-mates, and his increased desire of privacy led him to wander the deserted corridors on that first night. It had only been intended as a walk, and only by chance did he discover the well-concealed room behind a painting in the North Tower, quite near the trapdoor that led to his Divination classroom. He had never known that the room existed, as he never paid attention to his surroundings on the tiresome trips to Divination classes, although after thinking about it, he did seem to recall a square box, shaping this room on his treasured Marauder's Map.

The room itself was quite dull. The walls were simply the cold stone that made up the rest of Hogwarts, with no designs, paintings or tapestry as decoration. At the very end of the room, however, stood a large window, which overlooked not only the lake, but also the hills behind it. It was a picturesque panorama of blue and green in the day.

This night, none of this could be seen as the clouds covered the normally bright moon, and the torrents of rain made it impossible to see further than a few metres.

He was home at last. The summer holidays had seemed to drag on forever, and the emptiness he had felt was smothering. Besides doing chores for the Dursleys, he had just sat in his room, engrossed in his thoughts of the Department of Mysteries. Of Voldemort. Ofof Sirius.

He had blamed himself. Despite his friends' attempted words of reassurance, "It's not your fault, Harry" and the various concerned letters that asked him to cheer up, he still had not been able to shake the fact that he was, ultimately, responsible for Sirius' death. If only he had thought it through, understood the situation before he took control. If only he had not let his ego get in the way, then maybe his godfather would still be alive.

During the nights of pondering in the summer, the shock of painful reality finally went through his numbed brain. Not everything had happy endings. Sirius was dead, and it was utterly, utterly real. This was nothing like the adventures in his past years. Sure, there had been the thrill of danger and near-death experiences, but he had always managed to succeed one way or another. He had kept the Philosopher's Stone out of Voldemort's grasp, rescued Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets very much alive, and although things did not go as smoothly in the third year, Harry had immersed in the relish of having a godfather. Even in his fourth year, when Cedric had died, it had been painful, yet it had seemed almost surreal to Harry. After all, as he guiltily admitted, he hadn't been that close to Cedric.

Never having a father he could actually remember, Sirius was that figure, becoming as Harry had considered, his only true relative. But even that had been taken away from him. Not only had he lost schoolmates and family, he had also endangered the lives of his friends. They had been fighting with real Death Eaters. What if they were killed?

As he dwelled in his guilty conscience, he had discovered that as much as it was his fault for all the devastation around him, more of it had been Voldemort's fault. Everything led back to Voldemort. It was him who had murdered Harry's parents. It was him who forced Harry the responsibility of being the saviour of the world. It was Voldemort who gave the command to kill Cedric, and indirectly, Sirius.

The emptiness that had invaded him was torn open in a surge of anger, and the ferocious desire for revenge. He needed to defeat Voldemort, if not for himself, but for Sirius, for Cedric, and for his parents.

And so he began doing the only thing he could do in summer. He had read through all of the books he had required for school in the past years, with the exception of Lockhart's collection. Books had never seemed important to Harry before - he had always preferred to get up and do something instead of sitting down to study. Besides, it had always been Hermione's area - researching the details to defeat the enemy. But Hermione was not going to be the one to kill Voldemort. It was Harry, just as the prophecy states, and just how he would have liked it. At least his friends would not be in risk during the battle.

Some of the books he read through had been hardly enjoyable, however he did manage to memorise several useful spells and discover a few interesting facts about the wizarding world. He even made the accomplishment of precisely understanding some helpful potions, knowing their properties and ingredients.

When he had finished, Harry had promptly sent Hedwig with a brief message to Hermione to purchase his sixth year's books for him, and to send it to him right away.

Of course, Harry would have never read so many books and absorbed so much information so quickly without the help of Occlumency - his concentration was much too short, and he tended to procrastinate on thoughts of last year, effectively making him thoroughly depressed and unable to study on further.

Occlumency, another area Harry had been determined to perfect, assisted him in clearing his mind and enhancing focus, which made reading significantly easier. At first, Harry had not been sure that his practices have worked, after all, there was no one aggressively raiding through his mind at Privet Drive as Snape had done. But when his nightmares got less frequent, and he started to see less of Voldemort's habits for entertainment (whether they had been real or not, Harry did not know, and by caution sent an account of his dreams every occurrence to Dumbledore), he knew he was progressing. In fact, Harry had even been surprised at his growing Occlumency powers.

On the day of his sixteenth birthday, Harry had been immersed in a book, Transfiguration Transcendence for Sixth Years by Trudy Hardwell, when he had suddenly got the impression that someone was standing outside his door. At first he had thought that it was ridiculous, but it tickled him, provoking him to concentrate deeper and find out who it was. Harry realised that he could feel his aunt standing by the entrance of his room. However, when no movement was made, Harry once again began doubting himself. That is, until there came a quick, light tap on his door. He closed his book and walked over to indeed find his aunt, oddly nervous, her eyes flitting constantly between him and the corridor. Hastily, she muttered a "Happy Birthday" and handed the surprised Harry a cupcake before heading back towards the stairs.

Harry, too shocked by the visit and that she had actually remembered his birthday, stalled his urgent call, "Aunt Petunia."

She turned around, eyes centring on him this time.

"Thank you."

She gave Harry a warm smile, something he had never received from her before, and hurriedly retreated down the stairs.

Of course, the gift wasn't very spectacular, but Harry decided, returning to his book with a mouthful of chocolate cake, at least she had been nice for once.

The discovery of this power had amazed Harry, and on further experimentation, understood that it, along with the ability to focus, generally came with a few minutes of calming down and training in his Occlumency beforehand.

With his new skills and knowledge, Harry had returned to Hogwarts more in control, more confident and more determined, which unfortunately, also brought him more attention. For a long time, Harry had a dream of being an ordinary wizard, with a peaceful life shared with family and friends with nothing more to worry about other than getting good marks at school and which team was going to win Quidditch this year. It was always said that if one works hard enough towards their dream, it is always possible to succeed. Yet, Harry's dream could never be acquired - he will permanently be known as the Boy Who Lived. At least, with Voldemort defeated, the world would be at peace. And hopefully, though unlikely, they would let him live out the peaceful part as well.

The new school year also saw the absence of Umbridge (to everyone's relief), and Harry was promptly re-established on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, and even made captain. DA was also resumed immediately.

Between all the school work, Quidditch practice and DA meetings, the night was the only time where Harry could settle down and think, although it was quite difficult to do so when he was surrounded by noisy sleepers. Harry had taken to roaming the hallways, until one particular clear night, where the moon hung low and the stars were bright, and Harry had the sudden impulse to go higher and admire the Hogwarts landscape. He had ended up in the North Tower, gazing out a window. Becoming tired, he had leaned on a painting of a white rose that hung on the wall opposite the window. To his astonishment, the painting revealed a doorway, and on later inspection, Harry had discovered that like the painting that led to the kitchens, this one activated by touch, and a gentle push on one of the petals revealed the secret room. Harry had ventured there every night since.

A particularly loud clash of thunder hurled Harry out of his thoughts, and in a sudden sense of fear and urgency he could not explain, he hurriedly left his room to return to the Gryffindor common room.

As he strode down from the last step and rounded a corner, Harry abruptly got the impression that someone was in the hallway and immediately flattened himself against the wall, holding his breath. Indeed, light, rhythmic footsteps could be heard getting louder and louder Harry prepared himself to run, just in case he was to get caught and the footsteps got softer and softer Harry let out his breath. With caution, he poked his head around the corner to see who it was, just in time to distinguish the hem of a black robe make a turn up the stairs of the North Tower.

Harry managed a relieved smile before he continued moving towards his destination. If he had stayed in that room for a moment longer then he would have been caught. The tower had only one staircase from top to bottom, and the Black-Robed Person would have either found him or the entrance to his secret room if he were to have left at that time with his invisibility cloak.

Two turns and a staircase away from the Gryffindor common room, Harry stopped and swore mentally. His invisibility cloak - he had forgotten it in his haste to leave the room. If he returned to the tower, he might get caught, and yet, he did not fancy the idea of waiting around for the person to come back down - it might take hours.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows and started walking again. He'd just have to get his cloak tomorrow night.


~*~*~*~*~*~

It was six minutes after midnight and Draco Malfoy had just finished his prefect duties of patrolling the hallways. He had dragged a disgruntled Pansy out of bed, ignoring her complaints and threats. It was, after all, her turn that night. Sure, he was in Slytherin, but that did not mean he was to neglect his responsibilities.

Draco was supposed to retire for the night, yet the hydric atmosphere and the numerous claps of thunder had left him restless, and instead of going back to the dungeons, he wandered off to the northern part of the castle. He hadn't been to his room since school had started this year. The past few nights were occupied with bubbly Slytherins, all eager to share their holiday stories, homework, and a talk with Snape.

During his fifth year his mother, on one of the rare occasions, had a conversation with him, and had suggested him a secret room when he had complained about his inability to study due to his housemates. She had even explained that she herself used to refuge there to study to be alone when she was a student at Hogwarts. Draco had visited the room frequently ever since. Yet, he tended to visit this room usually on late nights, as during the day he had no idea if someone was to walk either up or down the tower, and would effectively spot him.

Also, at night times, when he'd peered out the large window and stared out the landscape illuminated in the ethereal glow of the moonlight, it had made him feel as if the display was just for him; that it belonged to him; that the night was in his possession.

It was his secret room.

Draco had been wholly confident that no one will be able to discover this place. Being situated on the tall North Tower, students would generally be too preoccupied with counting how many steps are left rather than being remotely suspicious of a hidden room.

Reaching his destination, Draco paused in front of the large painting of a white rose. His breathing was shorter than normal due to his unpaused journey up the several flights of stairs, yet his finger reached to the painting with his usual calmness and gently pressed on a petal of the white rose. The painting swung open and Draco stepped through the threshold.

The room was exactly how he remembered it before the summer holidays. Eyes transfixed on the large window ahead of him, he slowly paced towards it.

Suddenly, a flash of lightening illuminated the room and Draco caught sight of something lying beneath the windowsill.

Cautiously in his amazement and curiosity, he reached a hand towards the object, and encountered liquidy material.

Well well well, what do we have here? Draco thought as he grasped it with both hands and lifted it for inspection.

The thunder let out a resounding rumble.

…An invisibility cloak.

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A/N: Hello everyone! *waves* Glad you can make it to the end of the chapter. It is very much appreciated ^_^ Sorry if I pulled it out a bit by putting all the thoughts and descriptionsit's just that I wanted to show how Harry especially, developed during the hols. Hopefully more action next chapter. This is my first HP fic so I really hope that you liked it (and will continue to like it). Please send me a review if you have the time, and I'll try and get chapter ii out asap! Thanks!