It was fortunate that the tournament had been on a Saturday and the school had a full day to recover from it. Rhyann had expected students to be talking about Slytherin's event for at least a few weeks and that was true in her own House, but the rest of the school was already gossiping about what Hufflepuff was planning for the Yule Ball. It was rumored that there was going to be five bands and a great feast that Hogwarts had never seen before. Plus they were inviting celebrities to be their guests of honor. It was still a secret who they did send out invitations to but everyone had their own theories.
Draco seemed to be in a better mood than he had been in a long time. Everything had went the way he had wanted it to for the event. Not only had the tournament went off without a hitch, but Slytherin won it and he was the hero. He would strut around the halls of the school and not even any talk about Hufflepuff's event seemed to bother him. There was nothing that could be better than his own great day.
Though it was nice to finally have the event over for Rhyann, there came about the problem of excuses needed for going off with Millicent and Drucinda three evenings a week. Studying was only something she could use part of the time because Draco wanted to study with her. Now that he suddenly had more free time, he was much more interested in spending it with her.
One part of Rhyann was reveling in her boyfriend's good mood. It almost felt like it has been the last few months of the previous school year. She badly wanted it to be that way again, but it always came down to the fact that she could not trust him any longer. She could not tell him about the secret meetings or Salome's book. When he asked about her duties, she told him that she was still doing as their Lord commanded and keeping an eye on Potter and his friends. This satisfied Draco as well as the several time she made herself available to him to sneak off with so that he would not get suspicious of the time she spent away from him.
No further lists came from Lucius over the course of November. The skies grew grayer and the nights chillier. Snow came early in the last few days of the month. This meant more time inside for all of them which was good since the homework was beginning to pile up.
Rhyann spent more time in her dorm studying not her schoolwork but Salome's book and practiced her astral projection. She had learned to do it more quickly and without fail. She wasn't sure what to call her projected self for she did not feel as though 'soul' were the right word for it. She still resided in her own body as well. For the sake of not confusing herself and since Salome did not give it a name in her writings, she stuck with calling it her dream self. It was what it felt like to her.
Her dream self would walk around in the waking world and she eventually ventured throughout the girls' dorm. Other students passed her in the halls and on the stairs not even noticing that it was a projection of herself. Rhyann even dared the common room and managed to do so successfully. She had to claim to rush off to the bathroom when Draco came to slip his around her though!
Once Rhyann had gotten full control of projecting herself like that, she began to test out this new talent by doing so away from Slytherin tower. First onto Hogwarts grounds and then further still. She had originally sent her dream self to Rookwood Manor and she wondered how far away she could project. She saw Diagon Alley late at night and the outside of her home with the gargoyles staring down at her. She went to Platform 9 ¾'s and to the garden at Malfoy Manor. It was as simple as doing it close by. She had only to picture the place in her mind to take herself there. It was almost like apparating in that sense.
Rhyann did a final test with herself and projected to her favorite private spot on the island she had grown up. It was a misty night which was not unusual for that time of year and she could hear the ocean gently lapping at the beach. She knew all the women would be sleeping already and knew she would not be disturbed.
Though she was not truly there, it was odd being back at the island. She felt bigger than it somehow. The young dreamer rarely thought of her time there. She had not been well liked and spent much of her time alone. The sound of the waves was comforting. It had always soothed her soul. She remembered laying out there at nights, staring up at the starry sky and listening to the ocean. Rhyann had thought that her whole life was going to be there and that made her feel confined. The only times when she felt free were in the dreaming world and staring up at the night sky in her private place.
Now she was trying to gain freedom once again. Liberation from all those who sought to use her and keep her to themselves. Even in the dreaming realm, she was not free from that hold on her. Simply leaving a place would not suffice this time. She had to break the bonds themselves and make sure no one could ever use her again.
The call of a few night birds broke her out of her reverie and Rhyann returned her energy back to her body. Taking in a few breaths afterwards, she swore she could still smell the cool sea air.
Harry's lessons in dreaming were going along better than she wanted as well. He learned quickly and had the ability to do as the dreamer taught him. She showed him minor tricks: how to change the scene of his dreams, how to manipulate the flow of it, how to wake up whenever he willed it. Upon his insistence, she also showed him how to set up a few minor barriers around his mind. It was difficult to weave them when one could not see the energies used to make them up.
Near the end of the month, Harry began to ask her to teach him more difficult things. "How do you get into other people's dreams? How exactly do you learn things from them when most of the time people dream nonsense?"
Rhyann wondered along the deck of the ship in his dream with him. It was all very vivid as he had learned to activate his dreams for all the senses to experience. She was even starting to feel a bit seasick from the rocking of the vessel. "It's difficult to explain how to get into other people's dreams. It's like a tug, but not by the other person. You do it yourself, if that makes sense."
Harry scratched at the fading scar on his arm that he had gotten when the Irish Beater had collided with him. "I'm not sure I understand. We always go into my dreams. Do you think that I could come into yours?"
She did not like that suggestion at all, but could not think of a reasonable excuse to deny him. Rhyann was not about to tell him about the vast universe of glittering stars of energy that she traveled in the dreaming realm. He did not even know they could go into other people's dreams while far away from them. It could not hurt to let him experience what it felt like and she did have expert control over her own mind. There was nothing he could do there that she did not let him do. "Alright." She nodded. "It's probably best if you close your eyes and let yourself feel what it's like. The change of what you see won't mean anything. It's about the feeling. The tug of energy."
The scarred teen's eyes closed and he gave her a nod that he was ready. Rhyann slipped out of his sleeping mind with ease and took his dream self with her. The crones use to do it all the time with her when she was a child. They did not like her going into dreams by herself when she was so young, but she caught on as to how to do it before any dreamer they could remember.
She picked a place familiar to her which was the main sitting room in Rookwood Manor. There was a fire crackling in the marble fireplace and Morden's portrait smiling down at her. "We're here now, Harry."
He opened his eyes and looked around as if in awe. "It feels strange. Not just when you took me here, but it feels like I'm in water or something." He slowly turned around in a circle, taking in everything. "Where are we?"
"This is my home. Rookwood Manor." Rhyann replied with a little fae smile. "And you're only feeling like that because you're not use to having your energy outside of your own body. Along with being in someone else's mind, that does make it feel as if you have trouble moving. You'll get use to it after a while and it will be easier to move about."
Harry continued to look around, taking tentative steps and running his hand along the back of a chair. "You have a really nice home."
"Thank you." The petite witch sat down on a settee and let him explore. It had been a long time since any of the crones had been in her mind and only the Dark Lord had visited since then. Having Harry there was a very different feeling than that. Both Harry and Voldemort had strong energies, but whereas her master's was sizzling and seething, the younger wizard's was a bright white fire that did not give the one the feeling as if it could burn you. "Did you feel what I said when I took you here?"
Nodding, Harry crouched down in front of the fire and held out his hands. He could feel the heat coming off of it. "It was like I was being pulled along by a string. Yet the string wasn't attached to anywhere in particular. Not like portkeys which pull at your naval or apparition that squeezes you. It wasn't so much as I was being tugged along as I was being drawn to."
"Yes, that's exactly it." Rhyann sat back, crossing one leg over the other. In the dreaming realm, when a dreamer got close to a particular sleeping mind, there was that feeling of almost falling lightly. Like the mind had its own form of gravity and you had to go down into it. It was more true for the stronger of energies. She had learned to resist it or use it to her advantage. An untrained dreamer might not be able to resist and end up in a dream that could trap their energies there.
"It feels more real here than in my own dreams." Harry confessed, finally standing up and leaning against the mantel.
"I told you why that was before. I've had more practice than you." She replied simply.
"How would I go into someone's dream without them taking me?"
"You let yourself be drawn in." Rhyann grinned at her answer. "You just have to get use to the feeling of leaving yourself and going into another's sleeping mind."
"Can we try it again? Maybe a couple of times? Just so I can get use to the feeling?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Of course." The dreamer stood up, ready to bring them back to his own mind.
Their lesson would not continue for the evening though because someone was shaking her awake. Harry was returned to himself and Rhyann's eyes fluttered opened. Millicent was glaring down at her. "What are you doing taking a nap! Draco came to the library looking for you and when we said you had just gone to the bathroom, he started off in the opposite direction. This direction!"
"Dammit!" She sprang up in the chair. The last thing she needed was Draco to come in on her asleep as Potter! "Where is he!"
Millicent glanced at Harry who was just waking up beside them with a baffled expression on his face. She then spit out more urgently, "He wasn't that far behind me! I had to bloody run to get here first!"
If she ran out of the room, he would insist on coming back up to see what she was doing. Rhyann barely gave it any thought as to what she should do. "Okay. Make sure no one comes in. I'll take care of it, but don't disturb me!"
It was Millicent's turn to look as confused as Harry but she nodded her head and went to lean against the door so no one could get in. The Gryffindor started to ask what was going on, but Rhyann silenced him with a motion of her hand. "Just don't disturb me!"
She projected her dream self into the hall coming from the other way. It was just in time too, because Draco stormed up the stairs heading to where he felt she was. Upon seeing her, she stopped, slightly bewildered. "What are you doing up here, Rhyann?"
"I had to check a few things at the Astronomy tower. I was studying." She walked towards him casually. "Were you looking for me for something?"
Draco paused again, looking at her and then glancing down the corridor that led to the room of requirement. "I was just looking for you. Aren't I allowed to just come to see you?"
"Of course." Rhyann replied immediately, trying to keep his attention to her. She noticed that he was perplexed. The bond he had with her was probably connected to her physical self and he still was feeling her down the hall, but yet she was also standing there in front of him. "Let me go back down to the library, finish what I was doing, and then maybe we can go somewhere, hmm?"
She was much closer to him now. If she made like she was going to keep walking, perhaps he would follow. Draco didn't move from the spot he was at. "Yeah, sure."
"Well, that didn't sound too enthusiastic." She joked with a playful pout as she continued on past him, motioning for him to follow her.
"It's just that…" He stopped mid-sentence and suddenly his hand darted out to grab her wrist. He had the lightning fast reflexes of a Seeker and he liked to brag that he rarely missed. He may embellish about a lot of things, but Draco did not exaggerate when he talked about his skills as a quidditch player.
His hand grabbed her wrist. Rhyann let out a little gasp. He actually had a hold of her. His fingers did not pass through her as if she were an illusion. She was solid. He narrowed his gray eyes at her. "What's that look for?"
"Nothing." Rhyann shook her head and reached up to pry herself from his hold. She could touch him. She could feel the warmth of his body. "You just caught me by surprise. You know you're awfully fast."
The blond wizard smiled and released her, bending in to give her a quick kiss. "Of course I do. You should know that too." He then gave her a little pat on her behind. "You go finish off your stuff and meet me back at the common room. I have someplace I want to sneak you to tonight."
She made her lips form a curious smile. "And where's that?"
"It's a surprise, love." Draco winked and started to walk down the hall with her.
"You're not even going to give me a clue?"
He chuckled and pretended to think hard on it. "A kinky surprise."
They came to the hall where she had to go one way and he the other. Rhyann shook her head forced out a little laugh. "Another thing I should expect from you too, I suppose."
"Yes, you should." Draco laughed again and turned to go the other way. He peered over his shoulder. "I hope to see you in a few minutes then."
"Most definitely." She gave him a little wave and hurried in the direction of the library. The dreamer was not going to go there, but she wanted him to think she was. Once she was far enough away, she returned to her body.
Millicent was still standing by the door, staring at her. Harry sat sideways in his chair watching her intently. When she was back in her own body, she took a deep breath and glanced at the other two.
"What did you just do?" Millicent demanded.
"I got rid of Draco." Rhyann stated and stood up, grabbing her book bag that was beside her on the floor. "I've got to get back to Slytherin tower now or he'll know what we're up to."
Her wrist was then grabbed by the Gryffindors' Seeker. "What did you do, Rhyann? We tried to talk to you and I waved my hand in front of your eyes. They were open, but you weren't seeing us. It didn't even seem like you were here."
"I'll explain later." Rhyann shook herself free and started to the door.
The big Slytherin did not budge. "You'll explain now."
Rhyann scowled at her. She was about to tell them that she had a special bond with Draco and that she could go to him no matter where he was. That would not do, though. None of them liked nor trusted him. If they knew she was linked to him in such a way, they would become suspicious of her. They might not want her at the meetings in case Draco somehow found out.
"I astral projected." She blurted out. She bit her tongue right after, regretting sharing that secret. Rhyann would have to go into their sleeping minds later and make sure they wouldn't tell anyone.
"You what?" Harry blinked.
"She sent her spirit off to manifest elsewhere." Millicent said in an awe-struck voice. She stepped away from the door, looking quite impressed with her house mate.
The dreamer nodded once. "Yes, that's it. It's like an illusion really. It worked enough to convince Draco to go back to the tower."
Harry looked astonished as well. "You could always do that?"
"Yes." She lied smoothly. "Just something I could always do. Usually not so convincingly. Could you both please not tell anyone?"
"Will you show us how you do it later?" Millicent questioned.
"Sure, alright." Rhyann opened the door and quickly stepped out. "Later. Right now… I won't be able to make it tonight."
Harry and Millicent both nodded watching the petite teen hurry off away from the room. They stood there for a minute or so, letting it sink in what they had just heard. The door then swung open and a trio of Ravenclaws came in for the evening's meeting.