After the Ravenclaws' event, Rhyann saw less and less of the Gryffindors. Not only did they have their schoolwork to keep up with, but they were determined to have a more spectacular event than Slytherin. Many of the students believed that Gryffindor could do it too because of the nature of their event. Dueling was equally as loved as quidditch, but since it was something more rarely seen, it was more eagerly anticipated.

Rhyann could teach Harry more about dreaming during the nights now when he did manage to get to sleep. He was a quick learner and that got her ruffled a few times. She had to keep reminding herself that he could never be as powerful as she was in the dreaming realm. It was her world and he was only there, being taught how to utilize his talents, because she allowed it. It assuaged her territorial feelings for the most part, but she was apt to give Harry little reminders now and then that she had the control in that realm.

There were less meetings now with only a few months left of the semester. Essays and projects piled on the students' heads. So with the extra time she had, the petite Rookwood concentrated more on increasing her skills with astral projection. The next step in Salome's book was about waking reality itself. It was a realm not unlike the dreaming one. As proven through magic, it could be manipulated and a dreamer had the ability to do so. This was difficult for her to grasp because Rhyann certainly did not feel as though the waking world was anything like the dreaming one. They not only acted differently, but they felt differently to her. The dreaming realm was fluid to her. A small swish of a thought could change the entire landscape. She was lucky that she could levitate a book using her wand in the waking world.

She had her projected self walk around the school often, testing reality in various places and situations. None noticed that it wasn't her real self in class. Not even Snape could tell the difference. Rhyann even perfected the little details so that Draco couldn't tell in intimate moments.

She remembered when she had started learning to dream when she was a little girl and the basic lessons they had taught her. One of the first ones was changing a single object into something else. In a dream, it was a simple thing to do because dream objects were not real. They did not have their own energy. It was a matter of manipulating images and the will of the person's dream that one was in. In the waking world, though, objects did exist on their own. Their being was not supported by someone's mind. To change something into another thing without using transfiguration magic was an entirely different story.

Salome described the enforcing of one's energy and will upon the object. Not as a violent seizure of that object's being, but as a melding with it and working with its energy to transform it into something different. Just like learning the trick with all new things, once she figured out how to do it, she knew it would be easy from there on out. Yet Rhyann was having a difficult time melding her energy with that of a real object. There seemed like a wall around things. She referred to it as a physical-ness and frustrated herself with trying to get past it.

The dreamer knew she had to abandon what she knew of the waking world to accept what Salome was telling her in the book. All her experience in her years of life though were nearly impossible to conquer. Such things went to an unconscious level. She did not have the time needed to surpass it and gain a whole new view of the world. She had to be able to do it before the final attack by Voldemort on the wizarding world.

It was mid-March when she was walking a circle around Draco, her hand trailing around his middle. "So is this the real me or my projected self?"

The blond ran his hand through her long locks and grinned. "I don't know. Let me get a more thorough taste than just a kiss and I'll give you my guess then."

"If you guess correctly, then I'll let you." Rhyann teased, smirking up at him.

"Ah, motivation!" Draco chuckled and snatched her around the waist. He looked into her eyes as if he could tell by the shimmering of her dark orbs and then suddenly yanked up the sleeve on her left arm. "It's your projected self!"

Rhyann glared down at her bare arm. No tattoo. She detested the grotesque thing so much that she did not let it travel with her dream self. It was a mark on her physical body, not her spirit. Her boyfriend knew that she did that too and pulled away her arm. "That's cheating. No one else will look at my arm or even know what to look for. I want you to tell on other things."

"Rhyann, you know that your projection is perfect. There's no way anyone can tell." Draco gave a little sigh and pulled her closer to him again, nuzzling her. "I did guess correctly though..."

"Yes, you did." She cupped his handsome face and gave him a long, deep kiss. The dreamer then sighed herself. "I need to be able to do here what I can in the dreaming realm. Time is slipping away... tomorrow the two months is up..." She knew that he knew what she was talking about. There was no reason to say it out loud. She gave an unwilling little shiver. She would trust in Snape. She was now in a position to do nothing but trust in that he would take care of things as he had said he would.

Trailing his kisses down her neck, Draco rubbed her back soothingly hearing her talk of the deadline. "Don't worry about it, love. As you said, he won't kill you because you're too valuable. And I'll protect you from anything else. Just come spend nights with me in my bed and that way I will always be near to make sure you're safe."

A little smile played across her lips unbidden. "I've spent nights in your bed before. Some of the other students do mind, you know. And if one of the staff members were to come to get the Head Boy for something in the middle of the night, we'd be in a lot more trouble and I would not be the cause of having your title taken away from you."

"No one will care." He kissed her lips again and tenderly caressed the side of her face. "We're both adults and we are to wed. There are other empty beds if any of the others complain. You do get noisy sometimes."

"I do not!" Rhyann protested and gave him a playful little shove, attempting to wiggle out of his embrace.

"Yes, you do." Blaise grinned impishly as he slipped into the dorm room and head to his trunk to dig out a book. "But don't mind me, just go about what you were doing."

Rhyann let out a little gasp and buried her face which was red with embarrassment against her boyfriend. Draco was laughing and lightly tickling her sides. "See, I have a witness! What kind of things you want me to get her to shout out, Zabini! I'm taking requests!"

She gave him a whack on the arm and a warning glare at the other teen boy. "Don't you even say anything, Blaise! Just go on and give me some privacy to strangle him!"

"I'm not saying anything!" Having found his book, Blaise held up his hands in surrender. "Though, watching you strangle him might be fun too!"

"Get out!" Rhyann picked up a book and threw it at him.

Blaise laughed and ducked out the door, pausing to peek back in. "Hey, if you're going to start that, you better just go get your own body, Rhyann. Don't let Millicent sit there the whole time watching it while you shag Malfoy!" He disappeared down the stairs with his laughter echoing behind him.

Draco was still chuckling as he kissed her reddened cheeks. "I sometimes get the impression that Zabini doesn't like me all that much. I think maybe he's jealous." He reached around and gave her rear a playful squeeze. "You getting all red in the face has to be a new thing for your projection though."

"Blaise is not jealous." Rhyann scoffed, brushing her hair back out of her face. She had never gotten that impression from Zabini. He was a good looking young wizard and had an easy way with the girls. He did not seem to be interested in relationships though. "And as for the blushing, I can do that in dreams. It's no big thing."

"And what about the book then?"

She frowned slightly. "The book? I picked it up and threw it at him. There's no trick to that."

He raised a pale eyebrow. "Well, there would be no trick to it if the book weren't my glove beforehand."

"You left your books on the bed. You put your gloves on the table..." Rhyann glanced down to see though his books were on the bed, they were on the other side. One green glove sitting next to her side. Her dark eyes darted to the book she had threw at Blaise. It was one of Draco's wizarding economics texts. One she was sure that had been beside her. Whipping her head back, she saw that the real book was on the other side of the bed. "I did it..."

Draco walked over and picked up the book she had thrown. He flicked through the pages as he brought it back over to her. "I don't know what I'd do with two books, but I certainly don't know what I'd do with an empty book." He held it open for her. The cover was exactly the same as the original but there was no writing inside.

She gave her head a little shake, trying to chase away the shock. Rhyann grabbed the book away from him, let her fingers wander over it. It was real and solid. It had a physical-ness. There was no text in it, but it was no longer a glove. There was not even a signature energy that let one know it had been that before. "It's real..."

"Do you think you can change it back into my glove?" He sat down on his bed watching her intently.

"I wasn't even thinking when I did it though..." The dreamer ran her hand over the spine of the book. Perhaps that was what the problem had been all along. She had been thinking too much and letting her views of the waking world cloud her ability to do this. She had been sure there was a book beside her when she threw it at Blaise. It had been a certainty in her mind. What she had picked up did not even feel like a glove. It was a book even before her fingers had touched it.

The object in her hands was a book. She peered over at Draco and at his single glove on the bed. She had the pair in her hands. The soft green wool that was a little worn from being used while he was playing quidditch. She knew the feel of it well just from the times he had touched her with his gloved hands. She was not holding a book, but a glove. It was a glove. She let her energy flow into the object and gave it that knowledge.

There was a sudden weight difference and she almost dropped it. Rhyann grinned so widely that her cheeks stretched to their limit. She held out the glove to him, beaming with her victory. "Your glove, sir."

Draco took it, felt it and put it on. It was the same glove it had been before. "That's amazing! It's not like transfiguration at all. There's no slow or even fast transformation. It was a book and then suddenly, it was a glove. Try something else!"

Rhyann hopped over to the other side of his bed where his books were piled on the end. She knew the trick now. It seemed so simple. Why had it taken her so long to grasp it! She could hear her own laughter as she turned a book into a quill and another into miniature broom which she tossed over to her boyfriend. "This is really very easy!" She took another book and suddenly it was a handful of galleons. "I do think I could get use to this!"

His eyes went wide as he laughed along with her. "Me too!" He then grinned sheepishly. "Though, I am going to need my books back to be able to do my work."

She changed them all back to their original form and then rubbed her hands together. "Something bigger now." There was an oak desk against the wall near his bed and she focused on it. She let her energy meld with it and had it turn into a velvet cushioned couch with ornately carved legs. It had several fluffy pillows with her initials and Draco's entwined. She changed its color a few times before she decided on a deep green and added a higher dimpled back. She was about to applaud herself when her legs went out underneath her. The room was starting to fade.

Draco was swiftly down by her side. "What's happening! Are you alright, Rhyann!"

She felt exhausted. It had been too much her first time. In the dreaming realm, she seemed to have an inexhaustable amount of energy, but that was not true here. "Just drained... I have to go back to my physical body. I'll be back..."

She vanished and did not hear his protest about the desk being a couch now. Rhyann's eyes fluttered open in her own bed and Millicent's shadow hovered over her. She saw the concern in the big teen's eyes and gave her a weary smile, waving her off. "No worries. Just over did it." She did not even see Millicent's reaction or get back to Draco. Her body took her away to a long nap.