She did not expect her death to be so exasperating or emotionally difficult. Rhyann knew it meant she had to go into hiding. That only a few people could know she was alive and that secret had to be protected well in their minds. The students would just think she had been expelled and that was why she was gone. The staff and any other adults would believe that she had been killed. That included her uncles.
After all that had happened, Rhyann still dearly loved them. She could not help it. Even though she knew it had to be this way to save her life, it still tore at her heart to know that her family would believe her dead. Not just dead, but murdered by Draco at Voldemort's command.
Draco had protested that he did not want to be the one. That even if the Dark Lord commanded it, he would never kill her. He wanted the spell cast on himself as well so they could go into hiding together. Snape refused. The rare components, the time and the intricacy of the death spell were not something he could repeat twice in a short time span. It was also made more difficult by the fact that Rhyann had the Dark Mark. It linked her to Voldemort. He knew where each and every one of his Death Eaters were if he chose to seek them out. He would know if she were alive or dead.
While Snape had performed the spell, it was the dreamer herself that had removed the brand from her physical body with her newly manifested skills. The hideous thing was firmly implanted into her physical being. It took most of her energy to rid her arm of it. It felt like it was burning afterwards, too, as if the ghost of the mark still haunted her.
Draco and his lover had to act out a death scene to imprint on his mind and the Deputy Headmaster's. The spell required physical images to make it more real. So in the Head Boy's bed, he lay with her and used a silken tie to strangle her. There was real fear in Rhyann's eyes as she pretended to not be able to breathe, struggling futilely against her much stronger assailant. If she was caught in this, she would really die and so would Draco and Snape.
After that was done, the ritual itself took twenty-five hours. None of them were allowed to sleep. Rhyann almost vomited several times from exhaustion and the brews that Snape had her ingest. She did not ask what was in them for the smell gave her too much information as it was.
She collapsed into a tiny heap on the floor afterwards. Rhyann would stay in the Room of Requirement where she would be hidden from any eyes - physical or magical - that might find her. She sleep for nearly a full day and silently nursed her grief alone in the room.
The spell had created true seeming memories in Draco's and Snape's minds. The professor had witnessed the blond strangling Rhyann and the two of them got rid of her body in the Forbidden Forest, feeding it to the carnivores there. The truth was hidden well and when the Dark Lord would prod their minds to find out what happen, he would see that his orders were carried out. He would also feel that she was no longer living. They would be rewarded rather than punished.
Rhyann knew the room would provide her with whatever needs she had, but it would not undo the fact that people believed her to be dead and she had to stay locked away from the world. She was tempted to project herself to her uncles, to tell them not to grieve for she still was alive, but she knew she could not do so. When she visited their sleeping minds after the news had reached them, she cried at their sorrow, unable to stop her own tears. The only way she could comfort them was to give them happy dreams with her.
Both Draco and Snape had to stay away for a few days. None of the other students came to the room. Rhyann got all her information about what was going on through their sleeping minds. There were some - like Harry and the others - who believed that she was not expelled. Thought that was what the students were told, they thought something bad had happened to her. Fear crept into their minds that she was dead. Snape would not tell them anything and Draco had gone home to his family for a few days.
Finally, three full days after the she woke up after being exhausted from the ritual, the DADA professor brought Harry and Hermione to the room to see her. The Head Girl burst into tears the second she saw the petite brunette and rushed over to envelope her in an immensely relieved hug. "Oh Rhyann! Thank the gods! We thought something bad had happened to you! We thought you were dead!"
Rhyann squirmed a little bit uncomfortably and patted the other witch's shoulder. "I'm okay. Don't worry. No need for all these tears, Hermione."
Hermoine wiped at her wet cheeks and smiled apologetically, but there was honest relief in her eyes. "We heard you got in trouble for, uh, being in the boys' dorm and you were expelled. That you were not coming back to Hogwarts. Draco only got a brief suspension." She gave a little offended sniff at that. "What really happened?" She gave the smaller teen one more hug and then released her.
Glancing over at Snape and seeing his nod, Rhyann told them. "It was all a set up. Officially, I am dead now. Professor Snape cast a death spell and no one can know that I am really alive. If they did, it would mean more lives than just my own. So we had to do the ritual... and make everyone believe..."
Hermione's hands fluttered up to cover her mouth as she paled. There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but it was Harry who moved forward and spontaneously wrapped the dreamer in an embrace. "We really are glad you're okay, Rhyann. We promise to keep your secret." He released her when he realised how tightly he was hugging her. There was no embarrassed smile though. There was just a fiery intensity in his green eyes. "It was Voldemort who wanted to kill you, wasn't it? He didn't want you helping me, right?"
After the incident with Ginny and Drucinda, and Rhyann having not even known about it, she had ventured into that area of people's sleeping minds that she avoided before. There were a bunch of people harboring secret feelings and affairs. She had no clue that such things were going on and between people she would have never even guessed would make a match together. When she had peered into Harry's, she found out something that she had suspected for a while but did not want to admit fully to herself. He did like her. He more than just liked her. He had formed an emotional bond to her that surprised her with its fervor. Harry did realize though that she was in love with Draco, and though it hurt him, he would not pursue his feelings for her. He would be satisfied with being friends and tucked those emotions back where no one else would ever see them.
The intensity in his expression now, she knew came from those repressed emotions. "It was... Him. If he didn't believe me to be dead, there would be others who would be killed as well."
"Was it Snape who was suppose to kill you?" Harry narrowed his eyes as they darted over to the older wizard.
"No, I was not the one." Snape sneered.
"Well," Hermione quickly spoke up to try to ease the tension. "It would make sense to think that, Professor. You are a Death Eater and you are here at the school... No one would suspect you. Who was it then?"
"Draco was ordered to do it. And if he couldn't do it, then Snape was to kill us both." Rhyann said quietly.
"Malfoy! I'll kill him!" Harry's hands curled up into fists and his face went red with anger.
"He didn't do it. He refused to do it." Rhyann reached out a calming hand and put it on Harry's shoulder. "Draco even threatened Snape if he tried anything with me. He didn't know that Professor Snape was not going to carry through with it either. He helped with the death spell. He knows and it is well hidden in his mind. If we didn't do this, then Draco and Professor Snape might be killed as well. I had to let everyone think I was dead."
"Will that mean you have to stay hidden in this room forever?" Hermione had already guessed that the Room of Requirement was helping to hide the fact that Rhyann was still alive.
"Only until the one who ordered me murder is dead himself." Rhyann dropped her hand from the scarred teen's shoulder and looked at him meaningfully with that. Harry's return gaze was one promising that he would rid the world of that evil wizard or die trying.
Snape cleared his throat. "Now that you two know Miss Rookwood is alive, you will have to hide that information away in your minds. Do you remember how to do the spell that Professor Dumbledore taught you, Potter?"
"Of course." Harry snapped at the condensending tone. He turned to Hermione and took out his wand, explaining to Rhyann what he was doing. "This is a spell that Dumbledore created himself. He figured it was too easy for people to break through mental barriers in other people's minds. So he found a way to keep memories away from them without barriers or even hiding them. He liked to think of it as a game of cat and mouse, except that the cat would never be able to catch the mouse because chasing it was not how to trap it. Only by walking away and coaxing it with its own knowledge can the cat finally have it."
She hoped she did not look as surprised as she felt. That was why she could never get the information about horcruxes from Harry's mind! Rhyann had spent hours and hours unsuccessfully chasing it about. She never thought to not chase it. One had to actively seek out memories to find them. That was the way she was taught. Dumbledore had known that she could get through any barriers as well. The clever old man had passed on his trick to Harry, so she would not know what was going on. She was amazed and angry at the same time. She did not like being bested by anyone.
Harry muttered a few words, tapping his wand to Hermione's temples and swishing it about in an intricate pattern. The silvery thin film of memory peeked out and then skittered back off into the Head Girl's skull. Harry then repeated the spell, doing it to himself. He smiled smugly at Snape afterwards who merely gave him a little grunt which might have meant his grudging approval.
"Other people are going to come to the room. If you could teach me to do that, Harry, I could make sure the secret is safe with whomever sees me." Rhyann suggested reasonably.
"No." Snape answered very quickly. "If it needs to be done, let Harry or I do it. It's better if fewer people know the spell and the trick to it."
"Others will come to the room." Hermione put in. "We'd have to tell Ron and Ginny."
"Drucinda, Blaise and Millicent too." Rhyann added.
"Are you planning to inform the whole bloody school?" Snape grumbled, folding his arms.
"No," The dreamer sighed. She understood his fears. His life was as much on the line as her own. "Just those people. They will help keep people away from the room and keep me informed on things."
Snape's lips thinned as if he were going to say no, but eventually he nodded his head once. "Just those people then."
Hermione volunteered herself and hurried over to the door. "I'll go get them now. Better sooner than later with this." She was gone as soon as she said the words.
"Well then," Harry scratched at his head. "What now?"
"We have to keep practicing." Rhyann stated. Not only their secret defense against the dark arts, but dreaming and her astral projection as well.
"And we must plan." The Deputy Headmaster's voice was ominous. When the two teens looked up at him, he walked over to the table and a map of Hogwarts appeared. "The Dark Lord is solidifying his plans for attack now. There are a few specific targets that he wants and Hogwarts is one of them. I know how it is going to go. We must prepare to defend the school."
Harry and Rhyann followed him solemnly over to the table, nodding resolutely. It soon would be time for the final battle and she would finally have her freedom.