That night the dream returned and it seemed to have become more elaborate.

Rather than being in one of those nondescript dream-spaces, Draco was now in a fully furnished, properly enclosed bedroom with a mirror and a wardrobe and such.
The man was behind him again and he could feel fabric touch his calves — he was wearing some kind of robe.

The heat rose when the tall figure stood against his back and the scent of expensive cologne or soap hit him.

Just like last time, the man put his hands on him and he felt a fluttering in his abdomen as the hands, just amicable at first, slowly moved down to his elbows and from there to his waist… he took a shaky breath as they moved up his chest again.

When the tickle of facial hair touched behind his ear and the hot breath stroked past the nape of his neck, it sent shivers down Draco's spine so stimulating he thought he would come.

Draco awoke with a sob, more aroused and concerned than he had ever been.

It was half past three in the morning and after an ice cold shower, he sat back in his bed and wondered how to keep himself awake.

What he really wanted to do was sleep, but he dreaded the dream recurring.

His instinct was to distract himself, but he already finished any coursework he could have used for that purpose yesterday.
Even though he preferred thinking of just about anything else, he decided to do some dream interpretation — his Divination course book this year was Inigo Imago's The Dream Oracle, after all.

Maybe if he knew what this dream meant it would leave him alone?

He opened the book and turned to the Dream Dictionary section.

Under 'bed' it told him to consider the condition of the bed.
Apparently, since it went from 'unmade to 'made', either some secrets would soon be revealed or he was being sexually careless, and by making the bed he made everything secure again.
Also, the bedroom indicated aspects of himself that he kept private and hidden, which was also indicative of his sexual nature and intimate relations somehow.

Sure.

But it hadn't taken an awful lot of interpreting to figure out this dream had something to do with sex, and Draco was intending to look for that word last since he wanted to find something reassuring first.

He decided to look up 'sheet', since he'd made the bed and all.

This referred him back to 'bedspread' and had something to do with his open sexuality and outward beauty.

Dreaming he was a servant, (because why else would he be making the bed?) meant he was too yielding or submissive to others.

The only person he could imagine being in any sense 'yielding' to was his Father, and he didn't want to consider how that factored in the context of the dream.

Maybe then he wasn't a servant after all, but just making the bed because it was a dream and it didn't need to make sense?

The vagueness of the interpretation was already becoming a nuisance.

The brightness in the room either represented a kind of higher consciousness, that he needed to show honour, or it could indicate a prophetic dream.

He bloody well hoped not.

The light through the window could mean he found the truth to a situation, and was referred to the colour of the light for additional significance.

Draco had interpreted a ton of dreams before, even years before he'd attended Hogwarts.

He didn't mind it and more often than not, there seemed to be something useful in it.

However, this dream he'd had twice now just felt… different, somehow, and that it had been just that bit more intense the second time around was not at all comforting.

It hadn't felt like just a dream.

Come to think of it, the book (and experience) had been clear that it was not possible to smell things during dreams at all… Yet he'd certainly smelled the man's aroma.

The thought made him slightly queasy, but… — maybe he'd known that there was a smell without smelling it, and he just misremembered now he was awake?

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

Was there even a point in interpreting it the traditional way?

His findings didn't seem relevant and it felt like a waste of time.

But then again - what if this was the one dream of actual significance he was going to have in his life and it was going to make a world of difference?

He couldn't imagine that since, even though it had clearly shaken him, there didn't seem to be a whole lot to interpret.

There had only been the room and the excitement that had felt so good while he was 'there' and so revolting afterwards.

Obsessing over a dream he wished he'd never even had was exhausting and he almost considered just going back to sleep, but the implied promise of a rerun snapped him out of that very quickly.

With resignation he continued.

Colours represented energy, emotions, and vibes, but the colour 'cream' wasn't mentioned so he decided it had been white enough.

In general, pale colours indicated weakness or subtlety and bright colours meant awareness.
Personal significance could be a factor but white didn't mean anything to him - he liked it well enough and found it calming, but that was it.

The Dream Oracle told him it represented purity, perfection, peace, innocence, dignity, cleanliness, awareness, new beginnings, and told him he may be experiencing a reawakening of some kind or another, that it could mean some kind of blank slate, or it may refer to a cover-up.

Basically, it could be anything.

There had been a mirror in the room - with a jolt he recollected yesterday's mirror incident.

He'd all but forgotten it since it had behaved normally ever since.

With some relief he realised it must have really been a prank and turned his attention back to the mirror from his dream.

He hadn't been able to look into it, he just knew it had been there.

This apparently meant that he had lost his self-identity which he knew he had… during the cursed dream.

He shut the book and got up, but the moment he stood he thought better of it.

Technically, this was him preparing for the Divination O.W.L. and today was the final class.

Even if he were to pursue anything else at the moment, the feeling that he was neglecting something crucial would gnaw at him incessantly.

Besides, the thoughts of what it could mean would drive him insane.

It was best to know.
He took a deep breath in an attempt to regain his equanimity and sat down again.

After another minute of trying to dispel the frustration he opened the book once more to look for the next term, 'man'.

"To see a man in your dream denotes the aspect of yourself that is assertive, rational, aggressive, and/or competitive. Perhaps you need to incorporate these aspects into your own character."

Draco just about had it with the sass on these pages, but read on with his jaw clenched.

There was something about what different men would mean but he'd had no chance to find out who the man was, so he skipped that.
He hadn't actually seen him as such, anyway, so maybe that wasn't significant.

What had felt somewhat significant was the temperature in the second dream.
Besides, the whole ordeal with Pansy's burn yesterday might have something to do with it as well. According to Inigo Imago, feeling hot meant the dream was related to intimacy or anger:

"Some situation is probably causing you frustration and you should figure it out before your temper is released. Another interpretation is that your sensuality is in its prime lately and you have to release it somehow or you will get sexually frustrated."

It took a lot of effort to cast a silencing charm around his bed but he managed to do so before shouting into his pillow until he his throat felt like gravel.

Had this book been written specifically to mock him!?

He wiped away the tears of rage that had appeared and knew that at least for a little while, he had to do something else.
He had hardly spared a moment to really look at all the gifts he had received yesterday let alone read any of the letters that had arrived.

He hoped doing so now might help.

Ever since Draco had been young, his Father had taught him that if people were under the impression that they were noticed and appreciated they'd be more likely to do him favours in the future, when he might actually need them.

It was before four thirty in the morning so certainly he could spend some time writing Thank You letters.

It did raise his spirits a little and about forty minutes later, when he noticed he had written three consecutive letters of polite gratitude without swearing under his breath, it seemed right to continue with the dream.

The window he'd seen signified possibilities and insight, because it was relatively big it meant an openness to new experiences, but there had been no view so that didn't really say anything.
The wardrobe could indicate a transitional phase in his life— fine, perhaps that was referring to the O.W.L.s — but when Draco turned the page for the sentence to continue he felt his blood run cold.

"- or highlight issues with one's self-image."

He shook with anger; the only thing that had made him question his 'self-image' in any sense had been the bloody dream.
Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy!?
Burning bleeding Hell that was something — have his mind send itself into madness, like his childhood favourite character dragging himself out of a swamp by the hair.

"For fuck's sake," he spat, slapping the book to his face.
It hurt but he welcomed it.

He sat like this for a while, just trying to steady his breathing.

There was only one word he still ought to look up that could have any kind of significance and he wanted to cry.

He took a few deep breaths and turned to the S-section and after another few seconds of gathering courage, he moved to 'sex'.
Unsurprisingly, the book asked him to consider the nature of the love making.
He felt his stomach churn but found some relief in knowing that there hadn't been anything 'truly' happening.
Then again, it had been so obviously about to happen…

He supposed there had been a lot of intimacy and possibly romance in it, but he didn't know with whom and he didn't know the details.

With some more relief he realised that meant he could skip most of this section - the only somewhat relevant part was that the sex-to-come apparently parallelled aspects of himself that he wished to express, that his libido is asking for 'real' action, or that his desires were repressed.
Surely if his libido was asking him for anything it could go through his waking mind before going to the sleeping one, which meant that reading was off the table.

So he wanted to express intimacy and romance..?

He didn't recognise himself in that either.
Either way, he was glad he'd looked in the book now - this last bit especially would have eaten him up inside for as long as he'd put it off.
Another reason he was glad he'd struggled through was that at least now he was certain that this dream couldn't be interpreted the normal way.
It just didn't add up.

He burned the parchment that he'd taken his notes on to cinders in the common room.

Later today he should just ask Trelawney about non-interpretable dreams and be done with it.
Thursdays began with Charms, which was good because that took focus and attention.

Afterwards was History of Magic, which was a struggle.
Professor Binns' wheezy, droning voice did nothing to capture Draco's attention and not even the knowledge that this was the final week before the O. made any difference.

He struggled against sleep and thoughts of the dream that kept trying to creep up on him when all he was trying to do was pay attention to the final throes of the Giant Wars.

During lunch all Draco could think about was Divination, but when the class finally started he realised how uncomfortable it was to broach a topic that was potentially so personal in a classroom setting.

Especially since Trelawney tended to focus her teaching on the Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died.

During the two hours he spent in the hot, perfume-scented classroom he could not convince himself to ask the question.

Sure, he wanted answers, but he didn't want everybody's eyes on him now.

This was one of those times he was glad that Crabbe and Goyle had chosen the same classes as he had — getting them to understand anything took effort.
He hadn't paid a lot of attention to the two lately, and he was surprised to find that Crabbe was helping out Goyle with his dream journal and wasn't doing too shabby a job.

Most of the answers Crabbe gave were things Draco himself would have suggested, so he was impressed.
He was too tired to participate though and he longed for the end of class.

He'd mulled over how to phrase the question without giving too much away. Keeping it generic was his best bet.

Hopefully he would be able to catch Trelawney without a herd of other students listening in.

At the end of the class Trelawney dawdled near Potter, trying to predict his demise as per usual, but thankfully Potter and most of the rest of the class pissed off quickly.

It was dinner time, after all.

"Professor?" Draco said to Trelawney's left shoulder, knowing the desperate look the professor was giving Potter's retreating back.

It got on his nerves how little she cared about her other students.

When she finally turned to face Draco she seemed disappointed to see him there.

Suppressing his annoyance for the moment, Draco started again; "Professor, in light of the O. -… Considering one can predict the future through dreams - what if one has a dream that seems to have no relevant symbolism?"

She seemed slightly taken aback by the question, which wasn't surprising.
Everything covered in Divination class from the beginning of the first year up until now had been about symbolism of some kind.

"When a particle of incense is swept away by the wind, it will experience the direction and force of the gale, — "

Draco opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she raised her hands as if she was combing through the fabric of reality, speaking as if the room was still full of students. "When the world communicates with us it is Divination, and when it does so through dreams, it's Oneiromancy. Suggesting the gale would become ashes simply because there was a burning stick of incense in its path, is a short-sighted thing to assume."

She turned back to him and when her sharp black eyes locked onto him through her thick glasses, he felt a blush creep up his neck.

He hadn't suspected the woman capable of indirect insults and he wasn't sure if she had intended it.

That she felt the need to define Divination could not be accidental though, not to an O.W.L. student the week before the cursed test.

He couldn't suppress his sneer.

She blinked twice, her eyes looking ridiculously large through her glasses.
"If there is no symbolism, it may be an echo of the past, or of the future, showing part of exactly what is, was, or will be. Like a Fata Morgana on the tides of time — "

"Aren't Fata Morganas distorted?" Draco was entirely out of patience for this convoluted nonsense.

She gave him a look and he wasn't sure if it was because he interrupted her or because she didn't know what he meant.
If it was the latter option that just made them even… but since she was a Professor it just wouldn't do.

He tried again: "A Fata Morgana appears when layers of air of different temperatures and light interact in such a way that they cause a distorted mirroring effect above the horizon, so they per definition do not depict things as they are. They are nothing like echoes."
He'd spat the entire thing, not even trying to keep the derision from his tone.

He was tired and he hated this woman. She was clearly a Potter fan, obviously out to make herself as important to Potter as her limited abilities allowed, and here he was, an excellent student from a fantastic family, asking her a perfectly good question and receiving dragon dung in return.

He would have been better off staring at his dinner plate for answers.

She remained silent for a moment.

Perhaps she was waiting for the gale or the incense or whatever.

"Are they?" Draco asked curtly.

Goyle shrugged, Crabbe shook his head no, but Trelawney took another moment and then nodded. "Yes." she said, with an air of finality. She was turning to leave - it was dinner time, after all.

Suddenly Draco realised just how close he was to being left no further than he was this morning. "But if a dream can be an echo of the past or future, showing exactly what was or will be, it should not be distorted, shouldn't it?" He rushed his speech, almost pleading — surely she wouldn't just send him away without answers, would she?

"Uh-huh. Class has been dismissed, so please…" she opened the hatch in the floor, gesturing for them to leave.

Inspiration from the definition of divination came from https: (slashslash) (slash) practice-of-oneiromancy (slash)
Dream interpretations came from .com