Harry's POV:

My eyes suddenly burst open, and light poured into them, temporarily blinding me. I quickly shut my eyes again and at rubbed them.

That was the oddest good dream that I've ever had. After a few seconds, I tried opening my eyes again and found everything to be blurry, but not painfully bright. I reached over to my nightstand and pulled my glasses off them and pushed them onto my face. Everything drew into focus. I was in my room at Hogwarts. I yawned and stretched my arms out, then relaxed and sat up and reached for my journal. (Now, don't make fun of me for this, but…) Hermione suggested that after Voldemort died that I record every dream I have. Really, it was just to make sure that he wasn't alive anymore, as when he was alive, I would see into what he was doing and my scar would hurt and whatnot. Really, I found it rather dumb, and I wouldn't use it all the time, but other times I would remember and write something down in it, especially if it was really weird. Did I mention the journal also likes to take liberties in trying to interpret my dreams? That is mostly the reason I try not to use it so often.

I had been sitting in a pool of water looking around me, and seeing Cygnus frowning and holding up his flower bracelet on his wrist. He looked at it for a moment, and then one flower fell off, and all the flowers came apart, slowly falling down to the ground. Once they hit the ground, they crumpled into ashes. When I looked up again, there were Ron and Hermione, smiling at me like they always do. Then Draco walked up behind them, with his purple bruise on his face, smiling too, just like they were. I heard his voice repeat all around me saying "I wish I could take it all back…take it all back…" and then Hermione, Ron, and Draco faded away. I looked down to the water and saw my reflection. I looked like any normal person for a moment, and then the water rippled, and my reflection changed into Hyden, who smiled back at me. Then the water splashed me, and I woke up.

I read it over again, to make sure I had gotten everything right, then nodded to myself. I was about to close it when I saw words seeping onto the margins of the page.

Pool:
To see a pool of water in your dream indicates that you need to acknowledge and understand your feelings. It is time to dive in and deal with those emotions. Alternatively, a pool indicates your desire to be cleansed. You need to wash away the past.

Bracelet:
To see or wear a bracelet in your dream refers to an expression of deep passion and fire. The dream is also a sign that you need to rekindle old friendships and to call up an old friend that you haven't heard from in a while.
To see a broken bracelet in your dream suggests that you tend to sacrifice your own comfort and happiness for others.

Ashes:
To see ashes in your dream signifies bitter changes and disruptions. Ashes may represent a failed relationship or a ruinous business enterprise. You feel that the good times are over and nothing of value is left in your life. Alternatively, ashes may mean that you are dwelling too much on the past. You need to learn to let go.

Smile:
To dream that you or others are smiling means that you are pleased with your achievements and approve of the decisions you have made. You will be rewarded for the good things you have done for others. Alternatively, a smile indicates that you are in search of something or someone that will make you happy

Purple:
Purple is the color of royalty, high rank, justice, wealth and dignity

Repeat:
To dream that something is repeating indicates that there is some message that you need to ingrain in your mind. Perhaps you are trying to memorize something. Alternatively, the dream refers to the monotony and routine of your daily life. You need to get out of the rut.

Reflection:
To see your reflection in your dream represents your true self; it is time to look within. The reflection may highlight both your flaws and positive attributes. Learn from your flaws and how to improve them. At the same time, appreciate your good qualities. Alternatively, your reflection indicates how you want others to perceive you.
If you see a strange figure or something other than your own reflection, then it suggests that you are undergoing some identity crisis. You are not sure about who you are anymore.

Splash:
To dream that you are being splashed by water means that you need to be more expressive with your feelings. It also indicates your need to be revitalized.

Usually after reading the journal's comments, I snorted and put the book away, thinking of how absolutely off it was, but this time, at least some of the interpretations were spot on.

Maybe I do need to wash away the past. I really do sacrifice myself a lot. It's really hard to let go of an evil wizard who murdered all my family in some way or another, and yes, I am pleased in my achievement of killing him. Oh yes, high rank and justice for the bruised Draco. Yes, I realize I need to get out of my rut. Well, when one receives a new alias, one does have some sort of identity crisis. And how much more expressive can I be with my feelings? I wrote them down in this book. Isn't that enough? I sighed and put the journal back in its place on my nightstand. Really, I had been through a bit lately. Not nearly as much in the past, but a small sum; mostly petty things. Either way, I rather despised drama in general. It was pointless, and a complete waste of energy.

That was my life now. "That takes too much energy", "I'm tired", "Do I have to get up?" I just felt so drained all the time. Not that I used to be a bundle of energy, but I used to put effort into things, mostly through aggravation and anger. That was the thing. I had nothing worth putting any energy into, therefore I used no energy at all. There was nothing to fight for, nothing to be irritated with, nothing to argue about, nothing to be excited about; just nothing. Life was one sluggish blur of night and day that cycled on forever; no telling what day was which. Not that I had to know what day it was anymore.

I sighed and gave up thinking for the day. Really, I was getting nowhere, fast. I got up and went to the loo quick before turning on the water in the shower and stripping. I got in and felt the hot water pelt and scorch my back as steam rolled off and filled the room like fog. Tears stung the back of my eyes at the magnitude of heat of the water, but I felt the dire need to rid of the top layer of my skin since it felt so filthy that it was beyond cleaning. Obviously, it wasn't really filthy; I showered every day.

That journal was just getting to me. But it didn't shake the feeling off of me, and I noticed how absolutely red my skin was becoming, but I could not care less. I closed my eyes and imagined my past being burned off my skin, and rolling down the drain, heading to the great unknown, leaving nothing but small traces behind. It hurt to let it go, with the stinging drops continuing to singe me, and I opened my eyes suddenly. The water fell off me in drops, and then created a stream to the drain and disappeared. It was a moment before it hit me that I was losing myself in that water. Suddenly, I wanted it all back. I needed all of the pain, suffering, and anger back; it was what made me Harry Potter, and not just some guy. I quickly turned off the water and watched as the remaining water drops ran after its brothers, trying to catch up to them.

After drying off, I was hesitant to decide on something to wear. All of the shirts and pants that I had, I had bought myself, with the exception of a couple knitted sweaters from Mrs. Weasley. Did I really want to wear something that I always wore? Not really, but did I really have much of a choice at this point? I was butt naked with nothing but a towel on; I couldn't very well go and buy something right now. I sighed and decided on a comfortable shirt and jeans.

Fucking Merlin… I sat on my bed and put my hands over my face. I really was letting the journal run my life. I felt as if my insides were going to explode out my eyes. Where the bloody hell was all this emotion coming from? I didn't need this. I focused on my breathing to calm down, breathing in slowly and then out. Before long, I fell back asleep.

I was no longer lying in my bed, but in a field of grass, looking up at a pale blue, endless sky. I could feel the breeze saunter past, carrying the scent of fresh air that I could only enjoy. I smiled to myself and inhaled deeply, trying to savor the moment. I exhaled and my neck relaxed, letting my head fall to my left. Between the blades of tall grass, I saw almost-white blonde hair poking out. I sat up, trying to get a better look, but there was nothing in the depths of the field. I looked to my right and saw Sirius standing there, a smile on his face so familiar, matching the many he had given me, as well as the one he had worn in the picture of him as my parents' best man. I stood and ran to him, threw my arms around him like a small child, and hugged him with all my might. He laughed, and so did I. He placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Harry, I just want you to know how proud I am of you. How proud your father and mother are of you. Not just for what you've done, but for keeping yourself in the process." I half grinned. I had heard it millions of times, but the words had never meant as much as they did now.

Sirius looked at me a moment, telling me bad news without saying anything. I nodded in reply and stepped back. He had to go from me now, but it was not forever. There was no need for any goodbyes as he vanished and I looked back out to the field I was standing in. It looked so familiar, but for some odd reason I couldn't remember when exactly I had visited it. But honestly, I didn't care. I put my hands in the air high above my head and ran, feeling the wind through my hair, laughing all the while, feeling ridiculous, but free. I started turning in circles, the world whizzing wildly by me in a blur of green and blue. Suddenly, a blur of skin added itself into my impressionist world. I slowed to a stop where the blur stood. After my dizziness subsided, there stood a man, black hair, bright blue eyes, well-muscled arms, wearing a look of amused disbelief on his face. I smiled and bowed, holding out my hand for him to grab.

"Would you care to join me, Cygnus?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Of course."

He placed his hand in mine and I pulled him to me. We both smiled, our hands perfectly intertwined, and started dancing like we didn't care about the rest of the world. I shook my hips and moved our hands in circles, feeling so liberated. Cygnus let go of one of my hands, only to spin my around. We laughed and I spun him, and we laughed some more. We laughed so hard we fell to the floor, tripping over each other, and landing in the grass. After a moment, all was quiet. I lay on the grass with my eyes closed, just enjoying everything. When I opened my eyes, I saw beautiful blue sky. Looking over to Cygnus by my side, I saw that he was looking at me as well.

"You know, I don't think I've ever had this much fun, even as a child."

Cygnus smiled. "Me too." He started to get up, but instead of standing, he leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek.

My eyes opened so fast, the suddenly bright light of day hurt. I covered them with my hand and got out of bed, stumbling over my shoes and hitting my side on my bedside table. I made my way to the bathroom, running into a chair and stubbing my toe then tripping over the mess I hadn't cleaned up yet. When I finally made it to the bathroom, I used the sink to hold me up and looked into it. My eyes were a bit red and dots danced across my vision, but I could see myself clearly (enough).

That was an odd dream, I thought, but half smiled and touched my cheek, like it had actually happened.

I know what I'm doing today. I quickly got my things together, grabbed my wand, put on my ring, and disapparated.

Cygnus's POV:

I had been resting quite peacefully. The only thing that had woken me up was the beak that was poking at my side. It wasn't painful, just annoying. I sighed and turned over the other way (so I wouldn't roll onto the owl that the beak belonged to). The owl ruffled its wings and did a weird sort of hop onto my chest and looked at me, turning its head to the side ever so slightly as if to say "Are you awake yet?" I rubbed at my eyes and nodded my head for no apparent reason.

"Yes, can I help you?"

The brown speckled owl hopped back off me and over to where a fairly sized package was. I picked it up and tore off the paper, revealing a note attached to a book. I decided to read the note before I opened the book (just in case).

Dear Draco,
I really do apologize that this took so long to send. You must be dreadfully bored. It took a bit longer than I expected it to take to work out all the kinks, and I had to make a potion that took quite a few days to brew, but it is working fully now. I do believe it may be very unique, as I found the recipe for it in a fairly old book, so please do take care of it (not that I don't believe you won't, considering it may be your only source of entertainment aside from our notes).

This is a book that can become any book that exists. All you do is think about what you want to read, and then open it, and it will give you a long list of books about that subject, and then if you decide to read one of them, you think about wanting to read it, then turn the page, and it will be there. I figured it would be better than getting you any old regular book. I find mine to be very useful, and entertaining when Ron and his brother decide they want to do something I have no interest in. I hope you like it.

Sincerely,
Hermione

I smiled at the note and picked up the book. An endless list of possibilities sat in my hands. I could read every book in the world if I wanted to. I wished I had ink and parchment to write back to her and say how absolutely thankful I was, but I had none. I opened the book and the entire first page was covered with names of several books.

"What to do when there is nothing: A survival guide for the average wizard", "How to summon parchment from thin air", "Advanced spells and charms: Wandless edition", and "No paper, No Ink, No Problem: Other means of sending messages". They all sounded very worthy of reading, and so I decided I would read them all. I turned the page and found the title page of the first book. The next page was an introduction that lasted a few pages, and so I turned and turned the pages until I was at the beginning, and I began to read.

Many wizards and witches are taught a simple skill of summoning parchment from across the room, or out of a drawer, or even a messy desk. It's nothing out of the ordinary, not at all. But once in a great while, we are all faced with the same problem: what do we do when we run out of parchment? The easy answer, of course, would be to go and buy some more. But if we ever do get into a situation in which no store is available, or parchment prices are quite costly to daily life, wouldn't it be lovely to be able to just pull some parchment out of the air? Of course it would.

I skimmed along, trying to find the part where it got to the actual summoning. I had finished skimming the first page, which ended mid-sentence, and turned the page. The page had begun on a new paragraph, and was exactly the part I was looking for.

Of course, we assume that there will also be times when this will not be possible to do, say if you have no wand. Wandless magic is very important to learn as well when you are in such a situation where you must pull things out of thin air. It requires much practice to become successful in such a magic form, as it is different from magic with a wand. Of course, after some hard effort put forth, I'm sure that anyone can get the hang of it.

The first step is to concentrate. A quite place without people is probably best, both to keep from distracting you as well as prevent any unnecessary injuries to extra, innocent standbys.Imagine as if the air is a mold from which you can make anything from. Extend your hand in front of you, palm up, and let your magic flow into your fingers, almost like you are wearing gloves made of it. Now, grab the air with your gloves and capture it between your fingers. Now with your other hand, gently smooth out your fingers to become flat, and parchment should appear right in your hand. The longer your other hand continues on off your hand, the longer the parchment will become.

It seemed fair enough. I was in a deserted place (minus Hermione's owl, which was quietly munching on something a little distance away), perfect for concentration. I was used to the feeling of my magic inside my hands, and so, I held out my hand palm up, and easily covered my hand in it like a glove, turning it a purple color. I quickly swooped my hand through the air and grabbed as much of it as I could, then squished my fingers into my palm so it could not escape. I let my left hand push against the curled up fingers, bending them back and revealing a piece of parchment where air had once been. I let it go just to the tip of my hand, and then stopped. My newly acquired piece of parchment had the width of my left hand, and the length of my right hand. Now that I had parchment, I needed ink and a quill (though I really could write with my nails if it came to that). I flipped the page of my book and started reading once again.

Now that we have worked through summoning some parchment, the obvious things we need now are ink and a quill. What else could we write with? Now obviously it will be a much different experience making ink and a quill from nothing than parchment, as they will have a much more peculiar shape.

There was a skip, and then the words continued again further down the page.

To make ink and quill wandlessly is not as easy as making a parchment. You must be very exact in your movements and be careful not to spill your ink if you do accomplish to make it. Concentration once more is very necessary. Extend your hand, palm up, and once again cover it in a glove of magic. From the position where it is, imagine how tall you would like your quill to be, and raise your hand steadily to that height. Once your hand is at that height, draw your fingers to a point above your palm. Now swiftly bring your hand back down to its original height while pulling your fingers apart. If done successfully, a bottle of ink and a quill should drop into your hand.

Nodding, I covered my hand in a purple glove of magic again. I didn't quite know how tall I wanted my quill to be, and so I raised my hand, which was just below shoulder level, to mid head level, and drew my fingers to a point. I pulled my hand down and pulled my fingers apart suddenly, only hearing the whoosh of air between my fingers. I tried again, drawing my fingers to a point at mid-head level, and pulling down my hand and opening my fingers. I heard the whoosh of air once again, and almost would have raised my hand once more to try again, but a bottle of ink startled my hand as it fell right onto my palm with a very skeletal quill in its mouth. I smiled and pulled the quill from the bottle and began to write on my parchment.

Dear Hermione,
Thank you so much. Really, you have no idea how much of a life saver you are.

I don't want you to tell anyone else this, but I escaped from the manor. I couldn't take it there anymore. I packed up some clothes, my necessities, and left out my window. Really, I enjoy it so much better where I am. I still have nothing to do, but at least I am not bound to be trapped inside my room. Of course, I have nothing but what I brought and now your book. It has, of course, already proven helpful. I had no parchment, ink, or quill, and I just learned from it how to use wandless magic to make it from nothing but air. Enjoy your Draco-made parchment, written with a Draco-made quill that used Draco-made ink.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. As much as I would love to go and work to regain my old life that I had made for myself, I am more than sure that my father would find me one way or another. And if I used my new alias, I would have to start again from scratch. I don't have any paperwork forged for Cygnus, so I have reason to believe that people would become suspicious of a person with no identification of any sort. Of course, I do have a book that could tell me how to attain these things, so I may very well start working on a new life for myself in no time.

Sincerely,
Draco

I looked around for her owl and found it a little ways away, flying after something on the ground. I didn't know what they owl's name was, so I just called out, "I have my note ready." It flew over to me, looking a little annoyed, but it allowed me to tie the note to it leg. It flew off, not bothering to try and find whatever it was chasing after again.

Deciding to sit on the grass, I plopped my bottom right next to my bag. I knew I needed to change my clothes, but I didn't want to, and I was more than sure that my hair must not look so hot after sleeping in a field. I sighed and pulled my small mirror out of my bag and looked into my reflection. I realized almost at once that I was still wearing my ring, as I looked always looked perfect as Cygnus. I slid the silver ring off my finger and I could see grass stains in my almost white blonde hair (that was the downside to such light colored hair). It looked awful, and I wished with all my might that I could have a wand. Of course, I had the ring to disguise myself and go buy one, but I had no money. I sighed and slid the ring back on.

The sun was making its way to its high point in the sky, casting bright rays of light across the field in which I sat. I took a hand through my hair, feeling the normal fineness of my blonde head, but knowing that a shield of black hair surrounded it. Looking out into the horizon, I saw endless grass swaying in a slight breeze. It was quite calming, and at the same time quite lonely. I had freed myself of that horrid mansion, but what was there to do now? The thought bubbled and circled in my mind, but drained as I heard a crack behind me.

I turned to see Hyden there, a big smile across his face, warm chocolate eyes. He waved while making his way over to me. I couldn't help but smile in return and watch his legs carry him over to me.

"Hey, Cygnus. I was hoping you would be here." He stood, looking at me sitting on the ground.

I looked up at him against the sun in the sky, his figure outlined by the light.

"What are you doing here?" I asked pleasantly.

He opened his mouth, but quickly shut it and tried again. "Well…" he shrugged, "I don't know. Just got bored, I guess." He smiled again, looking right into my eyes like he could see right through me.

"I share similar problems." I sighed and looked back down at the grass.

"What should we do?" Hyden asked, but his tone sounded like he already had an answer. He held out his hand, showing a flash of his perfectly white teeth that were no less bright than the sun itself.

He said nothing, but then again he didn't really need to. "Take my hand" his body seemed to say, "Let's be free together" his grin whispered, "We can live carefree" his eyes showed. My hand, which was sitting in the grass, slowly flew into the air, crossing the distance between his, and met. My ring hit his lightly, making the ever smallest noise. I pulled myself up and our fingers intertwined naturally. We looked at one another for a mere moment, and began our frolicking.

We danced. We skipped. We were free, for once in our lives. Our feet moved in circles. Our hearts pumped to a beat. Our hands never once separated, but became one unit. All the while, the sun grew lower and lower from its throne in the sky, tired and seeking a break, and the white moon snuck onto the empty seat of power. Everything around us slowly lost its yellow beams and darkened along with the space high above our heads. We continued on, unfazed, until the moon had become the only source of light. I wished it could have lasted forever, but all dreams must come to an end.

"That was fun," Hyden laughed, his eyes reflecting the moon. "We should do this more often."

I smiled widely back at him. "Sounds terrific."

Hyden's huge smile faded into a smile one as he stared at me. "I really did have fun," he said in a serious tone I had not heard from him before.

A little taken aback by the sudden change in tone, I replied quietly, "I did, too." I hadn't noticed that our fingers had still been intertwined until Hyden pulled our hands apart. I was a little grieved about the small action, but knew it had to be done. Hyden looked down a moment, then before I even knew what was happening, soft lips met mine in a delicate kiss.

"We'll do this again," Hyden said quietly after he broke away. He pulled his wand from his pocket and disapparated without another word.