Tom POV
By the beginning of his sixth year, Tom's obsession with the dream girl had evolved into methodical investigation. Nights spent dreaming of her were no longer idle-they were research sessions.
During the day, he wandered Hogwarts deliberately. His steps were careful, calculated, yet his mind always returned to the pull in his dreams.
He lingered near unused staircases and forgotten corridors, tracing patterns he had memorized from his dream explorations.
He studied areas of the castle he had always passed over, looking for hidden mechanisms or subtle magical traces.
Every night, he returned to his dormitory, and every night, the dream called him back.
'Something is guiding me,' he thought. 'It isn't coincidence. And it isn't imagination.'
---
Zaila POV
The System pulsed as he moved through the waking world.
[SYSTEM ALERT: Host actively investigating. Opportunity for dream-to-reality influence detected.
RECOMMENDATION: Subtle guidance only.]
Zaila had been preparing for this moment. For the first time, she could test her ability to nudge reality through the dreamscape.
[NEW TEST ABILITY PURCHASED: Dream-Linked Influence - can cause small physical effects in waking world via dream-space actions (Doctor Who)
SC COST: 100]
She extended her influence carefully:
* A faint draft brushed across the bathroom door he passed, drawing his attention.
* Shadows flickered across the snake-engraved tap on the second-floor girls' bathroom sink.
* A faint shimmer on the metal pipe below the tap caught his eye.
[SC REWARD: 75 for successful real-world influence]
The System hummed approvingly.
[Host curiosity escalating. Progress toward discovery 10%.]
---
Tom POV
He noticed the subtle cues almost instinctively:
* The faint movement of shadows around the tap, as if something wanted to be seen.
* A glimmer from the pipe beneath the snake-engraved faucet.
* A strange, irresistible pull toward the girls' bathroom itself.
He paused in front of the sink. The carved snake seemed to beckon. The faint echo of the dream, the tug in his chest, the emotional resonance-it all converged here.
'I am close,' he thought. 'She is here.'
He bent closer, inspecting the snake engraving. Parseltongue rose unbidden to his lips: a whisper of sound, soft and deliberate. The pipe creaked and shifted, revealing the secret passageway below.
"It worked," he breathed. "It's real."
He pressed a hand to the revealed pipe, the memory of the dream girl-the gold in her hazel-amber eyes-flaring in his mind.
He whispered softly, almost to himself: "This is it... I can feel her."
The dream's pull, her emotional echoes, and the subtle nudges had guided him to the entrance. For the first time, he realized the dream was not just guidance-it was a map.