Love Through and Through

Pairing: Albus Severus Potter x Moaning Myrtle

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Recognizable characters from Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling and Warner Bros. respectively. I don't make any profit by writing this. Thank you.

Moaning Myrtle.

That was her name, or at least by that name she was called. When I heard the upper class Slytherins talking about her I was simply curious. I mean, who wouldn't have been curious when the older students mentioned her for the very first time. A ghost who cries all the time and likes no one. I distantly remembered my father mentioning her couple times but I had to see her with my own eyes.

So I went to look for her with my friends. The three of us – me, Scorpius, and Ven. It was our third year at Hogwarts then and we weren't actually the nicest kids in the school. Well, maybe Scorpius was. Ven wasn't bad either, so maybe it was just me. The mischief-making younger Potter brother. I had heard professors call me by that name. At least they didn't think I was as bad as James.

I had never been in the girls' lavatories before, I had expected it to be a lot different from boys' but it actually wasn't. Some of the toilets were flooding, the tile floor was slippery and we had to watch our steps. The place seemed to have been out of use for a long time. She couldn't really be that bad? We went to Professor Blishwick's Potions lessons and she's the one who should be avoided.

Myrtle was in the very back cubicle of the first floor's girls' lavatory, wailing loudly how some students had mocked her earlier. She didn't like at all that three boys – like us – had trespassed her bathroom whilst she had been in such a state so she began yelling at us. She didn't listen to us when we tried to explain why we were there but she began crying even louder. Ven, and surprisingly even Scorpius, found it amusing when she threw a fit and drove us away, making us wet in the process as she had dove into the nearest toilet.

I didn't find any of that amusing at all.

I went to see Myrtle again to the first floor. Alone this time since my oh-so-wonderful friends had had enough of the Moaning Myrtle for one year. Or the rest of his school years, like Ven had it expressed. It was past the curfew when I left our common room. I didn't want old Clayton to catch me while I sneak into the girls' bathroom so I used the Invisibility Cloak I had snatched from James in the beginning of the year.

First I thought Myrtle wasn't there when I found the lavatory eerily silent. Only water dropping from the broken faucet. I took of the Cloak and called her name.

"Did you come here to laugh at me again?" she asked and appeared from one of the stalls.

I shook my head. "Why would I laugh at you?" I asked.

"How could I know?" she huffed, sounding slightly offended. "They always do. Laugh at fat, ugly, miserable Myrtle and throw things at her because it's funny!" She looked like she was going to start crying. "It's NOT funny!"

"Maybe because it can't hurt…"

"Hurt!?" she cried out in frustration and pain. "You know nothing about being hurt!"

True. I didn't really know about being hurt. I returned to the Slytherin dorms in cold and wet clothes, empty handed but with a goal. I was going to try talking to her again the next day.

I found it amazingly hard to spoke with Myrtle when everything – and I mean literally everything – I said seemed to hurt her feelings somehow. At first she rarely even spoke to me more than few words before either throwing a fit or just leaving the lavatory to sob somewhere else. She preferred staying as far from me as possible; sitting on the water pipes close the ceiling, hiding in the stalls. Sometimes she didn't even show up but I could hear her crying through the plumbing.

It took long enough to get her even stay to talk with me without her making a fierce exit in the middle of my sentence. But I tried to be patient. Scorpius said he would have just given up on Myrtle if she had acted like that to him when I returned to our dorm, once again in the middle of the night wearing wet clothes. That made me even more determined to try making friends with her because no one really seemed to like her because she was what she was – an easily offended, bullied, wailing ghost girl.

I liked her anyway. Kind of. At least when she didn't make the whole bathroom flood and scream like a banshee.

It was in the middle of the fourth year when we were finally getting closer. Myrtle cried less and smiled more when I was around and sometimes she was even waiting for me to show up. It was nice to notice she had started liking my company. I actually spent most of free time in the lavatory, doing my homework and just talking with her. Though we went to the lake few times, too. She liked water, had liked even before her death. She said it was a comforting element.

"If you die you can always stay here with me", she said to me one night when I was once again going to sneak back to Slytherin dormitory. It was oddly the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me and made me feel all fuzzy inside.

At one Sunday on our way to the Great Hall Ven, for once, started talking to me.

"How are things going with Annie?" he asked brightly.

I blinked. "What?" I had no idea what he was talking about at the moment.

"Your Hogsmeade date?" he said slowly and waited for an answer, some juicy gossip and details. He frowned when nothing like that came out from my mouth. "Don't you tell me stood her up?" he sighed.

Now I remembered. Annie was a Ravenclaw, a year younger than us. Darius had found her pretty and had introduced her to me briefly. I didn't even remember she had asked me out. I had been at the lavatory the whole Saturday while Scorpius had been on a date with my cousin Rose.

"I think I did", I said with a nonchalant shrug. Ven rolled his eyes, his hands on his hips.

"You can't seriously have a crush on a ghost?" he scoffed, looking me in the eyes sternly.

I just ignored his comment. It wasn't his problem anyway. And I had already noticed it. First I had just wanted to make friends with her. I thought it would have been cool, being friends with her. And suddenly I just didn't spend time with other girls than her anymore. It didn't matter to me that she was a ghost, and like over half a century older than me. I liked her company. I liked to talk with her and listen to her and just generally be with her.

So yes, I had noticed I had this little crush on Myrtle.

I became a prefect on my fifth year. It took me completely by a surprise, I had always thought Scorpius would have become a prefect. Never had I even considered myself in such a job but being a prefect had its bright sides. I didn't have to really sneak out anymore as I was allowed to leave the common room at night. Lucinda Cross was made my prefect partner but she, too, sneaked out to see her boyfriend rather than fulfill her duty as a prefect.

I sat on the tile floor at the girls' lavatory. It had become our place, no one else never came here anyway. Had never come and probably never would come, not by their free will at least. Myrtle sat on the side of the sink, smiling and wiggling her feet. She tilted her head.

"What're you thinking?" she asked. I turned my eyes to meet hers.

"You", I said simply. "That you're pretty."

She giggled. I had noticed how much I liked when she laughs. I loved that I could make her laugh.

"You're flattering me again", she said, pursing her lips. She wasn't offended, though. Not much at least.

I leaned on the sink, watching her closely. She squirmed under my gaze. She was not used to receive affection. She told me she never had anyone to like her when she was alive.

"I'll say it over and over again until you realize it", I said. "Because that's what you are."

I liked the way her face turned all silvery when she blushed as told her how much prettier she is than the other girls at school. I liked how she pouted when she disagreed with me. Why did she even think she's ugly? Because she has pimples? Because she's not as thin as the other girls? Because she has glasses? I can't understand.

She's not fat. She's small and a little plump but not too much. Her eyes, though hidden behind her glasses, are simply fascinating, and sometimes when watched closely enough I could imagine them being brown like they used to be. Not dull brown, more like melted chocolate. But it was her smile that I found the most beautiful thing about her. It was rare, lively. Beautiful. And she smiled for me.

I couldn't stay longer. The time was who-knows-what and I still needed to get few hours of sleep before an important exam.

"Will you come to see me again?" Myrtle asked when I stood up. I took the Invisibility Cloak from the floor and smiled at her.

"Of course", I said and lifted the Cloak on my shoulders. "Always."

During the sixth year I realized our weird relationship would end soon. We never talked about me graduating and leaving Hogwarts. It kinda hurt. I knew she would be waiting for me when I lounged in our dorm. She always does. But what about after I leave? Yes, she has handled being by herself for over seventy years but…

I walked back and forth. All my friends were outside; Scorpius was probably alone in the library – he and Rose had ended their relationship what felt like ages ago and they kind of avoided one another – and Ven was doing his homework with Nott in our common room. At least that's what they did when I last saw them. I didn't even know where Darius was. Some late night Quidditch practises, perhaps. He was made the team's Captain as Goyle had graduated last year.

I sat down on my bed and held my head in my hands. My bed was full of old, worn leather-bound books. This had gotten ridiculous in the past year. What I had with Myrtle had been perfectly fine for me. I mean, I loved just being with her. Talking. Smiling. Flirting. But for some reason it wasn't enough anymore.

I wanted her to be alive so I could touch her. I would hug her, wipe away her tears when some prats make her cry again. I would be there next to her, holding her hand. Show her that I truly care about her. Show her all the love and affection she deserves.

She had become my obsession.

I had been sneaking to the Restricted Section for a few months. And I had been reading. A lot. Dark arts, necromancy, potions. And I've found nothing. Nothing can bring back to life. Not even the Resurrection stone which I know my father once had.

But I wanted Myrtle to be alive. But she's not, and I can't change it. She can't be alive for me. I hid the books under my bed and grabbed the cloak. I knew I had to be selfish to prolong this. But I had promised to myself I would be by her side until I can't anymore.

Even if that meant only less than two years...

And at last it was going to be over.

It was the time for the Leaving Feast. My seventh year at Hogwarts was over. I knew all my friends would be celebrating at the Great Hall. I, instead, had headed to the first floor's girl's lavatory. I actually didn't know what to say to Myrtle now that this time had finally came. I wasn't even sure would she be there. Would she even want to say farewells?

Well, she was there, sitting in the cubicle where she had died. I knew she went there when she was especially sad. I even could see she had been crying earlier.

"Will you come back?" she asked in voice no louder than a whisper. I didn't want her to be sad because I was leaving. That was the last thing I wanted. I went to my knees in front of her and raised my hand so it faintly touched her chest on the spot where her heart should be. I gave a smile, knowing she would get the message.

"Always."

Always in your heart.

After Hogwarts I became an Auror, just like my father and my brother James.

I wanted do something useful, make sure there would be no more Death Eaters to follow for the next Dark Lord to be. I was good in my job, for a nineteen year old who had been raised in a peaceful time. I knew many spells, and jinxes, and curses that came quite handy. I knew how to perform a perfect Patronus charm. I knew how to protect myself.

I turned around. I could see the pride in the ragged wizards face when he fired the curse. I couldn't react, I fell to the ground. I felt my heart was beating faster to keep me alive but my breathing came out in rasps. The curse I had violated my lungs, or at least wound them badly. I could feel I was bleeding, my clothes were sticking to skin. The blood was warm, the ground was cold. Sounds of the battle echoed in my brains. No one seemed to notice I had fallen. It had been an ambush anyway. They were all tied to their own battles at the moment. I had already lost mine.

I was dying. I could feel it as the breathing became even harder. Dad will be so numbed with grief when he finds out. Mum will probably cry, and Lily will too. She'll cry even more than Mum, I just know it. But I don't know about James. Perhaps he'll miss me, too, though we never became very close after I got sorted in Slytherin. He was always better than me, being a Gryffindor, like Dad and Mum and Lily.

A small smile found my face and I closed my eyes. They will survive. My family will survive. Dad and James weren't assigned for this mission. My death won't change things so much. They will still have each other. They won't be left alone. I couldn't see anything else than darkness. It didn't matter anymore that I couldn't hear the sounds around myself. I could stop thinking about my family and friends now. They'll be fine, I reassured myself. They will be…

But what about her?

It was only numb pain I felt on my chest area but something stung my heart like thousand needles. It was pumping less and less blood. It was even slower now, barely beat anymore at all. I concentrated on my breathing. It was ragged, I was giving up on it. My time was running out. I need to make this decision now.

My last laughter mixed with a bloody cough. My heart beating, breathing. I wouldn't need those soon. I knew what I wanted. I wasn't going to left this world. Dying would mean either an eternity with or without her. And I was going back.

I was going back to Hogwarts.

The lavatory hadn't changed. It was flooding over the threshold and to the corridor. I found it weird to not need to open the familiar door anymore. Weird and new, but not completely uncomfortable. Light, perhaps? I was most certainly feeling light as I weight literally nothing.

Would it be odd to say I had this very weird, fluttering feeling when I after minutes of hesitation slid through the wall on the girls' bathroom? I probably shouldn't feel a thing but still I couldn't help the butterflies to stop playing Quidditch inside of myself. I was nervous, I had been nervous the whole time when I had been on my way back to Hogwarts.

I looked around. The place was abandoned like always. There was familiar sobbing from the stall in the very back of the lavatory.

"Myrtle?" I called softly. The last thing I wanted was to scare her to death, which would actually be impossible. The familiar face appeared as she looked hesitantly over the stall wall.

"Albus?" she squeaked, uncertain, and disbelieving as she saw my transparent form. I wasn't sure which one was her more dominant feeling – the shock or the joy. Hopefully not shock though I knew I looked horrible but no can do. Ghosts can't change their ripped and bloodied clothes into the new ones.

I smiled widely. "I came back", I said and spread out my arms. "I hope your offer is still on?"

I don't know did you know but ghosts can touch one another. And now that I could I most definitely wanted to keep Myrtle inside my arms.

Always. For the rest of my time.

A/N: Hullo, mates! This was a rip-off from my other fanfic "Slytherin Pride, Hufflepuff Prejudice". That's why some of OCs – Ven, Alistair (who was mentioned only by his last name) Darius and Lucinda – were in this story as well. This fic will be mentioned in "SPHP" but as it kinda lives its own life so it's not really a spoiler? Or is it?

But hey! I would love to hear what you thought about this quite unusual pairing so leave a comment. Until we see again, bye!