Hi everyone! This is one of my first really serious FanFictions I've written. It's more of a character study, and does not contain romance. Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to JK Rowling. I do not own any of this, except for the plot. Also, there is direct dialogue from the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I have indicated with a footnote.
Moaning Myrtle sat in the U-bend of the third toilet in sixth floor corridor's boys' bathroom. It was not her usual haunt, but being a ghost meant you could go places you weren't allowed and forgo trouble. She gloated.
There wasn't much different about this bathroom than the girl's – minus the urinals – yet her rare curiosity was satisfied to explore a place she didn't usually frequent. Fifty years in the same U-bend really got to a girl sometimes, especially during Christmas parties. Why wasn't she invited to Slughorn's Christmas party? She had still been a student the first time he hosted one… come to think of it, she hadn't been invited then either. But she was a ghost now, and ghosts should have special privileges to visit places they couldn't while they were alive, like boys' bathrooms, and stupid Christmas parties and—
The door to the boys' bathroom burst open emitting a disheveled student. He slammed the bathroom door behind him and stomped over to the sinks to look into the cracked mirror. Water splashed his expensive-looking trousers, but he didn't seem to notice. Myrtle sank deeper into her toilet as she spied him through the cracked cubicle door.
"Stupid… he wants all the glory for himself… see if he can fix the damn thing… spending all my free time…" The boy muttered to himself as he turned the handle of the sink. Water refused to flow. Frustrated, he tried the other broken handle; unsurprisingly, that did not work either. "Bloody sink! Not you too!" He struck the already-cracked mirror with his free hand and it shattered, sending bits of broken glass all over the floor. The boy let out a strangled howl and sank to his knees, burying his face into his bleeding hands. Myrtle crept out of the toilet and drifted toward him. She could see the boy was shaking.
"Err… are you alright?" Myrtle asked.
"Ahh!" the boy yelled, scrambling backward, reaching for his wand. "What're you—leave me alone!"
"No, no! It's all right. I can help you," Myrtle said, kneeling down on the wet floor she could not feel. She'd been a target of bullies in her time (and after) and knew a thing or two about avoiding them. Myrtle looked at the boy's face and found tearstains among the dirt and blood splotches on the normally, pale face.
"Tcha," the boy scoffed, brushing her away. He stood up and dusted himself off. "You can't help me," he sniffed.
Myrtle floated backward and sat on the top of a cubicle. "Well… Why don't you tell me what's wrong," she said as she crossed her arms. She could detect a slight sneer from the boy as she did so.
"Whatever. It's not like you can do anything. You're already… dead…" he seemed to choke on the last word. He started pacing about the tiled bathroom, slowly at first, his footsteps echoing off of the wet walls.
Myrtle scowled. "Just because I'm a ghost doesn't mean I like to be reminded of it by everyone!" she said haughtily.
"And just because I'm alive doesn't mean I like to be reminded I could be dead!" A sharp stomp accompanied his words. The outburst reverberated, dissipating into silence. Water dripped from a broken sink as he slunk to the other side of the room and leaned against the stone wall. The ragged boy looked anywhere except at Myrtle as she digested his words.
Myrtle said hesitantly, "No one is going to kill you…"
"Yes he is… He's going to kill me." The boy slid to the floor once more, and put his forehead on his knees. "I'm Draco Malfoy and the Dark Lord is going to kill me."
Myrtle knew not to argue with him, and instead looked intently at the pale, broken boy across the room. Most students thought that You-Know-Who was going to jump out from behind a tapestry and murder them on the spot. Instead, she waited.
After a while, the boy that called himself Draco Malfoy looked up with a scowl. "Why are you in the boys' bathroom?"
"I'll tell you that, if you tell me why you are really upset."
Draco scoffed again and looked away. "I told you already." He started fiddling with a piece of broken glass that had made it to his side of the room. "Do you know how hard it is to do something everyone says is easy, but you can't do it for some reason?" He laughed darkly. "You start wondering if you are really worthy at all."
"You are worthy," Myrtle chimed, trying to be supportive. She was excited to finally have someone to talk to her again. The last time someone talked to her was two years ago.
Draco looked at her from the corner of his eye and gave her an unreadable look. "You see… these… friends of mine have given me a mission. It's very important. So important, I can't tell you, I can't tell anyone. And if I don't get it done, it's not only me in danger, but others too…" he trailed off, trying to pull himself together again. "But the rewards are great. So very great. And he wants to take all the credit from me." Draco's gaze hardened.
"Who's he? Maybe I can help?"
"Professor Snape."
There was silence, besides the dripping of the broken faucet.
"Err…" Myrtle searched for some way to change the subject. "Christmas break will be fun, right?"
Another scoff. "Oh yeah, loads of fun, with Father in Azkaban and Mother distraught, crying at any mention of his name," Draco looked through the piece of broken glass. "I could be using my time to fix the bloody thing instead." Draco sighed and stood up. "I've got to go. Goodbye."
"Do come back and visit me again!" Myrtle cried out. She didn't want him to leave yet. Not yet. They were just getting to know each other!
Draco stopped with his hand on the door. "I'll come back. And…" After a moment's thought said, "Don't tell anyone."
"I promise. I'll take your secret to the grave."
And with one last sniff, he walked out the door.
Several weeks went by and Myrtle didn't see nor hear of Draco Malfoy. Christmas break came and passed. Nearly Headless Nick threw a ghost gathering Myrtle didn't attend (it would have been boring anyway), and when the students came back for the welcome-back-to-school feast, she sat in the sixth floor corridor's boys' bathroom, third toilet U-bend, contemplating death.
Well into third term, she got her second visit, though this time from an unexpected source.
"It'll be more interesting than trying to get into a stupid hoop anyway. Then, if you're still not – you know – as good as you'd like to be, you can postpone the test, do it with me over the summ – Myrtle, this is the boys' bathroom!" 1
Myrtle floated upward out of her designated toilet at the sound of familiar voices. "Oh… It's just you two." They were not Draco Malfoy.
"Who were you expecting?" Ron Weasley asked.
"Nobody." Myrtle noticed she had a spot on her chin in one of the better mirrors. "He said he'd come back and see me, but then you said you'd pop in and visit me too" – she looked pointedly at Harry – "and I haven't seen you for months and months. I've learned not to expect too much from boys."
"I thought you lived in that girls' bathroom?" Harry said, looking nervously around as if he should start avoiding this spot as well.
"I do, but that doesn't mean I can't visit other places." She recalled visiting Harry in the Prefect bathroom during his fourth year, and then wondered if Draco might be a Prefect too, and could perhaps if she could find him there. "But I thought he liked me… Maybe if you two left, he'd come back again… we had lots in common… I'm sure he felt it…" She looked at the door, hoping Draco Malfoy would burst through like last time.
"When you say you had lots in common," said an amused Ron, "d'you mean he lives in an S-bend too?"
"No!" Myrtle started to become offended. She didn't live in an S-bend; it is a U-bend! "I mean he's sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasn't got anybody to talk to, and he's not afraid to show his feelings and cry!"
"There's been a boy in here crying?" asked Harry, interestedly. "A young boy?"
"Never you mind!" She looked hatefully at Ron. Scum like him made Myrtle, and probably Draco, cry all the time. "I promised I wouldn't tell anyone and I'll take his secret to the—"
"—not to the grave, surely?" goaded Ron.2 "C'mon Harry, let's go. I think I will take those classes in Hogsmeade…"
Myrtle sat glumly back down on her favored toilet. Who needed You-Know-Who when there were people like Ron Weasley in the world that always let you down? It's just as slow a death as being tortured… or being a ghost for the rest of eternity. Myrtle started to tear up a little. Small sobs echoed around the dirty bathroom walls. Why, oh why wouldn't he visit her? Surely his problems didn't take up all of his time. Why doesn't anyone ever visit poor, poor lonely, sad—?
The door to the bathroom creaked open. A pale hand leaned heavily on the doorframe, and then a swift entrance. It was Draco Malfoy! He came back!
He did not look well – worse than the last time she saw him, if that were possible. His skin was pale and tinged with grey. His robes fell loosely on his frame and his hair was a complete mess.
Myrtle hovered a few inches off of the ground and beamed. "I knew you'd come back! I knew it!"
Draco looked at her with the same unreadable look as before, and took a seat against the same patch of wall he occupied the last time. He brought one knee up to his chest and breathed heavily. A solitary tear rolled down his cheek before he rested his forehead upon his knee. Myrtle floated nearer to him to sit down against the wall.
"It's not working," he said after a time, his voice muffled.
"Oh no…Tell me what's wrong; I can help you…" cooed Myrtle, still happy to have Draco back to talk to her.
Draco was shaking again. "Nothing I'm doing is working. He'll kill me if I can't do it… and I can't do it." Draco looked up to rest his chin on his knee. Instead of desperate this time, he looked to have given up.
"No, no, it's all right, he won't get you…" Myrtle tried to pat him on the shoulder, but her hand just went through his shoulder. He shivered. "Tell me all of it. Straight from the beginning."
"Tcha…" Draco's scoff was halfhearted this time.
"I won't tell anyone," she reminded him. "Your secret is safe with me."
Draco sat quietly for a long time. Then, looking away, Draco began.
"My Father's in Azkaban. You probably know that if you know my name. His last name is Malfoy too. He did something at the Ministry of Magic – my mother won't tell me what – and it made the Dark Lord..." Draco took a deep breath after saying his name. "Anyway, it made him very angry, or so they say."
"It's alright. It's not your fault. Everything makes You-Know-Who angry," Myrtle remarked. "I knew a boy like that here at school once, you know. When I was a student. Devilishly handsome he was. But if you got that boy mad…" She trailed off, reveling in distant memories.
Draco didn't seem to be listening. He was staring intently at a lighting fixture on the ceiling. "So I was given a job. A very important job," Draco continued in monotone, as if there had been no interruption. "It was to prove myself, they said. Prove myself to Him. My mother is horrified at the idea, but I am excited. I mean… well… I was excited… until…" He seemed overcome with emotion and another few tears rolled down his cheeks into the grime of his unwashed robes. "I can't do it."
"Sure you can!" Myrtle said supportively. "You can prove yourself to your father."
"It's not my father I'm supposed to prove myself to," Draco growled, leaving Myrtle to wonder who he was talking about. "And Vincent and Greg won't even help me. They keep abandoning their post. It's not like I would give them credit or anything, but they owe me. They owe me." Draco suddenly seemed overcome with frustration. "Who looked after them all those years? Who helped them with their classes even though they can barely even read?" He slammed his fist onto the floor, making Myrtle jump. "Big dumb oafs, the lot of them, getting themselves in detention when I need their help, and wandering off!"
Draco sprang up and took a hold of his wand, gripping the wood tightly. "I don't need them, I don't need any of them! I can do this on my own, and damn any of those who think I can't! I hex the lot of them and then rip out their—"
Draco abruptly stopped mid-sentence, apparently remembering Myrtle was in the room. Composing himself, he stood silently with his back to her. He pocketed his wand. "Good evening," he said, and strode out of the flooded bathroom, the sound of his footsteps clattering off the walls.
Many months went by before Myrtle heard from Draco again. To be honest, she almost, but not quite, didn't want to see him. Draco Malfoy was very scary, but she was drawn to him. He needed her as much as he would never admit… and she needed him just as much. He needed someone to confide in, and she needed someone to need her. Being a ghost is a lonely occupation, and she knew that more than anyone.
On a quieter-than-usual day, Draco dropped in just to say, "I think I've figured it out," and disappeared, leaving Myrtle to wonder if he really came to visit at all.
Fewer boys visited this bathroom now, probably because they didn't want to see her, she reasoned; they didn't want to see her just like Draco, Harry, and Ron didn't want to see her anymore. So, she came to having daydreams: where Draco would come by and tell her what was actually wrong with him. Usually it was something silly like "I forgot the cleaning charm Mother taught me, which is why my robes are always so dirty" or "Myrtle, I am actually deeply in love with you, and that's why I came crying into the bathroom in the first place." Myrtle would smile at these dreams.
Yet, sometimes Myrtle would have dark dreams. Dreams where Draco's problems were much more than the trifles that normal Hogwarts students had. They involved You-Know-Who, wearing the face of the boy Tom Riddle from her school days, Azkaban Dementors, and tall, dark men in cloaks, with masks covering their faces… coming for Draco. She would promptly stop this stream of thought, but sometimes it left her shivering from cold she could not actually feel.
On a dreary afternoon, Myrtle contemplated changing her normal haunt from the second floor corridor girls' bathroom to this sixth floor corridor, considering how much time had been spent there this year. She was just beginning to wonder if she should move her (nonexistent) things into the U-bend up here when—
Draco Malfoy once more burst through the door of her bathroom. He slammed the door shut and pushed against it, to make sure it was fully shut. He staggered across the room to lean heavily against a sink, not even wearing his school robes this time: only a badly washed undershirt and filthy trousers. The sleeve of his left arm was pulled up slightly and Myrtle could see something drawn on it. She floated forward.
He was strangely silent as the tears flowed and fell into the sink. He shook. He shook and shook and the tears kept falling. "I was so close… I was so close to fixing it!" He bent lower, his face almost touching the basin. "Why? Why did this happen?"
"It's alright… I can help you." She looked closer at the tattoo on his arm. A skull and a snake… "What's that on your arm?"
Draco snatched his arm away and rolled down his sleeves as if he were burned. The tears seemed to flow more heavily now. He turned back to the mirror, as if his reflection held all the answers. "You don't want to know." His voice sounded hollow as the tears flowed again.
"Don't… Don't… tell me what's wrong… I can help you…" 3 There was a slight sound near the door, but Myrtle didn't think of it. Draco was hurt, and something was very, extremely wrong and he wouldn't tell her. Why wouldn't he finally tell her? Surely it wasn't all that bad. She might be able to help. She needed to help him, because he had been so kind…
"No one can help me," Draco replied, sobbing and shaking again. "I can't do it… I can't… It won't work… and unless I do it soon… he says he'll kill me…"
Draco looked up from the sink into the mirror. Something in the reflection caught his attention and he gasped, his gaze hardening into the one that Myrtle saw all those many months ago – the one of murder. Draco whipped out his wand and aimed a silent hex at – of all people – Harry Potter. A lighting fixture behind Harry exploded, and Myrtle cringed, imagining it as Harry's head.
Harry tried to react, diving to the side, casting his own silent spell, but Draco blocked him. With all his might Draco seemed to be going to for a deathly jinx and Myrtle couldn't take it. Draco was a sensitive, nice, misunderstood boy who needed help, not to kill Harry Potter.
"No! No! Stop it! Stop! STOP!" She yelled and screamed and her voice echoed around the grimy bathroom walls, off of the flooded floor and around the two boys she thought were her friends. Another sink exploded behind Harry and Myrtle dove for cover as something erupted beneath her. Water filled the room and Harry slipped to the floor.
Draco, wonderful, small problems, Draco yelled "Cruci—" Myrtle felt a sinking feeling in her heart, as she watched in slow motion. Draco started using an Unforgivable Curse…
"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Harry cried and suddenly Draco was covered in blood, his face open and bleeding, his shirt shredded apart, as if Harry had attacked him with a knife. Draco froze mid-swing and fell backwards, slowly. Myrtle screamed as Draco hit the soggy floor, wand rolling out of his hand, blood pouring from his wounds. She flew through the room, screaming, "MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!" 4
Someone, someone had to hear her. Someone had to save Draco, if she couldn't. Harry, Draco… She was losing all of her friends in one day. "MURDER! MURDER!" How could Harry… how could Draco…? "MURDER! MURDER!"
Thankfully, after an eternity, someone came through the door. It was Professor Snape, but at the moment, Myrtle didn't care. Someone save him… Professor Snape murmured a spell and the wounds began to close; Draco was propped up limply next to him as the Professor growled something at Harry.
Myrtle cried, flew, and cried some more. She flew for what felt like hours and ended up back where she should have always been – her usual haunt in the girls' bathroom on the second floor. She should have never left, and if she had never left, none have this would have ever happened. Draco wouldn't have been attacked; Harry and Draco wouldn't have… used Dark magic on each other.
Ages passed. And more than ages past. Myrtle wept and wept. For herself, for Harry… for wonderful Draco. She wept for the wonderful Draco that had trifling problems: the type of problems she could fix, like his crooked tie and mused hair. Not the Draco that people spoke of now. Not the Draco that helped Professor Snape kill Dumbledore, so they said. Not the one that let the Death Eaters into the school with the mended Vanishing Cabinet. Not the Draco that fled the school on that night.
She wept for the Draco that she could have fixed: the Draco that never existed.
1 The dialogue of Myrtle, Harry, and Ron is copied verbatim from the book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on page 462. This is because I wanted to get the dialogue of this scene correct. However, the descriptions are my own.
2 End of verbatim book dialogue.
3 I am using direct dialogue from page 522, but the descriptions are again, mine.
4 End of verbatim dialogue.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to write a review, as this is for a school project.