I'd like to thank Alice (alicenotinwonderland) for being such an awesome beta!
She sees a boy – bruised and bloodied – crying on the floor of her bathroom. He reminds her of a student she used to know, even looks like him a little. That student had come by almost daily for a year; he talked a lot – more at her than to her – but that was okay, at least he'd paid attention to her. Until he hadn't.
She stays hidden in a stall, watching him. The bruises cover most of his face – black and blue and tinged with blood – and she wants to go up to him, ask him what happened, but she doesn't think that would be a good idea. She's never really made the best first impression.
Instead, she hides – watching him until he finally picks himself up from the floor, rinses his face with cold water, and leaves – too scared to approach the boy.
A little over a year later, she sees him again. He's looking around – almost guiltily – and his eyes finally settle onto one of the taps. It's the only tap that doesn't work – has never worked, actually – the one with an engraving of a snake.
She watches him futilely trying to open the passage, drawing nearer with each failed attempt. He lets out a yell of frustration and spins around, surprising her with the sudden movement. She's back in the stall before he's even managed to fully register her, but takes long enough that she can still hear his approach.
He calls out to her, but it's too late; with a resounding splash she is gone.
He comes back every day after that; always making it obvious when he arrives, giving her a chance to hide. He holds one-sided conversations with her, always pretending that she is an active participant in the dialogue – pretending that she is always there.
Sometimes she is standing as close to him as she can get, with only a cubicle door separating them; sometimes she listens to the muted sound of his voice through the school plumbing, not even on the same floor as him. One day, over a year later, he pushes open the door loudly and calls out his usual greeting.
"Hello," she responds shyly, floating through the door with her head down and hair covering her face, looking up at him through the thick lenses of her glasses. She's not sure what made her do it, but she's glad she did.
He stares at her in shock for a few seconds, before a wide grin slowly spreads across his face.
He comes to visit her every day, and now she is always there to meet him. He usually spends his lunch break with her, and always comes to see her after his classes have finished for the day.
No one has ever treated her like this before – they've barely even acknowledged her existence – but this boy, he really cares about her. He has spent over a year getting to know her, actually listening to her when she talks and not just using her as an outlet to unload his problems. He is the best friend she has ever had.
She used to wonder what he gained from these meetings, but now she thinks that he needed a friend just as much as she did – if not more.
He begins to visit her less – barely once a week – and she misses him. She doesn't really remember what she used to do to fill her time before he came along; it feels like years since she's been alone.
He tells her it's because he has to study for his O.W.L.s, but he would much rather be spending all of his time with her. She has no reason not to believe him; she trusts him explicitly. That doesn't stop her from missing him, though.
She spends her time wallowing in self-pity, hoping that he will come back to visit her soon. She briefly considers leaving her bathroom, but she hasn't left the plumbing in years – she isn't sure she even could anymore.
She stays in her toilets and waits for him to return, spending most of her time daydreaming about what they will do together when he does.
He begins to come back more often now, and she feels as if they have never been closer.
She has something she wants to tell him – has been meaning to for a while – and she thinks that now is the right time. This has been building up for the last couple of years – since the moment she met him, if she were being honest with herself.
She watches him closely; he can tell that something is wrong – he can read her like an open book, he knows all but one of her secrets. She is going to change that.
"I love you," she whispers, hair covering her face.
"I love you, too." He smiles, and she can feel her hopes rising. "You're my best friend."
She hasn't seen him in over a month now; she's worried about him. She waits by the sinks eagerly staring at the door; thinking maybe if she wants it enough the door will open and he will be standing there with a smile reserved only for her.
When one month blends into two she really begins to panic. He's never waited this long between visits before and she starts to wonder if he was ill. When it passes the three month mark, she thinks that maybe he is waiting for her to go to him.
It takes her another week to work up the courage to leave the safety of her bathroom, and when she eventually does she makes sure that it's during the night. She knows what house he's in – accessing his common room won't be hard – it's the other students she's worried about.
She floats through the school halls quietly, shrinking away from the judging stares from the portraits that line the walls. Once she gets used to all the eyes aimed at her she begins to relax; he's waiting for her, she just knows he is... only... that boy partially obscured in an alcove looks an awful lot like her boy with a girl wrapped around him.
She watches them, feeling vulnerable and naked and all the while knowing that they have yet to notice her; that she could slip away and pretend this never happened.
Except she can't do that, because she knows now; she knows that he has been spending time with this girl rather than her. She knows that he has found something in this stranger that she herself could never give to him.
She manages to hold her sobs in until she makes it to her bathroom. He never noticed her.
She stops talking to the students after that. She's not sure how long it takes – ten; twenty; one hundred years – but eventually even the staff forget about her. She becomes a myth; a poor little girl that the students laugh about every time they pass her bathroom.
She no longer cries about it; she shed all of her tears long ago.