Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter! etc...

Dedicated to Naomi Selby!

The Graduation Ball

Chapter One - A Ghostly Reunion

Severus Snape stood at the edge of a large, rectangular bath that was made of white marble and watched it fill with multicoloured, perfumed bubbles. Snape undressed slowly, careful to fold his dressing-gown and striped pyjamas, leaving them in a neat pile beside his wash bag and two fluffy white towels. The prefect's bathroom echoed with a little, soft chuckle as Snape slipped into the warm, bubbly water. Sometimes Snape thought with a grin, doing that dunderhead Evan Rosier's potions homework actually paid off.

Snape sank down further into the balmy, foamy waters as tiny spirals of purple vapour slowly rose from the surface to dance in the ether before disappearing like perfumed ghosts in the shadows. The grand chandelier filled with candles bathed the room in a soft glow, easily enough light for Snape to see the stain glass window and the white linen curtains that fluttered gently in the evening breeze. Snape watched the mermaid in the window through the steam as she sat upon a dark rock, splashing her iridescent sapphire tail and combing her long, golden tresses.

Snape sighed as the stain glass mermaid evoked a terrible sadness within him, and his thoughts drifted longingly to a pretty and extremely clever girl in Ravenclaw. Charlotte Corner had been kind to him once, when Professor Slughorn had paired them up to brew the Draft of Living Death together. She had the loveliest, glossiest hair that Snape had ever seen, he adored the way it gleamed like polished gold on those rare occasions that the sunlight shone through the dungeon windows. Snape had often wondered if Charlotte's sleek, waist-length hair was as soft and silken to the touch as he imagined if his fingers accidentally brushed against it in lesson or holding her in his arms as they waltzed about the Great Hall.

Snape was suddenly struck with a hollow, sick feeling as his stomach tightened into a knot. It was a mixture of apprehension and dread that he had experienced on several occasions, the Sorting Hat ceremony ,sitting his O.W.L.s, during his father's drunken rages and now the terrifying prospect of finding at date for the graduation ball! It had been so easy for him to fantasize, safe and alone in the warm, soothing, candlelit bubbles, but Snape knew deep down that what he foolishly desired was impossible, just a fanciful daydream. Charlotte Corner would never agree to go to the ball with him, she may have shown him kindness and recognized his superior knowledge of potion brewing but the poor deluded girl had been making eyes at Sirius Black since the fifth year! Snape sighed again, feeling utterly stupid that he had even entertained the idea of asking Charlotte Corner to the ball when secretly he feared that any girl he mustered up the courage to ask would just humiliate and rejected him.

Laying back in the water Snape tried to push such thoughts from his mind. He had spent two lunch hours working on Rosier's essay and didn't want to waste such splendour and privacy worrying about the stupid graduation ball, he still had plenty of time to do that! Snape gazed up at the chandelier enjoying the almost weightless sensation of floating among the bubbles. His hair flowed about him in fine dark tendrils, no longer greasy and lank but with the rare beauty of an exotic, black seaweed. Snape was contemplating where or not he could be bothered to shampoo his hair when he noticed the candles suddenly violently flicker. Snape shuddered as an icy breeze seemed to briefly ripple over the bubbles leaving him with the strange, uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched….then he heard a loud watery splash.

Snape jerked upright, gulping a mouthful of bubbles as his toes scrambled for purchase upon the bottom of the smooth, marble bath. He swam spluttering to the edge of the bath, his eyes stinging with the soapy bubbles and his hair now clung, lank and wet across his face.

"Who's there?" called Snape brushing the dripping hair from his eyes and peered hesitantly into the shadows. Snape couldn't see anything, nevertheless he reached for his ebony wand which he had left nestling among the folds of his dressing-gown. Snape had learnt from bitter experience never to be without his wand, not even when taking a bath.

"Come on…show yourself…" Snape demanded as he pointed his wand in the direction of the splash.

There was a muffled sound which resonated from a toilet cubicle on the far side of the bathroom as if somebody was desperately trying to stifle a giggle.

"Myrtle? Myrtle is that you?"

The prefect's bathroom was filled hysterical shrieks of laughter as the ghost of a girl with bunches and thick, round spectacles emerged from the depths of the toilet bowl. She glided across the colourful bubbles towards Snape as if she tended to pass through him but at the last moment she rose up into the air and swooped over his head. She eventually came to rest with a giggle and hovered with her legs crossed just above the fluffy, white towels.

"Hello Severus," cooed Moaning Myrtle. "I love the longer hair…It really suits you."

"How long have you been spying on me?" questioned Snape relieved that there was a thick layer of foamy bubbles between his nakedness and the ghostly girl's prying eyes. Snape wasn't very confidence about his body at the best of times, he absolutely loathed anyone, even his own mother catching him without his clothes on. And he hated the way that Potter and Black stuttered about the changing rooms displaying their muscular, tanned physiques without a care, making him even more self-conscious and insecure. Snape had sadly resigned himself long ago to the harsh reality that he would always be scrawny with a pallid complexion.

"I wasn't spying on you…" protested Myrtle as she nervously twisted one of her bunches around a finger, "…honest."

"Then what do you want Myrtle?" sighed Snape placing his wand back down onto his dressing-gown. The last time he had spoken to the Moaning Myrtle had been in the boy's bathroom on the second floor just before the summer holidays last year. She had quite sociable and almost cheerful until Snape mentioned that he was going to stay with the Blacks and their three daughters. Snape had obviously said the wrong thing as Myrtle had burst into tears, she chased him from the bathroom soaking him to the skin as she exploded all the taps. So understandably Snape wasn't too keen to be caught in the bath by a ghost with such unpredictable mood swings.

"Aren't you pleased to see me?" huffed Myrtle. "I thought I was your best friend?" she leaned forward, placing her chin on her hands and squinted through her glasses into the bubbly depths.

"Some friend you turned out to be…" snorted Snape as he snatched a towel from under Myrtle and gestured for her to turn away so he could climb out of the bath. Myrtle gave Snape a sulky pout but obediently twirled around to face the wall. Myrtle smiled as she realised that Snape couldn't have noticed the steamed up mirror in which she could just make out his reflection. She stuffed a fist into her mouth to stop herself giggling as Snape heaved himself out of the bath and quickly secured the fluffy white towel about his skinny waist. Snape then pick up another, smaller towel apparently unaware that Myrtle had been watching him in the mirror.

"We had been friends for three years Myrtle, I told you personal things, stuff that I couldn't tell anyone else, and not just because you were my friend but because I honestly I thought you understood me. I thought you knew what it was like to be bullied and lonely, but I must have been wrong. Why did you end our friendship? Did I upset you? I tried to find out reason, but all you've done since I got back from the holidays is throw tantrums or just avoid me altogether…." Snape didn't look at Myrtle as he spoke just concentrated on drying his hair but there was an unmistakable bitterness in his voice.

"I…I.. had personal issues…" stammered Myrtle turning back to face him, she was now hovering in a standing position and wringing her ghostly hands together. "I am sorry…" she added in a weak, sad voice.

"Personal issues!" snorted Snape, throwing down his damp towel, Myrtle shuddered as it passed through her. "Yeah, sure you did…and I bet you're really sorry too," he huffed, folding his arms across his smooth, pale chest and finally looked at Myrtle, his dark eyes misted with tears.

"I am sorry!" shrilled Myrtle. "And I did have personal issues. Do you think because I'm a ghost that I don't have personal problems? That I don't have feelings?"

"So do I…" replied Snape coldly. "If you didn't want to be my friend anymore you should have just told me…"

"But that's just it Severus, I wanted to be your friend," wailed Myrtle. "But some of the other ghosts didn't think it was healthy that we spent so much time together…"

"Isn't that what friends do?" replied Snape sounding slightly puzzled. "Aren't friends meant to spend time together?"

"But I'm dead, Severus!" protested Myrtle bursting into tears and covering her face with her hands.

"So what?" shrugged Snape as he lent into the bath and pulled on the golden chain to released the plug. It wasn't that Snape was being hypocritical or insensitive he had just learnt that it was best to ignore Myrtle's emotional outbursts rather than encourage her and besides he really didn't see what the big deal was about him being friends with a ghost. "You were my only friend, you made life here tolerable, I finally had someone to confided in, someone I thought cared about me…Why didn't you tell me some of the other ghosts didn't like us being friends? Didn't you think I would stick up for you?"

Myrtle stared at the bathroom floor, trying unsuccessfully to kick at the discarded towel and saying nothing in her defence.

"It never bothered me that you were a ghost…"

"It didn't? You honestly weren't bothered that I was dead?" said Myrtle between the sobs.

"No." said Snape. "You were my friend and that was all that really mattered to me."

"So…can we be friends again?" asked Myrtle nervously.

"But won't the others ghosts disapprove?" retorted Snape, still indignant.

"I don't care. You'll be leaving Hogwarts in a few months and then I'll never see you again," Myrtle sniffed as she pulled down the sleeve of her robe. She wiped away the silvery tears that stained her pearly-white, translucent cheeks. "Please Severus, give me another chance. I really missed you."

"Yeah…I suppose…" replied Snape as he bent down to pick up his clothes and wash bag.

"Oh Severus…" screeched Myrtle rushing forward with her arms outspread trying to give him a hug. Snape shivered feeling as if he had just had been subjected to a sudden and unwelcome cold shower as the ghostly girl passed through him.

"Oops…Sorry!" apologised Myrtle with a giggle as she whooshed excitedly up into the air, flipped head-over-heels, then returned to face Snape while hovering over the gurgling, emptying bath.

"There is one condition…" said Snape as he pulled on his dressing gown and started walking towards the door.

"Yes…of course…anything…" gushed Myrtle drifting along beside him.

"No more spying on me!"

"As if I would…" snorted Myrtle playfully, it had been the most cheerful she has been all year.

"Promise…"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," cooed Myrtle, tracing a cross over her chest as Snape opened the door and shivered as the air of the cold, dark corridor hit him.

"Myrtle!"

"Sorry…" called Myrtle as Snape he let the bathroom door slam behind him and hurried back to his dormitory. "See you tomorrow."

Moaning Myrtle sighed wistfully as she did another somersault and then drifted down to sit on the side of the bath where Snape had left his damp towel. She watched the gaudy bubbles slowly spiral down the plughole, humming along with the gurgling sound.

"It's only going to end in tears…you do know that?" said Nearly Headless Nick in a fatherly tone as he drifted through the bathroom wall.

"How long have you been listening?" snapped Myrtle squinting up at Nearly Headless Nick with an angrily scowl.

"Long enough to know that you intend being friends with that boy again" Nearly Headless Nick replied sadly.

"Why shouldn't I?" retorted Myrtle. "Severus is my best friend and I don't care what anyone else thinks about it!" Myrtle folded her arms with a snort and turned away from the Gryffindor ghost.

"But, my dear girl," said Nearly Headless Nick floating across the bath in an attempt to make the ghostly girl see sense. "This Severus boy is alive…He's still flesh and bones, where as you are made of…"

"Ectoplasm?" suggested Myrtle with an sharp edge to her voice turning away from him again but this time so Nick Headless Nick could see the silvery tears starting to well up in her eyes. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know that a ghost can never compensate for a living girl?"

"But I'm worried about you Myrtle. I just want to you happy…" said Nearly Headless Nick, in a slightly offended voice.

"Then leave us alone!" shrieked Myrtle diving off the edge of the bath and disappearing down the plughole with a mournful wail.

Nearly Headless Nick swept off his plumed hat and scratched his head with a heavy sigh. He stood for a moment watching the last of the foamy water drain from the bath and then made a decision. Drifting out of the bathroom through the wall opposite the stain glass window he went in search of someone who might know what to do about Moaning Myrtle 's doomed friendship with this strange, lonely boy.

TBC...

R&R!