AN: I don't care what anyone thinks, Dryrtle is a beautifully tragic pairing. Enjoy the read.
Going through that door had been a shy and awkward movement, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to do it. It felt as if he were stepping into a room full of past, somehow misplaced in the present.
"Draco! I thought you were dead! Thought you'd died and hadn't even come to stay with me..." Myrtle greeted him at the sight of his face, but at the sight of his corpse-like body, she added, "You're not... Trying to, are you?"
"What does it matter? You would be glad if I said 'yes', wouldn't you?"
"Of course not," she said.
Why not? Why did people want him to be alright? He was not alright and he would never be, but it did not matter. He used to like to believe that he had to stay sane, that he had to be strong until the end of it all, but now, the end had come. And it was not the beginning of anything, as everyone else seemed to think. It was the end.
However, he could never expect anyone to understand that, so he listened to Myrtle's ramble, "as much as I...want you...I don't- I mean, if you- Draco, my family wasn't even all that fussed about me and yet- Besides, it's really awful being dead. I keep telling you and you still don't believe me."
"I'm not trying," was the monotonous, neither true nor false reply.
"Are you sure? You're so...pale, so thin... People are commenting, you know."
He snorted at the thought of those retards thinking themselves kind for pitying a creature they had the daring to say they understood.
"So, how are things?" Myrtle tried to change the subject so as not to upset him further.
How were things? Worse than they had ever been. All his passion was gone and it did not really matter whether he was dead or alive. The only half-hearted wish left in him was maybe going back home to his parents, but that seemed unreachably far away.
Myrtle was making him think. Feel. That would not do, not now.
"I have to go."
"Why?"
"Charms."
"You spend a whole yearwithout even looking at me, and when you do come here you say you have to leave for Charms?! You've never even likedCharms! You boys are all the same..." whined Myrtle fiercely.
"If it weren't for me, they would have gotten rid of you a long time ago, alright?"
"If they had, you would have suffered more than me," she blurted instinctively.
"I don't need you, Myrtle."
"Then why did you come tell me to 'shut the hell up and hide' that day?"
'That day' would be hard to forget for both of them. 'That day' had been the one when they were threatening to remove the ghosts from Hogwarts. 'That day' had been when Draco and Myrtle saw each other for the first and last time that fearsome year.
"I- I pitied you, that's why," said Draco defensively.
"You're lying. You didn't want them to take me away. I know you like me, Draco, I know it! You know it too," Myrtle tried desperately to stop him, but Draco kept taking more steps towards the door. "No, please...Please stay... Please, Draco. Not even the other ghosts talk to me anymore, you're the only one I have left, please! I need you."
Then the young man paused right under the threshold, facing outside. Maybe he would like to stay, at least it was better than out there with them but– too many memories. They chased him restlessly, dark figures attached to him like his shadow, worse than before, in a sense, crawling inside of him.
He had his back to her. His frame shook as if those hauntingly visible bones were ready to fall apart, and she felt the piercing need to hold them together. But then, she reminded herself once more that she couldn't help. Some time ago she had believed in that, but every day things had gotten worse and worse and she was not able to stop it. So, she waited instead. It was one thing he had taught her to do - to finally have somebody to cherish and then to burn in the hell of waiting for them, missing them when they're not there.
Now his body was right there, under the threshold, but his mind...
Crawling inside, like dark phantoms clinging to his lungs...Failing at fixing the cabinet, then Goyle and Crabbe being rebellious - Crabbe...savage demoniac flames that burn even now - then Sectumsempra - Snape. Never. Again. - Snape...the tower, then- then- death and dead bodies and searing blinding heart-stopping pain and demented Bellatrix and and knives and blood, metallic, asphixiating, thick deep red river of blood- asphix-asph-as-
"Draco!" Myrtle's cry echoed around the tiled bathroom.
"What?!" he yelled back, startled, still not quite free from his haphazard nightmares.
She replied in a sad whisper, "Just don't faint."
For a few moments, he stared at nothing in particular. She looked imploringly at him, silently begging him to tell her he had not given up.
"Myrtle, I am going to Charms," said Draco in a choked, yet somberly final voice.
And then he disappeared out the door, leaving Myrtle to weep while she wondered if he would ever come back, if he would be able to heal on his own and if the world out there would be too cruel to him. For years she could but to wonder... Or was it months? Or days? She wondered. And waited.
AN: Please take some time to review :)
