Disclaimer: Me, the owner of Harry Potter? Ha. I wish.
A/N: Well, hip hip hooray. It's chapter 2. I've edited it a gazillion times and I'm still not completely satisfied. But you didn't really need to know that. Anyway, I've been working on it forever, so if you're mad that I haven't updated sooner, you now know that I have NOT been neglecting my beloved fanfic.
Enjoy, everyone. And don't forget to review.
Harry reported back to Snape after he had finished cleaning the bathroom, and to his surprise, the room's state met with Snape's satisfaction. Then again, Harry would have been furious if it hadn't, since he had spent three hours scrubbing the bathroom and trying to resist the urge to throw himself passionately at Myrtle's translucent form.
"You may go, Potter," said Snape. "But allow me to warn you that if you ever again call me a 'sadistic bat' in my presence, the consequences will be rather more severe than they were this time."
If that's possible, thought Snape with glee as he swept off down the corridor.
Harry was thinking the same thing as he ducked back into Myrtle's bathroom and muttered "sadistic bat" under his breath.
Myrtle was still sitting in her stall, wailing piteously, as she had been for the past three hours, being insulted that Harry had had to ignore her completely while he meticulously planned out how best to approach her.
"What's wrong, Myrtle?" said Harry in the closest thing to an innocent voice that he could muster.
But, as Harry realized he should have anticipated, directing a question at Myrtle in her present state turned out to be a mistake.
"Oh, what do you care?" Myrtle managed to say through her tears. "You haven't been ignored and neglected for fifty years. I suppose it's nothing to you if someone spends three hours in the same room with you and hardly even looks at you the whole time."
"I just—"
"But I should've known no one thinks I'm worth talking to. After all, what would someone like me have to say after living in a toilet for decades and decades?"
Harry was praying that he would succeed in raising Myrtle's self-esteem enough to get her to be reasonably social. He was longing to have a meaningful conversation with his dearest Myrtle, and furthermore, to see her eyes alight with happiness instead of filled with tears.
"Oh, Myrtle," he said, feigning exasperation. "You don't really believe I feel that way, do you?"
"Why wouldn't you?" yelled Myrtle. "Everyone else does, in case you hadn't noticed! Not that I expect anyone to notice anything about me! Nobody likes me; nobody cares ..."
"Of course I care about you, Myrtle," said Harry. He meant to elaborate on that statement, but Myrtle didn't give him a chance.
"Oh, making fun of me, are you?" she shouted. "You'd think a live person like you could let a poor ghost alone and not come into her bathroom just to torment her, but no! You have to spend all your time trying to make me miserable, and you're doing a pretty good job of it!"
"Myrtle, I—"
"Just go away!" she screamed. "No one has any respect for the dead anymore! Everyone goes around insulting them just because they're there! You're just another one of those people who think it's funny to upset dead people! If you knew what it's like—oh, never mind, just get out of here!"
Harry knew he wasn't going to make any more progress. He slipped out of the bathroom and ran as fast as he could back to Gryffindor Tower, his ears ringing. Ignoring Ron and Hermione's inquiries as to what was wrong, he tore through the common room, up the spiral staircase, and into his dormitory. He sank down onto his bed and closed the curtains.
He knew he had suffered worse than this, but somehow it didn't seem possible that there was any pain worse than that which he felt now. That creature of light, that beautiful, melancholy specter, was angry at him. Why hadn't he realized how lucky he had been at the beginning of his detention when she had been in a good mood, almost ready to flirt with him? But now his beloved, his one and only, was furious at him, and life was no longer worth living.
He felt a tear slide down his cheek and was immediately annoyed at himself. It was so stupid, to be crying over some ghost. Then again, Myrtle was so much more than some ghost ...
Suddenly Harry remembered who was responsible for his misery.
His Potions professor had made him fall in love with a ghost who lived in a bathroom.
Harry didn't think he had ever hated Snape so much.
The next day after Potions, against his better judgment, Harry stepped up to Snape's desk, hoping that the noise of everyone packing up their things and jostling their way out of the dungeon would keep everyone else from hearing what he was about to say.
"Yes, Potter?" said Snape coldly, looking up from the papers he was grading.
"Professor," said Harry in a meaningful tone, "you wouldn't by any chance know of an antidote to Love Potions, would you?"
"Am I to understand, Potter," said Snape, sneering, "that you, perhaps the least adept potions-maker I have ever seen, have been messing about with Love Potions?"
Harry stared at him incredulously.
"No," he said finally, "but in case you'd forgotten, you just made me fall in love with a GHOST WHO LIVES IN A GIRLS' TOILET."
He knew as soon as he'd said it that it had been a mistake.
"Don't be ridiculous, Potter," said Snape, and Harry could tell he was trying not to laugh. It was decidedly odd, seeing any trace of a sense of humor on Snape's face. "I do not have time to meddle in my students' affairs of the heart, and I certainly wouldn't waste time over yours."
It was true, thought Snape. He had involved himself in Potter's love life, but it had definitely not been a waste of time. And he looked over Potter's shoulder at someone standing in the doorway of the classroom.
Harry turned to see what Snape was looking at, and his insides turned cold with horror.
Draco Malfoy was turning and walking briskly out of sight.