Chapter Two
More Questions Than Answers
A damp floor glistens under the stubs of the few candles. Even in the dim light I can make out some more spots of fungus that have grown since I'd last been here. The cracked mirror overlooking the chipped sinks haven't changed much, but most of the stalls are now missing their wooden doors apart from the one which is hanging off its hinges. I can't remember if that was the same one as before. "Are you sure?" I ask Parvati somewhat desperately, head turning to where she hovers beside me.
She's wrinkling her nose and simultaneously smirking, and I silently vow here to warn Ron of his path to redemption under Hermione's eyes. "Yes, Malfoy was spotted skulking about the second floor. Romilda Vane says he looked particularly dashing while storming into here." I recoil, ignoring the amused look she's wearing.
"She thinks Malfoy's fit?"
"I know a lot of people who do. They like his 'mysterious brooding'." Grimacing, I shake my head gravely.
"Hermione said Romilda was trying to slip me a love potion — to get into Slughorn's party, I mean. That was only, like, a month ago." Parvati cocks an eyebrow.
"Jealous, Potter?" I scowl at her, and she simpers while brushing invisible lint off her robes. As long as Ginny doesn't go round declaring her undying love for the Slytherin, I couldn't care less. I'm just shocked that there's 'a lot of people' who think Malfoy is fit; someone who is very clearly up to no good. Frowning, I find myself wondering what Hermione thinks. Just as suddenly I smile slightly at myself. What are you on about, Harry? Hermione acts like he doesn't even exist. Where I've seen Malfoy watch her like she's a fascinating television programme, Hermione hasn't cast him any spare glances since Third Year.
Parvati clears her throat, making me blink myself out of my musing. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then." I stick my hands into my pockets as she swivels around.
"Wait…" She pauses, looking over her shoulder with a raised brow. "Anything else?"
"My sources are still working on it. He's as sneaky as his House Symbol. Expect to find bits of parchment in your bag, your books or your dormitory signed off with the drawing of a lion. The bigger stuff I'll inform you in person." Feeling my pulse race, I nod, and Parvati leaves me alone in the abandoned girls' lavatory.
One of the taps is dripping and it's echoing within the cavernous room. I listen to each droplet greeting the flaky correspondent sink. Tap, tap, tap, rhythmic, like the ticking of a clock. When I was last here, I was smaller, shorter, and accompanied by Ron and our disgraced Professor Lockhart. I remember when people used to fawn over him, too, not realizing the fraud that he was.
"Harryyyy…" I jump violently, cold dread seizing my stomach. I remember that earthly voice too. Too little time has passed since we'd last talked. Watching Moaning Myrtle float out from one of the stalls, I let out a small sigh. But I can't push her away, I realize — she might know something about what Malfoy's up to.
For all I know he could have a pile of chicken eggs waiting to be hatched under toads down in the Chamber below.
"Myrtle," I say, plastering on a smile. "How've you been?"
Myrtle tilts her translucent head, her pigtails swinging as she does. "Don't act like you care," she coos, zooming directly in front of me with a violent whoosh. I force myself to trap my second jump and I swear my skeleton rattles. Myrtle was three years younger than I am now when she'd died, but she still compensates for the height difference by floating until we're eye level. It's oddly eerie, staring through her eyes to my cracked reflection in the mirror, so I drop my stare to my solitary feet.
I heave a heavy sigh, hating myself for plucking at this girl's feelings the way I'm about to. When I was a smaller boy, I didn't really care that much because she was just like another one of my classmates. But while I'm older now, Myrtle is forever frozen in time. Being manipulated by a sixteen-year-old boy it seems will be her infinite destiny.
"Maybe before… but, well, I've been thinking a lot about you lately Myrtle." There's a pause. The tap drips.
"You have?" her voice echoes, and I clench my jaw. I know I can't just ask her. I have no idea what her relationship with Malfoy is (if there even is one) and I can't take the risk that he'll figure I'm onto him should she inform him. He's secretive enough as it is.
"Yeah," I croak, looking up into her see-through eyes, "about your, uh… hair, and your voice, and your company." I wildly think of Ginny things. "Your laugh—" Myrtle giggles, and I clear my throat, "Yeah, just like that."
"Sooo," she whispers, the sound making a shiver crawl down my spine. Myrtle starts floating around me. I feel hairs rising up the back of my neck. "Harry Potter has finally come to his senses."
I hum, biting back the instinctive retaliation. "You see, Myrtle," I choke out instead, "I've come to my senses for quite a while. But I was too shy to approach you at first." I pause as she whines happily somewhere behind me on the left, hating myself a little bit more. "Then when I hear you're talking to another boy…"
Myrtle goes right through me. I know this because it feels like I've been drenched in icy water. Gasping, I watch as she emerges and fixes me with a glare through narrowed eyes. I have a hunch, and the hunch is not good.
"You mean Draco?" The scowl I direct at her isn't remotely faked.
"You're seeing him?" I demand, silently applauding my acting skills. I thrust a hand through my already hopelessly unruly hair for effect. "Malfoy?"
Myrtle does not look impressed.
"What Draco and I have is special…" she breathes, and if her eyes could flash in the candlelight behind her spectacles they would. "You wouldn't know."
I think of Ginny and Dean and my face constricts. "What's so special about him?"
"He's got everything he could want but he's all alone in this world." Her words echo eerily in the derelict bathroom. I wonder if, to some degree, she relates to him.
"You could argue the same about me," I say fiercely, and Myrtle's glare softens. I can't begin to describe how much I hate myself. "That doesn't make him special—" I falter, thinking on the spot, "But of course he would come to take the girl I can't stop thinking about," (Myrtle coos), "because Malfoy likes taking my things, you know."
Myrtle shakes her head solemnly, floating a few inches away from me. "That might be true. But you have no idea what he's going through." Adrenaline pumps through my veins.
"Then tell me. Show me I'm wrong." For a moment, it looks like she will. I'm so exhilarated when she opens her ghostly jaws that I could literally sprint over to Gryffindor tower and kiss Parvati.
"Ask him yourself," she hisses, smirking. Then she does a spin over the bathroom and dives into one of the stalls. I watch the toilet water rain like a fountain while my blood simmers under my skin.
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"Malfoy has a new girlfriend."
"Oh, for God's sake Harry!" Hermione scoffs, her fingers skidding across the spines of volumes on one row of a bookshelf. "Is this your new way of saying hello?"
Ignoring her, I step further into the aisle. There's a group of Ravenclaws studying out front and Ernie greeted me when emerging from the History of Magic section, but other than that, the library is derelict. "You're not going to ask who?"
Hermione tuts, pulling out one book and eyeing its cover. "I couldn't care less."
"Apparently loads of girls think he's fit." Hermione turns her head to me, brows raised. She's looking at me as if I've just started spitting out fireballs amidst all of these flammable objects.
"According to who?"
I shrug evasively, noting the way her eyes flash. I'm in dangerous territory. But I just can't help myself. "Uhh… the girls who think he's fit." I glance at the book clutched in her hand, and wonder if she's considering using it as a weapon. Instead, Hermione rolls her eyes and shoves it back onto the shelf.
"Well go on, then, enlighten me," she snaps. My ears prick at someone shuffling in the aisle behind us, and wonder if Madam Pince is lurking somewhere. "Who is Malfoy's girlfriend?"
"Moaning Myrtle." Hermione snorts, facing me again. Her brows are at her hairline.
"Are you going to compete with that poor girl, Harry?"
I splutter, "No! Why does everyone — I mean, he's up to something, Hermione."
"Mmm-hmm." It's taking a lot of effort to keep my temper in check. But if my friend doesn't listen to me, Madam Pince might end up kicking me out of the library from wherever it is she's lingering.
"Myrtle said it! She said he was up to something!"
"And you're just going to believe her?" I clench my jaw, but before I can make my argument Hermione intercepts with a topic I don't want to think about. "Have you devised a plan to approach Slughorn yet?"
I scowl, and tell her about the disastrous encounter I'd had after Potions. She's already mad at me and I know she'll get even more mad as I recount it.
And sure enough: "Well that's what happens when you take Won-Won's advice!" Hermione snips briskly, bending down to scan over the books on a lower shelf. I huff, leaning against the bookshelf behind me. As I consider my approach, I listen to Madam Pince swooping past our aisle.
I tilt my head. "Are you really mad about the bezoar trick?"
"No!" She stomps her foot while straightening up, and I take that as a yes. "Just astounded how you can do no work and get top grades in Slughorn's book…" More violently than necessary, she snags a book and whips it out of its row on a shelf she definitely isn't looking at. I clear my throat before a snicker escapes me. After five years under Snape's biased scrutiny I reckon I deserve some slack. Plus, beating Hemione at something is refreshing.
"To be fair—" she glares at me over her shoulder, but I continue, "it's not exactly wrong. Why brew up a bunch of complicated antidotes when you can just shove a bezoar—"
"Because," Hermione snaps, whipping her whole body around and placing her free hand on her hip, "if you'd actually listened to Slughorn, he did mention that bezoars don't work on every poison, not to mention the fact that they're rare."
Humming, I push myself off the bookshelf and take a cautious step toward her. Hermione's eyes are narrowed dangerously, but the best indicator of her mood is her hair, which is currently resembling that of someone who's had an electric shock. She still has a spot of soot on her nose from the lesson we'd had in the afternoon, too, so I know she'd stormed straight to the library when Potions ended.
"Technically, you should be berating the Prince — ow!" I topple backwards into the bookshelf after she gives me a particularly violent whack with the volume in her hand. "Hermione! I thought you were supposed to like books." When a snort betrays her, I grin hesitantly.
"I've already read this one and it's useless," she says haughtily, turning to chuck it back into the shelf. "It says the instructions for Draught of Living Death are different to other ones, but all that's changed is that you should skin the valerian roots before chopping them."
I frown. "Can you even skin valerian roots?"
"Precisely," she spits, and my throbbing shoulder and I decide it's not safe enough to suggest she take the Prince's tips. Laying my head against the bookshelf behind me, I watch Hermione extract and reject more books for a few minutes of silence.
"Well, it doesn't really matter much anyway. Pretty sure he hates me now."
Hermione waves her hand over her shoulder sharply. "I can bet that he'll be the same as ever, adoring you in classes. He'll just find every possible way not to be alone with you." I raise an eyebrow.
"What makes you say that?"
She turns around and sighs like I'm physically exhausting her. "He's a careful man. He's not going to sever any connection to you, the Harry Potter—" I scowl slightly, and Hermione gives me a knowing look "—but there's a reason he tampered the memory. You should have followed my advice and planned a strategy. You can't just hang back after class and ask, 'hey, Professor, wanna tell me about Hor—'"
"Yeah, okay!" I hiss, glancing around us. She rolls her eyes.
"I cast a non-verbal Silencing Charm when you swerved round the corner looking like you'd just killed someone." My brows reach my hairline as I grin. Sometimes I underestimate Hermione. We've only been learning the non-verbal stuff for a few weeks, and most people can't even get a spark out of the tip of their wand. In fact Seamus blew up his apple while trying to silently levitate it in our dormitory last night. "Besides, I doubt anyone would know what a Horcrux is, considering no bloody book even mentions them." She growls the last few words as she shoves another rejected book into the shelf.
"Well I see you've discovered a new-found hatred for books," I say, and she scoffs.
"Never. We're just going through a rough patch." I laugh. Something in my peripheral vision catches my eye; I turn my head and stiffen.
A boy so pale he may as well be a ghost himself is staring at us from the end of the aisle. He has a book clenched in his hand, and his jaw is ticking. Like a deer in headlights, he meets my eyes — then Malfoy swiftly disappears from view. Glancing at Hermione, I note that she's absorbed by one of the books she'd probably plucked out during this bizarre moment.
I stay in the library way longer than I'd planned and actually get all of my homework done for the week. In fact I'm there for so long that Hermione is the one who proposes leaving first, as she has a Prefect's patrol for the evening. On departing she thinks I'm actually caring about my studies, but she didn't see the way Malfoy stared at her.
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Hermione was right.
Slughorn pretends the incident never occurred, treating me as his favourite student as usual. He showers me with praise as I follow the Prince's instructions on brewing a Dreamless Sleep Potion, while she scowls at my cauldron like it has personally offended her. But despite my success in brewing it, my attention is only half on my potion.
My hackles rise when he steps across the room towards us.
Ron's murmuring something about Lavender beside me — something about not knowing her well — and I would tell him that he would if he snogged her less, but then Malfoy looms over our desk and all I can think about is Voldemort, ghosts and chicken eggs. Ernie shoots the Slytherin a quizzical look, while in my peripheral vision I see Ron scowling.
"Piss off, Malfoy," he advises, but I don't laugh. From up this close Malfoy's molten silver eyes glint under the dungeon candlelight, and they're fixed on the frowning girl next to Ernie.
"You call that a potion, Granger?" he drawls. My eyes dart to him, catching the hint of a smirk, and fall back on Hermione. She's meeting his stare coolly.
"I don't see you getting invited to the Slug Club."
I expect any number insults, starting with her appearance and scent to bigoted slurs, but Malfoy simply goes, "I hear that's a good thing," and walks away.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron mutters, as we watch him settle back onto his desk beside Zabini and pretend we don't exist. I turn my eyes to Hermione, who for the first time in months addresses our friend.
"No idea, Ronald."
I'm not sure I believe her.