Is this a date?
The afternoon classes had slipped by in a blurry fog, where she only barely remember to search out the morning's professors to ascertain their assignments; finally, after an eternity, she found herself standing in front of the kitchen painting, alone.
It must have been at least twenty, if not thirty, minutes since classes ended. What was Bakura's last class?
Well, at least Myrtle could count herself above those simpering cases that religiously memorized their crushes schedule, and emblazed all their belongings with, at the very least, their initials, and some hearts.
Now, however, she had no idea where Bakura was supposed to have been, to go and find him.
No, she would not search him out! If he didn't want to spend time with her, she was not going to chase after him.
'But he had suggested this particular excursion, and hadn't he said he wouldn't mind if everyone thought they were dating?' The normally rational half of her mind chewed out the panicked side, but not part of her relaxed.
What should she do?
Wait?
Leave?
Her fingers clasped and unclasped for a few arduous seconds.
"Is something wrong?" A deeply tan hand moved to rest on her own pallid, under dark robes, arm.
"Nothing," tension flowed out from her like a river; leaving her feeling limp.
"Dippet wanted to speak with me. I am sorry for being late." Bakura explained, as he stepped forward to tickle the pear; his hand rising to Myrtle's shoulder, to tug her numb body up behind him.
"What do the master and lady desire?" the next moment they were swamped in a crowd of small roughly clad bodies.
"Tea?" They were seated now, and Myrtle nodded her assent over the excitedly bouncing heads.
"We just finished these!" The first house elf had scurried away, only to be replaced by another waving a still warm tray of pumpkin pasties.
"Thank-you," Myrtle accepted one; nibbling at it distractedly as her focused remained riveted on Bakura.
"What did Professor Dippet gave to talk to you about." Myrtle, surprised even by her own brazenness, let her eyes wonder from their subject to the high rafters above, and down to her lap, before returning to Bakura; only to see the close of a flicker of surprise, and something that smacked of fear.
Bakura paused before replying. "He had some questions about my former life. Thank-you," he turned to accept a steaming cup of tea. "Are you feeling better then this morning?"
His quick change of subject threw Myrtle a bit off balance as her own steaming cup of tea appeared in her hands. "Yeah," the words were out without a thought as her mind raced over the many questions that she wanted to know about him; despite the few weeks she had known him, Myrtle sometimes felt like she really knew him, but instances like this one made her contemplate how very little she actually knew about him.
"Do you?" Bakura's awkward stumbling as he seemed to force himself towards empty conversation distracted Myrtle from her inward wonderings. "Do you remember anything about first year charms? I'm having some trouble with the levitation charm."
Myrtle was skeptic, if she remembered anything it was that the levitation of objects was one of the first charms that a student learned; he was supposed to be foreign though, and had transferred in a few weeks into term, but he didn't have any kind of accent, even if he worded his sentences a bit oddly at times. Myrtle took a long, slow sip of tea.
"I just can't seem to get anything off the ground." He added, hopefully, no doubt noticing her hesitation.
"What most people mess up is which syllable to stress, and can't do the spell because they stress the last syllable rather then the third syllable."
"Why don't you show me?"
Myrtle sighed inwardly as she came to the blatant conclusion that he had erected this entire, stupid, charade because he didn't want to tell her something about his meeting with Dippet; he was afraid to tell her something.
Bakura was afraid of something?
"Please?" Apparently she had drifted off, yet again.
Mumbling an apology, she quickly demonstrated; perhaps over exaggerating the stress on the o, but lifting a teakettle two meters off the table nonetheless.
-"Did you see Malfoy at dinner?"
"She was livid; Riddle never showed up."
"I'll bet you anything that he was off in a broom closet somewhere with that Revenclaw that's been throwing herself at him."
"Wish I was so lucky."
The common room was probably the worst place to do homework, but Myrtle had procrastinated until the last moment before curfew; opting to spend the time, with Bakura, away from prying, gossiping, eyes. Now she was hiding behind a mound of make-up work from that morning.
Even if she had never worked up the nerve to cross examine him about his meeting, with Bakura beside her, and the whispering of her classmates being anything but about her, even the looming dread of Hornby's retribution could not dampen what might actually have been happy fuzziness flowing through Myrtle's veins.