When she finally managed to return to the safe haven that her bathroom was – she had been caught unawares when someone had flushed a toilet, and so she had ended up in the lake, again – he was there: the pallid boy who had been so rude to her, in spite of her best attempts to befriend him. The last time they had met, over a week before, he had left the bathroom in a rush; and in his parting words, he had called her a Mudblood.

That, as she understood, was generally considered a grave insult amongst the wizard kin. But she herself had never cared much about it; it wasn't like the insults that really hurt, personal ones, like the ones about how she looked like or what she did. The claim that anyone Muggle-born had dirty blood was just so obviously untrue, so obviously just a thing invented to spite people – she herself had been of Muggle stock, but she knew that she hadn't been any worse a witch for that; and certainly, enough of a witch to have become a ghost. But laughing at her appearance – about how, no matter what she tried, she could never change her looks, because, although there did exist things that made a beautiful girl out of a pretty girl, and a pretty girl out of an average-looking girl, they all gave up when faced with her – well, face – or Metamorphosing just to make fun of her, like what Olive Hornby's friend Janice had used to do – that was just cruel. When she was a small girl, Father used to tell her that the real beauty was the beauty of the soul, and that all the people actually worth knowing knew that – and that only the people who knew that were worth knowing – but Father had never been to Hogwarts. Handsome people had it so much easier here – like that Slytherin prefect, Tom Riddle –

Of all possible insults, the boy had probably chosen the one that had the least potential to hurt her; but he had intended his words as an insult. And now, he had the cheek to come here, to her bathroom – and just when she needed it for herself, after she had to return all the way back from the lake to the school, no less. Not that the intrusion would have been tolerable in any other moment, of course.

She floated up to where he was, curled up in the corner between the last sink and the wall. He must have been really lost in his thoughts, because he didn't notice her for quite a while after she appeared in front of him.

When he finally did notice her, however, she could tell it straight away. His face changed suddenly, almost instantaneously, into the mask-like lack of expression she had seen on him once before, when she had surprised him during their first meeting. The tears on his face didn't dry up immediately, but she guessed that the only reason he didn't vanish them away with a spell was that he would look really conspicuous using his wand to do this; had he been possessed of the faculty of producing such a spell wandlessly, he would not hesitate a moment to cast it.

"What do you want, ghost?" he asked unpleasantly; clearly, he believed that an effective offence was the best defence.

"What are you doing here? This is a girls' bathroom. My bathroom. Please vacate it at once," she said, trying to sound regal. Vacate, she thought, was an especially nice touch.

He sneered. "When did this become your private kingdom? Besides –" he added in an afterthought – "I thought I was invited."

"You were –" she forced herself to be calm – it would not do to start crying right now; the tears would have to wait until after she had dealt with the trespasser – "until you started to throw insults at me. Leave, or –" she stammered, unsure of how she could threaten him; but then, suddenly, an idea came to her – "or I'll call Peeves. Your pure-blood friends will be happy to know where you are, I'm sure!"

Apparently, the threat achieved its goal – the boy stood up slowly, and spat out viciously, "Well, then – far be it for me to infringe upon your hospitality."

She watched him as he walked demurely past her on his way to the door, and then as he started to cast some spells, probably to open it – she had already noticed that he was very punctilious on the matter of security.

Even from behind, the boy was a study in misery – his shoulders were sagging, his blond hair was dishevelled and his robe was dirty; there was even a spider's web, along with its clearly surprised inhabitant, trailing after its bottom rim. (The castle's caretaker had come the previous week – of course, only after she had pestered him long enough – and had put new candle stubs in the holders, but hadn't deigned to actually clean the bathroom, claiming that no one ever used it, anyway. She had been deeply hurt by his insensitivity, and had cried for more than two hours after that.)

Nobody, she felt, deserved to be seen this way in this dreadful school. Making the boy leave now, like this, with traces of tears still clear on his face, would be like playing right into the hand of whoever had forced him to hide in the bathroom in the first place. And that was something which she simply wouldn't permit. The boy may not have deserved her friendship, but he did deserve a chance to dry his tears, at least.

She called after him, "No – wait. I'm sorry. Stay – if you want to."

His wand stopped abruptly, mid-spell; several tiny silver sparks shot out of it. Then, he slowly turned around, as if to face her, but he wasn't really looking at her, just somewhere behind her; meanwhile, she was silently cursing herself – not literally, of course; not that it would work anyway – for the unfortunate wording of her statement: just how did it precisely happen that she was the one apologising?

She raised her voice; the opportunity was not lost yet. "But I want you to do something for me in return."

----

He could not predict what the minutiae of the deal he was offered would entail; this irritated him to no end.

"Name?"

"Yes."

"That's what you want? My name?"

"Yes, your name. We've met twice already, and you still haven't introduced yourself. That's bad manners, that is."

She had the audacity to lecture him on the topic of manners. The very thought amazed him.

She smiled brightly and added, "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. I was angry before, but I won't really call Peeves, or tell anyone your name, or that you visit here. All right?"

He wondered what the true reason behind such a rare expression on her face was. For a moment, he considered blackmail as a possible option; indeed, if news of his – moment of weakness – got through to Peeves, and through him, to the rest of the school –

He didn't want to think about this. He was a fool to have started talking with the ghost at all. He had underestimated her, had judged her as mainly harmless. And now she had a hold on him.

But there was no motive; he had nothing that the ghost could want.

Apart from, apparently, at this moment, his name.

He wished that he could make her swear an Unbreakable Vow to compel her to her words, an oath the likes of which Mother had forced on Snape; but there were two major hurdles – firstly, she was already dead, and he wasn't sure how the Vow, if broken, would affect a ghost; secondly and more importantly, there was no Binder. To find one would mean having to reveal the deal to a third party – and he was prepared to do this even less than he was prepared to conclude the deal itself. He frantically raked through his mind in search of any way to bind a ghost with a magical contract – but found none. He wasn't even sure if ghosts were on Hogwarts' curriculum. Inferi were, of course, they would have them this very year in Defence, but ghosts? Perhaps they should have had them one of the previous years –

He could lie to her, of course.

Or –

----

She watched the changing expressions on the boy's face as he was considering her offer; it seemed that he was weighing up her words over and over again. She couldn't understand his hesitation – all she wanted to know was his name, after all; such a simple thing. And she had already promised not to tell anyone, hadn't she?

Apparently, he thought differently. When he finally broke out of his reverie, he asked, sombrely, "Would you swear it on the honour of your House?"

On the honour of her House. She hadn't really thought of her House since she had died. Was she even still its member? Even House ghosts usually referred to their Houses in the past tense –

She decided not to mention her doubts to the boy. It could only bring unnecessary complications. "Of course I would."

"Then promise," he insisted, stepping towards her, looking intently straight into her eyes. She drifted a step back; she didn't want him to walk into her. "Promise that you'll keep it a secret. Our secret."

A secret. When she had been alive, no one had ever asked her to be a part of anything that had required keeping a secret.

She was happy; there was no other word for this. Well, perhaps there was. Delighted, elated, joyful, blissful, exhilarated, exultant –

Happy.

"I promise. I promise on the honour of the House of Rowena Ravenclaw that I won't tell anyone who you are, or that you come here. Are – are you satisfied now?"

----

The Death Eaters said that the Dark Lord was so skilled in the arts of Legilimency that he always knew when you were lying to him.

But he himself needed be no Legilimens to see that the ghost wasn't lying when she made her promise, and that she would do her best to keep to it – she clearly took to this childishness of a vow, a vow that he had no means to enforce save by appealing to her better nature. It was only pity that she was a Ravenclaw, not a Hufflepuff – they were the ones who actually prided themselves on their loyalty and devotion to friends, and would go to any lengths to prove it.

The only risk lay now in the possibility that the ghost would babble something by accident, but that, he had no means to control. Other than that, however, he suspected he could feel now – within reason – relatively – temporarily –

– safe?

----

She saw his shoulders relax a bit as the tension seeped away from him. He leaned against a sink, and said, still looking at her, though no longer in her eyes, "Yes, I am. And now that that's behind us – I'm Draco. And you were right: it was a terrible lack of manners not to introduce myself before. But I was – a bit distressed at the time."

She drifted to the toilet seat opposite the sink, and sit in her favourite place, on top of the tank. "Oh, it's all right. But –" she could not rein in her curiosity – "Draco? Like in the school's motto?"

"Yes." He hissed out rather than said the word.

She understood what he meant. "Oh. Did they try it often? And I bet they were thinking they were oh-so-funny as well."

He laughed a mirthless laugh. "No. Some people tried, in the first year, but Father put an end to it."

"I wish my Father could have done the same for me." She sighed. "Do you know what my very first Potions lesson was about? A boil-curing potion. And do you know what one of the ingredients was? Myrtle. Chopped myrtle leaves. There was also dried nettle, porcupine quills, snake's fangs – oh, I remember them all perfectly – but do you know what the last ingredient was?"

----

"Horned slugs," he answered absent-mindedly; he could already see where she was heading. Seeing her surprised expression, he shrugged. "We must have had the same first lesson." He remembered that lesson well – Snape had commended him for having stewed said slugs "acceptably well".

She was nonplussed. "Yes. We must. Anyway –" she continued, regaining her previous impetus – "do you know what my Potions Professor's name was?"

He decided that he might just as well let her have some fun. "No. What?"

"Slughorn," she said, triumphantly. "And someone, of course, found the instruction "add myrtle to slugs" terribly funny, and so it started, from the very first lesson on. And it's not even as if the potion worked. I should know, I've tried," she finished glumly.

Trying to prevent the imminent onset of tears – a small part of his mind noted that, between her initial irritation and later exhilaration, she didn't really warrant her nickname that day – he asked, "So, you didn't like Potions?"

He couldn't really begrudge her if she hadn't, especially with such a teacher. Potions had always been his favourite subject – before Slughorn started to teach it.

"No, I didn't," she sniffled; the tears were bound to start any moment now. "The Professor didn't really care for my work. He didn't really care for anyone's work, except that Hufflepuff's, Corny Fudge's – always said that, with his connections, Corny would one day arrive at a very good post in the Ministry –"

He could very well guess what kind of connections those were. Father even had a special name for Fudge. He used to call him "that useful idiot."

"– But, anyway –" she finished – "your name is really nice."

The sudden turn in the course of her thought surprised him. Shrugging, he answered, "Thanks, I guess." Deciding that he might as well supply some information, he added, "It is a kind of a tradition in my mother's family. Many of us are named after constellations, or stars. There's my aunt Bellatrix, and my other aunt, Andromeda – but then, of course, on the other hand there's my mother, Narcissa –"

"What does she do?"

----

Belatedly, she remembered how sensitive he had been on the matter of his mother. She began to regret her curiosity, when he finally answered, laughing that mirthless laugh again, "Parties, mostly."

Some of her disbelief must have shown on her face, because he added in an explanatory manner – she noted that his usually relaxed speech turned into a yet more languid drawl –

"My mother is the perfect party hostess; a perfect politician's wife, playing her role to a hilt – except that my father, of course, never wanted to become a politician. He just used to – be a consultant for the Ministry." A sudden grimace twisted his face.

"Used to?"

"Used to," he answered firmly, closing the topic. She took the hint, and didn't press the matter further.

A moment passed, as neither of them spoke.

"My mother died in the bombings," she said suddenly, breaking the uneasy silence. "And my father – at the beginning of the war, they shipped him off to some place called Bletchley Park, to work for the government. I died before he returned, really. He was a mathematician – that's sort of Muggle Arithmancy –"

"Arithmancy was my favourite subject, next to Ancient Runes. Of course," she made an unhappy face, "I didn't learn either for long; we only got as far as ogham in Runes, and Sieglinde Steinhaus's Third Rule of Banach spaces –"

----

He drifted off the moment she started droning about her Muggle family, a topic that couldn't be of less interest to him; but the sound of her voice, usually so jarring, was now oddly soothing, in a way – the way that Binns's history lessons usually were. He wondered if it was some odd personality quirk common to ghosts –

But then she said something that caught his attention.

"Can you repeat that?" he asked.

She blinked. "I only said that I only got to Steinhaus's Third Rule in Arithmancy before I died."

"Oh." Steinhaus's Third. Of course. That was why the Room of Requirement kept creating fourth-year Arithmancy textbooks every time he had commanded it to help him during the previous week. He had forgotten to account for that infernal rule in the formulae he had employed. That was why he hadn't been able to set the spell on the Cabinet.

"Myrtle, I must go. Now," he said, removing himself from the sink.

She looked at him from her toilet tank, startled by his sudden declaration. "But you will return?" she asked tentatively.

"Sure." He hesitated, "If I'm still invited, that is."

The ghost veritably beamed in return. "Of course you are."

He awaited with disgust the inevitable familiarisation; he was relieved when none came.

----

When he left – having first paid attention to straighten his hair and clean his robes properly (the spider must have departed on his own while they had been talking), she smiled.

"Draco," she said, savouring the sound of the word.

She giggled.

Then, someone flushed a toilet somewhere, and she found herself reeling down towards the lake. Again.