Lunchtime Hour

The three weeks which had passed since the Weasel had brushed with death, Draco had spent in a constant mill of lessons, homework and trips to the Room of Requirement. He had slowly started to become mildly optimistic about repairing the Cabinet again; through trial and error, he had proceeded, slowly but surely, with the laying of the intricate webbing of spells which would serve to create the passage into Hogwarts.

(Of course, that only meant that he was slowly approaching the point from which he had started in September. Still, he was progressing, and this was the important part; and as his knowledge of the Cabinet spell was now much more thorough than it had been before, the chances that he should commit another critical mistake, like back in October, were decidedly smaller.

The only thing which spoiled his satisfaction with the steady, methodical work was a small, nagging feeling at the back of his mind. It was as if he were forgetting something, neglecting something – something which would, in the end, prove critical to success. He had not ignored that feeling, irrational as it was; however, he had checked, and double-checked, and triple-checked, each and every spell-thread he laid – as there wasn't anything he was forgetting. The peculiar sensation remained just that: a sensation.)

The Weasel was up and about again, and that might be even, perhaps, a good thing; because, after all, there had been no investigation into the whole affair again. This came as a relief, of course, although, oddly enough, combined with a vague sort of indignation: Dumbledore really did not care for the lives of his students, did he? Apparently, not even when these students were Potter's lackeys, his Gryffindor darlings...

The man almost made it too easy to hate him. His life in exchange for Mother's, and Father's, and Draco's own – it was definitely more than a fair trade.

(Potter... Potter would never be in his place. That sanctimonious, sycophantic brat would never have to bargain for anything; never, ever have to learn to compromise; hopefully, it would be his thick-headed arrogance that the Dark Lord would exploit to trap him–)

Potter had attempted to enter the Room of Requirement today.

Actually, it had been a mildly amusing experience.

---

He made sure that Potter had bored himself of talking to an empty wall before leaving the Room, of course; he really had more important, and interesting, things to do than being attacked and possibly getting into detention right now. Therefore, it was only about the lunchtime hour that he left the Room of Requirement.

Pansy and the others would be still in Hogsmeade; she had mentioned to him that she would like to eat lunch there. There was Goyle, of course – and, yes, the story of Saint Potter and the Empty Wall would be one he might enjoy, meagre recompense for the many and lengthy travails he had to endure for Draco's sake though it was.

(Bless him, his kind heart and his generous soul: he might have been mutinying against his disguise, but remained a good friend and level-headed enough to perform his designate role.)

This did not mean, however, that he might not step into a bathroom on the way to the Slytherin dungeons.

---

"Hello, Myrtle."

The amused voice was like a breath of fresh air in the stuffy, maudlin atmosphere of the bathroom; Myrtle, perched at the edge of a sink, reduced the intensity of her crying to a sob.

"Hello, Draco," she said, sniffing her nose, "I see he didn't hurt you."

"No, he was just standing there, saying idiotic–" He stopped as he realised how perfectly concerted, and how perfectly unreasonable, the question and the answer had been; he had never mentioned Potter's recent stalking inclinations to Myrtle; she must have meant... "Hold on. You aren't talking about Potter–"

Myrtle was watching him through wide-open eyes, which suddenly made him suspicious. "–are you?" he finished weakly.

Myrtle blinked once, twice, thrice; and then, true to her moniker, burst into tears. "I didn't tell him anything. I really didn't!"

Draco felt his good humour dissipate instantly. "Myrtle?"

"I didn't, I didn't, I didn't!"

With her incessant wailing, he thought, she resembled a house elf. He sighed internally and, mustering all the patience that still remained within the sea of irritation, said:

"Myrtle? I believe you."

Myrtle glared at him askance. "You do?"

He shrugged and smiled; although, truth be told, he really didn't feel like smiling at the moment. "Well, you promised, didn't you?" he said, as cheerfully as he dared without making himself look like a fool even to himself, "And so, you wouldn't tell, would you?" Would you?

"I didn't," Myrtle repeated through the sobs.

"All right," he said, though he did not really feel all right; after all, Potter had found the hideout in the Room of Requirement, even if he hadn't managed to enter it, "Now that that's settled, what did you tell him?"

"O-only that I was meeting a boy," Myrtle wailed on, "I d-didn't tell him your name! I–"

Draco decided that he believed her.

It was not the easiest decision, but there it was, as simple as Wingardium Leviosa:

Whatever magic Potter had used to discover the identity of his hideout in the Room of Requirement, it had nothing to do with Moaning Myrtle.

---

(Of course, that left the question of just what kind of magic Potter had used. For now, that was perhaps rather an academic interest – because whatever it had been, the Chosen Brat hadn't managed to enter the Room of Requirement, but had been reduced to impotently begging the Room to let him in; a most agreeable situation, as far as the Room's occupant had been concerned.

Still, past forays into the enemy arsenal had definitely brought wholesome results; and what with the Weasel twins' Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder–)

---

"–didn't!

"Stop crying, Myrtle! I told you I believed you."

Myrtle, indeed, stopped crying for a moment – as if she, too, were amazed by the outrageousness of Draco's demand. Then, she resumed, with an even greater force.

"Myrtle..."

And then, suddenly, Draco felt an urge to laugh.

"We really are a pair, aren't we?" he said, leaning against the sink; next to him, Myrtle's sobs took on a definitely offended quality. "While we're not screaming at each other, we're crying at one another. Have we ever had a normal conversation yet?"

(Of course they had; his mind readily supplied examples. There was the time when– And the time when– And when had the times become so many?)

"Myrtle," he said, looking at the ghost sitting next to him on the sink, "What is it?"

From the deluge of muffled sobs, he fished out a mumbled, "...made fun of me..."

"Who? Potter?"

Another series of sobs, "...awful redhead boy..."

Oh. It was nice, he supposed, to see that, once up, the Weasel was down to his usual level of sterling humour.

"But, Myrtle," he reasoned, "he's... irrelevant."

Irrelevant: the way Potter was irrelevant; the way Quidditch was irrelevant; the way the school itself, homework and House points and all that was irrelevant. Potter played Quidditch, and did not see that Quidditch was irrelevant; and very well, let him play his Quidditch for as long as possible; let him play his Quidditch when the Dark Lord came for him. Potter had dropped all pretence of hexing people for any other reason than satisfying his sadistic tendencies; and very well, let him do so; let him be still devoted to hexing people on Hogwarts' corridors when the Dark Lord came for him.

(Although this last mantra, he had nearly broken when Potter had attacked Crabbe.)

Let Potter stand for hours in front of the Room of Requirement if he so desired; of course, Potter, Dumbledore's pet, possessed of an Invisibility Cloak, apt to hex random people simply because he felt like it, was not to be underestimated–

Still, he was... irrelevant.

(Irrelevant to what? Now that was a question. But he was.)

And so, in a way, was the Weasel.

(At least, to Myrtle; to Myrtle, not to him. He still remembered–)

Myrtle had stopped crying and was looking at him curiously.

"He's not important, Myrtle," he argued, "You simply don't have to care for him, or his tasteless humour, or–"

Suddenly, he broke off. For a moment, unbelievably enough, he had forgotten that he was not speaking to a girl, two years younger than himself, but to the ghost of a girl, two years younger than himself. And that while the girl might have listened to his advice, the ghost of the girl definitely would not; because a ghost was only an imprint, ghosts could not learn, could not change; could not evolve.

"Next time, try not to let yourself be upset by him; if you even can, that is... Or, perhaps," he smirked, "Why don't you haunt him for a bit in revenge?"

This, to his hidden relief, was met with a round of giggling.

---

Soon, Draco excused himself and went away to spend a happy evening with his friends.

(As in the end it turned out, the last happy evening in quite a long time.)