"Myrtle, what are you doing here?"

Harper forces a polite smile as we meet her still outside the locker rooms.

"Olive's always bragging about bathing here - so I thought I'd come as well," she informs us.

"And how did you get the password?"

"Thelxiepeia?" she giggles. "Oh, Tom, you should be clever enough to figure that out. I was secretly following Olive and that's how I overheard it."

I nod, almost unable to keep myself from groaning, yet Harper's enthusiasm is also quite contained.

"And what are you two doing here?" she asks. "The both of you are hardly here by accident, right? The other Ravenclaws in the common room will find that fascinating ..."

"Yes, I'm sure they would," I'm quick to reply, "but possibly the other Prefects who also use the so-called Prefects' Bathroom would find it somewhat interesting that you know their password."

"But then they would change it!"

"Correct, Myrtle," I confirm, "so what will it be? Gossip or an occasional bath?"

She pouts. "The bath, of course ..."

"I thought so. Now with that, I just need you to do one more thing so I can forget about you knowing the password."

She looks at me with big, round eyes.

"This," I say, pointing to Harper, me, and the bathroom behind us, "was intended to be for two."

"Oh, I see," she giggles, "all right, but then you won't say a word to anyone, will you?"

"Deal," Harper quickly confirms. "Glad we could come to an agreement. And Myrtle?"

She turns around again. "Yes?"

"No gossip, remember?"

"It's not like I'm Olive ..."

"I know you're not," she calls after her. "See you later!"

As the heavy wooden door of the bathroom slams shut, it's suddenly just the two of us. And Harper looks up at me mischievously.

"I see you like to negotiate."

"It's like chess, just not exactly with Myrtle." I put my arms around her shoulders, pull her close, smiling thoughtfully. "With you it is."

"There," she says under her breath, "you're looking at me like that again."

"Like what?"

"Well, a bit ... lost?"

I slowly nod. "Maybe because you help me find. It's a little irritating, though."

"I know ..."

"Ravenclaws always know everything, huh?"

"Oh, sure," she confirms in amusement, "that's why we're such an exclusively congenial house."

"So shouldn't you rather find raven company for yourself?"

"No, don't worry. Us ravens, we have a weakness for snakes."

I laugh to myself. "Rowena and Salazar? Green and blue?"

"Yeah, now and then we like a good balancing act."

I nod. "Then you better try not to fall while you're at it."

"Ravens have wings ..."

She's almost hypnotizing me with her dark eyes. But am not I supposed to be the snake? She's standing on her tiptoes, kissing me unexpectedly softly. Her lips on mine like velvet - until they tighten into a smile.

She pushes me away from her gently, but quite suddenly, then she points to the bath. "Are you taking care of the water? But you'll have to look away once I'm ready ..."

I nod. "Because it's you."

Soon the bath is more foam than water, and as Harper's footsteps approach, she motions for me to turn around. And I initially do so. However, I don't anymore right after she puts down her towel and I know fully well that the only option for her is to flee forward now - into the water, that is.

"Tom!" she laughs as I shrug.

"I thought you'd be faster."

"I don't believe a word!" she shouts. Yet her rebuke doesn't turn out to be too lasting as she begins to swim over to me, asking, "Do you at least like my blue bathing suit?"

"I like you. I like your intellect ..."

A golden glow flits across her face before she kisses me again.

"Much better than the cold outside these walls," she finally says, staying right in my arm. "Shall we read now?"

I wait. So many years …

"What?"

"The letter," Harper says, "shall we read the letter now?"

Come to me!

"Do you hear that?"

Perplexed, she looks around. "What do you mean? Do you hear someone coming?"

I'm waiting for you!

Am I going insane? I haven't heard that hissing voice since the night in the library, and I've already conjured up the thought of it not being real. But I've never heard it more clearly, or louder than right here, right now.

"Tom?" Harper cups my face with her hands. "Have you seen a ghost?"

I take a deep breath and, for a moment, I close my eyes.

"Why are you waiting?" I ask - presumably into the universe - dully staring out the colorful windows.

All at once, the glass mermaid adorning them is staring at me, just like Harper.

"What did you just say?" she asks.

We all have our duties!

The hiss sounds like it's going away. So hastily I ask, "What duty? Who are you?"

Come to me! I'm waiting for you!

"Tom?" Harper looks at me, wonder in her eyes, and the mermaid in the window anxiously hides behind her hair. "Tom, what kind of language is that? And who are you talking to?"

"No one," I quickly say, shaking my head as though that would wake me up. "I don't know that I've spoken any other language ..."

"But you have," she confirms. "I just don't know what it is. Something like a ... whisper." She looks up at the mermaid. "You've heard it, too, haven't you?"

The mermaid pushes her hair aside again, nodding shyly.

"Did you hear the other voice, too?" I ask her even though Harper is truly puzzled by now.

"What voice?" she wants to know, and the mermaid does not seem to have a clue what I'm talking about either.

"Forget about it - there was nothing there."

"Tom, what is it?"

"Nothing." A lie. "Let's just read your letter."

"That was disturbing, Riddle ..."

I smile. "I'm just tired, that's all."

"I like disturbing, in case that's slipped your mind."

"All right, then. There was a voice. Satisfied?"

"No – what kind of voice?" she asks me in a wild mix of excitement and fear. "What did it say?"

"It was very clear," I open to her somberly. "Do you really want to know its words?"

"Tell me!"

"It insists that we get it over with and finally read your letter with the superfluous stamp."

"It does surely not want that!" she groans, laughing. "Why listen to ominous voices when all they do is repeat my words?"

"If it makes you feel better, I'd rather only hear yours." I wink and urge, "But either you read your letter right now, or I have no further interest in it whatsoever."

"All right, all right," she sighs, reaching behind her and under her towel, pulling out the letter to unfold it.

"My dear Harper, I hope this letter actually arrives," she reads aloud, laughing softly. "They just don't trust owls ..."

But I'm already skimming the rest of the lines, written so warm and lovingly that their purpose is all the more repugnant to me, and I instantly shake my head.

"No," I say. "I'm not coming."

"Tom, I wanted you to see my parents' invitation with your own eyes –"

"I did, but it doesn't change anything." I swim to the other end of the pool under the stained-glass window light and spread my arms on the edge. "There's no way I'm spending the holidays with you."

"Why not?" she asks, disappointment in her voice. "I knew this would stir up a discussion ..."

"Me too," I say, smiling bitterly. "All good things come in three."

"Yes, exactly!" she retorts. "The year before last, I asked you for the first time – and you said no because you claimed you had to sort something out at the orphanage –"

"I did."

"Like what?"

I hesitate, then I don't even see the point of an excuse. "Fine, yes! I was lying. I didn't have to clarify anything at all."

"There you go," she says, looking almost grateful for that ounce of honesty. "Then last year you claimed you needed to study over the holidays and couldn't possibly be distracted."

"Well, my academic performance speaks for itself, so that was time well spent."

"Oh, please – as if you'd done any schoolwork! Your achievement would speak for itself even if you never read another book because your head is already full of complicated magic!"

"Is that a compliment?"

"You talk yourself into everything, don't you?" She sighs. "What's your excuse this year?"

"I'm studying once again."

She bites her lips, taking a deep breath while she avoids my gaze. Then, however, she simply swims toward me. "Why don't you just say it, hm? I know you're not an impertinent Gryffindor, but putting it into eloquent words won't do either of us any good." Defiantly, she looks up. "So tell me to my face that you just don't want to meet my No-Maj family."

She looks so proud and hurt at the same time that, for a brief moment, I cannot find words. It doesn't happen often, but she's catching me cold.

Not because she's right.
But because she assumes she is.

"Harper," I groan, shaking my head, "you're jumping to wrong conclusions."

"Then what am I supposed to think?"

"It's nothing to do with your parents, I ... damn it, don't you understand how strange that would be?" I swim along with her, to the middle of the bath, looking at her for quite a while. "I've never celebrated Christmas before. What would someone like me know about the celebration of love?"

"You talk as though you don't even know what it is."

"Love?"

She nods.

"How could I?" I shrug impatiently. "I got raised by women who were afraid of me."

"Well, now you have me," she says with a smirk. "And I'm certainly not afraid of you, not even if you hear voices."

"Awfully foolish ..."

"No, it's simple, Tom. Love is the only thing in this world that won't become less when shared. And I have love to give because I've been getting it all my life."

"Obviously ..." I point in the direction where she's left the letter at the edge of the bath. "You have a family excited to tell you how much they're looking forward to seeing you, and that's nice for you, but I have no place there."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd almost be tempted to assume you can't read."

I look at her dully.

"It doesn't say they're looking forward to seeing me. They wrote that they're looking forward to seeing us."

"Your parents don't know me."

"That's what they want to change!" She hesitates, then she's completely honest. "Since the very first letter I've ever mentioned you in, they've been asking about you. Before all the holidays! And especially around Christmas."

"But only out of some misguided pity cult after you wrote that I had no family!"

"I never did! They know nothing of your past. Only of our present."

"You can claim a lot without Veritaserum –"

She immediately raises her index finger. "Don't you call me a liar! And don't be so bloody rude for the third year in a row, Riddle!"

"Why? All of this ... Bloody hell!"

"Because we're friends!"

I could hardly be any more confused. "Friends?"

"Well, whatever you wish to call it even if we both know fully well that you'll want to marry me someday."

"You sound pretty sure of that."

"Well, you're ever so confident, I see no point in false humility myself. And don't say No a third time. Spend Christmas with me and, for all I care, be annoyed to death in Chesterfield - but don't just talk your way out of it again!"

"That's coercion," I sigh.

"The fact that you claim that only demonstrates how much you tend to prevarication. But at least now we've settled that you'll be celebrating with my family."

I groan from the depths of my soul. "Must you always have the last word?"

"How did you put it the other day?" she asks, softly smiling. "Must is such a stretchy term ..."