The boys' lavatory on the seventh floor lay hidden behind a broad sweep of marble staircase, far enough from the usual thoroughfare of students that it was often overlooked. Most hardly gave it a second glance. But for Draco Malfoy, it had become something of a refuge—not in any comforting sense, mind. More like a place to disappear. A bolt-hole. A place where he could unravel without eyes watching.
On better days, sunlight would stream through the tall windows, glancing off the tiled floor in clean, slanting beams. The room might've seemed almost bright, in a cold, indifferent sort of way—alive with distant footsteps and the odd burst of laughter echoing faintly from the corridors. But today, the light had gone. Rain tapped at the glass in a steady, dismal rhythm, and the world beyond the windows was nothing but a smudge of grey.
Draco stood at the sink, hunched over it, hands gripping the porcelain so tightly his knuckles had gone white. He stared into the mirror, searching his reflection for something recognisable.
But the boy looking back didn't look like him at all.
The face was pale, almost waxen. His fair hair hung damp and lank over his forehead. Gone was the usual haughty sneer, the practised tilt of the chin, the curling smirk that had once made him feel so invincible. All of it had drained away, leaving a hollow, unfamiliar mask in its place.
He looked ill. Not in the fainting-in-potions sort of way, but properly ill. Haunted.
His mouth twitched, but no words came. There was nothing to say, really. Nothing that would make it better. He'd worn his name like a badge of honour for as long as he could remember—Malfoy: pure, powerful, untouchable. And he'd believed it, or tried to. But here, in the cold quiet of the lavatory, the illusion had worn thin.
"Why can't I just be normal?" he muttered.
His voice echoed faintly off the tiles. It sounded pathetic. Weak. Like something small and useless.
Stupid. Useless. No point wishing for what you can't have.
His jaw tightened. He tried to push the thought away, but it clung like damp robes. He let out a slow breath, then slid down the wall, robes catching slightly on the cracked tile as he folded in on himself. Arms around knees, head bowed low. The stone floor was freezing, but he barely felt it.
He hadn't felt much of anything for weeks.
No, that wasn't true. He'd felt fear. Constant, gnawing, all-consuming fear. Ever since the Dark Lord had set his task, the world had turned cold and sharp. Every breath felt like borrowed time.
Once, he would've strutted through these halls with his chin up, sneering at Potter and throwing insults at anyone who dared cross him. It had made him feel powerful. Clever. Untouchable.
Now, he could hardly meet anyone's eyes. He was certain they'd see it—see him—see how far he'd fallen. The weight of what he carried dragged behind his every step, heavy and bitter and impossible to shake.
His hands were shaking again. He pressed them hard into his arms, fingernails digging into fabric and skin alike. He just wanted something to feel real. Something to hold onto.
A sound broke from him—a harsh, ragged sob. He bit it back at once, pressing his face into his sleeve. Another escaped. Then another. Soon he couldn't stop them.
No one can know. No one can see this. If they do—
He couldn't finish the thought. Didn't need to. The truth pressed in all around him, suffocating in its certainty.
He was afraid. Not just of failing. Not even just of dying.
He was afraid of Him.
The Dark Lord's eyes burnt behind his own. Red and unblinking. That voice—low, silken, quiet in the way that made the skin crawl—echoed in his ears. Promises spoken like facts. Punishments implied without needing to be said.
Draco had told himself it would be simple.
Do the thing. Complete the task. Be a hero—though that word meant something else entirely in his family's world, stained as it was with pride and ancient blood.
He'd wanted to make Father proud. Desperately. To prove he wasn't just the boy who had stood frozen at the foot of the table while others made choices for him—while the Dark Lord smiled and Mother paled.
But it wasn't simple.
It was unbearable.
He remembered that night vividly—the hush over dinner, the clink of cutlery, Aunt Bellatrix leaning in too close, her voice thick with madness and something like glee.
"You must do this for your family, Draco," she'd murmured, as if bestowing a gift.
A gift wrapped in silence, fear, and crimson ribbon.
And he'd nodded, because what else was there to do?
Of course he had.
But now, curled in on himself on the cold bathroom floor, the weight of it pressed down on his chest. Like the very walls had turned against him.
He thought of Potter again—and the thought made him sick.
Because despite everything, despite all the sneering and the hatred and the names he'd spat across classrooms and corridors, he knew now what Potter was.
Potter fought.
Not for glory. Not for power. But for his friends. For himself. For something he believed in.
Draco had never done that.
He had obeyed. Followed orders. Repeated the lines he'd been taught since he could speak.
And now the mask had slipped, and beneath it there was nothing but fear.
I'm not brave. I never was.
He pressed his forehead to his knees, breath catching in his throat. His shoulders shook. He wanted to disappear—into the floor, into the walls, into nothing at all.
He didn't want the task. He didn't want the legacy. He didn't want the lies.
He just wanted peace.
But peace was a fairy tale.
"No one can know," he whispered hoarsely, the words barely carrying through the quiet. "No one can know… no one…"
It had become a kind of mantra. The last barrier between him and collapse. But even that felt thin now. Paper-thin.
His chest tightened again. Each breath shallower than the last. He pressed a hand against his ribs, as if he could hold himself together by force of will alone. The bathroom seemed to narrow around him—tiles too bright, too sharp. Walls too close.
The world was folding in.
And he was so tired of pretending he could bear it.
He came here to disappear.
The seventh-floor lavatory—unused, unwanted, half-forgotten—had become the only place in the castle where he could fall apart without witnesses. Where he didn't have to sneer, or bark insults, or carry the name like a sword.
Here, the silence didn't judge. And the old magic in the stone didn't care what side you were on.
He didn't realise he wasn't alone.
Not at first.
The ghost shimmered at the edge of the room—faint, barely visible through the blur of his thoughts.
Myrtle had been watching him for some time. Quiet. Still. The way only ghosts could be.
She didn't interrupt. She never did. Her gaze, oddly gentle, settled on him not with pity but with recognition. She'd seen him like this before—folded in on himself, his arms around his knees, trying to vanish into the cracks between the tiles.
She saw something of herself in him. Not the theatrics or the wailing that students mocked, but the quiet kind of despair. The kind that left bruises on the inside.
Once, she had just wanted to be noticed. To matter.
Now, she was a joke in the plumbing.
But Draco was different. His pain wasn't loud—it was aching. Deep. And something about that pulled her forward.
She floated a little closer, hesitant as mist, her voice barely louder than the patter of rain on glass.
"Are you… Are you feeling alright?"
The question cut clean through the fog in his mind. Not sharp like a blade—just enough to stir something.
Draco jerked upright, heart thudding painfully against his ribs. His breath snagged somewhere in his throat. For a split second, he was convinced he'd imagined her—the pale shimmer in the air, the round glasses, the wide, watery eyes that seemed almost too human for a ghost.
Have I gone mad?
The tears still clung stubbornly to his lashes, warping the edges of the world. It made her blur more. Made her glow.
"I'm sorry," Myrtle said quickly, backing off with hands half-raised, as if even in death she could somehow make herself smaller. "I didn't mean to startle you."
Her voice wasn't taunting. Not smug. Just… gentle.
And that was more jarring than her bloody presence.
He stared at her. Speechless. Unsure whether to feel alarmed, offended, or just plain exhausted. His first instinct was the one he knew best: shut down. Fortify. Push it all away. Don't let her in. Don't let anyone in.
He didn't want kindness. He didn't deserve it.
But the way she looked at him—it wasn't pity. It wasn't amusement. It was something quieter. Sadder. Like she recognised what she saw.
And that was unbearable.
He sprang to his feet too quickly, movements sharp and defensive, like a blade unsheathed. An automatic reflex. He stormed towards the door, breath ragged, robes sweeping behind him.
His hand closed round the handle.
Just go. Go now. Before you splinter completely.
But he didn't pull.
He stood frozen, knuckles white where they gripped the metal. Because someone had looked at him without judgement. Without fear. Without disgust.
Just… seen him.
"Please don't go," Myrtle said softly behind him. Her voice was trembling now—not from fear, but something lonelier. Something far older. "You look like someone who needs… someone who understands."
He didn't turn. Didn't move. Didn't even breathe.
Because she was right.
And that frightened him more than anything the Dark Lord had ever whispered in his ear.
"I'm Myrtle Warren," she said after a pause, more quietly still. As though saying her own name cost her something. As though it mattered.
He didn't know why he hadn't left. Maybe it was because she hadn't asked what was wrong. Because she hadn't had to.
And in that cold, echoing room, Draco finally realised what he'd been trying to outrun.
I'm lonely.
Merlin, he didn't want to be alone anymore.
"I know who you are," he muttered, voice clipped and cold. Too cold. Always too cold. "You're the ghost who haunts the girls' bathroom. I'm not in the mood for a chat. Especially not with the dead."
The words came out sharp. He meant them to sting.
They echoed off the tiles and left a foul taste in his mouth.
Myrtle's expression flickered. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She floated back, folding her arms over her chest with theatrical affront, like someone had just snubbed her at a Ministry dinner.
"Well, excuse me," she sniffed. "Next time I'll wear a name tag and a halo."
Draco let out a breath—dry, hollow, bordering on amused despite himself. "I didn't mean for you to take it personally."
"I always take things personally," she replied with a touch of flair. "It's sort of my thing."
He turned then, slowly, a frown creasing his face. "Did you really not mean to intrude?"
She blinked at him, then flipped lazily upside down in mid-air, as if the question was too heavy to answer right-side up. "Define 'intrude'. I mean… I do live in the plumbing."
He gave her a flat look, unimpressed.
"I'm just saying," she added quickly, righting herself with a small huff and brushing imaginary dust off her spectral skirt, "you're the one sulking in my bathroom, looking like a lovesick toad."
That earned her a glare. Sharp. Tired. But not as vicious as he might've intended. He didn't have it in him.
Lovesick. As if this were about a girl. As if it could ever be that simple.
He shook his head, more at himself than at her.
Why was he still standing here? Why was he even talking to her?
She was a ghost. She was dead. She lived in the drains and moaned about boys and haunted lavatories. And yet—
She'd looked at him. Properly.
And she hadn't turned away.
He hadn't expected her to soften. Ghosts weren't meant to. They were supposed to drift about, cold and aimless, stuck in the moment they died. But Myrtle's voice shifted—quieter now, less shrill. Not just speaking at him anymore, but to him.
"You know," she said, with something uncannily like gentleness, "I get it. Being ignored. Being… unwanted."
Draco turned away sharply, jaw tight. Her words hit too cleanly, slicing past his defences before he even knew to raise them.
"You?" he muttered. "What would you know about it?"
"Er, I died in a toilet," she said, rising a few inches, her tone hovering somewhere between tragic and oddly proud. "Trust me—no one's exactly desperate to spend eternity with me."
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Just a flicker at the corner. Too close for comfort.
Myrtle drifted forward, slow and hesitant, like he was some cornered creature that might bolt at the slightest movement.
"I hear things," she went on. "The whispers. The things people say when they think no one's listening." Her voice dipped, lower now, steady. "I hear you, Draco. You're not as invisible as you think."
His stomach twisted.
That was too much. Too near the bone.
"You think you understand?" he said sharply. His voice was low but brittle, like it might snap if pushed. "You don't. You can't."
"I do!" she cried suddenly, and the sound cracked across the bathroom. Her face twisted, and then—just like that—she was sobbing. Ghostly tears like silvery vapour streamed down her cheeks in ribbons.
"Don't you dare tell me I don't understand! Loneliness was my whole life! And death!"
She spun wildly mid-air, ghostly water flinging off her like an ethereal fountain, her transparent robes billowing in melodramatic spirals.
"Do you have any idea," she wailed, "what it's like to drift through centuries with nothing but blocked pipes and Peeves for company?!"
Draco flinched as a cold, misty droplet hit his cheek. He wiped it off with a grimace.
"Could you not throw yourself a bloody pity parade?"
"Why not?!" She howled, flinging herself backwards as though the insult had physically struck her. "It's all I have!"
She hovered mid-air, blinking, her sobs fading to an exaggerated sniffle. Her eyes narrowed curiously.
"… Are you throwing one too?"
He exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of everything he didn't have the strength to carry, let alone say.
Was he?
A pity party, curled up on the floor of a draughty, forgotten lavatory?
Maybe he was.
But saying it aloud felt like admitting weakness—and he'd been taught better than that.
Myrtle dabbed at her ghostly cheeks with a translucent handkerchief that seemed to have soaked up centuries of tears.
"I haven't forgotten what it's like," she said more quietly now. "Dying doesn't make the ache disappear. You think it does, but it doesn't. You just… learn to carry it. Like a ghost carries chains."
She drifted lower, her form levelling with him again. There was no whine in her voice this time. No drama. Just a strange kind of stillness.
"And honestly? You look like you're drowning in it."
The words struck with a quiet, sickening precision.
He didn't respond. Couldn't. They stuck in his throat, heavy and sharp.
Outside, the rain hadn't stopped. It slid in sheets down the windows, steady and soft and maddeningly constant. Like a clock ticking down to something he didn't want to face.
The weight in his chest pressed tighter.
He'd always thought ghosts were just… noise. Background clutter. Pitiful things, clinging to the past because they had nothing else.
But Myrtle wasn't forgettable. Not tonight.
And it wasn't the tantrums. It wasn't the theatrics.
It was that—for reasons he couldn't begin to understand—she'd seen him.
Not the name. Not the swagger. Not the mask.
Him.
And it cut deeper than anything he had in weeks.
She was hovering now just above the sinks, her head tilted slightly to one side as she studied him with unsettling curiosity. Her limp hair clung to her face like wet seaweed, and her glasses—absurdly large—had slipped down the bridge of her ghostly nose.
"You know," she said, after a long pause, tone light again, too light, "I always thought you were the brooding type. But I never realised you had such… tragic cheekbones."
Draco stared at her.
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"It's an observation," she said primly, giving a tiny, dignified nod. "You're quite aesthetically miserable. Like a statue. Carved by someone very, very sad."
He gave her a flat look. "Right."
"I mean it," she said, twirling mid-air as if her own words delighted her. "So tortured. So stormy. If I weren't dead, I might even swoon."
A startled sound escaped him—half a laugh, half a scoff. It came unbidden, unguarded. It vanished just as quickly, but it was there, and it surprised him more than it did her. He hadn't made a noise like that in… Merlin, he couldn't remember.
"That's possibly the most disturbing thing anyone's ever said to me," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh, please," Myrtle sniffed. "You haven't heard my best lines. I've had decades to perfect them. You'd be amazed how many boys come in here and cry when they think no one's listening."
"Brilliant. That's exactly what I needed to know," Draco said dryly, glancing sideways at her.
"I'm just saying," she shrugged, floating backwards in a lazy loop. "You're not the only one who hides in loos. Though I do have the advantage of being able to pop out of toilets whenever I want to make a dramatic entrance."
He shot her a wary glance. "Please don't."
"No promises," she said, smiling faintly. But the grin faded as she tilted her head again, gaze softening. "But really…"
Her tone shifted, lower this time. Less flippant.
"You look like you're carrying something. Heavy. Not on your back—on the inside."
Draco stiffened.
His gaze dropped to the floor. The moment cracked. The faint humour was gone.
And suddenly the silence felt different. Not peaceful. Pressurised. Suffocating.
He didn't want to talk. Couldn't talk. Not about this. Not to her. Not to anyone.
The task. The threat. The endless expectations. His father's name. His mother's eyes. The Dark Lord's voice. The castle walls pressing closer with each passing day.
His voice came out hoarse, barely there.
"I can't talk about it."
And that—ridiculously—felt like the most truthful thing he'd said in weeks.
"That's fine," Myrtle replied, her voice light, even. No pressure.
It threw him off.
"You don't have to," she added, quieter now. "I'm dead, not nosy."
He gave her a look.
She faltered, then gave a small, sheepish smile. "Alright, fine. I'm extremely nosy."
He narrowed his eyes at her, suspicious.
"But I can keep secrets," she said quickly. "You'd be surprised what people let slip in here. I'm practically Hogwarts' worst-kept secret keeper."
"Comforting," he muttered.
"Then don't talk," she said simply, floating backwards with a shrug. "Just sit. Brood. Glare. I'm an excellent company for glaring types."
He blinked at her.
Myrtle. Moaning Myrtle. The ghost of a girl who died alone and miserable, mocked by everyone who remembered her. She was drifting above the sinks like she'd practised every mournful swirl of her robes in a mirror. Her hair floated madly around her head like underwater weeds. Her ridiculous glasses clung on by a thread.
She looked ridiculous. She sounded ridiculous.
But she hadn't left.
And worse—he realised—he didn't want her to.
His voice came out low, like it didn't quite want to be heard. "Why are you being nice to me?"
She blinked down at him. "Because you look like you need someone to be."
He scoffed, but it sounded hollow. "You don't even know me."
"I don't need to," she said simply. "Lonely recognises lonely."
Something twisted sharply in his chest. Like her words had yanked a thread he'd spent months trying to keep knotted. He turned his head away again, staring down at the cracked tile beneath his feet.
Why did she have to see him like this?
"Besides," Myrtle added, flipping upside-down so that her stringy hair dangled toward the floor like curtains in some haunted theatre, "if you don't have a friend in the afterlife, who's going to make ghost jokes at your funeral?"
It was so absurd—so bizarrely sincere—that he snorted, startled by the sound of it.
"You really don't know when to stop talking, do you?"
"Nope," she replied cheerfully. "It's part of my ghostly charm."
He didn't answer. But he didn't move either.
He just stayed there—pressed back against the cold stone wall, head low, arms limp at his sides—letting her voice drift about the room like fog curling through an abandoned corridor. It wasn't peace. It wasn't comfort.
But it was something.
And something was more than he'd thought he deserved.
The air shifted beside him.
She was closer now. He could feel it—not warmth, obviously, but something subtler. A presence. Like the air had thinned. Like the pressure in the room had shifted just slightly off-centre.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't look up.
He couldn't. His limbs felt like stone. He was cold from the floor, from the inside out. For weeks—months—of pretending he wasn't coming undone.
His breathing caught. Just once.
"Please," Myrtle said, and her voice was smaller now. Quiet. Frayed at the edges. "Just tell me what's wrong."
Her glow lit the shadows across the tiled walls—pale and bluish, soft as the moon reflected in water. He didn't want to look at her. But the light clung to everything.
"I feel…" he began, and his voice scraped as it left him. "Weaker than I've ever felt."
It was the truth. Unvarnished. Ugly.
"I've messed up," he said, quieter still. "Badly."
His throat tightened. His eyes stung. He blinked too fast and too hard. Crying in front of a ghost—how completely pathetic.
But Myrtle didn't laugh.
Didn't smirk. Didn't even roll her eyes.
"Everyone struggles," she murmured. "Even the dramatic ones. You don't have to carry it all on your own, you know."
He shook his head sharply. As if he could shake the truth loose from her words. His fringe clung to his forehead—damp from sweat or tears, he wasn't sure anymore.
"You don't get it," he rasped. "I have to do this thing. For my family. They expect me to just—just take the part. Be who I'm meant to be. No questions. No weakness."
His hands curled into fists on his lap, fingers trembling.
"But every step I take," he muttered, voice unsteady now, "it's like I'm disappearing. Like I'm becoming this… this version of me that I don't even recognise."
There it was.
The thing he couldn't admit, even to himself.
Not the fear of punishment, or failure, or even death.
But this—the slow erosion of who he used to be. The boy who once sneered in corridors and laughed with Crabbe and Goyle and thought power meant control.
Now he couldn't even meet his own reflection without flinching.
Myrtle drifted lower, her expression—shockingly—serious. Not mocking. Not indulgent. Just… understanding.
"Then don't let them win," she said quietly. "You're not a puppet, Draco. You're—well, yes, moody and brooding and probably a bit of a nightmare—but you're still a person. You can say no."
He laughed at that—if you could call it a laugh.
It was sharp. Hollow. Brittle.
"Yeah, brilliant idea. I'll just say no. That's worked out so well for everyone else who's tried."
He looked at her then. "You think I can just walk away? From them?"
He didn't have to say their names. She understood.
"If I fail…" he whispered, the words jagged and bitter, "if I fail, I lose everything."
He hadn't meant for it to go this far. Not really. The necklace. The mead. The cabinet. He thought he could fix it—handle it—prove himself without it ever touching him, not really.
But it had touched him. Corroded him. Bit by bit.
Nothing was clean anymore.
Not his hands. Not his conscience. Not even his thoughts.
And worst of all—
He wasn't sure he wanted to be saved anymore.
He stared down at the floor. The tiles swam in and out of focus, as though he were seeing them through water—or worse, through tears he wasn't quite ready to acknowledge.
"I wanted to finish it without hurting anyone."
The words fell from his mouth before he could catch them, stripped bare of pretence or posturing. They weren't noble. They weren't clever. They were just… tired.
He hadn't meant to say it out loud. But once spoken, it hung there, fragile and irrefutable.
Myrtle didn't respond immediately. For once, she didn't fill the air with her usual whining or overly theatrical sighs. She just hovered there beside him, quiet as mist, her glow casting a faint shimmer over the cracked porcelain.
And Draco stayed. Shoulders drawn. Eyes fixed on the floor. Head bowed under the weight of something far heavier than pride.
He felt her drift closer. The air chilled faintly, not enough to bite, but enough to remind him that she wasn't flesh and blood. Not anymore. And that he still was.
For now.
"Let me help," she said gently—so gently, in fact, that he almost didn't register it was Myrtle speaking. The usual shrill edge in her voice had dulled, replaced by something low and almost… kind.
He glanced up. Just for a second.
Her face was pale and translucent, her eyes wide behind fogged glasses. She looked like someone who'd been waiting a long time to be useful.
The words escaped him before he could stop them. Honest. Raw.
"I can't," he said. His voice cracked. "He'll kill me."
There it was.
Not a theory. Not a fear.
A certainty.
Myrtle went still. Her robes, usually billowing with unnecessary drama, hung suspended around her like she was holding her breath.
"Who?" she asked. No giggling. No theatrics. Just that same unexpected softness.
Draco didn't answer. His chest felt like it had caved in. There wasn't room to breathe, let alone speak.
His hands trembled. His throat burnt. And the tears—bloody useless things—welled up again before he could force them back.
He pressed his palms to his face. Not to hide, not really. Just to keep the pieces of himself from falling apart.
He hated this. Hated being seen. Hated that she was the one seeing it.
Myrtle floated closer. Her presence shimmered against his skin, cool and thin and oddly comforting, in a ridiculous sort of way.
"I wish I could hug you," she murmured, reaching out with a hand that passed straight through his arm. "Stupid ghost arms. Completely useless."
Some awful, strangled sound left his throat—half laugh, half sob. He wasn't sure which it was meant to be.
She offered a wobbly smile. "You'll be all right. You will. Maybe you'll even live long enough to get laugh lines one day."
He nearly smiled. Nearly.
And for just a moment, the ache in his chest loosened its grip.
He drew in a ragged breath. "I shouldn't have joined him," he said, and the words tasted like ash. "It was a mistake. A bloody, stupid mistake."
His voice dropped, barely more than a breath. "But what was I supposed to do?"
There it was. The marrow of it.
The pressure. The expectation. The choice that never felt like one.
His jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. "I shouldn't have become this," he muttered. "Whatever this is."
And then the tears came properly—hot, furious things he couldn't stop.
He hated them. Hated himself. Hated everything.
Myrtle didn't speak straight away. She just hovered closer, all the drama drained from her face. She looked—he didn't know—human, maybe, despite the glow.
"Everyone makes mistakes," she said softly. "Even awful ones. Doesn't mean you're beyond saving."
She hesitated.
"I tried once," she added, quieter still. "Didn't work out the way I'd hoped… but it mattered."
Draco didn't ask what she meant. Couldn't bring himself to look at her.
He just stared at his arm.
The place where the mark burnt beneath his sleeve. Not just skin and bone—but a symbol. A curse. A reminder of everything he'd become.
And everything he might still lose.
"I should've known better," he muttered, voice low and frayed at the edges. "I let them use me. Let them twist me into… this. They laugh at me—mock me—and I just let them."
He braced himself, waiting for the inevitable scorn. A scoff. Some ghostly sneer about his pride being bruised. Myrtle was many things—quiet wasn't usually one of them.
But it didn't come.
"You need to stop apologising for existing," she said sharply, and he blinked. Her tone had an edge to it—strangely stern, almost… adult.
He glanced up, frowning. "Are you quoting a self-help book?"
"Maybe," she sniffed.
He raised a sceptical brow. "What's next? 'Ten Steps to a Better Afterlife'?"
Myrtle crossed her arms and floated a few feet higher, scowling down at him with the withering air of someone who'd just been mistaken for a joke. "I'm trying to help you, you arrogant twit."
That got a laugh—short, dry, and utterly humourless. He dragged a hand through his hair and leaned his head back against the cold wall.
"Brilliant," he said bitterly. "Judged by a dead girl in a bathroom. Just what I needed today."
But she didn't flinch. Didn't pout. Instead, her voice rose—thin and sharp, brittle as glass.
"I died, Draco," she snapped. "In a bathroom. Killed by a monster no one believed in. Forgive me if I actually know a thing or two about pain."
The words hit him squarely in the chest. He winced, said nothing.
She wasn't wrong. And that made it worse.
The silence that followed was jagged and awkward, like neither of them knew how to sit in it. Somewhere, water dripped—slow, rhythmic, maddening.
Myrtle sniffled once. Then again.
He glanced sideways at her, warily. "Why do you always do that?"
She blinked at him. "Do what?"
"Cry. All the time."
Her mouth dropped open in outrage. "Excuse me?"
"You haunt a toilet and sob like it's your job."
Her hands flew to her hips. "Oh, and you're a shining example of emotional stability, are you?"
He flushed instantly. "That's different."
"Because you're alive?" She snapped. "Please. You're about as steady as a Blast-Ended Skrewt on a caffeine high."
He crossed his arms tightly, jaw locking. "I didn't ask for a running commentary."
"No," she said smugly, "but you're in my bathroom. If you want privacy, go cry in the Forbidden Forest. The Acromantulas might offer less judgement."
He glared at her. But there wasn't much heat in it. Not really.
"Right. Getting eaten alive. That'd really lift my spirits."
"At least it'd be productive sulking."
He sighed—long and tired—and dragged both hands down his face, palms scraping over the rough stubble that had started to shadow his jaw. Everything felt raw. Close to the surface.
She hovered there, arms still crossed, eyes narrowed in that infuriating mix of concern and disapproval that reminded him unpleasantly of his mother when she'd caught him in a lie as a boy.
He groaned. "Why do I even talk to you?"
"Because no one else listens," she said simply. Her voice was quieter now. Still smug, but with a thread of something sad stitched into the middle.
He didn't respond.
Didn't argue.
Just pulled his knees in a bit tighter, his back sliding against the stone tiles as he tried—futilely—to disappear into himself. His arms wrapped round his legs, chin resting just above his knees, like he could make himself smaller. Less there.
Because the truth was… she was right.
And that stung worse than the Mark ever did.
She swooped suddenly, with all the grace of a soggy curtain in a thunderstorm. Her arms flailed as she drew up close, inches from his face, looking thoroughly unhinged.
"It's not my fault you keep skulking round here more than I can stand!" she shrieked, voice ricocheting off the tiles like a cursed Bludger. "You think I enjoy your mopiness?"
Draco shut his eyes for a moment, exhaling through his nose.
Brilliant.
He was now having a full-blown row with a ghost in a loo. Someone might as well start chiselling his gravestone now:
Here lies Draco Malfoy. Died of shame. Last seen arguing with a dead girl next to a broken tap.
He cracked one eye open and glared at her. Weakly.
She hovered there, translucent and pitiful and stubborn as ever. Her face was a tragic mess of sharp cheekbones, watery eyes and theatrical suffering. She looked, rather annoyingly, like what he felt like.
That was the worst part.
Arguing with Myrtle was like looking into some wretched, transparent mirror.
And the reflection was unbearable.
For a long moment, he simply stared at her.
Then the glare faded, his features slackening, all the fight leaking out of him. His shoulders gave way, slumping like he'd been propping up the world and had finally realised it wasn't worth the effort.
"I've got nowhere else to go," he muttered.
The words came out splintered—barely more than a breath. Brittle at the edges and too quiet to be dramatic. They dropped between them, thick with something heavier than just irritation. Something quieter. More broken.
And for once, Myrtle said nothing.
Her face changed—eyes flickering with something less theatrical now. Less shrill. She edged forward, hesitant, like she was afraid she might frighten him off if she moved too quickly.
"I know I'm not your first choice," she said, voice thinner than usual. "Most people don't stay long. They forget I'm here. Or they want to."
She paused, drifting a little closer. "But I'm still here."
Of course you are, Draco thought, not unkindly—just tired. Always here. Crying in a toilet. Hovering over taps and waiting for someone to notice you died.
He didn't say it aloud. Didn't trust his voice. Didn't trust himself, full stop.
Instead, he focused on the tile across from him—cracked down the centre, dull with age. It helped. Grounded him, just enough. Because the pressure in his chest was getting worse now. Like he was breathing through wet cloth. Like something inside him was buckling.
Secrets. Orders. That cursed mark on his arm. All of it, pressing down.
Myrtle settled back onto the sink basin, trailing a soft sigh that echoed longer than it should have.
"I used to hide, too," she said dreamily, staring somewhere over his shoulder. "Used to sit in that cubicle for hours. No one noticed. I think they were glad, really. Less of me about."
Draco let out a short breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. But not nothing.
Because he knew what that felt like—being absent and unmissed. A failure everyone had stopped bothering to be disappointed in.
But he didn't say that either.
"I just want out," he said quietly. The words escaped before he could stop them—like steam from a cracked pipe. Soft. Dangerous.
Out of the plan.
Out of the war.
Out of himself.
This wasn't a schoolyard scrap or a house rivalry. This was blood and orders and death, cloaked in old glory and older grudges.
He wasn't a soldier. Merlin, he wasn't even sure he was a proper Death Eater. Just a boy with shaky hands, a fading name, and a task no one his age should've been asked to do.
Myrtle tilted her head, hair drifting like it was underwater. "What could've made you think it was worth it?" she asked. She didn't sound mocking. Just… confused.
Draco's jaw tightened until it ached.
"It was supposed to fix everything," he said, voice sharper now. "He comes back, and we rise. My family—restored. Our name, our standing—everything we'd lost. I thought if I served him properly, it would all come right."
He swallowed hard.
"But then he threw my father into Azkaban like he was nothing. Called him weak. A failure."
The words caught in his throat like splinters.
"And now I'm the one meant to fix it. Me."
The last word felt like a curse.
Myrtle didn't reply. She just watched him, pale and quiet, all her usual dramatics stripped away.
"He doesn't expect me to succeed," Draco whispered. "That's the joke. He wants me to fall. Or die trying. This—this task—it's not an honour. It's punishment. For all of us."
His voice cracked. He hated that.
"My whole family's hanging by a thread," he forced out, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "And he's holding the scissors."
It sat in the space between them, horrible and honest.
He was trembling now. Not visibly, but inside—where it counted. Where it hurt.
"I can't do this," he said again, more to himself than her. "And I have to. There's no way out. No one to help."
His fists clenched, knuckles bone-white, nails digging half-moons into his palms. His breathing hitched, uneven and sharp. The kind that came before breaking.
The plan—his plan—was a farce. It had never been a solution. It was a noose.
Killing Dumbledore wasn't glory. It was murder.
And the thought of it… the very idea…
It clung to his bones like rot. Sank into his skin, poisoned his sleep, soaked into everything.
He was unravelling. Quietly. Badly.
And no one even knew.
Not Mother.
Not Snape.
Just him.
And Myrtle.
A boy and a ghost.
Two forgotten things in a forgotten room.
"This is wrong," Draco said through clenched teeth.
His fists curled at his sides, knuckles turning stark white. It wasn't just the plan—not just the endless weight of knowing he might fail. It was the thought of Dumbledore—Dumbledore, of all people—brought down, not because he'd been bested, but because the Dark Lord had pointed a finger and said, Go on, end him.
It was vile.
It was madness.
Myrtle hovered a little closer, her usual shrillness oddly muted, her voice softened like she knew something sacred had just cracked.
"You don't have to do what he says," she said quietly. "You've still got a choice."
Draco gave a short, ugly laugh—sharp as splintered glass. "A choice?" he repeated. "Right. And next you'll tell me the sky isn't blue."
He looked away, jaw working furiously. "There's no such thing as choice when he's got his wand aimed at your mother's head."
The words scalded on the way out. They tasted like ash—filthy, burnt truth that made everything too real.
He dug his nails into the meat of his palms, trying to anchor himself.
"You don't understand," he muttered.
"I can help," Myrtle offered, her voice trembling with something far too fragile to be called confidence. "You could tell me who it is. Maybe Dumbledore—"
"Were you dropped on your ghostly little head before you died?" The words snapped out before he could catch them, coated in venom. "I'm barely telling you—why in Merlin's name would I tell him?"
He leaned forward, voice dropping into something razor-thin and low, dangerous despite the tremble in it. "And don't you dare go to Potter."
Myrtle gasped like he'd hexed her.
"Harry Potter?" she squeaked, scandalised, as if the name itself tasted foul.
Draco didn't answer. Just stared at the floor, jaw clenched so tightly it felt like something might crack. That name—that bloody name—was the line he wouldn't cross. Not for her. Not for anyone.
Myrtle drifted back a little, eyes glassy, mouth wobbling in that theatrical way she had when she wanted pity but didn't quite know how to ask for it.
"I wouldn't worry about him," she said after a pause, voice fragile again. "Harry's… kind. Not the type to pry." Then, with sudden bitterness: "Unlike Peeves, who thinks tormenting me is some grand cosmic joke."
Draco let out a quiet, weary snort. His face said what his mouth didn't: Please, stop talking.
"You clearly don't know Potter," he muttered. "He's got a bloody saviour complex the size of the Astronomy Tower. Follows me like I'm a case study. Always watching."
He raked a hand through his hair, frustration simmering just beneath his skin.
"Snape reckons he's suspicious. Says he's nosing about, asking questions. No Quidditch, no detentions, no hexing first-years—just Malfoy, all day, every corridor. Stalking me like I've gone dark and dramatic just for hisbenefit."
"What does he think you're doing?" Myrtle asked, almost dreamily, tilting her head like he was something interesting in a jar.
Draco stopped pacing.
"He thinks he can stop me," he said coldly. "Ruin everything. Just like always."
Then, with a snap of fury too fast to contain, he kicked the sink. The sound rang out, sharp and hollow, like a warning bell in an empty room.
"He always has to be the hero," Draco spat. "Can't let anyone else have the bloody spotlight. I'm not letting him get in my way. Not this time."
Myrtle floated closer, her tone gentler again. "I really don't think Harry would—"
"Oh, shut up, Mudblood."
The words fell like a stone.
Myrtle froze. Her form flickered, as though his insult had knocked something loose in the magic holding her together.
"Oh, really?" She breathed, the pain in her voice giving way to heat. "Bit quick to spit out the filth they used on me, aren't you?"
Her glow dimmed, features twisting.
"I suppose pain only matters when it's yours," she snapped.
Draco turned his face away, shame blooming like a bruise under his collar. But he didn't apologise. Couldn't. If he let go of the anger, the guilt would tear him apart.
"Oh, don't start crying again," he muttered, pressing his fingers hard into his temple. "The last thing I need is another round of wailing to go with the rest of this nightmare."
Myrtle's voice cracked as it shot back up an octave. "I was trying to help, you arrogant, ungrateful—!"
She rose, hair billowing, robes thrashing with her fury.
"You looked lonely! And I thought, maybe—maybe—you'd like someone to talk to instead of sulking like a great, sulky slug in your bloody pit of misery!"
"I might've," Draco snapped, "if you didn't cry more than a Mandrake."
Her mouth fell open. Indignant. Wounded.
"I'm trying to be a friend, you absolute—boy-shaped—toilet fungus!"
"You're not a friend," he bit out, cold as ice. "You're an airheaded puddle with feelings."
That did it.
He saw the way her light dimmed. How her expression fell apart, bit by bit.
"You don't have to be such a prat," she whispered. "I'm literally the only one not pretending you don't exist. And maybe that's pathetic, but you could at least try a bit of gratitude instead of biting my bloody head off."
Draco didn't reply.
Couldn't.
Because that was the worst part, wasn't it?
She was the only one who stayed. The only one who saw the cracks and didn't flinch. And somehow, that frightened him more than anything else.
Draco opened his mouth, ready to spit something cutting—something cruel and effortless, the sort of thing that used to come naturally. A proper Malfoy retort, sharp, honed by years of smug superiority and pureblood pride.
But it didn't come.
The insult snagged somewhere deep in his throat, caught between a tangle of guilt and something worse—recognition.
Because, underneath all her snivelling and theatrics, Myrtle had a point. A terrible, nagging, cloying sort of truth he didn't want to look at directly.
He stared down at the floor instead. Tiled. Neat. All those little squares lined up in perfect, clinical order. Mocking him. Nothing in his life was that clean. That simple.
"Grateful?" he muttered, voice flat. "Grateful for ghost therapy?"
He dropped onto the bench like he'd been forced there, arms limp, shoulders bowed. The weight of everything—plans, failures, expectations—pressing down on him so heavily he wasn't sure how he was still upright.
He didn't want company. But being alone… being truly alone… that was worse. He wouldn't say it, of course. Merlin, he'd never say it. But the thought coiled somewhere behind his ribs, sour and suffocating.
The silence stretched. Thick. Judgemental.
Of course, Myrtle didn't leave.
Because why would she? She never did.
"I know I've been a complete git," he said at last, voice low and grudging, as if the words were foreign and awkward in his mouth. "I couldn't help it. I've… hurt people."
"Including me!" Myrtle cut in immediately, her voice shooting up half an octave with righteous indignation.
Draco sighed and rolled his eyes so hard he nearly saw stars. "Yes, yes—and ghosts, apparently," he said dryly.
But he saw it. That flicker of smugness in her expression. That little flash of validation. She liked being on the list. Liked being noticed—even in his failures.
He rubbed a hand down his face. "I'm not usually like this," he muttered, quieter now. The venom had drained out of his voice, leaving it tired and frayed at the edges. "Talking about what's in my head. I don't… do it."
"Why not?" Myrtle asked, inching closer. Her eyes were wide now. Hopeful. Clingy. Hungry.
He hesitated.
Then: "Because trusting people is bloody impossible."
The words came out rough, bitter. But honest.
"Everyone either laughs, or they nod and pretend they care until they've got what they want. Then they leave." He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. "It's safer not to need anyone. Scheme alone. At least when it all blows up, I don't have to guess who stabbed me in the back."
Snape's face floated to the surface of his thoughts—calm, unreadable, always watching. Draco didn't know if the man was protecting him or laying the groundwork for his downfall. Probably both.
Myrtle was quiet for once. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer. Almost—almost—wise.
"People talk because they're afraid. Afraid they'll be forgotten. I spent years crying about it. All the whispers, the names, the way no one looked at me unless it was to laugh. And then—poof."
She trailed off.
Her hands twitched midair, fumbling for the end of the sentence. But she didn't need to say it.
Draco got it.
Dead.
She'd spent her whole life ignored, and now she spent her death floating in the one place people still remembered her. It was tragic. And grotesquely familiar.
He stared at her. At the translucent outline of her face, the way her hair billowed like she was underwater. There was something pathetic about it. And something terrifying. Because he saw himself in it.
A version of himself, anyway.
A lost boy. A failure. A shadow caught in the echo of something bigger and crueller than he ever understood.
A chill crawled under his skin, slow and dreadful.
He wondered for the first time…
What's it like?
Not the dying bit—not just that. But after. When the Dark Lord had wrung him dry and tossed him aside. When the plan fell apart and Draco became just another name in a long list of warnings. Would it be quick? Painful? Public?
Would he scream?
Would his mother cry?
Would he come back, like Myrtle, stuck in the place where it all went wrong?
His throat felt tight.
"What's it like?" he asked, barely more than a whisper. "Dying."
Myrtle stilled.
Her expression changed, like a curtain being drawn. The drama faded, replaced by something older. Something cracked and quiet.
She didn't blink. Just looked at him.
Then, slowly, she said, "It's cold. And lonely. But not how you think. It's not just the dying that hurts. It's what comes after. The silence. The forgetting. The way the world moves on without you, like you were never really part of it."
Draco looked away.
It was the first answer that made him wish he hadn't asked.
And it was the only one that felt true.
Draco opened his mouth. Closed it again. The question had leapt from somewhere deeper than he cared to admit, bypassing his usual filters. He didn't even know why he'd asked it. Maybe he just… wanted something. A moment that didn't feel hollow. Something real to anchor him, to keep him from slipping further into that endless, invisible pit.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
Myrtle didn't even pause.
"Every single day," she said. "But regret doesn't change anything. It just… holds you. Keeps you stuck." She drifted back, as if retreating from the weight of her own truth, but her voice softened. "You've got a chance, Draco. Let it go before it ruins you. Don't end up like me—trapped in your own mess, scared of what people think. It's a waste of life."
A beat. Then, quieter still: "Or afterlife."
Draco didn't reply. Couldn't.
There were too many words at once, all jostling behind his teeth—sharp and unwelcome. Regret. Fear. That desperate, aching loneliness that had taken up permanent residence under his skin.
But nothing came out.
So he sat, shoulders hunched, eyes locked on the floor, while a dead girl tried to remind him he wasn't dead yet.
Could he let it go?
The expectations. The whispering. The way every move felt like a test, he was always one breath from failing. Could he just… stop caring? Stop flinching at every shadow like it might be the one to end him?
He scoffed inwardly. Stupid question. He didn't know how not to care. Caring was part of the game—watching, adjusting, surviving. It had been drilled into him from birth: you must care. About blood, about name, about how you look while doing it. Especially in Slytherin. Especially as a Malfoy.
"I just…" His voice cracked a little, quieter than he meant it to be. "I don't want to screw this up."
The word failure hovered in his throat like a hex. Too sharp. Too raw.
"Even if everyone already sees me that way."
There. Out loud. Ugly and exposed.
Myrtle drifted a bit closer, as if drawn to the truth of it. Her voice didn't wobble this time.
"Everyone fails," she said simply. "It's part of figuring out who you are. It's not the end of the world."
Draco nearly laughed. Easy for you to say, he thought. Her world had ended in a bathroom. Right here. Just like this.
But he didn't say it.
Because despite how bloody ridiculous it all was—him sitting here in the girls' loo, confiding in a ghost who cried more than Pansy during O.W.L.s—there was something in the way she said it. Like she knew. Like she meant it.
And somehow, that mattered.
A breath escaped him. Might've passed for a laugh if it hadn't sounded so hollow. "You're surprisingly decent at this whole ghost therapist thing."
Myrtle perked up immediately. Her expression shifted from sombre to smug in a heartbeat. "You wouldn't be the first tortured soul I've counselled," she said, tossing her translucent hair over one shoulder with theatrical flair. "Though you're definitely the best-looking."
Draco rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Just a bit.
It was absurd. Utterly absurd. Him, of all people, pouring his soul out to a moaning ghost in a cracked-tile lavatory. And yet, for once, someone had actually listened. No glares, no questions. No Slytherin whispers behind his back. Just Myrtle. Annoying, dramatic, pathetically clingy Myrtle.
But… comfortingly consistent.
For a moment, he almost wanted to stay.
But reality, as always, had other plans.
The weight came crashing back down—cold, sharp, immediate. Like waking from a dream into a blizzard.
Draco straightened, all stiffness and angles, as if someone had pulled a string in his spine. He pushed off the floor, brushing at his robes like he could smooth the whole conversation away.
Time to return. To the dungeon. To the looks. To the pressure pressing down on him like the ceiling might cave in.
Myrtle blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "Oh!" she squeaked. "You're going already?"
Draco gave a short nod. "Yeah. Still technically a student, unfortunately."
Her face fell. Just a flicker, but enough. A small shiver rippled through her outline, like someone had walked over her grave—again.
"Will you come back?" she asked, voice reaching for casual but never quite getting there.
He paused, hand on the door. His fingers curled around the handle. He didn't look at her when he said it.
"Maybe."
Not a promise. Merlin, never a promise.
He glanced back once, a small tilt of the head. "Don't tell anyone about this, yeah?"
Myrtle immediately straightened, hand pressed to her chest with ridiculous ceremony. "Your secret's safe with me. Scout's honour—or, well, Moaning Myrtle's honour."
Draco smirked. Just for a second. "Terrifying thought."
A nod. Small. Almost sincere.
And then he stepped out.
The door creaked shut behind him, closing with a final, soft click.
Silence returned.
The light through the warped window caught the floor where he'd sat, casting faint colour onto the cracked tiles. A strange sort of stillness settled there. A quiet that wasn't empty, exactly.
Myrtle hovered alone, as ever.
But for the first time in a very long while, she didn't feel forgotten.
And perhaps neither did he.
THE END