Ghosts and Ghosts
'Severus Snape and Hermione Granger: The Shocking Truth of Their Torrid Romance'.
Draco snorted as he unfolded The Prophet, grinning merrily. This, he thought as he took a sip of his cappuccino, ought to be good.
The sub-headline only confirmed this thought.
'The No-Longer Secret Love Affair That May have Fueled the Fire of the Resistance. Rita Skeeter reports.'
Draco devoured the article with lightning speed.
'...Post-war, the closeness of ex-Professor Severus Snape and his student from years prior,
Hermione Granger, was noted by many, and was seen as somewhat odd.
'She was smart, yes, but a Gryffidnor,' remarks Pansy Parkisnon, a perceptive and pretty Slytherin girl who was in Granger's same year at Hogwarts. 'Professor Snape definitely didn't show any sort of favoritism then, so it was shock to see them out in the public eye together so often once the war ended.'
This reporter remembers well the tenacity that is Hermione Jean Granger, as well as her seemingly insatiable need to date boys of high esteem. Evidently, boys were no longer enough to satisfy the influential witch she has become, and she has moved on to men.
'Well, he did seem to be rather fond of her,' says Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw student who has always been an advocate of the truth, and who was present at Hogwarts while our heroic team of vigilantes was hidden within the walls of Hogwarts. 'In a way that I am relatively certain was genuine and extraordinarily out of character, for him. I've never seen Professor Snape at a loss for words, before, but he was speechless when Ron accused him of fancying her. It was very dramatic.'
Dramatic, indeed. It would seem that the illustrious witch has once more caused several of the unfortunate wizards in her company to carelessly surrender their hearts without regard.
Severus Snape remains more elusive than ever before. But fear not, for no matter where he runs, I can assure you that this reporter will never give up on the quest for the answers that the wizarding world so deserves. My quill acts like a compass, and Severus Snape cannot hide from the truth forever.
When I attempted to question Miss Granger on the matter, however, I was met with an extremely violent response. The enraged witch spat false accusations at me (I am a very legal and registered Animagus, and my reporting has never once been fraudulent) and even threatened my life. But nothing stops the persistence of Rita Skeeter, and so I carried on, asking relentlessly the question which everyone in the wizarding community is dying to know the answer to:
‘Are you, Hermione Granger, in a romantic relationship with Severus Snape?'
The final response I received before she apparated away from the confrontation of reality was a slew of curses which bordered on Unforgiveable. Fortunately, my line of work has made me quite adept at dodging. And while I may not have received a verbal confirmation to that question, dear readers, you can rest assured that I have the answer.
For if a poorly aimed blood-boiling curse, face flushing to the color of a fresh-cut rose, and the lack of an outright denial doesn't scream secretive,passionate love... then I don't know what does.'
Draco chortled and folded the paper up again. He could only imagine what sort of tension this was creating between Granger, Snape, Weasley, and—well, the rest of the Weasleys. What a horrible, emotional storm. What a dramatic spectacle.
The thought made Draco sigh in contentment.
Well, it was a pleasant thought, but he once more needed to be moving on to more important things.
Draco had just spent a fortnight in Greece, and had failed to make any progress whatsoever.
Acheron was the name of the river which he went to investigate, a real river which existed both in classical mythology as well as Northwest Greece. In Homer's Odyssey (an admittedly fascinating read, which had Draco wondering where in the world muggles came up with all of this nonsense), Circe directed Odysseus to the underworld on his quest, telling him that he had to find the point where the Acheron river and the Pyriphlegethon met, as well as the Styx. According to that story, the ferryman Charon transported the newly dead across the river and into the afterlife.
This was a belief that was told in another story, too. In Dante's poem, Inferno, the souls of the 'Uncommitted'—that is to say, people who lived their lives never having chosen to be good or evil—stayed forever on the banks of Acheron, not condemned to the fiery pits of hell, but still punished for all of eternity for their indecisiveness.
Draco had expected to find something in Greece, but no. The only truths that Draco revealed was that the Acheron river was long, lovely, and lacking anything at all which related to Death or the Afterlife.
Draco sighed again, fishing some muggle money out of his pocket. Greece was beautiful, and he had taken a few days to simply take in the sights while he was there. He was surprised on a daily basis when he would come across old, muggle structures, wondering how on earth people from so long ago could have ever built something so marvelous without magic.
But Draco was feeling a bit homesick. He had been on his own for months, now, traveling across eight countries with nothing so far to show for it.
It wasn't an easy life, being a magical nomad. Not for his inability to take care of himself—he had plenty of money and his spell-casting was decent—but for sheer lack of company. He was feeling lonely. Draco was pining for familiarity.
It didn't help that it was Christmas.
Draco paid for his coffee, pushing aside all thoughts of what his friends and family must be doing. He couldn't go back home.
But there was somewhere else he could go.
Breaking into Hogwarts was not as difficult as Draco would have thought.
Of course, he knew the castle extremely well. He'd scoured the place endlessly in his last year of attendance, trying to figure out a way to get a group of murderous Death Eaters within its walls. Once he'd apparated outside on the snow-covered grounds, he'd snuck in through a secret tunnel he'd discovered which went through the Shrieking Shack.
He remembered the day that he'd crawled out of that tunnel, discovering that the Whomping Willow would stop moving if you just touched this little knot. He wondered why any of it was there, what someone must have been hiding in that shack at some point.
Just one more mystery of Hogwarts that he would have to figure out.
Draco walked along the empty corridors, as quiet and invisible as a phantom. He'd disillusioned himself and cast a silencing charm around his body. It was the dead of night, and the castle was probably almost completely empty—it was during the holiday, after all—but he was being cautious.
It baffled him, actually, that classes had carried on again on the first of September. The castle had been repaired, the class schedules changed, new staff appointed and the Sorting recommenced—like it didn't even matter that—
Draco shook his head, forcing the thought away. He was here for a reason.
He dropped his disillusionment charm and entered into the bathroom, whispering 'lumos' as he did.
"Myrtle...?"
She floated out of one of the stalls. Instantly, her transparent face broke out into a giant grin. "Draco!"
Draco returned her smile, feeling ridiculously happy to see her again. He didn't even mind when she glided over to him, wrapping her non-existent arms around him and making him feel cold, despite the fact that he used to yell at her when she'd do that.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, backing away and putting her hands on her hips. "It's Christmas! And past midnight! Shouldn't you be at home with your family?"
Draco ignored the massive tidal wave of guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. "Yeah, well. I thought I'd rather be here."
She beamed. Draco would never admit to another living soul how much the sight warmed his heart.
"How have you been?" she asked, her expression softening with concern. She hovered over the sink and crossed her legs, like she was actually sitting on the porcelain surface.
"Perfectly awful," Draco answered, leaning against the wall.
She nodded understandably. "I hear about you in the castle, you know," she said, and Draco raised a brow in surprise. "You and the others. You're so popular, even when you're not here anymore."
"Yeah, well. I suppose being a war hero has some repercussions," he muttered.
She laughed. Draco watched the way she hovered there, the way her chest moved with breath she wasn't using. He looked at her and, rather than feel happy at the sound of her laughter, was filled with a sudden sense of deepest sadness.
"Say... Myrtle," he murmured, cautious. "Do you... Do you remember it? You know... When you died?"
She blinked in surprise at the question. "Yes, I thought I told you? I saw these eyes, and—"
"No, not that. Not those last moments when you were still alive. I mean... afterwards."
She stared at him. Her expression became strangely blank. "I mean, you didn't just become a ghost immediately afterwards, right? Otherwise you would have been right here, and seen what had really happened to you... There was something else that happened, before you became a ghost, right? What was it? Do you remember...?"
Myrtle was silent. She turned and stared at herself in the mirror, her face completely emotionless.
She stayed like that for long time. So long, in fact, that Draco feared that she wasn't going to answer, and might just float away, straight through the wall and out of sight.
"...I remember."
She looked at him with wide, empty eyes.
"What happened?" Draco asked again, unable not to. "What was it like...?"
"Well... I imagine it's different for everyone. Death." Myrtle's voice was soft and gentle. Draco listened with rapt attention. "For me, it was the tube."
"The... Death was a tube?"
"No, the tube. You know. The muggle transportation system. In London. You've never heard of the tube?" Myrtle smirked when Draco shook his head, confused. "You really don't know anything about muggle life, do you, my ignorant dragon?"
Draco scowled. "I find I'm learning more and more all the time," he admitted sourly. "Okay, then. Explain this tube to me."
"It's a system of underground trains," she answered. "They run on set tracks all over the city. To get on you go down these stairs on the street, and then you just hop on the train when it stops. My dad worked in London, and we lived in the suburbs. When I was little, it was my favorite thing. The tube. I remember all these times when it was just my dad and I, and we'd hear the train coming, so we'd run, trying to catch it."
She smiled wistfully. "What would happen if you'd miss it, though?" Draco asked.
"Oh, they ran really frequently. So if you missed one, it wasn't a big deal, usually. You'd just wait a few minutes for the next one. It was just something my dad and I always did. Run to catch the train that was coming. My mum hated doing that, so when we were all together, we would just walk and wait."
She smiled again, in a nostalgic, serene way. "Oh," Draco said, unable to think of anything else. He could see in her expression that she was reliving it now, running with her dad, taking the train with her mum...
"So when I died, I saw the tube," she continued. "I was running, at first. I remember that. But no one was with me, I was completely alone. I heard the train coming, so I sprinted without thinking. And there was the train.
“...I could have made it. I could have gotten on that first one... but I hesitated. The doors opened, and there was nothing but white inside. A brilliant, bright light. It scared me. I didn't get on."
She paused, twirling a transparent strand of hair around one finger. "But I thought, well, that's okay. Another one will come. So I sat on a bench and waited. And it did. Another train arrived just a few moments later, opening up its doors to that same bright, whiteness. I knew what it was, then. It really sunk in that I was dead and that this was beyond... and then I remembered exactly what had happened to me. I remembered that I had been in the bathroom, sad and alone because Olive Hornby been making fun of me, again. I remembered that I had been crying, and I started crying then, too. I didn't get on the train. It left."
Draco was surprised that she wasn't crying now. But her eyes, which were so often misty with tears, were perfectly dry. "I just sat there and cried. Trains kept coming, and I kept not getting on, until, eventually... they stopped. The trains stopped coming. I cried myself to sleep."
Draco stared, perplexed. "You fell asleep?"
"Yes," she said, nodding. "I fell asleep on the bench, and when I woke up, I was hovering over my grave. You can't imagine what that's like. Opening your eyes to your own name on marble in a graveyard."
Draco's blood ran cold. He could never say it to her, but yes, he could imagine that, because he had experienced it.
"When I first saw I was a ghost, I screamed. I screamed so loudly, but no one heard me, even though there were lots of people around. I was buried in a muggle graveyard. And muggles... Muggles can't see ghosts the way witches and wizards can."
She peered up at him from beneath her glasses, giving him the saddest smile that Draco had ever seen. He swallowed thickly, knowing all too well what she was hinting at.
Myrtle had become a ghost, eternally doomed to remain on Earth as a spirit... and her parents would never know.
"It's for the best, I think," she murmured. "I... I followed them around, for a while. Trying to reach them, somehow. I haunted my parents. Sometimes, I think they could sort of feel me. I mourned with them. I cried next to my dad, I would try and hug my mum. I may have haunted them forever if... Well."
She shook her head, casting aside that thought. "Anyway. I stopped following them and started haunting Olive Hornby, instead."
"That bitch," Draco added. Myrtle smirked.
"That bitch," she agreed.
They laughed. Draco wasn't sure what was wrong with him, to be able to have such a despairing conversation with a ghost and still find a way to laugh with her about it.
Like Death was some kind of a joke.
"...I suppose I shouldn't stay here too long," Draco eventually said. "It would probably be frowned upon, hanging around the castle like this..."
"You're probably right." Myrtle swooped in, giving him another chilly hug. "You'll have to come back some other time, when you're not sneaking around at night."
"I will," he promised. "I just... You know. Wanted to wish you a happy Christmas."
She smiled again, and, ah, there they were. Those inevitable tears. Myrtle wiped them away, sniffling. "Happy Christmas, Draco. Now go back home to your family before they miss you."
Draco nodded, though he had absolutely no intention of going home, nor was he about to tell her that he'd run away from his family months ago. He reached out and made as though to squeeze her hand before leaving, and though it passed right through her and she could feel nothing, she smiled.
Draco left the bathroom, but not the castle. There was one last thing he wanted to look at, first.
The Great Hall felt like a different place entirely when it was empty.
Draco walked between the long tables, running his fingers along the familiar, wooden surface. He remembered sitting there, eating countless meals and laughing with Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, and Parkinson... He remembered when he sat right there, flashing a button across the Hall that read 'Potter Stinks!' in bright, neon letters...
Draco stopped and looked up.
The enchanted ceiling was brilliant, scattered with stars and a few deep, navy clouds.
He frowned, examining the way that the walls transitioned seamlessly into a night sky. It was just a spell, just magic which made it look that way. It wasn't really an open window into the heavens.
So then how in the hell had Harry blasted apart the wards through it?
Draco stared pensively up at the hourglasses. He could envision it, even now, even though when he had first witnessed it he had been so far away.
‘...And I am the Chosen One.'
Draco shivered at the recollection.
For a long time, he merely stood there in the empty hall, looking up at the stars like they might just explain it all to him. "Where are you?" he murmured under his breath.
And maybe he was losing his mind completely, because he swore to God, he could hear... was that laughter? Draco narrowed his eyes, scouring the celestial sky. It was laughter, soft and echoing—like it was coming from the sky—
The stars are laughing at me, Draco thought incredulously. He was just reaching into his bag, about to grab his Firebolt and fly up there, thinking he'd like to soar up into the actual clouds and tell the stars to go fuck themselves, when—
"Draco Malfoy!"
Draco turned on the spot at the sound, his heart in his throat. He barely dodged the disarming spell
in time.
How the hell had Snape found him here?
Without thinking, Draco's hand closed around something in his bag. He yanked it out and threw it on the ground, amazed at his luck that he had happened to have his fingers on it in that moment.
The Hall filled with darkness.
"Draco Malfoy, what is wrong with you?" Snape shouted angrily, whipping around. Draco laughed, quickly finding his Hand of Glory and lighting it up. Snape was looking murderous, blind and facing the wrong way.
Draco pressed his wand to his throat and spoke with a voice that sounded on the other side of the room. "What do you want?"
Draco was glad that he'd thrown his voice. Snape had cast another spell—a stunner, this time—and Draco was certain that, had he actually been standing there, he would have been hit in the chest. "Not even close!" he yelled cheerfully, taunting. Snape growled in frustration.
"Stop this nonsense at once, Draco," he spat, turning and looking in a different direction, now. "Just what do you think you are doing, traveling all over the place on your own, chasing after muggle fairy tales? You are going to get yourself killed."
"What the hell do you care what I do?" Draco snapped back. "Merlin, have you been following me, trying to track me down this whole time?"
"Of course I've been trying to find you!" Snape roared. Draco wondered if there were any students in the castle and, if there were, if they would wake them up.
"And I thought you were just trying to get away from Skeeter," Draco sneered. "Why are you following me, then? Coming after my inheritance, hm?"
"Draco, don't be an idiot," Snape seethed in response. He lowered his voice, clearly trying to sound less hostile. "Whatever it is you think you're doing, you need to stop. Everyone is worried about you. Your parents are extremely concerned."
"I left a note," Draco said causally.
Snape's fingers flexed around his wand. "Yes. A note. I read it."
"Then you know exactly what it is I'm doing."
Snape threw another curse. It was actually distressingly close. Draco ducked and swerved, then threw his voice to another section of the Hall.
"Missed."
"Draco, you are not going to find him!" Snape yelled, and though his tone was angry, his expression was horribly pitying. Like he had forgotten that Draco could see him in the darkness, even though he, personally, was currently blinded. "He—he's gone, and—"
"He is not! I know what I saw!" Draco yelled. "And he's going to be really pissed off when I find him, and he finds out that the only one who didn't give up on him was Draco fucking Malfoy!"
Snape was quiet for a moment. He lowered his wand and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calm and collected. "Draco, I know that you are hurting. I understand what you are going through. But—"
"Oh, fuck you!" Draco snarled. Snape winced. "You don't have a clue what I'm going through! You didn't even like him, what do you care? You're probably glad that he's—"
"Finish that sentence and you will regret it for the rest of your life!"
Snape's voice had become suddenly so livid that Draco fell silent. Snape composed himself before speaking once more. "…I know what you are going through. Of course I cared for him. I was the one who went to rescue him, remember?"
"Yes, I remember," Draco sneered. "I remember that you went, and that—that Harry was just inexplicably unconscious, afterwards. I remember your vague and suspicious story that he was just mentally damaged and needed to recover." Draco felt rage bubbling his chest, and was sorely tempted to hit Snape with some dark and painful curse from behind. "I remember that you're a lying, secretive, manipulative piece of shit, always keeping information to yourself so that the rest of us are left wondering just what actually happened!"
"Is that what you think?" Snape's voice was cold, detached. "You think I have withheld information from you at this point because I am hiding something from you? That I'm not telling you all of the details for some underhanded purpose?"
Draco didn't say anything, only listened. Snape went on. "...I haven't told you precisely what happened for your own sake. So that you wouldn't have to live with the horror of it, as I do. But allow me to share with you the burden of the truth."
He turned, and he was almost looking directly at Draco when he spoke. "When I got there, he was—he was broken."
Snape's voice cracked. Draco had never heard Snape sound so crushed. "He was ripped apart. There was blood everywhere, all over the sheets and floor..."
Draco's heart froze in his chest. Snape was speaking so quietly now that it was practically a whisper.
"He was bleeding, bruised... naked. And that wasn't even the worst of it. I saw it, in his eyes. What he was thinking... He was thinking that he loved him."
"...Wh... what?" Draco gasped. Snape closed his eyes and bowed his head, looking so painfully defeated. "What are you... what do you mean, loved him? Loved... him?"
"Yes."
"...He really was mentally damaged?" Draco gaped. "What, had he been given a love potion or —"
"No. No, he... It was an honest thought. He really, truly thought he loved him."
Draco was quiet for a long time, shocked that Snape was actually telling him this, shocked by all of it.
"...So what if he did, then?"
Snape looked up in the wrong direction. "What if he did love him?" Draco said. "What if, somehow, it was legitimate?"
Rage started mounting in Draco's chest as he put it all together. "Oh, Merlin. He did. He did love him, for whatever fucked up reason, and—and you knew it, and—and you did it anyway, and so when he was sentenced to death, that's why he—that's why Harry went to him, it’s why he was there, by the veil, he—"
Draco almost fell, his knees had become so weak. "It is your fault," he breathed.
“You killed him."
"I did what needed to be done!" Snape roared, furious again.
"You could have not done it!" Draco argued. "You could have let him go! If Harry wanted to be with—"
“Are you mad?" Snape turned the wrong way again, his face as white as the December snow. "Do you even hear yourself? Let him be with the Dark Lord? That was Voldemort, Draco, that was a murderous, dangerous, violent man who—"
"I know who he was, thanks," Draco sneered, though he was shaken when Snape said his name. "But it wasn't up to you, it was his decision—Harry wasn't your personal responsibility, you weren't his parent—"
"I was as good as!"
Draco jumped, startled at the adamant declaration. "I was a good as a parent to him! I was the only one who ever had his best interests at heart! Even when Dumbledore would have been willing to sacrifice him—to throw his life away for the greater good—I wanted to save him!"
Snape paused, and Draco swore his eyes were swimming with tears.
"I wanted to save him.”
A real, horrible sob came choking out of Snape's throat. Draco was too stunned to respond.
"...But I failed, and he is gone," he continued quietly. "He is dead, Draco. Stop chasing after his ghost."
"No."
Snape's expression was livid again in an instant. "Draco, you will listen to me."
"No, I really won't," Draco responded loftily. He started edging his way out of the hall. "I'm off to Argentina next, I think. Or maybe Brazil. Wherever the wind takes me. Tell my parents I say hello, and that I am doing just fine, thanks—"
Snape reached his limit. He began firing off spells at random, with lightning speed and in every direction.
Draco panicked and backed away, throwing up a shielding charm, but Snape strategically moved so that he was blocking the quickest way out.
Draco was just fearing that he may be caught, that his quest was over, when a high, blood-curdling scream nearly gave him a heart attack.
"He's over here!"
Myrtle had found her way down to the Great Hall. She hovered over by the hourglasses, on the complete opposite side of where Snape currently was, firing hexes. She made eye contact with Draco and winked. Evidently, Peruvian Darkness Powder did not work on ghosts. "He's over here, hurry!"
Snape ran blindly in the wrong direction. Draco blew Myrtle a kiss, quickly and quietly making his retreat, exiting through the main doors and escaping into the night.