Howl

Christmas was coming closer.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Wherever I went, I’d be on my own… Unless I can swallow my pride and apologise to Harry and Draco. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I was an idiot, that much I knew for sure.

A handful of days before school let out for the holidays, Hogwarts numbers were dwindling to the point that, during meals, the remaining students would sit at one table. Tensions are at an all-time lie. Thanatos had gone home the day before s I was on my won.

“Hi, Lyall.” Slowly, I look up from my cold dinner into the kind eyes of Neville Longbottom. I pale and quickly dive back into my food, praying he will leave. He doesn’t. The bench underneath heaves under his weight as he sits beside me. I hear a clatter of cutlery from up the table and look up to see Draco eyeing is hatefully. “When are you going to make up with him?”

“Harry?” I say, because surely, he isn’t talking about Draco.

“No, silly.” He chuckles and lathers food on his plate. “I meant Draco; the whole school has noticed how the two of you are throwing miserable looks at each other. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. I frown at my words even though they are true. Nothing happened, so why was I acting the way I was? With a sigh, I scrape my mind for a reasonable excuse. “I have more important things on my mind this year.”

“Like what?”

I don’t reply.

“Harry wants to see you before you go home for Christmas – you are going home, right?” Neville isn’t taken aback by my lack of conversation.

“I-I-” Was I going home? To a big house full of empty closets and quiet halls, all alone? I didn’t know if I wanted to. “I don’t know.” Neville smiles sadly at me and begins to rise. With my heart thrumming in my ribcage, I reach out and grasp his wrist. “I—Tell Harry. Tell Harry I’ll talk to him.”

The corner of his lips tugs upward in a grin and, despite myself, I smile back. I hear commotion from the other side of the table but I don’t look back to Draco.

After Neville leaves, it’s not long until another shadow passes over my dinner. I turn, expecting to see Harry looming behind me, but instead I meet the cold eyes of—

“Draco,” I breath. I turn around and duck my head low as the bench beneath me creaks with all the extra weight. “What are you—”

“Oh,” he snaps, he’s angry and I’m not particularly certain why but I don’t raise my eyes to meet his. My finger tingle and my bones ache. I want to run away. “You can make up with those blood traitors but you can barely look me in the eye? You’re something else.”

I try to interject him but he doesn’t give me the chance to put a word in.

“I mean, am I not good enough for you, Molviola? Am I not pure enough? Why did you shut everyone out like you did?” Draco grasps my arm and pulls my body towards his until I’m facing him, our gazes locked. “Why won’t you let me in? I only ever wanted to be friends with you.”

Don’t get attached, Lyall, my father’s voice rings out in my head and I close my eyes, shaking my head at the sound. You have more important things to worry about.
“Lyall. Talk to me.”

I snap my eyes open and stare at him. I’m grateful that my voice doesn’t waver when I open my mouth to answer him. “Why do you care, Draco? You don’t even know me.”

“Why do I… I told you why, Lyall. I told you that there was just something about you that I couldn’t explain, didn’t I? I told you that I wanted to know you, and you almost let me. What did I do wrong, huh?” Draco grasps my tingling skin and my fingers relax in his palm. “I only ever wanted you.”

“I—” I take a deep breath. “I want you to—I mean---Will you.. will you come home with me for Christmas?”

Draco looks at me as though that was the last thing he expected to come out of my mouth, but to my surprise, his lips stretch into a wide grin and he begins to nod happily at me. He starts murmuring about how he has to owl his mother and, with a final kiss to my cheek, he runs towards Owlery.
I watch him leave for a moment, smiling. I had managed to mend a few friendships with barely a sentence. Hastily, I gather my things and try to fine Hermione and the others.

An hour of restless prowling the castle later, I find the whole lot of them – including Neville – tucked snugly into a far corner of the library. Neville smiles and gestures me over. I clutch my books tightly to my chest, resisting the urge to flee. For a horrible moment, no one says anything and I’m staring at all of them (Neville, Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Harry.).

With a deep breath, I tell them. “I just wanted to say sorry for…” for shutting you, for being my usual self, for being scared to care. “…being so busy that I haven’t had time for you. You’re the first people to befriend and I regret it deeply.”

They continue to stare at me, all bar Neville who looks at his friends in astonishment. I shot him a look to tell him that I tried.

“Well…” Hermione looks away and opens her mouth to reply. However, she closes it and makes no further attempts.

“I don’t know why you can’t just be honest with us, Lyall.” Harry looks at me as if he wants to bundle me into his arms, but, like Hermione, he holds back. Shaking his head, he sighs at me. “You’re still not telling the truth. We’ll be here when you want to let someone in.”

I spin on my heel and rush out of the library.

My heart was drumming. He told me. Father told me not to close to people. He told me I had more important things, didn’t he? He told me they weren’t worth it.

I find myself staring at my ever-changing eyes in the girls’ bathroom. Moaning Myrtle loops behind me before resting behind my shoulder.

“Why are you sad?” she says, her voice is high and my as her voice raises in volume, so too do my eyebrows. “I don’t think you have a lot to be sad about. Look at me!”

I do. I look at her. Myrtle would have once been a rosy cheeked, bright eyed, energetic girl behind thick-rimmed glasses and a small mouth. She would have had friends who were living their lives fifty years later while she was stuck in the same robes in the same bathroom. Myrtle would have liked a boy… maybe the way I did.

“Are you… Are you terribly, lonely?” I turn around until we’re facing each other.

“Sometimes.” Myrtle does a fantastic loop in the air before sinking to the floor as though she were sitting. I sit across from her. “Every so often, someone will come in and they’ll ignore that I’m here. Even Harry and his friends wish I weren’t here.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I wish you were right,” she looks at me curiously. “Are you friends with him?”

I think about it. No, I’m not friends with him. Even Harry and his friends don’t want me around. “No, I wouldn’t say I was.”

Myrtle and I stay this way for a long time. I let her moan, and she lets me rant. Every so often we’d laugh and smile together. I phase for her and she marvels at the soft fur on my back. I tell her about how I was going home with Draco for Christmas and she lets loose a few derogatory comments, she makes me laugh. Soon enough, it’s past curfew and I have to leave her.

“I’ll make sure you’re not caught,” she says as she hovers in the air. I watch her sceptically as we make our way – could Myrtle even leave her bathroom? “I know what that caretaker is like.”

“You can open up, you know.” Myrtle drops this comment just as I was crossing over the threshold. I stop with one foot on either side. “You said you couldn’t and that was why you would lose everyone. But you did, you opened up to me.”

“Myrtle…” I glance at the shaded green room before tugging my lips upwards in a smile. “I’ll come see you when I’m back, alright? I’ll get you a gift.”

“Gifts are useless to me.”

“I’ll get you something beautiful, then.” I smile at her and to my relief, she grins back. “You deserve something beautiful.”

“So do you.” Myrtle peeks behind me. “Don’t pretend that you don’t.”

We say goodnight and I watch her float away before slipping into the common room. The door gently clicks shut behind me and I sigh, leaning against it.

“She’s right, you know.”

“Helvetti, Draco.” I jump in fright and the tips of my ears tingle. I calm my racing heart and join him on the sofa. “Why are you up?”

“I was waiting for you.” He says and smiles at me, though he looks tired. “She was right. You deserve something beautiful.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” I say, I stare at my hands. “I think we all get what we deserve. And I haven’t gotten anything beautiful.”

Except him.

I lean my head on the back of the sofa. I sigh. Draco’s cold fingers slide over my hand as he grasps my fingers. I open my eyes to see him smiling softly at me. “I’ve done… I’ve done horrible things, Lyall. And you came into my life despite it all – if we get what we deserve then I must deserve something beautiful.”

I look down at our entwined hands and then back up to his eyes. I had always described them to be ice cold but they weren’t. They had warmth and laughter buried deep in there somewhere. I glance down again. His slender finger grasps my chin and he pulls me up to look at him. I let my eyes slide away. I whisper, “You don’t want someone like me.”

“But I do, Lyall.” He murmurs, tracing the line of my jaw gently with his fingertips. I repress a shudder. “I need someone like you.”

I was sure I would explode if he continued like this over Christmas but a larger part of me prays that he never stops. My stomach was heaving pleasantly and my heart was racing but for once in my life, I was comfortable in my skin.

“Please don’t shut me out again.”

I take a deep breath. I think about the cons of letting him in – he was just one person after all. How much damage can one person do? A 16-year-old boy, no less? I think about all the damage I had cause at a younger age and I can tell he feels me withdrawing.

“Lyall,” his voice is harder than I expected and it demands me to listen to him. “I won’t let you be alone. Trust me, I can see it in your eyes, you want to. You don’t have to be on your own.”

“Someone is going to get hurt.” I whisper. “I’m not good for you.”

Draco tips his head back and chuckles, still holding my face. “Well,” he says, “I’m not particularly good for you so it sounds like we’d be perfect, don’t you think so?”