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“You are getting older,” she said, peering at him with a mou.
He smiled, charmingly. “You are getting whiter,” he answered back, all in a velvety voice.
She rolled her eyes and he snorted and they were laughing.
Had she been a little bit less dead and ghostly she would have been rolling around too.
Morgana, had she missed him.
He perched on the lavatory while she floated in front of him.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and smiled at her with genuine pleasure.
“It’s good to see you, Myrtle. I missed you.”
She smirked and beamed, showing her teeth like a goblin. “So did I, Tommy boy, so did I.”
“So… did you get it ?” she asked.
“Nope,” he answered, looking unconcerned though she could see his jaw clenching.
“Told you so. You should have come back two years ago before Dippet croaked. He would have accepted you this time ‘round.”
Tom Riddle sighed and inclined his head. “You are right.”
“I am ALWAYS right.” answered the ghost. “So… what are you gonna do ?”
“So many plans…, he answered. First, probably, open my own school,” said the man and Myrtle's eyes brightened.
After all, to take over the world, you need bright young people with the right ideas and knowledge in their minds.
“Finally,” she clapped her hands in anticipation.
“Want to come ?” he asked her.
“Did you find everything ?” she answered.
Tom sniffed and didn’t say out loud “Who do you take me for ?”.
He got splashed with tepid water for his twenty-five years effort.
In 43, Tom Riddle accidentally killed his business and partner (in crime) Myrtle Warren by Basilic stare while running a con to extort oaths and money from the pureblood elite and providing “protection” to the muggleborn and halfblood.
It had worked perfectly until Amita had forgotten that Myrtle didn’t have the natural protection borned parselmouth had (since the Ravenclaw had learned the language via ritual) and so had killed her Little Master mate prospect by mistake. Whoops.
The basilisk had been mortified.
What a clusterfuck.
Not one to waste an opportunity though, Tom had used the death to secure a very tiny small sliver of his soul into Myrtle’s favorite pendant, enough to anchor him and protect himself from physical death, because bombs were regularly going down in London during summer where he spent his time running other deals on the muggle side of the world.
Then he had called the girl spirit forth and used necromantic arts (thank Salazar for the shit tone of dark arts books in the Chamber) and anchored the dead girl’s soul in the realm to mascarade into a ghost simile.
Myrtle hadn’t been as pissed as he thought he would have had he been in her shoes but… Ravenclaw…
She was going to write a book on the whole experience about death and life, she said (threatened), once the mess was cleared up.
Salazar helped him and the world and the beyond.
Amita had been sorry, ever so sorry and that had been the end of a very lucrative business. Really. He had almost had all the Slytherin Heirs and a lot of their relatives available but three. For example, Orion Black had slipped out of his grasp but he had had Walburga and Alphard. Could still be useful.
How the scheme to pass the guilt of the whole mess on the half-giant’s acromantula pet had worked, he still didn’t know, except…three words : wizard’s society ineptitude.
Now, he had needed five very rare and expensive ingredients to resurrect his Little Lady and it had taken quite a lot of time to find and gather. The lethifold’s hide had been the hardest but he had done it!
During that time, Miss Warren had kept tabs on the going on of the school, her (haunted) restroom becoming the center to bullied children and trafficking for the past twenty-five years.
Lot of information passed on that the ghost cleverly kept track off and that was only the tip of the iceberg, what with her spying the teachers, Dumbledore many habits, the others inhabitants of the castle secrets, the creatures of the school (from the thestral to house-elfs and owls) and also, the others ghosts.
Who for some had accumulated a millennia of information. Pure mana for the two mafia-like duo.
“So… I will be back for Samhain,” he told her. “We will do it in the Chamber.”
She cooed happily. “My last months of ghostly existence… I have to make them worthy…,” her eyes glew in anticipation. “I will invite Godwin, Cuthbert and ‘Lena, if you don’t mind.”
Tom brows rose but he nodded. “If they make vows of secrecy, I have no issue.”
“Cuthbert will be interested for history's sake. The Baron because the ritual has never been used since his uncle created it and he would want to see it and Lena was my mentor as a baby ghost. Leaving that existence, I owe it to her.”
Tom being Tom and couldn’t care less of other people's feelings even ghostly ones and just nodded. “If you say so,” he muttered. “I will brew you a permanent aging potion if you wish to catch up.”
“I do,” Myrtle's eyes brightened again. “I have no desire to be stuck as a hormonal teenager while you indulge in adulthood, thank you very much.”
“I have also secured European blood for your identity change and the right paper trail. You will have to pass your OWL and NEWt’s of course but I have already registered you for Christmas.”
Myrtle nodded. Finally ! And she was sooo looking forward to outscoring him! Her smile turned small and soft.
“You can be such a sweetie, Tommy.”
Tom looked expressionless and bland which for him, meant he was embarrassed.
“I should go, Little Lady,” he sighed.
The ghost sighed too and resisted the impulse to spray him with water again.
***
Myrtle was delighted he had vandalized her grave and had to strip her body to get her bones all cleaned up of rotting flesh and dusty clothes.
Tom smirked as the ghost floated obediently in the middle of the runic circle. Her old bones, her anchored spirit and the five ingredients Lethifold hide, calcified dementor’s heart, tears of a dark phoenix, blood of her genitors, essence of her death (that had taken a lot of work for Tom to transmute the basilisk stare effect by alchemy in a runic base stone but he had done it), and the pendant with his sliver of soul, forged by her death.
Not exactly the base ritual but he had had to improvise as some of the initial elements had been impossible and he was quite sure this would work and the arithmancy panned out. And Myrtle agreed, as much as it hurt to admit, she beat him in calculation.
The ghost looked at him and smiled, all trusting and not afraid.
“Ready”.
The three undead witnesses were gravely (and safely) out of range, while Amita was looking, her eyes covered by her second eyelid.
Taking a breath, Tom reached inwards to the pool of power inside of him and started incanted, lighting up the runes one by one, reaching for the sliver of his soul and pushing in forward toward Myrtle, embracing the remorse of the mistake, not having check the snake hadn’t followed behind him, not having ordered it and enforced his orders by the law of blood and inheritance, like he should have, he used his feelings and brought force the second layers…
Second year, meeting the mousy girl in the library because she was reading the only version of the book he was looking for and he had been astonished. She not only read it but understood it but also her understanding went deeper, farther, …
Seeing her being bullied when her mind was more brilliant than these mice and taking it and then, how she took her revenge and her deviousness and not being caught and recognizing her as a snake in claw’s clothing…
Despite himself, going back to her, like a bee attracted to honey because she was like him, too brilliant and too unique for the mass, too cold and bloodthirsty and dangerous underneath the seemingly innocent surface.
Yes where Tom used his beauty and charms, Myrtle used her ugliness to disappear in the crowd.
But her intellect was undeniable. Her thirst was unquenchable. Like Tom’s. She wanted, wanted, wanted. Magic was a torrent in her blood while for the other it was a trickle.
She and Tom were the storm, the wild fire, Myrtle gasped as flesh started to knot itself, cell by cell around her spirit and pain and gravity and senses blossomed back.
Oh the feelings of heaviness, breathing hurts and the sounds and her own heart was so loud and then she smelled something that was just wonderful and her and inside of herself, there was now a sliver of more that hadn’t been there before but so warm and lovely and it was…
… spats about the application of the validity of the Law of Gnüfeld in the Munchester Field in Arithmancy and their debates on Divination and if it should or not be taught (Myrtle has said no and Tom yes. She now believed he had been right, damnit, it was just not taught right)...
…scheming to make more and making plans for the future, that may or not imply taking over the wizarding world, joining or not Lord Grindelwald (the man was now stuck in a prison but who said he could not be broken out? though his idea of eradicating muggles was outdated, a complete separation should be worked on…)
so many memories…. delightful… having a friend… one who knew her… knew the feeling of being hated… demeaned… freaked about… the lash… poverty… hunger…
Strong arms surround her and something is pushed on her lips and she swallows potions after potions. Tom, the bastard, doesn’t let her (newly reborned) body rest as he grow ten years in a couple of minutes, then she swallows again (for the pain, morgana) she wavers between wanting to kill him or bless him and then he kisses her and she forgets everything.
She moans in his mouth and then starts laughing and he stops.
“Sorry,” he said. “Wanted to do that for so long.”
She just keeps laughing and can’t help it.
“Myrtle, love, are you okay,” and his voice sounds so worried”
She took a breath and a second and steady herself.
“Yes, sorry. It was lovely.” She smiled and he smiled back if a bit bemused and hesitantly.
“We are definitely going to that again, just so you know. But… I was just moaning in your mouth, you know.”
Their witnesses started laughing too. Tom was just scratching his head, looking utterly confused.
Myrtle shook her head.
“I have been appearing in the lavatory after you left, so you may not know, but … they never call a ghost by its name.”
Helena Ravenclaw intervened. “This is kind of a rule. So the children gave her a nickname… And Miss Warren played her part… Moaning.”
The Baron sighed. “A lot.”
Binns nodded in agreement. “Moaning Myrtle”
Tom smirked and then laughed. “Well… I kind of like the sound you made… Miss Warren.”
His eyes crinkled merrily. Myrtle laughed and took his hands. The basilisk, Tom shrunk her and Amita slid around him.
They nodded to the three ghosts who were a bit sad to have lost one of their own but still happy for her, as they left in a crack.
“Can’t believe it worked,” said Godwin.
“Hmm,” said Helena. “Maybe we could ask…?” she looked at him wonderingly.
“Truly, M’Lady ?,” the Baron, looking awed.
“A thousand years is kind of long to hold a grudge for a damn rock.”
“We could finally go visit the Library…,” his voice trailed off…
Helena’s eyes brightened and turned to Godwin. “Oh! And I heard from some of the American borned students talk about the Macusa archives, how they are something to behold too!”
“hmm…,” Binns murmured…”So… should I ask an elf to send them an owl on your behalf ? I don’t expect it would take them twenty-five years this time round…”
The two star-crossed lovers accepted. “What about you ?” they asked the professor.
“Oh no, no,” the history teacher said, “I never wanted anything more than to teach at Hogwarts, you see… And to die after only three weeks… It seemed like a bad joke. So I stayed…”
Helena and Godwin nodded in agreement.
Well at least they had tried (again). Poor students. Cuthbert was a good heart but such a boring teacher.
Everybody thought it was because he was a ghost when it had nothing to do about it.
Really, when that Bagshot girl had poisoned his tea in 1854, she should have thought twice about it.