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She supposed if she could feel love, she would feel it for him. The Slytherin boy with his dark hair gently curling over his eyes, his collars and ties always done correctly, and his long fingers that were more expressive than his face.
Myrtle sat up straight on her bench at the Ravenclaw dining table. Her hair was tangled in her glasses again, but she was sick of adjusting it, and sick of listening to Olive Hornby and the other girls snicker as she did. Methodically, she ate her dinner in relative peace, stealing glances across the room at the boy who was effortlessly everything she was not.
As the last bit of food disappeared from her plate, Myrtle watched Tom lean into something Abraxas Malfoy whispered into his ear. Her fingers toyed with the heavy spoon in her right hand, the handle worn and a bit chipped from decades of students using it eat the never ending supply of meat pies and heavy starches. She moved them along the cold metal in time with Abraxas's fingers along Tom's upturned palm. For how pale he always looked, dark smudges permanently below his eyes, Myrtle imagined his hands were warm, inviting. All the Slytherins cozy up to him like he was the warmest rock in the sun.
She did her best to be a good friend, or at least someone people would want to be friends with. Growing up in another world than many of her peers didn't help, since her worries about her older brother's life on the front lines of war. Owls were impractical, since she wasn't sure what kind to send each month to write him a letter, as he went on missions flying across the world. Her parents kept the details to themselves, insisting she wouldn't understand anyway.
Of course, none of the purebloods cared about a Muggle war anyway. They were too preoccupied with their own style of warmongering, hissing at her in the hallways, always a few minutes before that beautiful boy walked by with some Slytherin or other hanging on his every word. A few times, she imagined their eyes meeting, and she hated herself for wishing those moments lasted for more than a few breaths.
"Hello, Myrtle," a soft voice said a few seats down.
Her head barely reaching over the top of a bowl of more mashed potatoes, the rosy cheeks of a first year Ravenclaw appeared, sending Myrtle a shy smile.
Automatically, lessons from her governess playing in her head, Myrtle smiled back. She hoped it looked genuine. "Hello, Janice."
"You've got some hair stuck in your glasses, did you know?"
The smile stuck to her face like the frog spawn that got under her nails after Potions classes. Unpleasant to hold, tricky to keep steady, and the pain of it lingered long after it was gone. Simply nodding, not trusting herself to speak, Myrtle stood up from the table to march back to Ravenclaw tower. Or perhaps the second floor corridor, with the windows that faced her favorite courtyard. Anything to be away from people she couldn't understand, even when she was positive they were trying to be nice.
"What good is it to be nice," she muttered to herself when she had put distance between herself and the Great Hall, "when it's not real, anyway?"