In the Pursuit of Mischief

Damian strolled leisurely along the second floor corridor, apparently without purpose. His gaze roamed over his surroundings, a smirk pulling at his lips when he caught site of Aquila making his way from the opposite.

Shooting a casual glance over his shoulder - all clear - he ducked into the girls' bathroom and waited for his friend to arrive.

Aquila glance over his shoulder as he sprinted silently into the second floor corridor. He had a close call with just getting past Peeves - which really would have put a crinck in his plans if he hadn't.

Thankfully luck was on his side.

He smiled to himself as he saw Damian slip into the bathroom - specifically the girls bathroom.

Not to be too obvious he casually bent to tie his shoe, taking some time so there was a gap between his own enterance. Glancing over his shoulder and finding it empty he smirked and dashed the last little distance to the door.

"Come here often?" he laughed at the other boy as he shut the door behind him.

Damian rolled his eyes, but grinned back nonetheless. It was nice to be spending time with someone who liked mischief as much as he did. Seth was alright, of course - in fact, he was Damian's best friend and brother in many respects. Still, the other boy was too cautious sometimes.

He poked his head further into the bathroom. "Haven't seen Myrtle, yet," he said quietly. "Hey - didja know there's supposed to be some sort of secret passage in here?"

Aquila grinned as Damian rolled his eyes but smiled none the less, "I know you want to hate it but I'm too irresistable - Don't worry I get that reaction a lot."

He laughed softly as he slipped further into the room.

"She'll show," he said confidently. Aquila was perpared to wait all day if he really had to, but he heard that the ghost spent almost all her time in this room.

His head perked up at the mention of a secret passage, "Really?" his eyes lit up with more mischeif as he glanced plottingly around the room.

"Where do you think it is?" he smirked, his fingers suddenly itching to find such a thing.

Damian laughed. "Keep telling yourself that," he advised cheekily. He, too, moved farther into the room, looking for the going on a century old ghost.

"I don't know," he responded. "But in one of the books I read, they thought it was the passage Harry Potter used to get into the Chamber of Secrets - assuming that's not just a story, of course." He started carefully searching, not only for Moaning Myrtle, but for any sort of trigger or secret door, as well.

"Don't you worry - I will," he smiled as he went up to the sink and started fiddling with the taps.

"I don't think that is just a story," he looked around him, "... but I think you had to speak snake to get into the chamber," he turned to smirk at the other boy, "You don't happen to carry a snake in your back pocket do you?"

He laughed as he moved on from one sink to another, turning on each tap and then turning them off periodically.

"Do you think she'd come if you just called her? Mrytle!! Here, Mrytle, Mrytle, Mrytle," he stopped with a laugh, "Oops, she's not a dog."

He looked up with a smirk as a toilet flushed down from the room.

He snorted. "No. No, she's not a dog," he said, smirking in amusement.

Damian looked up from his search when he, too, heard the flushing toilet and immediately started in that direction. "Myrtle?" he called. The boy would later deny jumping in surprise when the ghost in question burst through the door to one of the stalls.

"What do you want?" she demanded nastily.

Aquila let out a startled laugh as the ghost appeared and Damian jumped a bit. Quil was startled enough to have jumped himself if he hadn't been bracing himself on the sink.

He was about to answer her question when she whirled on him.

"What are you laughing at?" she demaned, "You think I look funny don't you!"

The boy blinked for a moment, all laughter blown from his face. Who knew a whinning girl could be so scary?

Still Aquila was good - in most cases - at forgetting about his fear.

"Not at all," he smiled easily, "We just wanted... to chat."

He tried to smile as innocently as he knew how.

Damian bit back his own laughter as Myrtle's attention turned to Aquila.

"No one ever wants to chat!" scoffed Myrtle. "They always want to ask me about Harry Potter or the Chamber or Secret. Or they just come in to MAKE FUN OF ME!" Her voice rose into a screech.

"And it's always the boy's," she continued. "Horrible, little boys all coming to pick on poor miserable, moping, moaning Myrtle."

"Well, maybe if you didn't react so much, you'd be less fun to pick on?" Damian offered. He didn't quite succeed at keeping the smile off his face.

"My friend here does have a point," Aquila nodded, "I leave my brother alone the majority of the time because really he sucks at reacting; one of those irksome roll of my back kind of guys." He shook his head in mock-pity.

"Though you really shouldn't jump to conclutions Myrt - do you mind if I call you Myrt; before you meantioned it, Harry Potter was the furthest things from our minds," he nodded and looked at Damian for conformation, "Right-o Dame?"

The ghost sniffed at him. Aquila was thinking she was having trouble decided what to do with him.

"Absolutely, Quil!" Damian agreed cheerfully. "I'm Dame and he's Quil, by the way. Short for Damian and Aquila," he informed the ghost.

"Y'know, Quil, Harry Potter may be a hero an' all - may he rest in peace - but he is really becoming rather old news, don't you think? It's almost puzzling that Myrt should assume we'd be asking about him. His whole life's story can be found in books, after all."

He turned his bright blue eyes to Myrtle who frowned suspiciously back at him. "Honestly, Myrt - we're here 'cause we're curious about you. Isn't that right, Quil?"

"How horrible of me to not introduce us sooner," Aquila pretended to smack his forehead, "No wonder you didn't trust us Mryt. Here we are yacking away and you had no idea who we were."

He bent his head in what he hoped was a look of resignation, but really he needed the moment to hide his grin.

"I know exactly what you mean Dame; not that a read mind you, but if I did - Ol' Harry's history would all be right there." He nodded sagely.

He nodded to Damian, "That is exactly right Dame. You are just so interesting Mryt. Honestly." The ghost still looked suspicious so Aquila had to go with his next gun, "Would we lie to you?" he turned to Damian smiling slightly but hoping Myrtle wouldn't catch it, "Look at those Baby blues," He used his had to wave to Damian's bright eyes, "really how could someone with eyes like that not be trustworthy?"

"It was rather poor manners on your part," Damian told Aquila seriously.

He gazed at Myrtle as his friend spoke, eyes wide and earnest. "Totally trustworthy," he said solemnly.

Myrtle seemed to soften a bit. "Well..." she said uncertainly. "He does have really pretty eyes..."

Aquila hung his head in 'shame', "I know. I'm ashamed of myself. My mannors are..."

He stepped over towards the ghost and held his arm up so it had the illusion that he had it around her, "Really, really pretty eyes," he whispered softly, "and really you want to trust him, don't you?"

He turned his head to look at the ghost trying to give her a meaningful stare.

Damian was having a most difficult time not cracking up.

Myrtle looked from Aquila to Damian and back again. "Well, what do you want to know about me?" she asked, already seeming to warm up to the idea.

"Oh, anything," Damian responded immediately. "I'm sure there's loads of interesting things about you. I mean, you're the Moaning Myrtle, aren't you? Why, you're one of a kind!"

"Really Dame here is right. I mean you are known around the school. Know one is like 'Myrtle who?' when you're brought up," he stratigically left out the fact that usually one or both parties are complaining about her.

Aquila bit his lip to keep his smile down. They had just started to get her to warm up, he didn't want to ruin it by ticking her off too soon.

"Personally, I want to know how you stayed so pretty," again Quil bit his lip worried he was laying it on a bit too thick, "I mean I would think that dying would suck, but you - I swear when I first saw you I could have sworn you weren't a ghost."

He nodded his head solemnly, hoping that she would fall for it.

Damian covered his burst of laughter rather convincingly with an impromptu coughing fit. It was a good thing Myrtle was a ghost, otherwise, when they slipped, she'd be certain to kill them both!

"Oh, yeah," he agreed, when he recovered his bearings. "Not like the other ghosts, at all. And you know, Quil, here really had a thing for brunettes."

Aquila's eyes widened for a moment as he saw Damian slip a bit, but relief flooded through him when the boy managed to pass it off as a cough.

"Sounds like that coughs getting worse Dame," he nodded to the boy and then turned to Mrytle with a sad look on his face, "Its a sad thing when a boy can't go to school without getting ill."

Aquila pulled a face to keep back his own bark of laughter; they both couldn't get away with coughing fits.

Mrytle looked between the two boys, her eyes softening slightly between the boys.

"Really?" she asked her voice taking on a tone that scared Aquila just a bit as she twirled the end of her pigtail.

It took Aquila a moment to pull himself together enough to respond.

"Oh, definitely yes..." he nodded his voice coming out slightly jagged as he answered, "Can't get enough of long, lovely brown hair..."

Damian looked rather pained by this point, especially when Aquila appeared fleetingly terrified.

"Oh, yeah, Quil was just saying he was on the look out a new girl, y'know," he said cheerfully. "With lovely locks - preferably a bit older. He likes his women mature."

Again Mrytle looked between the two boys, spending even less time before she let her gaze settle on Aquila and gave out a distirbingly girlish giggle.

Oh yes, he was so going to be in trouble when all of this blew apart - he was probably in trouble now. He wasn't sure if an angry Mrytle or an.... intersted Myrtle was worse.

Still, Quil was never one to give up; he was going to keep this going until the moment he couldn't carry out his prank seriously any longer.

"Yepp, I'm tired of those first years," he waved his hand, for the moment keeping his face uncontrol but he could feel a bubble of hystria pulling up in his chest, "Definitly need a woman with more experie-"

His words broke off into a fit of laughter but he, having felt it coming up, threw his hands into his face before the sound had even left his throat.

"I'm -sor-sor-ry," he made an effort to get his giggle to sound more like a sob, hoping that if he kept his hands over his face so Mrytle couldn't see the actual evidence she might believe - for a moment longer at least - that his hysteria was out of some form of grief rather than pure amusement, "It's jus- so- so - "

Though Aquila was doing a rather good job of masking his laughter, Damian couldn't take it anymore. A snort escaped from him, followed by a peal of laughter. Soon, he was doubled over laughing.

At least they had held off this long.

As soon as Damian cracked Aquila couldn't be bothered to cover it up anymore, he removed his hands, leaned against the wall for support.

Mrytle - who had been starting to look suspicious when his 'crying' had started anyways - had cracked into full on murderous.

"You-you," she sputtered her voice growing louder with each extra sound, "you're laughing at me!"

It took Aquila few moment to get himself under control to even think of a answer.

"Yes and no," he stated between with a smile, "If you laughed with us then we'd be laughing with you."

The ghost's face darkened and her voice grew into a wordless shriek that would give a banchee a run for it's money, as she started to rise in the air.

Aquila watched her only for a moment before quickly tapping Damian's shoulder.

"And that's our cue to go," he began to back towards the door. Aquila had a bit of a stubborn stick-to-it attitude about most things, but he also knew when enough was enough.

And he really didn't want to be around for an angry Mrytle.

"Definitely!" Damian agreed with another laughed. Water exploded from the various toilet stalls and the facets in the sinks were turned on. Turning, Damian dashed for the door, grinning despite himself.

"C'mon, Quil!" he shouted, tone a bit gleeful.