Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Harry Potter.
Being a ghost had its moments but for the most part it was a rather boring existence. You couldn't eat any of your favorite foods, or affect the world in anyway. However there were still a few things that made such an existence a little more interesting for instance there really weren't any boundaries on where you could go, floating thru walls was defiantly a plus. The fact that ghosts made no noise was also fun, it helped to sneak up on people better. For a mischievous ghost like Heather Monroe these things made haunting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry more interesting. She has never understood why she became a ghost when her parents didn't. She spent most of her time floating about the third floor not confining herself to just one room. Heather's favorite past time was scaring the ickle firsties on their first day. There was however one thing that perplexed her more and more, the students of Hogwarts called her Howling Hilda. She really couldn't understand it because for one her name was not Hilda and two she didn't howl. This existence as Heather usually referred to it started June 16,1979, she remembered it as if it were yesterday. One of the only things she did remember from her human life as she put it.
Heather had just finished her fifth year at Hogwarts, her O.W.L. results would be coming any day now. She was very excited to find out how well she had done considering how unbearable the exams had been, she was surprised she had made it thru them in the first place. She spent the morning helping her mother with the household chores, being a muggleborn her family didn't have the luxury of a house elf like other wizarding families. Around mid morning her mother started lunch, Heather's father would be coming home for lunch.
It would be a larger lunch than normal since Mr. Monroe rarely came home at lunch time, "Heather dear would like to help me prepare lunch for your father," called her mother.
"Yes," replied Heather who was very happy to help, "Do you think father will be able to eat all of this?" she asked.
"Well he'll have us to help and besides if it all doesn't get eaten we'll have some for later," her mother replied.
They quietly prepared lunch her mother periodically telling her what to do, it was fun helping her mother cook. They had finished it all up a few minutes before Mr. Monroe was to arrive and were setting the table when he came in. Heather and her mother had prepared soup, salad, sandwiches, and treacle tart for lunch, "This looks amazing, you really shouldn't have gone to all of the trouble," said Mr. Monroe as he sat down at the table.
"It was no problem dear, Heather and I had a lot of fun preparing it,"
The three of them sat around the table and began piling food on their plates, "How is work?" asked Mrs. Monroe as she put some salad on her plate.
"It's good, it's looking like the case I'm working on is going to turn out the way we were hoping," answered Mr. Monroe.
"Any new cases?" asked Heather.
"One maybe, things are a bit slow at the office right now."
Just as they were finishing up with the main course the front door to the house was blasted open and three men in black robes and silver masks entered with their wands drawn. Heather and her mother screamed as Mr. Monroe stepped in front of his family to protect them, "What do you want? Who are you?" Mr. Monroe demanded of the men.
They didn't answer instead the one in the middle raised his wand pointed it at Mr. Monroe and shouted, "Avada Kedavra."
Mr. Monroe's body flew across the room and feel to the floor lifeless, he was dead as soon as the curse had hit him. Heathers mother screamed again and began crying as was Heather, her mother was trying to shield her from what would come next. Both Heather and her mother were afraid to speak or move for fear the same thing would happen to them. The Death Eaters moved in circles like wolves closing in on their prey and without warning one of them grabbed Heather pulling her from her mother's grasp. "Don't hurt my daughter, "cried Mrs. Monroe.
Heather was terrified she knew that these men were Death Eaters where her parents had no idea because they were both muggles. She knew trying to hex or curse these men would be beyond stupid and could get both her and her mother killed. She had already lost her father and didn't want to lose her mother as well but things didn't look like they were going to get any better and Heather knew that in most cases the families who were attacked by Death Eaters didn't survive.
One of the Death Eaters laughed, "We can't make any promises, muggle."
Heather was expecting her and her mother to be tortured like she had read in the "Daily Prophet". She found herself wishing that whatever the Death Eaters were going to do that they would hurry up and do it. The waiting and not knowing was torture in its self, or so she thought. The Death Eaters seemed to have finally decided what they were going to do with Heather and her mother. Before either woman had the chance to realize what was happening there was a flash of green light and their worlds fell black.
Heather knew that was her death day as some of the other ghost called it, she wished it hadn't come so soon. She had had her whole life ahead of her and because one man thought that purity of blood was the only thing that mattered she was dead. Heather tried not to be bitter about it but with so much time on her hands she found it hard not to dwell on it sometimes.
Most of the time though she spent her days lazing about in an empty classroom on the third floor near the Defense against the dark arts classroom. She expected that it wasn't much of a stretch to return to Hogwarts, a place she loved and felt safe while she was there. Defense Against the Dark Arts has always been her favorite class so it seemed only natural that she should haunt the corridor of her favorite class. She loved the start of term all of the ickles would get lost on the way to class she would take the opportunity to scare the pants off of them. Usually she would pop out of the wall right in front of them and say, "Boo." There were other times when she would follow behind them for a bit then quickly float thru them, she thought that was her favorite. The older students were harder to scare because after a few years they become accustomed to her antics. To Heather they aren't as much fun but sometimes they do let their guard down and she can give them a right good scare.