Author's Note:
Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition ~ Season 4, Round 13
Team: Falmouth Falcons
Position: Chaser #2
Prompt: Write in a seldom-used genre, and I chose Mystery.
My optional prompts are:
02 - (quote) 'I have a cunning plan.' - Baldrick, Blackadder
08 - (quote) 'Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.' - Mark Twain
12 - (dialogue) "Revenge is a dish best served with sprinkles."
Word Count: 3070
Moaning Myrtle and the
Mystery of the Room of Requirement
Myrtle Elizabeth Warren loved visiting her family's home, but only when they were absent, and she could pretend that nothing had changed since her death. Her parents had been very unnerved the first time she had visited them following her death, especially her Muggle father, and they had never become comfortable with her ghostly afterlife.
There was no television when Myrtle was alive, but one day, while visiting her family home incognito, Blackadder had been on the telly and Myrtle was immediately taken with Baldrick. It was this infatuation that led Myrtle to try writing fan fiction. Myrtle had never had a hobby, but she had really taken to writing, where her imagination could take flight. Myrtle's genre was, of course, the macabre: mysteries, ghost stories, fantastical creatures, and death, death, death.
Myrtle discovered that she also enjoyed taking the mick out of someone, which made her feel like a typical Brit. She would start with a quote from Blackadder and her story would take off from there.
"Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?" Blackadder said.
"Yes," Baldrick replied. "I was just thinking of the famous proverb, 'Revenge is a dish best served with sprinkles.'"
"You are quite wrong as usual, Baldrick."
"Well, if you've just cleaned the coach, and I eat a donut with sprinkles, that's a pretty messy revenge right there…"
"Get out, Baldrick, before I kick you into next week."
Myrtle giggled as she finished the scene. In her stories, Baldrick always came up with a witty reply which would irritate Blackadder.
Humor had really sparked something inside Myrtle. She had been doing a lot of reading on humor. She discovered Mark Twain in her parents' library and had been thinking about how to work this particular quote into a story: 'Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.' What genius! She also thought him quite handsome, but that was neither here nor there.
Myrtle had been deeply unsettled by the battle at Hogwarts, and the constant disruption that had followed. Work to repair Hogwarts was never-ending, and the lack of peace had driven Myrtle to spend more and more time at her parent's home, although she never visited with her parents. After every little stay, as she prepared to leave, she was careful to ensure that nothing looked disturbed. She gathered up her papers, and realized this was the first time that she had done any writing since the Battle of Hogwarts, and she missed it.
Myrtle brought her story home with her from this stay at her parent's and went to the Room of Requirement to store it with the rest of her stories. This was the first time that Moaning Myrtle had entered the Room of Requirement following the war, and as soon as she did, she screamed and screamed and screamed. "What happened?" she cried out, fell to her knees and covered her face with her hands, sobbing.
The Room was empty. As vacant as if a house-elf had emptied it of all its furnishings and then scoured it from top to bottom. There was no dust, no ashes, not a sliver of wood, or a rusty nail, or a biscuit crumb.
There was an odd beauty about the room, the way that something brand new is only pristine once, on the day it is completed but before it is used.
What Myrtle had not known was that during the War, there had been a terrible battle in the Room of Requirement. Vincent Crabbe had unleashed Fiendfyre, which destroyed not only Ravenclaw's Diadem, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, but everything else in the Room, including himself. The destruction was total.
Myrtle stopped crying and began to rock back and forth, hugging herself, moaning. All of her stories, her lovely, lovely stories, that she had so carefully crafted over the last ten or twelve years, gone. She had stored them in an antique wooden lap desk, the kind used by authors and letter writers long before the invention of the pad of paper or the heartless computer.
The lap desk had first appeared when Myrtle came into the room looking for writing supplies. It was on the fainting couch—Myrtle's favorite place to rest in the Room of Requirement—at an appealing angle, inviting her to discover its delights. It was made of rosewood and had a sloping surface that was the perfect angle for writing. As she had opened the lid, she had been astonished by the the organization hidden inside. There were compartments for quills and a delicate, pearl-handled knife for sharpening them. There were several ink pots with glass stoppers, each one holding a different colored ink, nestled in their own little niche. There were slots for parchment and ribbon. There were compartments for blotting paper and there were even lavender-scented sachets. Underneath the hidden compartments, accessed from the outside of the desk, had been an empty drawer where she had stored her completed stories. Myrtle had loved it instantly and polished it with beeswax until it shone. It was the one thing that had seemed like hers, the only thing that her ghostly life had left for her that seemed like home. And now it was gone.
Myrtle left the Room of Requirement and did not return for several months. When she, at last, entered the Room of Requirement again, it seemed to be in the exact same, pristine condition as the last time she had been there. Something was wrong, niggling at the back of Myrtle's mind, but it wasn't becoming a full-fledged thought, so she left. She went back to the room several times over the following weeks, and it remained the same; empty and cold.
It was on her eighth trip to the room that she realized what was bothering her. Why was this room still empty? It had not changed for her any of the times that she had entered it— and that was wrong, very, very wrong. The Room of Requirement was supposed to change, to alter itself to serve the needs of the person entering it. But that had not happened, not any of the times that Myrtle had gone there.
The Room of Requirement had stopped working.
Not completely, Myrtle thought, because it was opening up for her. That was its first task, she guessed, to be available.
If she had thought in a more modern, technological way, she probably would have decided that the room needed to "reboot." Myrtle was not a modern girl, but she set about to fix the Room of Requirement.
Myrtle turned to Professor Flitwick, who had been Head of her House when she was a student at Hogwarts and someone who had always treated her well.
"I believe that the Room of Requirement is injured and needs healing," she said.
"How fascinating," the professor said. "Show me."
Together they traveled to the hallway of the Room of Requirement. Passing the room three times, they stated their need. The door appeared, and they entered.
Professor Flitwick shivered as he crossed the threshold into the cold, empty room.
Myrtle looked around the room, which had not changed since her last visit and said, "It's empty, Professor, and it's always this way when I come here."
"The Fiendfyre, I expect," Flitwick said. "It's certainly lacking in any vitality."
Turning to Myrtle, he said, "Tell me more. Tell me everything about this room since the war."
Myrtle told him everything she knew, and as he listened he took out his wand and walked carefully around the perimeter of the room. He flicked his wand into corners, up towards the ceiling, down at the floor. He put his ear to a wall and listened carefully. He then shook his head and looked at Myrtle.
"Fiendfyre is a terrible thing, and its destructive properties are legendary. It was capable of destroying a Horcrux, which tells us a good deal about it."
He crossed his arms and heaved a mighty sigh. "It cannot be repaired using Reparo, for damage done by Fiendfyre is far too destructive."
He rocked back and forth onto his heels as he thought aloud. "Fiendfyre destroys, utterly and completely, the things which it consumes. But this room is still here; what is gone are the former contents of the room."
He stopped rocking and turned to Myrtle. "You are more right than you know, Miss Warren. This room needs to be healed."
Smiling, he continued, "This room is sentient, I believe that's the secret. The fact that it opened for us at all leads me to have hope."
"But," he added and held up a finger, "It's going to be quite difficult. As Ravenclaws, I believe that we have the best chance of solving this mystery, and fixing the Room of Requirement."
"Oh good, Professor," Myrtle said as she clapped her hands together. "How?"
"My dear, that is the question, is it not?" Stroking his chin, the professor said, "This is a thorny problem, yes indeed. Would you be willing to do a little research in the library?"
"Oh, yes," Myrtle said, smiling for the first time since they had entered the room. "Where should I start?"
"I haven't the faintest idea, my dear," he said, and he left the room.
Myrtle was stunned and stood still as the professor walked out of the room.
"Professor!" She disappeared and then reappeared in front of the tiny man, causing him to stop.
"I'm sorry, Miss Warren," he said, stopping. "I really have no idea, but I will be giving it some thought, and when I have an idea, I will let you know. In the meantime, I suggest you begin in the library."
Myrtle returned to her u-bend where she cried and thought, and cried and thought some more. Having come close to crying herself out, she left the girls bathroom and went to the library.
Where to start? She floated down aisle after aisle, reaching out and touching the book spines, caressing the covers as she went by, hoping that by osmosis an answer would come to her. Her hand began to tingle, and she looked at the title imprinted on the book that had caught her attention:The Ceremonies and Rituals of the North American Indian by Chepi. She picked up the book and caressed the surface. The leather was unfamiliar to her, a nubby texture combined with a suede-like softness that was luxurious under her fingers. She opened the cover and gasped; the parchment was a pale blue-green color, the ink was dark green and the writing was done by hand. She had never seen a book like this and she took it back to read in the girls washroom.
Myrtle had never cared about the world beyond Hogwarts and her parent's home. She had never given one iota of thought to a country across the ocean, but this book opened a new way of thinking. There was magic, of course, but it was thought of differently. Nothing linear, nothing straight and narrow, nothing that she recognized. And it made all the difference in the world.
Myrtle immersed herself in this strange new world and felt herself stretching from the inside out. When the idea finally came to her—the idea of how to heal the Room of Requirement—it seemed organic, and she wondered why she hadn't realized it before; it was so right, so clearly the exact answer. She jumped up, and carrying what she had come to think of as 'Chepi's Book,' she hurried to Professor Flitwick's office.
Bursting in, Myrtle cried out, "I have the answer, Professor!"
The little man dropped his tea and his saucer into his lap, and he jumped up squealing and flailing at his pants as the cup and saucer clattered to the ground, tinkling into hundreds of pieces.
"I'm so sorry, Professor!" Myrtle cried, shocked at what she had caused.
Flitwick picked up his wand and with his trademark flick, he swished away the hot liquid and the broken shards of china.
"Sit my girl," he said, "Before anything else is broken."
Myrtle glided into the chair in front of the desk and sat quietly.
"I presume you have found something," the professor said, holding out his hand to take the book.
Myrtle shrank from his hand, unwilling to part with the book that the professor was so casually asking for.
"That's fine," Flitwick said, sitting back in his chair. "I don't need the book. But I assume that you have found an answer to the dilemma of the Room of Requirement."
"I have," Myrtle said, clutching the book to her chest. "I have a ceremony of healing."
"Hmm," Flitwick said, nodding his head."That sounds quite interesting."
Myrtle looked down at the book in her hands and reluctantly realized that she would have to share it with the professor.
"I found it here in this book," she said, passing the book to the professor.
He read the title out loud, "The Ceremonies and Rituals of the North American Indian by Chepi." He placed the tip of his wand on the word 'Chepi,' and Myrtle was surprised to hear, in the professor's own voice, the translation, "Fairy."
"Ah," Flitwick said, "I was not expecting that."
"What were you expecting, Professor?"
He shrugged and said, "I think I expected to hear something like Golden Deer or Yellow Laughing Foot. But Fairy, that's a surprise.'
Flitwick looked at Myrtle and smiled, and Myrtle smiled back.
"I had no expectations when I found the book," Myrtle said, "But I found it by going down the aisle and running my hand along the books, and when my fingers began to tingle I stopped. This was the book, and Professor, it has changed my life."
Flitwick was surprised at the animation on the girl's face. She was a ghost, after all, almost by definition a life that had ceased to grow well before the owner's life officially ended, yet here she was engaged in a new idea that inspired her more fully than he had ever seen in all her years at this school.
"Wonderful, Miss Warren, when do you suggest we begin?"
"I need a few supplies first, but after that, any time."
She passed a sheet of parchment to the professor and a small list of supplies: a sage bundle, a sweetgrass braid, a large shell with some sand inside, a glass goblet for water, a small salt cellar and wooden matches.
"I will procure these supplies tomorrow, and I say that we begin tomorrow night. How about 10:00pm?" he asked.
"Yes, Professor," Myrtle said.
"May I read this book now?" Flitwick asked. "I will bring it along tomorrow, and I will be happy to return it to you then."
"Of course, Professor," Myrtle said, and she floated out of his office.
Myrtle and Professor Flitwick met in the hallway in front of the Room of Requirement the next night. They walked past the door the requisite three times and entered. It was exactly the same as they had left: a pristine cleanliness encased in a cool shroud.
Myrtle held out her hands for the supplies that the professor had brought. She arranged the supplies on a piece of cloth and then stepped back.
Myrtle created a circle with salt around herself and the professor. She picked up the bundle of sage, lit the tip, and began to walk the circle while she twirled the burning sage, sending the smoke in all directions.
She began to call in the spirits of the directions, and the spirits of the elements, and the spirits of the land and the sea and the sky. Flitwick felt the air grow thick and could feel the energy building. Myrtle put the burning sage out into the sand in the sea shell and picked up the braid of sweetgrass. Lighting the sweetgrass, Myrtle walked the circle again, spreading the sweet smoke and calling in the spirits of love and hope. Myrtle placed the sweetgrass in the sand in the shell and picked up the goblet of water. Walking the circle, Myrtle carried the goblet out in front of her, calling in more spirits. Returning to the center, Myrtle shared the goblet of water with Flitwick, and when it was emptied she set it down in the middle of the circle, upside down. Myrtle sprinkled a little salt in the middle of the circle, and then set that down.
"All right, Professor, we must hold hands and chant. Follow my lead."
They held hands, and the energy began to swirl around them until it turned into a tornado. Gripping each other as if their life depended on it, they continued chanting.
A hole opened up in the ceiling of the room, and the swirling tornado of energy shot up and out of the hole. Myrtle and Flitwick's hands separated, and Flitwick landed on his back. His eyes were closed, and he was afraid to open them. But eventually, all eyes must open, and so did Flitwick's.
He sat up and noticed immediately that Myrtle was gone. He jumped to his feet and looked around desperately, but there was nowhere for her to hide. Also gone was the shell, sage bundle and sweetgrass braid, the goblet of water—everything that Myrtle had requested. All that was left was Professor Flitwick and the room itself.
The room felt different, it felt alive. Looking around, Flitwick saw sconces on the wall with candles in hurricane lamps, glowing away. There was a large rug on the floor. In one corner stood an umbrella stand and coat rack. Flitwick also saw a fireplace with a crackling fire.
The room was warm and cozy and thrummed with life. But Myrtle was gone. Flitwick looked up at the ceiling and watched a book fall from the great height. He picked it up and recognized it as The Ceremonies and Rituals of the North American Indian by Chepi. He opened the book and a piece of parchment fell out. Picking it up, he read, "Thank you, Professor, and goodbye - Myrtle Elizabeth Warren."
He looked up at the ceiling, which did not change, before closing the book and walking out the door. Turning for one last look, he said, "Goodbye, Miss Warren, and thank you." Softly, he then shut the door.