This is a drabble for Lady Eleanor Boleyn's Births, Marriages and Deaths challenge on The Dark Lord's Most Faithful Forum. Well… enjoy, I guess ;)

400 words exactly.

It is not her darkest hour, not quite – her chest merely rises and falls in strangled, sickening hiccups as her back leans, slightly hunched, against the hard cold wall. Her hair is sticking to her wet cheeks and she chokes with nothing but the dull, sour taste of the ordinary. It is Myrtle in a bathroom stall, wailing out her miseries, just like two hours ago and the previous day and the one before that.

There is nothing special about this moment, only the heavy cloud of pathetic that hovers over her head and shifts moodily when she moves to wipe her glasses, thick lenses dirty with stains of tears that seem to obscure her vision like something truly shameful. It reminds her, somehow, that she can't even feel wallow in self-pity – that she is ugly, that she is silly, and she's as good as brought it on herself. Hiding in here cannot bring her peace – what, Myrtle? Come out of your little den, have you? Ugh, you smell like the toilet now, you revolting little- – and she certainly won't earn the other girls' respect this way. There is no way she can achieve that, she knows – but still she heaves herself to her feet, and tries to remember her first morning on Platform 9 ¾, back when she still had a bit of pride, back when she believed Hogwarts would be the best years of her life –

Myrtle tries, but before she can get a hold on that feeling, that hopefulness, that sense of belonging, she hears a voice, a very odd voice producing a very odd sound. It is a boy's voice, and a boy has no place here – she does. She tells herself that, braces herself, and walks out of the stall to chase him away, because she can, she can, she will. She walks out and turns her head and opens her mouth –

There is nothing special about this day, and nothing special about this feeling. It doesn't even hurt and she doesn't know, at first, what is happening to her. She just sees the yellow eyes, she sees them shine, and then everything becomes quite blurry. She feels no pain. She doesn't feel a thing, actually, as she floats, her body crumpled in a heap on the ground below.

She blinks, up above, and slowly processes that she has just slipped into the afterlife.