Written for Hogwarts, Charms Assignment 2 - Write about someone hiding a secret from everyone.
It had been a while since Ginny visited the bathroom. It had been precisely 41 days, in fact, and she knew for certain because she had been counting how long she could last before she was drawn back to the place she hated and loved and feared and held dear to her heart.
She was doing quite well up to the 41st day, but it took only a whisper for Ginny to break on the 42th day. She was walking to the Great Hall for lunch when she spotted a pair of sixth-year girls walking behind her, whispering fervently to each other while shooting her poorly-disguised glances. She caught her name, and just when she felt the bubbling panic - Oh Merlin, they're talking about me - she heard the words, "The Chamber."
Forty-two days' worth of holding in panic, fear, longing, and guilt snapped inside of Ginny, and she had to muffle a massive cry as she turned on her heel. She sprinted back up the Grand Staircase and darted into the second-floor corridor.
Ten seconds later, she ran into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. The door slammed behind her as she crumpled onto the cold tiled floor, a soundless, shaking heap of relief and terror.
"Oooh, back again?"
Ginny could only shake her head as Moaning Myrtle let out a humorless laugh. "Seems like the only people who visit me are really just visiting the bathroom…"
"I'm not," Ginny croaked out, lifting her head just the barest bit.
"Not visiting me or not visiting the bathroom?" Myrtle asked. She knew the answer, because Ginny had told her before, Ginny had screamed it out, Ginny had cried the words away, but Myrtle liked to pick on Ginny.
This was on the account that she was very angry Ginny hadn't died that day in the Chamber. Myrtle liked to believe that if she'd died, Ginny would have stayed to haunt the bathroom with her.
(She wouldn't have, but did that matter to Myrtle? … Not really.)
"Neither. Both."
"So who are you visiting, little Weasley girl?"
Ginny clamped her mouth shut and trembled on the floor, refusing to answer the stupid ghost because Myrtle already knew.
"Are you visiting" - Myrtle dropped her voice an octave - "Tom?"
The second-year shuddered but didn't answer. She traced the pattern of a tile on the ground with a shaky finger.
Myrtle was relentless. She let out a rather alarming cackle before saying innocently, "But Tom isn't here, Ginny Weasley. Isn't he gone? Oh, right - he wasn't ever here, was he? He was always in that little black book-"
"Shut up, will you?!" Ginny said loudly. Her head hurt, her heart hurt, her arms sprung into action the only way she knew how: She whipped out her wand and pointed it straight at the smirking ghost. "I'll hex you, I will, if you don't shut up!"
"Touchy," said Myrtle, only sounding the slightest bit concerned. "If you don't watch out, you might end up like me." She, apparently finished with tormenting Ginny, adopted a vulnerable, self-pitying tone. "They were just so mean, so I ran into here and then that boy came without me knowing, and then I was dead, just like that…"
She burst into noisy tears. "And now I'm all alone and I've got no one, not that boy Harry because he never visits me anymore, not even that annoying bookworm, because she hasn't gotten a potion to brew-"
Ginny blocked out the rest of Myrtle's wails and instead turned in on herself.
She hadn't visited this bathroom for the first two months she'd gotten back to school. In fact, Ginny had spent all her time as far as she could possibly get from the second-floor corridor, because that place was the core of her nightmares and hellish memories. She'd avoided it in mind, body, and spirit, and even then, it hadn't been enough.
So she'd tried a different approach - taking it head-on. A Gryffindor at heart, Ginny had decided sometime in November that if she could not avoid the seemingly inevitable nightmares, she would tackle them head first by visiting the very place that haunted her so.
It hadn't worked the way she wanted it to. Because while Ginny had known exactly how much she hated this place, she hadn't counted on loving it at all.
She wasn't supposed to like Lord Voldemort, and she didn't, but Tom wasn't Voldemort, not really - Tom was a different person. Tom was her friend, her enemy, her confidence, her betrayer; Tom was the person she ran to when she had girl troubles and boy troubles alike; Tom was the one who comforted her when she humiliated herself in front of Harry on Valentine's Day; Tom was the one who was there.
And that was why Ginny loved Tom's bathroom just as much as she hated it. It was simply because she loved Tom as much as she hated him.
"Myrtle," she blurted out suddenly. The ghost stopped her shameless cries of woe, surprised that Ginny even had the energy to speak.
Normally, Ginny came, Ginny cried, Ginny screamed, then Ginny left.
"Did you ever have a friend who you could tell anything to? You weren't afraid to tell them anything? You knew you could rely on them no matter what?"
She felt ridiculous, asking a ghost - Moaning Myrtle, no less - but she suddenly felt like it was the most important question in the world.
"No," said Myrtle almost immediately, and she took on a high-pitched voice. "Nobody ever bothered to find out how nice I was. Olive Hornby-"
"Yes, yes, I know," Ginny hastened to say, not wanting to reduce Myrtle to tears again. "Er, well, okay. Pretend you had that friend-"
"I did pretend," Myrtle moaned. "I always pretended."
"Okay, well, pretend again. Now pretend you lost them. You couldn't have them again. What would you do?"
Now she really felt ridiculous - she even cast a glance over at the door to make sure no one was going to barge in on her asking friend advice from possibly the most friendless ghost she'd ever met.
Myrtle, for her part, seemed to be delighted that Ginny was asking her advice. "Oh, well I suppose I'd be sad," she said, trying and failing miserably to look knowledgeable in the subject.
Ginny frowned. "And?"
"Well, I suppose I'd find another friend."
"But I don't want another friend," Ginny found herself saying loudly. "I only want-"
She stopped herself just in time to avoid utter mortification, but Myrtle, who really did know more about Ginny's dark desires more than anyone else in the world (except for him), had already figured it out.
"Oooh," Myrtle said slyly, in the voice of a girl ready to gossip. "Are we talking about him again?"
"Yes. No. Oh, God, I don't know." Ginny put her face in her hands and yanked on her hair.
Uncharacteristic silence followed her desperate attempt to answer, until Myrtle said thoughtfully, "I do feel bad for you, you know. Not only did he disappear, but he wasn't even pretend, was he?"
"Not really," Ginny whispered. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She imagined the smell of ink and parchment, the only scent Tom ever had.
"And he was very handsome too, don't you think?" The ghost let out a giggle. "Did you know what he looked like?"
"No." She wanted to. She wanted to see Tom in her mind, but all she could see were words: Hello Ginny. You can call me Tom. More than that, you can call me your friend. Words, words, words. Don't you trust me, Ginny? And then there were the ones that replayed in her mind every day: I will always be here for you.
"Well, I don't think he was a very good friend, if he tried to kill you." They were possibly the kindest words Myrtle had ever spoken to Ginny, and it was clear that the ghost was ashamed to admit it. She added quickly, "It might've been better if he'd succeeded, though."
Ginny let out a short laugh. "Maybe," she said, and she wasn't joking.
She picked herself off the floor and straightened her robes. "I think I'll go now." She avoided the sight of the sinks, and instead stared at herself in the mirror. She'd lost her hair clip some time in her moments of frenzy, and tangled strands hung unattractively around her thin, pale face.
Ginny bit her lip and turned away, finger-combing out the tangles in her hair. She willed herself to keep in helpless tears as she cleaned herself up and practiced her Most Convincing Real And Natural smile, which was neither real nor natural, but it served its purpose and that was all she cared about.
When she was finally ready as she would ever be to leave the true state of her feelings behind, Ginny opened the bathroom door. "Myrtle?" she said with her back to the ghost, to the sinks, to the bathroom. "Thanks."
She meant it, too. Myrtle sounded sincere as well when she called, "Come visit whenever you'd like. Just don't throw any books at me."
Ginny tediously made her way down to the Great Hall. Her friends blinked at her questioningly as she sat down and began to eat.
"Where've you been?" asked Amelia.
"Library," said Ginny smoothly.
"Are you sure? You look… I don't know. Tired," said Lisa carefully.
"Studying." She casually forked a mouthful of turkey. Her hand shook, but she was well-practiced in the art of staying calm after a panic attack. "We have a test in Transfiguration tomorrow."
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Hermione Granger, her brother's friend, standing behind her. Hermione was biting her lip, but she wasted no time in leaning down to say in a low, concerned voice, "Are you alright, Gin-"
"I'm fine," said Ginny, a little sharply. "Thanks."
"Are you sure, because you look-"
"Really, Hermione. Everyone, actually." She sent a pointed glance at her friends. "I'm fine."
She flashed her Most Convincing Real And Natural smile at them. It worked; Hermione (though hesitantly) walked back to Harry and Ron, and her friends slowly turned back to their food. Ginny sighed in relief.
It worked.
(It always did.)