A/N: Quidditch League Season Four – Seeker (Wasps) – Prompt: We're giving some love to some minor characters this round. I'm not talking about regular humans though. Instead, you will be writing about the folk whose souls are either captured in a magical portrait, or wandering the wizarding world as a ghost. Myrtle Warren (Ghost)
"Oh, it is just so dreadful when your hair won't do what you tell it to," a strange, echoing voice mimicked from somewhere behind Olive Hornby.
Olive froze, her pale hands stilling where they had been smoothing over loose strands of hair from her plait. Annabelle Brown had braided her hair in Potions class, but the damn condensation from the cauldrons had sent her frizz into overdrive, and no amount of gel would calm it.
"Who's there?" she asked, turning and sticking her nose high into the air so that whoever was eavesdropping on her and Annabelle's conversation would know exactly how rude they were being.
"Oh, no one, really. No one at all," the voice murmured, sounding oddly as if it were floating back and forth behind the closed doors of the cubicles. "And I do so sympathize with your struggles, it's only that, you see, it doesn't mean very much to me, because I'M DEAD!"
Olive screamed as the shimmery form of Myrtle Warren burst through the middle cubicle door, grinning behind her thick-rimmed glasses and coming to a halt a foot away from her nose.
"Myrtle," she gasped, holding a hand over her heart as her breathing calmed. "You frightened me."
Myrtle's jaw stiffened, her nostrils flaring as she drew herself up to hover a good meter above the two girls. "I frightened you, did I?" she opined, her squeaky voice thick with a patronizing sympathy. "It must be terrible to be frightened. I wonder what that would feel like. To run, sobbing, into a bathroom, because someone wouldn't stop teasing you about your glasses, and then to come face to face with two great, big, yellow eyes AND BE KILLED!"
One by one, the toilets burst, sending water showering up into the air. The girls screamed and sprinted from the room, followed closely by Myrtle, who howled at them, sending anything that could fly hurtling at their retreating backs.
Myrtle flew through the trophy room, spying a heavy, leather-bound book and levitating it, ready to throw. Suddenly, she felt a sharp tug in the small of her back, and with a screech so loud it resounded all the way to the Great Hall, she was pulled viciously back the way she had come.
She saw Olive stop and turn in the distance, watching Myrtle just before she disappeared around the corner.
"I made the Ministry trap you!" Her triumphant yell followed Myrtle. "You can't leave the bathroom now, you horrible, moaning, old ghost!"
Myrtle gave a final cry of rage as the spell took hold—somewhere far away, the final enchantments were being laid to keep Myrtle from ever escaping her tomb. As she snapped back into the bathroom, there was a sound like a thunderclap, and she hurtled herself at the open doorway to no avail.
She gave a final shriek of indignation before hurling the book that had followed her, caught in her levitation spell, at the wall. It fell with a satisfying thud, and all her rage evaporated with it.
"She actually did it," Myrtle whispered to herself, her nose wrinkling in an impression of the pug-nosed, little girl.
She remembered Olive threatening to confine her to the bathroom, and then to Hogwarts once she had graduated, but she hadn't believed the girl would actually do it. It was only a little haunting, and after everything she had done to Myrtle, the little pig deserved it.
Movement in the book caught Myrtle's eye, and she hovered over to take a look; she was to be trapped here for the next few years, after all, and unless someone brought her something to occupy herself with, it was likely that whatever this book held would be her only salvation against boredom.
When she saw the moving photos in their neat little squares, she moaned aloud.
"A yearbook?" Her screech echoed off the tiled walls. "How can I keep from being bored with a yearbook?"
She waved her hand and sent the book smashing into the other side of the bathroom, giggling as it tore and split. Then a thought occurred to her. She sent the book sailing back in front of her, and spun the pages until they landed on her year.
"Olive Hornby," she whispered with a grin, her eyes twinkling as her ghostly fingers caressed the pages.
With a final shriek, she tore the paper from the book and sent it flying into a million pieces towards the ceiling. Giggling madly, she spun the pages again, searching for someone else she knew. Maybe she could stick it to the mirror with its eyes gouged out, and someone would see and tell them, and-
She froze, her fingers hovering above the page. A young girl stared back at her, blinking owlishly through thick-rimmed glasses. She shifted nervously in front of the camera, longing to turn away and hide her face behind her fringe.
"First year," Myrtle whispered, tracing her fingers along the page as her photo stared back at her.
A small drop of smoke fell sharply toward the page, disappearing before it hit. Another fell, and another, and suddenly, Myrtle no longer had to wonder whether or not ghosts could cry.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, not knowing who she was whispering it to.
The young eyes stared back at her, shifting again and again, wishing the camera would hurry up and take its photo and let her go back to the Common Room, where she could hide with her books and study all there was to learn about Transfiguration. She was going to be an expert one day. She would write books about it, and wizards and witches from miles around would write to her for advice.
"Your glasses don't matter," she said, her voice a tiny squeak in the large, echoing bathroom. "You should never have cried over them. You should never have hidden here, and-"
She hurled the book away, sending it flying with a flick of her hand, but somehow, it twirled up in the air and landed right in front of her.
Her younger self stared up at her, squinting into the camera as if she was seeing it for the first time.
Myrtle blinked; portraits could see beyond their frame—could her younger self see her?
First-year Myrtle frowned, pushing her glasses back onto her nose before her mouth suddenly rounded in a small gasp of realisation. They stared at each other. First-year Myrtle blinked once, twice, before nodding slowly. Her tiny hand reached out toward the frame, and her face shaped slowly into a small, accepting smile.
Myrtle's hand twitched, already reaching forward towards the photo. Behind her, a drop of water hit the tiles with a loud splash, breaking her concentration. She blinked rapidly, looking down at the photo before howling and sending the book flying away from her until it smashed against the wall.
She flicked her hand, and the book sailed through the air and into the middle cubicle, followed by the sound of gurgling water as the broken toilet tried to flush.
"HOW DARE YOU, OLIVE HORNBY!" she shrieked, and the bathroom was filled once more with the sound of hideous, wailing laughter.