Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Four (Round 10)

Team: Puddlemere United

Position: Seeker

Prompt: Myrtle Warren (Ghost)

Word Count without A/N: 1,023 (Google Docs)

The life of Myrtle Elizabeth Warren had never been easy or pleasant.

She had been born as the fifth child and third daughter to a poor family. Both of her parents were factory workers and they worked so long that Myrtle barely knew them. She was raised by older siblings and her grandfather who had to stay home as he had lost his arm in an accident around a month before she was born.

For her entire childhood, Myrtle had been the odd one out—the freak—of her family. Yet, at the same time, she was rarely noticed by anyone outside it. Who cared about third daughters of factory workers after all?

It was pretty clear that her older siblings were content where they were and had no hopes of escaping, of moving up the social ladder. Myrtle, however, wanted more and knew that the most important thing was knowledge.

She tried her best to learn as much as possible, but it wasn't even close to as much as she desired. Her mother and sisters taught her how to sew, wash and everything else they deemed important to know for a girl. A future mother, wife and worker.

Hooray.

Things changed when she turned eleven. She got a letter from a school no one she knew—and asked—had ever heard of. Everyone thought it a joke until a teacher—Professor Merrythought—arrived to explain things, thus sufficiently proving that it wasn't.

She was different, yes, but at the same time, she was one of many. After all, there was a whole society of people like her.

This was her chance to escape a boring life! She has the opportunity to learn magic! No one else in her family had ever learned something like that before.

She begged her father and mother that she could attend, and, after the subject of the tuition had been settled, she was allowed.

Before Myrtle arrived at Hogwarts, she knew next to nothing about the school. She did know what subjects were taught, what they expected her to bring and wear, but she didn't know the truly important things.

She had no background knowledge, no idea how their society worked. Did they have the same values? What were their views on things like religion or the role of women? Were there any important laws she wasn't aware of?

Those were only a few of the countless questions that bothered her for months. She had no chance to get an answer to any of them until she arrived at Hogwarts in September. Her family coluld neither afford the additional books that she would need to read to learn more, nor for her to travel to London, to the only place she knew of where she could simply ask.

Myrtle knew that—she didn't even bring up the topic with her parents.

When she stood in the Great Hall with the other first years on September first and listened to the Sorting Hat's songs about the four Houses, she immediately knew where she belonged.

It seems you already made your mind up, didn't you? Do not worry, I could not dare to put anyone with such a thirst for knowledge anywhere but "RAVENCLAW!"

It didn't take Myrtle long to realize that, as much as the two worlds were different from each other, they were still the same when it came to certain things.

People in general paid way too much attention to outward appearances.

Perhaps she had glasses, perhaps she had gained a few pounds—the food was just so good and she couldn't let it waste. Not after the hunger she had been forced to endure—but that should not mean she should be treated any less.

Except, for some reason Myrtle would never comprehend, that was how the world worked.

Olive Hornby was beautiful, any fool could see that.

Myrtle Warren wasn't and that was just as obvious.

Oddly enough that seemed to give Olive permission to constantly harass and belittle her to the point that no one wanted to be Myrtle's friend.

It came to the point where she spent every free minute either hiding, sobbing or a combination of both.

There she was, in a castle full of people like her and yet still incredibly lonely.

On the day of her Death—not that she suspected anything like that before it happened—Myrtle happened to hide in the bathroom on the first floor.

She heard a noise, investigated and then nothing for a few minutes.

I died, she realized. This can't be the end.

And so she returned to the world of the living, though no longer one of them.

She stayed with her body, not willing to leave it alone. There was just too much that could happen.

Once Olive Hornby of all people had found her—oh how Myrtle had laughed at her expression—her parents were called.

To her amazement, they actually came. She wouldn't have thought they had the time.

Myrtle had started questioning her choice to become a ghost not long after she made it.

After all, once Olive Hornby moved very close to the entrance of Ministry, she couldn't hunt her anymore. And no one else had really deserved it quite as much as she did, thus Myrtle had absolutely no purpose.

She was no house ghost like the Grey Lady or the Fat Friar. She was not funny like Peeves was. She was simply one ghost of many, lost in the crowd.

Myrtle wasn't happy with that. She wanted to stand out, to be special, but not this.

So she started hiding in the very place of her death. How poetic, how morbid.

Myrtle didn't notice a lot outside of her sheltered bathroom. She barely realized that students came and went. To her, all faces looked the same. Sure, there were differences, but there was one thing they all shared and that was the most important of all.

All of their faces showed annoyance, disgust or—in increasingly rarer cases—pity when they looked at her.

It didn't take long until she despised her afterlife.

So she cried. Every day and night, she cried tears of debatable existence. How lonely, how sad.

Please tell me what you think!

~Marvelgeek42