This is the last chapter. Sorry. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, but please enjoy . . .

"HERMIONE!"

Ron ran in a half-crouch over to where he could see her leaning back against a wooden, multicoloured rocking-horse.

The little-girl-ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ron just shrugged and turned his attention back to Hermione, who was snoring lightly beside him.

"Hermione," he whispered urgently, "Hermione wake up."

"Wha-" she mumbled groggily, right hand moving up automatically to shield her eyes from the bright, pure white light which seemed to be emanating from the walls.

"We've got to go now Hermione."

"Where . . . . where are we?"

"I'm not really sure actually but please get up now . . ." Ron was really starting to worry about where the girl had gotten to.

"What's that noise?"

" . . . ?"

"That noise, it sounds like someone's crying."

"What?"

"Yeah . . ." Hermione's voice trailed off as she got to her feet and padded deeper into the bizarre and slightly creepy jungle of childhood debris scattered around the room.

Trying to avoid tripping up or knocking anything over, Ron followed, only to find, sitting on a giant jack-in-the-box, the ghost, hands covering her eyes as pearly tears dripped into her lap.

What the hell ?

Unconsciously conforming to widely held gender stereotypes, Ron immediately backed away whilst Hermione rushed forward.

After an awkward moment when Hermione realised that patting someone on the shoulder only worked if that person had tangible mass.

"Hello . . . umm . . . my name's Hermione . . . what's yours?"

"sniffle . . . sniffle . . . Catharine . . ."

"Hello Catharine, how old are you?"

" . . . Thirteen . . ."

That surprised Ron, she looked a lot younger.

"Why are you crying Catharine?" asked Hermione, sounding remarkably motherly and soothing.

" Well I've been on my own for so long, and then you come to be my friend, but now the mean boy wants to take you away from me and it's not fair!"

She was almost wailing by the end.

As she burst into a fresh wave of tears, Hermione looked back at Ron helplessly. What could they do? She certainly couldn't stay here, however sad Catharine was.

Urgh, groaned Ron mentally, hadn't they had enough of this with Moaning Myrtle?

Wait . . .

Moving forward, Ron crouched in front of the distraught girl and waited until she looked up out of curiosity and made eye contact.

"Catharine, I think I have an idea, but you're going to have to trust me, okay?"

She nodded faintly.

"Alright then, wait here, and me and Hermione will come back in a couple of hours to take you somewhere where there's someone I think you'll really like."

". . okay . ."

"Good, we'll see you soon then. Come on Hermione . . . Trelawny might notice we're missing and pronounce us dead or something . . ."

It took what felt like hours to find their way back out of the maze of corridors, and all the time neither of them said a word about their tightly interlocking hands.

But when they finally found their class, they were just making their way back to civilization, so their whole adventure must have only taken about fifty minutes.

"Where were you guys?" whispered Harry furiously when they reunited under the bright lights of the entrance hall.

"It's a long story . . ."

A few weeks later, Harry was walking past the door to the infamous second-floor girls' bathroom when Parvati and Luna came out, giggling their heads off.

"Hey, what's going on, I thought Myrtle had made that bathroom unusable?"

"Oh she did, but then Ron introduced her to Catharine, and now it's our favourite loo, they're both so friendly . . ." Parvati said over her shoulder as they hurried off to their next lesson.

What? Since when did Ron play matchmaker for Moaning Myrtle?

Harry quickened his pace, for once eager to get to potions so that he could interrogate his best friend about this strange turn of events.

Fini.

Alrighty, that's it people :)

Pleaassseee review, it makes my world so much brighter, even if it is the last chapter :)

Bye for now!

Haunted Harlequin x