Disclaimer as ever - JKR's creations…also apologies to Oscar Wilde and Professor McGonagall…I just couldn't resist it!! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please keep reviewing
Moaning Myrtle's bathroom
With a swift glance up and down the corridor to make sure it was deserted, Harry ignored the tattered 'Out of Order' sign, pushed open the door and slipped through, closing it rapidly behind him. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was just as he remembered it: candles were almost guttered in their sockets along the walls, casting a dim glow of light that scarcely penetrated the murkiness of the room. The mirror hung there still, spotted with age, and the row of chipped stone sinks stretched out before him, bringing events he'd rather forget to the fore of his mind. One particular image clung to him: a small red-headed figure lying almost lifeless between the colossal grey stone feet of Salazar Slytherin's image.
Ginny.
He could picture her face so clearly, as white and as cold as marble, Voldemort steadily draining her life away for his own personal gain. Harry reflected with grim determination that whatever it took he wasn't going to let Voldemort get a chance to get near her ever again.
Hearing the unmistakable clunk of a cauldron being set down, he slid across the damp floor of the bathroom to the only stall with a closed door. He knocked softly.
"It's only me," he muttered, praying that Myrtle wouldn't hear him. Hermione's eyes twinkled merrily at him as she peered around the door, then moved aside to let him squeeze through. "Good job Ron's not here," he remarked, cramming himself up against the wall. "We'd never get all three of us in here now."
"Have you seen him?" Hermione asked, passing him a pestle and mortar containing unicorn horn and running her finger down the spell book.
"No," said Harry, and obediently began to grind it into a powder. "His curtains were shut last night when I went up, and he was either asleep or didn't want to talk to me. He'd gone this morning when I got up to come here," he added thoughtfully, pounding a bit harder, half-wishing he could do the same to his best friend sometimes. "Ron, voluntarily out of bed so early? It's hard enough getting him up at seven usually." He shook his head and continued to pulverise the contents of the bowl.
"Well, it's a lot to get his head round," Hermione said practically, measuring out midnight dew and tipping it into the cauldron. "It was bound to be a shock, Harry. It's an incredibly powerful bond, not just any old spell like this one. Seeing that scar on her wrist will have really bothered him."
"I suppose so," Harry replied, passing the ground unicorn horn across to Hermione, and pushing his round glasses back up his nose. "I got a bit of a shock myself when I first saw it. It's still a bit weird, but it's… well, it's sort of nice as well." He felt himself growing red when Hermione grinned as she gave him some daisy roots to chop. "I just wish it wasn't such an issue with him," he added, slicing savagely through the roots.
"Well, he's bound to be a bit protective of her," Hermione said reasonably, tipping some of the other ingredients into the cauldron, and peering closely at the mixture.
"A bit?" Harry spluttered incredulously, spilling some of his daisy roots on the floor.
"Just think about it from his point of view." She stooped to retrieve the fragments from the dampness beneath their feet, scattered them carefully on the surface of the potion and turned to face Harry, her arms folded. "Seriously Harry, just look at the way the Weasley family is; all those boys and then Ginny as the youngest. They've all been brought up to be protective of her, and you know as well as I do that Ron feels it more than the others. He's the closest to her in age, and before he came here they spent pretty much all their time together."
"It's not as if I'd ever hurt her," Harry replied, agreeing wholeheartedly with Hermione's interpretation of events. "Ron should know me better than that."
"The fact it's you makes it worse in some ways," Hermione said obliquely, turning back to the cauldron and prodding the contents with her wand. "He won't want to share you with Ginny." She lit one of her portable smokeless fires underneath the cauldron, and stepped back to watch the blue flames doing their work. "We'll need to come back up here and finish this off tonight," she said practically, tucking her bushy brown hair behind her ears. "We add the final ingredients just before the incantation."
A glugging, swirling noise could be heard distinctly, emanating from the furthest end of the bathroom and heralding the imminent arrival of Moaning Myrtle. As if with one mind, Harry and Hermione sprang into action, squeezing through the cubicle door and back into the main section of the dismal bathroom. Unfortunately they were too late to escape undetected. Water sloshed over the floor as the pearly white ghost floated out of her toilet cubicle, staring down at them with interest through her thick glasses.
"Oooh, it's you," she said with relish, looking at Harry. She bobbed up and down slightly as she floated above the washbasins. "I've not seen you since..." Her voice trailed away, but she smirked as she remembered the incident in the prefect's bathroom. Harry turned scarlet, and Myrtle absent-mindedly picked at one of her spots.
"So how are you, Myrtle?" asked Hermione, with a desperate glance at Harry, who was now making a peculiar choking noise.
"As if you care," Myrtle said tremulously, tears brimming in her silver eyes. "You never come to see me now."
"I'm sorry, Myrtle," Hermione said soothingly to the sobbing ghost. "Maybe we have been neglecting you a bit. How about we come back and see you later?"
"Oh yes. Come and see Myrtle when you've got nothing better to do," she wailed loudly.
"Shhh!" Hermione hissed, fearing they'd be discovered as Myrtle's cries became ever louder. Then an idea suddenly occurred to her. "Myrtle," she added sternly. "If you don't stop crying right now Harry could get found in here. He'll get into so much trouble and then he'll never be able to come back and visit you."
Myrtle's sobs ceased instantly like the flicking of a switch. As she regarded Harry with interest, he could feel his face growing even hotter with embarrassment.
"Thanks, Hermione," he muttered sarcastically beneath his breath. "Just what I needed: a lovesick ghost popping up in bathrooms to see me all over the castle. How am I going to explain that one to Ginny?"
"Myrtle, we'll have to go for breakfast," said Hermione, struggling to hide her laughter at Harry's outraged expression. "I promise we'll be back later today."
"Oh yes," wailed Myrtle once more. "Very sensitive that is, talking about food in front of me, when you know I can't... I can't..." With a final theatrical sob, she shot up into the air and swooped into the furthest cubicle. There was a splash which shot a spray of water over the bathroom floor, followed by the sounds of muffled weeping from the area of the s-bend.
***
The school day passed slowly and rather uncomfortably. Ron wasn't exactly ignoring Harry, but he wasn't talking to him either. In fact, he wasn't speaking much to anyone. It was fair to say that Ron was extremely preoccupied, to the extent where he even reduced tiny Professor Flitwick to anger by his lack of concentration and inept performance in Charms.
"It's not difficult, Weasley," Professor Flitwick squeaked furiously, handing him extra homework as the rest of the class filed out of the room. "You'll have to do better than that to pass your O.W.L.s this summer."
Ron's day did not improve as it went on, and the Transfiguration lesson before lunch was worst of all. Throughout the earlier part of the lesson Harry was acutely aware of Ron sitting across the table from him, frowning thoughtfully at the scar on Harry's forehead. It was obvious that his mind was mulling over the link between it and the copy on Ginny's wrist, rather than listening to what Professor McGonagall was saying. When the time came to transfigure their cushions into chairs, Ron waved his wand vaguely in the direction of his purple checked one and there was a small popping noise as it transformed.
"A handbag?" Professor McGonagall's voice echoed incredulously through the room as she saw the results of Ron's efforts. "A handbag, Weasley?" She lifted the offending article high into the air, so the rest of the class could see it, and a stifled snigger erupted from Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas as they caught sight of the rather fetching accessory, complete with ornate antique brass clasp. They bent quickly over their work again as they caught Professor McGonagall's eye. "And what did you think you were doing exactly?" she asked Ron sharply. Ron blushed furiously and stared down at his feet, prodding a small hole in the carpet nervously with his toe.
"Some day he's having," Harry whispered to Hermione, who was now sitting comfortably in her newly-transfigured elegant leather armchair. He watched her conjure up a tiny table and a steaming cup of tea for herself. He had surprised himself by transforming his own navy blue cushion successfully, although, when he looked at it, even he had to admit that his attention had wandered off the task somewhat. To his horror and Hermione's amusement, it was not only the shape that had changed. Rather than blue, the chair had become a reddish hue not entirely dissimilar to that of Ginny Weasley's hair. Perhaps it was just as well Ron was too busy organising his detention to notice, because Harry had a horrible feeling that his absent-minded transfiguration could very well have been the final straw as far as his friend was concerned.
***
Two heads leaned towards each other talking earnestly, as they sat side by side on the steps that led from the Hogwarts front door down to the sloping lawns in front of the castle. Twilight was settling around them, swirls of ever deepening blues caressing the sky and gently stirring the stars from their slumber.
From the arched window halfway up the marble staircase Harry could only just make out their faces in the dusk. Both wore identical expressions of concern, and both were immediately identifiable even though the night was muting the vivid and distinctive colours of the Weasley hair. Ron put his arm around Ginny's shoulders and hugged her, before the pair of them stared out towards the Forbidden Forest and began to discuss things again.
"It's going to be all right." Harry heard Hermione's voice unexpectedly by his ear, as she too peered down to where Ron and Ginny were sitting. "I'm worried too, but at least they're talking about it now. Come on." She moved away from their vantage point, and Harry followed her up the stairs, walking in companionable silence to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to complete the spell.
Much to Harry's relief, Myrtle appeared to be elsewhere in the castle as they hastily scuttled through the dimness of the bathroom and shut themselves in the cubicle. The cauldron was still simmering away, bubbles appearing at the surface; swelling, then popping gently and subsiding into the creamy liquid once more. New bubbles emerged as Hermione began adding the final ingredients, finishing with the strands of hair from the wand accident the previous day. She turned to Harry and raised her eyebrows.
"Over to you now," she said, slightly anxiously. "You are sure about this, aren't you? There's no guarantee it'll work, and even if it does it might only hold You-Know-Who off for a while."
"Completely sure," Harry replied, heart beating a little more unsteadily than usual as he fished the knife Sirius had given him out of his pocket. "Just tell me what I have to do."
Before Hermione had a chance to explain further, they heard the main bathroom door creak open and footsteps entered rapidly, with the click of the door closing behind them. Someone was out there, breathing heavily as if they had just been running. Harry and Hermione exchanged worried glances, and she moved to the cubicle door, silently pulling it open a crack so she could peer through it.
"Ron!" she exclaimed suddenly, seeing the figure on the other side and wrenching the door open fully. Ron stood there nervously watching them both, an expression of trepidation on his face.
"I…um…" he faltered, rubbing his chin with his hand. "Harry, I've…" He shook his head desperately.
"Ron, it's OK," Hermione hurried over to him and put her hand on his arm, trying to reassure him. "It was a shock for you, that's all."
Ron leaned against one of the sinks and ran his hands through his hair.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he said hopelessly, looking up at Hermione, then at Harry. "Ginny made it all sound so reasonable before." He shook his head again as if trying to clear it. "I know why she did it." He closed his eyes for a moment, then with a steadying breath he continued, gazing at Harry thoughtfully. "She was right, you know. That charm needed to be done. I'd have done it for you, and I reckon Hermione probably would've too. I just…"
"Just wish it wasn't Ginny who'd done it," Harry finished for him, smiling wistfully.
"Sort of," said Ron, sighing heavily.
"I think it worked because it was Ginny who did the charm," Hermione reminded them, looking carefully at Ron and then pressing the point a little further. "More than friendship is needed to make that particular charm so strong."
Ron looked steadily at them, calmer now.
"I know," he said quietly. "Harry, just keep looking after her, won't you?"
"It's going to be OK," Hermione repeated wrapping her arms around Ron.
"Yes," he said, looking more like himself as he hugged her back, burying his head into her hair. "Yes, I think it will be."
Harry's mind was in a whirl. It was as if his entire world had been turned upside down; his emotions felt like they had been removed from his body, beaten with a large stick and then reassembled bruised and battered inside him. Yet somehow the pressures of the last few weeks had simply melted clean away making Harry want to yell with excitement as possibilities he had only dreamed about opened up before him.
"Oh the potion!" exclaimed Hermione, breaking free from Ron and heading rapidly back towards the cubicle and her cauldron. "We've got to finish it quickly. Come on Harry!"
"Wait," Ron said suddenly, and Harry froze in his tracks, heart plummeting like a stone. "Hermione, this spell's to protect Ginny, right?"
"Yes," Hermione responded looking faintly puzzled. "I showed it to you yesterday. Remember?"
"Well, would it make the spell any more powerful if two of us wanted to protect her?" he asked, grinning faintly over at Harry.
"Oh Ron," she said softly, beaming at him. She grabbed the book and scanned through the spell again. "Look!" she cried, pointing out a small passage, which they read eagerly.
"Right then," said Ron cheerfully. "Let's do it."
Harry had been right, there was no way all three of them could fit in such a small space these days, so Hermione was forced into the next door cubicle. She found that by standing on the toilet lid and balancing slightly precariously, she could just manage to peer over the partition and give them instructions. Harry opened two blades on Sirius' knife, and slowly sliced into his own left palm, causing blood to rush to the surface, seeping warmly through the aching wound. Ron followed suit, looking rather pale. Hands extended over the cauldron, their blood mingled with the potion, which began to erupt violently. Wands pointed, the incantation was proclaimed in unison.
"
A flash of light shot through the cauldron and the bubbling ceased.