A Tragic Day...
Myrtle sat at her potions desk, paired once more with Quirinus due to them being the odd ones out of the class, all the other students instantly linking up with their close friends as soon as the teacher had even uttered the word 'pairs'. Myrtle was shaking some toad warts into the gloppy brown mixture when she felt a lite impact on her back. She spun round to see a paper ball by her feet. Huffily she threw it over at the bin but it missed and rolled over to Quirinus who picked it up an unscrewed it. Inside was the message 'Enjoy those warts, they match your own.' Written in scrawl across the page at an angle. Q sighed and screwed the paper into a ball once more, throwing it at the bin. The ball hit its led and bounced off, rolling under the teacher's desk, causing a few sniggers from the other tables.
After reading the message, both Myrtle and Quirinus sank a little lower on the desk. The insults were never very good or had little to no meaning, but it wasn't the type of insult that bothered them, it was that it was the idiots lobbing it at THEM that mattered, it was them the ill-educated jocks wasted their precious few brain-cells on insulting. However, it was Myrtle that took it most to heart.
As Quirinus stirred the mixture and charmed the fire into burning less intensely, there was a hiss from a nearby table.
"Hey!" A voice whispered . "Hey, moaning Myrtle..."
Myrtle sank lower in her seat. Olive Hornby the school quidditch captain who seemed only interested in something if involved sport. It was amazing how she had passed her first year exams, if only by the skin of her teeth.
"Hey Moaning Myrtle... How's your potion?"
"It's fine..." Myrtle grumbled
"That's good, because we switched your frogspawn with tapioca!" Olive and her posse sniggered.
Olive broke off her laugh to look at the cauldron, half executing it to explode there and then.
Myrtle looked into the brown, steaming liquid, comparing it to the other groups.
"Looks fine to me..." Myrtle said as cooly as she could muster.
Quirinus looked up from his potions book to say.
"Actually I noticed the tapioca before we added them." He spoke up
"Where are they now?" Myrtle asked.
" I gave it back to the original owner." He gave a slight smirk "I thought they'd be missing it."
Slowly, Olive and her friend turned to look in horror at their cauldron which was now bubbling wilsly, froth spilling over the sides.
Then it promptly exploded, showing the pair and the rest of their friends sitting on the surrounding desks with oozing, thick brown gunge. The class collapsed in a fit of laughter, along with Myrtle and Quirinus.
It took a while to clear up, but soon the class was leaving, some a bit more in need of a shower than they did before they went in.
However, the happiness and laughter of the day was short-lived.
Minerva was discussing the prospect of the school keeping a hippogriff in the grounds with another transfiguration student when something cut through the noise of the crowd.
"Hey! Specky-four-eyes! I'm talking to you!" A voice yelled down the corridor. Myrtle barged through the crowd at a run, tears streaming down her face.
Olive followed, a vengeful glint in her eye.
"Oh no..." Minerva said, turning and trying to fight her way through the throng of people to follow them, but by the time she had reached the edge of the crowd they had vanished.
"Quirinus, have you seen Myrtle around?" Minerva asked a while later when she ran into him in the great hall just before he headed off to his DADA lesson.
"Not since potions this morning."
"I'm worried about her, apparently she wasn't in transfiguration last lesson."
"Olive was picking on her in Potions..." Quirinus suddenly recalled.
"Oh dear."
"Sorry, I've got to go..." Q said as the students began to move along to their next lesson. "Tell me if you find her!" He said as the crowd swept him down the corridor.
Minerva sighed and continued down the corridor, the crowds soon thinning out as they file into their lessons, leaving only a few odd people sitting on the stairs, trying to write out essays as the staircases moved around.
She searches some of the unused classrooms and then the library. No Myrtle to be found.
She was on her way to Dippet's office (the Hogwarts headmaster) to report her missing from class when she noticed that the corridor was almost ankle deep in water. She rushed along to the girl's bathroom. She was met with a horrible sight.
The sinks on the central column where smashed, water pouring out from the broken taps uncontrollably, slowly soaking the floor. The toilets along with their cubicles where shattered across the floor, adding even more water to the floor.
There, lying adrift in a pool of water lay Myrtle. For a moment, Minerva thought something must be reflecting off the water to make it the pink colour that it was, but as she rushed forwards she realised the terrible truth. It was blood. Myrtles' blood.
"Myrtle!" Minerva yelled, running over to the girl, leaning over her, desperately trying to find any sign of life. There was none, not a heartbeat, her eyes were like glass, staring up through her smashed glasses at the ceiling. Minerva tried for a while to resuscitate her, but every chest compression just made more blood speed out across the floor, so she gave up.
For one of the first times ever, she didn't know what to do. She needed to call for help, but this was a very compromising position for her, leaning over the dead body of another pupil, the toilets completely destroyed and the strong, metallic taste of magic in the air. Quickly, she made a decision. She needed a friend to help, but she couldn't leave Myrtles side, then she remembered that she had been taught basic telepathy a few days ago, but she only had enough experience to be able to send a short one-way message over a short distance. She looked round, trying to pinpoint the nearest classroom. To her incredible luck, she recalled that a Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom was just along the corridor, classroom she knew Quirinus was in right now.
Quickly, she concentrated and mad the connection, it would give a hammering headache but needs must as the devil drives.
"'Quirinus! Come to the girls bathroom quickly! Myrtles... Myrtles dead."
She heard a loud crash as Quirinus dropped something made of glass, then a few seconds later there was the sound of running footsteps and a wide eyed Quirinus appeared at the doorway, looking very pale, his knees giving way as he saw Myrtles body.
"Oh god!" He cried, running over to Minerva's side. "What happened?!"
"I don't know." Minerva said, choking up, eyes watering "I just found her like this."
"We heard a crash earlier, but we just passed it off as an explosion in one of the upstairs classrooms."
"What do we do?" Minerva sobbed "We can't just leave her here."
"The teachers will be along in a minute." Quirinus told her
"Do you have anything in one of your books?" Minerva sobbed "There must be some way to save her, bring her back." But she knew all to well that magic couldn't bring back the dead.
"... There is one..." Quirinus said quietly. Minerva looked up.
"What?"
"I-I found it in one of the books in the forbidden section. He said, opening his satchel and removing a browning piece of paper, instructions where scrawled across it in a messy hand. "By the looks of it, it's still experimental, but..."
"It could work..." Minerva said, her eyes beginning to shimmer at the idea.
"But it says we need at least four experience wizards for it to work..."
"We'll we'll just have to compensate." Minerva said, sniffing in determination and standing up, drawing out her wand. Reluctantly, Quirinus did the same.
With a terrified expression, Quirinus held up the paper and they read the first line of the spell.
"Consurgere amicus adambulare!"
Instantly a beam of bright, white light spilled out of their wand, almost taking them off their feet. with difficulty, they guided their wands towards Myrtles's body, the streams finding their way into Myrtles' chest. It was then that they said the next corrisponding words of the spell...
"Dare mortus ambulair geminare!" They spoke, the wands beams crashing like thunder as the played across Myrtle's body until her entire being was lost in a bright glow.
Finally, shouting above the loud lightning clashes that were sounding over Myrtle, the final word.
"Consurgere!"
There was a flash of light and the wands flickered out.
Then, out of Murtles' open mouth, a cloud of grey smoke billowed out, curling up and forming a large cloud in the air. Minerva and Quirinus watched in awe as it continued, forming to the size of a man; then, there was a high pitched scream-like moan and the cloud blew out into a thin line, swerving round the ruined bathroom and then vanishing down the only surviving toilet, a splash of water erupting out of it as it vanished. They exchanged glances for a second, then ran over to Myrtle, hope rising.
Myrtle still lay there, unmoving, no sign of life at all flickering behind her glances. Their hearts sank and finally, as the reality that their friend was well and truly gone, both of them burst into tears.
They would have stayed there, crying over Myrtles' body, but the sound of footsteps from the adjacent corridor caught their attention.
"People." Quirinus gasped. "We need to get out if here..." And , helping the sobbing Minvera to her feet, they ran out of the room. They had barely managed to duck into the next corridor when Olive Hornby rounded the corner, muttering something under her breath as water seeped into her shoes.
"Caretaker?" She called out "The bathroom's flooded and they don't pay you to stand around you know..." She walked up to the bathroom door and promptly screamed, the high pitched screech burning Minerva's and Quirinus' ears. She took a step back and then promptly shot off down the corridor, screaming and yelling all the way.
Minerva and Quirinus didn't emerge from the adjacent corridor and back to the great hall until Dippet and several other teachers were led by a distraught Olive to the bathroom. After a hectic and hysterical scene, they emerged from their hiding place, clam and relaxed faces masking their real distraught inside. Then, when they saw Myrtles body once more, they once more broke down, but this time making it look like it was a complete surprise. They hasn't had anything to do with it, but if they were discovered to have been by her body before Olive had found it then it would have raised false suspicions, and the last thig they wanted was to be blamed for the death of their friend.
Myrtles' funeral was held a few days later in the grounds of the school. Only a few pupils attended, but this included Minerva, Quirinus, Hagrid, Lily, Janes and Severus, along with Myrtles distraught parents and the teachers. As Dippet read the final rights, the undertakers drew out their wands and muttered a spell, allowing the parents to sprinkle transportation dust on the coffin. It vanished, to reappear at the final resting place in the family graveyard.
The rest of the day was quiet. Lessons were cancelled for the students to get over the shock of the death of the student. It was then that the rumours started.
Minerva had no idea who was to blame to start these rumours, but she had a pretty good idea. First it was rumours of people hearing clicks and inhuman sounds in the corridor by the girls bathroom, then tales of shadows across the wall which then transformed into stories of a giant spider roaming the corridors, seeking out helpless students to kill. These rumours continued to spread throughout the school, getting more and more extravagant and out of poor portion each time it was passed on. However, Minerva didn't know its full extent until one day, on her way to Potions, the door to the caretakers cupboard was pushed open ajar and a hissed call was directed towards her.
"Minerva!" The voice called. She turned round to face the familiar face peering out from behind the door.
"Hagrid? What are you doing in there?"
"Hiding."
"Why?"
"Haven't you heard the rumors?"
"What rumors?"
"They think I killed Myrtle."
"WHAT!?" Minerva cried, Hagrid winced as her voice carried round the hallway.
"Shhhhh..."
"But you wouldn't hurt anyone!"
"It's not technically me their blaming." Hagrid explained hurriedly "You see, I have this... Pet. I've had him since an egg and I keep him hidden in the dungeons."
"What is it?"
"It's... It's a spider."
"Oh god Hagrid..."
"They think it escaped and killed her, now all the teachers are looking for me."
"Who told them?"
"Tom Riddle."
"Riddle!" Minerva exclaimed "I should have known. He was probably the one to start all this mess in the first place."
"What do I do?" Hagrid asked "Aragog wouldn't hurt a fly... Well he would hurt a fly being a spider and all, but imagine people were flys, he wouldn't hurt them..."
"Hagrid your babbling like Quirinus does. Calm down." Minerva reassure him. Hagrid took a deep breath and nodded.
"First, were going to release the wretched creature into the dark woods and pretend he was never here..."
"But-"
"Hagrid, its either the spider or your wand. Prioritise for a moment."
Hagrid looked like he was about to argue but then nodded glumly.
"Right." He said, stepping out into the corridor. "but we're going to have to move fast if we dot what the teachers to-"
"Rubius Hagrid" a voice bellowed "There you are. We've been looking for you for a while Hagrid."
Hagrid gulped.
"Come with me" Dippet instructed. "Miss McGonagle, you may go. This doesn't concern you."
Hagrid tried to defend himself as best he could, but the judgement against him was ruthless, along with watertight witness sightings from the DeathEaters about seeing a spider.
He tried to defend himself with he fact that his pet had mysteriously vanished prior to the hearing, claiming that he never kept any creature. However, they found suitable evidence in scraps of food and a ribbon I dead spider skin suitable enough to say that there had been a spider and, with it missing, it was now the most likely cause of Myrtles' mysterious death.
Hagrid was expelled, his wand snapped and he was instructed to leave by the next train back to kings cross station.
The group came to wave him off, but no amount of cherfullness and jokes would mend Hagrids broken heart. They waved until the train had vanished into the distance, then they kept waving.
"He'll be back." James said "You bet on it."
"I hope your right..." Minerva said glumly, and in a dull silence, they turned back towards Hogwarts.