AN: This one goes from 0-100 real fast.

Hogwarts, 1943

Everything was going horribly. Then again, when had things ever been good for Myrtle? Not ever, although at least at home, she had her mum. Here at Hogwarts, she had no one.

Except for Olive Hornby and the other vicious third-year Ravenclaw girls, who never missed an opportunity to remind Myrtle of how fat and ugly she was. "Four Eyes" was a common insult, along with "Tub of Lard." Oh, how Myrtle loathed Olive Hornby. She would get her back if it was the last thing she'd ever do.

Unfortunately, everyone at Hogwarts including Myrtle herself, was inclined to agree on her looks. Her appearance was dreadful. "Smile more," her mum always prompted, but there was nothing to smile about, especially not lately. In addition to being ugly and having terrible marks, her family was utterly skint from the war. Her dad was still recovering from the bombings in '41, and her mum couldn't seem to make enough to keep up with the rising prices. This year, Myrtle had to rely on second-hand robes and the Hogwarts fund. How mortifying.

Yes, Myrtle had been retreating to the first-floor bathroom lately. Not many used it, as it was down a corridor off the Entrance Hall, where most were too busy rushing to and from the Great Hall. She couldn't help it; she was a crier, but she would be damned if she cried in front of Hornby or any of the other spoilt brats at this school.

Somebody had caught her once as she was sneaking out of the bathroom back to Ravenclaw Tower, since it was after curfew: Tom Riddle, the Slytherin prefect everyone fawned over save for his housemates. All of the fifth and even some sixth-year girls in Ravenclaw fancied him.

Myrtle had been utterly miserable that whole day—first, there had been a letter from her mum saying Papa had gotten some sort of infection, landing him in the hospital. Hornby constantly teased her about her stupid glasses, as if Myrtle could've prevented being born half-blind. Then, in Potions, her entire potion, cauldron and all, had exploded and of course she couldn't afford another. Yes, it had been a terrible day, and she was not in the mood to be told off by a fifth-year.

"It's well after curfew, Miss Warren," he'd said in his pompous, arse-kissing voice. He thought he was some sort of professor or something, the ponce. "Return to your dormitory at once or it's ten points from Ravenclaw."

Myrtle had scowled at him. "I don't care," she hissed. "Go away, you obnoxious prat. You haven't got nearly as much power as you think, Riddle!"

His admittedly handsome face contorted into a glare. "Watch your mouth, mudblood," he said quietly.

It didn't take much to set Myrtle off into a fit of tears, but surprisingly, the slur had little effect on her. She knew her blood exempted her from the same acceptance as purebloods, but if Professor Dumbledore kept fighting against magical prejudice, perhaps the view would be slightly altered by 1947, the year Myrtle was projected to finish Hogwarts. If she didn't flunk out before then.

Regardless, it was Riddle who had a stronger reaction to the word than she: "You're a mudblood, too, remember?" she shot back, watching him grow angrier as predicted. Although it was back in her first year, Myrtle remembered how the other Slytherin boys, the poncey rich ones, used to tease him. "Riddle the Mudblood," they'd called him, and "Poxy Orphan Tommy," since he lived in an orphanage.

"Shut up, you stupid little girl," Riddle snapped, "and get your filthy face out of my sight."

No longer glum but giddy at his aggravation, she teased, "Ooh, such nasty words from a prefect. You've got to set a better example than that, Riddle!" She flounced away before he could decide to hex her.

That had been about two months ago. Riddle hadn't retaliated, perhaps deeming Myrtle a waste of time. This wasn't unusual; many people thought the same, evidently, except for her mum and Hornby.

However, Myrtle made sure to stay safely in Ravenclaw Tower after curfew, for there were some odd events occurring around the castle. For one, Bruin Weasley had sunken into a mysterious coma. The speculation was that it was to prevent him from practicing for the final Quidditch game, as he was Gryffindor Captain, but then the same happened to Percival Weaver, who was not on the Quidditch team at all.

Then Florence Gillies had been petrified, and the fingers were starting to point: rumor had it that Rubeus Hagrid, a Gryffindor in Myrtle's year, was raising some type of beast within the castle and unleashing it on other students. Johnny Macmillan, a sixth-year Ravenclaw, claimed that the rumor was bullocks, that the Slytherins had created it to get Hagrid expelled because he was half-giant.

Myrtle didn't know what to believe, other than that the victim's blood-statuses were the same. They were all muggle-born. At least half of Hogwarts loathed muggles and muggleborns ever since the release of that poxy Pureblood Directory, which claimed that the 28 purest families featured were superior to the rest, the most magical. Thus, Myrtle steered clear of the corridors at night.

Tonight, though, an exception had to be made. Myrtle just had to cry, and no way in hell was she letting it out in the dormitory, where Hornby could hear. She'd been picking on Myrtle in every class about the damn glasses, and it was either cry or hex her into oblivion. The latter was not an option, though, in case Dippet wrote to her mum again. Myrtle didn't want to stress her out even more.

She slipped quietly out of the common room and headed to the first-floor bathroom. She could've found a closer one, but she'd grown partial to that one after passing so much time there.

Usually she tried to contain her sobs, but sometimes they slipped out. Recently, Hornby had taken to calling her "Moaning Myrtle," and it was catching on throughout Hogwarts. Oh, how sick she was of that dreadful Hornby. Myrtle hated her, hated Hogwarts, and hated being a witch. She was no good at it.

"I want to go home," she said in the still air. It felt good to speak out loud, so she raised her voice and repeated it. "I want to go home! I don't belong at Hogwarts!" Even if someone had heard it, they wouldn't pause to investigate the ruckus. No one concerned themselves with her anymore.

The wails were bursting out now as Myrtle took off her glasses and pressed her fists against the slippery skin of her eyelids. She was so worked up, she didn't hear porcelain sliding against ceramic and a long, heavy body slithering out of a deep, hidden tunnel.

She did hear the hissing, though. She couldn't understand why someone would be hissing in this bathroom so late at night, but she knew it was a boy's hissing. What on Earth was a boy doing in the girls' bathroom and just who did he think he was?

"Can't get a bloody second to myself around here," she muttered bitterly as she hopped up from the toilet seat, sliding on her glasses.

"Oi, you!" she shouted as she slammed back the lock and kicked open the door of the stall. "This is the girls' room, you—"

Her voice cut off as she came face-to-face with two slimy yellow balls with black slits in the middle. The last cognitive process Myrtle's mind underwent was recognizing that they were a pair of eyes attached to something non-human before her brain shut off. Her vision went black, her heart stopped beating, and her lungs let out their last rattling breath as she crumpled to the floor, forehead slamming against the tiles.

"This bathroom is going to be a lot quieter," said the 16-year-old boy to his snake.

As the basilisk trailed back into the tunnel under his instruction, he stood less than 10 feet away from the dead girl. His first murder—the rush of adrenaline and arousal was something he'd never come close to feeling. It was unparalleled. He was alive.