The headmaster's voice startled the ghost from her new distraction, rolling all the toilet paper off its rolls and onto the floor. For all the time she had spent in the bathroom - in both life and death - she had never cared very much for the old place, going so far as to do her best to vandalize it and in general make it unsuitable for the living. Prior to this new, familiar strangeness of touch, the best she had been able to manage in terms of vandalization was squinching herself up in the pipes, causing the water to back up and flood the room, and the corridor outside with it. (One of her old muggleborn professors, long retired now, had explained that since water wasn't technically a solid, it made sense that she could interact with it).
Now, though, she woke up every morning and gladly separated the toilet paper from its rolls. Sure, it was the summer holidays now so students wouldn't be inconvenienced by her acts, and sure they wouldn't have come into her bathroom anyway due to decades of custom, and sure the house elves replaced the roll every time she moved on to a new stall, but it was still something NEW to do, damnit!
"Myrtle? Are you here?" the headmaster asked again, snapping Myrtle out of her internal digression. She floated through the stall door, accidentally pushing it open as she forgot to de-solidify herself (she had to come up with a better term for it than that). She saw that Mr. Ollivander was with Professor Dumbledore.
"Ah yes, young miss Myrtle," the old wandmaker greeted with a slight bow. "When Albus first came to me with your, ah, unique situation, it proved an interesting challenge. At first, I thought a recreation of your old wand would work best -"
"A wand?" Myrtle interrupted, stunned.
"Yes, Myrtle," Dumbledore nodded. "I wanted to find out if your new...state...allowed for more than just tactile experiences, so I commissioned Ollivander to make you a new wand."
"Well, what about my old wand?" she asked with a huff.
"I'm afraid that it was, well, buried with you," the headmaster kindly pointed out. "It would be highly impractical to disinter the grave, and it's a distinct possibility that it may have become too damaged or simply too rotten after being underground for half a century."
"I certainly can't pay for a new one!" Myrtle pointed out, starting out on the well-worn path to hysterical indignation she usually walked whenever she found herself talking to the living.
Dumbledore placed a calming hand on her shoulder. "Myrtle, please calm yourself," he urged her. "I will pay for any expenses out of my own salary. Now, if you will let Mr. Ollivander continue his explanation..." Myrtle forced herself to calm down and nodded, turning back to the wandmaker.
Looking unperturbed (or at least, no more unperturbed than usual), the eccentric old man picked up as if he hadn't been interrupted. "At first, I thought a recreation of your old wand would work best, but it did not feel right in the making of it. If you will recall, your original wand utilized dragon heartstring, yes? I went through three dozen samples of dragon heartstring, and none of them...fit into the wand, for lack of a better phrase. I went through my stock of unicorn hair and phoenix feather, and none of them felt appropriate either." His eyes had a strange light in them; Myrtle was unable to tell if it meant he had relished the challenge, or if it had driven him near mad with frustration. "Young miss Myrtle, I am able to tell you that not once in my career, not since my apprenticeship ended, have I strayed from those three cores in my craft. And yet, when I was constructing your wand, I found myself considering the possibilities that non-standard cores could provide."
He presented a box that he had held at his side unnoticed. "Hazel, thestral heart-string, eleven and a half inches." Myrtle opened the box and took the wand within. Looking at the two men, she nervously bit her lip and gave the wand a wave.
Silvery sparks emanated from the wand, the same shade as Myrtle herself. She watched with fascination as they slowly fell and faded away, seemingly more like snowflakes than actual sparks.
"Congratulations, my dear," Dumbledore beamed happily. "Would you be interested in re-enrolling in Hogwarts classes?"
Myrtle's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Go back to school? Are you kidding?"
The headmaster shook his head. "Of course not," he assured her. "Let us go to my office, and we shall discuss the specifics...oh, and thank you for your work, Mr. Ollivander." The headmaster shook the wandmaker's hand, and Myrtle gave a curtsy of her own in respect, to which Ollivander nodded back in recognition.
Several questions occurred to Myrtle on the trip to the headmaster's office, and she began to voice them once they arrived. "Isn't it against the rules to have a, well, ghost student?" she asked.
Dumbledore shook his head. "I can recall no such rule in place. There are a few restrictions regarding sentient magical creatures..." He frowned in displeasure at the idea. "However, there are no rules that restrict any human from attending Hogwarts, living or dead."
Myrtle nodded, relieved. "What about my classes? Will I have to repeat first year?" The thought of repeating her first year filled her with nausea.
"No, although you will have to take refresher courses over the summer, both to remind you of what you've forgotten since your passing, as well as to bring you up to date on what new advances there have been in magic in the years since.
The questions continued. Towards the end, Myrtle again brought up the money issue, and Dumbledore assured her that she would be paid for with his own personal funds. "Sir, forgive me for asking, but why?"
A sad, guilt-ridden look passed over Dumbledore's face. "Because, Myrtle, I feel partly responsible for your death. If I had done a better job of protecting the students..."
"But professor, that was more Headmaster Dippet's responsibilities."
"She's right, Albus," Armando Dippet's portrait spoke up from the wall behind him. "Don't beat yourself up over it. And I am truly sorry for your fate, young lady," he said, acknowledging Myrtle.
"Thank you, Headmaster," Myrtle nodded to the portrait. "Professor Dumbledore, even if you had been the headmaster back then, what could you have done about the Chamber of Secrets? The only thing you could have done was to shut down the school before I died, and if I remember right, nobody even thought about closing the school until after that happened anyway."
"You are correct, Myrtle," Dumbledore admitted with a nod. "I suppose...it's just that...you remind me of my...that is, someone, a young lady, who died in my youth. I regret her passing every day as well, but there is nothing I can do to correct that." He leaned forward, looking over the rims of his glasses, his eyes shining with tears he refused to shed. "However, your recent change in condition has allowed me to, in some small part, make up for at least this wrong which I had my hand in." Myrtle nodded, unsure on how to respond to that. Who did she remind the headmaster of? It seemed like he didn't want to talk about it, at any rate. "Do you have any other questions?" She shook her head and, smiling, he dismissed her.
XXXXXXXXXX
The triumphant return of Myrtle Gear Solid! (I really should come up with a better name...)
I considered a few other wandwoods for Myrtle's use. Looking at the Harry Potter wiki, some candidates I had in mind were ash (because of the correlation between ashes and death), willow (for people with insecurities - remind you of anybody?!) and yew (from the Lord Voldemort connection). However, I read an in-universe poem about the composition of various wand woods, and one line specifically stated "Hazel moans", and come on, it doesn't get more perfect than that. (The HP wiki page on hazel did state that hazel wands are more well-suited for those with a firm control on their emotions, but that just means the hilarious possibility of Myrtle's new wand exploding in her hand will ever be lurking in the back of your mind, hahaha).
It seems a bit Mary Sue-ish to have a non-standard core like thestral heart-string, but it made sense to have Ollivander sent outside his comfort zone by the unusual nature of the client, and thestral heart-string just seems so appropriate for a ghost.