Written as a chaser 2 for Pride of Portree for round 4 of the quidditch league fan fiction competition.

Main prompt: Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California: Write about a house with troubling secrets.

Additional prompts: (Action) Screaming, (Emotion) Suspicious, (Word) Haunt.

TW: Character death and suicidal thoughts.

A:N: This might not be the most interesting fan fiction you've ever read, but I wanted to do Myrtle some justice and tell her story.


Sweet Death

The day I became a ghost wasn't really unlike all the others; someone, usually Olive Hornby, teased me about my appearance and I ran off to the second-floor bathroom. I was trying my best to be quiet as I cried over my miserable life. Someone entered the bathroom, startling me. Suddenly a boy said something unintelligible in another language. A boy. I quickly unlocked the door to tell him to leave the girls's bathroom. To my horror I was faced with a pair of bright yellow eyes belonging to some dangerous creature. Before I was able to react, I found myself unable to move and fell backwards.

Growing up I had always been taught that after death you came to heaven, however that was not what happened to me. My heart had stopped beating and I wasn't breathing, just laying there petrified. I couldn't move my eyes, so I remained on the ground, eyes fixed on the ceiling, contemplating life and plotting different ways to make life as miserable as possible for my bullies.

The bathroom was quiet, aside from a repetitive dripping coming from one of the sinks. Someone opened the door and I lost count of the drops. "Are you in here again, sulking, Myrtle?" came Olive's familiar voice, "because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you–" Then she screamed loudly as she spotted my body, gaining people's attention. I hate you. I will hate you forever. I thought as I looked up at the people staring down at my dead body.

When the professors had sent all of the curious, hysterical students away; they cloaked my body with a white sheet. Were they going to bury me? How would I ever get revenge on Olive if I was stuck in a wooden chest deep down in the ground? My soul left my body in the literal sense and I floated away from my body, watching from behind a lavatory door as they put me on a stretcher and carried me out of the room. I looked down to see a diaphanous version of my own body. I would make her regret every cruel word she said to me.

oOoOo

I lacked the guts to stay at Hogwarts after my death, but as soon as my classmates had graduated I made sure to make them pay for what they did to me, especially Olive. My new favorite pastime activity was to haunt and scare the life out of her. I kept screaming in her ear to wake her up in the middle of the night before I hid and repeated the action as soon as she'd fallen back into a nice deep sleep. The frightened, shocked and confused look on her face was a sight to see as I made sure to disappear before she could see me.

One day I overheard Olive telling her boyfriend that her brother was getting married and I instantly knew what the next step in my revenge plan would be. It was a beautiful ceremony and the pair seemed happy. Afterall, it wasn't his fault that his sister was an insolent, wicked bully, so I let the mischief wait until later.

I hid underneath the cake table, waiting for Olive's familiar dark green heels to make an appearance. Did she not like cake? I was just about to start pursuing my plan B when I heard the clicking of heels for the hundredth time of the evening and I checked, just to be sure. They were hers. "Do you want a piece as well?" Olive asked her companion as they approached the table. "Yes please," answered the voice I recognized as the bride's, the ruffle of white skirts confirming my suspicion.

I reached out and tickled her ankle with one hand and pulled at the table cloth with the other. She shrieked as her plate and not to mention all of the wedding cakes crashed down by her feet, some splashing up on her and the bride. I waited impatiently for the incident to gather attention from the rest of the guests before I left my hiding place.

I recognized many of the guests as my old classmates and tried to drown out their surprised gasps as I bored my eyes into Olive's. "What you did to me will haunt me forever! You will not have a single moment of peace for the rest of your life, I will make sure of that!" I screamed, circling the room. She clenched her jaw as she stared at me as if she could not believe her eyes.

A few days later the ministry restrained me from haunting Olive, forcing me to remain at the Hogwarts school grounds. It might seem weird at first, but I adapted to traveling through the sewage system instead of floating around in the hallways as any other ghost would.

The bathroom where I met that strange creature's petrifying gaze became my main home quarter as that's where I had spent a lot of time fantasizing about dying while I was still alive. Rumors spread quickly through the school and soon enough everybody knew to keep away from the second floor girl's bathroom that was haunted by a crazy ghost girl. Not that I minded the privacy, I could always hide in another one if I wanted to eavesdrop on the girls' secrets and gossip.

On the days around Valentine's day It was expected that a girl or two would shed their tears in my company instead of letting the other girls see them in their heartbroken state. Those girls were nice to me and let me comfort them and rant about all the crushes I'd had on living boys over the years which of course would never work out as I wasn't a living girl. Then they never returned or sought out my company again,

Most of the other ghosts didn't approve of me, so instead I found kindred spirits in some merpeople who disliked people and life in general just as much as I do.

oOoOo

Since nobody used my bathroom it became a place where questionable or private affairs happened. Some years there was a lot of activity going on and some years I got to have the bathroom all to myself.

After a few years of peace and quiet I was surprised to see a red haired first year wander into the bathroom several times during the first week of school. The little girl seemed a bit lost and always had a strange look on her face. She also carried a little black book with her, possessively clutching the diary to her chest. As if that wasn't odd enough she stood still for several minutes, staring at her reflection in one of the mirrors by the sinks. Didn't they have mirrors in the other bathrooms or in the dorms?

She kept hanging out in my bathroom, always ignoring me. Eventually I thought nothing much of it; maybe she just liked having long staring contests with herself without being interrupted. Her eyes looked a bit strange, almost red. Must be because she stares for so long without blinking.

A few days after Halloween night when I had once again found myself attempting to end my eternal life I caught three young students; two boys and that rude, spotty girl Hermione brewing a potion in my bathroom. Worst of all, they were talking about me. Hermione and the red headed boy were both very rude, but the cute boy with messy black hair and round glasses was perfectly polite. Otherwise I wouldn't have answered their questions about the incident on Halloween.

They returned everyday for a few weeks to check on their potion, sometimes all three of them, but most days it was just the girl alone. I waited everyday for Harry to visit me and paint my dark reality a nice shade of gray. I told my underwater friends all about the funny things the pretty boy and his friends were up to. One day I returned from my trip from the black lake and found two unfamiliar boys and Hermione with a cat face. I couldn't stop laughing. The rude girl deserved it.

Harry and his friends stopped visiting me, though the strange red haired girl remained a regular visitor. She even threw her stupid book through my head, interrupting me when I was in the depths of despair.

I was trying out the young girl's hobby of having staring contests with herself in the water of my favorite toilet when I heard the door open. I lost the contest and peeked my head through the cubicle wall and saw Harry, his friend and a very handsome man standing by the sinks. What is it with living people and that sink? They asked me to tell the story of my death which I was delighted to do as it was one of the happiest moments of my life; until I died.

I had to stop myself from screaming when Harry began speaking the same strange language that boy had spoken all those years ago. I covered my eyes in fright, peeking through a small gap between my middle finger and forefinger. The sinks all moved out of the way, leaving a large hole in the floor through which my visitors disappeared.

My curiosity took over and I followed them down into what seemed to be a secret chamber. Suddenly a wall fell down, leaving a wall of heavy stone blocks between Harry and his friends. I followed him, keeping my distance, but making sure he was alright.

What I saw next was something I never in a thousand years would have expected; Harry was speaking to an older boy in that strange language and on the floor beside them lay the young red haired girl, unconscious. I gasped as the dangerous, yellow-eyed creature that took my life began chasing Harry through the tunnels. I tried to save Harry by getting the creature's attention which didn't really work out as I was petrified of meeting those yellow eyes again.

Instead I hid behind a large stone block, watching as Harry bravely fought the creature and he- he won. I smiled softly and admired him as he let a red and orange bird tend to his wounds. My moment of happiness was ruined when the red haired girl woke up and he looked at her with a tenderness I knew I would never deserve from him.

I was dumbfounded to learn that I had shared a home with my murderer for decades.

My bathroom housed several wicked creatures. I am not one of them, I tried to convince myself as I floated up through the ceiling, wanting nothing more than to get away from the scene and loathe yet another living girl for having a shot with the living boys.