A Turn for the Better

Chapter 12 ~ Myrtle and Pure Madness

One very wonderful and convenient aspect of Hermione Granger was her ability to "compartmentalize" everything. She could simultaneously agonize over one situation, but handle another, separating them completely until she was ready to deal with them. Another simple way to describe this was she was completely capable of "targeted temporary denial" or pushing one situation to the back of her mind in favor of dealing with another. This 'gift of sidestepping' came from years of dealing with her fear of failure academically, not that she was ever in any danger, but she worried just the same. All she needed to do was focus on what was most important at the time and she was fine.

She read over the book professor Snape gave her, skimming over most of the theories and focusing on what he had highlighted and left notes on. She had an immediate grasp of it.

The fact that she'd slept with the wizard in an alternate timeline was also one she pushed to the back of her mind, not that it was easy. But she knew that it would be dealt with when she next met with him. There was no need to waste energy worrying over it.

Besides, she had something else to pursue. Something rather exciting. Hermione had led a rather dull life at Hogwarts really. Magic was exciting at first, but once she got used to it, it became rather mundane although she did learn new things everyday. But she had never had an adventure. Well, not one she could clearly remember.

That was about to change.

Hermione had managed to evade Neville's questions about where she went the night before, although he had an idea. All she would tell him was, "I'll get my answers tonight, Neville, then I'll tell you what's what."

He had to accept that for now. Of course, Hermione had other things on her mind, things that involved him despite her secrecy.

"Hermione, you really need to let me know in the mornings when you plan on making me skip lunch," Neville complained as Hermione dragged him down a little used corridor on the second floor by his wrist, her eyes determined. "That way I could take a bit extra from breakfast to tide me over."

"Oh Neville, you aren't going to starve to death. Honestly, you sound as if you're on your last leg," Hermione responded. "Missing a meal isn't going to kill you."

"No, it's not, but what you're planning might," he said as Hermione hauled him toward the second floor bathroom.

"Just come on, Neville," she said, letting go of the wizard, pushing open the door to the girl's bathroom and entering. This bathroom was hardly utilized and hadn't worked properly in years. It was always flooding. Another reason it was rarely used was because of someone who inhabited it frequently. Someone who lived there.

Well, "lived" was a bit of a stretch. A better description would be the second floor bathroom was her "haunt," so to speak.

This was someone who Hermione wanted to see quite badly.

"What? You want me to go in there?" Neville said, balking. "That's the girl's bathroom, Hermione! I'm not supposed to . . ."

Suddenly the door swung back and Hermione grabbed him by his robes and hauled him inside.

Neville stood staring at the most dismal bathroom he'd ever seen. It was a gloomy place to say the least. The floor was damp. Stubby, low-burning candles rested in sconces, their dull light reflected off the wet tile. Beneath a large, cracked and spotted mirror was a row of badly chipped sinks, and the wooden bathroom stalls were scratched and flaking. One door dangled off its hinges.

"No wonder no one uses this bathroom. It's a bloody mess," Neville said in a low voice. There was a spooky feel about the place.

"Myrtle? Myrtle, are you in here?" Hermione called out. Her voice echoed eerily.

A low, ghostly moan rose, making the hair on the back of Neville's neck stand up.

"What's that?" he asked Hermione as the moan began to undulate, rising and falling, seeming to come from all sides.

"Dramatics," Hermione replied glibly. "Myrtle's just living up to her name. She's called 'Moaning Myrtle.'"

Ah, Moaning Myrtle. That's right. She was a ghost here at Hogwarts. She wasn't seen much because she mostly stayed in the bathroom or near water. Neville relaxed. Ghosts, he could deal with. Now . . . basilisks? They were a completely different story.

The moaning rose and fell for about a minute more, Hermione folding her arms and tapping her foot impatiently, waiting for Myrtle's grand entrance. She thought she heard whispering in the last stall and started to walk toward it when Myrtle passed through the wooden door, floating toward her.

The ghost was rather dumpy, with a glum face and lank hair. She wore thick, pearly glasses.

"Who wants to talk to poor, moaning Myrtle?" the ghost said. "Poor, pitiful, useless Myrtle?"

Hermione frowned at her.

"Oh, suck it up, Myrtle. You've been dead for years," she snapped at the ghost, irritated at her dramatics. Neville looked on, shaking his head slightly.

"That's easy for you to say. You're still alive," Myrtle snapped back at her, then drifted about despairingly. "I was cut down in my prime, in the bloom of youth . . . I didn't even get a chance to shag anyone."

Here the ghost's wet eyes shifted toward Neville, and she drifted toward him, circling him.

"I'd shag you, if I was alive," she said in a low, ghostly but sultry voice, leaning close, a cold blast of air washing over the shell of his ear when she spoke.

Neville visibly shuddered, going pale. The ghost giggled.

"Myrtle, stop traumatizing Neville and listen to me. I have some questions I want to ask you. About how you died," Hermione said, walking back and pulling Neville away from her.

The wizard sighed with relief. There were few things more disturbing than a dead witch coming on to you. Even in life, Myrtle wouldn't have been his type. He much preferred blondes with protuberant eyes.

Still, what he didn't go through for Hermione. Merlin.

Interested, Myrtle turned toward Hermione.

"My death? You want to know about my death? I'm becoming popular," she said with a hint of a smile. "But there's not much to tell really. I can't remember much about it, only what led up to it."

"Well, tell me what you do remember, Myrtle," Hermione said, a bit softer this time. Myrtle had been murdered after all.

"Well, that horrible bitch Olive Hornsby had been teasing me about my glasses again, making everyone laugh at me and I came here to cry and get away from them. Oh, how I hate her. I'd still be haunting her if she didn't run to the Ministry about me . . . it's all her fault I died," Myrtle said, tears starting to roll down her face.

Neville started to hand the ghost a handkerchief out of his robes pocket, but realized it wouldn't do any good.

"I was crying in the last stall, when I heard somebody speaking and it was a boy's voice," she sniffed, "I opened the door to tell him to get out . . . and then . . . then . . . "

Myrtle let out a long, mournful wail and drifted about dramatically for a moment.

"I died," she said in a quavering voice. "No one even looked for me. It was hours before I was found. That damn Olive Hornsby."

"I'm so sorry, Myrtle," Hermione said, sympathetically.

How horrible. But she wanted to know more.

"Did you feel any pain?" she asked the ghost.

"No. I just saw . . . saw a pair of eyes, yellow eyes . . . over there by the sink in front of my stall. Then I was dead. Dead! Dead!"

Myrtle whipped back through the closed wooden door of the last stall, crying and moaning. Whispering rose for a moment then stopped as Myrtle continued to cry

Hermione blinked, turned to Neville and shrugged.

"That's all we're going to get out of her," Hermione said, walking over to the sink and examining it closely. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the copper tap, and then her face lit up with excitement.

"Here it is, Neville! Just like Harry said in the dream! This is the way in!" she exclaimed.

Neville walked up and looked at the tap. Scratched on the side of it was a tiny image of a snake.

"The way in?" he asked.

"Yes, the way into the Chamber of Secrets," Hermione said, turning the tap.

Neville slapped her hand away.

"Don't do that! What if it opens?" he said to Hermione, looking at her as if she were crazy.

"It won't open, Neville. Only someone who can speak Parseltongue can get it to open," Hermione said, frowning slightly. "And the only one who speaks Parseltongue I know of, is professor Quirrel. But I can't ask him. He'd tell Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore should be told, Hermione. If this is the Chamber of Secrets and there's a basilisk down there, someone in authority should know," the wizard said to her, frowning.

"Neville, before we tell anyone about this, we need to verify that this leads to the chamber and that there actually is a basilisk. We don't want to look stupid, do we?" she asked him.

"Better stupid than dead. Hermione, to even look at a basilisk means death. Plus, a basilisk's bite is poisonous," he said to her.

"Neville, for all we know the basilisk is dead. Salazar Slytherin put it in there centuries ago," Hermione said rather desperately. She hoped Neville wouldn't blow the whistle on this. It could be a real adventure.

"We don't know that for sure, Hermione. What if it isn't dead? What if we go down there and it comes after us?" Neville asked her.

Hermione stood straight up.

"We have magic, Neville. We could . . . we could cast the Killing curse on it!"

Neville hesitated, then said, "But you have to have powerful intent to cast a Killing curse, Hermione, you know that. You have to really want someone dead."

Hermione blinked at him. Was he really that dumb?

"Neville," she said evenly, "how much more intent will we need when a basilisk is coming after us? We'll be able to cast it, believe me."

"How would we aim at it, Hermione? We can't even look at it," he said.

Hermione was fucking insane.

"I'll figure out something," she said, "and you can use some of those spells you developed."

Neville had his arms folded. Always a bad sign when Hermione was trying to convince him of something. She bit her lip, trying to find something that would get Neville on board for this. Then a light bulb went off in her head.

"Neville, if we find and kill the basilisk, we'll get an award," she said to him temptingly, "and Luna would notice that."

Neville went immediately goofy. Hermione smirked.

"Luna," he breathed, then, "you really think she'd notice me, Hermione?"

"It could be your way in, Neville. Everybody loves a hero," she said softly, Neville's eyes unfocusing for a moment.

Poor Neville. He had succumbed to the weakness of many men before him. He was willing to do almost anything to get the notice of the woman he fancied.

Even face a basilisk.

"All right. All right, Hermione. I'm willing to try . . . IF . . . and only if we're well prepared," he said. "Everybody might love a hero, but a dead hero can't love anybody back."

Hermione was so happy she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Neville on his cheek. He reddened, and looked sheepish. Young wizards were so easy to manipulate. He never stood a chance.

"Don't worry, Neville. I'll come up with a foolproof plan. We can't do anything anyway until we can figure out how to get a Parseltongue to open it up," the witch said as they headed for the exit.

"Well, you can forget about Quirrel. Even if he didn't run to Dumbledore, he's said more than once that he can't stand snakes. Some Slytherin he is," Neville snorted.

When the pair left, the door to the last stall opened, and Luna Lovegood walked out, followed by Moaning Myrtle. She had been interviewing the ghost in her stall for a report she was writing entitled, "The Life of the Dead."

The first whispering Hermione heard was Luna telling Myrtle not to say she was here. The second bit was Luna comforting her.

The Head Girl walked up to the sink and looked at the small snake on the side of the copper faucet with her protuberant blue eyes.

"Hm, now that's interesting," she said in her dreamy voice.

"Even more interesting than the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

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A/N: Hermione is crazy. Lol. So, Luna Lovegood is Head Girl eh? Sounds like Dumbledore struck again on this one. I think there's going to be quite an adventure ahead. I believe I'm going to have to charm up an original spell or two to get through this one. Lolol. If Snape finds out about this, he's going to freak. Anyway, thanks for reading. ***