Myrtle's Choice

A/N: Well, as you can see, this is my idea of a ficlet. I just cannot write short! ;) In addition, this is a crossover with Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and Death, Dream, and Desire are his. Plot plus smut! Originally written for The Smutty Classroom Back to School challenge, and edited down from a version that cannot be posted here and exists... elsewhere. Interested and of-age parties can email me. Enjoy. And yes, this is actually set in the JotHiverse, and will eventually be congruent canon with it. A lot of things hinted at here (including the D/G ref) will *eventually* be explored in greater detail in JotH and its sequels. If you've been following JotH, this is consistent with the AU world Loki shows to Sirius in Chapter 17 (which IS coming out SOON!!) The reference to Myrtle's memory of the Lux Radio Theatre of the 1930's is accurate--as you know, I'm the Research Queen.

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Myrtle likes the prefects' bathroom much better than the dreary girls' bathroom on the third floor that she has been appointed to haunt. Yes, infinitely better, she thinks with satisfaction as she looked around the room of white marble, discreetly lit by a single golden chandelier, the small swimming pool already filled with perfumed hot water, the white linen curtains at the windows gently blowing in an invisible breeze. She sits on one of the golden taps, perched in what she sincerely hopes is an elegant pose, one elbow on her knee, one foot swinging casually back and forth. She is ready. And although it will not be easy to paste a convincing look of surprise on her face when she sees Harry Potter, she wonders if it would be wise to do it.

After all, she knows he is coming. And she knows why.

There had been an undercurrent of whispering among the ghosts of Hogwarts all summer long, but none of them liked Myrtle, and so none of them had told her. Except for Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. "There is something you should know, dear lady," he had murmured to her in the deserted third-floor girls' bathroom a week before.

It had been a particularly dreary day, one of those when Myrtle had been forced to listen to several hours of Gryffindor fourth-year girls' whispering and giggling about boys, huddled in a corner near her stall, until she wanted to drown them all. She had nearly snapped at Nick. But he had always been kind to her, treating her with a courtly elegance that seemed to belong to a rarer, finer world, and a regard she had never known in life or death. So she had said, as calmly as she could, "What is it?"

"Do you know Harry Potter?"

"Yes," she'd said cautiously, thankful that ghosts could not blush. What a fool she'd made of herself over him two years before, she thought bitterly.

"Then do not be surprised if he comes to you soon."

"Comes to me? What do you mean?"

But Sir Nicholas had only looked at her with his dark, spectral eyes, and said no more.

"Myrtle!" Harry calls to her now, and his voice echoes off the marble walls in a soft susurration of sound. Myrtle... Myrtle... Myrtle... "Where are you--I know you're here, you weren't in your bathroom--oh."

She cannot suppress a tiny thrill of satisfaction. He has looked for her, he wants to find her. "I'm here." Her eyes devour him, hungrily. How much he has changed. Manhood is almost on him; it is in every line of his lanky, rapidly growing body, the planes of his face, losing all their childish roundness, the knotty tendons and sinews of his hands. And it suits him well.

"You haven't been to see me in ages and ages," she says reproachfully, as he draws nearer. She cannot help it.

"Sorry," Harry says soberly. Yes, there is something sober about him now, something almost eerily adult. What have the last years done to you, Harry Potter? She wonders. But she cannot ask. Not yet.

"Ron gave me the password. Didn't ask me why I wanted it. Nobody asks me questions like that, these days. Told me what hours to come so that I wouldn't find anyone else here. I--" He begins to speak again, and then stops. His face is troubled. "I came to see you because--well, because I wanted to ask you something. I don't know if you can help. I don't know if I'm being stupid. Nearly Headless Nick already said he couldn't help, I don't know why I thought you could. But I have to ask--"

It is painful for him to say these things; she can tell, painful for her to listen to them. Myrtle had wanted to draw this confession out further, to give herself more of a chance of hear his voice, but she cannot. She holds up a hand, forestalling him. "I know what you're going to ask."

He sighs, and his shoulders droop wearily. "And you're going to say no, aren't you. Sirius Black never became a ghost. He didn't choose that path. You can't help me find him. I don't know why I thought--" He is turning to go.

"Wait!" Myrtle squeaks.

"Yes?" He turns back.

"Maybe I can find out something. I think I can. I'll ask the merpeople--and there are loads of magical creatures in the lake who might know things the ghosts never get to hear--just give me a little time. Would you, Harry?"

And the smile that flashes across his face and lights up his green eyes is splendid to see. But also terrible. Because it only throws into greater relief the haunted desolation of that face, Harry's face. And seeing that smile, Myrtle's heart twists with pain and passion all over again, and she knows, once more, that one does not need flesh to feel.

"Myrtle--" he says. "If you could, oh, if only you could--I'd never forget it, never. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Come back in a couple of days," she says softly. She watches him leave, and even his step is a little more buoyant, as if a bit of the inestimable burdens that drag at him has lightened. Poor Harry, she thought. And poor me. It's all going to begin again.

When he comes back for the first time, she spins a story about needing to wait to see the wise-woman of the merpeople, who is currently in seclusion in the underwater crystal cave of vision. When he comes back for the second time, she lies on the surface of the pool and tells him a long story about the secret library belonging to the giant squid, which she entered with the aid of cunning, guile, and a basket of fish guts. Harry leans on the edge of the pool, treading water as he listens to her, and laughs. "I haven't laughed in a very long time," he says afterwards. The third time, she tells an elaborate tale involving a shark, a sunken ship, and a parchment with various arcane wisdoms encoded on it in the secret language of Atlantis, and he listens. But soon she is running out of stories to tell. The weeks stretch on, and she cannot tell him the secret he wants to know. At last she grows nervous. He cannot be wanting to come here for her company. Myrtle knows too well what she is.

One afternoon, Susan Bones is at the centre of a clot of sixth-years continuing the unending chatter about boys that always seems to be taking place in Myrtle's bathroom. Someone mentions Harry's name. Susan giggles, and looks down. Myrtle throws one of her old fits and rages and storms until all the girls scatter, looking back at her as they go, startled. She hasn't behaved that way in a long time.

Harry strolls into the prefects' bathroom one early morning, which is always a safe time because all the prefects consider late rising to be one of the perks of their position. "What d'you have for me today, Myrtle?" he asks, slipping into the water, paddling over to the tap she likes to sit on as she talks. "I liked that last story you told about the scrolls hidden under the lost sea of Villa Maris, on the planet Mars. Though I must say I never heard it was connected to the Hogwarts lake by an underwater tunnel."

She slaps her hand down on the surface of the water, wishing viciously that it was solid. But her fingers, as always, are like wisps of smoke. "I don't have any stories today."

"Come on, Myrtle." He looks up at her, smiling. "Can't you think of even one little story?"

"No," she says in a low, deadly voice, trying not to cry. "None of them were true, you know."

Harry seems at a loss for words. "Well--maybe good stories don't always have to be true."

"But I've wasted all your time."

He shrugs. "Maybe I don't feel it's been wasted."

This strange, oblique kindness is more than she can bear. She has been a diversion; he has been amused; his mind has been taken off the sorrows he has never confided to her. He has scarcely ever said anything to her, in all these weeks. She has done all the talking.

Her temper snaps. "I told you all those stupid fairy tales because I never knew anything about Sirius Black! Neither did anyone else. He's dead! Dead, do you hear me? And because he didn't choose to stay here, didn't choose to become a ghost, you'll never see him again! Now get out!"

His face cracks into a thousand pieces, as if she has thrown a stone through the looking-glass of his soul. "Myrtle--" he begins, in a choked voice.

There, there is the emotion she wanted to see. But her victory is dust and ashes in her mouth. Myrtle turns away, leaning her head against the tap, wishing she could feel it. "Just go away," she moans.

He does. She is sure she will never see him again.

But three days later, she does.

"I knew it all along," he says without preamble, as if they have only just picked up the thread of the conversation. "I only needed someone to say those things to me, and nobody will... they're trying to be kind, I suppose. As if kindness could make any difference to me." Harry's mouth twists up into a half-smile. "You understand things, don't you, Myrtle? Things that the living can't understand?"

"I suppose I do," she whispers.

"Can I--" He looks uncomfortable. "Can I keep coming back to talk to you here?" he asks in a rush.

"Yes," she says, and she cannot help the smile that spreads across her entire face.

That is the true beginning; some mysterious barrier has fallen between them after that, and they can never be strangers again. He likes best to paddle at the edge of the pool and listen to her while she perches on the golden tap, but sometimes they swim together, although it is, of course, artifice on her part, and sometimes he spreads out towels on the marble floor and they lie side by side as he talks to her. Some nights, very late, he enchants the ceiling so that it mirrors the night sky, and points out constellations to her.

One night, near Halloween, he brushes past Draco Malfoy, leaving the prefects' bathroom even as Harry is entering. Malfoy, who had been smoothing down his damp silvery-blond hair, stiffens and looks at him with venomous dislike. His face is very red, nothing like its usual paleness. But as he opens his mouth to speak, Myrtle shoots him a quelling glance. He gulps and hurries out the door. For some strange reason, he almost seems to be limping.

"I can't believe what I just saw," says Harry. "Malfoy, speechless. How did you do it, Myrtle? You ought to bottle it and sell it."

She giggles. "Oh, I know a secret, that's all. He wasn't here alone."

"Ugh." Harry eases into the water. "I don't think I want to hear about this one. Pansy Parkinson, was it?"

"Thank all the gods, no. Not that I haven't seen him with other people before--he does seem to have rather a fetish for bathrooms, but--"

Harry stops dead. "What? You've seen Malfoy with--do you mean--"

"Well." Myrtle looks down, at the marble floor. "In fifty years, I've rather seen everything, Harry. There's scarcely any variant on shagging or buggering or wanking off that I haven't seen, it's safe to say."

"Oh God," groans Harry. "You can go to any bathroom, can't you? That means you've seen--oh, this is the most embarrassing thing I've ever--"

"I've never watched you!" protests Myrtle. And it's true; she hasn't. In the past two years, there has been some sort of honor that has kept her from observing Harry in those private moments, although she easily could have done. But she's never seen him with anyone else anyway, and the thought is suddenly sad. His life is so devoid of touch; there are only the secretive, furtive times in the boys' bathrooms when he touches himself, and she has always looked away then.

"But you've watched everyone else," says Harry.

Myrtle shrugs. "When you're a ghost, there's not much else to do."

"All right, I have to ask," sighs Harry. "I know I'll regret this, but Malfoy and who?"

Myrtle tries to think. "Give me half a sec... well, Millicent Bulstrode, and Sadina von Tussel, and Xanthia Morgan, and Blaise Zabini, and Justin Finch-Fletchley, and once the entire Slytherin Quidditch team but they were all quite drunk, and--"

Harry actually slaps his hands over his ears. "No! No! I don't want to hear about everybody. Who was it this time?"

"Oh. That youngest Weasley girl. Ginny, the one who used to come into my bathroom sometimes during your second year."

"Ginny?" His mouth drops open. "Sweet, innocent little Ginny?"

"Oh, I forgot. She's Ron Weasley's sister, isn't she?" Myrtle decides that she should have kept her own mouth shut.

"I don't believe it."

"Well, it's not quite what you think. They came in here and had an awful argument and he tried to drag her into the pool. Then she kneed him in the groin and ran out into the corridor. No shagging involved."

Harry snickers, but there is something bitter about the sound.

"I suppose you'll still have to tell Ron Weasley though. He's your best friend, isn't he?"

He is lying on the towels he has spread out now, and he rolls onto his back, sighing, one arm thrown over his head. "He was, once... lie down next to me, Myrtle. Like that. Is the marble too hard; should I try a better Cushioning charm?"

She hesitates. "I can't feel it, Harry."

"That's right. I forgot. It's easy to forget." He turns and looks at her intently. The candles in the chandelier are burning low. "In this light, you know, I can almost forget you're a ghost. You almost look real." He reaches out to brush her lanky hair from her forehead, and his hand goes through it. "You see, I did forget," he says. "Can I take off those glasses of yours?"

"No," she replies. "They don't come off."

"That's a shame. I wanted to see what you looked like without them... I can't tell what color your eyes are... were..."

"Brown," she whispers. "With a little gold in them."

"I wanted to tell you something," he says. "About something that happened." He sighs deeply. "You know we've kept up Dumbledore's Army. I told you that. Well, after one meeting a few weeks ago I was, ah, talking to Susan Bones. You know her?"

"A bit," said Myrtle.

"Well, I, er--I asked her to the Hogsmeade weekend in October. The one that was last week."

"Did you."

"And--well, I'm not going to go through the entire thing, but--at the end of the day, I tried to kiss her."

"Oh," said Myrtle. Her heart has sunk to the bottom of her chest. She can feel it quite distinctly, even though she no longer has a heart or a chest. He is still quite near to her. She can feel the warm puffs of his breath as he talks, in that strange, distant way that ghosts do feel things.

"She wouldn't let me."

"Oh." And now it is lifting again. She feels that impossible sensation, too.

"Myrtle," he murmurs. He moves even closer. "It's been so long, so long. Cho kissed me last year, before it all went so wrong--and Tonks kissed me once on my birthday, this summer, in the kitchen at Twelve Grimmauld Place, and afterwards she said she was drunk and we had to forget about it-- but I know what it feels like, now, and it hurts not to have it, hurts me here--" He struck his chest. "It's like an empty space, and--can I kiss you, Myrtle? Can I? Please?"

"No," she says, and saying that one word is a piercing sharp pain.

His face falls. "You wouldn't let me?" he asks in a very small voice.

"Yes," she says desperately. "Yes, yes, yes, yes. I would let you do anything you wanted, Harry." And she stops; she had not meant to say so much. "But you can't."

"Then lay with me," he says quietly. "Just lay with me, Myrtle." And she does.

But after that, he does not visit her for weeks.

When she sees him again, it is by accident. He has come into the prefects' bathroom with Ron and Hermione, and there is much splashing and merriment. Watching them from the tap, she can see that they are at least going through the motions of mending their broken friendship, although she wonders if they ever can. She sees that Harry suffers in the same way still, and that neither of his friends can see it.

"Go on, I'll catch up a bit later," he calls to Ron and Hermione, slinging a towel around his neck and drying his hair. She slips out of the tap.

"Oh!" he exclaims. "Myrtle. How are you?"

"Lonely," she blurts.

"Don't you talk to the other ghosts?" He does not look at her.

"I don't like them and they don't like me. No."

He shrugs. "You ought to make more friends among them, you know. You'd be happier."

"Much you care if I'm happy or not. How's Susan?" Myrtle means that last only as a taunt. She realizes, too late, that she has hit the mark.

"Fine." He combs his hair, carefully. The wet strands immediately leap back into tangled confusion. "Fine. We're, ah... seeing quite a bit of each other. Actually, that's the reason why I haven't had as much to visit lately. Been busy, you know..."

It is like a blow, a cruel and treacherous blow. If she could breathe, her breath would have stopped. "Get out," she hisses, in rage so extreme that it feels like nothing at all. Nothing like the silly temper tantrums she used to throw.

Harry hesitates, looks back at her, and leaves. Once more, she is sure she will never see him again.

But once more, she is wrong.

It is very late at night when he comes back this time. "Myrtle!" he calls softly, holding aloft a single candle. "Myrtle. I don't blame you for being angry--come out and talk to me, please, Myrtle."

She materializes at the edge of the pool, but is silent.

"Won't you talk to me?" he asks.

She forces a smile. "There's nothing to say. I'm happy for you, Harry, really I am."

He sits down next to her. "No, you're not. Why don't you throw a fit like you used to do, and scream at me that I can have a girlfriend but you can never have a boyfriend, and how can I rub it in your face like that--I'd feel better."

"I don't seem to have any of those sorts of fits left in me," she says. She thinks about adding that she has changed, that he has changed her, yanked her inside out and left her hanging, all her old defenses gone, and she does not know what or who she is, now. But she does not say it.

He puts his hand over hers, and she almost does feel it. "Would it do any good to say I'm sorry?"

"You might try it and see."

"I am sorry, Myrtle. I'm only sixteen and I--I want to live, to experience life, before--" A deep shudder goes through him. She wonders what he has not told her. "Well, never mind that. But don't you see? That's why you became a ghost, isn't it? Because you hadn't ever really experienced life? Well, I don't want to do that, or be that."

His words cut more deeply than anything else he could have said, but she realizes that he does not know it.

He grins slyly. "I want to experience some of those things you've seen, Myrtle. But not in any of the bathrooms, I promise."

And she can't help it; she laughs, so does he, and their companionship is restored. He is as he is. Things are as they are. She must accept them. And Myrtle realizes that she can, and that it means she has come further from what she was than she can know.

"I still need you, Myrtle," he says before leaving her. "There are things the living can't understand." And knowing what he means, she nods, and lets him go.

The abandoned Charms classroom has a janitor's closet in it. Water drips from the tap into the large double sink. The door is slightly ajar. Drop by drop, Myrtle flows into the little closet. A bit of water is all she needs. Harry and Susan lie next to each other on a pile of cushions in one corner, kissing deeply. He had pulled down the top part of her robes, and his hands caress her breasts. He had pulled up the bottom part of her skirt, and his knee moves between her thighs. She gives a little moan into his mouth.

"Susan, Susan," he murmurs, reaching out a hand to mold her closer to him. "Let me. Please. Susan."

"I--can't," she manages to say, pulling her head away.

I should not be watching this, thinks Myrtle.

"We have so little time," he said. "The world is running out of time, Susan. I want to know what this is like before it's too late. Don't you?"

"You say such strange things, sometimes," she says. "I can't make you out."

His hand moves up her thigh, pulling the robes and the skirt still higher, until the tops of her stockings are visible. They are such strong hands, brown and callused against her white thighs. Myrtle closes her eyes, and shivers, and tries to call up the ghost of memory. A ghost for a ghost. But she never experienced this in the flesh, so she cannot remember it.

Susan pulls away from Harry. "No," she says. "That's enough."

There is no war, as of yet, but there are rumors of war swirling even among the ghosts. Harry does not come to see her very often, and he is haggard and strained when he does, as if he hasn't been getting enough sleep. Myrtle does not begrudge the less frequent visits, not now. She has heard the rumors.

"Things are intensifying," he says. "It's all building up to something, I think." She agrees.

One night, very late, Myrtle is curled up in her favorite tap. She can go into something that is almost like sleep, where she runs over dreams and memories, and she is doing it now. She does not expect to see Harry, and she quickly eddies out and gapes at him, standing there in the middle of the marble floor, breathing hard.

"It's happened," he gasps. "Or at least, it's begun."

"Oh, Harry, what is it?" she exclaims.

He sinks down onto the edge of the pool. "Some Ministry officials were attacked," he says. "Nothing all that serious. Hit with Stunning spells, that's all, while en route to a meeting in London. "

She wonders why, if it wasn't all that serious, he seems so very agitated. She doesn't wonder long.

"One of them was Amelia Bones," he says, heavily.

"Oh," Myrtle says, understanding immediately. "Oh." She smells Firewhiskey, or uses whatever sense she now has that seems to take the place of smell. "Have you been, uh--drinking?"

"Yes," he says. He does not at once elaborate.

"Do you... do you want to lie down? I think you're going to fall down otherwise," Myrtle says.

"All right," he says.

Harry is too drunk to cast a proper Cushioning charm. She does not feel the marble beneath them, but she wonders if he does.

"She doesn't want to have anything more to do with me," he says, after a long time. Myrtle knows who he is talking about. "Susan," he adds, unnecessarily. "She blames me. Maybe she's right."

He is very, very drunk, she realizes.

"I wish you were real, Myrtle. I mean, I know you're real. But I wish you were someone with form and shape. I wish..." he lets out all his breath, shuddering. "I wish I could touch you."

"So do I," she whispers.

"I remember when you said that if you could, you would let me do anything I wanted to you. Remember?"

Yes, Myrtle remembered.

"Susan never wanted to see me," Harry says, after another pause. Myrtle knows what he means without being told. "But you. Do you want to see me? Of course, I suppose you have already."

"No," she says, knowing that if she were living, she would be blushing furiously. "I haven't really. Well, only once, and it was when you were fourteen. You know, when Cedric Diggory gave you the clue about the egg, and you came to the prefects' bathroom for the first time to work it out--Sorry, sorry," she hastily adds, remembering what happened to Cedric.

He gives a short, sharp laugh. "That was before Cedric died. It was another world, wasn't it? For me at least. It's hard to really remember it, even... so... do you want to, Myrtle?"

Slowly, she nods.

Harry rises to his feet with the deliberation of the very drunk. His eyes are fixed on her. He unclasps his robes and lets them fall to the floor. Under them, he is wearing a maroon and gold jumper, which he pulls off and folds neatly next to the robes. Then a button-down shirt. His chest is paler than his arms and very smooth, lean and beautifully shaped from playing Quidditch. He steps out of his dark trousers. Under them are a pair of boxers with little golden Snitches on them. Myrtle's eyes are frozen on those little Snitches. They begin to flutter as the boxers fall to the floor, too. The long defined muscles of his thighs flow into his slim hips, his narrow waist, the line of dark hair running down to... oh, God. In the past fifty years, Myrtle has probably seen a thousand naked boys, in showers, in baths, swimming in the lake, panting over themselves or their lovers. Boys on their own, with girls, with other boys, or, on a few all-too-memorable occasions, with things or beings Myrtle did not particularly want to remember, including the giant squid. But none of them knew she was there. None of them were naked for her. And therein lies the difference.

Harry walks towards her. She cannot help herself; she reaches out her hand to touch him, and he shivers. "I wish you could," he says, "but you can't. Do you want to watch?"

"Yes," Myrtle says. "I always did. But I wouldn't--not if you didn't know. If you didn't want me to."

"I do want you to," he says, leaning against the wall and beginning to stroke himself. Even when he groans in pleasure and his knees buckle to the floor, his eyes never leave hers.

"Myrtle, can ghosts take form?" he asks afterwards. "Ever, I mean?"

"I don't know."

"This isn't like the Sirius thing, is it?" he asks, his mouth twisting up a little.

"No, I swear it isn't. I really don't know, Harry. But I'll try to find out."

It is nearly end of term, nearly Christmas. Myrtle is absorbed in her search for some spell, some charm, some potion that will lend form and shape to ghosts. She has hunted through the libraries of the mer-people, and once she even begged Hermione Granger to get some books from the library for her. Hermione looked at her strangely, and agreed. But she has been unable to find anything. And Sir Nicholas is avoiding her. Myrtle is sure of it. He hurries away whenever he happens to catch sight of her.

When it happens, it happens so quickly. And the shock waves of it reverberate throughout their world. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Myrtle waits in the prefects' bathroom, sitting quietly. She has heard everything from the other ghosts. Even they are talking to her now. There is nothing to do but wait. He will come to her, she knows he will. No-one else can understand as she can.

And he does come. She had thought he might be hysterical, but instead he is very quiet. Silent, really, all his movements precise and controlled. At first she thinks there is dust in his hair, and for a mad moment she thinks it is from the explosion in Hogsmeade, the one that killed eighteen people. But it can't be. That was three days ago. Time enough for something terrible to ripen, to come to fruition...

"I thought you'd come to see me before now," she says.

He turns towards her. She can see now that his hair has a little streak of white, near the temple. His face is white as well, and very set. "Hello, Myrtle," he says.

"Where have you been? What have you been doing?"

"Thinking," he says, walking over to the pool. He takes off his robes, his jumper, his trousers, his shoes, his socks, and folds them in a neat little pile.

"Oh." She doesn't know how to deal with him in this strange mood. It reminds her of how he was when he first started coming to see her, but worse, much worse. "About what?"

"This," Harry says, and suddenly, without warning, he slips into the pool and does not come up again. She dives to the bottom without thinking, and realizes only too late that she can't bring him up, she can't even touch him, much less pull him to the surface. He is using all his strength to stay down there, letting all the air out of his lungs, oh God, he is serious, he means this. She has seen one other boy do this before, in this very pool, and this was exactly how it happened.

"Harry," Myrtle says desperately, "come on, come on, I can't save you, you have to do this yourself--"

With the last of his strength, he shakes his head.

"I can't let you go. I won't. I won't. Listen to me, listen. I've found a way--a way to become human again, I mean--and after all the work I did to learn it--you selfish thing! Get up from the bottom of this pool right this minute or I'll--" But he is too far gone to hear her. Her despair reaches fever pitch. "Come on!" And she pulls at him one last time. Something flashes between him and her, a sensation like a vast painless blow. And she seizes his shoulder, and yanks him to the surface, and when his head breaks water he gasps and chokes and coughs.

"You're alive," is all Myrtle can say. "You're alive--oh, Harry--"

He grabs onto the tiled edge, retching. "Unfortunately," he said. "Oh God, I'm going to be so sick." He is.

"I can't believe you tried to do that," she says.

"Can't you?" His face is mocking now. He has come back to himself a little, she can see; the moment of crisis is over, and she breathes a secret sigh of relief. "Don't you know what happened, Myrtle?"

She looks down, at her spectral hands. "I know."

"And don't you dare say that it's not my fault. Don't you dare. That's what they've all said. All the ones who survived, that is... but none of it would have happened if I hadn't been there, because I was the one the Death Eaters were trying to get at. To kill me before I ever had the chance to kill Voldemort. Funny that you don't flinch at the name, Myrtle..."

She smiles, a little. "There isn't much that frightens a ghost, Harry. And I'm not going to say it."

He looks at her, surprise in his eyes. "You're not?"

"Well, it wasn't your fault, of course. But I'm not going to say it. Because you should grieve, and nobody has the right to take that grief away from you. Those who died deserve all your grief."

"You always know the right thing to say, Myrtle." He sighs, long and low.

"I'm going to tell you something now..." Gods, do I have the courage for this? "Something that I've never told anyone," she says in a rush. "But you have to know it. Don't kill yourself, Harry. Don't do it. You'll regret it forever."

"Is that what you heard from other ghosts? The ones who'd done it, I mean?" He still sounds unconvinced.

"No," she says quietly. "It's what happened to me."

He jerks his head up, shocked. "To you? But--but you were murdered by the basilisk. You'd gone into the girls' bathroom to cry, and you were unlucky enough to find the basilisk in the pipes. You didn't--"

"Commit suicide? But I did, Harry." Myrtle twists her fingers together. "And you've got to know. I haven't told anybody the truth about this but that's what I went into the bathroom to do. I--I had a razor blade I'd nicked from Olive Hornsby; I thought it was so appropriate, and I hoped she'd get blamed. That's why I was leaning over the pipes. It wasn't to have a good cry. It was to slit my wrists. But the basilisk came before I could."

"Ohh..." breathed Harry. "But why, Myrtle?"

"A lot of things, I suppose. Hard to remember them all now. Things that seemed terribly important at the time. Nobody liked me; I didn't have any real friends; everyone laughed at me. I never seemed to say or do the right thing; I wasn't pretty like Olive and her friends; I had patched clothes and scuffed shoes, and I thought I'd make them all sorry, everyone who'd made fun of me because of how I talked and the way I looked. And then, when it was too late, I understood what a fool I'd been. Because that was the real reason why I became a ghost. I'd meant to kill myself, and it's the intention that counts. So I went to this limbo, and it's where I've been trapped ever since..." Myrtle clutched at Harry's arm even though she knew he couldn't feel it. "Don't do it, Harry. Don't ever get trapped the way I have. I am a voyeur, drifting between worlds, a part of neither, excluded from both. Watching, only watching. I was a coward, too afraid to choose death, but I didn't get life, either. Don't do it."

He looks down at her hand. "Did you mean it, Myrtle? What you said, about finding a way to take on form? Have you really found one?"

"Yes," she says.

He leans close to her without touching her, as if not wanting to disturb the illusion. "I want--I need to be with you," he whispers. "I need to know what it's like to be with someone that way. No, not someone. You. You know what I mean, don't you? I think I could get hold of myself if I did. You would be one solid thing I could hold to in a shifting world. Can you do it, Myrtle, really?"

"Of course," she says, and a look of hope leaped into life on his face at her words.

She doesn't have the heart to tell him that she lied.

She definitely has to talk to Sir Nicholas.

Myrtle considers being forced to listen to fifteen verses of a song speculating on the nature of ghost sex a fair enough price to pay for Peeves's help, although she thinks the one about the goat to be completely unnecessary. The poltergeist's eyes sparkle maliciously when she outlines her plan to divert Sir Nicholas towards the third-floor girls' bathroom. She knows that he knows why she is doing this, and for once she does not resent the weird way he always seems to be able to find out everyone's true motivations.

"Ooh, a ghost and a human, making the beast with two backs!" he cackles.

"So you'll help me?" she asks.

"Doing the nasty..."

"Yes or no?"

"The horizontal mambo..."

"Just tell me!"

"So forbidden," he says, rubbing his together. "Ickle Myrtle is so very naughty, yes, yes, yes!" And he zooms down the hall, laughing with glee. The coming together of a ghost and a human is a wonderful opportunity for chaos.

She goes to her bathroom, and waits. She doesn't have to wait long. Amazing how dignified Sir Nicholas still manages to look when dripping with balls of ectoplasm.

"You wished to see me?" he asks.

"I need your help," says Myrtle, too agitated to do anything but get right to the point.

The ghost sighs deeply and sits on a sink. "I know."

"You--you do? Then won't you--"

He holds up a beringed hand. "You do not know what you would ask of me, dear lady."

"I do," says Myrtle. "Listen, please listen to me, listen. I'll pay any price I have to pay, I don't care how hard it is, or what I have to do--"

"I suppose this was inevitable," says Sir Nicholas.

Her throat is tight, as if she is choking, even though the physical act of choking is, of course, impossible. "You're going to tell me that it can't be done," she says. "Aren't you. That's why I couldn't find anything about it in any book, or any scroll, or any runestone. It can't be done."

"It can be done," Sir Nicholas says, sadly. "It was for learning that secret that I died."

Myrtle hesitates; this is a very delicate subject, one he has never brought up before. "You mean that's why you were, uh... executed?"

"Yes," the other ghost says. "I was an alchemist in the court of Queen Elizabeth, you know. Unfortunately, I lived into the reign of James I as well, and he was not tolerant of witches or warlocks. Very superstitious he was, full of crochets and fears, and overfond of burnings. I was not as discreet as I should have been, but I wanted only to learn this great secret, the secret of necromancy, of bringing back the dead... and after a fashion, I did so. But there was a spy in my household, and I was caught. As a peer of the realm, I received a merciful beheading. However, the executioner had overindulged in mead the night before. Very sloppy." He adjusted his head on his neck; it had begun to wobble a little by the end.

"I'm sorry," Myrtle says awkwardly. "But you said you did learn the secret. Won't you tell me? Please?"

"I will tell you, as I have told others. You are far from the first ghost to desire life for this reason, my dear lady. But you must deal with the Endless to gain your will, those Immortals who are before the first human thought, before ever the gods were, before the birth of the first star."

She shivered. "I'm not afraid."

"And there is a price you must pay." His dark eyes were fixed on her. "No ghost has ever been willing to pay it, in my experience."

"What is it?"

He tells her.

"Yes," she says. "Even that."

"Then all the gods go with you, dear lady, and with your lover," he says.

Peeves brings the vials of powders and potions into the girls' bathrooms, snickering delightedly all the while. He draws the pentagram, and lights the violet fire.

"Thanks, Peeves," Myrtle says awkwardly. "I couldn't have done without you; you're the only one of us who can really touch things properly."

"No trouble at all! A friend in need is a friend indeed! Always glad to help!" The poltergeist turns a somersault in the air. Then he looks up hopefully. "Don't suppose, Myrtle, that after you're human again, you'll come to visit old Peeves?" He elbows her in the spectral ribs. "A little bit of the old y'know, y'know? Say no more? Eh?"

She rolls her eyes. "My gratitude doesn't extend that far, Peeves."

Myrtle is alone; Sir Nicholas explained that she must be, that no other being must distract her intention in this. The room is utterly dark except for the flickering purple flames. She has been staring into their depths for so long that she is sure it will not work. Maybe she doesn't want it enough, even though she has never wanted anything so much in life or death. The flames dance back and forth. She is tired, so tired, bone-weary in a way that the living never can be, for they have the relief of sleep. Her chin slips into her hands and she looks at the violet flames with their hints of red and green.

And in their very centre, a man appears, or what looks like a man, wrapped in a long black cloak sprinkled with silver stars. He is tall, and gaunt, and pale as no living thing could possibly be. Yet he is no ghost, and she knows who he is. He looks at her with eyes like the dark matter at the heart of galaxies.

She bows her head as Sir Nicholas told her to do in the Immortal's presence. "Lord Morpheus," she says.

"Little mortal," he says in his turn, inclining his own head. "Little dreamer."

"I'm not a mortal," she says stupidly. "I'm a ghost. And I can't dream."

"You do not think that ghosts can dream? Or that they are mortal? But no matter. Whatever you may be, you have called me. I have come. What is your desire?"

"I--" She struggles to remember the exact words. "I wish to take human form, and shape. I wish to taste again the joys and sorrows of mortal flesh. Will you help me, my Lord?"

A hint of a smile flitted across his face. "You have been talking to Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, have you not? Of all mortals, the only one to ever learn this secret?"

She nodded.

"But he did not learn all. This wish cannot be fulfilled through Dream, but through Desire."

"But, uh--that Lady is your sister, isn't she?"

"She is."

"Can't you take me to her?"

"The Lady Desire does not come or go at my whim. But luckily for you--" and a hint of dryness enters the Immortal's voice "--that is how mortals most often find their desire. Through dreams. Come." Dream stretches out his preternaturally white hand to Myrtle, and after a moment's hesitation, she takes it.

I doubt this would be a good idea if I was alive, she thinks. But since I'm already dead anyway I suppose it can't do any harm.

They walk through a featureless plain for a very long time, the Immortal and the ghost, and the sands shift under their feet. Myrtle remembers that she had dreamed about this place in life, and when she asks Lord Morpheus where they are, he answers, "One of the soft places."

"Are we--we're not still in Hogwarts, are we?"

"Hogwarts is itself one of those. A house on the borderlands, between one reality and the next. Why do you think that none of those you call Muggles can see it?" He gives her a look from his unfathomable eyes, and Myrtle decides not to ask anything more.

After what seems like a very long time, they reach an oasis, its date palms swaying in the breeze around a crystal pool. Sitting on the rocks at the water's edge is a woman, veiled in white. As they approach, she throws back her head covering. Myrtle cannot see her distinctly, as she is still turned away. For a moment, she's not even sure that she is looking at a woman; it could just as easily be a slender, beautiful young man. No, it's surely a woman...

"Brother," she, or he, says to Dream.

"Sister," he says to Desire.

"What is this that you have brought me?" the other asks. "Who is this mortal? Oh yes, I can see that she is a ghost. She's still a mortal. It has been long and long since you have done this, my brother."

"She has invoked the ancient art of necromancy, my sister."

Desire laughs, and the sound was like diamonds spilling into a stream. "Don't tell me. Let me guess. She wants to live again." Her voice is soft and caressing and low. "Has she anything to say for herself, this little one?"

Myrtle steps forward, feeling less clever and more tongue-tied than at any previous moment in her life or death. "If you know what I'm asking for, Lady, you must know if you can give it to me."

"How ungracious she is. But of course I can, or could... if it pleased me." Desire idly strokes a golden-furred cat that is lying by the side of the pool.

"Would it please you, sister?" Dream asks pointedly. Myrtle isn't sure if this Immortal has become her champion, or if he is only taking her side to annoy his sister. She thinks it's more likely the latter, but she isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"It always pleases me to play with mortals," says the Lady. "Die Menschenspielerei, you know. But is this mortal's desire greater than her fear? That is the question. Do you know the price you would pay, little mortal?"

"Yes," says Myrtle.

"And you are willing to pay it?"

"I am."

Desire arches one perfect eyebrow. For the first time, she turns to face Myrtle, as if she at last deems her worthy of at least a bit of respect. The air is suddenly charged.

"What do you desire, little mortal?" the Lady asks. Yes, she is definitely a Lady, and the strangest thing is that she suddenly looks like a dream version of Myrtle herself, or at least Myrtle has always dreamed of looking. Her hair is long and flowing, like dark water, and her large eyes glitter like dark jewels. Her face is mischievous and pixie-like, but beautiful, truly beautiful, and her body is slender and supple. She is like an escaped princess of the faerie folk, sitting there on the rock next to the pool, and Myrtle feels more inadequate than ever.

"I want to be alive again," she says flatly. "I want to be human again."

"Strange," says Desire. "When you had life, you wanted it not. What has changed?"

Myrtle looks down at the ground. "There's a boy," she says quietly. "I--I have always noticed him. But it's only in the last few months that he's noticed me. He says I understand him as no-one living can. He makes me happy, as I never was in life. He makes me think of things I never thought of when I was alive, and feel ways I never thought I could feel. I suppose I didn't think that a person could change after they became a ghost, but he has made me change. And now--" She blushes. "Well, he wants--"

"He wants you in the way a man wants a woman." Desire smiles. "Ah, mortals. Always so predictable. But you cannot give him his desire, and yours, because you are a spirit form, preternatural. He wants your body, but that he cannot have. Ghosts are like a miracle without meaning, are they not? Ah well."

"Can you make me human again? Real again? Just tell me," blurts out Myrtle, unable to bear the suspense anymore.

"I can give you what you need. Yes." Desire examines her fingernails as if bored by the entire proceedings.

"Well, will you?"

"I will." Desire looks directly at Myrtle for the first time, and the ghost is struck by the sadness in her eyes. "For we must give humans what they ask us, if we can, we of the Endless. If they are willing to pay the price that must be paid. Strange, that it should be so... Stretch out your hand."

Myrtle stretches out her fingers.

"Now touch me, little mortal. Touch Desire."

Myrtle doesn't try to explain that she can't touch anything, that she's a ghost, but only moves her hand to cover the perfect fingers of the Lady.

It is like a massive, painless jolt, a burst of tremendous energy sizzling between them, and the feeling she had when she pulled Harry out of the pool the night before was like the ghost of this sensation. Myrtle opens her mouth in a wordless cry, and it echoes through the worlds. She tumbles out and down, down, down, falling endlessly...

... to the hard, cold marble floor of the prefects' bathroom. It hurts her bare knees. She can feel the cartilage grinding against the bone. She stumbles to her feet.

--wait--

Pain. She'd felt pain. For the first time in fifty years.

Myrtle stands very still. There is a loud humming in her ears. It's blood, she thinks stupidly. My blood. She can hear it circulating through her veins, pumping back to her heart, lub-dup, lub-dup. She picks up one foot and puts it down again. Electrical impulses race along her nerves to her muscles, her tendons, her skin. She looks around. The room is dark, strangely dark, not at all the way it looks when she is a ghost. Everything in it is massive and solid, not greyish and vaguely transparent. Memories come back to her, dimly, like ancient photographs. This was how the world once looked... once felt... once was... when I was...

"Alive," she whispers. And for the first time in fifty years, she hears the sound of her own mortal voice with her own mortal ears.

The sensations of simply standing in the middle of the floor, not moving, are enough to keep her occupied for the rest of her life, she thinks. Understanding them. Cataloguing them. Knowing them. How could she have taken all this for granted when she lived? But even as she is thinking these things, she hears the soft snick of the door to the changing rooms. She turns her head towards it, reveling in the feeling of her neck muscles moving, her field of vision changing. And Harry is standing before her.

For a moment, all she can do is stare. He looks so very, very different now, when she sees him with her own eyes. She realizes that when she was a ghost, she idealized him; now she sees him more as he truly is. His hair is an incredible mess, and his brilliantly green eyes seem much too big for his thin face. He is wearing swimming trunks, obviously ready to go in the pool, and she can see that he's too skinny, and his hands and feet are too large, as if he's grown much too fast for his frame. He has none of the perfection she had conjured up; he is only an awkward sixteen-year-old boy.

He is beautiful.

Harry is staring at her, as well. "Myrtle," he says, in a strangled voice. "Myrtle, you're--you're real--you're not a ghost anymore, you're a real girl--you did it."

She nods.

"And-- " He blushes deeply. "Um, you may not realize this, but you're not, uh, wearing anything--"

Myrtle looks down, sees her solid, naked body, and shrieks. She runs across the floor and dives into the pool, feeling the weighty splash of water around her. She remembers too late that in life, she couldn't swim very well. Hands pull her above the surface as she splutters and gasps and spits water. Idiot, idiot. What a fool she was to think she could pull off an elegant seduction scene.

"Oh, Myrtle," Harry is saying, "after everything you went through to get here, don't drown on me now." He smooths her wet hair off her face, takes off her wet glasses, and puts them by the side of the pool. "Are you all right?" She nods, blinking. He continues to look into her eyes.

"I don't know what you used to think, or what anybody else used to think," he says, "but you're more than pretty, Myrtle. You're beautiful."

"It's kind of you to say, Harry, but I know it's not true." She is suddenly shy, more aware than ever that she is nude beneath the water.

"It is," he insists. "Turn and look."

She does, and sees the mirror against one wall. She has nearly forgotten it was ever there; ghosts do not cast a reflection. And when she sees her own blurry face looking back at her for the first time in fifty years, she must agree with him. Not because she thinks that she really is beautiful. But she sees what he sees, and when she looks back, she is mirrored more clearly in his eyes.

The tile is against the back of her legs, a gritty, almost-painful feeling that is still wonderful because it is real. Harry is pushing her even further back against it. "I have to kiss you," he says. "Now, now, Myrtle, I can't wait anymore." She almost protests, almost tells him that it is all too overwhelming, that the sensations of being in a human body are nearly more than she can stand without adding this, but she can find no voice, and her eyes close as he bends his head down to hers, and then his lips are upon her own.

At first he is exquisitely careful, as if afraid she will vanish at any moment, but then she opens her mouth as she has seen other girls do and so does he and an incredible hunger roars through them both. Their kissing is rough and ungraceful; his teeth keep mashing against her lips because he doesn't really understand how to do it yet very well; he attacks her mouth with desperation born of a life deprived of human touch, and it is awkward and clumsy and wonderful. She clutches onto the muscles in his back, sure she will fall, overwhelmed by the feelings racing through this body of hers, this new thing that is very old, a long-lost, vital part of her.

"Can I move down a bit?" Harry asks. "There's more I want to do, so much more..."

"Yes, yes."

His hands move to her breasts then, tentative at first, then squeezing and rubbing at her nipples, his mouth moving down to ravage her neck. She can dimly hear her own whimpering. Then she feels him lifting her up out of the water and setting her on the edge of the pool, scrambling up beside her. He bends her back with his kisses and she is lying on the hard tiled floor; she does not really feel it digging into her as discomfort or pain; it is only a counterpoint to the incredible feeling of his hands roaming all over her body, from neck to breast to waist to leg and back up again.

"Myrtle, I want to touch you, can I touch you there?" he whispers. "Can I?" He almost seems frightened at his own presumption. A sudden vision rushes over her of a life where so many things have been refused him, denied him, from peace and calm and friendship to simple human closeness. Some essential trust in him has been destroyed, or was never allowed to develop. He really does not expect her to say yes; it is in every line of his anxious body as he waits for her answer. She takes his hand and speaks very clearly, and as formally as she can.

"I'm yours. I'm yours in whatever way pleases you. I will be yours as long as I can be, Harry Potter."

He gives a long, shuddery sigh. Then he props himself up on one elbow, and his other hand moves down, between her legs. At first, he only strokes her inner thighs.

"That feels really good, Harry," she says softly. "Go further. I know you want to. Don't be afraid."

"You have more experience with this sort of thing, I suppose," he says, with a nervous laugh. "Good job one of us does."

She doesn't. But she does not say it.

He takes a deep breath. Then slowly, carefully, his fingers move upwards.

It is the most intense thing she has ever felt; Myrtle is sure of it. She's not even sure if the feeling is good or bad. She is dimly aware that if she were used to the sensations of this body, what Harry is doing would probably feel like clumsy groping. It's obvious that he doesn't have the faintest idea where to go or what to touch.

"Ouch!" Myrtle hadn't meant to speak but the word is torn out of her mouth; she tenses involuntarily and he withdraws his hand.

"I'm sorry, Myrtle," he says in a horrified voice. "I didn't mean to hurt you; I was just--ah-- oh, God. That means you're a virgin, doesn't it?"

She nods.

"I didn't know. I thought you'd had experience before you--well, before you died. You always talked as if you had."

"No, Harry." She is embarrassed. "I've seen absolutely everything, but I've never done anything. I was kissed once, and that's it."

"Who was it?"

She hesitates. "Tom Riddle."

Strangely, he laughs. "Oh, Myrtle!"

"What's so funny?"

"I don't think I could explain it. Come here, just come here."

They begin kissing again. He kneels over her, half on top of her, pressing her into the tile with the force of his mouth and hands on her.

"Harry," she says.

"Mmm?"

"You've still got your boxers on."

"Oh. I didn't realize." His hands move down, but she stops him.

"Let me."

Slowly, she peels them off, sighing. "It's beautiful," she cannot help saying.

"I always thought that part of a boy's body was rather funny-looking."

"Sometimes it is." She smiles mischievously. "But not this one..." She reaches out her hand towards him. Touches him.

"Myrtle--" he says in a strangled voice.

Oh, it does do some good to have seen this so many times; she has seen what works, what makes boys moan with pleasure as he is moaning now.

He tries to speak through gritted teeth. "I really don't think you should--ahhh--"

But it is too late.

"Doesn't matter," Harry says, once he can breathe again. "Just give me a minute. Maybe it's better that this happened really. I'm a bit less on edge now." They lie together for a moment, side by side.

Myrtle grins. "Catch me if you can," she calls, and jumps into the water, shivering at the feel of it sluicing off her skin. She dogpaddles to the other end, and he does catch her, pulling her up onto a little seat at the far edge of the pool, in front of a hot water jet.

"There's something else I've always wanted to try," he says between kisses.

"Then try it, Harry."

He does.

"Ohhh," she says, intensely curious about how this will feel, this thing she has witnessed so many times, and "ahhh," she sighs when she feels it. Then she can't think anymore. Harry knows even less about what he's doing now than he did before, but it doesn't matter, it does not matter at all. Because she can tell that he enjoys experimenting. There are waves of the most amazing sensation rippling through her and at last she arches her back and moans his name over, and over, and over again; she is suffused with pleasure, she has never felt anything like this, never, never.

"Moaning Myrtle," he says, grinning.

He maneuvers her up onto the marble floor, his breathing growing heavier as he leans over her. She runs her hands over his buttocks and legs, feeling the light dusting of hair, and he takes her face between his two hands. "Myrtle," he says, "can we? Now? Are you ready?"

How would I know, she thinks. But then, she is as ready as she will ever be. "Yes," she says.

"I think you're going to have to help me," Harry finally says, a hint of desperation in his voice. So she does. His eyes fly open wide.

"Ohhh," he groans. "Myrtle, I have to--I need to--" And he does not wait for further permission, but then, she thinks, he can't; his own body is driving him too hard for that.

She bites her lip so hard that she tastes her own blood, and since he is kissing her, she knows he tastes it too. "I'm sorry," he says. "Sorry." But he doesn't stop, and Myrtle knows from all the first times she has ever watched that he can't stop, not now. She digs her fingernails into the muscles of his lower back until she must surely be hurting him as well. What he does to her is painful. The marble floor beneath her back is painful. Harry is clutching her ribs so tightly that it, too, is painful. Yet the sensations Myrtle feels are far beyond anything that could be called pain, or rather, there is no way to draw a distinction, to say that this hurts, or that feels good.

He doesn't last long. Teenage boys rarely do, she remembers. "Oh God oh Myrtle I'm going to--I'm--Myrtle, Myrtle. Myrtle. Myrtle." Over and over he whispers her name. It feels as if everything is passing from him to her -- his loneliness, his hunger, his passion, his pain. She holds onto him as tightly as she can, whispering something in his ear; she is never sure what. Then he collapses on top of her, and although he makes her breathless, she never wants him to move.

"There are a lot of things I've always wanted to try," he says after a few minutes. "Like this. D'you know what I mean, Myrtle? Have you seen this? You must have done."

"Yes," she says. "I have." And there is no way to tell the difference between pain and pleasure anymore. Not that it matters.

He is inexhaustible because he is sixteen, and a virgin, and holds this girl in his arms at last, this girl who has come to know him as no other being living or dead ever has. She is inexhaustible because her body has been returned to her, and for the first time, she knows, with a painful, sharp sweetness, what having a body truly means. The night lasts and lasts, and there are few things they do not at least attempt. Myrtle supposes that neither of them is doing any of this particularly well. He has no real idea of how sex works at all; his life has been that stunted, that starved. She knows the theory, but not the practice. He asks several times if he is hurting her, and every time she lies, and says no. It never stops hurting. She supposes that it would do, if they had more time. But even the pain is sweeter than he could ever know.

There are no clocks in this room. But at last, Myrtle knows that dawn is very close. They are lying next to each other, resting between bouts. He traces a pattern from her forehead to her cheekbones to her chin. Harry has explored every inch of her body now, but this simple touch feels more intimate than anything else they have done. It brings tears to Myrtle's eyes. I'd forgotten how tears felt, too. Oh, how I used to waste them on things that didn't matter!

"They'll all be so surprised," he says, smiling. "When they find out what's happened, I mean. But they'll just have to get used to it... Will you be in my year, Myrtle? Were you fifth, or sixth? D'you remember what you learned? I suppose you'll need to review, but Hermione will help you out there. Can't wait to see everybody's faces when you turn up, Myrtle... we'll have to get you some clothes. They're not allowing anyone into Hogsmeade, of course, but we'll find a way to buy some--"

His words wash over her, indistinguishable. The time is drawing near. Myrtle sits up.

"--and if you're fifth year, you could room with Ginny, they only have two in that room. She's nearly sixteen, just a bit younger than you. D'you like Ginny? I think she'd like you. Everybody will like you," Harry is saying.

"Yes, I like Ginny Weasley, but--Harry, I have to go."

He blinks up at her. "Go? Where? Are you hungry, d'you want to find something to eat? We can go down to the kitchens. Maybe you could throw my robes on or something. The house-elves are always happy to--"

It is a painful thought, that she is not going to get to experience what it's like to eat. She'd forgotten all about that. "No. I mean that I can't stay."

"You can't stay?" he repeats stupidly.

She kneels down and takes his hands in hers. "I made a bargain," she says quietly, "with one of the Endless--no, don't ask who they are. But it only lasts until dawn."

Harry's face turns very white. "And then you have to turn back into a ghost?"

"No. Then I have to leave. Forever."

He is silent for a moment. Then he does the last thing she would have expected him to do. Harry laughs. The laughing goes on much too long. "I should have known," he finally says, wiping his eyes. "I should've guessed. I was so happy. How could I have been bloody stupid enough to think it could last? All I could think was that you were going to be with me, Myrtle, and I'd never be lonely again. Because I'd be with someone who knew me, who understood me, like nobody else ever has--" His voice breaks.

It would be kindest in the end, she thinks, to say something distant and hurtful. "Dry up, Harry. This was a lot of fun, but you'll have other girlfriends. You'll forget me. This isn't the last shag you'll ever--"

He whirls on her, his eyes fierce. "Do you think this was about sex?" he demands.

"Well, wasn't it?"

"No!"

"Then what?"

He stares at her defiantly for another long moment, as if she should know. Maybe she does. She doesn't dare to think that it is, could be, what she suspects. Then she feels him taking her in his arms, burying his head on her shoulder, shaking with unshed tears.

"I love you," he says against her hair.

"You--you shouldn't."

"Maybe you're right, I don't know. But I do love you, Myrtle."

There is so little time. She feels, rather than sees, the sun begin to slip over the horizon. "I love you, Harry Potter," she says clearly, "as I never thought I could love anyone or anything." She looks down at her hand. It is already growing spectral again. "Always remember that. I did what ghosts fear most to do, because I loved you." And she is glad, really, that her words sound as if they have some dignity. Her favorite aunt in London had been a Squib, and once, as a child, Myrtle had heard Lux Radio Theatre at her house, on a massive cabinet radio. It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done, Ronald Coleman had told Edna Best in A Tale of Two Cities before going to the guillotine. Maybe it was a bit silly for her to be trying for that tone of voice now. But it meant a lot to her that she was able to keep some dignity, at the end.

"I can feel that you're leaving me," he says, his words muffled. "I don't think I can stand it."

Neither do I. She sighs. "You'll do what's given you to do, Harry, and stand what's given you to stand. Just as I will. Maybe someday we'll meet again. Now kiss me. Hurry. My time's almost up."

He presses his mouth to hers just once more, and her heart leaps at this last fleshly sensation. Then it is gone, and so is he.

Time to die.

She is floating up through a long, dark corridor, and at the end of it sits a dark lady, robed and veiled in black, an ankh around her neck. She smiles at Myrtle when she sees her, and the smile is the sweetest thing the ghost has ever seen. Yes, sweeter even than the smiles of Harry Potter.

"I've been waiting for you," says Lady Death.

She puts her hand in Myrtle's, and they begin to walk together. Dimly, far beneath her, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, Myrtle can see Harry crouched on the marble floor, sobbing. But she tears her gaze away, for she must leave all the things of this world behind her now.

"You really loved him, didn't you?" the Lady asks.

"I really loved him," Myrtle replies. "Are you--are you angry with me, Lady Death? For making you wait so long for me?"

"Nope."

"Or because I got more time than people are supposed to get?"

The Lady shrugs. "You got a lifetime. That's all anybody gets. But you were very brave at the end, Myrtle."

Myrtle smiles, sadly. "When Desire told me the price I'd have to pay, I almost wasn't brave enough."

Death nods. "She told you that after your hours with your lover, you'd have to do what you were too afraid to do before. You'd have to die. It's what she always tells ghosts who ask her to become human again. But they're almost always too scared to do it, so they keep hanging onto that half-life... it's why they became ghosts in the first place, because they fear death so much."

They were headed towards a tremendous light, Myrtle could now see, and there was no way to tell what lay beyond it. "It is scary. But I find that I can stand it. I didn't think I could. Only there's just one thing I wonder about."

"And what's that?"

"What comes after?"

Lady Death smiles at her again. "Now's when you find out."

And in the prefects' bathroom, Harry rises to his feet. Slowly, haltingly, moving like a very old man, he pulls back on his clothing, neatly folded by the side of the pool. Then he takes a deep, shivering breath, opens the door, and begins to walk back to the land of the living.

~end~

The latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun
O come Angel Band, come & around me stand
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home

--The Stanley Brothers, Angel Band.