You are thirteen years old (nearly sixty-eight) and, even though you haven't slept in decades, you're sure you're dreaming when Draco reappears in your bathroom. Dumbledore has died, a Death Eater sits as Headmaster of Hogwarts, Harry Potter has disappeared and the wizarding world is at war, but it's the same Draco. You catch a flash of his white-blond hair and agitated eyes as he shunts a panting Slytherin fourth-year into one of the cubicles.

"Stay there and be quiet," he hisses through the door. "And don't tell anyone I did this. They won't come in here."

He makes eye contact with you for a fraction of a heartbeat before he's off into the corridor. Minutes after he leaves, hurried footfalls signal the arrival of several newcomers. They grow louder and louder outside your bathroom door before turning a corner and fading away.

Once you're quite sure they won't return, you glide over to the stall from which badly-stifled sobs are issuing. There's a hardened part of you, one which has given away too much sympathy, bared itself too many times, been stabbed too often through the heart, which urges you to leave him alone. Let him cry. It will be better that way than if you had intervened.

Another part of you remembers crying in that very cubicle.

"They're gone," you say wearily. "You don't need to be afraid."

He gives a sharp intake of breath, just as Draco had, and defensively asks who's there. You identify yourself as someone who can help and leave it at that. After a while of coaxing, you piece together that he and a friend were caught skipping Muggle Studies class. His friend was dragged off for detention – which largely consists of the Cruciatus Curse nowadays, so you've heard – but he managed to get away. He can't understand, he keeps saying once he's calmed down, why Malfoy intervened. You can't, either, but you suppose you're grateful for it.

Neither Draco nor the boy return to see you, but two weeks later there's another unexpected arrival – a pair of Hufflepuffs with several copies of The Quibbler. They say they've heard talk that your bathroom's a good place to avoid the Carrows' goons, and promptly disappear into the back cubicle. You catch enough snatches of their whispered conversation – "Harry Potter," "Dumbledore's Army," "still fighting You-Know-Who" – to appreciate their need for secrecy and silence. Half an hour later, when a patrol of suspicious prefects comes by, you greet them with an ear-splitting bout of moaning and wailing from the pipes. You've never been so happy to see potential visitors bolt from the scene.

The next time it's a group of Ravenclaws duplicating Anti-Ministry pamphlets, and then a larger crowd with a beat-up old radio tuned into "Potterwatch." By the time your windows glaze over with autumn frost, the visits have increased to two or three per week. Usually the students barely notice your presence, relying on you merely to conceal their presence or drive Carrow supporters away with your namesake rackets. Sometimes one of them will approach you cautiously (Merlin's beard, are you really that frightening?) to ask if you can stand guard. You appreciate being asked. It's an acknowledgement that you're more than just a macabre feature of the room, or some Caterwauling Charm howling whenever an enemy approaches. You're a person, or at least the lingering shadow of one, with the capacity to give and to help. Despite knowing where that led last time, you can't bring yourself to turn them down, not when worse monsters than the basilisk of Slytherin roam the halls.

Even more precious (in a dark, selfish way, you admit) are the ones who come to you specifically for help, the ones who have been hurt like you were. Occasionally the wounds imparted by the Carrows and their ilk are physical; more often, they go deeper than the flesh. You can't give much in the way of advice, but you can at least be a soothing voice, a listening ear, a sympathetic nod – the consolation that they're not alone.

After a while, you insist upon one condition for all of this. They'll call you Myrtle. Miss Warren if they like, or Myrtle Elizabeth if they want to be particularly flattering, but you don't want to hear 'Moaning' ever again.

You are thirteen years old (just turned sixty-eight) and the once-empty bathroom has become a veritable hotspot of rebellion. Scarcely a day goes by when someone doesn't stop by, even if it's just to calm themselves down after a particularly bigoted Muggle Studies lesson or catch their breath after running from some Carrow lackeys. You know they have other hiding places – many of the older ones keep mentioning a room on the seventh floor – but you're honored, almost overwhelmed, that your dingy toilet is one of them. The sanctuary that became your tomb has opened its arms as a refuge once more.

None of the students speak to you with the same frequency or vulnerability that Draco had, but you come to know their names and faces regardless. The ringleaders of it all are three sixth-years who knew Harry and his companions quite well before their disappearances. There's a boy, Neville, with a kind face usually scarred over from the Carrows' punishments; Ginny, a sister of Potter's redheaded friend, the boldest of the bunch; and Luna, a gentle Ravenclaw with eyes that you think could see through you even if you weren't transparent. She takes the most interest in you out of all of them, asking such probing questions and making statements so unpleasantly true that you fled into your toilet for three days after first hearing one. Yet her sincerity grows on you; there's a frankness and an innocence to her observations that, for once, convinces you that no offense is intended. She's the first person since Harry to hear the story of how you died.

With the trio in charge, you become more involved in their operations against the Death Eater staff. Your familiarity with the school's vast system of pipes and drains comes in handy on multiple occasions. When the trio needs to sneak down to the kitchens to fetch food for students who spent dinner in detention, you clear away a cluster of guards by howling incessantly from the nearest vent. On another night, a quick peek though the grate in Amycus Carrow's office confirms he's safely out of the way of the graffiti being written in the fifth-floor corridor. One day you mimic crying in a different women's bathroom, luring some brutish seventh-years away from their pursuit of a terrified half-blood girl. You get a smug satisfaction from the looks on their faces when they rip open the door, expecting to see their quarry, only to find a spray of water as you plunge back into the toilet.

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight, feeling every bit the protective old woman) and this girl they've brought here is eleven, for Merlin's sake, gasping and twitching and bloodied. Luna tells you the whole story as she applies a healing salve. Some bastard sixth-year caught her older sister distributing pro-Muggle pamphlets and decided it wasn't enough to punish her alone.

"They usually stick with Crucio," Ginny spits, "but this scum wanted to practice his Severing Charm."

You swoop over from your guard post near the door, locking eyes with her.

"Find out what house he is. What he looks like. Which dorm he's in. Everything."

The ages-old restraining order won't let you do to him what you did to Olive Hornby – and he deserves it a hundred, a thousand times more – but your wailing from the pipes beside his room will deny him a good night's sleep as long as he's at Hogwarts. When his beleaguered roommates boot him out into the common room, you follow. However kind you were to Draco, however much your hatred of Olive has dwindled, you haven't forgotten just how cruel you can be to those who deserve it.

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight, and so very proud) and the narrow passage between the stalls is full to bursting. Students old and young crowd eagerly around the radio, waiting for the latest news from Potterwatch. You float halfway between them and the door, attentive both to the conversation behind you and the grey corridor ahead. Luna picks herself up from the floor and walks over to you.

"Myrtle?" she ventures, "Can I ask you why you stayed?"

You bristle, instantly understanding her meaning, as she clarifies, "Why you didn't go on? Behind the veil?"

"I don't know," is your eventual response, and it's true. Yet, as you look back over the congregation in the bathroom, it occurs to you that perhaps there's a good reason you did.

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight) when Neville Longbottom tells you it has to stop. Luna disappeared months ago, Ginny hasn't returned after Easter, the wounds from his last beating are still fresh, and he's going into hiding. The hidden room on the seventh floor, he says evasively when you press for details. He's sorry, but this needs to stay secret, and the bathroom's just not cutting it anymore.

You laugh wryly, though not unhappily. "This place used to be the emptiest corner of Hogwarts. Now it's too popular for its own good."

Neville takes a moment to see you aren't being passive-aggressive, and then laughs as well. "You've done a great job here, Myrtle. Keep your eyes open. We might need you again."

He waves and leaves, but you don't feel the betrayed emptiness that usually accompanies the sight of a retreating back. Most people who have left you behind have taken something from you – your life, your dignity, your hope. This band of students has given you something. It's what you felt when you helped Harry find the Chamber, when you comforted Draco; it's even what you felt, though you can scarcely remember it, when you studied and learned within these very halls.

They leave you with a purpose.

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight), and the time for that purpose has come.

Just like you did long ago in a London air-raid shelter, you think the world must be coming to an end. Hogwarts is ablaze with the kind of action that betrays great fear. Professors mutter protective charms; grim-faced prefects usher students to safety; children who should be joining them clutch their wands in anticipation of the coming fight. Somewhere in the gloom beyond your bathroom's grimy windowpanes, they say an army is gathering, sworn to give their lives for the man who took yours. None of these things holds any surprise for you. What does is the sight of the woman who now stands in the bathroom doorway, sixty-nine but, in your memory, no older than seventeen. Unlike yours, her curly hair has been painted grey with time, but those eyes are as startlingly blue as you remember.

"They told me I could find you here," says Murcia unnecessarily, as if she needed to ask where you'd be.

When you don't say anything, she tries again. "I heard Hogwarts was under attack; I had to come help. The ghosts are planning to help with the defence. Flying through the Death Eaters, confusing them, distracting them, effing them up any way they can. That sort of thing. They – I – thought you might want to help."

"I will." You would have anyway. She didn't need to come to your bathroom just for that, not when any one of the ghosts could have delivered that message. There's another reason she's here.

"Er, great. Thanks." Murcia scuffs at the ground with her heel like the schoolgirl she once was, then gives a wooden laugh. "Funny, isn't it? That it takes a war to drag me back to this place."

Footsteps thunder through the corridor outside; voices are yelling in the distance. She shouldn't linger, yet she does.

"I never came back," she says. You're not sure if it's directed at you or herself. "All those years, and I never came back. Not once."

Her eyes sweep the bathroom, drinking in the filthy mirrors, the peeling paint on the stalls, the tap that's never worked. "I suppose I just wanted to be done with it all. Move on and start the next chapter of my life. No more memories of this place, all the shit that happened here. But I guess" – her voice catches – "I guess that's all you were left with. Wasn't it?"

Still unable to say anything, you nod.

"I'm sorry," she says, finally.

"You don't have to be." Memories of your last encounter come back; the darkened dormitory, both of you screaming, your own pain a black fog blocking out her tears. "I'm the one who should apologize."

Murcia lets out another humorless laugh. "We both messed each other up, then, didn't we? Maybe … how about we just call it even?"

You've spent far too long settling scores. If anyone deserves your malice, it's not Murcia; not even Olive Hornby.

"Of course."

The fraction of a smile – tremulous, grateful – inches across the old woman's face. Somewhere deep in the past, a broken bridge begins to rebuild itself.

Nearby tremors rock the bathroom. It's starting.

"You know it was him, right?" Murcia asks softly. "He-Who – Voldemort? Who did this to you?"

"Yes." That's why you know you've got to help fight. Fifty-five years ago, in this very bathroom, Lord Voldemort killed a thirteen-year-old girl simply for being in his way. He condemned her parents to a comfortable lie, her enemy to years of undeserved torment, and her best friend to a life of guilt. What's past can't be changed, but it must never happen again.

The nervous hope on Murcia's face morphs into grim determination. She grasps her wand, turning resolutely back towards the door. "Then come on, Myrtle. Let's give him hell."

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight) but you feel as ageless as you are weightless. An army of ghosts surges back and forth through the advancing intruders like waves across a black lake. As has been the case throughout your afterlife, you're acutely aware of how little you can do. Yet in a battle such as this, mere milliseconds are invaluable. Every moment of discomfort or disorientation you can cause a Death Eater is one in which they might not kill.

Amidst the chaos you hear the familiar sounds of Draco's pleading. Looking around frantically, you catch sight of his pale form backed into a corner by a towering black-robed man. Without hesitation you plunge through the attacker's body, sending chills through flesh. His wand hand falters mid-jab; the next instant, someone's Stunning Spell rockets down the hallway and slams him to the ground. Then there's another scream, further along, and you can't spare a second to wait and see if Draco noticed it was you.

Countless people fall around you, Hogwarts protectors and Death Eaters alike. You fly in and out of the crowd, weaving and darting and defending, until space and time themselves are a blur. All that remains is one conviction: no more children will lose their lives Lord Voldemort. No more, no more, no more.

You are thirteen years old (sixty-eight), and Voldemort was seventy-one. You float over his lifeless husk, just as he must have stood over yours, and wonder why this man was blessed with nearly sixty more years of life than you were.

You wonder where he's gone. It was fear that kept you tethered to earth, and they say this man lived in terror of death. Yet something tells you that this creature didn't have enough of a soul to leave behind. At the same time, you doubt he's found the peace you turned away from, that you hope your parents have reached. Whatever eternity Lord Voldemort has found, you're sure it's every bit as miserable as he deserves.

Murcia's waiting as you drift out of the locked room where the dark wizard's body is stored. She leans against a wall, robes torn and dirtied, exhausted but alive.

"Find what you were looking for?"

You shrug, not knowing what that was in the first place.

"You know," Murcia says, "I've been thinking. I expect the Ministry's got enough on their plate right now, but after some time's passed, after this is all cleared up … well, I doubt they'd see any reason for a fifty-year-old restraining order to remain in place."

Hope and fear rush through you, both at once. "You'd do that?"

"Can't see why not. After all, Olive Hornby's been gone for ages. As long as you swear never go to after any of her descendants ..."

"Definitely." Whatever animosity you once had towards Olive has all but disappeared, reserved instead for the one who truly warrants it.

"Something else…" Murcia's smiling now in a bittersweet, almost wistful, way. "What was the name of that book you used to love? The Muggle one, that she ripped up the night before … it happened."

An old memory reignites itself in your heart, soft and warm. Your mother reading to you in your London bedroom, when witches and wizards remained confined to written pages, before magical daydreams twisted themselves into nightmares.

"The Hobbit."

"That's the one. I'm thinking of stopping in at a few Muggle bookshops, looking around. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

You frown, feeling she's overlooked one important detail. "…You know I can't turn pages, right?"

"I know." She stands. "That's what I'll be there for."

Murcia reaches out a hand to slip through yours, not even shuddering at the cold.

"If you'll stick around for a while, that is. At least until they let you leave Hogwarts."

"Longer."

All around you, the souls of the battle's victims rise upwards towards the new-day sun. A few falter, fear and indecision written across their faces, and descend back to earth as imprints of their living selves. Most move on, fading into the brilliant sky until they no longer bear form. You yearn to follow them, but the ache is not as painful as it might once have been. This is the path you have chosen.

Yet, for the ones who linger – the frightened, the embittered, the lost, the young – you will be there. You know that what you offer will not be enough, but you will give it anyway. Perhaps among those who remain is another thirteen-year-old, so cheated in life that she chose its imitation, who will come to regret this decision as much as you have. She will need someone to watch over her in death, to remind her that she, too, deserves love, deserves friendship, deserves immortality, regardless of what she has chosen.

You're not sure what emotion this is, or even if it is one. Peace, maybe. Whatever it is, it is your eternity.

You have lost count of how old you are, but time matters very little as Lord Voldemort's first victim watches his last ascend to their rest.

A/N: Well, here it is, guys, the final chapter. If you've stuck with Myrtle for this long, I hope you've enjoyed reading her story, and that you find the ending satisfactorily bittersweet.

I LOVE the idea of Myrtle helping out Dumbledore's Army, and Hogwarts' students in general, during the Carrows' regime. If there's anything we know about her, it's that she hates a bully, and - if she knows the truth about her death - likely hates Voldemort, too. I can't imagine that she, being a murder victim of his while still in school, would take kindly to other children being tortured and traumatized under his rule.

I also wanted Malfoy to serve as the link between Myrtle's act of kindness in Half-Blood Prince and her (hypothetical) greater role during Deathly Hallows, showing that her devotion to him wasn't wasted. I thought long and hard about having him go out of his way to protect a student during a time when he was still technically a Death Eater, but ultimately decided it benefited the story too much to discard. While we don't know much about what Draco did during Deathly Hallows, we do know that he didn't reveal Harry to Bellatrix and the other Death Eaters, and that (according to Cursed Child, at least) he eventually became a much better, less prejudiced person. I figured this could serve as evidence that he's starting to question his parents' ideology and his role in the war. I also thought it would be a good idea to have the near-victim be a Slytherin, since 1) I can see Malfoy being more likely to help someone in his own house, and 2) just as it's a cliche to have all the bullies be Slytherin, it's also a cliche to have everyone the Carrows oppose be in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. While I didn't intend this boy to have a concrete identity, I sort of imagined him being either Malcolm Baddock or Graham Pritchard, boys sorted into Slytherin in Harry's fourth year.

Myrtle asking to be called by her real name was inspired by one of the few scenes I actually liked in the Cursed Child. Despite my issues with that play, I'm very happy with Myrtle's depiction in it.

I initially planned on Luna having a much greater role, convincing Myrtle to fight at the end like Murcia does in the finished version, but as the writing went on, I realized there just wasn't enough room to introduce and establish a 'new' character so late in the story. Even though I had to cut her appearance down greatly, I'm still pleased with what little I had her do. I definitely feel like she'd be the one to innocently ask those piercing questions that cause people to re-evaluate their choices.

Murcia coming back was actually quite a late addition to the story. Originally, Myrtle was going to reflect on how maybe she could protect a hypothetical descendant of Murcia's, or even Murcia herself, by fighting in the battle, but I eventually decided it would be much more meaningful to have her return in person and actually interact with Myrtle.

Finally, the ending. In very early drafts, Myrtle finding closure and peace by protecting Hogwarts' students was going to give her the ability to move on to the afterlife, thereby reuniting with her parents. I had to wrestle long and hard with myself to decide whether I wanted this optimistic ending, or the more bittersweet one in the final product. Eventually, canon won out - as far as I know, there's no way a ghost in the Harry Potter world can choose to move on, and I'm not going to go against that. Plus, in a story as depressing as Myrtle's, I felt like a sudden happy ending would be incongruous with the tone of the rest of the Fic. I tried to compromise by having Murcia reignite her friendship with Myrtle and take some steps towards making her afterlife more bearable, as well as having Myrtle stay behind to help the ghosts of other young Voldemort victims. That's a whole other story in and of itself, but as far as I know now, I'm not going to write it.

I'm so grateful that I was able to finally finish this story, and I hope that everyone who's gotten this far has enjoyed reading it - and maybe come to look at Myrtle in a bit of a different way. Thank you so much! :)