Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I thankfully don't own Moaning Myrtle (I think I might have to resort to bathing at the neighbors' house).

Myrtle Jones

December 18th, 1929- June 2nd, 1943

I remember the start of the war in 1939, and I remember the packet they handed me, telling all about air-raids and gas masks and bombs. And I remember crying. I was so scared. Here I was, my husband just barely forty, me a little younger, and our three girls, only ten, thirteen, and fifteen. What was I supposed to do but cry? And of course that set off Myrtle's tears; she was such a timid little thing. She had my temperament. Miriam, my middle girl tried to be strong and talked bravely of how if she was a boy and she was off-age she would sign up for the army. Miranda, my oldest, didn't say much at all. Damian, my husband was the one who tried to hold us together. He had held Myrtle on his lap and made her stop crying; she was always her daddy's little girl. He had assured Miriam she was indeed very brave. And he kept me from crying as much as it was possible for me not to cry, at least until the summer.

It was obvious that we were going to war by the summer of 1940. And I cried even more. Damian joined the Home Guard. Miriam took an extreme interest in medicine, determined she was going to be a nurse as soon as she was big enough to pretend she was of-age. Miranda still didn't say much. She was like her father, good at listening but not at all good at telling anyone what she felt. And Myrtle, oh, I thanked God for the gift that was given to Myrtle. In late July a man came to our door, the strangest man I had ever seen. He had long auburn hair with a long, matching beard. He wore robes that I thought had to be hot in the middle of the summer. And he told us that Myrtle, my youngest, my baby, was a witch.

My first thought had been that he was crazy and I almost slammed the door to our flat in his face but it had been Damian, my sensible Damian who let him into our home. As the man began to talk about magic I began to remember how many strange things had happened around Myrtle. I remembered how colorful bubbles had sprung up around her when she was happy in the park and how she had hid herself so well I had found myself wondering if she was invisible when she had to go back to school after being picked on the day before. Then the man, Professor Dumbledore he called himself, had said the truly magic words. The school Myrtle would be able to attend was unplottable. No pilot, no military, no one that wasn't magic like her, would be able to see, much less harm the school he called Hogwarts. And right then I was convinced she was going. Because going to that school would mean that Myrtle was safe. Or at least I thought it would be.

In August, we headed into war and in September, the bombings started. I became even gladder that Myrtle was in her school of magic. And she seemed to like it, most of the time. She said she was sorted into a house called Ravenclaw where everyone was very smart. But she was also complained that she was picked on a little. All in all though, I paid her very little mind when I had two daughters I needed to keep safe at home, and I knew I didn't have to worry about Myrtle.

I tried to convince her many times to see about staying at school over the holidays. I cried regardless of whether she listened or not. Her first year it was a struggle to make her listen; she came home over the Christmas holiday but not the Easter. During her second year she was willing to stay since another one of her muggle-born (what they called Myrtle since both her father and I couldn't do magic) friends was staying as well. But her third year she refused to stay. She came back home crying like crazy because she said someone was opening something called the Chamber of Secrets and hurting the muggle-borns; she didn't want to go back. But I didn't want her to stay at home. She said that all the people in the school who were hurt were going to be fine eventually. So we made her go back. Besides, I figured it wasn't really as bad as she'd said it was, not as easily as her panic was set off at the slightest thing. I wish I had listened. I wish I hadn't made her return. I wish I had never been brought to the school of magic to hear that my daughter was dead.

Sure, I found out that ghosts were real, that my daughter had become one. And when I first found out, I was overcome with joy. At least I still had part of her, an imprint so to speak. But as I watched my other children grow up and get married and have children of their own while my youngest was frozen at fourteen, a miserable awkward fourteen at that, it became not such a blessing. As much as it made me cry and sob to even think it, I wished my daughter had truly died. My daughter's imprint was a curse to herself.

I thought magic would be what would save my daughter. Yet because of the Chamber of Secrets, in a school of magic, she died at the age of fourteen.

So yes, random idea I had when thinking about Hermione actually. I was thinking about how much it must suck for her parents since they kind of lost their daughter when she left and then I got to thinking too much and realized that a lot of the muggle-borns' parents probably feel the same. So I'm thinking of doing the mothers' perspectives of how they lost their children to the wizarding world. Not all of them will be death like Myrtle. Right now I have Marilyn Callen (my own character who's the mother of a half-blood who's parents were never specifically mentioned) and Ted Tonks done. Hope you liked this chapter and even more, I hope you review. Thanks for reading!