Deceiving the Dead

In the early hours, in one of the Slytherin dormitories, a well-polished leather shoe was thrown through the air. It arced through the sky and collided with George's head as he lay sleeping in his bed. The shiny shoe smashed into his face with enough power to ricochet off his nose, causing it to bounce over his head and hit the clock beside his bed.

Just before the clock was about to hit the ground, George reached over and snatched it out of the air. He yawned while stretching his arms before returning the clock to its rightful place on his bedside cabinet. Before he got out of bed, George reached down into his pyjamas and pulled out his small silver mirror from his leather sack and held it in front of his face. He was paying particular attention to his eyes which had changed colour from light blue to dark crimson.

Since his eyes had changed, George reached under his pyjama shirt whilst his expression contorted in pain. He rummaged around for a few seconds before pulling out a small spherical object. The tiny ball was about an inch in size, it looked like a yellow hard boiled sweet with small red squiggles like veins scattered all over it.

George placed the 'sweet' inside of his mouth and swallowed It like a pill, the colour of his eyes changed back to normal within seconds of the pill settling in his stomach. Satisfied with his current 'normal' appearance, George looked over to the dormitory room's exit where the shoe had been thrown from. Just as his head turned around, he heard the sound of frantic footsteps from behind the door.

He got up out of the bed and stretched his entire body by tensing all of his muscles. Just like usual, every bone in his body cracked simultaneously. Then he bent over and picked up the expensive-looking shoe that had woken him up, he looked inside and saw a tag that was labelled 'Theodore Nott' on the inside tongue of the shoe.

George walked over to Theodore's bed and saw a left shoe missing its right pair, George placed the shoe back where it belonged. Then he got washed, dressed and put on a new fresh set of clothes. Whilst he was adjusting his collar, George noticed that there wasn't a pair of orange eyes angrily staring at him. He looked around the room and couldn't find Blinkie, the owl and its cage were gone.

Just as George was about to leave his dormitory, he reached for the door handle and saw that his hand was starting to shake. He knew what this meant and didn't hesitate to pull out a vial from his pouch and down it in one gulp. The minty liquid slid down his oesophagus and immediately filled him with a sense of tranquillity.

Three of George's Calming Draught vials had been officially drunk and he had at most a four-day deadline to finish making his version of the potion. With time against him, George didn't linger in the room. He left his dormitory and the Slytherin common room to go and get his breakfast at the Great Hall. Fifteen minutes later and George was casually walking to his first and only lesson of the day after retrieving a huge chunk of black pudding.

George arrived at his Defence Against the Dark Arts class a little early and decided to wait inside the classroom since the door was unlocked. The classroom shared many common traits found in other rooms at Hogwarts, although, the massive dragon skeleton hanging from the ceiling was unique. Three large arched windows flooded the room with natural light, ironically making this the brightest classroom he had yet to attend.

Since George had nothing better to do, he took this moment of peace to re-evaluate everything he had failed to achieve last night. Yesterday at the Library had been a massive failure, he hadn't managed to find any books related to the Calming Draught except the Advanced Potion-Making book used by all NEWT students. Via the book, he learnt that the Calming Draught required unusual ingredients such as crocodile hearts. It was an ingredient George didn't have on hand and would need to source as soon as possible.

After a few minutes of waiting, other students started turning up in the classroom and filling the space. They mostly ignored George as he hid in one of the few shadowy corners of the room. Every student turned up to class by the time Quirrell finally left his office, the professor hesitantly descended the stairs to the classroom like someone with severe vertigo.

Quirrell stuttered his way through the entire lesson and gave George the impression that this year was predominantly going to be learning about magic and not practising it. Due to this less-than-motivating learning environment, George started daydreaming about his plans to set up his potion laboratory. Quirrell was so incredibly nervous that he didn't seem to notice George's glazed-over eyes looking right past him.

As soon as the Dark Arts lesson ended, George left the class and headed straight to the girl's bathroom on the second floor. It only took him five minutes to find the entrance in a seemingly abandoned corridor, George listened carefully and couldn't hear anyone in either direction. Since he will be adopting a new persona for this next operation, there was a little bit of preparation he needed to do before he entered the bathroom.

George took his robe off and tightly scrunched it up into a ball. Then he dropped the cloth ball and punted it against the wall with all of his might. The robe struck the wall and fell to the ground into a pile of dust. George picked up the robes and unfolded them and found a bunch of freshly made creases and tears. He proceeded to put the robes back on his body and pat himself down a few times to remove all of the excess dust.

To finish the look, George walked up to the same stone wall that he kicked the robes against, leaned back, and then slammed his face into it. The crunch from his nose breaking echoed through the corridor, he reeled backwards and almost fell over from the stunning effect of having his face caved in. After he waited for his blurry vision to recover, George gently touched his nose and noticed that it was bent at a crooked angle.

A few moments later and George could taste iron as a cold liquid dripped down from his nose and into his mouth. He pulled out a small mirror from his leather sack and held it in front of his face. His nose was bent into an S-shape and his brow was beginning to swell as if he had been stung by a swarm of bees. These injuries were far too severe, he needed to try and hide as much of it as possible.

George grabbed his nose and yanked it back into place, the process of realigning it was just as loud as breaking it. The blood started flowing once again, so he pulled out a bottle of water and poured it over his face whilst using a spare rag to wipe his face clean. The removal of the blood ended up revealing all of the scrape marks that were on his nose and swollen brown.

He decided his best option was to simply wait for the swelling to go down and the more minor cuts to close. During this point of self-reflection, George noticed the gory modern art he had left on the wall where his face had made contact. A nice big red splatter mark had been left behind and was dripping down the wall. He produced a flame from the tip of his finger and held it towards his mouth whilst standing only a foot away from the blood splatter.

Then George exhaled all of the air from his lungs which caused the flame to fly forward in a jet of fire similar to a flamethrower. His knock-off fire-breathing quickly vaporised the blood, only a black scorch mark remained on the wall. Once he'd hidden the evidence, George walked around the corridor and found a comfortable spot to hide his mangled face. He decided to wait in a small cupboard on the corridor with non-flying-brooms inside until roughly fifteen minutes had passed.

Once fifteen minutes had elapsed, most of the swelling had gone down and a large portion of the smaller cuts had vanished completely whilst the bigger ones had shrunk. Now that George was satisfied with his current appearance, he left the broom cupboard and entered the girl's bathroom. On his way, he intensely rubbed his open eyes to induce tears. Once the waterworks began flowing, he felt confident in his ability to sustain them for the next couple of minutes.

After weaving through a narrow passage, George entered a beautifully decorated octagonal space. Several large arched windows allowed golden light to illuminate a massive marble pillar in the centre of the room. The iconic pillar was over six feet in diameter and had eight sinks with accompanying mirrors placed around its circumference.

George slowly walked over to the pillar, whilst looking very miserable, until he stood by a sink and was looking at himself in the mirror. He looked at his reflection and saw tears streaming down his face and his eyes had become puffy and red. George added just a little bit of quiet sobbing and a subtle quivering lip as a finishing touch.

Now that he was potentially in the spotlight, George lent over and turned on the tap to fill the sink with cold water. He cupped some water with his hands and splashed it against his face. He used this 'face washing' to discreetly look over his shoulder. George saw a series of sixteen green wooden cubicles hidden around another corner, there were eight on either side of the room.

Since his audience hadn't appeared yet, George amplified the volume of his sobbing while dramatically hunching over the sink. He deliberately kept his eyes on his reflection as part of his performance until he heard the voice of a girl shrieking from inside one of the open cubicles.

"You shouldn't be in here, boys are not allowed. Go away!"

After hearing a voice as smooth as a cheese grater, George looked over his shoulder and witnessed a transparent grey visage of a teenage girl glide out from the cubicle. She was wearing a Hogwarts uniform and had the Ravenclaw crest on her robes. Her two ponytails, round glasses, and perpetual grumpy expression made her quite distinct from the other ghosts at Hogwarts.

Myrtle glared at the trespasser with her lips firmly pressed together and her eyes wide in infuriation. She swooped into the air at great speed and landed only a few feet away from him.

She wailed, "leave! Now!"

George stepped backwards which consequently resulted in him stumbling over the pillar's drainage grid and falling to the floor.

"M m Miss Warren, I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was the girl's bathroom. I must have been distracted, I'll leave now. Please don't tell the teachers, I don't want to get in any more trouble", George apologised whilst constantly stuttering.

Just to ram the pathetic value home, George scrambled around on the floor like the paved flags were coated in ice. Overwhelm with 'fear', he made sure to take around a dozen seconds to get back on his feet. Then he nervously bowed at the ghost before jogging towards the exit to the bathroom.

When he was a few steps away from leaving the bathroom, George's path was blocked by Myrtle suddenly swooping past him. She floated a few feet above him whilst squinting with a confused expression on her face. Since George never intended to leave, he stopped in his tracks and acted frozen in fear as he awaited her judgement.

Myrtle examined him before asking, "what did you just say to me?"

George replied anxiously, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was the girl's bathroom. I'll leave right away."

She rephrased her question, "not that. What did you call me?"

George acted confused, "did I make a mistake? I thought you were Miss Warren, the ghost that haunts the girl's bathroom on the second floor. I'm sorry if I've mistaken you for someone else, Miss."

Myrtle's face twitched whilst hearing her name be repeated, her transparent body slowly lowered down until they were at the same eye level. Her expression softened as she asked George another question which sounded very similar to the last, but with clearly different intentions.

"Why are you calling me Miss Warren? Nobody's called me that in a very long time."

George's face blushed red as he bashfully explained, "you're my senior and my mother taught me to be polite to those who are older than me. I wouldn't dare call you by your first name without your permission, it would be very rude. If you don't like it then I can use your first name instead?"

Myrtle began to slowly advance toward George which forced him to walk backwards. The ghost's stare only appeared to strengthen in intensity as she kept on advancing until George's back was pressed up against the marble pillar. He had to lean back until his head was resting against the mirror to gain a foot between them.

She stated in a flat tone, "you're different from the rest, I like your attitude. I like Miss Warren too, so keep calling me that."

After a few awkwardly long seconds, Myrtle finally stopped her staring competition with George as she turned her gaze to his injuries and his dishevelled robes. The demented gaze lessened while she carefully inspected his roughed-up appearance.

Then Myrtle smirked at George, "what happened to your face? You look hideously deformed, I do hope that you weren't born that way."

George's eyes went wide as he felt his injured face, "oh... this... I fell and slammed my head into a wall."

Mrytle's smile broadened as she saw through George's 'lie', "you fell, how unfortunate. What about your robes? Did all... that happen when you fell, or do you always look like you've been living in the Dark Forest?"

The ghost pointed towards George's chest. He hesitantly followed the finger down and looked at his damaged robes.

George explained in a panic, "rose bushes! I fell into some rose bushes, outside the castle. The thorns must have ripped up my robes when I climbed out."

Myrtle giggled after hearing George's excuse, "oh okay, that makes plenty of sense. So you tripped and stumbled into a rose bush and made your way up to the second story's girls' bathroom, completely by accident, and decided to have a little cry about it by the sink. Is that about right or did I miss something?"

George ignored the question and slipped past her, "well... it was a pleasure meeting you Mis Warren but I have to get going. If you don't mind..."

Just as he'd hoped for, his path was yet again blocked by Myrtle with a grave expression.

She shook her finger at him, "I don't believe your silly story for one second. Tell me the truth now or I might take a peek at you whilst you're having a bath in your dorm."

From shock to panic and eventually sadness, George expressed a range of emotions before slumping his shoulders in defeat. He looked down towards the flagged ground whilst maintaining a contemplative expression. After a few perfectly timed seconds, he finally spoke so quietly he could barely be heard over the sound of the taps dripping.

"I didn't fall into a rose bush, I was lying. Sorry for not telling you the truth, Mis Warren. Please forgive me."

Since that was meant to be his big confession, George acted exhausted as he fell to the ground and leaned against the wall with his head held between his hands. Then a cold presence brushed against his right shoulder which he presumed was the ghost 'sitting' beside him.

George asked a muffled question from between his fingers, "did anyone ever treat you meanly whilst you were a student at Hogwarts? Maybe because of something that you couldn't control?"

He heard a gentle exhale beside him as the cold sensation left his shoulder. Then Myrtle spoke in an angry tone from all around the room, she must have been in perpetual flight.

"You have no idea. People were never nice to me, they were always picking on me. It got so bad that they used to make games up just to make me cry. They would make fun of my hair or my glasses or how I didn't have any friends. I would cry in the bathroom and hear them laughing from outside, I felt like there was nowhere I could hide.

But it didn't just stop there, it's not like anything changed after I died. It was just the other day I overheard one of the Prefects telling the first years to not come in here because of Moaning Myrtle. What did I ever do to them to make them treat me so badly? It feels like everyone in the world has decided to hate me even if I haven't met them yet..."

George lifted his weary head from his hands after listening to Myrtle's moaning for ten straight uninterrupted minutes. He looked around the bathroom once the moaning stopped and he couldn't find the ghost at first. That was until he spotted Myrtle sitting on the ledge of the round window above the cubicles. She was looking through the window with a forlorn expression.

He asked in a slightly less nervous voice, "were the Slytherin students mean to you as well?"

The ghost looked in George's direction with a face of unmasked rage, she fell from the window and swooped through the air until she was standing right over the top of him.

"You must be joking. Those oh-so-privileged Slytherin students are the worst. They think they're better than everyone else and can do whatever they like. Oliver Hornby used to pretend to be my friend, that liar tricked me and made fun of my glasses right in front of everyone in the Great Hall."

George surprised Myrtle by smiling after hearing her rant about Slytherin. He adjusted his robes and deliberately pointed his Slytherin crest in her direction. She noticed the crest and immediately looked embarrassed after basically calling him scum.

George concurred with her sentiments, "that's about right from what I've seen. Slytherins are a nasty bunch. I like to think I'm not a Slytherin at heart but the Sorting Hat didn't seem to agree. On that topic, Miss Warren, maybe you can explain something to me. What is a mud-blood?"

The ghost's embarrassed expression changed back to fury as she looked accusingly at him.

"What did you just call me?"

George panicked as he waved his hands back and forth, "I wasn't calling you a mud-blood, I just want to know what it means. According to the other Slytherin students, I am one. So... I would like to know if it's something bad."

Myrtle's furious expression appeared to vanish, then she started to laugh loudly enough to echo through the bathroom.

She held her stomach whilst pointing at George, "no way. They called you a mud-blood and you're in Slytherin. That has to be the best joke I've ever heard."

George stood up with clenched fists as he interrupted her laughter, "it isn't a joke, I'm being very serious. They kept calling me that whilst they… Never mind, that's not important. You wouldn't understand anyway, you were in Ravenclaw."

Myrtle paused in the middle of her laughter, her expression softened as she probably understood the implications of what George was insinuating.

She slowly floated towards George whilst looking down at him with an empathetic gaze, "a mud-blood is a horrible name for a muggle-born. I was also called it from time to time but I wasn't in Slytherin unlike you, I guess you'll probably get it a lot more. If what you've said is true, then you're not going to have a good time in Slytherin. But, you probably already know that judging by your face. You're going to have to deal with... falling into a lot more rose bushes in the future."

George nodded his head whilst holding a self-deprecating smile. His persona had already worked out the meaning of mud-blood and just wanted confirmation from another he trusted.

He bowed his head towards Myrtle out of respect, "thank you for being honest, I needed to hear that although I think I already knew it, I just didn't want to believe it. It seems that the next few years at Hogwarts might be quite difficult for me, but that's my problem and not yours. I'm sorry for disturbing you and bringing up bad memories. I feel a lot better now after talking to you and I think I'm ready to go back outside. I'll be taking my leave if you don't mind."

George didn't wait for a response as he started leaving the bathroom for the third time. Instead of his path being blocked again, he was just about to pass the threshold to the bathroom when he heard Myrtle's voice from behind.

"What's your name?"

George turned around with a radiant smile on his face, "George Linwood, Miss Warren. But you can call me George. It was a pleasure talking to you."

Myrtle was floating above the marble pillar with a once-in-a-blue-moon happy smile on her face, "it was nice meeting you too, Mr Linwood."

George just smiled and nodded as he turned back around, but he stopped as he heard Myrtle speak once again.

"You know, if you ever wanted to talk, you can always come back and visit my toilet. I'm here every day."

He turned back around with a confused look on his face, "isn't this the girl's bathroom? I'm not allowed to come back here, isn't it against the rules?"

Myrtle played with one of her ponytails, "I won't tell anyone if you don't. It can be our secret."

George looked left and right before asking, "but this is still a girl's bathroom. What if a girl comes in whilst we're talking? She'll think I'm a peeping Tom and I don't need another reason for people to hate me."

Myrtle appeared to find George's concerns funny, she flew off the pillar and landed in front of him.

Her face couldn't hide her cheeky smile, "nobody comes here anyway because of me. All those evil prefects spreading rumours are to blame. It turns out that people don't like a ghost watching them whilst they go to the toilet, it's not my fault that this is where I died. So you might as well visit all you like."

George and Myrtle both stared at each other with knowing looks before they burst into laughter. They both giggled for a few seconds before George collected himself and wiped the tears from forming in the corners of his eyes. Then he held out his hand towards Myrtle whilst accepting her offer.

"Then it's official. If I ever feel like having a good chat/rant with a new friend then I will come right here. In exchange, you can tell me how much worse your school life was than mine. Do you find these terms agreeable, Miss Warren?"

Myrtle looked at the outstretched hand before returning her gaze to George, a bit of life seemed to have returned to her dull grey eyes.

She held out her hand and responded, "I do, Mr Linwood."

Both of their hands overlapped as they attempted to shake them, they both looked at each other awkwardly before bursting into laughter once again. A few seconds later and George left the girl's bathroom with twenty-five minutes to spare before Lunch. He now had his laboratory and his ghost guard dog to keep others from prying. With that operation out of the way, George changed into another clean robe in the abandoned corridor and headed down to the Library.

A thought popped into George's head as he was about to enter the Library, he pulled out a mirror and looked at himself. The only marks he could find, if he looked close enough, were a few purple bruises around the bridge of his nose. George's natural healing ability had rapidly accelerated far beyond his imagination, he wasn't sure if this was good or bad news.

Regardless of what was happening to him, George decided to not worry about it since it wasn't causing him any problems right now. He put away the mirror, took in a deep breath, and entered the Library.