Everything's Fair in Love and War

Everything's Fair in Love and War

bluemoon

Rating: PG

Summery: Moaning Myrtle has a secret... but then Hermione does too. And then, one day when Hermione is miserable and goes to Myrtle (knowing that she is one person who will never crash a pity party)... well... everything explodes....

Right, the idea for this wasn't actually mine, it was one of my friend's (Rennie's, to be precise--you can find her version, Ghost of a Chance, <url=http://fanfiction.portkey.org/story/4512>here</url>) and I just sort of… picked it up and ran with it, as I thought it sounded great and hilarious. And actually, quite fluffy--though I didn't originally intend for it to be that way.

I like it though, and I hope that you do too.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Harry Potter--if I was JKR, things would be turning out A LOT differently. (I think that the sixth book in particular has a really sucky ending) Also, as mentioned, I do not own the basic idea for this fic, but I WAS given permission to web-publish it!

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Moaning Myrtle was very much surprised when, one day at nearly 4:00, she heard from down in the U-bend of her favorite toilet the slamming of the bathroom door. Even so, she gloomily supposed, it was probably just someone there to make fun of her or throw something at her again. 100 points for through the nose indeed!

Choking back a sob she dived deeper into the plumbing, great pearly tears that disappeared as soon as they left her face dripping from her nose. “Why can't you just leave me alone?” she sobbed, headed off for the lake. The merpeople lived there though, and they were always awful! Sulkily, still crying, she settled in the wall. Let them try to get her there!

“Myrtle?” called a voice, as thick and tear-filled as her own, “where are you?”

Intrigued in spite of herself, the gloomy ghost slowly floated up into her stall. “Oh,” she said disappointedly when she saw who it was, “it's only you. What do you want?”

“Everyone else is trying to cheer me up,” Hermione Granger said miserably, “and I don't want to be cheerful at the moment.”

“Ohhh!” Myrtle squealed, instantly cheering up herself at the thought of the other girl's troubles. “What's wrong?” she asked breathlessly.

“It's this guy I like,” Hermione replied, sniffling as a few more tears ran down her cheek. “I love him with every fiber of my being, but he doesn't even think of me as more then a friend!”

“Oh,” Myrtle said, her own eyes beginning to fill with tears again. Normally hearing other people's troubles cheered her up immensely, but she had this same trouble and hearing someone else relate it just brought it back to the front of her mind. “I know how you feel,” she said miserably, “I have the same problem. Sometimes it's so bad that I want to kill myself--but I can't, of course, and that just makes it worse. And I'm starting to think that Harry may not even want to be with me--he keeps on putting such an effort to stay alive!”

Hermione slowly lifted her tear-stained face from a handful of her robes that she had been sobbing into only seconds before. “Wait, Harry?” she asked stupidly as she stared at the ghost in dumbfounded disbelief.

“Yes,” Myrtle said. “Really, when you look at the number of times he's almost died you almost start thinking that he doesn't want to haunt the bathroom with-”

“Harry's mine,” Hermione interrupted, her voice suddenly cold.

“No, he's mine,” Myrtle said, beginning to get angry. “You leave him alone!” And then, just for good measure, she flooded the bathroom, soaking Hermione.

“You fiend!” the girl shrieked, her voice rapidly approaching decibels normally reserved for calling dogs. “And my patronus would be a better match for him then you!”

“Hah!” Myrtle bawled in return, “I bet you can't even cast one!”

“Why you… you… EXPECTO PATRONUM!” the witch screamed, raising her wand as she pictured quite clearly punching Myrtle right in her nose. A huge silver otter, twice as big as normal, burst snarling and bristling into being.

“Too bad it can't do any-” Myrtle began smarmily, and then it bit her. “Oh,” the ghost gasped angrily, lifting her robes and beginning to run around the bathroom, the silver animal still pursuing her, “you witch, you witch!”

“Finally figured it out, did you?” asked Hermione smugly.

Patronuses, though originally intended for dementors, have since been discovered to be able to take on any number of creatures largely immune to magic, including the dreaded lethifold and also, it appeared, ghosts.

Well, after the patronus had chased Myrtle round the bathroom twice, all Hades, if you'll pardon the phrase, broke loose.

Myrtle flooded all the toilets and sinks again, this time getting the water ankle-deep, and began hurdling broken off pieces of tile, a faucet, the seat of a toilet and the hot-water handle from the chamber entrance at Hermione, who was holding her own by shrieking every curse, hex and jinx that she could think of at her ghostly opponent, a surprising number of which worked.

They traded blows for nearly 15 minutes, in that time managing to nearly destroy the entire bathroom and flood most of the fourth floor, but after a quarter of an hour spent bent on killing one another (well, at least for Myrtle, Hermione was only trying to make Myrtle rue the day that she hadn't gone crawling off to the underworld), Professor McGonagall came cautiously through the door. She had time only to widen her eyes before she had to hastily duck a particularly badly aimed bit of tile and deflect three different hexes, one curse, and a wave of oncoming water. Panting slightly, she raised her wand again and said, “That is enough,” obviously working some spell or another because suddenly, everything froze.

“What--in the name of Merlin--WHAT have you two girls been doing?” she asked angrily as she quickly cleaned up the mess and confiscated Hermione's wand. “Come along, yes, both of you,” (this bit had been directed at Moaning Myrtle as she had, with terror in her eye, attempted to escape down the only remaining toilet). A few spells later and all three were walking (well, to be strictly accurate, two were walking and one was floating) down the hall, and Hermione had a bad feeling she knew where.

She was right.

Five minutes later, all three were standing in the headmaster's office and Albus Dumbledore was peering somewhat bemusedly over his spectacles as he listened to the tale. Or Professor McGonagall's version of it, anyway.

“…And when poor Flitwick came and told me that even Peeves was avoiding the 4th floor bathroom (and you know how normally he will go anywhere there is an uproar, just to see if he can create a bigger one) I knew that someone had to step in before the castle was leveled. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and saw Hermione standing there, shrieking what had to be close to every jinx she knew, a few which I don't know how she got the spells to! Or to be more precise, floating in there, she could hardly have been classed as standing at that point as she was hovering nearly 2 feet up…”

It went on like that for a long time. Finally, when the teacher's tirade was at an end, Dumbledore--headmaster Dumbledore--turned his crystal blue eyes and slightly raised one eyebrow. “Hermione? I never would have expected something like this from one of my students, but you of all people…. And Myrtle, I never saw you as the type of ghost who would assault students--if I had then I never would have let you stay in the castle!”

Both began to blush, Myrtle a silver so deep that she almost looked solid, while Hermione (who was roughly the color and temperature of lava) was convinced that the heat rising from her face alone would shortly have her hair alight.

“Would you care to explain your side of the story?” he asked calmly.

Both sat there for what felt several centuries, but was probably closer to only a minute.

“Sh-she insulted my witchcraft, sir,” Hermione finally said in a small voice. She would rather have died then admit the real reason. Myrtle, after all, was one thing-she had needed to tell someone and knew that Myrtle would never crash a pity party, but a teacher? Despite her near hero-worship of every member of the teaching faculty at Hogwarts, there were some things that you just didn't tell your teacher!

“Really?” asked Dumbledore, looking slightly puzzled. “That doesn't sound like something she would do normally either. But even if it is true, don't you think that you blew this just slightly out of proportion, hmm? If this is how you react whenever anyone says you are a second-class witch, then I worry for the people in your future, my dear. Now Myrtle? What is your side of the story?”

“Well, sir, she said-”

“Don't you DARE!” Hermione shrieked, instinctively reaching for her wand.

Myrtle ducked. “I wasn't going to!” she snapped back, her eyes filling up with tears. “Just leave me alone, as if it isn't enough that-”

“Myrtle--SHUT UP!”

And it all started again. It was slightly better this time around--there was nothing around that responded to Myrtles attempts at levitation and nothing to flood, so her offensive was knocked out, and even Hermione couldn't really work any spells without her wand. So, they just screamed at each other, their voices mixing and becoming one huge, confused jumble.

“For the last time,” Hermione yelled, her fists balled as she shouted in Myrtle's transparent face, “Harry-” Myrtle froze.

Hermione froze and clapped her hands over her mouth, changing colors as rapidly as a traffic light gone berserk. First she went white as a sheet and then red, looking almost like she was on fire.

And then things got worse.

“Sir?” came a voice from just outside on the stairs.

Hermione let out a small scream and hid her face (which was, interestingly, gaining a faint greenish tinge) while Myrtle began frantically looking around for a handy drain, hastily turning invisible when she couldn't find one.

Dumbledore just smiled. After all, he had been a teacher at this school for quite some time, he had seen this many, many times.

“Why don't you come in, Harry?” he called, the smile that he was struggling to conceal shining through in his voice. Hermione let out that same, small whimpering scream through her hands again as Harry opened the door and then stopped, staring. After all, what was Hermione doing there? Hermione never did anything to get herself into trouble, at least not without him and Ron along to egg her on. And if she had been having some sort of meeting with Dumbledore about grades or something, he wouldn't have been let in on any of it, and so what was up?

He was even more confused when he looked bemusedly at Hermione (who, he noticed, was an interesting shade of magenta) and her eyes got huge before she turned away, blushing an even deeper red.

“Er… Professor?” Harry asked, somewhat slowly, his own face seeming slightly hotter than usual, “what's going on?”

“I'm sorry, Harry,” Dumbledore said, apparently ignoring the question, “but I'm afraid that I need to run out for a few minutes. We'll have to postpone our meeting here. You two just wait, absolutely no need to get up for me, I'll be back in a jiffy.”

Hermione was widening her eyes at him and making little shakes of her head--no, No, DON'T leave me here alone with him!--but Dumbledore just smiled his secret little smile again, stood up, flicked his wand to call Myrtle and walked out of his office, practically dragging her (still invisible) presence behind him. He proceeded to take her back to her bathroom where he repaired all damage done, cleared that floor of the water and then conjured up one of his comfortable poof chairs, settling down to explain to her that Harry was hardly the best choice she could make, as he was still living and it was highly unlikely that he would ever become a ghost--he wanted to see Sirius and his parents again too much for that, even if he was afraid of dying enough to want to stay here on earth.

Myrtle was just surprised that he knew about her crush at all. She spent the next three weeks worrying about how obvious she was with her emotions and became briefly convinced that this was why no one ever came and visited her. Consequently, she developed a rather close friendship with Professor Trelawney, as she seemed to be the most mysterious person in the school. Trelawney, of course, was just happy to be on such good terms with someone already dead, hoping that she could learn more about it (for accuracy dear, and I foresee so many tragedies, it would help ever so much), though she was rather depressed when, in the end, Myrtle couldn't tell her anything about dying or being dead but that it was very lonely and no one ever came and visited you.

But, back in Dumbledore's office, Harry and Hermione sat uncomfortably next to each other for a few minutes before Hermione finally asked, “So, what are you here for?”

“Well,” Harry replied, turning red for some reason, “I wanted to ask someone something, and I couldn't think of anyone but Dumbledore (Sirius is dead and Ron wouldn't be able to help) and so I asked if I could come up and see him some time and… well… this is when he told me to come up.” He was blushing nearly as hard as she was at that point. Silence fell again.

“Speaking of that though,” Harry said after another few minutes of almost unbearable silence, “Why on earth are you here?”

Hermione, who had just been recovering from her initial freak-out when she had heard Harry, suddenly felt her face revert to its previous color and heat. “Umm…” she said slowly, “uhh… well….”

Harry, who was basically normal color again by then, peered at her questioningly. Hermione blushed even harder at that, a thing which she wouldn't have previously thought possible.

“Uhh… Hermione?” Harry asked uncertainly.

And then it all came out. Really. It was like he'd pushed a button on her forehead that said, “Information, Please,” and it all came gushing out like lava pouring from a volcano.

“It was Myrtle. I mean, I was crying and everyone else kept trying to cheer me up and I just wanted to tell someone and, after all, who would Myrtle tell, and so I told her but then I found out that she loved you too-”

Suddenly seeming to realize what she was saying, Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth, as though she could take back those words by doing so. Her eyes were huge, her hands trembling, as she sat as though petrified for about two seconds. Then she squeezed her eyes closed and ran at a mad pelt from the office with a soft moan of horror, her hand still covering her mouth.

Harry, meanwhile, was in a state of shock. Moaning Myrtle had a crush on him? He supposed that, now that he thought of it, he should have realized it years ago, after all, she had been almost stalking him at one point, but somehow the idea had always seemed so utterly ludicrous that…. And then Hermione had said, “she loved you too…” Harry's eyes widened as the implication struck him. “Too?”

Hermione, at that point, had already ran to the girls dormitory, flung herself down on her bed and screamed several times into the pillow. What on Earth had possessed her to say that? What thing had crawled into her brain and began blabbing about how she liked Harry (a fact which, before that day, she had NEVER admitted to ANYONE) to Harry himself? Whatever it was, it had better get running, because she was going to hunt it and beat it to a bloody pulp. If it was lucky, it would die.

Why, why, why had she told him that?

Nothing would ever be the same again. She had ruined it all though, and had only herself to blame. Her and her big mouth. Her and her huge, grotesque, disproportionately massive mouth. WHY HAD SHE SAID THAT?

She would have to quit Hogwarts, that was all. Hogwarts was, of course, the best, but she bet that she could get along quite well in another school--there were actually a few very good ones in her area! Well… kind of. None were in Britain, it was true, but they were in Europe, at least! She wouldn't want to have to go as far as America just to get a decent education. And after all, she already knew more N.E.W.T. level spells then almost anyone in school--if, indeed, she was not the one to hold the record for most known.

She needed to go and talk to her parents about transferring out though, and now was as good a time as any. She didn't think that she could stand to stay in the same school as Harry for another day.

Quickly she drafted a letter and was just about to head off to the owlery when she thought better of it. Owl post would take too long, she would run to see if Dumbledore had any faster means of communication before she mailed her letter. Her decision made, she turned and dashed down the stairs to the common room, her letter rolled into a tight scroll and clutched in her hand, just in case she did have to use it.

Fate plays odd tricks on people sometimes, doesn't it? For just as Hermione reached out to push the portrait open it swung open itself to reveal, of all people, Harry. Both froze, standing stock still for nearly thirty seconds. Hermione's eyes grew to near the size of dinner plates again as she began to blush for the millionth and first time (why did she keep on blushing anyway?) while Harry just looked mildly uncomfortable, though his cheeks did hold a little more color then normal.

“Hermione,” Harry finally began hesitantly, “what did you mean by that “she loves you too?” I mean, I think I know, but I wanted to make sure….”

The girl hung her head defeatedly, her hair falling down all around her face in great soft waves to hide her tears. “I think you know perfectly well what it means, Harry,” she said softly in a (it must be admitted) somewhat broken voice. “I… I love you.”

The last thing that she would have expected began to happen then--Harry began to laugh. And not mocking laughter or scornful laughter or the “this-is-all-just-one-big-joke” laughter, but kind laughter filled with honest, open relief, almost seeming giddy with it. “Really?” he asked, grinning hugely.

“Yes,” Hermione answered hesitantly as she peered back up through her hair, not quite sure what was going on with all of this.

“Good,” Harry said, climbing up into the common room. And then he kissed her.

~*~*~

One month later the young couple was laughing together at the story in full, which Harry had finally gotten Hermione to tell him. Still smiling, though not laughing softly like Harry was, the girl sighed contentedly and leaned her head against her new boyfriend's shoulder.

“You never told me why you were in Dumbledore's office though, not really,” Hermione said suddenly, looking up at Harry curiously.

“Oh,” Harry said, blushing slightly, “that.” Hermione smiled softly--he was just so cute when he was embarrassed “Well, I wanted to ask someone's advice on something, like I said, and I obviously couldn't ask Ron or Sirius or anyone else that I could think of, and so--”

“Wait,” Hermione interrupted, “what did you want advice on?” She was genuinely curious; Harry had always been so stubbornly independent!

“Well…” he said slowly, “there was this really smart, pretty girl that I liked, and I didn't think that she liked me, and so…”

Smiling wider, Hermione looked at him with a playful tilt of her eyebrow. “Who was it?” she asked impishly.

“Now,” Harry said smilingly as he grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him on the grass, “do you really need to ask that?”

“No,” she answered softly, her voice warm, “no, I guess I don't.”

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Awww!

I like the end. I really, really do.

Hope you liked my little oneshot, it was fun to write and I tell you, I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, I would very much appreciate it if you just hit that review button! (hint, hint)

Other then that, I guess just thanks for reading it, hope you liked it! And have a happy fanfiction day!

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