Taking Over Me

Chapter 11 - Year 5 - 1943

     I stared at my friend's newly made corpse and ghost. Her body lay on the floor, but Myrtle's spirit hovered near me. She was see-through with a fuzzy outline and she was an otherworldly blue. Tears sprang to my eyes as I realized my friend was dead. "Myrtle what happened?"
     "I, I don't know. One minute I'm in here crying and the next, I heard someone come in. He spoke and when I realized it was a boy I opened the stall door to tell him to go away and I-" she broke off as the memories flooded her. "No, no, no oh god no. It's not possible it can't be true. I can't be dead. No I'm not, there has to be some kind of a mistake." She tried to grab my hands. "Mari, you'll help me right? You'll help me figure this out right?"

     I glanced down, not being able to feel my hands anymore and yelped. Myrtle's hands were inside of mine and it was like sticking your fingers in a frozen lake. She cried out when she noticed what I was staring at and flew towards the ceiling. I watched, mouth hanging open.

     She started to scream. It echoed off of every tile in the bathroom and vibrated out into the school. I could hear the thunder of footsteps as a group of people ran towards us. Myrtle huddled in the ledge around the stained glass window ten feet up the wall. She stopped screaming, and began to sob instead.

     I moved forward to comfort her, but I was interrupted but the arrival of nearly all of the school's professors.

     They skidded to a halt as they caught sight of me, Myrtle's body and Myrtle's ghost.

     Headmaster Dippet stormed over to me. "What have you done Miss Shay? Explain yourself, now." He thundered.
     I shrank back from the anger radiating around him. "Nothing I swear, I found her like this. Headmaster, please you have to help her, she doesn't understand what's happened to her."

     Professor Dumbledore moved behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Really Armando, is that really necessary? Miss Shay had no reason to harm Miss Warren, not to mention that a fifth year student wouldn't have been able to perform such dark and powerful magic. They'd have to be completely corrupted from the inside out. Miss Shay here is the second highest student in her year. There's no reason or proof that she killed Myrtle."

     I looked up gratefully at him. He winked back.

     Myrtle looked down at us from her fetal position. "Am I really dead?" she asked in a tiny voice.

     Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet moved away from me.

     Headmaster Dippet nodded his head slightly. "Yes my dear girl. I'm afraid you are now a ghost."

     Myrtle began to moan, loud piteous wails that struck me to the core. Tears welled in my eyes from the amount of pain that moan held.

     "Miss Warren, all is not lost. You will be buried with the utmost respect and we will inform everyone of our current situation. Dear girl, how did you die?" Headmaster Dippet asked.

     "I don't know. The only thing I remember is hearing a boy's voice say something strange and then when I opened the stall door, I saw a pair of great big yellow eyes, by that sink." She pointed to a sink on the opposite side of where I'd been washing my hands.

     I shuddered thinking about how close I'd been to the killer. I noticed the professors exchanged worried glances. I frowned. I suspected they had an idea of what was going on but no one would say anything. I guessed that Myrtle's death and the professors' attitudes had something to do with the disappearances of several students at Hogwarts.

     Everyone had heard the rumors about how many people were petrified or missing, but none of the professors would comment on what had attacked the students. Numerous students had started asking questions in their classes, but no one had ever gotten a decent answer. Now I suspected, the professors might be just as clueless to the attacker's origins as the students were.

     I couldn't stand the pitying looks the professors were giving Myrtle. "Excuse me, professors, but could someone please explain to me what just happened?"

     All of them turned to stare at me and I flushed. I could feel the weight of their collective gaze.

     Headmaster Dippet started forward with his index finger raised to scold me, when Professor Dumbledore rested a hand on his shoulder. The two of them had a short conversation, before Professor Dumbledore faced me.

     He sighed. "Miss Shay, I'm not sure what you want me to say. Miss Warren has been killed. What more is there to explain?"

     "Does this have anything to do with the petrified students in the infirmary?" I asked.

     Professor Dumbledore moved closer to me. "Is there something you wish to tell me Miss Shay?"

     I gulped, not wanting him to suspect me of anything. "No sir, I only thought that the chances of numerous killers running amok in Hogwarts seems rather unlikely. I apologize for overstepping myself."

     "You might be correct Miss Shay about the thing that killed Miss Warren, but I will not speculate on things which I have no knowledge." Headmaster Dippet turned to the other teachers. "I'm afraid that our worst fears have come true. Hogwarts is not safe anymore."

     The professors began muttering to one another.

     "Please, everyone listen. I fear that we are outmatched here. Our foe has the advantage in this situation since we have no clue as to his identity. Our best course of action might be to consider the possibility of closing the school until we can discover who is the cause of the attacks."

     I was shocked. Hogwarts was supposed to be the safest place in the world. Half of the world's greatest minds were here and yet they wanted to send their students away. If the situation was that dire, maybe it was safer to be away from Hogwarts.