Chapter 65: 4th September 1991, Wednesday: Part 3

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. He knew who she was the moment he heard her voice and was happy to see his future memories were one hundred per cent correct.

Just like in George's memories, the girl 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 at George from point-blank, "leave! Now!"

Wow, who would have known a ghost could shout so loud? Considering she didn't have any lungs, she couldn't half rattle his eardrums. George allowed some of that surprise to come through in his performance as he acted scared by her provocation. He stumbled backwards which consequently resulted in him stumbling over the pillar's drainage grid and falling to the floor. Now that he looked nice and vulnerable, George feigned fear upon 'only just' recognising her. The next step was to hold up his shaking hands in surrender and plead like a peasant before a god.

"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 stuttering like Theodore.

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. Obviously, George had no plan on leaving yet. He predicted he wouldn't make it to the exit before being stopped. And just like that, he was a few steps away from leaving the bathroom when his path was blocked by the ghost suddenly swooping past him.

She floated a few feet above George whilst squinting with a confused expression on her face. Her anger seemed to have vanished as she looked suspiciously towards him, clearly something wasn't adding up in her translucent head. George almost certainly knew what was puzzling her, but he wasn't going to take the initiative to spoon-feed the answer. If she came to her own 'correct' conclusion, she'd be more inclined to believe the lie. Since George was never going to leave, he stopped in his tracks and acted frozen in fear as he awaited her judgement. The idea of just walking through her never crossed his mind.

The ghost examined him from top to bottom before asking, "what did you just say to me?"

George tried his best to reply anxiously, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was the girl's bathroom. I'll leave right away."

Since he could tell she wasn't going to let him leave, George attempted to walk around her. But as he had anticipated, the ghost floated directly into his path and prevented him from advancing any further. This fish seemed to like the smell of the bait he had thrown out.

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

George pretended to be 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."

The ghost'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 acted as if he had just realised what she was implying, his 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?"

The ghost started to slowly advance toward George which forced him to walk backwards to maintain a gap between them. 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. The fish really liked the smell of the bait, it looked like she might be going in for a bite. This reaction from her was brilliant, the suck-up strategy was working a treat. He shouldn't have expected much of a fight, mentally, she was still just a child. Although the ghost was over sixty years old, she died when she was only thirteen.

Her face stopped advancing when it was only a few inches away from his. George could feel the cold air emitting from her incorporeal body brushing against his cheeks, it sent a shiver down his spine. The empty cold feeling was a bit too close to the sensation of being near his patron, it wasn't something he wished to be reminded of. Regardless, George kept his persona on track and buried his trauma in the back of his mind.

The ghost 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. It's much better than what the others call me."

After a few awkwardly long seconds, the ghost finally stopped her staring competition with George as she turned her gaze to his injuries and his dishevelled robes. The demented gaze lessened as she carefully inspected his roughed-up appearance, the tension in the air faded at around the same time. Just as George remembered, this ghost could become more rational once she had calmed down. From this point onwards, she should treat him like she would have before she died. That's not to say his job would get any easier, this girl's attitude was like a bomb with a hair trigger. Any little mistake could upset her and send him straight back to square one.

The ghost's head quirked to one side as she smirked at George, her expression was the textbook definition of mischievous.

She asked in a condescending tone, "what happened to your face? You look hideously deformed, I do hope that you weren't born that way."

Now that was the question George had been dying to answer. His eyes went wide as he felt his injured face, he acted as if he was desperately trying to come up with a believable story to tell her.

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George formed an unconvincing smile, "I fell and slammed my head into a wall."

It is funny how telling what was essentially the truth can be construed provided the setting and delivery were correct. Of course, in this case, none of this misinterpretation was an accident. The ghost girl's smile broadened as she saw through George's 'lie', she looked like a cat playing with a mouse.

She started to pull his story apart as she asked tauntingly, "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. He 'realised' his story didn't quite match up with his appearance. Well... his persona couldn't give up the 'truth' so easily, he had to spontaneously come up with an explanation to justify his ragged robes.

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

The ghost giggled after hearing George's excuse, his blatant lies must have been quite entertaining.

She leaned forward and whispered, "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?"

Her body acted out a recreation of his fictitious story in exaggerated mannerisms to emphasise the stupidity of his claims. All the while, she was revelling in his sorrow. She went from pretending to trip and fall with her arms waving in the air like a cartoon character, to running up some stairs whilst huffing and panting, and finally ending her performance by mockingly crying whilst rubbing her eyes with boo-hoo noises for added effect. Although it was good she was enjoying his company, George decided this was the moment he had to take back control of the conversation. She was beginning to get distracted with her little one-ghost pantomime.

For the penultimate time, George had to 'attempt' to leave. If he'd done this right, then she should push him back with even more insistence. That would be the test to see if this fish was ready to bite and be reeled in.

George slipped past her and quickly said his goodbyes whilst leaving the bathroom, "well, it was a pleasure meeting you Mis Warren but I really have to get going. If you don't mind..."

Just as George had hoped for, his path was yet again blocked by the ghost with a grave expression.

She shook her finger at him as she demanded, "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."

Okay then, that wasn't the sort of pushback he'd expected. It wasn't every day George was threatened with his modesty, but it worked nonetheless. He acted embarrassed by wrapping his hands around his body as if he was naked. He obviously wanted to appear as if her threat had been effective, making her feel like she was in control was going to be an important part of this relationship. Little did she know, George had spent the first ten years of his life naked. He didn't even have so much as a pillowcase to cover his body, the house elves had it good in that regard. His patron wasn't much of a believer in giving his projects anything that wasn't deemed necessary.

From shock to panic and eventually sadness, he expressed a range of emotions before slumping his shoulders in defeat. George looked down towards the flagged ground whilst maintaining a contemplative expression, he was 'thinking' about his dilemma. The ghost watched him pretend to go through the five stages of grief whilst, in reality, he was secretly contemplating his next actions. It was particularly important that he nailed the next part. After a few perfectly timed seconds, George finally spoke so quietly that 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. And with that, the fish had officially taken the bait. Even if it was just a smidgen of empathy, George had managed to get his foot in the door and garnered a good rapport with the ghost. The rest should be easy, he just needed to exhibit relatable traits and she would do the rest.

George asked a muffled question from between his hands, "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. He knew he'd just opened a can of worms but he had to bear with it. The ghost spoke in an angry tone from all around the room, it 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. People are still mean to me, they still call me names to the point that my first name might as well be Moaning. 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..."

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