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Pansy’s got a lot of names, but she likes bitch best.
That’s the thing about a place like Hogwarts: small enough for a girl to earn a reputation, big enough for it to run wild. Cunt. Skank. Bully. Some of the first years even call her evil (and that’s not really fair, but it puts a smile on her face anyway).
“Look at that bitch,” they’ll whisper to each other, as she struts down the hall in black and silver. Sure, why not, she drinks it up with a canine smile. Maybe it’s judgement or contempt on the surface, but she can always hear the hot rich jealousy underneath; hate me and dream to be me.
If it wasn’t her, it would be some other girl. Slytherin is just that way, snakes in the grass all around you, so why not live it up at the top? And if that means the other girls look at her with a bit of apprehension, a bit of fear? So be it, she thinks. Some girls look better with a little fear in their eyes.
The Myrtle thing is…strange. Sometimes she just wants to take a piss in peace, you know? But it’s useful too, to have an invisible friend listening in on all the bathroom chatter at all hours of the day. The Hufflepuffs think she’s psychic, or that she has some kind of elaborate spy network. It’s a small price to pay, those glimpses in the corners of her vision, the pale face watching her in all the mirrors.
Myrtle’s not even bad company, not anymore. It was a lot worse at first, with the screeching and the moaning and the splashing faucets, but Pansy has never been one to back down from a fight (especially over a good smoking spot). There was something more in it too, a persistence that irked her. After a few encounters she’d caught on and asked, “Why even bother? Plenty of toilets to haunt, just pick the one I’m not in, yeah?”
Myrtle shut up quick at that one.
“Knew a girl like me, did you? Oh I see! That’s the thing with you see-through lot, isn’t it. Unfinished business.”
And Myrtle was withering, looking at the floor, fading from view, but Pansy had pushed up close out of habit, close enough to feel a chill on her cheek and the tip of her nose. Close enough to drop her voice to a whisper, to slow down and make it personal.
“She’d catch you in the bathroom, right? Probably corner you in a stall or something. All sorts of nasty words, I bet. She ever put her hands on you?”
And Myrtle was gone, faded completely away by the end. Pansy sat in that empty room for a long time, perched against a sink and smoking lazy wisps into the air, waiting for nothing in particular, cooling and thinking and remembering.
She’d called out to the open air before leaving, grinding her cigarette out in the basin.
“Hey. If you’re there anywhere, I get it, you know. Wires crossed, and all that.”
Her voice came back to her off the ancient tiles, and nothing else.
As the last embers hissed and died on the gleaming steel of the drain, she’d fixed her hair in the mirror and finished softly to the girl in the reflection.
“I think I’m the only one that gets it.”
Since then, Myrtle’s become a distant - but constant - presence. Most of the time she’s nothing more than a prickle on the back of Pansy’s neck, a draft in the doorway. Fairly banal as hauntings go. She’s more present in the bathrooms, when they’re alone. Just watching, with those big grey eyes, at home in her porcelain and glass. Watching more intently when they aren’t quite alone, actually. Watching most intently when Pansy has a victim.
Pansy is surprised the first time it happens, though she shouldn’t be. It’s been a while since Myrtle last spoke, is all, but the damp little voice is unmistakable, half in her ear, half in her head. She’s shouting down a snarling Ravenclaw and barely manages to keep her composure when it comes.
“His parents are getting divorced. His dad drinks too much and he’s afraid it’s his fault, or that he’ll end up the same way.”
Well. Hard to complain about material like that.
And watching from over her witless foe’s left shoulder, there are those big grey eyes again. Fixed right on her, laced with shame, shot all the way through with streaks of hunger.
Pansy’s not sure what to say afterward, once the Ravenclaw bloke is weeping in a classroom and a gruesome little whisper is making its way to his girlfriend. She settles for an honest “thanks,” and maybe that’s enough because Myrtle blushes a full pale white, cheeks filling in almost solid.
It’s unsettling, how attractive it is.
Things really take off after that. Myrtle has a lot of free time on her hands, an eagerness to please, and an unerring talent for picking out a girl’s worst vulnerabilities. Not just the lively rumors that will spread and spread, but the ones that will really cut deep. Pansy’s never been more on top of her game.
One lazy Monday afternoon she’s leaned up in a window nook, breathing soft curls of smoke out into the still autumn air. Myrtle’s chattering idly about some gossip she picked up the other day, but Pansy’s not really listening. A flock of moorhens is pecking about on the shore of the lake, fat black specks far below, and the bright sun glitters off their sheening feathers just like the rippling silver peaks of the water.
“You could do this yourself, you know. You’d be good at it.”
Myrtle blinks twice, cut off mid-sentence, and takes in her meaning. She drifts up toward the open window, just outside the light, at the other end of the nook where Pansy’s feet are kicked up.
“Oh not me, Pan. That part’s not for me.”
A few more minutes go by, a few more breaths of grey heat, of Myrtle slowly drawing closer. She’s drifting up into the sunbeams, face turned to watch the world outside, half translucent where the light is shining through her. Without seeming to look, she lays a pale hand on Pansy’s ankle. Just holds it there, weightless, a facsimile of a touch.
“She never put her hands on you, did she?” Pansy asks, already knowing the answer.
Myrtle shakes her head.
“Did you want her to?” Pansy rasps.
And the drip, drip, drip of a loose faucet fills the empty room.
Pansy doesn’t like to get physical - it strikes her as crass to do that sort of thing. Just shows you haven’t played your mark very well.
For this, she’ll make an exception.
She looks out over the crowded hall at dinner, scanning faces, figures. Discarding them by turn. Too tall that one, too frail that one, the gait’s not right there. It’s trickier than she’d thought it would be.
Finally she lands on a nameless brown-haired Ravenclaw. She’s the right size and shape, but best of all are the eyes: big round orbs filled with that same sort of yearning light. Pansy turns and nudges her neighbor in the ribs.
“Hey Milly. Who’s that there? Yeah. That one.”
Millicent looks over, looks back to Pansy with a look of surprise, and flashes a dirty grin. There’s a teasing jest in her tone.
“What’s it to ya?”
“Just curious.”
“Yeah, curious I’ll say.”
Pansy’s glare is all she needs. Millicent knows better than to push it too far.
“Alright alright, give me a couple of days. I think she’s in my Potions lecture. I’ll set you up right,” she finishes, with another grin, and this one Pansy answers in kind.
It turns out her name is Sally Witherfield. She has Astronomy every Thursday at half past two, and she cuts through the east wing on the seventh floor to get there.
Her shortcut takes her right past the single occupancy restrooms at the end of the hall.
She’s confused, of course, when Pansy corners her and half drags her into the bathroom, slamming the latch behind them.
“Pansy? What the hell?”
Pansy shoves her, hard, and she lands poorly against the lip of the sink with a grimace. Pansy’s up in her face instantly, snarling and grabbing the counter on either side of her, pinning her there.
“You know exactly what you did, you skank. Been a bad girl, haven’t you?”
Her gaze flicks to the corner of the room, behind Sally’s back. Myrtle’s there already, watching intently. Good.
Sally’s baffled, sputtering, hands up in the air.
“I swear to god Pansy, you’ve got it wrong, I’ve no clue – ”
“No clue huh? You think nobody’s seen you? The type of gross shit you’re into?”
Probably seem like I’ve lost my mind, Pansy thinks. Probably should've thought out this distraction a bit more thoroughly. Luckily the girl is absolutely terrified already. Pansy can feel her trembling all against her front, her pounding heartbeat sandwiched between them, and the quick short breaths against her face. She can even feel the horrible full-body shiver going up Sally’s spine when Myrtle steps in through the sink, through her back, into her.
It's not possession - that’s black magic beyond either of them, as a trip to the library had made clear. This is just a cheap trick by comparison, an overlapping in space. They’d tried it out a few times, just hand in hand at first, and then as much of their bodies as would line up. Myrtle’s a head taller so it wasn’t perfect even with both of them holding stock still (which was difficult for Pansy, given the sensation was something akin to drowning in a bath of freezing needles). Myrtle had come out of it breathless and hopeful all the same.
“Yeah, this is going to work,” she’d beamed, filled with a delicate joy. “You’re so bloody alive. I can feel your heartbeat in there. It’s like you’re feeling for me, everything, just everything. I’d forgotten! Can you believe it? I’d forgotten what it was like.”
But that was very different, with Pansy doing her best to make it easy. They hadn’t even tried doing anything. Worlds away from this. For an instant it’s disorienting, two faces swimming in and out of each other, Myrtle struggling to keep up with the thrashing. Pansy grabs her – them – by the throat and slaps Sally hard, grits out a deadly “Shut up and hold still.” A petrificus would have been so much simpler, but that’s not how she wants Myrtle to experience this. She wants to give her the melting, to let her live the surrender.
Finally, Sally freezes up, and Pansy can see Myrtle settle in.
“You in there?” she asks, and Sally doesn’t so much as twitch her lips, but Myrtle’s voice makes its way out anyway.
“Yeah Pan. God am I. Do it again.”
“What?”
“Slap me again,” she keens.
And Pansy does.
It’s unbelievable. The sting of it on her palm, the simultaneous shriek and groan from the pair in front of her. Sally’s pained face snaps to the side, revealing Myrtle’s delighted expression for a too-short instant. Pansy tightens her grip around Sally’s throat, looks deep into wide, wet eyes, and prays that she’ll understand as she crushes their lips together. It’s awkward and violent for a while, with Sally still rigid, mouth dry. Pansy keeps at it though, because there’s something that understands her waiting behind those numb frozen lips, and this might be the only chance they ever get. She brings up a palm up to Sally’s cheek, strokes a thumb across her jumping pulse, and finally finds a twitch, a softening, an opening. For the briefest moment it’s Myrtle, Myrtle at last, tongues meeting, lips gliding, taking her in and drinking deep like she’ll never feel it again.
And then Sally shoves her off and they both crumple, falling back against opposite walls. Pansy’s panting hard and the other girl is shivering wretchedly, clutching her robes around herself. Myrtle’s nowhere to be found.
The faucet drips a deafening staccato.
“W-What the fuck, Pansy. What the fuck was that?” Sally demands.
Pansy gathers herself up off the ground. “Try a hot shower,” she offers, rushing out.
The door shuts with a sharp slam, and then Pansy’s steps are the only sound left, echoing short and muffled off the blank stone walls. The summer sun is pouring into the hall from an endless row of high arched windows, and the air is still and warm and quiet. The hens are on the water.
All the world is alive and glowing with it, and all Pansy wants is the cold.