MAGIANIMA // Hermione Granger

You Brick Wall

Rushing water sounded throughout Myrtle's old bathroom, the racket of splashing and desperate scrubbing soon following as Atlas looked up, catching the flickering gold of her eyes, slowly growing more and more frantic each time she tried to force them under control. She ducked her face into the water again, holding her head in the basin for much longer this time, trying, hopelessly to cool down the burning of her eyes. 

After a minute, an entirely fruitless minute, she pulled away from the sink, stumbling backwards as she ran a hand through her hair, blowing the water from her mouth her chest heaving from exertion. Her shirt had grown entirely transparent, her topmost buttons undone while her tie lay discarded on the floor, her jumper crumpled on top of it. 

Ever since that day with Pansy Parkinson, since the day she was punished with a weeks detention, her eyes had begun shifting involuntarily, every single time she grew stressed, angry or even tired. She'd managed so far, to hide each outburst but she just knew her luck would run out, it always did and always in situations where she needed it most. Word had spread throughout the school, the rumours Pansy had broadcasted, that she was a monster, some hybrid werewolf. Most shrugged them off as that, rumours but some few took it as truth, banding around Pansy, around Malfoy who had egged those rumours on. And it wasn't helping.

A pitiful whine wailed from behind her and Atlas looked up, catching Myrtle's reflection in her sink mirror, the ghostly figure sat in her toilet, arms resting on the rim of the seat, her gaze entirely suspicious, eyebrows narrowed, just waiting for Atlas to speak. And when she did, it was harsh, gravely and wholly unkind.

"What is it? Come to gawk as well?"

"Someone step on your tail, puppy?" Myrtle blubbered, floating out of her toilet to hold stagnant in the air right beside Atlas.

"I don't...need this right now!" The sink cracked, Atlas's eyes burning brighter than ever, her hands shifting to paws that destroyed the ceramic in her grasp. She flinched away, digging her paws into her pockets, clenching her eyes closed and screwing up her face in concentration as she slowly slid down one of the cubicle doors.

"You don't...look so good," Myrtle murmured, sounding so concerned Atlas wondered if some other ghost had accidentally wandered in because that couldn't have been Myrtle. Moaning and wailing Myrtle. The Myrtle Atlas knew laughed at others misfortune, she hated the world and the cards it dealt her, she did not sympathise, she mocked. This was entirely different. "Do you need me to get someone -- ?"

"No!" Atlas burst and Myrtle floated down to sit at her side. "No, I'm alright...I just need a moment. Training was...I just -- I fucked up -- I fucked up so bad..." she cried, staring into her lap, her eyes still burning as she thought of what had just happened. For the past few days, she'd spent all the time she wasn't hiding her eyes, training, reading books in the library and running along the Black Lake like she used to before coming to Hogwarts, all to ready her body for the final trial.

They'd been sneaking into empty classrooms, her, Harry, Ron and Hermione, practising charms and hexes she'd known since before coming here, ones Minerva had taught her years ago. However, she still went along, there was no harm in practising. It made perfect after all and if Atlas wanted any sleep, she must be perfect. The only trouble was that practising it involved certain sacrifices on Ron's and Hermione's part.

In fact, the whole reason she was in the predicament she was, was because she'd accidentally hurt Hermione with a too-powerful Stunner Charm. And by Merlin it had messed her up, seeing the person she wanted so badly to protect down and sprawled out across the floor because of her wand, sent her spiralling. Which is why she had run away, eyes brimming with tears and burning all at once, the numbness returning but this time, throughout her entire body leaving her unable to properly move. That is why she'd ended up in Myrtle's bathroom, instead of one of the more private and lockable ones.