Ordinary people

we're just ordinary people
we don't know which way to go
@caerus

She didn't want to be out of her bathroom, but one of the professors had asked her to vacate the area so that they could fix the toilet. While Myrtle didn't always listen to them,  now was the best time to do so: it was late, and not as many of the kids were out and about. She knew that she ought to find the Grey Lady, but she was too busy hiding from everyone. She hated seeing the other students, and for good reason at that. They called her names, rude names, and it wasn't fair. She wasn't pimply, and even if she was it was rude to point that out. Pimply Myrtle, ugly Myrtle, Moaning Moping Miserable Myrtle. Myrtle hated the students. They were mean, they were terrible, and they were just like the ones she had gone to school with before she died. She hated how they never seemed to get any better, and how people just seemed to think it was acceptable to be rude to her because she was a ghost.

And they thought she was sensitive! They weren't wrong, but she thought it was positively atrocious that they would say that after calling her Moaning Myrtle for years. What did they think she was going to do? Sit there and giggle? She wished, sometimes, that she had corporeal hands so she could just throw things. Anything. Something big and heavy, like a book. Of course, that always reminded her that she couldn't hold a book, and that was frustrating. She wished she could hold a book. She wished she could read, still, but she didn't have the ability to. Sometimes she would think about floating above someone just so she could try to see what they were reading, but humans were so rude about that. So Myrtle refused to talk to them, and she didn't talk to any other ghosts, and it was just as well.

She floated awkwardly in the boat house, not sure what to do, where to go... She didn't want to be anywhere near students, and this seemed like a good enough place to be. Not many students came around. 

ORDINARY PEOPLE

A Saturday night at Hogwarts was not necessarily all that exciting. Sometimes there was something interesting going on--after a Quidditch match, the victory parties could always be fun, and usually his friends were up to something that involved firewhiskey or some other kind of liquor. Now that they were seventh years and close to graduating, Caerus felt more than all right about drinking when he got the chance. He knew that they still weren’t technically supposed to drink at school, but he just didn’t think it was all that much of a big deal when they were legally allowed to at this point. So sometimes, a good night in his mind was with a couple of friends drinking wherever they happened to find themselves--sometimes the common room, sometimes somewhere else. As the weather got warmer, they would be able to go outside more, which was certainly preferable. There was just something about going down to the Black Lake and having a drink with some friends as the sun went down.

It made him wish that spring would just hurry up and get there, because the weather had been absolute shit so far this year. It was getting pretty aggravating, especially for Quidditch matches. Caerus didn’t honestly have a problem with playing a match in the snow--he thought that it was quite the challenge, actually, and he was always up for a challenge. But he still missed the nice weather and was looking forward to his last spring at Hogwarts. Hopefully by the time they got back from the Easter holidays, it would actually be spring. But he knew better than to be too optimistic on that front since Scottish springs could still have snow from time to time. Before too long, though, it would be warm enough to really appreciate being outside again. It got pretty boring locked up in the castle day in and day out. He hadn’t kept up with herbology and he’d never taken care of magical creatures, so none of his lectures got him outside either. Quidditch practice and… other extracurricular activities were the only reasons that he really went outside these days.

Tonight, those extracurricular activities had him heading to the boathouse to meet a girl. Everyone thought that going to the astronomy tower was the best place for hook-ups, but he thought that the boathouse was an underrated choice. It was normally always quiet, and professors didn’t always think to check it during rounds since no one was ever down there. A glance at his watch showed that he was a little early, so when he headed into the boathouse, Caerus expected to be the first person there. At first glance, he didn’t see anybody--it was hardly the best lit place in all of Hogwarts, but after a moment he realized that he wasn’t alone at all. The person that was in there just happened to be… not of the living variety. “Oh. Hello Myrtle.” He said, with a charming grin. He had to admit that he didn’t see much of the ghost, since she rarely left the girls’ bathroom. But she was a little… infamous, so it was hard not to know who she was.

She was miserable in Hogwarts, absolutely and utterly miserable. She didn’t know how the Grey Lady had lasted this long, how she had managed to make it through the years without being more miserable than she was. She knew that her friend barely spoke to students, too, and she had a history of simply observing. Myrtle, unfortunately, had a history for speaking with students even though she generally tried not to interact with them. It wasn’t fair for her to have gained such a horrid nickname. Anyone would have cried if they were in her situation. Anyone would have been miserable. Why did people insist that she had to be happy? She had died. She had died in Hogwarts under circumstances that they didn’t even bother to investigate, and she was stuck in the dreaded place without a way out. She knew that everyone was miserable— so many students hated being trapped in Hogwarts. So many yearned for graduation. And Myrtle, she had been there far longer than most people. Not as long as some of the other ghosts, but a supremely long time in comparison. A very long time. And they wondered why she was so miserable? It was most of her teenaged life, too. She was stuck in puberty, in Hogwarts, of all places, where she was constantly being mocked for her appearance, her actions… It was, quite literally, the same thing that had already led to her death. What was the point? Why had she been forced to say? She knew that she wasn’t perfect— she had attempted to haunt Olive Hornby for the majority of her afterlife, and she had also vowed to get revenge against everyone who had hurt her. But that? That was all after she had died. That wasn’t the before, that wasn’t the explanation. There had to be some other reason, but it wasn’t like she really knew what was going on. Everything just seemed to happen without her choice, her consent… She hated it. She had to just go along with everything that happened, she didn’t get a choice. And she hated it, she hated it more than anything. She didn’t have a future. She had absolutely nothing. She had her past, she had emotions… And she couldn’t do anything. Too many people had left, moved on, and the ghosts were just so annoyingly frivolous sometimes. THey didn’t care about the important things— life, death, and the how and why of it all. “What do you want?” she asked, swinging above the speaker. It took Myrtle a few moments to figure out what was going on, who was speaking to her. She didn’t know the student, but they were being nice to her. Myrtle cracked a shaky smile, looking a bit happier than she normally did.

@caerus | this is short sorry

Ordinary people

❤fai

We don't know
which way to go

❧

There were plenty of ways to have fun at Hogwarts--or at least, to try to. Caerus could admit that he was getting a little tired of being cooped up in the castle, but he was a person that tried to make fun where he could. There was no reason to just accept that you were going to have a boring night unless you’ve tried absolutely everything you could to find something exciting to do. Caerus just wasn’t a person to give up all that easy when he wanted something to do. Sometimes, he was completely fine with being on his own. There were nights when he was just as happy reading in his dormitory or wherever else he was, by himself for hours without getting bored. And there were other nights, like tonight, where he was going to have someone else to keep him company. The boathouse wasn’t exactly the most romantic location in the castle, he knew that.

But the astronomy tower was overdone and checked too often during rounds, and Ravenclaw Tower was obviously out of the question since the witch in question wasn’t a Ravenclaw. They could have found a classroom or cozied up in some corner of the north wing or something like that. The boathouse had just been the suggestion that had come to mind. They would definitely have their privacy here. As a prefect, he obviously knew that rounds normally led professors and prefects everywhere at some point but the boathouse was just not a place that people went all that often. Of all of the places that he’d patrolled when he was on rounds, he had never once caught anybody in the boathouse. He didn’t know if people just didn’t think of coming here, or if the people that did were just mostly prefects since they were the ones that knew about it being nearly always unoccupied.

There was no way of knowing for sure if anyone was going to show up here tonight. He could have tried to figure out who was on rounds tonight, but that seemed like a lot more effort than what he wanted to put in. Caerus was just going to hope for the best--and if a prefect was on duty and did come down here, he thought there was a good chance it was one that he got along with well enough that they’d let it slide. He would only really be in a spot of trouble if Alois or someone like that found him. She was one of the few prefects that he didn’t get along with--and her finding him with another witch would probably make matters worse, considering their history. Caerus didn’t think that his luck was going to be that bad though, so he didn’t think all that much of heading into the boathouse.

Caerus hadn’t known if he’d beaten the witch there. He thought there was a good chance she would beat him here, but the only person in the boathouse was Myrtle. That was not going to set the mood in the slightest--but a glance at his watch led him to the realization that he had a bit of time. Maybe he could charm Myrtle for a little while and then convince her to leave. It seemed unlikely but at least he could give it a shot. The worst that he could do was start crying or yell at him or something. If that happened, then he could just leave, and they could find somewhere else to hang out. “Nothing, really. I was just taking a bit of a stroll and ended up here.” He shrugged casually. He didn’t think that meeting up with a witch was something that the ghost would necessarily want to hear about--and he definitely didn’t think that she would react all that well to. “How are you?” He knew that question could result in her either yelling at him because ‘how do you think I’m doing, I’m dead,’ or she would be happy that he’d even ask. He supposed he would find out.

@ myrtle

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