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Ch 2 - Discoveries

As Hermione came down into the room to investigate Harry felt Myrtle's hand grip his arm, felt her warm breasts against his bare back and realized something.

Myrtle's a ghost.

Beyond a bit of ectoplasmic tingling I shouldn't be feeling her at all.

)O(

Hermione bent down to pick up Myrtle's bra but, of course, her fingers just passed through it.

"Hmmm, one of Fred and George's little jokes I'll bet. Well," she said, pulling her wand from the pocket of her bathrobe, "can't leave this around - it'll traumatize the firsties.

"/Ectoplasma leviosa/."

She couldn't touch the ghostly garment, but her magic could.

"Hey!" Myrtle began to complain, but Harry shushed her.

Hermione was busy concentrating on levitating the ethereal lingerie so Myrtle's protest went unheard.

"But that's my only bra!"

"Um, Myrtle, haven't you noticed something . . . /different/?"

"No, I . . ."

Harry thought, /wait for it/.

"Harry! I feel you! I can actually touch you."

And she proceeded to do just that, running her fingers through his hair, over his arms and chest and down to his no-longer tented boxers.

"You're warm and soft in all the right spots and oh my Goddess, hard in all the right places too!"

Harry barely restrained the guffaw that threatened to erupt at that.

Myrtle scowled, "I meant you're not all skinny, you have some nice muscles here."

Harry smiled sheepishly, "You feel good too, Myrtle."

She turned him around so that they were face to face and she hugged him so tightly that he thought he might black out. Then she loosened her grip so that she could jump up and down excitedly which did amazing things with her tiny baps against his bare chest and re-stimulated the firming superstructure in his boxers.

"Let's have a look then, shall we?" she said and uncovered them with a flourish, dropping Harry's cloak to the floor.

With the invisibility shroud removed Myrtle winked out, reverting to her spectral form.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh, Harry! I'm so cold, so very cold."

Thinking quickly he retrieved the cloak and covered her again.

As long as she was covered by his father's invisibility cloak she was solid. Harry couldn't see her but he could feel her through the shimmering fabric.

"All right then, let's think about this. While you're in the cloak you're not all ghosty, right?"

"Corporeal." She corrected him, gently.

"Try just uncovering your hand."

She reached out from the cloak and a pale but fully opaque hand and forearm revealed itself.

"How about your head?"

Myrtle peeked out from under the cloak's hood and looked solid enough - a little whitish perhaps, but fifty years without sunshine will do that to a body.

"Can you take the cloak off without letting go of it?"

She smirked, "You're just trying to get me starkers again, ain't cha?"

Harry grinned, "busted!"

She carefully removed the cloak, draping the disillusioning fabric over her left arm, which appeared to end at the elbow and resume at the wrist.

And yes, she was clad only in her knickers, socks and shoes.

"Still cold?" he asked.

"A little."

By unspoken consent they pulled each other into a warm embrace.

"Oh, this is nice." They both said, simultaneously. Then laughed.

"What does this mean?" Harry asked.

Myrtle looked thoughtful,"Somehow this cloak gives me the form I've been missing since 1944. If I take it off - completely off, I become ethereal again."

"Then don't take it off, Myrtle. Keep it for as long as you want."

She grabbed him in another bone-crushing embrace. "ThankyouThankyouThankyou!"

"Um, Myrtle?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Breathing is good . . ."

"Oh you have no idea." She sighed, "I haven't breathed in over fifty years!"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if savoring a bouquet.

"I mean it would be nice if /I/could breathe. . ." Harry just managed to gasp out as dark spots began to appear before his eyes.

"Oh!" she said with a start, then loosened her grip again, "sorry."

Myrtle was clinging to Harry desperately, and frankly, he wasn't in any hurry to have her let go. She was his first "bare hug" and she felt nice.

She couldn't help but feel his arousal and she smirked, "is that a beater's bat in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"

Harry groaned and said, "no fair, it's not like you get all obvious."

Myrtle leaned back a bit and said, "aur contraire, mon amour, look at my titties."

Never one to ignore the instructions of a pretty girl, he did.

"See those hard little buttons on the tips of my nips?"

Harry swallowed and nodded.

"They only get that way when I'm really aroused." She said, pointedly. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one, N!)

"So you could say" he smirked,"that we're pointing at each other without the use of our hands?"

She giggled and the sound was like water cascading over crystal chimes.

Again footsteps sounded on the stairwell, this time they were hurried.

Harry and Myrtle sighed heavily and ducked under the cloak for the second time in a quarter-hour.

"Harry," Hermione said exasperatedly, "I know it's you, I recognized your voice. C'mon out."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Hermione."

Following the sound of his voice she tromped on over and snatched the cloak, which fell off the two mage's heads and shoulders, Myrtle, however wasn't about to let go of it so Hermione was treated to the sight of two adolescents denuded from the waist up and disembodied from the waist down.

"Oh!" Hermione whimpered and spun around. "I didn't know, I mean how could I have known?"

Harry adjusted the cloak so that it covered them from the neck down; leaving two heads, close together, floating in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

"Okay, Hermione, you can look now."

"A beet red Hermione Granger turned to look at the two heads when she finally looked at the girl's face."

"M-Myrtle?"

"In the flesh."

"H-how?"

"My dad's cloak," Harry said, excitedly, "when Myrtle put it on she became, um . . ."

"Corporeal." Both Myrtle and Hermione said simultaneously.

"Yeah."

Hermione was so shocked by this sudden reversal of the laws governing the afterlife she completely forgot about what they were wearing, or rather not wearing under the shared mantle.

"Would that work on any ghost?"

"I'm not sure, I mean, I'm sure at some point some ghost has slipped under an invisibility cloak." Myrtle looked pensive, "but I do know that this cloak is different."

"How so?" both Hermione and Harry asked.

"Invisibility cloaks are made from the wool of a demiguise, a small ferret-like creature that turns invisible whenever it feels threatened."

"Okay. . ." Harry prompted, "so?"

"So this cloak doesn't feel like wool - it feels like silk."

"It was my dad's; I don't know who I could ask about it."

"Wait," Myrtle said, "It was your dad's?"

"Yeah, and I'm not sure but Ithink he got it from his dad."

Myrtle shook her head, "No, that can't be, demiguise invisibility wool looses its light-bending properties after twenty years or so."

Myrtle's eyes grew large, "unless it's The Cloak of Invisibility!"

Harry and Hermione looked confused.

"Tales of Beedle the Bard?"Myrtle prompted.

The two Gryffindors shared alook, then shook their heads. "Nope, sorry."

"That's okay, I was muggleborn too. I only learned about the Deathly Hallows after coming to Hogwarts.

"The short form is there were three brothers, the Peverells, Antioch, the eldest, Cadmus in the middle and Ignotus, the youngest. They cleverly cheated Death. Now the Grim Reaper, doesn't like being cheated that way but he congratulated them on their cunning and gave them each a gift, a deathly hallow as it were. The brothers soon learned that a gift from death is not a good thing.

"Antioch, being the oldest, got the Elder Wand - a wand of elder wood and thestral hair that is so powerful that the wizard who wields it cannot be defeated in a duel. Of course, braggart that he was he just had to boast about his powerful new wand and was killed in his sleep by a rival.

"Death one, Peverells naught.

"Cadmus is "gifted" with the Resurrection Stone, a hallow that allows him to communicate with the dead, to"bring them back" as it were. Cadmus was already married and had a son but he was still pining for his first love, who'd died when they were still very young. The stone brought her back, true, but she was in the wrong place, and was miserable as a result. They couldn't touch, and all she could do was cry and moan. Frustrated to madness Cadmus killed himself.

"Death two, Peverells zip.

"Ignotus was given The Cloak of Invisibility, but he never boasted or bragged - indeed, he was so discrete that he lived to be a ripe old age, no doubt aided by the cloak along the way.

"In the end it was Ignotus, the youngest, who went to his death peacefully, greeting the Grim Reaper as an old friend that he'd known all along."

Hermione was excited, "so if the spirit of Death made this cloak, or more likely, someone made this cloak in the spirit's name, then it would have restorative properties for any ghost?"

"It would explain much." Myrtle agreed.

Harry yawned.

"C'mon sleepy," Myrtle said, rising from the couch and dragging Harry with her, "time for. . ." and she yawned herself, "bed."

"Myrtle," Hermione admonished,"you can't sleep with Harry, I mean, it's bad enough that you're both naked under that cloak together."

This put color in both the teen's cheeks.

"But I want to stay with Harry, he's so nice and warm and I haven't felt anything for /ages/."

"Please, Hermione," Harry pleaded, "let us be for now, all right?"

"I really shouldn't . . ."

Harry recognized the signs of his best friend capitulating.

Thanks Hermione, he said and he placed a gentle kiss on her left cheek as Myrtle did the same to her right.

"Please be careful you two," she said and fled up the stair to her own bed.

"Myrtle, would you like to sleep with me?" Harry asked, a little unsure of himself, "I mean just sleep."

"I've never been with a boy before, Harry, I think I'd like to sleep, just sleep, with you."

Harry smiled and guided them up the stairs to his dorm where they got comfortable in his four-poster with the curtains drawn.

"Oh!" Myrtle whispered, "I forgot to ask Hermione for my bra back, I'll be just a minute." She kissed Harry lightly on the lips and donned the cloak to head over to the girl's dorm.

Harry touched his lips with the tips of his fingers. It was fleeting, almost platonic, but it was his first kiss.

He decided he liked it, and wanted more, a lot more!

Myrtle quickly found the fifth year girl's dorm and crept in, trying not to disturb the other girls in the room.

She spotted a nightstand overflowing with books and parchment and knew immediately which bed was Hermione's.

She parted the bed curtains quietly and was about to rouse the bright young witch - and was stunned to see her crying.