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As 8:00 rolled around, Hermione made her way towards the girl's bathroom on the second floor. She'd stopped for breakfast in the Great Hall, but hadn't seen Harry there, and Ron had told her that he wasn't in their room either. At least, he did after he complained about why she was waking him so early on a Saturday. So, she just did what she said she was going to do, and showed up there on time. Maybe he was just running late.

Hermione stopped outside the door and waited there. At exactly the time selected, Harry popped up behind her, eliciting a shrill scream when he scared her.

"Of course you couldn't see me," he said, before she could even ask. "I know what people would say if they saw me hanging around outside a girl's bathroom. Especially as high-profile as I apparently am at the moment." He doffed his Invisibility Cloak and offered Hermione his arm. "Shall we, m'lady?"

That, at least, got a giggle out of Hermione. Granted, maybe it was formed - at least a bit - out of lack of sleep, but it was there. "We shall," she said, taking Harry's arm and pushing open the door.

Inside, the two were immediately questioned: "Who's there?" The ghost of the teenage girl floated out of her stall to look around, and frumped morosely. "Oh, it's you. Here to just get more answers again?" She looked over at Hermione, glaring when she saw her arm linked with Harry's

"Myrtle, be nice," Harry said. "Actually, we're here for a couple of reasons, but one of them is, indeed, to see you."

Hermione blinked, and mouthed to herself, 'We are?' Harry, however, wasn't looking at her.

"You are?" Myrtle said, her face blushing a light silver. "Noone ever comes to see me."

"I know, and I'm sorry for that. I did promise, didn't I? And I wanted to thank you for the help. You know, under the lake? I would never have found them if it wasn't for you. Or even the clue in the first place."

The silvered blush was a bit more enhanced now, and Myrtle ducked her head abashedly. Harry went on, though. "Actually, though, I was hoping I might be able to help you, now."

"Help me?" Now she was curious, and the look on her face was easy to recognize: modern-day Ravenclaws had it too, when faced with a problem or something to study. Well, Ravenclaws and Hermione Granger. "Help me how?"

"Well, let me answer that question with a question." Like that had never happened to a Ravenclaw before. "Please don't take this the wrong way, because I honestly want to know the answer, but why are you still here?"

For several long moments, it looked like Moaning Myrtle was about to live up to her name, but her curiosity won out over her normal depressed state. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... well, most wizards say that ghosts stay around because either they're afraid to die, or they feel like they have unfinished business that they need to attend to. I know you're not afraid to die, because, like you told us, you never saw it coming. I also know you haunted Olive Hornby to get back at her for making fun of you. And... Myrtle, it's been fifty years since you died. Don't you want to stop feeling all this pain and go on to be with your family and those who love you? Will you tell me what's keeping you here?"

Hermione, for her part, was watching the conversation bounce back and forth, following it like she was following a tennis match. Her face had softened as Harry explained why he had been looking for Myrtle, and now she was thinking about it too.

Myrtle, startling them both, burst into tears. But these weren't the moaning tears that she was known for, the wailing rivers of water that came at her command. These were the tears of a woman in pain. "Noone... noone ever asked me before. Of course I want to go! I've wanted to go for so long! It's not like I planned being a ghost, you know. But I can't go, not until I know why I died and who killed me. And I was the only one here when I died, so noone else knows! I'm stuck here forever!"

Harry slapped his forehead, and muttered to himself, "Damn you, old man." Then, louder, he said. "I know why you died and who killed you, Myrtle. I thought Professor Dumbledore would have told you by now. Damn it!"

Myrtle's tears cut off like - pun not intended - one had shut off a faucet. "What? How? Why?"

Harry sighed. "I'll tell you what. Let me... let us show you, and, if it's enough, we'll be there to see you off. All right?"

Myrtle nodded, not trusting her voice. Harry extracted his reduced broom from his pocket and cancelled the reduction spell. "Just follow us, okay, Myrtle?" And she nodded again.

Harry walked over to the sink and hissed it open, setting the broom for mounting, gesturing for Hermione to join him. Hermione, on the other hand, just looked confused. She asked, as she walked over, "Are you sure you want to fly that in the halls? Especially with two of us on it?"

Harry looked confused for a moment, glancing between the shifted sink and Hermione. Then he cocked his head to one side, frowned, and then startled. "I forgot. I'm sorry. Hermione, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is in this bathroom."

Hermione reacted as if someone had put a cattle-prod to her rear end, staring at the yawning opening that led down to the Chamber of Secrets. As expected, it didn't take her long to figure it out. "Harry? You put the Chamber of Secrets under the Fidelius Charm?"

This time, it was Harry's turn to blush. "Just the entry room and main chamber, really, though it can be extended."

"Harry! There's got to be some kind of rule against that!"

Harry, for his part, smirked. "I'll release the charm the moment you find a rule talking about the Chamber of Secrets in the school bylaws."

"Harry!"

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

"Argh!"

"If you two are almost done flirting, I'm getting a little impatient," the ghost in the room said, though she had an unusually amused tone to her voice. Especially for her. And was that more than a hint of hope in there too?

"Sorry, Myrtle," both teenagers replied. Hermione looked a bit abashed, but Harry just continued to look cheeky.

Harry turned the broom so that it faced the entry into the pipe that led down to the Chamber, and said, "If you'll climb on behind me, and light your wand, Hermione, I'll take you down there."

Hermione shrugged, and did the same. When Harry pivoted the broom downwards to enter the pipe, he felt Hermione's arms tighten around him, and he remarked. "We're going to need to work on your fear of flying." And then he was off, heading down the pipe at a - relatively - slow pace. At the bottom, they waited for only a moment or two before Myrtle arrived, following them.

"This way," Harry said, leading the way to the closed door, which he, once again, hissed open. He didn't slow as he passed through the doorway and down past the rows of serpentine figures to the chamber that still housed the giant body of the basilisk. He hovered long enough for Hermione to dismount, then did so himself. Then he took her arm and stepped back with her to allow Myrtle's ghost the best view.

"This is what killed you, Myrtle. It's a basilisk that Salazar Slytherin supposedly placed here a millennium ago." He paused for a moment. "Myrtle, were you a muggle-born witch?"

The ghost just nodded, staring up at the giant snake.

"Then I'm certain I know why you were killed too," Harry said. This drew the ghost's attention, and she turned around. "Salazar's heir used the energy in your death to cut a part of his own soul out and place it inside an object. It's one of the darkest of Dark magics, and a way of achieving immortality. He goes by the name 'Lord Voldemort,' but you would probably remember him better as Tom Riddle."

"That Slytherin Prefect?" Myrtle gasped. "He did this to me?! When I get my hands on him..."

"The item that he used, which was a diary, was destroyed, by the way. Incidentally, it was pierced by a fang from the basilisk, so both that part of his soul and you died, indirectly, from the same thing. Voldemort isn't dead yet, but I'm hoping to make him that way real soon now."

This time, it was Hermione that gasped. Mostly at how cold that statement sounded.

"Good," Myrtle said, her voice angry now. "I can't believe him! He seemed like such a nice guy too!"

Hermione stared for a moment, sure she was seeing something that few others ever had, "Myrtle, you're gaining color back."

And she was. It was easy to see it now, even just in the wand's light and the sickly green light that was normal for the Chamber. She was gaining the coloring of a person who was alive and, perhaps more importantly, she wasn't drifting anymore. Instead, she was standing on two feet as she looked at the two normal students. (Though 'normal' wasn't exactly a word to use for Harry anymore.) Looking down at herself, she smiled, "So I am. And... I can feel again." She took a deep breath. "You have no idea how good it feels to breathe real air after so long."

Then she turned coquettish. "You know, Harry, there was one other thing I never got a chance to do in my life."

Harry eyed the ghost who appeared to be returning to life. Or something. "Yes....?"

Myrtle smiled, and in this, it became obvious what a lovely young woman she would have originally become. "I never got a chance to kiss a cute boy. Would you mind?"

Harry only hesitated a moment, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. It's not like Myrtle'd never made indications she might fancy him before, even as a ghost. How could he deny her now? "All right."

The ex-ghost's entire face lit up happily, and she swooped in to claim her prize. Then she stepped back, and now it was obvious that pieces of her were vanishing, her entire body becoming more and more translucent.

Harry watched. It was obvious what was happening. "Myrtle, could you do me a favor?"

Myrtle merely nodded, and Harry continued. "If you see my mum and dad, would you tell them that I love them, and I miss them. My dad, he looks like me, just older. And my mum looks almost like an older version of the girl that came down here two years ago." And doesn't THAT make me marrying her in several worlds severely strange?

"And, if you end up coming back here, as a guardian angel or something...," Harry continued. "... there's a girl in Ravenclaw. Long blonde hair, a little unconventional." There's the understatement of the year. "She'd be a third year this year. She's a really special girl. Her name is Luna. And I think they've been treating her the way they treated you when you were alive, including stealing her things."

The perturbed look was visible on Myrtle's face for a moment before her body finished breaking up into little sparkles of light, vanishing into the darkness.

Hermione, who'd been standing to the side and slightly behind Harry, was crying silently. "I think... I think that might be the sweetest thing I've ever seen, Harry."

Harry looked a little sad as well, although his lips twisted in a wry smile. "You would. But you're not the one who just had that little minx slip you a hint of tongue."

And then the laughter of both echoed throughout the chamber.