Moaning Myrtle

Sure enough, seeing Li Mu's miserable state, a flicker of hesitation crossed Moaning Myrtle's tightly drawn face. Even as a ghost, she still wore thick round glasses on the bridge of her nose, while her long, straight hair was tied into two symmetrical pigtails that hung down on either side. At that moment, her gaze shone brightly through those thick lenses, making her seem intensely interested.

"What?" Moaning Myrtle said. She floated directly in front of them and looked at the thoroughly soaked Li Mu. "Did your friends make fun of you?"

"That's right, of course they did." Hermione had barely opened her mouth when she heard Li Mu answer with absolute certainty. She stared at her friend in astonishment. A Hufflepuff who ought to have been known for honesty, kindness, and integrity—she almost thought the Li Mu before her had been replaced by someone else.

Li Mu turned around and secretly winked at Hermione before pointing at her. "Beautiful Miss Moaning Myrtle, I'm Li Mu, and this is Hermione Granger. We're both first-years who enrolled this year, but things have not been going well for us. I'm an exchange student from East Asia, while Hermione is a Muggle... and she has huge front teeth and a head full of messy hair..."

Hermione's face instantly turned liver-red. She knew her front teeth were somewhat large, and she knew her hair was always messy and frizzy... but hearing those facts come from Li Mu's mouth made them feel like arrows stabbing straight into her heart. Hermione's first instinct was to pull out her wand and cast "Colloportus" on Li Mu's mouth, so that his upper and lower lips would be sealed together with mucus forever.

But Hermione truly was Hermione. Remembering Li Mu's suspicious winking and grimacing just now, she finally restrained the urge to draw her wand and attack him. Then she saw Li Mu start crying, as though he had been hit by the counter-curse to Densaugeo—no matter how she thought about it, the scene before her was bizarre, but she had no choice but to trust her own eyes and reason.

Li Mu cried the moment he said he would. Tears gushed from his black eyes, quickly streaming down both cheeks like two waterfalls.

"Whenever I hear our classmates say those slanderous things... my heart hurts so much..." Li Mu continued sobbing, his voice hoarse as he sucked in ragged breaths. "Even our friends call me 'that yellow one' and 'Eastern barbarian' behind my back, and they call Hermione 'Curly' and 'Bucktooth'... Our backgrounds and appearances were given to us by heaven and earth, by our parents, yet they somehow became reasons for others to attack us..."

If she ignored the actual words and only looked at Li Mu's tearful expression, Hermione could not help feeling a trace of shared sorrow and grief. But...

She did not remember anyone ever calling Li Mu "that yellow one" or "Eastern barbarian." And as for what they supposedly called her...

Hermione secretly pinched her arm, and pain swiftly shot back to her brain. She was not dreaming. Nor had she gone mad.

Could the others, especially Ron and Harry, really call her "Bucktooth" behind her back? Compared to Mudblood, that kind of attack on someone's appearance was not much better!

At that moment, Hermione began to doubt her entire life. Especially when she recalled how her friends never appreciated good intentions, and remembered her conflict with Ron, the grievance she had only just forced down surged up again. Her eyes reddened, and tears threatened to spill out uncontrollably. Why had she come here in the first place? She had originally been hiding in this secluded bathroom to cry her heart out!

Holding back the sting in her nose, Hermione heard Moaning Myrtle speak again. Her voice was no longer as shrill as the rumors claimed, sharp enough to shatter glass. "Oh... those stupid people. There will always be stupid people like that in school. It's all right, children. There have always been people like that in every era. When you face their ridicule... when you face these things..."

Summoning her courage, Hermione lifted her tear-blurred eyes and looked at the ghost before her. A sympathetic expression appeared on the milky-white ghostly face. Moaning Myrtle's tense expression had visibly relaxed, and she seemed to be thinking, as if carefully considering her next words and tone.

Was she... comforting them?! Hermione's mouth hung open, and she even forgot to wipe away the tears that had finally slid down from the corners of her eyes. Moaning Myrtle's behavior was completely unlike the rumors. Before them, she was no longer irritable, volatile, and hysterical, but more like a kind older sister next door. Seen this way, although the Moaning Myrtle before them was a milky-white phantom, even her bookish look with those thick round glasses did not seem so unpleasant anymore.

"When you face these things, you must support one another. The Dark Side of History of Magic, Wizard Purges of Muggles in the Middle Ages, Bloodline Inheritance—these books all record humanity's innate tendency toward division and its base nature..." At last, Moaning Myrtle spoke again, chattering on as though reciting an incantation. "You two are fortunate. You still have each other, companions who can help one another, while I... I..."

In the end, Moaning Myrtle, who had been comforting them, pursed her lips and revealed a sorrowful, pained expression. Li Mu and Hermione covered their ears in unison. They had personally experienced the power of Moaning Myrtle's screams; compared with listening to that sound, they would rather be drenched in filthy water.

And in the next second, just as expected, Moaning Myrtle began wailing, "I'm old and ugly, my face is covered in pimples, and no one in the whole House likes me—"

Even with their ears covered, those screams were like demonic music pouring into their ears, piercing straight into their hearts.

Instinctively, Hermione wiped away her tears and said to Moaning Myrtle, "No, Myrtle, you're very... I think—truly think—you're very beautiful."

Li Mu nearly slapped his forehead and sighed. No matter how one looked at it, from any perspective or anyone's position, little Hermione really was not good at comforting people.

Moaning Myrtle also stared suspiciously into Hermione's eyes.

"I... beautiful?"

"Yes, of course you're beautiful!" Seeing Hermione's expression freeze, Li Mu hurriedly stepped in to smooth things over. "Exceptional wisdom is humanity's greatest treasure. We have an old saying in my homeland: 'A mind filled with poetry and books naturally radiates grace.' I think you're beautiful because inner qualities are far more important than outward appearance—especially for wizards who can transform themselves at will."

"Really? 'A mind filled with poetry and books naturally radiates grace'?..." Moaning Myrtle carefully savored Li Mu's words and nodded solemnly. She already believed more than half of it, secretly blooming with joy, though she still forced herself to maintain a reserved expression.

"And it isn't just Hermione and me who think so. Our prefect, Cedric Diggory, personally told me—" Li Mu's eyes shifted as he decided to add an even stronger dose. "He was once in the prefects' bathroom... you know. He told me that he greatly admired your intellectual beauty."

As he spoke, he winked and curled his lips into an ambiguous smile. Sorry to drag you into this, brother Diggory.

"Oh, oh, oh... that young man!" Moaning Myrtle's voice rose sharply. Li Mu and Hermione discovered that the ghost's happy shrieks were not much different from her sorrowful wails; both sounded like a soprano singer who had screamed herself hoarse.

"Of course, Hermione and I also hope to be friends with you..." Li Mu endured the tingling on his scalp and held out his hand toward Moaning Myrtle, only to awkwardly withdraw it again. He had "almost" forgotten in his excitement that ghosts could not touch people...

In the end, when Li Mu and Hermione carefully stepped out of the waterlogged second-floor girls' bathroom, Moaning Myrtle floated to the doorway as though seeing off guests, waving her arms and calling, "You must come visit often in the future!"

She even sniffed and wiped at her eyes, even though, as a ghost, she could not shed tears at all.

All right, I have to admit that I revised these chapters many times while writing them. I always felt that I hadn't expressed the ideas in my heart very well.

Maybe there are too few bookmarks and recommendations, so I'm a little stuck on the writing... (???)

(End of Chapter)