SERPENT'S SONG | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [2]

𝘅𝗶𝘃 | 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆

Halloween arrived and Gwen, Harry, Ron and Hermione were still in the common room after everyone had gone down to the feast. Gwen was smoothing out her hair in the reflection of the window; she'd managed to regain enough control of her metamorphic abilities to make it go her natural blonde again, and for the first time in weeks, she was feeling stronger and more awake.

Harry was reluctant to go to the party now, but, as Hermione had told him, a promise is a promise, and the four of them strolled past the Great Hall and down to the dungeons, doing their best to ignore the enticing smell of the rich food emitting from the Hall.

The passageway leading to the party was lit with candles, but it was far from cheerful. Everything was draped in black tapestries and the candles themselves were an icy blue. It got colder and colder every step they took, and Gwen suddenly wished she'd brought a jacket with her. As they turned to enter the dungeon, the four of them heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping a blackboard.

'Is that supposed to be music?' Ron whispered. The next moment, Nearly Headless Nick appeared, hovering next to a doorway that was draped in a black velvet tapestry.

'My dear friends,' he said mournfully, tipping his feather plumed hat to them. 'Welcome, welcome... so glad you could come...'

Inside the dungeon was the gloomiest but most incredible sight Gwen had ever seen. Hundreds of pearly white, translucent people were drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful sound of thirty musical saws played by an orchestra in the corner. A chandelier hung overhead, the candles that decorated it blazing the same icy blue as the ones in the corridor. As they walked further in, all Gwen could think was that it was like stepping into the black lake during a snowstorm.

'Shall we have a look around?' Harry suggested. Grateful for a reason to keep moving, Gwen nodded, and the four of them began to wander around, sticking close together for body warmth.

They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, the Fat Friar who was the cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. The ghosts were giving a wide berth to the Bloody Baron, who was the gaunt, scary Slytherin ghost.

Gwen kept looking around, then quickly grabbed Hermione's arm.

'Other way, other way.'

Hermione had seen what she was looking at, and the two of them ducked out of the way, Harry and Ron following, puzzled.

'What is it?' said Harry.

'Moaning Myrtle.'

'Who?'

'She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the second floor,' Hermione explained.

'A toilet?' said Ron.

'It's been out of order all year because she keeps throwing tantrums and flooding it,' Gwen said when they were well out of the way of the gloomy ghost. She avoided mentioning that she had woken up there earlier that term with no memory of how she got there.