Charmolypi

Chapter 78

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. They sent Lockhart in first. Harry was pleased to see that he was shaking. Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet, Thea sitting near her.

"The girl's lavatory?"

"I doubt the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets would be hidden in there."

"It makes sense, it's where Myrtle was found," Mary said, to which Marlene nodded in agreement.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Harry. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," said Harry.

The Marauders all face palmed at the boy's blunt statement.

"There are better ways to ask how someone died," Frank said, wincing at the boy's insensitive words.

"Harry!" Thea hissed, glaring at her brother. "That's not how you ask someone how they died." But Myrtle looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

"She's a weird ghost that one," Rodolphus said, shivering.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"That's horrible."

"That poor little thing."

"You see Albus, bullying and harassment at Hogwarts isn't something new, it's been there for ages," Euphemia scolded the headmaster.

"How?" said Harry.

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

"That's a good ghost!" Marlene cheered for the ghost, proud of how she got her vengeance.

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" said Harry.

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

Harry and Ron hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.

"That's the one," Thea said, and the boys looked at her, eyes wide.

Many gasped in shock, not believing what had just been revealed.

They had finally discovered where the Chamber of Secrets truly was.

"Harry," said Ron. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."

"But —" Harry thought hard. The only times he'd ever managed to speak Parseltongue were when he'd been faced with a real snake. He stared hard at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real. "Open up," he said.