𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐨𝐠𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬

Ch 58 - Moaning Myrtle

"Oh, no," Hermione said, stopping abruptly, "Turn back, turn back!" She said in a hurried whisper, "I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle-"

"Who?" Harry asked as they all backtracked quickly and quietly.

"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," Hermione informed them.

"She haunts a toilet?" Ron asked in near shock.

“That's freaking cool, now I really want to see her!” said Lucifer dragging a very reluctant Hermione with him.

"Yes, it's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to use the loo with her wailing at you-"

“Come on!” said Lucifer cheerfully, ignoring Hermione's non-stop dissing about Myrtle being a problem.

“Malfoy, could probably share with he-”

"Look, food!" Ron yelled, cutting Hermione's momentum off.

On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet.

As they approached it, eager to get some food in their bellies, they stopped in their tracks, utterly horrified at what they saw.

The smell was also quite disgusting, but the sight of the food made them all turn away.

Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers.

There was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in fuzzy green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words.

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington Died 31st October, 1492

Lucifer was amused when they saw a portly ghost approach the table, crouched low, and walked through all of the food, his mouth held wide so that it passed through as much food as he could reach.

"Are you able to taste it if you walk through it?" Harry had asked him.

"Almost," the ghost said with a depressing sigh, drifting away slowly.

"I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavor," Hermione said knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.

Lucifer was actually brave enough to try and get a whiff of it again, and to his complete shock, it only smelled mildly vomit-inducing.

While he was busy doing that, Hermione's stomach rumbled as if complementing his actions.

“What...do you want some?” he asked, frowning at Hermione's face, which now seems to be going red with utter shame, “N-no...I don't want to eat that....” she responded, not daring to look him in the eyes again.

"Can we move?" Ron asked, holding fingers up to his mouth, "I feel sick..."

They had barely turned to move away from the table when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them. "Hello, Peeves," Harry said cautiously.

Unlike the other ghosts, Peeves the Poltergeist was their polar opposite in terms of color.

He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow- tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.

“Nibbles?" He asked sweetly, offering them fungus covered peanuts.

"No thanks” Hermione said in a droll tone.