Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Egg and the Eye

As Harriet had no idea how long a bath she would need to work out the secret of the golden egg, she decided to do it at night, when she would be able to take as much time as she wanted. Reluctant though she was to accept more favors from Cedric, she also decided to use the prefects' bathroom; far fewer people were allowed in there, so it was much less likely that she would be disturbed. Harriet planned her excursion carefully, because she had been caught out of bed and out-of-bounds by Filch the caretaker in the middle of the night once before, and had no desire to repeat the experience. The Invisibility Cloak would, of course, be essential, and as an added precaution, Harriet thought she would take the Marauder's Map, which, next to the Cloak, was the most useful aid to rule-breaking Harriet owned. The map showed the whole of Hogwarts, including its many shortcuts and secret passageways and, most important of all, it revealed the people inside the castle as minuscule, labeled dots, moving around the corridors, so that Harriet would be forewarned if somebody was approaching the bathroom.
On Thursday night, Harriet sneaked up to bed, put on the Cloak, crept back downstairs, and, just as she had done on the night when Hagrid had shown her the dragons, waited for the portrait hole to open. This time it was Ron who waited outside to give the Fat Lady the password ("banana fritters"). "Good luck," Ron muttered, climbing into the room as Harriet crept out past him.
It was awkward moving under the Cloak tonight, because Harriet had the heavy egg under one arm and the map held in front of her nose with the other. However, the moonlit corridors were empty and silent, and by checking the map at strategic intervals, Harriet was able to ensure that she wouldn't run into anyone she wanted to avoid. When she reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands, she located the right door, leaned close to it, and muttered the password, "Pine fresh," just as Cedric had told her.
The door creaked open. Harriet slipped inside, bolted the door behind her, and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, looking around. Her immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool's edges, each with a differently colored jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden-framed painting on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her long hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.
Harriet moved forward, looking around, her footsteps echoing off the walls. Magnificent though the bathroom was — and quite keen though she was to try out a few of those taps — now she was here she couldn't quite suppress the feeling that Cedric might have been having her on. How on earth was this supposed to help solve the mystery of the egg? Nevertheless, she put one of the fluffy towels, the Cloak, the map, and the egg at the side of the swimming-pool-sized bath, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps.
She could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water, though it wasn't bubble bath as Harriet had ever experienced it. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Harriet thought it would have supported her weight if she'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water. Harriet amused herself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs. Then, when the deep pool was full of hot water, foam, and bubbles, which took a very short time considering its size, Harriet turned off all the taps, pulled off her pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown, and slid into the water.
It was so deep that her feet barely touched the bottom, and she actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable though it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-colored steam wafting all around her, no stroke of brilliance came to her, no sudden burst of understanding. Harriet stretched out her arms, lifted the egg in her wet hands, and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes. She snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Filch, wondering whether that hadn't been Cedric's plan — and then, making her jump so badly that she dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor, someone spoke.
"I'd try putting it in the water, if I were you." Harriet had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. She stood up, sputtering, and saw the ghost of a very glum-looking girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps. It was Moaning Myrtle, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a toilet three floors below. "Myrtle!" Harriet said in outrage, "I'm — I'm not wearing anything!" Her face heating as she glanced down at her body, a hint of her cleavage was visible above. The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but she had a nasty feeling that Myrtle had been spying on her from out of one of the taps ever since she had arrived. "I closed my eyes when you got in," she said, blinking at him through her thick spectacles. "You haven't been to see me for ages."
"Yeah . . . well . . ." said Harriet, bending her knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Myrtle couldn't see anything but her head, "I just haven't been close enough to your bathroom to use it lately. And my roommates, besides Hermione, don't like going into your bathroom." She was offering excuses that were logical. "You didn't used to care," said Myrtle miserably, her tone nearly confirmed Harriet's suspicions that in life Myrtle had fancied boys and girls. "You used to be in there all the time."
This was true, though only because Harriet, Ron, and Hermione had found Myrtle's out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew Polyjuice Potion in secret — a forbidden potion that had turned her and Ron into living replicas of Crabbe and Goyle for an hour, so that they could sneak into the Slytherin common room. "I got told off for going in there," said Harriet, which was half-true; Percy had once caught her coming out of Myrtle's bathroom. "I thought I'd better not come back after that."
"Oh . . . I see . . ." said Myrtle, picking at a spot on her chin in a morose sort of way. "Well . . . anyway . . . I'd try the egg in the water. That's what Cedric Diggory did." There was a knowing edge to her tone. "Have you been spying on him too?" said Harriet indignantly. "What d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the prefects take baths?" Wondering if there was a way to bar ghosts from entering areas that should be private. "Sometimes," said Myrtle, rather slyly, "but I've never come out to speak to anyone before."
"I'm honored," said Harriet darkly. "You keep your eyes shut!" She made sure Myrtle had her glasses well covered before hoisting herself out of the bath, wrapping the towel firmly around her torso, and going to retrieve the egg. Once she was back in the water, Myrtle peered through her fingers and said, "Go on, then . . . open it under the water!" Harriet lowered the egg beneath the foamy surface and opened it . . . and this time, it did not wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it, a song whose words she couldn't distinguish through the water. "You need to put your head under too," said Myrtle, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing him around. "Go on!" Harriet took a great breath and slid under the surface — and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, she heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to her from the open egg in her hands: