Memory's Prisoner

Chapter 9: The Chamber

The fog lifted and the observers found themselves in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"Oh thank god, we skipped Christmas," Ron sighed completely forgetting that the Slytherins could here him.

"What happened on Christmas," Parkinson asked curiously.

Ron paled but was saved from answering by the memory starting.

Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Harry march in holding Lockhart at wandpoint. "What do you want this time?"

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

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. There was a boy in here 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."

"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..."

"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.

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

"Open up," he said. Except that the words weren't what he heard; a strange hissing had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink sank leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into. Harry heard Ron gasp and looked up again. He had made up his mind what he was going to do.

"I'm going down there," he said.

"Me too," said Ron.

"Well, you hardly seem to need me," said Lockhart, with a shadow of his old smile. "I'll just —" He put his hand on the doorknob, but Ron and Harry both pointed their wands at him.

"You can go first," Ron snarled.

White-faced and wandless, Lockhart approached the opening. "Boys," he said, his voice feeble. "Boys, what good will it do?"

Harry jabbed him in the back with his wand. Lockhart slid his legs into the pipe.

"I really don't think —" he started to say, but Ron gave him a push, and he slid out of sight.

Harry followed quickly. He lowered himself slowly into the pipe, then let go.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward. The pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Lockhart was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. Harry stood aside as Ron came whizzing out of the pipe, too.