𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 | 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳

28 || The Chamber of Secrets

Ash

We sent Lockhart in first, and he was shaking. I would've snorted if the circumstances had been less dire.

Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet, wailing to herself.

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

"To ask how you died," I replied. Her entire mood shifted.

"Ooh, it was dreadful," she said happily, rising into the air. "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, told him to go and use his own toilet, and then -" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"Do you know how?" I asked slowly, glancing back at Lockhart.

"No," said Myrtle, shaking her head. "All I remember is a great big pair of yellow eyes. Over by that sink." She pointed to a sink in the corner and then sank down on top of the toilet.

"It was the basilisk," I said. "I saw yellow eyes too."

Harry, Ron and I hurried over to the sink. Lockhart stayed well away from it, his eyes darting nervously all around.

It looked like an ordinary sink. We explained every inch of it, but no one found anything until Harry shouted.

"Look!" he was pointing to a small snake design scratched into the tap.

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

"Harry," Ron said in a hushed voice. "Say something in Parseltongue."

"But--" Harry started, but then he paused and looked at the tap. "Open up," he said.

"English," Ron said, shaking his head.

"Open up," Harry said again, brow furrowed.

"Still English," I said.

Harry looked back at the snake, tilting his head. He waited a few seconds.

A hissing noise came out of his mouth this time, and the effect was immediate--the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for someone to slide into.

Ron gasped.

"Let's go," I said, starting to climb into the pipe.

"Wait," Ron said. "Make him go first."

"What--what good will it do, really?" sputtered Lockhart. "I-"

"You're going," the three of us said together.

We pushed him down the pipe, and he slid, screaming, below.

"You two don't have to come," Harry said, swallowing.

"I'm coming," I told him.

"Me too," said Ron.

With that, I pushed past them and went down the pipe. It was like a waterslide (which I'd heard about, but never gone on) except more slimy. There were several other pipes branching off from ours, but the one we were in was definitely the biggest. I heard a few yells and knew that Ron and Harry had followed me.

The pipe leveled out and I shot out of it, landing, miraculously, on my feet. Lockhart was sprawled face-down on the ground.

Ron and Harry came whizzing out of the pipe a moment later. We were all covered in slime. I tried as best I could to wipe it off.