Myrtle

Potter immediately dashes further into the bathroom. For a moment I think this is a very bad attempt at fleeing. "Myrtle," he urgently says. "How did you die?" I feel blood drain from my face. Oh no. She is going to scream and cry and all the teachers will come. What does Potter think he is doing? I defensively hold my wand, but no spells come to my mind to shut Myrtle up, but miracle above miracle she stays silent. She even seems flattered. Not just flattered, like incredibly flattered.

'Ooooh, it was dreadful,' she said with relish. 'It happened right in here. I died in this very cubicle. 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.'

'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.'

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

'Somewhere there,' said Myrtle, pointing vaguely towards the sink in front of her toilet.

It dawned on me. The girl who died fifty years ago, when the chamber of secrets first was opened, still lived at Hogwarts. Myrtle died looking at the basilisk. I glanced at the sink, Potter was already studying it. It looked ordinary, but Potter was curiously studying one of the taps.

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

I came closer. Looked at the tap. "It's got a snake," I realised.

Potter gave me an incredulous look. "I normally do not have any interest in taps, for your information," Potter quipped. I snorted.

Vin then spoke up. "Well, talk parseltongue to it. Ask it to open."

"But-" Potter spoke. He was staring intently at the snake. "Open up."

He looked disappointed.

"You spoke english," I say. "What's wrong?"

Potter looks at me frustrated. "I have only ever been able to speak parseltongue when I was faced with a real snake." That makes sense.

"Well, fortunately, I am excellent in conjuring snakes," I try to joke, to ease the tension. "Serpensortia."

Potter looks at the snake in panic. A strange hissing comes from Potter. The snake looks just as angry as the first time, but now its anger is also directed towards me. I don't like magical creatures.

Th snake then calms down.

Potter turns. "You idiot, what if it would have attacked us?"

Good point. I shrug. "Sorry."

"So ask it to open," Vin then says.

A strange hissing escapes Potter's mouth, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move. The sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

I feel the childish urge to tell Potter to go first. I am scared. Come on, Malfoy's may not be Gryffindors, but I am no coward. "I'll go first," I tell them, sounding braver than I felt at the moment.

Potter looks surprised, but nods.

I step forward. "Don't jump till I have told it's save."

I look down into the large pipe. Come on, I probably won't die. I jump. My heart beats fast. I slide down and am now in a room with a giant snake skin. I stare at the snake skin, under the dust is a poisonous green skin as thick as an oak trunk. Of course Granger couldn't be wrong for just this time and the monster could not be puffskein. That must be one of the rare magical creatures I do like, next to owls. Why could it have not been round with soft custard-colored fur and a ridiculously long tongue that the creature might put in your nose in your sleep?

"It's fine," I then yell. A few seconds later Vin and Potter join me. Together we guardedly walk through the tunnel, till we come upon a wall with engraved snakes. I look at Potter hesitantly. For a few seconds I hope that nothing happens, but Potter starts hissing and the wall opens.

We nervously glance at each other. We enter.