Harry and the Pirates

Chapter 36

The Girl in the Loo

by Technomad

A few days later, Hermione came up to Harry and the boys. "Luna and I had an idea," she said. Beside her, Luna blinked owlishly, before giving Dudley one of her sweet smiles. She put down a big stack of books. Harry smiled to himself, thinking that the Slytherins' joke about Luna being a Ravenclaw infiltrator had a lot of point to it. For that matter, there were times when he wondered how Hermione would have done in the house of the Eagle.

"What is it, Hermione?" Harry asked. He, along with the rest of Slytherin House, had long since learned to respect Hermione Granger's brain. "Is it about Lockhart?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "No, but I haven't forgotten him…that damned fraud!" Hermione had taken the exposure of Lockhart's lies very personally, and had done a lot, all by herself, to put together a damning indictment of the man. Very soon, the "Get Lockhart" group planned to contact the governors of the school and the media, and demand an explanation of the many lacunae, misstatements of known facts, and other damning things they had dug out of Lockhart's books.

"This is about whatever's been paralyzing people," Luna said. At that, all the boys, even Draco, sat up and dropped whatever else they'd been doing. The unknown threat in the school was something that affected all of them; any of them, they knew, could have just as easily been victimized as the unfortunates lying in the infirmary.

"I remembered hearing from Daddy that something of the sort had happened before," Luna went on. "So I owled him, and he sent me a bunch of interesting things. Apparently in the 1940s there were some unexplained events, ending with the death of a girl. The school announced that the person responsible had been expelled, and things quieted down after that."

"The death of a girl?" Harry's eyebrows went up, and Dudley gave Luna a sharp look. "You're saying that someone caused a girl's death, and all the authorities did was to expel him?" Hermione and Ginny both drew in breaths, and Dudley hastily added "Or her?" The girls visibly subsided, and Harry gave his cousin a quick wink. They both knew they'd just dodged a bullet.

Actually, on second thought, Harry thought that the girls had a point. They couldn't eliminate anybody from suspicion merely because she was female. He remembered his years in Roanapur, and suppressed a shudder at how stupid it would be to blow off Balalaika, or Revy Two-Hands, or a lot of other people he knew at home, merely because they were female. And magic was a great equalizer, wasn't it?

"I went through the Daily Prophet from those years, and the only death at Hogwarts in the 'In Memoriam' column was a girl named Myrtle Hart. She died 'of unknown causes' in 1943." Hermione pulled out some papers she had made notes on. "There've actually been very few deaths here over the years, which surprised me. Take a bunch of nutty kids, add magic, and you've a recipe for instant disaster."

"That's partly because we magicals are harder to kill than Muggles seem to be," Ron explained. "At Quidditch matches, I've seen people survive and walk away almost unscathed from falls that my dad says would kill Muggles dead." Hermione's eyes went wide. "Also, if someone's alive at all, our Healers can almost always bring him or her back to full health. Muggle 'doctors,'" he shuddered, "cut people open! Barbaric!" He and Draco both shuddered; they were on opposite sides of many issues, but they were both purebloods, raised within the magical world exclusively.

Harry could see Luna's eyes gleaming with curiosity, and moved to keep things on track. "So finding out what killed this Myrtle Hart person sounds like the next step. Anybody have any bright ideas?"

They all looked at each other rather owlishly. "I could owl my pater," Draco offered. "He's on the board of governors, and would likely know about what's been going on around here."

"We could ask some of the older teachers," Hermione said. "Maybe some of them were here, either as students or as teachers. They might remember something."

"What about the ghosts?" piped up Luna. "Quite a few of them have been here for centuries, and I bet they're worried too. Nearly Headless Nick was a ghost, after all!"

"All good ideas," Harry opined. "Let's attack the problem from all those angles, and one way or another, we'll find a solution. I have faith in us, people. Between us, we've got enough brainpower and cunning to deal with anything. This monster, or whatever it is, doesn't stand a chance against us!" Right then, the bell rang and they got up to go to class.

Over the next few days, they continued their investigations. By common consent, they didn't approach Lockhart. The man was too young to have been at Hogwarts during the last outbreak of trouble, and they had all lost faith in him as anything but a walking advertisement for hair-care products. The other teachers, on the other hand, were sometimes informative.

"Yes, Miss Granger," said McGonagall, "there was a sad case in 1943. The poor little girl was found dead in a ladies' WC down near the dungeons. Hagrid was blamed for the death…he'd apparently been trying to raise an Acromantula, of all awful things…and expelled. I was against the expulsion, but I was only a student in those days myself. I'm glad you've decided to raise this case back up. I've meant to try investigating myself, but my schedule…"

"A monster in the school? Yes, there was one. Now, back to the Goblin Rebellion of 1486…" was as much as they could get out of Binns. As it turned out, Flitwick and the others were unable to say anything, since they had not been at Hogwarts in 1943.

Hermione owled away to the Ministry for death records for Myrtle Hart. When she got them, she and the others went over them carefully. "This does look like whatever we've got now, only more powerful, doesn't it?" commented Dudley.

The body is that of an adolescent female, well-fed and generally healthy, read the coroner's report. Her height is 5'5", her weight is 9 ½ stone, and the cause of death is undetermined. There are no marks on the body. From what diagnostic spells can tell us, her whole body just seized up and stopped, all at once.

"I wish we could have had a look at the body ourselves," mused Harry. Dudley nodded. Their friends stared at them, aghast.

"How could you wish for such an awful thing, Harry?" gasped Hermione. Then she remembered. "Oh, yeah…Roanapur."

Dudley and Harry both gave Hermione long looks. "Wouldn't be the first corpse we've seen, nor would it be the last, if we stay in that town," Dudley remarked. "Besides, corpses are harmless. Unpleasant, to be sure, but sometimes it's necessary to examine them to find out what happened. You get used to it."

"You mean Balalaika lets you…" Hermione turned pale, and put her hand over her mouth.

"Not as such," Harry explained. "But sometimes, we've seen Sawyer the Cleaner doing her thing. She disposes of bodies for the Roanapur mobs and once or twice we were the nearest Hotel Moscow people when she needed to confirm that the bodies in question were the ones Hotel Moscow wanted to be shed of."

By now, most of the others were turning various shades of green, and Harry grinned to himself. They were probably picturing "Sawyer the Cleaner" as an awe-inspiring monster, and he thought they'd faint dead away if they came face-to-face with the rather sweet-natured, mute young lady who went by that name. He wondered passingly if magic could restore Sawyer's voice.

Draco reported, a day later, that he'd heard from his father. "Pater says that he does remember the case. He says that not much was done, since the girl who died was a Mudblood…those are his words, not mine!" he added hastily, seeing the cold light in Hermione's and Dudley's eyes. Peering at the letter, he went on: "He says that the death was blamed on Hagrid, but that there wasn't much evidence to really convict him, so Hagrid was let off with expulsion from school."

"Why would they expel Hagrid, if there wasn't much evidence against him?" wondered Ginny. "They generally don't like to expel people from here. If for no other reason, they're afraid that expelled pupils would make a dandy place for Dark Lord wanna-bes and other such people to recruit. Here, they can keep an eye on us, at least."

"Good question, that," mused Hermione. "Hagrid's awfully big…is he all-human? If he's part giant, that might account for them suspecting him, even over-and-above his lack of common sense about pets." They all nodded ruefully. The groundskeeper was almost impossible to damage, and tended, in consequence, to think of creatures most normal wizards regarded as monstrous threats as harmless pets. The previous year, he'd been caught trying to raise a dragon on Hogwarts grounds, and one of Ron's brothers had had to take it to the reserve in Romania.

"If they thought it was an acromantula, they must have been drinking," Draco pointed out. "Look, you…it says clearly that there were no marks on the skin!" He pulled out a copy of Jane's Magical Beasts. "It says here that 'Acromantulae kill by biting, injecting a neurotoxin that paralyzes their prey so that they may wrap the creature in silk and devour it at their leisure.' There was no sign of a bite, and I'd bet longish odds that there was no spider silk anywhere near!"

"Someone might have pointed them in Hagrid's direction," Ron said. "Someone they trusted…"

A day or so later, Luna came in with a big grin on her face. "Guess what, people?" she asked. "I think I'm onto something!"

"And what is that, little Luna-moth?" asked Dudley. She scooted over to where he was sitting on one of the leather-covered sofas, and he budged over to make room for her beside him. She sat down beside him and snuggled up, and he put his arm over her shoulder. Harry smiled to himself, and he noticed that the girls were also pleased.

"Well, we did say that the ghosts might know something…" Luna began, and Harry, along with the others who were in on the investigation project, leaned forward. "So I went and found the Bloody Baron, and he told me that the girl who died back in 1943 is one of the Hogwarts ghosts!" She beamed at her flabbergasted friends. "She haunts the girls' loo down here in the dungeons, as a matter of fact!"

Hermione and Ginny both looked chagrined. "My God! You mean Moaning Myrtle's the person whose death we're trying to research?" gasped Ginny.

"Who or what is Moaning Myrtle?" asked Dudley.

"She's this dreadfully unpleasant ghost who mainly hangs out in the women's WC down here," Hermione explained. "She's one reason why we avoid the place; it's much pleasanter when you have a call of nature to not have to listen to her sobbing and complaining." All the boys blushed.

"Does she have to stay there, or can she move around?" asked Harry.

Luna looked very thoughtful. "Unless she's different from the other Hogwarts ghosts, she can go pretty much where she pleases. I've heard Nearly Headless Nick grumbling about not being able to join the Headless Hunt, which is not based here."

"Can you get her here to talk to us?" asked Ron.

"Myrtle doesn't like me much, I'm afraid," Luna confessed, looking sad. "But the Bloody Baron does…and he's one ghost that the others are afraid of! I bet if I ask him he'd be able to get her in here, whether she wants to come or not!"

"And so I shall, young Luna!" came a voice from nowhere. Everybody started. "Oh! I forgot I was invisible! Do please forgive me!" The Bloody Baron appeared, standing behind the sofa where Dudley and Luna were snuggled up. "Would you like me to invite her here to talk to you now?"

"Please do, my lord," said Draco. The boys all bowed and the girls who were standing curtsied; the Baron was normally fairly nice to Slytherins, but he did like his courtesies. The Baron bowed back and walked out through the wall.

Very shortly afterward, he was back, with a ghost Harry didn't recognize. The other ghost was objecting loudly to the proceedings, probably because the Baron had her arm twisted up between her shoulderblades. "Owwww! Even after I'm dead people pick on me! Owwww!"

Harry stepped forward. "Myrtle Hart?" At the mention of her full name, the ghost focused on Harry, forgetting her arm, which the Baron released. "Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Harry Potter, and these are my friends," sweeping an arm around to include everybody, "Dudley Dursley, my cousin, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. We want to talk to you about how you came to die, since we think that whatever killed you is back."

(Author's note: I was unable to find a last name for Myrtle, so I just made one up.)