Harry and the Pirates, Chapter 37

Myrtle's Tale

by Technomad

Moaning Myrtle looked hugely put-upon for a second, before she visibly realized that she now had far more of an audience than she usually got in her lonely bathroom. Swelling up with importance, she launched into her story.

"Well…I was sitting there in that loo to cry because Olive Hornby had been teasing me about my glasses. Then, I heard something big moving around outside, and I heard a voice outside, and it was a boy's voice!" At that, everybody looked at each other. "I leaned out to tell him to use his own bathroom, and I saw a huge glowing pair of eyes staring at me…and I died!" She managed to look both hangdog and triumphant. "I felt my body seize up, and I floated up and out of it, toward a great light…but I turned back, back to Hogwarts. I was going to get back at Olive Hornby! Oh, I made her regret teasing me about my glasses!"

Harry felt a moment's unexpected pity for Olive Hornby, whoever she might be. At least in Roanapur the dead generally stayed dead! To have someone hounding him even after he or she was dead sounded like no fun at all.

Meanwhile, Hermione was asking: "You say you saw a pair of big yellow eyes? Were you looking straight into them?" She had a piece of parchment and a quill out, and was ready to take notes.

"Yes," Myrtle answered. She did not seem to like Hermione, but the Bloody Baron, right behind her, was keeping her focused on the subject at hand. Harry had noticed before that the Baron was someone that most of the other ghosts seemed to respect. Even Peeves the poltergeist did not dare offend him. "I looked out of my stall…and I was looking straight into them! Then my body stopped, all at once! It was like nothing I'd ever felt before!" Tears began to spill down her cheeks. "Or ever will again!" She started crying. The Baron raised an eyebrow, but Hermione gave him a standard Slytherin signal to stand down. She leaned forward, all sympathy.

"There, there, Myrtle. We think that whatever killed you all those years ago is back, and we're looking for it. Would you help us find and kill it?"

Myrtle's whole face lit up. "Oh, would I ever! What do I have to do?" She scowled. "The only thing I'd like even better would be to catch that boy who killed me! I'd like to see how he'd like being confined to Hogwarts forever!"

"When we have all the stuff we'll need, I'll send the Baron to find you. Is that suitable?" Myrtle nodded, and Hermione stood, signalling that the interview was over. The Baron released Myrtle, and she flew around the room singing happily, and dreadfully off-key, before vanishing.

The Baron looked rather embarrassed. "Please forgive her, Miss Granger. The circumstances of her death unhinged her, and even before that, she was slightly unstable. Not all us ghosts are like that at all."

"Of course not," Hermione reassured him. "You might want to tell the other ghosts that we're looking for whatever's been doing this. After all, Nearly Headless Nick is a ghost, and he was affected. You have reasons to want us to succeed."

The Baron looked at her as though he'd never seen her before, then bowed low. "You are as shrewd as you are beautiful, Miss Granger. If I'd known you when I lived…but no need to dwell on what could have been. Farewell." He disappeared, and Hermione stared at the spot where he'd been, blushing bright red.

"He can't mean that…can he?" She turned to the others. "All that stuff about me being beautiful?"

"Just shows that being dead doesn't preclude having good taste," Ron said. When Hermione burst into tears and glommed onto him, he looked like a deer caught in headlights…but didn't let go.

By this time, the indictment against Gilderoy Lockhart was nearly complete. The older members of what had become known as the "Get Gilderoy" group went over it carefully. "This has to be airtight," muttered Pucey. "If we make any mistakes, the authorities will come down on us like a ton of bricks!"

"True, that," Ron Weasley said. "There's too many people who believe in that fraud."

The testimony they had managed to find, from people who'd been present at times when Gilderoy Lockhart claimed to have done various wonderful things, was particularly enlightening. The witnesses often said that Lockhart had been nowhere nearby when the feats were performed, but that he had shown up later. And, again and again, the people who were thought to have actually performed those feats had no memory whatsoever of having done so after Lockhart had gone.

"Balalaika always says that 'once is happenstance, twice is coincidence…'" muttered Dudley.

"'But three times is enemy action!'" Harry finished their mentor's mantra for them. The other Slytherins, the purebloods in particular, looked at them like they'd just started speaking Swahili.

After a minute, Flint said: "If you hadn't told us repeatedly that this woman's a Muggle, Harry, I'd swear blind that she's a long-lost great-great-great granddaughter of Salazar himself! That's almost exactly like something the Founder would have said!"

"Nobody ever said that Slytherin was stupid," Hermione pointed out. "In a lot of ways, I think he was by far the sharpest of the Four Founders. I can't agree with his apparent disapproval of teaching Muggle-borns, but I can understand it in the context of his times. Back then, most Muggles hated and feared magic, and the chances that a Muggle-born might turn against us was very real."

"You mean it isn't that way now?" asked someone in the crowd.

Hermione shook her head. "Most Muggles would probably be fascinated by magic, if they only knew it existed. I'd bet that Muggles would pay good money to see real dragons, to name just one thing." Some of the purebloods looked very thoughtful at that statement. Harry could just see them mentally adding piles of Galleons. He knew that look…oh, how he knew that look! He felt a second's blinding homesickness for Roanapur, where at least one didn't have crazy monsters and the people who taught one could be counted upon to know what they were doing!

A few days later, The Quibbler published the biggest expose in its history. The headline was simplicity itself:

Gilderoy Lockhart: Hero or Hoaxer?

The article below the headline summarized all that the "Get Gilderoy Group" had found out, with names, dates, places and inconsistencies clearly listed. Lockhart's more extravagant claims, such as being able to force a werewolf back to human form during the full moon, were also examined in detail, with statements by experts in the field to the effect that his exploits, if true, were groundbreaking and revolutionary in themselves.

The second article in the series went into Lockhart's time as a teacher, with interviews with various Hogwarts students who were less than satisified with what their famous teacher had to offer. "All he ever talks about is himself," Marietta Edgecombe of Ravenclaw complained, "and he never seems to go into the practical details of what he says he did. I think he's a big fat phony!"

Some of "Gilderoy's Gladiators" had a lot to say about the quality of the coaching they had received, as well. "I got my arse handed to me because that man couldn't be bothered to show us how to duel properly!" a Hufflepuff girl complained.

The day the articles began to appear, nearly everybody in Hogwarts was absorbed in the Quibbler, reading it even at the tables in the Great Hall. Luna was over the moon with joy. "Daddy's never had this kind of sales before, ever!" she burbled to her friends. "We'll be able to repair the Rookery, and maybe buy a new press!" Dudley smiled at her, and she flew into his arms for a hug. "Dudley, do you think you and Harry could come visit me at the Rookery one day?" she asked.

"Don't know why not, Luna-moth," Dudley answered. "Of course, Mum…and Balalaika, I imagine…might have a few things to say about that. You know Harry and I work over the summer hols."

"Then maybe I can come to visit you?" Luna asked. Over her head, Harry and Dudley exchanged glances. At first, Harry was appalled at the thought of their innocent little friend being exposed to the "wretched hive of scum and villainy" that Roanapur was, but then he remembered how cool and collected she was, and how fast with her wand.

In other schools, they train young ladies to watch out for the wicked world, ran through his mind. Here at Hogwarts, the wicked world had best watch out for our young ladies! He smiled at the thought. He didn't think that Luna would ever make it all the way to Roanapur, but if she did, he would welcome her. And he knew that Aunt Petunia felt the lack of a girl, for all that she loved both her boys.

The teachers' responses to the expose series were interesting. Some of them pointedly read the Quibbler while sitting at the staff table, in full view of the students. Others didn't, but Harry would have bet anything he owned that none of them had missed one word. Suddenly, Luna was getting points for Slytherin for doing perfectly routine things, like handing Professor Sprout a watering can in Herbology.

Professor Lockhart was the one Harry was watching, though. For the most part, he tried to laugh the whole thing off as a silly article in a silly magazine, at least at first. As the series went on, and more and more people came forward with stories about how the things in his books either had never happened, or had happened very differently from what he had said, he lost his sense of humor about the whole thing.

He tried retaliating against Luna, since her father was out of reach and she was an obvious target. The points he took from her nearly, but did not quite, balanced the points she was given by the other teachers. When he began to assign her detentions, though, Professor Snape stepped in.

"You are not to give Miss Lovegood any further detentions without first clearing them with me," Snape snarled, as Harry, Dudley and Ron hid in the dark corner of the hallway and drank in every word with glee. "You are in enough trouble as it is, Professor, and I would strongly advise you to keep your nose clean!"

"I'll tell Dumbledore on you!" Lockhart blustered. He stuck out his chin, his expression petulant. "Any teacher has the right to assign detentions to unsatisfactory or disobedient students! I have the right to expect discipline in my classes!"

"Miss Lovegood, a discipline problem?" Snape snorted contemptous laughter. "Tell that one to the house-elves…the wizards won't believe it! She's been in my House since she was Sorted, and I have never had a moment's trouble with her, nor have any of the other teachers!" Snape grinned unpleasantly. "I wonder how that would look in the Quibbler, now that I think on it? 'Teacher Persecuting Student at Hogwarts?' If that got out, you'd be lucky to avoid a lynch mob!" Lockhart went pale, then red, then pale again as the truth of Snape's words sank home. "In future, you will check with me, or with Professor Dumbledore, before assigning any detentions or subtracting any points from Miss Lovegood. Or else…"

"Or what else?" Lockhart visibly tried to look unintimidated, but to Harry's practiced eye, the act was as phony as everything else about him.

"You'll find out, dear colleague," Snape purred. He turned and stalked away down the corridor, leaving Lockhart staring after him, visibly fuming with impotent rage. Harry and his friends decided that it was time to leave, and made themselves scarce before the posturing phony could take his humiliation out on them.

The reaction from the public was also felt in Hogwarts. A few days after the articles started appearing, Draco gasped at breakfast and his eyes went wide. "That's my Dad! What's Dad doing here?" he asked.

Sure enough, it was Lucius Malfoy, in person. He walked down the center of the Great Hall as though he owned the castle, as all eyes turned to him. Harry grinned to himself as he heard some of the girls sighing. Mr. Malfoy was a good-looking man, he supposed, with his even, aristocratic features and his long white hair. Harry remembered how he'd looked at Luna, though, and he thought that Mr. Malfoy's good looks were like a pretty mask covering something ugly and nasty. He instinctively moved a little closer to Ginny, who was sitting beside him, and he noticed that Dudley was also moving to cover Luna and Ron was unobtrusively positioning himself to protect Hermione.

Professor Dumbledore reacted as though a visit from the head of the Malfoy clan was an everyday event. "So nice to see you, Mr. Malfoy! What can we do for you?"

"You can explain these stories I've been reading, about how your Defence professor is apparently not only utterly unqualified for the position he holds, but obtained it under false pretences." Malfoy's eyes were like chips of blue ice, and his expression was as grim as though he were going into battle.

"I say, now!" That was Lockhart, on his feet, swelling up like a pouter pigeon. "I resent those false imputations, and I demand a chance to clear my name!" Mr. Malfoy turned his wintry gaze onto Lockhart, and the Defence professor visibly wilted under it.

"You are on the Board of Governors, and have that right," Dumbledore conceded. "Will you join us for breakfast, and afterward, we can retire to the Faculty Common-Room, where we can hash this out? Some of the other professors may well want to join us." Dumbledore clapped his hands, and a place at the faculty table appeared for Mr. Malfoy, who sat down at it and tucked into his breakfast with every evidence of enjoyment.

Of course, once the meal was over, the appearance of Mr. Malfoy was the talk of the school. It was a Sunday, so no classes were scheduled, and most of the students forgathered in their House common rooms to dissect the whole situation as best they could.

"Dad's pretty furious, from what Mum tells me," Draco said to an attentive audience of Slytherins. "He takes Defence pretty seriously himself, and he's not been pleased with the quality of the training I've had since I've been here. He and Mum were discussing sending me to Durmstrang instead, but Mum didn't want me so far away."

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dudley and Ginny all exchanged significant glances, and Harry figured he knew what they were all thinking. The thought of the blond pest being far, far away in the deep depths of Russia was not one that displeased any of them.

"But I've also got my betrothed to worry about," Draco was going on. He looked around. "Come to it, where is she? Where is Pansy?"

Reminded of Pansy's existence, Harry looked around. Sure enough, there was no sign of her, and normally she was in the middle of anything exciting that was going on. "Where is she? Was she at breakfast?"

"No, she wasn't," Hermione said. "Now that I think on it, I don't think I've seen her all day. Her bed hadn't been slept in, either." Harry felt a cold chill going down his spine. He disliked Pansy Parkinson, but he didn't wish her any real harm, either.

Pucey took control of the situation. "We should find her. I'll want some girls to check the girls' loos. The rest of us can spread out and search the corridors. She's probably off sulking somewhere, but I don't like the idea of her wandering this castle alone with whatever-it-is about!"

Hermione raised her hand, and Pucey nodded at her, giving her leave to speak. "Pucey…I think that whatever's in the castle might just be a basilisk. I've not been able to find anything else powerful enough to affect a ghost!"

That sobered everybody instantly. Soon, the Slytherins were organized into a search, looking for their errant Housemate. After a little while, they found something they wished they hadn't.

Written in blood, on one of the walls not far from their common room, were the words "Her skeleton shall lie in the Chamber forever. The Heir of Slytherin has returned!"

END Chapter 37