Chapter 648 People On The Marauder's Map

Ron was still digesting this shocking news and could not believe he was going down to the lake.

"Myrtle... what lives in the lake, besides the giant squid?" Harry continued.

"Oh, all sorts of creatures, beyond your imagination!" she said, seemingly a bit discontent. "Sometimes I go to the lake to hang out... sometimes I have no choice, if someone flushes my toilet unexpectedly..."

Harry tried not to think of Moaning Myrtle sliding down a pipe to the lake with the contents of a toilet, though he found it funny. He would try if he could.

"Well, is there anything there that has a human voice?" Harry asked. "Wait..."

His eyes had landed on the portrait of the sleeping mermaid on the wall and he hastily nudged Ron.

"The Merfolk, Ron, must be the Merfolk," he said quickly, "Myrtle, aren't there Merfolk there, right?"

"Oh, very well," she said, her thick glasses gleaming, and looked at Harry with satisfaction. "Diggory took much longer than that! And she was awake too"... she nodded towards the mermaid with a great distaste on her austere face... "laughing as usual, showing off and flaunting her fins to the bathing students," she said, dissatisfied.

"Harry, do you mean...?" Ron's eyes also landed on the portrait of the mermaid.

"Exactly. The second task is to go and find the Merfolk in the lake and... and..." Harry couldn't continue. Suddenly he realized what he was saying, and felt the excitement of discovering the secret fade away.

He remembered that the lake was very large and very deep, and the Merfolk would surely live at the bottom...

This was no longer about swimming. How could Ron breathe in there?!

Obviously, Ron was thinking the same. He no longer had the joy of discovering the secret of the golden egg, and his face was pale.

"Myrtle, do you know how we're supposed to breathe underwater?" he asked hopefully.

At this, Myrtle's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Insensitive!" she murmured, rummaging through her robes for a handkerchief, "talking about breathing in front of me!"

More tears welled up in her eyes, and she leaped off the tap.

"You know I can't!" she said stridently, and her voice echoed loudly in the bathroom. "It's been... it's been a long time ago..."

She buried her face in the handkerchief and sobbed loudly.

Harry remembered how sensitive Myrtle had always been about being dead, but none of the other ghosts he knew made such a fuss about it.

Ron also thought about this, but he didn't want to comfort Myrtle at all. He just wanted to leave.

He was about to drown in the lake soon, and now he needed to apologize to a bothersome ghost?!

"Sorry!" Finally, Harry said impatiently, "We didn't do it on purpose... we just forgot!"

"Oh, yes, very easy to forget that Myrtle is dead," said Myrtle, crying, looking at them with swollen eyes. "Nobody missed me even when I was alive. It took them hours and hours to find my body... I know, I was there sitting waiting. Olive Hornby came into the bathroom... 'Are you here again, sulking, Myrtle?' she said, 'because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you...' And then she saw my body... oh, she didn't forget until the day she died, I made sure of that... I tailed her and reminded her, I did. I remember at her brother's wedding... and then, of course, she went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me haunting her, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet."

That was really an unpleasant memory. Myrtle seemed to hold grudges beyond imagination.

Harry and Ron didn't even listen. They didn't even care about being seen by her.

They retrieved the golden egg from the bottom of the bath, left, dried off as quickly as possible, and dressed again.

"Fred and George must have known about this. They knew Myrtle would come to look, and they gave me the password to get in here," Ron said angrily, "seeing her?! Unless all the castle toilets are sealed off with dirt, I'll never go near that place again."

"Myrtle is truly awful, but she did help us after all!" Harry said. "How will you manage to dive underwater?"

"I don't know! Go back and ask Evan and Hermione, they must know!" Ron said weakly.

Although he didn't want to admit it, he had no way to deal with the current situation.

He had thought that this time he might not have to rely on Evan's help, but he couldn't.

After seeing Hermione at the Christmas Ball, Ron felt very uncomfortable, always remembering the scene of Evan and Hermione dancing, and the parchment with terrible designs that Evan pulled out in the tavern that morning...

It wasn't the moment to come into conflict with Evan. Ron reminded himself that this was the lesson he had learned in the past few years.

Evan's power was very strong, far beyond his imagination, and he needed his help.

"Ron, we must hurry back," said Harry, placing the invisibility cloak over their heads and carefully checking it. "It's getting late. Come on, I'll carry the Golden Egg. You check the Marauder's Map."

They arrived at the dark corridor, and Ron absentmindedly checked the Marauder's Map. The dots belonging to Filch and his cat, Mrs. Norris, were quietly in his office.

Nothing else seemed to be moving except Peeves, who was jumping around the trophy room upstairs.

"Let's go!" said Ron, but he stopped abruptly.

Peeves wasn't the only thing moving. He saw Evan and Hermione suddenly appear at the castle gates.

What were they doing outside? Was it a date?!

He felt uncomfortable thinking about the scene of Evan and Hermione kissing.

Ron had recently been on a date with Lavender and finally knew what boys and girls did alone.

Thinking in that way, Evan and Hermione had been together for a long time, they must be the same...

"What's wrong, Ron?" Harry leaned over and saw Evan and Hermione at the gates. "Strange, how could they be there? Let's go!"

He pulled on Ron's sleeve, and Ron snapped out of it.

"Oh!" He was about to put away the Marauder's Map, and suddenly his eyes were drawn.

He saw a single dot fluttering in a room in the bottom left corner.

It was Professor Snape's office. But the dot was not labeled as "Severus Snape"... it was Caresius Slytherin!