𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 ¹

37. the chamber of secrets

Lockhart straightened his back and Harper could tell he was taken aback.

"You're right," he replied. "I used a lot of Memory Charms. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charm.

He banged his lids of his trunks shut and locked them.

"Let's see," he continued. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one think left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to the three of them.

"Awfully sorry, boys, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now."

Both Harper and Harry snatched their wands from their robes.

"Expelliarmus!"

Lockhart was blasted backwards, falling over his thrill. His wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.

"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one," Harry said furiously, kicking Lockhart's trunk aside. Lockhart was looking up at them, weedy once more. Harper was still pointing her wand at him as Harry and Ron stood on either side of her.

"What d'you want me to do?" Lockhart said weakly. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."

"You're in luck," Harry said, forcing Lockhart to his feet. "We think we know where it is. And what's inside it. Let's go."

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. We sent Lockhart first. Harper was pleased to see that he was shaking.

Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the cistern of the end toilet.

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

"To ask how you died," Harry replied.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such flattering question.

"Oooh, 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 someone 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?" Harper asked.

"No idea," she replied 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?" Harry asked.

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

Harry, Ron and Harper hurried over it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face.

It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below.

And then they saw it: scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

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