Kirra amused herself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs. Her mind began to drift to when she had first became a prefect. Her and Tom were prefects together, meaning that they had both had entry to the bathroom. She smiled softly at the thought before shaking the thoughts away and looking around the room, waiting for the bath to fill.
Then, when the deep pool was full of hot water, foam, and bubbles, which took a very short time considering its size, Kirra turned off all the taps, pulled off her pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown, and slid into the water.
It was so deep that her feet barely touched the bottom, and she actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable though it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-coloured steam wafting all around her, no stroke of brilliance came to her,no sudden burst of understanding.
Kirra stretched out her arms, lifted the egg in her wet hands, and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes.
She snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Filch, — she thought about it, maybe she should try and put it under the water and see what happened, she knew that water would muffle the sound, and maybe there was a hidden message amongst the screaching. She was about to dip it under the water and then, making her jump so badly that she dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor, someone spoke.
"I'd try putting it in the water, if I were you." Kirra had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. She stood up, sputtering, and saw the ghost of a very glum looking girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps.
It was Moaning Myrtle, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a toilet three floors below.
"Myrtle!" Kirra said in outrage, "I'm — I'm not wearing anything!" The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but she had a nasty feeling that Myrtle had been spying on her from out of one of the taps ever since she had arrived.
"I closed my eyes when you got in, and besides its not like I haven't seen you naked before, that boy with the grey-blue eyes and curly hair seemed to like to take you to the bathroom a fair bit didn't he?" she said, blinking at her through her thick spectacles, "that slythering who was in the year under you?"
Kirra's cheeks went red as she looked at the girl, "jesus Myrtle, youre a creep," she choked out as she stared at the ghost
"You haven't been to see me for ages."
"Yeah . . . well . . ." said Kirra, bending her knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Myrtle couldn't see anything but her head, "youre not really giving me any good reasons to want to come see you, are you? Besides, the toilet is out of bounds anyways."
"You didn't used to care," said Myrtle miserably. "You used to be in there all the time."
This was true, though only because Kirra and Theodore had found Myrtle's out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew potions in secret — and her and Regulus had often went there when they were together."
"I got told off for going in there," said Kirra, which was half true; Percy had once caught her, Theodore and Mattheo coming out of Myrtle's bathroom. "I thought I'd better not come back after that."
"Oh . . . I see . . ." said Myrtle, picking at a spot on her chin in a morose sort of way. "Well. . . anyway . . . I'd try the egg in the water. That's what Cedric Diggory did."
"Have you been spying on him too?" said Kirra indignantly. "What d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the prefects take baths?"
"Sometimes," said Myrtle, rather slyly, "but I've never come out to speak to anyone before."
"I'm honored," said Kirra darkly. "You keep your eyes shut!" She made sure Myrtle had her glasses well covered before hoisting herself out of the bath, wrapping the towel firmly around her body, and going to retrieve the egg.
Once she was back in the water, Myrtle peered through her fingers and said, "Go on, then . . . open it under the water!"
Kirra lowered the egg beneath the foamy surface and opened it . . . and this time, it did not wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it, a song whose words she couldn't distinguish through the water.
She knew she had to put her head under the water, but at this point she wasn't sure she wanted to while Myrtle was there, the ghost would probably take off with her clothes or something.
"You need to put your head under too," said Myrtle, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing her around. "Go on!"
Kirra took a great breath and slid under the surface — and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, she heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to her from the open egg in her hands:
"Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this:
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour — the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."
Kirra let herself float back upward and broke the bubbly surface, shaking her hair out of her eyes. "Hear it?" said Myrtle.
"Yeah . . . 'Come seek us where our voices sound . . .' and if I need persuading . . . hang on, I need to listen again. . . ." She sank back beneath the water. It took three more underwater renditions of the egg's song before Kirra had it memorized; then she trod water for a while, thinking hard, while Myrtle sat and watched her.
"I've got to go and look for people who can't use their voices above the ground. . . ." she said slowly. Kirra stared around the bathroom, thinking . . . if the voices could only be heard underwater, then it made sense for them to belong to underwater creatures.
She ran this theory past Myrtle, who smirked at her. "Well, that's what Diggory thought, you are getting it a lot faster though, smart girl arent you?" she said. "He lay there talking to himself for ages about it. Ages and ages . . . nearly all the bubbles had gone. . . ."
"Underwater . . ." Kirra said slowly. "does anything in the dark lake have a human voice? Hang on —"Kirra's eyes had fallen on the picture of the snoozing mermaid on the wall. "Its merpeople!"
"Oooh, very good," she said, her thick glasses twinkling, "it took Diggory much longer than that! And that was with her awake too" — Myrtle jerked her head toward the mermaid with an expression of great dislike on her glum face — "giggling and showing off and flashing her fins. . . ."
"That's it, isn't it?" said Kirra excitedly. "The second task's to go and find the merpeople in the lake and . . . and . . ." But she suddenly realized what she was saying, and she felt the excitement drain out of her as though someone had just pulled a plug in her stomach.
She wasn't a very good swimmer; she feared bodies of water (not the bath/shower), and most of all feared the cold. It was like her worst nightmares all rolled into a ball.
A couple oflengths of this bath were all very well, but that lake was very large, and very deep . . . and very cold and merpeople would surely live right at the bottom. . . . "shit shit shit shit," she began muttering very quickly as she felt like the water in the bath was suddenly turning ice cold and a dark black colour.
Emily Barnes stared down at the water, tears pouring down her red face as she practically screamed, her arms hugging her body as she cried and cried, harder and harder, her sobs getting louder and louder.
"Why did you leave me!" She screamed out, her voice echoing through the dark cave, "You are meant to still be here you idiot!" Her knees bled from where she had fallen to her knees when she collapsed at the middle of the cave, "we could have found another way!"
Her body shook and racked with sobs violently pouring from her mouth. She forced herself to calm down slightly as she peered into the bottomless water that surrounded her, her sobs became quieter but the tears falling down her face didn't slow
"I could only hope that there is another life where we both exist again... no matter how long I have to wait, I will wait for you," she could barely get her own words out as she choked on her own sobs, "I will never be able to understand why the universe was cruel enough to let us meet when it had no intention of ever letting us stay together."
"I need you Reg... I cant do this without you," she whispered, a wail falling from her lips as she struggled to breathe. Her heart was burning in her chest, her heart had been broken and it was causing physical pain throughout her entire body
She didn't want to die... she wanted to live. She wanted to be able to dance around in the rain, feel the sun kiss her skin and travel around the world but a life without him in it would not be a life at all.
Stories never have happy endings, and she knew that. She didn't know why she had expected it to be different this time. She was just glad that there was some good in the middle. She let out a shakey breath as she stood up, her head going fuzzy as she almost fell back to the ground again
Myrtle watched as the Hufflepuff struggled in the water, she looked like she was remembering something traumatic as her body shook and she struggled to breath, she seemed to be almost completely out of it as she struggled to breath and keep above water. The ghost fealt fear rush through her as she called the Hufflepuffs name over and over again but didn't get a response. The ghost rushed over to her and even though she knew it wouldn't work, she tried to pull the girl out of the large bath, scared she would drown, and just as she thought, it didn't work.
Myrtle quickly drifted back to the taps and flew up it, she travelled through the pipes, trying to remember her way through the pipes.
TRIGGER WARNING
Emily began to stumble towards the water, her legs walking closer and closer to the freezing liquid, "To my ever lasting love, until we meet again." she whispered, her steps were only small, if they were any larger her legs would have given out from under her.
Nothing else was on her mind right now except seeing Regulus again.
She wasn't thinking about Sirius, James and Remus who were all going out of their minds right now trying to figure out where she was. Or the tears that were pouring down their cheeks as she they checked everywhere for her, or the loud cries that fell from their mouths as they worried that their time to find her was running thin.
She wasn't thinking about Lily, Mary or the others who were freaking out as they worried about her. All she could think about was him.
finally, her first foot reached the water, the cool liquid stung her skin but she kept walking. The water slowly began to run up her legs as she walked further and further in, the depth increasing. By the time that the water was up to her waist, her legs had gone practically numb.
Still, she kept walking. The water raised up past her belly button and she suddenly felt something grab onto her, she imagined that it was Regulus welcoming her into the water, greeting her as they reunited. More and more hands grabbed onto her and then quickly pulled her body under the water, at first she didn't struggle.
The water completely covered her body as she was being dragged down to the bottom of the water, she couldn't wait to see him again. But then her eyes shot open as she her brain pounded hard against her skull and she felt the water begin to enter her lungs, she gasped for air, nothing but water entering her mouth. She struggled against the grip of the inferi, she didn't have her wand, it had been left on the centre crystal island.
Finally she stopped struggling and peered gently at the inferi around, looking for him but it was too dark to pick out distinctive features. So she stopped and thought...
As death takes my hand. I'll hold you with the other one and promise to find you in another life.
Then she closed her eyes and waited for the tomorrow that she knew would never come.
Her world filled with shadows as the light faded. And she finally felt happy again since she had heard the news of her loves early passing. She felt true happiness at the thought that she was about to see him again, too bad it was at the last seconds of her life.
Myrtle finally made it to the Slythering dorm pipes and found the one that she was looking for, she burst through the tap and flew through the closed door into the dorm, tears running down her cheeks.
None of the boys were sleeping and all of them were in the dorm doing something. Blaise was reading a book on his bed, Draco was studying on his bed, his potions book wide open in front of him as he took notes down. Theodore and Mattheo were on their beds talking to each other, the two of them were trying to figure out why Kirra hated Dumbledore and neither of them had been able to come up with something that would earn such a strong hatred from the Hufflepuff.
At the sound of the cries from the ghost they all quickly stopped what they were doing and their heads snapped towards the ghost. Draco and Blaise had no idea who she was while Mattheo and Theodore on the other hand knew exactly who she was. But all of them looked extremely pissed off to see her in their dorm
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Mattheo and the others growled over at here
"Just wait until professor snape hears about this!" Draco exclaimed
"Its Ophelia! In the bath! She drowning!" Myrtle cried out hurriedly. The boys all looked confused for a few seconds, they didn't know who the hell Ophelia was but then Theodore and Mattheo's eyes widened in realisation and they quickly stood up
"What bathroom?!" They both exclaimed in a hurry