‘Yeah … well …’ said Harry, bending his knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Myrtle couldn’t see anything but his head, ‘I’m not supposed to come into your bathroom, am I? It’s a girls’ one.’
‘You didn’t used to care,’ said Myrtle miserably. ‘You used to be in there all the time.’
This was true, though only because Harry, Ron and Hermione had found Myrtle’s out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew Polyjuice Potion in secret – a forbidden potion which had turned Harry and Ron into living replicas of Crabbe and Goyle for an hour, so that they could sneak into the Slytherin common room.
‘I got told off for going in there,’ said Harry, which was half-true; Percy had once caught him 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 Harry 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 honoured,’ said Harry darkly. ‘You keep your eyes shut!’
He made sure Myrtle had her glasses well covered before hoisting himself out of the bath, wrapping the towel firmly around himself and going to get the egg.
Once he was back in the water, Myrtle peered through her fingers and said, ‘Go on, then … open it under the water!’
Harry 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 he couldn’t distinguish through the water.
‘You need to put your head under, too,’ said Myrtle, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing him around. ‘Go on!’
Harry took a great breath, and slid under the surface – and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, he heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the open egg in his 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.’
Harry let himself float back upwards and broke the bubbly surface, shaking his hair out of his 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 …’ He sank back beneath the water.
It took three more underwater renditions of the egg’s song before Harry had it memorised; then he trod water for a while, thinking hard, while Myrtle sat and watched him.
‘I’ve got to go and look for people who can’t use their voices above the ground …’ he said slowly. ‘Er … who could that be?’
‘Slow, aren’t you?’
He had never seen Moaning Myrtle so cheerful, apart from the day when Hermione’s dose of Polyjuice Potion had given her the hairy face and tail of a cat.
Harry stared around the bathroom, thinking … if the voices could only be heard underwater, then it made sense for them to belong to underwater creatures. He ran this theory past Myrtle, who smirked at him.
‘Well, that’s what Diggory thought,’ she said. ‘He lay there talking to himself for ages about it. Ages and ages … nearly all the bubbles had gone …’
‘Underwater …’ Harry said slowly. ‘Myrtle … what lives in the lake, apart from the giant squid?’
‘Oh, all sorts,’ she said. ‘I sometimes go down there … sometimes don’t have any choice, if someone flushes my toilet when I’m not expecting it …’
Trying not to think about Moaning Myrtle zooming down a pipe to the lake with the contents of a toilet, Harry said, ‘Well, does anything in there have human voices? Hang on –’
Harry’s eyes had fallen on the picture of the snoozing mermaid on the wall. ‘Myrtle, there aren’t merpeople in there, are there?’
‘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 towards 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 Harry excitedly. ‘The second task’s to go and find the merpeople in the lake and … and …’
But he suddenly realised what he was saying, and he felt the excitement drain out of him as though someone had just pulled a plug in his stomach. He wasn’t a very good swimmer; he’d never had much practice. Dudley had had lessons in their youth, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, no doubt hoping that Harry would drown one day, hadn’t bothered to give him any. A couple of lengths of this bath was all very well, but that lake was very large, and very deep … and merpeople would surely live right at the bottom …
‘Myrtle,’ Harry said slowly, ‘how am I supposed to breathe?’
At this, Myrtle’s eyes filled with sudden tears again.
‘Tactless!’ she muttered, groping in her robes for a handkerchief.
‘What’s tactless?’ said Harry, bewildered.
‘Talking about breathing in front of me!’ she said shrilly, and her voice echoed loudly around the bathroom. ‘When I can’t … when I haven’t … not for ages …’ She buried her face in her handkerchief and sniffed loudly.
Harry remembered how touchy Myrtle had always been about being dead, but none of the other ghosts he knew made such a fuss about it. ‘Sorry,’ he said impatiently. ‘I didn’t mean – I just forgot …’
‘Oh, yes, very easy to forget Myrtle’s dead,’ said Myrtle, gulping, looking at him out of swollen eyes. ‘Nobody missed me, even when I was alive. Took them hours and hours to find my body – I know, I was sitting there waiting for them. Olive Hornby came into the bathroom – “Are you in here again, sulking, Myrtle?” she said. “Because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you –” And then she saw my body … ooooh, she didn’t forget it until her dying day, I made sure of that … followed her around and reminded her, I did, I remember at her brother’s wedding –’
But Harry wasn’t listening; he was thinking about the merpeople’s song again. ‘We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss.’ That sounded as though they were going to steal something of his, something he had to get back. What were they going to take?
‘– and then, of course, she went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me stalking her, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet.’
‘Good,’ said Harry vaguely. ‘Well, I’m a lot further on than I was … shut your eyes again, will you, I’m getting out.’
He retrieved the egg from the bottom of the bath, climbed out, dried himself and pulled on his pyjamas and dressing-gown again.
‘Will you come and visit me in my bathroom again sometime?’ Moaning Myrtle asked mournfully, as Harry picked up the Invisibility Cloak.
‘Er … I’ll try,’ Harry said, though privately thinking the only way he’d be visiting Myrtle’s bathroom again was if every other toilet in the castle got blocked. ‘See you, Myrtle … thanks for your help.’
‘Bye, bye,’ she said gloomily, and as Harry put on the Invisibility Cloak, he saw her zoom back up the tap.
Out in the dark corridor, Harry examined the Marauder’s Map to check that the coast was still clear. Yes, the dots belonging to Filch and Mrs Norris were safely in their office … nothing else seemed to be moving apart from Peeves, who was bouncing around the trophy room on the floor above … Harry had taken his first step back towards Gryffindor Tower, when something else on the map caught his eye … something di
stinctly odd.
Peeves was not the only thing that was moving. A single dot was flitting around a room in the bottom left-hand corner – Snape’s office. But the dot wasn’t labelled ‘Severus Snape’ … it was Bartemius Crouch.
Harry stared at the dot. Mr Crouch was supposed to be too ill to go to work or to come to the Yule Ball – so what was he doing, sneaking into Hogwarts at one o’clock in the morning? Harry watched closely as the dot moved round and round the room, pausing here and there …
Harry hesitated, thinking … and then his curiosity got the better of him. He turned, and set off in the opposite direction, towards the nearest staircase. He was going to see what Crouch was up to.
Harry walked down the stairs as quietly as possible, though the faces in some of the portraits still turned curiously at the squeak of a floorboard, the rustle of his pyjamas. He crept along the corridor below, pushed aside a tapestry about halfway along and proceeded down a narrower staircase, a shortcut which would take him down two floors. He kept glancing down at the map, wondering … it just didn’t seem in character, somehow, for correct, law-abiding Mr Crouch to be sneaking around somebody else’s office this late at night …
And then, halfway down the staircase, not thinking about what he was doing, not concentrating on anything but the peculiar behaviour of Mr Crouch, Harry’s leg suddenly sank right through the trick step Neville always forgot to jump. He gave an ungainly wobble, and the golden egg, still damp from the bath, slipped from under his arm – he lurched forwards to try and catch it, but too late; the egg fell down the long staircase with a bang as loud as a bass drum on every step – the Invisibility Cloak slipped – Harry snatched at it, and the Marauder’s Map fluttered out of his hand, and slid down six stairs, where, sunk in the step to above his knee, he couldn’t reach it.
The golden egg fell through the tapestry at the bottom of the staircase, burst open and began wailing loudly in the corridor below. Harry pulled out his wand and struggled to touch the Marauder’s Map, to wipe it blank, but it was too far away to reach –
Pulling the Cloak back over himself Harry straightened up, listening hard, his eyes screwed up with fear … and, almost immediately –
‘PEEVES!’
It was the unmistakeable hunting cry of Filch the caretaker. Harry could hear his rapid, shuffling footsteps coming nearer and nearer, his wheezy voice raised in fury.
‘What’s this racket? Wake up the whole castle, will you? I’ll have you, Peeves, I’ll have you, you’ll … and what is this?’
Filch’s footsteps stopped; there was a clink of metal on metal, and the wailing stopped – Filch had picked up the egg and closed it. Harry stood very still, one leg still jammed tightly in the magical step, listening. Any moment now, Filch was going to pull aside the tapestry, expecting to see Peeves … and there would be no Peeves … but if he came up the stairs, he would spot the Marauder’s Map … and, Invisibility Cloak or not, the map would show ‘Harry Potter’ standing exactly where he was.
‘Egg?’ Filch said quietly at the foot of the stairs. ‘My sweet!’ – Mrs Norris was obviously with him – ‘This is a Triwizard clue! This belongs to a school champion!’
Harry felt sick; his heart was hammering very fast –
‘PEEVES!’ Filch roared gleefully. ‘You’ve been stealing!’
He ripped back the tapestry below, and Harry saw his horrible pouchy face, and bulging, pale eyes staring up the dark and (to Filch) deserted staircase.
‘Hiding, are you?’ he said softly. ‘I’m coming to get you, Peeves … you’ve gone and stolen a Triwizard clue, Peeves … Dumbledore’ll have you out of here for this, you filthy pilfering poltergeist …’
Filch started to climb the stairs, his scrawny, dust-coloured cat at his heels. Mrs Norris’s lamp-like eyes, so very like her master’s, were fixed directly upon Harry. He had had occasion before now to wonder whether the Invisibility Cloak worked on cats … sick with apprehension, he watched Filch drawing nearer and nearer in his old flannel dressing-gown – he tried desperately to pull his trapped leg free, but it merely sank a few more inches – any second now, Filch was going to spot the map or walk right into him –
‘Filch? What’s going on?’
Filch stopped a few steps below Harry, and turned. At the foot of the stairs stood the only person who could make Harry’s situation worse – Snape. He was wearing a long grey nightshirt and he looked livid.
‘It’s Peeves, Professor,’ Filch whispered malevolently. ‘He threw this egg down the stairs.’
Snape climbed up the stairs quickly and stopped beside Filch. Harry gritted his teeth, convinced his loudly thumping heart would give him away at any second …
‘Peeves?’ said Snape softly, staring at the egg in Filch’s hands. ‘But Peeves couldn’t get into my office …’
‘This egg was in your office, Professor?’
‘Of course not,’ Snape snapped, ‘I heard banging and wailing –’
‘Yes, Professor, that was the egg –’
‘– I was coming to investigate –’
‘– Peeves threw it, Professor –’
‘– and when I passed my office, I saw that the torches were lit and a cupboard door was ajar! Somebody has been searching it!’
‘But Peeves couldn’t –’
‘I know he couldn’t, Filch!’ Snape snapped. ‘I seal my office with a spell none but a wizard could break!’ Snape looked up the stairs, straight through Harry, and then down into the corridor below. ‘I want you to come and help me search for the intruder, Filch.’
‘I – yes, Professor – but –’
Filch looked yearningly up the stairs, right through Harry, who could see that he was very reluctant to forgo the chance of cornering Peeves. Go, Harry pleaded with him silently, go with Snape … go … Mrs Norris was peering around Filch’s legs … Harry had the distinct impression that she could smell him … why had he filled that bath with so much perfumed foam?
‘The thing is, Professor,’ said Filch plaintively, ‘the Headmaster will have to listen to me this time, Peeves has been stealing from a student, it might be my chance to get him thrown out of the castle once and for all –’
‘Filch, I don’t give a damn about that wretched poltergeist, it’s my office that’s –’
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Snape stopped talking very abruptly. He and Filch both looked down at the foot of the stairs. Harry saw Mad-Eye Moody limp into sight through the narrow gap between their heads. Moody was wearing his old travelling cloak over his nightshirt, and leaning on his staff as usual.
‘Pyjama party, is it?’ he growled up the stairs.
‘Professor Snape and I heard noises, Professor,’ said Filch at once. ‘Peeves the poltergeist, throwing things around as usual– and then Professor Snape discovered that someone had broken into his off–’
‘Shut up!’ Snape hissed to Filch.
Moody took a step closer to the foot of the stairs. Harry saw Moody’s magical eye travel over Snape, and then, unmistakeably, onto himself.
Harry’s heart gave a horrible jolt. Moody could see through Invisibility Cloaks … he alone could see the full strangeness of the scene … Snape in his nightshirt, Filch clutching the egg, and he, Harry, trapped in the stairs behind them. Moody’s lop-sided gash of a mouth opened in surprise. For a few seconds, he and Harry stared straight into each other’s eyes. Then Moody closed his mouth and turned his blue eye upon Snape again.
‘Did I hear that correctly, Snape?’ he asked slowly. ‘Someone broke into your office?’
‘It is unimportant,’ said Snape coldly.
‘On the contrary,’ growled Moody, ‘it is very important. Who’d want to break into your office?’
‘A student, I daresay,’ said Snape. Harry could see a vein flickering horribly on Snape’s greasy temple. ‘It has happened before. Potion ingredients have gone missing from my private store cupboard … students attempting illicit mixtures, no doubt …’
> ‘Reckon they were after potion ingredients, eh?’ said Moody. ‘Not hiding anything else in your office, are you?’
Harry saw the edge of Snape’s sallow face turn a nasty brick colour, the vein in his temple pulsing more rapidly.
‘You know I’m hiding nothing, Moody,’ he said, in a soft and dangerous voice, ‘as you’ve searched my office pretty thoroughly yourself.’
Moody’s face twisted into a smile. ‘Auror’s privilege, Snape. Dumbledore told me to keep an eye –’
‘Dumbledore happens to trust me,’ said Snape, through clenched teeth. ‘I refuse to believe that he gave you orders to search my office!’
‘’Course Dumbledore trusts you,’ growled Moody. ‘He’s a trusting man, isn’t he? Believes in second chances. But me – I say there are spots that don’t come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?’
Snape suddenly did something very strange. He seized his left forearm convulsively with his right hand, as though something on it had hurt him.
Moody laughed. ‘Get back to bed, Snape.’
‘You don’t have the authority to send me anywhere!’ Snape hissed, letting go of his arm as though angry with himself. ‘I have as much right to prowl this school after dark as you do!’
‘Prowl away,’ said Moody, but his voice was full of menace. ‘I look forward to meeting you in a dark corridor some time … you’ve dropped something, by the way …’
With a stab of horror, Harry saw Moody point at the Marauder’s Map, still lying on the staircase six steps below him. As Snape and Filch both turned to look at it, Harry threw caution to the winds; he raised his arms under the Cloak and waved furiously at Moody to attract his attention, mouthing, ‘It’s mine! Mine!’
Snape had reached out for it, a horrible expression of dawning comprehension on his face –
‘Accio parchment!’
The map flew up into the air, slipped through Snape’s outstretched fingers, and soared down the stairs into Moody’s hand.
The Goblet of Fire Page 40