Harry moved under his Invisibility Cloak towards the bathroom where his friends were petrified. He was angry about what had happened to his friends but he also wanted to find the odd little blonde. She gave him a migraine and insisted in calling him Furry Potter to the amusement of much of the school. They thought it was a play on a synonym for a certain pronunciation of his name. Even the Slytherins had started to use it to mock him. However for all that she still managed to get him laughing on a few occasions and God knew he'd needed chances to laugh this year.
Entering the lavatory, Harry paused to sniff. The scents threatened to overwhelm him. He sorted through them and caught Hermione and Padma's scents along with Luna and the monster also. Oddly, Luna's scent only seemed to lead into the loo. Could she still be in here?
"Oh, what are you doing in here?" a girl's voice rang out.
Harry turned to find the ghost of a witch in an old style of Hogwarts robes. He guessed she'd been in Fourth or Fifth year when she died.
"Hello, I am Harry. I am looking for a friend of mine that disappeared from here. Can you help me?"
The ghost witch's expression changed while Harry spoke. Now she was smiling shyly at him. "No one much comes in here anymore. Two girls came in earlier but they just used the loo and left without saying a word to poor Myrtle. Then another girl came in but she just used the sink. She made some noise and then - whoosh! - poor Myrtle was pushed out of her place! Right down the pipes and into the Black Lake! The horrible squid tried to play with me."
"The last girl that came in - was it right after the other girls left?" Harry asked.
"Um, maybe. I'm not too good about keeping track of time. Even if I wasn't dead." The ghosts face clouded up and she started to wail. "Oh, I am dead!" she screamed out before flying into a nearby toilet with a 'plunk!'.
Harry ignored the stray mental question of how an intangible ghost managed to make a small splash entering a toilet bowl and turned to the sink. Luna's scent was stronger here. His eyes darted around looking for a clue, a sign, something!
After five minutes, Harry was ready to give it up as a bad job. He smacked his hand down in frustration. When he lifted his hand, he realized he'd just gotten… something on it. It looked kind of like make-up of some type. With a huff of frustration, Harry walked over to wash it off.
As he washed his hands he ideally noted the snake motif embedded onto the splash plate behind the sink. He glanced down the counter and realized it was the only one. Odd. He looked back at the snake. It seemed to slither a bit.
Was it a marker for the entrance?
Harry looked around for some sign of a trigger mechanism. He expected a rune of some type but reckoned a mechanical trigger was possible also. After several fruitless minutes of searching, he returned his attention to the snake engraving.
"How do I get you to open?" he asked in frustration. The snake gave a particular twitch in response and a second later, Harry heard the sound of stone grinding behind him. Turing he found a section of the floor had given way to reveal a wide tunnel dropping into blackness below.
Open? The Chamber of Secrets and the password to reveal its entrance is open? So much for Salazar being the cunning Founder. Harry considered for a moment. Why hadn't it been found before? Accidently if nothing else. After almost ten centuries at some point at least once someone had to say 'open' while looking at the sink's engraving.
Harry set that aside as he knelt down at the side of the tunnel. The scent of the monster was almost overpowering. It had definitely been through here recently. He touched the side of the tunnel expecting stone. It was metal, lead he thought. This wasn't a tunnel, it was a pipe. A beam of light from his wand showed a bend in the pipe just a few metres down.
"This is a really stupid idea," Harry muttered to himself. He sat on the edge of the pipe and slowly lowered himself down. Maybe the pipe levelled out after the bend. It was just a short drop to the bend. He should be fine. At least that is what he was telling himself.
Harry let go of the edge expecting a short drop to the bend. That is what happened. But what he didn't count on was the accumulated slime of possibly centuries of growth. As his feet hit the pipe bend, they slipped out from under him. The scream he let out as he continued to slide down the pipe was cut off as the bathroom floor returned to cover the pipe opening.
...
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