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Severus Snape deliberately lingered over dinner in the Great Hall for over an hour.
Only when the enchanted ceiling twinkled with starlight and the hall was nearly empty did he leisurely make his way through the entrance hall toward the second floor.
A tarnished sign hung on the door of the girls' bathroom, proclaiming "Out of Order."
He grasped the brass doorknob and pushed the door open.
It was the gloomiest, most oppressive place he had ever been.
The bathroom reeked of mold, its walls and floor damp with moisture.
Beneath a stained, cracked mirror stood a row of chipped stone sinks.
A few candle stubs flickered low on their brackets, threatening to gutter out at any moment. Their dim light cast eerie shadows across the floor.
The wooden doors of the stalls were peeling and scratched; one hung precariously on a broken hinge.
From the moment he stepped inside, the steady drip of water echoed from a shadowed corner, accompanied by soft sobs drifting from one of the stalls, reverberating through the empty bathroom.
Snape paused, listening to pinpoint the source of the crying, then walked toward the farthest stall.
At the door, he knocked lightly. "Hello, Myrtle, how are you?"
Moaning Myrtle was floating in the cistern of the toilet, tearfully picking at a pimple on her chin.
"This is the girls' bathroom," she said, eyeing Snape suspiciously. "You're not a girl."
"How dare you assume—"
Snape nearly cast a dark spell from a later era on reflex but caught himself just in time.
"Ahem, obviously I'm not a girl," he said. "I came here to check on you."
"What do you want to mock me for now!" Myrtle wailed. "I have feelings, you know, even if I'm dead."
"Myrtle, no one's mocking you," Snape said. "I just—"
"No one's mocking me? That's a laugh!" Myrtle cried. "My life here was nothing but misery, and now that I'm dead, you still won't leave me alone!"
Tears streamed rapidly from her translucent eyes.
"I just wanted to ask how you died," Snape said quickly, raising his voice.
The sobbing stopped abruptly, and Myrtle's entire demeanor shifted.
It seemed few had ever asked her a question that made her feel so honored.
She wiped away her ghostly tears. "No one's cared about me in over thirty years. Oh, it was awful. It happened right here. I died in this very stall."
Myrtle rose into the air, twirled gracefully, and perched on the cistern.
"I remember it so clearly. Olive Hornby had mocked me for my glasses, calling me a four-eyed dog, so I hid here. I locked the door and cried, then I heard someone come in.
"You know, they were saying the funniest things. It must have been another language. But what really annoyed me was hearing a boy's voice."
She gave Snape a meaningful look before continuing with relish. "So I opened the door to tell him to get out, to go to his own boys' bathroom, and then—"
Puffing out her chest with pride, her face glowing, she declared, "I died."
"How did you die?" Snape asked.
"I don't know," Myrtle said, lowering her voice mysteriously. "All I remember is seeing a pair of enormous, terrifying yellow eyes. My whole body felt like it was seized, and then I just… floated away…"
She gazed at Snape, lost in the memory. "Then I came back here. You know, I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby.
"It took them ages to find my body—I know because I sat there waiting for them.
"Olive Hornby walked into the bathroom—'Sulking again, are you, Myrtle?' she said. 'Professor Dippet sent me to find you—'"
A mischievous grin spread across Myrtle's face.
"Then she saw my body… Oh, she never forgot that moment, I made sure of it. I followed her everywhere, reminding her.
"At her brother's wedding, when they popped the champagne corks to celebrate, it wasn't just bubbles that came bursting out—"
"It was me," she said with a sly smile. "Oh, she regretted mocking my glasses."
"But then, of course," Myrtle's mood darkened, "she went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me from following her, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet.
"I don't understand why the Ministry cared about that but wouldn't listen to what I told them."
"What did you tell the Ministry?" Snape asked.
"They found me and said the big oaf who caused my death had been expelled, so I should move on.
"But the boy's voice I heard was definitely not his. I told them they got the wrong person."
"You mean it wasn't Hagrid?" Snape asked.
Myrtle's pearly eyes widened to bright white, her thick glasses glinting with surprise.
"How did you know?"
"Hagrid told me," Snape said calmly. "Did you ever tell Dumbledore about this?"
"I did. He came to ask me about it," Myrtle nodded earnestly. "But he just said, 'I see,' asked me to keep it quiet, and that was that."
"Oh, that's very Dumbledore," Snape muttered, his lip curling. He steered the conversation forward. "Can you tell me where you saw those yellow eyes?"
"Somewhere around there," Myrtle said vaguely, pointing toward the sink in front of her.
Snape approached the grimy sink.
It looked ordinary enough. He inspected it thoroughly, inside and out, top to bottom, even checking the mirror above and the pipes below.
Finally, he examined the dark green copper taps.
On the side of one tap, he spotted a small, serpentine mark.
"This tap never works," Myrtle said cheerfully as Snape tried to turn it.
"Do you remember what that boy's funny words sounded like?" Snape asked, pausing his efforts.
Myrtle frowned, thinking, then let out a strange hissing sound.
Nothing happened. The bathroom remained unchanged, save for the steady "drip, drip" of water echoing in their ears.
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