Snape lingered in the Great Hall longer than necessary, slowly pushing bits of food around his plate. An hour passed before the enchanted ceiling above dimmed into a sky speckled with stars, and most of the students had drifted away.
Only then did he rise, his steps casual, almost lazy, as he strolled through the Entrance Hall and climbed toward the second floor.
A large, worn-out wooden sign dangled on the door to the girls' lavatory, the peeling paint barely legible: Out of Order.
He grasped the brass doorknob, turned it, and stepped into what was arguably the gloomiest, most miserable place in all of Hogwarts.
The air smelled damp and slightly mouldy. The cracked tile floors were slick with moisture, and the walls glistened with damp streaks like old tears.
Under a grimy, fissured mirror sat a row of stone sinks, their surfaces chipped and flaking. Candle stubs burned low on rusting wall-brackets, casting weak, trembling light that shivered across the floor.
Each cubicle door was scuffed, peeling, or broken. One hung from a single hinge, wobbling with the faintest breeze.
From the instant he entered, the sound of dripping water echoed all around him—and beneath it, faint sobs, muffled, coming from deep within one of the stalls.
Snape followed the sound without hurry, pausing outside the very last cubicle.
He knocked lightly.
"Hey… Myrtle? You alright in there?"
Moaning Myrtle hovered just above the cistern, fiddling with a spot on her transparent chin, tears streaming down her face.
"This is the girls' bathroom," she sniffled, eyeing him suspiciously. "You're not a girl."
"How dare you assume—"
Snape caught himself just in time, barely restraining the urge to cast a hex from a future decade's repertoire.
He cleared his throat. "Right. Clearly I'm not. I just… came to see you."
"Oh, what, so you can laugh at me too?" Myrtle wailed. "Everyone thinks it's so funny, don't they? Even though I'm dead!"
"No one's laughing at you," Snape said quickly. "I swear, I—"
"Oh please," she shrieked. "That's the best joke yet! My entire afterlife is one long humiliation! And now here you are to add to it!"
More tears burst from her silver eyes like tiny, weightless pearls.
"I just wanted to ask you," Snape interrupted, raising his voice, "how you died."
That silenced her.
Myrtle froze, blinking. She looked as if no one had asked her that in a very long time—and that she was secretly delighted someone finally had.
She sniffled, wiped her incorporeal cheeks.
"Over thirty years. No one's ever asked. It happened right here. I died in this cubicle."
She floated upward and turned, drifting delicately onto the top of the cistern like a queen settling onto her throne.
"I remember it all so clearly. Olive Hornby was teasing me again—said my glasses made me look like a four-eyed toad. So I ran in here, locked the door, and cried."
Her voice dropped dramatically.
"Then I heard someone enter. They were speaking in this strange, slithery sort of language. Very odd. But what really upset me—was hearing a boy's voice."
She gave Snape a pointed look. "Like yours. So I opened the door to tell him off—'Go away! This is a girls' loo!' I shouted."
Her chest puffed with pride. "And then… I died."
"How?" Snape asked softly.
"I don't know," Myrtle whispered, eyes wide. "I remember seeing huge yellow eyes. It was like my whole body was yanked off the floor—and then… nothing. I was floating."
She stared at him, voice distant.
"I came back here, of course. I had to get back at Olive. Took them ages to find my body—I waited."
She smiled, a cruel glimmer flickering in her ghostly face.
"Olive came in. 'What are you sulking about now, Myrtle?' she said. 'Professor Dippet asked me to—'"
Myrtle grinned wickedly. "And then she saw me. Oh, she never forgot that. I made sure. Followed her everywhere. Whispered to her in her sleep. At her brother's wedding, when they popped the champagne, I popped up too."
She giggled. "Oh, she regretted mocking my glasses. Absolutely."
"Eventually," Myrtle's voice dropped again, "she went to the Ministry. Had me banned from following her. So I came back here. To my toilet."
She frowned.
"I still don't get why the Ministry helped her and never listened to me."
"What did you tell them?" Snape asked.
"They told me the boy who caused my death was expelled. Said the danger was gone. That I could… rest."
Her face darkened.
"But I told them—it wasn't him. The voice I heard didn't belong to him."
"You mean it wasn't Hagrid?"
Myrtle's silvery pupils flared to glowing white. Her thick glasses magnified the look of shock.
"How do you know about Hagrid?"
"He told me," Snape said calmly. "Did you ever tell Dumbledore?"
"Yes," Myrtle nodded solemnly. "He came to ask me directly. I told him everything. But all he said was, 'I understand.' Then he made me promise to stay silent."
Snape rolled his eyes. "That's very Dumbledore of him. Myrtle, can you show me where you saw the eyes?"
"Right about there." She pointed vaguely toward the sink before her.
Snape approached it.
It looked ordinary—filthy, chipped, old—but nothing remarkable. He examined the basin, the taps, the cracked mirror above it, even the pipes beneath.
Then he focused on the row of taps, one by one.
On the side of a tarnished bronze faucet, he spotted it: a tiny engraving of a snake.
"That one never works," Myrtle said gleefully as Snape tried to turn it.
"Do you remember what the boy said? The strange language?"
Myrtle frowned, then made a series of hissing noises.
Hssssss-ss-hhhss-sshhhh...
Nothing happened.
No shifting stone. No grinding gears.
Just the steady drip-drip of water echoing through the empty lavatory.