Moaning Myrtle

Later in the night, after everyone had gone to bed, Rowan apparated away just outside of the second-floor girls' bathroom. Ignoring the large OUT OF ORDER sign, she stepped inside. It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom ever seen.

Under a large, cracked, and spotted mirror were a row of chipped sinks. The floor was damp and reflected the dull light given off by the few stubs of candles, burning low in their holders. The wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched and one of them was dangling off its hinges.

"Myrtle?" Rowan softly called out desperately hoping the ghost wasn't around.

"What are you doing here?" Said a squat girl with pimples and thick glasses. "Have you come to laugh at Moaning Myrtle?" The ghost shrieked.

"No, I came to do something else," Rowan honestly said as she eyed the former Myrtle Warren. The first and last fatal victim of the basilisk if one ignored the ill-fated diary of Riddle from before.

"No one ever comes down to visit me," Myrtle suspiciously said as she drifted over while picking a spot on her chin.

"No, I suspect not,' Rowan drily muttered as she glanced over at the rows of chipped sinks. "You wouldn't be so kind as to point out your stall, would you?"

Curious Moaning Myrtle points at her stall as Rowan walks over and stands before it, before turning and walking in a straight line to the sink directly across from it. Studying the sink in the dim light, Rowan finally spotted the tiny snake on the side of one of the cooper taps.

"That taps never worked," commented Myrtle as she hovered overhead.

"Myrtle, would you like to go on an adventure?" Rowan suddenly said as Myrtle got an eerie feeling.

"I think I'd rather stay put," Myrtle wisely observed, before returning to her stall and diving down the toilet with a great big splash as the toilet flushed itself.

"Suit yourself," Rowan innocently said with a shrug, before taking a deep breath. A strange hissing emerged from her, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. The next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Taking a deep breath, Rowan lowered herself into the pipe and let go. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. As she slid down the pipe, she saw dozens of pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as the one she was in. The pipe twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, falling deeper and deeper below the school than even that of the dungeons.

And just when Rowan began to feel sick, the pipe leveled out and she shot out at the end. Already an experienced jumper from leaping from park swings at a great height, she easily swung her arms to regain her balance and landed with a thud on her feet on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel. Glancing up at the slimy walls, Rowan wrinkled her nose at the damp smell. It was to be expected given that she was somewhere under the lake. But still, ick.

"Lumos!" Rowan softly muttered as raised her wand for light. Glancing down the tunnel all she saw were monstrous moving shadows. Cursing under her breath, she proceeded in the gloom carefully walking lest she stepped on any rat bones or worse. Soon enough, she wasn't even able to do that as the floor was littered with small animal bones. The best she could do was kick them away with her feet to make a path.

Suddenly, Rowan flinched at seeing a giant snakeskin to only breathe at seeing it was an old snakeskin. Of course, that did very little to offer her comfort at seeing the size of the giant thing. "Inner peace," Rowan mumbled to herself before moving forward down the tunnel. At last, she reached the bend which finally reveals a solid wall up ahead with two carved entwined serpents and eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

The carved snakes' eyes looked strangely alive as they stared straight at her. Clearing her throat in a faint hiss, she said, "Open." The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, and the halves slid smoothly out of sight as if trying to swallow Rowan the moment she stepped inside.

The Chamber of Secrets was a rather long, dimly lit chamber with towering stone pillars carved with serpents. Despite the dim light, there was a strange and odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. With care, she kept her wand in hand, and she slowly walked forward. Every careful footstep echoed softly off the shadowy walls. But worst of all, the hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to not only be following her but moving when she wasn't looking.

At last, she drew level with the last pair of pillars that were before a statue as high as the chamber itself. Rowan snorted at seeing the giant face above her of her ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. "Didn't have it big enough in the pants, eh?" Rowan privately joked to herself at seeing the size of the statue.

The statue of Salazar Slytherin was of an ancient and monkeyish wizard, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of his sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth chamber floor. Rowan suddenly clamps her hand over her mouth as she stifles the urge to say, "Here snakee, snakee. Come out, come out, whatever you are." Which realistically speaking was a very, very bad idea.

Glancing about, Rowan carefully pulled out a shrunken pillow and enlarges it back to its former size. Holding the pillow in her arm, she lets the light go out at the end of her wand and mutters the spell that will take temporarily take her vision away. Hoping that it will work, Rowan keeps her eyes tightly shut as everything turns pitch black, before hissing, "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Knowing that Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving Rowan tried not to flinch at hearing the stone creaking. Knowing that the mouth of Salazar Slytherin was growing wider and wider, she tried to breathe as she felt rather than heard something stirring from inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.