Stay - Theodore Nott

Tom M. Riddle

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. . . ." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" said Harry.

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet. Kirra, Harry and Ron hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry and Kirra saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

"That tap's never worked," said Kirra almost instinctively, shocking herself as she said it like she'd known that for years.

"Say something. Something in Parseltongue." Ron said quickly, cutting Kirra out of her thoughts

"But —" The twins thought hard. The only times they'd ever managed to speak Parseltongue were when he'd been faced with a real snake. They stared hard at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real.

"Open up," Harry said. They looked at Ron, who shook his head.

"English," he said.

They looked back at the snake, themselves to believe it was alive. If she moved her head, the candlelight made it look as though it were moving. "Open up," Kirra said. Except that the words weren't what she heard; a strange hissing had escaped her, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. 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.

"I'm going down there," she said "Im trading myself in for Ginny"

"Nobody is trading their lives i'll come down and help you save Ginny," said Harry.

"me too" Ron added

There was a pause.

"Well, you hardly seem to need me," said Lockhart, with a shadow of his old smile. "I'll just —" He put his hand on the door knob, but the kids all pointed their wands at him. "You can go first," Ron snarled. White-faced and wandless, Lockhart approached the opening.

"Children," he said, his voice feeble. "younglings, what good will it do?"

Harry jabbed him in the back with his wand. Lockhart slid his legs into the pipe. "I really don't think —" he started to say, but Ron gave him a push, and he slid out of sight. Kirra followed quickly. She lowered herself slowly into the pipe, then let go. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide.

She could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and she knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. 

Behind her, she could hear Harry and Ron, thudding slightly at the curves. And then, just as she had begun to worry about what would happen when she hit the ground, the pipe levelled out, and she shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in.

Lockhart was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. The boys came out next and they all stood up, dusting themselves off

"Its freezing down here" The girl muttered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her body up

"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.