Hogwarts: I am Snape

Chapter 21 Myrtle

Snape deliberately dawdled over dinner in the Great Hall for more than an hour.

Only when the enchanted ceiling was twinkling with starlight and the people in the hall were almost all gone did he leisurely enter the foyer and head to the second floor.

A large, faded sign hangs on the door of the girls' restroom, which reads "Out of order".

He reached out and grabbed the brass ball handle, then pushed open the door.

This was the darkest and most gloomy place he had ever been to.

The bathroom smelled musty, and the walls and floor were damp.

Beneath a large, stained, and cracked mirror is a row of stone pools with peeling surfaces.

A few candle stubs burned low on the holder, seemingly about to go out at any moment. The dim light flickered, casting an eerie glow on the floor.

The paint on the wooden doors of each individual room was peeling off and covered with scratches; the hinges of one door had come loose, and it hung there swaying precariously.

From the moment he stepped into the room, the sound of dripping water came from a dark corner, and the gurgling sound of weeping drifted out from a private room deep inside, echoing continuously in the empty washroom.

Snape stopped and listened to where the crying was coming from, then walked toward the innermost cell.

When he reached the door, he knocked gently: "Hello, Myrtle, how are you?"

The weeping Myrtle floated in the toilet tank, her eyes brimming with tears as she tugged at a pimple on her chin.

“This is the girls’ restroom,” she said, looking at Snape with suspicion. “You’re not a girl.”

How dare you assume—

Snape almost unconsciously unleashed a legendary dark magic spell in later generations, but thankfully he stopped himself in time.

“Cough, cough, it’s obvious I’m not a girl,” he said. “I came here to see you.”

"How will you mock me now!" Myrtle said, her voice trembling with tears. "I have feelings too, you know, even though I'm dead."

“Myrtle, no one wants to laugh at you,” Snape said. “I just—”

"Nobody wants to laugh at me? What a joke!" Myrtle cried. "My life here has been filled with sorrow, not joy. And now that I'm dead, you still won't leave me alone!"

Tears streamed down her face from her small, clear eyes.

“I just want to ask you how you died,” Snape said quickly and loudly.

The sobbing stopped, and Myrtle's entire demeanor changed instantly.

It seems that few people have asked her such an honorable question.

She wiped away her empty tears: "No one has cared about me for over thirty years. It's terrible, and this is where it all happened. I died in this single room."

Myrtle rose into the air, turned around, and gracefully sat on the water tank.

“I remember it very clearly. At that time, Oliver Humbell mocked me for wearing glasses and looking like a four-eyed dog, so I hid here. I locked the door and cried inside when I suddenly heard someone come in.”

“You know what? What they were saying was hilarious. I think it must be a different language. But what annoyed me the most was that I heard a boy’s voice talking.”

“Just like you.” Myrtle gave Snape a meaningful look, then continued with relish, “So I opened the door, yelled at him to go to his own boys’ room, and then—”

She puffed out her chest with a smug look on her face and declared, "I'm dead."

“How did you die?” Snape asked. “I don’t know,” Myrtle said mysteriously in a low voice, “I only remember seeing a pair of terrifyingly large yellow eyes. My whole body seemed to be grabbed, and then I floated away…”

She looked at Snape with a dazed expression and said, "Then I came back here. You know, I was determined to settle scores with Oliver Humboldt."

"It took them a very long time to find my body—I knew I was sitting there waiting for them."

Oliver Humbell walked into the washroom—'Are you sulking here again, Myrtle?' she said, 'Professor Dippert sent me to see you—'

A mischievous look appeared on Myrtle's face.

"Then she suddenly saw my corpse... Oh, she never forgot that scene until her death, I can assure you... I followed her everywhere, reminding her."

"I remember at her brother's wedding, when they twisted open the cork to celebrate, it wasn't just champagne that gushed out with the foam—"

“And me.” She smiled mysteriously. “Oh, she really regrets making fun of me for wearing glasses.”

"Later, of course," Myrtle's mood soured again, "she went to the Ministry of Magic and stopped me from following her anymore, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet."

"I really don't understand why the Ministry of Magic is involved in this, but completely ignores what I'm telling them."

"What did you say to the Ministry of Magic?" Snape asked.

"They found me and said the big, dumb guy who caused my death had been fired and told me to leave."

“But the boy’s voice I heard was definitely not his. So I told them they had arrested the wrong person.”

"You mean that person wasn't Hagrid?"

Myrtle's pearly eyes suddenly turned bright white, and a look of surprise flashed across her thick lenses.

"How do you know?"

“Hagrid told me,” Snape said calmly. “Have you told Dumbledore this?”

“I did tell him, he specifically came to ask me about it,” Myrtle said, nodding earnestly. “But he only said ‘I know,’ and asked me to keep it a secret, and then nothing more.”

“Oh, that’s so Dumbledore.” Snape smirked, continuing to steer the conversation, “Can you tell me where you saw those yellow eyes?”

“It’s about there,” Myrtle said, pointing vaguely to the pool in front of her.

Snape walked toward the filthy pool.

The pool looked quite ordinary. He deliberately examined it inside and out, top to bottom, not even missing the mirror on top and the water pipes below.

Finally, he went to examine the dark green bronze dragon heads.

On the side of a bronze dragon head, he saw a small snake-shaped mark.

“This tap never works,” Myrtle said happily as she saw Snape trying to turn it on.

“Do you remember what that boy said that was funny?” Snape stopped trying.

Myrtle frowned and pondered for a while, then made a strange hissing sound.

But nothing happened; it was still the same washroom, with only the sound of dripping water reaching their ears.

(End of this chapter)