Harry glowered at Moaning Myrtle. Of all of Hogwarts’ ghosts, she was the one he liked the least. She never had any interesting stories to tell, and mostly she just whinged about boring things like the people who’d been mean to her back when she was alive. Worst of all, of course, was that she was located in a girls’ lavatory, a place that Harry was well aware boys should never go. Unfortunately, when he tried to point this out to Esmeralda Pinfold, the Hufflepuff who was babysitting him, she had been unimpressed.

Granted, it was his own fault for wandering off the last time Esme had gone into the toilet, something Harry noted adolescent girls seemed to do with perplexing frequency and usually in groups. She had told him to wait right outside for her, but Nearly Headless Nick had come by and asked if he wanted to see what Peeves was doing to some Ravenclaw third years he had trapped in a classroom. Esme had been frantic and near tears by the time she found him three corridors away.

Seeing her so upset had made Harry feel awful. He really liked Esme – she was not only nice but also one of the most intrepid of his babysitters, more than happy to explore old sections of the castle with Harry. But she had also been told by Professor Snape in no uncertain terms that she was not to let Harry out of her sight, and when she had lost him, the thought of having to confess her sins to Professor Snape had made her quake with terror. Once she found him, she put her foot down. No longer was Harry allowed to wait outside the girls’ toilet for him. From now on, he had to come in with her so that she was sure he stayed put.

Harry had started to pitch a fit, but abandoned his complaints when he saw that Esme’s fear of Uncle Severus had made her intractable on this point. Besides, Harry remembered, Esme had four younger siblings, and she could only be pushed so far.

She had trumped his threat to hold his breath until he turned blue with her own warning that if he didn’t shape up right now she would deliver him to Nana’s classroom with a full report of his misbehavior. Harry promptly cut his losses. He had a very good idea what Nana’s reaction would be, should Esme make good on her threat, and he had no desire to spend the rest of the day confined to his bedroom – with or without a stinging backside.

“I’m sowwy, Esme,” he said penitently, giving her “sad puppy dog eyes” as he peeked up through his fringe. “Pwease don’t be mad. You’re my favorite sitter. I don’t want you to stop liking me.”

“Oh, Harry.” She rolled her eyes. “You are just adorable when you want to be – and a total brat when you don’t.” Her experience as a big sister made her more impervious to Harry’s blandishments than were most students – or Harry’s godfathers, for that matter.

Harry squirmed. No wonder Nana liked Esme so much. The Hufflepuff was like a younger version of her!  “I just don’ wanna go in the girls’ lav and have the other boys laugh at me,” he whined, genuinely distressed.

“Well, I don’t want to be turned into potion ingredients by Professor Snape!” she retorted, paling at the mere thought of what the Evil Bat might do to her if any harm befell Harry while she was watching him.

Esme wasn’t completely hard-hearted, though, and so she agreed that if the issue arose again, they would find the most out of the way lavatory possible, so as to prevent anyone from witnessing Harry’s “humiliation”.

That, in turn, was what had brought them into Myrtle’s demesnes. Between the leaky toilets and the ghost’s whining, few students chose to use the lavatory or even travel down the adjacent corridor. Esme vanished into one of the stalls, while Harry tried not to get into an argument with Myrtle.

“No one likes me,” the ghost lamented. “They never come to visit or anything. It’s terrible not to have any friends.”

“Maybe more people would visit if you weren’t so gloomy,” Harry suggested with unfortunate accuracy.

“I’m not gloomy!” Myrtle yelled angrily.

“Harry!” Esme scolded from inside the stall. “Don’t upset Myrtle!” Doing so tended to make toilets overflow – sometimes as fairly spectacular geysers – and Esme was in quite a vulnerable position at the moment.

Harry sighed heavily. Girls! He tried a different approach. “Okay, maybe you should think of a reason that people would want to visit you.” He paused, trying to imagine such a turn of events.

“This is the best lavatory in Hogwarts,” Myrtle admitted, mollified. “You’d think people would want to come just to see it.”

Harry couldn’t suppress a snort of derision. “This? The best?”

“It is too!” Myrtle glared at him. “No other toilet has its own ghost or special carvings.”

Harry looked around. “What carvings?” He couldn’t see anything special.

“Here!” The ghost smirked triumphantly as she pointed out two tiny stone snakes.

“Oooooh!” Harry had to admit they looked very lifelike. “Since you’re in a girls’ toilet, you must be girl snakes. I’ll call you Sophie Snake and Sara Snake.”

“I don’t like the name Sophie,” the left-handed snake objected.

“Do not argue with the speaker!” the right-handed snake hissed angrily.

“No, no – that’s okay. How about Susie Snake?” Harry suggested.

“I’ll have to go soon,” Harry said sadly. “It was nice to meet you. I wasn’t expecting to meet talking snakes in a toilet.”

“Oooooooh! A secret! Really?” Like most children his age, Harry loved secrets. Unlike most children his age, though, he lived in a magic castle where discovering secrets could be incompatible with longevity. For this reason, his Nana and godfathers did their best to dissuade his insatiable curiosity, though with only limited success. Uncle Severus had taken to reading Harry a Muggle story about a curious little elephant, glancing at him meaningfully as he described what happened to the elephant and commenting darkly on how sensible the childrearing practices of the elephant’s relatives sounded.

Harry didn’t mind the pointed looks Uncle Severus gave him when describing how the little elephant was spanked for indulging his curiosity. It was a good story and Uncle Severus was really good at doing all the different voices, a talent Snape took great pains to hide from everyone else – particularly Uncle Sirius. Harry’s particular favorites were the squeaky sounding Kolokolo Bird and the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, whom Uncle Severus always made sound like Nana.

Despite these efforts on the part of the adults in his life, Harry was not about to ignore Susie’s dramatic announcement. “What secret? Please tell me!” he begged.

“The Master of Slytherin?” Harry asked in surprise. Since when did Uncle Severus talk to snakes?

“Open?” Harry echoed blankly.

A loud grating noise made him step back in alarm as the wall and floor in front of him abruptly dropped away. Three things happened at once: Esme came bolting out of the stall, shouting in alarm. Myrtle began to shriek, and Harry – startled by the noises behind him – slipped on the edge and fell into the dark opening, instantly vanishing from sight.

##

Professor Severus Snape was using a rare free period to grade student essays when he first heard the screeching. It appeared to be coming from the corridor outside his office and it was – alarmingly – getting louder. Snape toyed briefly with the idea of casting a silencing spell and letting some other faculty deal with whatever idiocy the students had gotten themselves into, but he glumly realized that, this deep in the dungeons, some of his Slytherins were likely to be involved.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, his door burst open to reveal Elsa Laughton, one of his fifth years, dragging a hysterical Hufflepuff by the arm.

Snape rose from his seat and stalked over to the girls, his robes billowing menacingly. “And just why have you seen fit to deposit a shrieking Hufflepuff on my doorstep, Miss Laughton?” he demanded icily.

“Myrtle – lav – snake – fell!” the distraught girl sobbed incoherently, clutching at Snape’s arm.

Snape fastidiously plucked his sleeve from her grasp. “Surely Madame Pomfrey is more suited to deal with such ramblings, Miss Laughton.”

“But sir, when Pinfold came tearing out of Myrtle’s lavatory, she was screaming for Harry! That’s why I grabbed her and brought her to you,” Elsa gulped. “I think she was babysitting him and something happened and –“ But Snape had already bolted from the room.

Elsa looked over to where Esmeralda was now sobbing pitifully and even her Slytherin heart was moved to pity. “Come on, Pinfold, let’s go find your Head of House. Maybe she’ll be able to calm you down and figure out what happened. Not that I think she’ll be able to protect you from Professor Snape….” Esme’s wails broke out anew.

Severus skidded around the corner and flung himself into Myrtle’s toilet. He stood for a moment, stunned by the sight of a gaping hole where a wall was supposed to be, then without further hesitation, he jumped through the opening.