
"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome . . . so pleased
you could come. . . ."
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white,
translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor,
waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by
an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead
blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose
in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.
"Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested, wanting to warm up his
feet.
"Careful not to walk through anyone," said Ron nervously, and they set off
around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a
ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost,
who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry
wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin
ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the
other ghosts.
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"Oh, no," said Hermione, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't
want to talk to Moaning Myrtle -"
"Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly.
"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," said
Hermione.
"She haunts a toilet?"
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"Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and
flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful
trying to have a pee with her wailing at you -"
"Look, food!" said Ron.
On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black
velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their
tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid
on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on
salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry
green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a
tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-
Porpington
died 31st October, 1492
Harry watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched
low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through
one of the stinking salmon.
"Can you taste it if you walk though it?" Harry asked him.
"Almost," said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.
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"I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavor," said Hermione
knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid
haggis.
"Can we move? I feel sick," said Ron.
They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped
suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them.
"Hello, Peeves," said Harry cautiously.
Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse
of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a
revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.
"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in
fungus.
"No thanks," said Hermione.
"Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing.
"Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed,
"OY! MYRTLE!"
"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione
whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her - er, hello, Myrtle."
The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Harry
had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles.
"What?" she said sulkily.
"How are you, Myrtle?" said Hermione in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to
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see you out of the toilet."
.134
Myrtle sniffed.
"Miss Granger was just talking about you -" said Peeves slyly in Myrtle's
ear.
"Just saying - saying - how nice you look tonight," said Hermione, glaring
at Peeves.
Myrtle eyed Hermione suspiciously.
"You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling rapidly in her
small, see-through eyes.
"No - honestly - didn't I just say how nice Myrtle's looking?" said
Hermione, nudging Harry and Ron painfully in the ribs.
"Oh, yeah -"
"She did -"
"Don't lie to me," Myrtle gasped, tears now flooding down her face, while
Peeves chuckled happily over her shoulder. "D'you think I don't know what
people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable,
moaning, moping Myrtle!"
"You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed in her ear.
Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon.
Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts, yelling, "Pimply!
Pimply!"
"Oh, dear," said Hermione sadly.
Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd.
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"Enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, yes," they lied.
"Not a bad turnout," said Nearly Headless Nick proudly. "The Wailing
Widow came all the way up from Kent. . . . It's nearly time for my speech,
I'd better go and warn the orchestra. . . ."
The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and
everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a
hunting horn sounded.
"Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.
Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a
headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too,
but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick's face.
The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing
and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his
bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn.
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The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the
crowd (everyone laughed), and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick,
squashing his head back onto his neck.
"Nick!" he roared. "How are you? Head still hanging in there?"
He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder.
"Welcome, Patrick," said Nick stiffly.
"Live 'uns!" said Sir Patrick, spotting Harry, Ron, and Hermione and giving
a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again (the crowd
howled with laughter).
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"Very amusing," said Nearly Headless Nick darkly.
"Don't mind Nick!" shouted Sir Patrick's head from the floor. "Still upset we
won't let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say - look at the fellow -"
"I think," said Harry hurriedly, at a meaningful look from Nick, "Nick's very
- frightening and - er -"
"Ha!" yelled Sir Patrick's head. "Bet he asked you to say that!"
"If I could have everyone's attention, it's time for my speech!" said Nearly
Headless Nick loudly, striding toward the podium and climbing into an icy
blue spotlight.
"My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow . . ."
But nobody heard much more. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt
had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd were turning to
watch. Nearly Headless Nick tried vainly to recapture his audience, but gave
up as Sir Patrick's head went sailing past him to loud cheers.
Harry was very cold by now, not to mention hungry.
"I can't stand much more of this," Ron muttered, his teeth chattering, as the
orchestra ground back into action and the ghosts swept back onto the dance
floor.
"Let's go," Harry agreed.
They backed toward the door, nodding and beaming at anyone who looked
at them, and a minute later were hurrying back up the passageway full of
black candles.
"Pudding might not be finished yet," said Ron hopefully, leading the way
toward the steps to the entrance hall.
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And then Harry heard it.
". . . rip . . . tear . . . kill . . ."
It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice he had heard in
Lockhart's office.
He stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all his
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might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.
"Harry, what're you -?"
"It's that voice again - shut up a minute -"
". . . soo hungry . . . for so long . . ."
"Listen!" said Harry urgently, and Ron and Hermione froze, watching him.
". . . kill . . . time to kill . . ."
The voice was growing fainter. Harry was sure it was moving away -
moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped him as he stared
at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to
whom stone ceilings didn't matter?
"This way," he shouted, and he began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance
hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the
Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. Harry sprinted up the
marble staircase to the first floor, Ron and Hermione clattering behind him.
"Harry, what're we -"
"SHH!"
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Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter
still, he heard the voice: ". . . I smell blood. . . . I SMELL BLOOD!"
His stomach lurched -
"It's going to kill someone!" he shouted, and ignoring Ron's and Hermione's
bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to
listen over his own pounding footsteps -
Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Ron and Hermione
panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last,
deserted passage.
"Harry, what was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I
couldn't hear anything. . . ."
But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.
"Look!"
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly,
squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the
wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming
torches. the chamber of secrets has been opened. enemies of the heir,
beware.
"What's that thing - hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his
voice.
As they edged nearer, Harry almos