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Chapter 646: The Prefects’ Bathroom and the Golden Egg
🕑 Added 2019-10-31 19:46:15 +0000 UTCWhile Evan dived into the lake, Harry and Ron also sneaked out of the Common Room.
They walked slowly because Ron was hiding the heavy Golden Egg under his robe.
"Lavender is so enthusiastic we should have done it earlier. By the way, Harry, do you have the invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map?" Ron asked nervously, avoiding the three first-years who were staring at them. "No one can say how long this bath will take. We must be careful not to be seen when we come back."
"They’re with me!" said Harry, glancing at Ron's bulging clothes. "You said you’ve already solved the clue to the golden egg?"
"Keep your voice down!" Ron said in a low voice, and kept looking around. "You know, if I didn’t say that, Hermione wouldn’t have let me go to Hogsmeade. I had an important date with Lavender. Besides, we’re going to make this thing clearer now!"
"Why did Bagman tell you this?!" Harry continued, "Why would he help you cheat?"
More than twenty minutes ago, Ron told Harry what had happened in the Three Broomsticks during the day.
The real content of Ludo Bagman's conversation with Ron was that he told him the secret of the Golden Egg.
Bagman said that as long as Ron took a bath and took the egg with him, all the clues and secrets of the second task would be clear.
In any case, it was suspicious, and Bagman had no reason to help the champions.
If it were Harry, he would definitely not accept his help. It would make him feel very bad.
"What’s going on?"
"He said he wanted to help me because of my father," said Ron, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not sure if what he said is true, but it's no big deal. Without help, I can’t figure out what the damn golden egg is shouting. Remember … Cheating is a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament. In the first task, I reckon the other three champions must also have accepted help from others. They can’t just rely on their own ability to solve difficult problems."
"Bagman and Hagrid are not the same," said Harry. "We should talk to Evan and Hermione."
"The two of them must have gone somewhere for a date, hiding in a corner to be close!" said Ron impatiently. "Don’t worry, Harry! It’s just a bath with the Golden Egg. Even if Bagman was lying to us, there’s nothing to lose if we try. At worst, it would be a bit stupid.”
"All right!" Harry nodded hesitantly. "Where’s the bathroom, you said?"
"It’s the Prefects’ bathroom on the fifth floor," said Ron. "Fred and George told me about it. They know from Percy. I’ve never been there before! But there is generally nobody in there, and the password is never changed!"
More than twenty minutes later, they came to the end of the corridor on the fifth floor, in front of the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands.
Ron led Harry to the door next to the statue, leaned close to it, and muttered the password, "Pine Fresh!"
The door creaked open. Harry and Ron slipped inside and bolted the door behind them, nervously looking around.
"It's really big here!" Harry exclaimed. For the first time, he found that it was not really bad to be Prefect. This bathroom was ten times the size of the boys' common bathroom. Not to mention other rights, it was worth just being able to use this bathroom.
Ron also nodded and was shocked by the sight.
If there was a word to describe here, it was luxury!
In front of them, the room was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool’s edges, each with a differently colored jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden-framed painting on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her long hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.
They moved forward, looking around, their footsteps echoing off the walls.
Ron walked to the side of the pool, placed the golden egg on the floor, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps several faucets.
Harry followed suit and turned on the taps. He was surprised to find that these taps carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with hot water, though it wasn’t bubble bath as he had ever experienced it. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Harry thought it would have supported his weight if he’d cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water.
In the bathroom, Harry and Ron amused themselves for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs.
In the blink of an eye, the deep pool was full of hot water, foam and bubbles. It took a very short time considering its size, which was amazing.
The two looked at each other and quickly turned off all the taps, pulled off their clothes, and slid into the water.
"It's so comfortable!" Ron whispered softly.
"It's awesome!" Harry agreed. If he could, he hoped to be able to bathe here in the future.
It was wonderful to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-colored steam wafting all around them.
The two swam back and forth in the water several times and played heartily for quite a while before they remembered the serious business of this evening.
"What should we do?" Harry lifted the Golden Egg in his wet hands.
"I don't know, open it first!" said Ron, swimming to Harry to help.
Suddenly, the wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes.
"Close it, close it!" shouted Harry.
Ron snapped it shut again, and the two gasped and paled, worried that the sound would attract others.
"It was so stupid of me to take a bath with the Golden Egg. Bagman must be fooling me!" said Ron ruefully.
"I’d try putting it in the water, if I were you." A voice rang beside them.
Ron was so startled that he dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor.
