Chapter 48: 2nd September 1991, Monday: Part 3

On a more productive note, the other areas of the enchanted sack housed many things Amanda and Dominic insisted on him covertly bringing to Hogwarts. These predominantly consisted of suspicious muggle paraphernalia that may or may not be illegal. Underneath a pile of spare clothes was a duffle bag filled with stuff he recognised from the safe room. There was paper money from various countries, gold coins not from Gringotts, and his many passports. He had the same picture of himself in all of them, but his name was always different.

It only went from one extreme to the other when George checked the military-grade equipment Dominic had provided. This collection included but was not limited to, a long-distance radio transmitter, a flare gun, and a satellite phone. It was all specialised tech he did not need, but due to his foster father's insistence, George had to look after and learn how to operate each device. It could have been worse. A few weeks ago, George had overheard Dominic whispering to Amanda about bringing a real gun with him to Hogwarts, but Amanda was quick to shoot that idea down.

George felt less like he was prepping for Hogwarts, and more like he was an escaped convict on the run. This only added more questions when it came to his adoptive parent's previous occupations. Some of Dominic and Amanda's precautions weren't utterly useless. They had provided a substantial amount of survival equipment such as stoves, a tent, utility blades, food rations and sleeping bags. There was enough in there to survive in the wild for over a month. George's leather sack had become what could be best described as his plan B strategy, hence why it could never leave his side.

There was a lot to sort through in this sack, and he was going to need at least an hour to ensure nothing had been moved or tampered with. This is where George's photographic memory would turn this inspection into a spot-the-difference game. He doubted that Dumbledore would consider his perfect recollection of where every item was kept. There was no time like the present, so George began performing a full inventory whilst checking to see if anything had been hidden. He was right in the middle of looking for some kind of planted magical tracking device when he heard the door to the hospital opening again.

George looked up to see Pomfrey with a teenage girl in a Slytherin uniform standing in the doorway. Both of them were staring back at George, more specifically, looking at the hand down his pants. The sack was completely hidden from view, so he had a pretty good idea of what they were currently thinking. Both of their expressions looked equally surprised, but Pomfrey looked disappointed, whereas the girl looked embarrassed. George quickly grabbed a sock from his clothes pile, pulled it out of the sack, and dropped it down into his pants. He then began shaking his leg whilst wiggling his pants until the sock fell onto the ground.

He picked up the sock and held it towards them with a relieved expression on his face, "finally found it. That sock must have been down my pants since yesterday. I had washed my clothes before coming to Hogwarts, and  I'd been wondering where that sock had gone. It had been driving me up the wall. It's funny where lost things turn up sometimes."

George then stuffed the sock in his pocket and buckled his belt back up. Nothing but the purest of intentions could be read on his face, it was a flawless recovery if ever George saw one. Both of the women looked towards each other with the same expression of realisation before looking back at him with awkward faces, he felt they had bought the lie. George did briefly consider the idea of allowing their presumption to continue, but he knew it would inevitably get him more needless negative attention.

Pomfrey cleared her throat before speaking, "this is Gemma Farley, a sixth-year Slytherin prefect. She was meant to have been showing you around Hogwarts with the other first-year Slytherins if you hadn't been indisposed."

George analyzed the girl and made a note of her name and features. He didn't recognise her first or second name, therefore she shouldn't be important. She was the definition of ordinary, nothing about her appearance was unique. She was slightly taller than George, she was probably around five foot five inches. Her face was pale, had light blue eyes, and she seemed not to be wearing any makeup. Gemma's hair was the same brown colour as George's and stopped just below her neck. She was wearing the standard Slytherin uniform with a green tie and serpent badge on her robes. Honestly, Gemma was the sort of student George wouldn't bother to spare a glance.

Perhaps the only thing George found unusual about her was that Gemma looked friendly, unlike the majority of Slytherin. She genuinely appeared to look happy to see him even after that weird introduction.

Gemma walked forward and held out one hand towards George, "it's nice to meet you. I can confidently say that of all the first years, you would be sitting in second place when it came to being most famous. Although, I can't say that it's for the right reasons."

Gemma didn't seem condescending when she spoke, instead, she appeared to be empathetic to George's situation. He was starting to find her more interesting as time passed, perhaps he should dedicate some time to learning more about her in the future. A potential prefect ally, in Slytherin of all places, could not be underappreciated. He would seize the opportunity and leave the best impression he possibly could. Who knows what benefits her friendship might bring?

George shook her hand whilst saying, "it is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Farley. I fear from this point onwards I will be in your care, I will do my best not to inconvenience you. I hope that the first impression I left in the Sorting Hat ceremony doesn't reflect poorly on your opinion of me now. It's fair to say that I was not in the right state of mind."

Gemma seemed surprised by his formal attitude, she probably had no idea the raving lunatic from the Sorting Hat Ceremony could be so prim and proper.

Gemma responded to George, "I'm glad to see you've made a full recovery. It seems that the rumours about you are grossly incorrect, I think we should get on just fine. Professor Snape has let me have the morning off to help show you around the castle. We can catch up on everything you missed whilst you were in the hospital."

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Pomfrey interrupted the conversation,  "right, that's quite enough formalities for one day. Mr Linwood, you are officially discharged."

Pomfrey ushered George and Gemma out of the door as she said, "come on you two, I've got work to be getting on with and this isn't the Slytherin common room. You've only got forty minutes before lunch anyway, so you better get a move on."

The door swiftly closed behind the two of them before Pomfrey had even finished speaking. George and Gemma looked at each other awkwardly, neither of them was ready to be hurried along. The plan for a potential friendship will have to be put on hold until a better opportunity presented itself.

George determined that the silence between them had gone on too long, "so then, the Slytherin common room?"

Gemma awoke out of her stupor as she nodded at his suggestion, "yes, great idea. Let's go there now. You're gonna love it, all the other houses are jealous because it's located under the Black Lake. All the windows act like one huge aquarium and you occasionally see the giant squid swimming around."

George was surprised to find that this prefect didn't have the social skills usually associated with such a responsibility. It was especially unusual in the Slytherin house where all the hoity-toity well-spoken brats congregate. Regardless, she seemed very motivated to help show him around which was all he truly wanted out of this arrangement. His memories gave him a decent map of this school, but certain parts, such as the Slytherin common room, were very fuzzy. Just like at Carkitt Market, George didn't understand why his future sight was so specific in the details.

Gemma led George towards a large open space with dozens of staircases leading up and down throughout the castle. The stairs were perpetually in motion to position themselves to the user's desired location. Or… they were just randomly moving for no reason, it was hard to tell. The walls were also lined with pictures that had people and animals moving inside like they were windows to different dimensions. Even without emotions, George was able to appreciate the sheer level of complexity that would go into designing such an elaborate system of moving components. The architect had to be one of the greatest to ever live, completely insane but brilliant nonetheless.

George decided to keep looking at the stairs in awe for a bit longer to keep up the interested-child facade. Gemma didn't seem surprised by his reaction to the staircase, she allowed him to stand and look around for a minute or two before ushering him towards the dungeons of the Castle. The sensation of walking down the moving staircases was a little nauseating for him, it was a similar feeling to standing on top of a boat whilst it was rocking back and forth. If this was making the iron-bellied George feel sick, then what was it doing to the other students? Surely, that hospital would have to be stocked up on motion sickness potions.

Just before they reach the very bottom of this humongous stairwell, Gemma directed him down a corridor with distinctly less lighting than the rest of the floors that had preceded it. She walked towards a large old and undecorated wall and whispered something George couldn't quite make out. Once the words had left her lips, a large slab of stone moved into the wall and rolled to one side. A secret passage was revealed, and Gemma didn't hesitate to start walking into the darkness. George felt like he was currently on the set of an Indiana Jones film as he followed Gemma down the dark and damp tunnel.

Gemma looked back at George and told him, "the password to the common room changes every year. It's currently 'Vires in Unitate', it's something to do with unity in Latin. Remember that you have to whisper it to the wall quiet enough that no one around you can hear, or the entry will not open.

It's also against the rules to tell anyone other than a Slytherin the passwords to the common room, so don't just go blubbering it out in the Great Hall or during lessons."

George just nodded and made a mental note, this was all new information to him as his knowledge of Slytherin was vastly lacking compared to Gryffindor. It was like his future vision had some sort of bias toward the 'good guys'. They continued to descend the tunnel until George and Genna reached a large wooden door. The door appeared to be ancient but showed no sign of wear, the metal hinges were beautifully crafted in the shape of serpents. It didn't look too dissimilar to the entrance to a 'chamber' in the basement. George guessed both entrances probably had the same snake-lovin designer. The door appeared to be extremely heavy, and yet Genna was able to push it open effortlessly.

Then Gemma announced, "welcome to the Slytherin common room."

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