Chapter 62: 3rd September 1991, Tuesday: Part 3

Once the Herbology lesson ended and everyone made their way to the Great Hall for lunch, George began making plans on acquiring more information about the Calming Draught. His best option was the Hogwarts Library, there was no better place to fly through five years of potion class curriculum in under a week. That might sound impossible and that's because it almost was, he wasn't exactly looking forward to becoming Hermione for the next few days. But before he started bashing books, there was something far worse he had to do. George was genuinely starving and he desperately needed to grab a bite to eat in the cursed hall.

God knows George didn't want to go back into that jinxed room, but his options for sourcing food were scarcely limited. Unless he wanted to go hunting in the Forbidden Forest, the Hogwarts canteen was the only alternative. He made a note on his to-do list to go to the kitchens at some point and convince the house elves to send him food privately just as they did for the members of staff. That way, he would never have to enter that damned hall ever again. His schedule was pretty booked up for the next week, so for now, he'd need to brave it and hope the third time really was the charm.

A few minutes later and George stood outside of the Great Hall entrance whilst leaning against one of the doors. He was currently holding a large metal tankard he had previously stored inside his enchanted sack. Dozens of students were passing him by as they went to eat their lunch, every one of them stared at him in confusion as they walked into the Great Hall. George took no notice of them as he was too busy concentrating on operation Food Raid. Every time he entered the Great Hall something bad would happen, and he decided to end that trend today once and for all. George had already taken a peek around the large metal door to see what the situation was like inside.

The food had already been served ten minutes ago and the majority of the students were already seated and eating their meals. Most of the teachers, except Snape and Dumbledore, were present. The food of the day appeared to be a traditional English stew, it was one of George's favourite meals back at the Linwood house. He could see tens of large black cauldrons with a couple of ladles hanging over the sides, they were evenly spaced down the centre of the house's tables. The students were picking up the ladles and using them to spoon out a brown gravy with pieces of potato and beef floating inside onto their plates. Also, there was buttered bread neatly cut into slices for the students to dip into the stew.

George had been hoping for a meal that he could easily pick up and run with, but the stew required a unique approach. This was why he was currently firmly gripping a tankard in anticipation. George scanned the eyes of the students and teachers as he waited for a moment when they were all simultaneously distracted with their conversations, only then would he make a move. He hunched over and primed himself for his opportunity, he could feel the time was nigh. If the operation works, he'd be gone before anyone even noticed anything missing.

As soon as everyone looked distracted, George bolted into the room and headed to the end of the Hufflepuff table. He chose that house's table since it happened to be the closest table to the entrance and their prefects were the least likely to retaliate. The final-year Hufflepuff students were minding their own business as George leaned over the table and plunged his metal tankard into their cauldron. It felt like siphoning fuel whilst the car's owner was seated right next to him. George was waiting for the tankard to fill up with roughly six pints of stew, seconds felt like hours for him as it was being filled to the brim.

Once the tankard was finally full of stew, George abruptly lifted it out of the cauldron. He accidentally spilt a few droplets of gravy over the table, giving the game away. The conversations at the end of the Hufflepuff table came to a halt as the older students bared witness to George's unusual behaviour. The half-a-dozen teenagers just looked at him very confused at that moment. George took full advantage of their stunned state as he held the tankard close to his chest and darted out of the Great Hall. And with that act of blatant theft, part two of operation Food Raid was officially a go.

The time between George entering the Great Hall, filling his tankard with stew and leaving again was so short that he should have appeared as a blur. He was giving a Formula One pit-stop team a run for its money with his efficiency. George didn't stop running until he had left the Hogwarts castle and was standing outside in the cold. No one should have been able to follow him other than the Weasley twins with their map. He waited with bated breath to see if he had finally managed to get an opportunity to eat his meal in peace. Luckily, he was greeted with nothing but blissful silence.

George looked at the tankard full of piping-hot stew as he swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth. The smell was driving his starved body insane. Even though he had lost his pleasure in eating, that didn't stop his body from reminding him how incredibly famished it was. Not eating his breakfast made George feel like a diabetic with low blood sugar, if he waited any longer then he might have passed out. He lifted the tankard with both hands and poured it down his neck. He did not bother to chew as everything flowed down his gullet with immense speed.

Fortunately, there was no one to bear witness to the weird sight of George's neck bulging as large chunks of beef and potato forced their way down his oesophagus. His neck looked a bit like a snake that was eating a conga line of rats one after another. This hurried process made his eyes water but he kept on pouring the entire content of the tankard down until there was nothing left. George had finished the last droplets of the stew after only thirty seconds of chugging. The only evidence left of the stew's existence was the brown stain around his mouth that looked like a handlebar moustache.

George wiped his mouth and burped to release all of the air he had swallowed during his rapid gulping. The sound of his belch was so loud that it could probably be heard on the other side of Hogwarts. He could tell that his body's gluttony had been temporarily satisfied as a warm sensation spread throughout his chest. If all goes well, that amount of food should be enough to keep him going for another six hours. George checked his watch and saw that he had forty-eight minutes before he had to go to his history class with the ghost Carrow. That was more than enough time for him to scout the Library.

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Gemma didn't seem to have much of an interest in the Library, she had only shown George the entrance. His memories of this place were foggy to say the least, so finding what he needed might prove a challenge. If he could find a few advanced potion books, then he could spend his time inside of history class digesting their content. George dropped the tankard down his pants and headed back into the castle, he climbed up the moving staircases until he reached the first floor. He kept on walking down the corridor until he saw a sign next to a large door that read 'Hogwarts Library' on the wall.

George entered the library and was greeted by a humongous space that rivalled the size of the Great Hall. There were hundreds of wooden shelves housing thousands of leather-backed books standing several storeys high, they were all illuminated with glistening golden chandeliers. There were many students seated at long tables located between the bookshelves which provided an area for them to read and make notes. Although George had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the Hogwarts Library since it was known for its collection of tens of thousands of books, seeing it in person was quite breathtaking.

Unfortunately, this vast collection was going to be more of a hindrance than a blessing. George was in essence searching for a needle in a haystack. He needed to find as much literature related to the Calming Draught as possible to ensure that his brewing success rate is as high as possible. The Calming Draught is an advanced potion only advised to be produced by students in the sixth or seventh year. As a first year, George was going to be punching above his weight. A book he'd purchased from Diagon Alley had provided him with a brief description of the potion, but it did not come with a full recipe or brewing instructions.

George knew that he will be able to find the advanced potion book the NEWT students used in this Library, but that wouldn't solve his main problem. He knew all the older students would normally spend weeks if not months practising until they mastered brewing one potion whilst using that book. On the other hand, George only had a few days to accomplish the same feat with next to no personal experience. The only reason why he knew the task was still possible was because there were bound to be some research papers here that could provide a more in-depth tutorial into the brewing of the Calming Draught. That, and he always had a plan B just in case

Without any hesitation, George entered the Library. Sadly, the hunt was going to be far more difficult than he'd initially anticipated. Most of the forty-five minutes in the Library were spent getting lost in a labyrinth of books, this place's confusing design put the Linwood house to shame. Only with three minutes to spare did he eventually find the department dedicated to advanced potion craft. This particular section of the Library consisted of over a thousand books, and none of them was titled with anything referencing a Calming Draught. This meant that George would have to return to the Library for an unknown amount of time and undergo the tedious task of trawling through all one thousand of these books.

George attended his history class right after leaving the Library and was thankful that Carrow, the ghost that teaches History of Magic, was exactly as Gemma had described. Carrow was the only ghost that taught at Hogwarts, the rest were just freeloaders siphoning the ambient magic energy left by the students. He looked like a blue partially-transparent old man with big bushy eyebrows and a pair of reading glasses hanging off the tip of his nose. His voice was slow and melodic, every sentence ended with large pauses like he had fallen asleep in the middle of his monotonous speech.

Carrow's entire class consisted of droning on about the semester whilst expecting no input from the students. Never was there an opportunity for the students to interact with the lesson, not even Hermione would have a chance to show off her boundless knowledge. Carrow didn't even expect any of the students to write down any notes as he talked endlessly. Most students wrote down what he said out of courtesy initially until they got bored. He even had a habit of wandering around the room whilst repeating himself without realising it like a dementia patient. George wasn't sure if this was the side effect of becoming a ghost or if this was an accurate representation of the man before he died.

Fortunately due to Carrow's terrible teaching methods, George was able to return to his catatonic state without being disturbed for a couple of hours. This free time allowed him to plan out the optimum strategy for scouring the Library. He briefly considered asking for help from the librarian but he immediately ruled out that option. He needed the staff at Hogwarts to remain ignorant of this project and asking about a pacific potion recipe was begging for attention. George would have liked to have considered Hermione but his relationship with her only just started to rebuild itself. She most likely wouldn't be willing to slave away at his expense no matter how hard he tried to manipulate her.

George simply had no other choice, he would have to spend this evening in the Library and use the brute-force method. Who knows how long it's going to take him? Even at his fastest reading pace, a thousand books were going to take a while to skim through. George sat at the back of the History of Magic lesson whilst rubbing his temple, he knew that he wasn't going to get much sleep tonight.

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