Chapter 64: 4th September 1991, Wednesday: Part 2

As soon as the Dark Arts lesson ended, George left the class and headed straight to the girl's bathroom on the second floor. It only took him five minutes to find the entrance in a seemingly abandoned corridor, George listened carefully and couldn't hear anyone in either direction. This place really was prime real estate for his potion lab, the odds of someone accidentally finding him here was extremely low. There was only one last difficult task George needed to do before he could claim this territory. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind of irrelevant thoughts, operation Guard Dog was officially a go.

Since George will be adopting a new persona for this next operation, there was a little bit of preparation he needed to do before he entered the bathroom. The appearance had to match the character to sell his performance. George looked down at his robes that had only just recovered from the fire damage, its auto repair function must have been working overtime for the past two days. He felt a little sorry for the robes because his new persona's look required him to damage them once again. Hopefully, the expensive auto-repair enchantments wouldn't shatter under the constant workload.

Without any remorse, George grabbed his left sleeve tightly and yanked on it hard. The magically reinforced stitching gave way under his strength as his white shirt was exposed from underneath. The next step involved taking the robe off and scrunching it up into a ball. Then he dropped the cloth ball and punted it against the wall with all of his might. The robe struck the stone wall and fell to the ground into a pile of dust. The robes hardly looked fit for use, even the Weasleys wouldn't wear robes in that bad of a condition. The auto-repair and ironing features were going to need to pull some all-nighters to fix that mess.

After evaluating his craftsmanship, George picked up the robes and unfolded them. He found a bunch of freshly made creases and tears, the robes also had a nice layer of dust pressed into the fibres to finish the look. He then proceeded to put the robes back on his body and pat himself down a few times to remove all of the excess dust. Unfortunately, his actions caused a grey cloud to form around him. Some of the hundred-year-old dust entered his mouth, causing him to violently cough. After downing a bottle of water from his enchanted sack to clear his throat, George moved on to the next part of his master disguise.

The robes were only half the costume, George's body had to look the part as well. He walked up to the same stone wall that he kicked the robes against, leaned back, and then slammed his face into it. The crunch from his nose breaking echoed through the corridor, it was a good thing no one was around to overhear his self-mutilation. George reeled backwards and almost fell over from the stunning effect of having his face caved in. He had very nearly knocked himself out with that blow, he had to lean forward to grab a stone pillar for support.

The sudden jolt of pain had been far more than George had anticipated, he almost yelped before he recomposed himself. After he waited for his blurry vision to recover, George gently touched his nose and noticed that it was bent at a crooked angle. His nose was very sensitive to the touch, it felt like lightning was being shot into his brain with every poke. A few moments later and he could taste iron as a cold liquid dripped down from his nose and into his mouth. The blood soon made its way down to his chin and dripped onto his robes.

Whilst pinching his nostrils, George smiled at his incompetence. He'd overdone it yet again, he had clearly underestimated his current strength. He was a lot stronger than the average eleven-year-old, it was a somewhat positive side effect of his regular transformations. His durability also increased every time he turned, hence why he'd been so enthusiastic to plant his head into the wall. However, it appeared that since his transformations had become more frequent, his strength had increased exponentially whilst his durability stagnated. This phenomenon would explain why he had so easily broken the wooden coat hook when he had been annoyed by Theodore the other day.

With another painful life lesson to never make assumptions under his belt, George pulled out a small mirror from his leather sack and held it in front of his face. He wanted to see the extent of his stupidity and determine if the damage was a bit overkill for what he had in mind. The character had to look 'just so' or the performance wouldn't work. George was surprised by his deformed reflection, his face looked like it had been hit with a baseball bat. His nose was bent into an S-shape and his brow was beginning to swell as if he had been stung by a swarm of bees. These injuries were far too severe, he needed to try and hide as much of it as possible. What would the teachers think if they saw him in the corridors?

George didn't know any spells that could heal him so the only option he had left was to adopt a more physical approach to treatment. This wasn't going to be fun, but what was wrong with a little more pain anyway? George grabbed his nose and yanked it back into place, the process of realigning it was just as loud as breaking it. He was also surprised to learn that his nose hurt arguably more now than it did before, he would give it a six out of ten on his pain scale. The blood started flowing once again so he pulled out another bottle of water and poured it over his face whilst using a spare rag to wipe his face clean.

The removal of the blood ended up revealing all of the scrape marks that were on his nose and swollen brown. There were even some tiny pebbles from Hogwarts' premium-quality masonry embedded into his forehead. George decided his best option was to simply wait for the swelling to go down and the more minor cuts to close. He knew that his body would also heal much faster than the average human, so he should only need around fifteen minutes to recover enough. During this point of self-reflection, George noticed the gory modern art he had left on the wall where his face had made contact.

You are reading story Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon at novel35.com

A nice big red splatter mark had been left behind and was dripping down the wall. It was a bit early for the walls of Hogwarts to be painted with muggle-born blood, so he felt it was necessary to clean it before someone else noticed. It would be extremely bad if a professor got a sample of his blood. George produced a flame from the tip of his finger and held it towards his mouth whilst standing only a foot away from the blood splatter. Then he exhaled all of the air from his lungs which caused the flame to fly forward in a jet of fire similar to a flamethrower. His knock-off fire-breathing quickly vaporised the blood, only a black scorch mark remained on the wall.

After hiding the evidence, George walked around the corridor and found a comfortable spot to hide his mangled face. He decided to wait in a small cupboard on the corridor with non-flying-brooms inside until roughly fifteen minutes had passed. During that time, he regularly check his condition with the mirror to see how his face was recovering. After the fifteen minutes passed, most of the swelling had gone down and a large portion of the smaller cuts had vanished completely whilst the bigger ones had shrunk. Now all George was left with was a swollen black nose and a large bruise above his left eyebrow. He looked like he had been in a fight and lost badly, it was perfect.

Now that George was satisfied with his current appearance, he left the broom cupboard and entered the girl's bathroom. On his way, he intensely rubbed his open eyes to induce tears. It hurt like hell but tears started dripping down his cheeks in no time. Once the waterworks began flowing, he felt confident in his ability to sustain them for the next couple of minutes. He'd had some practice with Remus and felt he could do even better this time. Looking pathetic was becoming somewhat of a niche talent for George.

After weaving through a narrow passage, George entered a beautifully decorated octagonal space. The room was hugely oversized for a bathroom, it had a thirty-foot-high domed ceiling for no reason other than to look impressive. Several large arched windows allowed golden light to illuminate a massive marble pillar in the centre of the room. The iconic pillar was over six feet in diameter and had eight sinks with accompanying mirrors placed around its circumference. At the foot of the pillar was a ring of large steel grates that waste water from the sinks would drain into.

George knew upon seeing the extravagant pillar of sinks that he had indeed found the right bathroom. He slowly walked over to the pillar, whilst looking very miserable, until he stood by a sink and was looking at himself in the mirror. He looked at his reflection and saw tears streaming down his face and his eyes had become puffy and red. His emotional state coupled with his injuries paired seamlessly to mimic a child who had been beaten black and blue. George added just a little bit of quiet sobbing and a subtle quivering lip as a finishing touch. The new persona was shaping up nicely.

Now that he was potentially in the spotlight, George lent over and turned on the tap to fill the sink with cold water. His persona needed to look like he was being proactive in hiding his injuries. Completely by coincidence, George noticed the tap he had turned had a small snake embellishment decoration. He didn't focus on it for long, that wasn't for him to play with. He was well aware of the significance of this sink but he had no interest in opening its secrets. His current target was located in the stalls to his left rather than below him in the sewers. George did wonder if he would be any good at speaking parseltongue but today wasn't the time to experiment. A pet snake could be purchased at some point to try, but Blinkie was enough of a handful for now.

George cupped some water with his hands and splashed it against his face, this was meant to be a poor attempt at hiding his tears. He use this 'face washing' to discreetly look over his shoulder, he saw a series of sixteen green wooden cubicles hidden around another corner, there were eight on either side of the room. At the far end of the room was a wall with a large round window that lit up that portion of the bathroom. Any minute now, his target was going to appear out of one of those cubicles, he just had to make enough noise so he would be overheard.

Since his audience hadn't appeared yet, George amplified the volume of his sobbing while dramatically hunching over the sink. His shoulders kept bouncing up and down as his tears dripped into the pool of water below. It might have seemed a little over the top but George didn't have all day to complete this task. He kept up this act for another three minutes, any second now and he should be rudely interrupted. George deliberately kept his eyes on his reflection as part of his performance, but, he knew that the fish had caught the bait when he heard the voice of a girl shrieking from inside one of the open cubicles.

"You shouldn't be in here, boys are not allowed. Go away!"

You can find story with these keywords: Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon, Read Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon, Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon novel, Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon book, Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon story, Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon full, Harry Potter and the Fractured Dragon Latest Chapter