Chapter 69: 5th September 1991, Thursday: Part 3

On the way to the dungeons, George read everything he could about Disillusionment magic and was astounded by its potential. This book completely washed away the bad taste the Library had left from the past two nights. Unexpectedly, he found the reason for the gobbledygook in the invisibility book. It turned out that the main problem with learning invisibility spells is mastering the comprehension of what it means to become completely transparent. Every witch or wizard must understand what is necessary for an object to become clear. Generally, imagining something that you cannot see takes a lot of effort and time.

However, Disillusionment only required the user to understand the properties that make up the surroundings whether that be a stone wall, wooden floor or a metal door. This comprehension of material properties is generally something that most students can learn at a young age in Transfiguration lessons and can be easily transferred to Disillusionment. In essence, if a student can turn something not made of wood into wood, then they can theoretically make something appear invisible provided it's surrounded by wooden objects. George estimated that he would be able to recreate the disillusionment charm on himself within the next month which would become supremely useful for his first transformation in Hogwarts.

The temptation to finish the book and immediately start practising was strong, but George forced himself to close the book since it would not benefit him at the moment. Right now, he desperately needed to gather ingredients for his potion brewing this evening. Since he didn't have a great understanding of the Calming Draught brewing process, he planned to burn the midnight oil and brute force his way to success. That less-than-elegant approach was going to eat through his Diagon Alley resources, so he needed to stock up in advance. And if the fates were aligned, George might get extremely lucky and stumble across his plan B strategy.

With a skip in his step, he descended the moving staircases until he reached the Hogwarts potion department. When he arrived at the dungeons, George looked down the dark corridor and saw the tens of doors to all the potion classrooms. One of these many rooms, besides the one he was going to attend with Snape tomorrow, had to contain the book called 'Advanced Potion-Making' which belonged to Snape while he was a student at Hogwarts. George saw this as a perfect opportunity for him to 'accidentally' enter a few of the wrong classrooms in the pursuit of finding his next class.

George doubted anyone would question a new student being proactive in looking for their classroom when your teacher was Snape. That miserable double agent was famous for giving students detentions for being a second late. And on top of that, who would notice if a jar or two went missing? The odds of Snape doing an audit right as the school year started seemed pretty low. Even if Snape magically knew some ingredients had been stolen, no one should know about George's enchanted sack yet. The likes of Snape and Filch would have no idea where he'd been keeping the stolen loot.

It didn't take long for George to start feeling a little disorientated as he scouted to the opposite end of the corridor to check for Filch. The dungeon's corridors differed from the rest at Hogwarts, it was almost like they were designed for students to get lost in. The corridors were poorly lit and the doors had no distinct markings that differentiated themselves from other rooms, even the door numbers were old and faded. Most students at the start of a new year would have to guess whether a seven was a one or eight was a nine. The classrooms weren't numerically arranged either which only added to the confusion. The door nearest George was number five and the next one along was number four so a rational human would think the next would be number three but the one after that was number seven.

George already knew where his classroom was after Gemma's tour, this meant he could automatically rule out one of the rooms for inspection as he knew the book and ingredients weren't in that one. The time was currently seven minutes past twelve which was in the middle of the lunch hour, there shouldn't be any students or professors in any of the classrooms. The worst thing that could happen would be George running into a janitor who was cleaning one of the rooms. If that circumstance was to occur, he would simply use the excuse of being lost, which probably would work on everyone except Filch.

To ensure he didn't miss a single room, George began systematically entering every single classroom along the corridor. He gave himself approximately thirty minutes before he needed to leave. That way, he still had some time to grab something to eat in the Great Hall. Each classroom was unique in its size and architecture, no two rooms were the same. They were tailored for their respective purposes which were either to teach various types of potion-making or to allow students to study and practise in their own time. George did see some consistencies such as the poor lighting and bleak atmosphere that was in keeping with Slytherin architecture.

After the first couple of rooms, George became curious about the history between Slytherin and potion-making. Salazar Slytherin must have been particularly invested in that aspect of the school's design. Both the Slytherin common room and potion classes were in the dungeons, the rooms were similarly designed as well. The head of potions at Hogwarts is Severus Snape who happens to also be the head of Slytherin, the former potion teacher was Slughorn who was coincidentally also a Slytherin student. Slytherin students would also get the best grades in potions, George was wondering if an egotistical personality with a pinch of elitism was required in the pursuit of potion mastery.

Hopefully, some of the potion-making natural talent that all Slytherin students have would wear off on George when he tries to make the Calming Draught. During his exploration of his fourth classroom, he was lucky enough to find a dusty jar full of over a dozen fresh and juicy crocodile hearts. The hearts were tucked behind a massive pile of old corroded cauldrons, and the thick layer of dust implied the jar hadn't been opened in some time. George doubted anyone would miss them if they were to mysteriously vanish. If he was feeling nice in a couple of weeks, he might even return the empty jar as a token of thanks.

That early find meant George could spend the rest of his time exclusively looking for Snape's potion book. After looking through all the cupboards for the book in the seventh classroom, he started to feel a little worried. He kept looking through every room and was surprised at how elusive the book was, there were no traces of it anywhere. He finally finished his search feeling greatly disheartened as there were only two rooms left he had to check. There was no other explanation, one of these two rooms would have the book inside. The only problem was these classrooms were locked both physically and magically. He could see the wavey security enchantments permeating the iron locks.

George was so close but yet so far, he felt that the book had to be laughing at him from the other side of the door. He presumed that these two rooms were either for senior students or stored dangerous ingredients and potion materials. Those were the only reasons that would explain why these two classrooms were the only ones that were locked. He knew the spell that would allow him to unlock these doors but he hadn't had the opportunity to practice it yet. Regardless of whether he was a master at casting that unlocking spell, George would not consider using it to forcibly open a door at Hogwarts unless there was no other option.

There was a good chance that measures were taken to monitor locked rooms at Hogwarts. Any break-ins could potentially be traced back to him since he was the only one here, there would be no way to talk his way out of that one. George sighed in disappointment after realising he wouldn't be able to retrieve the book for the foreseeable future, plan B didn't look so feasible anymore. He would have to use his next three days as efficiently as possible to recreate the potion using the basic instructions found in the three books he'd already collected. Only if he was unable to brew the potion within the next two days, George would consider forcing entry into these classrooms.

After conducting a few checks to ensure that he had left every classroom exactly how he'd found them, George left the dungeons without ever being spotted. On his way up to the second-story girl's bathroom, he grabbed a leg of lamb from the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall. It was grilled to perfection and lovingly marinated in garlic and rosemary. It was a tragedy that it was time for George's next Calming Draught vial. So once again, he'd be unable to enjoy this meal. He ended up picking the leg bone clean outside of the bathroom's entrance, he was waiting for the corridor to be clear of all loitering students. Conveniently, the sight of a young boy ripping into a massive chunk of meat motivated the students along.

As soon as there were no longer any witnesses, George wiped his greasy mouth and entered the bathroom. He made sure to remain light on his feet as he tiptoed inside, he was listening to see if there was anyone else here who wasn't dead. Even though he hadn't seen anyone enter for over five minutes, he wanted to be absolutely sure there wasn't a girl washing their hands by the sink or in one of the cubicles. George didn't want to have to explain to a professor why he was creeping around in the girl's bathroom, he would struggle to dig himself out of that hole. The rumours alone would be a nightmare to deal with, it would probably haunt his destroyed reputation until the end of the year.

George listened by the entrance for ten seconds until he felt confident that he was the only one in the room. Only then did he stroll into the bathroom with a casual swagger, he was deliberately acting like he owned the place. George walked past the pillar of sinks and headed down the columns of green cubicles. All the doors were conveniently open which allowed him to easily inspect the condition and space inside each one. He was weighing up which cubicle would best suit his needs. Besides being a little damp, George was happy to find that the girl's toilets were much cleaner than the boy's bathrooms. Even in Hogwarts, the lads couldn't aim properly. If that didn't prove wizards weren't any better than muggles, then George didn't know what would.

Just as he was about to narrow his choice down to the final cubicle, George heard a girl's quiet voice coming from behind him.

"Back so soon."

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