Chapter 76: 6th September 1991, Friday: Part 5

George looked at his injured hand and saw that it had stopped bleeding, but it was still covered in dried blood down to his elbow. The sheer amount of blood wasn't pretty. If anyone saw him like this, they'd probably insist on him going to see Pomfrey. He didn't have time to go to the bathroom to clean himself up, he instead immediately headed back into the Great Hall. On the way, he rolled down his blood-soaked sleeve and stuffed the pouch with the glass fragments down his pants.

George re-entered the Great Hall without a single ounce of discretion, he was exclusively concentrating on finding his target. He scanned down the Slytherin table until he saw Gemma talking to a few other students similar to her age, she was sitting roughly halfway down the table. He didn't bother to look towards the teacher's table, whether they were all staring at him or paying no mind made no difference to what he was about to do. He made his way to the far left-hand side of the room and walked between the Slytherin table and the wall, he was bee-lining directly towards Gemma.

Some of the older Slytherin students were standing up and blocking his way. They seemed to be completely distracted by their loud and obnoxious conversations. George had no patience so he just shoved them to one side and kept on walking, he could hear the sound of bodies hitting the table knocking over plates and goblets behind him. Most of those older students already hated George for just existing so he saw no reason not to show them the same level of respect in return. He only stopped once he was standing directly behind Gemma, she was still talking with her friends and didn't seem to have heard the ruckus coming from his direction.

George gently tapped on her shoulder to get her attention but she simply responded, "just a minute", before continuing her conversation without even turning around.

Some of Gemma's friends that were listening to her looked at George and their expressions changed upon realising who he was, his face had become quite famous over the past few days. Gemma noticed that her friends were no longer paying attention to her so she followed their eyes and turned around to see George standing behind her. This had been the first time she had seen him in four days and probably hadn't anticipated him suddenly reappearing in the middle of dinner. George was aware that she had been looking for him during every meal since they had met.

George always looked towards the Slytherin table when he was about to retreat after scavenging whatever food he could. He would regularly notice Gemma would briefly walk towards the first years whilst leaning over and asking them questions. He had anticipated that she had been looking for him, probably to check on how he was coping since he was a muggle-born in Slytherin. George liked this aspect of her personality and would have taken time to strengthen his relationship with her if it wasn't for the stringent deadlines he had to meet. Gemma wasn't unique as he had shown the same level of neglect with all of his 'friendships' including Theodore, Hermione and Neville.

Gemma looked pleased to see George as she jokingly said, "hello there stranger. How's life been treating you? If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed that you have been dodging me. Are you in need of some more girlfriend advice?"

George didn't react to her jokes, his face remained serious as he asked her, "I need your help."

Gemma's positive attitude wavered as she heard George's request, she appeared to start taking George more seriously since he might genuinely be in trouble.

She spoke whilst inspecting George's body, "sure, what's the prob… the hell happened to your arm?"

George was wondering how long it would take for her to notice his injury, this would become his only leverage in making her cooperate. Nothing said 'please help me' like a lacerated hand. Before he could reply, a mid-teens boy with grey hair and a scar on his chin from across the table spoke up.

"You're that new muggle-born first year Gemma's been talking about. George something, err, Linwood! George Linwood, can you do that fire thing? You know, the one you performed in front of the headmaster."

George's patience was non-existent, but he didn't have to do anything since Gemma was here to save the day and verbalise his thoughts.

Gemma turned back and admonished the teen, "shut up Lloyd, he's not your performing monkey. Can't you see he's hurt?"

Lloyd looked down and saw the dried blood on George's sleeve, his eyes went wide and his face went grey. He started to sway left and right as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, a second later and he tipped backwards. Lloyd fell off the bench and hit the paved ground with a bang which caused a few Ravenclaw students sitting on the table opposite to turn around, they seemed quite startled after hearing the noise. A girl who was sitting next to Lloyd with long brown hair and green eyes didn't hesitate to throw herself over the bench and cradle Lloyd's head in her arms. Her fluid movements seem to be well-practised as if she had done this many times before.

She clicked her fingers in front of Lloyd's face whilst saying, "come on Lloyd, wake up. You're embarrassing me here, everyone's watching."

Another girl with blonde hair and hazel eyes who was sitting next to Gemma turned around to face George, she seemed weirdly relaxed considering the fact that her friend had just passed out. She spoke to him whilst pointing in the direction of Lloyd and the girl who was now pouring water on his face.

"The guy who just passed out is Lloyd, and his babysitter there is Joanna. Don't worry about him, Lloyd passes out if he even sees a single drop of blood."

The girl looked down at George's hand and winced, "and that's a lot more than a drop of blood, that looks pretty bad. What did you do? Fight a wolf in the dark Forest."

Gemma suddenly stood up and grabbed George's uninjured hand tightly, she looked down at the girl who had just been talking to him.

"Rebecca, I need you to do me a favour. If Professor Snape comes over, tell him that I'm taking George to see Madam Pomfrey."

Rebecca appeared to be in pain after hearing Gemma's request, "okay... but you owe me one."

Gemma nodded at Rebecca before dragging George out of the Great Hall by his wrist. She wasn't giving him the option to walk normally alongside her. Gemma made him look like he was a disobedient toddler being pulled along by their mother, this was more than a little degrading for him. George didn't resist as he was paying careful attention to all the teachers that seemed to have noticed Lloyd passing out, Snape, in particular, was looking in his direction with suspicion written all over his face. He knew that when all this was over, he was going to have to deal with another, more intense, interrogation.

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George waited until he had left the great hall with Gemma, and then he suddenly stopped walking. The abrupt stop caused his hand to be pulled forward and Gemma to be jerked backwards, she looked back towards him in confusion.

George spoke flatly, "I can't go to Madam Pomfrey."

Gemma's brow scrunched up as she retorted, "don't be stupid, look at your arm. We need to go right now before it gets infected."

She pulled on Georgie's arm but he remained rooted to the spot. He wasn't going to move an inch unless it was where he wanted to go. Gemma looked to be getting angry at his abstinence, her face was turning red and her grip was tightening around his wrist.

George simply held up his lacerated hand in her direction, "you must know how this happened, I don't need to explain it to you."

George knew that Gemma would be the first to presume any of his injuries would have been caused by bullying, she knew that awful side of Slytherin better than anyone else. Her overly caring behaviour was clear proof of that. In response, Gemma looked towards his arm but didn't let her stance waiver. Only her rising anger seemed to have been quelled.

She spoke to George quietly, "I know but that doesn't change the fact that you're injured. This is really bad George, like, way worse than I thought it might be.

If it was just a bruise or a scuff then I would understand why you're hiding it, but this is too much. We need to let Madam Pomfrey take a look at this."

George listened to her before shaking his head, "you know as well as I what would happen if we went to Madam Pomfrey. She's not just going to fix me up and send me on my way, she would ask me how I got these injuries. I would have to make something up and she would most likely work out I was lying, and then she would report it to Professor Snape.

There's no way this ends well for me."

Gemma's spirit seemed to flare up as she proclaimed, "then we'll tell her the truth, screw those blood-supremacist arseholes who think they can get away with this. If you don't tell anyone then you're letting them win."

George's expression sank as he lowered his head and spoke in a murmur, "they've won either way. Professor Snape won't do anything about it, not because he condones bullying but because the school is run by the Ministry, I've been reading about it in my spare time.

Those pure-blood democrats who make all the important decisions will make sure that none of their children ever get into any serious trouble, no matter how badly they hurt me. If we report them then things will only get worse, they will only hurt me more next time for minorly inconveniencing their families.

The best thing I can do is stay under the radar and wait for it to blow over. They will get bored of me eventually and move on to someone else."

George lifted his head back up to see that Gemma looked completely distraught, she must have known every word he'd said was sadly right. There was no way of winning against the pureblood students at Hogwarts, the worst they could receive is a small detention. The detention would only encourage them to hit him harder until his will was broken, that was the world they currently lived in. Law was only as strong as the people who enforce it, and in the wizarding world, they were the pure-bloods. Gemma's grip on George's wrist had become so weak that he could barely feel any pressure.

There was a brief moment of silence between them before she finally said, "then what should we do? I can't just leave you like this."

George faintly smiled whilst making his proposal, "this was why I asked for your help. The teachers can't help me but you can.

I need access to the advanced potion classrooms and I know that you can get us in there. There should be some potions inside that could heal my arm."

Gemma appeared to be troubled as she started looking towards the ground whilst biting her lip. She seemed to be on the fence about whether or not to agree, she just needed another little push.

George continued to speak warmly, "please Gemma, I don't have anyone else who can do this for me."

There was a full ten seconds of silence before Gemma finally looked up at George with a feeble smile.

She softly said, "okay", before letting go of his wrist.

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