Chapter 79: 6th September 1991, Friday: Part 8

Being all too keen to read Snape's book, George ran into the girl's bathroom with no regard if there was anyone other than Myrtle inside. He reached the pillar of sinks and looked toward the cubicles to see Myrtle sitting on the ledge of the round window. She was staring outside at the dark sky, her translucent legs were weakly swinging back and forth. She was probably sad because George had left upset earlier today after failing to make the Calming Draught, he could tell that she had been sharing his infuriation. She turned her head away from the window and looked at George with a miserable expression, his arrival didn't seem to automatically cheer her up.

She asked him forlornly, "any luck finding that book you said you were looking for? I could ask the other ghosts about it if you'd like, but, they don't like talking to me..."

For the sake of keeping her happy, George had been somewhat honest with Myrtle regarding his petty thievery. Therefore, he had given her little insights into what he was up to whilst he was not in her company. George only planned on reading Snape's potion book in the girl's bathroom anyway so that no other student or teacher could ever see, she was going to discover it regardless of whether he told her in advance. If he was to be completely honest to himself, the main reason that he had told Myrtle about his pursuit of this mysterious potion book was so he didn't have to constantly lie whilst he was attempting to make the Calming Draught.

All Myrtle would do, whilst George was trying to delicately measure out ingredients, was ask questions about what he had done that day or what he was planning on doing the next. George was talented, but he wasn't able to multitask to that extent. Another factor was he found it liberating to be honest whenever possible, lying all the time for over a year had taken a heavy toll on his psyche. Some days he would wake up and think the kind and innocent George was the real him and the monster was just a bad dream. Being a little honest every now and then was a way to help ground him in reality. Being lost in a happy fantasy would only get him killed sooner rather than later.

That being said, George only told Myrtle that he was looking for an advanced potion book rumoured to have a lot of notes inside that another student, also known as Gemma, had been helping him find. This was more like a half-truth, but, it was better than just making something up. As his patron would say, the best lies are always shrouded in truth. George also liked to believe that being more of an open book was helping Myrtle trust him more, but he had no way of quantifiably proving that.

To answer the question that Myrtle had asked, George simply pulled out Snape's book from his pants with a massive grin on his face. Myrtle looked over and saw George's ecstatic face and the old ragged book he was holding in the air. She smiled gleefully after realising what it must have been.

George waved the book teasingly in the air, "do you want to read it with me? There are a lot of weird notes written in black ink on every page, I think they were left by a former student. Maybe we can work out who it is."

Myrtle didn't answer him, instead, she glided down like a paper aeroplane across the room until she was beside George. She mimicked his stance as if she was leaning against the pillar of sinks, their shoulders were slightly overlapping. George could feel a weird chill permeating through his body but he held back the need to shiver. He needed moments like this with Myrtle to keep improving his connection with her, sharing a hobby like reading was on George's top five list for making fake friends fast.

She turned her head to face George, who was only a couple of inches away, and impatiently asked, "well, are you gonna keep waving that book around or are we going to start reading? You better be ready to turn the pages fast, I'm a very quick reader."

George smiled awkwardly whilst averting his eyes from Myrtle shyly. Then he positioned the book between them where they could both easily see it and finally opened it to the first page. The two of them continued to read the book together for just under half an hour until they reached the page about the Calming Draught, they remained mostly silent with the occasional comment from Myrtle to turn the page. George's only concern was making sure he read the page on the Calming Draught before it got too late.

Luckily for him, Myrtle wasn't lying when she said she read fast. He was only able to keep up with her simply because he had an advantage, he had already memorised the same copy of the book without Snape's notes. George was blown away that she could read at the same rate as himself, Myrtle was clearly just as talented as Hermione in that regard.

Whilst George was reading Snape's notes, he was gaining a whole new perspective on how to brew potions in the future. Not only the Calming Draught, but everything ranging from the simplest, such as the Pimple potion, to the more advanced, such as the Polyjuice potion, would be much quicker and easier to produce. These small notes written in black ink on every page were so revolutionary that he could imagine Snape making a fortune if he ever decided to publish his own potion book. George even had the idea of plagiarising these notes in the future if the plan needed him to have even more money or fame.

Every single wishy-washy explanation in the manual to make the Calming Draught had been replaced with a much more refined and detailed description, Snape had simply crossed out over half of the text and written his own version above or below. Unlike the original, there were no opinions or references to emotional stability in Snape's notes, everything was black and white. His notes couldn't be misinterpreted or misconstrued, they were idiot-proof for the most part. An example of one of these improvements would be halfway into brewing the calming potion. The original recipe tells the potion brewer to stir the cauldron consistently for five minutes, nothing was referencing how fast to stir for those five minutes and George felt this had to be one of the many reasons why his potions were failing.

Snape crossed this section out and wrote to stir the cauldron counterclockwise for four minutes and forty-five seconds at a rate of one cycle every second. He also wrote to use a specific size and material of equipment during each step. In this example, he wrote to use a twelve-inch-long sterile iron ladle. Not only had the explanations been improved but the ingredients had been altered minutely to accommodate a new recipe that, according to Snape, had a higher guaranteed chance of success. Once George had digested all the information written by Snape, he felt there was an exceedingly high chance of him successfully brewing the potion. Now all he had to do was put that knowledge into practice.

George lowered the book to Myrtle's disappointment, she had been just about to ask him to turn the page when he abruptly closed the book.

She asked him whilst looking a little annoyed, "why did you do that? I was in the middle of reading something."

George responded, "we'll have to finish the book another day, there isn't enough time today."

George pulled out the tattered pouch from his pocket and threw it into the sink beside them, there was the sound of glass shattering as it hit the ceramic bowl. Myrtle immediately recognised the pouch and was shocked to see him treat it so poorly. In her company, he had been coveting those potion vials as if his life depended on them.

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She turned to look at him and shouted, "you idiot! What have you done?"

George smiled self-deprecatingly after hearing the panic in her voice, there wasn't any doubt that she had already started to care about him. He picked up the pouch from the sink and jiggled it about, the noise of glass clashing together echoed through the bathroom.

George explained, "thanks to my fellow Slytherin students, the vials were already smashed, saving me the trouble. I'm currently running on fumes after sucking out the remains from the soaked pouch.

I 'need' to make the potion tonight, I'm out of time."

Myrtle stared at George for a few seconds before nodding her head and flying towards the cubicle he had spent most of his time trying to brew the Calming Draught in the past week. He was a little confused by her reaction since he had expected her to fight him over this, she wasn't always the most agreeable person. The only way that you could get Myrtle to do something was by convincing her it was her idea in the first place, she only did things her way. He had been following his agreement to spend three hours or sometimes more with Myrtle every day and had been careful to only ask of the things she'd already consented to.

Considering the fact George was forcing her hand to comply, he anticipated a little back and forth before he could start brewing his potion. Instead, she flew across the room and hadn't said a word, this was very much out of her character. He just stood still and stared at her, he didn't understand why she was acting like this. Myrtle appeared to start losing her patience as she crossed her arms and tapped her leg against a non-existent ground.

She asked him impatiently, "come on then. Haven't we got a potion to brew or have you got something better to do?"

George took a moment to realise what she was implying but soon smiled and nodded in her direction. His plans to befriend her had advanced far further than he initially anticipated, she was already sacrificing her own time to help him without expecting any compensation.

Without any more hesitation, George eagerly ran over to the cubicle whilst pulling out all of his equipment from his sack. He was a very methodical person and always prepared his equipment in advance, this meant that he could start brewing the Calming Draught right away. Not only was Myrtle not bothering George, but she went out of her way to help him. She monitored the timing of each step whilst offering her own interpretation of Snape's notes, this was surprisingly helpful. This meant he could concentrate exclusively on the more practical side of brewing a potion, he didn't need to constantly check the time or look for his ingredients.

Although Snape was concise with his notes, it became obvious during the potion brewing that they were intended to be read by none other than himself. Certain techniques were described in a way that could be misinterpreted. Luckily, Myrtle was there to help George translate. He learnt that she must have had great experience brewing potions during her time at Hogwarts since some of George's blunders were easily seen through by her. He felt that it was a shame that she'd only just now decided to help him, maybe he wouldn't have been in such a precarious position if she had been more forthcoming days ago.

Regardless of Myrtle's abstinence, George had to be thankful that she was here now to lend him a metaphorical hand. There was only one occasion during the brewing process when even Myrtle was uncertain about what Snape meant, this resulted in them having to take a chance. The potion didn't react negatively to their decision so they assumed that they had made the right call. Unfortunately, fate wasn't so kind and moments before the potion was meant to be completed, the liquid changed colour from a shimmering blue to a dull purple.

Both George and Myrtle knew the potion had failed and their decision earlier must have been the reason. Even though the potion failed, he was still in high spirits. Every other time he had failed to brew the Calming Draught, he had no idea where he had gone wrong and therefore couldn't learn from his mistakes. This time, there was only one possible step that could have been responsible which meant that his next attempt would have a practically guaranteed success.

George was quite happy to slowly and methodically clean all of his equipment knowing that his next potion would work. Since he was so close to finally brewing the Calming Draught, he didn't want contaminated equipment failing his next potion. He took out all of his ingredients and weighed them in advance and place them in little bowls beside his copper cauldron, his surroundings looked similar to a demonstration table on Blue Peter.

After finalising all of his preparations, George took a deep breath and started again. He repeated every single step exactly how he did it before with machine-like accuracy, the one exception being his mistake. It was as simple as lowering the temperature of the magical Bunsen burner before stirring the cauldron and inserting the final piece of the left ventricle from the crocodile heart. Even Myrtle look to be getting excited as they neared the end, she was beginning to get a little giddy and distracted as she talked more and more. George however, kept his cool and exclusively concentrated on brewing the potion, even going as far as to ignore her when she started rambling.

Just two minutes before George finished the potion, Myrtle said gleefully, "congratulations, you finally did it. I'll be honest, I was starting to lose hope earlier today but you've proven me wrong."

George flinched slightly whilst slowly stirring the potion after hearing Myrtle's premature celebration. He considered Myrtle's perspective to be a very dangerous one when it came to doing anything risky or even life-threatening. Since he considered her a valuable asset, George felt that he should give her some advice that he'd been given many years ago.

He continued to stir the bubbling blue liquid as he asked her, "Miss Warren, have you ever been to the circus?"

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