Chapter 86: 8th September 1991, Sunday: Part 1

For the first time since Tuesday, George woke up peacefully without a book or shoe being thrown at his head. Instead, all he could feel was the sun beaming down through the Great Lake onto his face. He leaned forward and saw that he was once again alone in his dorm room. His alarm clock said that the time was currently ten o'clock in the morning which meant he missed breakfast. Since it was the weekend, Theodore mustn't have considered it necessary to awaken him.

George climbed out of bed and performed his normal stretchers whilst checking his body and eyes for abnormalities. It had been only yesterday he'd taken his medication, his eyes were just as dull blue as ever. The injuries that had been caused by the fall were healed but the deep purple bruising was still present. Because his uniform covered ninety-five per cent of his body, he could afford to hold off transforming until the bruises started appearing on his neck and wrists. The most likely issue would be the bruises tearing open and continuously bleeding, he couldn't walk around Hogwarts with his shirt dyed red. He hoped he could get away with another two weeks before he had to head to the Shrieking Shack.

Since he wasn't in a rush, George walked over to the large window next to his bed and stared out into the Black Lake. He watched the seaweed waving with the current and the fishes dipping in and out of the corals. This was the first time he'd properly observed his dorm room's view, it was quite magnificent. He wasn't under the effects of any potions and yet he felt completely at ease, he was quite content to sit there and let time pass. This was the first day George had no obligation to accomplish any tasks, there were no deadlines which required him to perform a near-impossible task within the next twenty-four hours. This was a day at Hogwarts where he could do absolutely nothing and there wouldn't be any consequences, this feeling was unbelievably refreshing.

The next big deadline was in October which felt like one hundred years away compared to the deadlines he had just been up against. George could act like a normal child and just enjoy his life at the moment for once. He sat there by the window and let time pass him by for a grand total of fifteen minutes before he started planning out his day. Even if he was an eleven-year-old child, he wasn't a fan of procrastinating and didn't like the idea of sitting around all day twiddling his thumbs. What was the point of living if he wasn't going to be productive?

Flitwick kindly reminded George yesterday of his self-given assignment and he felt today would be a good opportunity to finally fix his alarm clock. On that topic, today was a chance to start the process of repairing his relationship with Theodore. George was going to be living in the same room as Theodore for the next ten months and he didn't want there to be any bad blood between them. That, and the fact Theodore would be a great middleman when it came to interacting with the darker side of the wizarding world. Having planned out his day; George got washed and dressed, picked up his alarm clock, and headed to the Library.

Following Flitwick's advice, George headed to the nearly-empty Charms department in the Library and walked down the endless sea of shelves containing thousands of books until he reached row F. That row was a section of the Library containing all of the Hogwarts books specific to the research and education of bewitchment charms, there were over three hundred painfully long books in total. Although this number couldn't compare to the sea of books he swam through to research the Calming Draught, there was no doubt that George was going to have to spend many hours trawling through this heinous collection.

After the sheer amount of reading he'd done the past month, George made a promise to himself to not step foot into this Library for at least a month after this day was over. Otherwise, he would start developing a severely negative association with reading so much as a leaflet. The fact that there were people such as Hermione who could spend thousands of hours performing the same laborious task and take pleasure in it utterly bewildered him, that behaviour was borderline sadistic. Regardless of his lacking motivation, he took a book off the shelf and sat down at an empty table. He blew the dust off the binding and opened it to the first page, he could only hope that he was lucky and would find the relevant information sooner rather than later.

As time dragged on, George's pile of reading books grew and he realised that his proficiency at skim reading had improved. He was currently finishing books thirty per cent faster than he had at the start of the week. Not only that, he had gotten lucky and found a book relating to a specific type of bewitchment used on muggle clockwork mechanisms relatively quickly. He had only been in the Library for just over an hour and had already found the book he was looking for, God must have finally taken pity on him.

It felt unusual for George to not dedicate an entire week to accomplish one task, this seemed so easy that there had to be a catch. First, the enlargement charm, which Myrtle had so kindly provided, solved his eating problems within the space of an hour and now the alarm clock would be fixed before dinner. This pace was rocket speed compared to the Calming Draught. Now, all he had to do was to comprehend the information in the book and apply it.

He asked himself, "how hard could it be?"

Forget about the three unforgivable curses, George would come to learn that those five words he had just spoken were far more damning than any magical incantation. One of the first things he realised when comprehending the intricacies of a bewitchment charm was that the difficulty varied depending on the desired outcome. There was a reason why Flitwick encouraged him to try and modify the alarm clock on his own and it wasn't exclusively due to his talent.

The way George would describe bewitchment to another would be through the analogy of riding a bike. Learning how to cast a bewitchment charm was similar to trying to ride a bike on ice. You're destined to fall over many times regardless of how talented you were. Failure would result in the occasional injury and therefore should only be practised by adults with life experience and common sense. But in the circumstances where the bewitchment has already been cast and the witch or wizard is simply trying to modify an existing bewitchment, a lot of the risk and difficulty are mitigated.

In the bike analogy, this would be like riding the bike with stabilisers on soft grass instead of ice. The bike would remain upright unless the user deliberately pushed the bike over, and even then the grass would cushion the fall. This must have been the reason why Flitwick allowed George to experiment with new magic without supervision; it was nearly impossible for him to hurt himself. Since George wanted the alarm clock to produce a powerful electric shock, all he had to do was cast a spell on the magical emitter, which happened to be the hammer that struck the bells, with the corresponding element.

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The book was even kind enough to provide examples of spells that were common among bewitchment charms such as producing heat, light or sound. George pulled out his wand from his sleeve and held it an inch away from the alarm clock, he made sure to point the tip directly towards the little hammer. He looked left and right down the absurdly long table to check if there was anyone else around. Technically, students are not allowed to cast spells in the Library without the librarian's permission. Since the spell wasn't going to make any noise, George saw no reason not to quickly cast it whilst nobody was around.

He whispered the words, "Inpulsa", and a bright blue light emitted from the end of his wand.

The light was bright enough to illuminate George and the shelves behind him, he had to squint his eyes to observe the spell's effect. There was an electrical bolt continuously travelling from the tip of his wand to the end of the hammer, a quiet sizzling noise was being produced. Seeing that the spell was working as intended, George averted his eyes to spare himself from being blinded by the light. It was a good thing that he didn't perform the spell whilst other students were sharing his table since the light show would definitely draw their attention. A muggle would have probably guessed that he was welding since it was that bright.

George kept sustaining the spell with his magic because the book stated that the duration the bewitched item is exposed to the conjuration would determine the amplification. In other words, the more he zapped the clock, the more the clock would zap him when the alarm went off. And sustaining this spell wasn't hard for him to do either, compared to conjuring a massive ball of fire, this single spell was super efficient. He could continue casting the charm all day if he needed to. The only problem was the book didn't specify how long George had to cast the spell, it only stated, 'a suitable amount of time for the desired effect'.

Since there was no limit to the number of times he could cast this spell, George was quite happy to keep the casting duration short. He could intermittently test the clock's alarm until he was happy with the potency. He guessed that thirty seconds would be suitable for the first amplification, it was no time at all compared to brewing a potion. Whilst holding the wand with his right hand, George kept his eyes on his wristwatch, he counted the seconds as they went by. Surprisingly, after twenty seconds, he started to smell something unusual.

The odour smelt like burning oil which didn't make sense since the lights in Hogwarts were mostly candles, there shouldn't be any oil burning near him. George squinted his eyes and had another look at the alarm clock and saw that the little hammer had started glowing bright red as if it was about to melt. He instantly stopped casting the spell and realised that he must have made a massive mistake. The hammer continued to glow bright red whilst a small wisp of smoke came out from the clock face, that must have been the origin of the burning oil smell. George put away his wand and picked up the bewitchment book, he started frantically waving it in the direction of the alarm clock to cool it down and disperse the smoke.

After a few stressful seconds passed, the hammer cooled and returned to its normal brass colour, the smoke stopped pumping out around the same time. George put the book down on the table and slumped into the back of his chair dejectedly, he was convinced that he had destroyed the alarm clock. He felt a cocktail of emotions ranging from anger at the book for not referencing this problem to guilt for potentially breaking Remus's present. Knowing that it was very easy for these negative emotions to fester, George concentrated on having a more optimistic outlook. He could still faintly hear the clock ticking which meant it hadn't been completely fried.

He thought to himself, "I might as well test it and see if it still works. Who knows? It might function perfectly."

George picked up the clock, which was still warm to the touch, and reset the alarm to go off one minute from now. He guessed that the bewitchment charm had been damaged beyond repair and wouldn't produce so much as a static shock once the alarm went off. But nowadays, he was hardly right about anything. Logic would dictate this clock shouldn't be an exception to his faulty predictions. He nervously waited whilst his fidgeting leg bounced up and down, his eyes following the second hand's every movement.

Once a minute passed, the alarm went off and the little hammer started repeatedly whacking against the two bells, the ringing sound echoed through the otherwise silent Library. George jumped in surprise after hearing the noise, he had completely forgotten that the alarm clock still retained its original function. He quickly lunged forward and pinched the little hammer in between his fingers which prevented it from striking the bells. Silence once again returned to the Library, George sighed in relief after remedying his stupidity. He questioned how he could have become so distracted that he wouldn't remember the simple function of every alarm clock ever invented.

So much for having a relaxing day, George had let himself relax too much and had consequently become complacent. Perhaps the days when he didn't drink the Calming Draught would have to be void of all mentally challenging tasks, the problem being that every day fell under that criteria. He needed to find the right balance fast before easily avoidable accidents like this one got him in trouble.

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