Chapter 37:
Everyone spent the rest of the morning asleep, Alicia proceeded up to her room from the summer, the twins following her up the stairs. Alicia laid down to sleep but wasn't sure about whether she was comfortable doing so.
You didn't become a snake, you saw through it. In fact you saw it through Harry.
"Which means Harry's probably not asleep." she believed, he'd be worried about what had happened and worried about the prospect of it happening again.
Alicia however couldn't help but doze off. Such the early morning and all the stress and trouble she was exhausted. And this time her dreams were peaceful.
She was woken by Mrs Weasley at lunch time who then trotted down the stairs to make lunch, calling for her to wake the twins, boys and Ginny, who had the room to herself as Hermione wasn't here.
Alicia tracked into the twins' room to find them sprawled out over their beds and she kicked George in the leg who grunted and proceeded to sit on Fred who jumped.
"Your mother's making lunch." she mumbled before slumping sideways. "Wants you to get up."
"You're doing a great job." Fred grumbled
"I had a big night."
"Lunch!" Mrs Weasley's voice travelled up the stairs. The three of them groaned and George muttered into his pillow.
"You don't eat you go hungry till dinner." Fred replied and Alicia sat up
"Yeah that's not worth it." she decided and got back to her feet. "Come on. We're going to St Mungo's remember. Wanna see your dad or not?" she wondered. And with a sigh the two got up and followed her down the stairs to the kitchen. Harry, Ron and Ginny were already down there sitting amongst the table as well as Mrs Weasley and Sirius. Kreacher was still yet to be seen.
Alicia noticed that amongst the riotously happy and talkative people, Harry was rather silent and to himself. She didn't make a comment of it incase he didn't want everyone remembering what he saw.
The trunks of the Weasley's and two Potters arrived as they were eating lunch and they all lugged them to their rooms to change into their muggle clothes. Tonks and Mad-Eye arrived to escort them to London, Mad-Eye wearing the bowler had to cover his magical eye in which everyone laughed at. It was made a point that the Bowler hat, tipped on an angle, was more likely to to catch attention than Tonk's short bright pink hair.
They made their way to the underground and Tonks began to question Harry on his vision, seeming most interested and not noticing Harry's reluctance to answer.
"There isn't any Seer blood in your family, is there?" she inquired curiously, as they sat side by side on a train rattling toward the heart of the city.
"No," said Harry. The only seer they'd met was Trelawney and Alicia wasn't surprised Harry took offence to the question.
"No," said Tonks musingly, "no, I suppose it's not really prophecy you're doing, is it? I mean, you're not seeing the future, you're seeing the present… It's odd, isn't it? Useful, though…"
Though she couldn't disagree, Alicia wasn't sure if she liked the idea of them seeing people getting viciously attacked by snakes.
They got off at the next stop and Fred and George acted as a barrier between Harry and Tonks as the latter led the way up the escalator as Moody brought up the rear.
Alicia had never been to St Mungo's but assumed it was as hidden as Hogwarts or Diagon Alley. Muggles obviously couldn't go into the magical hospital, the types of injuries there would definitely give away everything. Harry seemed to wonder where the hospital was hidden as well for he asked Moody.
"Not far from here," grunted Moody as they stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined street packed with Christmas shoppers. "Wasn't easy to find a good location for a hospital. Nowhere in Diagon Alley was big enough and we couldn't have it underground like the Ministry — unhealthy. In the end they managed to get hold of a building up here. Theory was sick wizards could come and go and just blend in with the crowd…"
"How can sick wizards blend in? They'd have the weirdest injuries." Alicia thought.
A moment later they stopped.
"Here we go," said Moody a moment later.
They had arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red brick department store called Purge and Dowse Ltd. The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read closed for refurbishment. Alicia heard in passing, a large woman laden with plastic shopping bags say to her friend as they passed, "It's never open, that place… "
"Right," said Tonks, beckoning them forward to a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female dummy whose false eyelashes were hanging off and who was modelling a green nylon pinafore dress. "Everybody ready?"
They nodded, clustering around her; Moody gave Harry a shove between the shoulder blades to urge him forward and Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy and said, her breath steaming up the glass, "Wotcher… We're here to see Arthur Weasley."
Alicia watched curiously, wondering if the dummy would have heard her over the bustling of the buses, people and through the glass when she hardly rose her voice. But then the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned them with it's finger. Tonks seized Ginny and Mrs. Weasley by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished. Alicia gapped before grinning and she took Fred's hand as he, George and Ron went next and stepped through the glass. It was like cool water but the other side was quite warm and she was completely dry.
The other side of the glass was not as it appeared from the outside. The dummy was gone and so were her surroundings. Instead they stood in a busy reception where rows and rows of witches and and wizards sat upon rickety wooden chairs, some looking perfectly normal and perusing out-of-date copies of Witch Weekly, others sporting gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of their chests. The room was scarcely less quiet than the street outside, for many of the patients were making very peculiar noises. A sweaty-faced witch in the centre of the front row, who was fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the Daily Prophet, kept letting off a high-pitched whistle as steam came pouring out of her mouth, and a grubby-looking warlock in the corner clanged like a bell every time he moved, and with each clang his head vibrated horribly, so that he had to seize himself by the ears and hold it steady.
Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge's. All of them wore the same emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
"Are they doctors?" Harry asked Ron quietly, after stepping through the glass with Mad-Eye behind her.
"Doctors?" said Ron, looking startled. "Those Muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, they're Healers."
"Over here!" called Mrs. Weasley over the renewed clanging of the warlock in the corner, and they followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked inquiries. The wall behind her was covered in notices and posters saying things like a clean cauldron keeps potions from becoming poisons and antidotes are anti-don'ts unless approved by a qualified healer. There was also a large portrait of a witch with long silver ringlets that was labelled
DILYS DERWENT
St. mungo's healer 1722–1741
Headmistress of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, 1741–1768
Dilys was eyeing the Weasley party as though counting them; Alicia grinned at her and waved as they passed and she waved back before Harry caught her eye and she gave a tiny wink, walked sideways out of her portrait, and vanished.
Meanwhile, at the front of the queue, a young wizard was performing an odd on-the-spot jig and trying, in between yelps of pain, to explain his predicament to the witch behind the desk.
"It's these — ouch — shoes my brother gave me — ow — they're eating my — OUCH — feet — look at them, there must be some kind of — AARGH — jinx on them and I can't — AAAAARGH — get them off —"
He hopped from one foot to the other as though dancing on hot coals.
"The shoes don't prevent you reading, do they?" said the blonde witch irritably, pointing at a large sign to the left of her desk. "You want Spell Damage, fourth floor. Just like it says on the floor guide. Next!"
The wizard hobbled and pranced sideways out of the way, the Weasley party moved forward a few steps and Alicia moved to read the floor guide:
ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ground Floor
(Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.)
CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . First Floor
(Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.)
MAGICAL BUGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Second Floor
(Contagious maladies, e.g., dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrofungulus)
POTION AND PLANT POISONING. . . . . . . . . . . . .Third Floor
(Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable giggling, etc.)
SPELL DAMAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fourth Floor
(Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.)
VISITORS' TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP. . . . .Fifth Floor
If you are unsure where to go, incapable, of normal speech, or unable to remember why you are here, our Welcome Witch will be pleased to help.
A very old, stooped wizard with a hearing trumpet had shuffled to the front of the queue now.
"I'm here to see Broderick Bode!" he wheezed.
"Ward forty-nine, but I'm afraid you're wasting your time," said the witch dismissively "He's completely addled, you know, still thinks he's a teapot… Next!"
A harassed-looking wizard was holding his small daughter tightly by the ankle while she flapped around his head using the immensely large, feathery wings that had sprouted right out the back of her romper suit.
"Fourth floor," said the witch in a bored voice, without asking, and the man disappeared through the double doors beside the desk, holding his daughter like an oddly shaped balloon. "Next!"
Mrs. Weasley moved forward to the desk.
"Hello," she said. "My husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward this morning, could you tell us — ?"
"Arthur Weasley?" said the witch, running her finger down a long list in front of her. "Yes, first floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn ward."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Weasley. "Come on, you lot."
They followed through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was lined with more portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. More witches and wizards in lime-green robes walked in and out of the doors they passed; a foul-smelling yellow gas wafted into the passageway as they passed one door, and every now and then they heard distant wailing. They climbed a flight of stairs and entered the "Creature-Induced Injuries" corridor, where the second door on the right bore the words "dangerous" dai llewellyn ward: serious bites. Underneath this was a card in a brass holder on which had been handwritten Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates Smethwyck, Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye.
"We'll wait outside, Molly," Tonks said. "Arthur won't want too many visitors at once… It ought to be just the family first."
Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions. Alicia decided family first was a good idea and moved to let Ginny pass her, Fred however seemed to disagree for he and George shared a look before hooking their elbows through her arms and pulling her inside. Harry drew back too, but Mrs. Weasley reached out a hand and pushed him through the door, saying, "Don't be silly, Harry, Arthur wants to thank you…"
The ward was small and rather dingy as the only window was narrow and set high in the wall facing the door. Most of the light came from more shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle of the ceiling. The walls were of panelled oak and there was a portrait of a rather vicious-looking wizard on the wall, captioned Urquhart Rackharrow, 1612– 1697, inventor of the entrail-expelling curse.
There were only three patients. Mr. Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward beside the tiny window. Alicia smiled at seeing him propped up on several pillows and reading the Daily Prophet by the solitary ray of sunlight falling onto his bed. He looked around as they walked toward him and, seeing whom it was, beamed.
Besides the fact that he was in the hospital he didn't seem sick at all.
"Hello!" he called, throwing the Prophet aside. "Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he'll drop in on you later…"
"How are you, Arthur?" asked Mrs. Weasley, bending down to kiss his cheek and looking anxiously into his face. "You're still looking a bit peaky…"
"I feel absolutely fine," said Mr. Weasley brightly, holding out his good arm to give Ginny a hug. "If they could only take the bandages off, I'd be fit to go home."
"Why can't they take them off, Dad?" asked Fred.
"Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try," said Mr. Weasley cheerfully, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bed-side cabinet, and waving it so that seven extra chairs appeared at his bed-side to seat them all. "It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake's fangs that keeps wounds open… They're sure they'll find an antidote, though, they say they've had much worse cases than mine, and in the meantime I just have to keep taking a Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour. But that fellow over there," he said, dropping his voice and nodding toward the bed opposite in which a man lay looking green and sickly and staring at the ceiling. "Bitten by a werewolf, poor chap. No cure at all."
"A werewolf?" whispered Mrs. Weasley, looking alarmed. "Is he safe in a public ward? Shouldn't he be in a private room?"
"It's two weeks till full moon," Mr. Weasley reminded her quietly. "They've been talking to him this morning, the Healers, you know, trying to persuade him he'll be able to lead an almost normal life. I said to him — didn't mention names, of course — but I said I knew a werewolf personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage…"
"What did he say?" asked George.
"Said he'd give me another bite if I didn't shut up," said Mr. Weasley sadly. "And that woman over there," he indicated the only other occupied bed, which was right beside the door, "won't tell the Healers what bit her, which makes us all think it must have been something she was handling illegally. Whatever it was took a real chunk out of her leg, very nasty smell when they take off the dressings."
"So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?" asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.
"Well, you already know, don't you?" said Mr. Weasley, with a significant smile at Harry and Alicia. "It's very simple — I'd had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on, and bitten."
"Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?" asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Mr. Weasley had cast aside.
"No, of course not," said Mr. Weasley, with a slightly bitter smile, "the Ministry wouldn't want everyone to know a dirty great serpent got —"
"Arthur!" said Mrs. Weasley warningly.
"— got — er — me," Mr. Weasley said hastily, though Harry was quite sure that was not what he had meant to say.
Alicia chuckled. No the Ministry wouldn't want to admit that a giant snake got all the way down to the courtrooms, especially as, if she remembered correctly, the furthest down the lift went was the Department of Mysteries. Alicia grinned, was the weapon in the Department of Mysteries?
The twins looked at Alicia and raised an eyebrow at one another.
"So where were you when it happened, Dad?" asked George.
"That's my business," said Mr. Weasley, though with a small smile. He snatched up the Daily Prophet, shook it open again and said, "I was just reading about Willy Widdershins's arrest when you arrived. You know Willy turned out to be behind those regurgitating toilets last summer? One of his jinxes backfired, the toilet exploded, and they found him lying unconscious in the wreckage covered from head to foot in —"
"When you say you were 'on duty,'" Fred interrupted in a low voice, "what were you doing?"
"You heard your father," whispered Mrs. Weasley, "we are not discussing this here! Go on about Willy Widdershins, Arthur —"
"Well, don't ask me how, but he actually got off on the toilet charge," said Mr. Weasley grimly. "I can only suppose gold changed hands —"
"You were guarding it, weren't you?" said George quietly. "The weapon? The thing You-Know-Who's after?"
"George, be quiet!" snapped Mrs. Weasley.
"Course he was." Alicia said to the two twins "I told you it was at the Ministry of magic," she looked proud of herself and the twins rolled their eyes to have Alicia nudge them, they smirked.
"Anyway," said Mr. Weasley in a raised voice, "this time Willy's been caught selling biting doorknobs to Muggles, and I don't think he'll be able to worm his way out of it because according to this article, two Muggles have lost fingers and are now in St. Mungo's for emergency bone regrowth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St. Mungo's! I wonder which ward they're in?"
And he looked eagerly around as though hoping to see a signpost.
"Didn't you say You-Know-Who's got a snake, Harry?" asked Fred, looking at his father for a reaction. "A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn't you Alicia?" She nodded.
"That's enough," said Mrs. Weasley crossly. "Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside," she added to her children, Alicia and Harry. "You can come and say good-bye afterward. Go on…"
They trooped back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward behind them. Fred raised his eyebrows.
"Fine," he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, "be like that. Don't tell us anything."
"Guess we'll just have to find out if the weapons in the Department of Mysteries ourselves." Alicia shrugged innocently and they all looked at her.
"What? I was with Harry when he went down those stone corridors and none of the rest of the Ministry had that stone so." she confessed as Fred reached into a pocket.
"Looking for these?" said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-coloured string.
"You read my mind," said Fred, grinning. "Let's see if St. Mungo's puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?"
He and George disentangled the string and separated six Extendable Ears from each other. Fred and George handed them around.
Harry hesitated to take one.
"Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad's life, if anyone's got the right to eavesdrop on him it's you…"
"I don't know how that works but…" Alicia muttered but she didn't bother to hesitate in taking the extendable ear.
Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the twins had done.
"Okay, go!" Fred whispered.
The flesh-coloured strings wriggled like long skinny worms, then snaked under the door. For a few seconds Harry could hear nothing, then he heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside him.
"… they searched the whole area but they couldn't find the snake anywhere, it just seems to have vanished after it attacked you, Arthur… But You-Know-Who can't have expected a snake to get in, can he?"
"I reckon he sent it as a lookout," growled Moody, " 'cause he's not had any luck so far, has he? No, I reckon he's trying to get a clearer picture of what he's facing and if Arthur hadn't been there the beast would've had much more time to look around. So Potter says he saw it all happen?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. "You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this…"
"Yeah, well," said Moody, "there's something funny about the Potter kids, we all know that."
"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning," whispered Mrs. Weasley.
" 'Course he's worried," growled Moody. "The boy's seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake… Obviously, Potter doesn't realise what that means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him —"
Alicia scoffed as Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, she wasn't the only one looked at him, but the others were all staring at him, the strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.