At St. Mungo's

Disclaimer: I don't own HP.

If Kitty had ever sat through a longer night than this one, she could not remember it. Sirius suggested once, without any real conviction, that they all go to bed, but the Weasleys' looks of disgust were answer enough. They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, occasionally raising a bottle to their lips, speaking only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening, and to reassure each other that if there was bad news, they would know straightaway, for Mrs. Weasley must long since have arrived at St. Mungo's.

Fred fell into a doze, his head lolling sideways on to his shoulder. Ginny was curled like a cat on her chair, but her eyes were open. Ron was sitting with his head in his hands, whether awake or asleep it was impossible to tell. Kitty was sitting on the floor at Harry's feet and was sleeping with her head on Harry's knee. Harry and Sirius looked at each other every so often, intruders upon the family grief, waiting ... waiting ...

At ten past five in the morning by Ron's watch, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs. Weasley entered the kitchen. She was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, Fred, Ron and Harry half rising from their chairs, she gave a wane smile.

'He's going to be all right,' she said, her voice weak with tiredness. 'He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now; he's going to take the morning off work.'

Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of his Butterbeer in one. Kitty hugged Harry in relief.

'Breakfast!' said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. 'Where's that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!'

But Kreacher did not answer the summons.

'Oh, forget it, then,' muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. 'So, it's breakfast for-let's see-seven ... bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast—'

Harry and Kitty hurried over to the stove to help.

'I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for you, Harry,' Mrs. Weasley said in a muffled voice. 'They might not have found Arthur for hours, and then it would have been too late, but thanks to you he's alive and Dumbledore's been able to think up a good cover story for Arthur being where he was, you've no idea what trouble he would have been in otherwise.'

'Oh, Sirius, I'm so grateful ... they think he'll be there a little while and it would be wonderful to be nearer ... of course, that might mean we're here for Christmas.'

'The more the merrier!' said Sirius with such obvious sincerity that Mrs. Weasley beamed at him, threw on an apron and began to help with breakfast.

'Sirius, can I have a word? Kat, you come with me too,' sad Harry.

Kitty followed Sirius and Harry into the dark pantry. Without preamble, Harry told his godfather and sister every detail of the vision he had had, including the fact that he himself had been the snake who had attacked Mr. Weasley.

When he paused for breath, Sirius said, 'Did you tell Dumbledore this?'

'Yes,' said Harry impatiently,' but he didn't tell me what it meant. Well, he doesn't tell me anything any more.'

'I'm sure he would have told you if it was anything to worry about,' said Sirius steadily.

'But that's not all,' said Harry, in a voice only a little above a whisper. 'Sirius, I ... I think I'm going mad. Back in Dumbledore's office, just before we took the Portkey ... for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one-my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore-Sirius, I wanted to attack him!'

Kitty could only see a sliver of Sirius's face; the rest was in darkness.

'It must have been the aftermath of the vision, that's all,' said Sirius. 'you were still thinking of the dream or whatever it was and-'

'It wasn't that,' said Harry, shaking his head, 'it was like something rose up inside me, like there's a snake inside me.'

'You need to sleep,' said Sirius firmly. 'You're going to have breakfast, then go upstairs to bed, and after lunch you can go and see Arthur with the others. You're in shock, Harry; you're blaming yourself for something you only witnessed, and it's lucky you did witness it or Arthur might have died. Just stop worrying.'

He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left the pantry, leaving Harry and Kitty standing alone in the dark. Kitty burst into tears.

'And… and I thought I was the one having…night…nightmares,' she spluttered.

'Kat,' said Harry, shocked, 'Stop crying. You heard Sirius; it's nothing to worry about. It's just an aftermath of the vision.'

Everyone but Harry spent the rest of the morning sleeping. He went up to the bedroom he and Ron had shared over the last few weeks of summer, but while Ron crawled into bed and was asleep within minutes, Harry sat fully clothed, hunched against the cold metal bars of the bedstead, keeping himself deliberately uncomfortable, determined not to fall into a doze, terrified that he might become the serpent again in his sleep and wake to find that he had attacked Ron, or else slithered through the house after one of the others...

Their trunks arrived from Hogwarts while they were eating lunch, so they could dress as Muggles for the trip to St. Mungo's. Everybody except Harry was riotously happy and talkative as they changed out of their robes into jeans and sweatshirts.

They reached St. Mungo's at about three in the afternoon. Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge's. Kitty noticed the emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.

'Over here!' called Mrs. Weasley, and they followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked Enquiries. '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 her through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was lined with portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds.

The ward was small and rather dingy, as the only window was narrow and set high in the wall facing the door. There were only three patients. Mr. Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward beside the tiny window. Kitty was pleased and relieved to see that he was propped up on several pillows and reading the Daily Prophet by the solitary ray of sunlight falling on to his bed. He looked up as they walked towards him and, seeing who it was, beamed.

'Hello!' he called, throwing the Prophet aside. 'Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he'll drop in 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.

'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. 'It's very simple-I'd had a very long day on duty, dozed off, got sneaked up on and bitten.'

'So where were you when it happened, Dad?' asked George.

'That's my business,' said Mr. Weasley, though with a small smile.

'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!'

'You were guarding it, weren't you?' said George quietly. 'The weapon? The thing You-Know-Who's after?'

'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 and Harry and Kitty. 'You can come and say goodbye afterwards. 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.'

'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.'

Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the twins had done.

'OK, go!' Fred whispered.

The flesh-coloured strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first, Kitty could hear nothing, but then she jumped as she heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside her.

'... they searched the whole area but 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 a lot 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 boy, 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-'

Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.

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