CHAPTER 14

ST. MUNGO'S

St. Mungo's had seemed a lot less terrifying when Rose had been there for eating too many joke shop products when she was seven, or the vague memory of coming to the hospital when her mum had Hugo. She honestly hadn't been there much otherwise, since they went to a Muggle hospital for things like physical check-ups and vaccines. She and Hugo had been met with a nurse after riding on the Portkey, who led them to the fourth floor, the Spell Damage ward. They reached the room and the nurse disappeared as Rose peered inside first. She had to keep herself from gasping as she looked at her father, who was lying on a bed with bandages wrapped around his head and torso. He was breathing very shallowly and looked deeply asleep. Rose didn't see her mother anywhere, and Hugo quickly started trying to peek around. "Is he in there?" he asked, his voice shaking a little bit.

"Uh, yes, but—" Rose didn't even finish her sentence before Hugo pushed past her and stopped dead in the door. He stared at their father for a while before he spoke again.

"Where's Mum?" he asked, and Rose could hear that he had definitely started crying.

"Hugo, are you okay?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm fine, I'm not crying," he mumbled, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "Where's Mum? Rudomin said she was here."

"I don't know, maybe she—" Rose started to say, but at that moment, she heard footsteps running down the hallway towards them. She looked and saw her mother, followed by Uncle Harry and Hestia Jones, coming towards them.

"Oh, Rose, Hugo," she sighed when she reached them, and grabbed them both, hugging them tightly. "I didn't know you were here."

"We just got here," Rose said. "Is Dad going to be okay?"

Her mother faltered. "We aren't quite sure yet how long it will take, but he'll be fine, yes."

"What happened?" Hugo asked quickly. Their mother looked back at Uncle Harry and Hestia hesitantly.

"We can't really tell you, Hugo," she said. "I'm sorry. It's Auror business."

"We should be allowed to know what happened to him!" Hugo exclaimed.

"If we could tell you, we would, I promise," Uncle Harry said. "But we can't."

"Harry, I'm going to go into the room," their mother said quietly, and hurried through the door and sat down in the chair next to his bed. She picked up his hand and held it with both of hers, and Rose couldn't watch any more after that.

"Come on, Hugo," she said, and walked down the hallway.

"Are you guys okay?" Uncle Harry asked.

"We just need… a minute," Rose said, and pulled Hugo after her through the door at the end of the hall. Hugo started pacing and she slid down the wall and sat with her head in her hands. She needed to sleep, and was seriously considering using the Time-Turner to get an hour of sleep in an empty patient room when Hugo tapped her on the shoulder.

"I think they're talking about it," Hugo said.

"What?"

"What happened. Come see," he said. Rose walked up to him, and he stood up on his toes to see out the window in the door. Rose looked too and saw Uncle Harry and Hestia standing outside their dad's room with their mum, looking very grim. Immediately, Rose dropped down to the bottom of the door and listened through the crack. Soon, she heard voices from inside.

"Tell me you at least caught them, Harry," her mother's voice said.

Uncle Harry hesitated before replying, "No, they got away. Ron had him, but Nott Disarmed him and then… well you can see…"

"I can't believe this," her mother sighed. "He's never gotten hurt on a job…"

"Well, he's been lucky, Hermione, we both have," Uncle Harry said.

"I know that," she snapped. "I review all of the reports from your office, Harry. I just feel like… I approved the personnel for the mission…"

"It's not your fault, Hermione," he said.

"Did you at least get any information?" their mother asked.

"Yes, actually," Hestia said. "We heard part of their planning before we tried to arrest them. The rest of the convicts are working for Nott, as we had suspected. We also know that he's recruited them to look for something, and they're going to try to break into a secure facility to get it."

"What facility?" their mother asked.

"We don't know," Uncle Harry admitted. "They didn't say. They did say something about…" he trailed off then.

"What?" she asked.

Uncle Harry sighed. "They said whatever they were looking for would be useful when they went after… Potter."

Rose had to keep herself from gasping as a hush fell over the room inside the door. "Harry…" her mother whispered.

"I'll be fine. I'm trained to protect people, I can protect myself… but as it is, I'm not sure I should be staying at the Burrow. It'll put Molly and Arthur in danger, not to mention you and Ron, and they might try to use Ginny to get to me… I'm going to get a place to stay in London until this is over."

"Harry, don't be stupid, we can protect ourselves too."

"I don't want to make you. I've already decided, anyway. I'm just glad that all the kids are at Hogwarts this year, I'd hate to think of what danger I'd be putting Hugo and Lily in."

"Speaking of the children, I'd better get Rose and Hugo back to school."

Rose hopped up and pushed Hugo down the hallway quickly as he looked at her with a surprised expression until they reached a bench a few yards from the door. She pulled them both down just as their mother opened the door. She smiled sadly when she saw them.

"Sorry about that. I'm sorry you two had to get up to come here too. I'll walk you two back to the Portkey, all right?"Rose nodded and said, "Yeah, sure, Mum. Are you going to be okay tonight without us?"

"Oh, you're sweet, Rose. I'll be fine, don't worry about me. I'll write to you soon about Dad, okay?" she asked as they arrived at the Portkey.

"Okay," she said, grabbing the dilapidated boot.

"Bye, Mum," Hugo said, hugging their mother, and grabbed on as well. A few seconds later, the Portkey left and they were suddenly standing in McGonagall's office. The headmistress was still sitting at her desk with the same concerned expression she had been wearing when they'd left earlier.

"Welcome back," she said hurriedly. "May I ask how your father is doing?"

"Er, he hasn't woken up yet, but they said he's going to be fine," Rose said. "I'll let you know when I hear from my mum if you're worried about him, Professor."

"Oh, uh, yes, thank you, Miss Weasley. And do tell your mother that I wish him a fast recovery. If there's anything I can do for either of you…"

"Er, no, thank you, Professor. Good night," Rose said, and Hugo followed her out of the office.

"What did you hear?" Hugo asked the moment they had passed the statue at the end of the headmistress's staircase.

Rose hesitated. "I don't know, Hugo…"

"Yes, you do, you just don't know if you want to tell me. But he's my dad, too, Rose, you don't get to not tell me," Hugo said, stopping in the middle of the corridor.

Rose groaned. "I'll tell you, but we have to keep walking." Hugo shrugged and walked up to her side, looking at her expectantly as she walked on towards the Tower. As she explained what Harry and Hestia had said, Hugo grew more and more nervous-looking. By the time they reached the Fat Lady, he looked ready to explode.

"They're after Uncle Harry?" he whispered in shock.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked sleepily.

"I suppose. Try not to worry about it too much tonight, Hugo," Rose told him. "Er, mandrake," she added to the Fat Lady, and the portrait swung open. They stepped into the common room. Rose looked around and saw Scorpius passed out on the sofa they had been sitting on earlier. "Go up to bed, we can talk more tomorrow," she told Hugo, and he nodded. He turned around and darted up the staircase, muttering about how he wasn't going to sleep anyway.

The sound of Hugo's feet running up the stairs seemed to wake Scorpius up, because just as Rose was turning to go up to bed herself, he asked, "Is your dad okay?"

She sighed and turned around, walking towards the sofa. "He's fine. Or he… will be. I didn't ask you to wait up for me."

"I know," he said, shrugging. "I wanted to."

"Nott did it," she said. "They're looking for something. Something that'd help them go after Uncle Harry."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Attacking Harry Potter's pretty… ambitious."

"Yeah," Rose sighed. "I don't even want to think about what they're looking for."

Scorpius looked at her. "…Are you all right? You look… tired."

"I am," she said. She glanced at his concerned expression and groaned internally. She couldn't handle this right now. "I… need to sleep. I'll see you in the morning, I guess."

"Okay," he said hesitantly as she got up again and started walking towards the girls' stairs. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," she said quickly, and hurried up the rest of the stairs.

"If you want to talk about it, you can talk to me," she heard him call after her as she opened her door. Rose practically collapsed on her bed, throwing her bag onto her bedside table. She knew he was trying to help, but honestly she couldn't even think about anything else then, and when she looked at him, she couldn't help but think about a lot of unnecessary things. She didn't have time for any of it. She knew that the quicker she fell asleep, the quicker she could just stop thinking about what happened, but the image she now had in her head of her father in the hospital bed looking far from okay kept her up much longer than she wanted.