Sorry this chapter will be more Rowling. Next chapter will for sure make up for it.
Chapter 142: St. Mungo's
I spent the rest of the morning sleeping in the room that Harry and I shared during the summer. My dreams were all over the place, bouncing back and forth between talks with Dad, and Hermione.
When I woke up, Harry and I discovered that our trunks arrived from Hogwarts while we were ate lunch, so we dressed as Muggles for the trip to St. Mungo's. Spirits seemed a bit higher than they had been hours ago. When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort us across London, we greeted them gleefully, laughing at the bowler hat Mad-Eye was wearing at an angle to conceal his magical eye and assuring him, truthfully, that Tonks, whose hair was short and bright pink again, would attract far less attention on the Underground.
We took a subway train to the heart of Muggle London. We followed Tonks up the escalator, with Moody clunking along at the back of the group, his bowler tilted low and one gnarled hand stuck in between the buttons of his coat, clutching his wand.
Soon, after much walking, we arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red-brick department store called Purge & 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consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten years out of date.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".
"Right," said Tonks, beckoning us towards a window displaying a very ugly female muggle dummy thing. Its false eyelashes were hanging off and it had on a green nylon pinafore dress. "Everybody ready?"
We nodded as we gathered around her. Moody gave Harry a shove to urge him forward and Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy, her breath steaming up the glass.
"Wotcher,' she said, "we're here to see Arthur Weasley." The dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its creepy finger. Tonks grabbed Ginny and Mum by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished.
Fred, George and I stepped after them and into a crowded reception area where rows of witches and wizards sat upon rickety wooden chairs. Some looking perfectly normal, while others looked a bloody sort, some having gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of their chests. The room was filled conversation and strange noises. A sweaty-faced witch in the center of the front row was fanning herself and letting off a high-pitched whistle as steam came pouring out of her mouth. A 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 to 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. Harry looked around, taking in the scene. It was funny sometimes watching Harry discover new things about the wizarding world.
"Are they doctors?" he whispered to me.
"Doctors? Those Muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, they're Healers." I said, feeling grossed out just thinking about it.
I remember when Hermione had shown me a muggle text about health and doctors. As much as I respected Muggles, I'd be damned if I let one operate on me. Some of their methods seemed positively medieval. Cutting someone open to remove a body part when all you had to do was drink a potion?
"Over here!" called Mum from near the warlock in the corner, and we followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked 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 which was labelled:
Dilys Derwent
St. Mungo's Healer 1722-1741
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
1741-1768
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- AAAARGH-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!"
She seemed like a right cheerful little peach.
As the wizard hobbled and pranced sideways out of the way, we all moved forward a few steps 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, etc.
POTION AND PLANT POISONING... Third floor
Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable
giggling, etc.
SPELL DAMAGE... Fourth floor
Unliftable jinxes, hexes, incorrectly
applied charms, etc.
VISITORS' TEAROOM / 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 WHICH 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 through the back of her romper suit.
"Fourth floor," said the witch as if she was bored. "Next!"
Mum 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 Mum "Come on, you lot."
We followed her 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. More healers in lime-green robes walked in and out of the doors we passed; a foul-smelling yellow gas wafted into the passageway as we passed one door, and every now and then we heard distant wailing. We 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 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."
Harry drew back, but Mum 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. Dad was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward beside the tiny window. He was propped up on several pillows and reading the Daily Prophet, as if he were relaxing at home. I felt a giant weight lift off my shoulders as he looked as us, beaming.
"Hello!" he said, 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 Mum, bending down to kiss his cheek and looking anxiously into his face. "You're still looking a bit peaky."
"I feel absolutely fine," said Dad 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 Dad cheerfully, as if the matter was nothing. He waved his wand and six extra chairs appeared at his bedside to seat us 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 towards 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 Mum, looking worried. "Is he safe in a public ward? Shouldn't he be in a private room?"
"It's two weeks till full moon," Dad 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 Dad sadly. "And that woman over there 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 Dad, smiling at Harry. "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, nodding at the Daily Prophet Dad had laid down
"No, of course not," said Dad. "The Ministry wouldn't want everyone to know a dirty great serpent got-"
"Arthur!" Mum warned him.
"-got-er- me," Dad finished, clearly not what he had meant to say.
"So where were you when it happened, Dad?" asked George.
"That's my business," Dad 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 back in the 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?" He was not going to let up.
"You heard your father," whispered Mum, "we are not discussing this here! Go on about Willy Widdershins, Arthur."
"Well, don't ask me how, but he actually got off the toilet charge," said Dad 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 Mum. I couldn't blame them for prying. I wanted to know the truth myself.
"Anyway," said Dad, 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 re-growth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St. Mungo's! I wonder which ward they're in?"
"Didn't you say You-Know-Who's got a snake, Harry?" asked Fred, looking at Dad for a reaction. "A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn't you?"
"That's enough," said Mum crossly. "Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside. You can come and say goodbye afterwards. Go on."
We walked back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward behind us. Fred raised his eyebrows.
"Fine," he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, "be like that. Don't tell us fucking 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 five 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, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the rest of us had done.
"OK, go!" Fred whispered.
The flesh-colored strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first, I couldn't hear anything, then I heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside us.
"... 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 Mum. 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 kid, we all know that."
"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning," whispered Mum.
" '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 ear. He looked around at the us as we gave him fearful faces. Poor bloke. Seemed like Harry could never catch a fucking break.