The Princess of Light

Chapter 5.25 (St. Mungo's hospital)

Everyone went up to bed after breakfast, completely exhausted.

Their trunks arrived from Hogwarts while they were eating lunch, so they could dress as Muggles for the trip to St Mungo's.

Everybody was riotously happy and talkative as they changed out of their robes into jeans and sweatshirts

When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort everyone but Caspian and Sirius across London, they 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.

Tonks was very interested in Harry's vision of the attack on Mr. Weasley, something Harry was obviously not remotely interested in discussing.

"There isn't any Seer blood in your family, is there?" She enquired curiously.

"No," said Harry.

"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..."

Harry didn't answer.

They eventually halted in front of 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consisted of a few chipped dummies with the wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten years out of date.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 them towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female dummy. Its false eyelashes were hanging off and it 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 he stumbled into Aurora before finding his footing again. She turned around to glare at him, and he didn't meet her eyes. Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy, her breath steaming up the glass. "Whotcher," she said, "we're here to see Arthur Weasley."

Next second, the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its jointed finger, and Tonks had seized Ginny and Aurora by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished.

Stepping through felt like being covered in a sheet of cold water, but they emerged quite warm and dry on the other side.

They were in what seemed to be a crowded reception area where rows of witches 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.

Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge's. There was an emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.

"Are they doctors?" Harry asked Ron quietly.

"Doctors?" Said Ron, looking startled. "Those Muggle nutters that cut people up?"

Aurora scoffed and shook her head. "Their methods are actually quite efficient for people without magic. At least they don't have people with feet sticking out of their head on a regular basis."

"I don't care how efficient they are, if they try to put a knife in my body...." Ron trailed. "And these are Healers, Harry."

"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. The wall behind her was vovered 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 ringleys which was labelled: