The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|76| Hospital Visit

Changing out of our Hogwarts clothes, we set off to go to St. Mungos Hospital to go visit Mr. Weasley. Although I had suggested staying at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, Mrs. Weasley reassured me that she wanted me to come with. Mad-Eye Moody and Tonks accompanied Harry, the Weasleys, and me on our train ride to the center of London. Tonks led the way while Mad-Eye watched us from behind. Up the moving stairs and out the station, we stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined street packed with Christmas shoppers. Moody pushed Harry a little ahead of him and stumped along just behind.

"Wasn't easy to find a good location for a hospital," Moody explained. "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..."

He pushed us along as Tonks stopped in front of a very 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consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modeling fashions at least ten years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read closed for refurbishment.

Tonks leaned forward, towards this very ugly female mannequin whose false eyelashes were hanging off and modeled a green nylon pinafore dress, fogging up the class, "Wotcher... We're here to see Arthur Weasley."

For a split second, I thought about how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking that quietly through a sheet of glass, when there were buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of a street full of shoppers, and except it to respond. Next second my jaw dropped as the dummy gave a tiny nod, beckoned its jointed finger, and Tonks seized Ginny and Mrs. Weasley by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished.

Fred grabbed my hand and led me through the glass into what seemed to be a crowded reception area. Stepping through felt like falling in a sheet of cool water, but emerging dry on the other side. Looking around, there was no sign of the ugly dummy or the space that she had stood on. George and Ron stepped in after us; Moody came in with Harry attached to his elbow.

There were 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. 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 center 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. I noticed the emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.

"Are those the doctors?" Harry asked Ron quietly.

"Doctors?" I said, 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 we 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.

Finally, it was Mrs. Weasley's turn and she moved forward towards the desk at the attendant yelled, "Next!"

"Hello," she said. "My husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward this morning, could you tell us —?"