when i met you

106

Everyone spent the rest of the morning sleeping. Ginny had ended up with Lexi in her room, neither wanting to be alone. Soon enough, the twins had joined them too and they all fell asleep on the large bed. When they woke up, Ginny was missing and Fred was on the floor.

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. When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort them 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.

"Not far from here," grunted Moody as they stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined street packed with Christmas shoppers. "Wasn't easy to find a good location for a hospital. Nowhere in Diagon Alley was big enough and we couldn't have it underground like the Ministry—wouldn't be healthy. 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. Here we go."

"Right," said Tonks, beckoning them towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female dummy. "Everybody ready?" 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."

Next second, his mouth opened in shock as the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its jointed finger, and Tonks had seized Ginny and Alexis by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished.

"Next!" shouted the witch at the front desk when it was their turn.

Mrs. Weasley moved forward.

"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."

When they reached the door to Mr Weasley's room, they stopped.

"We'll wait outside, Molly," Tonks said. "Arthur won't want too many visitors at once... it ought to be just the family first."

Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions. Harry and Lexi drew back, too, but Mrs Weasley reached out a hand and pushed them through the door, saying, "Don't be silly! Harry, Arthur wants to thank you. And Lexi, you're as much his daughter as Ginny is."

The young woman flushed but followed along.

There were only three patients. Mr. Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward beside the tiny window. 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 on you 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, then pulling Lexi into one too. "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, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bedside cabinet, and waving it so that six extra chairs appeared at his bedside to seat them 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."