The Potter Twins and the Order of the Phoenix {5}

24. St Mungo's

My mouth goes dry; there's something about actually hearing that we were right that makes me feel sick again. I curl up on the chair, feeling numb again. I can't bare to look at Ron or Harry. 

"Good," Dumbledore says as Ron makes a convulsive movement. "I take it Dilys will have seen him arrive, then--"

And moments later, the silver-ringleted witch has reappeared in her picture, too; she sinks, coughing, into her armchair and says, "Yes, they've taken him to St. Mungo's, Dumbledore...they carried him past my portrait ... he looks bad ..."

"Thank you," Dumbledore says. He looks round at Professor McGonagall.

"Minerva, I need you to go and wake the other Weasley children."

"Of course ..."

Professor McGonagall gets up and moves swiftly to the door. I manage to cast sideways glance at Ron, who is looking terrified.  

"And Dumbledore-- what about Molly?" McGonagall asks, pausing at the door.

"That will be a job for Fawkes when he has finished keeping a lookout for anybody approaching," says Dumbledore. "But she may already know ... that excellent clock of hers ..."

I know that Dumbledore is referring to the clock that tells, not the time, but the whereabouts and conditions of the various Weasley family members, and with a pang, I think that Mr Weasley's hand must, even now, be pointing at mortal peril.But it is very late. Mrs Weasley is probably asleep, not watching the clock. I feel cold as I remember Mrs Weasley's boggart turning into Mr Weasley's lifeless body, his glasses askew, blood running down his face ... but Mr Weasley isn't going to die...he can't...

Dumbledore is now rummaging in a cupboard behind us. He emerges from it carrying a blackened old kettle, which he places carefully on his desk. He raises his wand and murmurs, "Portus!" For a moment the kettle trembles, glowing with an odd blue light; then it quivers to rest, as solidly black as ever.

Dumbledore marches over to another portrait, this time of a clever-looking wizard with a pointed beard, who has been painted wearing the Slytherin colours of green and silver and is apparently sleeping so deeply that he can not hear Dumbledore's voice when he attempts to rouse him.

"Phineas. Phineas."

The subjects of the portraits lining the room are no longer pretending to be asleep; they are shifting around in their frames, the better to watch what is happening. When the clever-looking wizard continues to feign sleep, some of them shout his name, too.

"Phineas! Phineas! PHINEAS!"

He cannot pretend any longer; he gives a theatrical jerk and opened his eyes wide.

"Did someone call?"

"I need you to visit your other portrait again, Phineas," Dumbledore says. "I've got another message."

"Visit my other portrait?" Phineas says in a reedy voice, giving a long, fake yawn (his eyes travelling around the room and focusing on Harry and me). "Oh, no, Dumbledore, I am too tired tonight."

Something about Phineas's voice is familiar to me, where have I heard it before? But before I can think, the portraits on the surrounding walls break into a storm of protest.

"Insubordination, sir!" roars a corpulent, red-nosed wizard, brandishing his fists. "Dereliction of duty!"

"We are honour-bound to give service to the present Headmaster of Hogwarts!" cries a frail-looking old wizard whom I recognise as Dumbledore's predecessor, Armando Dippet. "Sharne on you, Phineas!"

"Shall I persuade him, Dumbledore?" calls a gimlet-eyed witch, raising an unusually thick wand that looks not unlike a birch rod.

"Oh, very well," says the wizard called Phineas, eyeing the wand with mild apprehension, "though he may well have destroyed my picture by now, he's done away with most of the family-"

"Sirius knows not to destroy your portrait," says Dumbledore, and I realise immediately where I've heard Phineas's voice before: issuing from the apparently empty frame in my bedroom in Grimmauld Place. "You are to give him the message that Arthur Weasley has been gravely injured and that his wife, children and Harry and Haylee Potter will be arriving at his house shortly. Do you understand?"

"Arthur Weasley, injured, wife and children and Harry and Haylee Potter coming to stay," repeats Phineas in a bored voice. "Yes, yes ... very well ..."

He slopes away into the frame of the portrait and disappears from view at the very moment the study door opens again. Fred, George and Ginny are ushered inside by Professor McGonagall, all three of them looking dishevelled and shocked, still in their night things.

"Harry, Haylee--what's going on?" Ginny asks, who looks frightened. "Professor McGonagall says you saw Dad get hurt--"

"Your father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore says before either of us can reply. "He has been taken to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I am sending you back to Sirius's house, which is much more convenient for the hospital than The Burrow. You will meet your mother there."